{"id":2178,"date":"2009-12-15T00:20:12","date_gmt":"2009-12-15T05:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/?p=2178"},"modified":"2009-12-16T00:20:44","modified_gmt":"2009-12-16T05:20:44","slug":"lustrum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/?p=2178","title":{"rendered":"Lustrum"},"content":{"rendered":"

December 15, 2009
\nTuesday<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thus I turned over the last ten years in my mind, and then, fixing my anxious gaze on the future, I asked myself, “If, perchance, thou shoulds’t prolong this uncertain life of thine for yet two more lustra . . . coulds’t thou . . . face death\u00c2\u00a0. . . \u00c2\u00a0hopefully?
\n<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Francesco Petrarca, 1304-1374
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Italian scholar and poet<\/p>\n

\"holi09-badge-jb\"<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0My first diary was a five-year diary. It was a Christmas gift when I was in third grade. It was maybe 4 inches by 6, bound in red, with a lock and key. The spaces for each year were too small for my grade school cursive. I remember two entries \u00e2\u20ac\u201d an account of walking home from my piano lesson in the snow with my father after he had to leave our car in the parking lot of the Farm Show, and a listing of my favorite Saturday morning TV shows, including Fury, the Story of a Horse and the Boy Who Loves Him<\/em> and Tales of the Texas Rangers<\/em>. I actually wrote “Tails” instead of “Tales.” I remember that.<\/p>\n

Five years ago I was making dips for my Holiday Open House Extravaganza. “My history is littered with unfinished business,” I wrote of myself. I could write that same sentence today.<\/p>\n

I used to help 17- and 18-year-old students with their personal statements for college applications. Often they had to address a prompt such as “Tell us how you have changed in the last five years.” I would tell them to not even think <\/strong>about coming to our next session if their essay contained the sentence “I have changed a lot in the last five years.” If it said “I have changed alot . . . ” they should probably not even come down my hallway.<\/p>\n

I have a self-help\/self-growth guide called Me Five Years From Now: The Life-Planning Book You Write Yourself<\/em>. I’ve had it for ten years. I haven’t written in it yet. Two days ago I wanted to start using it. I can’t find it. I think it’s with my Let Go of Clutter<\/em> book. I can’t find that either.<\/p>\n

Five years ago I hadn’t been to Wyoming or Georgia yet. Now I’ve been to both places twice. I want to go to both places twice again before another lustrum has passed.<\/p>\n

Five years ago my friends Joel<\/a>, Earl, and Michael<\/a> were all still alive. Their deaths within weeks of each other two years later would take me by surprise. Five years ago we had our last Christmas with Ron’s mother<\/a>. She was 90 when she died eight months later, yet we were taken by surprise. Every year I miss her more.<\/p>\n

Five years ago, when Holidailies began, I had posted only nine times to my online journal. Nevertheless, I joined Holidailies, and posted every single day from the first of December through Epiphany. Holidailies saved my journal.<\/p>\n

I turned 60 a few months after Joel and Earl and Michael died. I said then that I was at the beginning of the ten best years of my life. I said it the next year and the year after that, and I’m ready to say it again. Levenger<\/a> makes a five-year journal. It’s bigger than the one I had in third grade, and my handwriting is smaller and neater now.\u00c2\u00a0Life is uncertain, but I’m confident\u00c2\u00a0I’ll need at least two.<\/p>\n

From the Archives
\nDecember 15, 2004 — <\/strong>Dip Day<\/strong><\/a>:\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>My history is littered with unfinished business. Sometimes I laugh it off, saying I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m in design, not execution. Other times I think I have some sort of glitch in my brain chemistry that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t rise to the level of a diagnosable disability but that is certainly part of my personality type and my working style.<\/em><\/p>\n

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