Close the Door, Change the Record, Clean the House

Ok, so a friend told me about Paul Coelho's Facebook page. I interact with a lot of writers, but I never thought about their having a Facebook, but why not - everyone else does! And, hey, they're writers, right? It's what they do, so of course most of them are connected these days, having cast off the manuscript writing for the much easier to read and edit computer. And while sitting at the computer waiting for inspiration, why not just take a break and jot on Facebook for awhile?

So, it was Paul Coelho and his 757,000 fans that led me to his message from March 11:
None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. Close the door, change the record, clean the house. Stop being who you were, become who you are now.

Well, maybe it is a little cryptic and New Age-ish, but it did kind of jump out at me. Lately everywhere I look, the present and the past are all around me. It's hard to change the record when PBS is playing old Beatles, Stones, and Beach Boys and Jimi Hendrix can still make it to number one on the charts. It's hard to clean the house when it is still the repository of all the children's things. Although I did just get a new refrigerator and was forced to remove all the magnets and pictures of Madison and John at ages 2, 7, 10, 14 and 18. Not having to look at them has somehow freed me just a little from wondering where all the time went so quickly.

As for that closing door - there are lots of rooms in my house. It will take awhile to close them all.