May 31: Adequate

Several years back, someone set up a Secret Santa gift exchange for anyone on our school staff who wanted to participate. I signed up, because I’m fun like that. It was meant to be an enjoyable little distraction, and for the most part that’s all it really was. I don’t even remember who I had for a Secret Santa, but to be fair I don’t remember anyone I’ve ever had for Secret Santas or Bunnies or Pumpkins or any other holiday-themed derivations of $10-or-less gift exchange activities from my career. I do remember the last day of this particular year though, because on the very last day before winter break when we were scheduled to reveal our hidden identities, this was mounted on the wall in the staff lounge: 

Many people told me about it before I saw it for myself. Our staff has never exactly been wacky by any stretch, but we haven’t been immune to occasional pranks over the years, either (something our current media specialist would likely attest to following events of the past two weeks). I figured it might have to do with Secret Santa, and it did: Our lead secretary at the time had drawn my name and put it up early in the morning since she had to be at her desk when the actual exchange was happening.

I decided to play along and left it up throughout the day, feeling certain there’d be a lot of people who would walk in, see that and immediately think, “Oh, for what the hell. He is? Really? REALLY?! Arrogant little chucklehead probably put that up himself....” Or along those lines. The message did not remain intact, with one of two other people making edits to it throughout the day, which thankfully I never had to see since my schedule that year didn’t allow for a lot of lounge time.

It was nearly the end of the day when I had a chance to go down and see it. At the time I fully intended to peel the letters from the wall and take it down since I thought we’d all been subjected to the message long enough, but at the last moment I was hit with inspiration to make my own edit. I didn’t want to change it to something so cutting that it would be seen as an insult, so people would be shocked to read it and think I had some dark and disturbed nemesis hiding on the staff (I actually do have one of those, but that’s a different story), but just a tweak that would downplay the original intent. So I changed it to this: 

I took a picture of it and quickly exited the room. It got some good laughs before I took it all down after school, and the whole thing probably would have died there if I hadn’t used that picture as a Facebook cover photo. Several times. Any time I would dig it out again it would get a few likes for as long as I would leave it up, which was never more than a few weeks at a time. This spring though, it seemed to catch on for some reason, to the point that it’s fair to say that “adequate” turned out to be my word of the month. It came up in a lot of my birthday wishes. It was part of an inscription of sorts that I received in being recognized for either 29 or 30 (29 really) years of an adequate teaching career. It was the word that kind of floated around me in some kind of ethereal on-deck circle, just waiting to jump into the minds of anyone talking to me when the opportunity came up to once again throw back to the ongoing “adequate” gag. 

Really, I don’t think adequate is such a bad thing. I looked it up in the bare-bones, but adequate, thesaurus app built in to my laptop to see what synonyms were listed: Sufficient. Acceptable. Reasonable. Decent. Quite good. Ordinary. Capable. Suitable. None of these are all that bad. Of course, we also get words like unremarkable and unexceptional, but I don’t know if those are necessarily bad things. How could you truly recognize something as being exceptional if it was like that all the time? The standard would change.

Like just about every other teacher in the world, especially the ones who have invested far too many years of their life into the profession, I’ve had my exceptional moments. I have my strengths, but I also have my weaknesses and failings. We all do. I think for most of us, we should feel lucky if the sum of our parts allows us to reach the end of the school year feeling capable after what we did, with reasonable accomplishments to show for our efforts.

I think adequacy can also apply the same way to life in general. After all, would you want every meal you ever eat in your life to be exceptional? Could you call every book you read exceptional or remarkable if there weren’t a few you came across that just weren’t very good? If the weather of each day was beautiful like it is today, you’d learn to expect things to be that way, and would only notice the differences when it didn’t measure up. 

Freddie and I were just out for a walk because it’s such a nice day. A lot of the time I don’t think to notice the weather unless I'm avoiding how unpleasant it is, but today really is an exceptional spring day. While we were out walking, we stepped off the path for a bit to talk with one of my neighbors, who was sitting on his patio under a huge patio-sized umbrella, enjoying the day and working through a book of crossword puzzles. That could have been everything he needed to have an exceptional afternoon, even if it sounds fairly boring, or adequate, to a lot of other people. There he was though, comfortably relaxing, doing something he enjoyed, taking in a nice day without any immediate cares in the world. That seems like the kind of day most of us would aspire to have. 

I absolutely believe it’s fair to describe my life as adequate. I think it’d be difficult to come up with anything about it I’d go as far as describing as exceptional. Sure, there are times when a little more exceptional would be appreciated, but a lack of that shouldn’t necessarily detract from what my life is. Speaking as someone with an adequate and unremarkable life, I think of fair descriptor of how I feel about it would be, for the most part, content. 

I’ll admit though, sometimes a few more aspects, or even moments, of the exceptional wouldn’t be unwelcome. I have to say, the closer we get to that last day of school and that first day of summer break, especially coming off of The Dreaded Covid Year When Everything Sucked So Much, it feels like any direction I’m even casually thinking about pursuing this year will somehow work toward encountering some of those exceptional moments. Maybe a few moments would be enough. Or maybe I’ll end up redefining what I think of as content, and adequate won’t seem to be enough anymore. 

Or maybe adequate will be the highest level I’m able to reach. And if that proves to be the case, well, things could be much worse.

Day 27: The Questions for My Future Self

 I feel like I’ve written about this topic before, but since I can’t find that other hypothetical post I think I’m clear to use it tonight.

My 5th graders, distance learners or not, are now in the single digits as far as days remaining in their elementary school careers. An activity our social worker has done with 5th graders toward the end of many past school years has been to get each of them to write a letter to their future self, in a time capsule sort of way. It gets them thinking about the person they are right now, and who they might become by the end of middle school, or high school, or later in life -- whenever they choose to read the letter they wrote. He gives them a list of ten questions to write about, then has them choose four. This year I wrote down the ten questions. I’ll be answering them tonight, thinking ahead to the day that will come in ten years or so, when all of this school business will finally reach an end for me. So here we go. Just remember these were originally questions for children, so I may go outside the lines on a few of them.

#1: List three words to describe yourself. 

The best description I’ve ever heard about myself actually came from a former principal. I don’t remember the context, but she said, “I don’t know if I’ve ever met anyone so willing to take too much credit for things and not enough credit at the same time.” I heard that and thought: Wow. That is entirely fair, and I like how complex it makes me seem.

#2: What are your hobbies?

Hobbies are interests you pursue during your idle time, so it doesn’t seem like they can have anything to do with professional pursuits. Unfortunately, that doesn’t leave too much for me once teaching and writing are taken off the table. I like playing games and solving puzzles. Relaxing in front of the TV with some shows or movies to watch is pretty cool. I have a few favorite podcasts I listen to, often in the middle of the night if I wake up and want to try and lull myself back to sleep.

Other than that…walking the dog? Self-doubt? Anxiety? Do any of those count?

#3: Who are your friends?

This is kind of complicated, so I’ll explain a few things about my perspective. First off, as far as honest to goodness friends go, I only have a small circle of them — it’s an introvert thing. Beyond that, I think of friendship in three wider circles. The next closest would be those you have the most proximity with, like, in my case, people I work with and see every day and have connected with on some level. Outside of that would be the people that I still have some degree of relationship with, even if our paths have gone in different directions and I don’t see them very often (the Covid Year being an exception in the time length here). If we stay in touch at all in some real way instead of some pretend crap like social media "friendships," I would still think of you as a friend, and very likely I miss not having you as directly in my life as you once were. If you’re someone I know but haven’t even really spoken to in, say, the last three years? Well…Circle 3, aka Acquaintance Town. It should also go without saying that everyone, with a few exceptions in that tightest, smallest circle, will have to line up behind Freddie in terms of importance.

#4. What do you want to be when you grow up? 

I’m unconditionally grown up. But keeping in mind I wouldn’t open this time capsule letter until after I retire, the only ambition I’d have at that point would be to have achieved the level of working author.

#5. What technology do you think will exist?

Human augmentation, which will include direct mental connections to some new organic form of the internet once the Singularity is reached and surpassed.

#6. Who do you look up to? 

