Alphas, Omegas, and the Stuff in Between

A few weeks ago on a Friday, I met a young man who irons his paper money without explanation or apology. The next morning, I watched a cobweb spinner slowly descend from the kitchen cabinet on a single silken strand and come to rest near a splash of water on the counter, fold its long legs inward like the metal frame of a market canopy and take a drink.

Two unrelated firsts at my age (having just rounded the corner on a milestone birthday easily divisible by ten) giving further evidence that simply waking up is a worthy endeavor and, as my hospice work has taught me, a privilege denied to many. With wonders like these waiting for me in the dawn’s early light, I don’t even use an alarm clock anymore.

I also don’t intentionally pursue such moments; they just cut across my path and I notice them deeply for as long as it takes to gather the data and process it through filters that include humor, curiosity and precious little judgment. I’ll be the first to tell anyone that I’m late to most parties (ask me when I started using Facebook or tapping my feet to One Direction’s music…well past their launch dates, I assure you) and tend toward wonder that masquerades too often as ignorance, but I know the difference and will argue for it when given the chance. A long-winded description of simply being open, but there it is.

So fast forward to last Sunday, when a dear friend from my early adolescence paid us a visit all the way from South Carolina—my first boyfriend at the tender age of thirteen, and we’ve stayed in touch all these decades—and here he is, sitting in an antique chair across from Patrick, my current and last boyfriend, sharing stories about being restaurant managers. It was a relaxed and easy exchange, as if they’d grown up together on the same street and played kickball after school. Without effort, their conversation never wandered into the arena of what else they both had in common (and I was sitting right there, hard to miss) except for a few quick playful comments when Patrick offered a cup of coffee and my friend responded wryly, “should I drink it?” In the two or so hours that followed, I both participated and observed, finding a place to perch in my memories that covered the ground between thirteen and sixty. Playing guitar at all-school masses in the gymnasium, heading off to college and registering a slight twinge of homesickness as my parents’ station wagon disappeared around the corner of the dormitory where they’d dropped me off, navigating other relationships with a good heart and a good dose of naivete, riding my bike to my job at the health food store across town, becoming a preacher, teacher and bookbinder, learning to make scones, raise goats and drive a zero-turn mower. It all fit neatly in between the alpha and omega of these two cherished men in my living room, with so much more waiting to be called up and remembered. Whuff…the richness of one life touched by two more. I can barely wrap my head around it.

I suppose that’s one of the tasks of growing older, remembering where we’ve been, how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go before we get to What’s Next. I’m up for it, truly, and understand the risk of putting too soft an edge on those times that brought me to my knees. But if I fell down seven, I got up eight and fist-pumped my way to the next lesson a bit smarter (I hope—all evidence to the good, so far). These days, I find myself comfortably going to those mind-attic places, unpacking the dusty boxes and trunks of my life lived so far, and holding the contents to my chest in reverence, gratitude and love. I’m still here. I still get to collect such treasures. I am so, so lucky. It’s the refrain of my days, a soundtrack that never gets old (even as I do). And I’m not ready to start tracking “lasts” yet. Of course, anything I do as the earth rotates could be the last of its kind but I don’t want to sit in that swamp of thoughts just now. It’s rarely helpful and puts rather a damper on the party.

Here’s to the firsts still to come, to the lasts that lie safe in our hearts and all the unheralded moments in between that feed us. What a banquet, my friends. What a feast.