A few observations:
Resurrecting these memories reminded me of just how often people really do deliver for each other with no expectation that their effort be rewarded. It gave me hope and the incentive to try to do the same.
I’m not a bucket list person. Most people don’t have that luxury. It is a privilege to enjoy the rewarding cycle of being curious, trying something new, failing a bit and succeeding. I still want to try hard things and to finish what I’ve started. Between about six-teen and fifty-five years old the “hard things” and the “had to” was a way of life. Now it is a choice. It never want to stop taking risks and trying.
I love the breaking of a glass at the celebratory end of a Jewish wedding… representative of life’s fragility and the reminder to us all to commit to pick up life’s pieces and try to create good. So, I conclude on a sobering story because life is messy and our world is a mess. Creating the chance to say thank you is my way of picking up a few pieces of broken glass.
Finally, when did we stop putting a space between sentences? There are some things I’m just incapable of evolving.
1981: Siniora Rubio, The details matter
Dear Siniora Rubio,
Your ballet studio was my sanctuary. Every day, after a long day at school, my world slowed down while I held onto that weathered wooden bar to try to master the precise, painfully specific fundamentals of ballet. Your studio was bathed in sunlight while you sparked around the room to nudge a shoulder or tuck in a knee in your very traditional all black leotard, skirt and slippers. Your thick Spanish accent gave your instruction an exotic, old world, global impression making our very amateur program feel significant. This hour was almost meditative and a treasured moment to just focus.