Careful what you wish for.....

     My life is filled with anticipation.  It has been building for some time now and each day it grows ever so slightly more.

     It began about eighteen months ago when I discovered I had a way to encourage a resolution I had been seeking for some time.  As I watched the pieces began to align and mesh almost as if I had engaged a lever on some massive machine and the gears were beginning to move.

     Our son, Joey, moved out about 15 months ago and the turmoil of having an angry teenager determined to cause havoc was removed.  Then my partner, Richard, found an opportunity to return to his previous employer, the state of Alaska.  It would mean higher pay and better benefits for him.  It would also mean he would be moving over 2000 miles away.  I encouraged him strongly to apply and then to accept the position.  He did and moved to Juneau just over a year ago.

     I knew that if I was encouraging and non-committal at the same time he would gravitate toward what was best for him with the belief that the separation would be temporary at best -- something that I knew otherwise.  Our relationship had deteriorated slowly and by the time he departed our interactions were of friends with common financial interests.

     Six months after he left I traveled to Juneau for a week to see what the area was like.  To live there one must have an island living mentality.  There is no direct, easy access in or out.  One must arrive by plane or ship.  The same can be said for all supplies.  It is not uncommon for shipments to be delayed and for stores to run out of certain goods.

     There are some who are psychologically adaptive to such isolated living and others who are not.  Richard had not wanted to leave when he had and was happy to return to his element.  Had someone seen what I was orchestrating I might have been chastised for "not giving it a proper chance," but I went looking for justification for not moving there and reasons that bolstered my position were plentiful.  It allowed for me to step out of the relationship officially with the fault falling to circumstance.

     One of the benefits of his employment with the state is that as long as Richard is employed there Joey can attend the state university tuition free.  So he was strongly encouraged to attend a college he had not considered and with  few alternatives that offered any promise, Joey allowed himself to be cajoled into applying.

     His grandmother and her siblings realized that this was his only viable opportunity to leave the area and gathered their resources to help him.  Had it not been for their oversight and pushing him forward it is doubtful he would have accomplished what was needed to apply and then relocate.

      He is also now in Juneau and his classes begin tomorrow.  He is very happy to be starting anew in a new environment where no one is aware of his birth family's reputation and he can create his own personae.  (His mother, aunt, cousin, and brother are all involved with drugs and this is a small town).  I have no fear that he will return unexpectedly and complicate my plans.  The airfare is the cheaper of the two ways to get there but it is still very expensive.  He went to Juneau with no return ticket.

     For the first part of all this I felt guilty that things were going as I had seen them possible to do.  Everything fell into place.  The part that has allowed this all to happen has been my remaining here.  I have been packing, organizing, repairing, and getting the household ready.  Initially I put it to Richard and our friends who witnessed what was happening as "Sooner or  later the household is going to need to be moved.  I'm just packing things up now so I don't have to do it all at once."  And that is the truth.  What I have not said is that I am looking for employment in a different area and when I find it the household belongings will go into storage until they can be delivered or in some way reclaimed.

     Richard knows I am looking for other opportunities.  He has somehow fallen back on the idea that we will reunite somewhere or that I will reconsider and move to Juneau as well.  I have done nothing to encourage this but see no advantage in correcting him.  I simply keep on on the path he knows I am taking.

     I thought initially that I would find myself dating within a year but have discovered that I have no interest in the local men.  They are, shall we say, less than dynamic.  And the more I look at them, the more I like my dog.

     I also have very little disposable income and am not able to meet my financial obligations from the income I am generating in real estate sales.  Luckily, I have quite a few personal possessions that I no longer need and as I sell them off I discover others that can also be liquidated.  It is giving me space and the ability to stay afloat.

     My goal now is to downsize myself to make moving easier.  Ideally, when I  move the only things left in Port Angeles will belong to Richard and Joey.  My belongings will be just enough.  There will be "family" things, but I have no plans to sell or dispose of them.  There is no need and I am certain that at some point one of them will want the momentos.

