A Busy Week
Every day when I sit down to write, I ask myself what is going on that can make a good story. This exercise is not about just regurgitating the events of my life or the opinions I hold about the world events underway, or, for that matter, the recitation of the memories that come to mind that are fascinating to me because they revolve around my life. It so happens that I use all of those things, like any good writer might, to craft my stories, but the point is that I hunt for a story, not an opportunity to simply blather on. Now, some people who read my blog or know me think I am perfectly capable of blathering with the best of them, but I am a storyteller and while my definition of a good story could be questioned, I contend that there are stories all around us waiting to be picked like ripe fruit.
Tonight I am somewhat confused about what will be happening this week. It is actually a busy week in the world and on the hilltop and quite a mixed bag of activities at that. It’s less about the schedule of things I want to do and more about the things I will be able to do amongst the full panoply of things going on.
Today is my and Kim’s fifteenth anniversary. She tells me that in the old days it was an anniversary for which you received some sort of crystal, but in the current lore, one is supposed to receive a clock or watch for some reason. I wonder who the source authorities are for such things like what to give/get for a specific anniversary? I understand a silver, golden or platinum anniversary, but everything in between seems more like a Hallmark moment than anything more serious. Kim and I were married the day before Valentine’s Day for several reasons. To begin with, we had planned to try to get married on the top of the Empire State Building. It seems that on Valentine’s Day, the building lets 20-25 couples get married up there. One has to submit a one-page reason for why they are worthy of the honor. I figured with my writing skills I would get the job done. But it seems there were others with a more compelling story than mine, go figure.
So, the day before Valentines Day (February 13th, 2007) she and I went to City Hall in lower Manhattan and got hitched. We took an Uber to Rockefeller Center to go up to the Top of the Rock for lunch and some pictures with the Empire State Building in the near background. It’s like living in the valley if you like the view of the mountains. The view and the pictures from Top of the Rock are far better if you want a wedding shot of the Empire State Building, so it all worked out great. Our theme was King Kong meets Faye Wray, so the pictures played nicely to that. But with the benefit of fifteen years of perspective I am amazed that we had the calmness and strength of purpose to get married and celebrate that great event at a time of such turmoil in the world. That was a time of unprecedented personal as well as global turmoil.
Specifically, it all happened while the world was beginning its meltdown on the subprime mortgage crisis, which led eventually to the Great Recession of 2008. That was perhaps the most impactful economic phenomenon of my lifetime and some would say, the most important setback to the global economy since the Great Depression 80 years prior. As I sit here contemplating the wondrous events of our marriage that year fifteen years ago, I am reminded of those Herman Wouk books, especially The Winds of War, published in 1971 (the year I graduated high school and a full thirty years after Pearl Harbor). Wouk shows us in that book all the things that happened in the world that should have told us what devastation was about to come upon our world. It has always struck me as fascinating thought that all the signs were there and exactly why so much of the world chose to ignore or deny them. It is also not lost on me that Herman Wouk also wrote War and Remembrance in 1978, which looked back on WWII after the shooting had stopped. In theory, that is the best time to assess what went wrong and why we were so collectively oblivious to the events. These books are told through individual stories, which explains a great deal about why things happen as they do. Our life trajectories and events of the world can converge and become reinforced by one another or, as more often happens, they can go on and happen regardless of world events writ large.
That is the story I feel most in this moment. My life is on a certain path and that path, while influenced by world events is largely unchanged at this point due to age and circumstance. I have more of less finished my career and my family raising and am on the downslope of life in both good and less good ways. The good news is that I have a great deal of time and flexibility to pursue my own interests, including rectifying in some small ways, the failings or distractions of my youth. The bad news is that I am clearly less productive and impactful than I was in my more energetic and vigorous days. But the one thing I think I can now do better than I have ever been able to do before is to use my accumulated wisdom and experience as well as my newfound interest, perspective and thoughtfulness, to look beyond the little moments of my life and see the unfolding of a bigger picture.
On the micro level I am thinking about my week here on the hilltop. Tuesday is Stucco Day #2 on my Hobbit House construction and then Wednesday is my regular once-every-third-week visit from my gardener Joventino. I went to Home Depot yesterday and bought two things I can spend some time on whenever I get a chance. I bought some stain for the ceiling and beams. And I bought eight 90-pound concrete stepping stones to make a more stable path down to the Hobbit House (the existing sandstone steps aren’t cutting it). The staining has to be my job. The stepping stones can be my job or I can have Joventino do it. Just getting those 90-pounders down to the site could be my undoing, so I suspect Joventino will be my stepping stone guy.
Also, on Tuesday, I have my weekly massage. That may sound like an indulgent luxury, but my aches and pains would strongly disagree. I think of it as a necessary therapeutic activity if I choose to keep doing heavy manual labor like unloading 720 pounds of concrete today. Then in the evening I have to go to the airport to pick up our friend David, who is flying in to spend a few days with us. Normally Kim would do that, but she is attending the first rehearsal of her new singing group. I will play the good host to our friend David and take him for a late dinner at our favorite Bayside restaurant and then home.
What I’m hoping is that my cedar logs will arrive before the end of the week. I have everything I need to put them up and in place, but I suspect I will need a hand from Handy Brad. He will take me with his truck to pick them up at the shipping depot. I will need to ask him to help me get them down to the site, get them drilled and get them set.
But wait, beyond my little busy week, are we not also, as a world, on the verge of war? What would Herman Wouk say about me living my little day-to-day life while the Russians are mounting on the border of Ukraine and the larger world is divided by those fearing for liberal democracy and those wanting reactionary and authoritarian rule. I think I know what Wouk would say. From the perspective of his long 103 year life, he would say that we all live our lives in our time, day-by-day, and that the world turns and has its own busy week around us. Our collective little busy weeks are what make the global macro busy week merely the backdrop to the granularity of life.