California Dreamin 7

Carpe Diem, is the fine science or art of siezing the opportunities that come to you. It is when we very spontaneously realize that if we don't jump at the opportunity, we will lose it, possibly never to return again, and we say, "You bet, let's go!"

It happened one crisp Christmas eve night following our Christmas eve service at the church I was serving as an Assoc. Pastor. A friend of mine from the congregation who had just gone through a messy divorce told me what he had just done. This friend happens to be a real bonafide Rocket scientist. He has a t-shirt that says, "Yes, as a matter of fact, I AM a rocket scientist!" He told me he had just wired his wedding ring into the rocket and it was shot into space, just before Christmas. It seemed like such an awesome idea, and being a divorced person myself, I could totally understand the principal of catharsis that might happen in watching a rocket blast into space knowing that a particular piece of round gold was going with it. All the anger from our hearts could be removed in a matter of seconds just watching the force of the rocket!

It was one of those moments for me, a Carpe Diem moment, just in listening to him. So I posed what I thought was a very appropriate question: "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME? WE COULD HAVE HAD A DOUBLE RING CEREMONY!" He then informed me of the launch date of the next rocket and promised me passage of my cheap, white gold band, purchased at JC Penney approximately 7 years prior to that evening.

In the wonderful month of February, the month of love and romance, chocolate, and. . . rockets?, I was given a special pass to go watch the launch. It was a clear evening, cool, but the skies were clear for miles. It was wonderful! We stood in the sand and looked over a few hundred yards at the launch pad. We had a radio turned to a particular station so we could hear all the communication from the command center. And then suddenly, we could hear the roar of the engines igniting, and the force was felt through the ground all the way over to where we were standing, and then WOW! There it went!

It was the smile that came over my face that was so special to me. It would always be this wonderful little secret that I would hold every time I looked at my ex! I could smile at him knowing that the cheap band of white gold that he bought at that exclusive jeweler, Jacque Penne', was rotating the earth even at that very moment! He would just think I was smiling because I had come to my senses and thought he was a nice guy. But, I would know the truth, that I was smiling because I had a achieved an act beyond even his imagination, and sent his ring into space, and thus brought a type of healing to myself that I really couldn't explain. I am not really sure that I can even now.

Well, I needed to understand some more about this particular rocket, and the contents within. So, I asked my friend about which section of the rocket my ring was held in. Whether it was in the part that dropped into the deepest depths of the ocean, or the part that circulated the earth until it re-entered the atmosphere and disintegrated, really didn't matter to me. Afterall, they both held equally appealing aspects of their final end of the journey. But somehow it was a special answer I received. My cheap little white gold band, would circulate the earth for 50 years, and then re-enter the atmosphere and disintegrate.

My exclamation of praise lifted to the heavens as I said, "HOT DAMN! I WILL HAVE A GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY AFTERALL!