Outside of the obvious answers that practically everyone would list (parents, sister, John Petrucci), I’d rethink this one as people I admire: The musicians and writers who can bring magic moments into being and make it seem effortless when the truth is far from that; the colleagues I work with who have so much more patience than I do and display boundless compassion so easily because it’s a part of who they are, and/or keep showing up in their classroom even when it feels like the world around them has been temporarily engineered to kick their ass. People who get vaccinated.

#7. What are your hopes and dreams?

For the people in my family to have long, happy, and healthy lives. To be able to retire as a working writer, and have a happy and healthy life that stretches out long enough for me to enjoy that. To not be alone.

#8. What positive skill could you develop or behavior you could change that would help you reach those dreams?

Once the pandemic has faded into relative obscurity and my brain is no longer caving in, I really want to get back into a regular writing routine. I know I can do it. I have before, for long stretches of time. This past year though, and all the baggage that came with it between Covid and distance learning? It was too much. I allowed it to be enough that I was developing an idea instead of actively writing a story. 

#9. What are places you hope to visit? 

Top, top of the list is to get back out to the PNW. Other than that? Iceland would be interesting. So would New Zealand, I think. Really though, I’ve always felt that travel is less about the destination and more about who is with you on the journey.

#10. What advice would you give your future self?

If you haven’t yet learned to live with the idea that people don’t necessarily define you by your flaws and failings and might see worth in you that you don't always recognize yourself, you should probably start wrapping your head around that idea. You’re an old man, dude. It's seriously time to get over yourself.

Day 24: Post-Pandemic Redefining, Part 2

My job is rough. There are times I don’t like anything about it. I’ve given much of my life to it because it’s a job that is crucial to our society, and personally important to me. Unfortunately though, it requires the people who do it to be the best versions of themselves nearly all the time, and it is more than willing to readily consume everything you let it take from you. Looking back from the perspective of at least the back nine of my career, I see I made the mistake of putting too much into it. Dedication is one thing, and it’s an important element of being a successful teacher, but there’s a tipping point when it becomes too much. I put in too much, and doing that was a mistake. Not just a little one either, but one of the defining mistakes of my life. If I were going to pass on advice to anyone in the early stages of their career, it would be to fight hard to maintain the balance you need between home and school if you’re going to have a happy life. 

Oooh wait, did I just subtly drop something in there to lead people into inferring that I’m not happy? Hmm, well, yes and no. I wouldn’t say that I’m unhappy. I’d say I’m content with my life more than anything else. Happy, though? That’s tough. I’ve always seen happiness as more aspirational than deserved; something that happens in fleeting bursts, the euphoric moments when everything about everything feels exactly as we’d want it to be, when fear and anxiety and stress and frustrations are minimized long enough to let us recognize and appreciate the moments for what they are. My life is full of problems, but it’s also full of blessings. I think acknowledging the power both of those have over how I think and feel means that being content with life is actually a pretty significant win. And I’m mostly fine with that. 

Is it enough, though? Should it be?

There are times I don’t like anything about my job, but there are also times I love everything about it. Either way, I come home at the end of the day exhausted. What about writing? Well, once again, love and hate. I love the process of it. I love the rush of seeing something I try to create from nothing but ideas become a tangible piece of art that can communicate with other people (for the record, I’m still mostly uncomfortable with referring to anything I write as “art,” but I’m slowly getting used to it). Outside of the process, there is little about the business side of writing and publishing that hasn’t frustrated me in some way or other. There’s that emotional pairing again — problems and blessings.

A lot has rolled through the media about the idea of self-care in the past year. I never paid much attention to it before, but I’ve come to see the value of it when I had to drag myself through the more challenging lows of pandemic isolation. It makes me think about what things will be or could be like once the world locks into whatever normal will prove to be. Happily it seems like we’re getting closer and closer to that time with each passing week.

When it’s here, where does that leave everything? The temptation to easily slip back into contentment will absolutely be there, holding up a soft blanket and waiting to embrace me with and endless loop of The Office reruns and Marvel movie re-watches as I enjoy being able to relax through the times I don’t have to deal with extraordinary professional challenges and questions about my validity. When normal returns, what happens next? Who will I choose to be in the post-pandemic world around me? What will I need to do differently to if I actively approach a more robust happiness, instead of just accepting what seems good enough when I’m not getting buckets of stress and criticism poured over me? Do I need wholesale changes? Actual post-pandemic redefining? Or maybe just a few well-planned tweaks? What would be enough to make the difference that I seem to feel I might need?

It’s seeming like something I'll have to figure out sooner than later.

Day 3: Building a Mini-Bucket List

During an early morning Target run this past weekend, I bought a new package of Post-It Notes to use on my fridge this summer. If you’re new to the idea, I’ve spent most of the past few summers turning the front of my refrigerator into a massive To-Do list of summertime activities, with each note listing something else to do, which I peel off and throw out as I complete them. Hopefully by the time school starts again in the fall I’ve finished off at least most of the things I had listed. It’s a good cure for the days when you can’t think of anything to do.

I didn’t do it last year, because the options of what to do seemed so severely pandemic-limited and the only thing really on my list was stay home and not die. However, the world seems to be regaining some of its equilibrium. Even though Covid is hardly resolved (and seriously, if you think it’s gone or will end anytime soon you have some real self-searching to do), life does feel slightly less dangerous than it did a year ago. I’ve gotten pretty good at managing a safe lifestyle, and I’ve had both of my shots. Maybe the occasional measured or controlled risk wouldn’t be completely inappropriate? After all, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph — I did actually go inside a Target store, and buy things. Clearly I’m ready to live on the edge.

In all seriousness I have no plans on going crazy with the “open world” idea. But I love my vaccines and the increased security I’ve learned to feel with their 95% efficacy. I think getting out and doing a few things might not be so bad under the right conditions. After a year of isolation, there are a lot of things I’ve always enjoyed, particularly in the summer, that I missed after holding back from doing them.

There are things I’d like to do that I’m not ready to yet, and even some bigger, more adventurous things that I’d like to try someday. But in the short term? There are the things I’ve missed being able to do. There’s stuff I’d like to try, projects I’d like to attempt, things about my life I’d like to work on trying to change, for real. People to see. Skills to develop. The kind of unremarkable but still unusual and potentially memorable experiences to be collected that would be worth the investments of time and effort. 

I think a lot of people might see life this way now, divided between Before Covid and After. Speaking for myself, living through an existential threat (shut up, science deniers) gives you a watered-down version of the perspective that I imagine people who’ve experienced near misses with illnesses or injuries probably feel. They survived, and come out the other side with an appreciation of the opportunities, the potential, and the promise life still holds.

I’ve never really had an official Bucket List so much as some things I hoped I’d get to do or see someday. I’m not thinking in terms like that here, at least not exactly. Instead of putting together a checklist of things like exotic places to visit, I’m thinking of smaller things, sort of like the things that really I could have done at almost any point but never took advantage of the opportunities to do. The smaller things. It seems to me as I start thinking about another summer with my fridge hidden beneath a layer of Post-It Notes, this might be a summer to try and accomplish some of those things.

For example: I’ve never been big on spending a lot of time in the city. Really, it’s just not my thing. I was brought up in small towns, and I’m relatively comfortable here in the blandness of the suburbs. But I’ll admit I can enjoy the energy of the city when I’m there, at least if I'm not trying to steer a grade level through a field trip. Maybe taking the commuter train downtown to meet up with a friend for lunch sometime could be a nice little fun-sized adventure. Of course I’d have to feel comfortable about riding the train, which is far from a lock right now, but we’re really just throwing around hypothetical spitballs here, so why not consider it for the list.

I’d like to give my dog a chance to see more of the world around him than he has; he likes exploring the neighborhood, so he might like getting out a little further. I have friends with dogs he could meet. It could make for a fun evening to go visit with some of them some summer evening, and maybe sit outside for dinner. I’ve been a writer for so long, and my best friend is a professional musician. We’ve talked for decades now, literally, about trying to collaborate on writing at least one song. I know he’s game for it and is just waiting for me to have an idea. Maybe this could be the summer to really try. A few years ago a friend of mine and I joked about making a day trip up North to visit a mutual friend with an alpaca farm and shop. That could be fun. I'm almost certain it would be.

