Month: September 2021

The summer of ’21 has been over for a few days and I’m still looking back at it with melancholy regret.  In particular, I’m thinking about my 6 ½ week vacation from teaching.  There were plenty of plans made and in truth, very few happened.  Things I wrote out to accomplish collected dust and will have to wait.

Some of what was on my ‘To Do’ list included-

Start eating healthier and exercise more.  I did this in little spurts followed by days of gluttony and laziness.  Mission not even really started, let alone progressing.

Keep up my yard and get it in good shape.  My neighbor’s kid cuts my lawn (because allergies to fresh mown grass have stopped me from doing so) the grass looked O.K. but all the plants and weeds that surround my lawn (front and back, grew out of control with me doing very little to remedy that)

Patch up cracks in my driveway.  I had the driveway sealed and it looks good but I wanted to touch up some spots before winter.  Still hasn’t been done.

Clean out my garage.  The good news is I have hardly anything in my car’s resting area but plenty of leaves and dirt.  Nothing’s been done there either.

Creatively, I wanted to write some short stories that are COVID related.  I have about four different tales outlined but formal creation of those stories wasn’t even started.  There was the hope to post those stories on my blog page. Maybe next year.

The two things I DID do this summer was swim almost daily at East End Pool and watch lots of White Sox and Cubs baseball.  That was about it!  I just let the days off drift into each other and they slid right into the crapper with nothing accomplished.

One thing I’ve learned; I am no good with so much open time.  When it comes to work and teaching, I’m a regimented ‘Get it done’ on schedule person, but when left to drift on my own with no agenda, nothing gets done.

As the return to the classroom loomed, I kept mumbling to myself how I wasted my time off.  On my first vacation day (June 26^th) I was so full of piss and vinegar ready to accomplish tasks. I’m really great at making these free time plans, just not good at seeing them through.   I’m disappointed in my total lack of effort.

Will next year be different?  I’d like it to be.  But that has to come from my own inner drive and discipline.  Tune in a year from now and see if I’m spouting the old familiar line “Wait til next year.”  I sure hope that’s not the case.

I haven’t posted blogs for three months.  I’ve got plenty written but my new semester of teaching is so insanely busy (I’ll spare you the details for now) that until our winter break, just keeping my head above water is enough.

Still, I have something important to reflect on that I want to get out there.  So here goes:

During last weekend’s coverage of the 20^th anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, I caught Bruce Springsteen’s acoustic performance of “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” as he paid tribute to the thousands lost on that awful day and their surviving families and friends.  That song comes from last year’s “Letter to You” album.   

Despite being a longtime fan of Springsteen, truth be told, his last several albums just didn’t do it for me.  However, “I’ll See You in My Dreams” is a song that HAS reached me!  The video shows clips of deceased E-Street Band members Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici as well as modern day footage of Bruce and his band. 

But it’s the lyrics that brought this one home to me, especially the line “I remember you my friend, and though you’re gone and my heart’s been emptied it seems, I’ll see you in my dreams.”

We’ve all lost people who meant so much to us.  They are often remembered and there’s the pining and wanting for them to still be with us.  Just one more day, one more dinner, one more get together, one more dance, one more laugh or one more hug. 

Of my immediate family of four, I’m the soul survivor. My dad, mom and sister have been dead for years.  All my grandparents, aunts, uncles and a cousin are long gone too.  Add to this, the passing of no less than seven dear friends & co-workers who were as tight to me as family and the suicide of a former student who I closely worked with.

I miss every one of these individuals but often see them in my dreams, just like Bruce sings.  The dreams of these departed ones come out of nowhere; I may not have thought of one of these individuals for a while and then boom!  A dream rolls into my slumber and it feels like we’re together again.

You know how you have a great sleeping vision of wealth or other good things happening then you wake up depressed that it was just a dream? Well, when having my dreams of departed souls, I never wake up frustrated that what was experienced in my sleep was not real.  This may sound a little cosmic but I see these dreams as visits.  My dead family or friends come into my sleeping brain to say ‘Hi, all is well and hope you’re doing well too.”  It’s a great feeling and one I welcome anytime it happens.  I see them in my dreams and Springsteen’s song is a reminder of this to me and to others who grieve for lost loved ones.

A few years ago, actor Mark Ruffalo was asked how he got over the unsolved murder of his brother Scott.  He said, you don’t get over it but you learn to live alongside it.  I heard those words from Ruffalo on the very same day I was to give a eulogy for my dear departed sister Marianne. 

That’s what I’ve learned to do, live alongside the passing of people who meant the world to me.  And I take comfort in what Springsteen sings, “We’ll meet and laugh again, for death is not the end, I’ll see you in my dreams.”

SPRINGSTEEN’S SONG IS FITTING FOR ANY OF US WHO MISS THOSE WHO ARE NO LONGER WITH US.