sounds familiar

Nine years ago I wrote about a late-night wakeful moment of deep appreciation of our first house.

What I was attempting to convey then was my prideful appreciation of something owned, a luxuriating in lordship over our domain. Taking advantage of an alone and quiet moment to indulge in the comfort of a place that, because you’ve settled into it and have touched all its cracks and pores, feels perfectly sized for you, matched exactly to your needs.

I like when this happens – when you develop a love for precisely the thing you have because you have it and not a different thing. A kind of irrational love that persists even when a different thing is objectively better. My old sun-beaten, curled and creased leather hat that I’d not trade for a new one. Things that take on the value not only of their construction or creation, but of the living that has happened in them or with them or through them.

I used to tell Sharaun that I never wanted to move from that first house, I said that if we ever reached a point where we had the idea we’d outgrown it we needed to instead check our materialism and re-discover a satisfaction in the magnitude of our blessing. We did move, and for reasons, but I still remember that feeling of connection and satiation – thankful for having what we needed and proud to not have more than that.

Our new home here in Florida tickles that second bit for me, the part of me that is arrogant about living within means and not overdoing it. The home/inhabitants symbiosis I wrote about feeling that night nine years ago will take time, but that “this is all we need because it’s what we have” sentiment is definitely there.

Peace, hugs, happy last day of 2019.

For a long time I’ve wanted to write a book.

In 2020 I would like to accomplish that.

I began yesterday with a very rough outline. The book wants to be about the slow-bloom of my midlife crisis: The things that happened, the choices we made, experiences had, and lessons learned. At least that’s what it wants to be about today.

My coach/mentor told me, before we left on our year-long trip, “You need to write during the trip; take notes. Then, the year following your trip, you should write a book. Use the writing you did and the time you’ve had to reflect on what you’ve learned.” She knows I’ve always wanted to write a book.

I did write on the trip – I think I did a good job at that. But it takes me a long time to process what I’ve learned so I wasn’t ready yet to begin something substantial. I have to talk about it (a lot) and write about it (over and over again). Once I’ve done that enough to where it’s part of my story, I’ve usually decided and internalized what I learned. I think I’m there… and I think it’s time to try.

Part of the process, I think, is continuing to write here, also. Like keeping the grease packed around the bearings.

Later.

Among the many new threads of thought that I’ve had in the wake of Mom’s recent passing is my realization that the notion of what and where “home” changes over one’s life.

I hadn’t given it much thought, but what I’ve called “home” has changed over the years. As a kid it was easy, but it changes as you grow up, move out, marry, move away, have kids & visit grandparents – wherever they may be. There’s a “home” for my family (spouse and progeny), there’s a “home” where I came of age, and there’s an important “home” that isn’t a place but instead a proximity – wherever your parents are, that’s also a form of “home.”

I thought: Where is “home” now? Where do you go for Thanksgiving and Christmas when that magnetic north is gone? And then I thought: There is a new and different freedom to be explored here. There is also a torch-passing, a conferrence of eldership and family stake. I think also that there is much to learn about living in this new era, and what responsibility is conferred.

Peace & love.

It’s coming together, this new house.

There are things I’d like to do, but they are improvements as opposed to fixes, desired not required. Get the ceiling redone as smooth vs. this post-popcorn texture; redo the floors; replace some fans and lights. But all of this is indulgence, and not necessary.

It’s good, too, that we got the place in working order. Money is not what it was in California. I guess I haven’t talked about it much, but the move to Florida meant a deep, but voluntary, pay cut. Ah but “pay cut” sounds so violent and helpless, and this is something we did willingly in surrender, so let’s instead maybe call it a “transaction of time and money.”

I feel a pride, and with it the guilt I almost always feel alongside any pride, for making that transaction. Or, I want to feel a pride. I want to be proud that, in opting to leave money and status for time with family I did a noble thing. Yet here I am, making less money and having less status, spinning wheels trying to measure the resultant increase in “family time.”

You know how you know things are a certain way, that they are true and that a situation is as you know it to be, yet you still act as if you don’t know it? It’s not about acknowledging that reality, it’s about permitting yourself to be satisfied. That’s where I struggle. Not in happiness, which I have in spades, but in doneness – the satisfaction of completion. Always bothered by having not yet arrived at some contented state of finished, when once can finally relax and be mindful of the present.

