Reflections...

June 7th, 2008 at 08:05pm Mitch Mulhall 171

I can almost remember the song on the radio…

… and the model of Toyota sports car I rented in Palm Springs. I drove through shallow valleys, smokey hillsides, navigated crowded freeways and sudden brake lights. I saw signs to places I’d never heard of, some I had: San Bernadino, Sam Dimas, Pasadena, Glendale, Encino… I turned left on Ventura Boulevard and right when I came to the Pacific Ocean…

When I got to Pepperdine, I stepped out of the sports car and stared out onto the Pacific. A pale gray haze blurred the blue of both the sea and the cloudless sky. It wasn’t merely an absence of Mt. Sopris. Hell, I’d learned to deal with looking at the flatness of West Texas. No, it was a gut feeling. I walked around campus for about twenty minutes and drove away without attending the Law School interview I’d traveled so far for.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no regrets. I’m quite pleased by the life brought on by the choices I made as a younger man. Still, I can’t help but wonder what my life might be like had I made different choices—even the ones that were purely incidental. I can tell you this with certainty: had I made any one of those decisions differently, I would not be writing this tonight...

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. If Hubris drives the desire to leave a legacy, humility provides the satisfaction of watching a legacy come to pass without ceremony, celebration, or fanfare, of feeling a life lived well, despite itself…

Cheers,

Entry Filed under: Music, Glenwood Springs, Spirituality