Musing

[written and published from Calgary]

-1C/30F, overcast, temp dropping; what would have been a nice morning shower become sleety, Gusta oblivious to ice vs. wet on the path or my change of pace - stopping only to visit with her black lab pal Holly; owners and I have never exchanged names, we chat 'dog' when when our pooches sniff each other, play minimal - Holly, much older, all played out

my new wheels spun up to Red Deer yesterday afternoon, Gusta loves her big new window to hang her head out of; missed DB, a drink & market catch-up with DM (thanks very much for the sketch) and home again before sun set; hunkered down with lots of work today, some reading too, lots of calls to make . . but some can wait

“To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be have tried it.” – Herman Melville

maybe the reason I do this Musing is not thematic at all, just my alternative to pricey therapy; maybe the reason I look is so you can see, maybe the reason I look is so you can see me trip, fall flat, be silly, be exposed, have great joys and deep sorrows, have light flings and heavy heart stopping epiphanies, maybe I just do this because I can and because you want to look over my shoulder or maybe because you are all played out, and I am not

my life’s pursuits – my children, my work, my writing, my experiences – have much purpose, many tangents and facets yet undiscovered, but what is the ‘grande theme’ here as Herman Melville exhorts; if my life were a book, would it be Archie comic or Moby Dick, pamphlet thick or encyclopedic; if my life is MY great work . . . what is it’s great theme; if your life is your great work, what is your theme?

when you look in the mirror every morning, noon or night – what do you see; do you see eyelashes, a chin and terrain between your ears . . or do you see into your body, down to your belly, around the back and out the other end; do you see the physical you, the guttural you or the real you; not the ‘out to the party’ you, not the ‘I want to look nice today’ you, but the bare naked soul and essence of you?

I do for me; a little give, a little take, a little sweat, a little laugh, a little exhausted temporarily, but never played out

I can't take a bite out of life for you - that's your job; I take a bite for me - some days like a well planned speech or a short story . . a strong beginning, a tumultuous middle, a clear, serene and meaningful end; some days grasping to catch a little piece of something before it slips away

I can't be generous to those who need you - that's your job; I'll spread what I can to those who matter most to me - a startling read in the morning, a sleepy one at night - or perfect little afternoon delight

I can’t be smart about your life – that’s your job; I’ll continue to struggle with mine and tell those I can what I’ve learned

isn’t that it – isn’t that what it is all about?

some days I do for others, some days I do for others I don’t even know, some days I do for the tax man, some days I do for posterity but most days . . I think I am not alone in this . . I do for me

I do for me; hard to say, almost as hard to write - my critic will call me self-centred or self-absorbed, my mother would have scolded me for my thoughts, my my there’s a nerve struck; my friends would smile, my fans would applaud politely; skeptics will smile and say ‘of course, he’s a Leo’

today will never happen again, the chances we miss will never come again, the experiences we could have today will be lost; like sleep we never catch up what we missed . . we get our equilibrium back but we never recover the time we could have spent doing something new, interesting and life-altering . . we never get it back; we can postpone the activity but we cannot retrieve the time - it's been played out

if my life were a book . . I would want it to be read by those who know great books, by those who care to learn from the mistakes others make, by those who might find the nerve to do some things they lacked the nerve to do because they saw that I had the nerve to try something I was afraid of

my grande theme may not be a great lasting metaphor as Moby was to Melville (the author, not the town in Saskatchewan named for him), but it will be defining

it will be as defining for me as mine is for you; or is the grande theme of all our lives . . ‘life is as grande as it gets, that’s the theme’

Melville wrote his words on theme a long time ago in a world that has since changed greatly, I muse here in a world that will change many-fold that in the next 10 or 15 years - I think the search for grandness of theme for me, for all of us, ought to be focused on simplicity more than the grandiose, clarity more than size, impact more than the size of the splash

my life is no metaphor, my life is me

we are all grande themes, waiting to be unveiled - not as Melville conceived in terms of 'a grande theme for a piece you write' but for the lives we live

I believe everyone has moments when a sense of purpose seems absent, when one more week on the treadmill feels unbearable, when another minute or hour does not make sense when we feel so strongly that it ought to because we are pouring so much of our energy into it; when we step back a mile or two or two thousand . . when we see ourselves through the lens of another viewer we can have a much greater sense of our true value and our yet untapped worth; we have done so much; there is so much more to do

if I take bold steps sometimes, or if you do, that means toes get stepped on once in a while; if we move forward with some flourish we are certain to make mistakes, to hurt some feelings, to create some anguish and burn the occasional bridge or two . . which, in my view, is far far better than to sit on sidelines waiting for life or prince charming or a bolt of lightning to strike you

because I can, because I am my mighty theme

I am being played out

Mark Kolke
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