The way I see it right now, I have a little over a month to really zero in on what would be the things that could both enhance my summer and help me fill in some of the overall life gaps I’d like to close while I still have the chance. Even if I only managed to address some of them in the end, I think it'd be worth the attempt.

After

 February was a horrible month this year. It was long, dark, depressing, and deathly polar, to say nothing about how school hadn’t exactly been a ride around the lake. Another February with the kind of stress this one brought and I think it could steal the title of My Least Favorite Month right out from under January.

The nightmarish weeks of deep freeze eventually came to an end though, and soon after it felt like the world began to open. The days warmed quickly. The remaining winter snow gradually faded. Each day brought a few more minutes of blessed sunshine into our lives. Spring and the mental cleanse it promised sat on the horizon, patiently waiting for us to catch up. All of these things together made it seem like maybe it wasn’t completely foolish to entertain the occasional feeling of optimism. 

As the world began to feel more open, society took steps toward opening again for real. President Biden announced that regardless of how many people thought his goal of 100 million doses of Covid vaccine administered during his first 100 days in office was over-reaching, it was achieved some forty days ahead of schedule. Even though the pandemic is far from over and people are still fighting the disease, the media has taken to keeping tallies of how many people have been vaccinated along with the number infected.

Of course all of this optimism comes with knowing there are still contagious new variants circulating through an American population with large pockets of ignorance and entitlement that was never as reasonably cautious as it should have been. The traveling for Spring Break throughout March, amplified by astonishingly irresponsible governors making poor decisions in those destination states, could turn up the heat on all of us again very quickly. 

But what if it doesn’t all go that way? What if, somehow, we’re actually on a Covid decline instead of a weighted pause between surges? What if all of the mitigation and the vaccinations makes not just a difference, but the difference? Could we actually find ourselves back in a world where a new normal will at least approximate the better aspects of the previous normal? 

We will someday, and what comes next when that happens? Will we slip back into the familiar roles and routines we had chosen or been assigned before the pandemic? Will returning to all of that after pausing life for over a year feel like nostalgia? A return to our familiar routines would certainly be a comfort, since the human brain is always seeking out recognizable patterns. But what if there were routines that weren’t working? 

I don’t think society will experience any immediate overall change, at least not anything positive, and I really don’t want to focus on that here anyway. When I think about what comes next, I mostly think about what it will be like to rejoin the world, personally. I have been extremely cautious this past year, and have isolated myself to a degree that I’m certain that many people, particularly the anti-mask crusaders struggling to navigate their personal realities, would ridicule. Right now the idea of taking even tentative steps back into the world leaves me feeling anxious.

One year of my life has gone into developing a proactive and defensive mindset of avoiding other people to minimize the potential they could pass the virus to me. However, the day will eventually come when I’m going to be all vaccinated up. When that happens, I’ll be protected as I can reasonably expect to be. You’d think I’d be pretty pumped up about re-entering society, and picking up where I left off.

I don’t know, though. Do I really want to pick up where I left off? Has there ever been a truer opportunity for people to re-evaluate the direction life is doing than after a time we’ve more or less forced to spend an entire year on the couch? That’s a perspective I keep struggling with. This has been time used up that I won’t get back. One year of my life is gone, out of how many years do I even have left? Ten? Thirty-seven? Five? No one knows.

So what is there to do about it? What parts of my life had evolved into routine, just to fill the empty spaces left by the absence of the things I wish I had, or had pursued, or had the courage to pursue, but instead I accepted the default ease of routine? Once this pause is over, I feel certain there will be a lot of things about life before that won’t be enough anymore.

I think about returning to school, and honestly, I feel like it’s going to be weird. I believe in some respects I’ve been seen as a leader in my building for some time, mostly because I’ve been teaching there since the middle of the Jurassic Period. I don’t know if that will be the same anymore. I don’t mind that so much, but it makes me speculate what will change in how my professional roles will be defined. The people who have worked together through this Covid year will have formed a unique bond because of that; this is an undeniable truth. As strong as that bond will be for all of them, I wasn’t there to be a part of it. There are literally people on our school staff that I’ve never met before. Whenever any of them refer to everything experienced during the Covid year, I’m always going to carry an asterisk related to that because I worked remotely. What will my role be now, for however many years there are left in my career?

So how do I take advantage of this perspective? It’s almost like Ebenezer Scrooge waking on Christmas morning and realizing he’s been gifted a second chance. One thing I know for sure is that once I feel safe enough to enter the world, I sure as hell don’t want to continue molding the couch and recliner cushions to form with my body, and as comfortable and warm as they are, I’m pretty much over sweatpants. What do I want different in my life if I still have the chance and the time and maybe even the motivation to change it? 

I’ve actually started a list on my phone’s Notes app of things I’ll want to do when I can. Some involve the normal, mundane things I’ve been deprived of doing to stay safe. I don’t think a return to the comfort of the familiar is necessarily a bad thing, as long as it isn’t defining. I’ve also listed some things I’d like to do that I think I’d enjoy, or would maybe bring new kinds of happiness to my life. I’ve even added a few things to do that might be considered “bucket list” items. I’ve always said I don’t really have a bucket list so much, but even a tangential proximity to facing mortality makes one realize there are aspects of life that could lead to regret without even trying to experience them. 

It feels like now, in this season just before we can all hopefully exit our bubbles again without worrying about existential threats, is the time to start putting together a conscious idea of what life can be in the after. Then it’s only a matter of waiting until nature determines it’s time to begin.

Pandemic Narrative Part 16: The Beginning of the End

I started writing these narratives back on March 14th, intending to give myself a way to trace how the pandemic changed the world around us throughout its duration. I wrote up a list of ten thoughts on that first post. It seems appropriate on this one, the last post of the year, that I should do the same.

1. Since I’ve included statistics in each pandemic narrative, I feel I should keep that going. Worldwide: 81.5 million cases; 1.78 million deaths. America: 19.4 million cases; 347,000 deaths. This means approximately one out of every one thousand Americans has died from this. If that count been the result of a war, I’m pretty sure that both politically and socially we would be much more united around the idea of working against it than we currently are. However, I’m now able to add a new statistic to the tally: So far, there have been 2.1 million vaccines given. A start.

2. I don’t like this about myself, but I’ll own it: I rarely start a new year with optimism. I think it’s fair to attribute this to losing my sister: When the new year rolls around I always carry at least a small suspicion that there’s going to be a day when I’ll be expecting everything to be normal, and life will put up a serve that resets it in a darker light, and everything will be about trying to survive and process the experiences that follow. Vaccine production aside, there’s still a pandemic going on, and there are still reasons for all of us to begin 2021 with active caution. On the plus side though, at least the most incompetent, self-centered, ignorant, and corrupt president in all of American history, whose foolishness is largely responsible for the predicament we’re in, will be out of office in a few weeks.

3. I honestly feel like I’m one of the few people left on Earth who still bothers to live with any precautions. Cars pass my house all day long like they always have. On the rare days I go to Target for a curbside pickup, all of the parking lots are full. I have filled my car's gas tank twice since March. Granted, I have no metric for what the outside world is like, other than the way the selfish, headstrong few will broadly paint social media with proclamations of their bold stands against anything they’ve been asked to do in the name of public health. Feeling like I’m one of the 0.0004% of the population still striving to adhere to anything but the bare minimum of staying safe is disheartening. It only compounds the isolation. Even if it’s mostly imagined, it feels just as real when you don’t have any evidence in front of you to prove it’s wrong.

4. What will it be like when the world begins to once again take the shape of something recognized as normal, whenever that might happen? How long until the world is safe again? How difficult will that transition be, to rejoin the world? Being an introvert has helped tremendously as far as the isolation goes, but introverts are not, by nature, antisocial. I don’t mind wearing masks, but my God, I can think of maybe five times in the past nine months I’ve even touched another person. 

5. There’s no way this isn’t taking a mental toll on me beyond what I immediately recognize. Many people who’ve known me have heard me say how I feel like I drop off the face of the Earth for someone else unless I’m directly in their line of sight. That’s never been more real now, feeling tucked away like stored human surplus that society has found a way to manage without.

