Facing An Empty Corner

Went to St. Vincent Hospital to spend some time with my dad on the Sunday before Thanksgiving.

From the doorway I could see his bed was empty. Wanting to respect his privacy, I waited in the hall in case he was in the bathroom with a nurse. But soon a nurse breezed by and into his room. She found Dad, hooked to IVs and monitors, wearing his hospital gown, leaning against the wall, facing an empty corner away from the windows, the door, the TV. He’d been sitting in a chair and somehow managed to get up without the alarm going off. She turned him around and set him down.

I walked in and said “Howdy Pop,” and he said hello as if it were just another day. But it wasn’t. It was hard to see him – unshaven, looking feeble and confused. He’d had a dramatic loss of physical and mental function, going in just a few weeks from completely independent to nursing home care. It was the first time I’d seen him this way. I was uncertain if he’d know who I was.

Immediately food arrived and the nurse, named Kelly began trying to help him eat. Dad did pretty well feeding himself, but kept trying to take huge bites and she kept making him take smaller ones. From time to time Dad got exasperated, dropped the utensils and glared at her like an angry child. Kelly was very kind and very patient but it was an ordeal. She explained to me that his swallow test showed it would be very easy for him to choke.

A neurologist on rounds came in and introduced herself simply as “Cindy.” We chatted while she made notes on a wall-mounted computer. A tall blonde woman with a cheerful smile, Cindy asked questions about Dad and his past health issues. We talked about him like he wasn’t there. He took little notice. She too was very patient and professional. Nice to know my dad was getting great care.

She turned to him and said “Hi Jim.” He half barked, “hello,” in return, fussing with the IV tubes and the hem of his gown. She asked him a series of questions starting with, “Do you know who this is?” pointing at me. He grunted defensively, “My son.” When she asked, “What’s his name?” he replied, “Kurt.” Dr. Cindy asked him to move his arms in different ways. He could do it all until she asked him to touch his nose with a finger. His hands froze in the air and he just stared back at her, lost and defeated, as if to say, “I can’t do it.”

Other questions were hard for him to answer like, “What season is this?” or “Do you know where you are?” After much prodding he finally managed, “Hospital?” But when asked, “Do you know why you’re here?” he looked back at Dr. Cindy with that lost expression, eventually dropping his gaze to the floor.

It had been 10 days since the Cicero police called my brother saying they’d pulled Dad over for driving erratically. After a brief conversation the officer decided he wouldn’t let him drive home. The officer sat with Dad at Dairy Queen until my brother Tom got there. When I brought Dad’s car up to Tipton the next day, he had no idea why I had the car. The vacant look in his eye was unnerving.

Nurse Kelly left and I sat on the edge of the hospital bed, helping Dad finish his food. As we watched the Rams/Bears game, I commented at each touchdown. He’d glance up at the TV, but quickly got lost staring at the wall, or his hands. And heaven help anyone caring for an engineer with dementia; at one point I found him trying to dismantle the electronic monitor that had been resting in his gown pocket. My father was a mechanical engineer who spent his career testing and trouble-shooting transmissions for Chrysler. Working with machines and working with his hands defined him. But this time I had to stop him. I took the device from his hands and told him gently he mustn’t. He looked back with a desperate, pleading look in his eye as if to say, “Don’t you see this thing has to be opened up.”

But he wouldn’t say that because he’s really only speaking in 2-3 word sentences.

I smiled, put the device back together and told him to keep it in his pocket. Thanks to him and all he taught me about machines, I understood how to put it back together.

The tests found a lesion on the brain that wasn’t there a week ago. Seems certain he has had a stroke, and perhaps more than one. I asked Dr. Cindy if he had had multiple, ratta-tat-tat little strokes – that would explain the last month+ of sudden loss of function, then plateau, then another loss of function, and then plateau. Another test showed severe dementia.

After a couple hours Dad fell asleep sitting up in his chair. I knew a rehab nurse was coming later to run him through his paces, so I gathered my things and left quietly. Heading down the hall I saw nurse Kelly in another patient’s doorway and let her know he was alone.

It’s hard to accept that my dad, the man I’ve known my entire life, is kinda gone. There are glimmers of him in there, reflexes of that old personality, but it’s not really him. It’s like all the parts are in place, but the gears that engage the parts are stripped, like a car with a broken transmission – you can rev the engine or flip the turn signal, but it ain’t goin’ nowhere.

Flying through the air, propelled by a stick: From the time I
was a child I always loved this high school photo of my dad
pole vaulting. In it, he seemed magical.

I stepped into an empty elevator and when the door closed I turned and faced my own empty corner, away from the world, and cried for a minute as I slowly fell 5 stories.

