Many years ago I was part of a group called, The Caring Community.  Founded by a dear friend and colleague who was a facilitator and trainer in the area of human relations, the group was designed to bring diverse people together to spend time in community.  (He defined community as a place where people felt valued, accepted, and connected.)  This time in community was accomplished by way of our focus on personal growth and by regular participation in community service. Throughout our time together each of us contributed unique skill sets, experiences, and resources.  One of these resources was a book suggested by a participant who found it to be of great value.

The Four Agreements, by Don Miquel Ruiz offers a powerful code of conduct to recognize and free us from blindly following self-limiting beliefs and practices. Each agreement is more of a direction than a goal.  Followed conscientiously, they help diminish drama, reduce stress, and offer a personal context from which to make good decisions.  In other words, it helps us to better hear others and ourselves outside of our habitual practices.

I chose to write about this book as a means of offering a way to mitigate the divisive, angry, and polarizing language, we hear daily: the sounds of ideas, attitudes, and emotions we feed ourselves and that both justify what we believe to already be true and that cause us to dig in to protect our perceptions.  And while none of this is new in the history of mankind, it is more rampant and extreme than I have seen or felt in my lifetime.  And what I’m not hearing are alternatives to address these differences with civility, compassion, and understanding.

(There are many other models and authors which offer ideas for how to listen to self and to others.  I chose this one because it works best for me.)

To that end I offer the following taken from The Four Agreements:

Be Impeccable With Your Word

Speak with integrity.  Say only what you mean.  Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others.  Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Don’t Take Anything Personally

Nothing others do is because of you.  What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream.  When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

Don’t Make Assumptions

Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want.  Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama.  With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

Always Do Your Best

Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick.  Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

If we applied these agreements to our thinking and our practice, perhaps we might then hold the same conversations over the same issues with less anger and judgement and with the purpose of finding common ground rather than trying to convince others to abandon their perspective and see it our way.

I’d be interested to hear your viewpoints, any thoughts on The Four Agreements, or any books you may have read that you found to be a powerful influence in your life.

How Do You Heal a Country?

How do you heal a country?  How do you protect your own ideals while accepting those of others who are diametrically opposed to your way of thinking and how do you avoid contributing to the overwhelming lack of civil discourse that can often erupt through conflicting expressions of what is right and wrong, factual or fiction?  That seems to be where our country is stuck right now. 

We have to heal and in order to do that we have to find a path to help us heal.  Henry lays out a plan based on the integrity of our word and the desire to work things out.  Mr Kraftowitz , my 7th grade English teacher,  used to say that the mark of an intelligent person is not that he has a lot to say but that he listens!  Something I often struggle with.   I often find myself forming my next point In my head rather than listening to what the other person is saying.  As a result I haven’t learned anything.  I know I do this.  I assume many others do as well, and instead of hearing we are talking passed each other resulting in nothing being achieved.

Are the civil wounds  too great to heal?  Are there things we actually can agree on- facts that both sides can agree are valid and necessary to take into account? Maybe once we can agree to that perhaps we can begin a true meeting of the minds. Currently, this seems to be particular tricky.  We cling to the facts as we see them and can’t understand why everyone doesn’t see them the same.

I hate to admit that I tend to be a half empty glass kind of person.  My personal experience was that if I didn’t expect much I wouldn’t be disappointed.  And for a long time in my youth that served me well.

I guess that’s why I’m not sure Henry’s approach would work.  One has to assume for it to work, both/all parties have to want to mend the gap,  agree to be impeccable with their words and are both in search of common ground.  My half empty glass wonders if those factors can become aligned.  I sincerely hope it is possible because something has to happen for us to begin healing. Holding on to personal emotions, beliefs, and ideas in stubborn refusal to let go for fear of who knows what will only enlarge the wound and make civil discourse divide us more.

We Did Not Start the Fire

Before the introduction of the term, “Fake News”, I rode up in an elevator with my social psychology professor, who said: “There are no such things as facts”. He was making the point that all data are interpreted through the lens of the viewer. While there may not be ‘facts’, there’s no shortage of information. According to the Pew Research Institute in 2018, 68% of Americans suffer from news fatigue. Social media has exponentially added to this burst of ‘facts’.

In this time of tweeting, retweeting, and forwarding posts of like-minded opinions, I wonder whether anyone is interested in real discourse — lots of pots, lots of stirring. Hen has made a great point about active listening – and make no mistake, it requires discipline It seems rather that people are seeking confirmation of their own opinions. We’re becoming prisoners of our own ‘metadata’ defined by any one of a number of groups to which we identify.

Geo says that the passion invested in various opinions can prevent an understanding of another’s point of view. In order for rational discourse to occur, each of us needs to submerge our ‘need to persuade’ from the ‘need to repeat back’ someone else’s position so that they can feel understood. It is important to really listen rather than formulating a response while the other person is talking. Understanding does not equal agreement, but it may lead to new ideas and constructive action.  The Four Agreements is a very insightful book as Hen describes. I’d also recommend David Brooks’ The Second Mountain, in particular, his work with diverse groups to formulate community actions.

Conflict management is messy. As Billy Joel sang: “We didn’t start the fire, it’s been always burning since the world’s been turning”. We ought to be sure that we are not the ones stoking the fire.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about this time.  Nothing seemed to grab me.  I have been in a kind of low place as I have a recurring pain in my neck that no one seems to be able to help alleviate.  The doctor, the massage therapist and the physical therapist seem to keep trying things that don’t touch the pain.  So with that on my mind and with the holidays approaching I have been at a loss.  Not being able to do much physically due to the pain, I have been sitting with heat pads and ice packs and have had a lot of time to be inside my head.  There are places I would rather be!  I noticed that my emotions have been very tender of late.  I hear a song and I start to tear up.  I read an article in the newspaper about a kitten that followed a man walking his dog back to his house and the man took the kitten in and I lost it.  A pattern was developing and I realized this has been happening more and more often in the last few months.

Everything seems to “touch” me more than it used to.  I watch a movie and I better have tissues nearby because I know somewhere in the movie something is going to bring me to tears.  I have always been a sensitive person and easy to express my feelings but this is something beyond that sensitivity. Maybe I am in a nostalgic period of my life where all these things take me back to positive memories from my childhood or from different events.  I was thinking back today when I was an innkeeper and reminiscing about the good times and fun I had in that position and sure enough I began to cry.  And it is a funny cry- I feel my face distort, the tears come and then disappear almost as quickly as they came.

Perhaps the approach of the holidays have brought me to this tender point.  My daughter and I are going to a local restaurant for Thanksgiving.  My son moved away recently and can’t make it back for the holiday.  I was fine with it all until I began to reminisce about holidays in the past.  They were filled with relatives, vast amounts of Italian food, noise, arguments, laughter- things I often dreaded at the time. But now I miss them terribly and sadness diminishes the memory.  I love spending time with my daughter but it just isn’t the same anymore. I think she feels the same way although when they were kids they used to hate opening their Christmas gifts and then having to rush off to get to NYC in time for dinner with the family.

I also think the time change and the change in the weather have affected my outlook as well.  The days have been gray and daylight is short and I can’t seem to muster up enthusiasm for much of anything.  I know some people are affected by the lessening of daylight but that had never bothered me before.  I suddenly understand why holidays can be very lonely times for people.  Coming from a family that would have 14 or so people for Christmas dinner every year to just the 2 or 3 of us has been very difficult to accept.  It is amplified by the holidays, I just wish I had a way to move passed it.  Now with Christmas music everywhere it becomes difficult to escape.  I am trapped in a world of happy holiday music and good cheer all around and I can’t appreciate it.

