Mark Is Musing

MY TERM IS UP - Mark’s Musing MondayNov. 30, 2010

today’s Musing  written and published from south Calgary, near Fish Creek Park   Morning walk: -5C/22F, clear and calm, frosty - my breath, and Gusta’s making mini-clouds in front of us with each loping stride along our alley route.  Kids rushing for buses, moms on street corners, phones ringing and the Monday rush is underway, traffic humming not far away . .   Yesterday: Krista ran her first marathon in Seattle (4:55:36) ..whoo-hoo! . . but, sadly for Rider-pride, they lost that Grey Cup game 28-27, it turned, on the last play of the game; Montreal taking the cup home for storage till next year . .   Lately, I find myself looking at every opportunity more critically. While my choices may appear unchanged on their surface, thinking behind them is radically different than just a few months ago. How soon is too soon, how late is too late?  Life is short, so what’s the right timing for the next step on the path I want?   If I wanted to change everything - root myself up, put my business life and writing perspective on a mountainside, or a beach, when should I start?  Is a month too soon, is a year too late?  I know the next chapters of my life will be played out ... game changers ... before my final whistle, but when?    Everything I need to make happen, I believe I can make happen and the things I can’t  . . somehow I trust the universe (OK, not the whole universe, but people I don’t know yet together with ones I ask) will help me.  What I want, I’ll have.  I’ll reach out to grab it ... and sometime it will reach out to grab me; when it does, I want to grab on, hold on ad never let go.   My term is up. What now?   I carry term life insurance. Older now, monthly premiums inching upward, I am reminded why I bought it in the first place - security, protection for a young family should I bite the bullet early.  Children grown, two divorces later, I buy less coverage than I did before but lately I’ve been wondering why I carry any at all.   Insurance companies sell to us, when we are young, the notion we might die - too soon, too young - enticing low rates for much coverage (because they know we won’t die). Now, it seems I’ve hit an age where their risk/reward continuum is tipping, as are premiums. I can convert to a different form of bad math. Their term ‘whole life’ makes me smile. Not about the nuances of another contract that makes money for an insurance company while I get pieces of paper that give me assurances that these needs, ones I no longer have, can be met after my death with money, but they offer noting to improve life.  Oddly, they are called LIFE companies .... hhhmm.   But I am amused by that term, WHOLE LIFE.   My whole life, I’ve wanted a clear feeling; not that ‘Freedom 55’, not putting my feet up, to become part of the pipe and slippers set - those have never been my goal.  That’s not what I want. I know what I want.  It’s not here, it’s there.  It’s not this, it’s that. I’m not there yet, but in my mind - I’m getting so much closer.   I want my reclining years spent - I mean really ‘spent’ in pursuit of ideas, truth and solving the mysteries that find their way into my mind.   All I want, all anyone wants, I think, is to be able to live the life they want, where they want, and how they want.  That's all I want.    A piece of paper might say I need to make a decision right now because, on some contract my term is up.  What those life companies don’t realize, is that life, a whole life, is about living beyond anyone’s expectations.  The older we get, I think, what is really valuable is revealed to us. I don’t feel death staring at me - I feel life opening up, like curtains at a theatre, to reveal this vast expanse .. the movie is called WHOLE LIFE.   My whole life, ahead of me.   That’s all I’ve ever wanted.    Mark Kolke 326,580 195.2     November 29 Responses   November 29 - RUNNING LIFE’S RACE - If I believed in reincarnation then I would say, that in your previous life you must have been a honey bee.  Making beelines here and there, flower to flower, pick it up, wrap it around your fuzzy legs and away you go intent on the greater good. Bees must always be doing something...even if it means just cooling the hive with their wings.  You must have hated that job, eh?  Bees die when they are used up, too.  They do this circle dance, attempt to fly, land upside down then circle dance again until they no longer can right themselves.  Sad. Indeed, trying to remain true to their bee-ness to the last buzz.  Bees are industrious non-stop workers.  Great for bees....not so good for humans.  Try a little butterfly once in a while, LP, Wailuku, HI November 29 - RUNNING LIFE’S RACE - Thanks so much for picking up my Thanksgiving piece for 360boom e-magazine.  What fun to read it on your magazine's beautiful, informative, interesting site. By the way, I spent two years on Oahu (came back to Western Mass 2 yrs ago) and wept reading your descriptions of being on Maui. Very painful not to be there. Only those who understand what Hawaii means understand how deeply it can be felt. I got that from your musings. WE, Alford, MA

