A Memory of Life

I still don't know his last name.

Gille arrived from Michigan in a small jar with his photograph on the lid. His friend had sent an email to Chapel Dulcinea asking if we'd be willing to launch some of Gille's ashes into the breeze that always blows there.

We replied we'd be happy to do it.

It seems that Gille's parting wish was for his ashes to be scattered at beautiful and interesting places around the world and Chapel Dulcinea was selected as one of those places. So at sunset on December 13, 2006, Tom Grimes, Brett Feinstein and I became the awkward honor guard that entrusted Gille to the winds from the western pinnacle of Dulcinea's diamond foundation.

Feinstein rang the big bronze bell as Gille floated northward into forever.

How are things with you? Are you ready to begin a new year?

This is the time when millions of us pause to look back with regret and forward with hope. As you prepare for 2007, here are some thoughts I hope you'll ponder:

It's Always Okay To Begin Again

“The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul.” – G.K. Chesterton

Pay Attention to the Little Things

“It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It's called living.” – Terry Pratchett

“No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.” – Agnes De Mille

Know What You Want

“I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can't find anybody who can tell me what they want.” – Mark Twain

Don't Think You Know It All

“The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life.” – Leo Tolstoy

“And he goes through life, his mouth open, and his mind closed.” – Oscar Wilde

Don't Be A Couch Potato

“Literacy is a very hard skill to acquire, and once acquired it brings endless heartache – for the more you read, the more you learn of life's intimidating complexity of confusion. But anyone who can learn to grunt is bright enough to watch TV… which teaches that life is simple, and happy endings come to those whose hearts are in the right place.” – Spider Robinson

“If I show up at your house 10 years from now, and find nothing in your living room but Reader's Digests, nothing in your bedroom but the latest Dan Brown novel… I will chase you down to the end of your driveway and back shouting 'Where are the damn books?… Why are you living the mental equivalent of a Kraft Macaroni & Cheese life?'” – Stephen King, to the 2005 graduating class of the University of Maine

You're Going To Have Some Bad Days

“Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful.” – Annette Funicello

“Life is like a train. It's bearing down on you and guess what? It's going to hit you. So you can either start running when it's far off in the distance, or you can pull up a chair, crack open a beer, and just watch it come.” – Eric Forman, on That 70s Show

“My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.” – Montaigne

Have Courage

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.” – Helen Keller

“Those of us who refuse to risk and grow get swallowed up by life.” – Patty Hansen

Love Your Job

“Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.” – Studs Terkel

Don't Forget to Have Fun

“Do not take life too seriously – you will never get out of it alive.” – Elbert Hubbard

“Life is truly a ride. We're all strapped in and no one can stop it…. I think that the most you can hope for at the end of life is that your hair's messed, you're out of breath, and you didn't throw up.” – Jerry Seinfeld

“Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.” – Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker

“Don't be afraid your life will end; be afraid that it will never begin.” – Grace Hansen

Remember the People Who Are Important to You

“There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.” – George Sand

“When you grow up, you have to give yourself away. Sometimes you give your life all in a moment, but mostly you have to give yourself away laboring one minute at a time.” – Gaborn Val Orden

“I was fourteen years old the night my daddy died. He had holes in his shoes and a vision that he was able to convey to me even lying in an ambulance, dying, that I as a black girl could do and be anything, that race and gender are shadows, and that character, determination, attitude are the substances of life.” – Marian Wright Edelman

Today Is The First Day of The Rest of Your Life

“Life is a journey, and with every step we reach a point of no return.” – Gaborn Val Orden

“Many adventures await you upon the road of life. Enter these doors, and take your first step…” – from a placard above The Horn and Hound Pub

Happy New Year,

Roy H. Williams