The Quality of Breathing

Oakley smells like a montage. I drive with the windows down and let the pictures summoned by each breath float across the monitor in my mind like a screensaver. Climbing cemetery hill behind Grandpa and Grandma Ingram's house in Alpine, flying on the rope swing inside the massive barn at my cousin's dairy farm in Idaho, and childhood road trips through the breadbasket states, these are some of the most powerful memory images brought on by smelling Oakley.

We haven't lived in Oakley for very long, but new memories are forming every day. Watching Solomon play football, driving country roads with Hannah, watching Caleb walking with new friends after cross country practice, checking in on the new baby buffalo down the road, and lunch dates at the local burger joint with Elizabeth. These are some of my new favorites.

On most nights the mountain air cools to sweatshirt level. So long as a skunk doesn't spray a barking dog or get itself smashed on the highway, keeping the windows open makes for a pleasant night and comfortable sleeping. Burrowing under the blankets without the air conditioning blowing feels good on both the wallet and the skin.

A screen on our bedroom door that opens onto the back deck would be nice, but I am not very handy around the house. I can hang a painting, glue a broken something, or tighten a screw, but I really shouldn't be building anything. I have tools, but don't use them all that much. Our homes have always been better off before my "improvements." But a screen door should be a minor, even easy project, and the effort made would be validated by the reward, right?

In recent years I have become more handy around the soul. Opening myself up to change, I have made some major renovations on the floor plans and decor of my heart and mind. I have torn down walls to create a more open space, installed skylights that allow happy sunshine to brighten dark corners, and shored up what had long been a weak foundation. Retaining walls have been strengthened, and some temporary walls have been erected to protect the renovation in progress. Good memories have been framed and hung, broken relationships have been mended, and a few loose screws have been tightened (only a few, I don't want to be boring).

When it rains in Oakley, the air smells to me like Heaven's fabric softener.

The retractable screen door sounded like a good idea while standing in the door aisle at Home Depot. It took some time, effort, and ingenuity to build out the left side of the doorframe for an even fit. During this part of the project I ignored the memory of my father's voice mocking my hammer handling "You're supposed to hit the nail, not the wood, dummy!" The focus on ignoring the past made for a dimple-free finished look. (Thanks Dad, but not really.) The installation was going well, and I even used the hacksaw without cursing. The paper instructions were all but useless, so I watched the online installation video instead, and followed every step as best I could. The man in the video made it look so easy. His screen door slid back and forth with a smooth motion and a quiet zipping sound.

Mine didn't. The screen bunched up, refusing to retract into the housing. I tried over and over again, my frustration mounting with each attempt. The neighbor's aging mother may have learned a new word or two through her open window as I did my best to make the door cooperate. Elizabeth came out to offer support and provide another set of eyes to review the installation, but to no avail. I returned the door to Home Depot the next day, and to their credit they refunded my money without questioning my hammer handling.

An indefinite moratorium on home improvement projects is now in place.

My inner space is becoming quite luxurious. So much so that I enjoy spending time with myself. Of course, the work is far from done, and not all of the finishings are perfect, but it's coming along better than I had hoped. Hey self, look at me, you're a work in forward progress!

The bedroom door remains screen-free. I shouldn’t have rushed to install a screen door that you could probably find in Sky Mall magazine, but I was so eager to let in more air. Oh well, lesson learned. I think I’ll wait and have a professional install a screen door that functions the way it should.

One that keeps the bugs out, but lets in the air.

That sweet Oakley air.

Surf's Up

I am not a good surfer, but I sometimes brave the winter weather and water, driving to the beach with a crazy friend named Captain Rob. He lets me borrow his long board. I thrill at the fact that the air, bullied about by the wind, is much colder than the water. We have to tread through the unplowed parking lot just to get to sand, another element that adds to the experience. That first shock of cold ocean water seeping into my wetsuit reminds me that my heart is still pushing warm blood.

The Captain surfs while I realign my chakra. I lay on the long board, letting the thick hug of my wetsuit, the cold salt spray against my cheeks, and the low thunder of the waves nourish me back to health. From time to time I ride a wave in to shore, but never do I ride very well. Still, it's fun. It's more than fun, it's living.

