Shhhhhhhh...

This morning, as I often do, I stopped at the convenience store to get a cup of coffee after I dropped Megan at school. I never have been a fan of Starbucks; I’ve never bothered with trying to learn the lingo (“Grande Double Mocha Skinny Latte Dolce Frappuccino, please.”), and I found it difficult to pay four or five bucks for a dose of caffeine I could get for considerably less money. Flavor seems irrelevant.

Well, not totally. I still reached for the darkest roasted coffee the shop had to offer, despite the fact that I had not had caffeinated coffee in several days, knew that I was reaching for the blend with the most substantial jolt, and didn’t mix it with the decaffeinated that I usually use to lighten in up. In doing so, I ignored that little voice that told me I was going to regret it later. And I did.

It was only about an hour and a half later that I got up from writing at my computer, and I could feel it, that sudden odd mixture of blood pressure and dizziness I recognized from before. It is an uneasy feeling; I dislike it, and I predict it every time just as surely as I choose to induce it, but I still fall into its trap every time. You would think I’ve learned by now. But in knowing it will happen, I also know it will pass, just as easily. I know it as surely as I knew I was ignoring that quiet, inner voice.

These days, when I run, I run quietly. I don’t mean that I run with light footsteps and inaudible breathing, I mean that I run without an iPod, or music or sound-producing gadgets of any kind strapped to any appendage or other body parts. I most often run alone, and I usually run a route that is away from heavy traffic, other runners, or the busy sounds that seem to permeate even the suburbs. At least half of my shortest route is on a gravel country road, and if I want to rack up the miles and do so with as much quiet as possible, I’ll avoid my longer routes and just circuit back over the short route. It runs out of a pretty quiet neighborhood, past a school, and out into the countryside and into the farm fields before it returns me to a main drag. I like to run it, as often as I can, around dusk or after dark. It is even quieter then, and darker, which makes the solitude of it almost palpable.

When I run, it takes concentration, and the quiet helps me focus on efficient running techniques, like trying to maintain a mid-foot strike, not extending my stride, lifting my knees correctly in height so as to pendulum and not force the lower leg, and my arm position and stroke. All of that is a great deal to try and keep moving in the correct manner, and I can’t say that I am able to do all of these things correctly in unison, but I know there is no way I could if I had any sort of distraction.

As an added benefit, the quiet also affords me the ability to hear my breathing, and my heartbeat, which I listen to not only as a measurement of how my body is reacting to the stress I am subjecting it to, but also as a anatomical equivalent of a metronome. Funny, but I feel some reassurance in being able to hear all of that.

When I move about in my neighborhood, and on that rare occasion when I encounter others on my runs, I see runners with iPods mounted and earphones firmly implanted, and I have to ask myself why they wear them. I mean, I understand why, really; they run with them so as to enjoy music while they run. Or so they tell me. But, they also tell me that it helps pass the time, that it helps them forget the long and dreary amount of time it takes them to run for any distance or any minutes. I have even met runners who measure their runs by the length and the number of songs they have in their favorite running playlist. In passing each other as we run opposite directions, I’ll wave and mete out a “Hello” from my breath if they look up to make eye contact, but most often they don’t, and even if they do they seem unable to say the same in return.

It is possible to argue that these musically cocooned runners and I are both trying to isolate, trying to tune out the rest of the world so that we can accomplish what it is we are so stringently focused on performing. But, I think there is a significant difference in seeking solitude in the relative quiet and trying to drown out everything else with noise. That’s not any judgment of their music selection, or music in general; it’s just the way I see what they use to overpower every other sound, internal as well as external. That is the part that puzzles me, and makes me wonder if they have ever tried the opposite, and if they did, why they didn’t like it.

I worry about this noise thing. I worry that we have ramped up our lives so much these days, with the inability to enjoy relaxation or quiet or a less frantic pace of activity. We—and to a degree, I have to include myself in this—keep our communication devices close at hand, wherever we go. There is no place our cell phones cannot invade, and with their convenience no place to feel free of them.

At home, it’s easy to keep the television on for our every waking moment, many times simply on for its own sake, or for background noise, or to keep us company. I can’t tell if we are trying to drive out the quiet, or if we are trying to drive out the solitude, or both. I have to ask myself if we need the distraction, or if we have become addicted to the pace and challenge of multitasking, or if it is that we actually fear what we might hear in the stillness, or fear being alone. Which is it that we are trying to drown out?

I used to be a news junkie. Whenever I was home and without the girls, I would always have the television dialed in to CNN. It was a way for me to stay wired and current with the outside world. I have long ago forsaken newspapers—a tragedy in itself, I guess—for the more immediate gratification of the constant feed. It looks like I’m not alone in that; newspapers across the country are on their way out because of people like me.

