Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Some Remembering
I don’t understand why this memory is lingering in my present day awareness, but trying to analyze it has revealed to me how fractured my recollection is. I’m guessing I was about 9, or possibly 10, years old. It was the first time in my life that I believed I was facing my own death. Up to that time, I had experienced only limited exposure to lakes or pools and did not know how to swim. I was playing on a floating raft at a swimming beach on Red Rock Lake, jumping from the raft into the neck-deep water. I didn’t realize the raft had moved to deeper water because I had become mesmerized with the experience of jumping into that water.
I know that I was with others, but I have no recollection who it specifically was. I have a sense that they contributed to my feeling blissfully free of apprehension. I don’t believe anyone noticed the time I jumped into water that was deeper than I was tall. It was a moment of 1, or maybe 2, seconds in which I mentally processed a lot more thought than that amount of time could allow.
Of all the bits and pieces of memory from this event, this is the most vivid of all: the combined feeling of shock and calm. I hadn’t sensed any hint of this possibility. I was in total oblivion of the fun I was having when all at once, I was faced with this potentially fatal reality. I surmised that I had reached the end of my life. I remember the instant of surprise, but in that same split second, the significant, calm insight that this would be it.
Pretty much as a reflex, I pushed off the bottom and sputtered as my face broke the surface. I went down again and without even thinking about it, pushed off like before. Keep in mind that the depth was probably just barely over my head, but to a kid who can’t swim, there is no range of depth; it’s either over your head, or not, and over your head may as well be the deep sea. Since it was not a long distance from where I had previously been playing, my 2 or 3 bounces had landed me back in my neck-deep zone, and that quick, I had overcome the expected demise.
Embarrassment kept me from addressing what had just transpired. Since no one appeared to have noticed, I figured it best to just keep it to myself, lest the fact of my not having learned to swim yet become something to talk about. I liked it better, left unsaid. I seem to have permanently logged the sensation of the lake bottom on my feet, the impression of a mother or sister (not necessarily mine) on shore under a tree, a variety of ages of kids playing in the water, and a day of hazy sunshine or more gray than blue sky. I have no real image of what the raft was like. I have a sense that my interest in jumping off the raft anymore was dashed, and I was left with the mixture of wanting to disavow any knowledge of what just happened, and yet still explore the drama I had just been through.
In addition to being fascinated by the different fragments of memory associated with this incident, I am also curious as to why it seems to be residing in the area of my conscious awareness of late. It strikes me now as I capture all this in writing, that I can’t wrangle a recollection of the point in which I finally achieved mastery of skills in the art of swimming. I bet it wasn’t too long after that. Maybe it served as a personal motivation. My teen years involved a pretty significant amount of time on and in Lake Riley at the Daly’s. There are quite a few memory fragments associated with that, but unlike my perceived brush with death, those remain ensconced deep in the catacombs of rarely disturbed files of the memory bank.
Laughably Busy
Is it really only Wednesday? Yes. Do the days of the week make any difference to someone who truly lives in the moment? I’m not one to say, that’s for sure. The day job is so busy that I would normally really look forward to the weekend for a break, but I haven’t been getting a full weekend for months because the day job is claiming Saturdays. Makes it that much less break to look forward to. The weeks get so long, it becomes a challenge to track what day it is.
What is the deal with printers suddenly misbehaving, right when we really have no time to spare? The number of things piling on at the day job has gotten just laughably insane. If I don’t laugh at it, I’ll cry. My tolerance is really being tested. I really don’t understand why when things can’t possibly get any busier, they do. It feels like being the brunt of some higher power’s practical joke.
Maybe that’s why I laugh at it.
For Pam
I have often shared my belief that putting our focus on the positive aspects of situations eases our path toward achieving positive outcomes that we ultimately desire. This mindset is not something I held or practiced until the most recent decade of my life. I have far from mastered the art.
Twice in my life I have voluntarily left gainful employment due to my dissatisfaction with the circumstances, even though I had not established any alternative. Ultimately, both times I discovered better alternatives. But back then, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Now, from the luxury of my hindsight, I have no doubt whatsoever, had I understood my mental capacity at that time to impact my life, the process would have brought me much less anxiety.
If thinking positive by an individual proves beneficial, then consider the possibility of numbers of people focusing positive impressions toward one person. Let’s give it a shot. Take a moment today to visualize positive outcomes for Pam this afternoon and beyond. Then, as long as you’re at it, give yourself a dose of the same medicine. Maybe we’ll tip the balance of things positive. I like the thought of that.
Game Day
This is the best moment, folks. Before the game even starts. After last week’s Vikings victory over the Dallas Cowboys, to earn a spot in the NFC Championship game that will commence later today, the whole state has been atwitter. Everywhere I turn, I find people wearing bright purple team wear. We have had a week of building anticipation, all targeted on this day. Prince released a new song written for the team. There are only 4 teams left and the entire nation of NFL fans will focus on these games with no competing games as distractions.
Have you noticed how the broadcasts during the playoffs seem to have difficulty breaking from their regular season format? At the usual intervals they interrupt the play-by-play to update other games in progress. Now, even though there are no other games in progress, they fail to drop that routine and interrupt to report on a game that already finished or tell us about the one coming up next. It seems so awkwardly unnecessary. Maybe the “Gamebreak” has a sponsor that requires the spot, whether or not there is anything to report on worthy of the interruption.
The odd thing about the buildup of anticipation for this game and so many others like it, is that it becomes larger than the game itself. And the sad thing about that is that as soon as the game starts, the anticipation is over. No matter how the game turns out, it is very difficult to live up to the anticipation. If the game goes sour for the home team, the deflation is decidedly thorough. Stranger still, if the home team is victorious, it is such a hoped for outcome, the reality can’t live up to it.
