Seasons of Love.
How do you measure a year in the life? Someday I will be lucky enough to do this show. This song came up on iTunes tonight, and it always has a special connotation for me.
In 2005, my dear friend Michael Gorman passed away suddenly. And it hit me pretty hard. Thoughts of him only brought up tears and sadness. After a time, I heard this song on iTunes and a lyric reminded me of Michael, and made me smile.
Michael loved coffee. He drank it all the time and would sometimes leave his empty ( and half empty) cups lying around. Eventually he would pick them up, but not before some of them grew mold and had a layer of sawdust. Totally gross and vile right?
But I heard this:
Five hundred twenty-five thousand Six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand Moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand Six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights
In cups of coffee
Can you believe I was wistfully thinking about the sawdust covered moldy cup of coffee at that moment? Absentmindedly left around the theaters and the shop. His superior organizational skills didn’t translate to used coffee.
I have been thinking about Michael lately, because of the opening of the new dance studio. He would have been so excited about this. He kept dance alive at W&L single-handedly while he was here. Stage managing the W&L students’ dance concerts and doing their lights. Handling their publicity. He would have loved the creation of the dance minor. He would be proud of this new studio. In so many ways this would not have been possible without his hard work.
So many days when I am about to take the lazy way on something, I think about Mike. What would he do? Would he wuss out? Would he mush on without organizing things? I hope he would approve.
There are always bad stuff in life. Measure the love.
What a wonderful post Owen. Thank you. I remember those cups…always right next to some light plot that I’d left for tomorrow after however many hours….left there while he was checking on me I’m sure. Those coffee cups were always left someplace when he was doing something he loved in order to help someone else do something they loved. I can’t think of many better ways to measure a life…
I know Mike would be so proud of all the Lenfest Center has become….oh – and even though I only got to work with him for a couple of years – I frequently find myself doing the same thing…”Do I really want to do it th cheap/easy way? How would Mike do it? Is it the best way for everyone?” Your post makes me happy that I’m not the only one. I think there must be worse questions we could ask ourselves.