Small talk, big talk
February 6, 2012 by Billy Coffey · Leave a Comment
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My wife and I are standing outside a set of classrooms in the Engineering department of the University of Virginia. By my count, seven other sets of mothers and fathers wait with us. Outside, a cold rain patters against the windows. In those secret thoughts that every parent has but will never confess, I confess that I’d much rather be in bed on such a Saturday morning. From the looks on the other faces, they’re thinking much the same.
For the past four Saturdays, our kids have enjoyed a bit of extra education known as the Saturday Enrichment Program. Fun stuff (so the kids say). My daughter is taking a creative writing class, my son architecture. And in another secret thought, I pause to consider that this is all so my daughter can write better diary entries that no one will ever see and my son will have more ideas for his Legos.
Other classes are offered as well. Indeed, much of the sprawling campus is a flurry of activity. In our building alone, there are art classes, one for crime scene investigation, and something that has to do with the human brain. The kids go play. The parents…well, the parents are basically stuck with two hours to kill.
The twenty minutes or so before the classes let out are when things get interesting. That’s when all the parents converge on the classrooms and wait. As is usually the case when surrounded by strangers, we are each in our own tiny worlds. There may be nods and smiles, even the occasional hello. Not much more, though. Not at first. Strangely enough, at first we all seem to act like teenagers and constantly check our phones for texts and emails.
But the minutes tick on. The phones go heavy. We begin to notice one another. Nods and smiles and hellos become small talk. Small talk leads to big talk.
I like big talk.
There are the normal things—where do you work and where do you live, how many kids to you have, has it been as hard to get them here for you as it has for us. We’re adults, so we know to keep our conversation in safe areas (sports for the dads, groceries for the moms, raising kids for both) and not to stray into not-so-safe areas (politics and religion). It hasn’t been as easy as it sounds. We’re strangers, after all, and there’s a feeling-out period involved. Not to mention that of the eight couples around us, two are white, three are black, two are Asian, and one couple seems to be an amalgam of them all.
I don’t mind saying it’s kind of uncomfortable, only because that was the unspoken consensus. It is a sad fact that you have to be so careful around people nowadays. One misspoken word, one misunderstood act, and all of a sudden things take a turn for the worse. But as we all stand there waiting and talking, those fences that we all put around ourselves begin to lower. We stop talking and start sharing.
Things like how much more difficult it is to raise kids nowadays. And how the worries and fears have grown so much more over the past few years. How tough it is to be good parents. How kids need not just a good education, but a hunger and a curiosity to learn. We laugh and sigh, we nod and shake our heads, and by the time the classroom doors finally open, I think we all understood one very important thing:
We’re parents. Doesn’t matter what color we are or whether we vote Democrat or Republican. Doesn’t matter whether we worship Jesus or Allah or no one. We were all given the responsibility to raise good children in a bad world and keep our families together in times that seem to be falling apart.
There are waves and see-you-next-weeks as we gather our children and go our separate ways. My wife and I hear all about rhyme schemes and Doric columns. My kids have learned a lot today. That’s good.
And when we get into the truck and head back over the mountains, I’ll tell my kids that I’ve learned a lot today, too.
I’ll tell them that in the end, people really aren’t that different from one another. And I’ll say that what we believe may always divide us, but the challenges we face will always bring us together.
The Age of Man
February 1, 2012 by Billy Coffey · Leave a Comment
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Though there are large gaps in my memory from my school years, I do remember that Mrs. Cole said we would all be happy by now. I remember her saying that and I remember it had been enough for my attention to drift away from the middle of a daydream. It’s seldom that reality is magical enough to trump fantasy, but that did.
Mrs. Cole called it The Age of Man (the name itself would sound magical enough to any seventh-grader), and she said it was nearing. Science and technology had planted seeds, she said. Had planted them for hundreds of years. And those seeds were growing even then, sprouting upwards and strong. And she said we would be the ones to harvest.
We. You and I.
This being the mid-eighties, Mrs. Cole qualified that statement by saying it would all be for naught if the Russkies started lobbing ballistic missiles at us from Moscow. She didn’t think that would happen, which I’m sure prevented more than a couple nightmares that night from the other kids in her class. We’d all pull through, she said. And more, we would all be blessed with a life that was far more glorious and far less painful. Medical advances would ensure that disease was eradicated. Life expectancy would rise past the century mark. Science would solve problems like famine and global warming. Reason would replace ignorance, ushering in a new golden age of peace.
The hungry would be fed.
The naked would be clothed.
