Part of my morning ritual is perusing the New York Times newsletter. It arrives in my email inbox every day, and I take a gander to get a sort of Readers Digest Condensed Version of current events.
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On Saturdays, the NYT departs from the usual blood and guts headlines (at least for the opening story) and instead pursues a social media theme.
Today, the topic was returning to something you used to love doing but haven't tried in years.
Many of the people featured in the article were lapsed musicians. There was a clarinet player, a violinist, a pianist. But there were other rediscovered talents, too. A fly fisherman. A skateboarder. A tennis player.
The article made me cast back to my youth and wonder what latent talent I could tap into at this late date.
Hmmm. I never did take up an instrument. My parents didn't have the money to pay for music lessons growing up. And I never showed the kind of aptitude my brother, Gary, has. (He can hear a piece of music and play it back on his guitar. He still plays and also writes music. Blah blah blah. Love you, Gary.)
My brother, John also played the guitar for awhile. And Diane learned the violin. So they potentially have things to go back to.
As for me? I wanted to learn the piano. Instead, I learned to type, a skill that has served me well given my career choice, but not one that has done much for my soul.
I was never athletic, either. In gym class, I could manage endurance activities quite nicely, and while I liked playing basketball, my height did me no favors. Badminton was the only family sport I engaged in, but I learned when I took it in high school that the way we played it at home was nothing like the cut-throat manner in which you're supposed to play. (My older sisters would chide me if I smashed the birdie into the ground so my younger brother couldn't return it.)
The great outdoors are great, indeed, but in my neck of the woods, they're not accessible year-round. Too often, it's where the ass hits the ice, and my bones ain't getting any younger. Still, I would like to do a little more hiking and such.
So, what's left? I tried birding for awhile. When COVID hit, I stopped meeting with fellow birders. I suppose I could start up again, but standing for long periods has become problematic for me.
Fishing? I'm not sure I'm ready to invest in the all the gear required for the sport, although I've been doing a lot of writing for a client at work, and I have a better idea of what it's like. And I do like the idea of communing with nature, although I'm not a big fish-eater.
Kayaking? Maybe. I've been saying for the last several years that I'd like to try it. I'll need to find someone to go with me, though. Mr. Ginley is not a fan, and I'm not keen on trying it alone.
What about art? I'm useless there. And no, I don't imagine myself a sort of Grandma Moses, taking up the brush in my 80s.
Soul-searching has made me realize that there's not much to go back to. No passion that I've left behind. No bucket list of things to accomplish before I hit the dirt. Also, I'm pretty anti-social, so that takes a lot of options off that table.
Isn't that kind of pathetic?
Perhaps.
But it takes me back to one of my favorite quotes from Matt Groening, which has become something of a mantra for me.
"Keep your expectations tiny, you’ll go through life not so whiney."
Photo credit: FOTO:FORTEPAN / Nagy Zita, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
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