How to Ruin Your Life in Just Eight Complicated Steps

My step-father used to have a chart hanging on his office wall in which were printed the necessary steps to achieve any goal, a mantra treated in calligraphy that read something to the effect:

Step 1: Figure out what you want.

Step 2: Figure out what is necessary to get what you want.

Step 3: Start doing those things today.

The simplicity of those words haunt me now as they did then, and though I now realize that they were not necessarily the prescription for finding one's life work, that's how I perceived them. Perhaps it was the calligraphy that gave the document a certain weight. Anyway, it seemed like these steps were to be followed for something more consequential than picking up a half-gallon of milk ("We need milk. Braum's has milk for just a little over a dollar. I have three dollars in my bank account, I'll go by there on my way home and pick some up. Success.").

When I used to wonder what I was going to do for a living (for like thirty years), these words mocked me. This little list, while simple, is deceptively charming. For example, the first step alone took me 38 years.

I've got a new list. Mine is not nearly as efficient, but it is way more fun.

Step 1: Figure out what you want. But more than that, figure out what you were born to do and don't deny it because you are afraid that people will think you are crazy (because they will, and quite possibly, you are).

This was the most difficult step for me. Not because it is difficult, but because I made it so. I have known that I was supposed to be a writer for most of my life (perhaps for all of it, if you believe in such cosmic intelligence, which, by the way, I most certainly do). It has almost always been the only thing that I am good at, the only thing I do with my brain that brings me joy. It should have been easy to choose to be a writer from very early on and then progress to the next step. Just one problem: I couldn't see how that was going to be possible. I didn't know anyone who made a living as a writer - I still know very few. I got majorly hung up on Step 2: How are you going to go about this whole affair?

I suggest throwing this step out.

Figuring out "how" to do something assumes that there is no universal intelligence, it presumes that only the power of the human brain is great enough to logically map out a solution, which if you know anything about the human brain, is just silly.

Here's what I now know: You don't have to know how it's going to work, that is not your position or your responsibility.

Think back on your life. Haven't there been about a million things that have happened to you that you could have never guessed were going to happen? You didn't set out a plan to make them happen, they just did. Remember?

I'll give you a few examples from my life: I never thought that I would move to Savannah, Georgia and yet in 1997, I did - sight unseen. I lived there for over seven years. I never thought that I would study horticulture and build golf courses, but I enjoyed that career for almost a decade. I never thought I would meet and marry (and subsequently get divorced from) a woman from Indiana. I never thought that I would live in Roanoke, Virginia or have a career in Sales. I never, ever, ever thought that I would live in Oklahoma again, the idea just did not appeal to me, but here I am since 2007, one of its biggest champions and critics. I never thought I would eventually be married to a woman who I knew only briefly when I was a young man many years previous. But, I did and now we have a beautiful baby boy (something I must admit I always thought would happen, although for a while I was beginning to wonder how). I never thought that I would do any of these things, but I am all the better for each of them.

Each of these things have happened with seemingly little concrete planning or goal setting. They happened because of intention. They happened because I decided there was something I wanted to change in my life, some new experience I wanted to have, and then the universe moved to create that for me. It may have never happened the way that I thought it would, or even the way I wanted it to at the time, but it happened when I quit worrying about how it was going to happen.

Step 2: Assemble an Army of Angels. You are going to need support.

I am fortunate. When I decided to quit my former career and begin the process of becoming a writer, I already had an entire support team in place.

First and foremost was my wife, who when I told her that I was no longer happy and I couldn't see a way that I could be unless I made a radical shift in my career arc, told me to do what I needed to do to change it. Mind you, this meant giving up an ample salary, great benefits and retirement package and ultimately, (perceived) security. She is one-in-a-million, which is exactly why she is my wife. I had to have a one-in-a-million type wife to be able to understand and support me. I now understand that finding her was one of the most integral initial steps in my "plan".

Secondly, I had friends and family members who supported and encouraged me throughout the process, even if they secretly wondered how I was going to pull it off. These people may have thought that I was bat-shit crazy, but at least they had the decency not to say it to my face. They gave me love and encouragement, bought lunches and dinners for my family, helped with babysitting duties and diapers, let me do odd jobs for them to make some extra money, gave us gift certificates to the grocery store, etc... Whether they did this because they believed in me or just because they didn't want to see my family suffer is inconsequential - they supported, that's what mattered.

I have a friend who is an extremely successful vintage guitar dealer. He helped me immensely by hiring me to assist him with his various guitar shows. About once a month, he and I would travel to some part of the United States and set up his wares in a large expo center. I helped him transport the guitars, set up his booth, drive the van, secure the money we made, etc... In turn, he would pay me well enough so that our family could get by. He has been dealing in vintage guitars for years, he has never had any help - he has never needed any. But, at this particular time he reached out to help me and I in turn, like to think that I helped him. One thing is for sure, I would have never made it without him.

You are going to need help, help that you cannot easily forecast - it will be necessary for a group of angels to emerge to assist you. Especially because of what is required in Step 3.

Step 3: Jump way off into the deep end. 

Sometimes you have to let go of what is in your hands in order to grab something new.