We would long for nothing.
And on. And on.
That all sounded pretty good to me. Even now I remember that as one of the best days of school I ever had. I couldn’t wait for The Age of Man.
I suppose we’re still waiting. Almost thirty years later, not much has really changed. Science and technology have done a lot, no doubt about that, though it seems there’s always a catch. The Russkies have been replaced. The hungry are still hungry. The naked are still cold.
But maybe more than any of that, we still long.
I suppose Mrs. Cole has gone to her reward by now. I’m not sure if she puttered along long enough to see that she’d been wrong. A part of me wishes not. I think we should all pass on with hope still in our hearts, whatever hope that may be.
Had I been wise back then—had I known what I know now—I like to think I’d have raised my hand and gotten the chance to speak that day. I would have told Mrs. Cole that science and technology can do a great many things, but the faith we would come to place in them would be a faltering one. I’d tell her that deep down, we’re all drawn to a brighter sort of magic. We will always be more charmed by what could be than what is. Because we are made to long and wonder and ponder the Mystery, and the Mystery is something that no science and no technology can ever really answer.
That’s what I would tell her.
And then I’d say what Mrs. Cole has no doubt discovered for herself—that the whole of earth is still the very least of heaven.
Praying to the wall
January 30, 2012 by Billy Coffey · Leave a Comment
He looks up at me from under blankets that cover all but his head, round eyes like tiny moons in the night. He yawns, but those eyes ask me to stay. There’s something I need to tell you, Dad, those eyes say.
“What’s on your mind?” I ask, and for a moment the only sounds in the bedroom are the three Legos that topple from an overfull plastic tub by the door and the wind against the window. He wants to say, he doesn’t want to say, and so he looks at the ceiling and whistles. I ask him again.
“You know how we do devotion before bed? And then we pray?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t think I like the way you been prayin, Dad.”
Of all the things I think he can say—and there are plenty—I would have never thought that one.
“Why do you say that?”
The blankets around his head inch upward as his tiny shoulders shrug.
“Well,” I say, “if you think a thing, you have to have a reason for it…right?”
(Shrug.)
“You don’t pray like you used to,” he tells me. “You used to do it like you were talkin and you knew God was listenin. Now you do it like…I don’t know. Like you’re talkin to the wall, I guess, and you know the wall ain’t gonna answer.”
You don’t like those sudden revelations that your children aren’t really children at all, but growing men and women who see and hear and understand more than you think. And since this is something I really don’t want to discuss with a seven-year-old—or anyone, for that matter—I change the subject.
“How was your math test today?”
“Hard,” he whispers. “Lots of kids didn’t do so good, I think. They kept raising their hands, but the teacher wouldn’t answer them, she just watched. I think I did okay, though. What’s wrong with your prayin, Dad? Is it stuck?”
“I think so. Sometimes when you get older hard things happen. And even though you still talk to God, you get the sense that He’s not much interested in saying something back. That’s not true, of course, but you might feel like it is. It’s like you’re wrestling with something on your insides.”
The thought occurs that maybe I’ve said too much, but I haven’t. His little head bobs up and down on the pillow as if saying I hear ya, Dad, been there many a time myself. And I suppose maybe he has. You don’t have to be a grownup to wander from God and then ask Him why He moved.
“So maybe you’re takin a test, too,” he says.
“I think maybe you’re right.”
And he looks at me with those moon eyes that see and understand. His hands move from under the blankets to mine.
He says, “The Teacher’s always quiet durin a test, I guess. But He’s always watchin.”
What a man looks like
January 25, 2012 by Billy Coffey · Leave a Comment
image courtesy of snopes.com
The picture you see to your right is of a man named John Gebhardt, a Chief Master Sergeant who was assigned to the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group at Balad Air Base in Iraq. The child he’s holding is a girl whose entire family was executed by insurgents. She survived despite the gunshot wound to her head.
The picture was taken in October 2006. Chances are you’ve seen it and know the story of how that little girl wouldn’t stop crying and moaning unless Chief Gebhardt held her. So that’s what he did every night in that chair, he recovering from another day of war, she recovering from a horror she likely always be shackled to.
I could go a lot of places with this story. I could talk about the fact that Chief Gebhardt is back home in Kansas now and that the little girl (whose name he never knew) was eventually released to a surviving family member. I could talk about the cruelty of war and the darkness of the world. I won’t. I’m sure you know all about such things.
