There is no equity in death. No words, no phrases, no comfort. There is only the awful reality following a dreamless sleep and momentary hope in waking that you’d find last night’s reality untrue. This morning the sun shines a litte less brightly and the wind blows with an extra chill. Anything written seems painfully inadequate to the moment and I can say simply that I’m thankful someone so kind and gentile touched my life. I’m a better person because of it. For my friends who have always made me feel like a member of family, my heart breaks with yours.
Tag Archives: friends
Wishing…
From the editorial staff at jeffreytharp.com, a merry Christmas and totally excellent new year. Enjoy the time off and visits with friends and family. After the 2011 we’ve had, lord knows we’ve all earned it. Let’s see if we can prove the Myan calendar wrong, shall we?
Summer nights…
I’ve said it before and it’s still true… Sometimes all you need to do is get a nose full of a particular smell to have a train load of memories smack you in the back of the head. In all my travels I’ve never found anyplace that has the exact scent of the back yard of the house where I grew up. It sets in around early evening and will be even stronger later when the dew settles on everything. It’s a mixture of deep woods and damp earth, pine and something I can’t quite identify but know entirely by heart. As far as I can tell, it’s a smell that only happens on this spot. For all I know it’s a smell that only happens for me.
I’m settling in for a night of tales from the old days with one of my closest buddies. There’s a fair chance that more than one frosty cool beverage will be involved. Summer days were made for nights like this. Cheers!
Saucer…
The list of things about Memphis that I’ll miss isn’t all that long, but the Flying Saucer is somewhere near the top of it. I haven’t been in as much after my perennial drinking buddies took off for greener pastures, but walking in even rarely as i do, it’s like I’ve been here every weekend. Same corner booth, same smartass servers, same schoolgirl skirts. Good stuff. It’s as close to a “third place” as I’ve found in Memphis. And to Ashley and the rest of the beer goddesses, all I can say is thanks for the good times and for keeping the suds cold. If you’re ever looking to trade barbecue for steamed crab, look me up.
General alarm…
For the record, when the building is locked down and employees have been told to “shelter in place,” it’s not a good idea to send people out of the designated safe zones to track down people elsewhere in the building. We have these fancy things called telephones on our desks that are like search parties, but not as apt to end up getting you smashed on the head or eviscerated by flying debris. Also, your senior staff and supervisors all are issued cell phones/blackberries. Texting and email works pretty well on those even when you can’t get a call out. Plus, you’re paying like $10k a month for them so why not given them a workout?
I won’t even go into how we heard nothing from your vaunted security and operations staff. MIA. The whole time we were locked down. I have to admit that telling the director of the organization with which we share the building that we didn’t want to talk to them about what went well and what didn’t was a nice touch… Especially since we’re technically their tenant. I mean we certainly wouldn’t want to consider ways we could do things more effectively in the future. Way to make friends and influence people. The two senior people in the building continuing their urination contest during a period of crisis is sure to fill the workforce with a sense of confidence in their leaders. Nice work, Captain Queeg.
Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of previously de-published blogs appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.
Just like that…
I’ve had nine months to think about what this post would look like, but surprisingly it’s not one that I started working on in advance. Now that the day of jubilee has arrived, I find myself at something of a loss for words. How do I sum up the experience that has been finding my eject handle? Is it defined by the statistics? 273 days on the hunt. 91 days of frozen time. 385 resumes submitted. Sometimes I felt like I could count off the hours of each one of those days. Almost a year of complete confidence tempered by false starts and rejections. And then moments of unadulterated joy. Whatever the moment is, it’s not defined by the statistics.
I’m feeling very conscious of those who made the jump before I have. Of how much I miss them and how much I’ll miss a few of those I’ll leave behind. I’m conscious now more than ever of home, of family, and of friends from whom I’ve been too long separated. They say you can’t go home again. I’ve been away long enough to know that everything has changed – and that nothing that matters has really changed. I’m coming home and I’ll take it as I find it, changes and all.