But in reality, the difficult realization is that I and my two kids are all that is left of my family and that leaves me with a very empty, and sometimes scared feeling in my heart. I guess I just have to accept the fact that my emotions are askew, and that I can be brought to tears in an instant, both wonderful things and sad things bring them on.  Along with old age maybe more than just the body gets arthritis.  Maybe I have arthritis of the emotions.  I will survive, I will adjust and accept and conquer.  But I probably will be brought to tears anytime I see something tender, hear or see something beautiful- yes, beauty does it to me as well!  The last time I was in Italy in my grandfather’s village I walked into the little hotel and they were making sauce.  The smell of that sauce brought me right back to my dad’s kitchen and, you guessed it, I began to cry!

A Rising Tide

They say a rising tide lifts all boats. It’s the same with emotion, which sort of wells up around the holidays and makes itself known in ways that George describes. No doubt most of us experience that bittersweet feeling of enjoying the present, while missing the past. Sometimes we are surprised by the strength of that feeling. The holiday season has so many strong associations that it is hard to simply remove yourself from cherished memories.

I confess to feeling blue around this time of year, missing my brother, mother, and father… and realizing that my kids are developing their own traditions independent from my wife and I. We are coming to grips with the fact that our time is passing and we are shifting into a less central role than we have played previously. In a way, this is welcome, because the ‘downshifting’ needs less energy. However, I don’t want the important people in my life — now gone — to be forgotten in the process of building those new traditions.

I’m moved by advice provided by a couple of smart individuals: Carl Jung and Erik Erikson. Jung talked about the importance of making myths and Erikson pointed to age-related challenges that must be addressed to remain psychologically healthy.

Jung has this mystic quality that is incorporated into his scheme of psychoanalytic thought. What I take from his writings is that it is important to stay in continuance with our past by reinforcing stories – or myths – that keep our history alive. My job is to retell – and maybe embellish – tales about my forebears to maintain the currency of those lost loved ones. Don’t we all do this? Friends get together and relive ‘war stories’ and old memories. We’re making myths – in a good way! I try to do that with my sons and grandsons. It honors those who have passed and gives me a role as a ‘creative historian’. Hopefully these myths provide significant life lessons as well as honoring people and times past. Erikson laid out a theory of developmental challenges as we grow. The generativity challenge has to do with a decision we make either to a) share our experiences and mentor others as we age or b) draw inward and focus on ourselves and our problems. Of course, we occasionally have a foot in both camps, but the latter choice tends to build a closed system over time. I’d rather acknowledge what I miss, take the best of it and reach out for new opportunities. Joni Mitchell sang “…something’s lost, but something’s gained in living every day”. Synthesize and celebrate, my friends!

Deep Waters — Surface Emotions

I love George’s newly coined medical disease – arthritis of the emotions!  Yup!  I too, contracted the same condition over the last few years.  However, my affliction is not necessarily triggered by only the holidays but seems to flare up on any given day, week, or season.  Sensitivity to joy, sadness, love, or loss, evokes a deep connection to a feeling that often results in tears.  Usually induced by a movie, I find my emotions, which have migrated to the surface over the years, release more readily and more frequently than before.  And, interestingly, they are more prevalent around stories of extreme joy or love, or transformation than those of sadness or loss.  I don’t know why.

The holidays for me have changed as both Wal and George have described.  My mother, who was the focal point for our gatherings, is no longer with us and my siblings and children have their own families and friends and traditions.  As a result, getting together for the holidays or birthdays is far less frequent.  And, as a single man, sometimes I spend a holiday or birthday alone—except for Duke of course.  At first I felt sorry for myself and drifted into places of sadness and questions of where I went wrong.  But over time, I’ve recognized that spending time alone, holiday or not, does not represent who I am or how my life turned out.  It’s simply a quiet time to rest, or read, or walk, or think, or watch one of those tear-producing movies.  Someone once said to me that it was better to be alone with yourself, than feeling alone with a partner.  I understand that difference and can now appreciate (most of the time) when I spend one of those days by myself without seeking to change it.  Being alone doesn’t have to mean I’m lonely.  However, when I do get to spend time with family and/or friends for a holiday, I truly enjoy the story telling that Wal referred to in his piece.  When my sisters and I would spend time together, my mother seemed to be with us as we told story after story of experiences and events that made us laugh so hard that tears came to our eyes.

What animates us? We live; we experience awareness; we have consciousness of self. Where does the energy come from that acts as our driving force? According to physicist Jeremy England, it’s the entropy, stupid!

Simply unpacked, his theory maintains that atoms subjected to energy (say electromagnetic force) will tend to organize so that they will more efficiently dissipate that energy. This is entropy. Like the ‘arrow of time’ which only proceeds in one direction (according to current physics), entropy only leads to energy dispersion. It is the reason why my coffee will get colder – and not hotter – while it sits on the table as I write this piece. The coffee is dissipating energy to match the temperature in the room: entropy.

Over long periods of time, clusters of atoms develop structures – some complex — for dissipating energy, e.g., photosynthesis. England makes a case that complex structures gradually evolve to absorb and distribute increasing amounts of energy. Under certain conditions, life can develop. England says “You start with a random clump of atoms, and if you shine light on it for long enough, it should not be so surprising that you get a plant.”

Hmmm… why?

Well, apparently there are two reasons: a) increasing self-assembly allows clusters of atoms to absorb and rationalize greater amounts of field energy and b) self-replication is an efficient option for handling copious amounts of energy.

In sum, the resonance of energy in a field leads atoms to congregate in ways that allow more efficient systems for binding and disseminating energy. This process conforms to the law of physics in which an even distribution of energy is the final state. It is much like obtaining equilibrium in a solution – for instance, like stirring cream in your coffee. Rocks do it, trees do it, even the birds and the bees do it. Complex clusters can do it better – and they will over time replicate to form more clusters in order to handle all the field energy.

Wow! I applaud Dr. England. I also applaud all those who search after the ‘Big Why’. However, I’d hate to think we are just a special case of the second law of thermodynamics.  What is missing is any sense of intentionality – at what point does our purpose extend beyond energy dissipation?

Up, Up and a Way Out

Recently a friend asked me what I do to keep my brain sharp.  She has scrabble and crossword puzzles and I have Sudoku and Wally!

For me, it is likely that we are, in fact, evolved from randomly interacting atoms in chance encounters with other “stuff” under varying conditions that occurred in some primordial ooze. I also believe that all living and non-living things are in community with each other and don’t just survive independently, but in concert with all things of this world: interdependence if you will.  How we/they know what to do in order to fit into this whole-earth relationship, I don’t know.

Wally ends his piece with a question regarding the absence of intentionality and the notion that there must be more than physicist England suggests.  Another friend of mine refers to the idea of deliberate intervention as something he calls Source Energy; His name for what some call God, others call Nature, divine intervention, etc.  

Clearly there is no universal agreement as to what the source of our energy is.   Some of us are crystal clear about what is behind our existence and some of us have ideas with many captivating questions.  Perhaps the more important issue for all of us is to accept that the human world has always held differing beliefs to the questions of who we are and where we came from and to proceed with the notion of being the best versions of who we are for our universal community and ourselves.

What I do know is that there is some intangible thing that exists beyond our individual and collective consciousness.  And I know this because often, while walking in nature, I am struck with a overwhelming feeling of joy and gratitude and my usual reaction to shout out, “Thank You!”  And, since it’s usually only Duke and I during these moments, to whom am I offering thanks?

Inertia

This is a tough one for me.  Not sure about all the scientific stuff but I know MY energy is definitely influenced by life circumstance and emotional state of mind.  I know that when I feel purposeful and productive my energy intensifies and I become industrious and excited about getting things done.  My body seems to rise to the occasion and supplies the necessary energy needed to attack the tasks I have to  address.  My mind becomes sharp too and focused.  An object in motion tends to stay in motion!  It’s a great feeling.  I have a purpose and a path. 

