Something old
And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs
And as silently steal away.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Day Is Done
The Most Perfect Note: An Ode to Bygones
I have a friend who has insights. And by insights I mean that they often dream or see things that in some shape, form or fashion appear to present themselves in reality. Sometimes partially, sometime wholly and sometimes not at all – but regardless, there was an urgent message: I was driving over a bridge and there was an accident. My car went over the railing and plummeted into the shallow river below. Someone jumped in, unbuckled me from the car and carried me to the bank and through a group of on-lookers. It doesn’t matter if I lived, or if I died, but if there is a point, I don’t think that’s it. Funny thing is, I’ve been driving over bridges with my windows down – or at least cracked – for years. That’s ironic, but a moot point really.
It’s funny how things come up at either the right or the wrong time and sometimes the more wrong they seem, the more right they can be. There’s rarely an in between.
Prior to this conversation I’d been sitting and contemplating the good and rash of gnarly things that have occurred in the past 363 days preceding the first day of February last year. A day that happens to be my birthday and a day that often brings about a great deal of emotion for me, both good and bad. I do this a lot; I think too much and analyze things. It’s just my nature –a raw instinct to learn and understand and study humans and their behaviors toward and interactions, or lack there of, with others. It’s always been, at once, a blessing and a curse.
Needless to say this intuition, if you will, only fed my contemplative mood and gave good cause for reflection. At what I rationalize to be a relatively young age, I’ve been through a lot. Seen a lot of things I never wanted to and experience many things that no one should have to, at least in a perfect world. But alas, this place isn’t perfect and I reason that it is not suppose to be.
I find it worth thought that the people and things in my life that have been the most trying are the very things that keep me going, moving forward and moving on. The things that have taken years from my life are the ones that make me appreciate the simple things that make life worth living in a new way each day. A stranger’s generosity, holding hands, finding an extra buck in the dryer, being greeted by the dog at the door, the notes of a perfect harmony – all things that mean so much more when you realize that you’re blessed enough to have experienced them and you’re aware enough, cognitive enough and alive enough to appreciate them.
As I do each year, I pay my respects to the events and people in my life who have, in good ways and in bad, influenced the person that I have become. As I get older I realize that there are no perfect notes and that the instrumentation of life is powerful and complex and ongoing. The overture is simply the predecessor; the beginning of an end we cannot choose. The dynamics change, the tempo varies, and sometimes the dissonance reverberates. But still, the notes of the past are just that.
Some people don’t hear it. Some people hear it and take it for granted. Some people ignore the sounds of their hearts out of fear of failure, or success, or one thing or another.
I don’t know what it all means either but there are a few things this old song has taught me: Don’t let life steal away your notes and hold out the ones that bless you. Strive each day for peace, live each day with grace, and act each day on compassion. Mind your own heart and be the steward of those whose hearts you hold dear. Don’t apologize for who you are; don’t compromise for those that don’t deserve it… and always look forward to the next note in your arrangement, no matter the score.