RUNNING LIFE’S RACE - Mark’s Musing Sunday Nov. 29, 2009

today’s Musing  written and published from south Calgary, near Fish Creek Park   Morning walk: 6C/41F, a perfect day for football (and in Seattle, 11C/49F), white rabbits are looking stark again, their two days of snow cover now virtually gone ... Gusta was thrilled to walk the alley by the soccer field, that new pup was patrolling his yard and only too glad for a ‘sniff noses through the fence’ encounter.   Yesterday’s behind me; I ate way too many cheese buns, laughed and visited, watched a mediocre movie, then watched a better movie, wove in paper reading, some work, some writing, some sleep; these ‘edge of winter’ Sunday mornings - never sure if they are beginning, or the end, of the week ..... time to charge, or to recharge?  Maybe both.      Today there are two great sporting events I care about: in Calgary the Grey Cup game - go Riders!; and, in Seattle, my second born daughter Krista will be running her first marathon (cheering inside here, as loud as any father could ... love ya!)   Every goal is a stretch, like a dream (real dreams, pipe dreams, day dreams and all the other dreams) that make me want to sleep again to dream another.  Every dream makes me want to rise up and chase that dream from dawn till sleep takes over once again. Later, the children and grandchildren of those dreams - melded with new ones - will sustain my momentum, no matter what, I know they will, I just know it.   Reason should prevail.  Right?   Huh?    Everywhere I look, I see reasonable people living reasonable lives - I like to see their contentment, I respect their comfort - but it is not my path to walk; reason should, in my view, be an incidental by-product rather than a pre-qualification for joy in life and love of this world and all it contains.    Reason is for setting aside, and my appetite should follow, satisfied by everything and resting not - eating for fuel, digesting inspiration, living for the joy of living, chasing the illusive beyond and far from my grasp.  My goal, my dream, is to live an unreasonable life, an un-ordinary life, a spectacle of fulfillment and exhaustion, to arrive one day, at the end of my race and die with nothing left of me to be used up.   My life is a refined collage, a car chase and a fine meal, or a wish for one; that delicate enjoyment comes from harmony between what we have desire for and what we can cook up.  Life, dream, meal - serve to sustain, inspire, serve to save us from mediocrity, from path taken in favor of one not yet taken, seeing as far ahead as we can think, thinking further than we can see to know the path is right - destination unknown, uncertain and glorious - because the process can be trusted.   I am convinced, that’s the way these things work.   All I want, all I need - is too large a package to be found in 1 spot on 1 day; all I want is as wide as my eyes and as big as my belly, my appetite knows no bounds.  All I need is simplicity, breath, nourishment and time.  I believe that: there is goodness in reaching, there is value in stretching, there is no pot of gold but every rainbow inspires a chase of it.   My appetite .... for life and living tops all things I know, there are reasons to be afraid but I want to run like a toddler and chase life like the fastest dog chases the slowest car - likely never quite catching it but wagging its tail with so much might for love of the chase and belief I’ve almost reached it, I am close, it is near, I’ll keep running, I’ll keep wagging my tail.  It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon - I’m up for the distance.   Life, I think, should be like that ...... urging us ‘follow me, catch me if you can’.   To Krista, run your heart out .... the race of 26 miles, 385 yards is much more; it is a metaphor for life, a long race followed by another day, and another with many races to be run and many days to chase life flat out.   Running life’s race, or running a marathon, is not about running toward something or away from some place - it is about testing self to stretch far, work hard, overcome obstacles, working though difficulties - and coming out the other side stronger, clearer, more resolved than ever with faith in self and confidence to take on anything the world might have for us.   Mark Kolke 326,604 194.5