The website where I rediscovered this picture offered only the picture and the bare bones of the circumstances surrounding it, followed beneath by hundreds of comments. I will say I tend to skip over comments when it comes to news stories. They tend to quickly devolve into politics and meanness, both of which are things I see enough of every day. I don’t have the heart to go in search of more. But my eyes drifted nonetheless, and though what I found didn’t surprise me, it did offer me a chance to ponder.
The vast majority of the comments were from women, many of whom professed a deep admiration for the Chief’s actions and offered thoughts or prayers (or both) for the girl. What political commentary was offered leaned toward the fact that while we may disagree with the wars our country has fought, we should all agree on the fact that our soldiers deserve our praise.
But what caught my eye was that despite all of these hundreds of voices and the different lives they each must live, nearly all of them shared a common sentiment:
This is what a man looks like.
It seemed almost sad that so many were led to offer such a reminder. It was even sadder to know that such a reminder was needed. Blame the culture, blame Homer Simpson, blame the government, blame whatever—the truth is that somewhere along the way males forgot how to be men. And though our national ills can be traced back to a great many things, I have no problem saying that the fall of men has something to do with it.
We live in a country of fathers who are not dads and spouses who are not husbands, where honor has been replaced by X-Boxes it’s not only acceptable to act like a boy, it’s cool.
That’s why we need people like Chief Master Sergeant Gebhardt. To show us that a real man has the capacity to fight and to love. He will risk his life to defend the oppressed, and he will comfort the brokenhearted. That he will believe in the goodness that lies within us all but know that darkness lies there as well.
Billy Coffey versus the vending machine
January 23, 2012 by Billy Coffey · Leave a Comment
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Of course anyone with a modicum of junk food knowledge understands that Snickers is the best candy bar. Of that there can be no argument. And when one’s day has been so busy at work that any chance of a proper lunch break is thrown out the window, the vending machine in the next building becomes a kind of promised land, one that flows not with milk and honey, but chocolate and nougat.
Getting there from here, which is a rather modern-looking building on the northern end of a college campus, isn’t as easy as it sounds. Because as I said, I was busy. And more than that, I was hungry. I’d been up against it since seven o’clock, and my watch told me that it was a little after two-thirty. My head hurt. My skin felt as though it were beginning to crawl and feed upon itself. My stomach was somersaulting. My insides sounded like a raving pack of hyenas.
I needed a Snickers bar. Bad. In fact, it was quickly becoming apparent that I needed a Snickers bar or I was going to kill someone.
Thankfully, the hectic nature of my day relaxed enough to offer me just enough time to walk to the next building, get what amounted to my breakfast, and get back. I managed to scrounge up just enough change for the machine, not a penny more. I threw on my coat and hat and trudged through a twenty-degree wind chill that seemingly wanted nothing more than to turn me right back around to where I came from. By the time I neared the next building I was literally punching at the breeze in an attempt to fend it off.
I was HUNGRY, people.
The vending machine was on the third story of a building constructed just after the Civil War. No elevators. By the time I reached the third floor landing, I felt as though I’d just summited Everest.
And after all of that, all that work and all that hunger, I fished my seventy-five cents into the slot, chose C2 for my Snickers bar, and watched as the metal spool slowly drew that chocolately goodness toward me only to get hung up on the end.
I watched it as it dangled there, mocking me from the other side of a half-inch piece of Plexiglass, the bar turned sideways so that the S on the package curled into a cruel, sinister grin.
I’ve told you all of that in the hopes that what I say next will not alter your opinion of me, if indeed it is favorable.
Because I beat the holy snot out of that machine.
Oh yes I did. I rocked it, punched it, kicked it, tilted it, even head butted it. And in the process I came to realize that I was not doing so just because I was hungry (which was a good thing, seeing as how afterward my Snickers was still dangling from the metal spool on the end of C2) or even because I was mad.
No, I was physically assaulting an innocent metal box because I DESERVED that candy bar.
I didn’t get my Snickers that day. In fact, I drove home two hours later convinced that someone would find me alongside the road barbequing some innocent dairy farmer’s heifer.
It was tough, I tell you. But even tougher than that hunger was the knowledge that I’d done everything right. I’d put the right amount of money in that vending machine, chosen the right letter, picked the right number. I’d followed all the rules.
When you do the right thing and follow all the rules, you shouldn’t find your reward dangling on the other side of a piece of hardened plastic. You’re supposed to get your reward in hand and embrace the sublime satisfaction of enjoying it. Because that’s right. Because that’s what’s supposed to happen.
