This past weekend, on both Saturday and Sunday, I ran six-mile jaunts through Dreamland (cemetery).  But afterwards, instead of resting atop my favorite glacial ridge that provides a dramatic view of both the estates of the dead and Lake Erie (my current profile pic was taken from that vantage), I hiked on down to a wooded area that hugs a gentle stream that issues from Lake View Dam which is at the geographical heart of Dreamland and that constituted, at its dedication in 1978, the largest concrete-filled dam in the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains.  

Aside the stream, on both days. I watched the sun set and speculated upon the odyssey that I’m upon.  ‘Odyssey?”  you say.   Yes, that may seem like a strange and ancient way to view one’s course through life.  Stranger even than having a vocation, or “calling”, which was something that was supposed to be in store for all good kids when I was growing up.  Yet, indeed, such a sojourn I am upon.  And where has it taken me? 

As I stood in the dwindling sunlight last night tendering a beer, listening to the stream gurgle, and taking wilderness notice of the emergence of things-Spring,  I realized that becoming a real and entire man in this world is something I had just in-that-moment mysteriously accomplished.  And strikingly so in solitude and apart from any intense involvement in a relationship with a woman.  Yet not entirely apart from the influence of womankind altogether.   

And so I was led to reflect in-that-moment  upon all the relationships I’ve had with various women in the last several years.  Though all, in ways, had/have been somewhat intimate, none had/have led to the ultimate experience of sexually exploring each other in playful, releasing, reciprocal fullness.  In other words, all friends and no lover.

What was the significance, I pondered, of having had just female friends and no lover for years on end now? 

Lovers blow your mind.  Friends inform it. 

I have been specially informed for the last several years by many enchanting women.  As mentors-in-relationship, they have, upon this odyssey—my life, helped point me the way. 

I have now arrived in the very moment.  And find myself a man. 

What’s next?

A man should not speculate idly upon “what’s next”, upon where life may vicariously lead him.   Let him move simply and swiftly to action when the time for action comes.