6. I also feel a sense of wasted time, which is probably a reflexive response since I’m always so ready to be self-critical. I haven’t baked any bread or learned any new languages online. I haven’t read a fraction of the books I could have, or caught up on classic movies or developed a yoga routine or painted any rooms or learned the ukulele. But then I remember the time I put into revising a new book, and how difficult that was, and I’m quite proud of the accomplishment. I feel this one could be my best shot at publication, at least as far as middle grade goes. I still think it’s a weird story, but it’s thought-provoking, it’s original, it’s fairly well-written (if I’m allowed to think that about my own story), and I’m anxious for more people in the world to know about it, even if in the immediate that only amounts to a handful.

7. If I were to go back to school and earn another degree, just to pursue an interest, I think I’d study sociology. Because of that, I’ve often wondered exactly what the tipping point was for America, when we went from agreeing to shelter in place and behave in ways meant to preserve the greater good, then shifted over to so much more of a “Well, I’m not sick/This is a free country, don’t take away my rights” ethos. The idea of “we’re all in this together” that was so prevalent back in the spring has worn away to nothing but a faded platitude. I fear that perspective, as well as the reactions to it, will make it much harder for our society to recover and reunite. I’m afraid things will continue to get worse before we see any significant social healing.

8. How much longer is this going to go on? The vaccine is here. When will I be able to get it? When will the rest of my family be eligible? Which one will it be? What will be the circumstances of its availability? Everything about this is still new; there’s no way to see past the next turn in the road when no one has ever traveled the road before. 

9. Do I really want life to go back to what it was before once the world comes back together? Honestly, not in every way. I’m not sure if this is a reaction to the beginning of a new year, but I feel like the pandemic is still going to be around long enough to use this as a transformational time. How could I take steps, even tentative ones, that would develop over time to replace the things in my life I’m dissatisfied about? How much of that thinking is my own motivation, or coming from subtle pressures of what society has to say about what I should be, or what other people in my life expect of me? God knows how many years I have left. Ten? Twenty? Twenty-five? Six? There’s no telling. What do I want that time to be like? What would make it the best, the happiest, version of a life I could build around myself? Has there ever been a more appropriate time for that kind of self-examination? I keep falling back to the idea of where my priorities should be, and why (or if) the things I've held as important are necessarily things that should even be considered priorities. 

10. Like I said, I rarely start the year with optimism. However, there’s always that flicker of hope that refuses to die. We all have dreams and aspirations. We all have anxieties we’d like to banish from our lives. Could 2021 be the year when things drift to the positive, and things will go our way? Will we be gifted with small pieces of individual balance to reward us for what we’ve endured? 

I suppose we’ll start to discover that in a few more days. 

May 31: Pandemic Summer

I’ve started past summers by covering my refrigerator door in a colorful array of sticky notes, creating a massive list of goals, hobbies, and adventures meant to fill my summer break with experiences and accomplishments. This summer I’m leaving it blank. 

This coming Friday would be Track and Field Day at my school. In a lot of ways, that day is the emotional starting point for the end of the school year. However, because of the coronavirus and distance learning, our Track and Field Day is virtual this year. No sweaty day out in the sun. No kids dumping out their water bottles on each other. No Tug of War, or Fifth Grade All-Stars competition, or dunk tank, or subsequent happy hour which I probably would have gone to this year.

The beginning of summer break is a wonderful time, the launch pad of so much possibility, and so many things to do. Go see a movie in the middle of the afternoon, if you want. Meet up with a few friends for lunch somewhere you usually wouldn’t go and catch up. Enjoy the open time without any immediate responsibility, or at least less of it.

This year though, I don’t know how much it will even feel like a break, at least for me. I haven’t seen my students in nearly three months, and I won’t see them as a group ever again. I’m sure it will feel like summer, with the pounding afternoon sun and the humid air and the occasional storm rolling through. So summer, sure. But a break from what? My work day for the third trimester has meant sitting in front of my computer screen each day, which is what a good chunk of each day will be like as I work (and yeah, it really is WORK) to write one new manuscript and revise another. That was always going to happen. Anything I would have had on the Sticky Note To Do List would have been distractions around it.

But this year, what’s going to happen in the outside world? For the second time in 2020, the world has gone through remarkable change for the worst almost overnight just this past week. George Floyd was killed not even a week ago, and not for the first time we’re finding so much of our lives affected by the actions of one violent ex-cop. Tragically there’s no way everything that followed that won’t lead to a second wave of COVID-19 by July, and my guess is that by then one community demanding justice and another wanting to go up North every weekend won’t eagerly welcome another shelter-in-place order.

So in my little world, there are a lot of things that either I really can’t, or shouldn’t, do, as well as things that would be pointless. There won’t be the traditional countdown to the first day back to school in the fall, because there’s really no telling what the fall will look like. There won’t be any boiling afternoons spent in a dark movie theater to retreat from the excessive heat and the storm watches, because even if the theaters were open there aren’t exactly any movies out for them to show. There won’t be afternoons or evenings, or sometimes even mornings, wandering the aisles of Cub or Target for an hour, only to arrive at the check-out with a cartful of things I don't really need. Live music is pretty much dead at the moment, so the one concert I was excited about attending has been postponed for at least a year, to say nothing of how there wasn’t even a Summer Concert Series at the MN Zoo amphitheater announced. I didn’t even bother trying to pick an Official Driving With the Windows Rolled Down Album of the Summer, both because friggin’ 2020 doesn’t deserve one and because the last time I filled my gas tank was mid-March and it isn’t even half empty yet.

On top of all this — no State Fair. Maybe at least on the Fourth of July I can try to watch the fireworks from that show near my house …maybe they’ll allow that with social distancing…at least on the fourth I can watch the Hot Dog eating con…nope, that’s getting shut down for sure.

I don’t know. I mean, I fully expect the Second Wave to hit like a tsunami, but maybe before it does I’m being too cautious. A lot of people are getting sick, but a lot aren’t. NO, that’s the kind of magical thinking that ends up with people in the ICU. I’m not taking any risks I don’t have to, and if that means more time in the designated pick up spots in the Target parking lot instead of in the store, so be it. I’m walking around with an underlying condition or two here. I’m not taking any risks I absolutely don’t have to. 

Besides, there are still a lot of things I can do. There are dozens of books to read in my house, along with the two of my own I’ll be working on. In fact, I’m halfway through the new Stephen King right now and have an older John Sandford mystery I still haven’t read on deck. I’ve got miles and miles of summer dog walks ahead of me, along with sunny afternoons we’ll spend in our chairs on the patio. There are all of those shows on Netflix people talk about, and I’ll probably take the final technology dive into Disney+ at some point, to anesthetize myself with Marvel movies. I’m also taking on the summer project of catching up on classic movies I’ve never seen; I think “From Here to Eternity” is actually recording as I sit here and write this. I have a well-worn copy of Fallout: New Vegas at the ready for any night I can’t fall asleep, now that I don’t have to worry so much about waking up to “go to work” anymore. And as far as shopping? I can get pretty much whatever I need delivered to my house. To paraphrase one of my students from an assignment they wrote about living through a pandemic, there’s a difference between the things you want and the things you need.

Whatever happens, the summer of 2020 promises to be both quiet (personally) and dramatic (publicly). Let’s just hope there’s still a world left out there when it’s time to start school again in the fall. 

Pandemic Narrative, Part 7: The New Normal

Since I’ve started each of these narrative posts the same way, let’s continue with that and get the stats down for the benchmarks: Over 2.2 million cases confirmed worldwide now, with 45’s America owning about one-third of those. Over 36,000 in the United States have died. There are people on the forefront of this nightmare, putting their lives in legitimate danger out of necessity or the deep responsibility that accompanies a calling. Any negative feelings I allow myself during this time seem petty and self-indulgent by comparison.

I understand that “a new normal” will become one of the pandemic-inspired catch phrases that we’ll all eventually tire of, if we haven’t already. However, I’ve seen evidence of this idea being truth reflected in how my dog’s behavior has changed during the quarantine. He has seen enough emerging and repeated habits from me that he’s assigned his own meanings to them. If I put shoes on, or pick up my keys, or a roll of poop bags, he’s always known we’re going for a walk. Now he’s added me walking out of my home office in the late morning (11:00) after I’ve finished my morning distance learning office hours, or putting on my mask as other walk triggers. I think he waits for me at the end of the hall in the morning, and on high alert, since he’s so sure we’re walking. 

