You don't know until you do...

“To expect the unexpected shows

a thoroughly modern intellect.”

- Oscar Wilde

“It’s not that you are necessarily different. You are just weird,” he said.

It was the kind of comment only certain people can take as a compliment and one that only a good friend can get away with saying. I was that “…certain person…” and my friend Frank said it.

Frank and I met each other on a flight East a couple of years ago, and in spite of the fact neither one of us are particularly good at making close friends, we have managed to become such.

We have gotten into the habit of meeting once a week to hang out and find ways to ensure we have a good time. These regular encounters have included things like hiking in the desert, going to films, visiting museums, eating lunches, hanging out drinking coffee and occasionally solving complex world problems.

Friends – not easy to come by…

If I were to be honest…if we were all to be honest…there are few in our lives with whom we have become close friends. Each of us knows people we call friends, – no doubt they are – but considering the short list of those we would call in moments of peril, there are few indeed. These are the ones with whom we feel no discomfort sharing anything.

I have a very long time friend, in her sixties, who has often said, by the time we get to our ages, we really don’t have time (meaning time left in life) to become old friends with new people.

I have subscribed to that because deep friendship requires time and energy. It also calls for an indescribable rhythm that binds one to the other. That is something over which I have discovered I neither understand nor have control.

Take my old friend Dave. During the years we were in the military, we connected. When I say connected, I am uncertain what that exactly means. There was just something about the guy with which I resonated…something I certainly cannot explain.

Since those years, I suspect he and I have seen one other only a handful of times. Last summer we spent some time in West Virginia, and a few weeks ago he was here in Tucson. We talked about this very thing...the quality connection that was not matched by a quantity of interaction.

Yet, I would count him as a solid figure on the short list of folk I think of as meaningful and deep friends. Perhaps there is an explanation for this sort of thing, but for all the time I have attempted to understand causation for significant and long-lasting connections with certain people in my life, there seems no rational explanation…it is clearly above my pay grade.

Of consequence, I simply accept that Dave and five or six folk I have known, are, ‘go to’…no holds barred…filters down…people with whom I stand openly vulnerable and trusting. Knowing these people exist, in spite of the fact that none of them lives anywhere near me, is surprisingly freeing.

Additionally, I am NOT suggesting they feel the same way toward me, nor do I have that expectation.  The appreciation for them is in my mind, and that is what counts.

Expecting the unexpected...

My late colleague, mentor, and friend, Vert, used to say that life happens in the 'unguarded moments,' the times when we are focused elsewhere, and we are brought into proximity with something unexpected.

This brings me back to my new, old friend, Frank.

In truth, we have known each other a relatively short period of time, yet I have discovered I appreciate this guy about as much as anyone I have known.  He is just plain fun. He is smart, well read, and has NO PROBLEM giving me grief. In other words – a fellow who feels comfortable saying what he thinks. If you agree, fine…if not, that’s fine too. Importantly for me, the atmosphere we have created for ourselves is one of trust and respect...it is a two-way street.

To my friend’s point about not having time to make ‘new’ old friends…not long ago, I would have agreed one hundred percent.  At present, I do not.

Perhaps the God of the universe understood I needed a comrade that lived nearby. Perhaps He appreciated I needed an open dialogue with someone who has lived nearly the same length of time I have. Perhaps it is nothing more than serendipity…none of that matters.

All I know is that Frank showed up, and I'm a better man for it.

Am I weird? Probably – it's a burden with which I will simply have to live.

- ted

Gravity...time...really?

“Time is on my side, yes it is…”

- Jerry Ragovoy,

sung by the Rolling Stones

There is an image one gets as the decades roll by that most of the people you knew growing up will gently slow down and at some time step away from the busy flow of the lives they have lived. I think my parents called these the Golden Years.

When my parents said this, they had not yet reached the era of glittering gold. By the time, they entered that general period of their lives, neither one of them were healthy, and I am confident they would not have described the circumstances in which they found themselves as ‘golden.'

Perhaps, we use metaphor and euphemism as ways to blunt the potential trauma of impending old age until one day, we find ourselves in the unrelenting clutches of frailty wondering happened!