And I wonder now as I wondered then about all the others who’d had to learn that same lesson. About the ones who spent their lives working only to have their jobs snatched away or the ones who prayed and had those prayers go unanswered. I wondered about all the love that was given but not given back and all the hope that was lifted up only to come tumbling down.
We’re all hungry for something, that’s true. But our hunger isn’t what defines it. Our hunger doesn’t make us who we are.
No, who we are is what we choose to be when that something we hunger for tarries.
A letter to my daughter
January 18, 2012 by Billy Coffey · Leave a Comment
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Dear Babygirl,
I’m looking at the clock on the wall now (you know that clock, the one with the angels you say are like the ones that watch over you), and it says it’s almost 1:00. Almost 1:00 on January 18. I know the date means a lot to you—birthdays are like that—but it’s the time that I’m holding onto now. Because as I see it, for the next twelve minutes and thirty-seven seconds, you’ll still be nine years old. When 1:05 rolls around, you’ll be ten.
Ten.
Honestly, that’s hard for me to wrap my head around. It’s a big deal, turning double digits. In the words of your grandfather, you’re “Gettin up there.” True. But I think you’ve been gettin up there for a while now, and it just takes days like this for me to really see it. To really see the person you’re becoming.
I’ll admit it isn’t easy, watching you grow. There are times when I want to put my hand atop your head and push down as hard as I can in the hopes you’ll stay small forever. Sometimes I think it would be better that way. Sometimes I think that you’d do well to never have to grow up and see this world for what it truly is, that it would be best if you continued to think everyone always got along and everything always turned out right. But I know that can’t happen. We’re all meant for greater things, you especially, and that means having to go through a little bit of the darkness on the way to the light. No worries there, though. But I’ll get to that.
I figure since you’re double digits and all, I can maybe say some things you have thus far in your life not been privy to. I remember I was about your age when I realized my father wasn’t a super hero. He wasn’t really the smartest man in the world, or the strongest, or even the toughest. He was just a man. That’s a hard thing for ten-year-old to accept. Harder for me, because I had to find all that out on my own. But since being a parent is all about turning your own mistakes around so that your kids won’t have to stumble into those same holes, I’m going to help you out with that. Call it an extra present, one that will go well with the notebooks and pens and books you unwrapped this morning before school.
Ten years ago tomorrow, your mother and I brought you home for the first time. And though you don’t know this—and maybe could never believe it—I was scared to death. I didn’t know how to be a father. I’d asked around plenty—asked both your grandfathers, asked friends, strangers, preachers, anyone—but usually the only bit of advice I received was a wry smile and something along the lines of, “Don’t worry about it. You’ll know what to do.”
I didn’t know what to do.
Which was how I found myself awake all night, creeping over to your bassinet to prod and poke your little body just to make sure you were still breathing.
I’ve gotten a little better over the years, but you know what? I’m still scared. Scared every day. I don’t think that’s a bad thing (I think a lot of kids would be better off if their parents were a little more afraid for them), but it’s something you need to know. Because I’m not a super hero, either. I’m just a man.
But I’m a man who loves you. And I dare say no other man in the world could ever love you more.
You remember that. Keep it close. Guard it. Because the world is coming, and the world’s the kind of thing that will let you stroke it until it purrs and then turn and bite you for no reason. It takes faith to get by in this life, faith and hope and love. You have all of those things. I’ll make sure you always do, just like I’ll always make sure the monsters aren’t under your bed and the ghosts aren’t in your closet.
Because that’s what good fathers do.
Happy birthday.
Love,
Daddy
The boldness of youth
January 16, 2012 by Billy Coffey · Leave a Comment
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Kid down the road got a new skateboard for Christmas, a bright red one with orange flames, white wheels, and tiny metal blocks underneath that spark when scraped against the pavement. He’s been riding around the neighborhood on it every day since. Doesn’t matter how cold it is or if the mountains have driven down black, snow-laced clouds. He’ll still ride by. Every day after school, and most every day during the weekend.
Of course the skateboard hasn’t faired well in the process. The red has now begun to fade, and the orange flames are now a dull ochre. The metal blocks will still spark—I can see them doing so in the early evenings as he rides by—but now they come more as puffs of light than showers of fire. I suppose this is by design. I’ve heard stakeboarders abhor the new and shiny. The used and scuffed is much more appealing.
I’ll watch him. I’ll even go so far as to say that once I see him pass my living room window once, I’ll pause at that window until he rides by again. It’s the way he does it, you see. The way he rides.
