Timing is ...

either a miracle or a bitch ...

Barely a month ago,  I was on a business trip that took me for three days to Brussels.  I stayed at the airport Sheraton and had morning coffee in a cafe in the check-in area of the airport.  My stay was pleasant and uneventful.  Just last Tuesday some crazed jihadists turned that same place into a war zone, with death and destruction blighting the same spaces I occupied just a while before.

And the calls can be even closer ...

I took my family to London in 2005 during Wimbledon Week.  We toured the city using the underground, mixing with commuters and other tourists alike, and had a great time.  Four days after we left, terrorists bombed the same trains we had ridden.

And closer ...

My cousin once worked in the North Tower of the World Trade Center.  He was late to work on September 11, having worked late the night before. He stepped out of the subway just in time to see his building hit.

Less than a year ago I was riding my favorite mountain road on my favorite motorcycle when I tipped into one of my favorite right-hand curves ... and there was a car pulling across my lane and towards me from the shoulder. I swerved and he braked enough that nothing touched, I lived, and he wasn't burdened with the guilt of being a homicidal dumb-ass.  Just a few tenths of a second slower on my part, or quicker on his, and the situation would have been much different.

And some calls sadly aren't missed ...

On 9/11, a work colleague of mine boarded a plane from Washington DC to head home to Los Angeles.  She had been asked to delay her flight to continue business discussions, but she was determined to get home to be with her 5-year old son. Her flight and her life ended at the Pentagon.

In 2008, a well-known and well-loved fellow motorcyclist was rounding one of his favorite bends when a car full of young kids searching for a campsite pulled out from a spot hidden by trees and right across his lane. The choices of timing that led him to be where he was and those kids to do what they did within the same moment, took him from this life.

Sometimes timing is in our hands; usually not ...

In the moments just described, there was some choice in the timing of events and that choice was either fortunate or fatal. But most often outcomes depend on someone else's timing, not our own.  Those commuters on the Brussels metro and the London underground didn't have much choice of where they'd be and when they'd be there; the bombers' timing determined the outcome.

So what do we do?

In this world our fates often hinge on the tiniest changes in the timing of events.  All we can do is look back on fortunate escapes with the sober reflection and happy celebration they deserve, and mourn those who were caught up in events where timing was against them.

Most of all, we should revere time for all the opportunity it provides to us:  to be with our friends and family, to do meaningful work, to experience wonder and pleasure, to take exciting risks, and sometimes even to reflect somberly on the vagaries of life and time.

Forgiveness

Sometimes, it's all you can give ...

For a brief moment today I believe I caught a glimpse, a whisper of understanding, of why one of my heroes decided to leave this world early.  No, I don't think I've suddenly developed clinical depression, nor did I come close to suicidal thought, but I do believe I've peered through a grimy window into that dark space; so, spirit of Robin Williams, forgive me thinking less of you when I should have known better.

And (this will sound politically incorrect), as I ask for forgiveness I also give it to you for doing what I and many others considered an ultimately selfish act.

Forgiveness usually means you have found a way towards empathy, have put your feet in the shoes of the person you wish to forgive, and now understand enough to do so.

With me today, it was a convergence of events, each of which would seem trivial to onlookers, that brought an emotional undertow which for a moment seemed so irresistible that it felt best to just follow it down the rabbit hole.  I don't know exactly what's down there, but my best guess would be a place where yesterdays are all bittersweet and tinged with regret, and tomorrows are dark with no promise of sunrise.

Luckily for me, the feeling didn't take too firm a hold, and now its gone (this writing has helped).  I was clearly not in the same danger as people who experience a chemical dysfunction and who for that reason can't stop their own fall without medical help.  How horrible would it be to live in that place, and how great the desire to escape?

So maybe my experience wasn't really that close to what people like Robin Williams with true clinical depression experience, but it's helped me deepen my resolve to help those in whom I recognize this dark place; to forgive them and most importantly, help them forgive themselves.