Afternoon with a life-lover

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. -Walt Whitman

I have just returned from Seattle, near where I attended my youngest daughter’s high school graduation. She did us all proud, surpassing even her sisters before her. The oldest graduated in ‘99, and was Salutatorian of her class. Number Two graduated in 2001, and was named Female Athlete of the Year. This one did both: Salutatorian (with a 3.94 GPA) and Female Athlete of the Year, among all of the other awards. I’m so proud of her, and, as I did with her sisters before her, I wondered where the smarts came from, because I just rolled through high school barely scraping by. Must be that good country living and their mother. Yay!

There was an added, serendipitous, bonus to the trip by a chance encounter with no less a personage than The Barbaric Yawp hisownself. Christopher Key and I were in the midst of an email exchange some time ago, and I mentioned that I would be in Seattle and perhaps we should meet, as I would be in the vicinity of Yawp Lair on my way over to central Washington. He sent me his cell phone number and said to call when I got in town. Done deal.

I’ve always had a sense of connection with Chris Key. Don’t ask me to describe it. It’s just one of those things where you read somebody’s stuff and something resonates and you only wish you could have written what you just read. I felt that way when I first came into the Blogosphere and I still do. His stuff comes from a place of no pretense and he doesn’t care what anybody thinks. So when I heard his voice for the first time when I called last week, I silently said "Yeah," because somehow I knew he’d sound that way. Know what I mean? Of course, he immediately endeared himself to me when he suggested we get together and "hoist a few." That was about all I needed.

I hesitate to put myself in the same class as Chris Key, but Kindred Spirits can easily recognize each other in a room full of people. They just connect. On this occasion, our meeting place was a watering hole called Poppe’s, an obvious three martini lunch kind of place. Chris had to talk me in, because I drove by the place a couple of times before I found it. He was the only one seated at a table, the only blonde-headed guy in the place, the only one wearing a sports jacket, and, by the way, the only one in the bar when I walked in, so we recognized each other instantly. But the connection was there. I sat down, we ordered a couple of beers and commenced to talking as if we had known each other for years and were carrying on as if we met in this place all the time.

Chris is the easy-going type, with the unpretentiousness of a person who has lived a deep and well-examined life. Someone who has learned about life and himself and is willing to live by what he has discovered. We talked about all sorts of stuff; vocation, the church, children, the government, middle age, our love of theater, spirituality, and more. Two hours and not a few beers went by in an instant. I came away from our meeting energized and glad to have spent time with such a Spirit, which Spirit, by the way, was headed to Whistler for a weekend of snowboarding with his beloved Reiko as soon as we tied the ribbons on our moment. This is a guy who knows the difference between maturing and growing up. He knows the former is tied to living and loving life, and he wears it well. He knows he doesn’t need to worry about the latter.  He's heard the call of the Hawk, and has answered.

After all the time spent commenting on one another’s blogs, reading each other’s stuff, it was a real treat to meet Chris face-to-face. It’s great to read him now, and connect a face and a personality to the words on the screen. Somehow it all goes deeper now.

Another meeting is definitely in the cards, and communication on deeper levels is, too, from now on, I’m sure. And, we know, there is room for a third, the next time.

You readin’ this, Preach?

9:17:50 AM   Lay some on me []