My new book began going online for e-readers this week, currently available at Fastpencil and Barnes and Noble. I'll be doing a big launch to tell the world in the weeks ahead when it's finally available in all formats, but for now, here's an early look:
http://www.fastpencil.com/publications/6244-The-Salvage-Man

Living Online

In these still early days of social media, folks struggle with how much of themselves to share online and who should be allowed to see it. And I’ve heard many professionals insist they don’t want coworkers to have access to their private lives via Facebook, winching from social media the way the Amish would photographs.

But it’s becoming increasingly clear that walling off your personal life from the online world is not just difficult, but perhaps not even necessary, and maybe even a handicap. In some cases it’s become a negative to be a digital hermit. So just as face-to-face interactions require tact, perhaps it’s more useful to ponder what to share and what to keep private.

Because I’m a Realtor and a writer, I embraced Internet exposure. Anything to get my name out there. And when it came to posting political beliefs on Facebook, I always felt, “Hey, this is part of who I am. I’m not hiding it.” But sitting in a continuing-ed real estate class 18 months ago, the PowerPoint presenter, with remote in hand asked, “Who among you are posting strident political statements on Facebook?” Almost nobody (including me) raised a hand, but you could see the tightening body language across the room and some slumping in seats. He asked, “Why are you doing that? When was the last time you changed your opinion about something based on something your saw on Facebook? You’re just pissing people off.”

I fermented some hard cider, so of course had to tell everyone
about it. And somehow my Aug/Sept biking schedule appears
too. Is nothing private?

That rang so true I logged onto Facebook right then and there and began deleting all my snarky anti-Tea Party comments, reposts of Rachel Maddow quips, and Huffington Post articles.

But I never felt entirely comfortable with that decision. Being silent in the face of injustice is a special kind of sin. So I narrowed my social and political postings to two issues: social justice and gay rights, two issues I care deeply about that have particular social meaning right now.

Still, I know I’m inciting discomfort. Not a good thing in a medium where you can be hidden with a click – the online equivalent of someone throwing a black sheet over your head at a cocktail party because you discussed uncomfortable topics.

On the other end of the spectrum are 2 guys I’m friends with on Facebook who have raised the Facebook identity to a social art. Their posts carefully reflect specific personalities. And they’re the best Hoosiers ever, meaning their posts will never, ever, ever offend anyone or make anyone uncomfortable. That they’re both in the advertising industry at the same company says a lot about their style. Their Facebook personas are brands of sorts. Really sweet, endearing brands. We see their hobbies, their families, their children, their pets, even their quirks – with one it’s a love of vintage business signage, with the other it’s reoccurring photos of interesting number combinations on the dashboard odometer. And they have faithful followers. They can post nearly anything and comments flood in from their friends, co-workers, and clients.

Their posts give the impression they have no political opinions, are apparently unaware of religion in any form, and nothing bad ever happens to them, or, like good Hoosiers, they avoid discussion of all three topics.

Turns out they’re onto something. A recent University of Pennsylvania study showed that people who shared their personal lives online where perceived as better workers by their coworkers.

Not wanting my Instagram identity
to simply be another Facebook, I
decided to only post inanimate
objects - the cool stuff I encounter
in my daily life. Lots of archit-
ectural elements

That’s not true with everyone in social media. A former student from my teaching days is a Facebook friend with a filter more broken than mine. I used to see posts from her attacking her bosses and coworkers and customers. Still seeing her a little as the 16 year old girl she ceased being many years ago, I sent a fatherly private message asking, “Are you worried that people at your work will see your posts?” Her quick reply showed she didn’t care one damn bit.

But I think she’s on borrowed time.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep our work and online lives separate. If you’re clinging to that old, “I can’t be bothered with something as shallow as social media,” as I once did, you should know it’s not an attractive or endearing quality. It marks you as out of touch with modern social norms.

But managing what you share is a constant battle.

Before Micki and I went on our first date last March we only knew each other online. As she was getting out of the car at the end of our date, she noticed a pile of books in my backseat – copies of a local literary journal I publish with a buddy. I handed her a copy and said, “You might enjoy this.”

Once home she sent me a text saying, “Hey, the logo for your book project (a grasshopper) is exactly like your tattoo.”

I froze. She couldn’t know that.

“How did you know I had a grasshopper tattoo on my shoulder?” I texted back. There was a long silence before her sheepish reply. She admitted to googling me in the days before our date. There was my address, phone number, my real estate web site with details about my career and testimonials from past clients, links to newspaper stories and columns I’d written, reviews of a book I’d published, my blog – filled with stories about my life and details about my beliefs, an Indy Star story about the restoration of my house, and yes, the website for that literary journal, The Polk Street Review, complete with a photo file that included a picture of me pulling up my shirt sleeve at a public reading, revealing my grasshopper tattoo.

