#64 - The Best Medicine

With the ongoing debate regarding health care reform, I originally intended to weigh in with my opinion. Then I decided to take a different approach and explore one of the best things we can do for our health: laugh.

As the old proverb says, "Laughter is the best medicine." Who among us has not immediately felt a little better after a good laugh? Unless, of course, you start laughing while drinking a soda or some other liquid which then begins to exit from places it was never meant to travel. In that case, everyone else feels better after a good laugh at your expense.

Here are some notable quotes regarding laughter:

• "Laughter is part of the human survival kit." - David Nathan
• "Laughter is the shortest distance between two people." - Victor Borge
• "Laughter is a tranquilizer with no side effects." - Arnold Glasgow
• "Seven days without laughter make one weak." - Joel Goodman
• "Laughter is an instant vacation." - Milton Berle
•  "the most wasted of all days is one without laughter." - e.e. cummings

I got to thinking about the power of laughter after reading replies to a  Facebook post I made, in jest, wondering whether people understood my sense of humor. I decided to write this after reflecting on the heated and borderline hateful exchanges that take place on a seemingly daily basis between those on the left and those on the right. What these people need is a good pie in the face.

To paraphrase e.e. cummings, there have been many wasted days in my life, days when I did not laugh. Those days do not occur as often these days. That is partly due to having a five-year old beagle with the spirit of a puppy. Part of it is simply due to learning to see the humor around me.

Laughter has a number of benefits. It lowers blood pressure. It increases coordination of brain functions. It can even serve as a more enjoyable alternative to exercise. One doctor says 20 seconds of unrestrained laughter has as much benefit for the heart as three minutes of hard rowing. Laughter is no laughing matter.

Then again, it is. I find my days and evenings are more enjoyable if, at some point during the day, I find something (or someone) that makes me laugh. I daresay that a great many of the issues confronting us would seem less daunting and easier to solve if we could find a sliver of humor in them or if we simply took a laughter break.

Research also indicates that laughter increases production of endorphins, the body's natural painkillers. As Groucho Marx once said, "A clown is like an aspirin, only he works twice as fast." So make a point to laugh, even if it's at my expense. I don't mind.

#63 - Random Musings

I don't really have a specific topic, but I realized I had not posted in a while, so I hope you'll forgive this series of brief and random reflections.

All weekends should be three-day weekends. Two days just doesn't seem enough time to recover and unwind from the previous week. It also is not enough of a buffer before the start of the week to come.

To me, it doesn't get much better than a Saturday afternoon sitting in a nice wooded campground, enjoying a nice glass of wine or a cold beer. Unless, of course, it is a Saturday evening in a nice wooded campground, enjoyed a nice glass of wine and a juicy grilled steak.

Television would be much better if it were a little less "real." Reality TV? Who are they kidding? What is so real about about putting a bunch of strangers and making them perform a number of artificially contrived challenges? And how many people do you know who can work out six to eight hours a day every day to drop 200 pounds of excess weight?

Anyone who claims insight into the will of God is either a con artist or is delusional. I now believe that no one faith has a monopoly on the Truth and that two people can have fundamentally different beliefs yet both be right - and wrong - at the same time.

I am discouraged by the name-calling and bickering that passes for political debate these days. Perhaps if we could find a way to concentrate of the ways in which we are alike instead of focusing on our differences we might better be able to find solutions to the issues our modern world faces.

Could it be that ignorance truly is bliss. I find I am much more peaceful on those days when I do not read the news or the political ramblings of others. I am much more at ease when I do not take the bait and respond to those with whom I disagree, for they cannot hear me anyway.

When I was younger, I loved to talk politics and to even argue politics with others. These days, I love to cook and take the trailer out for a weekend. Somehow, I think I am much better off.

Out of Control on Memory Lane

Since creating a Facebook account several months ago, I have been traveling back and forth through my past, reconnecting at least superficially with people I knew and worked with in my other life as a television reporter and later news producer.

I have found people from various places I worked: Rapid City, SD; Lafayette, LA; Kalispell, MT; Huntsville, AL. It has been an amazing journey down memory lane, but there are time it seems I am traveling a bit out of control. Tonight was one of those nights.

While checking in on Facebook tonight, I came across a Facebook group created for people who work or worked at KEVN-TV in Rapid City, my first news job. While looking through the photo album posted, I came across some very familiar faces from my time there in the 1980s.

Commenting on some of the photos, I said that time was one of the happiest in my life, even though I was working for a fairly low salary. (I started in 1983 at the princely sum of $9,200 a year.) Filtered through the time span of 25 years, I remember those days fondly. Looking at the photos also brought back some not so good memories.

In those days, I had a hard time making real friends and getting close to people. I suppose you could say I lacked the skill or the knack. I'm sure I alternated between trying to hard to make people like me and trying hard to act like I didn't care whether they liked me.

Part of it, I think, at least in those days, was a sense that I didn't really fit in with the rest of the staff. I don't know if any other members of the news staff felt the same way, but I felt at times unqualified and like an impostor. I had no college degree and no real background or training in journalism.

I got into television news because I liked to write and wanted to do so professionally. That is also the reason I eventually moved behind the camera as a news producer and the reason I left the business in 1993, after other facets of the job began to dominate the writing aspect.