That was them…

I, for one, do not intend to go quietly into the night. In fact, I look forward to the end of my life with a certain curiosity and wonderment.  Will I, for example, even know it is happening. I certainly have no recollection of my entrance into this world and have not had the privilege of talking to anyone who has exited it. It seems to me, both the coming and going, the very cycle of life, are mysteriously unknown. It also seems strange that there is so much joy at the ‘first bookend’ and sorrow at the ‘second.’

The Roman Senator, orator, and writer, Cicero, had a lot to say about impending old age. He cites complaints about aging he regularly heard:

1.     Withdrawal from active pursuits

2.     Weakening of the body

3.     Deprivation of physical pleasure (pretty sure he meant sex here)

4.     Closer proximity to death

Active pursuits…

Cicero argues age has little to do with active pursuits, but rather it ‘allows' one to focus on things that can be done. To quote the famous (infamous?) American philosopher, Harry Callahan (Dirty Harry movies), "A man's got to know his limitations!" One might call them ‘recalibration years.

A mentor of mine is in his late eighties. He and a partner, in his mid-seventies, have just formed a medical consulting partnership. They continue to ‘lean in' in their lives, and rather than wondering what happened to them and their vigor, they are mentally busy and looking forward. Older age has not put them out to pasture, but rather refocused them on things they find stimulating. These fellows may not be '...setting the sails and repairing the decks of their ships...,' but they are wise pilots, whose years of experience now lead them to new horizons.

Weakening body…

The Roman writer says, “Such strength as a man has he should use, and whatever he does should be done in proportion to his strength.”

Unless one made a living as a laborer or sportsman, brute force is not the way most people of our generation have lived. The industrial revolution did not diminish efforts, but mechanized production and reduced the necessity of spending all of one's strength to survive.  Few people have gained sustained self-renown to those around them, through feats of physical performance – at least past a certain age – shrunken muscles to not imply a shrunken life.

Loss of physical pleasure…

A group of Centenarians living in California has been studied for some years. One fellow was interviewed while playing the piano. He was lively and still very active. When asked by the reporter what he missed the most at this time of life, he answered without hesitation and a twinkle in his eye: “Sex. I miss sex!” 

Cicero and other philosophers suggest the loss of physical passion was a relief to them. Their emotions had gotten them into a myriad of problems in their lives, and while, as the Californian centenarian suggested, they missed it…it was no longer a distraction for them, allowing better focus on the things they could do.

Death’s door…

In recent years, I have found I am looking forward to the end with an increasing curiosity. It is a paradox, as suggested earlier in this piece that we embrace birth with joy and excitement, but fear and do everything we can to avoid death. Billions of us have emerged and departed this momentary experience we call life. Both of these experiences are a part of the natural order of things.

Little doubt, the ‘space suit' in which we live is less robust and resistant to the elements, ‘we' – the creatures that inhabit this clothing – gain insight...gather experience...develop skills and are exposed to things that bring an ever-ascending appreciation for the gift of life. We may be, as my frequent companion Mark Aurelius says, nothing more than a brief ‘wet spot' in the course of time - it is our wet spot!! 

The conclusion of the matter…

Here are the simple elements Cicero suggests for a quality aging experience:

1.  Practice moderate exercise

2.  Take enough food and drink to restore strength, but not overburden it

3.  Take greater care for the soul and body, for they too like lamps, grow dim if not “…kept them supplied with oil…”

a.  Physical exercise may cause fatigue, but intellectual activity gives buoyancy to the mind

These are pretty simple ideas that found on the website of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), or any health oriented materials for senior citizens.

Cicero summarized his thoughts by saying, "…senile debility, usually called dotage, is a characteristic, not of all old men, but only of those who are weak in mind and will.”  In other words, we are creatures of thought and this is where we live.

This time of life as I prepare to enter the final year of my sixth decade, are the best I have ever lived. Moderate exercise, sensible food/drink, and the attempt to keep ‘...oil in the lamp...,' have provided a quality within the context of diminishing capabilities.

Golden? I don’t know about that. Excellent? No doubt.

- ted

Alphabets to novels...

“There are no shortcuts to excellence.”

- Anonymous

I'm working on a novel, and a mentor is dying – an interesting juxtaposition.

The novel…

Over the past couple of years, I’ve published some of these blogs in the form of two books: life in small bites: moments in time, and life around the edges: a winding road. Weekly writing has been mostly pleasurable, sometimes stressful, but always…in all ways helpful for me…a way to make note of the things I see…verbal photographs that remind me there is such a variety in the human experience.

