Rhubarb Pie

I take the singlet everywhere.

I was checking to see what I would be doing next week on my trip and found a list of the festivities.  Oooo, karaoke competitions and sailing races and parties and IS THAT A WEIGHTLIFTING COMPETITION?!  Oh man.  There's a weightlifting competition on my last day there.  I have no idea what it is about.  Could be some local strongman competition, or might be actual Olympic lifts (which I don't know).  But if they're using a standard bar, and if they'll let me, I'M IN!  I hope to get a picture of me and the rest of the competitors. 

Anyway, I won't be back until August 4th or 5th or so.  I'll take lots of pictures.  See you then!

Three Unrelated Things

1) Nobody wants to be a cliche, but worrying about whether you are or you aren't sounds to me like a sure way to ruin a trip and perhaps a life.  Be honest, be kind, and be brave, my friend, and let that be your compass about whether to smile back if someone smiles at you.  Assuming that other people are cliches doesn't seem very brave or very kind.  Leave those generalizations for the economists and the political scientists, and discover the world for yourself.    

2) Last week I was in the gym on the treadmill when the guy on the rowing machine slumped over and collapsed.  A bunch of us jumped off our machines (fast enough? I am feeling some lingering guilt about whether I could've acted faster) and the hockey coach and a doctor or maybe a dentist who plays squash here administered CPR and then the defibrillator.  They restarted his heart, at least according to the robot voice of the defibrillator ("no shock advised") by the time the EMTs got there.  I found the guy's wife, who was also at the gym, and held her hand, then guided her to the phone and we called the husband's cardiologist and let the hospital know we were on our way.  He's been in a coma since; I learned today that he will be taken off of the respirator.  I thought on Thursday that I had watched a man die and was surprised and pleased that his heart had been restarted and that he had not died there on the gym floor.  I have been thinking about the men who stepped forward to administer CPR, how much I admire their confidence and capability.  I've been trained, but wonder if I could have done it and was glad that I did not have to.  But today I learned that he will not live and somehow I realize that I have been in a sort of suspended state since I got back from the hospital on Thursday, waiting for a happy ending, and I will not get it.  It is peculiar to feel so defeated by this news, because I didn't learn the man's name until I was on the phone with the cardiology office.  He is not a friend, by any definition, not even an acquaintance.  And yet I so wanted him to recover.  

3) I'm planning a trip, too.  On Friday, NBT and I will get on a sailboat, and we will sail up the coast of Maine for eight days, living aboard. I am very excited.  I have already picked out the books I will be bringing.  I'll try to remember to take photos, so you can get a glimpse.  

I'll tell you if I eat fish.

Did I tell you, hon? I'm going to the Caribbean on Friday to see Ali! Do you remember Ali, my most beloved roommate of two years ago? She is nearly done with her Peace Corps stint, so I need to visit her fast. We've been sending passionate love letters to each other, about our anticipation and excitement. I swear, if I got emails like this from a man, I would know we were about to be married. Anyway, I've missed her so very much and as lovely as tropical islands sound, am far more excited to see Ali.

I think I am prepared for the trip. Like every summer, I have been steadily working on my base tan. I'm allergic to SPF, so I much prefer to slowly get dark enough that I don't need sunscreen. I am ashamed that I have actually sunburned a few times this year, which I consider amateurish, sloppy work. Still, I am fairly dark, and ready for quite a bit of sun exposure. I have also carefully considered my reading material. There is no possible way I can carry enough books for the ten day trip. I can't even carry enough books for the travel time. I am forced to face the prospect of downtime without reading materials or internets. There is always conversation with Ali and fruity alcoholic drinks, but I might still have empty beach minutes to fill with contemplation, which is on the slippery slope to introspection and reflection. No one wants that, but one must be brave and admit the possibility. I am bringing a paper diary, in which I might write things, with a pen.

Those are the decisions I can make in advance, but I've been struggling with two other questions, neither of which I can settle until I get there. The first is the question of whether to eat fish. I’ve been vegetarian twenty years, but if I were ever going to eat fish, surely freshly caught in the Caribbean is the time and place. Given my ongoing jones for protein, I'm sure it would be that much more delicious. I’ll have to see how I feel at the time. The other question is whether to pick up an island boy.

This Is The Question, Really

I didn't really like the tone of that last post, but sometimes we just wallow, and the accomplishments of an old acquaintance brought on some wallowing.

I'm still thinking about the topic, although am not quite so broody and petulant about it today. I'm interested in two things -- one is, why should the accomplishments of someone I never particularly liked, doing something I haven't ever particularly wanted to do, prompt a re-examination of my own dubious accomplishment record?  And second, of course, when I re-examine my own accomplishments, what do I see?

By what yardstick should I determine whether I am living the sort of life that I can feel proud of?