Despite the personal difficulties I had in those days, I have very fond memories of Rapid City and of the people I worked with. I remember having a Fiat Strada with plastic interior door handles that broke off one winter because it was so cold.

I remember trying to get back up to the TV station one snowy December day and having to help push the car through a snow drift. I also remember a certain co-worked getting up on the table in a bar after his first experience (several glasses in the making) with a Long Island Ice Tea.

I remember doing a story on the still unfinished Crazy Horse monument, hanging off the side of the mountain by a rope, with only the guide's strength of grip between me and death. The whole time, I remember worrying not about dying but about dropping and breaking the then-new camera I had been allowed to use to shoot the story. The camera got back safely.

Most of all, I remember the great people I worked with and feel a deep sadness that I did not try harder to do a better job of staying in touch with them. I find myself wondering where they are now and hoping they might remember those days as fondly as I do.

The Older I get

When I was a kid, I was a bit out of the ordinary. I really enjoyed politics and political discussions. And I loved political arguments.

When I was younger, such arguments seemed to be about the merits of a position and the reasons for that position. This new century, coming as it does in the midst of this so-called Information Age, has seen a change in such arguments and not for the better.

The Information Age, bringing with it almost instantaneous access to any kind of information and the 24-hour news cycle has all but killed true political debate and with it thoughtful reflection. Instead, reactions are nearly as instant as the stories they respond to.

We have become a knee-jerk nation. Instead of truly considering and debating positions, our political leaders and their followers call each other liars, morons, and sometimes worse. I'm not surprised that nothing gets done on what many see as the major issues of our day: health care, immigration, the economy.

There seem to be fewer and fewer reasoned voices on either the left or the right. Because of that, the party in power is doomed to failure from the moment they take power. Every two or four years, I think the pendulum will swing back in the opposite direction, and both major parties will be so dizzy from the constant shifting, they won't be able to clear their heads long enough to get anything done, at least nothing worthwhile.

When I was in my 20s, I had a friend call me a radical and say that I would get more conservative once I got older. I don't think I have except when it comes to my view of the prospects of government accomplishing anything.

I have become very disillusioned about our government, primarily because they always seem to talk about doing something and then fail to follow through and actually do it.

Sadly, I don't think either major party has a recipe for success. Government for government's sake (what those on the right might argue the Democrats are all about) is not the answer. However, the less is more, hands-off and abdicate all responsibility approach of Republicans and Libertarians is no answer, either.

I have lived long enough not to trust the private sector to police itself or do anything to benefit the greater good. (Anyone remember Enron, Three Mile Island, the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez crash?) However, I have no confidence in government to act to rein in the excesses of private enterprise.

And so, in the midst of my middle age, I have lost interest in politics and political debate. The political era I reveled in during my youth is gone. Maybe it never really existed. Part of me wonders if perhaps it is finally time for us to admit that this Grand Experiment, as Alexis de Tocqueville called it in Democracy in America, has failed. Money talks, and the rest of us are silenced.

Scar Tissue

In this week's session, my therapist and I talked about the emotional plateau I've been on for a little while now and the difficulty I've had truly freeing myself up emotionally.

I likened it to the notion of emotional scar tissue, tissue that is somewhat malformed yet is in some ways much stronger than the original tissue it replaced.

As I have thought back through the years to the memories of my childhood, there is a distinct line that seems to indicate where my childhood effectively ended. In pictures I have of me as a three-year old, I am laughing and smiling at the world around me. In pictures of me as a nine and ten-year old, the smile is gone, replaced by a sort of grimace intended to represent a smile but falling well short.

In-between, I all but shut down emotionally, only displaying emotional in the most intense moments, when I could no longer hold them in. It was a defense mechanism designed to protect me from what was going on around me, but it became a prison, a barrier that kept me from being able to fully engage with the world around me.

In discussing this with my therapist, I have come to think of it as something akin to my growth (emotional in this case) being stunted. I either forgot or never learned how to play with or interact with others. My world became what I read in books, heard in songs on the radio or stereo, or made up in the fantasy worlds I created in my head as a means of escape and of holding onto hope that there was a better life for me somewhere else.

I guess one could think of it as a sort of emotional fetal position which protected me, but the fallout of this was that I remained distant from people. I was not able to get close to them and did not let or encourage them to get close to me. Fear of rejection and of abandonment were at play here, the reason for which could fill another several posts, I suspect.

I recently connected on Facebook with someone I worked with many years ago in Lafayette, Louisiana. In an exchange of messages, she mentioned knowing that I was sad while I lived and worked there. And I was, although I foolishly thought I was hiding that so well from the world around me.

I was sad because I wanted to get close to people and have them get close to me. I was afraid at the same time that people would reject me once they knew what I was really like because I had tried so hard and for so long to suppress that. Beyond that, I lacked the emotional tools to encourage or develop meaningful friendships.

I have moved to a better place these days. My therapist says I can go back, through the scar tissue, to retrieve those emotions buried since childhood. I expressed the concern that in retrieving "good" emotions from that time I would end up bring back all of the "bad" emotions I tried so hard to bury. She says i can choose which emotions to bring into the present from that time, but a part of me still isn't sure.