But, by accident, I discovered that I could write better, with more clarity and focus, when I did not have the television on at all. Then, not long after that, I discovered that I could no longer write at all with it on, even if the sound was turned completely down. From time to time, when there is something big and breaking going on in news, I’ve even tried to do both at the same time, and I cannot. I can’t even listen to the iTunes on my computer while I write anymore, which is a little bit disturbing, because I can remember a number of things I have been able to do during my lifetime with music simultaneously playing. Not any more, it seems. Except drive; I seem to still be able to drive with music playing in the car.

I don’t believe that I am an eccentric, nor do I want to believe that I am any kind of Zen master who should or wants to convert us all to a life of meditative silence without media, or electronics, or all of our other modern conveniences. It could very well be that I simply lack the ability to concentrate and focus as I used to be able to do, or that my mind is a little slower than it used to be and can’t absorb all of the sensory bombardment to which I have been previously accustomed. Now that I think of it, my mind might not be as fast as it used to be. But, I’m okay with that, honestly, if that is the case.

And, I am betting I am not the first, last, or only person to ponder some of the things I inquire about here, question whether or not we move too fast and too loudly nowadays. I’m merely someone who has stumbled onto what it can do for me, what I can hear, when I am still enough.

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

The Long Way Home

I have this little exercise I put myself through anytime I feel a regret coming on, one where I try to turn the regret into something I instead appreciate. It’s kind of fun actually, to try to reverse it from the negative to the positive, and you can apply it in almost any situation. I would, however, suggest you perform this exercise the same as I, and only do this with an internal monologue.

“Why thanks, officer! I was likely going to spend that seventy-five dollars on something frivolous and wasteful, rather than have it going into the community coffers for some good. I appreciate this chance to do my civic duty, and the reminder that my driving was unsafe and too fast.”

“Nice. I am so fortunate that Totally Hot Latina Mom—who is almost always there when I pick up Kylee from school and has chatted me up a couple of times—was able to see me in my sweats, ball cap, and three-day-old beard this morning. Now I never have to worry again about her seeing me at my worst. What a relief!”

“Mr. Bathroom Scale, you are such a great friend. How else would I have ever remembered how that weekend in Kansas City (replete with Mary’s incredible cake and all those calorie-laden Stouts) was going to throw me totally off of my training plan for this year’s running season?”

See? It’s easier than you would think. And, if anyone tells you that what you are saying is a rationalization: first, turn off the volume on your inner voice, because it has escaped you, then, tell them to go away and quit eavesdropping. Your conversation with yourself, voiced or not, is a private conversation and not meant for others to hear. Then, if they are old enough, remind them of this scene from The Big Chill:

Michael: I don't know anyone who could get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations. They're more important than sex.
Sam: Ah, come on. Nothing's more important than sex.
Michael: Oh yeah? Ever gone a week without a rationalization?

(Just a side note here: those of us old enough to quote scenes from The Big Chill are now more likely to insert longer time frames into Michael’s last statement.)

By now, I have likely convinced you, and if I have not then I probably never will. The fact of the matter is: I have instances where I still can’t convert something I regret into a benefit. Where I struggle the most is with this thing we all call Buyer’s Remorse. That one nags me for days on end after I have splurged on something.

Like many of us who have had to be more expense conscious during recent economic times, I try to minimize the splurges and stick to the necessities. Nowadays, I always ask myself if something I see in the store (and dammit, I work in one of the best) is a Need To Have, or A Want To Have. I have several motivations for this questioning of every purchase.

The primary concern is, of course, over money, the preservation of it, the need for it to be spent on essentials, and the fright I have experienced a time or two in my life of not having enough. Second to that is the desire to teach efficient and effective spending habits to Megan and Kylee. With Megan, it is likely a lost cause, because she has never seen a shoe shop or a shoe department that she could not empty of styles her size if ever given the resources. Kylee is another matter; she has control of impulse buying down pat. Lastly, I am just trying to practice less consumerism and leave as little a footprint on this planet as possible.

And a little confession for you: sometimes, when I buy something that I think is an impulse or a splurge, I leave it sitting there on the desk unopened for a while, in a pristine return state, in case I feel too guilty and get the urge to take it back. Ever do something like that?

Remarkably, one of the things in my life that I least regret is my marriage to my former wife, Michelle. But, that is probably not hard for anyone who has children to understand; I have two living, breathing little inspirations who offer me daily reminders of the meaning of my existence. Personally, I am not sure how anyone can regret a marriage that resulted in children, unless they are unable to see past their own selfishness, or is guilty of the mindboggling act of abandoning children to their spouse.

But there is more to it than that, actually. My marriage was bookended by two periods in my life which were less than rosy, and so it is framed and defined as one of the best times of my life. I know you might wonder how that could be, if it didn’t work out, but by comparison it shines. I also remember it as a time of my life—eleven years worth, to be exact—where I was a part of a complete family, and that had long been a lifetime goal of mine. Okay, so it didn’t turn out to be a lifelong achievement, but it was good while it lasted and still offers me rewards, to this day. And we’re still family, the four of us. We’re just a little different family.

