Something new

Something new 01/01/2005 05:20 AM

In order to make something new happen, you have to be willing to shed something old. This was a central theme in yesterday's Gangup. Dan is giving up his paycheck at the Merc, for presumably a less sure paycheck somewhere else. But in doing so, he expresses an optimism that is uniquely American. Over the horizon is something fresh, something interesting; it's different -- in a good way.

So here we are, in a new year, again. As you get older time speeds up, until you get to the new year before the old year ends. Get even older and the new year starts before the old one had really gotten underway. You end up snapping your head left, then right, then quickly left, then right again, and put your hands over your ears and wail "I'm soooo confused!"

That's life. You get old, then you die. Inbetween hopefully you had a laugh, had a cry, heard a good story, told one, had a friend, was a friend, took a walk, read a book, invented something, thanked someone for something, remembered someone you loved and eventually -- was remembered by someone who loved you,

I tell my friends that I feel lucky, I've lived to see what life was like after my own death. Really. Every day is like that. It's really a blessing, because it's easy to shed the angst that accumulates by living. "I'm just a ghost," I think to myself. That adds a special quality to life.

Last night waiting in line at a local supermarket, in Florida, with the smell of the ocean everywhere, I thought of my uncle, and wished he was here. He used to go to Thailand, Kho Samui, every couple of years, for a month at a time. What would he have thought? All of a sudden his stories would have meant more. But when he died, the stories went with him. The stories fade as time passes, and what's left are the places, the memories, the void I feel in a Florida town, with the beach smells. The experiences feel alive, even if one of the key actors is not.

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