Count Your Blessings - even the ones that are still available...

I saw a San Francisco Bay Area pilot friend pop up today on Facebook while I was reading online.  He was at our local airport, with another pilot I used to fly with (in jets occasionally!).  I called and reached him on his cell phone.  They flew here in a small privately owned jet to pick up and relocate to Kansas a smaller airplane that had been previously positioned here for service.  Here for too short a time for me to run out and visit, my friend departed in the smaller airplane, followed by the jet they arrived in, then after dropping off the small plane in Kansas, they presumably flew home to Northern California together.  

 

It was sort of ironic that this incident would happen today, as this very day I was intent on trying to be more content (at least for a while) with life as it exists here (for now).  So what if a primary  activity over several days is picking up sticks off the lawn, blown down from the sickly old tree in the back yard before I get around to mowing (eventually).  Or the sad fact the around eleven in the morning, I noticed his Facebook location post less than a minute after it appeared.

 

I used to fly trips with both of these guys - around California, Sun Valley, Idaho, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, etc.  Now I ride my bicycle to and from the gym, trying hard not to be depressed by the un-scenic repetitious route or unwelcome audio and video stimulus foisted on patrons at the health club.  And that's a highlight of my routine - gets me off my butt in front of the screen for minimal exercise.   

  

 I used to be a pretty good pilot.  I obtained the highest certificate available - Airline Transport - and had most of the advanced instructor ratings.  People respected me and I had many satisfying professional relationships.  Some of my associates and clients became close and lasting friends.

 

Prior to that, I had a long and mostly gratifying career as a photographer.  After working for others as an employee and learning the trade for a while, I built and operated my own studio and darkroom, and did a lot of assignment photography for diverse clients. 

 

 

During my time in aviation we bought a house on the East side of the San Francisco Bay that I liked very much, and did a number of things to make it better and more enjoyable.  Had a couple of great dogs there, and chickens that had names.  People came to visit.

 

While still in California, I began a career in information technology after tapering off then ending my eight years of  flying adventure.  It eventually paid well, and slowly I dug my way out of debt accumulated from the previous two fun but low-income careers and started saving aggressively for retirement.  It was during the boom times in the dot-com era.  Woo-hoo.

 

I began as a rather ignorant self-taught tech support assistant at a small company, then ascended over the next eight years of tech career to become a competent and respected senior engineer at a fast-growing company with global presence.  We had a margarita machine for special occasions, and occasional beery company meetings on Fridays.  I left after we were acquired by an East Coast tech giant, and I felt disrespected.  My inflated salary and platinum benefits were not sufficient.

 

Now I pick up sticks in the back yard, and ride my bike to the gym and the market.  I look at Facebook, and mismanage finances online.  I read a lot of disheartening news and weird things of questionable value from the vast Internet, but never seem to get caught up with the growing piles of books around the house that are supposed to offer useful insight or knowledge.  Most of my remaining friendships are tenuously maintained via email or social networking, and occasional phone calls. 


Occasionally I paint a respectable picture, and have developed decent skills over these long six years in Colorado as an artist.  The paintings are beginning to stack up on the floor against the baseboard in an extra bedroom, because the walls have no more space for hanging.  Hardly anyone ever sees them, unless I post photos online.  I say it doesn't matter what people think of them, or even if they are seen, but the truth is I crave feedback and recognition.  I don't know what I will do with them all eventually, which adds to my hesitation to create more.  I went to a art show in town once, at a gallery featuring a very talented, accomplished, and prolific painter friend.  He had stacks of beautiful work around the room that wouldn't fit on the walls.  No one was buying anything, and he wondered aloud what he would ever do with all this work.  He just wanted it all to go away somehow.  He did not seem very satisfied with his accomplishments as an artist, although they were considerable.
 

 

After picking up sticks and clumps of leaves for a while this afternoon, I noted the little 'Count your Blessings' etched rock given to me by a friend from California, lying on the garden bench where the Buddha rests.   I know I should be grateful for the ability to walk outside and bend over to pick up those sticks, feeling the warm breeze on my face.  But the counting often seems dominated by blessings that now seem out of reach, enjoyable only as memories.  If it is a blessing that life is seemingly easy now, the low quality is not so much.  I believe the message is that making an effort to be grateful is supposed to be therapeutic.  Look, there are more sticks to pick up!  As for hoping that there will once again be purposeful activity to engage in, I'm not sure whether such hope is a blessing or curse - so remote do the possibilities seem.  I seem to recall a Buddhist recommendation not to indulge in either hope or fear, in pursuit of a balanced life.

I ended this day with a trip to Old Town for weekly a Spanish conversation practice I participate in occasionally.  Old Town this time of year (any time actually, but especially in the Spring) is impossibly cute and charming.

 

I usually enjoy a walk through Old Town Square, the heart of Fort Collins downtown.  There are so many people out enjoying their surroundings, and there is no doubt that this is one the finest downtowns of any small American city.  Many of its features provided a model for Disneyland's old-timey Main Street.  But at times my discouragement over lack of purpose and absence of fulfillment here leaves me feeling like a curious specimen long removed from its natural environments and locked away in the stale dark airless interior of  an ornate and precious jewel box.