Put It In A Bottle

Our world of markers….school, work, life…we have attached markers to everything. We are more concerned about the marker than the path.

Said to the visitor: When did the plane arrive, how long did it take, how long was the uber ride, where are you staying, when are you leaving??  Maybe instead: I am so happy you are here, your being here has made my life better, we are lucky to experience the next few days together.

Getting away from the markers and embracing the experience should be the goal but we get distracted by the markers, maybe because the emotions are too hard to hold.

I don’t think I set out to have a large family but behold – I have one.   Big families are great but these  families eventually ( or maybe often) drift apart.  Not because we want them to, but then life  shows up and takes them away.  This is not a universal truth, however,  families with hi performing children tend to take that performance on the road.  Schools, relationships, jobs, desire, a wanderlust to take risk and be somewhere else that isn’t so comfortable.  Life gets in the way of keeping large families together.  I know such people but I am generally surprised to learn they have grown up and stayed in the same place.  Not to generalize, but I think it is more of an American thing than it is a European thing.  It is the case with my family as we stretch from San Francisco to London.   My parents lived in the same house for 75 years.  I moved away and never spent more than 5 years in the same house.  Like the markers I was suggesting earlier I am describing my family in those terms.   What is more important than this historical rendering is the emotion of my family which travels with me at all times and then….

Saturday

We were all together at the same time in the same place.  Although one could say this evening was a marker of sorts it was far more than that simple benchmark of being in the same place.  This was a magical evening where the world stopped for  a few moments. Everyone had done the heavy lifting of organizing, traveling, arranging and doing.  For those precious hours we were all together.  Sharing a meal at the same table, talking about nothing, and talking about everything. Whatever was the problem, the inconvenience, perhaps the disagreement, or whatever it was that life gives us daily was put on pause.  It was a moment to embrace, to treasure, to love and be loved.  No one was looking at their watch, worried about getting out of the parking lot. This group of family members, my family, were present and available to themselves and each other. It was the occasion of our being together as a family unit. We loved the moment and we love each other.

I appreciated and loved the moment and am thankful to be there but, to be honest, I so want to put it in a bottle so I could take a sip now and again.

I love you, Dad, aka, Fred