THE ONLY WAY TO LOOK - Mark’s Musing Saturday Nov. 28, 2009

today’s Musing  written and published from south Calgary, near Fish Creek Park   Morning walk: -2C/27F, an alley walk over a dusting of light snow kept us off slippery streets, then Gusta and I crossed the city, like pilgrims to Mecca, in search of the perfect accoutrement for today’s brunch/party (PB’s extended family gather a few times a year to celebrate recent birthdays) where the only thing I could think of to bring (my job is ‘buns’) are those awesome cheese buns from the Glamorgan Bakery (thank you SM for introducing me to this delicacy) ... we returned with the booty, though it seems Gusta and I consumed a half-dozen en-route .....   Looking back, reflecting on where we’ve been is not as much fun as looking back, to marvel at how we got here, to this place, at this time; the route we took, an incalculable maze of events and influences, successes, failures, right turns, wrong turns, blind alleys and dream balloons burst.   “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” - Anais Nin   I imagine that surface tension, like the bulge of water, ready to spill off that full glass, fine line, 1 minute slice of time between safe stability, unexpected flooding will change everything.  Nin’s words, as instructive to the flower bur as they are to me, 1 idea, 1 powerful idea.   Looking forward, is the only way to look. Looking ahead .. uncertainty   I have an idea.   Do you have one?   1 idea + 1 idea = an unknown quantity   1 X 1 = .... a very different formula   1 on 1 = a contest,  a debate; or collaboration, nose to nose, brain to brain   1 is self   another 1 is someone else   1 is a lone number   1 is an alone way to be   1 thing, to remember, is that 1 thing, always leads to another thing   1 idea, 1 person, 1 step, 1 leap . . changes everything, changes life itself   just 1 event   just 1 person   that’s it . . just 1 connection, 1 meeting, 1 link, 1 step forward   then another single step, just 1 at a time   1 more   1 more after that takes us to some where 1 day, we’ll be far from here, far from where we’ve been   1 step, at a time   Mark Kolke 326,628    193.1

RIDER PRIDE

 

Mark’s Musing Friday Nov. 27, 2009   

today’s Musing  written and published from south Calgary, near Fish Creek Park

 

Morning walk: -1C/29F, overcast, a few snowflakes around but barely noticeable … perfect football weather … Gusta and I trudged alleys, she stopped to visit Luke through his fence, and on we went, gravel, dry leaves and trains in the distance painted our sound effects …

 

I find it interesting to watch our American friends be patriotic.  They put flags on their houses, march in parades, put yellow ribbon decals on their cars, phone in to talk radio, wave flags with gusto and wage war on many foes at home and abroad. Nothing wrong with any of that, but against that culture backdrop, how could they possibly fathom the penultimate showing of patriotism, Canadian style?

 

In contrast, we Canadians are quiet silent patriots without a lot of outward signs of our zealous love of country.  We save it up and show it one day a year, like no other, as evidence that our strong regional differences, our cultural divides and our polarized political will can be stopped, bridged, solved and wrapped in a single flag and spirit for one day - and only one day - each year.

 

This coming Sunday is that day.

 

Here are the details: This week in Canada, and this year in particular in Calgary (this year’s host city) it is Grey Cup Week, which culminates in our national unity football game this weekend; east (Montreal Alouettes) meets west (Saskatchewan Roughriders) in a classic football game (not to be confused with world cup soccer or NFL’s souper-bowl, this is Canadian Rules Football) ….on a high level such that most of us are rendered nearly speechless … all we can utter is GO RIDERS!  You don’t have to be born in the province of Saskatchewan as I was, or live there, to exhibit rider-pride (hence the term Rider-nation) … it is a state of mind that is as much about underdog-does-well philosophy as it is about football or a game that is as much about Canadian unity and patriotism as any other Canadian thing, more than maple syrup or smoked salmon, more than our flag, our monuments, our history, our constitution …. This is, le coupe Grey . . donated to the game by former Governor-General of Canada, Lord Grey.  His cup, like hockey’s Stanley Cup, is a little trophy that has become the classic Canadian champagne (or beer) glass  . . drunk from one Sunday a year by 40-50 young men (many imported Americans too old or too small to play in the NFL in their adopted country alongside the best Canadian athletes one can put on any field) with shoulder pads and dirty knuckles, frost breath and sweaty shirts. It is the

 

This goes beyond hockey triumphs (defeating Russia in 1972 or winning the Gold Medal in Salt Lake .. or memories of the Trail Smokeaters of days gone by), it goes beyond being proud of our peacekeepers, our farmers, our fishermen. It is the pinnacle of Canadian-ness that every school child or old codger understands, no lectures are required.

 

We party, we toot, we cheer .. and then we sit down to watch television.

 

Sure thing - 50,000 screaming fans will sit/stand, yell, drink beer and grow hoarse at McMahon Stadium while millions of Canadians will be glued to there sets this Sunday to watch a football game.

 

No ordinary football game.  The season’s over.  The winners have been declared, in east and west, they’ve won there league. But, for two teams, it’s too soon to clean out their lockers and head for some southern golf course. Break out the chip dip, it’s time for national unity, it’s time to be a proud Canadian . . a country with a superior game (3 downs, not 4), a wider field, a longer field (110 yards, not 100) and a deeper end zone. The game is tougher.  The players are smaller. The salaries are smaller and, for the most part, the markets are smaller. But not the fans, not their hearts; we know because we wear them on our sleeve one day each year.

