The Last Roundup

I’m not one to read obituaries even though a lot of my friends have fallen into that habit lately. Yet I couldn’t help but notice that several remarkable folks from the Palm Springs Writers Guild have passed away over the last several years. While I wasn’t close friends with any of them, I did admire their skill at crafting wonderful stories, their dedication to the art of writing and their ongoing enthusiasm for the Writers Guild.

No one likes to talk about dying. It was seldom a subject of discussion when I was growing up. It seemed to happen oh so subtly with Uncles and Aunts passing away at first. Then one’s parents and finally close friends and associates. Gradually it occurs to you that dying is now a part of life’s equation for you and a lot of folks you know.

We all assume our lives are going to follow a certain predictable pattern. We’re born; we grow up, grow old, and then die. In the ‘Lion King’ it’s called the circle of life. It’s also used to describe life on the African savannah. A similar theme can be found in a Christian hymn written in 1907 and made popular by the Carter Family in 1935. It’s entitled ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken.’

So we usually don’t allow ourselves to think about death until something jars us back to reality. It might be a near-death experience, a catastrophic illness or the sudden demise of someone close to us. Alternatively, as in my case, you’ve been around long enough to see this pattern of life and death enter its last phase.

Sharon’s mother passed away a couple of years ago. It wasn’t unexpected. Her husband had died a couple of years earlier. Charlotte’s health had been deteriorating for some time. But suddenly becoming an orphan can be tough on any adult even one as strong as my wife.

Sharon’s friend Steve was a very successful businessman, Rotary philanthropist and loving grandfather. He seemed healthy all of his life and then one day he became unbalanced on his feet Five months later he passed away from brain cancer.

Kathy was Sharon’s sister-in-law. She broke her ankle one spring. She had it set then operated on twice since the incident. Then she died unexpectedly from an infection. In each instance, these deaths were a grim reminder of the fragility of life and the need to live each day as if it were our last.

Several friends have commented about bad things happening in threes. I hadn’t thought about it before now. Of course growing up, I knew about ‘the day the music died’ and the fact that Jimmy Hendrix, Janice Joplin and Jim Morrison all died within weeks of one another in 1970.

I usually don’t believe in folk tales, old wives stories, or fables. But after these three deaths occurred so close together it got me to thinking it. Those were three life-changing events, expected and otherwise, in less than a month and a half.

Folklorists say that the belief that good or bad things come in threes is an ancient superstition that remains a strong belief among many people today. Americans especially seem to have a propensity to see things in threes. For Native Americans, it’s fours and for the Chinese, it’s five.

“It’s very deep in our culture in terms of religion – the father, son and holy ghost,’ explained Alan Dundes, a professor of anthropology and folklore at the University of Southern California at Berkley. He goes on to comment: “It’s in our names. We all have three names. And numerous three-worded phrases like ‘win, lose or draw’ ‘we shall overcome’ and ‘snap, crackle and pop.’

I think it all comes down to your own belief system. The yin and yang of our universe means there will be both good and bad in your lifetime.  Bad luck and good can come in threes, fours, fives and more. It’s all a question of how you want to process those events. If you’re fatalistic it can be grim. If you’re realistic it’s a fact of life. Individual numbers don’t mean a thing.

What does matter is the simple fact that ‘no one gets out of here alive.’ For each one of us there will be an accounting whether we’re present for it or not. We will all have a final tabulation. It’ll either be on our death bed or done by others lamenting our loss. It will be a tabulation of who we were as individuals, spouses, parents, grandparents, friends and associates. It will include who we loved, liked and impacted. It will be the kids we left behind. Then their kids, our grandchildren, and our legacy with them.

But most importantly we will have to answer whether we made a difference with our lives. Was our existence all worthwhile to others especially those closest to us? And for ourselves, did we make a difference while we were here on earth. So far, after seventy-seven years of living my life as best I can, I think I’m good to go.

I kissed my wife goodbye, told my kids and grandkids I loved them, and went for a long trail hike. The climb is strenuous, the footing unsteady and the hiking poles a life-saver. But life is good and I can still climb when I want to. So I’ll embrace this slough as long as I can. Dirt, dust, and spectacular views along the way.

Chasing My Identity

I have a friend who conducts workshops on how to write your own obituary. The responses to her workshop always seem go one of two ways. The first group wrinkles their nose and responds with a frown “Oh, Lord, I don’t want to talk about my own death.” The more optimistic of that group then adds “and besides, I’m never going to die.” It’s denial at its most optimistic stance.