I wasn’t offended. Who could blame her? “Smart girl,” I texted back. She was going to meet a man she’d never met at a coffee shop she’d never been to. I might have wondered about her intelligence if she hadn’t googled me. But it was sobering to consider how much there is about me online. Not stuff marketing companies have gathered and shared against my will, but stuff I’ve gladly posted about myself.

It’s a little bit the nature of my work. How can you sell real estate or writing if you don’t throw yourself at people? But it’s also a measure of where we are. You are going to be out there. Sure, you can easily make yourself invisible to a particular person on Facebook – if they look for you it will simply appear that you don’t have a Facebook account. But that won’t work for the myriad of other web sites that have your info, right down to county tax records that show your address, what you pay in property taxes, and how much you paid for your house. Hell, Google street view will let someone virtually walk right up to your front door.

The reality about all these examples: each are pretty honest representations of who we are in real life. My former student is aggressively honest to a fault, the two advertising guys are genial, kind fellows with cool interests who don’t like to make people uncomfortable with their politics (I know the politics of one of them and so know he’s purposefully holding back), and me, I’m intellectually curious with an ADD-like scattershot approach, combined with a broken and/or immature filter and I’m constantly promoting my work online.

You can’t hide yourself, online or off. The real you still comes out. For better or worse.

Food is Love

I didn’t realize it until the past few years, but food it a big way I tell people I care about them.

After my marriage ended, the first gal I dated had never been married nor had kids, and so had the dining habits of a bachelor. Oh, she knew how to order sushi and wine in a restaurant; but cook? No. Lunch or dinner to her might be a cheese and lettuce sandwich and a handful of blueberries, eaten standing up at the kitchen counter. The whole process, from preparation to eating to cleaning up took about 10 minutes. I kept cooking meals for her but as much as she enjoyed them, it didn’t mean the same thing to her that it did to me. And my obsession with sharing mealtime and the rituals of its preparation actually became a frustration for both of us – me struggling to speak to her in my language, and her not entirely getting the point of the conversation.

Separated from my children and previous life, I was trying to connect with her via the echo of a ritual that was deep in me. That was my “aha! moment;” the moment when I saw I wasn't simply trying to cook for her.

When I was a child, my family ate dinner together regularly. Likewise, when my kids were small, their mother and I saw to it that we ate together as a family 4 or 5 times a week. It didn’t matter so much what we were eating – could be fish sticks or 49 cent pot pies from Aldi’s, just that we were connecting as a family every evening. For years I was the sole breadwinner and so wasn’t doing that much cooking, but after their mom went back to work and the kids got older I was cooking more while the meals together got harder to coordinate around 5 schedules. So I spent countless Saturday or Sunday afternoons restoring my old house while meat smoked on the grill, bread rose in the kitchen, and veggies from the garden waited on the counter. From time to time I’d brush the paint chips and sawdust off my shirt and knead dough or tend the grill, then climb back up the scaffolding. At the end of the day we eventually gathered around the table with marinated chicken, steamed broccoli, and fresh bread.

There was something obsessive in my instance that everyone be there and that every dish be ready at just the right moment. Sometime showing love takes a lot of work and sometimes it just takes sitting and eating, appreciating what was put before you. If you’re thinking about it right, either part you play is fine.  

I still laugh at the times when it went wrong.

I recall cooking a ridiculously doomed and elaborate meal for a girl when I was in my early 20s. I fell for her in England when we were both visiting BSU students in London. After we returned to Muncie I knocked myself out fixing a dinner for her. A week earlier she had invited me over for lunch and served me hot dogs sautee’d in barbeque sauce, barbeque potato chips, and root beer (I’m not making this up). Hell, with a menu like that, maybe she was trying to kill me. But, trying to speak her language, I made barbeque sauce from scratch and grilled some chicken, made my great aunt’s baked bean recipe, and God knows what else for a quiet dinner together in my little basement apartment on Calvert. The evening was a disaster. Not a loud explosive disaster, but a slow, quiet, suffocating - get me the hell outta here disaster.

I guess sometimes you outta just talk directly to people instead of trying to bribe them with food. Maybe I was afraid of the responses she’d give me, so thought I’d tip-toe to her heart through her stomach. Whatever I was trying to do, it didn’t work. She dumped me and went back to her old boyfriend.

Still most of the time spent cooking for people is a good thing. The times it went wrong are a reality check.

