Month: March 2021

Turn the page

Yes, that’s right. Turn the page. You filled up the last page and life goes on, so turn the page and keep writing the journal of your life.

There is always another blank page waiting, but first you must turn to it. Oh, you can just sit there staring at the old page, the filled page, but you wrote it all in ink and it can’t be erased and you can’t change it, so: Best practices? Turn the page.

You need to keep going. Reading back over past regrets, OK, you can resolve to have learned something and do it differently next time.

But the sun set last night and a new day is here. Turn the page. Turn. The. Page.

After the lockdowns

Spare me the “one year later” stories. Just spare me.

It is always one or five or 10 or 20 years since something awful happened. Oh Lordy, wait until this coming Sept. 11. What dastardly plots could politicians hatch while the supposed watchdogs are busy collecting bad memories from 20 years ago?

I am much more interested in today, which I can directly affect, and tomorrow, which I can try to influence, than in reliving past disasters. Or, if we must talk about what happened a year ago, let’s talk about how to avoid disasters today and tomorrow, not rehash “woe was me” tales and revive the sadness and despair.

Tell me about next time — how next time will be different because I am/we are wiser for what happened.

The room

(Originally posted Sept. 7, 2017)

“Don’t think,” said the man with the white mane. “Just open the spigot and be surprised by what comes out.”

And then he walked away.

I wanted to cry out, “Don’t think? But I can’t stop thinking,” but I had no voice.

So I stopped thinking.

Suddenly a spot appeared on the wall, which grew and grew until there was a hole large enough to step through. I could see that the room beyond was not the same room I would have found had I cut through the wall, and so, curious, I stepped through the hole.

Continue reading “The room” →