     I now have an inkling of what my father went through when he divorced and moved out to start anew.  It is in some ways depressing and in some ways quite liberating.

So, from time to time, I take a day and pack.  One day I packed china and crystal for eight hours.  Got most of it.  Yesterday I packed glass ornaments from Christmas.  And as I find a number of things I want, I pack a box for me.  So far I have few.

If I get an offer before I get completed with this task, it will take a massive effort to get everything taken care of in time, but still less than it would have.  This is a good thing.

                                                                            - 30 -

It only took me Twenty Years and the Internet to understand

     I can remember years ago, my father sitting in his easy chair, contemplating life and telling me, "You do the best ya can."  At the time I thought the words sounded trite and cliche'.

     Some time back, I happened on an internet site designed to let people become penpals.  That's all.  Just people who wanted to meet people in other parts of the world.  I used it halfheartedly for a short time and dropped it.  About a year ago, I got an email from the administrators saying I had not been on in a while.  And it arrived at at time when I was in the mood to entertain the idea again.

    Since then I have had conversations with people from all corners of the earth.  Everyone has tribulations in life.  I know one young gay man in an African nation that is trying to enact a death penalty for anyone homosexual.  I have spoken with people in refugee camps.  One man  lost his wife and daughter to malaria.   Another told me, "I used to have a dog but the other men caught him and ate him."

    The human condition of strife is rampant.  But so is adventure and determination to succeed.

     I have spoken delightfully with a Japanese violin maker who is on a sabbatical to Italy to learn from an 87 year-old master on the art.  Last I heard he was studying shellacs. . .and with a widow in Tennessee who has a wonderfully complex sense of humour and a love for classic black and white movies, determined to give her daughter the best opportunities to excel in life.  I am friends with an IT engineer who is moving to a new job in New Dehli as well as with a founding member of an Non-Governmental Organization (charity) that drills wells in remote villages of Africa.

    I know a college student in far eastern Russia, a draftsman in El Salvadore and an engineer in France, each of whom wants to improve their English in order to improve their lives.  It is fascinating to me to find myself as a writer and journalist to be discussing words like"of" and "that" (as a pronoun) as well as "that" (as a conjunction) -- which, naturally leads to a side of the discussion on how to decide on choosing "that" or "which" in sentence structure.

     Knowing the basics and explaining them are vastly different.  As the old phrase goes, "You teach best what you need most to learn."  You have to know it very well and keep educating yourself.  And with this site you have to be able to understand English whether it be British, Canadian, American or Australian.  (Did you know the British have an abbreviation for the word "something")?

     So, am I a good teacher?  These folks seem to think so.  My opinion?  Not so much.  But I am willing, armed with my dictionaries and style books, to do what I can.  And primarily, they want conversation.  But with someone who knows the language well enough to know it properly.

     When I look at the people I have met. . . each is in a different locale, most in different societies, and each has their lives with both the ups and downs while in their own particular environment.  I look at theirs and look at mine.  They have their troubles.  I have mine.  The only real similarity is that each of us is doing the best we can; striving to be better.  And that's really all you can do.

     The natural end result of the process will be each of us doing a little better and getting a little farther. . . and, I believe, enjoying the journey a bit more along the way.

     Pop was right, even though it has taken me close to twenty years to see it.  In life, "You do the best ya can". . . .  regardless of where you are.

People like me

     Years ago I knew a married gay couple who ran a white cloth, french restaurant.  Michael ran the business, Tony ran the restaurant.  Michael was well heeled internationally and had specific ideas as to how he wanted his food presented -- so much so that one time he decided to take his Sous Chef, Kevin and Tony on a European Cultural Tour where they would sample the art and cuisine of several countries.

     Michael set up the entire trip and their agenda.  When they got to Italy, Michael insisted they see the works of the great masters. On their return, Kevin related that at first it was a bit difficult for him because Michael kept interjecting about the artist's sexuality.  Michael would say, "These magnificent doors represent the work of early Donatello.  He was gay, you know." or "Michelangelo was brilliant  He was gay, you know."