 

In the US, and rightly so, everyone cheers the underdog when small-market Green Bay Packers rise to the pinnacle from time to time.  Green Bay has nothing on Regina. Little Regina (a.ka. Pile of Bones) has an entire sparsely populated province the size of Texas as its fan base . . and this Sunday people all across this country will be rooting for them. This phenomenon is known as Rider-pride.

 

For many years, 27 actually, I lived in Edmonton.  For more than 20 years I was season ticket holder for Edmonton Eskimo games.  The Esks, another small market marvel of dynastic proportions (they wear the green and gold like Green Bay) were my team.  After 11 years back in Calgary, the Esks are still my team - except, when they play the Saskatchewan Roughriders, my birthright, my loyalty, my childhood memories of standing in a waving wheat field on a hot July day come back to remind me that you can leave Saskatchewan, but it never leaves you.

 

Go Riders!

 

Mark Kolke

326,652   

192.6

 

November 26 Responses

 

November 26 – SHOOTING FOR EAGLE – WHAT ARE YOU THANKFUL FOR? - Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  For the "haoles", in Hawaii, we describe this as "chicken skin kine music".   Hawaii No Ka Oi For Islander's who have ventured to the mainland to take residence, here is a presentation to stir the recesses of your memories and for those of you that have visited our lovely Hawaii you can relive the memories of that trip and for those of you that have never been to our Hawaii here is a glimpse of the " Paradise of the Pacific"....ENJOY!!  Speakers On: Volume Up.... http://www.openmyeyeslord.net/HawaiinHeaven.htm , LP, Wailuku, HI

 

November 26 – SHOOTING FOR EAGLE – WHAT ARE YOU THANKFUL FOR? - Dear Mark, orry I've been out of touch, but I continue to appreciate the musings you so generously share. I wanted to link you to my thoughts about Thanksgiving; given your international pov I thought you might appreciate them: http://winsloweliot.com/2009/11/thanksgiving-worship-privately-rejoice-together/ , With affection and thanks, WE, Alford, MA

WHAT ARE YOU THANKFUL FOR? - Mark’s Musing Thursday Nov. 26, 2009

today’s Musing  written and published from south Calgary, near Fish Creek Park   Morning walk: 3C/37F, overcast, light Chinook breeze, the gravel crunching underfoot was all we heard, down alley, back alley, around the school yard, Gusta seemed so thankful to find the right time and place to pause . . then back again.   The fourth Thursday in November, when our American friends celebrate this day, is not just for shopping, turkey and football, but for giving thanks - thanks-giving, harvest/fall process of eating and visiting.   We Canadians celebrated our thanksgiving much earlier, we prefer a more convenient spacing of our turkey dinners ... as with Christmas arrives in a month. I suppose it doesn’t matter when we give thanks for good fortune and good friends; making that more frequent or everyday element is probably smart for all of us.    We've already given thanks this year.  We ate our turkey, we took our holiday. In so many ways, it has been a very good year  . .  but feeling thankful doesn’t have to happen only one day a year.  We could be thankful twice, or more, or 365 times.   We should all be thankful for being alive, having food to eat, a roof overhead and having the freedom to live our lives.  In countries like ours, the freedom part is taken for granted because it doesn’t seem to come with a cost, we don’t labor for it, or fight for it.  While that’s not true (because so many have fought, and continue to fight for it to remain so) it is easy to take for granted that we have the choices we do - on so many fronts - of how we live our lives, what we do, when we do it and the comfort that comes with such rights and knowledge.   Too many of our fellow earthlings lack freedom of choices.  Circumstance and accident of birth place determine freedom for so many that having the sense of being able to make these fundamental choices is truly ‘foreign territory’. We are born where we are born, we are captives or benefactors of those who’ve gone before us, worked for us, lived and died for us, we inherit their good or poor fortune.   Albert Schweitzer said: “Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.”   What we give each other, that matters most I think, is hope.  Whether that is hope for ourselves, for others or for us all - hope is connected to a smile.  A smile is connected to life’s pleasures large and small.  Life’s pleasures are not necessarily a reason for living, but those pleasures keep us warm at night, give us reason to reach out, to reach up, to stretch, to try, to change, to do, to say, to move mountains or to simply walk down a street in freedom.   When you bite into your turkey leg and scoop your dessert, take a moment to consider this: what are you thankful for?   To all of those on my mailing list who are enjoying a thanksgiving feast today, enjoy your rest . . .and to everyone else, GET TO WOK!   Mark Kolke 326,676 192.8     November 25 Responses   November 25 - SHOOTING FOR EAGLE - Finally took the time today to read your posting. Simply amazing - the plain truth in such hauntingly beautiful language! You know how to reach people's hearts. If there were more people like you the world would be in a much better shape. Thank you, OT, ? November 25 - SHOOTING FOR EAGLE - Will always lend an ear as you do for me.  And as always marvel at your "wonderful writing". Smile every day my friend, go forth with those goals and dreams - you can do!  As you always tell me, CB, Calgary, AB November 25 - SHOOTING FOR EAGLE - This is my response [attached piece about a school girl’s take on the 7 wonders of the world; to see, to hear, to touch, to taste, to feel, to laugh, to love ] to your musings today. One of the seven wonders has to be mankind as everything the little girl outlined belongs to all of us and in giving it, we get it all back. “Argue for your limitations and they are yours”, Richard Bach, the Reluctant Messiah.........JW, Cochrane and Calgary

