Jackelopette's Blog

Quomodo iubebo valere?

Had a marvelous evening. Out on the town, St. Paddy’s Day, with Kyle and Alan and Shelley and Carole. “Fantastic” conversation and wanderings up and down the party-infested State Street with the snow falling down and everyone in their warm coats and me in my Patagonia wind-proof Thing.

I know for everyone else Patagonia is The Outdoor Label but for me it’s just what I’ve got clogging my closet. Not a bad thing – just not what everyone else is wearing. Yeah, it’s that old “I’m not quite fitting in” fear. Begone! I banish thee!

Cur eos occurro et mox debeo relinquere?

It’s bittersweet, meeting wonderful personalities and interacting with them, conversing for hours and staying up far too late, then a few seconds later you must say goodbye and accept that you’ll never meet again as the same people. Even if you’re lucky enough to run into one another again, the magic of the snowfall and the sparkling wits and wines of thought never quite taste the same.

Describing scent – tasting snow as it falls through the city streetlights, laughing and losing track of time, eating Wisconsin ice cream and watching Carole make a snow angel on a dare, telling stories when I am far more comfortable speaking through my typing fingers…

then saying goodbye and wishing there were more time to say all the things you wish to say. All the unfinished sentences, half-articulated thoughts, the stories I have lurking in my head that will be told quite right.

And the moment’s gone.

And you go to sleep waiting for tomorrow, because tomorrow will be a new experience and a new chance to meet and know and allow the ripples to rock your little raft just a bit. Just enough to wake you up and show you a new sunrise.

This is why I go to these events, these meetings.
I go for the charge – for charge in all its myriad meanings.
For the metaphors – snowfall in streetlights is a new image I’ll hold in my mind. And the smiling company surrounding me.
For the memories.
For the love and passion – and no, I ain’t talkin’ Romance-of-the-Month club covers – for the passion that suffuses the people that do it.
For the safety net.
For the recovery.
For everything that this community of mentors and friends and youth and adults and leaders has given me.
For what I want to give back.
For the change I wish to be in the world.

~ by jackelopette on March 17, 2005.

Posted in 4-H, Friends, Ramblings, Travel