Between the time spent home and the days growing warmer, we’ve been walking a lot more, usually out at least two times each day, if not three. I’ve noticed my walking pace has quickened so I can keep up with Freddie and his speedy little legs, and my endurance has improved. Getting out for walks on the sidewalk and the pavement help keep Freddie’s little black nails trimmed, and gives him something to sleep about when I have to finish working in the afternoons. I’d lost two pounds during quarantine until I started using one of those food delivery services — it’s just too freakin’ easy to have the app right there on the phone, and a half hour later, there’s the food!

It seems like there are more squirrels and birds outside than usual springs, but maybe after all the reports of air pollution going down while the polluters are indoors and at home, that’s something I’m just looking for. Our neighborhood isn’t exactly party central, but it’s noticeably more quiet than usual. In the rare moments when a familiar car drives past while we’re out walking, I’ll still smile and wave, even if it feels kind of pointless to smile when they can’t see behind my mask. 

I’ve been taking the shelter-in-place order a lot more seriously than a lot of people, judging by the number of cars that pass my backyard on the county road behind the house each day. If memory serves, I’ve only left the house twice in the past month, other than to go for walks or get the mail. I’ve heard of people comparing quarantine to being in prison, but I don’t see it that way. To me, it feels more like what I’d imagine living on a space station would be like. You have some room to move around, you’ve got things to keep your mind occupied, you have enough food and water, but you’re hyper-aware that leaving your confinement is a really, really bad idea. 

I’m mostly okay with this, though. This kind of extended confinement would bother me during the summer; if I were on break and went through a couple of days not doing much or going anywhere I’d feel guilty about it, but during quarantine I don’t mind at all. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say I have some fine-tuned introvert super powers. As my sister said at the beginning of this, “You’re good at staying away from people.” Which isn’t about being anti-social, but about being comfortable while alone when the alternative isn’t a choice. I’d explain it by paraphrasing Bruce Banner in the first Avengers movie, right before he turned into the Hulk to join the fight in New York: “That’s my secret, Cap. I’m always lonely.”

But in a forced isolation like this, there are ways to manage it. Last night some of the staff from my school had an online trivia night, figuring since we’re all doing distance learning now we might as well take advantage of the technology at our disposal for some virtual social time. And it was great. We played and talked and laughed for three hours. By the time it was finished I felt like I was returning home after being out all night. 

An event like that is more of an occasional thing though (at least for most of us), and we still need ways to survive what can feel like an unending overlap of carbon-copied days. It turns out that distance learning has been a big help with that. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying the experience is all rainbows, Skittles, and Lisa Frank stickers. There are still a lot of the same frustrations I have to deal with as a teacher, and this only amplifies them since I’m removed from being able to directly address them by a few more degrees. I have noticed that maintaining a routine in the day helps make it more palatable. Instead of thinking of quarantine as a trial with no end date in sight (because I certainly don’t expect to be going back to my actual school this year), I take the day in chunks. These two hours? Office hours. These two? A movie. Or several episodes of Community on Netflix. One more hour until bed. Listening to one album or podcast and setting that as the length of doing a specific chore. 

There isn’t much choice to it really, but for now, my solitary nature and circumstance are keeping me happily and blessedly uninfected. Knowing what the alternative to that could be like? I don’t really mind. 

Pandemic Narrative, Part 1

I’m writing this in the minutes following the government declaring a national emergency in regards to the spread of COVID-19. So far this event has progressed at such a frightening rate, it occurred to me today that it might be a good idea to document the things that are happening to keep track of the pace. Of course, since this is my blog, much of what I write about here will be filtered through my own point of view. Not all of us will have the same experience as all of this rolls out. All I can offer is my own perspective.

Since I’ve done a lot of Lists of 10 here on the blog before, I think that might be a good format to follow for this as well — 10 points of what is either happening in the world in the moment or what I’m doing in my best efforts to cope and survive. 

So, here are 10 observations or comments, in no particular order: 

*To start off…I’ve been walking the face of this godforsaken planet for a wee bit longer than half a century now, and I’ve never seen anything like what is going on with this pandemic, and the worst part of it all is how it’s only getting started here. No wait, the worst thing might be that all the toilet paper and hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes are sold out across the land. (I’m starting to think toilet paper might become currency when the virus apocalypse really kicks in.) No, hold on: The worst part of it is how our government is being operated by an incompetent collection of clown-shoes-wearing bumbles when we need experts in charge more than ever.

*A few weeks ago, I had won a pair of VIP tickets to see the Lumineers at Xcel Energy Center. I was excited because I really like the band, and have yet to take in a VIP experience of any sort. I even worked on growing out my beard for a few weeks, so it would be scraggly enough to have proof I was the fan of a band who played the kind of music Mumford and Sons would have if they’d grown up on the western plains or the Rocky Mountains instead of the UK. I’d hoped the virus spread would be slower and it would make sense to take the chance at going, but it didn’t work out. I was ready to give up my tickets right when I found out the concert had been postponed until September. Yay! Now I just need to stay alive until September. And I can get rid of the beard, which frankly is probably a trap for virus-tainted droplets anyway.

*On the subject of getting rid of the beard: The whole idea of not touching my face, which is proving a challenge, makes the simple act of washing my face feel like a spa day. Not that I know much about what a spa day would feel like, because what am I, Ryan Gosling? But face washing has never felt as luxurious as it does when you’re trying so hard not to touch it during the rest of the day.

*I started spring break today, officially. I have a doctor’s appointment this week — which was set pre-pandemic — and other than that I have no legitimate reason to leave my home. I mean, I’ll go outside to walk the dog and get the mail, but to go to a movie or a store, or meet someone for lunch? I may not go anywhere until I have to return to school at the end of break. Unless….

*Yesterday, Gov. Tim Walz declared a statewide peacetime emergency. He did not, however, close the schools. About ten states have, but we aren’t one of them…yet. It’s my hope that by the time my spring break ends, he’ll wise up and rectify this. You see, I know what it’s like in a school. It isn’t, “Oh, it’s just a bunch of kids and they aren’t the ones getting sick.” It’s the parents who come through. It’s ALL OF THE ADULTS who work there, many of whom travel from building to building, sometimes during the same day. And as for those kids, even if they aren’t typically getting sick, they’re very effective carriers. Generally, I like to think my immune system is pretty robust; for example, I’ve only had about one week worth of colds in the past two and a half years. But this new virus is a big unknown, and I’d rather not try taking it on. As strong as my immune system might be, I spend my day with coughers and wipers and scratchers and pickers. I’ve been coughed on in such close proximity I’ve been able to taste them. I know how bad the disease vector of the public school is first hand, so I know how much potential difference it could make to get it off the game board for a few weeks. Because social distancing? In a classroom? No. It’s not possible. 

*There is more food in my house right now than there probably ever has been during my entire adult life. I usually shop a week at a time, which can leave my kitchen not unlike Tyler Durden’s by the end of the week. I am fully stocked now though, and I plan to ration. Not down to anything ridiculous like three Cheez-Its per hour, but a whole lot less snacking and a whole lot more of respecting serving sizes. I could even wind up dropping some weight because of this, which would give me a nice self-esteem boost to enjoy for the three weeks I’d have until the virus kills me off. Until then, I’m fully prepared to settle in and let my introverted superpowers carry me through as far as they can. 

*I’m filling time by watching TV, which is becoming a trigger. I often have news on as background noise, but there’s nothing about that right now that isn’t scary. Even normal TV is scary though, when you see people touch their faces, or shake hands, or hug, or high five, or fist bump, or sneeze, or cough, or wipe their nose, or not wash their hands long enough…I’m sure you get the picture. I also plan on reading a lot, which will be easy since I have a formidable To Be Read pile. This is a part of it (full-disclosure: I’ve already read about 25% of these, but just don’t have anywhere else to keep them).

*I’m also going to use the time to get some writing done. I’ve got one book I’m starting and another I’m preparing to revise. I have to say some state-mandated weeks off from school would help quite a bit with getting things done for the other job.

*I’m honestly torn between wanting to keep myself as hyper-informed about what’s happening as I can so I know what we’re all up against, and wanting to just watch The Office and rock out to old Styx albums to pretend the world is still a normal place. It makes me wonder what it will be like afterward, however long it takes us to achieve afterward, when we’ll be able to put all of our previous concerns into a new perspective. 

