FAILURE IS THE FIRST STEP TOWARD TRYING?

I've been talking to the kids a lot about being prepared.

Simply being prepared. Not just in the easy survivalist way of having blankets and knives and books and art supplies.

In the sense of being mentally prepared to handle stressful situations where you start to panic, and the importance of thinking ahead about how you can respond in as clear-headed a fashion as possible and make the best decision available in that circumstance.

As with many things parenting, there is a wide gap between telling your children how to do something well, and modeling that thing well.

I was at a recent event; an event which led me into the paths of various people. Many I did not know. Some I did know. There were others whose faces I recognized but couldn't bring up a name, and others whose names I had heard but couldn't place with a face.

And then there were the ones whose names and faces I knew, because I try hard to remember those things. But this certain category of person is in the category of People I Know Who Should Probably Know Who I Am, But Don't.

The reason I say this is because she was a former student at a school I had taught classes at for over six years. She had never been in my class, but I knew her name, and greeted her in the hallways, and so forth.

This was from several years ago, and I had seen her occasionally at some youth sports functions and greeted her and her infant child, then a second. My greetings were brushed off, which is mostly fine...

...although acknowledging the presence, and remembering and using the name of someone is a skill, a learnable skill that is always in vogue. If something is always in vogue, it means it's timeless, classic, and should be a founding principle of living life.

I typically remember people's names more than they remember mine. Not always. Sometimes I forget. But I'm able to remember what I do for one reason: because I try. 

Because I try.

Hint: everyone can practice doing so instead of repeatedly using ONE OF THE WORST ONGOING EXCUSES IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. It is this:

Sorry, I'm SO BAD with names. 

There are two things wrong with that.

Number one, if you're bad at something, then you have a choice to either a) get worse or b) get better.

Because nothing stays the same. Everything, nature reminds us, eventually decays. Including skills and relationships. If you don't practice them or work on them, they decay.

They don't stay the same. They get worse. It's kind of like voting: choosing not to vote is still a choice that affects the outcome. Choosing to not stand up at a particular point in the face of injustice is still a choice. Inaction is a choice. If I sound worked up, I am. Doing nothing is a choice. And sometime's that choice is fine. Sometimes it's okay to let things happen around you. To be the chill, cool person who just rolls with whatever vibe. I do that sometimes.

That was a lengthy number one. Basic thing is: if you're bad at something, that means you have the opportunity to become better. And that is your choice. Not something sunk in stone for the rest of your life.

Number two, when most people say that phrase, they're saying it to make a social situation less awkward. But when you say sorry, are you doing it as a one-time or occasional memory lapse? Or are  you saying it preemptively to head off getting called out for not remembering someone in the future, because you have no intention of actually trying any harder in the future.

I don't like that. I still apologize for not remembering people's names. Plenty of times I don't. I apologize for needing to ask, because I would like to be able to a) use their name in whatever brief conversation they have, b) let them know I am trying, and c) get my brain some extra practice in filing and archiving important information. And people's names are important information.

Maybe not every single person you meet. But that's the point: that in refusing to make an ongoing choice to at least try and improve your memory recall with names, you are saying that information is not important. You are not that important.

My sister and I used to joke - in a non-humorous way - about this one guy who had met each of us multiple times, and yet could never remember not only our names, but seemed to have barely any recollection of who we were. This was someone who was in a professional post-grad program, had plenty of friends in the crowd he hung out with, and whose general intelligence and memory seemed to function fine in other ways. So it came down to him making no effort to remember people who didn't seem important to try remembering.

I try to make it easy on people a lot of the time and proactively introduce myself: Hey good to see you, Leonidas! Joseph Long here, been a while! And of course they nod and smile and say of course I remember you! And sometimes they're telling the truth. Point is, regardless of how judgmental I sound above, I cut people slack when they forget when they can at least bring some basic respect and friendliness to the table, give their attention for a short period of time, and be present in whatever short interaction they have. 

It feels good to have people use your name.

It feels good to be remembered.

My dad's always been good about using people's names in greeting and talking with them in both his personal and professional life. My mom too, but Mother's Day weekend is coming up so I'll probably say other good things about her soon and let the old man have some solo props.

My buddy Rachel worked in a library for over 15 years. I saw her over and over greeting patrons by name and the way their faces lit up when she'd make them feel wanted, special, and important by their very presence...and by the fact that she remembered and used their names.

My wife Becca is so good about giving her warm and sincere attention to those she meets, and to a couple groups in particular - children and the elderly. Two populations that frequently get treated, by adults, with condescension, patronization, and often minus the use of their names. It matters to remember. If nothing else to make the effort.

I've heard that Keanu Reeves is super cool to work with and makes sure and learns the names of a lot of the crew. Don't know if that's true or not, but I'd like to think it is. The guy is Neo, he rides motorcycles, he's got another killer trilogy (John Wick), and he's a kind soul who remembers people's names? Can't be true. Hope it is.

So this woman, early 20s, comes up to me with two young ones in tow and informs - or asks? - me:

Hey, aren't you one of the Long brothers?

Of course this is an identity I am proud of; to be identified in the community of any or all of my four brothers is an honorific I accept with pride and enthusiasm. Even when it's minus the dignity of a name...

...except, it bothered me a little more than usual, as I had memories over the last several years of occasionally running into her, going out of my way to be friendly, and always using her name.

Because I remembered.

Because it feels good when people remember your name.

It truly is one of the great steps toward success in any field I would encourage a person to take: practice learning and remembering people's names.

Anyway. I informed her that yes, I am; I am the one called Joseph. The attachment of a name to my identity seemed of less importance to her than the fact that I was a member of the Long Family. Okay.

After accurately informing her that I was, in fact yes, one of the Long brothers, followed by the revealing of my name, an irrelevant fact she quickly discarded, she dived into the follow-up question.

Was it so what's keeping you busy these days?

Was it do you miss teaching? 

Was it so how are your little ones doing?

No.

It was this : Are you on Facebook?

Uhh, 
I fumbled,
Yeah, sometimes I guess. 

So you're not on very much,
she decided quickly for me.
Okay, then I'll need to get your phone number.

My brain was still playing catchup, which is no excuse for how I handled the next thirty seconds.

All of the conversations and preparation and training I've done with our kids about thinking clearly under pressure and preserving your wits in stressful circumstances, et cetera et cetera...

...it all deserted me in that decisive moment of choice over whether to a) panic or b) not panic.

I went with Option A. Panicked. How so?

I gave her my phone number.

She thrust her phone into my hands, and I froze.

Why?

I do not know. I simply do not know. Could I have just asked why do you need my phone number?

Sure. Just like I could also have accurately said actually, we are already Facebook friends and I think that's a good place to keep our friendship for the time being. At the bare minimum until you can correctly recall my name. 

But no. I panicked. It may not have appeared so to anyone looking on. But I did. I take responsibility in this most ridiculous of circumstances for simply not thinking clearly and doing the opposite of what I meant to do. Which was : not hand over my phone number.

Is it a big deal that I did? No, not really. But it's the principle of it. I wasn't thinking, and I got inexplicably flustered and distracted, and did the opposite of what I preach and evangelize about, which is basically along the lines of don't get bullied, flustered, pushed, or pulled into doing something. When someone tries to do so, time is on your side. Simply say no, decline, or find a polite-ish way to not even respond on their timeline. Do it on yours. Not theirs. If they're pushing you for something, don't even respond on their timeline.

