Choices

“Isn’t being alive wonderful?”

Yes, we all take our own pathways, some very purposeful, and the more surprising and alarming: oh what the hell why not. But you know John, something both of us have worth keeping in mind are the frightened and incapacitated who have not moved from spot one to spot two in a lifetime. And blahs or hallelujahs, neither of us has been much thwarted by fear or conventional thinking. Worth celebrating. Yes. Really it is.

I suppose I am some evangelic about really living. I witness too many people stretching endless days into complacencies that kill them. You can’t always turn that around. And it breaks my heart. And keeps me at the trying

Oh John. Isn’t being alive wonderful. What on earth went wrong with those who are not and could have been. Well, we know that too. You have to make your happiness. I bet more than one of your students, including the one you nudged into Art History, are looking at your life and getting smarter with their own because of it. Many of them must have loved you.

I wish I had realized decades ago how much choosing was my own province.