When Opposites Attract

A few weeks ago, I went home to Kansas City for a week, to spend time with family, with Bill and Mary, and with a couple of hundred other friends who were all converging there for a weekend-long reunion. It was a week filled with a great deal of fun, some meaningful conversations, and an invaluable sense of belonging. But, by the time the end of the week had arrived, I was ready for it to be over. I was tired, and I longed to return to my normal routines, believe it or not.

That I was a little fatigued by the time of the final picnic on Sunday is probably not surprising itself; I had invested substantially in my role in making it all happen, and was personally engaged on an emotional level that made it kind of a week-long high for me. But, after returning home and trying to put it all in perspective, I was unable to write about the experience, largely because I was not moved by it as much as I was the much smaller reunion preceding it.

Don’t get me wrong; everything about it was great. It just lacked the intimacy of the smaller group, and it did not have quite the emotional impact on me as the time when I first came home, 30 years after graduating. This last event was more an opportunity to see and reconnect with more old friends who were also coming to Kansas City, so—as emotionally valuable as it was—it was not quite the same. For me, the homecoming I had needed had already happened.

The last couple of years have been a time of reconnection for me with myself, with friends, with skills and dreams, even family. It has been a healing process, and it was long overdue. I had turned my back on people who truly cared for me for far too long. Whatever the reasons were, they seem silly now, no matter how valid they seemed all those years I was away and staying away.

Now, I find myself driving the highway from Des Moines to Kansas City at every opportunity I can find, because I live in a town where I have few friends and even fewer opportunities to see them. I can’t point to any one reason why that is, but I know a few of the factors: a career in management doesn’t necessarily help (We can’t fraternize with the help now, can we?), a somewhat nomadic life of moving town to town and neighborhood to neighborhood contributed, a focus on the needs of the family, and I spent too many years as a workaholic. Things just evolved that way.

So, when the family changed, I was left with a bit of a void to fill, and it was not the easiest thing to do. But, I made due, just the same, and never really paid much attention to what might have awaited me at the end of my efforts to drive the one hundred and eighty-six miles south, to where I spent the majority of my life. What matters most now, is that one day I did, and I enjoyed it immensely—so much so that I kept coming back for more.

When I think about what that reconnection has meant to me, I understand it to be my own, a product of my life and my circumstances. It may not mean as much to others, whether they were a part of that small, close-knit group that gathered last fall, or the larger mass of us that jammed into Minsky’s pizza or the Embassy Suites ballroom this last summer. But, I think everyone came for a reason of their own, be it on an intensely personal level or just out of some sort of passing interest and curiosity.

I wonder if we all needed it on some unspoken, basic level because of the times we live in now. I’m not sure I have ever witnessed more divisive times. Our politics seem extremely polarized, our ideals pushed toward the far ends of the spectrum, and our social and economic circumstances spread further and further apart. I can’t remember a more acrid time in our culture than it has been over the last decade, and I can’t identify any other time in my life when there seemed to be a more defined difference between the “have’s” and have nots.”

So maybe a little trip to KC to see old friends was a bit more than reminiscing and nostalgia for all of us, at least on our personal level. Maybe we all wanted to feel some of the unity that we remember from those times as well, when our differences were of another, seemingly less significant nature. Maybe we wanted to remember and relive a time in our lives when we were more defined—to each other—by what we all shared together, rather than how everyone around us is so different from us, or has differing priorities. Maybe we wanted to spend a few days with people with whom we had no desire to argue, or could at least set aside any arguments easily, for the sake of just enjoying time with each other.

For one weekend (or more, for some of us), our differences were minimal and even forgotten about at times. We saw each other in some of the same light we used to back in the day, when we all ran the gauntlet of one of the most troublesome, puzzling, worrisome, and emotional periods of our lives together—with a little more added. We framed each other from our memories we had of each other then, but with the added nuances of what we had recently learned about each other over the last few months. But through it all, we were connected by what we shared, more than we were separated by what we didn’t share.

And there was more to it than that, actually. While we were all together, we didn’t just lose our differences; we also lost, or forgot about for a while, the mundane responsibilities, the stressful pressures, and the sometimes hectic pace of our everyday lives back home. We were, in effect, on vacation from our real lives, the “pause” button pushed and all the noise of what we deal with daily silenced for a few short days. I don’t think it was anyone’s unhealthy denial; I think it was just a welcome respite.

I wonder how many of us, once it was all over and we returned home, suffered from some sort of a vacation hangover. I wonder how many of us had a hard time going back to the first day of work, or the laundry and the bills and the necessary upkeep of our daily lives. And I wonder about how many times, as we dragged ourselves back into our routines, we caught ourselves going back and reliving a memory or two from the previous week.

