If your life could speak for you, what would it say?

My family reunited for a brief few hours today. My older brother drove in from the Oregon coast for the day. My sister came in from Boston for the weekend. My little brother pried himself away from his menagerie (two dogs, umpteen cats, a rabbit, and a pigeon) to traverse the endless block between his house and our mother's condo. I set aside my weekend for family stuff. The weather has cooperated nicely so far. And we haven't killed each other, which is good. In fact, we haven't even argued.

My guess is we are feeling too old to pick a fight. Memories fade. Old rivalries evaporate. I hazily recall that my older brother broke my nose when we were kids. (The statute of limitations has long since expired.) I doubt if he remembers. It takes too much energy to hold a grudge. I've come to terms with my crooked nose. If I ever got it fixed, no one would recognize me. I'd be another Jennifer Gray. Who, you say? See? I rest my case.

The high point of my day was a conversation I had with my sister as the afternoon was winding down. High clouds streamed over Portland, filtering the sun we've enjoyed all weekend, but it was still bright in the little coffee shop we found a block away from the famous Powell's City of Books. We sipped our fancy coffee beverages from tiny white porcelain cups and talked about turning points, crossroads, and intersections.

I may have mentioned in previous posts that in a week I will join the ranks of the unemployed. I'm thinking of starting my own business, and every time I think about it, a burning wave of fear rushes up from my stomach out to my fingertips. Prodding me toward self-employment is the suspicion that I am very nearly unemployable, due to factors beyond my control: age, introversion, and chronic malcontentedness.

My sister has her own big decision: move to Europe or stay in in Boston. I've always felt she was a European at heart. Somehow she was inadvertently dropped into a lower middle class suburban household in Portland, Oregon, when she should have been raised in Paris or London or Rome. To me, hearing her talk of moving to Europe is sort of like hearing someone talk about moving home after being away for many long years.

This special time of turning points is a fertile time. My sister and I stand together on a cliff, metaphorically speaking, peeking anxiously toward a new future. It's in the air. Several of my friends are also standing on the same cliff. Who can say if it will turn out to be a leap of faith, or a leap of foolishness? At our backs, nudging us toward the edge, is the prospect of a lifetime of boring jobs working for companies that don't appreciate our unique gifts in industries that don't nurture our souls, where we earn just enough to sustain our sorry unfulfilled half-lived lives, until finally we die withered and bitter with our stories untold.

Well, hell, when you put it like that! Even though we don't know what will happen (and who ever does?), I think we would all agree there will never be a better time than now to take the chance, to bet on ourselves. If not now, when? The alternative is unacceptable. For half our lifetimes we have half lived. We know what that is like already. And nobody else cares if we die as grouchy, dissatisfied malcontents. It's up to us to claim our future.

All together now!