That's what telemarketers and aggressive salespeople and really good PTA presidents do: they hound you and hound you and get you flustered and try to convince you that you need to make a decision on whatever it is they want...and you need to make that decision NOW.

No. You don't. And I knew this. I threw it all away, sadly and inadvertently, when I gave up my digits.

Upon being gifted this information she had no right to have, she launched into an ensuing conversation about children, in which I learned that immediately after high school she began having unprotected sex, which was something she acknowledged she could have handled better, as it led to the birth of her first child.

And second child.

And third.

All of which was not received well by her family because of her ongoing health issues and so forth. *disclosure: I know exactly what those health issues are, as she conveyed to me what they are, but as a former CPR-trained medical professional, I am highly-attuned to HIPAA protocols and therefore will not be including any details concerning her sex life and contraception methods, both which I which I know a bit about now.

In the end, there's only one word to describe how I handled this interaction: panic and failure.

I thought I was prepared, but I wasn't.

That's it. I have decided to make this post an abrupt ending. I embedded heavy-handed advice and judgmental observations all throughout, so I'm just gonna quit now.

I panicked.

I did the opposite of what I teach to do.

That makes me a hypocrite.

I acknowledge it, and move forward.

As my brother James says frequently,

Trying is the first step toward failure. 

More failure, here I come. Bring it.

I may get old, I may rust and die someday...but I will not entropy myself into oblivion through non-action.

BECAUSE, THAT'S WHY (FIVE THOUGHTS ON MEMORIALS AND GRIEVING).

Stick it high. 

Raise your hand if you love going to memorials.

No one? 

No one does. 

But we go. This family goes. Because we will be present. 

Raise your hand if you've ever said "...but I don't know what to say!"

Nobody does. 

But we say something, even if our mouths are silent.

If nothing else, we can give our time and we can bring our presence. 

Just playin'. 

So many people die on Game of Thrones. So many. 

Not gonna turn this into some 'desensitizing effect of violence depiction in pop culture.' Let me say this: 

It's ridiculous to pretend that the way we absorb death in film and television doesn't affect us. 

I am as strong a First Amendment advocate as some are for the Second (let's also be intellectually honest and consistent: you don't get to cherrypick which amendments you support and which ones you don't. Common sense, people. Common sense.). 

Point is, I support free expression and speech-related issues in many incarnations, including often unpleasant ones, and including the right of film and television to portray violence and death in exceptionally prolific and graphic ways. First Amendment ain't a little thing you apply when convenient and yank away when it applies to content you don't like. 

But let's be serious: of course those things desensitize us. Anything you experience over and over desensitizes you. I'm not saying violent content should be banned or censored. I'm saying it's irresponsible and asinine to pretend it doesn't affect us and take some sort of toll on our psyche. 

So what I meant when I said "not gonna turn this into some 'desensitizing effect of violence in pop culture' issue is that I'm going to do exactly that. 

We see death over and over and over, en masse, on screens. And it's often justified and makes us feel good because it's the righteous response to some atrocity we have the right to feel indignant about. So we cheer when violence begats violence and the bad dudes get what's coming. 

But it's all in long shot. It's a comedy cause it's in long shot, like Charlie Chaplin says. It doesn't get tragic until it's up close and you see who's actually getting hurt. 

And that's the thing about memorials: it's an opportunity to hurt together. En masse. To forgo the long shot of death at a distance, whether on a screen or a newspaper, and to experience it close up with those who are truly hurt and to feel the tragedy alongside, if only for a brief period. 

Maybe it's a statement that means only a tiny fraction of something. But I think it's better to do something that may mean something good, even if it's a fraction's fraction, than to take the easy route and do nothing. To make excuses, mostly under the valid banner of "...I don't think ____ cares whether I'm there or not."

We show up. Because our presence matters.

Walter

There are two episodes of television that I will probably return to for comfort at some point when my dad dies. I hope that time is a long, long time off. 

One of them takes place in a later season of the medical comedy Scrubs.

One of them is in a later season of the wonderful and underwatched science fiction show Fringe. 

The latter, especially, is a reminder of the beauty and the pain of having deep, deep relationships that hurt so much to lose. But you wouldn't give up having had them even though it hurts so much. Because they were special, they were beautiful, and they meant something meaningful that you will carry with you always. 

Who woulda thought?

For some reason, I usually feel like listening to Tame Impala after a funeral, memorial, or celebration of life service. 

Someday

Someday, I plan to research (for a short while, probably on Wikipedia) the social trend of moving from "funeral" to "memorial" to "celebration of life." 

I get it. Our choices of words are important. And there are distinctions amongst the three. But sometimes it seems like everything is about a 'a celebration of life' rather than the cold, formal 'funeral,' or slightly-more casual 'memorial service.' In the end, they're all about the same thing: acknowledging the passing of someone from one state to another; from life to death. 

Those little sugary nuts, please

If anyone ever asked my opinion about whether I would prefer to a) have food or b) not have food at a memorial service, I would generally say, 'a' most of the time. 

By 'generally,' I mean 'one hundred percent of the time.'

Don't skimp

Make sure people can hear. It's great to be able to see what people are saying about the deceased, but even more important, it's important to be able to hear what they're saying. 

So do what must be done to get appropriate amplification.

The clock

We all have better things to do.

Of course we do.

Death is not convenient. It often doesn't come at times that fit into our schedule.

But we drop those other things and show our respect by gifting our time.

Time is one of the few things we all have to give. And it's meaningful because there's no shortcuts or way of getting around it.

Until you're dead, you have no choice of whether or not to use your time. You're always using it in some way. It's a little like voting: a non-vote is still a vote, if nothing else for the status quo.

But unlike a vote, your time will be and can be used by only you.* 

If you were looking for the most efficient and effective way of using your time, then you should definitely not go to memorials. There are a thousand more productive ways to spend your time.

If we were robots or even androids, we should definitely just do away with funerals and memorials.

But we are people, and if the relationships we hold are a defining part of what makes us human, then the memorials we choose to attend should be defining reminders of the most beautiful and illogical traits that make us human to begin with.

The fragile and beautiful strength of relationships that are not about productivity or efficiency or logic.

They're about the ways in which we are bound to one another, by blood or friendship or many other ways; all ways that forge meaningful and lasting relationships that inevitably, at some point, will always, always come to an end.

And we can choose to give our time. One more time.

___

*the very fun 2011 Justin Timberlake science-fiction thriller notwithstanding, in which time is very much a tradable commodity. 

Suffer the ?

Children belong at these things. They may not understand exactly what's going on, but it is an opportunity for us to show them, to model for them, what it means to show respect and empathy and how to grieve as a community. 

Although he was referring to entirely different situations (innovation at MIT), I like how Hal Gregersen refers to "constant, generative questioning." Few things are harder to think about, and even more difficult to talk about, than death.

Of course we want to shelter and protect our kids from dealing with pain or tragedy or "adult things," yet I also think it's valuable to begin conversations about grief and empathy early. And death is usually the ultimate catalyst for bringing grief. It sucks. 

Children are good at asking questions, and maybe that's a good thing to have around more when we're dealing with grief and death. Death doesn't make sense. There's no good answers. 

But there's a million questions. Death is a catalyst for talking and trying to understand what it means to really live, the kind of lives we want to live, and the ways in which our lives are connected and impact with others. 

