Flashing back to small posts about random things

I have started reading old posts here. I have actually started from the first one and I am working my way forward, post by post. I think I started the "project" hoping to find some good stuff that I had forgotten about, and reminisce a bit about almost 15 years of writing in some form. 

I have made my way through 2007 and am currently in the spring of 2008. Things will go sideways by the end of that year, and the 2009 posts will have some subtext clear only to me, but we're not there yet. 

In the heady days of 2007, I was excited about this new outlet and was posting nearly every day. A lot of the posts were small updates, random thoughts, articles that had caught my eye, and responding to and promoting my friend's posts who were also beginning bloggers. Not much of those first six months were worth re-reading, and a lot of the moments were mundane, but discovery can come in small moments. But again, I wasn't really there yet. 

Back then I also wrote a lot about environmental concerns. I was pretty passionate about it, wanted to talk about it, share whatever tips I might have, etc. A decade and a half later, I still think we are treating the planet too much like a rental car we don't give a shit about, but I am more discouraged than passionate. The companies that produce so much of the waste in this world have done a great job of pushing the onus on the consumer to consider our own carbon footprint, while not much considering theirs. At their scale, they can make a tiny change that has massive impact, while if I make a massive change the impact is small. 

But I still try to do my best, if only to better live with my decisions. 

Anyway, to harken back to those 2007 days of talking about small random things...why is it so hard to find powder laundry detergent these days? 

I have long used powder over liquid detergent to save on the unnecessary shipping of water, and to reduce plastic bottles going into the waste/recycling stream. However, for some reason it is much harder to find these days. My local grocery has shelves and shelves of liquid/plastic detergent, but not a single cardboard box of powdered detergent. On the way back from the library on Sunday I stopped by a different grocery store. Again, so many choices of liquid detergent. It took me three scans of the aisle and nearly giving up before finally finding the one box/powder choice on the bottom shelf. Small victory. 

I get home and notice a small sticker on the box. 

You can click to enlarge the picture, but it reads, "Thank you for buying @ QFC. If found for resale elsewhere call 888-892-6460." 

So now I wonder if there is a black market for powdered laundry detergent. Maybe I am looking in the wrong aisle, and it is actually locked up behind protective glass somewhere with the Benadryl. 

Updating Share the Road

I wrote a novel, and (self) published it ten years ago today. 

Three years ago I re-read it while on vacation, and decided to do it with a pen in hand. I circled a few typos, noted some words that were repeated a little too close to each other, and crossed out/added some commas.  And then set that marked up copy aside. 

Since it was ticking over to a nice round number of ten years this New Year's Day, I decided to fix those things.  That is one of the bonuses of self-publishing and print on demand. You can go back and tweak things, upload a new manuscript, and any new purchase will get the updated version.

The most difficult part was that I wasn't sure I still had the original "final" version saved anywhere. I had a ton of copies of the Word files that I had saved after every day of original writing, and a number of versions after the rewrites and revisions. What I didn't have was a Word file that said, "This is the final, final version you published." I had also had an unfortunate incident where I managed to overwrite both my computer and a backup drive in one day. I am still missing a big chunk of 2012 - 2015. Years of photos, and possibly a book, gone into the ether. There was definitely some swearing that day.  

Anyway, through downloading a pdf from Amazon and converting it to Word, and doing an automated comparison, I managed to find a formatted Word doc that was very close to the final version. 

I fixed those typos and minor word issues while resisting the urge to rewrite the whole thing. I would guess that it is pretty typical of anyone who writes, you are never completely satisfied with what you have written, so I could get in a cycle of rewriting it every time I read it. Best to leave it as it was, how I was, when it was written. 

That said, along with making some changes in comma and word choice, I can remember one deleted sentence, another re-written one, and a paragraph I changed during the update that had always bothered me. The changes are small enough that they may not be noticed by someone else, but enough for me to "fix" since I was making an update anyway. 

So, consider this my once a decade promotion to buy my book. You can find the paperback here as well as the Kindle version here.

 

Stop talking yourself out of it

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

~ Martha Graham

Dry spells

A friend of mine announced in December that she was pregnant. A few of us were at their house to have a sort of a pod-safe gathering ahead of Christmas when they told us the news. After some cheering and rule-breaking hugging, we talked about what life would be like for them in the year ahead.

This being our biking group, we quickly recognized that the due date was right around the time we were signed up to ride Ramrod in July. The soon-to-be father was obviously out, and the rest of us more or less decided that we would train, but if the baby decided to show up on race day, we would skip the ride to be at the hospital. 

As we continued to chat, the mom-to-be mentioned that she had been filling the fridge with new non-alcoholic beverages to replace the wine and beer she was giving up, and she asked for other drink suggestions. I suggested we all give up drinking for January as a small show of support. 

I have participated in "Dry January", no alcohol for the month, a number of times. It is a reset after the holiday indulgence, and a check-in to make sure that setting drinking aside is as easy as it should be. This time around, even though it followed nine months of sheltering in place where drinking was more of a temptation, it was remarkably easy. 

I did have one slip up mid-month. My brothers and I had found a restaurant with an open outdoor patio, and we got together to discuss Mom's current condition, and I suppose to check in on each other as well. We were about an hour in when I shared that I had given up drinking for January. I said this while taking a sip of my second beer. 

