Life's Dreams

Some Years Down the Road

This post is speculation about the future, something I think that I might do someday. My daydream, if you will. Right now, it's some years down the road - if ever.

I turned 78 in March 2018.

Here are some thoughts currently living in my imagination.

As I imagine myself, I have just turned 80 and three of my grandchildren are in college, in New England. The daydream is that I am in a window seat on a Northbound Amtrak train out of NY, headed for Boston. The whole way up I'm trying to decide if this late in life venture is true destiny, the icing on the cake of a life, now all but completed, or if it will be the nadir, a final testimony for a life of silly errors. I so much want the former but fear the latter. As I listen to the sound of the rolling cars, I try to keep two thoughts in my mind - one thought has been around for forty years the other for half of that.

Update, March 2021

The Covid19 Pandemic hit, in earnest, a year ago. Despite that hardship the three college-age grand kids did make it to New England colleges: Mike and Anna were both recruited for ice hockey by Amherst College and Brown University respectively. Emma got into her dream school, Boston University, but the pandemic upended her plans, and she finished the semester Studying remotely from her NJ home. Spring 2021: Anna is on the Brown campus, Mike is remote, currently in CA but headed to a "hockey house" in SC, with Amherst teammates. Weird. 

Update 2022: Mike at Amherst, Anna at Brown, Emma at Salve Regina U. in Newport, RI, Eddie enrolled at Boston College in Fall '22. Johnny, 17, still at home in high school.  Me, happily living in my daughter Ashley's sun-porch.

(update: 2024, I am 84 in March, four grandchildren are still in New England colleges. Johnny, is a HS senior)   

As for the two thoughts in my mind, mentioned above: The first, older thought, from Thomas Merton, is this: “The love of God seeks you in every situation.” This sentence has stayed with me through the years. It struck me because it suggested that to seek the ever elusive Love of God involved trying to consciously notice every situation, every person, not for what they think of me, or how they affect me, but to see myself, and all of those people, without distraction, as children, of God. Thinking that way seemed true - and doable. Somehow I could sow the priority of kindness into the everyday events of my conscious life, into every situation, and that kindness would be triggered by each person I met. 

Or so I thought.

I glance up the aisle between the rows of seats for possible signs. Nothing yet.

The other thought, more recent, moved me as well. It is from Gore Vidal, as follows: “Without knowing precisely, I have long sought and tried to create, a life of a proper human scale. In my repertoire it went by other names. Mostly I called it community, meaning closeness to both nature and other people. I would add, also a closeness to God which indicated at least some space and time for reflection.”

Would this venture lead me to either the love of God or community? Preferably both. 

It was eight years ago that I hit on what I thought was a brilliant idea. I would sell my house in the New Jersey suburbs and move to a cozy, in-town apartment in the college town that my first grandchild had chosen (Amherst MA). I would take courses, join the college gym, attend sporting events, and spend my days writing in the library.

And my nights? 

True, nights would be the challenge for an eighty year old male of limited means in a new town. But I would meet the challenge. I would comb the city for friends and attend senior events after dark. I could do it. I would force myself to enter the unfamiliar, discomforting world of senior activities – to find community and – dare I say it? - God.

Perhaps I should retract that, the bit about finding God. Why? Because “finding God,” if there is such a thing, would not depend on one’s location. At least not the God that I imagine. So, if you’re looking for God, I'd say, go for it now – wherever you are, don’t wait until you get to Boston.

Nevertheless, my one true sentence, here and now, boils down to: Finding God. I’m not exactly sure what that means.

If I have a blessing that might indicate the words of God - something that I believe and something that appears to be universal, it is this: my mind has found it fit to believe in the maxim, “Do unto others.” Just a small caveat: “believe in” is not always the same as “live by.”

So, I believe that I should live by the words “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  

At times, yes, but the rest of life, my eighty years of experience is consumed with everyday petty emotions that seem, to always be present and to automatically grab my attention.

What can I say? Only that I’m trying - or think I am.

Meanwhile, it’s off to Boston.

Seriously? Probably not.

It is my dream however, a house in New England. It’s just that I always seem to be about $400,000 short.

Epilogue: OK, not going to Boston. One might have guessed as much. 

And ... consequently, won’t be buying a home there. Instead, I sold my New Jersey condo and moved into the sun-porch in my daughter’s NJ home (dimensions 8' X 13'). Therefore, I've subtracted a home rather than adding one. But the good news is, the important part of the dream, finding God / Do unto others: if that is at all possible, one can do it in New Jersey and it doesn’t require $400K.