SHOOTING FOR EAGLE - Mark’s Musing Wednesday Nov. 25, 2009

today’s Musing  written and published from south Calgary, near Fish Creek Park   Morning walk: -4C/24F, a mostly clear sky was waking up along with this neighborhood; lights on - ‘late for work’ folks hustle to make trains, cars race too fast around corners .... but Gusta took a slower pace, inspected every fence post along the soccer field north boundary in search of a fresh smell, that alley’s new dog - and found him; a big pup keen to escape his fence to meet his new girl friend . .   Life is dangerous, irresistible and without equal.  Even when we are down, we can be up - and there is usually a reason connected to something worthy to do, people to love and something to hope for.   Fences, boundaries, glass walls and mental boundaries - just as effectively as long distances - keep us from what we want and need to make life what we want it to be; or, they serve simply as motivation, making us daily more determined to get where we are headed, to be standing tall and proud when we get there and to never ever look back with regret.   In golf we continually need reminders that, feeling below par is a good thing. Away from golf, sub-par is a term more associated with lacking drive, being low on energy or faith in our capabilities. We all have luck, good luck, bad luck or no luck at all.  At different points on my path I’ve fit all three descriptions.    Sometimes, all of us, need reminders that we CAN leap tall buildings with a single bound, see through anything, and lift the heaviest object of all - our spirit.    There were hands that helped me when I was at my wit’s end for a solution.  There were ears, and shoulders, and time available to me from kind people willing to offer it.  They’ve helped me through many difficulties - and still do. Thanks CB, Thanks GB, your kind words and wise counsel yesterday are always welcome and appreciated.   I’ve spent time recently with homeless people (I met their client advisory board at the drop in center last night); not lots, just 12, but good cross-section representative sampling of 1,000+ who sleep there each night.    They don’t want any more than the rest of us want.  They want their demons boxed and dispatched to the past, they want a dream to live for, they want the warmth of someone who cares about them as much as a bricks and mortar solution, they need food like everyone and they are prepared to work hard for something, if only given a chance.  OK, maybe a chance + a hand.  I said a hand, not a hand-out.  Proud people, smart people, worthy people - their lot in life could so easily my mine, or yours, but for accidents of timing and a little bad luck.  And they think the ‘It’s Just Breakfast’ project has promise . . so I guess we’ll be starting soon.   At this time in my quest for things I want to accomplish, knowing there is huge risk of failure in everything, I best set my sights high, very high.  There is truth in Michelangelo’s words: “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”   Put better, golfer Peter Scott said: “I’ve always believed the greater danger is not aiming too high, but too low, settling for a bogey rather than shooting an eagle.”   In life, golf and dreaming - there is danger everywhere, but surely there is less danger in thinking big, dreaming great,  hoping for the best in people - and lending a hand whether it is asked for or not.    Mark Kolke 326,700 193.2

