All My Life's A Circle

When I was younger one of my favorite musical artist's was Harry Chapin.  He was a great balladeer who wrote and sang of ordinary people like you and I and life as he saw it.

His song, "Circle" has been running through my head for the past few days.  It is  a cheery, happy-go-lucky song on the surface.  "All my life's a circle, sunrise til sundown."  "The seasons spinning 'round again, the years keep rolling by."

Coming home from Mother's Day brunch this year, Sam tearfully said "I am so fortunate that  your family took me in as their own and truly love and care about me."  From the moment he went to my parents for permission to marry me, they the loved the man.  Until the day he died, my Dad joked about the money he gave Sam  for taking me off his hands.  Yeah, right Dad.

Our lives are circles.  There are our family circles, the seasons are cycles that make up the circle of years which makes up the circle of our lives.  Get it?  It sounded better in my head.  Kind of circles within circles.  To me the circle of our life is not totally round.  There are highs and lows.

Sam says that when we look back on our lives, it appears more as an arc.  As we start our life we gently go upward and grow  in knowledge and wisdom, trying to make a better life for ourselves.  In that circular motion our lives continue (if we are lucky) completing the arc.  We must be prepared for disasters in our lives.  Otherwise, the arc will turn jagged, plummeting to the bottom.

Not until we reach the end of our life can we be sure of the shape.  So then does it really matter?  I think so, as we leave a legacy to those who are left behind , to carry on our traditions, our rituals, our memories that all live in the Circle.