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Future Clogs & Such Things

Gray surface

Neighbors are great for impromptu chats, standing in the street with dogs, with trash bags, with full bottles of wine (I had a French neighbor once).

Dave noticed the pipes that had just shown up running along my fence, down the garden, and letting out onto the sidewalk.

“Ar those 4-inchers?”

“No clue.”

“Those look like 4-inchers.”

My expression must have given me away.

“You want 6-incher for drainage. 4-inchers might clog.”

I looked at the shiny white piping snaking up the garden, running along the garage roof, behind the steps, and disappearing into the ground.

And then, without really trying to, I summed up a bit of my life philosophy, the thing that keeps my hair from going grey, that keeps me sleeping so deep at night.

I tapped the end of the 4-inch pipe with the toe of my sneaker and looked up at Dave.

“I guess I don’t worry about what could go wrong.”

Dave’s eyes got wide.

“Wow. I wish I was like that.” Thank god for Dave’s reaction. He made me feel proud, not foolish. But, come to think of it, fools can be proud. And they’re smarter than smart people, depending on your metric.

“It’s draining well enough,” I said. “If I gotta dig it up and repipe it in 5 years, worrying about it now ain’t going to do me any good.”

And that was the end of it.

I’m not able to do this sort of mind-shift with all things, but with pipes I guess I can. Of course, the drawback is I end up not being ready for some of the stuff that comes at me, like, say, a clogged pipe in 5 years.

But having fewer worries overall seems like a pretty good tradeoff. And I had a good laugh with the Guatemalan guys who dug the trench and actually met one of their kids, who came to watch.

To do the math, I get 5 good years of no headache in return for 2 (possible) days of headache.

If, in fact, the pipe clogs.

Which it may.

But it might not.

—-

Huh.

I did my best.

I’m good with that.

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Batten Down The Hatches

For the first time in 5 years, I didn’t write a blog post.

Nothing occurred to me. And when Sunday night rolled around, and I had nothing in the queue, I just sort of shrugged and wrapped myself in a blanket.

No real accomplishments to speak of. Not many thoughts. I’ve just been going about my day, doing one task and then another. Not cooking anything interesting, not writing, not reading, no podcasts, not veering off the same neighborhood loop when I take Ziggy for a walk.

I’m not even dreaming.

I’m on autopilot: trying to line up work for myself, trying to help other people find work, people who seem as dazed and empty as me.

It’s not depression. It’s something else.

Yesterday, my daily drift took me into the backyard, where I power-washed our inflatable waterslide, then dried it by hand. It took 10 towels.

From there, I put the umbrellas away, swept the leaves, brought in the hammock, took down the silk and trapeze, tucked the bikes under the shed…

In a sense, removing fun and relaxation from all corners of our yard. Not the best feeling, but a requirement. It’s winter and there’s a storm coming.

How fucking appropriate.

A storm coming…

We certainly have something looming on the horizon.

Half of the country thinks it’s the end of democracy. The other half is glad they didn’t lose.

Both halves know we’re in for complete and total disruption. That’s what we’ve been promised. And whether we cry or cheer, that’s what’s going to happen – disruption. There’s already a blueprint. We’ve been shown the brochure.

The storm is coming.

A storm is coming, and we’re all just drifting around like kindergartners looking for our moms at the mall. Some of us expecting to find her, others well past hope but still moving about.

I’m wondering if I did enough.

Do I need to clean the gutters? Bring in the patio cushions? How strong will the winds be?

People speak of the calm before the storm, but it doesn’t feel calm at all.

There’s a rhythmic up-and-down motion of the sea that keeps me uneasy. There’s a low rumble in the earth.

I know for certain that If I look out to the horizon, I’ll see the waves, that if I lay my ear to the ground, I’ll hear the beginning of an earthquake.

But I don’t do these things. And I don’t talk about it.

I just put my broom away and go inside.

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The Disappearance of Truth

Ice pieces in water

We live in a world where people tell you they didn’t say something they said, even if you have a video of them saying it. And people make videos of you saying things you didn’t say.

Sadly, there are plenty of people — people with great power — who are awful enough to want to do these things to us for as long as it takes to gain more power.

Truth is gone.

Like an island sinking or (a more apt metaphor) a glacier breaking apart, its pieces drift away from each other.

Instead of one agreed-upon place of truth — newscasts, universities, libraries — we have the Internet, we have social media, which guide us into earshot of hundreds of unvetted mouthpieces telling us different stories. Our part in this? In the same way we regard religion: we assume the story that we are told is the right one.

To be a writer of history, an authoritative voice that is followed, you need not be qualified; you need not be well-read; you need not have lived through the experience you’re covering or talked to anyone who has; you need not be divine.