Travelling home is what brings up most of my regrets lately. We have fun there, seeing friends and family, are very comfortable there, and on the drive home I inevitably begin to wonder how I ended up where I have, how I got there, why I so readily left everyone and everything behind. What would life have been like, and what have I missed out on by not being there all this time? And, almost as soon as the questions arise, I know the answers, and I know it is more than just the two other people there in the car with me.

Despite my difficulties with all things metaphysical, I still have a tendency to believe that everything happens for a reason. I could list a plethora of people, events, lessons, rewards, trials, and victories great and small, all of it being things I had to go through to be the person I am now—as we all have. Whoever I was yesterday helped me prepare for who I try to be today, the same as what I experience today will prepare me for tomorrow. Skip out on any part of it, and I am not the same person, and the same person would not experience or interpret or act or react to everything based on the perspectives formed from previous experiences. It’s a necessary chain, with each delicate link no less vital to the support and beauty of the craftsmanship than any other.

So, in short, the reason why I’ve enjoyed going home now, and why I did not get to enjoy it all those other years, was because I could not enjoy it in the way that I do now, or as the person I am now. I wasn’t ready.

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

Seeds

Deep breath. Exhale.

My mother was bipolar. I did not see her, and rarely spoke with her, the last 20 years of her life, and I did not attend her funeral.

When I say that, I don’t share it as a badge of courage, or to elicit some sort of reaction. I also know and understand that, for many, that last statement might seem unfathomable, that it represents a distinct disconnect. To me, it is just a fact, and while I recognize it as obtuse, I still see it an aspect of my life that is no more significant than my brown hair, my hazel eyes, or having two hands. I have, however, carried that one thing around with me, back in the far recesses of my thoughts, and allowed it to sometimes bubble to the top as a tiny little fear.

Like yesterday. Yesterday was one of those odd little days that just seemed like a jumbled rush of things to do and not enough time to do them, or too many things to do at the same time. One of those things necessary to do yesterday: sleep. By the time I got home from work—slightly later than usual, that morning—I had already been up for thirty hours straight. Because I had to pick up Kylee from school just five hours later, it meant I was also not going to recover enough to be operating at my best mental capacities. And, whenever I don’t sleep, or get enough sleep, it produces a fog, within which I am always slightly distrustful of my temperament, thoughts, and feelings.

In the middle of the afternoon, I forced myself out of bed and stumbled into the shower, and tried to muster motivation for what needed to be accomplished. I was really only successful, however, with the shower part. And when I got ready to leave and Megan—who was home sick with me that day—reminded me that Kylee had an after-school activity and I was an hour early on my intended errand, I laid back down. I thought I could catch another hour’s nap, but never expected my thoughts to intrude on that nap.

But that was when they hit, those thoughts and ideas and scrambled pieces of consciousness, and along with them came the small shot of adrenaline that served as just enough to keep me awake, to make it impossible to sleep. Usually they are welcome, these thoughts, and that was the case this time as well, because they brought with them more than the usual internal dialogue and questions and explorations that I jot down, contemplate, and compose for sharing later. This time, they brought something bigger to work on, however, and so I turned on the light, reached for paper and pen, and I scribbled furiously for the entire hour I still had left before I had to leave.

It wasn’t until later in the evening that I stopped to fully examine what had happened in that hour, what it could be, why, and how it happened. When I did, I found myself a little frightened by it, actually, and that set off an entirely different chain of thoughts. What astounded me, as I looked at it, was the intricacies, complexities, and volume of ideas and notes that were the end product of merely sixty minutes. It seemed immense compared to the time. It seemed out of whack. I was grateful for it, but at the same time, I was taken aback by it.

At some point, I asked myself if what I had experienced in that hour was the creative process of a fertile mind, or if it was something else. I had experienced it to that extent one other time before, but only once, and it was smack in the middle of one of the most emotional periods of my life. Then, just as yesterday, it produced a volume of notes and ideas that filled—not only a notebook—but a large sheet of craft paper plastered to a wall, with thematic approaches and character developments and plots and subplots and outlines. When it was all said and done, I was ready to flesh it out and develop it. But, as usual, life got in the way. Things bigger than my ambition ate up my time and thought. That notebook, along with all the diagrams, got shelved, waiting for me to revisit them. And, one day, I will.

Yesterday’s episode also did not halt in that hour, but instead resumed itself the moment I was alone in the car, driving to have dinner with my friend Shari. In fact, it was as if I couldn’t turn it off, as if it were a stream of consciousness that had taken on a life of its own, ideas triggering one after another and becoming sentences and strands of words that tumbled into rhythms in my mind. When I reached Shari’s, I had to ask her for a piece of paper and pen and a few minutes of time to write things down I had thought of in the car on the way there, so as to not lose them and try to retrieve them from memory later. Those thoughts on the drive turned into a page of notes that later became this piece.

