I knew a girl who liked to garden but only if she wore gloves because she didn’t want to get her hands dirty.
Her father didn’t mind dirt on his hands nor did he care if they got greasy because working with them brought as much pleasure as working with his mind.
Something in the memory triggers a flash of moments with my father. I can hear him tell me to dive in the mud, to play fair but to play hard.
I can hear him tell me never to throw the first punch but to throw the last and I can hear him telling me not to worry about getting my hands dirty.
“Move the light so I can see what I am doing.”
Sometimes his grandson makes a face at something I have said or done and I know what I must have looked like once upon a time.
I tell him he knows parts of his grandfather in a way none of his cousins can.
“I am the only son and I am telling you there are some things that I do like he did better than anyone else. It is not a competition, it is just genetic and there are things he only had me do.”
I made a work call late in the day and said I wasn’t sure who was supposed to call who.
“I almost checked out for the evening and thought, what if you are waiting for my call. What if that is the only reason we haven’t worked this out because you are waiting for me.”
They laughed and asked me if I was going to make that crack I make about not having had any coffee yet.
“That is one of my favorite lines, but it is not really a line. It means I don’t follow or understand something and I want clarification.”
He laughed and asked me to to say again, “what if you are waiting for my call. You sound so sweet when you say it.”
This time I Iaughed and asked him if he felt warm and fuzzy. “Your wife might not like it, I give a hug that makes you feel safe. Some people are in desperate need of it and have refused because they would lose themselves in it.”
****
The calendar says Johnny Cash would be 92 today which makes me wonder how much music we might have missed out upon.
Johnny was only 71 when he died so in theory had he been in better health we might have gotten multiple records from him.
Or maybe not.
Maybe it would have been a few more songs or nothing more.
I lean towards more music because I am a fan and because I like knowing there are many things we can do that aren’t contingent upon our youth.
I like knowing that art isn’t limited to that which we create during our physical peak and that we can keep going for years and maybe even improve.
If you spend time surfing around the internet you can come across all sorts of places and ask all sorts of questions.
You can inquire about who loves Jack even if you are not sure that love is probable or possible. You can find recipes for ketchup and recipes for how to make things without ketchup.
You can pull up stories about Johnny and June or just read Springsteen lyrics.
And if you walked through at least a dozen videos being made in a gym you can wonder if you caused people to curse your name and start over or if they post videos calling you out.
It is a mix of the sublime and the silly.
Today was a day of many changes and I won’t know the impact of many for a while yet and that is kind of exciting.
People called to ask my opinion on some of it and I shared some thoughts and ideas with some and avoided it with others.
But I did quote my buddy Walt and say the future is no more uncertain than the present. Sometimes you have to take a hard look at things and be willing to sit in the mystery and to handle the ambiguity that comes with it.
It is not always easy and that is why inertia controls so many, but it is also why some break free.