In trying to understand how food became a symbol of affection to me I recognized that gift giving and acts of service are a language of love I was raised on. The Meyers are gift givers. Of the generation of Meyers who raised me – if you were waiting for one of them to say, “I love you,” it was gonna be a long fucking wait. But in my times of need they were quietly fixing my problems or writing me a birthday check they knew I’d spend on something I needed or loved.

Or . . . they were preparing food for me or picking up the check at a restaurant.

And I find it passed down to another generation. My cousin Margaux has a lovely habit of opening her house to a wide circle of friends, presenting meals and events to draw close the people she loves. She learned it from her father – my father’s brother. My oldest son is a self-taught chef of Asian food. I can’t count the nights in the past 2 years Cal cooked me an amazing meal. My middle son Jack cooks for those he loves and recently I’ve found my youngest, Sally cooking for her boyfriend – eggs, lots of eggs.

But we are a younger generations of Meyers. We have no problem saying, “I love you." But that old language of giving in lieu of talking is wrapped up in our way of showing affection.

On Halloween night Micki was to arrive after work. I’d cooked a pot of chili and mixed batter for corn cake. Much of the ingredients for the chili were items I canned from my summer garden. But when a full waiting room kept her unexpectedly late at the office seeing patients, we agreed I’d drive up to Ft. Wayne and save her the trip down to Noblesville. After I set the pots of food on the floorboards of my car and stood to close the passenger door, I froze, staring at the dishes. It occurred to me I’d loaded the food in the car before I’d even thrown clothes in a suitcase.

Hmmm. Why was that my automatic first action? I guess becoming aware of your motivations doesn’t stop the reflex. And maybe there’s no need to stop it. It was me offering perhaps the most important thing I would put in the car besides myself – something I’d made to nourish a person I loved.

So if I’ve cooked something for you, or if you’re one of that handful of people who have been handed a jar of my homemade Sriracha sauce or canned black raspberry jam, or if I’ve dropped off a fresh-baked loaf of bread at your door or a just-picked bag of green beans from my garden, it was a note from me saying, “I love you.”

That’s not literally what I’m thinking when I do it, but I can see now that’s really what it is.

Hamilton County Drivers Manual

For those new to Hamilton County or new to driving, throw away your Indiana Driver’s Manual. What follows is the Hamilton County Driver’s Manual. It will help you better understand local driving traditions.

Stop Signs: Here, stop signs don’t really mean, “STOP.” They just mean slow down a little. Especially at 4-way stops. When the car in front of you takes its turn to pass through the intersection, just slowly ease through the intersection with them without making your own complete stop. True, if each car made a complete stop, children could cross the street and cars trying to cross at the next intersection might actually be able to do so, but the Hamilton County Golden Traffic Rule is, “Do unto others anything necessary to get where you’re going faster.” You’ll find our Golden Traffic Rule* permeates all traffic behavior here.

Speed Limits: In Hamilton County, the speed limit is more a suggestion than a hard rule. Think of the posted limit as the slowest you’re allowed to go. Ten to twenty miles an hour over the posted limit is just fine. This is especially true in neighborhoods. The people trying to relax on their porches and the children riding their bikes or playing basketball in cul-de-sacs really won’t mind you making their neighborhood menacing, dangerous places. They’ll understand how important it is that you shave five or ten seconds off your drive.

Pedestrians/Crosswalks:  Here in our corner of Hoosierland, we see crosswalks as needless government regulation. Fact is, some people are too cheap to exercise in health clubs and others are so rude they actually get out and walk around. Here’s what to do: As moms with strollers, County employees and Monon Trail users are exercising their supposed right to safely cross the street, ease your car menacingly close to them. The effect can be heightened by thumping the steering wheel with your palm and sighing heavily. Once they are just inches out of your way, slam on your accelerator and roar past. This may sound extreme to bleeding-heart newcomers, but it reminds pedestrians that might makes right. So if you’re in a mall parking lot or at a pedestrian crossing and it’s raining or bitterly cold, do not give pedestrians the right of way out of a mistaken sense of kindness. No matter that you’re warm and dry and they’re not. Cars come first here. Always.

ALWAYS!

Parallel Parking: We haven’t gotten around to banning this yet. When people slow down near an empty parking space with their turn signal on, pull up to their bumper so they can’t back up, then honk your horn as if to say, “Get the F’ going!” If someone is already in reverse as you approach, honk your horn long and loud and angrily accelerate around him.

Bicycle Safety: Treat bicyclists the same way you’d treat a parallel parker who is getting out of their car. Accelerate past them and do so dangerously close. Cyclists should know that bike riding is a nuisance because sometimes it slows down a driver by a few seconds.