Death is a catalyst for a billion questions. And we should encourage those questions and be okay with not having great answers. Or good answers. Or any answers. Because that's one of the great lies embedded into a lot of formal education: the importance of learning super good answers.

No. The important part is the question; encouraging the questions. It is okay to talk about these things. We don't need to be afraid of having difficult conversations about tough things. And it absolutely, totally, and completely is...

...okay to keep asking questions for which there are not good answers. 

Talk about a great life lesson to get from death. 

Kids are great at figuring out when adults shoo them away from certain topics. There's the Big Two. Politics and religion. But death is the third, I think, possibly followed by sex. Or preceded by. But why?

I don't advocate for dumping 'adult stresses' on kids. But I do advocate for encouraging the asking of questions and a response to those questions that is authentic, open-ended if need be, and respectful of the fact that they simply asked those questions.

Do we want kids to stop asking questions, to stop exploring and discovering and wondering?

Most would say no. 

Our kids don't enjoy memorial services any more than any other kids. They don't get excited about going. But they know it's something we do when we need to, as a family. They know it's a ritual, a part of something bigger than ourselves and outside ourselves that we can contribute to, if only with our presence. 

It's not a bad thing for kids to understand there's pain, there's bad things that happen, and we can run away from those things or we can try to be part of something to make the world better. They might not understand a lot of it, depending on their age and development, but we can help them understand the importance of sharing these rituals together and bringing something important to them...

...ourselves.

So we show up. Because our presence matters. 

CLOSE, CLOSER, GONE, BUT STILL IN MY HEART.

I have told my siblings for years,
for years :

Be where you need to be. 

Even if we go through periods of being geographically distant from one another, I would rather have physical distance than emotionally distance. 

The two don't have to be related. Geographic distance with emotional distance. But you gotta fight, ya gotta fight for what's important. A little fight goes a long ways.

Of course there's a certain amount - a lot - that you lose with not seeing someone regularly. But I would rather support people I care about being where they need to be and doing what they need to do, even if it means giving them up, then have them stay geographically close just to stay safe and secure.

But man, man, man oh man it's hard some days.

Some days, some days are just harder than others when you miss someone.

That's circa 1994. Jonny's bigger and buffer and smarter and a whole long ways away now.

But we are still connected.

Forever.

SOME DAYS.

Some days, you get a message from your carrier in the morning saying you have less than 2% data remaining for the month that ends tomorrow, so you put your phone into airplane mode for the day while you're away from wifi to avoid paying an extra $20.

Some days, you drink coffee black.

Some days, you ditch responsibility and the growing list of to do's and take the family to the water park, and feel smug about how little guilt you feel, especially when the kids remember to say thank you at the end of the day.

Some days, you enjoy a random few minutes of conversation with a stranger about structural engineering and the amazing feats of genius it took to build airplanes and spacecraft in the 1960s.

Some days, your wife winks at you from across a crowded space filled with strangers and it makes you feel super good. Some days.

Some days, you watch your two-year old racing down a four-foot waterslide with an attitude of focus, enthusiasm, and energy that is infectious, and then you realize he's wearing a swim diaper and pray heartily that it holds up on his 497th descent of the slide.

Some days, you watch your eight-year old take on something scary and challenging and dark, like an enclosed supersonic waterslide, and you see him emerge with bravery and the confidence of the conquered, and you feel like Mr. Miyagi must have at the end of the first Karate Kid, even though you know it's not really about you.

Some days, you watch your 11-year old daughter-athlete exit a pool with her mischievous smile of undisguised joy and you want to grab onto that and do whatever it effing takes to keep that mischief and that smile and that inimitable sense of unique self growing boundlessly and eternally.

Some days, you exchange almost no words with your eight-year old son on a rainy afternoon drive because he's so deeply absorbed in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and you smile with happiness at being ignored for a splendid reason.

Some days, you think about stopping for coffee on a rainy day because you really feel like it, and you don't because then you'd wake up your sleeping wife who looks magical with little damp ringlets of blonde drizzled down her face after she's played hard, and besides it means you'd have to take your attention away from listening to Future Islands' Ran, and you're just not okay with breaking up that piece of magic.

Some days, you listen to Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire, the Pixies' Gouge Away, and Xavier Rudd's Storm Boy back-to-back-to-back and think nothing of it.

Some days, you eat a bean burrito from Taco Bell when you're so hungry and it tastes like one of the top five burritos you've ever had in your life. You know it's not true, but for a few brief moments, it seems like it.

Some days, you fight with your wife over a book from the library your daughter finished, and you've both discovered it's pretty good, and then she's two chapters ahead and selfishly dived into bed with it before you could wrest it away. Some days that happens.

Some days, you look over at your wife in bed, reading the book you're supposed to be reading, and she's falling asleep and you can hear frogs singing away in the forest creek a hundred yards away and you know it's time to put the day to rest, because it was a good one, and also you still have .07% of data left on your cell phone plan that rolls over tomorrow, and you totally stuck it to them because you saved twenty bucks. Looks like you're gonna buy yourself some good coffee tomorrow. But that's a different day. Not today.

Some days, you realize were inimitable, like and unlike every other, and you'll carry some special snippets from it around with you for a while. Like...forever.

Some days.

PEDESTALS ARE DANGEROUS.

I rarely rewatch things.* Especially television. But I finished rewatching Big Little Lies a few nights ago. This time with Becca. And it held up a second time. HBO's masterful seven-episode series about a murder in an upscale coastal California town touches on so many themes and dynamics that are most notably centered around a group of moms and their relationships with their children and husbands.

Hilarious, disturbing, spellbinding, suspenseful, and killer dialogue. Revolving around women, it also features a supporting cast of men who shine some uncomfortable light on character traits and attitudes indigenous to my gender. Uncomfortable, but also enlightening and entertaining.

The one big suspension of belief that must be taken...I think: parents, talk to and with your children. 

There's an idea running throughout of parents simply accepting that their six-year old children won't tell them something (a key plot point). It's a recurring idea; and unfortunately mirrors a lot of real life these days. The idea that we should be - or it's normal to be - scared of our children; that it's somehow our job to entertain them at all points and to help gain and preserve social status with their peers and that to respect them means that they get to do (almost) whatever they want...an idea that they get from...where?

Yes. Us.

source: www.vanityfair.com

I'm not scared of children. I'm not scared of saying No to children. I respect and dialog with children from the time they're born. I don't and won't talk down to them.

But I will not be cowed or scared of them.

That is the sad reality displayed frequently on BLL. A reality that kids are often running the show and it's our job to be at beck and call, to wait on hand and foot, to quickly forgive their lapses of conscience, character, behavior, and point the finger elsewhere; to put them on a pedestal.

Toys don't belong in glass cases.

And children don't belong on pedestals. 

They're human beings. Human beings with agency. Which means they make mistakes and we help them learn from them and move on. With kindness, with love, with respect.

And human beings, period, don't belong on pedestals.

Becca and I tell our kids, over and over:

You don't need to be perfect. 
Forget perfection. 
We expect two things from you when you're learning or doing something new and challenging:

1. We expect that you will bring your best
2. We expect you to improve in a linear fashion. Steady improvement. 

We help them in encouraging and positive ways...and also constructive and challenging ways. And we give them the gift of knowing that while they're children, we are running the show. We will listen, will answer any and every question the best we can, given that they are asked in respectful and relevant ways, and we will love them with all of our being. All.

