Fiddler Jones

Perhaps it's because we ran into former students and/or their progeny.  Perhaps it's because on occasion, Mother Nature has an amazing way of reminding us to enjoy the time we have.  Perhaps it's just because I am old and my mind wanders to an earlier time (and at least to this point, comes back!).  Whatever the reason, this morning Fiddler Jones rests at the forefront of my thoughts.
Those who truly know me know I have, since high school, been infatuated with Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology.  We performed the play as our senior drama farewell.  Invariably, I had interpers do selections from the Anthology.  I directed the play for Town Players.  You would have thought I had cleansed my soul's need for sharing Mr. Masters.  Yet, this morning, for whatever reason, there he was.

The earth keeps some vibration going
There in your heart, and that is you.
And if the people find you can fiddle,
Why, fiddle you must, for all your life.
What do you see, a harvest of clover?
Or a meadow to walk through to the river?
The wind’s in the corn; you rub your hands
For beeves hereafter ready for market;
Or else you hear the rustle of skirts
Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove.
To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust
Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drouth;
They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy
Stepping it off, to “Toor-a-Loor.”
How could I till my forty acres
Not to speak of getting more,
With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos
Stirred in my brain by crows and robins
And the creak of a wind-mill--only these?
And I never started to plow in my life
That some one did not stop in the road
And take me away to a dance or picnic.
I ended up with forty acres;
I ended up with a broken fiddle--
And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,
And not a single regret.

All too often, we become driven by rhythms others would have us hear.  We succumb to the expected...the norm (if there is such a thing!).  We strive to be a "success"--in the eyes of others--and subjugate our own inner drums.  We are the amalgam of other expectations.  Don't misunderstand.  That's not necessarily a bad thing.  It can be, however, if during the process, we lose our own heart's vibration.  There's a popular philosophy that states in the end, we don't regret the things we have done, we regret the things we never did.  Socrates said, "know thyself/"  Or as Mr. Shakespear;s Polonius opined, "To thine own self be true."  (Thanks, Harlene!)  You may not fiddle...but you have your own beat.  Syncopate today!