*Today I plan on dusting off the Xbox and starting an open world game I’ve never played before but have had lying around for the longest time. An open world game is one where you just kind of wander around through the expansive setting of the game, interacting with different characters, completing missions and quests, and just living your game life. 

I’m pretty sure there won’t be any scary viruses in there.

Day 2: The Roads Not Taken

There are a lot of very popular things that I’m not interested in. I’m not saying these things are bad or criticizing anyone else for liking them. They just don’t flip any of my triggers.

I have fond childhood memories of my dad taking me to see Twins games at Met Stadium. I was even at the Metrodome for Game 6 of the 1987 World Series, the game when Kent Hrbek hit his grand slam. I think Target Field can be an almost perfect place to spend an afternoon, as long as the weather isn’t miserable. Despite these things, I can’t call myself a baseball fan. On any of those nearly-annual Target Field visits, I’m always slightly fascinated by things like the statistics displayed for each player throughout the game, and the constantly updated scores of other games being played that some afternoon. It makes me wonder what it would be like to live a life where that kind of thing meant something more to me than just a momentary diversion.

I acknowledge that country artists can be skillful songwriters and talented musicians. I appreciate the aesthetic that comes with the genre, excluding the most intentionally pandering examples of it, which is something found in any type of music. I saw the Oak Ridge Boys perform at a Boy Scout Jamboree when I was a kid, and I remember enjoying the show. I remember a city bus ride I took in college when the driver had us all locked into a country music station for better part of an hour. I was under a speaker during the ride and listened to all of this established music I didn’t know with curiosity, wondering what it would be like to be fluent in those artists and the work they produced. It’s never connected with me, though.

Whenever I encounter another slice of the world like this, a part of me speculates about how my life would have been different (or could be different) if that unfamiliar interest was (or had ever been) a part of it. I hate running. Dear God in Heaven, how I hate it. I hated it even when I was young and strong enough to do it well. I’m never going to be one of those people posing in Facebook posts with the medal they earned from their most recent “escape the White Walkers” themed 10K. There’s something about running that drew those people to pursue the interest that didn’t connect with me. I don’t understand the pleasure of spending an afternoon pulling weeds out of the dirt to make more work for myself by planting and tending to flowers or plants that may or may not ever grow. I’ve never understood the purpose of spending so much time preparing exquisitely planned meals.

But then I have one other adult at my school I can talk to about whichever video games we’re currently playing and how excited we are about it, while most of the other people we work with (many being younger than us) would roll their eyes dismissively to overhear that conversation. I couldn’t name check a single college football or basketball player in the country, but I can hear far too many songs from the 1980s and know the artist, the album the song came from, which track it was on the album, what year it was released, who the members of the band were at the time, often the songwriter, and at least one piece of completely superfluous trivia about it. I can remember favorite lines from innumerable movies. I can, and often do, sit for hours and make up stories. I mean, who in their right mind does that as an adult, when there are so many serious things to do? Lawns to tend? Grills to clean? Boats to winterize?

If it’s true that people are the results of their choices, it has me wondering about the ones I’ve made. Not just what my choices were and why I made the ones I did, but what inspired my reasons. Why am I drawn to bands and musicians that so many other people haven't heard of? Why am I able to dismiss everything about hockey so immediately? How is it my father and my nephews can identify the makes and models of different cars with little more than a quick glance while I have to work at remembering details about the one I drive?

Are we the people we are because of our surroundings, things chemically pre-determined, suggestions that come from the example of those around us, or the results of our own ongoing self-discovery?

Day 22: Q & A 2018

If you’ve followed the May blog posts over the years, you know what to expect here. Although with a title of Q & A, you could probably figure it out anyway. Here we go: 

Well, what if Pooh didn't covet honey? How much scarier could the Heffalumps and Woozles get depending on what Pooh covets?

I’m guessing this is a musical theater thing, and my background in that is limited. Therefore I have no idea. Logically though, I would answer, “proportionally.”

If you could only read one book for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?

The easy answer is “Watership Down,” since it’s my favorite book. But there are a lot of ways to approach this question: Something that would take a long time to read? Something to appreciate as an art form? Something with a layered story that allows you to discover layered nuances each time you read it? An engaging story with heavily descriptive language? A dark adventure with life-or-death stakes? I guess all of those would still be “Watership Down.” So, boom.

Which musicians challenge and inspire you, as a drummer?

Neil Peart is the standard. The Mikes, Portnoy and Mangini, are the left and right hands of greatness — Portnoy more of a loose and creative player, Mangini the frighteningly skilled technician. Lately I’ve noticed how Travis Barker from Blink-182 plays deceptively complicated parts with impressive fluency.

What are the top 3 things you feel parents should be doing at home to aid their childrens progress at school?

*Teach them to be accountable for their decisions. This will help them own their learning and accept responsibility.
*Be seen reading in front of them, for pleasure, on a regular basis.
*Provide a variety of life experiences to ignite their natural curiosity, but maintaining a careful balance so they don’t feel overwhelmed by activities or family field trips. Give them time to just be a kid.

If you could have an hour of someone's time who would it be and what would you ask them?

I’m hedging slightly here because instead of picking one person for an hour, I’d pick ten or fifteen people that historically I’ve had a hard time trusting. I’d want a couple minutes with each so they could truthfully tell me if my distrust in our relationship was appropriate or misplaced.

Who is your favorite cousin?

It wouldn’t be which is a favorite cousin, but why are each of the ones I’m closest to so individually important to me. I could say Kelly because our ages had us mirroring life experiences the most closely; Paul, because he is the closest thing I’ve had to a brother; Sue, because she was a combination of a parental figure/older sister to me, and my sisters, for most of our lives. Chris, because he can make me laugh more easily than anyone on Earth. I could keep going and list reasons for almost everyone.

Cat or dog and why? Oh wait you're allergic to cats. Which dog breed is best?

Spencer was quite simply the greatest dog to ever live. I know almost everyone will say that about their own dog, but I also know I’m right. I think that had more to do with him than with his breed, though. Overall smaller breeds that don’t shed all over the world would be my preference.

If you could talk to someone in Heaven what would you want to know?

I wouldn’t want to know “Are you happy,” but “How are you happy?” Also, what can I know about what to expect out of an afterlife? What things in my life am I doing wrong right now? 

Meditations on tacos.

Honestly, I kind of got rolled into the whole taco thing. For the most part, and I couldn’t mean this more, I could take them or leave them. I mean, they’re fine, but I don’t even think they’d make my top ten foods for real.

Why is there not a channel number 25 in the Comcast line up?

There is at my house. ESPN.

Beaches, Mountains, or Plains?

Mountains by a long shot. All three have potential to offer perspective, but mountains have a quality.

Plain or peanut?

Caramel.

What day are you getting your dog?

Preferably sometime between June 8 and June 30.

As things stand right now in education, if you were deciding on a career now, would you do it again?

I would. As hard as things can suck, it’s still very fulfilling and one of the most important (if not the most important) job in our society. It was never a choice for me; I was called. Nothing I ever considered doing in college felt genuine until I landed on Elementary Ed. Once I decided that, everything resonated so clearly I knew what I was supposed to do with my life. And I say this even in the context of feeling so completely done with both of my classes by the end of today.

Where is the one place you would like to visit that you have not been to before?

I suppose I’d like to see the Grand Canyon before I die. But travel isn’t a big thing for me. Who I’d travel with would be more important than the actual destination. Going to see something without having someone you want to spend that kind of concentrated time with would be empty. 

If you had one decision in your life to make differently that maybe would have changed the course of it, what would it have been?

I would have fought harder in my junior year of college to convince Jennifer I was more than just a rebound, and I would have put aside my ridiculous Seinfeldian excuses for being okay with letting her go.

If you were allowed to rename the primary colors, what would you name them? Keep in mind you have the opportunity to make golden portmanteaus when mixing the colors.

Red: Volcano Power
Blue: Hooshea
Yellow: Maybe Lellow, since that’s what half the little kids in the world call it already.

Would you rather join a cult or a gang?

Ooooh…between those options I’d have to say gang, because that’s how everyone else has answered this. Right after they say, “Oooooh….”

