Commence With the Commencing Already!

Photo:  Kevin Lyons

Appeared in Pioneer Press newspapers
July 8, 2010

My apologies, gentle reader, for all the carping of late.  That was not the intent of this column.  We knew there’d be challenges, of course – let’s face it:  a column like this would be pretty dull if everything went smoothly.  But we expected, let’s say, greater balance between the thrills of victory and the agonies of defeat.  So far, it’s pretty one-sided, the wrong way.

Now, we recognize (or, at least, hope) that these tribulations are just start-up stuff.  And I promise rhapsodies on the beauties of semi-rural life to come.  But, at this point, those are still theoretical and distant.  On the other hand, the pains in the neck and other parts are real, present, and numerous.

But, life does go on, despite the nuisances, hurdles, and worse that we have to clear – or stumble over. As Auden noted of Brueghel’s noting, Icarus may be crashing and burning over there (presumably in an Olympian real estate slump), but the grand tragedy (not that I’m actually in one) is only part of a broad canvas, filled primarily with the quotidian.

We were reminded of this classical perspective (and the show-offy use of literary allusion) during what was rather a big week for our family, beginning with Aly’s graduation from college on Saturday, followed by Will’s graduation from high school on Sunday, and culminating with our move from Glenview – where we’d lived as a family since 1987, and where’d I’d spent about 43 of my 49 years – on Tuesday.

            So, we received plenty of timely words of wisdom from begowned speakers, sending people off from familiar places into unknowns both promising and ominous.

            The featured speaker at Aly’s Commencement was the Honorable Tina Tchen, Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and Executive Director of the Council on Women and Girls. She had the healthy self awareness and perspective to begin by conceding that she was a bit of a step down – in headline terms, anyway – from the college’s Commencement-speaker hot streak of recent years, including Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright, and, best of all, Stephen Colbert.

            But what she may have lacked in celebrity, she made up in substance.  As is generally the case on such occasion, her theme was change, growth, and boldly embracing the next – whatever that may be.

            “Change is important,” she assured the class of 2010, graduating into the worst job market since my own college graduation year of 1983. “It takes you out of your comfort zone.”  Well, yeah – the house we were leaving for an interim rental was pretty comfortable, so she’s building credibility.

            “Good things,” she observed, “building a community, creating a home -- take time.”  Surprising how powerful the obvious can be under the right circumstances.  We’d driven the three hours to campus under the bummer cloud of mortgage problems, the drag of packing, the gnawing “What have I done?” feeling of turning well settled and pretty damn sweet lives upside down in pursuit of something like a dream of even better.

            So, of course it takes time.  The hell of home-building is a thoroughly worn cliché.  Did we really think it would be easy?  Well, no. But you can always hope to be the exception.  And we did.  While we could.  So, okay -- that’s gone.  It’s come down to Springsteen (as it usually does):  “After all this time to find we’re just like all the rest” – having not won the lottery, after all, and needing to just slog through and get it done.

“If you aren’t changing, you aren’t growing,” continued Ms. Tchen.  “Or, as Benjamin Franklin said . . . ‘When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.’”

So, I guess that’s all good, right?  We’re definitely changing.  So, we must be growing, right?  And hopefully something other than poor and homicidal.

And, to Ben’s point, we’re certainly not finished – but I sure wouldn’t mind being started.