Car Size: We prefer the biggest cars possible. Smart cars are for pussies. Never mind that we live in one of the flattest places on earth, or that we have not one single gravel road left in the county, or that we have some of the best and safest roads in the nation. Bigger is always better, no matter what. Commuting solo to downtown Indy in a Suburban or Hummer? Of course! And if it costs $80 bucks to fill your tank, that’s not your fault. Just blame Obama. (Around here we blame everything on him anyway.)

Turning Left: Hamilton County is so conservative we’ve made turning left near impossible. But there’s a way around this. When the light turns green, even though it’s technically not your turn, step on it and race out in front of oncoming cars. If you insist on following the rules when turning left, you better take a sack lunch and bring a magazine along. You’re gonna be there awhile. (And remember, nobody is gonna let you in. *refer back to our Golden Traffic Rule)

Roundabouts: We have roundabouts here in Hamilton County. If you're of at least average intelligence and prefer to move forward rather than sit needlessly at red lights, you’ll do just fine. If not, you'll find these irritating, and possibly even their circular shape, confusing. Forewarning: If you hate daylight saving time and spicy food, you’re definitely from Indiana, and therefore will also my be prone to hate roundabouts.

Noise Pollution:  We Hamilton County residents put “noise pollution” in the same category as global warming, evolution, Obama’s citizenship. They’re things that don’t exist. We love loud car sound systems and loud motorcycles. That’s why we don’t enforce our noise ordinances. Fellas, the louder your sound system and/or engine, the more men admire you and the more ladies are attracted to you. Like you, they see the noise as a symbol of your masculinity. Likewise, if you’re a driver who likes to yell a high-pitched, “Wooooo,” out your window at pretty girls, we encourage that here. The ladies just love it and will find you irresistible.

     If there’s a traffic situation not covered here, refer back to the Hamilton County Golden Traffic Rule* for guidance.

Jack & Michelle's Cake

Two weeks ago last Sunday morning as I cleaned the kitchen there was a lone, melting chunk of Jack and Michelle’s cake left beneath the clear plastic deli cover. Green and red flecks of icing and deep black cake crumbs were scattered about on the counter. Micki was sleeping upstairs, as was my oldest son, Cal, and my daughter Sally. The quiet house was mine. I gathered up the cake box and crumbs and walked them out, across the patio and through the fence gate to the trash with my cat Gracie following behind.

I never really know when the emotional weight of something will hit me. It’s often not at the actual moment of change. But throwing that cake box away felt like the ending of something I’d known and loved and the beginning of something new and unknowable, as if as long as the cake was still on the counter, the ending hadn’t ended. I am in the midst of a great leaving of people I love and I’ve barely shed a tear. But the walk back from the trash was the beginning of acceptance I guess. I sat for a moment on the patio beneath the wisteria, scratching Gracie behind the ears with a lump in my throat. As I cooked breakfast alone while Micki and my other two kids slept upstairs, that solitary time helped me imagine the life that lies ahead in this empty house.

On the previous Thursday family and a very small handful of friends had gathered to say goodbye to Jack, my middle son. He and his girlfriend Michelle, freshly graduated from college were heading to Denver to start their lives. I baked bread. Jack and I smoked a pork shoulder and worked together to get the house ready for guests. Jack’s mother brought a salad and the cake.

It was my friend Richard’s birthday and I suspected he might spend it alone working. He’s already an empty-nester. So I invited him to join us. We put candles on the cake and walked it out to Richard on the patio, singing happy birthday. He was pleasantly surprised. After he blew out the candles, I said, “Read the inscription on your cake.”

Richard read it out loud, “Good Luck Jack & Michelle.” We all had a good laugh.

The next morning Jack and Michelle loaded up the last of their things. I hung around in the driveway while Jack carefully adjusted the straps on the bike rack. And then that good-hearted boy and that sweet, dark-eyed girl of his disappeared down the alley toward Denver.

 

Michelle & Jack at the City Market the week before they left.

Just a week before I had stood in Sally’s bedroom doorway with tears in my eyes. She’s my youngest. We were preparing to drive to Muncie to move her into her freshman dorm. For Sally, too, there was uncertainty about the future, and some tears, but we loaded up and got her moved in.

And yet a week before that departure, there had been another. Sean, who came to live in my house when he was a teenager, had loaded up his things and driven out west with his girlfriend to start their lives. There had been a going away party the night before with a spirited group of friends gathered together to send them off.

There is just one departure left. My oldest, Cal, has taken a job teaching English in Japan. This house will cease to be his permanent address on the 23^rd of this month.

Last week Cal and I went out for drinks, then rode our bikes to Richard’s house down the street. Back home around midnight, we each had another gin & tonic and sat in the kitchen taking turns plugging our phones into the stereo and playing songs we each thought the other ought to hear: the National, Madrugada, and Japanese bands whose names I can’t pronounce. At one point as I was leaning on the counter and searching through a playlist on the glowing iPhone screen I turned to look at Cal. He was sitting on the bench with a head full of gin and tears trickling down his face.

