Gardening Makes Me Grateful for the Rain

We decided to plant a garden this year. Okay, two and a half gardens.

The idea of gardening has enthralled me since July 22, 2004. I know the exact date because of this journal entry:

I think when I grow old and retire from my regular career I want to be a gardener. There is something peaceful and relaxing about working with plants and trees, even if it seems outwardly tedious, such as cutting off dead or dying branches. There seems something divine in working to preserve life, in working amidst God's creations as opposed to man's creations . . .

I was eighteen then. 14 years later, and I still have the same feelings (although, it's funny reading this now that I work for a development company, since I am responsible over a portfolio of man's creations).

The idea of the garden this year was propelled by our desire for our kids to understand where food comes from. So we got the community garden plot, and planted it with green beans, parsley, peas, and marigolds on the left side. On the right side, my wife poured the entire seed packets of squash and zucchini. This was the typical weekly harvest of it:

We are still harvesting it today.

If that wasn't enough, I built a garden box out of old heat treated pallets in our back yard. We planted strawberries, more peas, and three types of tomatoes. In my craze, I decided to build a third garden box, but it was too late in the year to plant anything new:

My idea has come a long way in 14 years. But even though my experience in gardening at 18 was minimal, I was right about several things. It does require work, some of it tedious. I made sure that the kids chipped in on the watering and picking (I did the weeding) - activities that had to happen a few times per week, regardless of how many mosquitoes accosted us. After all, cherry tomatoes don't pick themselves - at least while they're still fresh.

There hasn't been much watering lately, though, for one main reason. The weather. Ever since I started gardening, I've been grateful for rainy days. This mentality is a sound departure from many of us who consider the best weather to be sunny, warm, not too humid, with a slight breeze.

The truth of the matter is gardens need both the sunny days and the rainy days. Tomatoes love the heat, but they also require lots of water. Without one or the other, there will be no fruit. 

We all have what we consider sunny days and rainy days in our lives. The trick is to be grateful for their different benefits. While the rain may feel cold and uncomfortable as it drips off our hair and down our face, while we may run from the car to the house to get out of it, that same rain is revitalizing the landscape, allowing flowers to bloom and fruit to grow. Without the work, and/or the rain, we do not get to enjoy moments like this, wherein a four-year-old boy son creates his own bouquet from clippings in the garden:

Falling Asleep, Waking Up

My kids hate going to bed. Even now, as I'm writing at 9:03 pm, shuffling feet on the hardwood interrupt me. Harsh words from a tired parent pops out, and when the little feet finally comply, the regret starts flowing. After all, I'm not too old to forget how lame bedtime was. It interrupted Legos, sword fights, and fort building. It killed the imaginary worlds we created and left us vulnerable to the dreams, and sometimes nightmares, that reigned over us. In talking to other adults, this hatred of sleep is the norm rather than the exception.

The hope for naps is laughable, or, in the case below, picture worthy. Jack, who I think was mocking his brother's fate, took this picture:

I think this childhood modus operandi is hard for us adults to understand, since we almost universally value bedtime and sleep. 

So why the switch? Why does American adulthood value unconsciousness so much? Why does our society have issues with opioid addiction and alcoholism? Why don't we jump out of bed at dawn and run into the hallway as if it were Christmas, exclaiming to everyone in the house, "It's time to wake up! The sun's out. Look! The sun's out!"

I don't know the answer to this. The switch for me came in middle school, when being cool was all of a sudden the most important thing. Coolness sucked the life out of everything. It was cool to be tired, unimpressed, stone-faced. Anything other than that implied naivety, the most cardinal of all sins.

But I lost something in all that that I am now working hard to regain. After all, we can die at any moment. Go to sleep and never wake up again, at least not here. All of these opportunities, here at our fingertips, will be gone.

There is a 30-ish hour relay race I have done twice now, called the Ragnar Relay. They have them all over the country, and they have become fairly popular. A team of twelve adults runs all day, night, and day, switching out every three to nine miles, until they have covered 200 miles. Below is my wife, running one of her legs at dawn alongside Lake Michigan:

Had we not done the race, I would have missed the most stunning sunrise I have ever seen.

So if you dread waking up, do yourself a favor (or two, or twenty). Take a cold shower; suck on a lemon; turn up the volume and rock out; kiss your lover; run your guts out; laugh until your guts hurt; eat a slice of chocolate cake; eat a jalapeno; smell the roses; stick your head out the car window; splash in the puddles; climb a mountain; have a screaming contest. I guarantee you'll feel better.

Parenting is a Return to Childhood - Sort of

I can't tell you the last time I made a sand castle before this. I can tell you one thing, though, it didn't have a hurricane dike made of seaweed and sticks, driftwood reinforced walls, or a lagoon. Yes, I understood the effects of erosion much better than the last time I built one of these, as well as a few ways to mitigate it. One thing that hadn't changed, however, was the fascination of building it.

