“And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.”---Rainer Maria Rilke
“Only dreams give birth to change.”---Sarah Ban Breathnach
Winter has settled o’er the land, a particularly nettlesome winter at that, swooping across the country west to east on fearsome gales, freezing the populace, depositing roof-crushing snows, wreaking havoc on power lines, icing up the highways to a fare-thee-well. There’s nothing like sitting helplessly at the wheel while your vehicle meanders aimlessly down the street swiveling first hither, then yon, searching for a fixed inanimate object to smack into.
When we were kids, Winter was thrilling. I slept in a small bedroom in the front of my grandmother’s second-floor residence and on snowy nights I could hear them coming, the all-powerful snowplows rumbling through the night, headlights slashing across the white veneer, one after another, indelicately shoving the snow off to the right and forming the giant bankings we would play in the next day. The pleasures of childhood quickly disintegrate, alas, when you no longer have use for a snow fort.
While the rest of the nation revs up its snow-blowers and battens down the hatches, Florida merely shivers. There are rumors of snowfall in the Panhandle, a laughworthy notion to the citizens of Buffalo and Erie, shoveling for days in search of their buried Hondas. The people of New England, meanwhile, have been forced to travel exclusively on snowshoes, and ice-cream sales have fallen to deplorable levels. All communication with Canada has ceased and ham radio operators are trying desperately to initiate contact. The penguins of Antarctica, toasty by comparison, have begun posting internet invitations to northerners to “Come On Down!” At least the Boston Celtics are having a good year.
Not to complain, but the low twenties in the Gainesville/Ocala area is unusually brisk. The incompetent heater at Pathogenes, Inc., finally gave up the ghost and a pricey new one was rushed into action. The living room is filled with sensitive plants which have asked for temporary shelter from the storm. Jill-of-all-Trades Janis Peterson has tented up all the tender fruit trees and other vulnerable vegetation until the siege is over. Our friends in coastal Maine were understanding when considering these difficulties. One of them sent smoke signals remarking, “We’d send you a sympathy card but we can’t get out our door.”
This is all grist for the mill of my cruel sister Alice (the Republican), who lives in sunny Camarillo, California and enjoys sending notes to all her friends advising of the local seventyish temperatures. That would be the same Alice whose car was packed to the gills with all her earthlies last month while a gigantic forest fire danced a jig a few miles down the road, then watched colossal mudslides take out a nearby town. We’re pleased to tell you we don’t have mudslides in beautiful Florida. To have mudslides, first you’re required to have something for the mud to slide down.
Despite all this inconvenience, Ecclesiastes 3.2 reminds us there is a time for every purpose under Heaven, and now it’s time to light a candle, dip your quill in the inkwell and begin to plan your new year. There are still 352 little blocks to fill in on your calendar, all of them open to the insertion of Exciting Enterprises or More Of The Same. Let’s not quibble about insufficient funds for that trip to Macchu Pichu, there’s plenty of available fun nearby. Unless. of course, you live in North Dakota, and that’s nobody’s fault but your own.
Cosmic Outlaw (left) on her Saturday morning gallop at Ocala Stud.
Cosmic Outlaw To The Fore
The year upcoming may or may not be The Last Hurrah for the Killeen-Ellison racing conglomerate, all of that depending on the fate of our final foal, April, now a sturdy two-year-old in training across town at Ocala Stud. The usually persnickety Jockey Club has seen fit to accept our second attempt at a name for the filly by Uncaptured, out of Cosmic Light, and you see it in the headline above. Since we’ve had endless injury problems in recent years attributable to the suspect racing surface at Gulfstream Park, we’re shipping north this Spring, we know not where, but likely to New York or New Jersey. Cosmic Outlaw’s perceived ability in training will call the shot. If she prospers, we’ll remain in the game via purchases of yearlings or two-year-olds in the thoroughbred sales. If not, day is done, gone the sun, from the lake, from the hill, from the racetrack. In any case, it’s been fun while it lasted, as the Romans said just before the curtain fell. Keep your fingers crossed.
Here’s My Plan….