“Hey man!” What’s the matter?” I asked.

“This is the end of how things have been. We’ll all never live like this together again.” I gave him a hug and told him I loved him.

He was right, and it’s something I’ve dreaded all summer and so never really let myself dwell on. This summer I grumbled as I washed their towels, bought their groceries, picked up their dirty clothes, or woke often to find the kitchen littered with beer bottles and dirty plates. But that grumbling was little more than whistling past the graveyard – something to focus on to keep at bay the ache of seeing them all go away in the span of a month at summer’s end.

The parenting guru the children’s mother and I subscribed to when they were young often wrote, “You’re #1 job as a parent is to make them not need you. When they go off to live their lives without your assistance, you’ll know you’ve done your job.”

And that’s the bittersweet reality of parenting. Yet, there should be a bigger word, one with more explosive tonnage than the delicate, “bittersweet,” to describe the aching “thud” in your heart when they go.

And this was already a dislocated year for my family, in this first year after the divorce. There was already an absence in the air.

Sharpie tattoo from the going away dinner.

When we moved here Cal was 8, Jack was 5 and Sally was 1. After 18 years, each is leaving on their own journey, one by one over the course of just a month. And I will wake up in this house on the 24^th alone. There is someone new in my life, Micki, and she comes and goes from her out-of-town job on the weekends, but still, for the most part I will be alone here, the last one of us who made it a home. I’m not complaining. I chose some of those circumstances and the others are just life unfolding. I’m feeling my way in the dark. Making sense of it as I go.

And so it is my journey, too, but what the destination will look like, I can only imagine. I strain, searching back at what my own parents went through when I, the youngest of 4 kids, left home once and for all. But I was a far less attentive young man than my own children are, so can’t say I remember much beyond my mother saying, “Your leaving was the hardest, because you were last.”

Sally has 4 years of college ahead of her and so will come and go on the weekends and live here in the summer I suppose. But Cal was right. We will never again live like this under one roof. Other places will become home for them, and this one will remain mine.

Portlandia And Points Beyond

Posted from Delta flight 1228, Salt Lake City to Indianapolis.

It’s a little like a foreign country up here in the northwest. Not quite. But almost.

Monday, Micki’s uncle Bob dropped us in downtown Portland. We walked a block to the Bike Gallery and rented two cruisers to explore the city. When we hit the streets, motorists, pedestrians, and even streetcar drivers were so patient and friendly, we knew we were in a cycling paradise.

We made a B-line to Voodoo Doughnuts. I ordered up a Maple Bacon Bar (a caramel-iced donut topped with 2 slices of bacon) and an Old Dirty Bastard (a classic yeast donut, drizzled with chocolate & peanut butter, then encrusted with Oreo’s). Micki went for “The Dirt,” (think dirt pudding on a donut).  As we settled at a picnic table outside, a car decorated with elaborate, demonic sculptures pulled up. The driver, a slim, middle-aged man in jeans and sandals propped open the door so all could hear KC & the Sunshine Band’s “Shake Your Booty” blaring from within. He donned a monkey mask and began dancing in the street.

Decadent donuts and some dude in a monkey mask dancing in the street: “Shake, shake- shake. Shake-shake-shake. Shake your bootie. Shake your boooootie.”

Yeah, not exactly breakfast in Indiana.

In the satirical TV show “Portlandia,” they say, “Portland is a city where young people go to retire.” Most jokes begin with a grain of truth. There are several grains of truth in that line.

Portland is a city where everyone has a dog or a bicycle, or both. It’s a city where, like its hip sister to the north, Seattle, people are pissed if you smoke cigarettes in public but fine if you’re smoking weed. There’s seemingly a micro or nano brewery on every corner. And across the street is an interesting restaurant of one sort or another that cures its own bacon or grows its organic arugula on the rooftop of their building. And across the street from that is a left-of-center gift shop or art gallery. It’s a town where gays and lesbians walk arm-in-arm or hold hands and nobody cares or stares. Make eye contact with pretty much anyone and they smile back, warm and welcoming. It’s a town where you can take a streetcar around the city center, light rail to the burbs, or Amtrak north to Seattle or south to California. And all three rail systems are clean and well tended. (Where’s the mass-transit stench of stale urine so familiar in Manhattan’s subway or Chicago’s L?) Wanna backpack the forest, hike the Columbia River gorge, ski Mt. Hood? It’s all nearby.

