Clean Slates and Chances

At Carthage Elementary School, art time came in the form of an 11 X 14 sheet of off-white construction paper. I loved that paper. I would stare down at it and think of all the wonderful things I could draw. I saw castles with wild horses and knights. I saw a field of wildflowers with a log cabin on a ridge. I saw the circus complete with trapeze and big top. Oh, the things I would draw.

My artistic ability never matched my imagination and after I sketched a horse that looked like a hippo having a seizure and a castle that resembled a mobile home just before the repo dude arrived, I suffered the harsh realization that things had not turned out as I expected. But since I was eight, that never got me down, especially since I could flip the paper over and dream some more about what I might draw on the other side … the side that was clean, unlittered by my failed attempts to design and execute the perfect picture.

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Hurricane Life

On August 31, 2006, I sat in the living room of an oceanfront beach house with my mom, my

 two daughters, my Aunt Betty, and my mom’s best friend, Margaret. We were watching the

weather channel’s rain-soaked, wind-blown forecaster explain that Hurricane Ernesto would

charge ashore somewhere around our couch and kitchen table.

The prediction was off a bit. It was a lot worse on the second floor in the bedrooms. We

survived the storm. We just rode it out. The sun came up the next morning and we found some

rockin’ shells along the waterline among the pier and house debris.

Nine short days later, my mom died. As my friend Chris Lewis says, “Sometimes, facts trump

feelings.” Shit happens.

I would like to wax all philosophic here with a profound message of understanding. If I

understand anything … it is this … life has an accomplice called death.

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Resolution or Resolve?

I used to be into the rah rah of New Year’s. I would form a hyper-enthusiastic pyramid of hope and prosperity along with all the folks in Times Square pledging that this would be the “Best Year Ever.” I had this type of New Year’s in the turning of 2006. Interestingly, this happened to be the year I couldn’t shake a staph infection and wound up in the Center for Infectious Disease Control. It is also the year I lost both my parents to cancer. I am not waxing cynical here, I am just saying that even with the greatest of intentions, the boldest of resolutions, the grandest of New Year’s plans … life unfolds in a year, good and bad.

My friend Neill used to say that every year he copied and pasted the next year’s resolutions from the year before. His argument was that it saved time from re-creating crap he might try to do but wouldn’t or couldn’t sustain. When we compared lists, I asked that he copy and paste for me too. I am pasting a similar list below to save you some steps in case you want to use our handy dandy, Norelco insta-resolutions…

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A Little Happiness

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

~~~

This week during the full moon, I was up at 3:00 am.  Not because I couldn’t sleep, but because our dog, Fergie, was channeling her inner werewolf and felt the deep need to run the perimeter of our property, a Doberman guarding her castle.

Seeing her short, plump hound self run with ferociousness made my heart sing. That Fergie, with her mean little under bite, she is my hero. At that wee hour of the morning, I recognized something, it was small and warm inside me and it was happiness.

I wonder about happiness. I look around me and if people are indeed happy, they have not told their faces. I see stress. I see anger. I see dissatisfaction. But happiness ... not so much.

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Choices

October 24^th marked the one year anniversary of the death of David Sherman. As life’s irony often plays out, it also marked the birthday of Sherman’s killer, Grayson Dawson, who ran him over while he was cycling on a crisp, autumn afternoon.

Dawson was convicted (if you call a negotiated plea bargain a conviction,) and will report to prison on November 15. She will serve a little over a year for her charges. Hardly seems just, but I don’t know that our judicial system is calibrated for justice these days. I think we may occasionally punish and in extreme situations of internal regret, we may prompt rehabilitation, but rarely can we find or even decide what might look and feel like this thing called justice.

I didn’t know Sherman. We were in Spin classes together and perhaps our road bikes crossed routes, but it would not be truthful to claim Dave as friend. He was a close friend of my neighbors’ and to hear him described makes me wish I had known him, that kindred connection of getting on a bike and pedaling away grown-up stress, replacing it with the wind in your face abandon of kid on a Christmas morning ten-speed tends to bind people together.

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