I had just completely spaced, falling into a routine, I suppose highlighting that habits run along in the background unless we consciously make the effort to change them. I wasn't giving into a craving, just drinking without thinking. I added on four or five "dry" days at the beginning of February to offset the slip up. 

Unfortunately, three better habits have also gone dry this year. A slight modification of the grade school three Rs they are Reading, Writing and Running. These three habits are a big part of what keeps me healthy in both body and mind. My writing has obviously been neglected for quite some time, but through the 2020 part of the pandemic, I managed to keep up the other two when the world was turned upside down and making less and less sense. I was able to read 26 books last year, and though I had grander plans, I ran semi-regularly and covered a little over 500 miles. 

2021 has been an absolute struggle on all three fronts, and to be honest I am just plain struggling. I'll pick up on the running dry spell in the next post. 

November

For the last decade, November has been sort of a second spring.

As a guy who prepares taxes for a living, there are two major seasons during the year. The first crush of work/hours is to make the March 15th and April 15th deadlines, and the second is the extension deadlines of September and October 15th.

After the spring deadlines, we take a breather, get out of town for a bit, but there is still a bunch of work to do over the summer to make the fall deadlines less brutal. After the October 15th deadline, the tax year is really over. Well, mostly but there really is much less to do. This is the time when all those things I ignored and which faded into the background for much of the year suddenly move out of the shadows to be seen. There are days of office cleaning, scanning and shredding prior year stuff to make room for the current year's paperwork, doctors appointments are made, car maintenance is taken care of, etc.

It is the same thing on the home front. After weeks of long hours and few days off, it is time for (second) spring cleaning. After catching up on sleep and arriving home during daylight hours, you see your home in a different light. First, there are cobwebs. Everywhere. There is a large stack of newspapers I haven't read, but couldn't quite admit I wasn't going to get to. I only get the paper on Sundays, but the stack was still pretty high. Similarly there is a large backlog of books I want to read, but since most of them are on the Kindle or still at the library, the stack is less obvious. My desk is covered in receipts and I haven't balanced my checkbook since the end of the previous year. I reconcile other people's books all year, but can't seem to get to my own, like a carpenter that can't seem to find the time to finish the baseboard in his house. It is satisfying to dig into it, but man the list of set aside projects is long.

The other November re-birth for the past decade has been about writing. It began with that first Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) in November of 2010. The other Sean threw down the gauntlet to join in the challenge of writing 50,000 words in a month and I could not ignore his enthusiasm. I made that 50,000 word deadline and came away with a novel that first year. However, I have attempted it a few other times but have not been able to recapture the magic.

I have been on the Nanowrimo mailing list since that first year, and the encouraging emails start rolling in each year around early September. This year a singer I follow was going to take it on and she encouraged me to join. November comes and I have the time and mental space to imagine taking it on again.  Like in previous years though, I did not have a sufficient idea to pursue, but also as in previous years, November sparked something inside that made me want to clear away the mental dust that I had let gather.

Back when I was writing more consistently, I carried around a little notebook to jot down ideas that crossed my mind. Now the notes are jotted down on a phone app when they appear, but they appear less often. To no one's surprise, part of the reason is the phone itself. Moments when I previously let my mind wander are now occupied by the world behind the small screen I carry around. There are fewer creative thoughts because I don't make time for them. When I am busy I can make the excuse that my mind is full, but not in November.

Several nights this month I have been reading old posts, and going through the note-taking apps on my phone. I have found posts that I am proud of, and little snippets of scenes I jotted down for possible stories that make me smile with possibility. It reminds me that there was something in there once, and that it could be there again if I allow the time, make the space, and do the work I have been neglecting.

A quick revisit, and maybe some changes

"The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea."
   ~ Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen)

My work comes in waves, as predictable as the seasons. Like many, it is deadline oriented, but with the knowledge that the deadlines (almost) never change from year to year. As such, November and December are when things go from frantic activity, to trying to fill your day with work. Naturally, this is when it is easiest to take time off.

Even knowing it was coming, I didn't plan a vacation. Then last week when I found out the two partners at work were taking much of November off, it became clear that it was now or wait and take two weeks in December.

Last November I just stayed at home, "staycation" mixed with chores ignored during the busy season. This year I figured I would take a couple of days at home, but I was a bit twitchy to get out of town for at least part of the week. In a few hours I cycled through some possibilities within driving distance: State park yurt or cabin...Orcas Island...Mount Rainier...Crescent Lake... All sounded tempting, but with weather and dog considerations, none quite fit.

This time instead of the mountains calling, it was the ocean.

I am not sure if it is the endless horizon, the timeless waves, the symbolic washing away of cares, but the ocean has always drawn me in. The Oregon Coast in particular holds a special place in my heart. I have been there as a kid with family, made trips with girlfriends, spent time there alone, and of course rode my bike down its length some ten years ago. I looked at the map, paged through memories, and settled in on Cannon Beach.

Cannon Beach offered the perfect blend of seclusion with a nearby crowd. There is a town filled with little shops, but you could spend all your time walking the beach and hiking in nearby parks. Though it was an impromptu, unscheduled trip, I was soon packing my car with lots of possibilities: Running gear, hiking gear, books to read, ukulele to play, and a shinny new laptop since I was out of excuses to write. Mostly though, I was looking for a little Vacation Bubble to step away, reset, take a look at things anew. 

