It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

What?  Like you haven't noticed it yet?  I've been humming Christmas tunes already, dreaming in egg nog and pine scented happiness.  So why not just roll with it?  Screw Halloween.  And like Lewis Black says, Thanksgiving is just Christmas Halftime.

So speaketh the Journal Jar.

Describe getting a Christmas tree as a child, when did you put it up and decorate it?

I think I've already blogged about our jaunts to the hills to visit the Christmas tree farms.  We even passed the tradition on to our nephews, driving them up there several different Christmas seasons to select a tree and bring it home for decorating.  See Christmas in February for some o' dat.  For now, though, how about a picture?  To the left, to the left...

We've borrowed my dad's truck and driven up into the Santa Cruz mountains with the boys, playing the Beatles and singing as we snaked through the hills on the winding roads.  The weather hasn't always been very kind to us, but we got out there and got a tree, nothing stopped us.  One year it was windy and raining and we took a wrong turn and ended up in the back access road, kind of four-wheeling our way until we could find our way back to the tree lot.  We made it back, and little Michael exclaimed "That was COOL!"  And you know what, it really was.

Once we'd get home I'd set to work cutting the bottom of the tree to prep it for the stand, and Suzy would get the boys started unpacking the tree decorations and such.  Christmas music would be played on the stereo, and once I got the lights on it was a decorating free-for-all.  Pretty much ended up with all the decorations hanging on the front of the tree, but that was fine.  It was perfect that way.

We even had fun having the nephews overnight before we'd go to get the tree in the morning.  There's always great food on our get-togethers-- monkey bread, Psycho Donuts, mac-and-cheese, and of course, grapes.  Suzy can elaborate on the food angle better than I can.  Maybe she will.  All I know is, we don't go hungry.

And we do hot chocolate.  I think we've even made coffee for them (decaf), with lots of cream and sugar, of course.

But none of this would have happened, potentially, if it hadn't been for my parents taking my sister and I to the hills to cut down our own Christmas tree when we were young.  I remember getting the tree about a week before Christmas and listening to Christmas music while we untangled the lights, drank hot chocolate, and hung all the decorations with care.  Each decoration brought back a memory, and we came to look forward to unearthing each one from the tissue paper and boxes of all our prized Christmas stuff.  My aunt Bernice used to make lovely bread dough ornaments that she sculpted and hand painted.  They were some of our favorite things and we treasured them as if they were worth more than their weight in gold.  Many of them came to an untimely end because we stored them in the attic of our garage, and during the summer in the Central Valley everything was cooked at well over one-hundred degrees.  We lost a lot of keepsakes to the summer heat, discovering the melted mess when we went to decorate for Christmas that year.  It was sad, but we didn't fret for long.  But I think I'm still grieving the loss of some of the things.  Like the marshmallow ball I had made as a kid.  What a sticky mess it became.  But it had been beautiful, and I had made it.  It's often hard to say goodbye...

Anyway, I now have an even greater appreciation for my parents taking us out like they did.  As a kid it was great fun to hike around in the hills, looking at all the trees, breathing the brisk air.  As an adult-- it's a lot of work!  But so worth it.  The kids love it, and hopefully they'll have fond memories of it when they are adults, just like I do.  And maybe they'll even want to take me up into the hills and run me around in my old age.

Maybe.  Better get in shape just in case.

Can You Say "Geeyaw?"

The Journal Jar strikes again...

Between the ages of 5 and 10, what was your favorite activity?

Now that's some throwback cred.

Hmm.  It's kind of difficult to remember that far back anymore.  But I know I liked riding my bike.  It was a red K-mart special with a white banana seat.  I rode the hell out of it.  It took me to different neighborhoods, dirt paths in vacant lots, all kinds of places.  I jumped that bike off a lot of ramps and it held together pretty good.  I finally ended up transitioning it into a BMX bike, dismantling and rebuilding it myself as I was able to afford parts.  But that was much later.  I wasn't working with tools much when I was ten, much less five.

I remember that I liked to watch Sesame Street and the Electric Company.  As well as Bugs Bunny cartoons.  I liked playing with Hot Wheels, and collected a decent collection that I just gave to my nephew last Christmas.  It was kind of hard saying goodbye to them all...

We used to live on Blossom Hill Road, a four-lane street with lots of traffic.  Our front yard had a slope to it, so it acted as a starting ramp for me, giving me some momentum so I didn't have to pedal too hard.  I could ride around the block to visit my best friend Greg and play in front of his house, because there wasn't nearly as much traffic there on the residential street.

