Whys and wherefores

I’m sitting here on an overcast morning wondering at how I came to be here. Certainly, my view could have been quite different.

Instead of gazing out on a lawn needing its second mowing of the season (already?) and a glorious profusion of cherry blossoms and the decrepit shed we’ll finally tear down this summer, I could have been looking at... what?

This window could have been the more elegantly framed fenestre of a wood paneled study instead of the vinyl-coated factory framed double-pane on the outside wall of bedroom-cum-office. Or it could have been the high and narrow clerestory designed to permit entrance of light but only a slight view of the sky from my prison cell.

Could have been.

And of course, between those two extremes reside an infinite array of could-have-beens, not all glorious but neither all desperate.

There were those in my early years who thought me destined for the university and the life of the academic, and those today who wonder where I went off course. I’ve no good answer except, here I be.

At one time I saw my future as an author and now find myself instead (and joyously) a writer. ‘Author’ was never important enough to shoulder aside the writer in me.

I didn’t always see myself as a father and certainly not as a Dad, so how did I come to deserve those appellations, to the extent that I can be truthfully considered deserving of the honor?

I suppose I could have been a politician but even if elected to some middling office I would have been a poor one. Besides, earning the support of voters turns out not to be such a noble feat, judging by current events. I’ve earned the trust of the two dogs that sleep at my feet as I work and therein resides my pride.

Through accident of genetics I was born with a mind that could have learned many different things. And to a family that put those things within reach.

Could have beens.

I chose this life, I suppose, although I can’t recall the juncture at which the path leading to this desk before this window became settled.

I’ve friends, not so many but each one good and true, the family that I would have hoped for under Rawls’ veil of ignorance, and abilities and interests that fill my days with satisfaction.

You won’t find me complaining.

Even so, looking out this window as the breeze freshens and the cherry petals begin to fall, I can’t help wondering what might have been.