Day 630: Stolen Moments

I’m going to start this post off with one of my favorite jazz tunes.

(YouTube video of “Stolen Moments” by Oliver Nelson found here)

Even if you have trouble stealing moments to play videos here, I recommend you listen to Stolen Moments, by Oliver Nelson. (If you can steal some more moments, look at the comments at YouTube.)

I’m sorry that YouTube starts that video  with some advertising moments (which can feel stolen, to me, away from things I’d prefer doing).

All weekend, I’ve been stealing some moments away from other things I could be doing, in order to attend my 40th college reunion.  Originally, I did not plan to attend the farewell Sunday brunch, yesterday, between 9:30 AM and noon, at one of the campus gyms. However, yesterday morning, I decided those would be stolen moments, well spent.

After I left the house (before I felt ready), I walked by the place I lived during freshman and sophomore year.

 

When I got here to one of the gyms

… I discovered I was at the wrong place!  I thought

Lost again!

I could have thought

What’s the matter with me?

but having any self-judgmental thoughts, at that point, would have been wasted, stolen moments. Instead, I relearned a momentous lesson: it’s okay to be lost and it’s okay to be late.

And here are some moments I stole, on my way to the right place:

When I found the right place for the brunch I thought, “Well, that’s perfect.”

Each moment we experience is stolen, in a way, don’t you think? (whether we feel lost or found)

Before I had left the house, yesterday morning, I had decided to bring along the big Class of 1974 Report, so I could ask classmates to sign it, during the farewell brunch.

I wonder, now,  if any of them thought I was stealing moments away from them …from something else they’d rather be doing. In any case, everybody I asked was gracious enough to sign my Class Report. Here’s one example:

Between 10 and 11:30 AM, yesterday, I spent many moments, stolen and otherwise, with people from my class. I saw people I knew:

… and people that seemed new to me, yesterday.

That’s Edith, who grew up in Arlingon, MA, telling me lots of interesting things about that town (which has appeared in many of my previous blog posts).

All of my stolen moments, spent yesterday morning, were valuable. Then, I said “goodbye” to my classmates, and managed to steal some moments to see my favorite musical with two of my favorite guys.

In case I am stealing your moments, right now, by not being clear enough about yesterday afternoon …. my son Aaron and my boyfriend Michael and I saw a production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd” at Boston’s Lyric Stage. “Sweeney Todd” is tale about a barber, in Victorian England, who steals people’s lives, in revenge for time and other precious things being stolen, unfairly, from him.

I loved the production yesterday so much, I was moved to tears.

I could say moments I spent in the hospital, when I was a kid, were stolen from me, but I don’t know if that’s a helpful way to tell the story.  Yesterday, I also found more cards and letters people sent to me, while I was in the hospital, including this, from my 8th grade math teacher:

Also, I found one of many cards my  late father sent me, in the hospital.

That card was perfect, because

1. my cardiac pacemaker — which needed to be replaced so many times when I was young — was located in my abdomen and
2. as usual, my father didn’t sign his name, but rather included names of things and people I loved. (In that case, he signed the names of the cats I knew, at that time.)

Can I steal one more moment of your time before I end this post, and show you something I saw on a food shopping trip with Michael, yesterday evening?

Who’s chicken? Not I (nor anybody else in this post).

Thanks to courageous people everywhere and to you — of course! — for stealing some moments to be here, today.