This is both what I want and have in my life. It’s not everything, but it’s been a full life. I’m old enough to have attained the things most important to me. And not. It depends on how one looks at it. The difference between success and failure, contentment or emptiness can be your attitude. This is not to say that there are no real losses. Of course there are. Deaths, partings, endings are inevitable, but they don’t define our life, however painful they are. Nor are we defined by the worst things that have happened to us.
I’ve done most of the stuff I wanted to do, been most places I wanted to go. I took chances. Sometimes the risks paid off. Other times, the results were unfortunate. I regret the chances I never took far more than those I took that didn’t work out.
Look at your life, see good times and happy memories — or focus on failure and losses. Life is never all joy or entirely miserable. There are good times and bad. We all fail. We all succeed. Life is like a baseball season, made up of wins and losses.
We have ultimate freedom to choose which is more important and how we evaluate the balance. In this one thing, we answer only to ourselves.
This is where the Ogunquit River joins the sea. The sea is just out of view, because from here the river drops abruptly downward and in less than a quarter of a mile, is part of the marsh, then the Atlantic Ocean.
The house is built for all practical purposes in the river. I can’t imagine how the house keeps from being swept away during storms when the river must rise up over its banks.
To get to the river from the other bank, there’s nothing but a plank, and not a very secure plank at that. There must be another way to get there because I can’t imagine anyone willingly crossing over that white water on nothing more than a piece of sodden wood.
With camera in hand, exploring European lands, cultures, food, and drink...mostly with a plan, but sometimes enjoying the adventure of just getting lost.