June 7th, 2009. A Sunday evening. I stand to speak before a small group of young, single adults. Although the talk had been planned for some time, most of it had written itself over the course of the past several days. My chosen topic? "Living." The stiff collar of my shirt floats around my neck on a layer of sweat, and my heart batters at its cage, threatening my chest.

I had spent the afternoon before my talk walking the abandoned railroad tracks near my brother's home. Elizabeth had walked them with me, in spite of her belief that we were looking for Jared's body in the wrong spot. She had a feeling he would be closer to his home, that he would have wanted to be found. I was not sure at the time why I wanted to walk the tracks all the way out to the beautiful Great Bay, but subsequent therapy has led me to believe that I simply didn't want to be the one to find Jared, yet needed to feel that I was making every effort to do so. The mind is an expert at tricking the body and heart into all sorts of madness.

Some of what I said that night:

"A few weeks ago I headed down to the sea wall on 1A North in Hampton. I sat on the wall and started to write this talk, but was soon distracted by a group of surfers that bobbed on the water like a string of black lobster buoys. I counted twenty in all, but of the twenty, only one was actually catching waves. I watched as he rode wave after wave, riding anything that even hinted at curling over, while his peers sat on their boards, feet dangling in the water. The nineteen of them just sat there staring out to sea, waiting for that one great ride, a dream wave that would carry them towards the rocky shore at a blistering pace, providing them with the adrenalin rush that only those who have caught such a wave can truly understand.  And so I watched that single surfer. He was something to see, riding his little waves, happy as it gets, grinning like an idiot the entire time. He ate it a few times, but he popped up out of the water and jumped right back up onto his board, paddling right back into it with that silly grin of joy on his lips.

That night twenty surfers came down to the beach with one purpose in mind; to surf. Twenty came down, twenty donned wet suits, twenty walked into the water and paddled out, but only one of them actually surfed. Only one was willing to ride whatever the ocean sent his way, while the other nineteen sat on their boards, drifting with the current, staring out to open waters as they waited for that one big wave to come and make their night complete.

Much like those surfers, we came to Earth to live. We came, we donned this mortal coil, and we paddled out into the open seas of life, but not all of us are truly living. Have you ever know someone that is happy to be here, thrilled at the taste of the salty sweet waters that life splashes in our face? I have, and I marvel at their tenacity, their attitude, and their contagious laughter.

On the flip side of things, however, are those that are miserable in life. We all know someone like this, or perhaps we are that someone. These are the people are afraid of life, angry at living, frustrated at every inconvenience, halted by the events that surround them, and intimidated by experience. We cannot always know or understand why they are this way, and it is not our place to judge them. Although we love them and wish the best for them, they are generally not fun to be with."

Did I really say all of this? How bold. Stay tuned.

The following morning Elizabeth was proved to be right. We found Jared not more than a long stare's distance from his back door. His still and restful looking, nonetheless lifeless body was hidden by the bright green shag-carpet of ferns that surrounded his chosen spot.

Not a sight that the two of us are ever likely to forget.

Since that day, the waters around me are often in turmoil, the heavy rollers towering above vicious undertows. I have clung to my board, the thought of hanging a perfect ten as far from my mind as I am from the shore. Made stronger by my guilt, anger, and regret, the waves look white, explosive, crushing. I close my eyes and fear them. I cannot overcome them. I am not ready, and feel I never will be. My chakra needs more than alignment, it needs a lube job, a new belt, and a jump start.

Just a few days ago, I was speaking with one of the single young adults that was present for my talk about "Living." Married just a few weeks now (to a young man that endeared himself to me for all time with his uncommon sincerity), she told me that she had not forgotten how I encouraged the group to ride even the smallest of waves in life so that they might be more prepared for the big, bad curlers that hit without warning. (Not all the big waves in life's ocean are fun to ride.)

This week, compelled by her recollection of something that I said, I dug out and then read my talk from that night. As it happens, I didn't write it for the young, single adults. I wrote it for me.

Captain Rob, wax up the boards. It's time to ride some little waves.