In the meantime, I continue to inch forward, become more aware of who I really am, where I've been and where I want to go. Who I am is a sometimes funny, sometimes introspective, and sometimes absent-minded middle-age man who is learning to better enjoy life and learning to like himself a little better on the way to perhaps one day loving himself.

Where I have been is the emotional equivalent of bumper cars, a ride that has left me bumped and bruised and slightly impaired but still here. As Elton John sang, "I'm still standing."

Where I want to go is a place and time where I am able to freely express my emotions and not hold them in until there is no more room and they burst out in some sort of explosion. I hope to reach a place where I feel free to feel or not feel instead of sometime thinking I can't feel. I haven't quite gotten there, but I think I can see that place in the distance.

I am not quite ready to commit to the notion that I am happy (that just sounds too hopeful), but I will say I am fairly content these days, and for me, that in and of itself is a big victory.

Out of Sync

For years, I have struggled and failed (sometimes miserably) to develop emotionally. My therapist says that more than likely my emotional growth was stunted early in my childhood, out of necessity and a need to protect myself from the trauma around me, while my intellectual side was given free reign to develop. My emotions have been struggling to catch up ever since.

Growing up, my intellectual side developed to the point that I became almost a walking, talking game of Trivial Pursuit, even before the game was ever created. My cousins teased me, calling me "Professor," not realizing how much it stung, nor was I able to tell them. Instead, I tried to laugh it off, even while realizing the label meant I did not and would not fit in with the rest of them.

That does not mean I never expressed emotion, but because of the ways in which I developed and did not develop, emotions were only expressed when reaching the highest peaks or the deepest valleys. In other words, the emotion or feeling had to be so strong it could no longer be held in check; emotion was never something I freely expressed otherwise.

My lack of emotional development meant feelings had no place, no room in my everyday world because they were not on the same plane as my thoughts. It has been much like a right-handed person trying to do something predominantly with his or her left hand; it is extremely uncomfortable, and the effort usually ends after a short time.

For the past 14 months, I have been trying to uncover repressed memories and feelings and to free myself up emotionally. I feel I have made some real strides in that time, but occasionally things happen to remind me of just how far I still have to go.

Tonight, I lapsed into defensiveness when Teresa asked me whether I had taken care of something she had asked me to take care of on several previous occasions. For one reason or another (forgetfulness, procrastination, or a combination), I had not completed the task. I suppose that at some deep level I have an imprinted memory of coming under attack as a child, to the point where defensiveness is almost a reflexive reaction. Teresa called me on it, I recognized it, and we were able to defuse the situation before one or both of us was hurt.

This episode was a stark reminder of how much work remains to bring my emotional and intellectual sides into balance with one another. However, writing this actually helps to bring the two sides closer together.

My therapist this week said that this blog serves as a connecting thread between the intellectual and the emotional side. Here, I am able to write about things I have great difficulty expressing verbally, thereby getting the emotions out and not keeping them bottled in. At the same time, I am able to think about what I am trying to say and about how I want to say it, thereby exercising the intellectual side.

The thread connecting the two is tenuous at times, but there is a connection. I feel at times like a car whose wheels are out of alignment. But now, at least, the wheels are all turning in the same direction. Usually, anyway.

Primal Scream

In my last post, I mentioned that I was going to find a secluded spot and give in to my need or urge to scream, something my therapist thought might help me to loosen the lid on long repressed feelings. Well, I did. And I didn't.

I did not find that secluded spot, but I did scream. I screamed and I screamed while driving in the hills. At the time, though, it felt like the only things loosened were my fillings, as I ended up with a headache and a slightly sore throat.

My therapist says the headache is a symptom of very deep and repressed emotions from my childhood. She may be right. I do know that after my screaming I also had a desire to rant, or to borrow the name of a 1990s band, rage against the machine.

What came to mind was part rant, part rap, part poem, all in short, choppy phrases, something my therapist said was akin to how a child might react and respond to the situations I experienced growing up:

O, God!
No, God!
Why, God?
How, God?
What God?
Where God?
Whose God?
Which God?
When God?

While a few of these phrases have been added after reflection, most of these phrases/questions came to me in the moment immediately after the last scream. A crisis of faith, a cry for answers, a plea for relief, maybe all of the above.

All I know is that I have traveled further (and perhaps farther) in the last 14 months than I had in the previous 52 years of life. The screaming and the brief rant/rap that followed show me still how far I have yet to go.

My head tells me I should just let the past go. My heart, though, says that for better or worse that past is a big part of who I am and of how I got to this place in time. The answer for me lies somewhere in-between.

In the battle to protect myself as a child, I numbed myself to everything around me, which kept me at arms' length from nearly everyone who ever entered my life. Now, I need to dig through the scar tissue to get back to the emotions nearly cut off so long ago, so that I can make my peace with the past, be fully part of the life I now have, and look forward to the future.

I may never truly reach that point, but I have already come further than I dared to hope was possible, so there is hope. And as long as there is hope, there is life.

The Emotional Plateau

A couple of months ago, I had made enough progress in my twice-weekly therapy sessions that my therapist agreed I was ready to cut back to once a week. Since then, the progress has slowed considerably.

Each Wednesday, my therapist opens the session by asking "What are you feeling?" or, sometimes, "How are you feeling?" The answer to the second question is much easier for me. These days, I generally feel pretty good, much better than when I started therapy 13 months ago.

