Je Refuse...

Question:  What do you have if you give a small shore bird to a group of convicts?

Answer:  A tern for the worst.


Sorry folks...I couldn't help myself.

Which brings me to my point of the day.  What is it with growing old?

I am reminded everyday of my age and, therefore, my mortality.  You see, I have a teenaged daughter, sixteen years old to be exact.

She is finishing her sophomore year in high school, has a wonderful boyfriend, a job, a learner's permit and is on the High Honor roll.

She is still my little girl, as you would expect, but she is fast becoming a woman.

I am now the passenger in the car when we go to school in the morning or work in the evening.

I sit and wait while she visits the ATM to deposit her check or to withdraw money.

We're talking about college and we even talk about what it could look like when I'm much older and she is, possibly, forced to care for me.

I say possibly because it is not a fait accompli that I will need her help.  I may be healthy enough to care for myself.

I may be too egocentric to let her help me or I may be dead before the question comes up.

But however it turns out I am becoming more aware of what I have always known to be true.  Whatever it is, it is all in the mind.

When I think of myself, I see, in my mind's eye, a young guy full of energy and the sense of possibility.  One of my favorite expressions when I was coming up was, "I can make that happen for you."

I applied that idea to everything from getting gigs as a musician to getting girls for my friends.

I saw a challenge and instead of running away from it I embraced it.  I just couldn't, or wouldn't, hear the word "no" or entertain the notion that I couldn't achieve the outcome I was after.

And I proved it over and over again.

I have fixed up friends, some of whom have ended up married for a long time.  I have created business opportunities when there weren't any openings.  I have even found, sometimes literally on the side of the road, the things I was looking for, from a bandana for my girlfriend's hair when we were on a motorcycle trip in upper Marin to a working kiln...a working kiln...for my pot-throwing former wife.

Intention and a sense of can-do possibility were the guiding principles that motivated my life for as long as I can remember.

But, not too surprisingly, of late, my energy has dimmed and my ambition has slowed.

I no longer daydream of being the next Grammy winning singer songwriter to be played, endlessly, on the radio.

I don't envision myself as a wealthy man retiring to my summer home in The South of France (although I will live there some day...)

I probably will not ever finish "A Tale of Two Cities" much to the chagrin of my late mother who almost never missed an opportunity to wonder whether I had or would any time in the near future...

So lately, I have been content to putter in my garden and to watch my delightful daughter grow into a smart, funny, sensitive and capable young woman.  It seems as though, now on Social Security, that I am happy to just wait out my days in the growing tedium of The Golden Years.

But that very picture of my life today is what has me agitated.  Screw that I say...!

I'm not ready yet to throw in the towel and call it quits.  I still have dreams and energy and ideas and the sense of what is possible.

I talk about the latter almost everyday when my daughter will suggest that she can't do this or can't do that.  I tell her, repeatedly, that she can.  She can do anything she wants to do just as long as, in the words of my hugely successful winemaker friend Dario Sattui, she really wants to do it.

So if I still think that's true than I must not have lost the juice to get it done.  I must still have what it takes to realize my dreams and accomplish my personal goals.

It is okay if I have trimmed my sights a bit.  I may not win a Grammy but I may not be trying to either.  I may be content to sit on my porch, surrounded by the splendor of my pastoral bird and flower filled (thanks to my beautiful wife...the flowers that is) back yard and perfect the melody from "Ain't Misbehaven'" on my 1967 Martin 00-18 guitar.

Truth is, I ain't misbehaven' at all.

But I'm sure thinkin' 'bout it again...!


ps...

Question:  What are you doing when you're driving by a car full of criminals in Prague?

Answer:  You're passing Bad Czechs...