Sam’s Father’s Head

Posted on by June 16, 2013

steel-i-beam-lifted-by-a-crane

When I was in my early 20’s, I helped my friend Sam move out of his condo.

There was a bunch of folks helping with the move.  We had quite a crew.

I remember that Sam’s father was helping.

He and I were carrying a couch out to the truck and when he got up in the bed of the truck to start positioning it, his head hit an I-beam that extended down from the low ceiling of the parking area.

His head hit that I-beam and the i-beam just RANG.

It was kind of like his skull had thumbed a massive tuning fork.  It was a horrible sound. Actually, that’s probably hyping it up a little.  It sounded like a big melon hitting a stainless steel table.

It was a really bad sound.

I know that if it had been me, it might have been a real vocabulary expander.  It sounded like it must have hurt a great deal.

But I’ll always remember Sam’s father’s response.

He just said, “darn it.”

And that was it.  No yelling or cussing or blaming….just a quiet and well-mannered “darn it”.

“Well mannered”….that’s the description I like the best for his response.  It was a kind and mature response that I’ve used as an example of a “good reaction to an awkward or painful situation” many times.

There are things that our own parents do during our lifetimes that we carry with us.

There are things that we carry that our friends and their families do that we also always remember.

I don’t want to have to see Sam’s Father hit his head to learn my lessons…but his response taught me something good.

It was a good lesson.

The day before yesterday, I got up early to write a couple of blog posts….

and the computer was screwed up.

So the time that I would have used to write, I used to troubleshoot and try to get the computer back up and running.

I didn’t hit my head.  There wasn’t anything painful going on.  It was a minor irritation.  It was a very minor irritation in the big scheme of things.

Even though no one else was up and could see me, I pitched my own quiet version of a desperate hissy fit.

“How could this happen?  I keep my ducks in a row…I plan and persevere.  I’m a good person…why is my computer messed up?!!”

There was probably a lot worse going on inside my head while I was working at getting my precious blog back up and heading out into the world.

Where was my “well-mannered response”?

Even though no one was up to see it, I know that I should be embarrassed about getting upset over something so minor. It wasn’t anything that deserved getting overwrought about…it was just a machine that didn’t act right.

That’s pretty common, really.

I’m glad I have the marker of Sam’s father’s response to refer to.

Now if I can just mature enough to consistently emulate it.

 

image from here.

 

 

 

the chihuahua proof fence

Posted on by June 14, 2013

beverly-hills-chihuahua-2-picture12

There’s a house on my route that caught fire a couple of years ago.

In the fire, it was gutted… but since the house could be reclaimed, they repaired it and the folks who lived there have since moved back in.

One of the things that went away after the fire happened was the fence that surrounded the house.

The posts are still there, the gate is still up and functional…it closes and latches like it used to…but there’s nothing attached to the wooden posts.

It’s nothing but a defined perimeter.

It’s just an idea of what used to be a barrier.

At this house, there’s two chihuahuas.

I feed the dogs on my route when I see them.  It’s one of the routines that get me through each day.

These dogs at this house are kind of a pain…wagging their tails when they know I’m going to give them another in a long line of bones…barking their heads off when I get out to deliver a package.  When I step out to deliver a package, it’s sometimes like they’ve never seen me before.

These two chihuahuas are not on my list of the smart dogs on the route.

One day last week, I rolled up to the box and the only chihuahua that greeted me was the younger of the two…the black one.

“Huhhh….where’s that old, dumb brown chihuahua?” I thought.

I did a quick scan around the junked cars and the trash from the house fire.

Then I saw him.  He was waiting patiently behind the closed gate, like he had a million times before when there was still something of substance between the fence posts to impede his range.

Sitting obediently like there was a purpose behind the accepted impediment.

“Oh, dude…there’s a big world out there…walk around the freaking gate, you dumb old chihuahua…”  This dumb brown chihuahua was disappointing me.

I don’t get it.  Maybe it’s just what he knows…like all those old prison movies where the old-timer says that he wouldn’t know how to make it on the outside?  The one who stays behind when the younger guys bust a move?

So there sits the brown chihuahua….safe in the familiar.

People talk about “comfort zones”, but what happens if we’re scared to bust out of our “uncomfortable zones” ?  What happens if we’re afraid to move around the latched gate? The gate of “quiet desperation”?

