La Maison ou j'ai grandi......

It is 12:41 on Monday the 13th of January and I am at my desk writing in the attic of my lovely Vermont home as I listen to an old 45 playing of "La maison ou j'ai grandi" by Francoise Hardy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EONsnSBd0SA It is one of my favorite songs of all time and has had such different meanings for me during my life. Basically she sings of being a child with friends living in a wonderful house and place but her parents are moving them to Paris. She sings of her friends, the neighborhood, the rose garden, etc she once knew and enjoyed. She sings of how she returns older, and all has changed, everything is gone replaced by new people and places and things. The song first reminded me of my early years in Nicaragua, living in my grandparent's huge home as I rode around it on my 'Big Wheel', surrounded by a flock of cousins, 11 in all. A whole brood of family. It reminded me or the loss of the house in the 1972 earthquake which hit Managua on the 23'rd of December. It also, reminded me of the subsequent loss of that 'family' environment or 'cocoon'. We were all so close and then 'poof' scattered by the wind to lead different separate lives than those we all thought we would have. Francoise moved to Paris, I moved (or went back to the city I was born in), San Francisco. Human history stepped in an scattered me and my cousins to different worlds, never to intersect or 'reconnect'. The promise of family unity a dream after the earthquake, the communist take over of Nicaragua in 1979, and the death of my grandparents altered the shape and mold of life those 11 kids were to have. This life replaced by a new one, with other people to fill in the gaps left behind by the family members who did not fill the roles intended for them. Instead I have been blessed to have other people step in and help me form the life I have and build the memories upon which my identity rests, like a pillow supporting my head. I have mourned that old life for maybe a bit too much but then don't you miss that which you liked the most? Now in my mid forties I stand at a new precipice needing to take that leap of faith, yet held back by of all things lack of faith? Well no not a lack, but a "hey why do I have to do the faith thing again, can't it just work out?" kind of thing. Oh well....not my call I guess. I am finally home again..at least so I hope. After my accident all I have craved has been a return to normalcy, a request for the mundane. I rejoice in the simple everyday being...the Buddhist 'mindfulness' of the moment. We live life in moments, not minutes, not hours so why do we not live in the moment? Why do we not push back on that bloody voice that reminds you of the past or guesses at the future rather than focus on the present? We are funny creatures and fill our lives with silly things. Each one of us, king or queen of our own 'folly'. Every now and then you step out of yourself and look inward from the outside and ask yourself...really? What was I thinking? As the song plays again (yes I put it on again), I look out of the dormer at the rays of sunlight falling on a bucolic collection of snow covered New England homes and consider myself so very lucky to be in Vermont.