I had a dog in tow this time so there would be lots of walking and less time looking in shops or going out for a nice meal. I did find a few dog-friendly patios, but the options would definitely been more plentiful with nicer weather (he says already making excuses to go back).

Sort of at the last minute I threw my own book in with the luggage. It had been a few years since I had read it, and I reasoned that since I would be driving the roads and hanging out in the backdrop of the story, it might be fun to revisit.

And I brought a pen.

I do not plan to re-write the story, but I did mark some things up this time through. If I wrote it today, it would be different, but I am still happy with it and proud to have put it out there. Still, there are a couple of typos I would like to fix, some repeated words too close to each other, and a part of one scene I would like to change.

Most history can't be rewritten, but with print-on-demand, my book can. There is no stack of books ready to be sold, so if I upload a new master file, any new copies sold would be missing those things I circled in my copy. I think with the Kindle versions, people who previously bought the book could actually get an updated copy for free (in case they ran out of other books and wanted to re-read it).

Of course I should be writing something new and not trying to rewrite what is in the past, especially since NaNoWriMo kicked off today, but I am going to take some baby steps to get back at writing.

The running gear was not used, the ukulele stayed in its case, but there was lots of beach combing, viewpoint scouting, coffee and beer sipping on patios, and a book and more read during the brief getaway.

Not planned, not perfect, but pretty nice.

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today...

It was the day before Christmas last year and I was over at my friend's house. His daughter, also my great friend, had gotten engaged just days before, to someone who is also a great friend (so many interconnected friends). These three have all brought me in like family, and this was one of several times they have included me in holiday celebrations. 

We were toasting the newly engaged and listening to the proposal story. After a bit, the couple pulled me aside in the kitchen to talk. They said they had something to ask, but then hesitated a bit, looking at each other. The soon-to-be-bride had some tears welling up and told the groom-to-be to do the asking. I had been in weddings before so I thought maybe they were going to ask me to be one of the groomsmen. 

They surprised me by asking me to perform the ceremony.

I was stunned, confused, honored, touched, and even mildly freaking out, all in the span of a couple of seconds. They continued by saying that when they had previously talked about hypothetically getting married, that for at least a couple of years they had known they wanted me to perform the ceremony. At hearing this, I was beyond moved. After some hugs and excited chatter, I half joked that I would need to have a stiff drink before the ceremony to be able to speak in front of a crowd. Whenever I have had to do a speech or make a presentation, I have spoken too fast and stumbled over words in a rush to get off stage. But that was the problem for ten months-from-now-Sean. 

Over the next several months, I would jot down thoughts as they came to me - "Shower Thoughts" as one of the bridesmaids called them.  I would copy down good turns of phrase from videos or books, save pictures from Instagram that had thoughts about love and relationships, and bookmark web pages with good wedding poems. Themes appeared but it was nothing close to coherent writing, much less a wedding ceremony. 

A month or two before the wedding, Matt, Jenica and I went away for a weekend. We took the dogs and stayed in a family cabin on Vashon Island. There was good food, drink and conversation. We talked about the ceremony in general terms, but what I would say was pretty much up to me. They did not want to hear it ahead of time. They trusted me, which was awesome, but again a little scary being the only one who would shape it. 

We also took a trip to Bellingham a few weeks out to check out some vendors and so I could see the venue. Like previous road trips with these two it was a fun adventure, but like the cabin trip before, it was just so wonderful to be part of the process. I had been to a wedding back in April. It was a wonderful ceremony and a joy to be there to witness the excitement and possibility of this new beginning for a friend. Matt and Jenica's wedding was always going to be different though.

Of course both the bride and groom were very important to me, but I had forgotten how different the experience is when you are a member of the wedding party. You are sort of in the inner circle, getting to help with all the behind the scene details, witness the small moments, and maybe lend a voice or ear when needed. As honored as I was to be asked, the actual experience of being a part of it was that much better. 

Now the wedding was a week away and for all the note taking, I had yet to put pen to paper on the actual ceremony. Part of it was my normal procrastination habit, but I think an even greater part was the feeling that I can never quite adequately translate the thoughts in my head to the word on the page. There is always a disconnect. While the thoughts remain only in my head, they are perfect, so I hesitated to shatter that illusion. 

But you can't re-write a blank page.

I combed through the snippets and phrases. Certain ones worked, others felt important but I couldn't get them to fit. Once I got going though I re-discovered a bit of love for writing. The past year or so has been one of malaise and stagnation, but in this wedding and writing the ceremony I found excitement again. It was the first thing I had written in years that I cared so much about getting right. Not since finishing my book really, and at one point I realized that what I was writing for the wedding would probably be heard by more people than had read my book. 

I revised each day, cutting and pasting, winnowing and sharpening. Many versions were saved. A few days out, I was randomly scrolling through my Instagram saves and found a forgotten piece that helped tie together part of what I was trying to say. The day before and the day of there were multiple trips to coffee shops to write, and to Fed Ex/Kinkos to print out the latest version. Even an hour before the ceremony when I was sitting in my car rehearsing, things were being crossed out and moved. Given the chance I would endlessly keep re-writing, but it is never really done, you just run into a deadline. 

But what a beautiful deadline. 

