Today is a beautiful day. Any person, especially those of us that grind out a long north country winter, appreciate a day like today. It is hard to over estimate how much. We eagerly soak in the sunshine and our general attitude improves measurably with the increased warmth and the return of the critters; it is Vermont’s reward for having slogged through such a long dreary never-ending winter. It’s just gorgeous, this 21st day of May 2018, with the bluest sky, the mountains in crisp relief, the hardwoods are in bloom, verdant, showing the sun’s reflection off the leaves, in various hues of each tree’s new growth, some jade, some khaki, some olive. As I cruise through the Green Mountains on I-89, it enters my mind that it is time to cut the grass again.
I did not expect to make another blog entry before I picked up my new Subaru Ascent. That’s about a month away, but I’m driving a pre-production model right now and I can’t help but daydream about what it’s going to be like out there traveling across America. Now, I get why Steinbeck thought he might never actually leave, even when it got close to the time he planned to leave; he still did not believe he would ever leave. I find myself daydreaming while I’m watching movies. The other night Jill and I watched an On-Demand movie, ‘Hostiles’, which is about a grizzled old Indian fighter, an army Captain who escorts a Cheyenne family up from the Southwest to the mountains in Montana. Big sky country. To get there they travel through Comanche country and they’re always under attack. I found myself, at times, not really paying attention to the movie, but instead, looking at the western mountains and the high desert scenery, thinking “gee, I can’t wait till I’m out there with Teddie.” And, in the beginning, when the film focused the story in the southwest, it was the lowland parched desert pavement that caused me to wonder what the dog is going to think about the Mojave.
Yesterday, Lauren graduated from college. The ceremony was really long, and it rained the entire time. Colyn was a trooper. He stood out in the rain, never complained, especially knowing the fact that his sister is not likely to attend his college graduation. Lauren didn’t attend his high school
graduation, either. He gets it. She was in Colorado during his high school graduation. She will be in Colorado when he graduates from college, too. Mom and Dad will be there, though. I couldn’t help reflecting during her ceremony that she’s at the beginning of her work life and I’m at the end of mine. Her vistas are all about some future family she may create, some career in which she’ll strive to be successful. My vistas, now, are the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River Valley.
The keynote speaker for graduation was received with some mixed reviews and skepticism, too. I really like the guy, though. But I agree with Lauren, and the rest of our small family, when the fellow was about 2/3rds done, he probably should have wrapped it up, but he did not and he lost most of them for the last few minutes of his presentation. However, he made a significant point that, at least, made sense to me. He talked about the little epiphanies that everyone has in life, the type you might have when you’re sitting on the end of a dock, looking out across the water late in the afternoon and seeing the mountains, in full detail, trees and all, reflect onto the lake water and, suddenly, one feels the grace of God. Although the speaker called it ‘goodness’. It really is Grace. It is that sublime moment when the world comes together and wraps one in its embrace, inseparable from it, presenting one with something that one cannot really describe, but one feels in the very marrow of one’s bones and we know, intuitively, that it is ‘good’. His point is that those moments are the things that we remember in life. They may only last only a fleeting second, but they leave a mark on the soul, indelible, that stays with us for the rest of our life. At Lauren’s birth, once she was delivered at just before midnight on April Fool’s Day 1996, I walked out of the second floor of the maternity ward, out onto the fire escape. I looked up into the clear dry starry Aurora, Colorado sky, and cried. Just wept. Through bleary eyes, I promised God, out loud, that I would be a better father to Lauren than I had been to her sister, Dawn. Then, I sobbed some more. God will be the judge. I can take myself back to that moment, standing on that fire escape at any time in my mind’s eye.
There was another woman who spoke yesterday, an academic of sorts, who had a very short
presentation. She started her presentation off stating that there are some scientific truths in life, like: sunscreen helps protect you against skin cancer, but the most important things in life are subjective. She talked about family, she talked about love of community she talked about love of life and then she wrapped up with saying, “but don’t forget the sunscreen.” I don’t think it had much of an impact on Lauren and her classmates. But I sure thought that that was the most important speech they heard all day. Essentially, life is very subjective and the most important things in life are not things.
September 13, 2018
Lots of emotions stirring after reading your words. Love you Michael- this is good for your soul, and so happy Jill was ok with Teddie accompanying you… wouldn’t want you to be talking to yourself too much.
Hugs! Xom
September 13, 2018
Love you, little sister.