The answer to the first and more often asked question is much more difficult to come by. Truth be told, I don't know if I am feeling all that much. Today, finally, I was able to put it into words to at least describe where I am at.

Because I knew she would ask me that question, I actually thought about it as I climbed the stairs to her second-floor office. What came to mind was a sense of having stagnated or plateaued emotionally. I feel I have gotten to a comfortable place emotionally, much better than I have ever been but still not fully engaged emotionally in my own life.

She talked about the idea of there being a lid on things, one I put in place as a child as a means to protect myself while living in a violent household. We talked about my wanting to become invisible so as to not draw attention and possibly the wrath of an abusive stepfather or stepbrother. I stayed hidden as much as possible in the shadows.

She went to talk about the idea of my childhood ending when I was very young because of the circumstances in the home, and I have an increased sense of that. From at least the age of five until the age of 12, I never had other kids come over to our house to play, and I never went to anyone else's house to play.

As our session unfolded, I recalled an episode from around the time I was five. I had a favorite toy, a sort of scaled version of a car interior: there was a dashboard with windshield, wipers, steering wheel, dashboard, and working radio. I loved playing with it.

One day, an older boy (I think it was my future stepbrother, although I am not sure) took this toy and threw it into the swimming pool of our apartment complex. Without thinking, I went in after it, blindly disregarding the fact that I had not yet learned to swim.

Fortunately, I guess, I also did not yet know how to dive, so I landed fairly close to the edge of the pool when I jumped in and was able to grab the side of the pool, saving myself while the toy sank to the bottom of the pool. Thinking back on it, I think that was the moment when I decided not to let anything (or possibly anyone) matter that much to me again. I disciplined myself not to be ticklish and not to show pain when I was spanked. I got very good at closing myself off.

As we talked, she would ask me from time to time how something made me feel. One time, I surprised myself by saying I felt like I wanted to scream. She said that was a good first step to finally blowing off the lid to my emotional life and suggested I find a place to do just that, somewhere by myself and, hopefully, somewhere that I won't cause an avalanche (the avalanche danger is fairly high at the moment in some of the areas around us).

Sometime in the next few days, I intend to take her advice. It will be a new experience for me, as I don't know that I've ever screamed. Yelled, yes. Screamed, I don't think so.

If this weekend you hear a loud roar or noise off in the distance, don't be too alarmed. It will likely be me screaming as loud as I can muster, in hopes of chipping away the emotional rust and prying loose the lid and maybe letting some light back in.

Counting My Blessings

Every year around Christmas, we sit down to watch the 1954 film "White Christmas" with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera Ellen. With the recent events in Haiti, culminating in the impromptu telethon put together by MTV, one song from that movie pops into my head.

The song is "Count Your Blessings," and the first verse goes like this:

When I'm worried and I can't sleep
I count my blessings instead of sheep
And I fall asleep counting my blessings
When my bankroll is getting small
I think of when I had none at all
And I fall asleep counting my blessings

Sometimes, disasters of such scale as that in Haiti serve to remind us how fortunate we are. I have a loving, patient, and understanding wife; a wonderful son who is sometimes challenging yet amazing. Unlike many in our own country, I have a job with somewhat decent health insurance, and I am able to do many of things I truly enjoy: camping, cooking, enjoying a glass of wine, enjoy a sunset without worrying whether I'll have a roof over my head when it gets dark and turns colder.

If there can be said to be anything positive out of events like the earthquake in Haiti, perhaps it is that such cataclysmic disasters jolt us - even for a moment - out of our complacency and remind us of our own mortality and also of our own good fortune. Such events can bring out the worst in people - remember the looting in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and even now the attempts by some to scam those unsuspecting people trying to help the victims in Haiti - but it can also bring out the best in people.

One thing I hope this disaster does for me and for you is to remind us of how precious life is and encourage us to live each day to its fullest. By that, I do not mean through conspicuous consumption, as is often seen to be the American Way. No, I mean by taking time to really see the world and the people around you.

Take the time to smell a rose, savor a walk in the woods, really see a sunrise or sunset, say hello to a neighbor or a co-worker, laugh, cry, truly be in the world around you. These are all things I have spent the last year in therapy trying to learn to do as I continue my own recovery efforts from the emotional upheaval of so many years ago and attempt to dig out from under that emotional rubble.

My hope is that the recovery effort in Haiti shows as much promise in a year's time as I feel my own personal recovery has shown over the last year. If you have not already done so, I encourage you to open your hearts and your wallets and make a donation to help relief efforts in Haiti at Hope For Haiti Now. And always remember to count your blessings.

The Art of Patience at 30 Miles an Hour

Around Thanksgiving, Teresa and I decided it was time for us to climb another rung up the recreational vehicle ladder. It was something we had discussed off and on for several months. The discussion usually went back and forth between a motor home and a fifth wheel trailer. We ultimately chose the fifth wheel route, the purchase of which I have outlined in an earlier entry.

Of course, to tow any trailer, we would need to get a truck. So we traded in our beloved 2006 Subaru Outback on a 2006 Ford F-350 Super Duty Crew cab truck with dual real wheels and a diesel engine.

