THE UPSIDE OF DOWN TIME

The upside of down time, the silver lining on a week of rusted vocal chords, is the sigh of gratitude when it's all over. Now that I can breathe and sing and taste lunch and hear and, well, breathe, every morsel is a little more savory and every sound a little more sonorous. Even waking up this morning before seven with a grumpy three year old was enjoyable. How'd that happen? It's on the other side of congestion I guess that easy breathing is most appreciated.

What I'm trying to say way too verbosely is that I'm grateful. Life is good. I missed being able to live it fully the last week.

Sometimes it may seem like I have a life of nothing but thought. All theory. All analyzation and theology and wrestling and questions. Not even close. This blog is about that side of my life certainly. But this blog is not my life. It can't be. It won't ever be. You wouldn't show up to read my life.

The part of life that makes me feel most alive, truly the bulk of life for me is the little stuff no one else would care to know about: the taste of my waffle in a new kind of syrup this morning, talking to neighbors about their jobs I didn't even know existed, flirting with my wife, cutting cheese sandwiches into shapes for my kids' lunch boxes, soy milk on sale at Kroger, a new face Penelope learned to make that resembles Elvis, the sound of a fart in the bathtub (bork!), assaulting a five year-old neighbor with a water gun from a hidden position in the trees, eating popsicles in a hammock, fixing a closet door, trying to remember with my wife what Erasure sang. This is real life. And today I'm thankful for it - for the little stuff that makes my life mine and worth waking up to.

So, these words from Garrison Keillor on how we need to stop whining and be honest about how good life can be for many of us in the West seem appropriate:

"Young people are pessimistic enough these days without their elders complaining about things. Shut up. Life is pretty good when you grow up. You own your own car, you go where you like, and you sing along with the radio or talk to yourself or chat on your cell phone. You pull into the drive-up window and order the Oreo Blizzard. What's not to like?

One day you get lucky and find someone who's willing to pay you to do something you do well or can fake, and on this you can build a life. You marry someone loving and sensible who makes you laugh, and you beget children, and go through the poop and puke and snot years, and somewhere around the age of 5 or 6, your kids start to fascinate you. There is nobody like them, except perhaps you. You would run into a burning building for them, and at the same time they're the cause of exquisite worry and consternation. At the age of 12, they look at you as if to say (START ITALICS) Your replacement has arrived. (END ITALICS)

Meanwhile, you march forward and sample the pleasures of life. You read history and learn to grill fish in beer batter and find comfortable shoes. You go to Rome. You go to Montana. You come to love baseball and old jazz and the art of conversation. You admit to yourself that you don't care for Walt Whitman or Proust or Henry James, and you forgive yourself for that and pick up Elmore Leonard and J.F. Powers. You discover the pleasure of discarding stuff. You find a hairstyle that suits you. You go back to Montana.

Eventually you cross the line into your forties, the mortgage years. And the fifties, when you stand weeping at graduations and weddings, and then, in the blink of an eye, come your sixties, and now you're on Easy Street. People who used to ignore you now treat you with reverence. There is great silence when you natter and pontificate, and people ask the secret of your success. You have become eminent. Inside you feel mischievous and jokey, but other people see you as a laureate, so you learn to harrumph."

Read the article in it's entirety here

Now, step away from the computer and do something no one else would care to read about: live.

(HT: AH).