I know that in my own life, it’s pretty nerve-wracking to just go off and start running out the gate and into the “who knows where”.  It’s nerve-wracking to make a change…especially when other people are involved and we’re depending on each other.

But good grief….I am good at finding gates in a wide open world.  And I’m a dutiful kind of guy…if the gate has a latch, I will be sure to lock everything down tight once I get inside.

Even if it’s just a gate…and the rest of the fence has been taken down…I’ll be sure that gate is latched down completely when I get inside something familiar.

I love my job.  I love seeing these dogs and talking to the people….seeing the wildlife…experiencing the seasons.  I love having a purpose and being able to take care of my family.

I love that.

But just around that gate….the only thing still solid in a disappeared fence…there is a BIG WORLD.

That’s pretty darn exciting to me.

 

by the dark of the moon I planted

Posted on by June 13, 2013

When you are driving around by yourself everyday…the radio off and the road noise the loudest thing you hear….it’s easy to get fixated on things.

Except for your job, there isn’t a lot to do other than that.

Yesterday, I was driving and all of a sudden the line from this song…”By the dark of the moon I planted, but there came an early snow…”  popped in and wouldn’t leave.

I spent a good part of the rest of the delivery day trying to remember all the lyrics to “Wildfire”.

Some people do Sudoku to ward off dementia…I try and remember the lyrics to old songs, I guess.

Oh my gosh, this is a good song.   There’s a titanic cheese factor to it….we’ve heard it to death over the years…but what a complete scene Michael Martin Murphy paints in a relatively spare amount of lines…

She comes down from Yellow Mountain
On a dark, flat land she rides
On a pony she named Wildfire
With a whirlwind by her side
On a cold Nebraska night

If I told you that I spent a good part of the day yesterday mulling over some of these lines, you’d probably say, “ohhhh dude….you’ve got to get a life.”

I don’t know how certain things enter the “cheesy universe”…I guess that all a cliché is is some truth we’ve heard too many times to pay attention to anymore…but this song is so simple and, I think, so good.

I’ve got to really give it a good listen…reconsider what I think is cheesy.

I don’t know when I thought I got too hip to really appreciate some of these overplayed songs.

(Someone, somewhere, is thinking, “you never got hip…it must have been something else..”)

I need something now to get this song out of my head for a while….how about this video?….

That ought to do it.

 

 

 

 

 

groom me, baby

Posted on by June 12, 2013

Unkempt

I don’t think that my wife holds much hope that I’ll ever develop into a full-blown metrosexual.

I don’t really understand how she can arrive at that presumption.

I bath.  I brush.  I trim my nose hairs sometimes.  I even take my pocketknife and clean the grease out from under my nails.

How much more obsessive can I be when it comes to personal hygiene?

I guess I’m most comfortable in “scruffy dog” mode….paint spattered and wearing my oldest clothes, bearded and subconsciously unkempt….like some kind of nomadic and homeless hippy.

(“Subconsciously unkempt”….I like that.  It would be a great addition to any resume.)

But…I’m not like that.

I think that except for my lack of consciousness of grooming product use, I’m about as close to being a metrosexual as you can get without having any real skill or interest in that area.

I’m a dirtbag metrosexual, if you want to know the truth.

I’m just kidding about being a metrosexual.  I’m not really sure exactly what that entails.

I think that there’s a sweet spot that I approach where I can be scruffy enough to be able to live with myself comfortably…and presentable enough that I don’t attract any major attention in the “self-improvement appearance areas” that the people around me monitor.

“Are you going to be wearing that?”

But you can get in trouble if you think you’re beating the system by looking refined on the outside…but wearing some raggedy underwear to maintain a sense of scruffy individuality.

(They say that in the event of an accident, that wearing clean underwear should be one of your top priorities. I think that you have other things on your mind when an accident comes around.)

I like looking good.  I like it when that happens.

But what I really like is looking good on my terms.

When I’m feeling appropriately funky scruffy…and my family lets me go out into public like that…it feels like a real victory.

It’s probably a pretty hollow victory, I suppose.

Self perception isn’t always one of my strong suits.

I can be reformed, I suppose.

A starched shirt, expensive watch, a nice bottle of 75$ aftershave, some talc for the secret spots, and some polished shoes that don’t track in any chicken “leavings”…I could be as metrosexy as anyone who ever walked the face of the planet.

If I did that, though….if I went over to the “dark side”…I suppose the response would somehow still be …

“You’re going to be wearing that?!  I thought you were going to mow the lawn?”