I was always taught that you don't leave one job without having another. This is not a bad thing to teach someone, but it simply doesn't always work out this way. Some of the greatest success stories in the world have come from leaving (or being removed from) a job with no backup plan in place. Necessity being the mother of invention and whatnot.

Working without a net dramatically increases focus and intensity. Yeah, it is brutal, but effective. It makes it impossible to be stagnant. You have to move in the direction you have chosen because there is no "safe ground" of an existing job. I would have loved to ease into a writing career while still earning large amounts of money in a sales position, but that was not my path. I would have never done it. I would have remained scared to put myself and my work out into the world if I already had the "security" of a full-time position. I had to take an action that was so bold that there was no turning back. Some people don't need this level of discomfort to serve as motivation, but I did, and when I got very quiet and really listened to my inner self, it kept telling me to "jump" and eventually, once the pain of not pursuing my dream outweighed the pleasure provided by the security afforded by my job, I jumped.

Step 4: Understand the power of intention. 

At the beginning of my unemployment, I was truly lost. I knew what I wanted to do, but could not bring myself to admit it to anyone. One day, a friend called me and asked if I would come and help him at the cabinet shop where he was working - his boss, the owner of the shop, was willing to pay $10/hour cash for some unskilled labor. I was happy to do it.

During one of our breaks, my friend told his boss how I had a left a great paying job at the height of the deepest recession our generation has ever known, and that I didn't even know what I was going to do next. To my surprise, this didn't strike his boss as irresponsible, or even moronic - he was interested. He asked me, "What do you want to do?"

Now this is key. I hadn't been able to publicly confess to anyone what it was that I intended to do at this point - I was still too afraid. But given the nature of the person asking, I figured there was no harm in giving it a shot. "I want to be a writer," I said.

The boss said, "Hmmm?  A writer, huh? Well, I don't know how to help you there. What are you going to do about it?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said - and I really didn't.

"Well," the boss said, "I'll tell you this. The best piece of advice I can give you is to tell everyone you meet that you quit your job and you want to be a writer."

"You think?"

"Yep," he said, "and here's why: Because nobody can help you if they don't know what you want - and you are going to need a lot of help."

He was exactly right. In order to create change you must have intention and you must make that intention known. I made it known to him that day, I went public in a very private cabinet shop. He couldn't help me, though. He didn't know any writers or editors. However, within hours, I noticed a Facebook post from a local publication searching for writers in Oklahoma. I replied with no credentials and no former published work (the only writing samples I offered were in this blog). Yet with some luck and determination, I became a published writer over the next few months and now, I am listed as a Contributing Editor to that publication (an organization full of angels). I made my intentions known, and the universe moved to meet me.

This is worth stating again: No one can help you achieve your goals if they don't know what you want.

Step 5: Pay attention: There are signs along the way.

A few months ago, my family and I were very nearly making it, financially speaking. Not quite, but close. With the money I was making from working guitar shows, writing for This Land Press and the money Cari was making from working several days a week, we were pretty close to being able to pay our bills. We had no insurance (although our child qualified for insurance through Sooner Care) and no other benefits. It was a lot of work and it was terribly inefficient, but we were better off than we had been. I kept thinking that if I could just get one more steady writing job, we would have enough money to really start to feel secure again.

One day, a friend of mine, a guy I had known when I was in grade school but had not spent any time with in over 25 years sent me an instant message (Facebook, again). It said: "I have a technical writer position that I am filling for a 90 day period. Likely to turn into a full-time gig. You interested in getting back into corporate America?"

My response: "I think I'm good where I am. But, I am so thankful that you thought of me."

Now why did I do that? I had said that I wanted another writing job so that I could feel secure and someone just offered me one and I turned it down.

In my mind, this job wasn't the right one. At first blush, it didn't look like the other writing job I was supposed to get. The other writing job I was supposed to get was going to look kind of like the one I already had, just in a different city or something. I wasn't paying attention.

Luckily, I realized my error (trying to control the "hows" of the situation) and reached out to my friend for further details on the position.

Now I work for a company that has afforded my family consistent pay, benefits, vacation, an office space downtown where I do my work and job satisfaction. I call this my anchor job. I work for this company remotely (there are no offices in Oklahoma), I have a great boss and I have the freedom to work unobstructed. I am thankful to have the opportunity and most of the people that I work with on projects are happy to have me there to help them. It doesn't hurt that the company I work for takes great care of their employees and seems to have not only a social, but also environmental conscience.

None of this would have been possible if I hadn't learned to pay attention to the true essence of what was being offered and thrown away my notions of what something was supposed to look like or feel like. I can guarantee you, now that I am performing this job on a daily basis, it looks and feels just right.

Step 6: Surrender. You will fail miserably. At that point, give up.

You know how they say, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again?" Well, I guess so. But in between all the failing and trying, I think it is important to completely give up.

I gave up writing so many times in the last two years- I will probably give it up some more in the future. Failure is brutal and it seems more personal in some disciplines than others.

You are going to try really hard at some point to make your dreams come true and you are going to fail, miserably. It's okay. You will regain the courage to try again - although, it may take some time. In that stretch of time between your miserable failure and your next effort (which will likely result in miserable failure), give up completely.