I know I did. I still thought about it for several days during the week after, when I returned to work and my life in Des Moines. Because, no matter how tired I was at the end of that week together, or how different it was from the time fewer of us got together the year before, it was still the best days of my summer. It was still time well spent seeing people whom I wondered about from time to time, people I was glad to see were still around to be there, no matter our differences.

© 2010 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.

A "Bestest" Day Ever

How would you like to hear a 3200 word, step-by-step recounting of my run in the Dam to Dam 20k over the last two years?

I didn’t think so. But, that was exactly what I was about to inflict on everyone. That is, until I took a moment or two to be a little less self-absorbed. I guess I got a little caught up in my own accomplishment and didn’t really reflect much beyond that.

And that was a silly thing to do, because the day meant so much more. Somehow, I could sense it, but I never really understood why until almost a week later, when I struggled to write about it and came up with little more than a verbal replay of the days’ events, both this year and last. But—if I can beg your patience a little—I do have to backtrack a bit and compare last year to this year, in order to best make my point.

It all started, simply enough, with a desire to run better than the previous year’s dismal 2:18 performance in the Dam to Dam. I was pretty disappointed in that 2009 run, because I had set myself up with a goal of trying to finish in less than two hours; no grand performance by many runners' measurements, but it was my first time running a race that long and seemed appropriate given my training times and conditioning.

But when the race day arrived, I made every conceivable mistake any runner could possibly make. I also created a few I think I’d never seen in any book on running or training I’d ever read.

For starters, I worked the night before, closing the store and not leaving to go home until 11pm. That in itself was probably not too big an impairment, but like many people, I am not apt to immediately fall into a restful slumber the moment I walk in the door from work. Usually, I’m hyped. Add to that the anticipation of my first ever 20k experience and you would understand why I was still staring wide-eyed at my alarm clock at 2am, sure that I was going to sleep through my alarm.

I also skipped breakfast. I thought I didn’t want anything churning in my stomach for the next several hours and certainly didn’t want to have to interrupt my run to dash off to a port-a-potty, or worse, be far from one if the need suddenly overtook me.

It was not until I was on the bus ride to the dam, where I noticed everyone else eating power bars, that I realized that particular mistake. But, undaunted, I brushed that concern aside, and my pre-race jitters began to settle some as I talked with some of the other runners on the bus. The conversation and camaraderie relaxed me a little. I began to see myself, finally, as someone who belonged there, had done the work and had earned my chance, just as much as anyone else.

After waiting around a while and warming up at the dam, the pack began to form and I found a place near the end. I couldn’t help but worry, there in the middle of all of those strangers, if I had gotten in over my head, hadn’t trained well enough, or would suffer the fate I feared most, in which I would not be able to finish.

Soon we were started, and not far into the run something odd happened to unnerve me a little more. At about mile three, a woman a few feet in front of me darted off the road suddenly, pulled down her shorts, and squatted in the ditch. I wouldn’t speak for anyone else running that day, but a half-naked woman is distracting to me no matter where I encounter her. A half-naked woman in broad daylight, in an open ditch, only fifteen feet away from and in full view of about six thousand other runners passing by…well, that is enough to disturb my concentration and throw me off my game. I nearly ran over the person who was in front of me because of my suddenly inspired burst of speed. I apologized and wormed my way through the crowd to the other side of the road, feeling a tad bit embarrassed all the while.

And this was just within the first three miles of twelve total miles to run. For those unfamiliar with the Dam to Dam, the first three miles are fairly easy and mostly downhill, and it was actually the ease of this earliest part of the race route that set up my next major mistake. Feeling more confident at having tackled the first several miles, I skipped all the hydration stops over much of the course. I didn’t feel that taxed or thirsty, and the heat of the day had not really set in. Later in the run, when it did turn considerably warmer, I suffered badly for that rookie mistake.

It came on about mile ten, where the course turns into a series of small but sometimes gentle inclines as you pass the residential neighborhoods of north Des Moines. By that time the temps had climbed significantly higher than the upper sixties we had at the start. Not eating breakfast to give myself some reserves to draw from and not hydrating properly through most of the race began to take its toll on me. Somewhere in those hills I had to stop running and walk some for recovery.

But, after about a mile of walking I was back running again, at a reasonable pace, when I discovered yet one more mistake I could find to make. There, at mile 11.5, was a seemingly nice man standing alongside the route, under a shady tent, with glass upon glass filled with champagne.

“You’re almost there,” he said. “Have a glass of champagne to celebrate.”

