Remember December 31, 1999 and the worry about all the things that might not work after midnight because the computers didn't recognize the year 2000? What a relief when the lights were still on and we ushered in a new millennium on January 1st.
Wait a minute - it was a new year but still part of the last century. The new, third, millennium did not begin until January 1, 200l - the year of our 40th High School Class Reunion. To my knowledge there had never been a designated planning committee for a class reunion. Often it was the same few who took care of location and time and date notifications. Eventually those few, I assume, got tired of doing all the work and just quit doing it. I was living in West Des Moines at the time of our 30th and can't remember if I went to that one or not. By the time of our 35th I had moved back home. Ellen, my best friend from high school, my cousin Harrison (known by his middle initial, J) and I got together and did all the planning for it.
Then the year for our 40th rolled around - the actual first year of the new millennium - 200l and the same thing that happened with those lights in 2000 happened with our class reunion. Nothing. No one did anything about a class reunion. (As I recall the same thing happened to our 20th reunion - there wasn't one. We celebrated a 21st class reunion the following year.)
So in 2002 I decided to plan a 41st Class Reunion on my own. Some questioned why we would have a class reunion in the traditionally rival town of Villisca but I had heard good things about a new venue there. The original bank building at 400 S. Third Avenue had been turned into a space for catered special events known as The Bank.
Upstairs was a room for a social hour which included tables and chairs and a bar.
This photo was one I took of some of the classmates that night.
Downstairs was the dining area with a small stage to one side.
The evening turned out to be a huge success. I received many compliments and no longer felt like an awkward country bumpkin as I had in high school.
Another picture from that evening. This one in front of that small platform I mentioned. It was there I nervously stood and read the following invitation - one that had resonated with me then and somewhat still does.
The Invitation
It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes!"
It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
The Invitation was written by Oriah Mountain Dreamer - the name she went by at that time. (1999)
As I read aloud her prose, I met the looks of various classmates. I don't know what they were really thinking but they were attentive.
Rereading this as I typed it out, it doesn't impress me as much as it did twenty three years ago, but some of the lines still resonate and cause me to consider my responses.
September 2011 we did manage to have our 50th High School Class Reunion in the right year. It was well attended and great to see all the ones who came. It was the last class reunion I attended.
No comments:
Post a Comment