Now I'm not saying that if you want to be a painter and you fail to accomplish one of your goals that you should then give up painting until you feel like your ego has repaired itself. No, go ahead and paint if you wish. Just give up trying to be a success.

Trying to be successful is dangerous and ultimately pointless. First of all, there is no universal definition for the term. No two people view it in the same way. So forget it. Forget your own view of success and just surrender.

Early on in my attempt to become a writer I was struggling greatly. My God-brother, Gabriel (He's one of my angels, don't you know?), told me to stop trying to figure everything out and just put my ass, "in the river and go with the flow." A former boss of mine once told me, "It's like you're in a row boat and you're paddling and paddling. Sometimes, you just need to put down the oars and take a long look at the shore." I now understand this to mean: surrender.

Surrender should not be thought of as a negative. It is not giving up your power, rather it is turning over your perceived problems to a power that can actually do something about it. Look, if you have the intention and the belief and the effort, the only thing that can block the arrival of what you seek is you. This is what people mean when they say, "If only he could get out of his own damn way."

 So fail. Fail, and then flow. Turn over your issues, let go of your preconceived notions, surrender the "hows" of the situation to God or Allah or Buddha or the Universe or Yoda or whoever the hell it is that you believe is bigger than you. Trust me, it feels great to let these things go.

Step 7: Give Thanks.

There are about five billion great quotes on this subject. I won't use any of them here. Just be sure that everyday you are thankful. Be overwhelmingly thankful to even get a shot at having a life. Be thankful for the successes small and large and be thankful for the great and seemingly cataclysmic failures and misjudgments and stupid mistakes.

If you are really down and out and feeling as low as you have ever felt and you can't think of anything to be thankful for, then just say:

"Thanks for this shitty day; and subsequently, the shitty way it turned out. I really enjoyed making a complete and total ass of myself in front of the people I respect and admire. This is going along just swimmingly. I can't wait for tomorrow to see what kind of fucked-up plan is in store for me. Jesus Lord!"

At least you will start to laugh, and laughter is always helpful.

Step 8: Return the Favor.

When you make progress, take time to help others. It can be large or small. Just remember how much help you needed (and still will need) and take the time to send an e-mail, make a phone call or buy a beer for someone who needs encouragement. Do this to the absolute best of your ability. You are not too important or too stressed for time to return a call or e-mail to someone who just wants a little help.

All of this being said, I can't say I have made it yet. I'm not a success, I have had some success. I aspire to more.

Since I believe in taking my own medicine, I will say this: I intend to write a book, a novel. I intend on it being well-received by the types of people who think about such things. I should like to work on collaborative projects with other writers - I would like to see what that is like. I would like to have tremendous of amounts of fun while working on these projects, laughing, often uncontrollably. I would like to feel impulsive and sustained bursts of creativity during this venture - that type of thing makes me happy. I would also like to make large piles of money from these efforts - which would allow me to take vacations with, and provide for, my family.

And along the way I promise to pay attention, surrender, be thankful and help others as I am able.

Fuck that lame-ass three step chart.

Better Living Through Chemistry; Or, how I stopped fearing the very much known and started to embrace my imbalance.

Before I started my career as a writer, my professional life was a disaster.  Writing has ruined that.  Now my life is a seemingly surreal series of events woven together by adorable, crafty little elves that work at once both deftly and without cigarette breaks.  My life is full of stories, potentially.  Given the right angle, everyone has a story.  And some have a story without an angle, more circular in narrative, I suppose.  There aren't any stories about ship captains, though.  That is where everyone gets it wrong.

Writing has helped me to value human life and even corporations if for nothing more than their potential for satirical send-up.

Another thing that helps me value human life is a prescription for, and the recommended daily ingestion of, a certain blue and green capsule that fights like the devil against the forces of anxiety and major depressive disorder that threaten to jab a million hate-spears into my brain.  Specifically, the parts of the brain that regulate mood and the sort of anxiety that accompanies being a shivering mass of human being.  Yes, this little botanical (maybe?) serves to block out the naturally dark chemicals and wave a red flag in front of the blessed ones, urging them toward their appropriate receptors like a neurological matador.  Either that, or it simply increases the amounts of the optimistic chemicals, I am honestly a little fuzzy on the science.  Nevertheless, I imagine from time to time that the blue portion of the pill sends a torrent of soothing water at the gloomy little soldiers of depression, washing them upon an island positively shamrocked with verdant low-lying vegetation (obviously, the green part of the pill) lightly swept now and again by careful breezes, lending it the eerily calming sensation of being alive, which it obviously is.  Everything is alive.  Even granite countertops.  Just not ship captains, they are positively dead.

The pill ingested, the veil lifts.  Not quickly.  Not even noticeably at first.  So in that respect, "the veil lifts" is an absolutely shitty metaphor.  Another equally shitty way I have heard it described is the "fog clears".  No.  I don't really know what the hell any of this would have to do with fog clearing.  Most people have no literal reference for that anyway.  Be honest, when was the last time you got to sit somewhere and witness clearing fog?  Maybe if you're from the Bay Area or something, or perhaps near the Puget Sound, but in Oklahoma we get fog like twice a year and usually I sleep through it.  Besides it sounds like some kind of shit a ship captain would say anyway.  Fuck him.