Needless to say, the truck does not get the same fuel mileage as our Subaru. Every day, I try all kinds of tricks to coax another tenth of a mile per gallon in mileage. For instance, I start out slowly from a stop sign or stop light, especially when the engine is still cold. I also take my foot of the gas - as much as a block away - when approaching a stop sign or a red light.

In addition to that extra tenth of a mile per gallon (or even two), I have gained something else: a growing sense of calm. I no longer feel in such a rush to get somewhere, and I realize that one or two minutes really doesn't make much of a difference in the greater scheme of things.

In the past, I used to get more irritated with drivers who would speed up and cut in front of me. I used to go a little faster just so they would have to get in behind me. Now, because this truck is geared more for towing than it is for quick acceleration, I couldn't keep another vehicle from pulling in front of me if I wanted to. More often than not these days, I don't want to.

I watch cars speed by me, then see them idling at the next red light when I catch up to them. They didn't seem to gain very much.

The ancient fable about the tortoise and the hare has the oft-repeated mantra of "slow and steady wins the race," but racing is far from my thoughts. Instead, I think more of slowing down and being more aware of the world around me, slowing down to see and experience my world instead of racing from one day to the next as if I were late for an appointment.

I spent many years trying to escape the world around me, so this is a new experience for me, and I have some work yet to do. So far, though, I like what I see. I am reminded of the opening lines of Simon and Garfunkel's 59th Street Bridge Song: "Slow down, you move too fast. You've got to make the morning last." Now, that's a goal to hurry toward.

The Finer Things in Life

I'm sitting here at my computer on a Thursday evening, and instead of watching the National Championship game between Texas and Alabama, I'm reflecting on an episode of Oprah that my wife, Teresa, recorded because she thought I might be interested.

It turns out she was right. In general, the show was about women around the world and how they live. Oprah talked to women in Copenhagen, Dubai, Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul, and Tokyo. It was the segment with the women from Copenhagen that most interested and and intrigued me.

Apparently, a recent study or poll concluded that people in Denmark are the happiest people in the world. This, despite the fact that they pay the highest average income tax rate in the world of around 50-percent.

What makes them so happy? First, everyone has access to health care. People get paid to go to school. Women get six-months to a year of maternity leave. Most jobs pay similar incomes, so people go into fields because they enjoy them and not simply because they pay well.

There is almost no homelessness, almost no crime, and people who lose their jobs are supported for up to four years while they look for new work and get government help to learn new skills. As one of the Danish women put it, she is happy to pay the high income tax rate because she looks at it as people helping one another and taking care of each other. Some in America would look at these things and label Denmark socialist. The Danes interviewed by Oprah look at it as being civilized and being humane.

One other thing the Danish women said that I think speaks to the heart of why the Danes might be so happy is that they have less stuff. They are more interested in living life and spending time with friends and family than they are working to get more stuff, which seems to be the American Dream or at least the American way of life. Could there really be more to life than money?

I think that is one reason the full-time RV life appeals to me so much; it is more about living life and doing things and less about getting stuff. One Danish husband put it this way when describing living in Denmark: "less space, less stuff, more life."

As I sit here typing this and enjoying a glass of wine, I think the idea of "less space, less stuff, more life" has much to recommend it.

Resolutions for the New Year

When I was younger, I would every New Year's Eve, without fail, make ten resolutions for the new year, resolutions I would invariably fail to keep. For many years, this was probably the only systemic and organized thing I would do.

After many years (I'm a slow learner), I realized that the only thing as consistent as my making these resolutions was my failure to keep any of them. So I stopped making them.

Last year, I decided to try again. I resolved to try to put my past behind me and finally stop letting it control my life. While I was not 100% successful in keeping this resolution, I made enough progress to encourage me to try again this year. So here goes.

In 2010, I resolve to embrace and enjoy life more fully. I feel I am already along the path toward accomplishing this. I laugh more (thanks in large part to Oliver, our beagle), I probably cry a little more, and I more fully appreciate and enjoy nature, especially sunsets. I intend to do more of these things in 2010.

I also resolve to try harder not to let little things bother or irritate me. This will be easier said than done. I have a real problem with idiot drivers who speed to get past me, get in front of me, and then slow down or turn. I'll at least try harder to clean up my language toward such drivers when these things occur.

I was going to try to come up with a third resolution, but I realized that these two cover most contingencies. As an author once wrote, don't sweat the small stuff, and it's all small stuff. If I manage to have any success keeping my second resolution, it all but guarantees I will have success keeping my first resolution.

I hope 2010 brings much happiness and success to each of you. And I resolve to be happy for you when that happens. There, that's three. Happy New Year!

Perhaps You Can Go Home Again

Thomas Wolfe once wrote, "And at the end of it [self-appraisal] he knew, and with the knowledge came the definite sense of new direction toward which he had long been groping, that the dark ancestral cave, the womb from which mankind emerged into the light, forever pulls one back--but that you can't go home again. . . . You can't go back to your family, back home to your childhood . . . ." For years, I suspect some part of me thought that was true, as I neglected or perhaps avoided returning home to where most of my family still lives.

Now, having returned from a Christmas visit to the Seattle area to see family, I think perhaps I can go home again, at least to visit. My first visit in eight years went in many ways much better than I expected. Aside from a few awkward silences with my sister, I felt comfortable and welcome amongst these people to whom I had once been so close and from whom I had drifted so far away.

