Willing

As I have mentioned in this blog several times before, since my divorce I have spent the last three and a half years practicing my adopted philosophy of finding and then keeping good people in my life. Recently that means I have picked the phone up when I know I should have months ago. It also means recognizing a friendship as not healthy for you and ending it. Lastly, it requires you to own up to when you have made a mistake with a good person and working to build a track record otherwise.

Yesterday I exercised the first action mentioned and reached out to someone I should have in the last two years since we last spoke.

You see, in high school I had the fortune of being taught English for two years by one of the most beautiful souls that I have ever met, Mrs. Patricia Willing or "Patti" as I get to refer to today as a friend. She was more than a teacher, she was an inspiration to me. She was the one who introduced me to Dead Poet's Society and then afterwards she copied Professor Keating's assignment from the movie and asked us to write a poem if we dared. It was the first time someone challenged me to pick up a pen and attempt to translate my thoughts and feelings to words. What I turned in to her wasn't the greatest in my opinion but it impressed her nonetheless. I will never forget her pulling me aside and telling me what I will have to paraphrase because it has been two decades since. She told me that it may be a talent to be able to write like that but there is something beautiful about people that come to feel compelled to actually express it. Then she told me the older I get, the more difficult it will be to  hold on to that but to do my best to never forget that about myself.

She is why I love American Transcendental poetry. Her influence is why I am a grammar Nazi to my friends and co-workers and why I strive to actually command the English language correctly. Most importantly, that conversation with her is why I blog today and is the reason I write poetry well into my adult life. I never let myself forget that passion that I possess.

I called her yesterday and as much as she had been on my mind, ironically I was on hers. I look forward to reuniting with her later this year for the first time since shortly after my graduation. My point in all of this is that if you had someone in your life that meant the world to you, it is your due diligence as a human being to reach out to them and let them know that. Life happens but it happens to all of us. We are all driven by different things and choose paths that lead us a part. That does not mean you cannot uncover, cut down and clear a path back to someone.

Having said that, in a tribute to her and towards a poet that I love, I will simply end this as appropriately as I can, with a quote from Walt Whitman or "Uncle Walt" as she loves refer to him as. "I have learned that to be with those I like is enough." Choose to surround yourself with that which you adore and challenge yourself to keep that which you like, close.