When I first retired from teaching I had a difficult time reinventing myself and as a result my body was slow to pick up the new life required of me. Depression slows the process down as well, and saps the energy from my body making me want to go inward into my head and feel sorry for myself.   When I run into emotional roadblocks, which unfortunately still occur at my age, it slows me down. My approach to life’s daily activities seems to lag and my desire to “do” diminishes.  Inertia sets in.  I want to climb into bed and pull the covers over my head.   It becomes hard to break that cycle until I eventually have had enough of myself like that.   I then throw the covers off to try to find the next motivating thought to get me back on track-  not always that easy and as the years pass and the body continues to suffer aging,  that motivation gets harder to activate and the energy can become less and less.  The answer for me seems to be to keep the mind sharp to identify when my energy is being sapped and to use my mind to give a spiritual pep talk to my body to get back in the fight.

Since 3 Old Guys began publishing our blog, some readers have suggested we offer a biography of who we are.  In response to that request, we present this blog entry:

I can use labels to identify me from others.  Hen, man, father, grandfather, son, brother, friend, dog companion, seventy-two, home owner, …

I can use experiences to describe what I’ve done.  Spent years being formally educated, played sports, lived with several long-term partners, sky-dived, taught, coached, befriended, laughed lots, wept, cut and stacked wood, rode sleds, swam, pondered, cleaned, cooked, hiked, biked, played, …

I can use words to describe what I desire.  A loving partner, deep friendships, more time outdoors, enlightenment, good health, good instincts from which to make good choices, discipline to improve my writing, …

But who am I?  I am aware of the question and aware that it is a question I continue to explore.  I am aware that when I step outside of my routine behaviors and observe myself doing an activity, I am a sort of consciousness:  an awareness of self separate from that self. 

Going back to a more conventional view of who I am and to a description that gives me a visceral connection between spirit and words, I would add the following:

My purpose is to bring my joyful nature, sense of humor, and accumulated wisdom to create opportunities for others to question and identify their (purpose) role in life.  I seek to forge intimate, meaningful relationships and to love and support this community of relationships unconditionally.

I am a happy man who wells up with extraordinary joy and excitement, often.

I live fully and with awareness.  I am on a journey to unshackle and reaffirm my spirit and soul and want those with whom I come in contact to benefit from my experiences.  I strive to increase my acceptance of others through empathetic listening.  I have let go of expectations and rather, live life with preferences.  I am slowly letting go of resistance, attachment, and judgment.

I am a man with a boy’s spirit and I weave play and adventure and fun in all that I do.

I am passionate about sharing my joy, knowledge, and love of nature and will bring those passions into my relationships with others.  As I engage others in areas of leadership and learning, I will remain truthful to my mission and to my authentic self.  I will model the importance of respect, truth, self-awareness, and giving my best through my training programs, my daily interactions with clients, friends, and family, and through writing.

Of course I am a work in progress with a known direction and a set of behaviors I subscribe to but have not yet mastered.  And I know I will not “master” them.  My intention is to remind myself to practice them with the goal of improvement.  That is all I can ask of myself.  And as long as I move in this direction and keep myself aware, I am content.  It is who I am.

Oak and Olive

Hen, your introduction starts from a challenge posed by Michael Singer in The Untethered Soul to really examine the premise of who you are. I read yours as a statement of purpose and it reminds me that it isn’t so much where you’ve been that is important, but how you are positioned to move forward.

Do you remember how Bilbo introduced himself in The Hobbit? Instead of a direct naming, he posed a riddle of ‘Who Am I’:

                  “I am Ringwinner and Luck wearer, and I am Barrel-rider” 

Perfect, because each person is a bit of a riddle… so here’s mine:

I am Quercus and Olea — English oak and Italian olivewood… a strange and contradictory graft. I’ve been nurtured in humus – Latin for ‘dirt’ and the stem for ‘humility’. Truly, I do grow best in humility. My oaken fruit sports a knurled helmet, which is appropriate, for my name means ‘Ruler of the Army’ (obviously, an army of nuts!). My tannic oak is obdurate and loyal, serviceable, but plain. If there is any beauty, it is from the quiet tone of the grain and the occasional medullary rays that streak across the straight fibers.

My DNA says that another wood has been grafted to the oak bones. Italian olivewood has bold contrast in its grain. It shouts of conflict, passion, and busy-ness: there are no straight lines here. Yet, it is warm in tone and supports a fine finish. Where oak may be tough to work with, olive is a pleasure. But the fruit … well, it is nourishing, but only after a great deal of processing.

So, this odd collaboration is who I am. My aim is to meld this mess: to cultivate tolerance of both acidic and alkali soil — to maximize the oak’s strength of purpose while learning to understand the intricate pattern of the olive. 

I Am What I Do

Too many metaphors for me.  Perhaps I’m still trying to figure out who I am.   For the longest time I defined myself by my work.  I was a teacher. I defined myself as such for 35 years and had a difficult time giving that up when I retired.  Then I was an innkeeper.  I was proud of both occupations.   But as I matured I realized I was much more.  I finally accepted what I knew since my teens, I am a gay man. Acknowledging that was probably the singular most honest thing I did in life.  I tried to do it with grace. 

Then if I mix all of this with my genetic makeup I am a mutt- half Italian and half Welsh.  Quite a mixture of emotionality and stoicism.  All of these things contributed to the makeup of who I turned out to be. I’m still a work in progress who tries to be the best that I can be. 

As the years progress I feel as if I am shedding more of the superficial characteristics and accepting who I am at the base level.  It kind of gives me permission to speak my mind and cut to the chase, to express my emotions openly and honestly and bedamn the consequences.  Age gives us that permission.  But honestly, ask me again next year and I might have an entirely different answer.

Christmas Decorations?……Really?

It was the last week in September and I ventured into Home Depot to get some chrysanthemums.  Upon entering I turned my head to the right and what to my wondering eyes should appear?  A miniature sleigh and 8 plastic reindeer!  And Christmas trees!  Christmas trees in September!   Two major holidays between now and then but Christmas trees- decorated Christmas trees! I remember the excitement and the suspense of waiting anxiously after Thanksgiving for all the decorations  to be out in the stores.  It was exciting, a little mysterious as to what new electric train pieces might be available or new lights for the outside of the house.  All that is gone now.  Any mystery or suspense or excitement —-G O N E!  It kind of spoils the season for me when it finally gets close.  Enough- one of my pet peeves.  I get annoyed, sometimes pissed off, but I get over it.

I go to fill up my tank with unleaded regular gas.  We all know that the 87 octane pump is the farthest pump on the left. I didn’t even check only to find out that….oooops, the station changed the octanes and put the 93 octane at a substantially higher price on the far left.  Accident?  I think not!  Purposely intended and deceitful, absolutely.  This more than pisses me off as my bill is  $.50 more a gallon than I had anticipated. I tell myself, “It is what it is, next time check before you pump!”

So those things frost my butt a little but there is one thing that blows my mind away, makes me scream, tear things up and kick furniture legs.  Before I say what it is, you have to understand I was an elementary school teacher for 35 years and before that I “lived” in stationery stores where I bought special fountain pens and mechanical pencils. You remember, the Scripto kind in pretty plastic colors that you would twist the eraser to get the lead to come forward.  I love the act of writing.  I love signing my name.  It gave me a feeling of who I am and that I was proud of it.