Though I was still re-writing an hour before the ceremony, I was pretty happy with what I had written. It was heartfelt, at times personal but it also touched on love and connection in general. I felt reasonably comfortable up in front of everyone and did my best to speak slowly and be in the moment. Mostly I focused on the happy couple and pretended it was just them I was talking to. 

People were very kind after the ceremony, complementing me on what I had written and several were surprised this was my first time. I don't know if I will ever perform another ceremony, but you never know.

At any rate, with this being my first, and for my connection to the couple, this one would be a tough one to top.

Turning another page

The last year or so has been a bit of a struggle mentally and physically. No big events that triggered it, and I don't think it has reached the point of depression, but I have just felt unmotivated, uninspired, unworthy. Very "un" I guess.

I have slipped into the feeling of wanting to have done something, rather than actually doing it.

There are things that have been part of my life that I know would help, but I just can't seem to muster the energy to do them. I suppose they fall into their own poor alphabet of the three 'R's, reading, writing and running. I have slipped into that terrible hole that many of us fall into that leads to never really accomplishing what we wish. I want to have run, rather than to actually run. I want to have written, but now feel that I have nothing to say. I know that reading will help spark the writing, but I can't push away the distractions well enough to fall into a story.

I was not a reader growing up, though both of my parents have always been avid readers. I managed to avoid both parental and scholastic encouragement toward reading, once producing a book report by only reading the book jacket. I came to reading in my mid-twenties when Lightning struck (pun intended). Up until the past couple of years, I would always have a book at my bedside and took one with me nearly everywhere I went. I would easily fall into the story, shutting out the chatter and noise of the coffee shop.

I still love to read in coffee shops. To be alone in a crowd, with a nice cup of coffee and hopefully a comfy chair. Now however, I find it so much more difficult to shut out the noise, both real and imagined. The background world of conversation around me is a part of it, but these days it is more the distraction of the world behind the small screen in my coat pocket.

The lack of actual reading did not stop me from aspiring to have read so many books though. There are a couple of piles of books around the house and my list of "To Be Read" books on Goodreads stands at one hundred and twenty. I started using the Goodreads website almost ten years ago mostly to keep track of what I had read. More than once I would return to a series that I had stepped away from, picking up where I thought I had left off, only realizing three chapters in that I had already read this one. The past few years though, Goodreads has been more of a website of neglect (kinda like this blog). Whenever I saw an interesting book, I would add it to the reading list, and there it would sit gathering virtual dust.

I have been in a book club for many years, so that rather forces me to read at least a few books during the year, but it felt like more of an assignment than something I enjoyed doing. I tried to turn things around last year with partial success. According to my Goodreads tally, I read twenty books last year, but to be fair a few of those were shorter books on hiking. Twenty may sound like a decent number, but I have friends that managed to fit closer to fifty into their plenty busy lives. My mom may have pushed closer to triple digits on number of books read last year.

It is not about numbers though. It is how I choose to spend my time, and how I choose to take care of myself both mentally and physically. There is far too much screen time these days. Much of the screen time is not only time basically wasted, I think it is also chipping away at my ability to concentrate bit by bit (or byte by byte).

So, while I am still struggling to get running and writing out of the future tense and into the present, reading is making its way back into my life. I have been better about shutting off the TV, setting aside the phone, and diving into another world page by page. I just finished my seventh book of the year, and have really enjoyed losing myself in a book again. There have been some great books and I will try and pass them along in another post.

2017 feels like it was a year written off, like a year that I couldn't be bothered to care, which is a terrible way to live. I don't know if there will be better results in 2018, but I am focusing on effort this year. I don't know that it makes much sense to try and improve your life by regularly escaping to another through books, but it somehow makes sense to me right now.

Turn the page

A new year. A fresh calendar page. A clean slate.

So many of us wait for January 1st to resolve to follow new goals and leave certain habits behind. The date is rather arbitrary in the grand scheme of things, but it has a nice tidiness to it. The fact that it follows so closely after the Holiday/Christmas season, changing habits is especially welcome as we detox after too much food and libation. You are also inspired by the time spent with the people you love most. We commit to "start to do things differently," but are happy to postpone it a week for that nice annual starting point. I mean 1/1 is even numerically pleasing as a place to start. There was even a possibility of snow this morning, which would have reinforced the clean new world feeling, but alas my neighborhood received just a dusting.

So here I sit happily falling into this tradition or trap with a laundry list of things I would like to change. It is of course a poor strategy to try and make multiple changes at once, and New Year's resolutions already have a pretty poor reputation for longevity. Check into any gym and it will look very different at the end of February than it did at the New Year. In 2011 I did the monthly resolution experiment, and it was a nice exercise to focus on one thing each month. I was not so clever as to prepare another list for 2017, and quite frankly I haven't even begun by writing any down for 2017.

But there is definitely a loose list floating around in my head. Top of that list is to be more present, focused on what is in front of me rather than living with distraction. Step one would probably be to write these things out to get them out of my head and in front of my eyes, but I chose to start here first as this seems to be the worst casualty of inertia.

I was recently talking to a couple of our clients at work. They have been promising me some information for most of the year, and we were still talking about it on December 29th. One of them said, "I am really going to focus on getting this to you, but we have failed enough times that I won't bother lying to you about getting it to you tomorrow." Similarly, I won't bother here with lying to you that I will be writing on any regular schedule, but I will try my best to get back in the habit. It does my mind some good.

