Musing

today’s Musing written and published from south Calgary, near Fish Creek Park

11C/51F (high 15C), we walked the park ridge path, full stride, Gusta trailed, one yappy mongrel encounter, air still charged from last night’s thunderstorm, damp everywhere

DB and SS both celebrate today – dazzling delicious blondes from past chapters in my life, delightful friends; I wonder if they met if they might be alike, given same birthdays?

I got up when the phone rang - reality of dark, dank day had yet to confront me; this call was one I’d been waiting for – hoping for, traveling pretty butterfly set down near a phone long enough to call – pleasantries ensued, I did not hear what I had expected to hear about something I expected - someone I care for, perhaps more than I realized, handling something in a way I’d wish different, demonstrated an approach I find troubling, confusing, and disappointing; not about her letting me down in some way, involving a situation I know just enough about to be dangerous; denying my disappointment would not be wise or healthy, suppressed unmet expectations leak all over the place - they are very messy; this quote, profoundly accurate: ‘Disappointments are to the soul what the thunder-storm is to the air.’ – Friedrich von Schiller

I allowed my lack of understanding of dynamics of others to be internalized as a statement of ‘how someone was treating me’; I was, in an instant, disappointed; the replay in slo-mo indicates I had a knee-jerk reaction; the trick, I am learning, is not to avoid dealing with or accepting disappointment – it doesn’t need to be logical or valid in anyone else’s view to be real for me; my reaction is one (‘I get to choose how I react to what happens to me’ – Viktor Frankl) I can choose; to be sad, disappointed; I had expectations - not in anticipation of words of sentiment but of some actions which, it turns out, were not taken; was this really about my disappointment in what someone else has done/not done or was it disappointment in how I feel about something that impacts me?

I cannot do anything to alter anything I have no influence over; I can however, view it from a few different angles - the world has not ended, no one broke a bone or fell to the ground, no one dropped a hail-Mary pass; I fumbled the ball in a conversation I’d like to do-over; whether I did damage to a relationship is undetermined; I would like for it to be a blip of ‘increasing understanding’ but I cannot control anyone but me and, of course, my knee

now watch the next play here - on the slo-mo camera; here he goes, man in e-motion, going to have a good day - not going to let a fumble behind the line of scrimmage get him down - 2nd down, 18 to go; do you ever watch football telecasts? that is when where
some long retired athlete with a pencil 'breaks down the play'; this intrigues me; I know enough about the game to know a linebacker from a tight-end, a blitz from a reverse, but sometimes nuances of cause and effect are hard to follow - having diagram and slo-mo is helpful, but, in life or on the football field, nothing happens in slo-mo

Mark Kolke
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