It’s just another part of what I wrote yesterday about learning to live in a state of transition – just phrased another way. To not be seeking some future “job well done” place, to instead be happy with the last breath, most recent beat of the heart, or the comfortable temperature in the room.

“What greater wealth is there than to own your life and to spend it on growing?”

If you can name it, you can work on it, right? I’m working on it.

Mom joined Dad on Friday, around noon California time.

John and I imagined him waiting for her, asking her sarcastically, “What took you so long?,” with a cold Heineken in-hand for her, to match his own.

Near the end she talked about how badly she wanted to see him again. How it was what she wanted most, how she wasn’t afraid. At one point she remembered Dad’s concern with all things God near the end of his life, saying that she had prayed to God that he let her join him, that he let her go.

Pat welcomed me to the “orphan club,” noting that the initiation sucks. It does. Like I started writing about the day before Mom passed, it feels like a new era. As if to echo my own sentiment, my long-time mentor’s response when I informed her was, “There is a maturity that comes with this phase of life that I think you will enjoy a lot.” I liked those words a lot, read and re-read them, and I think they may have helped me realize something…

For me, this whole thing, this five year happening bookended by the losses of Dad and Mom, is about learning to tolerate uncertainty. No I I don’t mean to say it was engineered to teach me a lesson; I mean that’s what I’m supposed to be learning from it. To be able to weather ambiguity, to be OK with not-knowing, to drift directionless with confidence, not flailing at flotsam.

I don’t know how much I’ve improved. Dad, the RV trip, the big change, Mom… it seemed foregone… I mean we lived for a year with no agenda and no direction. It was bliss. We made a conscious decision to chase family and togetherness instead of promotions and salary. It was wise. But did I get better at living in the the between space? Jury is still out.

Maybe I’m being naive, after all I just got out of my first five-year class on the subject. Maybe the real learning comes after the object lesson, after being pushed from the nest? They may be gone, but I’m happy to let them continue to sharpen me.

Miss you Mom and Dad, love you.

The point in life where you’ve lost both of your parents is an important one.

This cord which has biologically tied me to my past; the physical forms – gone. Wheeled out and whisked away and never more tangible.

It seems a true end to a phase I wasn’t even aware I was in; a clear division in time; bookends to an epoch. A point where you are now truly on your own.

I’m realizing that the death of my parents, though two separate things in chronology, is really a single period of time in my life. A five-year happening. The death of my dad, our year-long sabbatical & subsequent life change, and the death of my mom. I can see it now for a single event; a complete evolution with a start and a middle and an end.

It stared with my realization that losing my dad, though I was prepared for it, impacted my life in ways I hadn’t been cognizant of. I’m convinced this event had bearing on changes to my attitude towards my career and my family. Under cover, not in the conscious open, my dad’s death worked in my mind. Losing dad changed everything, but it took me this long to recognize it.

Mom’s imminent passing will no doubt also drive change.

“Everything looks junky.”

That’s what Keaton says about Florida.

“It’s all dirty and broken-down. It’s not like California.”

No, it’s not like California.

At least, not like the thirty square miles of California that our kids, in their limited exposure, assume is wholly representative of California. The manicured, whitebread suburbs and master-planned communities with convenient parks and shopping and schools, where all the stucco and paint are new and clean and the grass and ornamental plants are trimmed. The HOAs that keep the streets free of cars and houses free of well-water streaking. The stay-at-home moms with thousand dollar purses and fresh tans and nails.

Nope, it’s not like that where we are now.

In contrast, Florida seems alive – always straining against being tamed, steadily working to reclaim all human undertaking as jungle-swamp. You can fight it, but it’s a continuous fight. It rains a lot, and everything stays wet even when it hasn’t rained.  It’s hot, the sun bakes the land.  Plants grow while you watch.  Hurricanes come every now and then to wipe away things men arrogantly continue to build, giving the swamp and jungle a fresh canvas to overtake. There are several creatures which feel directly descendant from dinosaurs that are just… walking around everywhere.

It’s OK though.  Not just for me, it’s OK for us all.  Part of me thinks maybe it’s even healthy… to get out of the bubble, to see that it’s not all pristine upper class new car disposable income.  

Could do without the Trump flags, though.