TAKES A YEAR TO REMEMBER A DAY

This time last year I was unexpectedly hospitalized, fighting off an infection that within just a few hours was capable of shutting my system down. Unable to walk myself, a friend carried me in to an emergency room. I ended up being admitted and stayed for almost a week. I remember watching the snow fall out the window during my recovery, a window which was overlooking a park on 2nd ave, from a $ 500 dollar a night 'out of pocket' room that I had begged for in order to insure my escape from what I feel is one of the worst hospitals in NYC, Beth Israel. You've been warned.

This was a timely week to remember that life is too short...

Window with a view, January 23, 2011

and so a year has past...

Watching a pristine blanket of snow cover the city this past Friday night I thought to myself everything is exactly how it's supposed to be, at least for now. Seeing, learning, unlearning and remembering that the responsibility of my 'gardening' will last more than my lifetime and there's work to do.


I come back to the below passage over and over again, it always sets me back on the right path...

...from Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury 

“When I was a boy my grandfather died. He was a very kind man who had a lot of love to give the world. He made toys for us and he did a million things in his lifetime; he was always busy with his hands. And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn’t crying for him at all, but for all the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the backyard or play the violin the way he did, or tell jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped and there was no one to do them just the way he did. He was individual. Often I think what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world? The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.

Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, a child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched in some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die. So when people look at that tree or the flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn’t matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts the lawns and a real gardener is in the touching. The lawn cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”

My favorite window with a view January 2012, Photosynth App