So when something comes along that might affect our young child's safety, we do not accept the answer:

"I can't talk about it. I can't tell you. I promised I wouldn't tell."

Nope.

We talk. We hold conversation. We dialogue. Every day. About little, little things, over and over, so when the occasional big and tough conversations come along, we have a pattern and foundation for how to talk.

Endless conversation, endless questions from us to them and them to us and Becca to me and me to her and all of us to each other. We have set a roadmap of neo-Socratic discourse that is our course, for better or for worse.

As they get older, there will be a time for secrets; that is part of breaking away and creating a separate identity.

But ideally, no place for lies. Big or little.

In the meantime, we talk. With each other.

We do the best we can, parents across the world, to keep our children safe. To give them a life that is first of all, has safety and love, and second of all, is filled with curiosity, joy, and a core understanding that they don't exist to be served. Part of their existence is to fill their part of the world with goodness, with love, and with their special skills and talents and interests.

To recognize there is a bigger world out there than their little group of friends and acquaintances and that they have a mandate, as a human being, to help look out for each other.

That should be our aim.

___







*the are approximately two exceptions:
1) the long list of films we have been rewatching over time with our children, as certain ones become age-appropriate and relevant (i.e. no Pulp Fiction...yet),

and

2) rewatching for educational value when I'm working on curriculum and pulling examples from cinema or art for students to learn from,

and

3) rewatching for bonding, for example, a viewing of MacGruber with my brothers,

or

4) certain films just because they're super good for rewatching, such as Hugo.

A DAY, A TUESDAY.

01
The cafeteria. A terrifying environment for many of us with vivid memories of high school. Also, a terrifying place for people who pay attention to cross-contamination issues. Also, a terrifying place for people with food sensitivities, allergies, or specific dietary needs.

Now picture an eight-year old boy, dutifully, every meal, trudging to the back to check in with kitchen staff and find out what vegan option is available.

Also knowing that at least half the time, even if they’re nice which they sometimes aren’t, that they will likely make some reference to him being a girl, due to his long blond hair. He will apparently not notice ninety-nine percent of the time.

Pancakes. Pancakes and oatmeal and some toppings. No peanut butter, because it’s a peanut-free camp this summer.

I had oatmeal with seventeen raisins, a small spoonful of brown sugar, and a bunch of toasted walnuts. There were no wieners.

02
I would like a boat. Also, I would like somebody to take care of my boat, because everyone I know who has a boat says they soak up a lot of money and time taking care of, and I don’t feel like doing that.

I might like some kayaks and a canoe. Maybe we’ll go that route.

But it is important to make and maintain friendships with people who have boats. Because they’re good friends.

03
Magdelana waterskiied this morning.

It looks so simple. “Keep your tips up. Just let the boat pull you up. That’s it.”

It reminds me of the advice I got for trying to land a backflip snowboarding. “Just hit it hard, and kinda lean back and tuck, and then land it.”

Instructions are so easy to give when something comes naturally to you. That’s why I think the best teachers are the ones who struggled. Because they give better instructions and don’t have the mindset that it just comes easy. They had to fight their way to an understanding of a particular subject or skill.

And a good waterski instructor understands how terrifying the experience of strapping sticks to your legs and being told to hang onto a rope attached to a very fast boat might possibly be a scary thing for the ninety-five percent of people who don’t grow up  going out on a ski boat every weekend during the summer.

“You can do it, Mags!”
I yelled at her.
“Just keep your tips up and let the boat pull you up!”

04
When I was a kid, I painted a ceramic lion at camp. Yellow. Still have it. It’s not very good, but I loved doing it. There’s an instructor there now, name is Trish. She has transformed the ceramics area into something quite remarkable. Taken it from being a dumpy little hobbyist’s corner into being a charming, fully functional little teaching studio for all ages to learn ceramics.

The power of one driven person with a will, a vision, and a bankroll.

05
I love it when you discover you have an incredible aptitude for something you’d never known about before. Like unicycling. I was walking down the road and saw these kids unicycling. A unicycle is like half a bicycle, and only has about approximately one wheel. Anyway, these kids are hugging this fence, straddling these one-wheel cycles and trying to figure em out, and there’s a spare so I pop on a helmet and give it a go, and turns, out, whoa! I’m pretty good.

By ‘pretty good,’ I can go 20 or 30 feet before gracefully crashing, and I have not emasculated myself, in the most literal sense.

It is fun, very fun, and dangerous, which is how I go about life, carefully.

06
I don’t know what we had for lunch because I didn’t take any pictures. And that gets to a fundamental reason I document much of what I do: the fragility of memory.

I don’t need to remember everything. I don’t need to know exactly what we ate for lunch. I’m okay with it. I wish I had taken a picture, because I did for every other meal (I think). But, like a big puzzle with one piece missing...you gotta learn to be okay missing the things you miss and not wishing otherwise.

So I don’t know, I might have eaten a pastrami sandwich,  I don’t remember. I don’t think I did, because I’m vegetarian and I haven’t usually forgotten that before.


07
I guess one of the five valuable things I learned from my parents about being a parent is the value of of playing. Lifelong playing. Playing as metaphor, but also literally playing. Getting down on hands and knees and physically playing with kids. Wrestling, running, sitting, crawling, sculpting dirt, swimming, throwing mud.

I watched my little brother Jonny (ignore the below reference to a different completely non-related Jonny) swim with his nephews and nieces and spit water on them and throw them seven feet high and terrorize them in the lake and I thought,

“That is the is beautiful spirit of our dad being carried on. Wouldn’t he be proud if he were here right now?”

Then a few minutes later, I realized our dad actually was there, and was busy reading a David Baldacci novel and ignoring his grandchildren playing in the lake.*




*this part is not true, but in befitting the truth-adjusting times we live in, I felt this fact fitted the story I wanted to tell better, so I adjusted it to fit.


08
When I was a little kid, we didn’t wear helmets when we rode bikes, snow skiied, or inner tubed behind boats.

Now, I wouldn’t think of biking or snowboarding without a helmet.

Should I be wearing one innertubing? Yeah.

Especially when you’re five feet in the air, hanging on for dear life at 20 miles per hour and the tube perpendicular to the water and your daughter’s butt is about to crash down on your head because you didn’t allocate your weight properly on an 85-degree nanosecond turn by a crazy guy named Steve Hopmann. Also known as Friend With Boat (FWB).

Johannes asked him if his original name was Steve or Stefan. Apparently it’s Steven. Sometimes he drove with no hands.

We wore no helmets, and I was grateful to be alive in the end. Steve laughed.

09
They assign groups at the beginning of the week, ostensibly to simplify and streamline certain processes, but really it allows the camp authorities to more readily identify problematic figures. So we are the Pink Group. I’m happy to be pink. There’s people here who don’t know me very well and thus are not familiar with many of my common sense philosophies that have led me to become a feminist. So it’s interesting being engaged in certain conversations with those people who assume they’re speaking to a friendly audience (i.e. choir) about certain topics. Because we’re in Idaho, and there’s a bunch of white people, and a lot of them are dentists, doctors, or in this case, a physical therapist.

In this case. This one guy. Nice guy from Canada. On the sandbar, something like this. I’ll start partway through. Greek storytellers would call it in media res. Starting the story in the middle. So we’re talking. I’ll call him Jonny, because he has the same name as one of my brothers, but it’s not Jonny.