Anyway, so psycho-chemical-retreading is neither "lifty" fog nor its cousin, the equally, albeit more lacy, clearing veil.  It is more of a gradual, quiet loss of hatred.

Here's how it happens.  At first, you might notice something that would normally inspire all amounts of rage and/or hostility, like a poorly executed traffic circle or the prattling on of a self-aggrandizing pet food lobbyist.  Things that in the past would have never escaped an audible swipe.  But this time, nothing seems worth putting forth the effort to upsettedness.  Then, a really strange thing occurs.  Your brain realizes that it almost got worked up over the ingredients in a loaf of artisan bread, or how you never lettered in lacrosse because your high school only recognized it as a "club sport" or whatever (meanwhile the football team just couldn't have enough fucking different versions of their "road uniforms"), and it looks at itself, your brain, and kind of softly laughs.  That's exactly how it happens.  That's right, your present brain looks at the memory of your past brain and chuckles a bit, somewhat patronizingly, too.  Just a little.  It doesn't overdo it like some kind of pretentious ship captain or anything like that.  Just enough to let you know how smart you were to quit being on of the biggest pricks in the world and start to get help for your chemical imbalance.  It is a kind of knowing laugh.  The kind of laugh that you laugh now when you hear people who are younger than you complain about stuff like entrance exams, or how their crippling huffing addiction came about as a result of not being able to find enough activities in which to engage their free time.

So what the hell does any of this have to do writing?

I can hear you now.  You're saying, "Kudos to you, friend.  It sounds like your propensity for being a gigantic ass has been at least partially masked by employing the use of psycho-pharmacological mood-altering super-mind-fucking pills which at best will work for the time being, but must bring along to the impromptu daily chemistry experiment that is now taking place in your skull-hole a host of concerning side effects that if not at any time physically debilitating, than almost certainly sexually embarrassing. Great.  Good for you.  But this enlightenment of ennui is manufactured, it is not the byproduct of an artistic mind.  What's wrong with you, besides the established?"

To which I say, "That's just like you to shit all over this, ship captain!"

The overarching truth is that without writing, I may never have acquiesced to the science fair that is now being conducted daily in my wrinkly-pinkly brain.  And without writing, I wouldn't be able to accurately explain this brave new world to others with the obvious efficiency and precision of a laser-guided laser.   Writing has demanded that I expose the parts of myself that are vulnerable, squishy and otherwise ludicrous.  It is truly the only way I know to convey information of interest.  Nobody wants to read about how great you feel all the time and that you just don't know why, but things just kinda-sorta naturally work out for you.  People want guts strewn about and feelings ricocheting off of every possible surface (I am speaking somewhat figuratively, but it has not escaped my attention that a lot of people, "Gamers", I think they call themselves, actually like the literal spreading of guts, at least from what I can gather from the television commercials that ran during the most recent Super Bowl).

"Yes," you say, "people do seem to respond to emotion and the exposure of certain basic human qualities.  They long for a witness.  A translator who might illustrate that in one manner or another, we are all flawed, all scared to our wits and yet, all capable of a sort of redemption, a modicum of peace if not outright transcendence.  So, seeing how you have achieved this by simply taking a time-released capsule, why should we listen to anything you have to say?"

"Oh, you nautical hobgoblin - I swear." (fist shaking).

Why should anyone listen to me?  They shouldn't.  I shudder to imagine what state the world should find itself in if I have become required reading.  But here is what I have a need to confess.  If others find it useful, I am glad.  If they find it impotent and laughable, I would suggest that they keep their damn mouths shut on the matter.

What I must confess is that once I found my passion (which, incidentally, I had known for my entire life but was simply too fearful to name it), I had barely the strength left to pursue it.  Once I had been given the chance to pursue my dream, I nearly sabotaged it for lack of mental health.  But for some reason, I chose to ask for help.  And for some other reasons, I continue to choose to ask for help.  The pills help.  For now (which is really all there ever is), they help.  And I only need them to help for now.  I am not looking for a lifetime guarantee.  I don't need to conquer Everest, I just needed to quit carrying it around for a bit.  Writing about it helps.  The pills help.

Perhaps the toughest thing I have done is to try and learn to surrender.  I am still miserable at it, but I am trying.  I had to surrender to the fact that I couldn't manage my mental health on my own at this time in order to manage my mental health on my own at this time.  That's the trick.  It was either that, or purchase a boat, hire a crew and become the captain of a ship.

Awww Screw It, I'll Write About Football!

I have been holding off on writing about football on this blog because it's not really what this blog is about.  If you haven't guessed, this blog is about family, jobs, parenting, love, loss - in short, it's about life.  But the truth of the matter is that sometimes my life is about football.  So, although their are people that do a much better job of writing about football than myself, (Katie Hull Rathkey, in particular) I'm wound up, so I am gonna say my piece.

First of all, I am pissed off that my beloved 'Pokes lost to Iowa State and I will accept no excuse for it.

(For anyone in the dark, I am referencing Oklahoma State University, the OSU, not to be confused with the school that occasionally cheats it's way to the top of the Great Lakes League, you know, the one who always looks like it is playing in super slow-mo?  Don't adjust your set, it's just the Big Ten.)