Now many school districts, my own included, in their infinite wisdom have decided cursive writing is no longer necessary and they have stopped teaching kids how to write in cursive.  Perhaps that explains why most younger folks have signatures that look like this-  —————————.   Now, I am not against progress.  Progress means moving forward and keeping up with the times and the future but do we have to throw away everything good from the past?  Not only are kids not learning to write cursive, they can’t read it either. They won’t be able to read my signature and know who I am.  I don’t like that!

When I discovered that my district no longer taught cursive several years ago, I called the superintendent of my school and gave her an earful.  Well, kids today do most of their work on the computer and that doesn’t use any script fonts.  #$%^ script fonts.  Please excuse my computer language. I said to the young woman, who seemed far too young to be a superintendent that there are many things written in cursive that kids will have no ability to read.  When she asked me for an example, my blood pressure cuff wasn’t available, but I was able to calm myself with a few ill verbalized yoga mantras, and  told her for example….The Declaration of Independence?  The Constitution?  Gramma’s diary?  Oh yeah, and my parents’ love letters from when my dad was on Iwo Jima and writing to find out how his son was…not me, I was born after the war.

I can remember being in high school and over the summer my friends and I would keep in touch through the mail.  Yes, personal letters. I could tell who each letter was from, not from the return address but from the handwriting.  It was so exciting to get a personal letter that wasn’t produced from a printer somewhere and had absolutely no personal touch to it at all.  I really miss those days.  

I recently found a little bible, pocket size so that soldiers could carry it with them into battle.  I found it in a box full of my dad’s stuff.  I opened the cover and inside it said in cursive, “With the earnest prayers and wishes for a safe return from the service with the armed forces.”  It was signed by the First Congregational Church of Mahanoy City, PA, August 1, 1943.  How sad if I was unable to read that.  There are still a lot of things written in cursive, historic documents, parents’ and grandparents’ memorabilia.  How sad that from this point on no one will be able to read these incredibly valuable inscriptions and notes in their own handwriting in Books given at Christmas or greeting cards, or absence notes we forged for our teachers (oops- forget that)!

Like so many things,  we cast these things aside and move on to the next shiny objects.  Any young folk drive standard transmission cars anymore? Very few!  Enough!  I am done ranting and raving.  There are other things that raise my blood pressure to the dangerous level but i will leave it here.  Next thing you know we will be teaching cursive as a second language but will have to really search to find people qualified to teach it.  Very sad!

The Mummy’s Cursive

Poor Austin Palmer! How quickly his star has faded. His method of cursive writing influenced a generation of teachers and students. The irony is that the Palmer Method was devised to speed the process of writing (and thereby retiring the slower Spencerian longhand). Since cursive is faster than printing, it makes you wonder what goal is being served by its elimination. At least we should demand the current crop of students learn shorthand.

Never fear, George – even if future folks lose the ability to read old notes and original documents, I’m sure they will be transcribed with the appropriate emoji’s. More to the point, how will folks sign contracts and legal agreements – with personalized chops, thumbprints, eye-scans? What will the Artist Formerly Known as Geo do in the new age? Likely leave a DNA specimen on his works…  

Pet peeves — It’s funny how the topic can elicit such a long laundry list of items. Once you start to enumerate them, it’s like the line of jets in the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson glide path. I used to watch those aircraft prepare their descent to Hartsfield as I traveled on Camp Creek parkway. You could see the lights of three jumbos, each appearing to hang right behind the other as they began their approach. Of course, these planes were at least a mile apart – but three would always be in view. One would land and three more sets of lights would stretch in the distance – a constant stream.

Pet peeves also seem to line up forever: so many! First, you struggle to search for just one, but after one is named, an endless procession of annoying items request permission to land. Where were they lurking prior to this thought process? Do they exist in a peeve universe, walled off from day-to-day happy thoughts? All of a sudden they are a nest full of baby birds competing to be fed.

Reviewing this litany of minor irritations does not end in any kind of catharsis – actually, It just sort of makes me sad. It puts in bold relief my tendency to blame others. My peeves almost totally involve someone else’s shortcoming: X is self-absorbed; Y goes out of turn at a stop sign; a form requires too much data.  On and on. At the end of the day, you begin to wonder ‘What do I like?’ or ‘How much do I contribute to someone else’s pet peeve?’

Making a game of it helps. Let’s laugh at each other’s pet peeves. Bring them out into the sunlight and examine how insignificant they are. Essentially, these intrusions are simply instances where the world does not conform to our desires. When measured against life-changing issues, pet peeves are mosquito bites: mostly harmless, unless you hang out in the swamp. 

So, Geo – your issues will be resolved by buying that Tesla (in September, for Christmas).

Not My Pet!

It is said that a pet peeve is something nurtured like a pet.  That is, it is something that easily irritates us that we can’t stop complaining about.  I’m not sure I see the connection as my pet Duke is a constant source of comfort and the few times a week he may bolt after a rabbit or woodchuck ignoring my efforts to call him back, are becoming less and less a trigger for my upset. 

It is also said that if we consider things that challenge us to distraction as opportunities for growth, they soon hold less power over us.  So far, Duke always returns and sooner rather than later.  And, perhaps because I’ve attached a GPS tracking device to his collar, I also know I can locate him should he exceed my parameters for being M.I.A.  So, this pet – pet peeve has lost it’s classification as such and is only a reminder of the times I became obsessed with how Duke was supposed to behave.

As for Geo’s cursive writing peeve, it’s not one of mine.  I understand and appreciate his stand on the subject of doing away with the mandated teaching of cursive writing.  For sure, it has served me well over the years and there is also something inviting about reading a poem or essay that has been written in clear and artistic penmanship.  For me it adds to the value of a well-written piece.  On the flip side, as my hand no longer holds a steady and smooth course as I write out a note or comment on paper, I appreciate the ability to type and print or type and send.  It’s fast, easy to decipher, and comes along with suggestions for edits!  What’s not to like?

Isn’t it interesting that some things become pet peeves only as we age?  As our parents before us, we like to hold on to things that we enjoyed, or were good at, or felt comfortable with.  And, change often challenges those securities we tend to hold fast to.  As for me, I often choose both when I can – a self-driving Tesla on one side of the garage and a stick shift pick up on the other!

“What are you going to do with that?” said my son, barely containing his disdain. He’s looking at a recent acquisition: a set of multi-colored cordial glasses set on a gaudy glass tray. Yikes – even reading this description causes me to wonder about that as well.

I’m surveying the top of the breakfront at our camp in the Adirondacks. It contains: the previously referenced set of cordial glasses, a segmented wood peppermill made by a friend, deer antler salt and pepper shakers, a large maple bowl that a buddy and I collaborated to make, a lamp, a glass paperweight, a cherry and purple heart toothpick holder, a crystal clock gifted by my brother and sister-in-law, ceramic pinecone salt and pepper shakers, a small turned Applewood box made by a friend, an aluminum candy dish, and a wire figure constructed by my adult son last night.

Maybe he is right – in this era of minimalism and Marie Kondo, perhaps I don’t deserve horizontal space. Yet this plane serves as a memory platform for me. Each item has an association – and is a reminder of an important person. The cordial glasses were exactly the same type that my parents used for special occasions. My brother Rich and I used to love to gaze at the different colors and pick our favorites. The cordial glasses are really markers of an earlier life. They bring a sense of family now gone and recapture that sense of wonder that kids have when they see something ‘magic’ for the first time.

While many of these relics are personal markers, it doesn’t stop there – I love artifacts, objects worn smooth by human hands. The patina of use is what attracts me. The idea that the object captures a little bit of the essence of the prior owners inspires reverence. I used to collect old woodworking tools, but how many can you have? The tactile attraction is important; proper attention is required for each. Shutting them away in boxes is simply gluttony. The joy is in both seeing and handling these artifacts. They need air.