We could definitely learn a few things from Canada about hospitality,
I said.

Yeah...I don’t know.
Jonny said.
There’s a lot of Canadians pretty upset at the U.S. about the tariffs Trump set last month.

I don’t blame them.
I said.
If I was Canadian, I’d be mad too.

Well there’s a lot we don’t know,
He said.
Of course all the news is liberal and they never say anything about the good things Trump has done.

Uhh,
I said.
There’s a lot of respectable people of integrity in journalism, and if Trump ever does do something good, I am certain they will report on it.

Well they don’t like him,
Jonny said.
I mean, the economy and jobs, they’re doing the best they’ve been since the recession, so I guess he’s doing something right.

Yeah...
I said.
Trump is very good at taking credit for anything that goes well, such as those things. Regardless of what nonpartisan economists have to say about how those trends work and the factors that affect jobs, inflation, and the economy that were set in motion long before his presidency.

Well,
He said.
The media is so liberal it’s hard to know exactly what the truth is I guess. I’m not really into politics anyway.

We stood there for a few more minutes. Then I ran into the water to attack defenseless little children. He stood on the shore, deeply pondering and reflecting on the wisdom I had shared with him moments before.

I am certain that’s what he was doing.

___

I walked through the sand in my wet swimsuit late in the afternoon and thought of what I would be doing the following Tuesday: trying to catch up on being away from work for a week. There is cell service, but very poor cell service. There is internet, but very poor internet. I almost wonder if it would be better to have neither at all versus a poor version of each. I don’t know. There are a handful of times throughout the week that I truly actually need both for financial and work reasons. I don’t know.

Potatoes, meatballs, bad kale, corn on the cob, apple crisp for supper. The food has been decent. The kitchen service...not so much.

We had KP duty, which means sweeping the entire caf and cleaning tables. I am quite skilled at sweeping.

10
Every evening, there is an activity known as “The Big Event.” Some are enjoyable. Others, such as the Mega Marathon, less so.

Tonight was the Mega Marathon. It is an event which I do not anticipate with excitement, primarily because there are two types of philosophies for its competitors:

1. those who are playing to win
2. those who are playing to get children involved, bond with them over some shared friendly and supportive competition, and help them learn some core life lessons about teamwork and good sportsmanship.

I am a bit aggressive about making certain that every child who wants to be a part of it has the opportunity to do so, and have willingly sacrificed both my spot as well as other adults spots in order to make sure that they are able to be on the team. This has not endeared me at times to some adults who have more of a Type 1 mentality (see above).

Also, there was an infamous incident last year in which me and two unnamed teammates capsized a canoe during one leg; an action that left us roaring with laughter, and other teammates not so pleased, as it dropped us from second-to-last place to last place by a wide margin.

So the Mega Marathon. There is running, cycling, stair running, chair obstacle crawling, swimming, canoeing, paddle boarding, and so forth. Magdelana ran a leg of the stairs and Johannes ran anchor on the four-person sprint relay. I ran with him. Just because. We waited in a hornet-infested conclave outside the camp parking lot, and after an initial handoff that resulted in my eight-year old teammate starting off in the wrong direction, we Jesse Owens-ed ourselves pull mell to the next phase : the canoes.

I was not asked to be a part of the canoeing this year.

We finished in last by a wide margin, and our team had the biggest smiles and the grandest high-fives afterwards. For another year, I was grateful we did it. I still dread the next time.

11
Some things I love to do at night, like skinny dipping and watching movies and drinking Italian sodas, not always simultaneously, but sometimes. Tonight I got to do one of those. Hint: it has to do with the country shaped like a boot and it’s a drink.

As an adult, technically, I often forget what it’s like to experience events through the lens of Childhood and how seemingly trivial events can be huge and exciting during that part of life.

Like walking around a lake late at night drinking an Italian soda with friends. Why should that not be exciting now? What’s stopping us?

It is helpful, in that scenario, to have both a lake and friends.

Elevating the trivial to the level of spectacle. That is one of my foundational mantras. Yes, I did coin that.

So that was a day.

POEM : DATE NIGHT.

The morning is new
Smell of fresh brewing brew
Possibilities endless
And the negative doubts friendless.

Hey! I say to her,
I totally had this thought occur:
We’re married quite a few years?
We should celebrate by switching a few gears.

And by gears, how about a date night, I suggest
For a night or two, or six months might be worth it to invest.
I’ve got some ideas supreme, and you know my ideas are worth hearing,
As our middle age we’re going to start nearing.

What you have in mind, Dear?
She says, your ideas I wanna hear.
You thinking an island, lake, south Zimbabwe?
Or a different special place every other day?

I like your thought, I said,
A place with a nice comfortable bed
Then we could backpack along a warm ocean
And close out the day with applying each other with lotion.

For the sunburns? she asked with a smile
Uhh, yes? I said with a smile of guile.
And we could eat exotic vegan foods
Served by super hot shirtless happy dudes!

I’m in, she said, totally sold.
What’s the next step, steal cash or gold?
How we gonna do this thing you mention?
I said trust me, I got this, with all conviction.

I got it all worked out and okay,
Except for the financial bit, that’s for tomorrow or another day,
And the kids, I have an idea, I said.
If we left them here, they might be fine and maybe not dead,

There’s a good chance they’d survive six months on their own
Unless they got sick or broke a big important bone.
But we’ll leave phone numbers somewhere they’ll find
Just in case they get into a superbad bind.

I wonder, she looked at me sadly,
If we oughta downshift this idea, just in case it were to go badly.
Well, I said, they’re your kids as well
You might be right, we want them to grow up alive and swell.

So here’s what we do, I said emphatic
We go out for a week that leaves us ecstatic.
I’ll find a jet to fly us to New York City
Maybe Moby could meet us and sing us an electro ditty!

Excited, she jumped into the idea:
a stopover at Chicago pizzeria, then Miami tortilla,
a new Boston IKEA.
The possibilities are grand!
Ticket prices fo charter planes we scanned and planned,

Man, those things ain’t cheap, surprising!
Private jets run big bucks, my income need upsizing!
Do we really need all those stops? She suggested.
No Dear, I said, but you’re worth everything I’ve invested.

Still, she said, the children’s college funds drained
Could leave their futures a little tiny strained.
Dear, I stated with adoration and love.
To our children, you are an angel hovering above.

So we did some more date night fantasy downsizing
Just a little, we’d lose not much, just maybe one percent of the romanticizing.
New York City gets boring after a while,
And Paris, I’ve heard, isn’t that fun or worthwhile.

Let’s hop a bus to a state close by, I suggested!
Think of all the travel time saved, we’d be super well rested!
You’re a genius, she kissed me hard.
You’re more than okay, you big tub of pig lard.

The children giggled as they observed with interest piqued.
When do we leave? they shrieked-squeaked, curiosity tweaked.
You’re not going. I said with final authority.
You’ll stay here, that’s it, one against four but I’m still the majority!

She looked with pity at their tear stained faces dirty and pathetic.
I knew what was coming, my face turned apoplectic.
They’re not coming with us, Dear, our vacation week is us adults only!
She turned, her warm heart annoyingly so; Dear, she murmured, they’d get a little lonely!

