The subtitle of An Effort to Understand refers to the importance of “hearing one another (and ourselves).”
What the hell does that mean?
Last week on a vacation in Colorado, it meant getting some quiet on the deck of a wonderful home in the foothills outside Boulder. Enough time to not give a shit that the phone was charging in the house and my drink was empty and I was staring up at the night sky not knowing where my next thought was going to come from.
Sleeping in, lolling in and out of a slumber so sweetly childlike that I was several times shocked and disgusted at the sight of a guest bedroom mirror that revealed a large, terrible-looking bearded old bum lying in my bed.
Reconnecting with a pal I worked and played with during some greenskeeper salad days on a golf course during college summers. We talking about our very different lives—and how we’ve come to feel good about what we thought we’d do with our lives, what we did, what we haven’t done—and what we might do still.
Reunions with my large Colorado family—all my sisters moved out there from the Midwest, one by one—one at a time and then all at once, after two years floating off the solid shore untethered. All week, it was as if we were on a dock that felt like it was still moving, trying to steady each other with atrophied muscles.
Anyway, I think my people heard one another last week (and ourselves).