Both of my sons took a keen interest in it, and wanted to participate in any way they could. My feelings on that oscillated between anxiety over their lack of seaside engineering skills, and the desire for them to cultivate that same lifelong fascination that still lived within me. I found things for them to do, like put shells and feathers (flags) on top of the structure.

The greatest thing was that there was no shame or embarrassment in doing such a thing, because my kids were around. Having kids gives you a free pass to do the things that you loved as a child, and still love, but which are not normally socially acceptable for adults.

Like playing on playgrounds:

Or going sledding:

Or going to the zoo:

Jack was 16 days old here on his first trip to the zoo. One lady came up to my wife and me when we were in line for the little train, and asked, "How old is your baby?" When I told her, she said, "That's awesome!" I believe she was referring not to him as much as the fact that we, as parents, brought him there when there was no chance he'd get anything out of it. Indeed, the zoo was for us, and the kid was a shallow excuse to relive the fascination we experienced as kids.

Social norms may not allow adults to take a plastic disk to the top of the city sledding hill, but they certainly cannot destroy the fun of it. I haven't had this much fun since before middle school, when everything was about being cool. One thing about being cool is that there is no joyous passion in it. I have enthusiastically welcomed this new phase of life, where I can be the goofy dad.

Of course, parenthood also brings responsibilities, and knowledge of how injuries occur, and the incessant demands of schedules. At the end of the day, we have to work and worry and shop and clean. We have to teach our kids how to one day become boring adults. There are a few moments though, when we don't have to do anything like that. We must seize those moments, not only to allow our kids to express their wonder at life, but to allow ourselves to do the same.

Belief Needs to be Tasted

I recently finished reading a memoir called Educated about a woman whose parents did not believe in traditional education, so she had to self teach in order to get into college. She later went on to earn a Ph.D from Cambridge. Her family happened to also claim my same religious beliefs, but certainly did not live them. Their version of my faith was so perverse and manipulative, in fact, I understand why the author had to leave it entirely as part of her journey.

The story was inspiring, but it also bothered me. It wasn't necessarily the fact that her parents left a horrible impression of the religion - the author was very direct in her Author's Note about how the book is not a portrayal of Mormonism. I suppose what really bothered me was the author's personal experience with the faith, which the parents used as a means of instilling fear, compliance, and subjugation.

Any belief, whether it be religion, philosophy, politics, or lifestyle cannot truly be forced on someone. In this case, it was exactly this strategy which drove the author away, once she had escaped the invisible bonds under which ignorance had placed her. The human mind seems hard wired to resist tyranny, though it often takes a hero's journey to overcome it.

My experience with my beliefs sits in sharp contrast. My parents planted the seeds of the beliefs in me when I was young, but encouraged me to cultivate that belief myself. They understood that if I was the one putting forth the effort to explore, challenge, ponder, and apply those beliefs, it would gain a deeper root within my soul. They also had to mitigate that fear that I would also never put out the effort to do so.

Living any sort of belief takes a great amount of sacrifice. The essence of a belief is that you are giving up one choice to latch onto another. You are giving up meat to live as a vegan. You are renouncing the agenda of the Democrats to be a staunch Republican, you are rejecting any sort of mysticism to adhere to empiricism. You are choosing faith over skepticism if you choose to believe in God.

Such sacrifice can only be attained and maintained if you taste the belief. This is not an original metaphor. When I read it, though, it made instant sense. Unlike seeing, hearing, or smelling, tasting and feeling are concrete, proximate, definite. There is no convoluting media through which they must travel. They cannot be manipulated or distorted with smoke and mirrors. When we taste or feel the results of our beliefs, we have an intimate witness of that belief that no amount of outside argument can destroy.

Could one convince my son that gelato in Rome doesn't taste heavenly?

Similarly, can one argue that I have not tasted of the goodness of God? The notion defies reason. That is my experience. I know that I have had it not once, but hundreds of times. No amount of opposition or attempted logic can convince me otherwise.

At the risk of erring too much on religious belief, since I argue it applies to any sort of belief and helping another come to that belief, here is a video that has stuck with me:

Music of the Gospel

If we wish others to join our belief in the goodness of that Roman Gelato, or the positive effects of herbal remedies, or the beauty of scientific experimentation as a means to knowledge, we first need to get the word out, but then we must encourage them to try it for themselves. Only then can they internalize and share in our belief.

The Power of the Unposted "Post"

This entry seems ironic, but it isn't.

There are things that should be posted, and things that shouldn't. A post about not posting things is a thing that should be posted.