I recently finished reading a book called On Trails: An Exploration by Robert Moor. It is about how trails develop, both through human and animal activity, and their impact on the world and ourselves. It was an interesting read. Sometimes when I am reading a book and want to remember a good passage or turn of phrase, I will flag it with a little sticky note. This many tags is generally a sign of a good book.

The opening quote on the preface page of the book is:

"The path is made in the walking of it" ~ Zhuangzi

I don't know what my path will be in 2017, but I have some ideas of where I would like it to lead. At this point, though, I won't bother mapping it out. I will make the path by walking it.

Trouble light

2015 has been a year of change. New home, new car (well, new to me), I started dating again, and I adopted a dog. Not all of it has worked out, and those stories will come later, but all in all change has been good.

So where exactly have I been? That is a good question and I am not exactly sure of the answer. I have felt very lost recently, and unfortunately that is not an entirely new feeling. I have battled depression on some level for as long as I can remember. It is not always sitting at the table with me, but it is always lurking in a corner asking me to greet the darkness again.

I was recently at my 30th high school reunion (another story on the docket). As I was ducking out a bit early, I ran into an acquaintance, if not a close friend. We chatted enthusiastically for a bit, and then she stopped me with a question seemingly out of nowhere.

"Are you happy?"

The question was so honest and direct, I did not stall or deflect. I took a breath and with a half smile I said:

"No"

A couple of recent mornings, I have walked out my door and a weight fell on me, wrapping itself around my chest. A feeling I can't quite describe welled up in me, and I felt like weeping there on the front porch. Though it had been a couple of hard weeks, I can't point to the trigger or thought behind the feeling. It just is. And I can't reason my way out of it. On some level, I feel like I should be able to, because again, life is generally good, can't complain, thanks for asking.

I was listening to a two part interview with a Dr. Kirk Parsley on a running podcast recently. He is a doctor, athlete and former Navy Seal who has focused his research on the importance of sleep. His point of view is that sleep is one of the four pillars of good health and performance, along with nutrition, physical activity and stress management. In an analogy, he describes a man driving into a shop to try and figure out why his car is driving so poorly. His suspicion is that it is a clogged fuel filter. The mechanic points out that he is driving with only three wheels, and maybe he should address that first.

We tend to focus on these small things, tweaking the air/fuel mixture, ignoring the sparks flying from the wheel-less rotor scraping the ground. Dr. Parsley goes so far as saying it is often pointless to try and make a medical diagnosis without first addressing these four pillars. He himself was diagnosed with ADD when in med school, and the symptoms line up almost perfectly with sleep deprivation. Sadly, it took him years to figure out that was the real problem.

Before I delve too deeply into why the darkness has returned, I am going to address these four pillars. Sleep was number one on the list. It has always been a problem for me, so it seemed the obvious starting point. I have been going to bed earlier and reading pages instead of screens. I still feel like crap most every morning, but I am trying to fix each tire in turn.

That said, I think writing again is a critical piece of the puzzle. I am re-reading George Sheehan's Running and Being, the Total Experience. I read it almost six years ago, and did not particularly enjoy it. To be fair, I was not in a good mental state when I read it. I had just moved in with my parents after selling my house as a result of my pending divorce. Some of his statements seemed all too black and white. I have never been a fan of absolutes, and I certainly wasn't when it felt like there was not much I could believe in.

Anyway, there is a quote early in the book:

"Sin is the failure to reach your potential. Guilt is the unlived life."

This is where a lot of my guilt comes from and is a significant part of the darkness. I don't wake up each day disappointed in myself, but there is certainly a baseline shame in what my life has become. Though logically I know outside forces and circumstances played some part, it is my own two hands I look at for my failure to make this life something special. To heed Thoreau's warning, I may just come to the end of this life and find I have not lived.

On a run tonight, and on another running podcast, a Friedrich Nietzsche quote struck a similar chord. Nietzsche believed that the central task of philosophy was to teach us how to ‘become who we are’, in other words, how to discover and be loyal to our highest potential.

I don't know if there is any great purpose in our lives, some certain thing we are destined for, but at the same time it feels like we each have something unique to contribute, and it would be a shame if the world did not get to share in it. I don't know that writing is my highest potential, but for now it feels like an important part of who I am, and a critical part of my way forward.

So before we pop the hood and start yanking on wires, we start with making sure those four tires are not only on the vehicle, but are fully inflated and have some tread on them. If the four pillars are in place, I will be able to think more clearly and make better decisions. Then we can start tweaking the finer points and see if there is something else that can shine a light in the darkness.

And we start here, pen to paper and bits to the ether. Decrease the words stuck in my head and maybe elevate them to some purpose.

Subtraction and addition

Sort of last minute, I had the whole week off. One benefit of working all the crazy hours of tax season (which seems to stretch out to nine months) is getting to bank a little comp time for when it slows down. I have a few weeks saved up, and to work around other people's vacations, I was told to take last week off.

Since I was short on planning time (and disposable vacation money), I didn't go anywhere. It became a week to take care of projects that have fallen by the wayside. Cleaning the apartment, reading the stack of articles set aside, finishing reading a book, etc. I did get to see my brother and niece in a play, ran a 5k with friends, watched a couple of football games with different friends, and hosted some biking/brewing buddies for a brew day. Writing it all out it seems busier and less solitary than it felt. Brain probably isn't focusing on what it should.

