Is it true that all's well that ends well? And what exactly does ending well mean? Not dying by torture or being eaten by a pack of wolves? On one level, I get that saying. If things work out in the end, then whatever horrible things you go through to get there are okay and not worth gnashing your teeth about. But on another level, sometimes things can get quite awful before they get better, and maybe a little teeth gnashing is in order. Or yelling. Or screaming and crying and not change your clothes for a week. Maybe it should be "all's well that ends well after an arduous journey with lots of soul searching, questioning, not being sure if any of this existence is even real, angst, sorrow, joy, love, friends, music, art, and joy." Might be too long. But accurate.
So, of late I've taken a deep dive into being in the moment, of trying to be where I am at, as opposed to being a day or week or year in the future. Too many unknowns. And there always are, but that fact has been clarified these past few... what? Days? Weeks? Months? Time really has changed. The world has changed. I've changed. There are a few things in my life that have changed me in gigantic ways. In no specific order: getting into theatre; writing my first play which launched my whole writing life; meeting Lisa; 9/11; going sober; finding my father in Alaska after so many years; the death of my father nine years later; the death of my mother. Those are all pretty big things. Huge. And they kicked the shit out of me. But this past time frame, which should have it's own name, like "Covidspan", has mixed things up more than all of those other things, I think. My concept of time, of life, of death, of worry, of authority, of what I find important- it's all changed. Like those other events, there was the me before, and the me after. And there is no meeting of the two. When things change, for me anyway, they change completely.
And I like the changes. I like being in the moment. I like how much more I appreciate the time I spend with people. I like feeling connected to the world, to my wife, to nature, to the music I hear, the movies I watch, the scripts I write. For me, it's been clarifying. I know many people are bored, tired, angsty, over it. And I get that. I do. I just think the standard tools we've all been using to pass the time have been tested, and for the most part found lacking. They don't fill the void. They don't bring joy. Not the kind I need, anyway. Don't get me wrong. I love tv and video games and news shows and all that jazz. It just doesn't serve me well in this time of upheaval, of protests and panic and hospitals full and economic insecurity. Or serve me as well as a long talk with an old friend does. Or planting flowers. Or taking a four hour hike in the Rockies with my wife. These are things I should have been doing, but managed to let slip by as I worried about ephemeral nonsense.
I say a variation on the above almost daily. I write about it on this blog often. And it's true. And I love it. I know things are rough. Things are terrible in a lot of ways. We have almost a thousand people dying of Covid everyday here in America, but tons of people are in extreme denial, gathering in large crowds, and no doubt setting the stage for a second deadly wave to crash across the continent. There have been protests nighty springing from the most recent spate of insane police killing innocent people for no reason but the color of their skin. And we have a would-be dictator in the most powerful position in the world. Things suck. Even so, I love this life. I find it worth fighting for. Worth living for. Worth it.
I find it to be well. Here's a song. It's This Time Tomorrow by The Kinks.
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