Friday, July 18, 2008

mr toad's wild ride!

Or, in other words, my past 6 months.


Co-teaching two new courses, synagogue interim board member, starting a part-time job as Bastyr's "university catalyst," intense relational processes and spiritual practices, training in the Art of Hosting and Medicine Without Form, transitioning clinic practice partners and taking on a new associate, our older son's high school graduation and younger son's bar mitzvah (which also meant parties and walks and long conversations with two dozen family members who lovingly came from all over the country) ...oh, and my mate was in Vietnam right in the middle of it all with his eight-graders, for 3-1/2 weeks.

At one point, driving to work, I glanced over to look in the mirror and was startled to see that my son was still in the car (snoring peacefully) because I had totally forgotten to drop him off at school first (and he wasn't in the back, he was right next to me in the passenger seat). I am very happy that I only came close, and did not actually, misplace anyone or burn the house down.

So, while I have been online a lot, it's mostly been for email and Google Doc-ing and researching, and I've done almost no blog reading, commenting, or writing. (I am afraid to look at my Bloglines page, and am tempted to just delete it all and start over.) But now that it is summer and so many of the plates I was spinning are happy back on their shelves (or else broken on the ground and swept up) I'm exploring online life again and am playing with Twitter and Facebook.

And am reading Peter Block's book, Community: The Structure of Belonging. And getting ready to go to San Francisco for the Worldwide Open Space on Open Space, and to visit my mom and friends in Marin, next week. And thinking about how to spend my 50th birthday in a couple of weeks.

"`I wonder,' he said to himself presently, `I wonder if this sort of car starts easily?'

"Next moment, hardly knowing how it came about, he found he had hold of the handle and was turning it. As the familiar sound broke forth, the old passion seized on Toad and completely mastered him, body and soul. As if in a dream he found himself, somehow, seated in the driver's seat; as if in a dream, he pulled the lever and swung the car round the yard and out through the archway; and, as if in a dream, all sense of right and wrong, all fear of obvious consequences, seemed temporarily suspended. He increased his pace, and as the car devoured the street and leapt forth on the high road through the open country, he was only conscious that he was Toad once more, Toad at his best and highest, Toad the terror, the traffic-queller, the Lord of the lone trail, before whom all must give way or be smitten into nothingness and everlasting night. He chanted as he flew, and the car responded with sonorous drone; the miles were eaten up under him as he sped he knew not whither, fulfilling his instincts, living his hour, reckless of what might come to him."

Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

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