If I can pull off this metrosexy transformation, I’ll never have to do any real work again in my life.

The hardest things I’ll have to do are requesting the offshore money transfer and calling the secretary for another double mocha latte.

I’ll be like the lady with the 5 inch fingernails that curl back on themselves and look all yellow when you can see underneath the polish and who really kind of grosses you out when you stop and think about it later….I’ll be like the lady who has to call someone over to open her can of Coke because she can’t do it with her gross yellow nails.

People will understand that, even though I’m eager and willing to do any of the dirty work required, my lifestyle choice doesn’t support it.

People will understand my new metrosexy ways.

That’s kind of exciting.  I’ll have to be sure and brush my teeth before I leave for work this morning.

 

 

accidental attainment of solitude

Posted on by June 11, 2013

http://www.dreamstime.com/-image16493464

I woke up this morning at 4 instead of my usual 5 AM.

It was something about the crusty eyed glance at my watch betraying me.  I was sure that it said 5:15….past time, past time, past time….time to get up!

And then, when I was up and pondering why it was really dark and really quiet this morning, I noticed that it was also really early.

I guess you probably shouldn’t make life plans when you still have one foot in a dream.

I pursue quiet time like it was a treasure hunt.  I love it when I can choose when it’s quiet and peaceful around me.

So this early morning accident feels pretty nice.

I’m not sure if it’s a sustainable habit, though.  I’d be pretty tired if I kept getting up earlier and earlier to grab my chunk of peace.

There is only so much time in the day.

The thing that I’ve noticed, though, is that when I’m by myself now there is always the edgy feeling of “Where’s Jenny?  Where’s the kids?” if I’m at home alone unexpectedly.

I’m too old to be pulling a Macaulay…running through the house doing that hand/mouth scream thing he popularized…but that’s what I feel like inside sometimes when I come home and no one’s here.

( The Macaulay reference is one that would be good resume padding…it inspires confidence in an adult male to picture him running through the house, hands to mouth, screaming in surprise and fear.)

macaulayThis is the classic “careful what you wish for” situation.

Sometimes it’s “ohhhhhhhhgoshhhhh…..get off my back!  Quit climbing on my back…I’m trying to get some work done…quit!  QUIT!!! I’m….I’m….”

Sometimes it’s so crazy and wild I can’t believe it.  It is the anti-quiet.

I love quiet now.

But, good grief…I do miss the noise and frenetic activity when it’s gone.  It drives me crazy to be home alone with a quiet and empty house.

I think that parents know that quiet is what we’re all hurtling towards…faster than the speed of a mis-read watch.

We’d freak out if it didn’t happen at some point….”What do you mean, you’re never leaving?  Never?!”…but in the midst of the growing up it feels like they’ll always be around to climb up on our backs at inopportune times.

We hold on to these little guys like every tomorrow meant that the supply of tomorrows was everlasting and never-changing.

Maybe that’s why it’s so frenetic…it’s so we don’t freak out when we realize how fast the time is passing?!  We’re too busy to notice that it’s all going away because we’re too busy to notice…much at all.

Once again, I’ll repeat myself and say, “I don’t really know”.

It’s quiet in my house now.  At 5 in the morning, it’s still early enough that it’s pretty quiet still.

That’s nice.

(Another aside…I am really getting into elevator music lately.  I find myself thinking, “now…that was such a nice song…I remember that song”.  What’s that a sign of?)

What was I saying?  Oh…right….the thing about quiet these days is that it reminds me of how much I miss the noise.

Noise is my reality…frenetic activity is my life.

That’s nice, too.

wheeeee….I’m alive

Posted on by June 10, 2013

fullershock7

It is raining this morning.

It is raining heavily.

Apocalyptic rain, end of days style…pounding every dry inch of this part of the world into a soggy submission.  This rain is making its mark.

I woke up this morning to the sound of this heavy rain, and my first thought was “how’m I gonna keep all that mail dry?!”

Funny how that’s part of the first round of thoughts I have for the day.  I guess my job has made its mark on me.

One of the next thoughts I had…and the one I thought I’d base this blog on…was that I sure am glad that I can feel the discomfort of delivering in inclement weather.

( From what I understand, the PO didn’t start the old saying about “rain…or sleet..or snow” and the constancy and dedication of the mailmen….mail people ….out on the routes doing the “dirty work”.  Someone else outside the situation celebrated our dedication and hard work.  It sure sounds good, though…and the post office can use some positive publicity anytime it can get it. )

My route is what is called an “H” classification now.  That means that at the last count, I didn’t have enough mail to qualify me for a “J” route or….even nicer…a “K” route.