There was one time that Greg's dad, who played football in college (I think), was punting the football straight into the air in the street in front of their house.  Each time he tried to kick it a little harder, and each time it seemed to reach farther into the sky.  Greg muttered, "Geeyaw!" when his dad kicked it super high into the sky.  Then his dad kicked it even harder, and I screeched, "GEEYAW!" as I imagined the football dancing amongst the clouds.  They both stopped and looked at me like I was strange.  I guess I was.

Still am.

Typical Middle School Experiences

Today the Journal Jar brings us the following:

Describe a typical day in middle school or junior high.

I don't know if I can remember anything "typical" about middle school... I had so many of them.  First there was Lynnhaven,  in San Jose, CA, where I went to fifth grade.  I remember that I really started to notice and like girls that year.  Then it was sixth grade at Creekside Private School in Modesto, CA.  This school was anything but typical.  It was an oversized farmhouse converted into a school.  All of the rooms connected with large collapsible walls, so you could pass from classroom to classroom easily.  My 5th and 6th grade class was made up of a bunch of misfits and rejects of the public schools-- characters that didn't fit well with others at the time, I guess.  We got along okay, though.  Finally, for 7th and 8th grade I attended El Portal Middle School in Escalon, CA.  It was a big change from private school, but it worked out in the end.

Let's see.  What do I remember from Lynnhaven?  I remember my friend Ronnie making moves to "date" Brenda Allred.  Brenda was taller than he was by a couple inches or so, so Cliff Odle made fun of Ronnie when he got his first kiss from Brenda, saying that she had to stoop down to catch his lips.  But the joke was really on the rest of us, as we watched in awe of him, living vicariously through him and wondering if there would ever come a day when we could have the courage to be just like him.  Oh, the simplicity in the drive to grow-up...

I also remember one day finding a Kit-Kat bar on the sidewalk, still wrapped and sealed.  Ronnie berated me for wanting to eat it and thinking that it would be okay.  He was a persuasive young man, and he talked me into throwing it away, even though I couldn't see how in the world someone might have tainted it.  Easy come, easy go.

There was also a rainy day where the gutters were leaking from the eave of one of the buildings.  It caused a puddle to form, and soon the bubbles gathered into a white/yellow foam on the surface of the puddle.  Someone remarked how it looked like the building was peeing.  There were lots of laughs and "ews" that followed the remark, and lots of ideas that followed.  I remember Brian getting an empty 2-liter soda bottle and stomping it into the foamy mess, to a chorus of "ews" and "oohs".

At Creekside, we were literally located at the side of a creek that snaked by, just off campus.  I got in trouble for wandering off towards the creek one day, when Ted and Scott were busy pretending to catch a mouse in the classroom after digging a hole in the wall.  They ran from the schoolhouse, through a hole where the fence had fallen down, and over to the creek to throw the mouse in.  I followed to watch what was happening.  They didn't get in trouble, but I did.  And they dug a hole in the wall of the school, then faked the whole mouse catching scenario.  If it was so bad to go over towards the creek, why didn't they fix the fence?  Sheesh.

Also at Creekside, there was Michelle Sequeira.  I don't remember the spelling of her last name, so I just made it up.  But she was an angel.  I loved her like no young man had ever loved anyone before.  Which is to say that it was a crush.  I still remember her singing "You Make My Dreams Come True" by Hall and Oats while we were at Woodward Reservoir with Mr. Haack and his tiny sailboat.  She was so beautiful, everything that I could have ever wanted... What little did I know at the time...

Then came El Portal.  I got my own locker for books and stuff, and my own PE locker.  Visions of my life with Michelle soon faded and I became engulfed in another crush named Kim McGuire.  She was my everything.  So beautiful.  Oh, to have spent any time in her arms...  She once poured me a cup of juice at a school fundraiser of some sort.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  I held the styrofoam cup out and she filled it with juice, then looked up into my eyes and smiled.  Good God, the bliss!  The grandeur and momentousness! 

The typical day at El Portal was spent walking the campus, hoping to get a look at the beautiful girls that might someday lock arms with mine...  But I was too shy and proud and scared to actually approach any possibilities.  Even when Lisa Chamberlain approached me during a recess football game with news that she knew of someone who liked me, I couldn't be bothered-- I was playing football, for crissake!  Another failed relationship before it ever had a chance to start.

I did get married at El Portal during recess to Karen Chandonis.  Betty Amini presided over the ceremony.  I was cajoled into it by Karen, who was very pretty and quite persuasive.  So I was shy and accommodating.  We didn't kiss to seal the marriage-- we didn't honeymoon or anything.  Just married in the 7th grade. 

Typical.