The major project though was whittling down the stuff in storage to see if I could downsize. When we sold the house, I threw much of my stuff in storage, temporarily I thought. Then a couple months later, I moved to San Diego for a few years. So everything just sat. After I moved back and into my own place again, the big pieces came back out. It was an interesting and almost fun experience rediscovering parts of what I had left behind. My memory never being terribly good, it was easy to be surprised by things I had forgotten.

Then life/work got busy, and to be honest, I got lazy. The remainder of what was in that rented garage was left to sit. Part of it was that with each pass through, the decision of what is still important becomes more difficult. I am a pack rat by nurture and nature, so there was a lot to go through. Even though I was in and out of there every month or so to grab gear or tools, I really didn't know what was all there hidden away in those boxes. Now with a week with nothing on the schedule, it was time.

Frankly there weren't many painful surprises of love lost hidden away. It was more an exercise of deciding when and what to call quits on. Sports I will likely not participate in like skiing and softball, tools inherited from my former father-in-law that I have not used, the extra chair or sleeping bag, the motorcycle unridden, the files from my failed venture into real estate and lending, school books, bank statements and on and on.

By the end of the week, I had take a truckload each to Goodwill and to the dump, and a couple of large boxes to the shredder. The weather cleared up on Friday, and I moved what remained into a unit half the size, which saves me $100 a month. There are still things in there that need to go (like the motorcycle) but what remains is a more focused, organized set of still current passions - camping, hiking, building.

A couple of other pursuits have slipped from "passion" to "should be doing", but I am having difficulty getting my mojo back. I ran the 5k the first Sunday, and have some more on the calendar, but I need to get running back to an every-other-day habit. The other "should be" of course is writing. It is no secret the posting has been pretty damn sporadic here, and this month I am getting daily email reminders of what I am not doing. It is NaNoWriMo time once again. I have thrown my hat in the ring the last four years to spend the month writing dangerously. That first magical year, I wrote what would become Share the Road. Getting to 50,000 words in a month, all the subsequent work and then getting it in print was an amazing feeling.

Each year since has been a series of misfires. I was excited to take it on that second year, but stalled out at 30,000 words. Subsequent years were less inspired, and I mostly made the effort at the egging on from my friend Sean. He didn't throw down the challenge this year, and I am mostly glad. The magic just isn't there right now. I am still getting those daily email reminders from the NaNoWriMo website and community, however. They are messages filled with enthusiasm about creativity, and just plunging and seeing what happens. I am not ready to join in right now, but I will let them keep poking at me to prod me back up off the couch.

I am not ready to cart this off to the land of recycled passions just yet. It made the cut, and I will open up that box more than just once every few months.

It was a cleansing week and I am feeling a bit leaner. For all the subtraction this week, there was one notable addition. I have my CPA license back. After fitting in 120 hours of classes and taking ethics twice (I am now extra ethical), it became official last week. I stepped away fifteen years ago, and I guess it was one more thing that sat in storage all this time.

I am glad I didn't throw that away.

The mental game

This tax season was harder than the last, and at first glance, it really shouldn't have been. I worked about the same number of hours, had a shorter commute, and I was a bit less clueless about what I was doing. Sure there were a few hiccups this season like one of our staff leaving in the middle of March, and my truck getting sidelined for the last couple of weeks, but overall it should have been a bit more manageable the second time around. In retrospect, there were a few factors that made the difference.

Like any other challenge, a lot of it is mental. I went into the season sort of excited to see how I would have improved after a year behind the desk. I had learned quite a bit from classes I had taken, but much of it was just figuring it out on the fly. Through repeated exposure, things made more sense, and files didn't seem as daunting.

I had made it through the crush of April 15th, then survived the more final deadlines of September and October. This time I would know better of what I was up against, and I figured it would be a bit easier to handle. However, there is a flip side to the benefit of experience. It is less scary because you have been there before, and there are fewer unknowns the second time around, but those same disappearing unknowns can make the challenge more daunting. You know how hard it will be, and fear is sort of replaced with dread.

It is similar to running marathons. That first one is a mass of breaking through barriers into worlds unknown. The strange realization of finding hours to dedicate to training that you didn't seem to have previously. Little by little, sometimes literally step by step, expanding what your body and spirit can do. Discovering strength you didn't know you had, pushing through fatigue, discouragement, or just the temptation to stay in bed this Saturday instead of heading out for three hours of running in the rain. Little victories along the way that culminate in the brilliant joy and relief of crossing the finish line.

The second time is much different.

Having been through it once before, you know how difficult the road is going to be. The long hours, the hard work, and all the things great and small you sacrifice to make it happen. Instead of breaking new ground each time you head out the door, the gains come in small increments, sometimes too minute to notice. You have made it to the finish line once before, but you know that doesn't mean finishing is a given this time. Most of the fear is gone, but so is that nervous energy that heightened every sense. That first time, no one could fault you for reaching beyond your grasp. If you don't finish the second time, it feels more like a failure.

