The night I wrote Nights In Recliners I felt something shift and wondered if it was my imagination or something else.
One week later I am certain I felt a change and a shift and recognized that some things might be the same but they are different because my perspective has changed.
Simplest explanation is that I have been climbing a spiral staircase and and am looking upon what is familiar but seeing it from a different perspective.
In that prior post I wrote about how the pace of my writing has changed, how it has slowed down and considered the reasons for such a thing.
Some might suggest it has to do with who is reading or not reading and I would suggest that is part, but not the entirety of it, probably not close to a third of it.
No, there are other things going on and I gave them precedence because sometimes when you are on a journey you have to shift your focus so that you might see other things more clearly.
So I pivoted and danced my way through new flames and blazed a few trails where none had existed. Got a nice cut on my left hand that could serve as proof of that but it really has nothing to do with it.
It is a simple scratch that is healing, the same sort of scratch I have received 10,000 times before.
One Year Later
There was a moment that impacted both of my children a little more than a year ago. A moment that upset them but not with like it infuriated me.
Or I might say it enraged me and I am mildly impressed with the amount of restraint I displayed because they haven’t a clue how angry I was on their behalf.
Had I given in to desire I would have gone to war and laid waste to some people but I didn’t do anything other than counsel the children to let nature take its course.
I promised them the other parties would receive natural consequences of their actions and advised them to be silent because sometimes silence is the most powerful tool we have.
“They expect you to go off and they want a reaction. Show them nothing but your back and let the quiet drive them crazy.”
They asked if I was certain and I said I was and then I worked hard on myself to maintain that silence I advocated.
It was hard…very hard.
I knew I could use my own words and actions to make a stronger impact there than they could. I knew without a doubt that my own actions would carry more weight.
But they wouldn’t fix things and would make me feel better for a moment.
And I knew that if I remained silent it would set a better example for them and the teaching moments are harder to come by at this age than when they were little.
Tonight when the Superbowl ended and the team from the east had lost I listened to my son yell in triumph. It wasn’t because he is a particularly big fan of the team that won but because one of the other parties is a big fan of the team from the east.
I smiled at him and said “I know.”
He smiled back and said he knew it was trivial, but it was something.
“You are very much your own man, but in some ways you are so…me.”
It made me snort because if my own father was around he would have told me it is a waste of energy to think about these other parties, but his grandchildren are a different story.
And they all know it, every one of his grandkids knows that grandpa was a different sort of man with them.
So maybe if there is anything after this he is smiling upon us or maybe there is nothing. Doesn’t matter, they are happy with the outcome and so many good things that happened afterwards.
That is enough for me.
****
Had a different conversation with the younger Mr. Wilner and talked about where to put energy and where not to.
“There are very few people I would ever chase and few circumstances. Most of them will come find me when they are ready and if I was concerned they wouldn’t I would go looking.
Sometimes you rely upon meant to be and sometimes you make your own luck. Focus on figuring out which is which and act accordingly.”