Meltdown

Were I a drinking man, I'd raise a tall glass of something hard to the single parent.


I am not done with all I have to do, yet I am tired and ready for bed. A constant chorus sounds outside my bedroom door, each of my kids singing a different song as they finish their homework. While I thrill at the vocal talents of my three children, my ears are beginning to fill with wax, a physical response to my need for quiet. There is a broken dishwasher in need of replacement, and the dirty dishes are piled high (despite the sign that reads "Use Paper Plates!" hanging on the cupboard door). I am thinking about installing a fare meter in my car, which I am also thinking about painting taxi-cab yellow. I have 40+ emails from clients desperate for my attention. One half of my bed is empty, and as I look across my pillow at night I see nothing but the hollow darkness that hovers above Elizabeth's. I am tired, stressed, and lonely. It has been a long few days, and Elizabeth is gone for another two.

My waking dreams are all about freezing time. I need the world to stop so that I can get things done without the pressure of backlogged requests.

Exhausted, I collapse into bed to watch Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman ride their BMW motorcycles around the world. Elizabeth and I had been watching "Long Way Round" (for the third time) before she left, and my favorite episode is next in line; Siberia and the Road of Bones. The road, if it can be called that, which connects Vladivostok to Magadan, was not only built by Stalin's prisoners, but from them as well. Those that died along the way were buried as part of the road itself, giving the route it's the grim nickname. The episode both fascinates and depresses me. Their struggle to travel a road born of such tragedy and suffering makes for emotional television. I watch the episode in short bursts, pausing several times to handle requests from the kids, and then to take a phone call from Elizabeth after they are in bed. By the time Ewan and Charley reach Magadan and climb the hill that leads to "The Mask of Sorrow," a monument erected in memory of those that died building the road, it is late into my night.

The episode ends, and notwithstanding the hour I jump on the Internet and begin studying the terrible road, and the dark story of how it came to be. Many clicks later I find myself reading about another scar on Russia's history. The disaster at Chernobyl has fascinated me since I first heard of it over twenty years ago (it has been 25 years almost to the day since the reactor explosion in 1986).

With every click, images of abandoned homes, businesses, and hospitals flash up on the screen. The floors are littered with everyday items; clothes, books, toys, furniture, even family photos. All of them were left behind in the desperate evacuation, which was ordered far too late to do most people any good. Gas masks are everywhere, and I wonder if people left them behind knowing that it was useless to don them. A Ferris wheel stands in the empty city of Prypiat, a rusting reminder of the children that were growing up there when the disaster struck.

I've seen all of these photos before, and while they never fail to mesmerize and make me sad, they are just pictures of abandoned brick, mortar, and belongings coated with an invisible layer of poisonous atoms. While they invoke memories of things I never did, with people I have never met or seen, their impact stops short of anything emotional. They are merely fascinating to look at and wonder about.

The final click of the night brings me to an online exhibit that I have never seen before. Photos taken by Paul Fusco begin to fade in and out from one to the next. As I watch, I imagine in Paul a man whose life was altered with each click of the camera lens during this particular shoot. His photos are of children effected by the nuclear disaster. The images break my heart. My eyes fill with tears, and my hands reach up to hide my face, an involuntary response to the emotional wave that folds over me. The slide show ends, and I want nothing more in that moment than to fly east, find these children, and hug them.

But I can't, and the prideful thought that a hug from me could make a difference in their lives fills me with self loathing. I sit on my bed surrounded by silence. I think about my list of unfinished items, and the dishes piled high on the counter downstairs. The thought of my selfish whining earlier in the evening weighs me down with shame, pressing me deeper into my comfortable bed. Helpless and full of sorrow, I once again wish for the power to freeze time and stop the world, with a little time travel on the side.

After several minutes I leave my bedroom and wander through my beautiful, radiation-free home. One by one I quietly open the door to each of my children's bedrooms and watch them sleep.

To watch a slide show that will break your heart but make you thankful for even your most difficult days and the most "trying" moments with your children, click here: Chernobyl.

Aw, Crap!