In music, there is that added pressure on your second album. Since you managed to beat all the odds to break through the first time, it shouldn't be that difficult to do it again now that you have made a name for yourself. But once again, what was fresh and new in the first go 'round can be a tougher sell on second pass. The breakthroughs give way to a series of tweaks and adjustments, crucial but less dramatic. So many fail that the phrase "Sophomore Slump" was coined

Now that I have gone done the rabbit hole of metaphor, I suppose I stalled in a similar way after my first book came out (well, only book so far). There was that unknown excitement and fear that propelled me along the first time around. Failure was almost certain, so what was there to lose? Now that I have actually finished something, there is that demand (from me) to do better on the second one. Doubt and second-guessing are somehow ironically stronger after success. Heightened expectations, even if they are just your own, can do you in.

Oh the games we play.

Quiet time

It is a strange, wonderful, lonely experience to come home to an empty house.

After the wife and house went on to live their new stories with a different set of characters, I have lived with others, metaphorically sleeping on someone else's couch for the last three or four years. Great strides were made, and setbacks were had in the meantime, but it never really felt like I had truly found my feet and started life anew.

I moved into my own place at the start of the summer. Beyond the last few years of living under someone else's roof, I had not lived alone for fifteen or twenty years. On the one hand, I longed to set up my own camp, cook in my own kitchen, have the mess or cleanliness be mine, but I also wondered what it would be like to be left entirely to my own devices. Though people may not actually put expectations on you, their presence nonetheless acts as a monitoring or filtering device. What would it be like with no one to consider or watch over.

I have found that now living alone, the battle against slipping into bad habits is more difficult. I'll have that larger helping of food, a second beer, or call chips and humus a meal with no one else around. Maybe I veg out to a marathon of Pysch episodes instead of shutting it off after an hour and reading a book. Since alone time is mine to be had, there is less of a push to go out and say go for a walk or hide out in a coffee shop where writing seems more likely.

I have actually been doing some writing, though nothing has appeared here in quite some time. I started the NaNoWriMo challenge on November 1st, and it felt like if I were to be writing, I needed to focus on that. Well, I am not going to make it to 50,000 words, so I feel safe to "waste" a few words here. I am only about half way at this point, but I will press on even as the deadline goes whishing by me this Saturday. The point of the exercise was to get me back in the habit and mindset, and I will call it at least half successful. The habit is still spotty, but the light in my eyes is flickering more regularly.

I have always been pretty comfortable on my own, but I have become less so in the past few years, and I think that is a good thing. I am glad to finally get started again with a place I can call my own, but I do miss the random conversations that come from living with others. It is funny how someone you haven't seen in a few weeks will ask you how you've been, and what's been going on, and you can come up blank. All the details fade into the background that is your daily life. But a daily conversation with someone at home, and you share the little tidbits that may not seem important a day later, but made for a good story that night.

And of course I still miss Sierra. She wasn't much of a conversationalist, but she was a wonderful presence and beacon of love. I went for a bike ride last Sunday, and I swear every whitish yellow lab was out for a walk. Each one made me smile, and reminded me of what a special thing it is to have a dog in your life. There will never be another Sierra, but there will be another dog someday. I don't know that I am ready just yet, but since my apartment doesn't allow them, the decision is at least delayed until next summer. Cats are allowed here, and I will admit that thought has crossed my mind.

Summer was pretty busy with big biking events, the annual family trip to eastern Washington, a hiking adventure and the run around Chicago. For the first few months it felt like I was hardly home (that is my excuse for still having unpacked boxes stashed in the den). Work filled up some weekends through September and October as well, so for several months it felt like I was just home to sleep, shower and change.

Now things have slowed dramatically, and life has been pretty quiet this past month. The days are shorter and the freezing temperatures have kept me indoors, looking at the growing list of projects that were left for another day. The silence of the house is more noticeable without all the activity of summer, and the cold seems to creep in and it can be hard to shake the chill.

I am happy to say the quiet house and calendar has encouraged me out in a different way now, and I have kept up on the group bike rides the past few weekends - new places, and new faces. And the holidays are on the horizon, and the weekends will fill up with all that is wonderful in family and friends. Then it is on to another tax season in the new year, and the weekends will be filled with a different sort of craziness.

I relish the peace, but look forward to a little noise now and then.

One foot in front of the other

Lord it has been a long bout of silence. There are stories to tell, some incredible, some mundane, some wonderful, some not so, but I have lost that little glimmer that any of it matters. But like my jammed up phone that tries to do so many things that it can't do any of them quickly, my brain and soul are gunked up for the lack of speaking the thoughts out loud, and I know I need to clean a little mental house. I can feel the spiral as I skate around the edges.

I haven't even bothered to visit this blog in what seems like months, but one of those slow moving apps on my phone let me know that another writer I follow had posted after a long silence, and I there are bits and pieces that make me want to follow her lead. Plus I just like the title of the post.

Atrophy is forgetting how to log into your own website.

I may have run by her at some point, this person I have followed but never seen. I'd like to think that we picked up a small baton from each other, in that moment and weeks later.

Don't worry about the finish line. Just make a start, and keep moving.

Where the hell have you been?

I know, I know, the apology/excuse post has almost become a trope in blogging, short-lived as the medium is. Why after five plus years did it all come to a screeching halt.

I wish I had a better excuse for my excuse post. 

