Reflections (of my Life's work)

There is a story about the singer Harry Nilsson picking up the famous song writer Jimmy Webb one night for a ride. Nilsson was very sick and knew that he wasn't going to be alive much longer. As he drove, he popped tapes into the cassette player ... one after the other. Some had been hits and others were things that Webb had never heard. This went on for a couple of hours. Few words were spoken. "Well," Nilsson finally concluded as the car pulled up to Webb's house, "that's it. My life's work." It was the last time the two spoke. This is a different Nilsson from the one known for the way he partied. "Harry spent his entire life in pursuit of a a good party and he caught it," says Eric Idle of Monty Python fame, "and it caught him in the end." He was a man of extremes. At the end, it wasn't all of the good times he'd experienced that mattered ... it was what he was leaving behind. He became fiercely devoted to his children and his wife, leaving them love notes, playing with them without ceasing, appreciating what he had. And there was the music. Nilsson never followed rules ... he's the only rock star to have never performed live ... and he recorded an album of standards 25 years before anyone else thought to do so ... and he did this at the height of his popularity when the company wanted to keep doing what he had been doing. You can see why I like him. I was very struck by his struggle to share his Life's Work with his friend before he died. I wonder about my life's work. I've done a lot, been most places I've wanted to go, and have boxes of stuff documenting achievements. I am fiercely devoted to my children and delight in the ways they are making their ways in the world. I have friends sprinkled around the world and a very tight collection here on Tybee Island which is where I've always wanted to live. There are eight books on Library shelves so my name will still be around when I'm not. For the most part, I look backwards with pride. At the same time, "I am changing, rearranging, changing everything, ah everything around me" as the old song goes (Reflections of my Life). Sarah and I are redoing the house. A little gay dog runs around my feet while my aging Goddess sleepily watches him. Three little girls have freaking "Justin Bieber" posters hanging inside but they ask me the most interesting questions. I am still in pursuit of a good party but no longer care if I catch it or not. I still enjoy being on center stage, doing television interviews, and writing but ... love the solitude of the Beloved Back Deck more, rarely turn the television on and they don't have to be books anymore. The highlight of my day is when Sarah gets up. I am very much in a reflective period in my life. For whatever reason, God has blessed with with this time. I like to think I earned it but it could be that She just likes me and it's a blessing that I don't deserve but have anyway. I'm young and feisty, always on the lookout for the new stuff, yet have mountains of experiences and have amassed enough to keep doing what I'm doing (at least for a while longer). I am humbled and thankful for this time ... but frightened and apprehensive about how to keep going. Sometimes it is hard to focus on enjoying the present when you know there is more to do. But I am determined. It's all been great so far. Now is blissfully wonderful. Tomorrow is going to be much better.