Delight

I once heard Billy Joel interviewed and he said something re-occurs to me now and then. Mr. Joel said that sometimes, when he is alone, he sits down at the piano and delights in the fact that he gets to hear Billy Joel live, taking his requests.

Though it can read as though it was arrogance, at the time that statement stuck me like a small boy's exuberant daydreams come true. Many of us (males) have stood alone in the backyard weilding a bat and ball, but in our mind's eye we were at home plate in the bottom of the seventh inning of the World Series, bases loaded, two outs. We were not alone, but in the center of a hurricane of cheers, catcalls and whoops.

Sometimes, in the midst of the most mundane aspects of my life, I am struck that I am living a dream come true.

I grew up in what was then a small town in (whisper it!) Southern California. Hot and dusty, what grew there grew because people intended it to grow. If a patch of ground wasn't gardened or paved, it was dust and sand. The air was dry and brown.

I now live on an island in Puget Sound. At least once a week, while driving to catch a ferry to work or driving from the dock to my home, I find myself driving down an island road hedged on both sides by lush green that needs to be mowed back by the county, lest the road disappear. I look at the green, as my drive winds through a state park and remind myself that seeing this kind of scenery once meant I was on vacation. In some ways my daily life is like a vacation.

I look at my wife of 32+ years and think "I married my childhood sweetheart."

I look at my daughters and think, "How can women so beautiful and strong and true come from someone like me?"

Life in all its humdrum and disappointments is chock-a-block with delights.