Introspective 15 | unobtrusive lucidity

Moving Adventures

I’m actually not dead. Nor have I abandoned writing here. It’s just that…well, moving sucks.

In fact, moving sucked even worse this time than it has in a very long time. You see, despite how definite I was that we wouldn’t be moving for some time…

The issue this time is that we have a house, actually. Not one that we had ever really intended to live in, but one that Karen had owned before we even met. We had kept it as a rental property, but, as it was comfortably situated in North Carolina and we were comfortably situated outside of Boston, we decided to sell it. Except, work needed to be done. After all of the factors were added together, moving back into the house made sense. So, in the span of a few weeks, we planned and executed our second major state-to-state move in three years. That’s a total of four moves in three years, all told, if you’re keeping score.

I am.

We were sort of on our own this time, at least for the front end of the move. Where we had been blessed with an abundance of friends that helped us before, this time it was just us. We hired movers to pack the truck that we had rented, and launched into a week-long trek from New England to the Dirty South.

And, thus began the comedy of errors. Well, except…not so comedic.

The morning of the move was tightly scheduled. I was picking up the truck at 9:00, appliances that would be needed at the “new” house were being delivered at 9:45 to be loaded onto the truck, and the movers were arriving to take over packing at 10:00. We were to be on the road by 2:00, on our way to the first stopping point.

Except the truck that was reserved for 9:00 wasn’t returned by the previous renter, and this particular rental company apparently doesn’t keep contingency plans, so I didn’t end up with a truck until nearly noon. Livid didn’t quite describe me. After doing an interesting dance of coordination with all of the parties involved, I eventually received a moving truck. A much larger one than I had reserved. They were giving it to me at no additional charge, though, so I thought it would be good. We could make use of the extra space.

Then I drove it. It was a big truck.

A very large, very long, very tall, diesel truck. A truck about which I will continue to have nightmares for years.

Then, the movers managed to pack the bag containing Karen’s wallet and keys inside the truck…somewhere that we couldn’t locate. So, we had a choice: trust that we would find them during un-packing, or un-pack and re-pack the truck again ourselves. We chose the first option.

Then, on our second day of travel and after a respite with family, we realized a very troubling fact. That wonderful navigation app on your phone, or the GPS on your dashboard? It doesn’t know that you need a commercial route. It doesn’t know that you’re driving a truck that requires 13 feet of overhead clearance. It navigates you the shortest route because that’s what it does. Except that route through New York state involved a parkway with only 8 feet of overhead clearance.

Did I mention that you get cited for driving a truck that large on a parkway in New York state? Especially since the police had to stop traffic and close off a road in order for me to get out of that mess?

Then, I broke my coffee press.

The next day, I had to figure out how to navigate over Maryland and West Virginia mountains on our way to pick things up from other family members without burning out the brakes on that truck.

When we finally arrived in North Carolina (and after we had managed to back that monster into our driveway), and our friends began helping us un-pack, we discovered that the so-called professional movers had, in fact, not secured anything in the truck, and that several items of furniture had been broken during the move.

You may be familiar with the theological concept of providence. We can debate the miraculous manifestations and definitions thereof, but I can tell you that, from a practical perspective, I prayed more in the week I drove that truck than I likely had in the two months preceding. While that’s a problematic indicator in its own right, my point is that each time I was at a distressing juncture, the providential happened. The cop in New York had another call and let me go with a warning. I encountered another police officer who gave me advice in which ways to go to avoid low clearances. Some family members helped re-organize the truck as best we could to avoid further damage before arrival. Oh, and Karen found the bag containing her wallet, safely tucked away as we un-packed the truck.

The stress of this event isn’t over. We now have a home to repair and get ready to sell. I’m still in a new career with a 2-year-old. This is going to be an interesting few years.

I’ve learned to not plan life too carefully, because it has a way of turning out differently than anticipated. We’ve been in North Carolina for less than a week, and I already miss New England terribly. The mental and emotional adjustments required for this phase of life are going to be huge, and they’re going to be exhausting. What I’ve learned from that one-week experience, however, is that placing my faith outside of my own capabilities is what is necessary just to survive life. I received a much-needed reminder of God’s presence during this move. I’m going to require more of it to handle whatever unexpected adventure life throws at us next.

Image attribution: Maggie under Creative Commons.

In Which I Can’t Forget the Woman Wearing a Trash Bag

The end of this past week was the end of two weeks of scrambling to make deadlines and survive life. The show, as those of us who have worked in the theatre know, must go on, and that’s regardless of complications. You adapt and overcome…it’s just that some things are more difficult to overcome than others.

The thing that’s been most difficult about the transition to making my living in the code of the web is that, with all of the creativity and flexibility that it allows, it is also is a very different frame of mind in many ways. That is to say, I’m an abstract thinker by nature, which is why I’ve always loved academics. The craft of implementing the web…of writing the code…is very concrete. At the end of the day, I just struggle with concrete things. I excel at theories, but don’t always do so great at implementation. All of the tiny details of which I have to keep track during an average day causes a sort of short circuit to occur. I’ve always been able to stay on top of nearly everything in life, to handle the onslaught of tasks and chores that come with being an adult, generally without letting things become overwhelming. I’m the guy who does the dishes every night. For the past six months, I can’t get myself together. There are so many details that require tracking during the day, I can’t handle any more at night. I forget things, important things…like laundry, for example…that I never tripped on before. Organization, I firmly believe, is the key to a calm life, and the combination of the career change, the nature of the career, and having a two-year-old, has resulted in my being just about as disorganized as they come.