"Well it's been a long time since I did that." I said the words aloud, though no one was around to hear them. The only sound to that point had been my crunching.
I was at home alone, eating a bowl of cereal. I had no appetite, not since the sudden onset of whatever it was attacking my body from within, but I thought that perhaps some sugar would calm the headache and shore up my energy against the fatigue.
The day had been a normal one. I visited a routine client in the morning, then headed off to install a firewall and vpn at a new break/fix client. It would be a quick 2 hour visit, then home to work on my taxes. My body felt fine, and my head free of pressure.
The firewall installed and configured, I tended to a few minor issues that had been troubling the client's network. It was just after 3:00 when they asked me to upgrade their antivirus, because it had been a few years since anyone had paid any attention to it. I figured it would take about 90 minutes, and since every minute onsite was billable I decided to stay and get it done. I was also looking to impress, since they are a fairly new client and their network in need of some tender loving surgery.
I stepped outside to call Elizabeth and told her that I would most likely not be back in time to watch Solomon when she and the other kids left for their music and ballet classes. We chatted for a moment, and as we did the sun peeked through the grey above, just for a few minutes. I felt good.
Back to work, and before long the work was done. I was feeling good, having accomplished a lot in this single visit, and adding an extra 5 hours of billing to my month. I was sitting at the server desk, making my last checks to the system before logging off and heading for home when it hit.
The chills came on in an instant, followed by a dizzy sensation that had me wavering as I stood. I reached out and grabbed at the wall in order to steady myself. The moment my hand touched the dry, white surface, a stabbing cramp gripped my stomach. My hand pulled away from the wall, my reflexes acting to protect me from what they interpreted in a flash to be an electric shock. With nothing to hold me steady, I spun around in a lightheaded circle, crashing back into the chair I had left just a moment before.
I doubled over with a groan as a longer ripple of cramps that must have fallen short of birthing contractions but was still one of the most painful sensations I had ever felt stretched across my belly. Beads of sweat popped out along my forehead, as the chills were replaced with an instant fever.
"What the hell?" I groaned, my arms wrapped around my waist, my face between my knees.
I took a few deep breaths, and the fever subsided, taking the cramps with it. I walked with a ginger gait over to my laptop and packed it away. Within a few seconds I had bid goodbye to my client (without a hand shake) and climbed into my car with some effort. I called Elizabeth at once.
"I am leaving now, and I am just calling to let you know that if I don't make it home tonight, I love you." My joking voice was laced with a perceptible seriousness.
"Kid, what happened?" She always calls me "Kid" when I am being silly.
"I don't know, but I feel like I've been through the ringer. I almost passed out earlier, and I am achy all over." I whined.
"Kid, it sounds like you've got it." She didn't have to say it; I knew she meant the Norovirus. It had attacked her friend just a few days earlier. All the same symptoms in a sudden onset.
"I hope not, but this is how bad it is; I want to go to bed in my clothes, without taking a shower first." (Whine)
"Ok, that's pretty bad." She agreed.
We traded a few sentences of catch-up talk as we did every day on my drive home. The kids, school, etc.
She interrupted, "Ok, you need to focus on driving, I am going to let you go. Everybody say hi to Dad!" I pictured her holding the phone aloft and heard our kids shout happy hellos and love-yous.
We hung up and I focused on the road. I listened to a loud comedy show from BBC radio in order to stay sharp. The loud laughter, high-pitched comic host with thick Northern accent, and the obnoxious musical tones screeched against the blackboard of my mind, but it kept me from driving off into the guardrail.
I made it home and dropped everything on my desk, stripping off clothes as I made my way to the bathroom. Ten minutes of a soothing hot shower later I was feeling better, but I knew that there was more to come. I just didn't know how bad or how long it would last.
I was standing naked in my bedroom when the doorbell rang. I made the mistake of peeking out the window, and was sure that the driver of the car had caught sight of the blinds shifting as I did so. I sighed, pulled on my pajama pants (inside-out) and slid a tee-shirt over my head.
Several minutes later, after a long discussion with an apologetic neighborhood boy and his mother about a moment of bullying that had taken place that day (something I knew nothing about), I wandered into the kitchen to eat something in hopes of calming down the intense headache that had just gotten worse. I really don't like bullies.
I poured a bowl of cereal and sat down to eat. The bowl was almost empty when I felt a rumbling. It was the kind of rumbling that signals the onset of something nasty. The rumbling spread through my belly, then turned south, snaking its way through my guts.