So, I said, now, we’re staying in-state, and let me guess, less than a week?
Oh my love, she said, a week minus six days is the minorest tweak!
I ran the math on this statement and it seemed more our speed,
Especially when I took a speed-read of our bank statement deed.

Okay, I agreed, we’ll do a night to remember!
Better than the best Jolly St. Nick 24th of December!
We’ll eat like a dozen tortillas each at a medium-price restaurant,
Or better, at that cheap one over on southeast Belmont.

Let’s do it, she said, I’m so on board.
You’ve done so much, she continued, you leave me totally floored.
Let me make the arrangements, hubby dearest,
When it comes to making reservations, sometimes my head’s the clearest.

Okay, I said grumpily, thinking of Riviera beaches,
And wishing a child or two would get eaten by leeches.
But oh well, I thought, it’ll be a memory to make,
Just me and my wife on a romance date we’ll take.

We’ll hold hands and skip through some puddles
We’ll dance in the rain and warm up with cuddles.
Just the two of us, we’ll eat three trays of appetizers
And get back late, if we gave the children enough tranquilizers...

...tranquilizers? She said, are you insane, honey bunny dearest?!
Your ideas aren’t always the brightest or clearest.
We can’t give them tranquilizers to help them sleep long!
That would be so completely and totally wrong!

Tranquilizers cost so much money, honey!
If we’re ever gonna get to Europe, we can’t be funny with our money, ya ninnynunny!
There’s only solution, she shrugged, to our date night situation:
That’s to take a look at the numbers, a people re-evaluation.

Am I hearing you right? I inquired.
You’re saying the children’s presence is going to be required?
That’s what I’m saying, my Love of This Life,
She said, This Life, I’m yours, next life maybe someone else’s beautiful wife.

I chased her down and tackled her to the couchy.
The children ganged up and jumped us both, making me grouchy.
They shrieked and squealed and piled into the car
For date night; away we drove, not very far.

A family, we sat together, loud and noisy, in the intimate cafe,
Me and my wife, separated by children in disarray;
I leaned around, stretched my arm out and squeezed her thigh surreptitious.
I like you, I said, and she smiled and moved my hand higher, sneaky ambitious.

Date night,
It could end up alright.
Thank goodness it’s only one night.
Anything more would be too much of a fight.

Bedtime now, I’m sleepy Dear, turn off the light?






 

IN THE COLD DESERT WHILE THEY NAPPED.

Jesus never loved me 

No one ever carried my load.

I was around eight; we lived in a small Oregon coastal town.
Two younger siblings. How young?
Young enough that they were forced to take daily naps.
We lived on a hill.

It was an afternoon, a summer.
Nap for them.
I stepped outside.
Heat heat hot.

I looked around.
No breeze.
Sun slamming down.
A few houses down the road, trees, distant noise from the town's pumping downtown.

But quiet up here.
Just sun. And me.
At forty-one, I have carried that feeling around with me since;
that feeling of solitude and loneliness, popping up intermittently but with regularity.

No one hurt me.
Nothing bad happened
I wondered around, looked around, listened,
desolate, and the sun kept coming.

The world felt still, and quiet, and far away.
I grew up in a world of books, forests, oceans,
and more than that, family and love.
And yet I felt so alone in those moments.

A house away, my siblings slept.
Hot dirty road, flowers drooping,
I gazed around three hundred sixty degrees.
The ocean a short distance away, but not visible. Thanks, development.

Autumn
Winter
Spring
Summer.

I love them all,
but summer is the outlier for me,
which is similar to me,
because I have always felt like an outlier in most communities.

Summer, a season I love,
but grow weary of, and grow lonely with sometimes.
In certain situations.
It's not the heat, or the bright, or any other number of variables.

It's a specific combination of them.
Sun. Flat topography. Dry. Stillness. Quiet.
That feeling brought on by age seven, walking around.
It all comes up.

How can you be lonely when you're lucky enough to have
family,
friends,
community?

How can you feel desolate when you live in the lush and verdant Pacific Northwest,
trees,
rain,
green?

How can you feel alone
when people are close by; physically, emotionally?
There are a lot of answers to that question,
and I don't have good ones, not really.

I know that is a feeling I can conjure up easily,
and I understand how people can feel lonely,
and alone,
when it feels silly that they would or could feel that way.

It's why I ask
"are you okay?"
Instead of waiting for them to tell me
if they're not.

Because it seems ridiculous, petty, arrogant to feel certain emotions;
how can you complain about being hungry when kids are starving across the world and you've got a full fridge?
How can you feel alone when you've got a warm, caring, affectionate, supportive
family, friends, community?

But I get it.
I do.
The feeling of being crushed and trying to take another step,
of feeling you're doing it alone.

You know it's not true.
It's not true.
It's ridiculous.
But it feels that way sometimes.

The aloneness of being surrounded by people.
The loneliness of being engulfed with community.
The desolation of a dusty street on a hot quiet afternoon.
The weariness of dragging your feet forward and wanting to sprint but being too tired anymore.

Kings of Leon, a decade ago,
wrote Cold Desert. Some of it goes:

Jesus never loved me / 

No one ever carried my load.

The Followill brothers, from what I understand, grew up Pentecostal.
That's Christian, I think.
Their religious background comes through in much of their music.
Biblical references, allusions to faith and the contradictory confusing nature of their lives and beliefs.

But to say: Jesus never loved me
Followed by no one ever carried my load...
those are explosive lines for someone whose identity was wrapped up
in God and family.

What does it mean?
I don't know.
I think he may have been super drunk
when he drawled them out.

But I hear them as a question,
a mournful, bottom-of-the-barrel cry
that is pitiful, sad, desperate, lonely, and...
ridiculous?

Does he mean these?
Does he make these statements with lucid sincerity?
Or are they the words of someone whose success is directly influenced by the two things he denies here;
his God's love and his family's support; the systems that propelled he and his two brothers who comprise the Kings to a huge level of success?

I don't know.
I was working until after midnight in my dungeon office, as I frequently do,
and I had Kings of Leon going, with no particular attention paid to this song, until finally it grabbed me,
and then I ran it ten times in a row.

It is so sad.
So mournful.
So full of loneliness.

Yet it also feels cathartic;
like the saving stroke of someone ripping away sadness and draining it for you.
A burden lifted.
Listening over and over, and over, and then again, and once more,
I found a contentment and peace as he mourned in his elegiac howl again and again...

...singing words that he may not have believed,
and may not be true,
but in that moment,
in that time,
in that desert,
they were.

In the hot desert,
the hot, flat, sun soaked, lonely, cold desert.
I feel that feeling and sometimes I wish it would never come back,
but then I wonder,

if I feel it,
if I still feel it sometimes,
can I take that feeling and make something beautiful
and maybe help drain the sadness from someone else?

That is music, the beautiful collision
that strikes us down and lifts us up.
To make something brutal and lovely,
something sad that leaves us better.

That lets us own up to pain, sadness,
depression, loneliness,
however fleeting,
and help release from their spell;

the martyr act of taking upon the sadness of the world in a song
of crying out what is felt, not what is necessarily true,
and finding comfort in a shared solemnity.
Hope in the cold desert,

or as I prefer,

cold mountains.




___





Kings of Leon
Cold Desert
Only By the Night
2008

I'M HERE, YOU'RE THERE, I'M COMING.

