And an evening too...

I have the amazing great good fortune to live in what feels like the two best places on the planet. One is subject to earthquakes and the other to hurricanes and floods, but the essential amazing, magnificent beauty of life in both of these places, accompanied by the magical gift of people (friends, family, and strange strangers) who choose to share the experience with me, is so unbelievable that I have moments where it's difficult for me to breathe, let alone speak. Writing it down is a gift, because without my fingers I probably would be inescapably inarticulate.

I just spent fifteen minutes at the end of a very difficult day sitting on a bench at the western end of the North American continent gazing out across the largest body of water on the planet and LAUGHING... laughing at the top of my voice.

I've had some very difficult times (who hasn't?) in the half century that I've existed on the planet and I've had times when those moments brought me awfully close to an edge that didn't find me laughing at all. I have friends and relations who fell off that cliff that almost took me, and I'm extremely grateful for the personal reprive that I received. The last year has not exactly been a joy ride (on the other hand, maybe that's exactly what it's been) and I really don't know where this roller coaster is ultimately headed, but tomorrow (I hope) either before I head north for appointments in Marin, or afterward, in the waters off the Marin/Sonoma coast, I'll drop into those freezing cold waters and paddle into the waves for no other reason than the fact that they represent the most carefree, lighthearted, genuine joy I have ever experienced on the planet.

I am an incredibly lucky person. I am not nearly thankful enough, often enough, but the fact is... I have an amazingly gifted life.

My hope is that you have that too.

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By the way... my time for yesterday was two hours, four minutes, and thirteen seconds... making me one of the last twenty-five runners in the whole race... but hey... I made it!

Check with me in 2020 and I might let ya touch my trophy (and I'm NOT kidding).

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