All we really have then is the anticipation for the next game.
Enjoy the Conference Championships today!
Marvelling
It amazes me to think about the subtle details of the workings of our bodies. The vast majority of what goes on, day in and day out, we take for granted. I found myself sitting on the floor for an extended amount of time recently and in just a few minutes in which I had my knees bent to support a laptop, the knee joints began to send signals of pain to announce that position would not be tolerated. I do not suffer any problems with my knees, and under normal standing, walking, and heavy sports activity, I get no pain signals. But, when put in an awkward static position under moderate stress, they quickly announce a problem. They aren’t designed to support weight at that angle.
Imagine what it would be like if we needed to be consciously aware of everything that is going on in our bodies all the time. Of course it is impressive that our flinch reaction pulls us away from harm before we even realize the need, but I am just as fascinated that my bladder can expand like a balloon to isolate urine from the rest of the organs and then collapse within the abdomen as it drains, and do so in a repeating cycle over and over and over for years on end. I am fascinated that the lining of my stomach survives the acid within. I am amazed that somehow the sensation of clothes against my skin gets filtered out of my consciousness, but at the same time I will notice an ant climbing up my leg. My heart beats and lungs pull in air and innumerable little miracles of science transpire, changing pace and depth automatically, never once needing to wait for me to decide. At the rate I make decisions, imagine what a mess that would be if it needed to wait on me in order to happen.
So, what is happening in your body at this minute that you weren’t thinking about until you read this?
Change Perspective
I am always amazed by the insights I gain from simply getting airborne. When the day is dreary gray down here on the ground, it often feels as if the sunshine doesn’t even exist. When you climb through the clouds and realize how thin they can be and how brilliant the sunshine is on the top side, the difference is startling. Even though we know better, knowing and seeing really are different things. It is amazingly sunny just above that water vapor cloud that materializes overhead.
I noticed something else during my weekend trip to Chicago. On a normal day in my life, I see a very small and predictable number of people. And that gets repeated again and again for days and months. Other than the days I go to the club to play soccer, where I do see a relatively broad number of strangers –over and over each week– I normally just see the small number of people I work with, and my wife at home in the evenings. Being in Chicago over the weekend and using public transportation, walking the streets, going to shows and restaurants and bars, seeing such a wide variety of people, revealed to me how small my world has become of late.
I think it is a good exercise to become aware of such things. We form a lot of opinions based on our perspective of the world, but it behooves us to consider how often our perspective is limited in scope. In that case, it would be wise that we not make our judgments about issues of the world any wider than the actual scope of our perspectives.
Trip Report
Public Art in Pioneer Court, God Bless America, Sculptor: J. Steward Johnson - Installed: Dec, 2008
Did I mention that I was going to Chicago for the weekend? Cyndie and I and our good friends, Bob & Kris and Mike & Barb, reunited for a January weekend in Chicago because someone spotted low airfare specials again. Our calculations revealed that the last time we did this was 3 years ago, in 2007, when we attended a performance of the play “Wicked” and watched a downtown 3D fireworks show over the river. The keynote event this year was a show at the Second City comedy theater. It was a gas! A bit tricky to discern if we were witnessing an early performance of someone who would someday show up on SNL or make it big in the movies, but the ensemble was very capable and highly entertaining and the skits were definitely funny. They finally got me laughing to tears, even though the topic of the cab driver explaining to the imaginary passengers (the audience) behind him, why the fares keep going up, wasn’t specifically that funny. It was his delivery. The timing he executed to deliver the repeated intro line for the next gag seemed to do the trick for me. Throughout the night they employed the craft of weaving independent skits, on-again, off-again, among other scenes, to squeeze extra laughs out of one idea, just by returning to it later to add one more comment or interaction. Very effective. Very funny. Highly entertaining!
My mauled open-face Reuben at Lou Mitchell's
We also visited Lou Mitchell’s Restaurant and Bakery at the start of Route 66, played $3000 guitars that are delivered upon request to the rooms of guests of the Hard Rock Hotel where we stayed, connected with our son, Julian, and other friends at the ESPN Zone to watch the NFL Vikings defeat Dallas, and followed a tip to a 1920’s speakeasy style cocktail bar, The Violet Hour, and then Francesca’s Forno in the Wicker Park neighborhood. We ate too much and tried to walk some of it off, but often took cabs or the CTA. For a person who doesn’t drink alcohol, I spent more time in bars over the weekend than I regularly visit in a couple of years. The Violet Hour, in particular, makes a seriously enticing ‘mocktail’.
Thank you, Southwest Airlines, for giving us these opportunities. They did a great job. And, once again, Chicago was a great host, even given the gray and somewhat chilly January climate. We are talking about considering altering our focus to start watching for cheap January airfare deals to warm destinations, but then, everybody does that. That’s the very reason it ends up being so cheap to go somewhere like Chicago.
The entrance to the Violet Hour. Seriously.
Time to Come Home!
I’m sure it was probably a wonderful time, but I always love returning home again. If I’ve taken adequate notes, I’ll be able to write all the gory details for your entertainment later this week, but no promises. Maybe what happened in Chicago will need to stay in Chicago. Who knows what I was up to in these shots from the trip of January 2007.
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Go Vikes!
I have no idea what it will be like to watch my home football team compete in a playoff game when I am located in a rival city. Da Bears are out of it, so they may as well cheer us on. I’ll let you know how it turned out after I get back. Here is another shot from our January Chicago trip of two years ago. Are we having fun yet?
Off to Chicago
We’re headed to Chicago for the weekend with friends. Weather should be pleasant for us to wreak our silly havoc on the unsuspecting town. Reports to follow…
