Direct(ion)

–noun (see root word "direct")
1. the act of directing or the state of being directed
2. management, control, or guidance
3. the work of a stage or film director
4. the course or line along which a person or thing moves, points, or lies
5. the course along which a ship, aircraft, etc, is travelling, expressed as the angle between true or magnetic north and an imaginary line through the main fore-and-aft axis of the vessel
6. the place towards which a person or thing is directed
7. a line of action; course
8. the name and address on a letter, parcel, etc
9. music the process of conducting an orchestra, choir, etc
10. music an instruction in the form of a word or symbol heading or occurring in the body of a passage, movement, or piece to indicate tempo, dynamics, mood, etc
11. ( modifier ) maths a. (of an angle) being any one of the three angles that a line in space makes with the three positive directions of the coordinate axes. Usually given as α, β, and γ with respect to the x-, y-, and z- axes b. (of a cosine) being the cosine of any of the direction angles

The school year that tested the deepest fibers of my strength and sanity is over. The father of one of the Chinese seniors who graduated told his son, "If you can't make your life longer, make it wider."

It's apt, but after this year my questions are, 1) how wide is too freakin' wide and 2) is it possible for a life to be three-or-more-dimensional? Cause I'm trying reeeally hard, and I'm already a third of the way thru my expected lifespan (my female relatives seem to live thru most of their 90's).

Last Friday I watched the class of 2011 complete their first step in the journey, like so many other young men and women all over the country are doing this month. This year I was strangely unmoved, and I wondered why until I remembered that I'm closer to their place in life than I was two, even ten, and certainly fifteen years ago. We are all finding our direction. I can't help but wonder (again) why it's taken me so long to get here.

My niece Lauren graduated last weekend. She was born when I was a junior in high school. During my visit to Tracie's, we were talking about Lauren's college prospects. She got focused and pulled her GPA up at the end of high school, along with stepping up into leadership roles in her church and becoming passionate about agriculture and international development. She looked at Cornell for the first time when I suggested it (I would never have remembered Cornell's Ag program without Doug's influence), and she fell in love. They have exactly the focus that she senses is right for her. In some ways I sense direction is finding her, at the right time.

The cicadas are in full, deafening pulse after 13 years, more years than most of these high schoolers can remember. I am technically old enough to remember three "broods," though I was in Texas when the 1985 "brood" emerged. Doug teases me about having survived the entire decade of the 80's; sadly (?) I didn't simply survive, I remember the entire decade, too. One of my first vivid, entire memories is crying desperately when my Daddy left one night. It had to be 1979 or so.

I started talking when I was 8 months old, according to my sisters and mom. Before I could crawl I was not just babbling, but making astute observations like "Richard is aggravating me," "I want some more beans please" and insisting that the primate in a specific picture was an "orangutan" and not just a monkey. All before the age of 1. They say it was bizarre to hear the talking baby. My sisters were nine and eleven years older than me; they were my extra parents, my teachers, and my best friends. It was a good thing, too, for all of us: for a while I was apparently the inspiration that gave a collapsing supernova family some sense of direction.

My sister Tracie remembered some of this last week during my visit. She also remembers that I was rarely around other children until pre-school age of four or so. By that time I was reading and writing, which probably alienated me further from my potential friends. So at the earliest possible age, I got used to being alone, to finding my own sense of direction. And in many ways, because I rejected (or didn't sense) the time-lines that others my age did, time slowed down for me. In my high school yearbook I said "It seemed like I'd never grow up, and who knows? Maybe I never will!"

Little did I know the promise in those words.

And now I find myself finding that my direction seems to be congruent with someone else who's finding his. It feels wonderful.

It is beginning to come together. To coalesce. All of it.

Maybe we'll never grow up, together.