And then I pooped my pants.


Just a little.


But enough.


The gaps are for comedic timing, but it really wasn't funny. It was terrible.


I haven't pooped my pants in years. The last time I did was in Paraguay, at the age of 20. I remember visiting one of the poorest husband and wife that I have ever known. They lived in a shack on the side of a hill, and had at least a half a dozen kids. They had nothing. I mean nothing. Clothes, some dishes, and a place to sleep. That was the whole of their life together, but I remember them being happy. The mother smiled as her children ran up to greet us, the father taking my hand in his and chattering a happy welcome, the words passing with a whistle between large gaps in his blackened teeth. I marveled at their obvious affection for each other under such miserable circumstances.
They offered us some water. I looked across their dirt yard and noticed their well. It was a hole in the earth, right beside their cooking fire. I could see the water, just six inches below the edge of the hole. It was stagnant. I looked up at the shacks settled above theirs on the hillside, and wondered how much of the waste from the people living up there drained down into this family's well.
The moment was one of innumerable opportunities I had already been given to offend while in Paraguay. To refuse their offer of the only thing they had to give would have broken their spirit. Neither I nor my companion had the cold courage to do so. We nodded in acceptance.
The mother produced two glasses, dipping them one at a time into the well, filling them with water. She carried them over to us I like a waiter at a swanky restaurant carrying two bottles of fine wine. As she approached I noticed that the water looked like lemonade.
It looked like lemonade, but it wasn't lemonade. I took the glass offered with a gracious thanks, and my eyes widened at the sight of tiny little somethings swirling around in the dirty drink. I looked over at my companion and smiled with a slight shrug. He returned the same, his glass of liquid looking no better than mine.
And then we drank. Both glasses drained to the bottom in one long synchronous pull. We left the couple and their children after twenty or so minutes of chatting, the national pastime of Paraguayans. The sun was high and hot as we made our way back to the little house that we shared. My companion and I were sweating more than usual. We knew what was coming, we just didn't know when.
It sucker-punched me as we turned onto our street. I wanted to but was afraid to run. In running I might have lost control of the muscles holding back the onslaught. in the end it didn't matter, because my pants were soaked with the sickness before we made it inside. I entered the shower full dressed. The gravity-fed plumbing had hardly enough pressure to wash it all away, but I did the best I could. I even had to rinse my shoes.
The days that followed were terrible. If not for a woman named Kiti, a midwife by trade and a surrogate mother to us both, we might had died. She spoon fed us on iv drip fluids, keeping us from dehydrating and passing into comas. I lost weight, dropping at least 10 pounds from my hearty 150. It wasn't the first time I had been sick in Paraguay, and it would not be the last, but it was by far one of the worst.

20 years later it had happened again, and my reaction was to laugh and say, "Well it's been a long time since I did that."
A few minutes later I stood in the shower, rinsing a tiny amount (in comparison) of sick from my body and clothes. I was achy, feverish, and my stomach was convulsing. I wanted to collapse into bed and sleep until the weekend. I was too beat up to be ashamed, but I did hide my (rinsed) pajama pants in the dirty clothes, crammed down deep between the towels.
I spent a miserable night and all of today plagued by intermittent cramps, an everlasting headache, and a feverish chill that would not relent.
But I am looking on the bright side. I don't live in a shack on a hill, I have filtered water, and a beautiful nursemaid brings me medicine and soda crackers whenever I ask.
And best of all, it has been 24 hours since I pooped my pants!

Beautiful Red Ruin

We left the volcanic wasteland behind, following the road down through the foothills towards the wide open plain below. The sky was the kind of blue that artists go mad trying to capture on canvas. A few wisps of white cloud floated overhead, pushed by a cool and gentle breeze. The sun touched everything in sight, leaving the darkness nowhere to hide. All the landscape needed was a cowboy on horseback being chased by Navajo warriors on painted war ponies.