It's peculiar that a mildly irritating acquaintance would turn out to be one of the yardsticks, but it seems to work that way.  I don't try to measure myself against close friends and family.  We share the same values, generally, and their accomplishments are either so familiar or somehow so peculiar to them that they don't act as a mirror.  But vaguely known people I crossed paths with once upon a time remind me of all the forks in the road I could have gone down once upon a time.   

I'm actually pretty proud of my life.  I knew in college that I wasn't ambitious, and noticed that it was unfashionable to speak of it.  My ambition, such as it is, lies with people.  I want to affect people.  I want to touch them.  I want to know them and help them if I can.  When I think about my proud moments, they are moments where I learn unexpectedly that I have made a difference to someone.  There were a few of those moments as a lawyer, though not so many as you might hope.  There were a lot of those instances as a coach, and there are a lot of those moments now. I think there have been progressively more chances to connect and support and encourage people as I've lived my life. 

I guess what's confusing is that there must be some parts of me that yearns for something I don't have, something that maybe I could have had if I'd chosen differently.  What is it that made me wallow a little bit when I heard about the classmate advising the Judiciary Committee?  I'm not proud of it when I look it in the face, but I guess I envy those of my peers who have national respect for their brains, who are seen and respected as thinkers.  I sometimes envy famous people -- not celebrities like Jennifer Aniston, but self-help celebs like Suze Orman.  It's not the life I want, I don't think, but the power of influence -- the chance to influence, hopefully in a good way, loads more people than I will ever get to meet and sit down with, face to face, there's something about that that I envy. Recognition that I'm good at it, too, if I'm honest.  I don't just want to be good at it, I want *people to know.*  I'm ashamed of that desire, but it's there. 

The problem is, insight doesn't scale.  Does it?  I don't think it does. The kinds of moments that make me proud are when people tell me or show me that I made a difference for them, in how they looked at the world or made sense of their own lives.  To do that significantly, I don't think you can be too far away from the people you help.  But maybe you can.  I don't know how to do it that way. 

All Those Boats Didn't Sail Themselves

It's time for an update.  Sigh.

Year of Planned Reading. Geez, I've come off the rails.  I've been reading like there's no tomorrow -- with a new twist: I've discovered the Books on CD section of the college library, so I've managed to consume four additional stories while cooking, driving, and painting the house.  On top of, I don't know, a couple of dozen that I've read since I posted last. But the Planned part of this resolution is in tatters.  I go to the library with a call number scrawled on a post-it note and emerge with an armload of books, including five nonfictions from the shelf beside whatever I went in there for, a heap of novels that caught my eye, and whatever covers looked good in the "New Acquisitions" section.  I'm gobbling novels, everything from Charles Dickens to Stephen King, Iris Murdoch to Candace Bushnell.  I'm thinking a lot about story.  This is not news.  I am always, always, thinking about story. 

Year of Shakespeare.  Still no reading chair, so no progress on this.  I almost bought a rocking chair at a used furniture store, but when I went back it was gone.  The latest book on CD is Shakespeare, and I'm feeling the urge to start up again.  I've got plenty of time still.

Year of the Cure. I still have not cured Crohn's disease.  I have not even mobilized the smart readers who said they would help me build a tool for patients like me who need to track changes in our poop.  My sense of mission has stalled a little bit.  This is because I am being reasonably compliant about my medication and my symptoms are greatly reduced.  Then what happens is I forget that I have the disease, and stop taking my medication, and the symptoms come back.  I have abandoned the grain-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, sugar-free diet, because there were no noticeable changes to my symptoms under that regime, and it was a heck of a hassle.  I'm a little bit ashamed of this.  Should I make it my mission to eradicate this disease?  Or should I just make it my mission to take my medication stringently, and set my mission on something more aligned with my particular skills?  Like teaching some more folks to sail?  Or reading a few more novels?  Or drinking gin and tonics in the backyard with the dogs sleeping at my feet?

Today I am sort of morosely thinking about my lack of ambition, and my stalled progress even in these 3 very modest goals.  I am thinking about it because of the Sotomayor hearings, of all things, where a woman who lived downstairs from me when I was a freshman in college is now a bigwig conservative legal thinker.  And I am not. 

Not that I wish to be.  But from time to time the distinguished, flourishing careers of my former peers stop me and make me feel bad about myself.  What have I been doing while she's been becoming a nationally-renowned expert?  Well.  There are some dogs whose lives have been enriched by my affection.  Some people can make sailboats go a little bit faster.  The sky and the air and the smell and the feel of water and wind and mud and snow, those things have been observed and appreciated more than if I'd been inside producing legal scholarship.  But the Senate does not need me, and I cannot imagine that it ever will.

But that's what the internet is for.

I would very much like to sit in your backyard and listen to you rant.   How I love a good rant.   I remember particularly fine rants fondly and refer to them later.  My own rants can be good, sometimes.  They're best when I find a flow and can come back to the outrageous part from different angles.  When I am especially frustrated, that all breaks down.  For me, when I lose it completely, the rant breaks down into me jumping up and down in place shouting WHY?  Why?  WHY?  I'm sure it is fun to watch, but it isn't all that witty.