I also collect woodturnings that my friends or I have completed. Each with a different style and different story: Ronnie, now in assisted living, Big Joe battling cancer, the memory of Phil who passed away – but also Ralph improving his craft, Matt’s lovely vessels, and Steve’s delicate work. These works are from the hands of people I like and respect.

I refresh their pieces with a drop of oil and wax mixture at frequent intervals. In this manner they will last longer and can be passed down to someone else when it’s my turn to do so. I’ve heard that the Japanese also practice this routine. Future owners may not have the same cherished memories I hold of the makers, but I’d like to think that some of their essence still abides to be shared with the next person in line.

I have a Collect Call for…

In college, after a weekend away, upon returning to the dorm, I had to call home to let my folks know I made it safely. I would get the operator and place a collect call to myself.  My mom would answer and the operator would tell her she had a collect call for me.  Mom would say that I wasn’t in.  They then knew I was back safely. Probably everybody back in the 60’s did this.  What does this have to do with Magpies?  ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!  But I am a collector like Wally, too.

Collections don’t spring out of nowhere.  There is usually a reason behind the madness of collecting.  Someone near and dear to you started the collection, someone near and dear collected some weird stuff and you wanted to honor their interests, or something caught your eye and you decided to buy something.  Then for birthdays or Christmas forever after, people who didn’t know what to get you would remember you collected salt and pepper shakers and buy you a pair of piggies with little holes in their heads- 2 holes for pepper and 3 for salt!  And so a collection has begun.

I have a few collections that I admit to.  Some others that I don’t.  I love large wooden or metal folk art toys- homemade trains, trucks, planes.  The kind a grandfather would make for his grandkids.  They are all over my living room.  And I am always on the lookout for more.  Then there is my plastic Santa collection.  Santa’s from the 50’s and 60’s, some from Occupied Japan. I no longer go out in search of them but there is one piece if I should ever find I would grab at any price!    They of course are stored safely away ‘til a week or two after Thanksgiving when they come out for air for about a month only to be packed away again for the remaining months ‘til next year.  But my prize collections are close to my heart. I have been a model railroader since I was a kid.  My dad bought my brother a 1938, prewar, Lionel train when he was a little kid and I got mine many years later, a 1954 Lionel train, no longer made of metal.  It is the only thing my dad, brother and I ever did together.  My dad made a platform for our living room that took up almost half the room. It would take the better part of a week to set up our Christmas layout.  Every December my brother and I would head off to F.W. Woolworth’s to see what new Lionel cars were available and to see what new Plasticville structures came out that year.  Those trains and then, years later, my HO and N gauge trains are all packed safely away and stored in my basement.  They haven’t been set up in over 20 years!  But,  DON’T TOUCH MY TRAINS!  And finally, for my college graduation, my brother bought me an original water color painting by a Long Island painter named Alan Ullmer.  From that day on, anytime I saw an original painting that I liked, I bought it.  I would go to art shows and check out the paintings. If I saw one I was interested in I would squint at it, like I do with the Christmas lights, and If I could imagine myself in the painting, I would buy it! Now that is not to say that I don’t collect new things.  Sometimes something catches my eye and I have to have it.  You know, that useless piece of junk that you can’t live without!  You have a problem with that?

In Defense of ‘Less is More’

“Where’s all your stuff?” a friend once exclaimed when he visited my home for the first time.  I have plenty of “stuff” mind you.  Some is tucked away in boxes in the basement – my children’s school records, birthday cards, artwork, and a stuffed animal or two.  Nearby are outdated cameras, boxes of Kodachrome slides, old pictures in older frames; the list goes on.  And I do have a few decorations on my walls, books that mostly fit on my shelves, and a knick-knack and picture or two here and there.  But I don’t have stuff that fills my counters or floor space or the horizontal space that Wal describes.  This friend, perhaps like Wal, also loves his stuff and he and his wife abundantly fill their home spaces with those things they hold dear. 

I do know that my children are less interested in those things of their youth and likely will have little use for my “stuff” when I’m gone.  Both of them, each in their own family setting, seem to cycle out stuff to make room for the new.  I wonder how that kind of balance may change for them and each of us as we age.

Wally’s piece speaks to me about acquiring and holding on to what we value, what matters.  And things that represent connections to cherished memories are often valued. 

I grew up with little, now have much, and hope to leave my children with little worry to wonder about what to do with all my stuff. 

Wally referenced Marie Kondo who asks us to part with anything that didn’t spark joy when we touched it.  Margareta Magnusson, is the author of a book that speaks to the art of Swedish Death Cleaning.  The idea is for middle- to older-aged people to rid their homes of things they/we don’t need.  This not only is a huge favor for those we leave behind, who must decide what to do with our things, but often allows our lives to run more smoothly with less stuff. It also affords us a trip down memory lane as we go through these belongings, adding value along the way.

I’ll be looking at my stuff from now on, with purpose and more intention.  I’ll begin to let go of many things I no longer need or use.  And along the way, as an item raises a fond memory, I’ll be sure to share that with the appropriate person, if I can.

I wonder if, in one year, I can wander about my own house and exclaim, “Where’s all my stuff?”

“Awareness requires a rupture with the world we take for granted; then old categories of experience are called into question and revised.”  Shoshana Zuboff

I love the first part of this quote.  It reminds me that I have everything I need: and more.  And I’m not just talking about my home and its contents or my bank account, or the freedoms I enjoy as an American.  I’m also referring to my most basic abilities: to see every time I open my eyes, to hear, every time I pay attention, to walk when and where I choose.  Daily, I take for granted all of these abilities and more because I presently can do them or have access to technology that enables me to exercise these behaviors with little to no effort.  And in the process of doing these things with little cause for reflection or appreciation, I take them for granted.  I’m more likely to allow myself to “suffer” the slightest imposition or hindrance of such actions than to recognize how blessed I am to have these capabilities.

When we experience a significant loss or decrease to one of our physical or mental faculties, we become aware of how inconvenient or difficult life becomes.  For the moment, maybe even the next few measured moments of time, not only are we more mindful of what we had but we find new appreciation for what we still can do or, if we’re fortunate enough to recover what we lost, a re-appreciation for what we can do again.  But in time, it fades back into the habituation of being “taken for granted.”  Some say, that’s just life.  It’s human nature to do so.  There’s not much we can do about it.  But every once in a while, we meet someone who has remained changed by the experience.  Changed in a way that they become regularly aware of such simple and basic abilities and who seems more often to be in a joyful and content state of being.

I want to be that someone.  I want to continue to be mindfully appreciative of everything I am still able to do.  I’ve built it into my daily walking meditation to be aware of what I’m doing and to say aloud, “Thank You!” often, and to no one in particular. Thank you for the shadows I can see on my daily walk in the woods, for the sounds of my footsteps snapping a twig, for the feel of the wind on my face and the smell of the damp leaves after a rain.  Today I remembered to tell Duke what a great day it was for us as we mucked though the mud, soaked by the wind-driven rain on a 33 degree morning.  Of course, Duke already knew that; dogs seem to do that naturally.

As Joni Mitchell says in her song:

“Don’t it always seem to go … That you don’t know what you’ve got …Till it’s gone”

Make time to appreciate what you can do and what you do have.

Each time you can’t seem to catch a break, recognize that there are often more times that you do and you just don’t recognize it.  When you do, say it aloud.

A Peek Behind the Curtain

The Zuboff quote makes sense, because there is awareness and AWARENESS. AWARENESS is ‘Aha’! Normal sensory anticipation of the world’s flow operates on one level, but Shosona Zuboff is talking about epiphanies. Such glimpses are typically sudden, surprising, and compelling. David Brooks calls these “annunciation moments” — and they are powerful enough to change your life.