They plant roses in their highway medians and exit ramps, they cover their high-rise rooftops with gardens, refuse to “poison” their city water with fluoride and most overpass graffiti reads something like, “May the world be free of suffering.” They’re on the cutting edge of land planning, environmentalism is a cornerstone, and the organic and local food movements – unquestioned. Portland and Seattle seem not to give a flying-fuck what the rest of America is doing. They’re gonna do it their way.

So for a Hoosier, yeah, it’s kind-of a foreign country. And for this Hoosier, it’s kinda paradise. But no, it’s not the America I live my days in.

 

Chris & Micki on Purget Sound

Micki and I took Amtrak down to Portland from Edmonds, Washington last Sunday morning. A stones throw from the sailboat where we were staying up there on Puget Sound, you could take a ferry to various islands, jump Amtrak to Seattle, or enjoy the lovely, pedestrian-friendly town about the size of Noblesville with its old movie theater showing first run films, killer restaurants and coffee shops lining the streets, and farmers markets and breweries making life just that much happier. Everything is so well cared for, so thoughtfully tended, it’s almost a little creepy. Almost. Simply because it’s so foreign.

Seattle is Portland’s rival for hippest city in America. But no need to fight about it. I’ll happily take a condo in both city’s and just split time between the two.

The previous Saturday we took in Pike’s Market and dined on a deck beneath the 5-story high Ferris wheel overlooking Puget Sound. That night our Edmonds friends, Chris and Janelle, who used to live on Logan Street back home in Noblesville took us to a Sounders soccer game in Seattle. Imagine the number of people who show up for a Colts game showing up instead for a professional soccer game. There were 53,000 people in the Seahawk’s stadium. And not because there was nothing else to do. Literally right next door the Mariners were playing the Yankees in Safeco field.

American football exudes militaristic imagery. Two teams at war in helmets and uniforms. “Bombs” are thrown, defenses “blitz,” from the German war term “blitzkrieg,” and there are “neutral zones” and “trenches,” ala World War I.

 

Micki @ waterfalls along the Columbia River

Not soccer. The fans stream in with scarves, randomly chanting team ditties in unison, strangers picking up the tune and hopping and chanting along with like-minded strangers. Chris reminds me that to most of the world, soccer is a winter sport, so the scarves make more sense elsewhere. But no matter, on this 70-degree day scarves representing the local team are required wear. They’re part of a series of rituals in this sport that are not militaristic, but tribalistic. It is not so much standing on the ramparts watching two armies clash, but more a shoulder-to-shoulder hugging, dancing and chanting ‘round a Celtic or African tribal campfire in preparation for a gang fight. It is both more primitive and more gentile than American football. Earthier. Friendlier. Less contrived.

These are familiar rituals in the northwest. But not so much in my home state. If you’re wanting to flee conservative America, this is your homeland, whether you know it or not. I can’t see myself retiring to Florida and eating the blue-plate special of salisbury steak and overcooked green beans at a Morrison’s cafeteria, but I can see myself retiring here and eating grilled fish & clams late at a craft brewer’s tap room.

On Wednesday I confirmed our flight home and gave Micki the rundown as she headed upstairs with a cup of coffee in her hand. “Fly out of Seattle-Tacoma at 1:00, layover in Salt Lake City, then arrive in Indy at 10:23.” She smiled and shook her head, “No baby. I’m not going back. I’m staying here. You go on without me.”

We both know better. But it’s nice to fantisize about a new life in this foreign land all the same.

At The Foundling Wall

In Medieval times foundling wheels came into use in Europe. They were lazy-susan-type devices built into the outer stone wall of a church as places to abandon babies. Mothers who couldn’t afford to keep an infant or whose lives were too fractured to accommodate it’s tending could leave their child there. The baby was placed within the wheel from outside the church and then the wheel turned, transferring the child safely inside where a priest would find it. It was a way to let go of a precious burden without doing it physical harm.

The wall of the building where these devices were installed came to be known as foundling walls.

During the past two years I’ve written several times about my journey through separation and divorce, making this blog a bit of a raw diary. From the personal comments and emails I get, I know this has made some friends uncomfortable, but this organization of my thoughts and experiences has been a comfort to me, and as it turns out, to others as well.

I have been handed many books and self-help prescriptions from friends during this time, but nothing has spoken more directly to me than Thik Nhat Hans book “Reconciliation.” It’s not necessarily about reconciliation in marriage, but personal reconciliation with the inescapable realities of life.

I dog-eared a page from the book that lists the Buddha’s Five Remembrances and underlined two that struck me deeply:

“All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of a nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them. I cannot keep anything. I came here empty-handed, and I go empty-handed.”

And,

“My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.”

