Graduating Class

Two weeks have raced along since I came home from surgery. Far from the shocked and wounded state I was told to expect, living on my couch with all the movies I had saved to watch, I have walked at least a mile every day, written and studied, and submitted my manuscript at long last for publication.



In love with life, poetry flows out of me.

Every step is a measure of the life I am taking back. Ideas pulse, my writing intensifies. The abundance of joy seems to have wrapped itself around me as warmly as the blankets of comfort in the hospital after the original fall 18 months ago.

A close friend who has witnessed the entire ordeal suggests I have been a little self-indulgent over this time, focused on the injury as the crux of my life, but in a positive context, allowing it to be the catalyst for a profound transformation. Were I of a different mind, she contends, I might have overcome discomfort and gotten back to work—even construction work—more quickly, solved my insurance problem with enough time to avoid the postponement of the surgery a year ago, and much sooner turned my walks into runs.

Instead, with the good fortune of my father’s help and this tube in my navel, I used this time to contemplate the foundations of my life, explore deepest desires, and do emotional work that was necessary to move away from a path that had been mediocre at best. More productive than my four years in an elitist college, I gave myself an education of the soul.

This week, my son graduated from high school, a potentially routine affair made marvelous by several profound speeches, one in particular by a young man I had coached as a little boy. Combined with my own strong steps through a transitional doorway, this lesson of a new generation tossing caps in celebration is a moving testament to the power we have within ourselves and the charge we get acting in concert with others.

The air pulses with lightening bolts of change. In the Sixties, with riots in the streets and division in every home, visions were idealistic and generalized where today they seem to be merging into focus. Resting on my bench, looking into my quiet yard, I know people on a mountainside in Oregon and a valley in France, even among the wreckage along the Japanese coast, are quietly working on many different ways toward a world of peace and emotional prosperity, abundance of the most important kind.

On the surface, the news is full of the chaos of greedy wars, senseless murders and glamorous entertainers living frivolously, but the simple majority are adapting towards mindfulness, smart cars, solar collectors and community gardens. The internet allows me to peek into corners all over the globe and reassure myself that there is far more about us that is good and exciting, inspirational.

In just a few years, I have witnessed concepts that were described as “woo-woo” behind a whispering hand become far more common place in conversation. More importantly, I see people more openly putting into practice the kind of lifestyles and shared resources some few only dreamed about forty years ago.

My experience in these long months, however dramatic, are both more and less than so many stories of individuals globally awakening, reaching inwards to deeper places than we have ever known and outwards to a universe that is kind, forgiving and full of love.

In our various ways, we are all throwing our caps high and with ever-growing confidence stepping into a new world without limits.

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