     Kevin said one day, after Michael had been prattling on several times that he had finally had enough.  He looked at Michael and said, "Yes. I understand he was gay.  I also understand you are gay.  I respect that.  You need to respect the fact that I am straight. And if it wasn't for people like me, people like you wouldn't be here!"

     After that, the trip went much smoother.

My Friend Robert

     I know an amazing fellow down in Portland.  I have known him for eight years now and every time we meet I learn new things about him.

    Conversations are always a delight as his knowledge spans many areas of interest.  He likes creating art and is  quite adept at drawing.  He also enjoys dabbling in science.  It is not uncommon to find him in the kitchen.  He makes a great homemade "pumpkin" pie using two similar squash; but, with a slightly nuttier flavor. . . something he thought up himself, I'm told.

     He has a great appreciation of classic black-and-white movies and appreciates Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers' talents.  An avid reader, his library spans the tomes of classic literature and current releases.  He devours the New Yorker magazine as soon as it arrives by post, much to the dismay of his housemate who ordered the subscription and has to track it down every week.

     A more well-rounded gent would be hard to locate.  Robert may not know the current Top 40 in the Pop Charts, but he's up on all the latest trends and his musical appreciation spans from jazz to standards, hiphop to orchestra, and almost anything else you can think of.  He is taking piano lessons to enhance his musical appreciation.

     Did I mention he's tri-lingual?  Well, almost.  He's fluent in English and Russian and speaks each with no cross-over accent.  He sounds native in each tongue.  Now's he's working to perfect French.

     This past weekend we were driving from Vancouver, Washington back to Portland and the beautiful neighborhood he lives in, where old growth tree-lined streets take you past stately tudor and craftsman homes.

     As we drew nearer to the city Robert asked, "Do you know where you're going?"  "Oh yeah," I replied, "This is easy for me."  Robert looked at the back of my head from the rear seat and said, "Ya sure?  'Cause I know  where we need to go."

     Robert knows I am not good on finding my way in a city I only visit briefly once a month, but I salvoed back, "That's what you said back there when we turned early." "Well, I may not know Vancouver as well as I should, but I do know Portland," he said. I nodded but wasn't ready to give up and pressed the issue, "But you said, 'I remember this. This is it.  Turn here.' and sounded like you knew back there also."

     "What do ya want?"  came the question from the car seat, "I'm a kid!"

     I had to smile.  Robert is eight.  Sometimes I forget that.

   

 

Some parts of parenting are as old as the hills

     One of the great joys of parenting is helping your child explore and learn.  Children are creative when encouraged and a great deal of mental acuity is acquired through play. 

    When I was growing up my parents had a big house and a big family.  They also had a small budget.  We did not have a lot of the toys other kids had, but we had plenty to do with my parent's help.  We had big sheets of paper to draw on and paint on, courtesy of my father's newspaper.  We had mounds of Playdough- like stuff my mother made in the kitchen with corn starch and food colouring.  We read and wrote poetry and we played a lot outdoors.

     As a child I never thought of us as having less than anyone else.  What we did have was parents who engaged us in creative pursuits and helped guide us in them.  I can to this day still hear the echoes of my mother and father's comments and encouragements that were murmured in my ear as I worked on creating.

     I never thought of my upbringing as being unique.  But to tell you the truth, I never thought of it as being universal either.

     The Rouffignac caves in the Dordogne area of France have been known since the 16th century.  In 1956 archeologists discovered that the art that adorns the walls of these caves was prehistoric.  Recently, they have discerned that much of it was done by children, guided by adults.

     The walls of the caves are soft and by pressing your fingers into the surface and dragging them channels can be cut into the face of the walls and ceiling.  These lines were first termed "finger flutings" by the Australian archeologist Robert G. Bednarik in 1986 in his study of prehistoric art found in caves throughout Europe and Australia.  For years it was thought that adults had created these images and designs.

