Well. Here we are, another 100 days later.
This is the 1,700th consecutive day that I have posted on this blog since first I decided to try posting daily for three months. That was the first 92 days, and I decided to keep going on Day 93, and the momentum continues to carry the streak along.
The past 100 days have brought significant development in my personal life, as I first said publicly in early January, shortly after Mary the Hugger became my regular companion. There’s something about meeting a soulmate after losing a soulmate that makes the experience that much more intense. People have started calling us “you lovebirds” because our affection for one another is that obvious.
I set the absurd goal to publish 12 books during 2025, and on March 22 I published the first of those, The Man Who Crossed Whimsy Avenue. One might say I’m behind schedule, but no one said I would have a monthly schedule. Before I say I failed to reach the goal, let’s see how many books I have published by Dec. 31.
My GarageBand app has been humming as New Dog, Old Tricks takes shape more than a year after I first announced it. During these last 100 days, I settled (I think) on the 10 songs that will comprise my next album, and I’ve got acceptable recordings of four of those songs as of Sunday night. Do I count a musical album as one of my 12 “books,” or would that be cheating?
I have not changed my mind about retiring from the news business after May 19, which is now 53 days away. I am not regretting my decision, which comes on the 50th anniversary of my first day in the news business, the day after I graduated from college. Am I anxious about the transition? Of course. Come on. Every major life change comes with at least a touch of anxiety. I’d call it “excited” before I’d call it “anxious,” though.
What an amazing 1,700 days it has been. When I started the streak on August. 1, 2020, we were living in Bizarro World, forced to stay at home, isolated from one another. The world got even stranger as I wrote and tried to make sense of it all. Some of my thoughts coalesced into a creed of sorts.
“Love your neighbor, and all of us are neighbors.” That’s not precisely a creed, it’s a command, one that comes from the real ruler, whom I love, also as commanded.
Politics is not the center of our lives, although it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it is. To the extent that a politician is pursuing liberty and peace among humanity, s/he has my attention. The vast majority of politicians are enemies of liberty and peace, alas.
“I don’t know how many gardens I have left,” my beloved Red would say as she worked the soil every spring and summer, and she had fewer gardens left than we realized or could have imagined. It makes no sense to sow seeds of discord and despair when we have an unknown amount of time left to sow seeds of peace and harmony and understanding. There is joy to be found and happiness to discover, and that is how I want my last gardens to grow.
I could have 24 more years to make gardens while I live to see my 96th birthday in 2049, should I live as long as my father did — or this could be my final entry before something unforeseen occurs later today. In either case, or in any case, let my efforts from here be in the name of love.
I have no quarrel with my neighbors. I mourn, but I am comforted. Let me be small and meek. Let me be a peacemaker, let me be merciful, let me seek to be pure in heart. That is the garden I want to sow; that is the garden we all need to sow.