Remembering that previous explosion of ideas, and seeing its similarities to the one I had just experienced, led me to the thought of patterns, of behaviors, and , eventually, my mother. That is how that bubble once again surfaced: what, of my mother, am I?

This may be a little hard to understand for people who have never had those kinds of challenges in their family or their family history, or who have never been around or exposed to it. But when you have, and when it has been as close to you as your parent, the person in your life as a child who is supposed to represent everything solid, it is not hard to later wonder what small (or worse, large) portion of that was passed on. It is, after all, genetic, and we are all genetically and environmentally products of our parents, whether we want to accept that or not. It is not a big leap from understanding that and questioning what parts of your parents you did and did not inherit, or—of even greater concern—how those things might manifest in your children.

Although I have wondered about this from time to time, I have never really spoken about it—the concern of it—with anyone, except with my brothers. My conversations with them regarding this have always been safe, as we shared the history and experiences. Discussing it outside of that circle, however, required more courage and candor than I wanted to display with most until now, because I thought it might cause people to view me through that lens.

But at dinner that night, I thought that maybe I could, indirectly at least, get some objective input on those thoughts and concerns. Shari is an artist, an accomplished and awarded painter, and a teacher. I have known her for several years now, and she was someone who became a very good mentor and guide to me when I was first experiencing my divorce. So, I trust her advice, and I thought to ask her at dinner about her experience with the creative process. I was curious to know if she sometimes experienced this thing that you can’t seem to shut off.

“You mean being in the zone?” she replied. And then she went on to talk about “being in No Man’s Land,” and losing track of time, and sometimes not even realizing that you have not eaten because you are lost in your creative work. I explained to her how I was slightly disturbed by everything that had flooded my mind in that one hour, and how it related to my concerns about my mother’s mental health, wanting her perspective on that as well.

“You mean you’re paranoid about being bipolar just because your mother was bipolar and you experience creative spells?” I probably should explain that Shari is as subtle as a Mack truck, and that she usually speaks whatever is on her mind bluntly. Although her question and tone made me shrink back just a bit as my being just that—paranoid—I still felt some comfort in the fact that someone I trusted saw my concerns as unfounded.

In truth, I have always felt pretty safely sane, and I’m pretty sure that anyone that knows me—slightly, or with any depth—shares that same judgment. I do think there are things about my mother that I have inherited, but I think that they (most of them) are her better traits. Mom was creative, an amateur poet and painter, and she had an active imagination. She often looked inward and examined herself deeply, even though she may never have fully understood what it was she found there, or explored everything that she should have found during those periods of introspection. These things about her, and about myself, I have accepted. But I am fairly sure that is where most of our similarities begin and end.

So that small bubble of fear is yet even smaller after yesterday, despite that still frightening volume of notes I now see sitting on the nightstand by my bed. Looking back, I sometimes question why it ever surfaces at all. Maybe, no matter our age, experience, or confidence, we are all subject to small frailties and foibles, and minor doubts, and indecisions. It’s a part of life, this wondering who we are, where and what we came from, and where and toward what we are headed. Our personal experiences and feelings shape those questions for each of us individually and personally, but it is a healthy thing to ask about them and explore them.

I figure we’re all good, so long as we don’t hear the answers we are looking for being voiced by the inanimate objects around the house.

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

Fairy Tales Lost and Found

“Dad, I know.”

Kylee was whispering. I was on my way to work and calling to say goodnight, and I had just asked her about how the day—or,more specifically, that Easter morning—had been for her. When I heard her whispering, though I heard her distinctly and correctly, I asked her to repeat it, because that father’s voice was going off in the back of my head. You know the voice; it’s the one that tells you you’ve just heard something really significant and want reassurance, or confirmation, of either something you know you’ve just witnessed or something you need to hear repeated before you rashly say something parentally stupid.

“Dad, I know. I know there is no Easter Bunny,” she continued. “ I know it was Mom that hid the eggs.”

Thus ended the Age of Unquestioning Innocence for Kylee, and for the second time in our family. I wondered, in a rush of thoughts, if the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus suffered similar fates that day, and would no longer be visiting our home to leave their sprinkling of magic. It was kind of a bittersweet moment. Not only did it mark the end of such things for Kylee and signify she was growing up (despite my protestations), it also meant there would be no more of it in the family, since she is the youngest.

And, in Kylee’s whisper, I heard so many things. I heard a little girl who felt the empowerment of discovery and knowledge. I heard the freedom of being let loose from a child’s fantasy, and suddenly feeling like you belonged to the club of People Who Know Better. I even heard the appreciation of a little girl that knew her parents promoted such fantasies for the enjoyment and enrichment of their child.

