Life of Wry

I want to share a picture I ran across today.  It is one of those pictures that captures a human moment so fully and so faithfully that it just takes your breath away.  And makes you glad to be a human.  It also moved me to writing.. something I haven’t done in months.

First, this blissed out man is Bruce, and he is dancing with his oldest daughter Karina, who, of course, has just gotten married (I’m not at this wedding).  The mom, not pictured, is Julie, my childhood friend and neighbor. Julie and I haven’t seen each other but a few times since high school. She lived two doors down and, with Katy, the girl who lived in the house between us, we formed a regular threesome.  We were part of a larger pack of kids in a very kid-rich neighborhood a long, long time ago.  Julie’s father was an extremely kind man, and was the obstetrician who delivered me (and my three brothers) into the world. Julie and I have reconnected on Facebook, and yesterday she posted this picture, one of many from Karina’s wedding this summer.  When asked, she said it was ok for me to share.

Anyway, I saw the photo and thought it was moving.  So moving, tender, beautiful, and lovely.   And as I said, it prompted some thinking.

I’m thinking about how one lives life.  What’s good and right and important.  What are our wisdoms, how do we give to others, what do we contribute to the greater good, what do we leave behind.   At 54, they’re topics worth thinking about.  As someone who’s kind of retired, or maybe not, with a 12 year old son and a lot of healthy years ahead, people and actions and priorities are definitely on my mind.

I’ve had a lot of time to think in recent months.  A huge part of my summer was spent on a massive organizing project.. where, literally, every storage box in my possession, every drawer and every closet, was emptied and every item therein touched, stared at and resolved.  For one thing, it was a long, long trip down many memory lanes, and for another thing, the very fact I organized every (really, every) aspect of my life on earth, frees up so much psychic space, I’m just sitting here rattling around in my own liberation.

Whatever that means.

Really though, I’m going to write about this mother of all organizing projects because it was that monumental, that turning pointish, but for now I just need to say that besides clearing the decks in a profound and literal way, it afforded me a lot of think time, and I spent it on my past, present and future.

So along comes this photo.  And I’m looking at the expression on Julie’s husband’s face as he dances with his now married daughter.  There is so much there.. love, contentment, a certain peace.  It says tons about life: the love he has for his wife, the love they have for their three children, the love and kindness they are passing on to their children (the way Julie’s parents passed love and kindness on to their three children).  There is no doubt in my mind that Karina, and I don’t know her at all, will pass along those same kindnesses.. because that’s the way it works.  A child raised in a family of love will not go off and murder anyone.  She will not start any wars.  He will not, through anger and self-righteousness, commit horrible atrocities.  He probably won’t even be mean.

What if everybody were loved like this?  Wouldn’t we all be better off?  Wouldn’t the world?  Wouldn’t we nurture a finer peace and leave the world in safer, more sane, hands?

Couldn’t a lot of love go a long way?

I know.  Cue music.  Apologies to anyone reading this who knows me to be maybe more cynical and wry (that is the name of this blog, after all), or who knows I’m having a hard time with my own crazy anger these past few years.  I know this doesn’t really sound like me at all.

I’m just happy thinking it may all come down to love, and thinking that kindness is a worthy goal.

Because it’s just not that hard.