All of those things together has left precious little room in my head for the things that I love. I’m rushed, so I don’t always appreciate beautiful things when I see them. I’m forcing myself to think pragmatically, so I miss the “vibe” that I always saw in things before. In my new found vernacular for the technical, I’ve mis-placed a tendency to see the human side of things.

In short, I’m failing to see the miraculous in the mundane.

When I was in college, I read some poems at a public reading that the campus literary journal, in which I had recently been published, held. One of the poems that I read was called “Passerby” (and, to date myself, this was before computers were on our laps and most of us went to the library to write our papers, so I can’t put my hands on this poem easily). The poem was about a woman that I saw one night on a street in New York City. I was leaving a play and walking back to my hotel, and it was raining in the Spring-time and windy, so the city was cold, damp, and it was miserable to be outside. The woman was standing on a street corner, wearing only a trash bag, pleading for money. She was desperate, she was cold…and I kept walking. I was haunted by that moment, which resulted in my writing the poem. I have been haunted by that moment on many occasions since.

The first summer after Karen and I were married, were were in Sacramento for a family wedding. We stopped at a Starbucks for breakfast, and a man was in the parking lot asking for money. I gave him the cash that I had. I liked to think that I had made progress since that night in New York years ago.

At the end of this week, I was rushing to make one last deadline as Karen was texting me details of our daughter, who was sick and had a fever. She needed to me to get medicine to bring home, and I was scrambling on a deadline that I couldn’t miss. As I finally got enough in working order to leave the office and pick up the medicine, I stopped at a traffic light. A woman was standing in the median, holding up a cardboard sign that proclaimed that she was homeless and needed money. I averted my eyes. I didn’t have any cash in my wallet to give her…it’s not like I was refusing to give up what I had. The issue was that I couldn’t think about her. My entire attention was focused on getting what our daughter needed and getting it home. I couldn’t ponder the humanity of that woman’s position. I couldn’t consider it. I didn’t have enough room in my head.

I don’t want to forget those people. I don’t want forget that woman from years ago wearing the trash bag…I pray that she is well and sheltered and with loved ones as I write this, whomever she was. I don’t want to be so absorbed in the insanity that is life in our age that I forget those with whom I am walking the journey. If I do, then I think that I am doing just as much wrong as not pausing that night in New York to even see if I had cash to give. I don’t want to repeat that error.

And I so often fear that I already have.

Moonlight Exposition

When I was young, my parents spent a great deal of effort teaching me things. I gravitated toward random trivia and facts. My theory is that this was due in part to the fact that my mother was a science fiction fan (specifically a Trekkie), which caused me to happen onto all sorts of various bits of knowledge. This was stuff that I could out-smart the other kids in class with, so I held onto it. I was the geeky kid who knew the names of all the dinosaurs, and could name all of the comic book characters in the educational comics that the teachers handed out to teach us to not do drugs.

When I was in the second grade, our teacher was teaching a unit on astronomy. Now, I remember precious little about the second grade, and what I do remember is embarrassing, but I fondly remember that day, because the teacher was talking about the moon. I raised my hand and proudly offered my bit of knowledge: the moon doesn’t glow on it’s own, I claimed. It glows because it’s reflecting the sun’s light from the other side of the globe.

The other children scoffed at this outlandish idea. And then the teacher vindicated me, proclaiming that I was correct.

I really like that memory.

Last week, I was unloading our daughter from the car upon arriving home for the evening. It was just dark out, and she pointed up to the sky and, with her (amazingly, profoundly, ridiculously) advanced verbal skills, began to describe to me how the full moon was glowing. And, so, I began explaining to her how it was reflecting the sun’s light from the other side of the globe.

Now, I hold absolutely no misconception that our two-year-old will have learned anything about astronomy that night. After all, night still happens “because the sun has gone to bed.” And those sorts of poetic explanations are far more important right now than any concrete, scientific facts. I loved seeing the world through her eyes in that moment, though…experiencing her wonder as she observes the things that I take for granted. It forces me to notice things again…things to which I had long ago grown de-sensitized. I enjoy explaining these sorts of things to her…the unique and the mundane, but especially the unique…because it’s more about building the habit of doing so at this point, I think.

When I was in the fifth grade (I think this was in the fifth grade), concluding my elementary school career, I remember reading a mystery for a class reading assignment. The teacher asked us to process clues in the story, and come to conclusions about how the crime had been committed. I offered that the glass from the broken window was laying outside the home, and thus someone hadn’t broken the window in, but rather it had been broken from the outside.

Yeah…my geekiness manifested early…

That was another one of those proud moments when I was vindicated by the teacher’s affirmation. I want a lot of those in our daughter’s life, and I think that they begin with Karen and I exposing her to random pieces of knowledge. That knowledge builds on itself. The way that the moon glows is just the beginning.

