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OH MY
Friday Jan. 15, 2016
This date is finally here.
I’d considered, for this installment, drafting something in advance.
Something pithy, profound – just for today.
Those words never showed up.
Words do show up, one day at a time.
One column at a time.
Just as it seems large – 5,000 daily columns in a row, I’ve never felt more strongly that it is the first chapter of something not yet defined, a rest stop, after the first leg of a much longer journey.
It is significant. I am, far more frequently than I mention, confronted by an amazing thing I’ve never imagined on my 5,000 days of writing these columns. Never planned having an impact on anyone such that their life might be changed. Or that someone would reach out, someone who wants some help, direction, or just an ear. Or shoulder. Each time this happens (sometimes a reply I publish, more often a private communication), I am amazed. It happened again yesterday. And the day before. I am always surprised, and humbled, that something I wrote made a difference in someone’s life. Or turned their point of view to consider another way of dealing with some challenge. Or that got them through a difficult day. Those moments, are all the encouragement I need to keep doing this. To all Musings readers, thank you all. I am in your debt.
This date is finally here.
It has been sitting out there on my calendar, lurking. I saw it, calculated the days – point on horizon, drawing closer in my mind – like a marathoner’s finish line, but this is not a race.
When I began writing this column 5,000 days ago it was fun and I had no expectations. With the first month or two there were days when I felt – as I went out for my morning walk – that I had nothing to say. When I returned to keyboard, coffee mug in hand, my fingers found keys to tap out a message and you responded. Some with calls, some with notes – so many more in silence, but reading. I soon realized the growing list of readers, of loyal followers, didn’t mean ‘read it every day’.
Still, the connection I have as hub of this wheel, with people all over the planet has and continues to astound and amaze – not because readers are on every continent except Antarctica, in so many countries, so many cultures, you amaze me and I am so grateful for those connections.
Baring our souls – if that is the right term, has value I never imagined. It isn’t just about boundaries and catharsis – it is therapeutic for me. I started this long before the term Blog was coined – and I’ve never thought of this as a blog, or diary, but as a note on the blackboard about how I’m feeling today.
This date is finally here.
Oh my …
Mark Kolke
P.S.: ambitions to transform these writings to some kind of book format to market them … well, those ambitions have yet to find its comfortable form – nearly thirteen years since I hatched that idea but it has yet to be realized. One day soon, maybe, or not.
written / published from Calgary, AB
morning walk: -11C/12F, back into the chilly for a few days it seems; dark and ice-crystals, traffic busy and Gusta smelling nothing particularly unique – so our walk was uneventful, or maybe I missed lots of interesting things because my head was fixated on what I might be writing when I got back to my desk …
Reader feedback:
JUST ANOTHER COLUMN
Happy New Year and congrats on your big milestone tomorrow. That's quite an accomplishment and commitment!, NA, Calgary, AB
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