You need only be compelling to watch.

Our esteemed storytellers’ top credentials have become charisma. No, not even that. Just, spectacle. Giving us something that’s hard to stop watching.

The jesters have taken over the castle while the King is off somewhere in a separate wing, under a stack of blankets, coughing and wheezing, bruised and beaten.

We’ve pummeled Knowledge to death through our nonchalant tapping of “like” and “subscribe” buttons.

Unfortunately — and it hurts even to write this — a single, trusted Truth will never return.

You can’t put a glacier back together.

There is no boat coming. The people with boats, they all own houses, and fireplaces, and heated indoor swimming pools with faux-fiberglass icebergs. They make the videos. They make the buttons. They edit our minds.

And we, the masses who far outnumber the architects, we’re dying of cold.

Our only hope of survival, as we stand alone on these drifting pieces of ice, is selfless, even ridiculous, acts that make no sense.

Jumping into the water.
Breaking off a piece of our iceberg and leaving it behind.
Fishing with our hands.
Screaming at the top of our lungs.
Diving deep deep deep down into the cold.

For, it is only through these ridiculous acts that we may find each other.

In chaos, there can still be kindness.

And kindness is, and always will be, the kindling that generates hope.

Perhaps, under this murky, ice-cold water, tangled up in the subterranean roots of an unknown species we’ve yet to discover, there is an ingredient we all need, perhaps the drifting is how we will find it.

Or perhaps, even more far-fetched than that, if we all begin to scream and swim, we will eventually hear each other, and that will be enough to make us move in the right direction: toward, not away.


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The Day After Today

Silhouette of golden gate bridge during golden hour

The dark cloud has been over us for so long, I think we’re used to it.

Even when it’s sunny, it’s not really as sunny as it used to be.

But all of that can change.

Some decisions are hard, but not the ones where love is all the way on one side.

I’m tired of the hate.

Tired of the hate.

Ready for that cloud to pass.

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More White Space

Flowers and frame

Ironically, it’s the absence of words on a page that makes people read the words.

It’s the white space between these lines that makes you want to read the next one.

Designers call this “visual rest.”

We could stand to do this more in conversation:

add

a

little

white

space.

When it comes to two people in a room, we need conversations, not soliloquies.

And if there are three of you in that room and one is doing all the talking, while they go on with their yap, stop and look at the other person.

No eye-rolling, just eye contact.

And not a glance, something longer than that, hold it there and stay with them. You’re in the same boat.

The eyes can say a lot — they can whisper and they can scream — particularly during a shared experience.

If you truly want to connect with someone, if you want them to come back to you with something new, don’t fill the space.

Create it.

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A Little Light Left

Light through hole in dark room

Her church was the first to call.

“She’s forgetting things.”

It was sort of blamey, at least that’s how I took it — me, one of two sons, 22 hours away. Or two flights and a long shuttle ride, which has to be coordinated ahead of time.

The last time I went, I got to step into her routine, rigid and repetitive; it’s the only thing she has, really – the routine. Roast beef and yogurt sandwiches every day. Leg cramp pills four times a day. Free bus ride to the grocery store twice a week, church on Saturday and Sunday, post office (less and less), free coffee and cookie at the bank on Friday. It’s a life, not one I’d want to have, but she claims she’s happy. That’s what she tells me on the phone, after she talks about the leg cramp pills and her roast beef sandwiches.

“Really? After you take the pills, the cramps just go away?”

When I was there, I tried to take her to our favorite pizza place, the one with sawdust on the floor and my initials etched in the table, but she freaked out. I felt like an idiot, like Tom Cruise in Rainman, taking this scared person somewhere for my own benefit… to reminisce.

Is that the definition of selfishness? Asking a woman who’s losing her memory to reminisce.

What the hell was I thinking? That we’d sit on the benches and look for my initials? No, it’s over here. No, I swear it’s on this one. Remember how we used to play pinball?

She bolted out the door, not out of anger, so much as panic. Once in her apartment, we nestled back into her routine. Ah, the routine. CNN in the living room. Yogurt sandwich offered. Sun setting.

So now its the bank calling. Same concerned, blamey tone, at least that’s how I took it. But they were nice. They didn’t have to do it.

“We’re worried about her.”

Yeah, no shit.

How do I tell them she’s difficult, that you don’t just convince her to do things, that she’s adamant about no nursing homes, that I’ve been trying to get someone to visit her apartment for months, that she’s always been hard to be around, that she’s pushed away just about everyone that’s ever been in her life?