One of the principles I believe in, which I believe is somewhat backed up by science, is the finite nature of present time. We can engage in infinite philosophical discussions about the meaning of time, and continuums, and the relationship between it and other variables, but when it comes to cold reality, we have what we have. That’s it. There’s no stretching or squeezing. It brutally exists in the same way that sometimes feels plodding and sometimes feels accelerated, but notwithstanding our feelings, it’s the same. One second is one second. One day is one day. Et cetera.

I really loathe guilt trips. What do they buy you when you’re handing them out? The same thing you get when you’re receiving one: resentment. Friendships and relationships built around guilt and unrealistic expectations are not a good or a healthy thing.

I fight it sometimes. Pretty sure most people do. I tried to eliminate them, but they can be fun and feel so useful...when you’re the one handing them out.

Pivoting: I do think one of the hallmarks of great relationships - not ALL, just great ones - is that they’re proactive.

In other words, it’s the difference between saying,

Are you upset about something? Well, let me know if you want to talk.

And saying:

I’m sensing you’re upset about something. Let’s talk.

The difference between:

Sounds like you’re overwhelmed! Let me know if you need help!

And saying:

I think you have a lot going on and I would love to listen and help. What shall we start with and what can I do?

The difference between:

Let me know if you want to talk.

versus

Let’s talk. Tell me what’s going on! And let’s face this together.

The difference between

Responding to a heartfelt message with an emoji.

versus

Responding to a personal message with a thoughtful response.

___


I’ve tried to help our kids learn how to converse well: 

“Conversation is a ball. You’re playing catch, and you take turns. You keep it going. You throw, you catch. Good dialog is like that. Active. You answer a question and then you throw it back. That’s what makes conversation - and friendship - fun. It’s active and you keep tossing things back and forth. It's not one person's job to keep it going. You gotta both be in it.”

Life is tough sometimes. And most people...they’re on middle and outer edges of our concentric social circles; the people we nod to and say ‘how you doing?’ without breaking stride, the ones we banter casually and playfully with and keep ourselves in check with appropriate decorum and protocol for the nature of that friendship.


But the handful of deeper and more meaningful ones we might be fortunate to have...by definition, they may need a little extra time and effort and concern and concerted exertion building and growing...

...those are the the ones that need proactive energy; the kind that doesn’t wait or expect the other to contact you for help.

And energy, although different than love, has the potential to have a similar characteristic in the right circumstances: it can multiply. Good energy (I know this runs slightly counter to Science 101) multiplies itself. Bring good energy in. Proactive. A rocket boost. Or even a tiny little vial-size boost. Not fake positivity; totally different thing. 

An energy that says "hey, this is tough, and you need some extra energy, so I'm jumping in with you, and let's boost each other up today." 

And that can be two minutes. Two minutes of proactivity here and there. An investment. Those two minutes add up. They're doable. But don't wait. It's a ball. You catch, you throw. 

You go. You don’t wait. You confidently forge ahead and take ownership of that valuable thing that you share and you make it your place to make sure they’re good.

Because sometimes, it is your place.

And it feels good to know there’s someone coming to check on you before you’ve asked.

That’s what we do for each other. What we should do.

And that word “should” is at the root of so many guilt trips.

You should do this.
You should do that.

So be it.

To those people you may be extra close to and have special connections with: you should be proactive. Don’t wait to be there for them. Don't wait for them to ask. 

Just go. Be there. 

Happy sunshine day, all. Go get 'em. Get him. Or her. Go. 

TWO WOMEN.

Two women I knew
at different points,
on my mind today.

One,
A death, a mortal passing,
a goodbye of the physical and the present
until, with hope, there is today again in different form.

Another,
A goodbye; physical, emotional passing,
a farewell to a particular and peculiar kind of friendship
no death, but the stab of a good memory mechanism that functions too well.

Two women,
one gone to death with loved behind, tears, loss
one gone to new places with loved behind, tears, joy, a different loss.

Two women,
one my very first friend,
another one of my dearest,
in an afternoon, on my mind.

In new places;
places where they have, or will be
leaving the old behind,
some happy ahead,
some sad behind.

We wish the best for those we care for, and those who care for them.
These two have been important
at different points.

One I have not seen for 20 years or more,
but used to ride bicycles and play in the forest on summer days.
I accidentally hit her on the head with a wooden swing once,
and I forgot to ever tell her that it wasn't totally an accident; I guess I wanted to see what would happen.
What happened is it hurt, and her mom got mad at me.
I'm sorry.

One I have seen almost daily for six years,
but will hardly ever see again.
Once she made cookies and said I could take a couple to go,
and I took a couple, and then a couple more,
and then several,
and then ate another one in front of her so she'd believe me when I said they were good.
I'm sorry for the empty plate.
They were delicious.

I wish I had been a better friend to my first friend
and stayed in touch.
There's a hundred excuses I can make for not having reached out.
But I hang my head.
To have just said goodbye.

I wish I had been able to have a proper goodbye with my last friend.
I don't know what proper is, but something to acknowledge a passage, a changing; something mutual that says,
you were important to me and we had something irreplaceable and unique.

And now it will change and be different.
The nonlinear continuity of life, aimless entropy unless changed.
It's the drifting away; the act of normal people becoming distracted with new focus that brings the sharpest pains sometime.
I have danced on both sides;
I hang my head again.
I have hurt and I have been hurt.

Why do we do graduations and memorials and such?
They're ridiculous cultural rituals.
We always complain, unless they're ours.
Sometimes we do anyway.
I do.

Acknowledgment.
Acknowledgment of something important.
That this person's life meant something in the context of ours.
That there is a shared experience that was meaningful.

If it was 30 years ago,
or last week.

To know that you have people who have
loved you,
who have better, liked you,
who will fight for you and battle to keep what's important alive,

when you're gone.

Everyone should know that,
and say it to those they feel it for.
And mean it.
Do it.
A balance of accepting what is reality
and fighting to preserve, or better, build on what's important
and to change what should be changed,
and to make the world better.

One relationship at a time.
One legacy at a time.
To remember, to acknowledge,
to say thank you
for being important,
unique;
gone.

Thank you, in different ways and degrees,
to two women who have been important in my life
at different times.

I hope to see you again.

THE DAY IS WRONG.

The mountain is dead
Little exaggeration
But it feels empty.

The roads we have run
Trails we have walked often
It is too quiet.

Upside down today
The day is leaving, like you
Days come around though.

Sun comes tomorrow
That’s good I guess, for the heat
Heart weight big today.

Change is tough, and dumb
But it’s good I hear, painful
And tears are not bad.

Streaked cheeks meant you love
To know how much, good thing,
I can imagine.

Mountain floats away
Isn’t anchored without you
But it will balance.

With a little time
A lot of time, memories
Stories in its earth.

Always missed, you all
You all have a hill, and hearts
With spaces waiting here.

You will find more hills
And mountains and trees; a home
Happy home you’ll have.

We will see you there
Six hours, road trip, coffee stops
Leave a light on late.

May goodness and fun
And fresh experiences
Brighten your new town.

We will text, phone, fax
And come visit, sometime soon
The mountain is sad.

It will be happy
Again, but today is wrong
Mountain’s not right.

The night will roll on
And the day will start again
New lives will begin.

Photos to be shot
Memories to be made lots
New discoveries.

This is sad, but not
It is, but it will dissolve
Into happiness.

But tonight, sad hill
You’re missed, loved, remembered lots
The day is wrong now.

