I had posted "When do you know you are dying" and my daughter asked "Why don't you do 'When do you know you are alive". I struggled with that for a while but this is what I came up with.
When do you know you are alive…
Take yesterday for example. I woke up after nine hours of sleep (an attempt to catch up for weeks of short nights). The previous evening friends had asked me to dinner (as my wife was away) fed me Kilbasa and beans and my semi-annual beer and good conversation and before I went to bed had taken a Tylenol PM. They had worked and here I was at 7AM checking out my 79 year old body, with knees hurting, gas in my stomach and pressure in my chest (was that heart – after two major hears surgeries and a pacemaker that is one of the things on your mind or just gas). But there was my routine to follow so I stood, felt the pain leave my knees, put on my bathrobe, climbed the stairs to my office and turned on the computer and the TV to catch the news on CNN.
The emails breathed life. One daughter pleased with the picture of her in her new office that I had sent after a visit and saying how happy she was in her new job. Another daughter who shared a funny video of a very aggressive Panda in an ad for oleo. Another daughter with plans for meeting in NYC for lunch on her visit from the west coast. Another from a granddaughter pleased with the picture I sent her of her mother in her new office saying “WOW!”.
Time for breakfast, the peaches bought yesterday and hard as rocks had ripened and were perfect with some cereal and a little yogurt all mixed together. I dressed for tennis and drove to The Dutchess Raquet Club to meet up with the eleven guys who showed up. I have been playing with that group for more than 20 years and it is part tennis and lots of jokes and good conversation. It is doubles and we are all in the 60’s to 80’s range, yet the games are good and we all have our moments of greatness. My serve is on so that adds to the pleasure. After two hours we gather in the lounge for coffee and conversation ranging for body parts problems to politics to catching up for another hour.
I return to the house and try to make headway on the rewrite I am doing on the By-Laws of my Not-for-Profit, REAL Skills Network, Inc. The NY Council for Non-Profits in their assessment has said some changes were needed. I have made them and emailed them to them two weeks ago, left multiple voice messages to no response. I bypass the local office and call the head office in Albany and get up a head of steam pushing various people to get involved. Feels like I am back at IBM and making things happen.
I grab a seat in the office of the Director, an amazing person whose ability to relate to young kids is phenomenal. We have worked together and been friends for twenty years. The organization deals with inner city kids at risk and in the winter is an after school program for ages elementary through high school and in the summer is a daytime educational initiative for elementary kids. Just sitting in that office is energizing. It looks like chaos. The Director’s desk is piled with folders and envelopes, kids interrupt to give and get hugs, the cell phone rings, neighborhood people drop in to register their kids, there are four or five conversations going, but it is all on point. There are some 40 students from local colleges working with us and today a new student is sitting in this swirl of activity. I talk with her to find she is interested in Social Work and City planning. As part of her study program she has visited Cape Town, South Africa, San Paolo, Brazil and Hanoi, Korea. She wants to work with young kids and has been in the office once before and I tell her to be patient and watch what is going on. A dozen eight year olds come in, sit at the large table and talk together like friends and grown-ups. In ten minutes five college students show up and sweep these kids off to the third floor library for a Montessori like course they have prepared. The new college student leaves with them to return in a half hours excited to have read a book to one of the great young kids. I discuss with the Director the needs for staff clearance and fingerprinting to meet the requirements of the federal grant money we are about to receive. I get some things to do, people to call which I can work on. I leave after an hour and a half as I have writers group to prepare for.
I have been in a writer’s group formed at a local college for some eight years. We meet every two weeks, share our writings and do exercised. This week I am hosting with responsibility for food, wine, and exercises. There are some eight people in the group but tonight there will only be four. There are a psychologist, and two college educators and me and this week no one has anything that they want to share so I start with a prompt and an idea. I wanted to start with the word “spiel” as it is an old fashioned word but we are surrounded by “spiels” from politicians, TV, brokers, and anyone who wants us to do something. But, that does not fly with the group so we do a free write privately, then an exercise on “When he/she/it is away”. We write for ten minutes then pass the piece to the next person on the right who uses that as a prompt and writes for another ten minutes and then we read the results. I had thought people would change voices or adopt the style of the piece on the second round, but it didn’t really work. It was just a good writing time. We did another write and read on either “Toys played with as a child” or “Possessions you have treasured” with good results.
The group left at 8PM I cleaned up the dishes and settled for some sentimental TV and into bed at 10.
All along the way there are new things to learn, new things to pique my fancy, new challenges, new experiences. Even after 79 years there are so many things in each day that bring life and aliveness.