If you had to re-do your life with all the knowledge you currently have, what would you do differently?

There are too many hundreds of specifics for me to list here. Generally, I would say I’d like to know that opportunities are not unlimited, and they need to be taken advantage of when they arrive in your life.

The April 2018 Version of 10 Good Things

We had a record-setting and history-making blizzard in the Cities this past weekend. Getting snow like this so late in the season feels like adding insult to injury since the weather hasn’t been the greatest for the past four months or so, not to mention that things at school have felt slightly off-kilter as of late (and it hasn’t just been me feeling that way).

When things have kind of dragged in the past, I’ve found it helpful to remind myself about some of the good things currently going on in life. That slight shift in mindset can make a difference in how I see things overall. In the hope of returning to school tomorrow after our unexpected snow day with a brighter perspective, here are ten of the good things I’ve got going on right now I'd like to share: 

1 - One most spring mornings, I can go into my classroom and open the blinds to fill my room with the morning sunrise. This is so much more welcome than starting the day with the dark and gloom of winter.

2 - State testing will be done in just a few weeks, and the most stressful part of the school year will come to an end. We’ll be in the homestretch at that point, and even though that usually introduces different kinds of stress, it also has some nice highlights, and is usually my favorite part of the school year.

3 - I’ve recently discovered Bai Andes Coconut Lime flavored water, and it’s incredible.

4 - Even though I don’t see my nephews as frequently now that only the youngest is still in high school and the older two live in another state, they all seem to be happy in their lives. Which makes me happy.

5 - I’ll be making a long overdue visit to my Pacific Northwest family very soon. Few things are as relaxing as being around this group of people, who are as happy to see me as I am to see them.

6 - Over the course of the school year so far, I’ve quietly dropped just over thirty pounds.

7 - I recently went back to read an older manuscript, which I hadn’t looked at or thought about very much for a few years. It was the first time I was able to read it as a book instead of a collection of chapters or a work in progress. I was astonished and relieved and proud about what I had somehow managed to accomplish in writing it. I feel optimistic about its future.

8 - "Avengers: Infinity War" opens in just under two weeks. I've been looking forward to seeing this movie for years. I'd love to make it a Friday night movie event, but I'll also be perfectly happy to see it on my own as a Saturday matinee.

9 - I have a package arriving in the mail today. It’s nothing huge or life-changing, but it’s given me something to look forward to for the past few days.

10 - The snowfall from the weekend may extend an already prolonged winter by another week or two, or possibly three, but eventually it’s all going to melt.

I’m assuming. 

All That's Yet to Come

The past few days have been filled with deep thoughts for me, coming from several different directions.

Most of the things I post on Facebook usually fall into one of two categories — either pointless jokes to try and make people smile, or more thought-provoking topics that might generate conversation. I made two posts this past week that sparked the kind of discussion I’m usually hoping for in that second category. One was contemplating the nature of true friendship, while the other evolved into a lengthy chain of exchanged compliments.

Following that, there was an evening this past week, after the end of the school day, when I was caught up in a deep conversation with a colleague. She had spent much of the past year working through a serious illness, and apparently a comment I made had helped precipitate a small emotional breakthrough for her. We spoke about it for quite some time, comparing our experiences from different perspectives, and considering how seemingly random occurrences can become formative influences in how we think about our lives.

Yesterday was kind of a big day, being the birthday of a close friend. It was a milestone birthday of sorts, since it’s the second one to have come and gone since he died last year. Similarly, today is also kind of a big day, because it’s a milestone birthday for a very close cousin, one who is more like a sister to me, and I know the idea of her birthday will be a presence throughout my day. 

Last night I finally made time to watch a new music DVD I have, the video of a concert I attended with one of my best friends a couple summers ago (we were even in one crowd shot for nearly two seconds!). It was a performance of one of our favorite bands reuniting to play one of our favorite albums live, for the first time ever. It’s an album that holds great personal meaning to me beyond just enjoying it musically, because it provides so many connections to experiences and memories related to the time my sister was dying.

Later today I’ll be at the visitation for the mother of a friend and colleague. Knowing this is coming up gives the time before the vaguely mournful feeling that follows the passing of any loved one, but as my friend has said repeatedly over the past few days, her mother had lived a long life and was ready when it was finally time. I try to see situations like this as, at least partially, a chance to celebrate the life that has passed instead of grieve it, but the fresh pain of the loss and the pervasive sense of absence that follows always carries unavoidable moments. I know she’ll be feeling some of those in the coming weeks.

So, like I said, it’s been a week of deep thoughts. This got me wondering: Why is it people tend to associate the idea of deep thoughts with things more related to death and sadness than happiness and life? Maybe when life is going forward as we expect it to, we don’t have to think about it. We don’t have to question what happiness means because we’re just caught up in how it feels, and we’re glad to be in that state. We know we’ll eventually have to navigate more challenging times, but in those better moments it’s enough to know that happiness is defining our present, whether or not we take time to acknowledge it. I think that’s why the compliment post generated the reaction it did. I don’t know if we typically allow ourselves the chance to either appreciate the things happening to us in those better moments, or the positive things that the people surrounding us bring into our lives. We just get used to accepting they are there.

On the subject of birthdays, and of over-reflective thinking, I’ve got my own landmark birthday coming up this spring. It doesn’t have me feeling old or spinning off into an age-related crisis of any kind; I’ve come to think of getting older as having another year of life my sister never got to experience. Birthdays are usually low-key and relatively unimportant to me, at least when they’re mine, but this one feels like there’s intrinsic meaning beyond what I would assign to it. I’m not sure it means I have to celebrate it with a fancy sheet cake covering three square yards or anything, but (much to what I’m sure is nobody’s surprise) it has me reflecting. Not so much contemplating things like missed opportunities or regrets, even though many of both are scattered throughout my younger days. Instead I’m thinking more about the time ahead. I don’t believe so much in the idea of a bucket list, but I can certainly think of life experiences I would still like to have, that because of procrastination, hesitation, inhibition, self-doubt, or circumstances at least partially outside of my control have eluded me so far. I’m hoping to make this year into one that could start me on the path of exploring more of those things.

Maybe achieving that could be as simple as proactively deciding for things to be that way. Maybe it could come from having been alive long enough to reach the point where I finally know better. 

Maybe it will come down to being bold and vulnerable enough to do things outside of the norm, like purposefully acknowledge the better moments, or just offering people the compliments they deserve which would usually remain unspoken.

The Night Billie Joe Armstrong Brought Me Back to Life

With only days remaining in 2017, I can say it was a year of extraordinary personal highs and lows. 

Things started rough. I had lost one of the best friends of my adult life in mid-November of 2016. If that trauma wasn’t enough, something he shared with me during one of our final visits led to an existential tailspin that haunted me for months after. I essentially skipped the entire Christmas season. I lost both the motivation and interest to write, so I simply stopped. Despite several subtle nudges of encouragement, I didn’t bother with my ridiculous Christmas elf story until someone literally left a stuffed dog and a writing prompt at my front door, and thank God for that because I had no idea how badly I needed it.  

January and February have never been my favorite months of year, so trudging through the winter with mountains of doubt and self-loathing, as so many worst-case scenarios about the country were being realized daily, didn’t help. As tightly as I thought I was keeping a lid on everything, signs of concern from people around me kept coming up; I’m a classic introvert so I dismissed them, telling myself I’d survived harder times before and I’d endure this as well. As winter dragged into spring, it was looking like any resolution that might happen would be coming much later than sooner.

One break from the routine I was looking forward to came on April 1st. Green Day was coming to St. Paul. A huge group of my cousins started planning to see them when the concert was first announced, but the tickets vanished before we were able to secure enough for everyone. My cousin John managed to get a block though, and offered me his final unclaimed ticket.

Green Day had always been one of those ubiquitous bands for me, the kind of auditory wallpaper immediately recognized on the radio, even before “American Idiot” became one of the albums I relied on the most to clarify the pain and rage I felt following my sister’s death. Their most recent album, “Revolution Radio,” had come out back in October, and was doing its best to drag me through my ongoing melancholia. I hadn’t seen them live before but they had a reputation for good shows, so I knew it would at least be a distraction from the empty routine of the past several months. I was looking forward to seeing my cousins at least as much as the show, enough to drive two hours out of the Cities just for a few hours more with them that afternoon, and then to spend the night at their house afterward. I needed cousin time. 