The world of social media may have us believe that this concept is unnecessary, especially since it is a widespread idea that the world should be the stage for everything that one produces. From baby pictures, to complaints, to cat memes to bragging rights, the idea that we need to share with the world every minute detail of our life has taken firm hold in modern day psyche.

Not everyone though. One of my roles at work is to design and install building-wide wifi in our low income apartment complexes. I remember doing a job in Soldier's Grove, Wisconsin, population 552 and sinking. One senior man came up to me, and asked me what I was doing. When I told him, he huffed and said, "Nobody around here uses that stuff." This somewhat shocking statement made me think that in some ways they were the lucky ones.

After all, if the social media world is a stage, we are the actors tied to the roles the world wants us to see. Diversion from it means a dearth of likes, shares, et cetera. The result is a world full of people putting off their genuine natures.

I believe that we all have beliefs that are not popular or politically correct. If we do not take the time to properly express these, we are being dishonest with ourselves.

Of course, choosing one's audience is important. It does no good to incite a social feed riot over a certain issue - rather the opposite. We must strive to be wise enough to know when to express certain thoughts to close or trusted friends, or in some cases, keep it to ourselves. There is no perfect formula to this, but putting attention to it will improve matters over time.

It is, however, important to express it somewhere. It could be an email that is sent to no one or to one's self, or in a journal, or in a document in a private folder.

I have done this before, and it helps assuage the angst I am feeling about particular matters, especially ones that are unpopular. I have also shared my most private beliefs, beliefs which I'm sure would incite riots, with my wife. Even though she has not agreed with some of them, she has heard me out, perhaps pointed out flaws in my reasoning, and never loved me less because of them. When you are writing or posting or sharing to no one, or to your most trusted friends, you do not need to put on the proper filters to protect you from the lynch mobs, and it is cleansing.

A few weeks ago, a co-worker and I got on the subject of babies. He has none; I have done the baby thing twice so far. He does, however, have several nieces and nephews. At one point, he got a little quieter, and more timid and expressed to me in more roundabout language that he didn't really like the babies, or feel love for them until they were several months old. I doubt he told this to the mother on delivery day. I laughed, however, and told him that I'd heard several fathers, let alone uncles, say the same thing about their children, always in hushed tones, because it seems inappropriate.

To his point, how many people can say they love acquaintances at first sight? And babies personalities do not come out right away, and they brainwash you with their 24 hour schedule, ear splitting screams and constant defecation. Yet this newborn post got 163 likes and 33 comments, many of which calling him cute and beautiful, and so on. I love him so much more than I did on this day, but it really should be like that, shouldn't it?

Reading Deliberately

I have recently been listening to an audio book version of Walden, by Henry David Thoreau. Walden, in short, is an account of a two-year practical and philosophical experiment by the transcendentalist author. Thoreau went into the woods, built a cabin, and lived off both the land and a small garden for two years. The idea was to focus in on the very basics of life, to simplify and weed out all the unnecessary efforts, that had crept into society. He states that he really only needed to work six weeks out of the year to survive. The rest could be spent in experiencing nature and books and people and other of his interests. He calls this living deliberately.

While listening to these profound and prophetic words, I found myself disobeying his direction, while at the same time, believing the ideas stated. This hypocrisy was more practical than anything. I was listening to the book while driving for work - how I consume the vast majority of my literature these days, because that is my most lengthy, uninterrupted "dead time". But I realized that I was breezing through these chapters at a pace in which I could not properly consume and digest the ideas.

Some books should not be listened to while driving. They are too intoxicating. Ideally, one would get as cheap a paperback as possible, and read with a pencil and journal, underlining, annotating, rereading passages with the newly gained perspective, in essence "sucking the marrow" out of the binding.

Walden was probably one of the first self-help books, but it cannot help when being read like a spy or romance novel.

Reading deliberately does not just apply to a book devoted to deliberate living. Most Christian sects emphasize lifelong study of the holy scriptures, though a casual pace could get one through the Bible in under a year. But deliberate reading is even worthwhile with fiction. Take, for example, Beartown, by Fredrik Backman.

Immediately after I finished this book, I began rereading it. Only then did I catch the significance of some of the first lines, chapters, and storytelling style. Like a coach, viewing tape after a game, I had the context of the end to add meaning to all parts. The result was a richer experience of consuming a beautifully crafted story. It is a habit I hope I have the energy to keep up.

Walk in the Woods - A Spiritual-esque journey

You'd really have to be there.

The walk was about 90 minutes, which would equate to about 7.8 gigabytes of low res video, had I attempted to capture the entire experience for you all. But even this would barely touch the value of the trip, which was seen and heard in the panoramic ultra high definition of the eyes and ears.

Not to mention . . .

