"Why is it that whenever I can't reach you, I always imagine that you are doing something far more fun than talking to me?" asked the famous Dr. Jim Withers in the voice mail message.
I missed his call because I was having a long deep conversation. We weren't laughing but the talk was heartfelt about the future and how it can't arrive quickly enough. Isn't that the funny thing about the future? It never arrives on time. "The face on my watch just says NOW," sings Jimmy Buffett and man is he right, though you still have to plan for what's coming.
The thing about the future is you have to live it now ... and it arrives in increments. "Inch by inch, row by row, we're gonna make this garden grow," Arlo Guthrie teaches ... cause "we are made of dreams and bones."
Jim left me a message about the future too. He's got several futures looming in front of him. He's been commissioned to write his memoirs, we've launched a new company that'll eventually work at full time, his youngest child will soon leave for college, and he'd just finished doing an interview with "Books & Beyond" which will air on Thanksgiving Day. Oh yeah, and he's teaching at a Medical School and doing Street Medicine in the meantime.
I was struck by the thought that it is a wonderful thing to be living my life with a group of friends who are all managing away from their pasts, navigating out of the waters of the present as we collectively sail into the future. Jim and I talk throughout the week thanks to the miracles of technology though he's in Pittsburgh and I'm on Tybee Island.
Then I got a text message from Cheryl. Another from Dedra. I was with John and Judy earlier. We are all talking about the future. Sam and I had a talk about his and Cheslea's looming wedding. Kristen and Sterling are trying to plan dinner for Sarah and I. Jeremy and Marie want us to come down to Valdosta. Samuel Adams who plays damn good live music on Tybee is after me to preach at Bar Church again.
I want to go to the French West Indies ... and am planning for it whenever it happens but ... I am quite content and happy with this carnival of friends and the love that fills me.
Then my Mom calls and there are these trunk loads of books, awards, mementos and gifts that I have stored at her house from my Jeff Street and Union Mission days. They are the past. I would just as soon ignore them but she won't let me.
"Get them the hell out of here," was her sentiment.
The thing is I have no place to put them.
My present is full.
But the future ... I'm just waiting on the sails to fill ... then I'm there ... Now.
