Last Friday was the last day on the job at Roseville Area Schools. Strictly speaking, I am under contract through June 30th...but I have already fulfilled all of my required working days for the contract, so for all intents and purposes I am done. After a busy weekend of having Katie graduate, a little golf lesson with Martin, Katie's grad party, a quick colonoscopy, and...Boom...it's Tuesday morning and I have begun the process of working through the final checklist. So far this morning its mostly been cleaning up around the house to get things up to snuff, but I threw a couple of bags of books together and posted some chairs on Craig's list. After my morning post I'm off to close a bank account, arrange for mail to be forwarded, stopping by Half Price Books to see if they want my books, using up some gift cards at Golf Galaxy, and then off for a round of golf with Mitch...hopefully the sun will shine.
My goal and format for this site from here forward will be to post a picture and a thought each day. A little info about what's been going on, maybe a few pithy comments, definitely the height of literature.
For today, the picture is just Yoda in her usual spot with another grey day in the background. It was sunny this morning when I woke up, but by 7:30 the clouds were pretty much a blanket and now it's dripping sporadically. I would complain about the weather but that has become such a commonplace thing to do in MN this year that it's starting to sound like senseless whining. The sun will return someday.
Meanwhile, my thoughts for the day are sponsored by a selection from William Least that my father shared with me this spring. In it, Least observes the danger(?) in focusing too much on the there when considering the journey from here to there. He says
"Every journey begins with a here and lights out for a there; but to a traveler bent more on the there -- on destination -- a here often receives little exposition beyond a name; yet within every there and elsewhere and somewhere and anywhere hides a here."And for the moment, my here is here. When folks ask what I'm up to, what they mean is, "What is your there?" But really, to reflect and observe is to stay in the here. So for the next two weeks, while there will be a range of observations about spending time in the here getting ready to go there, the focus will be living in the here.
An observation about here: We are not so central to our world as we think. The response to an exit is quite far ranging, but really everyone lives within their own lives and are primarily responsive to the exigencies within. It is good to be missed and appreciated, but even better to be reminded that we are free to make a rather extraordinarily wide range of choices without consequence of life or death. There are exceptions, largely related to immediate family, but even there you can look about you and see instances where someone left, however suddenly, and the unit continues.
Tomorrow perhaps more about the current here. Right now my here is down at the bank and the post office. If you have a higher power, you could ask about the weather.
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