I think about another plane ride, of the long ride from the airport, the weird hello in the doorway like she sorta knows me but is a little suspicious of this friendly guy with the stories. We’d sit on her balcony, drink Budweisers, listen to her tell me about the parking long across the street. No more drug dealers and thank God they painted…

What the hell am I gonna do up there? I’ll tell her what needs to be done, and she’ll say she ain’t gonna do it. Or she’ll just get quiet.

And then I’ll tell her again…cuz that’s my role now.

It’s like we’re standing in front of a door that’s closing, and there’s barely any light coming out of it, and she’s not doing anything about it.

Maybe if I fly up there, I can wedge my foot in, I can wedge it in enough to pry it open.

But let’s be honest, I don’t want to go in there. I’m afraid of what’s inside. Like, real afraid.

And that’s the awful part. I do nothing and it’s bad, but I do something and it’s worse.

It’s no wonder I keep doing what I’m doing: feeding her cues and pretending she’s okay, or at least maybe she’s staying at the same level of not-okay.

Hey mom, It’s Cliff, your son in Oakland. Yeah, the one who bought you the TV. No way. Really? The pain just goes away? Just like that? That’s crazy.

It’s sad. It’s weak.

But at least I know what comes next.

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A Light In the Room, A Kind Voice When It Matters

Everyone loves Molly.

If you’ve met her, then you agree.

We can’t walk a block without some serendipitous meeting. Yesterday, we were in a HomeGoods parking lot 3 cities away, and we ran into someone cutting across the credit union drive-thru. She gets along with everyone. Her commitment to making you feel important is unparalleled.

She Cares with a capital C.

Indeed, she got a degree in Caring.

One of the joys I have as a work-from-home dad is that I get to eavesdrop on Molly making calls to clients. Her job requires that she check in with senior citizens and dependent adults to make sure they’re taken care of and to evaluate their cognitive state.

The task itself is a series of questions that make up a formal psych assessment. It’s quite clinical, but the way Molly delivers it, you wouldn’t even know the person’s being evaluated.

The work is invisible.

She turns a cut-and-dry checkup into casual I’ve-known-you-my-whole-life conversation, where the questions are almost a parenthetical aside, not the main event. In passing, I hear talks of WWII, gay pride, civil rights, old department stores, shipyards, the Depression, hiking the Himalayas, walking the Pettus Bridge, pie baking, tree trimming, race car driving, Wall Street trading, county fairs, and pig-roasting barbecues.

You can tell the person feels heard. And you can tell Molly’s having as much fun as they are.

One time, I was in the sunroom watching TV with my daughter, and Molly was doing her thing on the phone. I grabbed the remote and turned the TV down.

“Listen,” I said. “Listen to mom.”

Hazel stopped and looked at me, excited to have a directive she didn’t quite understand.

“Do you hear mom’s voice? Listen to it. Really listen.”

Hazel had that faraway look in her eye that kids have when they’re really listening.

Here that? That’s kindness in action.”

It’s profound: a lesson we can all learn. This person on the other end of the phone, who has most of their life behind them, who is mostly overlooked by the majority of society, is being treated with such respect and reverence. To Molly, every client is royalty; every person matters.

She sneaks in her questions. From the mmm hmms and yes, yesses I can tell she’s jotting down notes on the lined notebook next to her laptop. I turn the TV back up. Hazel gives me a thumbs up.

You see, I told you. Everyone loves Molly. Even people who just met her, people in other cities and counties who picked up the phone to listen to a stranger, even those folks, by the end of a 20-minute call, they love Molly too.

It’s impossible not to.

—

Happy Birthday, babe. You’re the best.

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The Message

Hazels Ceiling Fan

I’m reading a book in bed with my 8-year-old. It’s meant for 9-year-olds, but that’s not why I’m reading it to her. I’m reading it because it’s one of the only books my 18-year-old (the older one) liked. And I never read it with her. It was her mom who read that one.

But I always wondered about that book, so I sort of forced the on Hazel; she’s the 8-year-old.

It’s written well. It’s about grade-schoolers, probably 4th or 5th grade. Hard to tell. Anyway, I’m reading it, and there’s this part where a girl runs out of the classroom because she’s being made fun of by the other students, and a teacher, the good teacher, follows her out to the swing set and he patiently stands there while she cries and wipes snot away with her shirtsleeves.

And it’s right at this part where my voice, for some reason, gets lost in my throat a little bit, like I just realized I’m in front of a crowd.

I try to prevent myself from blinking because I know how a single blink can release a tear. Hazel and I are so close, laying there on the bed together, she’ll definitely see it.

I keep reading, knowing that these words were read before and loved before, loved by my 18-year once a 10-year old — that 18-year-old who is absolutely brilliant but has always hated reading, HATED reading, vowed never to do it if she could help it+, and more or less stuck with that premise.