INEXPLICABLE TRIGGER - Mark’s Musing Tuesday Nov. 24, 2009

today’s Musing  written and published from south Calgary, near Fish Creek Park   Morning walk: -2C/27F, clear sky and calm fresh quiet inspire - a kind you get when you want to spend the whole day doing nothing but planning out ‘life as we know it’ or solving world piece - but then Gusta stopped on somebody’s driveway, dropped her poop load and starts running forward while her stoop-ed owner was still doing pick-up duty . . .so began another day of wonder, a jolt here, a tug there . . a ringing phone . .   Things come from somewhere.  Ideas start. Connections happen. But where does inspiration come from, what tap spills creativity, which pipe carries ideas, which trough  delivers love, which bin stores compassion - and what about fears and obstacles, where do they come from, where are they stored?    Do they spontaneously arrive? Or, are they built, like a tennis rally . . one shot at a time, served, volleyed, lobbed and smashed . . back and forth until they’ve reached a crescendo, fans on their feet, a glorious winner proves the sweat and struggle were all worthwhile. (I can’t help it, every now and then my youthful dreams of hitting cross-court passing shots for the oohs and aahhs of the audience pop up in my mind . . out of ‘nothingness’ )   Eleanor Roosevelt said: ‘It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.’   Great . . . , now I wish I had a plan.   Oh, ..... right, I do.   Aristotle said: ‘The energy of the mind is the essence of life.’   I’m not going to argue with Aristotle.  His words, ancient and long lasting, are not necessarily logical (like life) but there is something to this, something clear and true that has endured through ages.   Twentieth century writer/cleric Norman Vincent Peale added, I think, a more relevant connection by saying: ‘The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have.’   Making sense - of life, people or where the energy comes from - could drive us to distraction. It simply validates what is worth fighting for, separates it from issues and people who are not. Understanding doesn’t make struggles easier.   But it puts a smile on our faces. Ear to ear grin.  Wide like a river, sparkling like sunshine.  Like warm rain and star filled skies . . of thought, ideas, plans, actions from some miniscule inexplicable trigger, but, once with us, these things stay with us.  Ideas don’t ‘fall out of the air’ but, in our minds, mysteriously arriving out of nowhere when we least expect it, improbable possibilities then unfold.   That is the way these things work.   And why life’s struggle is so worthwhile.   Mark Kolke 326,724 193.0

MEET LIFE HEAD ON - Mark’s Musing MondayNov. 23, 2009

today’s Musing  written and published from south Calgary, near Fish Creek Park   Morning walk: 0C/32F, everything in silhouette - except for chilly cheeks, this could be anywhere; man, dog, in silence walk, conversation unnecessary. When Gusta feels the pull of her it’s reason not to race across streets too soon, best way to avoid catastrophe - yet careening traffic and frisky Border Collie tempt her; cold nearly gone, my body sluggish (big dinner with my dad last night slowing me down on the walk, and on the treadmill) . . week begins, coffee and ideas percolate . . ready, fire, aim . .   Head-on collision. Front page news.  Sadness, grief, dashed dreams, life ended. Tragic end. The morning paper news - like so many days - cause for pause, has messages and metaphors to slay us, or buoy us.  When it’s personal, it’s horrid.  When it’s not, can we learn from it, get ‘up’ from it, get ‘up’ because of it?  Choose which one you want.   It wasn’t today, or yesterday - long ago - ideas led to dreams.  As a child, I remember fantastic thoughts, fantastic things - but in time, growing up happens, dreams give way to more grown up sensible dreams, possible dreams, less lofty, solutions more practical.  Dreams are dashed.  If not your own, just read a paper and you’ll soon learn of someone else’s that crashed, burned, broke up on the rocks, failed, squashed, lost, forgotten.   Time, compressed so much it flies by, my chief consolation is that opportunities come by just as fast - and so often I barely catch a glimpse of most as the come, go and speed off out of view before we blink.  But when those moments come, moments of knowing, what then?  Action, or let it pass?    Reach out, reach up, stand up or crawl, walk or run, toward or away - so hard to know, starting things is hard.  So is finishing, follow though, completion too.    Nothing is easy, except giving up.  Giving up is easy, right?  It must be.  So many people give up.  Some give up a little, some give up a lot.  Some people give up their life, their hopes and their dreams.  Some give up on themselves in the process.   Giving up a dream . . not done in a moment, is not done as a decision, it happens slowly over time, erosion of time - in futility it falls away, falls apart, falls behind so many other things.   Harder than most other things is consciously giving up on a dream . .   Sometimes a dream stays alive, an idea sticks to the wall against which it is flung, a project moves from beginning to middle, no idea where it will end in sight, no need to know - just trust gut feelings, know that instincts are good, intuitively guided, trust . . .   Tug, pull, drag, load - the lift, trajectory, takeoff, landing - an engineering problem to be sure, but I’m no engineer.  I wrestle, what to do, how to do it  . . . but the answer is in me.  Digging to find it, I wrestle.  I dig.  It’s there, I know it.   Recent columns - perhaps leading to this, or maybe this too is a stone for stepping - in my Quixotic dreaming, my impossible dreams (maybe I should buy Honda?) . .  is not about this week, or this day; it is about life and the stretching required to live it as it is meant to be lived.   I am determined to not live without trying to live a life I’ll love looking back when I’m dying. This is perhaps a bold or foolish goal. It is my goal. I don’t want less than I can dream so I won’t give less than I have. I don’t know which turns in the road will be the right ones or the best ones, but they’ll be the ones I take. C’mon along with me, it’s going to be a great ride.   This day, this week begins - like so many - Monday before Tuesday, task sequence, spaced with rest, then repeated amid rush and bustle, a voice inside begs questions without answers, poses problems without solutions.  Answers will come, solutions will evolve - but are they good enough, right enough, fast enough?   Staying out of harm’s way, avoiding risk, is also staying out of life’s way.  The best of life and the worst of life is ahead of us - we’ll get hit by a bus or by bliss, or maybe both but that can only happen if we meet life head on.   Mark Kolke 326,748 194.3