Truth is, I just lost it. The energy, the motivation, the belief that I had anything worth saying at any moment in time. Work was crazy while we made the mad dash to April 15th. In the weeks leading up to our deadline, it didn't feel that I had the time to pause and get anything down. Truth is, there is almost always time, but I didn't make any. I will say that my brain was pretty fried, and though there may have been time, I didn't have the mental space for anything creative, much less insightful.

And of course there have been events that shook me. Sierra's passing was difficult. Not only had I lost a great friend and companion, but I was actually lost in her absence. After three years of routine, I woke the next morning uncertain what to do. She was not downstairs waiting for me. No breakfast kibble to serve, no shot to prepare, no morning amble out to the front lawn. I actually stopped in the hallway, unsure that I even needed to go downstairs before getting in the shower. (I did, only to flip on the coffee pot).

Then on the day of our metaphorical tax finish line, finally able to pull up after weeks and months of leaning into it, the bombings happened at a real finish line on the other side of the country. Feeling rather beat up myself that day, and having run that kind of race in person, I could clearly picture the joy and relief of the finish area seconds before. What I couldn't begin to understand what happened next, and the stupid, misdirected anger behind it. 

People suffer, bridges fall, children and other innocents are brought down, and we argue over trivialities and do nothing. For fear or opportunity, we entrench ourselves further and understand less. Friends have turned on each other and have become unrecognizable. It has all been disheartening and I suppose I pulled back too. I stopped writing, stopped reading, stopped checking in on others who were still writing. 

Time passed, and getting started again became that much harder. I lost the habit, and imagined failure before taking a step (that first post back better be good). Silly, and no excuse, but that is some of what has been going on. I have probably lapsed long enough that people have stopped checking in, so I can just blather on until I find a rhythm again. 

Some good things have been happening while I have kept my head down and eyes away from the news. I have met a few new friends, reconnected with old ones, and my bicycle no longer gathers dust. Work is steady, summer is just around the corner, and I may have my next home lined up. 

I have described this time to a few people as Life 3.0 (sounds much better than 'mid-life crisis'). Round two began when I was shaken awake and then regenerated in the sun. I am home again, ready to start anew. Some things have changed while I have been gone, but I am different too. There are still empty spaces, but the slate is also pretty clean for a new picture to take shape. The first steps don't have to be perfect, and I will just stumble forward until I find a rhythm again.

However

I was listening to the Grammar Girl podcast on the way home today. The subject was the word "however", and whether or not it is acceptable to start a sentence with it (spoiler alert, it is).

She started with a couple of examples where there is little dispute, instances where the word is not used as a connector with a meaning of  "nevertheless" or "but". The times you can use "however" to start a sentence without causing a ruckus is when it means “to whatever extent,” or “no matter how.”

For some reason, the two examples she gave made me pause the recording and write them down.

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."
~ Winston Churchill

“However bad you think you’re going to be in that room, not being there is worse.”
~ Dr. Foreman from the TV show House

Frozen

I got nothing. My brain is fried.

Well that isn't exactly true. I have things, it is just that my brain is sort of full trying to learn on the fly at work. I am getting up earlier than my body is built for, and only see sunlight (what little there is) through the window at my office. When I get home each evening, I just don't have the mental space to write.

It feels a bit like an endless loop, this dark to dark routine, like the treadmill so hated by the runner. Much better to get outside where the random twists and turns keep your head up. With the days so short, I haven't been able to get out for a run during the week, and that isn't helping.

Each morning there is a new layer of frost on the windows. I had forgotten the many different textures of ice. Some days it slides right off like a light dusting, others I am going at it with an ax. A few mornings there was black ice, and the hill from the house was shut down. Luckily I remembered a back way out from my time running around with UPS.

Sierra wanders around the front yard while I thaw out the truck. With her fading sight, she jerks back when she moves from light to shadow, assuming the shadow means something is coming right at her. The other morning, the garbage truck pulled up, and the spinning yellow siren light had her flinching repeatedly. Some mornings are rougher than others.

I keep trying to tweak the routine to shave a minute here and there, but I think it will take longer days for me to get back out on the road. I did get out for a bike ride last weekend, though. I barely rode when I had endless sunshine and far more hours, but there I was pedaling in 30 degree weather. The tighter schedule may force me to make the time for a ride where I didn't before.

Weekends are going to start filling up with work as well, but I am going to do my best to grab the daylight when I can.

And write.

Quote of the day

What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.

~Carl Sagan

Quote of the day

Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working.

~ Pablo Picasso

After reading my junk, go read this

There is just too much to read. I can't keep up with all the books, articles, and blogs. I stopped reading the daily paper to save a little money. I thought I would really miss it, and I do at times, but it turns out it was embarrassingly easy to let go. Other things rushed in to fill that quiet time I used to take in the morning to read a bit about the world.

There are some great blogs that have fallen off the radar as well. Some are for entertainment, but others I just love the writer's voice no matter what they write about. The 3six5 is one that I haven't been getting to regularly. Since it has a new author and new topic every day (including my post last March), you can't know what you will find. There are absolute gems in there, but at times it feels like I am sifting through too much river sand to find the nugget.

Just as every writer and story is going to be different, each reader is going to have a different story grab or resonate. I stopped by this morning and read through a week's worth of entries. I am glad I read through the first seven to get to this one by Katherine Ablan.