But back to my rage:  "Why, Pokes, why?!"

Let's run down the list of excuses:

It was a classic trap game.
How was this a trap?  We won the previous game before halftime in a contest that was as even-sided as a Iron Chef match featuring Anthony Bourdain going spatula-to-whisk with The Cake Boss, Secret Ingredient:  Bone Marrow!  (Jeez, a Food Network reference?  No wonder I don't write about football very often.)  And as for the looking ahead distraction?  We have the week off!  What were we being distracted by?  Oyster dressing?

They had a new quarterback we were not familiar with.
Yeah, and he plays for Iowa State!  That's like saying the Marlins have a new ace on the mound.  Who cares?  The rest of the team is still Iowa State.  And last time I checked, OSU has a decent media facility, we should have been able to break down some game film.  Hell, we could have started working on it at halftime in Lubbock!

They had nothing to lose.
Yeah, and we had everything to gain.  So what?  When you are a championship caliber team you handle your business.  You were playing a team with an atrocious defense.  One of the worst in the Big 12.  This game should have been out-of-hand quickly, which would have forced the Cyclones to throw their game plan out the window and play catch-up.  That's how we win ball games against inferior squads.

We lost two coaches in a plane crash the day before.

I will not try in any way to diminish the loss of two very special people in our tight-knit Cowboy family.  This event, no doubt weighed heavily on the hearts and minds of every coach and player that evening.  Additionally, it was a real class move from the folks in Ames to assign a moment of silence in honor of our fallen comrades before the game began.  But the truth of the matter is, the only way that a plane crash should have kept us from beating Iowa State is if our starting offense would have been on it.

We blew it.

Chances like this don't come around often for Oklahoma A&M in the realm of real-deal championship football.  In fact, I have been alive for 38 years, and we have never had a legitimate title shot - not once.  We are the Andy Roddick of college football - we may not deserve to be in the hunt, but sometimes a perfect storm occurs and there we are.  Texas is down, aTm is out and the Sooners are short 3 studs and somehow have a defensive backfield that is full of holes rivaling the ones in Wal-Mart's Black Friday Preparedness Strategy.

We had to come from behind in College Station and needed the help of a earthquake to stop the Wildcats from upsetting us at home.  Rarely is a championship season built without some close calls.

But the debacle in Ames has turned is into spectators.  Now our hopes are pinned to the former A&M of Alabama to see if they can pull the upset in Jordan-Hare.  Take it from one who knows, Auburn may be the only other team in the country as unfortunate as the Pokes to live just up the street from such a storied and historically rich big brother of a football program.  The difference is that when the Gods smile on Auburn, they take advantage and win championships.  They are relevant.

In the end it doesn't matter that much what happens in the Auburn/Alabama game this afternoon if we don't focus on the only thing under our control:  Bedlam.

The Cowboys have had the singular goal of winning an outright Big 12 Championship for several years now.  Hell, one year we even had little bracelets made so that we wouldn't forget.  The Sooners could get caught up in a Cyclone today in a rainy contest at Memorial Stadium, which would hand us the title without even having to play for it, but I wouldn't count on it.  And I don't want it that way.

We need a Bedlam win and an outright Big 12 Championship.  That's our next step.  Forget Ames, don't worry about the SEC West and all the maybes and could-have-beens.  Just win your game against your in-state rivals and let the healing begin.

It's been said often this year that, "these are not your father's Cowboys".  Until last week, that was correct.  But on a Friday night we played like a high school squad and we looked just like my dad's Cowboys.

The players on this team are too young to remember Bedlam collapses having to do with walk-on kickers, unscripted onside kicks and Sooner Magic.  They don't even know the name Brent Parker.  But they need to win this one for all of us who lived through their father's Cowboys.  A Big 12 Championship, Bedlam win and a BCS bowl game are steps forward for Oklahoma State.

On campus in Auburn, Alabama today about 80,000 people will be rooting for a two teams that have so much football history that they often stumble over it.  They also have serious confusion regarding their mascots.  Alabama apparently is some kind of wave of blood or something to do with a pachyderm.  Auburn, like 15 other southern teams claims the official (and wildly imaginative) moniker, Tigers.  But what the fans will be chanting at the Iron Bowl (don't get me started) is "War Eagle".  Another sketchy reference to some wonderful event that happened pre-printing press at a game between Auburn and the University of Georgia.

Today, Pokes fans will be watching OU take on Iowa State.  Some rooting for the Sooners, the embittered and less informed rooting against them (it's not right, it's just in our nature).  But no matter what happens in that contest, many will be tuning in to watch southern smash-mouth football.  Teams with history, pageantry - teams with defenses.

Remember Pokes fans:  If all the storytelling, all of the gaped-mouth announcing, all of stroking of the SEC's ego starts to get disorienting (and it will), just root against the team in crimson.

"War Damn Eagle!"

The Luck Stops Here.

I wonder if it is easier to forgive a parent or a child.

In most cases, I'd say it would be easier to forgive a child because by definition, they should never be as old or learned as a parent.  Then again, I can see where forgiving a parent could be easier at certain times due to the more flexible thought processing of the youth.  Maybe it depends on the infraction.