A very important beginning.

And I’m so privileged to get to share it.

Acclimations and Adaptions

I walked outside this morning on my way to the office and nearly swooned in the warmth. I actually rolled down my window at one point. It was almost…fifty degrees! I remember well the first week that I lived in Virginia. I moved there in January, being used to heavy sweaters and winter gear for at least two more months. That week I remember driving to class with no jacket on and my sunroof open. I thought I had reached Heaven. I’ve always hated the cold and hated winter, and here I was, perhaps finally free of it.

Now, ten years later and after two years in New England, I have perhaps finally acclimated in a sense, if my comfort with my window down this morning is any indication. It’s been a long time coming. I expected to be rudely re-acquainted with what a real winter was after so many years in the southeast, but I hadn’t expected it to be as severe as the two winters I’ve been through in New England. Harsh would be an inadequate descriptor. I’ve wrestled with a depression for a good portion of the last two years that I thought was a thing of the past.

That hasn’t been entirely seasonal in nature, though. Changing careers at this point in life is exciting, yes, but fraught with more stress than I had anticipated. I thought it would be rough, but I didn’t know it would be rough. I didn’t anticipate the long acclimation period to that, as well…to being in a position in which I knew information, but lacked experience. That’s not a situation in which I’ve often found myself for the last twelve years.

I suppose that, if I were to identify anything that I’ve taken away from this experience (other than I should listen to my instincts, because there are many ways in which this might have gone much more smoothly if I had…but that’s another post) it’s that I should avoid expectations. Difficult, because we enter every experience with expectations. That’s simply part of the human condition. The last two years of my life, though, are prime examples of how the act of entering into new experiences with a high expectation has resulted in an enormous amount of frustration and disappointment. I thought that life would be easier after this career change, that it would quickly reward my efforts, that our family would be in a better position both emotionally and financially. Life, unfortunately, and especially in our political and economic climate, is nowhere near that predictable or sunny.

In short, I don’t find us riding waves of familial success as I thought we would at this point. Rather, we are treading water in many ways.

Could this have been predicted? Perhaps some of it could have. This radical life change was entered into thoughtfully and prayerfully, though, and it was not impulsive. It’s just impossible to predict everything, or even most things. And, overall, it’s been worth the experience and has placed us in a better position in many ways. I wish, though, that my expectations hadn’t been as high, that I hadn’t permitted myself to build up this elusive ideal of what life would look like before reaching this point. Because, if I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have hit quite as hard, perhaps, when the rough spots occurred.

Weather is unpredictable, both literally and metaphorically. Perhaps it’s better to accept that as the primary constant in our experiences.

Photo Attribution: dcJohn under Creative Commons

Trendy? Not So Much…

Space Ghost action figure: a random image that is quirky and means nothing.

A long time ago, in a geographic location far far away, when I was a college student, there was this diner near the school. It was decorated like a 50’s diner, and served the faire that you would expect from such an establishment. Not astounding food quality, but it was fun. There was even a juke box. It was a great place to unwind and enjoy yourself.

I hadn’t really seen a place like that since, until we moved to New England two summers ago. The city in which we initially lived had such a diner downtown. I mentioned to Karen that I really wanted to stop in, because it would be really fun to go to a place like that again. After all, it’s a pretty unique experience.

And then, in our second apartment in that city, we discovered another such diner only a couple of blocks away. And then, when we moved about half an hour away to the town in which we currently live, we discovered another in the center of town. Turns out that, at least in our part of New England, retro-styled 50’s diners are all the rage.

I haven’t been to one here. Sort of don’t want to now. Mostly because they’re all the rage.
Contrast this with a place like Flying Saucer Pizza, which we tried last weekend, and that is a really cool and unique idea for a science-fiction-themed eatery (at least I haven’t seen any others in the area). It’s the sort of place that you recommend to your friends, because it’s unlike any other place that you’ve visited.

I suppose that where I’m going with this is that I really don’t like to do what everyone else is doing. In fact, if it’s stylish, trendy, or “what all the cool kids” are doing, I really have no desire to do it. On a cynical day, I would tell you that this is because of a herd mentality, because I don’t want to be part of a group following with no critical thought involved. In reality though, and in keeping with the positive vibe of my day, I think it’s more about my own personality flaw.

I just like to be different, man!

I sort of wish, for example, that Apple hadn’t gained the huge market share that it has, because it was a much cooler experience to carry an iPhone when very few people had one. Sort of like using a Mac still is, you were part of an exclusive club of sorts. I’ll continue to use one because it’s still superior to other phones, but when everyone has one…well, it just isn’t as fun.

We won’t discuss the secret fear that I hold of huge amounts of people becoming Whovians and forcing me to lose my joy in that program.

I think there’s something wonderful in being different, in defying easy categorization. Conformity is over-rated, and creativity flows from being a non-conformist. Still, the sour taste that doing what is popular leaves in mouth…it’s almost problematic.

Is this a pride thing? Do I need to mellow out in my old age? Should I follow the crowd more?

Nah. Being quirky is way too much fun…