So I did. And I never should have.

I’m pretty sure that glass of champagne greatly contributed to that delirium I felt the few minutes later when I crossed the finish line. My brain was throbbing, I felt very dizzy, and my body hurt from head to toe. I didn’t feel any relief from being finished; I felt more like I had survived something than I felt anything like a sense of accomplishment.

I stumbled my way from the finish line and to the tubs of iced-down sports drinks, asking people twice for directions to where they were. When I found them I grabbed two bottles, despite the protestations of the guy who was obviously the appointed Gatorade Tub Guardian, and then I promptly plopped down on the sidewalk in front of him to summarily down both bottles while under his seething gaze.

It took me a few minutes to recover enough to feel like I could stand again. When I did, I realized I was still pretty disoriented and not quite sure in which direction I should head to find my car. Downtown looked very different at that moment; my internal compass was still reeling, and I had arrived there that morning in the dark at five am. I walked around downtown for over an hour looking for my car, and when I finally found it I realized I had passed within a hundred feet of it at least twice before in my search.

That was my Dam to Dam 2009. It was bad. Still, like the golfer who shoots a triple digit round but gets a birdie on the 18th, I was determined to return and do better.

The memory of all that was still in my mind this last weekend as I stood under a dripping tree alongside Bill and Mary, waiting for the race to begin. Try as I did to prepare and train, I wasn’t sure I had trained any better. I was still struggling with the hills on my longer training runs, and at about a week out from the race, a pain developed in my lower leg. My calf felt as tight as a banjo string and the front of my shins hurt with each and every step.

The pain I thought I could run through, but the fear of having set myself up with an unreasonable goal and potential embarrassment was eating away at me. I had invited Bill and Mary up to run it with me, and they were both runners with far more experience and speed than I possessed. I had also announced several times to all my friends on Facebook that I was running to raise awareness for thyroid cancer, and my training runs had often been a part of my status updates. I’d even announced my goal time for this year, that same two-hour mark that I had declared, but missed by eighteen minutes, in the previous year. If I did not finish, or if I performed as I did the previous year and missed my announced goal, it would be an epic failure witnessed by far too many people.

But race day this year proved to be anything but a failure. In fact, it turned out to be one of those days where everything fell into place.

It was still raining when we started the race, and the rain gear we went looking for the night before was one of the best purchases I think I have ever made. It was my first good call. And the power bar I picked up on the way to Bill and Mary’s hotel turned out to be just the thing I needed to get me going that morning, probably my next best good call.

The race strategy I had taken the time to devise also made all the difference in the world. I took advantage of the beginning downhill miles to give myself some breathing room for the rest of the race, letting it carry me along at a quick, but relaxed, pace.

I was also overly cautious about staying hydrated, using every water stop (there is one nearly every mile) except for three.

I never looked up to the top of any hill I climbed to let myself get de-motivated by it, and I was able to push my way through all but one.

I ate my gel at about the halfway point, and at mile six I began walking a few seconds while drinking the Powerade or water, instead of drinking it on the run.

By mile four I felt like I was in a perfect rhythm. At about mile six I felt like I was experiencing that runner’s high. My friend Kim—a marathoner who helped renew my interest in running—was alongside the route at about mile eight, with a high five and a “good job” that made me feel even better. At the ninth mile any doubts I had about finishing were gone, and I glanced at my Garmin for the first time since the 10k mark. At that point, I knew I would make my goal time. When I was still a mile and a half out I felt like kicking up a notch, and so I did.  With a half mile to go, full of adrenaline, I went into a sprint.

Life was good.

I was ecstatic when I finished, according to my Garmin, at 1:48:03. I knew that even if it didn’t exactly match the chip time that would be official, it could not be twelve minutes different. Bill and Mary were also there at the finish line waiting for me, and instead of the previous pressure I felt from their possibly witnessing my potential failure, I was relieved and glad to see them there to share my perceived success.

And that made all the difference in the world. In fact, when I could take the time to properly reflect back on this year’s race and compare it to last year’s race, I began to see it as the biggest reason I was able to accomplish it in the time I did this year, and enjoy it as much as I did. This year I was with friends, instead of going it alone.

For far too long, running alone was my style. For too many years, I operated from the belief that no one in the world cared about me as much as I cared about myself. I also (mistakenly) thought that the accomplishments I achieved, the battles I won, and the rewards I earned were always richer when I did it myself and didn’t have to count on anyone else for my success. Looking back on all that now, I can see that it was me, defying my insecurities and trying to prove something to myself, as well as prove myself to everyone else. And I am still not sure who that everyone else was supposed to be.

