I’m not sure I’ve ever done this before, but I’m going to start this blog off with a brief excerpt from one that was written two months ago, back in the days all of us appeared to be so, well - damned innocent…
Of course, I was appreciative of how the universe seemed to be smiling in my direction in this unusual way. And what could this friendly and positive omen possibly mean? Perhaps this was the encouragement I needed to know my knee would soon be all right again. Or that my upcoming NYC obligations - that never-ending lawsuit, our annual co-op shareholder meeting, my bartending jobs, getting my apartment back in order - were all going to end well. Or that - yes, Kamala Harris was definitely going to breeze her way to the White House by winning ALL of the battleground states, which has been my prediction for some time now. The world was destined to once again be all right…
The omen I was describing was when a playful little monarch butterfly happened to land on my forearm while I was sitting on a bench in Cooperstown, NY, waiting for my brothers to return from a nearby store. And in reading this upbeat interpretation now, I’m amazed how I didn’t include the dream of my Yankees roaring to victory in the upcoming World Series. I was fairly confident this was going to happen as well…
But…
The Yankees did NOT win.
My knee surgery occurred on November 8th, and the very next day my surgeon called with the news that the damage had been much more severe than anticipated. My knee might someday be all right again, as wishfully predicted, but it won’t be “soon” and “knee replacement” might be a topic I’ll be blogging about next.
Those NYC obligations did not turn out to be the slam dunks I’d envisioned. Forward movement continues to be, like my knee, painfully slow.
And as for Kamala Harris breezing her way to the White House by winning ALL of the battleground states, well… Not quite…
Was this simply an example of my butterfly friend lying to me? I’ve lived long enough to know one can’t always trust the good vibes generated by a newfound beautiful neighbor…
I’ll save ruminations of the consequences of such a horrendous election night decision by slightly less than 50% of We-the-People for another blog. Maybe. But for now…
Well, I’m just a bit unaccustomed to being SO WRONG about so many things! It’s been said - though I doubt proven - that one of the first signs of insanity is when a man begins to doubt the things he absolutely knows to be true. There are many of us feeling a bit crazy these days. Maybe that’s just us catching up to the rest of the world?…
Years ago I remember a close friend giving me a guarantee that his candidate John McCain would beat mine, Barrack Obama. My good friend has always been loathe to admit he’s ever wrong and I waited the appropriate amount of time before asking him if perhaps, in this one instance, he was. He paused for only a moment before answering. “No!” he exclaimed. “It’s not MY fault that the voters don’t know what they’re doing!”
Myself, I’m not prepared to play such perverse judo with linguistics and reality. I WAS wrong. And maybe even more so than my peers, because I was incredibly confident in the outcome. I simply couldn’t fathom how so many people could reward an individual who clearly does not deserve accolades of any kind. And I truly thought Kamala Harris - and Joe Biden! - did a wonderful job.
But I also thought Aaron Judge was going to bust out of his post-season slump with a vengeance and lead his team to the championship…
Yes… I’ve been getting things wrong lately…
But my aforementioned blog closed with yet another way to interpret what seemed to be a positive omen at the time:
Or, maybe, this was simply a reminder to appreciate each little surprising moment that occasionally graces our lives in the least expected way.
OK - this line I’ll stand by as being correct. This is still a nice way to go through life. I’m not wrong in this one instance.
And who knows… Maybe the Yankees will win next year. Maybe at least a portion of half of the country will come to its senses someday. Maybe we’ll emerge from all of this unscathed.
At some point, we’ll dare to grace our minds with the beauty of positive thinking again.
Hopefully being wrong is one of the unavoidable mis-steps we make on the road to making things right.
Let’s see!
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