Back

From another hiatus, another great turn of the wheel.  The details probably don't matter.  We're all fine here at Strays, me, family, friends.  The latest turn does remind me, though, of a conversation I have packed and unpacked for years.

The conversation is with strangers and I have it all the time.  It goes:  What do you do?   And I answer:  I'm a lawyer.
What do you do really means, of course, what do you do for a living.

And the proper answer, in my case, should be that I practice law for a living.

But the question and the answer come out much closer to what to you do in life - almost who are you.

And the answer, literally, is that I am lawyer.  That's who I am. 

But it isn't.  I quit journalism and went to law school, which I regarded as a trade school, a place to go learn stuff and get credentialed so I could earn a good living, still do a lot of writing, be an advocate, in a world where hard work and merit play a greater role than luck.  But it didn't make me someone I wasn't before.  It was not a metamorphosis.  It was learning a trade.

And in this way I'm not a father or a husband or a musician either, even though I love and treasure fathering and husbanding and playing music.

I'm a guy trying to lead an interesting life.  Looking forward to an astounding 2011.  Happy New Year, and bring it on.