A rupture lets you take a peek at the underlying structure of an experience. It changes your yardstick for measuring the world and your own perception. Henry is talking about increasing the likelihood of celebrating epiphanies by practicing mindfulness – washing the filters that color perception. It’s said that the human brain can process eleven million bits of information per second, but the conscious mind is aware of only forty. The goal of being mindful is not just to increase the number of bits you consciously process, but to apply better quality standards to your focus. I am in total agreement with Henry — the first step is to say ‘thank you’ out loud for each ‘small miracle’ in your life.

I’m rereading a book called Centering, which likens a person’s creative consciousness to the art of pottery. The author talks about centering the clay on the potter’s wheel, pressing down and inward, then drawing upward to lift the walls of the vessel. Most importantly, she focuses on the shape of the inner space within the vessel – but, she also writes about the artist’s use of destruction in the creative process.  Her advice is to occasionally damage a clay-shape that is looking good and reassess how you would re-build. This ‘rupture’ of the material forces the artist to jump the groove of constantly repeating the same design. In the same manner, we sometimes have to rupture – or break with – our typical path in order to see where we have been and where we are headed in a new light.

Assume, Alas to Dream

Interesting- I can’t relate much to the quote but the concept is very real.  Maybe it is the time of year.  I shop for my kids, I stop for the groups collecting change in the road and try to generously contribute to the particular cause.   I feel fortunate that I have the monetary ability to donate above what I need to get by.  Last week my daughter and I were decorating the Christmas tree and ran out to get something to eat.  On the way home she wanted to stop at Starbucks and get a coffee-  well not just a coffee, some kind of latte with multiple creams and other items I have no understanding of.    She knows all the people who work there cause she tips big.  When we got to the window to pay, the girl said we didn’t owe anything cause the car before us paid for her coffee.  Wow- I was kind of overwhelmed and gave her a big tip and paid for the coffee for the guy behind us.  I took it for granted that I would pay for our order and became emotional at the simple gesture of a total stranger. It made me feel good and I wanted to make someone else feel that way. 

I wake up each morning and assume I’ll be able to get around, find something in the fridge to eat, and go on with my day like I planned.  I take the day for granted.  In the past, I took my relationships for granted and did nothing to insure their well-being.  Since I am in a new relationship now I do not take it for granted and daily work at making it better than yesterday and make sure I acknowledge it and listen to the cues I am receiving from him.  That is not quite as easy as taking it for granted but it also pays a premium.  

The dog kisses my face in the morning when he is ready to wake up.  He protects me, keeps me company, watches me in a way humans never do, but I have started trying to do that.  Being attentive to others’ needs, anticipating others’ concerns and trying to address those things instead of assuming everything is a-ok.  We all know that to assume makes an ass out of u and me!
I take for granted that the requirements of life will be there- there will be food to eat and water to drink, air to breathe and curiosity to satisfy…until the day when the body can no longer maintain its mobility and the mind no longer has clarity.  Things I never had to contemplate before!  Aging has the benefit of reflecting — something we never do in youth but something necessary if we don’t want to take things for granted.

As the years mount up I find myself becoming more and more like my parents.  They would wax poetic about what it was like to be growing up in the teens and twenties of the last century.  My brother and I would roll our eyes and prepare ourselves for what was to come.  How the kids of “today”(which was 60 or so years ago) have no respect and don’t accept responsibility, yada yada yada.  I now find myself with those words on my lips and must bite my tongue because the torch has been passed to a new generation of nostalgic old men!

Looking at an old album of black and white photos of my family back in the 50’s and 60’s stirs great memories in my mind but it doesn’t stimulate feelings for me other than remembering the people and the event.  Nothing brings those memories to life the way music does.  I don’t need the pictures when a particular song comes on the radio.  The music makes me feel, hear and see the people and brings me back in time to significant places in my life.  And for me the music was always associated with significant memories and special places or events.  One of my earliest family memories was of everyone sitting around the living room on some holiday with my dad playing the ukulele and my uncle, on the guitar and everybody singing, “I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover.”  Dinner would be over and my Aunt Eleanor would be dancing around the living room with the remnants of her last Manhattan sloshing  around in her glass after a few too many, designed to make her unable to wash the dishes.  Everybody was singing and as I write about this I can actually hear the voices, the clapping and laughing and the teasing of Aunt Eleanor about how she always managed to get tipsy as soon as the dishes had to be done.  This went on every year and every holiday for the first 2 decades of my life.

In junior high school, we would spend summers in my mom’s home town, Mahanoy City, PA.  My cousin, Linda and I learned to do the double lindy together watching American Bandstand and The Steel Peer and then practicing the dance at the Teen Canteen every Saturday night.  The song we learned to dance to was Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  To this day when I hear it on 50’s on 5 on Sirius radio, I can’t help but be back in Mahanoy City in my uncle’s living room practicing the steps.

In my senior year in high school, my friends Anne and Norman and I would get in Norman’s little Nash Metropolitan every Friday night.  We’d drive on the Van Wyck Expressway to LaGuardia Airport.  You used to be able to go on the observation deck, meet your friends and watch the planes take off and land.  We whizzed along the highway with the top down and the radio blasting, listening to Cousin Brucie.  It seemed he played “If I Fell” every Friday night. To this day when I hear it, I stop whatever I am doing, sing along and remember Anne’s clear voice, Norman’s tuneless voice and mine, trying to harmonize as we shared this carefree moment.  I felt free and I feel that way whenever I hear it. Anne and I were dance partners too, and loved to dance together at the high school sock hops.  We couldn’t wear our shoes on the gym floor so to dance we had to take our shoes off.  I was popular with the girls in high school, ‘cause I could dance so I always had a dance partner, but Anne and I were special partners.  I am still in touch with Anne though she lives half way across the country.  We still want to meet once more before…….to share a few lindies together again.  I am sure we could pick up right where our feet left off.  She and I even invented a new dance we called the penguin to “Be My Baby.”  When I hear either of those songs it brings me close to tears and a feeling of warmth and longing for youth fills my mind.  I loved her parents so it even allows me a moment to remember them fondly, even though her dad always called me Stupid Bastard.  I haven’t thought about that in years!  And I was never sure why he called me that but it was said with affection so it was important to me.

Though musically inept myself, it was so important throughout my life.  I could run up to my room, put my hi-fi on and get lost just thinking.  I carried my transistor radio around everywhere to the chagrin of my parents, my generation’s version of the i-phone.  I guess it isn’t surprising music is so important in our lives- it is everywhere- elevators, the doctor’s office, the barbers, in fact I can hardly think of a place where there isn’t music.  Music was always playing in my inn, all day, every day, even when no one was there. One of my fondest memories from the inn was one weekend an elderly, excuse me, mature, couple from Great Britain came and registered.  They were all excited about being in Vermont.  Unfortunately the weather was not cooperating and for the three days they stayed with us, it rained.  The last night they returned from dinner and were sitting out in their car for a long time.  I always checked the parking lot so I could greet our guests to see how their dinners went.  I was in the dining room when they came in the door and she came over to me and explained to me that 50 years ago that night her husband asked her to marry him.  They were at a night club in London and her husband asked the band leader to play her favorite song, “Moonlight in Vermont.”  They came to Vermont 50 years later to celebrate and to see the Vermont moon in person, but the weather did not cooperate UNTIL they pulled into our parking lot after dinner. As they sat in their car, the clouds separated. The moon came shining through. So they did get to see moonlight in Vermont after all.  She returned to her husband in the living room and I knew I had several versions of the song in my collection.  I picked the one by Billy Butterfield and his Orchestra sung by Margaret Whiting.  No sooner did 2 notes play than she came running into the dining room in tears saying that was the exact version that was played that night.  I told her that dancing was permitted in the living room, started the song again and disappeared.  The next morning at breakfast she and her husband told us that this was the most special holiday they had ever had.  What a special feeling that gave me to think I had been able to provide them with such a memory, but it was more about the music! I get teary eyed a lot more than I ever used to.  Nostalgia is something hard to avoid. Each generation has its own memories and its own music.  The two are tightly intertwined, but the tears they provoke in me aren’t of sadness, but are tears of relived memories, renewed friendships, and recycled emotions.  I can’t imagine living without them or without my music!