Now I’m trying, with “…help from my friends…,” to create something with a longer narrative…more words…broader storyline. It’s a mystery – we’ll see.

Thinking about this project has made me ponder about how getting to the point of writing begins, indeed how anything takes shape in our lives. Our education commences with the smallest of elements; in the case of writing, the letters of the alphabet.

I learned the alphabet to music when I was in kindergarten. It is hard to imagine how excited I was to sing ‘a to z' for my mother. She too was excited. I cannot remember how many times we sang it together. That woman was supportive of just about everything I learned and shared with her.

Single letters led to words and sentences, then to paragraphs, all in the process of learning a ‘new' language…the language of written communication. It was bumpy at first. Copying sentences into my ‘writing book' took time. There was cursive and then something called printing. Printing?! Wait a minute; this was too much of an overload…and yet, over time on my way to ‘…Carnegie Hall…’ (you know, the way to get there is practice, practice, practice), I learned both of these difficult ways to communicate and the process became smoother.

As the years passed, I hated those writing assignments, not because I didn’t have the mechanics of the process down, but because my brain was empty and writing took effort and time and research and appropriate grammar and…well, it was painful, as I suppose it is for most people.

Then, one day I realized when I had something to say, writing was an excellent way to say it. In fact, it became a mechanism for self-exploration and reflection. I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of words on a written page it took before I came to realize that writing was a way to free myself…to lose time in the midst of the process of self-expression. Yes, thanks to all of those teachers who forced the assignments and graded all those papers…thanks to all the people to whom I wanted to share the adventures of my life…thanks to those who I met only once…thanks for permitting the ‘draw’ of ‘…get to…’ rather than the ‘push’ of ‘…have to…’

For all of the adventures and self-contemplation, writing has become one of the most important tools I possess.

So the novel is underway.

The mentor…

There are lots of other ‘alphabets’ in life, small elements that require hours of repetition. The argument could be made that every unique thing we learn requires practice.  The Chinese proverb often attributed to Benjamin Franklin says:

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and

I may remember, involve me and I learn.”

If we were to take the time to think about it, we would be reminded there are any number of women and men who worked to teach and involve us in activities that made the quality of our lives better.

Edward Baker was one of those people in my life. I have written about some of the men and women who influenced me in the early stages of my life. People who, by simply being themselves, helped me move forward when I didn’t have the internal strength or vision to see the horizon ahead.

In my adult life, Baker filled that role. I have previously mentioned a thirty-year period that I spent in a spiritual community.  My time in this group began the mid-70s at the time I was finishing a Ph.D. and continued as my professional life began and came maturity. It came a few years after having been in Vietnam and leaving the military. There was a ‘…long tail…' on those years in the army that were both edifying and troubling.

When I met Baker, I was in troubled waters. At the time, I had no idea the next three decades would be spent in his presence. He grew up on a farm, took carpentry as a trade and for reasons known only to God and the universe, became a student of the Biblical Scripture. While he had little formal education, he was the most biblically knowledgeable person I ever met.

When I arrived, I fit the definition of unstable, reflected by the Biblical writer James when said, “He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.”

Baker asked me, early on, what I thought I might like to get out of the teachings of this ministry. I was, of course, intrigued by the Bible, but I said that I wanted more than anything to become a mature human being.

Over the next three decades, this man laughed with me, cried with me, held me when I needed comfort and taught me more about the scripture, enriching my relationship with the creative God of the universe, than anyone I had ever known. His work ethic and drive defied description. When he wasn’t sleeping, eating, teaching or preaching, he was studying.

Baker retired from the ministry somewhere around late 2005 or 2006, and by then I had moved away from the community and Missouri. I only heard from him sporadically after that.

The point…

Now, I am working on a mystery novel.

There is, however, a different novel, written with a different alphabet – the living story of who I am. In these latter years, a lot of chapters have already been written and are stored on the hard drives of my mind. I am sure there will be more to come, but I would be negligent were I not acknowledge this man’s hand on an enormous part of that material.

As he approaches his final breath, his story complete, a myriad of experiences flood my mind. I am honored to have known him during those years, and for all that he taught me.

While I mourn his departure from this mortal coil, the life he worked to place in my mind remains alive and well, and will continue until I, at last, depart from mine.

- ted

Home alone...