There were times when I felt a bit of a stranger in a strange land, especially when I saw all of the children who had grown up in my absence and who now had children of their own. But there were many more times when I felt as if almost no time had passed since my last visit; the conversation and the laughter flowed easily.

I suppose there were a few minor disappointments. Circumstances and logistics did not allow for much in-depth or heartfelt conversation; there were just too many people to see and too little time in which to see them. On the other hand, I found new areas of common ground where I did not know it existed.

In the end, I think perhaps a new foundation was laid and connections hopefully renewed. I once again have family. Not that they ever doubted it. And I did go home again.

The Prodigal Son

In the morning, the family and I will get in the car to begin the long journey to Western Washington for Christmas. It is a journey both of distance and of time. That is true not only in the most obvious sense of the hours spent in the car and the distance traveled. It is true on a number of other levels as well.

This will be our first visit back as a family in more than half a decade. In some ways, it seems as if no time at all has passed. In other ways, it seems as if a lifetime has gone by since I last saw some of my family.

Cousins and nephews and nieces who were children or teenagers when last I saw them are now adults, some of them with children of their own. Where did the years go?

To be honest, I'm a little nervous about the trip, simply because it has been so long. It should be a little easier because I have seen an aunt and an uncle, been reintroduced to them in a sense, in recent months. But because so much time has passed, I admit to feeling a little like a stranger in a strange land, unsure of how to act, how to fit in.

Still, I am looking forward to the trip. My therapist calls it a chance to reconnect, to reclaim my roots, something I may have unknowingly spent years running from, just as I was running from the demons of my past.

For years, I was never sure I belonged anywhere. I never seemed to fit. Now I know I don't have to. I just have to be me and let people take me as they will.

I'm sure some of the conversations will slip into familiar topics, but I hope we learn a little something about each other that maybe we didn't know before. Regardless of how it unfolds, I am looking forward to the journey back to my childhood home. Simply put, it's time.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Christmas has always been one of my favorite times of the year. Even growing up in a single-parent family with a very limited income, I always looked forward to Christmas.

Sure, I liked the thought of receiving presents; I still do. More than that, though, I looked forward to Christmas dinner with the family: grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, a human menagerie if you will.

This year, I come full circle in this respect as I bring my own family, wife and son, back to have Christmas dinner with my family for the first time. Teresa and I made the pilgrimage back for Christmas dinner once, in 1995. We took our son back for a visit between Thanksgiving and Christmas the following year, when he was just six months old. It was the only time his grandmother, my mother, would ever see her grandson. Now, we make the journey as a family.

I'm a little nervous because it has been seven and a half years since I have been back. But I'm looking forward to the trip as well. Because Christmas really is about family. The holiday itself evolved out of a very special birth in a very special family, so it makes perfect sense that family would be at the heart of this holiday more than any other.

With that in mind, I wrote a little something to mark the holiday, something I hope captures part of the essence of Christmas. Consider it my way of wishing all of my friends and family, near and far, a very Merry Christmas.

I'm Wishing You a Merry Christmas

Though many miles may lie between us

One thing still rings true
My wish that Christmas brings

A special joy to each of you

Hold fast to the spirit
And the promise this day holds
See it in the children's faces
As each gift unfolds

I'm wishing you a Merry Christmas
One filled with laughter and good cheer
May your heart reflect the joy
Of every girl and boy
And keep you smiling into the new year

I wish for you that special feeling
That comes from family and good friends
On this very special day
I hope good things come your way
And bring a feeling I hope never ends

Beneath the mistletoe
In the Christmas lights aglow
This season brings a joy
I hope that each of you will know
And may the memory of this season
Last throughout the year
To warm your heart each time
You gather loved ones near

And so, I hope this special season
Is filled with joy and laughter, too
On this very special day
There's just one thing left to say
Merry Christmas -
Merry Christmas -
Merry Christmas to you

The Search . . . . is over

On Monday, a deal for what could possibly have been our first fifth wheel trailer fell through. On Friday, we looked at another candidate, another 1998 model, a 35-foot Excel. The brand was a quality brand when it was around, and this trailer looked great on the inside. The outside, however, had a few too many problems for our liking and for the price being asked. So we decided to pass again.

Saturday, my birthday. A new day and yet another trailer to look at. This one was a little older, a 1995 model Kit Cordova. Because of the age, I didn't hold out a lot of hope, but I figured it was worth a look. After all, the price was right and we didn't have anything else planned.

We arrived at the dealer (a different one from the one we had been talking to before) and the salesman took us out to look at the trailer. Right from the start, we were pleasantly surprised. From the outside, it certainly did not look like a 14-year old trailer. We took a look inside. All of the cabinet doors were solid when they closed and none of them were coming loose. The couch, chair, and carpet looked to be in good shape. The stove looked almost new, and the refrigerator actually looked in great shape.

In the bedroom, the mattress looked new. There was plenty of interior storage. The shower enclosure might need some repair, but it looked usable. For an older unit, there also appeared to be a good deal of exterior storage, and there was a good amount of cargo carrying capacity. The roof also looked better than several other trailers we had looked at.

