January 31, 2023

HS25 - TOAST Hello in There

In a of couple weeks, I’ll have made another trip round the sun. What did I learn this time?
 
I’ve only just begun, in the most recent years, to feel any older than I did at 18 or 20 or 25. It was as if a dark secret revealed itself when my father died in 2020: I was no longer young. I aged immediately. It caught me by surprise that, in the binary and sudden moment of his passing, in my tussle with world-shattering loss, I would arrive as a grown up, finally. (I think.)
 
And now, with each new year, I take stock with a sharpened focus of what I'm doing with my time. What is worth spending time doing? Who is worth spending time with? How much time is left?
 
And as we all know: Time is a revelator.
 
What my meditations have revealed to me lately: I’d like to slow it down.  

Time has been trying, over and over again, to convince me (and rightfully so) that family and friendship are the bedrocks of time well spent. All they require: love, forgiveness, and laughter. Why is this so simple and yet so difficult to continually manifest in our daily lives?!
 
I recently visited an old friend for his birthday. His family had gathered with friends spanning 40 years, and I haven’t laughed so hard in forever. Our stories are a little different these days. Everyone has seen a few things, gone through it a bit, gotten older, struggled, survived, started over…and now, in ways individual to each of us, is grappling with how the story unfolds in the later acts.
 
Speaking of friendship, our dear friend Sam is also celebrating another trip around the sun this coming month. So I thought we might share a song that Tommy and I recorded shortly after one of Sam’s favorite artists of all time passed away—the one and only Mr. John Prine, American treasure.  Hello in there, Sam.
 
Old rivers grow wilder every day. 
 
Yours,
 
JR