The second group recognizes that my friend’s workshops are an opportunity to make their own farewell statement. These folks realize that they now have an opportunity to say just what they want to say about their own lives instead of it coming from some boiler-plate funeral home ad or a template from the newspaper. They get to share with family, friends and associates just what was important to them and what they are most proud of for the time they spent here on earth.

I’m in that second group. I want to tell the world what I did with my life…once I figure it out.

At first blush I’d have to say I’ve been very lucky on so many levels. Then having said that I would also add that I’m unapologetic for past failures, mistakes, losses, missed opportunities and a wide assortment of sundry missteps that have also defined my life. At this stage of the game, I’m too old and too busy to worry about ‘what might have been’ or ‘what if’ or ‘if only...’

I guess my own story begins with a French Canadian guy whose parents came from someplace in Canada. He was a short guy with a pencil-thin mustache and (supposedly) a fondness for the drink. He went from Michigan and ended up in the Twin Cities. He was playing in a band in St. Cloud, Minnesota when he met my mother. She was just a young German Catholic girl recently off the farm.

So my heritage is French Canadian and German. But what does that mean in the greater scheme of things? It is a heritage that I have no affinity to nor interest in…because it has no roots. As was befitting the rural German Catholic culture of that time, my mother never spoke of my father either before or after he passed away. It was as if he never existed in the first place. If I had a past, it is buried in a mausoleum in Saint Paul.

I can lay out a few of the stats, facts and incidents that defined who I became. I was young and dumb and poor but open and honest. I’d like to believe that, much like my writing, I stumbled a lot but somehow kept moving forward.

I can talk about those men and women who had an influence on my life. I can talk about working from 7^th grade on and usually having two jobs going on simultaneously. I can talk about twenty plus years of working full time, running my business and managing several apartment buildings all at the same time. I can talk about near burn out and finally redemption on long bike rides, torturous trail runs and sojourns into the high desert.

It’s always a challenge to revisit that narrative in my head about my life up to a certain point. The facts are easy to lie out and document. I could put them into a flow chart or a neatly outlined diagram that lists important dates in my life. It’s neat and clean but still smells like an old tattered history book. Something is missing. The data would tell you how I got to where I am but it wouldn’t tell you how I ended up being who I am today.

There is a ‘60’s time warp in my head. A wonderful period of creativity with its music and Bob Dylan and the Beatles and hippies and personal liberation and milestones. But I don’t apologize for that. It is part of who I have become. It doesn’t take away from my life today but instead comforts and feeds me more material for my stories.

Do I want to share the joys of a life well lived or wax philosophically about past lives, past loves, past failures and hopes for the future? I guess it’s a combination of both.

I am not interested in ‘what if’s.’ Bob Dylan said ‘Don’t look back.’ I would add as a caveat unless you’re in a good place. Because if you’re in a good place in your life today then you can look back and see the success and the failure, the goals that fell short and those never attempted. You can look at your life as it truly was and not as someone else said it should be.

One friend recently commented to me that it was too bad I hadn’t started my writing career years earlier. I simply replied that I couldn’t have done that years ago because I wasn’t the same person that I am today. My head was in a different place back then. Neither better nor worse but probably not conducive to the focused passion I feel for my writing today.

I guess I’m foolish enough to believe that old cliché that it’s never too late to become the person you’ve always wanted to be. I am today the result of a million different experiences, episodes, loves, failures, losses, challenges and successes that rippled through my life over the last seventy years.

 

Zen and the Art of Running

I read a book recently called Zen and the Art of Running. The author pointed out that a runner changes every day and shouldn’t expect the same results today as he might have gotten last week or last year or ten years ago. Like many others, I am constantly changing and evolving and adapting to the nuances of each day.

I have another friend who has defined life in three simple words: Learning, Earning and Yearning. His position is that we grow up with certain knowledge. We make a living. Then (he claims) we yearn for what we didn’t do or don’t have or lost. I don’t think it has to necessarily be that way.

I can’t do nor do I want to do what I did before. I do not want to wear a younger man’s façade. The years of experience and joy and disappointment run lines across my face but I wear them like a seasoned veteran in the games of life.

My new identity is a moniker I wear with pride and is defined by the stories I tell. My blogs are just one step in that direction. They are personal, explicit, revealing, open and honest. But in the end, they are simply meant to be a snapshot of a moment in time in the life of…

My life in Pictures

My lost years

Snow white and the seven seekers

Howling monkeys

Ditching my son in the Amazon

Today I am much more interested in telling my stories and living my life vicariously through my characters. I want to share the fear of humping my hog through the boonies, riding old Apache trails and avoiding ambush in some narrow slot canyon. I want to mastermind the intricate workings of a modern-day courtship and look in on two women slowly falling in love. I want my protagonist to fall in love with a siren of my own creation.