The girl on the swing, back in the book, she says this thing she’s been keeping inside, the thing that drove her out of the classroom. She wants to tuck it back down, away from her teacher, away from the schoolyard, but in time, there’s just no more room to hide such things.

And these words she spoke, they had to be in my daughter’s brain at some point, had to have crossed her mind.

“I can’t read, okay! I can’t read!”

And I am floored.

I love this part, the part of the teacher standing there silently as a witness, knowing that this moment is changing a life.

I feel every single word in my throat as I read them to Hazel, still hoping she doesn’t notice that her old man is somewhere else, not because I don’t want her to know but because I don’t want her to stop me. I want us to keep reading. I want to live in that schoolyard, stand near that swing, bear witness, reach out to a part of a girl that is hated by the other parts. Be there now, where I wasn’t before.

The teacher is great. He does everything right: patient, soft, kind. I wish I had had this moment but it’s his, and I can only borrow it. And honestly, that’s good enough because few things are as immensely spectacular as a dad’s love… Something so great it can outwit time. Reading this book, being this teacher, I’m reaching into a place where things are stored forever, where emotions travel millenia, where there is always an open door to put things because they are the right things.

As I read, I know it’s a moment that never happened for me but I feel like it did. I feel like I’ve already uttered these words, or maybe was meant to.

You’re not stupid.
You’re an incredible artist.
You’re good at math.
You’re good at telling stories.
You just think differently, that’s all.
You see the world differently.

You have dyslexia.

I say these things, along with the teacher, exactly as the teacher, feeling the vibrations in my throat, the texture of the pages, the soft mud of the ground beneath the swing.

It’s weird, as if the thoughts of a 10-year-old, now 18-year-old, somehow slid free and fell into the book, then laid there patiently in the crease for 8 years…

And the teacher waited.

And the schoolyard waited.

And the child running to the swing waited, held onto her secret, while I went through all the things: making lunches, checking math homework, praising artwork, driving there and back, patting her leg on the ride home after the school kids laughed at her spelling on the blackboard.

It makes no sense, but it’s undeniable: this love I’m having for the girl on the swing, this resonance with the tall, lanky teacher.

Like a wire traveling all the way from Massachusetts to California, all the way from 5th grade to college, and back home again.

It’s like she’s talking to me, her ghost or her spirit, something that isn’t burdened by time.

It’s powerful, this moment. Inexplicably powerful.

Hazel’s eyes are closed; there is a peace on her face that fits so well, I start sobbing.

I draw a line down the crease of the book with my finger, close it, and leave it on my chest, rising up and down with my breaths. I look up at the ceiling fan; its pattern becomes a song.

Whirrwhirrrwhirrwhirr Whirrwhirrrwhirrwhirr Whirrwhirrrwhirrwhirr

On my back, so deep in my thoughts I’m not even sure if I’m speaking out loud.

But I’m speaking.

I got the message, girl. Don’t worry about nothing. Daddy got it.

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The Dark Place

Landscape photo of forest

I founded my company on optimism. It’s who I am.

But even the BrightSide gets dark now and then.

And when it does, I try my best to welcome the darkness. It’s coming whether you want it to or not. There’s much to discover in the darkness.

But it’s not a place to spend a lot of time, it’s not a good place for analysis, it doesn’t lend much in the way of problem-solving.

When I’m in the dark place, I try to avoid planning or dreaming because dreams that are built in the dark place never unfold the way you wish them to; you always seem to build down, down down, deeper into the earth, instead of up into the sky.

The dark place darkens everything, even the way out.

And it’s hard to hold on when you can’t see the exit.

But hold on, you must, for you’re in the middle of your work, and, though it seems impossible, the sun will come back, not because you deserve it and not because of some cosmic justice, but for the simple fact that the world is turning.

How comforting.

Don’t solve. Don’t plan. Don’t ponder. There’s a better time for that.

When you’re in the dark place, just get through.

Change starts in the dark, seeds germinate in the gound, but nothing truly blooms without the light.

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Achievement of the Day

instagram: _juanmay

Ours is a species driven toward accomplishment. We often hinge good-feeling on getting things done, we push relaxation to come after something else. The beer tastes better after mowing the lawn. (Makes me want to mow the lawn lol).

This is a good way to live: a productive way to live. Do the thing, then seek reward.

But when I’m at my best, when I’ve got that fleeting feeling that I’ve figured it all out, it’s enough just to put on a pair of warm socks, drink tea, listen to the sounds that already exist around me, and think about the good things in my life, then, now, and tomorrow.

As easy as this is to do, this is often the hardest thing for us to do.