I’m glad that nowadays, I see things a little differently, where I can either trudge through life as me against the world, or I can run it with friends alongside me. The latter is much more rewarding.

In closing, I don’t know if this piece justly expresses my gratitude to Bill and Mary and Kim for being there with me that day, or for all they have meant to me before and after that day. I’m not sure I can pen that.

But, maybe I can frame it this way: in a few weeks, I head home to spend a weekend with about five hundred people I haven’t seen in too long a time and still consider friends. Okay, maybe it will only be about two hundred or so.

But, I wouldn’t be disappointed if I ended up spending the weekend with only three.

© 2010 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.

When I Grow Up

As a young boy, I grew up in the small town of Mosby, Missouri. There is not much more to that town now than there was then, possibly even less. I remember it as a town of about 300 people, with little or no economic basis. The only businesses in town were a farm implement repair shop that always seemed to be full of the same equipment waiting to be worked on, and Bill Dew’s bait and tackle shop and grocery store, which he ran out of his garage not far from the banks of the Fishing River. Bill’s shop was the most popular place, since it was the one and only source of candy in the entire town.

Life in Mosby was pretty simple, as were most of the people. The two social hubs, around which everything in town seemed to center, were the church and the school. Attendance at one seemed as required as attendance at the other; anything less either deprived you of half the active life in the town, or subjected you to the potential scorn of wagging tongues. Neither was desirable, in a town where everyone knows everyone and everything, and any escape or transportation away from it limited by your access or actual ownership of a car, or even gainful employment.

We did not have much, in our lives there, but we seemed satisfied with that. When I was that age, I don’t remember being pummeled with television advertising that awakened any desires for things I did not have, and so I never knew any different. We ran loose in the town creating our own fun in all the ways that young boys did, either at the school yard, in the woods, or on and even in the muddy river—whatever could keep our energies and active imaginations occupied.

But it would be safe to say that our economic situation was—like that of pretty much everyone in town—not the best. The house was small and rented, and our landlord not fabulous. My mother, who had never worked a day in her life before the divorce, only held one job that I ever remember, as the part-time clerk for the city. Just the same, we managed somehow, and my memories of my time there are filled more with what I had than they are of what we did not have.

During those years, there was one person who came around once in a while and brought a little magic to my days: my Uncle Jimmy. Uncle Jimmy (somehow, I can still only call him that even now), was someone who had and shared things I never would have known existed had it not been for him. He was a seemingly successful car salesman (if that is possible) in Liberty, which to me seemed a thriving metropolis a world away from Mosby, and he always came to visit in the coolest of cars. To this day I can still picture the green Mustang Mach One—my personal favorite—that he drove for quite a while.

It was Uncle Jimmy who loaned or gave (I can’t remember which) my brothers and me a reel-to-reel tape player, which was considered the highest end of HiFi at the time, and reel after reel of music to listen to on it. At a very young age I got exposed to the likes of the Beatles and Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Uncle Jimmy would often pop into town and load up my mother, brothers, and me, and carry us out of Mosby to see movies at the drive in theater in town, or help us get some grocery shopping done, or sometimes just out to get fast food in Liberty or Excelsior Springs. Looking back, I have to believe now that it was Uncle Jimmy who probably helped mom enhance our Christmases a little, given some of the gifts I remember and mom’s and dad’s incomes.

Life was not bad then, but Uncle Jimmy made it better in ways that he could, and I always looked up to him as kind of a magical figure in my life. But when mom moved out of Mosby and in to the city, I stayed behind to finish out grade school, living first with another family for a while, and then with my grandparents for a couple of years. During that time, I did not see Uncle Jimmy much; I think the only time I saw him was when he was at my mother’s apartment in town when I came to visit.

The summer I turned twelve I moved to Parkville with my dad, because the family thought it best—and I agreed--that I went to school in the Park Hill district rather than the Kansas City District (I would have been enrolled in Paseo). It was a confusing time for me, adjusting to a step family in the totally new environment of the suburbs, but dad and Margaret and my sisters did everything they could to help me get acclimated.

One night that summer, after dad got home from work, he asked if he and Margaret and I could talk privately after dinner, and so we went off to their bedroom, the designated private conversation spot in the house. It was then that dad asked me about what I might know about Uncle Jimmy, and if I had an understanding of Uncle Jimmy being gay. In the small-town life of Mosby in the 60’s and early 70’s, I had never even heard the term, let alone have any understanding of it. Dad explained things, as gingerly as he could, his own definition of men and his challenges in communicating on that level making it very difficult and uncomfortable for him.

