Blog 2227 – 11.23.2021

Where Do I Begin?

One of my all time favorite movies that I have watched so many times that I have most of the dialogue memorized is The Long Kiss Goodnight with Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson. It is the story of a C.I.A. assassin who is shot in the head on a assignment and left for dead. She does not die but awakes in the hospital with little memory of her past and pregnant with a baby girl.

She does recall some bits and pieces of her cover story and buys into it fully. Samantha Caine resumes her made up life as a school teacher, now the single mother of a little girl. She hires a series of private investigators to learn more about her past and finally ends up with Samuel L. Jackson who is in her own words “kinda low rent.” His secretary/investigative assistant stubbles across a clue and pursuing it uncovers a lot of other clues to Samantha’s true identity. Her real name is Charlene “Charlie” Baltimore and there is so much more to her story.

But then isn’t there to all of our stories? In today’s blog title I ask the question, “Where do I begin? My suggestion (and it is just that, a suggestion, but one that may present a clue that will help us recall a forgotten memory or two that may lead us to other clues to our true identity, to Who and Whose we really are are) is to begin at the beginning.

The famous book of books that is one of the most published,but little read books in the wide world begins, “In the beginning God…”

Now that’s a thought Moses, begin at the beginning. Moses story like all our stories has it’s ups and downs. Moses spends all of his childhood and young manhood believing he is the nephew of Pharaoh, the most powerful man in all of Egypt. But later learns his true identity (or actual cover story, is as the son of Jewish slaves long in exile in a country not their own.

We are all sojourners here, immigrants, just passing through on our way to “the promised land.” It is no wonder that we often feel out of place, not at home here. That is because this is not our home we are just passing through. As I speculated yesterday, we are just on vacation, in disguise, enjoying the illusion.

The end of our story is not the death that ole lying ego laughingly predicts for us, but a wake up. My one month shy of a year in Vietnam fifty-one years ago was punctuated with guys counting down the days till they got to go home. A familiar phrase that I recall hearing many many times is, “I just have X number of days and a wake up.”

I am and have been now for almost six months counting the days till I get to home to my loving and lovely wife. It is reminiscent of what I was doing in November of 1970. Alas that other pretty young girl had no intention any longer of being a wife to me. And as Gomer Pyle said often at the time, “Surprise, Surprise” and not a pleasant one awaited me. No parade, no brass band, no warm welcome home, no happily ever after, no loving and lovely wife awaiting. I was not home yet, I still am not, nor do I expect to be for some years yet.

But along the way I did find my true soul mate and traveling companion, my one true wife. For years one of her favorite verses of love poetry has been, “Come grow old with me, the best is yet to be.” I confess that the growing old part has never appealed to me all that much, but it is growing on me. Still I do believe my life at least they first seventy-one years of it have proved to me the second part of the verse, “the best is yet to be.” I think a good place to begin is to start enjoying your happily ever after today, right now.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sk-ef416oFcIyBk9P3ZyAPa0oUjddrFp/view?usp=drivesdk

100 Years