Getting in Tune

George, that’s a beautiful story about finding the Moonlight in Vermont tune! Your words underline the shared enjoyment of music and how it acts as a transit to past experience.

I wonder whether musical preferences change for a person as they age — or perhaps become more eclectic? Sure, I tend to gravitate to music of my youth. And I like some soft jazz, bosa nova, and reggae – background music. However, lately, I find a pull to more classically composed scores, be it methodical Mozart or romantic Rimsky-Korsakov.

My father played such music all through our childhood – he favored the romantics. I still love some of those pieces and think of him whenever they are performed (ah, Clare de Lune!). And of course, a tip of the hat to Walt Disney Studios for bringing classical music to animation. There’s more, though: the deeper, longer rhythms and lied motifs of these works call out to me – differently than a popular song that gathers you in with a catchy refrain and jaunty jingle (though I enjoy those as well).

I don’t pretend to know much about music, despite the best efforts of our college’s listening lab. However, in tennis jargon, if someone hits a ball that strikes your racquet with greater force than you would expect, it’s called a ‘heavy’ ball. Symphonic music seems like that to me – it has momentum, it builds; it carries the force of a full orchestra. Its weight is required to ping a chord buried deep within that may not be associated with memory, but simply a fundamental aspect of our nature

Now, some music has become decidedly less evocative – plaintive lamentations (“I’ve got tears in my ears as I lay on my back in my bed as I cry over you’) or pieces simply devoted to anger or calls to action. I don’t tend to seek that reinforcement of social consciousness these days. On the other hand, I am amazed to hear myself whistling hymns from time-to-time. What’s happening here? I’m curious how you would score your life in musical terms? My oldest grandson is resuscitating Pink Floyd, so maybe the Dark Side of the Moon would be his theme. I’d probably go for a tablespoon of Take Five with a dollop of Scheherazade. You?

Marching to a Different Beat

As I think about the role of music in George’s heartfelt story and I ponder the influence of music in my life, a curious notion is evolving that suggests I have a fragmented and disjointed relationship with music.  Like George and Wally, it seems to me that most people regularly seek out music to bring them into a particular mood or frame of mind.  I, however, despite coming from a family of talented musicians, don’t relate in the same way; at least not in any predictable or consistent manner.

My mother was an extraordinary, pianist; her brother was a natural on the violin and her father played the bass in the orchestra of the Waldorf Astoria for a living.  And, while I dabbled with piano, violin, and viola in my early school years, I found it to be a foreign language I just couldn’t decode.

When music became an important part of the high school social scene, I again found myself struggling to understand it, figuratively and literally.  And while I like certain popular tunes, and was caught up in the feeling of freedom and lightness during a college concert or from swelling voices extending a song on the jukebox at a local bar, it was short-lived and fleeting.

Even today, I can go days without playing any music in the house.  When I do activate my Sonos speakers, I enjoy the oldies, classical pieces, and meditative arrangements.  I feel them.  They move me.  But I don’t look for them.  I don’t miss them when it’s quiet.  They are, for me, just one of many nice options to lighten my day.

And, while I also don’t consciously seek it out, I enjoy immensely the music of nature.  As I walk through acres of wooded trails with my rescue mutt Duke every day, I am calmed and moved by her sounds, the wind through leaves or as it whistles around barren trunks, bird songs, the hollow reverberation of the woodpeckers as they seek their food beyond the layers of tree bark, the many sounds of the stream as it flows, trickles, or rushes at different levels after a rain.   As I write this piece on my porch with Duke by my side, the rain is falling steadily and plays a tune as it echoes off the metal roof of my nearby woodshed.  I love the changes in volume as the rain falls more heavily for a while and then subsides.  It calms and soothes me.  It’s my kind of music.  I’m not sure why I don’t think to seek it out but I do enjoy it when I find myself in its presence.

We are but a moment’s sunlight fading in the grass – Youngbloods

You know it – I know it: the mortal coil has a limited warranty. The tides lap at our sand castles, until finally, they are indistinguishable from the rest of the beach.

When I was six, my brother and I shared a bunkbed in a space that used to be a foyer. Times were tight and the room was our bedroom while the upstairs of our house was repurposed into a rental apartment.

One door off the room connected to the kitchen which once contained a deadbolt lock. Because the lock had been removed, a beam of light broadcast into our bedroom from the hole where the lock had been. After my brother and I were tucked into our beds, we would hear our parents talking at the end of the day, while they sat at the kitchen table — and look at that knothole with its pure circle of light.

One night, I got to thinking that my Mom and Dad might die someday. It was a disturbing thought that got more intense as I listened to their happy voices. Finally, I leapt out of bed and went into the kitchen, eyes full of tears and asked if they truly were going to die.

Of course, they hugged me and reassured me that this was an event in the far future. It probably was also a real buzz-kill for whatever happy conversation they had been having, but they were young and no doubt did not dwell long on the premise.

Years later, my father sat me down at his hospital bedside and told me that it had been a privilege to raise my brother and me, but that he needed to say goodbye. I could barely concentrate on his words through my sobs. In retrospect, I recognized that in both cases, the immediacy of MY feelings had taken front and center. While understandable for a child, something more was required as an adult – that is, the poise needed to listen and properly thank my Dad for his life.

So I pass this on: Honor the efforts of the dying to consolidate their life. My father essentially offered me his death-poem.  It is important to have this moment belong to the teller of the tale. My role was to listen, provide reinforcement and comfort. Perhaps even retell some tales. My Dad desired to die in dignity – don’t we all?

An old psychological truism used to be that all learning experiences are painful. If that is true, then Death is a great teacher. Although it sounds oxymoronic, Death allows you to take the long view. That is, you can evaluate your life up to present against the expectation of a finite end. Death shows you what is important — Death keeps you honest.

In The Teachings of Don Juan, A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, Carlos Castenada’s Yaqui shaman, Juan Matus, suggested that he keep Death on his right shoulder – a constant arbiter of decisions and attitude. I believe that is a useful remedy for the world weariness that can sometimes plague old age. When confronted with the inevitable end of days, even the most routine acts can seem exquisite.

Let’s face it, the process of dissembling and decay is elemental and ever present.  Even the sounds our words make begin to degrade as they leave our mouths. Entropy happens. Our task is to strive to re-create in the face of continual destruction: evoke memories, build new stories — make myths together. And honor the living who are proceeding toward their farewell.

In a discussion, Henry brought up a term that resonates: a living eulogy. Why wait until a person has passed in order to let them know how they have been instrumental in this world? Express how they have helped others to navigate through difficult paths. In addition, make your own eulogy: what made your life worth living – and what is your unfinished business? Cherish our imperfect performance called life.