Memories and Passings-By

Interesting name that I once ran across: Rosean Contreraseckstrom.  Interesting enough that I wrote it down on a post-it note and carried it around in my stuff for several years.

Try not to judge and move forward.

All the sticky is gone on the post it note, having amassed a collection of dust, lint, and assorted fuzz and dirt over the years.

I throw the post-it note into my recycling tray.  Rosean, we hardly knew ye.

Try not to judge, and move forward.

How about a Journal Jar prompt?  Yay!

But first-- a word about Al Davis.  What I hear a lot of people saying is "You either loved him or you hate him."  I just want to say that's not the case with me.  I have a lot (and I mean a very lot) of respect for Mr. Al Davis.  He made the NFL an amazing thing, and you can't love football without acknowledging his greatness as an innovator.  But I didn't love him either-- he downright pissed me off many a time.  I move forward with the thought that he was a great man who is still greatly loved.  Condolences are in order.  Just win, baby.

And now!  The Journal Jar.

Describe a childhood Christmas.

Whoo.  Geez.  Just one?  Man.  So many ways we could go here...  I remember the Christmas when I was five and my grandmother died.  I remember the empty pained expression on my dad's face that morning as we kids tried to celebrate.  I remember the stuffed bear-- a bean bag bear-- that my grandma gave to my sister that year.  My sister was only two, but we both were sentimental about that bear.  I wonder if she still has it somewhere, almost forty years later.

Despite the ominous circumstances, that was still a wonderful Christmas.  There was beauty in how my dad allowed us kids to celebrate and revel in the excitement that is Christmas morning, even though his heart wasn't in it.  We had fun opening our presents, and we got toys and stuff.  But I knew something was wrong.  I've been able to reconstruct things as an adult and remember dates and such.  But nothing substitutes for that raw emotion, when an adult is grieving.  It made an impression on me at five and a half years old.  I still remember the moment to this day-- the room we were in, the placement of the Christmas tree, colors and smells.  And the joy above it all because we had love in our family to keep us together and give us strength.  I didn't think these thoughts that day, because I didn't have the words or the emotional maturity to think them.  But my mind left me a post-it note, and I've carried it with me for almost forty years.

This post-it will someday be recycled, too.  Try not to judge and move forward.

Grinnell 15-Year Reunion Revisited

In my second blog entry (EVER!) I wrote about my 15-year college reunion.  Check out what I had to say then here.  The last thing I had to say then was that I would write more later.

Now is later.

It's over four years later, and now I'm looking forward to the 20-year reunion (and I'm wondering how we're going to pay for a trip out there...)  Grinnell is a magical place;  there's something that brings out the best in people when you're there.  Maybe it's the people entirely, I don't know.  But so much inspiration is born there, in the conversations between old friends and new acquaintances.

I saw my old acting partner, Erika Krouse, and we bonded about writing.  She's got a book out there to check out if you'd like-- it's called "Come Up and See Me Sometime"  and is a compilation of short fiction organized around some Mae West quotes.  At least, I think so.  I still haven't read it, but my wife did and liked it.  So there you have it.

I also spent time with some folks that I knew but didn't know well when we were in school together, and my wife and I had some nice, relaxed, flowing conversations with them about things such as other Grinnellians, permaculture, and parenting.  I made a connection with another Grinnellian writer with one of the best blog names I've heard-- the parenting/mommy advice blog known as Breed 'em and Weep.  And I saw old friends who still cause some trepidation and anxiety, in the form of old roommates.  Well, okay.  One roommate who is sometimes intellectually confrontational and makes me nervous.  But he can be a great guy, he just makes me self conscious sometimes.

So it was a fabulous weekend that was exactly what the doctor ordered, as far as what I needed to lift my mood and my outlook on life.  We had a blast dancing inside Carlos' refurbished Airstream trailer.  He does beautiful work.  We danced some more in the Harris Center where they had a dj that was kind of annoying.  So annoying that a group broke off, grabbed a boombox, found another venue and started another dance hall party.  It was fun to sit in the hallway as the dance tunes pounded out and people jumped into a frothy euphoria.  We sat and had a calm, fun conversation with a few of my closer friends from Grinnell, and a handful of others that are friends of friends.  Perhaps I should find the article that I wrote about it and post it here.  That sounds like a good assignment.

Reunions can be a very good thing.  This one definitely was.  There was renewal and rejuvenation.  There was networking and positive connections.  And there was fun.  Laughter.  Tears.  Celebration.

I really can't wait for next year.  My 43rd birthday and  my 20th Grinnell reunion.  And my 25th high school reunion.  All good.

All things to look forward to.

