My Own Banquo's Ghost: The Fit Is Momentary

Electrons are fast but human nerve endings are faster, unless, like me, you become good at the art of looking and not seeing, hearing and not listening. Sometimes I get fixated on a point on the horizon and miss the very loud eighteen wheeler bearing down on me. When that happens I'd like to think I'm not the most surprised guy on the planet but have to concede I'm the most surprised guy in my own skin.

That happened to me yesterday though technically I should admit it happened to you if you stopped by either in this space or at the website of the hometown newspaper that carries my musings (my word, no one else uses it. Ever.) every day and on Wednesdays prints them in its actual, fold it in half, print edition.

If you clicked on the link, the part you should read comes below the article, in the reader comments because of a liberty I took without the knowledge or permission of the newspaper professionals kind enough to let me use their ink and electrons.

I attended Tuesday evening the convening of the new Norwich City Council and Swearing-in of our first woman Mayor with all the pomp and circumstance such a formal administration change requires and deserves.

What I failed to make clear to you, the reader, because in my ignorance I wasn't seeing it as the point but only as a prelude, was that I had written the column you read the day after the ceremony over the weekend. Yes, I was at Tuesday's events but I was, in reality, writing about a future as if it were the past.

I know what you're thinking now 'if only he could harness his powers for good.' Or for good riddance if past events have proven anything. I didn't intend to mislead you but I broke faith with you and did.

There will be a far fuller explanation and better worded apology in the Bulletin newspaper tomorrow by its most senior leader who had better things to do until I precipitated a change of his plans. You'll find all of that tomorrow a lot faster if you bookmark their site now.

But meanwhile in the here and now of today, all the apologies in the world cannot undo a careless action that I used to advance my attempted point about being open in communicating with one another as a new Mayor and Council begin their work on behalf of all of us who live in Norwich.

The irony of that failure isn't lost on me but I am a bit more self-conscious and aware of those feet of clay now firmly attached to my legs. You might suggest that being self-conscious is a vast improvement over being unconscious which is how I too often seem to live my life.

I'm proof that no matter how quick-witted and fleet of foot I may fancy myself to be, I will never be fast enough to outrun the shadow of my own mistakes, fueled by hubris and compounded by self-absorption. There's an extra place set at the table; perhaps someone from whom I can learn a lesson I thought I knew will deign to dine with me.
-bill kenny