Omissions testing

The line made me stop to consider its relevance. It was true and I needed to absorb its significance. I marked the page with forefinger and closed the book along with my eyes. The ground truth was simple:

We are running out of time. Worse, we really don't know exactly how much of it we have remaining. Senor Marquez made this observation about the decade of his sixties, following with the sage advice to avoid mistakes because there is so precious little time remaining to overcome them.

My furrowed brow conveys concern. Action required. How to. Errors. Mistakes. The sometimes blurry line that separates valor from foolishness, the lack of fear from blatant stupidity, or child-like innocent play from immaturity. Errors of commission and errors of omission. Please grasp this, I heard whispered.

Staying with the thought as long as possible, repeatedly pulling back from more pleasurable fantasy indulgences, it finally blossomed as a challenge. True, time is important, yet how we use it even more so. I would much rather have five GREAT days, than ten so-so ones. Give me the pinnacle of ecstasy for an hour and you can keep your entire day of boredom. I want to touch the face of my lover and tremble with delight. In that process if I stumble and fall, it is not, nor will it ever be, from the lack of trying, for fear of failure, or the trepidation to trespass on taboo. Sorry, I don't care much for those rules.

From this time forward, my errors will be those of commission. If I love too much, I am sorry. If I sing to loudly, my apologies. If I seek victory where I have previously failed, you may call me crazy, a hopeless romantic or a lunatic. But try I must. Time is short and the excuse list is long. If it warrants doing, do it. Now.

I understand balance, flexibility and caution. I am big on preventative maintenance. Under certain circumstances I will even dip a toe into the water to test the temperature.

But I steadfastly refuse to error by the stagnant constriction of cannot.

Here is more of the passage:

"I'm trembling because of you." From then on I began to measure my life not in years but decades. The decade of my fifties had been decisive because I became aware that almost everyone was younger than I. The decade of my sixties was the most intense because of the suspicion that I no longer had time for mistakes. My seventies were frightening because of a certain possibility that the decade might be my last. Still, when I woke alive on the first morning of my nineties, in the happy bed of Delgandina, I was transfixed by the agreeable idea that life was not something that passes by like Heraclitus' ever-changing river but by a unique opportunity to turn over on the grill and keep broiling on the other side for another ninety years." Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Closing the little book, I placed it upon the nightstand then turned out the light, smiling to myself as darkness finally ended the day.

Pix: Mirinda Carefrae and Raynard Tissink on the Queen K in Kona last year. When you need your best there is little margin for error.