A New Mind to Mine

Today I was inspired by my friend Marty Lott so I am back to my computer. At my table, as soon as I sat down to lunch with some new people, I realized that I had some new minds at the table. Some introverts are reluctant to sit with new people, but as an extrovert, I find it interesting. I have a new mind to mine for gems of learning.

Everyone has experiences that I have not had. A man who I had met before on the elevator, but had never talked with sat down. Both of us have apartments in a Senior Living Facility, which offers lunch to residents. After getting our meals salted, we exchanged comments about our past. He grew up in Pennsylvania; I grew up in Texas. He had gone to the Navy soon after college. Then he commented that he had been to all the states in the U.S. and been to all seven continents. My early days were spent in Texas in a small border town named Del Rio. I had traveled when I was the teacher leader for high school students. I had traveled to Europe 4 times and once to Asian countries. He replied that he had never been to Japan. I replied that he must go.

The meal was nearly over when a friend approached our table. She brought her cell phone to discuss her blog. She had tried to reply to my comments on her recent blog about aging. I told her that I had replied, but I wasn't sure my reply was in the right place. She said she had difficulty because she wasn't sure where she should comment. I had said that she could not "go gently into the night." In life, she is so dramatic that I couldn't imagine her dying quietly. All of us agreed that traveling is more difficult now than in earlier years when walking was easier. Now my traveling must be vicarious: through talking to new people and enjoying the pictures from my younger friends who still travel.