The Gypsy Speaketh
When I was 33 years old I was fortunate enough in my
career to be able to move about the USA at will. One place I wanted to
experience was South Florida. I made a few phone calls and wham! I took
a position with Honeywell Engineering. South Florida is everything you
think it is and more. This includes more humidity and more traffic than
I was comfortable with... but I digress. While living in Fort Lauderdale
I was dating a pretty young thing who asked me to get a 'reading' with
her in Miami. Apparently a woman was predicting people's futures with
such a degree of accuracy as to make her regionally famous. So I went. I
mean... what the heck, right? She was located in Coconut Grove, a
gentrified 'burb of Miami. She proceeded to tell whats-her-name
(sorry but I cannot remember all the monikers of casual dates) all
sorts of wondrous and magical things that were waiting for her in the
future. She then cast an ominous gaze my way. She told me I would have an
exciting life filled with travel and tragedy. She told me I would own my
own a successful business and would live 'out west'. She told me I would
be in an airline incident. She distinctly used that word : incident.
She told me I would have a girlfriend who would be struck down with a
'blood disease'. Possibly Leukemia. Then she informed me I would die at 52.
Hold up... 52?
I remember kind of chuckling and saying something
like, " 52? 52 sounds like a good age to die". Now, I must admit
that I was suspicious of the Gypsy being briefed beforehand by whats-her-name
because, by that time in my life, I had already traveled extensively
and already had a girlfriend with Leukemia. It was a girl I had
met while living in Hawaii who was in remission from Leukemia. While we
we seeing each other she went out of remission and went back to be
treated at her HMO in Ohio. In addition, I believed that
maybe I had mentioned to whats-her-name my fondness for the
western USA. I had also already owned my own business, though not
very successful. It was a small recording studio. I smelled a rat. So, I
paid the Gypsy and took whats-her-name back home. Cut to a few
years later... sans whats-her-name.
I started a company called The Journeyman Company
near Atlanta. On business in May of 1996 I flew out of Miami to Atlanta
on
ValueJet flight 592. I actually met the captain (an extremely short
woman) and the crew. I remember being overly nervous on that flight as
it seemed like a very old jet.
A few days
later that same plane crashed into
a swamp. All aboard perished. I shook off my brush with death and
concentrated on my growing business. Eventually, because of the
ergo-dynamics of success, I would move that company to Las Vegas, NV. It
was in Las Vegas, Nevada where I met a wonderful girl (I do
remember her name ... I just won't say it here). We were happy
together and she eventually moved in with me. In 1999 this wonderful
girl was diagnosed with Leukemia. Years of chemo and treatments
followed. Though she survived the ordeal our relationship did not, but
we remain friends to this day.
But what were the odds? Not only the odds of having a
second live-in girlfriend with Leukemia but also what were the
odds that the gypsy would be right. The only reason I bring this up is
because it just so happens that I am 52 now and I have radically changed
my opinion on what constitutes a good age to die.
What would you do if you had only one year to live?
Would you have the time of your life and go on extensive and/or exotic
holidays? Or would you somehow try to contribute the bulk of your
experience and knowledge to humanity? You see, I have already had
the time of my life. I've lived in Hawaii, San Diego, Las Vegas and yes,
South Florida. I had a real good time. This website, in a sense, is
my contribution to humanity. I have had insomnia most of my life.
Some of it brought on by stress and some of it by Tinnitus. But actually
its a combination of the two. I discovered years ago that the
combination of soothing nature and natural sound and sounds that promote
visualization act as a bridge between wakefulness and sleep. It's simple
but true: Visualizing and dreaming utilize the same areas in our big
human brains.
Anyhoo, what gives me hope is that the gypsy was
wrong about the airplane accident/incident. I mean, that ValueJet
crash couldn't have been considered my airplane incident...
Could it?
<gulp>