THIS THING CALLED MIDDLE AGE - Mark’s Musing Sunday Nov. 22, 2009

today’s Musing  written and published from south Calgary, near Fish Creek Park   Morning walk: -1C/29F, light breeze, chilly face, overcast, Gusta chased some rabbits and very much wanted to run after that woman with three leashes, a wriggling lap dog at the end of each - she pulls much harder after dogs than she does the rabbits; Pavlov and Freud would probably suggest this well fed golden mountain of fur values socialization adventures over chasing food that is hard to catch . .   You’ve heard the term ‘mid-life crisis’. I’ve been wondering about that.  Why can’t we have a mid-life leap of faith, or of joy, or of adventure?  Why must change be labeled as crisis, our dreams diminished by conventional thinking or our energy dampened by the first available wet-blanket?   What purpose does life have?   It should have some.  Lots. It should overflow.  It should explode.   Being born is a no-brainer, we just show up.  Death is the dust-jacket, on the back cover, of life’s book.  Between those covers, between our first day and our last - really juicy stuff, those pages of mystery, intrigue, drama, daring-do, fantasy, passion, rage, victory and loss; that, my friends, is where middle age lives.   C’mon ... it will be a great ride.  Life is an ultimate ‘participant ribbon’ metaphor.  We show up at birth, and we get a life sentence.   One day of death in any life is plenty. One day of birth is what we get.  That takes care of first and last.  What’s in between?   Our formative years are ‘as others determined for us’; we get either a loving nurturing family life, or some hall of mirrors, horrible mirrors.  So, what comes after that?    Once past youth, what then?  Free choice.  Sure.  Why is it, most people live, work, and die so close to where they were born?  Is adventure just a thing for books, just a dream fantasy of how things might be ... but then we wake up?    It seems to me, most people don’t make many choices or take many steps that take them away from their comfort zone of their environment or their geography. There is some perverse comfort in a security blanket - which explains success of popular fiction, TV, movies and video games - we live vicariously through the imagination of others from the comfort of easy chairs.   What then, would happen if we took a bolder look, stretched ourselves further?  What’s the risk - that we might die?  I’d rather live.   I want to look out, as far as I can see to where ‘I can go further than that’ with the courage, conviction and nerve that the best of me, the best of all of us - is out there even further than that, like a ‘Coming Attraction’ banner at the movies . .   Death offers me nothing. I’ll take life please.  Lots. Give me plenty of life’s improbable lottery . . where odds of winning big are about the same whether we play or not.   But life isn’t a lottery, there are no tickets, no winners, no losers.  Just those who live, and those who don’t.   The path is easy to follow: there is misspent youth, followed by conventional adulthood - establishment of oneself, coupling, parenting, career and consumption - and what comes next?  Before ‘later in life’ arrives, and before older turns into OLD, there is this space, this long dash, between now and then, between here and there.   This is middle age.   I’m looking at it - not through alcoholic fog of my past or from the midst of some a-typical crisis that involves hats, sports cars or a HOG, and women younger than my children.   I’m looking at it.  Here, in the middle, from the middle ... because I did the math.  I consider the first 20 years a waste, so real life begins at 20 and ends at 95 (my prediction) for me, leaving 75 years of productive and hopefully intelligent purposeful life.  That’s 75 years, the mid-point being 37.5 . . add that to twenty and you have 57.5.   I’m 58.  Clearly I am in it, in ‘the middle’ of aging, but so far just dipping my toes, my baby steps prove I’m still very near the starting gate.   Mid life should not, in my view, be a time for going crazy; rather, I think it’s a time for going sane.  Why not.  Our time is our own and the prospect of being old and frail with too much time for looking back on an empty ‘middle’ scares the crap out of me.   The rest of my life is not set, not planned, not ordained, not predictable and not likely to be dull.  The course of the rest of life could read like the text of some retirement community brochure, a page-turner-racy novel, or it can be a creation of chances taken, risks tackled, joys felt, tragedies averted and heart-racing blood-pumping tree-shaking dynamic attitude on steroids.    If I want to feel worth being here, if I want my life to have value, this is no time to sit on my hands or the sidelines.  There are new flavors to taste and comfortable assumptions to plow under.   The rest of my life can be a leap off this cliff over here, just waiting for my leap.    Or, it is this long easy path up a rise and then down, down, down . . over that hill?    THE END will come one day, but not before I experience old age.  And before I experience old age, I want to have a good run at this thing called middle age.   I want to encourage growth and exploration of life. I will find energy, purpose and joy, I am certain of it.  Where do I find that?    In places and ways -- some felt long ago, some never known - -   Mark Kolke 326,772 193.8

