Saturday, July 7, 2012

36.97916 per cent

Yes, I am still counting.  Perhaps we are always counting our way to something:  time to the achievement of a particular goal, time to retirement, time to when our child goes to kindergarten (or leaves for college).  We can look at it as an only, or even as not enough.  Me?  I am counting hours to the time I can take the licensure test for the LCPC.  Meanwhile I get hours that count toward a more complete life, somehow.  More hours to ride with other drivers, hours to walk the streets of Roselle and Glen Ellyn, hours to pay attention to who else is walking with me.  I get hours that don*t count in the time to licensure, but hours that train me nonetheless.  No, I am not yet convinced of this.  But I know I will be.

Yesterday I added up the hours
After two years.
I have counted
Everything possible:
Hours in my office;
Hours as chaplain
To the Daughters;
Hours with recovering alcoholics
In the halfway house;
Hours in the free clinic.
I have counseled life
And death
And everything
In between.
In the midst of it all
I have added the specialty
Of new dependence
And interdependence.
I know whereof I speak.
I know whereof
I counsel.
Yesterday
I added up the hours.
I have arrived at exactly
36.97916 per cent
Of what I need
To take
The next step.
My beloved tells me
I am over one-third there.
I consider four more years
At this rate.
I continue
To consider it.

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