I want the new me to splatter my keyboard with stories of past adventures, mishaps, wondrous experiences and my characters grand plans for the future. I want to live the life of a drifter out west and an adventurer on the Mekong Delta. And I want to do that until my ink dries up and my mind slowly fades away.

I haven’t written my own obituary yet but when I do, it’ll probably start with something like…

“He had a good life…and then it got even better.”

Dying as an Exercise in Futility

My friend is thinking about death and dying. Not in a fatalistic or pejorative way but rather as an objective and reflective exercise in self-examination and future planning.

He’s going on a retreat this weekend. He’s been doing it for over 30 years. It provides him the perfect environment to help cleanse his brain of sundry matters and just focus for a long weekend on those issues in his life that really matter.

He’s been very successful in business, has been married to a wonderful woman for over forty years, great kids and grandchildren. He mentioned just casually he is also thinking about his life; taking a personal inventory and recognizing that there are less years left than when he was younger. He isn’t being fatalistic or a downer, just being realistic about his life as it is.

We agreed that we’re both at that stage in our lives where we don’t have much if anything left to prove. We’ve either done it or we haven’t. I wish I had done a few more things in my life but I didn’t. I wish some things had turned out differently but they didn’t. So be it. No apologies are necessary.

We agreed that we’re both old enough to see some things cycling around, coming full circle back into our lives. It’s really true that over time what goes around comes right back again. I guess it’s all part of that circle of life.

There is a movement in some of my city neighborhoods to bring back chickens. And chicken coops are sprouting up in a number of backyards. My friend has a picture of his father in his old neighborhood back in the 30’s standing around a backyard of chickens.

We talked about streetcars coming back and new-fangled contraptions called streetlights to brighten our downtown streets at night. A new University open-air stadium was built on campus last year. It replaced the domed stadium which only 17 years before had replaced an open-air stadium at the same University

I was raised in the city and couldn’t wait to get out of it. Now young couples are flocking back to the very neighborhood I fled forty years ago.

It got me to thinking. Does that mean that my circle of life is almost complete? Is my thirst for….just an excuse in futility because who cares anyway? I hope not. There’s still so much to do and who knows how much time to do it.

I’ve talked about meeting my old high school classmates in my blog “In the Company of Old Men.” I mentioned how shocked I was to see that a number of them had passed on. It feels very strange to look at an alumni picture book, spot an old high school chum and then read the caption: Deceased. It leaves an unsettled feeling in your stomach. And you don’t know if you should be looking over your shoulder for that shadowy figure in the black shawl anyplace close.

There are so many inconsequential ways to spend the rest of one’s life. I don’t want to spend countless hours shopping for groceries just because I’ve got the time to do it. Or sit with other old men in the coffee shop, bitching about anything and everything. I don’t want to travel just to keep moving or get a job just for something to do.

Role models are hard to find. I only know of a couple of older folks who are still active and alert and pleasant to be around. But the few I know are an inspiration for someone anxious to ‘do what I’ve always wanted to do’ and then some.

There are thirty plus books in my office that I haven’t read yet and if I count those books in my library that I’d like to revisit again or just review, I’d be page-locked for the rest of my life.

I will continue to seek out and welcome past acquaintances who want to share the good and sometimes not so good memories of a time since pasted. I’ve done it with several high school friends and it’s brought laughs and sighs and subtle nods.

Both my kids have promised to tell me when I’m acting like an old person. The trouble rests with their definition of getting old. Melanie thinks that my blog ‘Growing old with out underwear’ was simply TMI (Too much information). I guess I’ve failed to make my case to her. She says the first thing to go are the social graces.

So either my assumptions are correct and I just haven’t yet been able to communicate my thoughts and ideas in that area. Or my kids are right and I am getting old without even realizing it. In either case, as I ponder my predicament, I found the following quote that pretty much says it all for me.

                        Risk

To reach out is to risk involvement

To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self

To place your ideas, your dreams before the crowd is to

risk their loss

To love is to risk not being loved in return

To live is to risk dying

To hope is to risk despair

To try is to risk failure

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life

is to risk nothing

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing

is nothing.

He may avoid suffering and sorrow but he simply cannot

learn, feel, change, grow, love, live…

Chained to his certitudes, he is a slave

He has forfeited freedom

Only a person who risks is free

                                                Anonymous