He’s not flashy. I’m not sure if this is his first board, though I’m inclined to believe it is. He’s of the age when the world widens at the seams and expands beyond his home and his block. He can ride now. He can explore. He can race down the slight incline of the hill and feel the wind in his face. It is freedom, and it is good.
It’s too bad that one of these days he’ll likely get clobbered by a passing vehicle. Again, it’s the way he rides—in the middle of the street, through stop signs, jumping curbs, like a miniature Evel Knievel. I don’t want you to believe I watch him out of some admiration, some envy. No, I watch him because I’m scared to death for him.
Also, because I used to be him.
Call it a boy thing, though I’m sure girls aren’t immune. They play and romp and do all manner of reckless things, all seemingly without care or thought of consequence, all because they are convinced of their immortality. Nothing will happen to them. Nothing can. Because they’re going to live forever.
That was me.
I once jumped off the roof of the house with an umbrella, thinking it would make a cool parachute. It didn’t work. Once I caught the breath that had been knocked out of me by the hard ground, I tried it again.
I once rappelled down a two-story set of stairs using a jump rope attached to a combination lock.
And there was the time when after watching a re-run of Happy Days, I tried jumping over four empty garbage cans on my bike. I managed one and a half.
Why did I do these things? Stupidity is the first thing that comes to mind (I had, and have, that in abundance). But the truth is that I honestly thought nothing could go wrong. Nothing bad would ever happen.
Now I’m older. Now I’m a husband and a father. Now I know the bad things that can and do happen, often without the slightest provocation, and often through no fault of my own. I think as we get older the glow in the world begins to fade and light because dusk. I think we begin to see shadows, that lurking What If. And I think we ponder the worst that can happen so much that the best that can happen goes ignored.
I think sometimes we worry so much about the traffic that we don’t allow ourselves to feel the wind in our face and know the freedom to simply be.
Age robs us of more than just our strength and our innocence. It also demands our boldness. If anything, that’s something I’d like to reclaim. I’d like to recapture that sense of immortality, even if it is a false one.
I know this: in a few short minutes I expect to see a young boy fly by on his skateboard, and when he does I will instinctively look for an approaching car. But I will also root him on, and I will see the wind in his face.
Needs, wants and pretty blue pens
January 12, 2012 by Billy Coffey · Leave a Comment
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I’m guest posting over at Rachelle Gardner’s site today. You can get there from here by clicking here.
A world worth saving
January 9, 2012 by Billy Coffey · 1 Comment
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Piney Mills may sound like a good enough place to live—one of those neighborhoods that offer a mixture of Cape Cods and ranches and the occasional bricked manor home, all with the stars and bars hanging from a pole, each with mats at the front door that say WELCOME. But it’s not like that at all. Piney Mills is instead a sprawling trailer court just outside of town that borders an expanse of national forest that is largely untrodden save for moonshiners, meth dealers, and love-struck teenagers in search of somewhere private to do some heavy petting.
In other words, every town has that one place where you don’t go unless you absolutely have to. For my town, Piney Mills is that one place.
It was a favor for a friend that took me there a couple weeks ago. He had a sofa that needed to be moved, I had the truck to move it. It was a minor errand that would take no more than an hour, but I still dreaded the trip. Piney Mills is an underbelly. When you go there, it’s best to prepare yourself for the things you’ll likely see—the poverty, the want, the neglect, yes. But mostly it’s the crass, profane attitudes the people there have adopted, either because of the sorry states of their lives or their bleak prospects of their futures.
I wasn’t disappointed in that regard. The decayed (and bullet-ridden, I might add) wooden PINEY MILLS sign at the entrance was guarded by a boy no older than six. He was dressed in jeans that were a size too short and a stained sweatshirt that read AUSTIN 3:16 SAYS I JUST KICKED YOUR ASS that was at least three sizes too big. As I pulled from pavement to gravel, he looked at me and offered a tiny middle finger.
I wound my way along the park’s main avenue. Trailers in various states of disrepair offered clues as to what the inhabitants considered important and not. I saw a bevy of duct-taped windows, porches littered with empty beer cases, and pristine satellite dishes clinging to sagging roofs. What few people that mingled about in the cold stared through dead eyes with a mix of resignation and distrust.
The guilt I felt wasn’t because my life had been offered more, but that I had to go to a place like that to be reminded of it.
The sofa in question was colored in a microfiber lime green and seemed to weigh as much as the truck that would transport it. My friend and I managed to hook it out of the narrow doorway and into the bed without causing further damage to either. He offered me coffee that I eagerly accepted. We spent the next half hour talking on his front stoop.
