Lucky is the man who does not secretly believe that every possibility is open to him.
- Walker Percy
- Walker Percy
1. The left-handed captain and I went sailing in the middle of the night, because the wind was right and it seemed the thing to do. Even though I see him maybe once a year, usually at a wedding, we both rank the invention of the keel higher than the ipad on the list of man-made wonders, which means that he gets it, that we speak the same language in this incomprehensible babbling world. We unwrapped our bandaged, stinging hearts to the night air. We watched the grace of the wind in the sails. Let's go to the Bahamas he said and pointed the bow toward a new life. For awhile we sailed as close to the wind as you can, between the longitudinal lines of past and future. He turned the boat around, though. A good captain, a willing first mate, fair seas, good wind, gin, limes, and stars clear enough to guide can not change this fact: so much of where we go is determined by who we've left behind, and what waits for us back on land.
2. I had 4 patients the other day, all men with heart failure, all dying alone. The eldest one told me, as I went through all three of his wallets cataloguing his valuables, that he never trusted anyone enough to get married. The youngest man, only ten years older than me, looked old enough to be my father's father. When I went in to his room to change his IV, he grabbed my hand and said The doctor said it's too late for me to change - you don't think it's too late for me to change do you?
I didn't want to say it to a dying man, but aren't we all dying?
It's never too late, but sometimes it's too late.
3. I run it around and around my mind, like worry beads. People choose what they choose. People choose what they choose. In these words there is an answer, in this truth there is rest.
2. I had 4 patients the other day, all men with heart failure, all dying alone. The eldest one told me, as I went through all three of his wallets cataloguing his valuables, that he never trusted anyone enough to get married. The youngest man, only ten years older than me, looked old enough to be my father's father. When I went in to his room to change his IV, he grabbed my hand and said The doctor said it's too late for me to change - you don't think it's too late for me to change do you?
I didn't want to say it to a dying man, but aren't we all dying?
It's never too late, but sometimes it's too late.
3. I run it around and around my mind, like worry beads. People choose what they choose. People choose what they choose. In these words there is an answer, in this truth there is rest.
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