With Megan it was about the same age as Kylee, but Megan let us believe our act was working for at least one more Christmas beyond her discovery. The next year, as we decorated the Christmas tree and Kylee was momentarily out of the room, she nonchalantly let me know that she picked up on a neighbor’s kid’s slip-up. I think, for her, it was one of the earliest signals I got that she was declaring herself a more grown up girl, something that I really never wanted to hear. Not then, not now.

As children, we all go through this ourselves. It’s that moment in time where we transition from believing to questioning—usually prompted by that school-age friend that plants the seed—and to finally knowing outright. I even remember it happening at too young an age for me; I must have been seven or eight at the time. I confirmed it by staying up on Christmas Eve, waiting out mom by pretending to be asleep, then waiting for as long as I could before getting everyone up to open gifts. I lasted an hour; it was one o’clock in the morning.

But Kylee’s revelation got me thinking about where it all leads from there, where the pragmatic life begins to intrude on fantasies, and then dreams, and maybe even the simplest of hopes.

Spin the clock back thirty years. We all had hopes and dreams about everything we wanted to do with our lives. It was just the other day that a friend of mine, Don, commented on how “we could take on the world.” The point he went on to make was that we—and I don’t suppose to speak for everyone—didn’t quite hit the lofty expectations we had for ourselves, all those years ago. Yes, some of us are living the dream, or some semblance of it, or a dream maybe a little different than we imagined back then, but still a dream nonetheless. Yet others are living that life somewhere on the sliding scale that ranges from pounding out an existence to comfortable happiness. We make our peace with it, I suppose, in whatever way we can. Sometimes our hopes and dreams rest or rise only in our own mind, or sometimes we attempt to recreate them through the lives of our children. I don't think either case is good.

I remember a point in time in my life where I was on the pounding end of the spectrum. I never planned on being there, my life just evolved to that point. I had long given up any hopes of writing and what it would ever do for me, would mean to me again. I let it go as a pipe dream. I was a father and a husband and I resolved myself to what I saw as the realities of that life; I had to be a provider. I couldn’t afford to pursue dreams that were either risky or low-paying, and so I had to shelve any aspirations of writing, to redefine them as something else that made me more comfortable with setting them aside.

Don’t get me wrong; that life was not an unhappy one, or one where I thought, on a daily basis, about what I was not doing with my life. I never even recognized where I was, what kind of existence I was living. In fact, I found new pleasures in life that helped me feel satisfied. There was much to do, being a father and provider, and I could keep my time filled with the many things with which so many of us preoccupy and distract ourselves. It’s easy to do, this being a good provider thing, as easy as sleepwalking. But it can also get out of hand.

Before I knew it, being a good provider meant the bigger house, the bigger car, the next promotion, the better pay raise. One carrot led to another. We always spent what we had available, and sometimes more. And long ago and far behind me, the hopes and dreams of something else I might have accomplished in my life—not in spite of it, but possibly within it—laid dormant and sleeping, possibly never to be resurrected.

So, as all of the rewards of that kind of life began to unravel, there was a void left, and that made the trauma of the loss that much more difficult to endure. At some point I must have seen it coming, because at the tender age of forty-one, before it was clear where everything was headed, I went back to school to finish that English degree.

That was a frightening endeavor, to say the least. Before starting, I imagined a classroom filled with much younger people, all faster, sharper, and brighter than me. I never was the most diligent student in either high school or in my previous college stint, and so I was not sure I had the study skills necessary to pull it off, or to even prevent me from looking like a fool. But luckily, my first professor in that first course was an incredible teacher and person, and he was both encouraging and helpful. His interest in me and my skills gave me an insatiable hunger for learning, discussion, analysis, and writing. By the time I got to my final year, he was nominating my papers for publication and for presentation at Modern Language Associaion conferences, and I graduated with a 3.98, magna cum laude. Go figure.

And that was how my desire to write returned, even though I still didn’t practice it in the same way I ever hoped. But, it did give me back the faith in myself that I could craft words, and make them useful, thought provoking and interesting. The problem was, I was never going to make any better living out of writing theoretical analysis papers on literature—my talent at the time—than I would by not writing anything at all. So my writing, well, just kind of moved a little closer to the front of my thoughts and didn’t really go anywhere.

That is, until now. Now, I write what I enjoy, in a personal voice, which is the voice at which I was always best. It’s my voice, no one else’s, really. It feels comfortable. It feels genuine. The voice I write with now may never earn me a dime, but I get more satisfaction from it than anything else I have ever tried to pen. So, in a way, my dream is a little more alive now than it has been for many years, which is good.

Maybe one day I will write something else, a work of fiction, from all those reams of notes I have stashed away here and there, and maybe not. Or possibly this voice I enjoy will take me somewhere, become something more than just an exercise in thought and words on paper (or screen). At this point, I feel like I am progressing toward that end and can make it happen someday. If it doesn’t, I have a lot of rewards happening for me right now with what I do, and with what the girls do, and that satisfies me.