We got back up to St. Paul in time to have dinner at a Thai place my cousin Sarah and her soon-to-be husband Tyler knew. Our seats in the arena were in the higher altitudes, but gave us a great view of the stage. I don’t remember who the open act was, but after they finished their set my cousin Dennis and I agreed they’d been better than a lot of the other warm-up bands we’d seen before.

When Green Day came on, I was immediately brought into that zone that can happen at a concert when you’re seeing a band you’ve known forever. They played through many of their classics, proving why those songs were classics in the first place. They played some songs I’d always been lukewarm about, revealing more depth and power than I had noticed before. They played through many of my lesser-known favorites, even reminding me of some songs that had been favorites long ago and had since fallen back into the mental archive, with the vitality of live performance bringing back why they had been so important to me. 

The singer and guitarist, Billie Joe Armstrong, was on his A game. When we were in the car after the concert, I posted this on Facebook: “After tonight I can write this here without hesitation: As far as front-man live performance goes, Billie Joe Armstrong has reached the same level as Freddie Mercury and Bruce Springsteen.” Coming from me, this is no small amount of praise. He didn’t stalk the stage so much as attack it, belting out each song as if the life and love of all the world hung in the balance, taking control of the anger and frustration that had come to define the times and redirecting it with an angered positivity, refusing to allow for the idea that the current state of society had to stand as it was, not just encouraging the audience to do what they could to make things better, but demanding it. He worked the crowd so effectively it was, without question, the loudest audience I’ve been a part of in my thirty-four years of concert-going.

When they played “Still Breathing,” one of my favorite songs from the newest album, something broke inside of me. The combination of the music, how I had personalized the lyrics in that way people tend to do with favorite songs, and the power of hearing it live was an epiphanal moment. I faced down the issues I’d been struggling with for the previous six months and realized I could be stronger than they were, even as they compounded each other. The possibility that I could take back my life and make it what I wanted began to feel real again as tears filled my eyes and I sang my throat raw. When they played another new favorite, “Forever Now,” near the end of the show, I may have temporarily left my body. By the time the song ended, I felt purged. And cleansed. And ready to move forward again.

Days later, I had turned an idea for a new story into an outline that only continued to grow throughout the spring, and became the first new legitimate manuscript I’ve written in at least five years. During that same spring, I took on something else I’ve avoided my whole life — one of those things that wasn’t big in the grand scheme, but was big for me — and conquered it. Other hurdles came and went as the summer went on, leaving me in a place where the sources of most of my anxieties were conclusively put behind me — some through circumstance, some through my actions.

The coming year promises to be a big one for me, since it will be the year I turn 50. On one hand it’s just another age and not any more significant than any other age, but, like I said earlier, I’m a classic introvert, which means among other things that I spend a lot of time in personal reflection. Because of this, I can see how almost everything that happens to me this year will somehow be filtered through the idea of turning 50. 

The surprising thing about this, though? The way I’m facing it. I’m not starting the new year with any sense of low-grade dread, or the ongoing acceptance of an established and occasionally unfulfilling routine. I don’t see any reason to anticipate life taking a turn for the worse, or even going sideways on me. I look at the new calendar I just bought and see the days and months still to come as being open instead of empty.

This year, there’s only optimism.

Still Breathing

Summer Adventures

Eight days.

That’s what remains of the 2016-2017 school year. Technically it’s nine days because the teachers work one day longer than the students have to be there, but not many teachers I know really count that; a day at school without students around can be a little piece of vacation all on its own. Going by either count you subscribe to, we’re down to single digits now. Summer is so close I can taste it.

However, I find I’m not exactly chomping at the proverbial bit for it to arrive. Yes, I’m certainly plenty ready to put what remains of the school year behind me and move on into non-educational nothingness for a few months. But other than the multiple hours of daily freedom and the nicer weather (at least when there aren’t any life-threatening storms going on), I don’t have a long list of things about summer I’m specifically excited about. For the last few summers, my time off has been broken down into a small number of predictable categories, the short list of which is so mundane and middle-aged I won’t bore you with here. I guess when this happens a certain number of years it becomes routine, and routine can become predictable and too comfortable and, to an extent, mildly dull.

I want my summer to have a narrative. I want more than just a small handful of my days to start with the energy of anticipation, and maybe even have some carry slight harmless anxiety about the unknown and promise of the unexpected. I want some adventures.

Having stated this, let’s take a moment to back up and slap down some definitions on exactly what I mean by “adventures.” I’m not looking to skydive or rock climb or wander into the woods for three days with nothing but the clothes on my back and a makeshift toothbrush in my pocket to challenge my survival aptitude. I’m thinking more about new things to do to break up the routine. For me, my list of low-grade summer adventures could include things such as watching some more of Nephew #2’s baseball games, since this will likely be the last summer he plays. It could mean going to a midnight showing of a new movie and seeing it with an excited crowd instead of going to bed at a reasonable hour and seeing it early Friday afternoon in a mostly-empty theater. It could mean driving to some small town in the middle of the most rural part of the state just because a newspaper article or a television story said they had the best ham and cheese sandwich in the five-state area, and I wanted to experience it for myself. It could mean going to see some band play at a casino even if I’m only mildly interested in seeing them, just because I’ve never seen a concert at a casino before. It could even just mean putting together an epic ten-hour playlist and using that time to clean out my garage like it’s never been cleaned out before, or making up some reason to have people over to my house. 

I wouldn’t say I’m exactly looking for suggestions of what kind of adventures I could find to fill my summer. Given enough time, ideas will always present themselves. I just either need the time or the motivation to follow through on them. Also it’s been my experience that if I were to solicit recommendations, I would end up getting a list of other people’s favorite things to do. That wouldn’t necessarily be bad, but I'm really looking more for some interesting experiences and distractions than the beginnings of a new hobby. I wouldn’t say no to suggestions, nor would I necessarily say no to co-adventurers; being introverted doesn’t mean that you hate being around people, after all. It just means you don’t rely on it the same way most other people do. 

So if I’m hoping for a summer of as-of-yet undefined adventures, but I’m not exactly looking to collect ideas of things to try, where exactly am I going with this post? 

I guess I don’t really know. I don’t really know where I’m going with my summer yet either, though. Right now, with a few weeks to go before it all becomes official, that seems like part of the fun.

The Reverse Q & A

Each of the years I’ve done daily May blog posts I’ve always had one day when I wrote a Q&A, when people asked questions about anything and I’d give my best, and sometimes even semi-serious, answers. This year a friend suggested I reverse that, and instead provide my own list of answers ahead of time for people to try finding questions that would match. I wasn’t sure which way to go with this at first, but decided to think of questions I suspect some people might have reasons to ask me. Whether these people ever read my blog or not I can’t say, and I’ll admit to being a little hyperbolic with some of my answers to make them less transparent than they feel. But each of these would be a legitimate answer to a question that someone might want to ask, or one that maybe hadn’t occurred to them to ask. I came up with ten. I’m curious to find out what questions people would match with these, if any responses come in. Let’s play!

*I absolutely would. In a heartbeat. And I probably will someday, maybe soon, if I screw up enough nerve. 

*Most of the time, yes. I admit it’s a luxury that most people would love to experience. But only most of the time. Not always.

*I’m not saying I did everything right, but we are the way we are now largely because of the choices you made. We always felt a little one-sided, until we weren’t even that.

*No. I promise. 

*Yes. And I can’t imagine that you’ve never at least suspected it.

*I probably would, at least sometimes, if I was asked. But being who I am, it’s not ever going to be anything I bring up on my own. I have a hard time inserting myself into situations like that without some reassurance.

*It’s an introvert thing that I can’t really explain in a way that would sound like anything but a cop-out. All I can say is that it would be physically and emotionally painful on a scale that most people couldn’t appreciate.

*I’ll admit it gives me some pause. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I understand why. You’ve got a lot going on. But seriously, how hard would it be? And isn't it the way things are supposed to be anyway?

*Because it feels as much like home as any home I’ve ever had, and more than some.

*I honestly don’t know if I ever will.




There they are. Who’s got the questions?