Out of the Blue

Yesterday I was reminded of a familiar adage: expect the unexpected.

I went to the local library to join their book club and get a copy of the current reading selection, The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. However, I was also on a mission; I wanted to find out about any volunteering opportunities they might have. As we chatted, I told them the library was a natural place for me to begin looking to volunteer because I am an author.

I went away with three things, one most unexpected. I got the book club selection, I am signed up to be a volunteer tutor this fall (so many children have fallen behind during the pandemic) and, unexpectedly, my own three books will now be listed under their “local author” category. I just need to bring them copies to put on their shelves.

During the little retirement party my son and his family gave me, my son read some thoughts he had for the occasion for me to consider in the coming years:

This precious existence.

You are 1 out of 64 trillion possible genetic combinations your parents could have created. But we're just getting started.

The right sperm had to meet the right egg for the creation of you. The right sperm also had to meet the right egg to create each of your parents. Otherwise they'd be different people who would then have had children who were similar to, but not quite, you. And so with your grandparents and great grandparents. An unbroken chain going back to the dawn of life itself.

The existence of you, here, now on planet earth presupposes a supremely unlikely chain of events. Every one of your ancestors had to live to reproductive age –going all the way back not just to the first Homo sapiens, but all the way back to the first single-celled organism.

Of all species that have existed on Earth, 99.9% are now extinct. Many of them perished in five cataclysmic events. You are the representative of an unbroken lineage of life going back billions of years. That you are here, at all, is an improbable event of such magnitude it cannot truly be captured in word or thought.

That you are a sentient being, capable of knowing the miracle of your own existence, is simply astounding. You are the rarest of things –a little piece of the universe gifted with self-awareness. And of all the lives blessed with existence at the same time as you, nearly one third have left this mortal plane. You are still here.

So, what can you do with such a gift? Three Rules for Life:

1. Don’t worry too much,

2. Have some fun,

3. Leave things a little better than you found them.

Yesterday, out of the blue, there came a wonderful reminder for me not to worry too much about my future. Who knows what will happen next? I never expected my books to be available through the local library.

The book club will be fun; it will enlarge my social circles as well as stimulate my mind, two things my daughter encouraged me to do now that I’ve lost some of these aspects that I enjoyed in my work environment.

By volunteering to help some school children catch up after missing being physically present with a teacher for such a long period of time, I hope their grades will become a little better. And, consequently, that they will feel happier and more engaged in the learning process.