Maybe

The question of whether you see your own Shadow in your kids is worth some pondering? I suppose most people ponder this on occasion and for some the answer is easy. Shadows are reflections of ones self. Exact duplicates in some ways. On the other hand perhaps shadows are nothing at all like what they reflect but instead just a very similar outside image. Somewhere between duplicate and and just an outside reflective reminder may be the answer to what this Shadow idea is all about.

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Maybe a more relevant question to ask would be whether the kids see themselves in the Shadow or even in the guy behind the camera? I can answer the question as to whether I see myself in my own Dad much easier than I can speculate as to whether my kids are "inside" similar to myself. Truth is I see a lot of myself in my perception of my Dad but not enough to really lead me to believe that were more the same than different. Understanding our sameness is easier than understanding our difference.

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Agency is a word that might be a way of understanding differences. When we chose to be like someone we use agency and in that our likeness is chosen.

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The older I get the more I see things in my own parents to chose to be like, "I think".

18th

The mythical Phoenix rises up reborn from it's own ashes to live again. Going to Phoenix this last week was not exactly a rebirth but getting away from the routine had a little of that feel. We traveled a highway we have never before traveled and then add to all of that, I went to Ikea. All new stuff.

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February is the month that both of my parents were born and likewise chose to get married in. My dad was born in 1914. This month will mark 98 years since that day. Every once in a while I come across someone who has a parent alive and near 100 years. I think of Kelly Cooper who when he was about 98 stood and told a small group at church that I was in his life story. We gave him a half hour to talk and after the half hour he had made it to 1914 or so? This was a number of years ago and even so he only made it in his story to high school. We had to give him more time to finish in another meeting but then most of the folks I have heard tell their life story sort of make it all the way through in 30 minutes. They usually mention some time when the were kids, often something about getting married, their own kids and if they went to war they will mention it most always.

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Looking for the common thread over a lot of years can be a interesting story. Growing up and being a kid, being newly married, having kids, seeing them grown up, and just trying to do what is right through it all can have some threads. Blessings make a difference and occur all along the way.

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Today is the 18th of February. Looking ahead...................................................

Speaking of "bill"

I am just about done reading a book about the life of William Faulkner. One reason I have enjoyed the book a lot is that in telling the story of his life it wraps the story around his books. The characters in the books mostly are folks set in a special southern county and they seem to age as they reappear in later books, older but with more to say. The authors life and books come more into focus with the approach of this biography. "Bill" said of himself that if he had not been born he would have been "written". I suspect this indicates that he indeed is a character, perhaps a "character in his own mind" and if you know how to look you will find him in his books. Wonder if we are not all "characters in our own minds"? Someone once said of me that I was a "legend in my own mind". On the one hand that probably clearly shows someone who didn't much care for me when they said it. Bill must have thought he himself was legend like since he implied that his life was such that it would have been written had it not been lived. Perhaps as we look back at our indivdual lives we all find that it might have made for an interesting book.

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Reoccurring characters and re use of past thoughts and pictures are what my own blogs are all about, by the way. These pictures today reflect the same scenes seen out walking over the last few years. MJ was the focus of what I wondered, if taken, might capture the balloons way off in the blue behind him. Saturday mornings often are times when balloons rise up on the Western horizon but today there were many of them. Course they didn't show up on the picture taken so I posted an old shot from the past along with a file shot from the past of what was behind me as I posted this. MJ on the other hand shortly after this was taken pulled a camera phone out of his pocket and took a picture of me taking a picture of him. I understood that he may have forwarded that picture to his FB account?

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I went back and added to my last post since those characters, as they stood, were not complete without having done so...................................