The conversation was a huge emotional moment for me. I remember coming out of it in tears, feeling confused at having learned about something so foreign to me in such an abrupt manner and having someone I looked up to torn down and made into—what I felt like—a monster. It was never dad’s intent to paint Uncle Jimmy that way; he was trying his best to be as sensitive as he could, knowing what Uncle Jimmy had meant to me and my brothers during those years in Mosby. But the edict from both my dad and my mother, where I was never allowed to see Uncle Jimmy or have contact with him again, left me with the indelible impression that he was a deviant to be avoided, and I needed protection from him.

It was years before I ever saw Uncle Jimmy again, well into my twenties, but for reasons besides his sexuality or those years of banishment, we were never close again. Seeing him then brought up the unpleasant memories of that night and that discussion with dad, and also reminded me of how far I thought I had come as a person since then. I had a little more life experience behind me, had shed many of the superficial notions of my youth, and had learned to appreciate diversity more and judge less. Or so I thought.

A few months ago I shared a link on my Facebook page that supported same-sex marriage, and it touched off a heated statement or two from friends that I didn’t necessarily agree with, but respected as their opinions driven by their own personal background and experience. I was discussing the comments with a friend a few days later when she shared with me that she had someone ask her about my sexuality. I was on my way to work at the time, and I remember that news angered me, that someone would think that about me and be discussing it. It was on my mind a great deal of the night while I worked, wondering what it possibly could have been that would ever give anyone that idea of me. I thought it was a huge leap from my sharing a link on Facebook to wondering about my sexuality, so I kept asking myself what else it could be that I had done or said that would support such a question. By the end of the night, I had worked myself into a fair amount of frustration and anger, and I was determined to make a public response in order to set the record straight.

Fortunately, I came to my senses first, and I didn’t. At first it was because I thought it best I just let something like that die, not poke sticks at the animals and be the bigger person. But then I began to wonder about why it was I felt so compelled to respond in the first place, and that was when I discovered something about myself I did not necessarily appreciate.

When I took the time to ask myself why I felt the need to define myself, I realized that declaring myself heterosexual was, in fact, inferring my heterosexuality was better, or the best, or the only acceptable norm, and it was at the very least me marginalizing any friends or anyone I’ve ever known whose sexual preferences were different than mine. Declaring my preference one way was tantamount to saying that my friends who were different were lesser persons. I was a little ashamed to see that I could possibly do that, and it became a learning moment for me.

Some things die, or are killed off, with great difficulty, and sometimes only accomplished with diligence and reflection. Sometimes the remnants—even the smallest bits—of what I learned as a child, as a teen, even as a younger adult, can linger in the deep recesses of my conscience until something creates the opportunity to fully examine them, understand them, and work a little more on expunging or modifying them. But hopefully, that is a process that never stops, no matter my age. Otherwise, it would be a pretty boring life going forward from here, if I’ve already managed to learn all there was to learn. Even about myself.

© 2010 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.

It's (almost) Showtime

Cue music. A piano plays a few repetitive chords, which I easily recognize. It’s Journey, Don’t Stop Believin’. Steve Perry’s voice begins:

“Just a small town girl, livin’ in a lonely world…

I hear Steve continue singing, but it is barely registering. The mental images are already beginning to dance around in my head, and Steve becomes a background soundtrack to some memories I am playing out from somewhere back thirty years or so ago. Sometimes it’s the first time I heard the song, and sometimes it was the time it was playing when it was just me and that someone and that moment.

But that memory kind of fades a little and the music resumes the forefront of my thoughts as Neil Schon’s guitar builds into a crescendo and the song takes off with all its momentum. The song itself has taken back over now, and I begin to swim in a fusion of the way I felt in my youth, the music, nostalgia, all with the little added twist my years add to it.

And that’s the way I think it’s going to feel: the reunion.

Maybe, with a little anticipation, you’ve done the same thing. You’ve dug up some of your old tunes that you’ve not listened to in a while and given them another spin. You’re wondering what it is you’re going to look your best in wearing, what will least betray whatever the years may have done to you. You’re wondering who will be there, maybe even checking the list of confirmed guests or paid dinner reservations every so often. Maybe there is a name or two that you really, really hope will be there, even though you’ve never spoken their name to anyone.

It’s okay. I think we’ve all been there with you. Go ahead and give in to it a little. I know I’ve been there myself. I will admit I am looking forward to it. I think all of us already on board for this have expectations and anticipations. The mini-reunion of last year only whetted our appetites and got us motivated to plan something bigger, better, for this year. We had a blast.