     While there are a great many differences in the male and female anatomy, one predominate feature is finger length.  Males have longer ring fingers than females.  In studying the depth of the finger flutings these researchers determined that many of the designs were made by females.  The width of the depressions also told them that the flutings were made by a child's hand. 

     Many of the designs are on the ceiling of the cave and some are on walls six feet or more above the floor.  Researchers believe the parents of the children either held them or perhaps allowed them to ride on their shoulders to create their art.  Some designs are more precise, deeper and made with shorter strokes that indicate that an adult was guiding the young hand.  The majority of the rest are more free form lines and squiggles.  And there are some representing specific animals, obviously done by an adult.

     The researchers determined the age of the children involved by the width of the fingers that made the designs and correlated that to human development.  One budding artist from this family that lived over 13,000 years ago was a five-year-old girl. Her designs proliferate throught the caves.  There is evidence that another child, a two-year-old girl, also enjoyed creating lines.

     We will never know their names, or even if either had one.  We will never know their life stories or how long they lived.  But we do know that when they were a little girls they had at least one parent who encouraged them to play and create.  Like the millenia of children since their time, they were cared for and nurtured by a parent who loved them.

     Some things, gratefully, do not change.

The Flight of the Hummingbird

There is a story told to a friend of mine by a Tibetan monk.

     One day a great heat storm came to the forest.  Lightning flashed and a bolt struck a group of tinder-dry trees causing them to erupt in flame.  Soon the fire began to spread.  As it grew, it quickly became apparent to the animals of the forest that their home was in danger of being destroyed.

     All the animals raced to the river and safely crossed to the other side.  As they stood there watching the fire consume the forest they noticed that the hummingbird had not joined them.  The owl, bear, wildcat, skunk, snake and the rest were safely away but nowhere could they find hummingbird.

     One of them soon saw it.  Hummingbird was flying to the river and taking a drop of water in its beak, flying quickly to the fire, dropping it into the flames, and flying back to the river for another drop.  The animals called out, "Hummingbird!  Come here and be safe with us!"  But the hummingbird acted as if it did not hear them and kept flying from the river to the fire, each time with a drop of water.

     The other animals began to laugh at hummingbird's antics.  "You'll never put it out," they cried, "You are wasting your time!"  Instead of stopping, their taunts made the hummingbird more determined and it flew even faster.  Back and forth hummingbird darted with the drops of precious water as the fire ravaged the land.

     The fire continued to grow.  The catcalls from the animals grew louder as they watched the forest being consumed in flame.  "You'll never make it!"  "Give up!" they called.  But hummingbird kept on.

     Finally, one of the animals called out, "Why are you doing that?   You'll never succeed!   Why don't you stop?"  Hummingbird paused in flight and answered, "I'm doing the best I can."

These are the things you learn by living alone

     They say the best gift you can give a toddler is an empty oatmeal carton.  With dogs, it is a slice of marrow bone.  It not only keeps them occupied for about an hour initially the residual chew times can go on for days.

     Telemarketers and other auto-dialer phone nazis use a program that allows the phone number four rings and then disconnects.  Some stretch it to six rings.  When I grew up, long before the advent of answering machines, you were taught to let the phone ring ten times before you hung up.  Ten rings is roughly equivalent to one minute.  But in today's digital world where the programmers believe people are married to their phones they have programmed in a bias that allows me to easily avoid them.  I answer only after six rings.

     The dogs have a certain schedule for bathroom times whether you are home or not.

     I used to think I was busy.  Now I have a tough time keeping up with myself.

     If you take the neighbors blackberry coffee cake, they'll return the plate very quickly.  Give them homemade, five bean soup and you won't hear from them for a few days.

     It is not difficult cooking for one.  Just make enough for six and eat for a week.  Following that same logic leads to panic when you have 18 days of food and your taste buds shift again.  Thank God for freezer space. And neighbors.

     To hell with the Tooth Fairy.  I want a Laundry Fairy that takes it and gives me a quarter for leaving it out.

    Play until you are tired and then rest.  The world will wait until you get up.

    to be continued... both in thought as well as form.