My dear friend Margaret G~ and I chatted this week. She told me “Nothing of any import” was going on in her life. I was touched by those words: something is going on in her life, even if only during the brief time we were chatting. The interlude of energetic, intelligent conversation with her was, as usual, one of the highlights of my week.
Julie and I returned from a two week Italian Frolic the week before last, which as vacations goes, was one of our less frenzied, but nevertheless had us vagabonding around Northern Italy with little idea of where we were going to stay many nights – our pleasure, but not always restful. And: last week I finished several weeks of bustle and stress, caroming around the USA and Canada giving Jahns Lectures. Lecture #56 was in Seattle last week. Rest means I present no more for three months.
So, in my life, to have Nothing of Any Import means a cozy, contented place to sojourn, to rest peacefully, for a while. I am reminded of diastole, “heart at rest” the quiet time between pulses of the heart; and of Diastole, a Scholar’s Center, part of the University of Missouri at Kansas city where I lectured in March in a beautiful snug amphitheater, The Kiva. It was an unexpectedly lovely evening – surrounded by art, an appreciative mix of geologists and engineers as my audience, and warm hospitality of my hosts, Julie Westhof of the AEG-KC Section and Prof. Syed Hasan of UMKC. That evening, and a few others like it have been calm interludes in otherwise tiring and stressful Jahns Jaunts, as I call my Lecture journeys.
Right now I am grateful to be free of the pain of a once-kranky knee; to be at heart’s rest, to be relieved of heart burdens; to feel contentment and happiness; and to have Nothing of Any Import.