But, this year would have to be classified as more of an event, where last year was more of an impromptu get-together. This year, we have a hotel, and dinner, complete with presentations, good food, and music. There is a warm-up the night before with a Komen fundraiser over beers and a baseball game, and a chance to play golf together that morning. The cappers, on Sunday, will give Harley enthusiasts a chance to get in a ride, and for all of us who are able, a chance to show off our families at the picnic that afternoon.

Lately I have been thinking about what I am expecting and hoping for and anticipating at the reunion. I’ve taken inventory.

A chance to see people I have not seen in a very long time. There will be people there I have not spoken to since we all roamed the halls at Park Hill, and just as many that I have only spoken to online over these last few months. Some of these people I’ve only been able to wonder about now and then, imagining to myself they are still alive and out there somewhere, doing something that makes them happy. It will be good to get confirmation of that.

A few laughs. Actually, a lot of laughs. And then more. There are certain people who give rise to the ornery side of me. They would be embarrassed to be mentioned, so I won’t. Okay I will: Jack, Carl, Mark.

Some new memories. There will be a treasure trove of these to carry home with me. Hopefully, I will have as many photos as memories, so that I can revisit them whenever I feel like flipping through a few pages or clicking through them on my Facebook albums. I expect their servers are going to go into hyperdrive the first few days we all return home.

Revisiting some old memories. Funny, but for all the angst of those teenage years, I can now only remember the good times, the funny events, and the mischief. Like the time Carl parked his car outside my house and it rolled down over the hill. Or watching my dad lecturing Randy after he yard-farmed our lawn. Parties on Jack’s farm. Feeding trash cans of Purple Passion to unsuspecting cheerleaders at the kegger at Bruce’s house. Maybe I shouldn’t recount some of these.

A feeling of continuity. That feeling, like someone once told me of their reunion, of someone having hit the pause button for thirty years , then hit it again now. Something about that weekend, I think, is going to reduce the size and significance of all the time and distance we have all put between each other since then.

But not everything I anticipate is a good thing. Some of it is actually, not so good.

I am not expecting to do any dancing. I can’t. I just…well, I just can’t. I am like an elephant with snowshoes on when it comes to dancing, so I will be content to watch those who can. Have fun. I’ll be over here, tapping my toes, maybe drumming my fingers, maybe even singing a little under my breath, where people nearby will not have to bear witness that I also cannot sing.

I also have stuck in my mind this nightmarish scene I remember from a John Cusack movie, Grosse Pointe Plank. As scenes go—where there is some reunion involved in the plot—it seems to be fairly common in cinema. It’s near the end of the evening, and the retro music is playing in the background as the last of the diehards are still hanging in there, obviously having had a few too many adult beverages. I’m haunted by that shot they show of those last few people, hanging on to live out unrealized or long-lingering romantic flames, believing they can make it happen in those glorious final minutes of music. They can barely stand as they fight off the drunkenness and attempt something resembling a slow dance, but they end up looking something like two zombies arisen from the dead, swaying and leaning into each other.

My vow is that I will not be one of those zombies. But, I am betting someone will. And…so what?! More power to them. Everyone should get to enjoy the reunion in whatever way they want. It’s supposed to be fun, and everyone has their distinctly different version of fun.

Something else: the very thing that has helped produce this year’s reunion is also going to be the same thing that helps shape it. Honestly, Facebook has changed things for all of us over the last year or so, and I don’t mean all of their incessant technical adjustments. No, there is more.

We have all had to time to reacquaint, get to know each other a little better. Some of us have changed a little physically, emotionally, spiritually, and politically, and we have come to learn those things about each other in all of our interactions during that time. We have come to form and reform opinions about each other, where initially there may have been no opinions, only excitement over reconnecting. Sometimes we may have reconnected and confirmed our thoughts of someone based on our shared personal history. In other cases, we may be asking ourselves how the person we used to know became this new person we see now.

But, my biggest hope: none of that matters. And, I don’t think it will, because what it is we are all gathering to celebrate is what we have shared in common. Otherwise, we wouldn’t even make the effort. Oh, I am sure there will be the person or two that might avoid each other, for whatever reasons they bring with them. There will be circles of friends who will tend to gather, in much the same way we all did in school, and some of those circles will expand and include people that before were never included. Those social lines seem to have blurred and become rather insignificant these days.

I’m betting the worst thing that happens to any of us that night will be that awkward moment when we find ourselves chatting with someone while we rack our brains to figure out who it is. (This person knows me, is really glad to see me. I feel like a total heel because I—for the life of me—cannot remember them. Okay, look away, look away, look away for just a second so I can steal a less-than-obvious glance at your name tag, and…yes!...) “SO _____, how are you doing these days? Great! Hey, I have to get this drink over to my friend. Good to see you!”

