I started a story some time ago that I haven’t finished yet and can’t say exactly when I will be. Sometimes the words flow freely and sometimes they are restrained but more often than not they flow.
It began some things like this.
“Dear June,
I don’t know when you’ll come by and read this but I am certain that you will. There is a deep connection and too much there for me to believe it will be ignored forever. Maybe you’ll by today and everyday for the week after or maybe it will be once a month.
Doesn’t matter because you will come and you’ll see what is upon the page. Almost didn’t put any of it down for a hundred reasons but ultimately did because of one burning question, “what if I am right.”
Takes some courage and takes some blind faith and I suppose I have both even if sometimes I question them.”
Forty Years Later
I heard Ray Bradbury speak at the Encino-Tarzana library. I don’t remember everything he said or if he focused on any particular points about writing but I still own the book he signed for me.
It was the very beginning of my interest in writing, my first semester on the junior high newspaper and my first experience with trying to be good at putting words down upon the page.
Bradbury lived in Los Angeles and occasionally I’d hear word of him being around town or on campus at the university I attended.
I almost went to see him there once to tell him that something he had said had sunk in and I was part of the school newspaper but it didn’t happen.
Can’t say if it was because I was on deadline, trying to impress a girl or messing around at the fraternity house and I am not sure it would have mattered.
But now, well now I would very much like to speak with him but it is 10 years too late. Or maybe it isn’t, maybe there is a Ouija board or medium who can connect us.
That reminds me of the Facebook posts in which people ask who you to name who you would speak with if you had the power to speak with anyone dead or alive.
If you take it seriously it is a very difficult question to answer.
I was close with my father and all of my grandparents so it would be great to catch up with them. I never met three of my great-grandfathers or their parents.
They could fill in the gaps on a bunch of the family questions I have.
But maybe I ought to go bigger.
Maybe I ought to think of people like Einstein, Tesla and Da Vinci. Maybe reach out and find out if Moses or Elijah the prophet.
Perhaps one or all could provide information that could change the world in a positive way. Perhaps I could get information that would save lives.
Maybe it is selfish to focus on family or say it would be nice to speak with my good friend David who died at 29 and has been gone 24 years.
Or maybe that selfish focus would help me recharge my batteries in a way that hasn’t happened in a long time.
Mothers Never Rest
A woman I work with told a group of men that mothers never rest and that fathers don’t understand that. I shook my head at her but said nothing.
“You’re silent because you know it is true.”
“I am silent because I haven’t any interest in a silly debate.”
She told me that was a concession and I told her if it made her feel good to think so she could say she had won and I walked away.
Later on one of the guys said my walking away aggravated her. “She really wanted to say something to you.”
“That is fine. That is a conversation that has no upside and lots of downside potential. We’re all different and that is ok.”
Outside of work I’ll tell you the same thing, I think it is a silly conversation. I am not interested in a competition about which parents work harder because we have different roles and it’s up to couples to work out their own standard.
Single parents are a different situation.
Anyhoo, some things have jumped out at me. My most recent vacations haven’t helped me unwind as much as I would like and I need to do something about it.
Part of that is tied into all of the events of the past chunk of years. The political chaos of 45 and all the nonsense surrounding Covid have taken a toll on all of us.
But there have been some pretty large personal matters in my world, some of which preceded that and some which coincided.
It has been years since I went home on a trip that wasn’t surrounding some big personal issue. Been years since I flew home and it wasn’t tied into my dad’s health or something surrounding his funeral or mourning.
I am ready to go back and make memories of all that comes after that. He wouldn’t mind my saying it.
It is real, it is honest and it is truth.
So I am going to go back and make some of those new memories and I’ll make a point to swing by and tell him about it.
Can You Recognize My Writing?
The weekends go too quickly. It is another Sunday night and we’re one step closer to the end of school and high school graduation.
Daughter hasn’t made a decision yet about what university she wants to attend but is starting to sense to narrow things down.
She hasn’t started to sense how close to the end she really is or maybe it is just me that can feel time speeding up.
She and her older brother decide that we’re missing something in the house. So they grab masks and the key to the car they share and head out to pick up whatever it is.
They have their own world that is separate from their parents just as I have mine with my siblings. Daughter says something about grandpa and I respond with something that surprises her.
“You knew grandpa and I knew dad. They are two very different people but still pretty similar.”
Somewhere I hear Neil Diamond singing Play Me and think I better begin to wrap this up so that I can hit the treadmill and do so more prep work for the week that is coming.
Flashes of places I have been and places I want to visit run through my mind. Got some ideas and some questions.
What if I am right.
