MMTT4S - Bothersome Questions

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Captain’s Log: 22 July 2019; Back in Carolina, on the way to the coast

She went to Paris…

…and Normandy and Oxford and London.

Image courtesy of Amazon.com

Today’s tropical tune from Jimmy Buffett is a classic – “He Went To Paris.” It was first released on his 1973 album A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean. What a great song! The protagonist in the tune – the proverbial “he” – takes off for Paris searching for “answers to questions that bothered him so.” Sort of a self-discovery getaway. As the song progresses, those questions get pushed aside and even forgotten as life takes its course. He falls in love with the Paris lifestyle, which “put his ambitions at bay.” About five years later, he goes to England as a pianist and starts a family. Twenty years pass as the “quiet and clean country living” there seems to suit him well. Then war comes and robs him of his wife and son, and leaves him “with only one eye.” It is then that our subject remembers the questions that drove him to Paris to begin with. Again, he is prompted to leave in search of his answers. So, he drops everything and lives out the remainder of his days as simply as possible down in the islands. As the song concludes, our wanderer admits that amidst the good and bad, he’s lived a good life.

We never know for sure what his nagging questions were or if they remained forever unanswered. It seems, though, that maybe the answers weren’t that important, and instead, the questions themselves launched him on a life’s journey, “some of it magic, some of it tragic,” that, in hindsight, proved worthy of living.

Aren’t our lives just that? An endless quest for discovery? 

I always chuckle inside when I hear someone say they are going off in search of him/herself. Dude, you’re not going to find you. At least not all of you. What would happen if you were to find yourself anyway? I think there would be an incredibly brief moment of joy followed immediately by disappointment that the whole expedition is over. Inevitably, that age-old question that seems to stump all who encounter it (at least for a while) rears its troublesome head. “What now?”

If you stop there, life is over. Done. Kaput. Seems a little worse than tragic. If you decide to journey on, you’ll need to find yourself all over again. We change a little with each new experience. The more we are exposed to, the more we are engaged in, the more we grow and change. With that first step, the “you” you just discovered might be a little different than the “you” you’ve just become. After a few more steps, “you” have certainly changed. Pretty soon this would become an endless cycle of lost and found.

Come to think of it, maybe this is what we do, whether we claim we have gone in search of ourselves or not. Maybe this is our life’s unending mission.

One truth from all of this postulating on the meaning of life is this: If you think you are in control, you are sadly mistaken.

This sentiment is addressed early on in Buffett’s song when the young man in search of answers takes off to find them in Paris, only to get swept up in the “French wines and cheeses.” The intent of his pursuit gets waylaid by life and remains thus for the vast majority of his time on Earth.

Ring a bell?

Have you ever thought you had it all figured out, only to quickly learn that you didn’t? I sure have. Usually for me, not only did I not quite have it figured out, I wasn’t even close. Clueless. The Big Guy Upstairs has a way of reminding me who is in control. I’m sure He gets a mighty laugh from watching my ego grow, all the while shaking His head and saying, “Will you never learn?”

Hindsight reveals an amazing song line for me, despite my best efforts to derail myself. It is often in those moments of self-reflection, if we are lucky enough to get an opportunity for such, that life’s truths are exposed. It is then that I become more amazed than ever. And grateful.

I put my daughter on a church shuttle bus in Columbia, SC that was destined for Charlotte. From there she was hopping aboard a plane and flying to NYC and then on to London. She is on the third level of the Student Leadership University experience, aka SLU301. This program is amazing. Students come back from each trip changed for the better. The 301 trip consists of visits to Normandy, Paris, London, and Oxford. Check out their program here.

I’m jealous.

My son has completed all four trips and I can see the impact his experiences have had on him, which is, in turn, impacting those in which he comes into contact. In a very positive way. 

Impressive.

So, my daughter went to Paris. I’m sure she has questions that bother her so. Maybe she’ll find answers to some of them while there. Maybe not. I have a feeling that her experiences will be a little different than what she had in mind prior to the trip, that she’ll be reminded that she’s not steering the boat, and that with each question answered there are at least ten more that develop. It will be a moving, life-changing, exhausting whirlwind of a trip for sure and I’m so glad she is there. 

And I can't wait for her to return home. 

Maybe one day I’ll go to Paris in pursuit of some answers for questions that bother me so. Maybe not. I just hope as I near my life’s final moments, maybe while fishing the pilings down in the islands – that would be a nice way to wrap it all up, I can too say, “Some of it’s magic, some of it’s tragic, but I’ve had a good life all the way.”

Aloha, amigos!