——

It was difficult reading Wally’s piece, even painful in places.  I guess because of the topic of death and of our own mortality. Throughout my life, death has always been present- beloved dogs and cats, elderly relatives who in many cases scared the living Bejesus out of me(pardon the pun), but death still seemed far off and impersonal for a long time growing up.  I had a goldfish for 12 years in a little bowl that hung on with minimal care or attention but when I found it one morning  floating on its side I was devastated. At that point I was old enough to understand, and then began wondering if it was something I had done or didn’t do.  My parents tried to ease my conscience and told me that 12 years was way longer than the average goldfish’s life span.  And for a while I can remember asking them what was the average life span of my dog, or my parakeet, or the mosquito in my room at night.  I think at one point I was so angry at a teacher I asked them what the average life span of a teacher was.  That was the last time I asked them about lifespans for some reason.
And as you mature, you deal with the deaths of aunts and uncles and  other significant people in your life and begin to accept the idea that it happens to all of us.  But we naturally assume that is far in the distance. All kinds of life things happen, school, career, families, all things that for some reason allow the years to pile up without realizing it til all of a sudden your own kids are asking you about lifespans and accumulating their own experiences.  For me, that time was a real danger zone because  significant people in my life then were in the declining years and I watched as my parents couldn’t do what they used to be able to. 
I never had the fortune to say good bye to my parents like Wally did. My dad died suddenly while on the toilet one morning. My mom, all hooked up to ventilators and tubes in Winthrop Hospital, passed after my brother and I left for the night.  The hardest death was that of my brother because we had become very close after our parents died and after I had come out to him.  He and I would talk regularly, laughing at things my dad did or bitching about things my dad did.  After his death, the loneliness was incredible.  A void that no one other than a sibling could fill.  My kids were great but it just didn’t feel the same and there was and still is an emptiness that only he could fill.
Now I am the oldest living member of my family.  The only living member of my generation or above. Death doesn’t scare me so much anymore cause I have seen how death can be a relief of pain or loneliness.  I had 3 elderly aunts who lived into their late 90’s and they were ready to pass when their time came.  I saw such strength in them, and faith that truly comforted them until they passed.  They were ready, and I want to be at that point when I am called also.  Their eulogy, all of my family members’ eulogies would include love and tried the best they could to be good people.  That is what I want to be remembered for as well and I hope I will be remembered for doing good things for people, making people laugh and hope that when my name comes up in conversation it will put smiles on their faces and tears in their eyes, cause I was pretty special after all, but tears of joy and pleasant memories.

——

Understanding the Last Sunset

Wally’s story resurrects many memories and stimulates many thoughts as I find myself in the winter season of my life. 

My dad was an absent father.  When I turned 40, I tracked him down, asked him questions, and got some ambiguous answers. But I did receive closure to the question I asked of myself – Was I my father?  Six months later he died without any of us at his side.  I said what I needed in that solo encounter.  I expressed my disappointment in him and my desire to remain detached but I said it without anger and with quiet resolve.  I don’t know how he felt or what he may have thought about in the hospital in his final hours after failed heart surgery.  Perhaps his other family provided the final dignity and farewell that he would have wanted.  Since we never met and have no contact, I’ll never know.

I do know that Wally’s call, to honor the efforts of the dying reminds me to ask more of what others need and offer less of what I think they need.   A noble model for all relationships at all stages of life!

Wally mentioned my idea for a living eulogy. What if we made time to celebrate people’s lives while they can still hear it?  In a sense, create a service for them not about them.  I suspect many of us underestimate our worth and value to those who know us.  Might hearing those words now, influence the rest of our lives for the better?  I’d like to think so.

What Matters

“As long as you have your health…” These words were often uttered by my grandmother and later as an aphorism from my mother every time I faced disappointment.
As a child who was healthy, these words offered little solace to whatever ailed me. Health? Everyone around me seemed healthy, most of the time. Why would that matter when issues of fear, loneliness, heartbreak, or ridicule loomed bigger than life?
Now, at 72, with all those years of experiences, readings, and self-reflections under my belt, health, in the scheme of things, really is important. Health is up there on the list of what many people of my vintage would argue, really matters. But is that what matters most?
Another consideration I gleaned has to do with relationships. As I read and reread endless profiles of women registered with online dating sites, a large majority firmly declare that strong relationships with family and friends are something of which they are most proud and something they seek in a potential mate. How can I disagree with the notion that positive relationships are what really matters. I’ve often remarked that even sunsets seem more beautiful when viewed with someone you love. And the last entry in Chris McCandless’ journal (Into the Wild) read: “Happiness is only real when shared.”
There are other really important things that I could list here that would answer this query about what is important. After all, isn’t life replete with complex shades of gray, varying in hue based on individual perceptions? Yet, pushed to hone it all down to one core belief, I would say that having a healthy and reflective relationship with myself is what really matters. If I truly know myself and am truthful with myself, when all else falls away, I remain grounded. That is to say, if I’m content with my own companionship I have a solid foundation from which to face all desirable and undesirable experiences. I can recover from the blinding joys or crippling tribulations that come my way and remain focused on living purposefully. My dependence is on myself.

We often add up what we’ve accomplished and accrued and use the total as evidence of having a life well lived. Perhaps those of us who do so should make a conscious effort to be certain that’s what really matters and to consider the words of Einstein who wrote, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
Having written all of this after much thought and deliberate reflection I am clearer about what matters less and what matters more. Naturally, I don’t know what future challenges loom. But I do know that for the rest of my life I want to concentrate on living in alignment with how I want to be remembered and how I conduct myself on a daily basis.

Have you given thought to what really matters to you?
And, are you mindful to act accordingly?

Recipe for What Matters

I agree with everything Henry wrote…health, relationships, knowing yourself and being comfortable in that knowledge of course. But that seems like a baseline for what matters. There is a lot more…. and those things are like ingredients in a favorite recipe. They are what made me…. ME! A cup of memories that I shared with my brother growing up matters. Memories of my kids when they were little…all kinds of memories! They can’t be left out or substituted because then the final dish won’t taste like it’s supposed to.

Add a tablespoon of the touch of others. Caresses, massages, tickles, and pats matter. Also shaking hands with people you meet or hugs with friends matter. You can always tell when that ingredient is missing. Beauty matters! Mix in a cup of beauty- audio and visual, natural or manmade- a sunset, an autumn leaf, a beautiful painting, the sound of a babbling brook or a thunderstorm——a favorite tune that transports you back to your youth to a special person and a specific place, not to mention a teaspoon of the aroma of my dad’s tomato sauce or a crackling fire in the winter. And don’t forget to sprinkle in those deep belly laughs shared with people, the kind where you can’t catch your breath and fill your eyes with tears of happiness. Cook all these ingredients for a lifetime and it adds up to someone special—YOU! And that matters!

Too Big for My Brain

Well written, George! You make a good case to add a celebration of the senses to ‘What Matters’: straight-up epicurean. But isn’t ‘what matters’ simply what you decide should matter – a personal choice.
Some might say that what matters is what you lack/what you need. In certain circumstances, what matters most is living one more day, hanging on to your identity, or being self-sufficient. Remember Abraham Maslow’s need hierarchy: from safety concerns to self-actualization? Different areas of focus follow need fulfillment. Does ‘what matters’ change over time – or is it eternal? Maybe what matters is not even our choice after all. Isn’t this question the very essence of philosophy? This subject is too big for my brain – and this page!
However, at its heart, I’d argue that what really matters is the purpose you bring to life and the elegance with which that purpose is applied. I guess I’m adding a moral compass to Henry’s conclusion (‘know thyself and be comfortable’). After all, intention guides action. When your actions are consistent with your purpose, you have achieved that “impeccability of word” that we have discussed – or what Jordan Peterson describes as minding your patch. Okay, that’s good enough for me!

Takeaway:
Be aware of your intentions. If you cannot express a purpose for your being in the world, embark on a journey to find one. Refine that statement of purpose as you learn more.