I am so glad you pressed her on her accusation until her gaze dropped.  I have frequent fantasies of doing that.  A friend will call to tell me something similar and I say, but what did that bad person do when you called her on it?  Of course, during the situation there usually reasons why you can't call out the person.  But I always wonder.  Can that person mean what her words implied?  Would she own them outright?  Has she thought through the implications?  I spend a day or two making up conversations in which the other person is forced to sit with the meaning or feel the dissonance.  But of course I am not so quick-thinking and direct in real life.  I'm very glad you held your ground.  I'm very glad your sortof accuser felt a little sheepish.

I Am Not Ranting

Oh, my friend.  I had a fascinating day, and the funnest part is something I've decided wouldn't be prudent to write about here on the Internets.  But it consisted of a person making a veiled accusation of unethical behavior, against me and my colleagues.  I didn't believe what I heard at first, so I drew it out of her, and she persisted, a little bit weakly, eyes dropping to the table.  I asked some more questions, trying to understand the nature of her qualms.  

I am pretty convinced that we are ethical.  It is pretty important to me to be ethical and to work alongside ethical people, so this was a very interesting conversation. 

It wouldn't be responsible or ethical for me to sit here and rant about why I think she was wrong.  But I learn so much when I bump into people with different assumptions than me.  I am still learning the landscape of this new profession that I belong to.  There are a lot of silly people who call themselves career experts.  There are a lot of silly people who are in higher ed administration.  (There are also a lot of silly people in my former profession of lawyering, as most everyone knows.  There are not so many silly people in the profession of teaching sailing; I'm not sure why that is.) I guess I haven't yet identified the folks outside my office who I really admire and consider mentors and colleagues, teachers and friends.  That's been a project I've begun over the last few months, and both the failures and the successes have helped me articulate my own assumptions and philosophy better.  

Why don't you come over tonight and we'll make dark & stormies with thick slices of lime, and we can sit in the backyard and I will rant and rant and rant?  

Further Thoughts on Being Seen

Last night NBT and I went out to dinner at a little place on the other side of town, that we've been meaning to try for a while.  On the drive over we both swore and grumbled about how lousy this weather is, this monthlong stretch of grey gloomy sodden rain-fog-mist-drizzle.  I try not to complain about the weather, but it's gotten to me. 

We got in an even worse mood while we watched the people at the table the hostess told us would soon free up sit and linger, ask for refills on their water, nurse half a martini.  Finally, after glowering at them unsuccessfully for a while, we gave up and sat at the bar. 

And our night turned around.  The bartender, Andrew, turned out to be personable and exacting, with strong opinions about cocktails that he was eager to share.  The couple beside us was friendly and interesting.  The way this town works is, when you meet somebody good it turns out you already know them, somehow.  Beth and Jos live two blocks away from us, it turns out, but they also spent years on the Island where I ran the sailing program the last couple of years, and we know lots of the same people.  And the bartender and Beth had lots to talk about: both teach art to kids.  Candlelight flickered on the bar and the warm radiance was an approximation of the sunshine I've been longing for.   

The owner of the restaurant came out and talked to us.  Beth complimented her on the feeling of intimacy in the place, and she told us about Danny Meyer, a famous restaurant guy, who said that people need to feel seen and heard.  That's the most important thing they want when they go to a restaurant.  Not seen like a celebrity wants to be seen in the hottest new place, but acknowledged emotionally.  We're trying to make a place like that, the owner told us.  You've done it, we all said.  The bartender said to the owner, I like working here because of that.  I feel like I'm part of something.  

It made me think of you talking to folks at your gym. People want to be seen. It's powerful magic. The glow from the evening kept us warm and even today, another day where the ground is slick and wet and the view is closed in by a layer of fog, I feel warm enough. 

Maybe this evening.

Did I tell you guys when Chris moved away?  Chris moved away in March.  I was very upset at the time.  I'd waited patiently for him to come back from grad school and all I ever want in life is for everyone to be in one place, so Chris moving away again is a big step in the wrong direction.  We found the solution pretty quickly, though.  I have refused to acknowledge that he is gone, calling and texting him to invite him to drop by as if he still lived eight blocks away.  He agrees and accepts the invitations, then calls me after to explain why he didn't make it.  He has been a terrible flake the past few months, I tell you.  (Sometimes I can't make it, but then I apologize.)

I texted him last night to see if he wanted to come drink on my porch.  He did, but said it was raining too hard to leave the house.  Raining?  Really?  At Chris's house on I St?  Sky was clear over Q St.  You'd think I'd see the clouds.  We talked for a hour and hung up promising to try again today.  It's better this way.  He can't really be all the way across the country.  That would be terrible.  I won't have it.