Michael wasn’t smoking but I opened the windows anyway, letting the morning air rush over my skin and into my lungs.

“What a perfect day for driving to the Grand Canyon!” I thought aloud over the happy noise of our latest play list.

I saw Michael’s head nod in agreement. His dark hair was wrestling with the wind, his eyes scanning the beautiful, desolate world surrounding our little black rental car.

The road wound down through miles of curves and long straights before flattening out onto the plain. Several motorcycles passed us along the way, with riders decked out in black leathers and denim jackets. We sped up and passed a few RVs and slow moving pickups, but the road was for the most part lonely and quiet.

After several miles I slowed the car and took a right turn onto the access road for the Wukoki Pueblo. Before long we could see it standing in the distance. It reached high into the backdrop of blue, a rusty red castle complete with lookout tower. We pulled up and parked a couple of spaces away from the only other car in the lot.

I led the way up the path. Michael followed with the camera. I ran the final few yards, up the steps, and into the structure.

“Turn around, I’ll take a photo.” Michael shouted from down below on the trail.

I turned and looked his way, resting my hands on my hips as he snapped a shot. As he made his way up the steps to join me, I spun in a slow, scrutinizing circle. Ruin was hardly the right word to use when talking about the pueblo; the original owners had built their home to last. A formidable structure with straight edges, thick walls, and sharp corners, it has been standing strong against the elements for nearly a thousand years. The tower stood three stories high from the base of the rock upon which it was built. It must have afforded the occupants plenty of warning when anyone, friend or foe, approached from any direction. I doubted that anyone had ever snuck up undetected, and was sure that any attackers had suffered a nasty assault from high above.

We ducked into the tower through a tiny opening that must have been the door. I stood in the center of the uneven dirt floor and cocked my head back to look straight up at the blue patch of sky directly overhead. The red walls provided a colorful contrast to complete the picture.

“Beautiful!” I marveled. My voice bounced around inside the tower.

“There must have been a loft up there, you can see where the beams must have been.” Michael pointed up to several open pockets in the walls.

“Bedroom loft in a lookout tower. How cool is that?” I stared out through a large hole in one wall.

I peered out through an opening that must have served as a window. The wall was almost as thick as my arm was long, but I could still see far and wide into the distance.

“I wonder if anyone ever shot an arrow at someone through this window.” My imagination was hard at work placing a band of attackers out on the plain. I rained arrows down on them from my high vantage point.

After repelling the attackers, I pulled my head back from the window and my mind back into reality. I turned to see Michael staring out through an even smaller square in the wall to my right. Both his hands were planted on the wall, his head still. The camera cord hung out of his back pocket. I reached out like a reverent thief, pulling the camera free without a sound.

Michael was lost in thought. His gaze was intent, as if he were searching for something or someone far away on the horizon. I snapped a photo of him from across the little room.

Leaving my brother to his thoughts, I crawled back through the little doorway and out into the sunlight. I looked out across the large open area that made up half of the pueblo. Encircled by a waist-high parapet wall, it must have served as a work area for the people that had lived here long ago. I could picture deerskins stretched and drying in the sun, baskets full of gathered foods, a fire pit ringed with stones, and children chasing a flea-ridden puppy in happy, loud circles.

“This would have been a great place to stage battles with our Star Wars and G.I. Joe figures.” Not for the first time on our trip, Michael’s voice interrupted my thoughts in a good way.

“Definitely. Look at all the rock formations and great places for waiting in ambush.” I agreed.

We stood together, looking out at the red rock and pointing out the best places to play. As kids we had spent more of our playtime choosing our figures and vehicles, staging them on the battlefield, building their bases, and mapping out scenarios than we had in acting them all out. In fact, we took so much time to work out the details that we rarely made it past the initial setup. When friends came over to play, they often grew frustrated with all the time we required in the imagination and planning phases of our play.

Standing with Michael in the ruins of an ancient Native American pueblo, I was reliving some of the best moments of my childhood. It was an unlikely moment in an unlikely setting, one that my own imagination could not have ever conjured.

My eyes filled with tears and I wished that it could have been my imagination that brought us to the pueblo, rather than everything that had.