The abstract pirate

I went through a Buffett phase. Not a "Cheeseburger in Paradise" Buffett phase, but a "Gypsies in the Palace," "Volcano" phase. I bought the box set, listened to everything and read his novels. We've seen him in Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

I still dig Buffett, but more in an island-vibe way, a waterman soul way; as someone who could happily live life in and on and around the simple, small water town. His music is a perfect arrow in the quiver of the various music that should be enjoyed thereon.

The song that reeled me in was "A Pirate Looks at 40." The simple articulation of being out of time, of standing outside what society deems financially/occupationally important. I wrote the line, "My occupational hazard is, my occupation's just not around," on my ceiling in college (part one).

That song is in my head again as we start 2012, looking ahead on the year, as this is the year I am scheduled to turn 40. It's never an age I've given a lot of thought to.

I can remember a New Year's Eve, when I was probably 17 or 18 and thinking about New Year's Eve leading into the year 2000. Thinking that I'd be 27. Wondering what that would look like. Remembering that my mom was 27 when she had me. Would I be married? Would I have kids at that point?

It was all abstract. When things/images/concepts are abstract they can never be specific. But when they move to specific, they never go back to abstract. They supersede it, take it over. With Robin, I no longer wondered what my wife would look like. When the girls were born, I ceased to wonder what kids would look like or what their names would be.

My looking forward or back at life has never really been age sensitive, but life event sensitive.

I am glad and thankful that the abstract future has revealed the life I now live. But I still feel like Buffett in "A Pirate Looks at 40." Maybe more so.