Ten-Finger Exercises

Surrounded by sound

The vacation clothes have all been washed now, and mostly put away. Bill spent part of the day building his surround-sound system, which is much better than I expected. I feared loud, booming sounds coming at me from all angles, especially during the war movies like Pearl Harbor that he's been watching today. I anticipated the need for a surround-silence system of some sort to combat it, but not so. Still, it sounds like a good idea. I can picture an upholstered wing chair with a top on it, a roof of sorts, that would encompass you. A sound attenuating device would be built into the chair to cut out background noises.

I finished reading my second "vacation" book, Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler. The first line instantly caught my attention: "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person."

Did you suspect, during the first half of your life, that you would be who and where you are now? I certainly didn't. I would not have dared allow myself to think I'd ever be divorced. (Divorce is wrong, and I'd never do it regardless. Hmmm.) And I never would have imagined being remarried and happier, happy in the way I thought all along that married people ought to be.

I had already disappointed myself during the first half of my life, having not quite turned out to be as smart as I thought I was, or as sociable or idealistic as I'd hoped. When we were stationed in Japan for three years, I pictured myself learning the language and getting to know many of the people. It hadn't happened when I spent my summer in France when I was twenty, so I don't know why I still hoped I'd be that kind of person five years later. I did try. I studied the language, and taught English at the consulate one day a week; but I didn't really get involved.

Was there ever a defining moment when I failed to become the person I thought I was? I suppose it was when I quit going to classes in Paris at Cite Universitaire. I was very shy about speaking and not being understood, and it didn't get better. Then, years later, I discovered how much I longed for intimate conversation and close relationships. I needed to go deeper, not wider.

For several years, in my last decade, circumstances required that I write my autobiography, particularly my spiritual autobiography, once each quarter. It was always surprising, how the important things changed with insight and environment. It's time to do the exercise again, because...just because. It's the end of the year, a perfect opportunity for reflection and evaluation, and maybe a new sense of direction.

One way to do it is to divide your life into quarters, if it's long, or decades if it's shorter. Then make a little timeline of the important events and ahas that occurred. Look for patterns, like my wimping out and not following through with things I wasn't especially good at. Try to do this exercise objectively, listening to the harmonies and dissonances of your life to hear what tune it's playing now.