Around here nowadays, it seems like we keep dreams not only alive, but thriving. I watch—with great interest—Megan as she launches her Facebook page showcasing her photographic skills, and I am reminded of my interest in photography in years past. She has a talent, that girl, and enthusiasm and ambition to match it. She believes, not only in her talent and in herself, but in all the possibilities that her dream can make real for her. I hope, with everything I have, that her dream will happen for her, and will do so at a much earlier time in her life than it has for me. More than that: I believe it will.

And Kylee: well, Kylee and a friend are putting together a little book of essays they are writing. I can’t tell you just how much that makes me beam. I have no idea if that will eventually end up being her dream vocation, as she has plenty of time for others to take shape. After all, she just ended things with the Easter Bunny.

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

The Old Guard

This last spring break the girls and I loaded up the car, pointed it south, and headed to Kansas City, with the plan of spending the week there with our friends, Bill and Mary, seeing family, and celebrating St. Patrick’s day back home at one of the country’s largest such parades. With everything we had planned to do we were all a little excited to be on our way, and once we were finally able to hit the road, couldn’t wait to get to our destination. And—as a bonus—something remarkable happened along all those miles on the highway.

We talked.

Real, genuine conversation and everything.

I expected, as was usually the case on every previous drive, that the iPods would emerge as soon as we hit the city limits of Des Moines, and that this would be another one of those drives where I would get three hours of Contemplative Windshield Time while the girls blasted their eardrums and chomped away at their requisite snacks. But, had I been paying attention, I might have picked up on the hint or two from the few days before our departure that might have told me this trip was going to be something different and special.

The first such signal came in a phone call from Megan the previous Thursday. She was concerned she did not have anything appropriately green enough to wear to the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

“Dad, we need to go shopping,” she said, putting the characteristically long extension into her “shopping” to infer both excitement and connivance. She knew she had me. How could I not put her in sufficient green? That warm feeling of being both conned and spoiling arose.

The girls have always embraced their heritage with a certain amount of pride. I think it makes them feel like they own a little piece of something that sets them apart up here in the Near Great White North. We number fewer here, surrounded instead by a larger population of Danes, Swedes, and various other European cultures. For years I have been telling them about how big the celebration is back home, hoping that one day we would get to share it, maybe even incorporate it into our family traditions, but for one reason or another we never have made it back for this special celebration. Not until this year.

That conversation in the car should be something so remarkable may not be saying much about our communication between us all, but I would ask you to remember that I am the father of a Teen and a Tween. The younger has not yet tuned me out for Girl World, but the older most certainly has. So this time we spent (for lack of a less trite word) bonding, was golden for me.

It wasn’t that we just talked, it was more about the subjects we covered, which was the truly unique part. They seemed very interested in me, my life and times growing up in the Parkville area, and my friends. They had met Bill and Mary on a previous trip and were impressed, and they knew I had planned on them meeting several more of my friends while we were there this time, so some of this was pre-work, I imagine. Their curiosity about me and my younger life was heartwarming, to say the least, but I have to admit that it caught me a little off guard. I’d never seen it before this trip.

And, it wasn’t just the conversation and curiosity that made this particular drive vastly more interesting than all the previous, or more enjoyable. There were other things.

The car, somehow, was silently declared a No Conflict Zone. Neither Megan or Kylee antagonized, teased, bullied, or taunted, the other—nothing short of a modern day miracle.

We listened to music that ranged from Journey and Kansas to Dave Matthews and Black Eyed Peas. I don’t think anyone ever reached for their favorite radio stations, and nobody cared. In fact, nobody said a word when I actually sang along with some of my music, which was a previously forbidden indulgence.

Then, it only got better. At about the halfway point, my Facebook page lit up and the notices on my cell phone kept going off. Someone or something needed a reply, but I was too busy driving to answer, and so I handed the phone to Megan and asked her to answer for me. Then I asked her to change my status. Then, my brother, who had found me on Facebook several miles back, struck up a conversation, which I dictated and Megan typed. She became my little typing partner, and I could tell she was really enjoying it.

So it went, all the way into Kansas City, where we got out of the car at Bill and Mary’s on an incredible “We’re the Kilgores and We’re Here” high. But it was at about this same time, when I felt like breaking into a chorus of “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing,” from the old Coke commercial, when I also remembered a few anxieties I had about this trip.

Bill and Mary live an admirable lifestyle. They try to live as green as possible, make as little an environmental impact as they can, are very healthy with their diet, and don’t have cable TV. Megan and Kylee, on the other hand, are addicted to both meat and television and have never really been taught what I would call a consistently green-minded lifestyle. About the time that we all sat down to eat an incredible meal that Mary had expertly prepared I remembered all of this, and prepared myself for my new role as chief negotiator of the diet concerns. I imagined a meal, and a week ahead, where I would have to quiet whines about a lack of meat, no cable television, and constantly be reminding the girls about small things that might not respect our hosts lifestyle.