In the Vietnamese temple in Indianapolis where I’ve spent many Saturday mornings in the past two years, we’re called to meditate on a simple counting from 1 to 10 as a way to clear our mind of chaos. I did that for a long time, and still do. But Thik Nhat Hans called for meditating on well-wishing, compassion for others, and letting go of personal burdens. I went time and again to those two “Remembrances.” And so I’ve spent many of those meditation sessions within the towering temple, with the Buddha before me, making small mental journeys to a foundling wall in my mind to give away the things I can no longer tend. The things that are not really mine.

I made up my own rules . . . or ethics about the foundling wall.

The foundling wall is a place where you let go of a piece of yourself, a part of yourself that speaks to your soul, something you built or nurtured with love and diligence – but that has become a painful burden to you, or to others you love. No one can force you to the foundling wall. To have something taken is theft. You have to give it freely. And no one can make the journey for you. You must go to the wall of your own resolve, and you must go alone.

I am a persistent person, often persisting beyond reason and logic. During this difficult time I found myself hurt repeatedly by a two close friends. I kept trying to reclaim or nurture these fractured friendships — beyond reason and logic, blowing on the flickering embers of our connections, offering olive branches only to have them slapped from my hand or left to wither. At the same time I complicated the friendships by forcing my own weaknesses and failings against my friends’ hurtful actions. I eventually realized I needed to let go. I needed to accept that we wouldn’t really be friends anymore, but simply acquaintances. That was a hard thing to do — to accept that two people I loved and had shared so much with would not be my friends any longer.

But there was peace in letting go of those relationships. Yes, there was hurt, but also peace to be found in going to that foundling wall in my heart, ­­­ kneeling down and laying those friendships in that turret-like device, symbolically turning it and letting them go. No pronouncement is needed at the foundling wall, just resolve to love and feel compassion for those you let go.

and count to 10 . . . and count to 10 . . . and count to 10 . . .

It’s not just a Buddhist calling. I learned it first as a Christian prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

While many parents of the middle ages were no doubt driven to the foundling wall by desperation, others must have had ample time to reflect and understand that while they could physically keep and care for the child, something in the failing of their stars and their circumstances was not enough. I can’t imagine their personal journey. But I can imagine mine.

I am a carpenter of sorts. I build things. There are things in my home that I built with my own hands, like an oak porch swing. I designed it in my own mind, imagining its form, the joints, the flush-finished brass screws to be polished smooth along with the sanding of the wood. It would all be built from salvaged wood, every piece of it pulled from a dumpster or garbage can. The discarded oak chalk tray from a school where I once taught would be the back rail of the seat. A stack of half-inch oak slats pulled from a garbage can would make the seat bottom and the back. Pieces of quarter-sawn oak baseboard from a demolished house would make its armrests. Then I built it. For years my children sat there as I read to them when they were small, or they swung hard and wild with childhood friends, pumping their legs with reckless abandon, laughing, or they curled up and napped there on a long summer afternoon, or cuddled with their first love as a teenager. My friends drank beer in that swing on warm summer nights and many a thunderstorm was watched from that swinging seat while lightening crackled across Old Town.

It’s just an object made from wood no one wanted. How does something like that worm its way into your soul? But in the division of property after the divorce, it will go. It is not mine. I cannot keep it.

It is a small item in the scheme of things, but a precious child of mine none-the-less. And so in yet another way, I knelt at that foundling wall in my heart, the place I take the things I cannot keep, no matter how much I want to. And there I gave it away. It was not mine. Even though I conceived and built it, it was never really mine. At age 53 I am grown up enough  — just barely, to do such a thing – to let go of yet another piece of my identity.

and count to 10 . . . and count to 10 . . . and count to 10 . . .

But then a miracle!

An email arrived one day that said, “Why don’t you keep the porch swing? It belongs with the house.” She too has been to the foundling wall, the one in her own heart. And suddenly I find myself on the interior, receiving side of the wall while she kneels outside. I had not even imagined the easy return of this thing whose loss I had totally accepted.

But be warned: you can neither count on nor dare imagine the return of things left at the foundling wall. If you are prone to such mystical hopes and magical thinking, as I have been most of my life, then you do not belong at the foundling wall. Best keep clinging against reason to things that aren’t yours ­– that cannot be reasonably kept. Best torture yourself, your family, your friends with your senseless clinging than allow those corrosive hopes of reclamation into your mind.

There are so many people and things I have said goodbye to at the foundling wall these past two and a half years; family members, friendships, and possessions I’d nurtured with love and attached great expectation to. But that trying journey is now in the past. Regular, relatively peaceful day-to-day life surrounds me now and lies ahead as far as I can see. I knew that life once before. And it has returned to me now, in part because of the things I let go of.