PEACE WHENEVER I WANT IT
… and I slept so well
Wednesday Apr. 23, 2014
Fail often.
Make mistakes every day
I’ve written before – on life’s shortness – not of desire for it to be short, but acknowledging its swiftness, pointing to the brevity of our time to drink it in. If I’d better appreciated this sooner, this fabulous portion of my life might have begun sooner.
Oscar Wilde wrote: “Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.”
But, I’ve made so many …
I’m no scholar, but I’ve taken this class daily for more than 11 years.
I sense a graduation recital coming …
At this desk, on these keys I play out my tune, a pied piper of sorts enlisting followers to listen, to follow as hitchhikers on my quest.
In search of finding peace.
I mean finding calm, solitude and what passes for happiness – this quest we venture on daily.
Regrets?
Channeling Anka/Sinatra, sure, “I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention …”
Each page, each change, each choice, each person we allow into our lives, who allows us to enter theirs – changes both. In some ways like a youthful loss of innocence, in others like two old friends holding hands, walking similar emotional and intellectual paths.
We could argue that each randomly chosen person we meet is just that – random.
If so, how could there be magic in that?
Someone across the table, across the country or half-way round the world.
Life altering random chance.
Fate has no quiet hand at work, but we each have two.
We reach to greet the hand of another in hello, sometimes in good-bye. We do not know who, or how, or why, or when – but these actions cause us to stretch beyond that innocent meeting.
Think of incredible people who changed your life. Recall, if you can, that time and place that reminds you of when you met. Remember that handshake, tap on the shoulder, or conversation. Recall what you felt, and when you felt it. Was it immediate and clear? Or percolated over time?
I felt weary last night, hauling another car load of me to my new home.
Unpacked. Put away. I sat, surveying empty rooms in that place that was my dad’s home – but that was always mine both in reality and in spirit.
I was reminded how much, and how simply, I feel so peaceful there.
There will be chaos, work, play and confusion there. But I sense there will always be peaceful feeling just sitting there, whenever I want it.
Taking in that emptiness, not as empty, but as waiting to be filled.
To be filled with laughter and friends.
Filled with work and play.
An evening of decisions, morning of choices, day of action – amazing how good I feel when sleep returns to its rightful role.
I’ve made so many mistakes – I must not rest, I need to make so many more.
Mark Kolke
198,440
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: 5C / 41F, sunny, light breeze – Gusta in the mood for a run. We compromised in a light jog up the long hill … traffic very light, squirrels busy being .. squirrelly I guess
Reader feedback / comments always welcome:
Can't wait to hear about all your new adventures Mark! Indeed Life is Short ! Enjoy every moment :D , Cheers, JS, Calgary, AB
Thank you Mark! I needed that! Life IS too short and I need to search my new adventure instead of sitting here wondering where life has gone, I should be out there living it. Yet another time you have got me off my behind...Thanks!, NL, Lanark, ON