Call me naive, but I can't see much use in holding a grudge these days.  Maybe it's because I have found that withholding forgiveness affects me much more negatively than it seems to affect the person I may grace with such an act.  Maybe it's because nothing that bad has ever happened to me.

I recently forgave my father, whom I had not had any contact with in almost 10 years, for failing to be the father I was supposed to have had.  If that's not the silliest sentence I've ever written.  Anyway, it wasn't easy.  Took me nearly ten years to come around to the idea.  We missed a lot of each other in that time - some of it needed to be missed, but probably not that amount.  Because of my lack of willingness to forgive, my father and his wife missed the birth and almost all of the first two years of their (only) grandson's life.  Hardly seems like a fair trade for not living up to my lofty expectations.  I am sorry it took me so long to learn to forgive, but oddly enough, I had to have a child teach me about it.  You see, once I had a child and became a father was the first time I could see how painful life might become if we couldn't find a way to forgiveness.

At first I thought, "Well, my father had a bad father, and I had a bad father, but my son has a great father.  My son and I are gonna break this chain." There's only one flaw in that thinking.  It assumes that I will either be a perfect father for the rest of my days, or that my son will need to learn how to forgive me at some point.  Well, how was I gonna teach him to do that?  Bingo.

I'm not the only one in my family with these issues.  My father-in-law, Mike, recently made peace with his mother after several years of estrangement.  What their issues were I don't really know,  I'm not entirely sure if I ever knew.  Actually, it doesn't matter.  What matters is that they found a way back to one another and to a place where they didn't have to hold on so tightly and expend so much energy on proving a point.  The point being, that somebody had let somebody down.

The downside of my father-in-law's story is that he and his mother were joined in this reconciliation by serious illness.  Mike's mother became terminally ill and recently passed away.  I am very proud of him for letting go of the anger and resentment he was carrying around before she was physically absolved of the material world.

I am not certain any of us did enough to say we were sorry to Mike when his mother died.  We sent messages and such, and I know that he knows we care, but I for one, am terrible at grieving the dead.  Always have been.  I cried more when my cat had to be put down than I did when my grandfather passed away.  I'll cry at a movie, a moving poem from The Writer's Almanac, even a particularly poignant episode of Parenthood, but death of a human, meh.  I don't know what it is, I'm just not good at it.

But, fortunately for Mike, his grandchildren are fantastic at cutting through the ephemera and useless emotions that tend to accompany such an event.  A few days after Mike lost his mother, he got letters from Sadie Bea (8 years) and Simon (6 years) - they call their grandfather, "Poppy":

Dear Poppy,


I am sorry to hear about your mom (drawing of sad face at the end of this sentence).  I know that you are sad, but it was time.  


Love you a lot,


Sadie Bea (with a little cartoon heart dotting the i)

Simon's offering of condolence was less nuanced, but quite frankly receives high marks for not dancing around the subject matter as much as his sister had.

(This written in the absurdly large and wobbly script of a person who is just now learning to write.)

Dear Poppy,


I am sorry that your mom died, but luckily she was ready to die.


Love,


Simon

Reportedly, Mike and his wife Rita were in tears at the reading of these letters.  Mike could not stop laughing at the wording the kids used.  "How lucky was that?" he would say to his wife.  "She was ready to die," and then they would burst out laughing.

When I was in high school a woman called our house one afternoon and my stepmother answered the phone.  After several minutes, she hung up and told me that the person who had called was related to my grandfather and they were calling to let my father know that his father was in a hospital (in Illinois, maybe) and he was going to die soon.  They wanted to let my dad know so that he could go see him, so that he could make peace with him.  My father declined.  In fact, when my stepmother told him about the call, my dad used some choice words to describe his old man and the variety of reasons for which he would not be booking an airline ticket any time soon.  Even at his funeral, my father was angry about the proceedings, the cost, etc...

I have visited my grandfather's grave several times - it is near my other grandparents' graves, so I kinda figure, you know, while I'm in the neighborhood.  I don't know why my dad and his brother couldn't bring themselves to forgive their father, we've never talked about it that much.  I do know that I have never heard anyone in our family tell one good story about my grandfather.  His epitaph reads something along the lines of, "Loving Husband, Devoted Father".  It would be as accurate to say, "Cured Polio, Walked on Moon".  

I am sure it stung to have to pay for that headstone as my father and his brother surely did.  I'm fairly certain that it must be rough to be told you've got a shot at burying the hatchet with your old man, only to leave him to die without you.  And I hope I never know what it's like to be on my deathbed and place the call only to have no one respond.

Of course by then, luckily I'll be ready to die.

Possible Alternative Names for the Brady Arts District (In response to Lee Roy Chapman's insightful article on one of our city's founding fathers in This Land Press)

1)  Hatey District
2)  Uncle Tate's Klantastic Family Fun Zone
3)  Ku Klux Kreative
4)  Hate-Ashbury
5)  Konfederate Korner
6)  Klavern on the Green
7)  Greenwood

Thoughts on Tom Riley (1945-2011)

(Author's Note:  I have not been directed, petitioned, or otherwise received permission to write anything that would serve or substitute as a eulogy for Thomas F. Riley.  I simply record these memories because they are important to me and because in such a small amount of time, Tom made an enormous positive impression.)


