A
friend of mine was fond of the phrase, “If you want to start an argument,
you’re going to have to change the subject”. I suppose this is a classic
way of saying that there is nothing that you can say when you can’t take issue
with the obvious. Today, I found myself in that situation.
Several
years ago, I set out to document some of the meaningful memories of my life and
tried to tell them in a way that others might enjoy and keep at least some
significant portions of truth in the telling. For some reason, I
stopped. I told myself that I wasn’t inspired or that I couldn’t find a
subject that I really wanted to write about. The truth is that I probably
just didn’t want to make the effort or that other priorities in my life came
before the writing. It just didn’t seem important.
Today,
I had a wonderful experience! An epiphany, if you will. On a whim,
I called a friend from my childhood to thank her for a kindness that she had
honored me with and we proceeded to have a marvelous conversation. We
talked about things in our developmental years. Our parents and the
influence that they had on us. Our church…both past and current and the roles
it played in determining what we were to become and who we are today. We
spoke of our children. And their children. We probably could have
gone on for hours. I know I could have.
And
then the bomb dropped. She asked why I had stopped writing. After a
couple of lame attempts to justify my actions (in this case, inactions), it
dawned on me that every thing that we had been chatting about was actually
fertile ground that just needed to be turned and planted. (place comments
regarding organic fertilizer here at your peril). So I promised her that
I would make the attempt without committing to a specific schedule.
There
was a line in the movie, Dirty Dancing that said, “When I’m wrong, I say I was
wrong”. And I was. Thanks, Sherry.
