Last night I was over at the Sherfeys’ house – we were settled in with our laptops and books and their two Boxers, having eaten one of the “Healthiest Meals On Earth,” enjoying a nice Shiraz as we meandered between chatting, working, reading, watching Duke beat Virginia Tech, and snorting at Shannon’s creative basketball-commentator lingo.
Out of nowhere, Josh pointed his finger at me and said, “I have a problem with those photos you posted on Facebook, your so-called ‘2008 Retrospective.’” ”Yes?” “Yes. First of all, I’m not in really any of the photos. And second of all, that was fun stuff, and I wasn’t there, and that’s a major problem.”
Shannon took that opportunity to remind him, “That’s because you decided to go back to SCHOOOOOL.”
Josh said, “No, seriously. Why wasn’t I there for any of this? You guys have a thing against friends or something?”
Of course not, but it got me thinking about the events of 2008 that went undocumented – the times nobody thinks to bring out a camera. Like helping them move. Like shopping for antiques, and bumping down the mountain in my ’85 pickup hoping the furniture withstands the trip. Like playing Rock Band, enjoying their two awesome parties, pruning shrubs, ripping up linoleum, exchanging recipes, and drinking wine together. And not to mention the spontaneous visits to the Tap Room, Drips, the Artist’s Cafe, Jason’s Deli, Chopstix, and that manic waitress at Carrabba’s.
And the hundreds of hours Matt and I have spent working on the house-flip, filthy and cranky but never failing to do the “oOo oOo!” part of that Black Eyed Peas song, and Houdini the Cat finally regrowing his fur after five surgeries, and my dad’s first blue ribbon in oil painting, and mom’s crowded exhibit at the Art Crawl, and deciding to get in touch with people who could tell me stories about my brother John, and being amazed at what I learned, and owning a business, and painting mandalas, and sitting up late on Christmas Eve talking with lifelong friends, and dealing with ‘porcupine head’ as my mysteriously fallen hair grows back, and twilight walks, and the day my neighbor pounded on my door and yelled, “I’ve lost my three-legged dog!!”, and the fear and excitement of leaving behind a successful career to pursue a more creative and authentic life, and the joy at taking off my watch, once and for all.
Only once in my life, I had a New Year in which I felt that not much had happened or changed, that I was “stuck.” That year, I resolved that would never happen again. Way too much of 2008 was spent NOT doing fun stuff, and 2009 resolves to improve on that, but it’s impossible to look around and not see progress, and life is good.
Not to be defeated, Josh said, “Yes, but you never chat on Facebook.”
And Shannon said, “Whoa, that one came from downtown.”
She was talking about Singler’s three-pointer, and we all laughed and shifted our debate to whether it’s better to have one path in life or many, whether Crash the Boxer is – or is not – actually smiling, whether or not the concept of Enlightenment is doomed due to its rejection of Aristotelian teleology, and whether or not the addition of brownies to the “Healthiest Meal on Earth” negates the synergistic power of the ingredients.
Then we had brownies.