LIFE BEGINS TOMORROW - Mark's Musing Saturday Nov. 21, 2009

today's Musing  written and published from south Calgary, near Fish Creek Park   Morning walk: 2C/36F, overcast, calm, rabbit and squirrel converged on a lawn right in front of us . . Gusta was just as startled as they were - all three scattered; morning fun, a well slept body nearly over my cold, looking forward to a superb day . .   Life does not end here. It goes on.  I must. I'm not done. I've so much to do. The more time I have, the more I can do, and I don't ever want to be done.  It is autumn for me; not just the calendar, I am entering the autumn of my life - I know it is seasonal change, sea-change, shifting of thought, of action, of motivation.   Things I hold dearest shifted; once it was all about things and the pursuit of things, but in time maturity and life taught me that experiences and people mattered more, or at least equally.  As life left its mark on Mark, that changed too, experiences still mattered, people mattered more and relationships took over as most important of all.   I don't know what will be most remarkable about the next phase of my life - that is for finding out, that is for knowing after the doing - there will be leaps, leaps of faith, jumping without a net.  Around the next corner, or over the next rise, there will be expectations met right along side surprise.  Surprise, especially pleasant ones, make this ride/leap worthwhile.  Surprise, the unexpected unpleasant kind, can happen too; usually not fatal, those bumps in life's road, their tracks, marks and scars left behind as reminders of when we stretched too far for joy or fell short of failing.   If we know what life is about, how might it feel to win the grand prize? The REALLY big prize, you know - fulfillment on all levels we aspire to, health, wide-eyed smiles from dawn to dusk . . the true big one. If it exists, and I believe it does, I want it. I want it all.   Roadmaps of our lives, our bodies, so many surfaces to be marked with the proof life has been lived; spots and wrinkles, creases and calluses, lines and shadows, sinewy parts and saggy parts, hard parts, firm parts, long parts and small parts .... each show the signs of how we got here from there.  Life impressions make us a collage.   When glaciers cross countries, slower than any snail would, they sculpt beauty, dumps dregs, move on and scarcely looks back to witness a surface gouged, evidence it was there, like nails drug across flesh of the land, those scars and beauty marks left behind.   Are we like that?  Do we leave scars and beauty marks on the events of our lives, on people we meet, on ones we love - passers by too - is that what we do?  When we do it, experience and passage of time leaves its trail too.   We grow, age, live and die - at no even pace; some race, some stall, some retreat - but experience renders wrinkles, scars and twists no icy rocky mass could ever carve.  We move snail-like on some things, like cheetahs on others.  We stall, delay and procrastinate or rush headlong into flames.  Each route, each speed leaves its evidence behind.     If my path ends here, if life ends tomorrow, I'll have been DONE, have lived a life of fullness with which I am amply pleased and proud.   On the other hand, if life begins tomorrow,   . . . I expect the best, the grand prize, the whole enchilada.    Mark Kolke 326,796 192.4