There was a little rust underneath but less than many newer units we looked at. Teresa and I talked about it and probably filtered our discussion through the many other units we had looked at and passed on. And, when it was all said and done, we decided to buy it.

So we now have a 33-foot fifth wheel, and we can't wait to start using it. We pick it up Friday and will probably have a shakedown cruise, as it were, that weekend. Then we'll be ready to do some four-season camping. I can't wait.

The Search

No, it's not the search for truth, the search for love, the search for knowledge, the search for fulfillment, or even the search for God. This search is for the perfect RV or at least perfect for us within our price range.

Since buying our tent trailer three-plus years ago, we have talked about one day moving up the RV food chain. At first, we thought that next RV might be a travel trailer and perhaps one day a fifth wheel trailer. Later, we thought we would skip the middle steps and move directly to a motorhome one day.

Our beagle Oliver has made us realize that a tent trailer is a little too small for a family of four (he is, after all, a member of the family). As a result, one day has become a lot sooner than we first envisioned. After our vacation to Utah, we thought perhaps in a couple of years. A few more camping trips later, the time frame became more like a couple of months.

The search for the perfect for us at this stage of our lives and current budget RV started in earnest about six weeks ago. We initially focused on finding a used motorhome, then decided the layouts of the motorhomes we could afford were not what we thought we wanted or needed.

After looking at a few motorhomes, we returned to the idea of a fifth wheel trailer. we had always liked the kitchen layouts of the fifth wheels we had seen, and since I like to cook when we are camping, the kitchen was in some ways the most important consideration of any RV layout.

Now that we had decided what type of RV to pursue, we needed a truck. We didn't want anything too big, but we knew we needed something big enough to pull a loaded fifth wheel. Because we wanted a particular type of truck without four-wheel drive (I wasn't sure they were sold in Idaho), we still were sure it would be several months before we decided on a unit and were ready to make a purchase.

But the search for the truck actually turned out to be the easiest part of this process as we found a 2006 Ford F-350 dual real wheels with Power Stroke diesel and without four-wheel drive. Once we signed the papers on the truck, the search for a fifth wheel seemed to become more serious.

We found one we really liked for a price we really liked only to find cracking in the fiberglass and some dents in one side. Then we found another one we liked at an even better price. We looked at it several times before we noticed the stress crack below the slide out. We looked at one where the bedroom seemed designed for midgets, another that seemed to have been made mostly of plastic, wood veneer, and glue, easy on the glue since trim was pulling apart everywhere.

We looked at several that seemed as if they had been parked in the ocean and others that we might one day aspire to before finding what we thought might be the one. It was a 1998 Alpenlite, 29-feet long. It was a little beat up on the inside and had originally been way overpriced before the dealer knocked several thousand dollars off the price. We had a few reservations but felt if we could get the right price, this would be worth buying.

The salesman kept playing games with us ("I have to talk to my manager" and "Someone is coming to look at it tomorrow and might buy it"). The more they did such things, the more inclined we were to dig in our heels and not budge on what we were willing to pay for the unit.

In the end, it turns out someone else did buy the unit for what the dealer was asking. (At least that's what the salesman says.) I hope they enjoy it, and I hope everything on the unit works. We never were sure.

It could have turned out to be a great trailer at a good price, but we'll never know. And I'm okay with that. Our dealings with the dealer (Camping World of Boise) and the salesman always left us a bit uneasy about the trailer and about what might be wrong with it.

We've always been convinced we would know the right unit for us when we saw it. We still believe that. In addition, we now know where we probably won't be buying it.

Learning to Slow Down

"Life if the fast lane sure can make you lose your mind" - The Eagles

Since my last posting more than a month ago, I have been working on learning to slow down a bit, to enjoy the world around me, and to not let the little things in life get to me. I have not always succeeded, but I am getting better at it.

When my aunt told me the story about my father and the real reason behind the breakup of my parents' marriage, a huge weight that I had been carrying for more than 40 years began to lift. As it did, an inner sense of calm and of peace began to develop.

I find myself much more aware of little things: sunsets, cloud formations, the moon, even something as mundane as the fact that dishes need to be put into the dishwasher. With that awareness has also come the realization (always present, I think, but now more developed) that some things are not worth worrying about.

I worry a good deal less about making mistakes at work or about getting everything done on time. Not because I don't care, but because I realize that I can only do what I can do and no more. I have decided that I can only control what I can control and that the rest is not worth getting upset about. As a result, my stress level has diminished considerably.

I realize that my job is never going to be a dream job and also that I will likely never rise above my level, and I am okay with that. My job is what it is: food on the table, gas in the car, and a means toward an end goal of being able to one day retire, buy a motorhome, and travel a little bit.

I have had several people who know me say that I seem happier these days. And I am. Having some answers about my past allowed me to move out from under its shadow. I still have some work to do, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it is getting brighter. I am also no longer mistaking it for an oncoming train.

Don't get me wrong; little things still have the power to irritate me at times. A car pulling out in front of me or going around me only to slow down in order to make a turn or my son talking during a program I'm trying to watch or changing the subject when I ask him a question, these things all still irritate me. But the irritation does not seem to last as long and sometimes does not materialize at all.

