Fire Island
Surgery a success or so it seems.  I sit quietly at the aging table of my beach house, writing, able to see what I write! A miracle. Though my vision is still fuzzy, this is a major improvement over last week.
Many feelings have surfaced and many stories come to mind.  I have been hit hard with the well wishes of many friends at work, from my family, my summer community, as well as those I have traveled with.

I am a lucky man who many times forgets just how lucky he is.   My love for me pales in comparison to that from my friends.  I have been given a second chance @ sight.  What do I do with it ?   My past experiences are my stories, and future experiences my adventures.   Take flight and play my game of chutes and ladders.


My Game of Chutes & Ladders
It has been theorized and possibly proven that the games we play as children, themselves play a fundamental role in our development.   I think back to my childhood and remember the game of Chutes & Ladders.  A simple game conceptually.  A cardboard playing surface illustrated with a winding path intersected by a variety of sliding chutes and tilted ladders.  Each player rolls a pair of dice dictating how far he or she may progress.  How may strides will these players move their pieces and where will it end up along the winding way.  A player of fortune lands at the base of a ladder advancing quickly along the path.  Those less fortunate travel to a square at the top of a chute only to fall backwards while others just plod along. 
I know to well the Chutes and Ladders of my life.  Combined with the wheels of fortune that roll along the games winding path.   Or was it a game that left a strange developmental curve.

Conversations
The clatter of the outside world sees me retreat to the conversation of my mind.  What is right what is wrong.  What is dumb and what is smart.
When I begin to believe these voices I turn into the righteous clattering about how they are justified in being right.  Oh yes I do it too well. Sometimes proud and justified, never fulfilled, never happy, always with the empty victory of the righteous.