***UPDATE***

Here's the article I wrote about the reunion that was published somewhere, I just don't know where.  Irene?  Can you hear me?  Can you remind me what publication this went into?  Thanks.

----------------------------------------------------

The evening began with dinner and an auction.  Lots of friends that hadn’t seen one another in several years.  And it ended with music reverberating in the collective ear.

After the meal everybody had pitched in and cleared the tables and chairs from the dance floor.  Some of the folks with kids bid their adieu to honor set bedtimes.  Those of us without kids (and some parents who had arranged for sitters, not to mention the mom or dad who won the coin toss while the other parent slinked back to the dorm, festooned with responsibility...) started gearing up to party.

We were sold the idea that a DJ would play music by request.  But it soon became evident that Mr. DJ had another agenda.  Not ones to settle for anything other than our own agenda, we hit the road.  Some of us splintered off to investigate another party, an impromptu gathering in an alumnus’ refurbished Airstream trailer.  A warm evening, hot tunes, and cold beer—Now, that’s a party.  My wife and I sauntered between locales, dancing and drinking and chatting at both. 

We soon learned of a third splinter group.  Someone had checked for availability of another “party space” over at the Joe Rosenfeld Center.  Others had secured tunes and amplification.  Soon, there was sweat.  There was dancing.  There was thudding bass, stomping feet, and clapping hands.  There were a number of, shall we say, aromas.  And there was the open exploitation (y’know, fun being had) by all.

Sure, there was a great diversity displayed.  Grinnellians ooze diversity.  Some danced hard and fast, working up a sweat.  Others bobbed and weaved near the amplification source.  Still others stood on the outskirts of the room, taking turns leaning into each other’s ear as they tried to carry on conversation.

My wife and I danced a bit, but soon took to the hallway of the Joe (aka the JRC, or the “jerk”), where we could still hear the music and singing of the crowd, but could more easily speak to each other.  We took to the couches and benches there with a handful of other friends and had a pot-luck conversation of sorts.  Everybody brought something to the discussion. 

We talked about what we had in common such that we found ourselves outside of the party room, choosing the cerebral exercise over the aerobic.  Our buffet table was set with one part reminiscence, one part levity, one part reality-of-getting-older lament.

 

There were other parts too, of course.  Beer drinking, wine sipping, joke telling, and problem solving.  We talked about things we were still working on—me and my writing, and my still-yet-to-be-completed degree requirements.  One woman in the group spoke about how she had conquered the beast of learning another language (the one thing left standing between me and my undergraduate degree).  She said that it had become a necessity—a matter of survival, in fact.  I suppose that’s what my problem has been—I’ve never bought in to the idea that I needed another language in my repertoire.  But then, I’m oh-so comfy with the one I use daily... it gets in the way anytime I try and use something else in my mind.  My English is the jealous sort, I guess.

By the end of the night, we’d partaken in plenty verbal entrees, laughed until the metaphorical milk ran out our noses, and seen plenty over-partying.  We watched one couple stumble and giggle their way back to their room, taking time to chat with others along the way.  We giggled heartily with them, and then at them, as they weaved away from us, for they were both of a physical age closer to my parents’.

Man, woman, and child of any gender. Overall, my reacquaintance with my Grinnell Experience was spectacular. Not like a Jerry Bruckheimer film, but a resonant, penetrating, rejuvenating sort of spiritual renewal. A molting of sorts. I had been in a depressed state before arriving at reunion, but I shed my sour skin of rigidity, the wheel-spinning frustration, and any bureaucratic entanglement. I lamented no more; I had returned to the womb, in a sense, and drank from the source that sustains life; the source which inspires, energizes, and heals; the source of focus.

And it was very good.

May we all party hearty and healthy well through our golden years.

 editor's note: It looks like some of my earliest blog spilled into this article.  All my content, so no plagiarism.  

Celebrate September 12th

Whereas most Americans recede into a deep, somber remembrance mode at this time of year, I don't.

Not because I don't mourn the tragedy that was visited upon the world, drastically changing the meaning of "9-11" in our lives.

Not because I'm politically antithetical to the current establishment and administration, their policies, their actions, their rhetoric, their combative and destructive elitist morality, among other things.

Not because I don't believe the official story of what occurred on this date, now six years ago. Not because I feel no grief for the victims-- those who lost their lives, gave their lives in service of others, their families, or anyone horrified and haunted by the images that played over and over and over on channel upon channel for hours, days, weeks after it happened. Not because I am skeptical of our leaders' alibis and denials of complicity in missing warning signs, not reacting sufficiently or rapidly or decisively enough, both at the time of the incident, and the ongoing "War On Terror."

No. None of that.