Then you’ll slink away and wonder why the heck you still can’t remember that person. But that awkward, guilty feeling is nothing that a little reminiscing won’t kill in just a few minutes.

© 2010 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.

Reconciling

A couple of summers ago the girls and I took a trip to Italy to visit Giorgia, the exchange student we had hosted the year before, and our informally adopted family member. We planned, prepared, and anticipated months for the trip, and the experiences we had there and the quality time that we got to spend with her and her family far exceeded our expectations. It was the trip of a lifetime.

The tearful goodbye between all of us at the airport in Milan that morning we left was just a precursor to the long and sleepless flight, the seemingly numb five-hour drive from Chicago, and the confusing few days thereafter. Normally I unpack my bags the moment I get home from any trip; it’s the closing punctuation mark, a way of tucking it away and getting on with the usual routine. But our suitcases sat for days, and I really struggled with coming back to the realities of work, of bills and laundry, cleaning house, running errands and getting to this and that event with the girls. I kept reliving memories of there and had a difficult time focusing on anything here.

I haven’t experienced feelings similar to that since. That is, until this week. I didn’t recognize it at first, but as a little time passed and I began to fully digest the last few days of thoughts and feelings I started to see the parallels. I struggled all week long to compose the essay you are now reading, one I knew I had to write somehow because too many things wanted to spill out on to page and the need to share too intense. At first it surfaced as a simple montage of memorable moments I had with people while I was there, but when I tried to write that it seemed to lack something, seemed to ignore something I couldn’t get my head around. Then I started another piece trying to talk about things everyone was expressing in common about that weekend, before, during, and after. Yet another one got started that was about what it all meant to me personally. For some reason, all of them felt incomplete and a little random, without a meaning that I thought everyone might either connect with or enjoy reading.

I spent weeks building up my anticipation of this past weekend, fueled mostly by the reconnection with so many friends on Facebook, whom I had not seen in far too many years. It was enough that we were all planning to see the game, have some pizza, and share a dinner the following night, but the chorus of responses to the idea of eating before the game only added to the fervor. Then came the news from Trina that she was flying in from California and suddenly the weekend couldn’t get here fast enough. By the time I got in the car to drive there, after little sleep, a lot of work, and too much coffee, I was at a peak. I jammed louder than I had for some time—which was good because it kept me alert—to tunes that I had not listened to for even longer. After arriving, I had trouble trying to get in a little sleep before going to meet everyone at Tomfooleries.

And then, I think from the moment I first stepped through the doors of that bar, I entered what seemed like a weekend-long state of euphoria. Thinking about it, just now, still prompts the urge to just write about some of the different moments I shared with people while I was there. Forgive me for while I humor that:

Trina: I didn’t want to let go that first hug when I saw you, and probably wouldn’t have had I not equally wanted to hold back the tears welling up.

I remember, exactly, the feelings of recognition and relief I had when I first heard Carl’s unmistakable and infectious laugh from across the room, and realized he was there.

Robert: At the Pizza Shoppe I offered to man the table a while so that you could get out and mingle with everyone like the rest of us. You turned me down and said that you were enjoying just watching everyone, and I recognized that you were—deservedly so—enjoying the sense of accomplishment you saw in everyone having fun, and that you had a hand in that.

I had the chance to sit and talk with Mark B. and put a little distance between the Cody that used to be his semi-tormentor in high school and the person that I feel I am now. Thanks, Mark. And thanks also for your comment that I have grown philosophical in my years, which I take as a compliment.

Mark also brought a treasure trove of memorabilia to the dinner. Among them: the final edition of the school newspaper from our senior year, across the front of which is sprawled the epic poem of teen angst I wrote those many years ago. Reading it again now was a conflict of embarrassment and pride.

Brad and Ruth: our walk and talk about kids and trips there in Parkville before dinner was a nice repose from the rest of the weekend. It helped remind me of some of the most important things in life waiting for me back home.

There was a bit of that ornery side of me that I felt surfaced, and I owe that to Jack. Seems like whenever you and I get together that happens, Jack. It is reflected in the photo of you and Mark and me.

Bill and Mary: we’ve stayed a little more connected over the years than I have with most, but seeing you there and getting to spend time with you was invaluable. My connection--however slight--with the two of you helps me feel grounded.

Sue, Jules, and Cindy: for some reason I think of the three of you collectively, probably a product of that time we all spent together at Nick and Jake’s. I am not sure I have laughed that hard in a very long time. Your sister Shelly, Sue, makes for the perfect comic sidekick. It was just plain fun.

