As 2023 draws to an inevitable close, I cannot help but marvel at the transition that it has represented. The most surprising thing is how much writing got to take place.  Even more so, the finishing of projects started 3 decades ago has been unimaginable to me.  

I used to sit with my coffee in the morning with a worn notebook on my lap, just writing in my modified Morning Pages. About midway through this year, I read an article about blogs and how posting regularly can be rewarding but also how they can generate money. While I still do not know what it takes to create a blog that makes money, although I suspect it to be something that informationally serves the better of people’s lives within a specified genre, on the reward side, it has been good to me.

When I think about the people in my life whom decades ago I absolutely took for granted, a great sadness overtakes me.  In the wisdom that I have gained, the one constant that is there is the wish that I had listened more closely and asked more questions.  As those conversations echo over a memory thread of static and white noise degraded by time itself, I now understand it was their will to take me back with them to the days of their youth.  They knew it was important to share and today, I know that it is more important than they could ever comprehend.

I will say, that my Grandmother did succeed even though it took decades of living for me to get it, but I DO understand what she was trying to tell me about when she described her life in 1928.  I know that I am better for it too.  Unless you know about this, you cannot understand the full potential of your life.  When limitations weigh me down like gravity in the 2020’s I break those chains when I recall that my grandfather walked across the better part of this country in the 1930s.  Although I can only recall small bits of this, I know that the limitations then and 90 years into the future are not very different despite appearing to not even exist in the same physical dimension.

2023 draws to a close.  John speaks from his window in the Tower of Song:  “And what have you done?” That question for me is more like, “And what will you do?” I will remember that there is more around me still and there are still more questions to ask. The undiscovered country lies ahead.  2024.  I recall my mission statement for 2021: “There is a tide.”  Funny now, that was 3 years ago. Time passes like guard rail posts on the highway now.

Loup: First Indian On the Moon.  Paul McCartney and Wings from Red Rose Speedway 1972 plays as I sip coffee on this forever gray morning in December.  Three minutes ago, I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror in 73 on Lillian Road as this song played on the 8 Track player downstairs.  I still see my 8-year-old reflection in that mirror every time I hear this song.