U2 |

“Touch me. Take me to that other place.” – U2 lyrics from “Beautiful Day”.

I don’t subscribe to the TGIF motto. My father always worked 6 days a week and played golf on the 7th. Fridays were never an extension of the weekend and he always told me that weekends are two days for the common man, 3 days for the lazy man and 1 day for the man who takes life seriously. I’ve felt that people who said TGIF were coasting on Fridays. Well now that I have a family the 1 day weekend is no longer in my repertoire but the 3 day weekend is not something I’ve ever longed for. Fridays to me are always my most efficient days.

Yesterday Friday took on that TGIF feeling. it was one of those warm mornings in San Francisco where you put the top down and turn up the music. What played? Yep, my CD Player happened to randomly select, U2’s Beautiful Day. Work started with an informal BizDev breakfast in San Francisco’s SouthPark . I like going here in the mornings to have a casual coffee and chat about different ideas and network with other industry players. South Park is modeled after an English neighborhood and was once the home to the first real neighborhood in San Francisco. It then became what has been termed “ground zero” of the dot-com revolution and is now considered to be a leading player in the Web 2.0 movement.

I try to take one or two good ideas out of this gathering each time, but Friday it spurred some great ideas after some conversations with some attendees. With these new light bulbs over my head I walked back to my office in the bright sunshine and got into work (still the first person into my office before 8am) with a bundle of energy and a load of caffeine in my body. Before I new it I had already taken action with my new plan and was seeing results. I love it when change can be affected just like that. The morning and the afternoon flew by and one of my conference calls turned into a great opportunity that I cannot wait to see implemented by one of our partners. It isn’t often these days when two companies put money aside and focuse on proper execution and that is what we are doing. Hopefully it will succeed and people will take notice by the results we achieve.

By the time 5:30 rolled around I was able to “blow out” of the office. 5:30 is early for me and I was still one of the last to leave. These Fridays I am motivated by the chance to pick up my son from his late Friday baseball practice. Especially on this beautiful Friday afternoon I laced up some tennis shoes and threw on my glove and walked into the middle of their practice. I don’t care what anyone says, but meeting your son on a playground after work on a beautiful Spring evening and having him come running up to you and giving you a big hug just warms your heart and brings a smile to your face. He just smiled his big smile and said, “hey dad, can we call mom and get a pizza for dinner?” (Sure, what the heck!). We tossed the ball around practicing his fielding and working on his batting swing. This is the American Dream, is it not? We stayed a little longer after practice and talked about our days. I don’t know if he thought my day was as exciting as his, but he pretended to be interested. We picked up a pizza and had a nice family dinner full of smiling faces and lots of great kid stories. My wife had helped out at our school fundraiser which includes a luncheon for the school moms. It is one of the events she looks forward to every year at the school and although she didn’t say it, I think she was glad that cancer hadn’t interrupted her ability to attend. The event includes a big plant and flower show and she picked up a plant for the other mom in our class who is recovering from her cancer surgery earlier this week. [As an aside, our thoughts were interrupted this week with the news and an email from another family friend who found out she has breast cancer and will be having surgery on Monday]. For our household, bedtime is easy. Friday night was a funny one as we take time for our kids to read to us and we read something of our choice to our kids. It is our way of bonding with them. As my daughter read to me on this evening i fell asleep next to her on the bed. The next thing I know, she’s poking me in the cheek, ‘Daddy, you going to kiss me or what?” Oh boy, when she gets older, the boys are going to be in trouble (and so am I trying to keep up with her)!

So how do I end a “Beautiful Day”? A little 5 mile workout to clear my mind and an early bed time to rest it. It was another great run with my body feeling relaxed on a warm night. It was a great day to reflect on. It might just be another day in the book of my life, but it will hopefully be a good chapter when all is said and done.

You make me want to lose myself in the mysterious distance between a man and a woman – U2 (A Man and a Woman)

The skies were dark and ominous this morning as I drove to work. As it started to sprinkle I noticed the trees along the sidewalks had started to bloom. The cherry blossoms along Japantown looked gorgeous and popped against the gray skies. They had a strong glow about them. Maybe they had been glowing for a couple weeks and I hadn’t noticed them until we got our first storm clouds of the year. It is amazing how such beauty shines through even more at the darkest of times.

These are curious times in the economy and everyone seems to be more on edge than normal. You might say there are dark clouds everywhere, and not just in the sky. I even overheard a homeless man here in San Francisco today tell a lady that he was better off than her because he didn’t have a mortgage or rent to pay. So true that we should get heckled by homeless people now. My own company has had layoffs and no matter who you are these days, people are worried abour their jobs. I hear it, see it and feel it. Even though I had an outstanding year there was still a nervousness going over my weekly call. In reality, I had nothing to worry about, but in these times you never know (and one of my colleagues was actually let go today).

Despite all of this I still manage to slow down and smell the roses. Or in this case I was looking for the analogy to my drive to work. Was I capable of finding the cherry blossoms in my life against the dark sky? It made me think about some of the stories I’ve read recently as well as my own. The story of Chad Moutray and his daughter who now must move on with each other and their memories of their wife and mother. They are each other’s cherry blossoms. Last year despite all of the surgeries and doctor’s appointments, my wife’s beauty just showed brighter than ever to me. I don’t think it has shone brighter and it has been there all the time. We’ve known each otherfor over half our lives, but sometimes the dust gathers like it does on a lightbulb and you need to wipe it off and you suddenly realize that 60-watt light bulb is really 100 watts. I think in hard times like this the dust comes flying off and that dark room is radiated by the beauty that exists.

My wife had her oncology appointment and monthly shot today. It was a little painful this time she relayed to me. The O/S pellet they shoot in to here is something she’ll have to get used to and hopefully the side effects will lessen. The wait is still what kills her as they were running 2 hours late. Good thing I gave her a bunch of magazines for the waiting room. There were no reports on her ability to metabolize Tamoxifen yet, but the side effects seem to indicate that she is okay with Tamoixfen and her cholesterol seems to be declining. My wife loves to go into details running through her lab reports and every last minute of conversation she had with her nurses. I laugh at her that it is more painful to me to hear her detailed reenactments of the day than to get a needle poked into me. Listening to her get a shot is almost as bad for a guy like me who is squeamish about needles.

The day before, she had her meeting with her plastic surgeon to go over any adjustments she is going to need in March. It was one of the appointments I missed because I was traveling. Of course she forgot to mention the ONE thing I wanted her to speak about and we laughed. Same old wife…she doesn’t listen to her husband. Maybe that is what keeps her young!

In the end, the day came out beautiful. I was able to get home and see my kids for the first time in a few days. Additionally despite the very mundane conversation I had a chance to spend some time with my cherry blossom in my life.

Tag Archives: U2

A Beautiful Day

Beauty at a Dark Time