I met Tom Riley sometime around 1986.  I was best friends with his youngest boy, Tim, and as such was a frequent stowaway at Tim's mother's duplex.  Tom was there most weekends as well.  Even though he and Tim's mother were divorced, they got along well and you could tell he enjoyed being near his boys.  It occurs to me now, that this was Tom's insurance policy.  He stayed close to remain in his son's lives and protect their shared relationships.  He didn't let the break-up of a marriage impede him from the duty of parenting, and perhaps more impressively, he didn't use it as an excuse.  He continued to teach his boys how to become men.  And when the time came, he acknowledged their arrival.

It should be noted for those that did not know him, Tom Riley was a big man.  Often, a person is described as big, figuratively - a "big" philanthropist, a "big" businessman.  While these labels may have also applied, what I mean to say here is that his size was impressive.  He had a shock of thick hair that at the time was more silver than black, always neatly cut and fixed.  He carried a scent of masculine cologne with a undertone of cigarette smoke.  I noticed even back then that he had the build and hands of an athlete, although it would be in his obituary that I would discover he had been a scholarship member of the football squad at the University of Tulsa.  He had a deep voice and a relaxed laugh.  He was handsome and strong, but never showy.

Whenever I was in Tom's presence, his focus was exclusively on his children and their friends.  He doted on his boys.  He hugged them and kissed them and called them "baby" and "honey" which initially struck my ear as effeminate, or at the very least, emasculating.  What I would come to understand is that in the Riley's shared language these terms were not used in relation to gender but rather, spoke to level of affection.  He loved his boys deeply and without shame.

The first time Tom addressed me in such a way was mat-side after a wrestling match I had lost.  I was disappointed in my effort, and I was not a gracious loser.  He wrapped his arms around me and said, "Honey, shake it off.  You're a star.  You'll get 'em next time."  He cupped the retreating side of my sweaty head in his oversized hand and pulled it into his chest, mashing my face into his sweater.  After that, I didn't care what he called me.  I kind of just hoped he'd always be there when I lost.

As the years passed and we made our way to college, Tim and I found new sets of friends and interests.  Our circles overlapped on occasion but with less frequency than in our teenage years.  Understandably, I saw Tom less as well.  I was too preoccupied at the time to know how much I missed him, but looking back on it now, it was evident.

The last time I saw Tom Riley was at Tim's wedding, it must be more than 15 years ago now.  He was happy.  He had so many people crowded around him, celebrating with him, that I was reluctant to approach.  But he caught me in mid-slink and carved his way towards me.  "I am so proud of all you boys, you all have really grown up to be fine young men" he said, absolutely beaming.

I didn't have the guts to tell him I was failing most of my classes, or that I didn't really know what the hell I was doing with my life.  I couldn't have expressed how lost or scared I was that I would never know what or who I was supposed to be, even as we were celebrating the union of two people who were defining a significant part of their new identities - husband, wife.  All I could really do was smile sheepishly and accept his misplaced praise.

Sometimes you can find yourself so physically removed from a person you admired earlier in life, that the time you spent together seems fictional.  I don't know if my recollections of Tom - the way he looked, the way he talked, the way he acted - are true, or if they were constructed in decades of absence to fit the narrative of my life.  I feel certain that I can see him in a v-neck sweater with a starched, button-up shirt underneath.  I am fairly confident that I can recall the smell of leather and cigarette smoke belonging to the interior of his car (some kind of Ford - a Thunderbird, or maybe a Taurus?).  My memories are slippery and I am often suspicious of them.

One thing I am sure of is that I enjoyed being around Tom.  He never talked down to me or treated me like a kid.  He cared for me because I was his son's friend.  He cared for me whether I won or lost, whether I was right or wrong.  For whatever reason most of my friends grew up in households affected by divorce, their fathers absent physically or emotionally or both.  Tom was a father in a world that needed more fathers.

It's has taken a long time for the lessons I learned from being around Tom Riley to take hold.  I guess I had to have a child before they could fully manifest.  Legacies have a peculiar way of appearing at the right time.

Anyone who knows me well will tell you that I love my boy publicly, without shame - and that I call him "baby", "honey" and "darling" without a moments thought to how that might sound to any other person.  I know the day will likely come when my son will be embarrassed of my affection and attention.  I am prepared for that.  When he questions my motivation for such behavior, I will be proud to blame it on Tom.

The Golden Driller: France's Most Generous Gift

The following piece was originally written for the local publication, This Land Press, but was rejected at deadline for "missing the mark".  This rejection not only came as a surprise, but very nearly disintegrated what was left of my questionable self-confidence.  However, after much reflection and the absorption of several self-help pamphlets gleaned from the waiting room of a local therapist, I have decided to press on and publish the piece myself.  It is my sincere hope that you enjoy the fruits of my (now) very public failure.  

In a warehouse in Toulon, France, a young artist pulls an enormous canvas sheet pieced together from discarded sail material over a bronze statue in repose.  The year is 1952 and Guy Montparnasse has completed his masterpiece.  A golem outfitted with work boots, gloves, a safety helmet, pants and a belt with a buckle that reads, Tulsa.  He takes one last look at the giant’s expressionless face before giving a hearty tug at the canvas and concealing the sculpture completely, a move borrowed from a mortician.    

