michaelboy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
michaelboy) wrote2025-07-20 08:22 pm
michaelboy) wrote2025-07-20 08:22 pm
The Switch from Sails to Steam*
I was 46 when Marie passed away in 2003 and now I'm creeping up razor close to 70. The time leading into my forties seemed forever expansive and extensive. Now, in an eye-blink, I'm what most consider elderly. What the heck happened?
I had a 40 year career as a mining engineer and IT manager which readily paid the bills, and allowed me to save some as well. Now I'm a $13/hr marina employee, hospice volunteer, hospital ER volunteer, and litter picker-upper. The former means little to me now, other than it gave me a basis to do more of what I love.
The great discovery was coming to the realization that the thing that truly satisfies and rewards is finding different ways to help and striving to be kind to others. It just took a damn long time to figure it out -- and now I have just a very limited time to do so.
Find a way to serve someone because of, you know..time. Hopefully when we are gone, a newer life might be inspired to do the same for others. One of the most precious things to remember about a person was their capacity, willingness and action to be kind. It lasts beyond lifetimes.
It's all good.
*Originally a Jimmy Buffet song, but Dave Mathews, Jack Johnson and Tim Reynolds perform a cover version of "A Pirate looks at Forty" that is an interesting testament to missed opportunities and aging.
I had a 40 year career as a mining engineer and IT manager which readily paid the bills, and allowed me to save some as well. Now I'm a $13/hr marina employee, hospice volunteer, hospital ER volunteer, and litter picker-upper. The former means little to me now, other than it gave me a basis to do more of what I love.
The great discovery was coming to the realization that the thing that truly satisfies and rewards is finding different ways to help and striving to be kind to others. It just took a damn long time to figure it out -- and now I have just a very limited time to do so.
Find a way to serve someone because of, you know..time. Hopefully when we are gone, a newer life might be inspired to do the same for others. One of the most precious things to remember about a person was their capacity, willingness and action to be kind. It lasts beyond lifetimes.
It's all good.
*Originally a Jimmy Buffet song, but Dave Mathews, Jack Johnson and Tim Reynolds perform a cover version of "A Pirate looks at Forty" that is an interesting testament to missed opportunities and aging.
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Kindness
by
Edgar Guest
One never knows
How far a word of kindness goes;
One never sees
How far a smile of friendship flees.
Down, through the years,
The deed forgotten reappears.
One kindly word
The souls of many here has stirred.
Man goes his way
And tells with every passing day,
Until life's end:
"Once unto me he played the friend."
We cannot say
What lips are praising us to-day.
We cannot tell
Whose prayers ask God to guard us well.
But kindness lives
Beyond the memory of him who gives.
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And I went in expecting to be disappointed.
My father-in-law reminded me of Jimmy Buffet. Which fact my partner told me not to share with him -- evidently Papa Ed was not a Jimmy fan. Or maybe just didn't take to the comparison? Mid sixties, umkempt beach bum aesthetic (while he was living in Florida at anyrate,) warm and kind and disarming... easy-going but philosophical,... not just a surfer, you know, someone who rode low and knew how to batten down... the son of a son of a sailor...
At 46 myself just lately, and with a math teacher's understanding of exponential growth: yeah that flow of time just keeps accelerating. Which makes us essentially peers. Maybe all of us -- it just takes some few of those rough waters and strong winds to realize it.