BIG ONE COMING
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
today’s Musing written and published from Cranston in south- east Calgary, near the Bow River valley
Morning walk: 7C/45F, calm and sunny – 3 day trend, woohoo! – we walked around the soccer fields now lush and ready for a trim before kid-types run it flat; sun bathes mountain peaks, fresh air fills nostrils, imagination lightens my load . . .
Hinge day, month-end, turning another page. Waking to sunshine blasting through a cracks in blinds not shut tight – wake up call to a truck crashing reality breaking through doors of resistance. To accept things as they are. As we are. As I am.
Self. I understand that. It comes from the word selfish which my mother scolded me not to be. I was to be selfless, not selfish. I don’t think of myself as selfish. Conversely, few would see very many of my acts, my deeds, as self-less. There are plenty, but they pale in volume, like search for needles in haystacks of self serving self-absorption.
That quality of selflessness has found its way into my daughter. Maybe these things skip a generation sometimes.
She embodies selflessness. Her grandmother would be proud. My daughter Carla prompted it. She brought it up.
I hadn’t been thinking about it all. I know it is coming up in a couple of months. It’s not a big deal and I am focused on many other and more immediate things.
I have a birthday coming up this summer. She wants to plan something. It quickly became apparent she wanted to make plans, special plans, in honour of the occasion and the magnitude of the number.
“Sure”, I said … “I’ll think about that”, as I have many times when people start to plan something for an event I could just as easily miss or forget. Not that I can’t celebrate, but an anniversary of the day I exited the womb isn’t so memorable . . . and having people make a fuss about it has not been my expectation, or wish, since I was a five-year old in the big back yard kids party scene.
“But,” she said, “it’s a big one.” It is. It will be. The big six-O is coming; looming.
I admit to sudden flash-memory, indelible impressions of past big-ones, five-O, four-O and three-O. What a different a decade makes in our lives. My life seems to be broken into clearly defined and describable decades; I’m nearing the end of my sixth (yikes!) and soon will enter my seventh (double-yikes!).
Milestone birthdays are not cosmic events, the earth doesn’t move and change does not occur – other than one more day of aging – but these events, mine anyway, stick in memory. They remind me - of expectations raised, aspirations and dreams not realized and some disappointments.
As I said to Carla, I’ll think about it. I’m thinking small, simple – time with my family. The rest is unnecessary fan-fare that distracts from what matters. People who are close, caring, sharing, and spending time. Those are BIG ones.
Mark Kolke
312,208
Comments Received
May 30 - KEY TO LIVING
I keep getting e-mails to update status and they seem to becoming weekly now. Before it was every year. Can we go back to that system because it gets annoying stating yes to continuing and then the next week I am asked again and the answer for all your e-mails will always be yes. I enjoy getting your e-mails and look forward to them daily. Maybe it's a glitch in your program I am not sure but just wondered if it could be fixed, Cheers, MJ, Calgary, AB
It was great to talk with you again. I've missed you. The year has been great in many ways - too busy, thus the trips - but also challenging on a level that is new to me. I don't think you knew, but I was hit by a bus in Michigan as I was waiting in my rental car at a traffic light. This happened in November. The accident destroyed the car, but I escaped without a scratch - so it seemed. A week later, I had a minor stroke which was attributed to the crash. This was quite a shock for me as I had no other risk factors and never contemplated that sort of disability. I'm fine now, thankfully. It is time to make the most of the sunny days. Lots of travel, particularly with family. Let me know what else I can do to help with the links and your new project, CB, Calgary, AB
May 25 - GET A GRIP
Thank you for your phone calls and messages. I have not had a quiet moment to return your calls, but appreciate your presence nonetheless. Holes in my walls have been replaced by new doors and rearranged windows allowing us to lock the door and go for a hike up in the cloud forest yesterday with my brother and his cloud forest docent friend. I shall have company and industrious workers for three more weeks and then must readjust to the quieter solo living which is my norm. I hope your search for outer and inner joy continues on a fruitful path. I know that you are fine and that “fine” works well most days, most weeks, most years. It is our search for better than this that keeps our humanity on its trek toward better than fine, FO, Kula, HI
