Waking up in the dark, for me, is always strange. Having to wake up in the dark - just torture. Not a morning person. Had to be at the office at 6 this morning. Felt surprisingly rested considering the preceding 12 hour workday. I'm at a satellite office for the company I work for. We've got a small manufacturing operation in Tucson, AZ. This is my first time to Tucson. Didn't get to see much. All work and no play...
It was nice to meet the folks at the Tucson office. They are a hard working, committed, bunch. I have been supporting their computers for 4 years now so I've spoken to most several times. One of the strange parts of my job is that I talk to a lot of people on the phone but only occasionally do I meet them. When I do meet them there is almost always a strange disconnect. I can not avoid assembling a picture of the people I talk to on the phone and when that picture doesn't jive with their actual person I feel that disconnect. It's nothing serious but it happens, that little internal dialogue, digesting the schism. I like it actually. It makes me feel good that people are out there being themselves.
I was there with one other guy from my office, one guy from another one of our offices and two consultants. We banged it out over the weekend and today we were just wrapping up loose ends. We wrapped up at 11 to make our 1:30 flight, hustled to the airport only to find that our flight was delayed. Well I had to wait at the airport for 3 hours before I got out on the first leg of my trip. Expected the worst. Me and my co-worker bellied up to the bar. We did a lot of that on this trip. I found out that my co-worker who I had been working with for over 2 years was not the person I thought he was either. Nice! He was out there being himself too! Fortunately our flight was only delayed by a half hour so we were on our way after two cocktails. Connected in Los Angeles and because of the delay was concerned about making my connection. I found out my last leg departed from the other side of the terminal. I hustled over there and as I was approaching my gate I saw a police officer standing in the middle of the hall looking very serious. I grew concerned. Then I saw he had a dog. Is that a bomb sniffing dog I thought? I got within about fifty feet and the odor hit me and the crowd parted in front of me. There it was. The officer was standing right next to it. A large pile of dog shit. And there was that German Shepard wagging its tail, tongue hanging out of its mouth, proud of what it had done. I laughed out loud. Dogs are so good at being themselves.
I was right on time for the flight home, got on the plane and opened the newspaper that the hotel had provided to me 12 hours earlier. Not quite sure what to make of the news. Not when I'm exhausted and riding a good gin buzz. I did notice that there are a lot of people out there who I read about. I have subjective pictures of those people too. I'm trying to understand why they are doing some of the things they are doing and it occurs to me that I don't know them so I can't really understand their behavior. That's disappointing. I get to an article about a guy who has won the Pulitzer Prize for literature. A drummer from a rock band! He transitioned to writing and won the Pulitzer Prize at, like, 48! And at the end of the article they list other Prize winners and I scan the list until I get to the end - Music: Violin Concerto - Jennifer Higdon. I know Jennifer Higdon! We went to music school together. We represented the composition department together on the dean's advisory board. I remember her as the quintessential sweet girl. Just a delight. She won the Pulitzer Prize! I guess I shouldn't be surprised since she was nominated for a Grammy a couple years ago. So there’s another moment. The internal dialogue reconciling my memory of Jennifer and her name in the newspaper in front me. That is vast. It had been 24 years since I last saw Jennifer. She had been out there being herself for all those revolutions. And I had been out there too, being myself during that time. Yet there was a thread. Those threads are everywhere. It almost seems that those threads make the fabric of life. They are so vital.
