today’s Musing written and published from south
Morning walk: -13C/8F, clear, morning sun quietly lit the alley path by the school; Gusta appreciated the change of pace, and place, to sniff fresh tracks and trash cans in day light – as though she could see the world through a fresh lens.
Full day yesterday; gift opening pandemonium, breakfast/brunch pandemonium, dinner slightly subdued; food, food, food. Another gathering this evening, mostly same folks, same conversations, different location, different food. Oh joy, more food.
Thanks for greetings yesterday: to MD, the k.d. lang’s cover version IS markedly better than Cohen’s (who knew?); to CB, thanks, welcome back; to FO, you stun me with your words.
This day, for putting things away, cleaning up, trying on new socks and clipping toenails, pulling off tags and bagging trash. For munching chocolate, oranges and picking at leftovers. Day after Christmas (in Britain and Canada) is Boxing Day, named for days of old when old friends visited old friends at each other’s old houses, bringing boxes of gifts (since replaced by re-gifting). For many this tradition has evolved to ‘visit mall for first crack at après-Christmas sales, and bring those boxes home’, or for exchanging gifts, because some of our choices just don’t work out.
Listening to Susan Boyle’s version of ‘I Dreamed A Dream’ (from Les Miserables), always gets blood pumping – imagining student revolutionaries, giving all to achieve it.
Kahlil Gibran wrote: “We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.” He meant, I think, the result was determined long ago, when a choice was made? Hmmm??
Though I know I’ve done it my share of times, I cannot, today, imagine compromising to achieve a dream; navigating, yes, but not compromising.
Often we coast, compromise, getting-on or along, abdicating responsibility to make choice, to own the results; and then, to tote up the sum of our choices (yikes). Perhaps I’ll pause - I’ll tote them up in a few more years.
Richard Bach summed up this wrestle well: “Some choices we live not only once but a thousand times over, remembering them for the rest of our lives.”
These are the choices we need: hard ones because they remind us who we are and what we’ve come through; choices we must remember, the regret ones, so we’ll guard against making those mistakes again; best ones . . ones, once made, we celebrate as the best things we’ve done. We all have some of these choices
And, we’ll go right on making new mistakes, new choices, new successes. And I’ll write. I write, as I do most days. To keep from going mad.
Lull between storms of activity; lull of quiet reflections, of a life worth living. Everyone needs an outlet, some work-out or to kick something; some vent, some scream or drink or do destructive messy things. Some work frenetically at mindless escapes.
I write.
Silent contradictions of mankind cannot be solved – we can only work out some of those for ourselves; sometimes, when I am wise or incalculably fortunate, I write something of value to someone – and sometimes, many times, the lone someone is me.
As often, I fail. Communication failure doesn’t mean we’re failures, it simply means we’ve not got our message across to the party(s) we’ve communicated with in such a way that we know they got the message we were sending, and that they’ve confirmed in some form of acknowledgment. Then we know - message was clearly, unambiguously and effectively conveyed.
Two things happen, in my experience, a lot of the time when communication doesn’t work, we’ve sent a message which is not clear and then we get concerned when someone doesn’t get it. The converse, when someone is sending us a message, do we get it? This is not some trick in communication-speak, it is real, every day, it is what we do when we have – as the late Strother Martin delivered so classically in the movie Cool Hand Luke: ‘what we’ve got here, is a failure to communicate’. Clearly, it is clear, is it not? If so, why do we get it wrong, why do we fail to understand one another? Or, is the message clear but the acceptance unwilling?
The message is clear, isn’t it? The one we sent. The one we received. Sent. Received. Sent. Received. Over, and over.
There are times I want to be in the thick of heavy conversation, effectively communicating ideas and feelings – and there are times my only wish is to be curled up on a couch on porch, watching stars twinkle, living my dream, dreaming my life stress-less-ly. Can I do both?
My hero, Don Quixote’s author, Cervantes, said ‘I know who I am and how I may be, if I choose.’
I choose.
Mark Kolke
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RESPONSES/COMMENTS ALWAYS WELCOME; send to musing@maxcomm.ca
December 25 Responses
December 24 – Hallelujah for WE all – Merry Christmas, Mark. I've followed Musings each morning here and an aware that you seem to have arrived at a very good place. I am so happy for you... Will be back in
December 24 – Hallelujah for WE all - Wonderful post, Mark. Isn't the Cohen version of Hallelujah grand? When k.d. lang sings it, I listen over and over.
To your list I would add:
Anyone who has lost someone this year to any illness, disease, accident, or other tragedy. There are so many, too many, of us in this category.
Anyone imprisoned, by law or not. Prisons are too full of those who took a wrong path or took the right path but were jailed for their advocacies, or were enslaved through no fault of their own.
Anyone who has been "disappeared" and never found, MD,
December 24 – Hallelujah for WE all - This morning I read your words again of that day and again fat warm tears fall down my face, filled with life's sweet joy of love and loss. It was not her tears which moved me, it was your understanding of the universal her and of me, the individual. It was how well you knew me and we haven't even met, FO, Kaunakakai, HI
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