It’s nice to be impulsive, to wake up one day and fly to Guadalajara on a whim, bum a helicopter ride to Key West, jump the Boston ferry to Provincetown or even take a two hour drive to colorful St. Augustine. I used to motor over to Mardi Gras in New Orleans every year, eschewing expensive hotel reservations and sleeping in a crowded house with friends or in the back seat of my car on some glorified alley near the French Quarter. It was all good. I wound up unexpectedly living in Austin for six months when my vehicle broke down on its way to Albuquerque, thereby experiencing the most enjoyable six months of my life in a place I never planned to be. When you’re young, everything seems to work out even when the train leaves the tracks. As time goes by, you run across reasons for more caution, as experienced one fine summer near the Canadian border, when forced to share a ratty motel with the Deviant Bikers of Babb, Montana.
Planning ahead has its merits. You don’t always get the hotel you expect but at least you get a hotel. Air flights can be appreciably cheaper and you’ll have more options. Admittedly, I was coerced into this way of thinking by the fussy National Park system, which has limited sleeping space and demands early bookings. The mule trip to the bottom of the Grand Canyon had to be scheduled (and paid for) one year in advance. Only 80 people a day are allowed to explore the Zion Narrows. Lodges at the parks are few and filled well in advance and it’s often a long way to alternate housing. Then, there were the Las Vegas nuptials. Although, any suddenly inspired couple can drive around Vegas until they find an available wedding chapel, if you want to book one of the premier places for a specific date and time, better do it early. Especially if it’s a Saturday in June. Some of these things you learn the hard way.
My sister-in-law, Mary Ellison, is a paragon of organization. I envision her with maps and calendars all over the walls of her War Room. Even before the old year is gone, she’s busily planning for the new one. She requires knowledge of your plans early if there is to be any intersection of purposes. Mary invites input into The Final Plan but once it has been drawn up, it might as well have been written in blood. One morning, on the way to a scheduled day in Orlando, her husband, Stuart, broached the possibility of a slight diversion. Mary fixed him with a withering glare. “….Or maybe not,” said Stuart. There is something to be said for The Mary Alternative. You will never be unprepared, the trip will go smoothly. Of course, you will never wind up in Austin when you are headed for Albuquerque.
The Sermon On The Mount
Time is our friend and our foe. It is the greatest thing we own, the suitcase into which all our valuables are placed, the repository of our hopes and dreams. When we are young and impatient, Time oozes by in slow motion, allowing us the opportunity to learn, to grow, to try and fail without scorn. We observe, we practice, we improve, all in good Time. The possibilities, and the Time to see them manifest, are endless.
As we age, Time picks up the pace. We must use what we have learned to make decisions of consequence, choose the most beneficial path, find sustenance, build a nest, locate a mate, none of this to be performed rashly and all of it prone to error. Time allows for mistakes, but not too many of them. It points to your calendar and reminds you that Time isn’t Forever.
At some point, we try to recreate a better version of ourselves, a wiser model, a healthier one with nobler ambitions and higher horizons. We try to Get It Right. We awaken to the greater importance of other people in our lives, to their needs and ambitions. We strive to make a difference. Instead of continuing to take, we attempt to give. We remember when, as doubting children, adults tried to tell us it was better to give than to receive. We laugh. Turns out they were right after all. The greatest teacher is Time.
Older now, we swear an oath to better value Time, not to waste it in foolish pursuits. There are places to go, people to see. We will, come hell or high water, finally travel to the Grand Canyon, walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, wake up to Paris in the morning. We will never again drive through the home town of an old friend unseen for years and neglect to visit. We will avoid getting angry over inconsequential things.
Time, the foe, is chipping away now and our armor is wearing thin. We wake up to new ailments each day. Where once an expansive future stretched out before us, no longer is anything promised. Time, which once inched by in leaden shoes, is now whistling through town on a bullet train. The better to value it more, to seize each day by the nape of the neck and shake the devil out of it. And be of good cheer in the bargain. It’s a New Year, a Time of beginnings, so let’s start the dance. Let’s resolve to attack Life rather than let it constantly attack us. There’s more to be done and still Time to do it. So turn up the music and rev up the engines. If we’re headed for Gloryland, let’s roar out of here at 100 mph in a red Mustang convertible. And always remember our beloved credo: It’s Never Too Late To Act Like A Damned Fool!
Let the Good Times roll.
That’s all, folks….
