Of Bears and Penguins

Timely Thoughts, or two seemingly unrelated themes united by brief refrences to the Underground.

Thought 1)
It is the end of another year and I am astounded by how much distance I have covered.

How do we ever manage to find the people we make our lives with – we get a leg up with our family, because if we’re lucky we don’t have to find them. But all the other people – the people who go bowling with us, the ones who cook us mac’n’cheese after a few drinks, the one’s who know any number of inane facts about us and who love us all the same – how do we ever, ever find them. How is that you can wake up suddenly and someone who is on the periphery of your life is suddenly one of the most important people in your world, while someone you pinned some dreams to is gone without a word, leaving only some questions? And how is it that some people are supposed to be in our lives forever and others only for as long as a trip on the subway? Why is it that sometimes the people we thought were forever end up getting off at the next stop?

We fold people into our lives, we take them with us and vice versa. And somehow it all works out. All of the folding and traveling and distance and storms and we change with each other, and sometimes we part ways, but if we are lucky we move forward. It is such a gift.

Thought 2)
It is the end of another year and time is a funny, funny thing. See – we tend to think of time as a constant natural law – like gravity, but its not. When you look at the stars you’re seeing light that started traveling towards the earth years ago. That same star you’re looking at could have died ages ago – the news just hasn’t reached us yet.

Maybe time is just a way of trying to make sense of the way life changes. I’m not the same person I was a year ago – but it wasn’t time that changed me. Life happens without a calendar. Go out and shake the world without getting hung up on time.

(I think it was Jim Elliot that wrote, “Wherever you are, be all there.” I get so wrapped up in thinking about what comes next that I miss the moment I’m in. And I really believe that every moment is valuable – the subway is an excellent place to learn this.)

And even though time isn’t a constant – we can’t go back and we can’t change it. There are no do-overs.

What do you want? Because whatever it is, it is not going to knock on your door and ask if you are ready. Does life happen to you, or do you happen to life? What have you got to lose? Go out and shake the world.

So tonight marks another year. “Good luck, exploring the infinite abyss.”