“Uhhhhhhhh….so what does that mean?” you’re thinking.

Well, what that means is that my job is a 6 day a week commitment.  I don’t get a day off with an “H” route.

The reason I mention this is because knowing what my schedule is, the chances of running the mail in the rain are about as good as it gets.

If it rains during the week, I’ll be there.

So….rain (or snow…or sleet) can be kind of a wild card depending on how heavy it is.  It changes the nature of the days work.

It can make life interesting.

My friend Garrett introduced me to a book called On the Loose while I was working at a camp down the road from where we now live.

There is a quote in the book that I always think about during inclement weather…whether it be on a hike or at work.

The quote is:

Take shelter under the cloud, while they flee to carts and sheds. Let not to get a living be thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the land, but own it not. Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs.    Thoreau

“Take shelter under the cloud”

My “discomfort”…and it’s such a minor discomfort in the big scheme of things…is that I’m going to get a little wet today.

It is going to be awkward to keep the mail dry.

It will be awkward to work a heavy volume Monday in the rain.

But I know that every thing that is hard in my life is just another opportunity to enjoy the days that are filled with sunshine.

The contrast is what gives the good days their power to be appreciated.

It’s no great revelation to remember that…but sometimes I have to think for a second to recall that some temporary irritation is just that…an only temporary irritation.

I’ve said it before…if I was a farmer I’d be loving this rain.

But I’m a mailman with an “H” route…so I tolerate it and appreciate what it can teach me about the deeper lessons and meanings of life.

Riggghhhhhttttt.  I’m gonna get soaked.

the gentle art of appreciation

Posted on by June 9, 2013

My friend Dave posted this on his Facebook page yesterday.

I’d never had a chance to see it before….what a great performance by Heart of the classic Led Zeppelin song “Stairway to Heaven”.

Watching Heart perform the song, the thing that really struck me the most was the three remaining band members’ response to the performance.

They are really moved.

After all the fame, the wild living and road life, the attention and positive feedback…after everything that they’ve accomplished in their musical career…they are still moved by a performance like this.

I sat watching their faces during the performance, and I couldn’t help but think of Rutger Hauer’s character in the movie “Blade Runner”….

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe….”

These remaining members of Led Zeppelin are getting older…and they’ve seen things, too.

They’ve lived and experienced pretty much everything…good and bad..that the rock world offers.  They’ve lived for years with their fans’ obsessive appreciation.  They’ve had an opportunity to see just about everything in the world that could leave them jaded and unimpressible.

All the things they’ve done and seen and they’re still moved by an amazing performance.

That was pretty great….that to me was almost the real highlight of the moment.

There really is a gentle power in genuine appreciation.

No matter what our station in life, no matter what our accomplishments…we all love to be genuinely appreciated.

Not flattered, not pandered to…genuinely appreciated.

We love it.

And it’s not just a one way appreciation.

When we appreciate someone else’s acomplishments, we feed off the responses we get to our efforts.  We appreciate it when other people get pleasure from our appreciation of them.

So it’s a win win situation.

I really did appreciate getting a chance to watch these men’s response to this performance.

I appreciated seeing their joy in being appreciated so artfully.

 

 

 

graduation morning

Posted on by June 8, 2013

I’m, in typical fashion for an early bird, the only one up the morning after graduation night.

I watched our first-born child graduate last night.

It was a night of violent weather and the need for flexibility.  Kind of like a progressive supper where you eat a different dish of a multicourse meal at a number of different houses, we started on the football field and ended up in the gym to finish the ceremony…a mad dash in the rain towards the “finish line”…maybe more fitting than we appreciated at the time.

It was a progressive celebration.

I love this Mr. Rogers appearance. He encourages gratitude.  I love that.

There was a lot of love on that field…and in that gym.

These young people worked hard to arrive at this point of moving on to something new.

These children are a product of the love we feel for them…as we are the product of the love of family and friends who care for us.

The full measure of the gratitude that we should feel towards those who love us doesn’t sink in immediately.

We usually feel it when we least expect it.

I guess the important thing is that we all feel it at some point.

Our children teach us as much sometimes as we teach them.

I am grateful for my daughter.

Happy Graduation, Zoe.