Shaking hands near the door of the old country church, I talked with a woman who told me she was visiting with her husband. When the pastor of their Lutheran Church goes on vacation, they come to St. Marks. I asked her if her congreation was the one beginning a contemporary service. No, they were starting an evening bluegrass one, she said, with barely palpable effort to rein in her dislike. Fearing the gradual dilution of the hymnody, she had warned the pastor not to let bluegrass music worm its way into the Sunday service. "It's my grey hair", she said wryly. It's horrid when we become the old fogies, I said with a smile.
I don't have a history of fogeism in my family. Particularly on mom's side. Most of them were so eccentric they were timeless. Nor can I find too much fogeism in my soul. I love to experience new music, cuisine, art-I might not like it all, but I accept that it is part of the creative ongoing vitality of our culture and world.
Given my general receptivity to new experiences, one would think that being willing to leap into falling in love would be a slam dunk. Part of the reason I still miss P, to some extent, is that hanging out with him would have taken me to new places, people, curricula. But the proviso in that relationship is that neither of us were interested in risking our hearts. Affection, yes. Love, no.
I guess those distinctions become rather academic-if I weren't fooling myself, why would I still ache for that loss among all the others I have blithely forgotten? I don't know. I just know it's time to move boldly into the future with the same zest and courage-let them change the music! Let them change the menu-there's always something exciting and rewarding, life-changing to learn-or relearn.
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