But it never happened. None of it. All week long, it never happened. At some point I was wondering if I had picked up the wrong girls in my sleepy and hasty departure from Des Moines, until the two of them reminded me the next morning that I had promised to take them shopping. Yep. Those are my girls.

Before that shopping, however, I was up early that morning and enjoying the quiet of the house. From Bill and Mary’s third-floor window there is an incredible view of the Kansas City skyline, framed by the river in the foreground, Park College (sorry, Park University, now) and its hills to the left, and Parkville with all its quaint little shops and homes to the right. The view was a piece of nostalgia, for me, and I had that comfortable feeling of being at home. Downstairs, I could hear the sounds of a couple getting ready for the day, attempting to do so quietly so as not to disturb their upstairs guests, I imagine. Funny, and a bit odd: that made me miss those things a little.

I had more quiet time downstairs with coffee, pen and paper, jotting notes of feelings and impressions of the trip thus far that eventually would become this piece, but I couldn’t bring myself to do much more than scribble. I was unplugged. The swirl of the world around me outside, and my life as usual, with all of its advanced communication and speed, was outside of my consciousness. It was bliss.

And the rest of the trip: well, it went exactly the same way. I never heard a single complaint from Megan or Kylee about anything the entire time we were there. The closest thing there was to conflict was in a little teasing about old houses, attics, orbs, and ghosts, with both girls making each other so nervous about it, we all ended up in the same bedroom the entire time. I really didn’t mind that.

We enjoyed that Monday together shopping a little, then traipsing from one house to another to have lunch with my father and Margaret, and then dinner with the rest of the family that evening. Tuesday was just as enjoyable, meeting Jack at O’Dowds so he and I could have corned beef and cabbage together (something I still cannot get the girls to at least try) and talk about times old and new. The girls’ ears perked up when Jack and I reminisced about some of our younger antics, like the time when he and I got shot at (with details of why we were there and with whom carefully edited out). Later that night, we met more family for dinner, but by late evening we were fairly tired from all the running to and fro, and so we enjoyed a couple of movies together while Bill and Mary were out to a concert.

The next morning was the parade, and despite having stayed up too late watching movies, the cool weather, and gloomy skies, the girls were up early and excited to get down to the parade. For all the preparation, they lasted about forty-five minutes in the weather before they finally admitted they wanted the warmth of the car. It didn’t matter, however. All I cared about was the fact that they wanted to go, wanted to be there, to experience it, and to experience it with me. That was huge. So, I put up only a little objection when they begged out of going to Minsky’s with me later that night to see more friends. I’d gotten my share.

I don’t think it was until the drive home that I got to think about everything that had been over the last week. There wasn’t as much conversation going home as there was coming down, as, in their fatigue, the girls reached for their iPods and napped for most of the way. I slipped in my Fleetwood Mac that I downloaded from Bill’s collection and dove into that Contemplative Windshield Time I enjoy.

At some point, while trying to think of what it was that prompted the girls to enjoy this trip so much, for us all to have such a great time together, I asked myself what I had done right. I wondered why it was the girls were putting more than the usual effort into coming toward me. And then, the mirror turned, and I recognized that I hadn’t necessarily done anything to make them enjoy it more, but instead they enjoyed it more because I was relaxed and doing so myself. I guess the stress and pressures of work and bills and this worry and that didn’t get hastily packed in that suitcase I threw together before rushing out the door. I left it there. And as a result, the girls got to be with Vacation Dad this time, and got the opportunity to get to know several sides of me, and several stories of me, they probably haven’t seen enough of until recently.

And I remembered something else from just the week before. A couple of Megan’s friends found my writing page on Facebook and became fans. I was concerned when I saw that happen, and wondered how Megan would feel about it. It was not something I had hid from her, and eventually wanted Kylee and her to see it and take it all in, but I worried if she would feel any embarrassment from it, from being a subject of all this sometimes. When I asked her about it, she said she didn’t care. I got the distinct impression she might have even read at least some of it.

But, that dad—the one they have read in those essays, and spent time with last week—I think they like that dad best, the one that is not necessarily a one-dimensional father figure, has a little more color, flair, and maybe depth. I think they’ve enjoyed getting to know him. I know I've enjoyed letting them in.

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

Lessons In Humility

Almost two years ago, I was having lunch with my friend, Shane, and bemoaning the realization that I was going to have to take on a second job. I had come to know Shane by eating, all too frequently, at his Quizno’s. Cooking for one while the girls were away had long before lost all appeal.

“Why don’t you come to work here, with me?”

