Yesterday morning I spoke with a man who navigates our current human systems like a boss. He was bluff and big-voiced; a talker more than a listener. He was very sure of himself though he had not (in his own words,) “done his due diligence.” Despite his lack of knowledge on the particulars of my inquiry, he knew the system surrounding it, indeed, he represents it, and he made it clear that the system held no room for the dream that has been forming quietly within me. The man politely (almost-patiently, and with just a bit of condescension) schooled me in the ways even our own small community works now. It was … educational. Basically, what it came down to is this: you must be already wealthy and an established player to be considered.
At one point when the man took a breath after telling me he “would be looking for some history” along with supporting documentation, I told him, “I have a history, a whole life of experience, though I understand it is not the kind of history you are looking for,” he had the grace to pause (maybe he was just speechless) and I heard him exhale. I thanked him for his time and I ended the call. Not the dream, just the call.
It came to me afterwards that I have become a human-relic: a bit of the past living on into the present. I’m uncomfortable with the word “relic,” especially in its medieval Roman Catholic sense of mummified body-parts, but it is the word that came to me. Maybe a better word is time-traveler. I guess we all become time-travelers if we are privileged to grow old. We elders all bring our lived and storied pasts into the present, into reach of younger people whose futures still seem endless to them. What we are relics of, what meaning we bring to the present, depends upon the lives we have lived, how we have lived them, and what legacy we are making. Some time-travelers bring bitterness, some carry hope; some lock themselves into boxes and gated communities, others grow expansive of heart and spirit. We get to choose what kind of time-traveller we are.
I hold many stories now. Even at my age, I am gestating a new dream. I am making gardens with my love. There is a seedling from the Tree of Life rooting in my soul, spreading its branches out into time and space. As a brother and honored teacher has said, “I may not get there … , but I have seen the promised land.” I am coming to understand that it is the promise part of that phrase that holds the future, that renews us and gives us life, the promise that is worth living into, living for, and trusting in.
Mystery always keeps its promises.
Courage my dears. Trust in what is good. Love one another.
Interesting on several levels. First, I am curious about what this new dream of your is. Second, navigating "how things are done these days" is quite the challenge. I feel it in education where using technology with kids is the new way and I come off as old at best, not having a growth mindset at worst when I want to teach human to human, the way I always did. Now I am experiencing it even as I try to build my business. I was shocked when my retired SCORE mentor suggested I need an Instagram business page. And when I told him I don't feel I get Instagram as well as I get Facebook, he suggested I ask chatGpt how to use it to market my business. My SCORE mentor is at least a decade older than me, and he's suggesting Instagram and chatGpt? These are different times.