problems forgiving
others or ourselves, because
life herself has not
From Jim Harrison in his book, The Road Home.
The primary focus of the book, I would say hero but once you read the book you don’t look at him that way, John Wesley Northridge II, reviews some of the things he has done in his life and says, “We may have problems forgiving others or ourselves because life herself has never forgiven anyone a single minute’s time.”
No muiligans.
No do overs.
You don’t get that second chance.
Maybe that is why movies like ‘A Wonderful Life‘ or ‘Christmas Carol‘ have such an appeal because those hero’s get a 2nd chance.
They get to find their way home all over again.
In life though, life herself has never forgiven anyone a single minute’s time.
So we can bitch and moan and woe is us.
Or look, no one has ever got a 2nd chance or do over minutes.
Get it right the first time and if you don’t, fix it best you can.
But don’t make it worse for beating yourself up over it.
Forgive yourself.
Forgive others.
And go on.
There is no 2nd chance.
Never has been.
Never will.
I also encourage you to read The Road Home and its 2nd volume, Dalva.
Though Dalva came out first, I don’t think you need to read it first.
There is a lot of Harrison to like in these two novels.
One scene where the long lost grandson who was adopted out, finds his Grand Mother.
The Grand Son cannot bring himself to tell her who he is.
When the Grandmother looks at him and says, “Young man, don’t you have something to tell me?”
Another one of my favorite passages is when Mr. John Wesley Northridge II comes across his journals written 50 years earlier.
As Mr. John Wesley Northridge II reads through the journals, he mutters again and again to himself, ‘My God, what will the fool do next?”
I read back over my Haiku’s.
Some, well most, I have no clear memory writing.
Sometime, to be truthful, I say to myself, “My God, what will the fool write next?”
No Haiku For You 