Time is but a Blink of the Mind's Eye

 Hey Salem, if you’re reading my blog I hope you start here because this is the best part.  This is around the time when you came into my life. 

 

I stumbled on this old photo I took when I was in the Peace Corps about 15 years ago.  It’s nice to look at a number and watch it grow over time, you’ll understand that someday.  But this blog is not intended for nostalgia anymore, in fact it is something I wish to use to look forward.  I am writing this very entry on the day before I went back to school to become a teacher again.   

These moments in my life are sometimes stamped on my body, typically in tattoos.  A long time ago I had certain glyphs from the early people of Mexico tattooed on my back and I had it done to celebrate my decision to become a teacher.  Time would pass and I’d long enjoy the completeness I felt in my profession but some events happened in my life that took me off course, yet I cannot write those words and feel honest about them as I know now where that course has led me upon today.   I had to cover that tattoo to make way for a larger one (fun fact: you’re in there) and it happened around the time I thought I had ended my career as a teacher.  Well, that has changed now and I’ll begin my Master’s tomorrow fresh with a healing glyph upon my left forearm. 

This special Sunday feels perfect.  Your mom is so beautiful.  Your grandparents love you and you’ll see them today.  Sometimes I look at you and I feel ‘forever’ in the same way that you look up to the silence of God’s mystery and feel comfort and stillness in the idea of ‘forever’.  I’m so proud of you and I can’t wait to meet the beautiful young man you’ll become. 

Please tell me which is better as my curious mind has never resolved, to inspire or to be inspired?  Are they not a balance like all things?  Does the 38-year-old child who authors this blog ever satisfy himself with answers to pointless questions like this?  Personally, I feel a whirlwind of both these days.  Something like ten months have passed since our planet became infected with a horrible virus that has managed to stack very high brick walls between our family and friends.  These were isolating times and often people saw this as an opportunity to soul search, I myself included.  I am beginning to see the future through a slightly more focused periscope and it scared me to have had such uncertainty about how things might have unfolded.  In the past I was kinda crazy, I still am. 

So, this is my commitment.  I have about two years of a program and I’d like to check in weekly with at most one photo to share with you and whatever thoughts pass through this curious mind might reach the ears of others who know what I’m feeling.  This is my path to get back into the world while managing to keep part of myself here with those whom I love.  It’s a challenge and it seems extraordinary to society but I’m going to write for us a very different path and I hope you all love it.

Samoa, 2006