Passing Time

Hi Bill

… thought you would appreciate this info. What a time this is!

Divorce is easier… burial of 90 year old parents is easier… this one not so much!

Hope you are enjoying the sunny south, my ducks on the bay are getting grumpy as the water is beginning to freeze. We’ve had our first significant snowfall - pretty… but chilly!

J

The uncommonly cool northern air has for the moment overtaken our subtropical retreat and as abruptly frozen activity. We're submerged beneath dreary grey skies. The mechanical air control in the apartment has been turned off completely. As I rolled in my bed on this languid Sunday morning, reaching for my iPhone which heralded an email (what I expected to be advertisement from another hotel chain to which I persist to subscribe) I was surprised to receive sad news from an ancient friend regarding the sudden loss of her husband. It made me reflect. These startling events are increasingly at the forefront. The platitudes about aging and continuing to enjoy what time remains are never a complete answer to the distress.

Almost perversely I welcomed the news because it prompted communication from one who had unintentionally faded into the background. Hearing from her instantly revived a multitude of memories. Perhaps not by hazard it was only recently that I contemplated - as admittedly I have lately done with regularity - the diminution of relationships I've had during the entirety of my life.  I quell this historic despondency by mentioning as well that I have contemporaneously rejoiced in the continuance of those acquaintances which I presently enjoy with frequency.  In both cases - current and past - the topical fellowships are founded upon duration and what I identify as the heartfelt necessity of any meaningful association, namely integrity and openness (or what may more recognizably be called candidness).  By the same token of musing there are certain alliances which no longer subsist, corrupted by change of motive in some instances; in others, dwindling familiarity; and in some cases, blunt disagreement or alteration. In each circumstance of loss I have reasoned a cause, adjusted my disparate emotions of injury, bewilderment or pique to the particular situation and succeeded to rise above the fossilization.  If indeed one accepts the adage of dwindling time, then moving on is the undisputed goal. This arcane philosophic ambition is nurtured by the more forceful reality that nothing can change the past - though neither is it absolute that the future will not improve. Such I suppose is the strength of optimism. Anyway I hardly see the advantage of incinerating oneself in the combustion of the past.