I could go on forever, as we all probably could, but this piece is becoming incredibly long and rambling I think. So I’ll attempt to re-track.

There was a comment that Rob Nelson made during the conversations of Saturday evening that stuck with me. Rob mentioned that one of the reasons he was there, and there both nights, was because he knew that some of the people there had spent a lot of time and money to attend. In his comment I didn’t hear any sense of obligation, but instead consideration and appreciation. It reminded me of what I heard a great number of people reflect on while we were together, that everyone there was very genuine.

That thought first occurred to me during a contemplative moment I was having in the middle of the karaoke Friday night at Arthur’s. Yes, a strange time for deep thought, but it was my way of tuning out the karaoke, and I am sometimes prone to drawing back into thought and observation when I’m in the midst of a large group. But the thought which came to me, as I looked around the room at who was gathered there, was that we were an eclectic little group. Spin the clock back 30 years and you might not have seen the same group, not even at any of the big parties that happened then. We all had sets and subsets of different friends, that did or didn’t necessarily include the people that were there that night. Everyone was glad to be there, and just as glad that who was there had made the trip. There wasn’t any need to impress each other with stories of what we had done or were doing. There were no pretenses, just fun, and a sense of belonging. I don’t remember too much reminiscing or reliving of our Springsteenian Glory Days. I think we mostly spent time sharing about our lives now and what they have been since many of us saw each other, and sharing news of those who weren’t able to be there with us.

That is who we are now: genuine people. Our lives, our experiences, have stripped away the insecurities of our youth, and what has surfaced is what is genuine about us and has always been. I think we all recognized it in each other back then, even though it was difficult—for ourselves as much as others—to see through the mists of adolescence. And it’s what drew us all back together last weekend, what we all enjoyed most. It is no surprise that we all had so much fun together and that we all had so many feelings of gratitude to share with each other on Facebook the hours and days afterward. It’s hard to let go of it.

Which brings me around to other feelings I have been dealing with over this last week. Along with the enjoyment of reliving that fun, I have been coming down from it was well, in much the same way that I had to do when I returned from Italy. Life has to get back to normal. And in a way, life last weekend seemed a little incongruent with the way my life has been these last few years. It’s wrapped up in something I have mentioned in a note before, about being a father, a single father, about not dating and being a responsible example to my girls. And I probably owe a conversation with Trina to my exploration of these feelings.

Trina and I ducked away for a quiet drink, removed from the mayhem, so that we could catch up on things. At one point Trina asked me, “So, how is your love life?” and I remember giving her, at first, my stock response, which is a shrug of the shoulder followed by “Fine, it doesn’t exist.” Beyond that is usually a rationalization about how working two jobs, raising the girls, running, and writing leaves little time for anything else. Somewhere I throw in there that the girls are most important and deserve my focus, and that I am satisfied with my life. But in trying to express that to Trina it felt like I was, and have been, whistling past the graveyard. I had to be truthful, that I had at times felt like it was not ever going to happen for me again because I was just not the kind of person that would be interesting to someone again. My youthful looks had matured, I was divorced, in my forties, had two young girls, no time for a social life, and not exactly financially secure.

“Did Cody lose his Mojo?” she asked. Trina has a splendidly candid way of putting things. I have. Or did. And what’s more: I’m the one (if I can assume I ever really had it) who tucked it away in the closet.

When I remember some of the fun of the last weekend I also remember how some of it made me feel, well…a little attractive again. But in settling back into the routines and responsibilities here, it became easy to feel conflict with those times and this life, and to return to the tendencies that the two were separate, and always should be. I even worried about my new Facebook photo and how I thought it was hilarious, but that I probably should remove it before Megan or Kylee saw it, particularly Megan. She has this little thing she does with me if we are out somewhere together: she is very adept at noticing when I notice an attractive woman, and quick to zing me with a “Dad, stop it!”

But, Megan saw the photo last night, and she laughed at it. And in that singular moment, a number of things came together for me. The person of last weekend and the person of this week are one and the same. It is okay to be both, and it is okay to be both for my daughters, to let them see that. It is okay to have fun, to be myself, and to take time for myself without feeling it is selfish. In a watershed of realization, I came to understand that last weekend was not a brief, isolated, piece of my life, but instead an integral part of it. It’s a thread, not a patch.

And it all snapped together: the fun, the feelings I was having, the difficulty in writing about the weekend, the note from Giorgia on the way home about how much she misses us, Megan’s laugh…it all came to the epiphany that produced this essay.

Originally published 10/29/09.

© 2009 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.