There is something about this Oscar Wilde quote that has me a bit confused this morning.
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
I have been trying to figure out where I fit in that sentence.
The truth be told, I have spent a fair amount of time in the gutter. Some of it I earned. Some of it just happened.
I have made enough bad decisions to fill Soldier Field, and life has handed me a few I never ordered. Divorce, deaths, financial worries and raising three kids when I wasn't sure I was qualified to raise myself.
If life were a baseball game, I have struck out enough times to know what the walk back to the dugout feels like.
Maybe that is why this quote sticks with me.
The older I get, the less interested I am in pretending the gutter isn't there.
Youth has a funny way of bullshitting us that one day we all arrive someplace where everything finally makes sense. Then the decades pile up and you discover life isn't a destination at all. It is mostly patching holes in the roof while admiring the sunset.
Joni Mitchell sang about looking at life from both sides. Maybe that is what age gives us. You can look down and see every mistake you have made, every scar you earned, and every disappointment that still whispers your name.
Or...
You can look up.
At your son laughing at a dad joke.
At your daughter rolling her eyes but still giving you a hug.
At an old friend calling just to check in.
At the first cup of coffee before the Chalkheads wake up.
At the sound of rain on the roof.
At the crack of a baseball bat on a summer evening.
At a church bell on Sunday morning.
At a cardinal sitting on the fence.
At the first page of a new book.
At someone who believed in you.
Funny thing about the stars...
…They have been there the whole time.
Maybe they aren't there to help us escape the gutter. Maybe they are there to remind us that the gutter isn't the whole story. That the gutter doesn’t define us.
August is here and it starts with rain in Chicagoland. Holding an umbrella doesn’t keep me from finding gusto and astonishment. It only kept me from chalking the sun with a smile.