There is plenty of time to go into specifics later. For now, let it suffice to know that tonight I will sleep the sleep of the vindicated. My great experiment in Memphis is drawing to an end. I’ve survived my ride on the crazy train. And I’m coming home.
When I sat down to write, I thought this post would be a valedictory. It seems my nerves are still too raw for that kind of triumphalism. Give me a day or two for the reality to sink in, though, and it’s a fair bet that you’ll be reading posts with some serious swagger.
The new normal…
Today was the first day back at the office after a long break. Nothing abnormal about that. Happens the first week of every year. What caught me unprepared was how that little part of the world changed while I was paying attention to other things.
The last of my old school mentors retired. My right arm has moved on to learn how to tend a flock. Another is taking the long way around to chase a dream in Colorado. Add that to the ones who have made their escape already and I look around and barely recognize the place. These were the people who made a bad situation tolerable… And sometimes even fun. Lord knows I can’t begrudge them their good fortune, but Millington is going to be a much less interesting place in 2011.
I guess that’s the new normal. Damned nostalgia.
Being Sherman…
During the Civil War, one of the greatest partnerships in American military history was forged here along the muddy waters of the Mississippi. The senior partner would become commander of the Army of the Potomac and bring Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia to its knees in a grinding war of attrition, while the junior partner marched his battle hardened western armies south to Atlanta and on to the sea, making the Old South howl.
From camp near Memphis on March 10, 1864 and just after Grant was called to Washington and promoted to command all Federal forces, his old friend Sherman sent a memo of congratulations that read, in part, “…You go into battle without hesitation… no doubts, no reserve; and I tell you that it was this that made us act with confidence. I knew wherever I was that you thought of me, and if I got in a tight place you would come – if alive.”
If you’re very lucky, you’ll find such a colleague and friend once in a career. If you’re even luckier, you get your chance at being Sherman.
It could be a little foggy…
One of my oldest friends will be in town this weekend. Not to sound too much like a twittering school girl, but I’m like soooo friggin’ excited! We all get caught up in how serious and important we are. This weekend is about stripping off that veneer and being loose to roam the streets, hit the bars, and chase loose women (with apologies to his wife). I’ve needed this weekend for a while now. If any of the stories are fit to print, I’m sure you’ll see them here.
Blur…
The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized how important it is to hang on to the friends you had when you were a kid. They’re the ones who know where you came from and won’t let you forget it. The ones you cannot see for months on end and effortlessly pick up the conversation like you’d just had a burger at the local greasy spoon the last night. They are the ones who know your secrets and like you anyway. Maybe more importantly, they’re the guys you bled with and who bled with you.
For a long time now, I’ve known that I could be a better friend. The days stream by in a blur of airports and meetings and I realize months have gone by. We’re all busier now, occupied with the commitments of work and family and time has become our most valuable commodity. At the most basic level, I could have spend more time on the phone or sent a few more emails. I could have been there more often on a lot of fronts. Realistically, I think we all know that life isn’t going to be slowing down any time soon. At least not until we collectively punch our last timecard and head to the golf course.
I wish someone would have stopped me years ago, sat me down and made me understand how fast the time would go. There should be some kind of class that teaches you things like that. I don’t want to make a blanket statement and say anything like “I’d love to go back and go to school all over again.” I think that’s probably overstating the case. I would love to go back for just one night, one average night when the whole gang was together. A fire, a half-dozen pizzas, and a house full of your closest friends. I want to go back and see the “god’s eye view” of things and watch it all unfold. It really must have been something to see.
In the meantime, know that I think of you all often. I’m both proud of and humbled by your friendship. I’ve been told I need to stop the mushy posts and keep to ranting, which is a much more natural voice, but I’ve promised to always blog what happens to be on my mind and there you have it, live via tape delay, from Hartsfield International on the evening of July 30, 2007.
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