The Dash

Just finished the book A Walk on the Beach. Quick, pretty sappy read, but some powerful moments. The main character runs into a new friend "Joan" while...get this...walking on the beach. Turns out that Joan is Joan Erikson, wife of the famous psychologist Erik Erikson (one of the guys that really made sense to me in college) who wrote about the developmental stages in life. As Joan neared the end of her life, and after having watched her husband pass away, she realized that the last stage isn't just about having wisdom and possibly regret (as she and Erik originally thought) but that it is about a constant search for new information, new experiences, new and interesting people and activities. She talked about "the dash" - that it's not important what the dates are on a tombstone, it's what you do with the dash - fill up your life, all of the stages with new memories, do something different every day. So after a slow, quiet, pretty dashless Sunday here goes: Besides hanging around at the office - Monday - Movie Madness, Tuesday - yoga, Wednesday - lunch with high school friends recently found on Facebook, semi-retirement half-day Wednesday afternoon with Shawn, Mahjongg game at Carol's, Thursday - lunch with yoga guru, Mary, Book Club at Cecily's (where we probably won't talk about the book since we're so dashy), Friday - Happy Hour with the other Lisa and Sheila, Saturday - Lipstick Call with Laurel ------- dash, dash, dash, dash, dash, dash ------------------