prompt- desperate gamble
There are calculated risks where, for good or ill, you can recover and go on. But a gamble is a binary proposition. It works, or you lose all.
Oh, let’s not go there.
In our civilized life, a gamble is figurative, really, not the end of the world if you lose. But still binary, but the stakes are figurative, not literal. I was in a toastmasters club, one of scores in our city. If a guest expressed interest in the idea, I would say that I tell everybody to try out two other clubs. That way joining my favourite club would me an informed decision. To join without trying any other clubs was a gamble that ours is the best fit for you, but you can’t know that.
My club was odd. While other clubs shook hands, we did hugs for hello and goodby. Guests appreciated it when I asked, “Do you hug?” Someone told me her husband was so glad I only gave him a handshake. Our club was more likely to talk about spiritual energy than energy from a hydrogen cell. On the night of 9/11 the others gathered after the meeting, without me, to send messages of love and peace to Arabia. My club wasn’t a good fit for certain others. No place for cynics and sophisticates and extreme capitalists and people who smirk and trolls and the ones with tight eyes to allow a delay before feeling an honest reaction. No, we were wide eyed.
My club included lots who composted, two who drove a Prius, and one who hiked the pilgrim trail in Spain. I’m surprised that two of us knew the young man who was killed in action in Afghanistan. One of my joys in life is camouflaging in among other people, and it was not until many years that I started telling my tofu friends about my early life.
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prompt– words left unsaid
One often reads of people regretting words left unsaid. I don’t what to say to that. Sure, it’s rough… Actually I still daydream about angry words unsaid to my dear mother. But by the time I might have said them I judged she was too old to hear. Besides, better to clear up my side of the street first. Yes, but my side took a long, long time, far longer than I had dreamed it would
Mainly, though, the way I avoid regrets is to live life as a fractal. Or as essayist Annie Dillard (from memory) said, “How we spend our days, of course, is how we spend our years.” When I see people I say what is appropriate and naturally on my mind at that time. That’s all. And of course there is the classic advice that I don’t need to talk if I can, you know, grow up, and not need validation from relatives. They are in a separate world from real life, as separate as the world of people in a social media echo chamber.
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prompt- all things connect
They say all things connect. This must be a most consoling idea if you are facing a mid-life crises in meaning. We are all just a few degrees from Kevin Bacon, or anyone else influencing the world, enjoying the world, watching the human scene passing by; we are connected to the butterfly flapping wings in the amazon, the river running to the sea, and the oceans eternal.
What’s weird is if you leave Fort Lauderdale, lose sight of land, return, and there’s a bunch of pilgrims in black on the shore, waving hello. We are connected to eternity but we live in a finite world.
People connect. In my latest alumni magazine is an article nothing to do with radio, by a radio DJ I knew. That magazine often features stories by a lady I knew from a lounge who ran for student office once. I once met a man from Oxford for breakfast in London, now he’s in New Zealand and wanted to know about my class in creative nonfiction with Ali. It was Ali who I went to one day, in the next room, when the man gave me his private cell phone number. I was touched, because he is so rich and famous, so of course I never gave out his number. No, I won’t call him from New Zealand, as he said it’s a long way to go; and it’s better to explore the pacific northwest: Much the same climate and human geography.
Connections: In London I met a couple who had been to the same prairie festivals, in Edmonton and Calgary, as I had. I used their camera as they unfolded a Rough Riders flag on the London Bridge. Near the tower of London, as I waited for our walking tour to start, I talked with the only other two people waiting. They were both Doctor Who fans, so that’s what we talked about. Then our tour guide showed up: A pretty young mother wearing Doctor Who earrings, of the blue Tardis type. So besides Jack the :Ripper, we talked of the good doctor. Say, my spell check put Tardis having a capital letter. It’s in my computer’s ROM Oxford dictionary. Ha!
A young lady in Pinoka was excited to see my Tardis wallet. She bowed to me after I took time to tell her about The Who Shop with a museum that you enter through phone box: It’s larger on the inside! Full of BBC props donated for charity.
The smartest thing I ever did, among other things, was visit Central London because there are so many references to it.
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Sean Crawford
Where the Stampeders compete with the Rough Riders,
November
2021
