A FRIDAY I’LL NOT SOON FORGET
Saturday, November 26, 2022
I’ve never been a believer in omens.
Or karma.
Or good luck vs. bad luck.
It’s easy to label things as one of those after they’ve happened, but I don’t see reality as something we can predict or determine in that way. Still, looking back on many things, we can see the crooked path, the connections we built, and the seeds of folly we planted.
I certainly can.
Some days work out better than others, sometimes by accident, but more often because of things we’ve done the day before or many days before. There is no way to know which chickens came before which eggs …
The magic, the exciting feeling, is rarely accidental or coincidental on its own or in some omen or karma-esque fashion as much as they are the confluence of events, choices and consequences. Sometimes things grow from seeds of ideas we planted or tangential consequences of following up on a conversation or when we fail to take the next step.
Yesterday was one of those days.
It began with something good, not insignificant, but valuable and the result of previous attempts – something where I dropped the ball, or maybe he did, or someone I’m unaware of caused a change of heart, and then someone changed it again. Getting something back on track might have been because of what I did/said or not. In any case, it is. It was. I’m happy. Some great lessons learned. In any event, confidence restored that perseverance pays off. That’s the second of those moments of ‘ah, that proves it’ in recent experience.
And time, sadly, to write a condolence note to someone I know, and a Musing reader too, about the death of his mother.
My start was neither visceral nor wildly euphoric, but nothing was going to be mediocre; it seemed a start to a theory-proving day when effective communication or correcting miscommunications was more noticeable than usual and essential more than ever.
Still, my day began with a head full of memories and a belly full of anxieties.
The anxieties – something pivotal will be resolved or at least improved/fixed today. Or not. Hopeful, but nothing is inevitable when we don’t know what might unfold. Afterward, we can explain it easily, knowing how all the ingredients factored, fit, and folded together – but we can never predict outcomes at the start of the day.
And, the memories, of twelve years ago, on a beach in Mexico at an all-inclusive resort – attending a wedding. My daughter Carla married Chad; since then, they’ve built a solid life together, and their children, my grandchildren, are spectacular. Isla and Alex are extraordinary in all the ways every grandparent’s grandchildren are spectacular, but because they are the loving consequences of that wedding we took part in, a group together for a week, and a wedding on that beach.
These good news and happy memories are great ways to start any day.
The events of they were to unfold as the day would be played out. Like most days, many things are routine and unpredictable, but if there is such a thing as karma, it seemed to be starting out well. As for all other matters of the day.
The big anxiety element of the day, solving a group of related cause/effect problems, ended well; not perfectly or as well expected, but far better than the worst case outcome I feared …
As a day, few compare to this one – not so much for all the consequences, but for the wide range of tugging on emotions, memories and reminders of why some things work out better than others.
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