A day askew, tears.
A mountain, real off balance
A moon, pale and sick.

The sun is coming
And winter too, it’s pretty
Thanks for the years, you.

Real good times, lots, yes
Equilibrium we’ll find
A new normal, yep.

Remember the years,
Sometimes remember; thank you
And we love you lots.

Nighty night, Joe peeps
May your slumber be peaceful
And your days real fine.

We’ll anchor things here
So the mountain is ready
When you come again.

The day sunshiney
The hill in place again firm
Always a light on.

So the day is wrong
But you are strong, so are we
Trying hard to be.

Happy we are, most
For your new fun times ahead
Best for you, the best.

The mountain is here
So are we; maybe halfway
We can meet someday?

Until then, say ‘onward!’
Best of all to you, the best
Do well, smile, eat lots.

We’ll see ya real soon
On mountain, or somewhere else
It’ll be real great.

With high affection
We send everything good
To you all, much love.

From our mountain high
To you in Joseph, your home
We love you so much.

MY FAVOURITE LIBRARIAN.

Right before our first child was born, I told our families, "...I don't like all this 'I'm gonna be favourite uncle, favourite auntie' stuff I keep hearing from people. I know it's said to be funny, but guess what? Some of you are going to see our daughter more frequently, others less so. This whole "am I your favourite uncle/aunty?" thing starts off funny, but eventually feelings start getting hurt. Thank you for loving her already and being an important part of her world, now it would be awesome if we can all can build the best thing possible with her that is unique."

Unique. I've held to that through the births and development of our other children. The idea of building relationships that are unique and special, not better. Do some end up stronger than others? Do some end up deep and frequent and embedded? Do our kids gravitate to some family more than others over shared interests, personalities, and familiarity?

Yes, certainly yes. That's how life is. But we have never referred, or tolerated the idea of some relatives or family being referred to 'as favourites,' even in jest. Because again, those jests are a short distance away from cutting deep eventually. The types of cuts that can lead to resentment, jealousy, hurt, and the devaluation or damaging of relationships.

We're all hypocrites, of course.

My favourite librarian is leaving.

My sister-in-law. More than a sister-in-law and more than a librarian, but those are good starting titles.

I am a hypocrite. Because she is my favourite.

I love our little community library for many reasons. The books. The environment. The employees. A peculiar, odd, unique little public library.

And she is my favourite. Technically, she's not a librarian, per se. She is a library assistant / supervisor (Librarian is a term generally denoting the director of the branch and is a specialized and specific degree...I think). But since the article says 'librarian,' and I've referred to her as such accidentally and not over the years, I'll continue to use it here.

I have watched and marveled at her patience, kindness, and genuine affection for patron after patron who comes in. Anyone who thinks public libraries aren't relevant today hasn't spent time in one. You want a cross-section of humanity? Go hang out for a couple hours. The academics, the homeless, the cultured, the students, the kids, the parents, the teens, the city employees, the millennials, the elderly, the infirm, the thinkers and makers and adventurers and discoverers and inventors and wanderers and wonderers and...

they're all there, with their infinite personalities and questions.

And time and time again, she helped with a smile. A real smile. I think of the many times after work, outside work, where she would affectionately refer to different experiences or interactions and her love for her job and the people who inhabited and passed through. To say nothing of the joy she passed along at being able to talk about and recommend books across genres. It was real. A real and true investment of pride and love that she made for sixteen years.

I remember when she was working hard to get a position within the library system. Working another full-time paid job, doing unpaid volunteer time at the library to get hours, going sunup to sundown to pursue her dream of working there. And then she did, and has left a mark, and is leaving for another dream.

I'll go back. But she has been such a joyful and vibrant presence for so many years that...it's gonna be hard.

I will go back. But I'll have to work up to it. And it's gonna take time.

Au revoir, Rach. Thanks for your service, always with a smile, and frequently accompanied by humorous banter, witty observations, and interesting recommendations.

You were my favourite.

HEY BECCA, SO SORRY ABOUT THE MIX-UP.

Hey B,

I am so sorry, I inadvertently drank some of your leftover iced coffee several times this morning! It’s difficult to tell since we both have ones in the fridge, but I think you’ll be able to identify yours when you get home by how much is in each one (yours will have less in it by that point).

Again, I am so sorry for what has kept happening. If there was a better way to identify them, I’d love to know, but there’s definitely not, so no use trying. Anyway, on the upside, you’ll have a delicious leftover beverage to enjoy when you get home! I’m not completely sure how much, and the whipped cream will likely have evaporated into nothingness due to the chemical reaction of being in the refrigerator.

Ciao,

J.

POEM : WEEKEND.

It is morning, an early dawn, a week ahead.
Time to get up,
we gently shake the sleeping creatures.
We leave in sixty.

Two grunts, a groan, some other sounds.
A roll over, blanket pulled high.

Time to get up,
we firmly nudge the slumbering beasts.
We leave in fifty.
A grunt, two groans, some smelly sounds.
The blanket wrapped like mummy arounds.

Time to get up,
we kick the creature beasts, avoiding head.
We leave in forty.
A moan, a sigh, a cry so deep.
A stretch, a vicious stare:
You awake me? Oh, how do you dare?

Stumble through toast and water,
Fall into socks and maybe clean undies too.
We leave five minutes ago, we yell!
Murderous glance we give, with love of course, these kids we’d never sell.
So out the door we races
A weekday conquered, see our victorious faces.

If lucky, we have most children
And some food to eat.
A diaper or two, and of course seventy-two books and some sketch pads.

It is morning, an early dawn.
We roll over sleepily and look at one another with love.
Time to not get up,
we grin.
It’s the weekend, we need not be up til who knows when.
Our eyes close with delight
and savor the delicious slumber of light sleep-in sleep.
All is content,
Where did the stress and worry went?
A time to slow down and relaxes
Not deal with stuff like schedules, finances, and taxes.

TIME TO GET UP!
The beasts viciously assault our sleeping bodies.
WHAT ARE WE DOING TODAY?!

OVERHEARD. toilets and chores.

Sissy!
the voice shrieked cheerfully from the bathroom.
I'm on the toilet, so would you mind making my bed for me? I can't do my chores right now.

___

It is my understanding that this request was not responded to favorably.

KING AND COUNTESS OF CONVENIENCE.

Becca and I were watching an episode of Elementary after the children were in bed. We ate deep fat fried cheese jalapeño poppers, a remnant from New Year's Eve partying. This is what we consider a date night out. At least if we get through an episode without any children awakening or one of us falling asleep. Under these criteria, our date night was almost successful.

There was an idea thrown around in this particular program (S3E7?) about the choice of a life of convenience versus a life of adventure, and the ongoing battle between the two for certain types of people.

This is a short post, so I will end it here by saying this: I am one of those people.

I fight hard for an optimal balance of the two, and my fighting is sometimes successful, in the sense that the fight is the adventure and the occasional success is the convenience. Anyway.

Here I am, 41, running as hard now as a decade ago, except now I tuck the kids into bed, watch a little telly with my love, and then head down to my dark dungeon to work. That is part of the running hard: sitting on a hard chair under terrible lighting ruining my already rotten eyes doing work I should not be doing at midnight.

And that is part of the adventure, and the quest to build a slightly higher level of convenience for my family so that we may someday be able to embark on other adventures that are still yet dreams.

Farewell.