There is a rhythm to every place, even a place like Piney Mills. As the minutes wore on and the talk drifted from Christmas to work, the neighborhood awoke to a point where I was tolerated if not accepted. A woman across the street came outside long enough to wave and ask if we needed further help with the sofa. The man in the trailer beside us walked out to fetch his morning paper. He wore a threadbare purple bathrobe and nothing more. That didn’t stop him from noticing the errant newspaper that straddled the boundary between his trailer and the next, which he promptly delivered to an expectant and thankful elderly woman next door. Children appeared to play football in the street. For a while, even in that sad place, there was the sound of laughter and fun.
I realized then that I’d been missing something besides that appreciation for my life’s bounty. It was an important lesson, one I think is worth sharing here. It is simply that there is still joy in this world, still beauty. Still good. We might believe those things to be sparse and that might be true, but I don’t think so. Even in Piney Mills, that place the local police know well, you can find glimpses of our better selves. You can be reminded that while we are all fallen, dirty, incorrigible people, we are also capable of good and laughter.
I’m going to remember that the next time I turn on the television or pick up a newspaper. I’m going to hang on to that notion the next time my eyes are drawn heavenward and I’m tempted to say Come now, just come on and put an end to all this mess.
Because this world is still worth saving. It’s still worth our faith. It’s still worth living in.
On settling and being settled
January 4, 2012 by Billy Coffey · Leave a Comment
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The thing about Troy Heatwole is that he’s settled. He’ll be the first to tell you that. Not outright, mind you. Troy never says anything outright and never has. He prefers instead to take the long way around to the point he’s trying to make. So instead of simply saying, “I’m settled,” he’ll say something like, “I ain’t as young as I used to be an’ I ain’t as smart, but the world’s quiet.”
And really, who doesn’t long for a quiet world?
Not that life doesn’t pose any challenges. Troy’s like all of us in that he has bills to pay and ends to meet. That’s not what I’m talking about when I say he’s settled. What I’m talking about is that Troy not only knows his place in the world, he’s accepted it with all the happiness and peace one could ask. There is no striving in him, no longing, no unmet expectations. Just a nice, peaceful quiet.
I say this because I want to say that I envy Troy Heatwole. Not so much for what he possesses (which isn’t much aside from a small cabin in the woods, a battered Ford truck, and a coon dog named Bo), but for what he has. There’s a difference between those things. What you possess can be taken from you. What you have can’t. And Troy possesses a settled life. I do not.
But that’s not really what I’m getting at, either. I suppose I’m taking a page out of Troy’s book—I’m taking the long way around to the point I’m trying to make. How else could I bring myself to admit that I’m envious of a man whose life, settled or not and quiet or not, revolves around cleaning and draining septic tanks?
Oh yes, that’s right. Troy’s the septic man.
It isn’t that he loves his job. He does, however, find a purpose in it. Because just as Troy once told me that “Even the Lawd woulda had trouble lovin to do what I do,” he also said that, “Dis here world’s fulla crap, an’ somebody’s gotta clean it all up.” Wise words, those. Kind of makes you think.
I pass Troy on the road often. Our workdays tend to end around the same time and converge at a stoplight just outside of town. He usually gets the green while I’m stuck at the red. He blows by in his big pumper truck, windows down and long stringy hair waving in the breeze. And smiling, always smiling, because Troy has a quiet life and he’s settled.
Me, I’m not.
That’s not a big deal, I guess, assuming you’re not closing in on 40 and you don’t have a family and a mortgage. All of which describes me. If I’m ever going to be settled, this should be the time when I should get started. But I can’t. Even though I’ve been blessed with much, I can’t escape the feeling there’s more out there I should be shooting for. There are other lands to travel and other things to do and other Me’s to be. I want to settle and yet I feel I shouldn’t settle for less than I should.
That, in a nutshell, is why I’m envious of Troy the septic man. He has no need to ponder such things. He’s found his life. He doesn’t have to wander anymore.
But there are times when he passes me at the stoplight after a long day and I see his hair waving and his face smiling and I think differently. I think that maybe I have it all backwards. Maybe we should all be craving to be a little more than what we are. Maybe we should all be wanting to grow a little more each day.
Deep down we all want to be settled, but that may be more a trap than a treasure.
Maybe only as far as we’re unsettled is there any hope for us.
Author of Snow Day and Paper Angels (November 2011), both by FaithWords. But don't let that fool you. I'm just as confused as anyone.
And that is fine with me, because the great thing about wandering around in the fog is that you never know what you might run into.
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