Vastness

I've always prided myself on keeping perspective about life's problems. I guess it's a gift I inherited from my Mom, who let most things roll off her back, duck-like, and it only increased after the Summer of 1982, when my Dad died in my arms. I remember a year later, when my classmates at UM Law were fretting about posted grades, I walked around thinking Hey --we're alive, and young, and healthy. We're all going to get jobs someday, somehow. What's the point of treating a C in Contracts like a cancer diagnosis? Of course, as life got more complicated, and I had children, the perspective thing changed. Now I was responsible for others, not just myself, and the anxiety about being a man, and taking care of my family increased. Even now, that the Ds are grown, the proper perspective sometimes suffers -- small problems seem big, soluble issues seem daunting. Yesterday was filled with annoyances at the office -- cases handled poorly, answers not forthcoming. I found myself obsessed with the negative. I heard from a close friend about another nasty thing -- she was insulted again, as she had been many times, by a person who takes joy in putting others down. It weighed me down, too... And then I came home from a dinner with friends, and went out back, and put to use my favorite possession -- my fire pit. It was cool but not cold, and I got a roaring one going. I love lighting fires because it brings out the primitive in me -- I imagine I'm an ancient man, in the woods, sitting next to a fire, to keep the wolves at bay. And then I looked up into a clear, star filled sky, or at least as star filled as the lights of Miami allow one to see. And I reflected on the obvious -- being truly less than a speck in the cosmos. I never met my paternal grandfather, and barely knew my maternal one. I'm sure their lives had some drama -- events and issues that seemed so huge to them at the time, and now they're long gone, and my one connection to them, my parents, are long gone, too. And so it is for the billions who lived before -- what -- at most 20 years after their deaths, they're essentially forgotten, unless they achieve some type of fame. Most pass anonymously into the reaches of time. By the turn of the next century, 84 years from now, it'll be as if I never even lived. If I'm blessed with grandkids, hopefully they'll still be on the planet, maybe they'll talk a bit to THEIR kids about the tribe of us who lived in Pinecrest back in '16, but by the next generation, that'll be it. Just bits of stardust and starlight, or atoms in the ocean. So the perspective MUST be kept...like Arthur Miller wrote that attention must be paid. And if you don't get the clear message that life is to be savored, and regrets simply become meaningless in a few short years after you die, and fear to live, and savor, and really walk through that great buffet line of existence, picking and choosing the best of the spread...well, than it's truly a shame. I need to spend more and more time by the fire at night. I bought plenty of firewood, and the temps the coming evenings are forecast to be cool and cold. I look forward to it.