"If you are lonely when you are alone,

you are in bad company."

- Jean-Paul Sartre

Most of us are home this week. That would be Leah, Hannah, Sarah and me – four/fifths of the household…80%, as it were. The 4/5ths ratio is not uncommon here, but I am usually the 20% that is away.

Yep, most of us are here this week, and one would think when the house is almost full, things would run right on schedule. I mean, we all eat and drink and digest and do personal things…although it is true that this week I have the responsibility for most of what happens in the house. I have been mindful that outside of long morning and afternoon naps between which the girls find their way to the powder room, things are not always as they seem.

If it were not for the cats, I would be alone in the house while Molly is on holiday visiting her brother in Tulsa. She and her brother Mark are very close. They call one other often, just because they feel like it. No weekly, predetermined schedule, just whenever the spirit or some idea they want to share, strikes them, they make a call. It happens pretty frequently.

I was, however, talking about the ratio of cats to humans and the running of the household. 

A side, but related step…

Over the years of our marriage, Molly and I have moved a number of times. I suppose our first apartment doesn't count, because we started with nothing, but the first house in Missouri required transporting a fair number of things we had accumulated. Decades later it was to Detroit, Michigan, and a few years after that San Diego, California. Five years on the West Coast ended when we moved to Oro Valley, Arizona nearly three years ago.

All these changes in location, from the beginning, seemed to go remarkably smoothly. All of the moves that is, except the most recent one from San Diego to Oro Valley.

One might make the argument that getting to the desert was harder, because Molly and I are no longer spring chickens, and that time and gravity naturally had begun to take their toll. One would be wrong and could not be further from the truth!

The move to Oro Valley was the hardest of the bunch because this time, I actually participated in the activity! Sure, I was part of the family in earlier years, but I traveled a lot and wasn't always around when the planning and packing happened.  Things just got done, and when things ‘just got done,' I did not appreciate what it took to get them done. I thought moving was kind of a straightforward and fairly easy process.

I realized in coming to Arizona that actually somebody has to make things happen, and in the past, that somebody was Molly. This time, I was an active part of the process, and realized it was a heck of a lot of work!

Back to the cats.

Cleanliness and godliness…

I do have some minor duties with our small clan of felines, mostly the morning shift of cleaning litter boxes and changing absorbent floor pads, the presence of which are needed because our dear geriatric family often indelicately ‘miss the mark' in the boxes and spray outside the contained litter. Yep, clean the boxes in the morning and move on with my day. 

What I did not fully appreciate is that this litter monitoring deal happens several times a day, not just in the morning and at night. As it turns out, 'no cat odor' in the house is NOT an accident!

Putting out the eats…

Then, of course, there are the early morning wake-up calls. Molly is the 'go to human' for breakfast. If she is not up when they think she should be, the three of them, all using, what I believe to be conspiratorial methods, make sure she gets out of bed and opens the restaurant.  Leah knocks things off the side table…Sarah gets in her face and occasionally licks her hair…and Hannah? Well, she just howls in the living room as though she is in the final throes of end stage starvation.

I usually sleep through Hannah, because I have not been prepped by the other two girls as they break moments of Molly's contented reverie through their unrelenting tactics.

I have fed the girls any number of occasions, and administered insulin to Sarah our diabetic, but there are other regular daily/weekly injections for her. Leah requires oral pain medication on a daily basis to help her with chronic low back pain resulting from a spontaneously fused lower spine, that causes a stiff and sometimes painful gait.

It turns out, there's a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes!

It is all about me…

With Molly gone for a few days, it doesn't take rocket science for the girls to figure out I am now the 'go to' restaurateur. My surrogate morning duties now include breakfast, appropriate injections and the provision of mid-morning and evening snacks. I have also come to appreciate that these cats can't be fed the same food for every meal. If that happens, up go their noses, and they just walk away - Sheesh!

If one had asked me whether taking care of three cats was much of a burden, I would have said, "Naw…cats pretty much take care of themselves."  What I did not fully appreciate is the work it takes for our group of gently aging companions, to live and enjoy the life to which they, and we, have become accustomed.

Me? I love these girls, but my joy in seeing Molly walk back through the door will be enhanced when she reassumes the routine she has created. Also, she will return with increased respect for the way she gives the appearance that taking care of our little family just happens.

I wonder what else goes on around here that I don't fully appreciate?

ted