Thoughts/Rivers
Rambling Through Forests of My Soul
Days flip by like pages in a book
Sleeping heart sighs for love that’s not around
Sculptured thoughts form, blunt edges chiseled fine
In the waking hours of morn there are no other sounds.
Through forests of my soul to the water I am drawn,
To watch the river roll neverending to the sea
And see that my own life is somewhat like this river,
Flowing towards the ocean that sets my spirit free.
(A poem I once wrote as a sailor out at sea).
As I awoke at 2 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep, for some reason this old poem I wrote in another lifetime came back to me. A couple of lines rang true — these days do flip by like pages in a book. My spirit often does feel like a river, continually flowing towards a much greater sea, which sets it free.
This is an ongoing process in my life today. When I first wrote this, it was more like a hope, a prayer, an intention. Today, it simply is. My life kind of flows like that.
During Covid times, it has all kind of flowed together. While I have left my house very little in the past 14 months, I’ve traveled all over the world, virtually. There are a dozen people I meet with, individually, weekly for an hour each. Five live in England, two live in Texas, four are here in Virginia, and one is in upstate New York. We meet virtually each time we get together, and we go over very intimate aspects of our lives. These are the people I sponsor in my 12 Step program.
I also have a sponsor, whom I meet with twice a week, for an hour each. In addition to these one-on-one meetings, I attend about 7 or 8 meetings a week, all virtually. I have spoken at meetings all over the world — Egypt, Iran, Aruba, Germany, Thailand, the Philippines, England, Ireland, Scotland, in addition to many different places in the United States.
I also work full-time, though I haven’t worked in my office in DC since March 12, 2020. That saves me 3 hours of commuting each day, which is part of how I find myself with so much more time to do other things.
One of the things I’ve found time to do is to play over a thousand games of baseball in the past year, with this game I loved as a kid, and love it just as much as an adult. It’s called Strat-O-Matic Baseball. It’s a cards and dice game, with cards based on the real-life statistics of every player on every team for any given season.
I started playing it again when the baseball season was delayed due to Covid — I need baseball in my life, in some form or fashion — and have found it a wonderful way to pass the time. I’ve replayed entire championship seasons for several teams I’ve followed in my lifetime. I’m currently replaying a non-championship season, 1966, for my childhood team, the Pittsburgh Pirates. That was the year I probably went to the most games in person, I’m sure I probably got out to at least 35 games that season. It’s fun replaying all those games, seeing the names of all my childhood heroes, as I play out the 9 inning drama that each game is on the field. I truly love it.
Part of what concerns me right now is, I feel like I’ve gotten into the business of “passing time.” While I enjoy my life each day, and enjoy how I spend my time — a part of me wonders, “are you really enjoying it, or are you just passing it?” For most of the quarantined times, it was about doing my best just to get through it. But, now that it appears that we’re through it, I’m finding I still like what I’ve been doing with all this time. I found a way to make the most of quarantine that has turned out to be a great way to live my life.
Don’t get me wrong — this isn’t what keeps me up at night. I think that might be drinking too much coffee. Every now and then, it sneaks up on me, and I need to dial it back a notch, and start drinking a different liquid after a certain time of day. I’m kind of there, right now.
Oh well, I just thought I’d come down here to my office and ramble until I got tired enough to fall back to sleep. It’s 3:00 a.m. now, and I think I can manage to do just that. I think this is the first piece I’ve written on here since March. Who knows when my next one will be? When the spirit moves me, I write. When it doesn’t — I do whatever it moves me to do.