While it may be true that I have opinions and beliefs that run counter to the pervasive, collective mythology that surrounds and reinforces the way most people continue to characterize the events of September 11, 2001, it is not at the root of why I feel a great disconnect from the memorials, the moments of silence, and even the celebrations commemorating heroism and selflessness.

I empathize with the victims, their families, the first-responders-- all those who suffered so greatly on that day, and continue to suffer since. I'm not looking to take anything away from them, or purport that I understand what any one of them has gone through, or continues to go through; Nor do I wish any ill-will or mean any disrespect whatsoever to any human being that was affected, directly or indirectly, by the ghastly, horrific events which unfolded beginning that morning, and continue unfolding and rippling through the collective consciousness to this day.

I'm just being honest. I wasn't really there. Not all the way, anyway. And now, six years later, I'm still trying to put the puzzle back together...

You see, I had experienced my own personal "9-11" of sorts, a little more than a month before "9-11" was a distinct, iconic, gravely descriptive term.

I had gone on vacation, off to Greece with my wife and an old friend and several of his family members and extended family members and friends. And near the end of the adventure, I had my own catastrophic collapse that changed my life. Forever.

Only I experienced the trauma, every aching second, dismally and utterly alone.

There were no images broadcast throughout the world, or even to friends and family, or people in my close vicinity. Yes, others were traumatized, as I was, by what I was going through, not the least of which was my wonderful, steadfastly supportive and loving wife.

But six years... and I still grope for words. I have recollection; I remember emotions, some specific events and some horrific interpretations, hallucinations, and discomfort. I remember wild, dynamic, fantastic images of grandeur; scenarios that my mind played out, and presented to some conscious part of me. I wrestled with random thoughts, madly weaving hyper-psychotic threads into patchwork garments of broken logic. Somehow, I was there (wherever that was), experiencing these things along with my mind, my body, my perceptions... But I was also somewhere else.

All of the tools that I usually had at my disposal to assist me in assessing my well-being, my sense of self-- my very location in the space-time continuum-- were at least malfunctioning, if not completely broken. I lost track of Who I was, Where I was, What I was, What I was doing, What I had done-- all context was suspect. And thus, anything and everything was believable, somehow logical. Anything and everything was possible.

This is the hyper-astounding, thrillingly perilous double-edged sword of an experience, which was later diagnosed (much later, in fact) as a manic episode.

What would follow, after hospitalization, stabilization, medication, and a return to the familiarity of coming home, would be a deep clinical depression, lasting for the better part of two years.

So forgive me if my perspective differs from yours.

What of this "Tripolarity," Anyway?

For those about to rock...

It was a seemingly enough amazing vacation plan. We’d go to Greece for almost two weeks, seeing the country like no regular tourist experiences it. We’d have a native family to guide us, interpret for us, entertain us, and assist us.

It all had come together so dramatically—like a tightly written chapter in a biographer’s masterpiece. I would be ending my tenure in Engineering, one that had become increasingly more and more stressful, for the dream vacation with my wife and a friend I hadn’t seen in many years (as well as many others). And upon returning to the mainland, I’d slide into my imagined idyllic job in the Finance Department.

But just when all seemed set, and paradise found, the unfathomable, unexplainable, unplanned major fork in the road curve ball fly in the ointment outta nowhere kick in the head derailed all storylines, all realistic visions of the future.

Or so I’m told.

Yes, this is my story; but I’m still making sense of it.

If there’s sense to be made.

******************************************

He and I had attended college together; we were "Dormmates" Freshman year, "Floormates" our Sophomore year, "Housemates" our Junior year, and thus, lifetime friends. We shared in the experiences of growing up, being on our own, living and studying and trying to find the ever elusive perfection of love, wherever she was.

We had many shared friends, and even more shared experiences-- Winter break trips to Chicago and Valparasio, grand drinking excursions and loud parties, both hosted and attended. We shared a love like brothers, persisting through disagreements, arguments, and the necessary mistakes which bring great learning.

But by the end of our time in Greece together, I would be left scrambling within my mind, wondering if he was one of my best friends, or the greatest foil I'd ever ran up against.

And by no fault of his. Who knows what reality was. It didn't matter. I was living inside my head. And it didn't make sense to me.

Even though it felt like it did. Fleetingly... it was a fluid lucidity; making sense in the moment. And as time passed, context was forgotten, replaced.

I'm guessing that there was just too much coming in to make sense of. Sensory overload.

So that's what I've been trying to do over the course of the past six years-- organize, rehash, vocalize, chronicle, and analyze my recollection and tell the story that I've lived through.

Get comfortable. This could be a rough ride.