In the next several weeks, Le Petrolier Braves (The Brave Oilman), will occupy the lion’s share of a cargo ship headed toward the United States.  Along the way there is a  scheduled stop at the Port of New Orleans to unload several pallets of beignet mix and afford the crew a well deserved night on the town.  Next, the statue will wind its way up the Mississippi, divert course at the Arkansas and deliver what will eventually become known as The Golden Driller to the Port of Catoosa in time for the International Petroleum Exhibition of 1953.  

The statue (third largest in the United States) garners much attention and slack-jawed amazement of all who attend the exhibition.  But what most casual oil slobs will never appreciate is the story behind its creator.

In the spring of 1946, Guy Montparnasse had nearly deserted his dreams of becoming an artist.  Subsisting on a diet of absinthe, barbiturates and literary erotica, his life was not so much spinning out of control as it was ambling in the path of a steamroller.  His application to the Sorbonne had been rejected for the third time, and in their latest correspondence, the institution had expressed their doubts not only his ability to become a significant artist, but in a manner that could only be described as unusually cruel, questioned whether or not Montparnasse was “fit to be walking freely amongst the rest of the French population”.  It was true that Montparnasse was given to the more violent ebbs of manic depression and ritualistic self abuse via chronic masturbation, but as his friends had pointed out, these tendencies would seem to solidify one’s acceptance to such an institution.

Broke, jobless and without much hope, Montparnasse decided to give up his artistic delusions.  He took a job as a dockworker but was excused after his foreman caught him in the act of defacing the side of a shipping container.  In a bipolar fit, he had painted the words le sperme de singe (monkey semen) on the broadside of a cask of champagne bound for London.  His next position was that of fishmonger, a job granted to him through the father of a mutual friend.  But again, Montparnasse’s maladies betrayed his employability as he was fired for what his co-workers deemed excessive time spent in the salle de bain and for hurling fish guts at passing tourists on the boardwalk adjacent to the market counter.

Humiliated and cast aside by his friends and family, Montparnasse began making plans to end his own life, but his contradictory aversion to pain and painkillers conspired to leave him among the living.  One day, while thumbing through the classified section of a homoerotic magazine in a church courtyard near the Place de la Liberte, he noticed an advertisement inviting european artists study in the United States.  The Art Instruction School, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota was making a push for international accreditation and as such was willing to relax its normally stringent acceptance standards, which up to that point had required the drawings of a tortoise in profile, a cartoon bear replete with top hat and bow tie, and a mildly despicable rendering of a pirate.  Within a week, Montparnasse had been notified of his acceptance to the AIS based on the strength of his portfolio comprised of drawings of suicidal rodents and a series he had titled “Amputated Dreams” which seemed to be abstract expressionistic works featuring photos of the Sorbonne’s admission board members smeared in a foul-smelling, tawny source material.

Montparnasse flourished in Minneapolis. Its arctic winters and the round, nearly featureless faces of its inhabitants seemed to inspire him.  Even his turbulent bouts of auto-erotic flailing were coming on less frequently now.  In the United States, Montparnasse had been given freedom - freedom to call himself an artist.  The school sponsored quarterly gallery exhibitions and Montparnasse was quickly becoming a star.  His employment of neckerchiefs, striped sailor shirts and his european accent lent instant credibility to his work.  

In a chance meeting, Montparnasse was introduced to William “Bill” Skelly, an oilman from Tulsa, Oklahoma.  The two got along famously and Skelly commissioned Montparnasse to create a massive sculpture to adorn his International Petroleum Exhibition.  By this time Skelly was in his dotage and had made several questionable investments including a football stadium for the University of Tulsa.  

Since its initial unveiling, the Golden Driller has created its own history.  In 1966, it became a permanent feature at the Tulsa Fairgrounds, its brutish right arm resting on a retired oil derrick from a depleted field in Seminole.  In 1979, the Golden Driller was adopted by the Oklahoma Legislature as the state monument.  And in 2006, as part of an online promotional contest, the Golden Driller was named the grand prize as a top ten "quirkiest destination" in the United States, winning its nominator a $90,000 international vacation for two.  Although its once bronze coating has been stained to a mustard gold by airborne contaminates, the result of westerly breezes carrying petrochemicals from the refineries across the river, the Driller remains one of Tulsa’s most beloved icons.

The monument’s creator, however, enjoyed no such fortune.  He had planned to return to the United States in 1966 for the unveiling of the Golden Driller at the fairgrounds, but  his agent argued against it, claiming that his attendance “could only jeopardize his reputation as a serious artist and confuse, if not horrify the people of Oklahoma, which are a kind and Godly people.”  

Mentally and physically ill, Montparnasse died on Bastille day later that same year.  While cycling home after night of rampant debauchery, his scarf became entangled in the spokes of his bicycle, and as he was traveling at a decent rate of speed, proceeded to snap his neck.  The coroner’s report, however, claimed that the artist had died from erotic asphyxiation.  When pressed for an explanation of this additional humiliating information, the coroner noted that although the subsequent winding of the scarf had likely broken the artist’s neck, one couldn’t help but notice that the subject’s left hand was in his trousers at the time of death.