The tart burst-and-splash of wild raspberries in the mouth

       

The gentle immersion of forest humidity.

The microscopic tug on my skin from spider strands spanning the trail

The waves of oxygen-infused, temperate forest scents, interrupted once with an errant burst of citrus.

The dull poke of rocks beneath my shoes, expressed in the hard packed dirt.


It's a sensory overload, but nothing like a sweaty arcade or amusement park.  The forest doesn't come at you all at once. There are long moments where everything blends together. No acute observation comes, even for a botanist, for most of the plants are common, most of the trees look like the others, the bird calls are familiar, and the trail feels the same.

But this is okay. This homogeneity seeps into you over the span of your journey to paint a grand collage in your soul, leaving you invigorated by the end.

And there's something about the forest that pulls a man out of the illusion that he maintains full control over his existence. There are thousands of trip hazards, a thunderstorm forecast that could swell up and strike early, not to mention this three lobed rascal, hugging almost the entire trail:

I could break an ankle, catch a rash, be attacked by a swarm of Africanized bees, or more likely a swarm of mosquitoes. The forest could fold me into its life cycle and not blink. After all, it fells its own great hardwoods, and covers them in fungi until they disintegrate into the soil, and become food for the ground cover.

But it doesn't. Two mosquito bites in an hour and a half, and persistent gnats drawn toward my eyes. It's a small price to pay. That does not break my reverence, nor make me believe myself invincible. I stick to the well worn trails, and would not have even taken this one, if it hadn't shown up on Google Maps:

I've made that mistake before, on the proximate mountainside trails of my college days. A promising path would draw me away, then abandon me on the side of cliff.  That's another story of another life.

This one today was a homage to the millions of individual stories of the plants growing and dying, the insects scampering, the raptors gliding, and the squirrels gathering.  It's a reminder of my insignificance. A celebration of the wild, untamed, organic, beautiful.

Raw Questions of Humanity

I woke up with some raw questions pulsing at my mind. Questions that step away from the normal Google inquiries we speak or type into our devices. Questions that Siri or Alexa or Cortana cannot answer.  Here are some of them:

WHAT IS ONE ASPECT OF YOUR CHILDHOOD YOU WISH YOU COULD RE-ADOPT?

WHAT DO YOU HOPE PEOPLE SAY ABOUT YOU?

WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE?

WHAT DO YOU WISH YOU BELIEVED?

WHAT IS ONE HABIT YOU REGRET HAVING?

WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING?


These are largely private questions. Though there is nothing wrong with sharing their answers, they are largely for private reflection. I'll offer my answer to the first question just as fuel for your thoughts:

This is a picture of the Supermoon, rising over Lake Michigan on New Year's Day of this year. I couldn't remember the last time I had stared at the moon for so long, but am sure it was when I was a kid. Every once in a while, my own kids will point out the moon or the stars, or the shape of a cloud, and reflect the wonder I remember having. Then I'll look at it and realize the wonder is still there.

But schedules, obligations, worries, and tasks often cut it short.

I wish I took more time to stare at the sky, just like when I was a kid.

Love is Like Climbing a Mountain

It was almost five years ago that my wife and I took a trip down to Ecuador. One of our favorite memories, shown below, was hiking up to the glacier on the Cotopaxi Volcano, which was at about 16,000 feet. It's the highest I've ever been (other than a plane) and let me tell you, your body feels different up there. Every step was a chore, and we had to rest after every 20 or so steps.

Since then, we have had two kids, achieved one Master's Degree, and bought a house. It's amazing how time does that to you. But I look at these pictures, and although we look younger, our love for each other is even more solidly established.

I've decided that love is much like climbing a mountain.

Many people try to define what love is, at what point they fall in love, and how to stay in love. I think "fall" is the wrong word because it implies something that happens by some outside force that acts upon you. I'd say that's true for attraction, or chemistry, but love is much more than that. Love is deliberate. Perhaps that misconception is why love eludes so many people.

"Climb" is a much more appropriate word.  Love is a choice, made day after day, in little steps, staring at the trail, or our feet, or our companion near us. It can seem ordinary and tiring. After all, when climbing up a mountain, especially at 16,000, every step takes conscious exertion.

But you recognize your progress in those moments when you pause, and you both turn back and look at the panorama that suddenly comes into view. You stand, arm in arm, witnessing your journey together in full view. It is breathtaking. You feel like rulers, or even creators, of a world, and you complete forget about your fatigue.

Of course, you cannot spend all of your time in this state of elation. I think some couples try to do this, and you know what? They never progress any further up the mountain, and their view remains infantile. To make love grow, you have to turn around and fix your focus back on the trail ahead of you. Love grows with the passage of time, and you have to keep putting in the effort to achieve that.

If you do, even greater heights and vistas await.