survival and an old dog learning new tricks

“Go back?” he thought. “No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!” So up he got, and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all of a patter and a pitter.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

(my new neighbor is NOT a dog / Julie Cook / 2022)

Often when we reach a certain age in life…
an age where there is more life on the backside rather than what’s
on the front side, we have the tendency to become rather complacent.
We cling to the notion of ‘been there, done that’…in that we think we’ve pretty
much done, seen and experienced most everything that there is to experience.

We settle in while making ourselves comfortable.
We become glibly set in our ways of both coming and going.

Status quo seems to be the name of the game and if it’s not hurting, broken
or missing, all is well.

And then suddenly, out of nowhere, a seismic shift is felt…life happens.

Apple carts are upset.
Everything is turned upside down.
The norm is anything but
while we are suddenly left with a foreboding sense of trepidation.

And that’s when it happens.

That innate prewired sense of fight or flight kicks in.

It’s a better learn quick moment vs the consequence of ‘or else’…
The ‘or else’ situation is where one is left with the results of either surviving
or dying.

I think most of us are prewired for survival.
It’s in our nature…or so it seems.
Or at least it is in mine.

Now don’t get me wrong.
There have been, and continue being, plenty of days when I could readily pull
the covers over my head…
Nay, prefer to pull said covers!
All the while yearning never to emerge from bed…this as the thought of getting up
to face yet another day of the unknown, the painful, the troubling
leaves me weak-kneed, nauseated and flat out scared.

The tears come and go like fickled summer showers..popping up
when least expected or wanted.

And like those unexpected showers, they quickly come and go.

So as I begin to push my way through this thicket of the unknown.
I find myself charting new waters or rather waters I’d thought had been charted
and finished long ago.

So whoever really said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks might
never have known that some old dogs simply need to learn those new tricks
in order to survive.

Here’s to surviving while moving forward…

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect,
but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.
Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own.
But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward
to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward
call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:12-14

what was is certainly not now…

“. . .Looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them.”
L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

(the Hamilton-Phinizy-Segrest House, aka The Phi Mu House / Athens, Ga )

Perhaps a more appropriate title might read, 250 S. Milledge, Room 5 where are you?

So let's talk about living suddenly in a Twilight Zone…

A now surreal place where you thought you knew what was what..but now,
that what, is no longer what you thought.

It was a daily part of your own small world and it seemed bigger than life…
it was larger than anything you had known…because you had become it,
and it had become you and you both belonged together, becoming a quasi one.
Whatever that one might be.

But that was multiple lifetimes ago.

You were young and very foolish.

Fast forward 40 years along an odd spectrum of time,
and you suddenly find yourself no longer recognizing any of
the what that was.

There are a few glimpses here and there which are fleeting
all the while your brain races and rages in an attempt
to right the topsy turvy twist of time.

That building, that street, that park.

You are a compartmentalized thinking individual.
Mis en place, mis en place…as in… everything has its place.

Every place and every person has long been pegged for a certain
time and space…
and yet you never imagined that two time periods would, or could,
ever overlap.
Or maybe better yet, they have collided.

An odd continuum of time is simply circling back around.
But can a continuum actually bend?
Does it not simply travel straight?
Time does not, cannot split right?

Driving up and down roads whose names are familiar, you
find yourself looking for those familiar faces from
all those many years prior.

40 years ago, you lived in a pre-civil war home.
You lived in that house 120 years following its
original inception.
Yours was room 5.

Green and pink was a theme.
Your personal room's veranda was nothing but a window sill.
It looked out over a small patch of grass with a lone oak tree.

If you are really still, you might be able to hear music
whispering on the wind…

It was a time for both romanticism and foolishness…
contingent only upon one's age and experience.

And now when the two collide, both the what was and the what is,
it is a surreal mix of regret, expectation, remorse
and hope.

And isn't that what our lives are all about…
the what was, the now and the what will be?

If we are fortunate, blessed with longevity and health,
clear of mind and vision…
we may have the luxury of merging our what was
with our what will be.

But there is never any given guarantee.

If we have regrets, so be it.
The fact of the matter is that it is more important to have hope…

Regret lives in the what was.
Like rustling lifeless fallen dried leaves
blowing helplessly in the wind.

Wonder lives in the now.
A freshly opened flower…yet its beauty is shortly lived.

Hope, on the other hand, lives for the what will be.
An endless sea of possibilities.
No matter the time or age.

Glance back if you must, but don't stare too long…
the what will be might just run off without you.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect,
but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.
Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own.
But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward
to what lies ahead,
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God
in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:12-14

You are who you are

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
― George Bernard Shaw

Some days we simply wonder what’s the point of it all. . .

Some days we just feel lonely and dejected. . .

Some days we need to learn to go with the flow. . .

Some days we need to pause, reflect, wait and consider the circumstances before we act and react. . .

And some days, we must simply square our shoulders, hold our heads up high and march forward with determination and purpose especially when we feel more like staying in the bed with the shades drawn and the covers pulled up over our heads. . .

(Seagulls at Watercolor, Florida / Julie Cook / 2014)

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
(Philippians 3:12-14 NIV)