I also find that I am no longer in such a hurry to get wherever I'm going. I thought about this the other day at work as I was watching people hurry past me in the halls. I thought to myself: what's the rush? That person will get where they're going 15 or 20 seconds sooner than I will reach the same spot. The work will still be there when I arrive, only I'll get there more relaxed and in a calmer state than the person in such a hurry. And there is a good deal to be said for that.

Putting the Pieces Together

It has been a busy two weeks since my last entry. No sooner did I get through the end of the month rush at work before I had to jump back into the rush of another month with a short turnaround time for getting everything done.

In the interval, I had a great weekend of camping with the family and spent some time thinking about and trying to find out more about something an aunt told me about my father when she was here for a visit a month ado. Before I share what she said, a little background.

My mother and father separated when I was five - a long, long time ago (there were cars, but I'm not sure about color television.) - and divorced soon after. The way it has always played out in my mind is that one day he was there, the next he was gone. When I say gone, I mean gone completely - no visits on the weekends, no calls, no letters, nothing. It was as if he had never existed.

During the intervening years, through my mother's bad relationships and an even worse second marriage, I wondered what had happened to my father and what had happened to cause him to simply disappear. No one seemed to know, or at least no one was talking.

The only answer I ever got on the subject from my mother was that my father "couldn't handle the responsibility of a family." While I'm sure she did not mean it this way, inside I took that to mean it was my fault for the end of their marriage. I never included my sister in that blame equation; I suppose at some level I concluded that she was a second attempt to get it right. If I had turned out right or perhaps had never been born they would have stayed together and life would have been different.

I won't bore you with what my therapist has to say about this. Suffice to say that this episode of my childhood and the way I interpreted it caused all kinds of problems for me in terms of interpersonal relationships, emotional commitments, and simply living. Because the separation was so complete and so permanent, all of the pieces seemed to fit together to support the conclusion that I was somehow to blame for my parents' divorce.

That is because my mother's explanation was the only story I had - until a little more than a month ago. That was when an aunt came to town and gave me the initial piece of a new story, one that took me out of the blame equation, one that held the promise of a rational explanation - finally - if I could get some more details.

At that time, she told me that my mother had thrown my father out for some unnamed transgression and that he had possibly ended up in prison. Prison would have explained why he never came to visit and could have explained no letters and no telephone calls - for a time. But what could he have done to cause my mother not to want him around us ever again. I needed more information.

After talking about this revelation with my therapist, she encouraged me to contact my aunt to see if I could get more details about what had happened. So I e-mailed my aunt. E-mail seemed safer than a phone call in case my aunt couldn't or wouldn't say more. It also allowed me to be crystal clear in what I was asking for, and it allowed me to take emotion out of it, especially the potential for an angry outburst if no other information was available or forthcoming.

I sent the e-mail. And I waited. After eight days with no answer, my therapist encouraged me to call my aunt to see whether she had gotten my e-mail. Because of computer problems, she hadn't. So I waited some more. Another eight days passed. Finally, Wednesday morning before work, I checked my e-mail again, and there was the response I had been waiting for. I read it through and thought to myself, it all fits.

It seems my father had been guilty of infidelity, only with a criminal twist. The "other woman" turned out not to have been a woman after all but an underage girl. According to my aunt, it wasn't the first time, either. So my mother kicked him out and, as my aunt says, because she was afraid he might hurt one of us, my mother didn't want my father coming around.

After all these years, I now have a different story with different pieces, and they all seem to add up. They seem to explain the sudden breaking of contact and the subsequent years of silence on the part of my father. But deep inside, I still seem to need a bit more.

Perhaps it's the doubting Thomas in me or perhaps it's the spirit of the reporter I used to be, but there is part of me that now wants to know for sure whether he went to prison and for what. My aunt has taken the new story as far as she can. Now it is time for me to take it and flesh it out and perhaps craft the happy ending I never really thought was possible. Until now.

The End of Civility

In following the ongoing debate over universal health care in America, I have been led to conclude that America is a divided country again.

We have been divided before: the Civil War, Vietnam, even the war in Iraq. It seems to me that each new division takes just a little longer to heal, and the time of relative unity in between grows a little bit shorter, if it exists at all.

I blame talk radio for a portion of this. It sounds silly to say that, but talk radio does seem to set the tone for what passes for discourse in this country. That tone has grown increasingly shrill in recent years. Nothing and no one can be trusted anymore, it seems. For a long-time idealist like me, that is a hard world in which to live.

Talk radio is likely not the cause of this loss of civility; rather, it is probably but a symptom. However, like a parasite, it continues to feed off of this social unease and distrust. Like an opportunist, it fuels those negative emotions rather than looking for or promoting solutions. Talk radio feeds on the fears of people concerned about how something might affect them individually without ever looking at how something might affect or even benefit us societally and without ever offering a rational alternative.

It has long been said that politics is dirty business and that people interested in a life in politics had to be willing to get down in the mud. For most of our existence, most of that mud was controlled and contained in back rooms and more often than not a middle ground was eventually found.

These days, the mud is slung freely and indiscriminately, hitting anyone and everyone in its path. As a result, the middle ground is lost to us because we cannot even see it, let alone reach it. Personally, I feel unclean.

Years ago, Rodney King asked the often-spoofed and ridiculed question: "Can we all get along?" The question appears to have been answered once and for all. Sadly, the answer appears to be no.