I looked up from my sandwich and saw the dead serious look on Shane’s face. In fact, it was a little more than serious; it was almost pleading. I guess most of his help had gone off to college and he was pretty shorthanded, working from open to close every day, and not seeing much of his family.

I had already been making the rounds at the local businesses and putting in applications, hoping someone might be able to offer me a few hours a week at something simple and enjoyable. But, my efforts were really only half-hearted. I was still in denial. It was still a little hard to believe how tough a turn things had all taken over the previous several months and where it all seemed headed. Getting a second job made perfect sense, but it was not going to be fun. My time was already stretched.

And, I was being picky. I didn’t want to work at just any second job. I had already ruled out certain things I had deemed beneath me; there was no way I was waiting tables. I had already done the convenience store gig many years ago and I had no desire to return to that. Besides: I knew I would see too many of my friends and neighbors every shift if I tried working at one of the several stores that dotted our neighborhood.

So when Shane popped his question, I thought, “What the hell?” We talked on a few minutes about what hours I could do and what the job entailed, but we didn’t quite seem to seal the deal. I left there after eating feeling like it was more a solid prospect—kind of a fallback position—instead of a real offer and decision.

I didn’t go back for a couple of days to eat, but when I did, Shane was there, and so I asked him if we were both serious about what we had discussed. I wondered if he wasn’t sincere, and when he handed me the application to fill out, I thought he was giving it to me as a way of finding a graceful way out of an awkward situation. I took the application home with me, not wanting to be seen sitting there in the shop filling it out and wondering if I were making him uncomfortable as I did. When I returned it the next day he still didn’t say anything that indicated I was assured the job.

A small part of me hoped I wouldn’t be hired. It was both reluctance and denial, in that space where one disappointment after another becomes too common and easy to accept. Each one becomes a moment where you become more and more convinced that something fantastic is about to happen for you and the entire nightmare comes to an end. Surely this wasn’t all happening. I was a good guy. I worked hard. I played by the rules. Things this bad don’t happen to good people.

But, it was happening. I just hadn’t wrapped my head around it yet, hadn’t submitted to it.

When the phone didn’t ring for a couple of days I was sure Shane had found the necessary excuse to retract his offer, but thought I would stop in anyway. Shane didn’t even say hello when I walked in, he just asked me how soon I wanted to start. We discussed the missing details, and it worked out perfectly. He understood my parenting and primary employment situations and was willing to work with me however I needed, and it would eventually get him some evenings off with his family. The next Sunday afternoon, I would be working two jobs.

Oddly enough, I walked out of there elated. I was glad to be done with the drudgery of filling out applications and hoping someone might offer me some work. There is a little bit of humility that one suffers in all of that process, especially someone my age and in that position. But in actually asking for and getting work with Shane I felt somewhat empowered, like I was doing something instead of letting it all just happen. Then there was that feeling of having gotten a job. Sure, it was a silly little part-time position in a sandwich shop, but…I got it. Me. Someone picked me. I even called a friend with the news.

But, as Sunday afternoon approached, a few worries set in. I knew I was walking into a work situation where I was going to be working with a lot of people much younger than I. I envisioned snickers behind my back, where my coworkers would be wondering who the old guy was. I wondered what I would say in that awkward moment when a friend or a neighbor came in and saw me behind the counter. I even worried if Megan or Kylee would be embarrassed by their dad’s new part-time job. I nearly backed out because of all of those fears, but didn’t, for some reason.

I came in that first day expecting all that to happen, and none of it did. Shane put me in the patient hands of his most trusted teen, a nice girl named Lauren, and she spent the afternoon showing me everything. Lauren never let on if she thought it odd a guy my age would be working there, she just showed me something, left me to do a few things while she waited on customers, then came back to me whenever she could.

It wasn’t long after I got there that the worst news about the economy started breaking. Business slowed a little, and Shane got nervous. He held off hiring anyone new, and I picked up a night or two more each week to cover the gaps. I noticed the flow of customers was not nearly as hectic as had been the previous months. Winter was even slower. We all worried about our “silly” little part-time jobs with Shane.

At my regular job, I also noticed something different. Our applications and the people that were submitting them were changing. People my age, and older, came in by the dozens, and applied for part-time jobs. I remember interviewing one after another, recognizing the fears in their faces, wishing I could help them somehow. At that point the worst had already come and gone for me. I wondered if it still laid ahead for them.

As the weeks wore on, I became more and more comfortable with working two jobs, with the job I did for Shane. I actually began to enjoy it. It became almost mindless work, a welcome relief from the stress that can be a daily part of managing in the retail environment. I got to know the regulars who came in frequently, and conversation became a part of taking care of people. Friends and neighbors—even coworkers from Target—no longer made me feel awkward. I think they accepted it as a part of the economics of our time, maybe even thought, “there but by the grace of God, go I.” For myself: I didn’t care. Take me or leave me, I try hard. Everything is for Megan and Kylee, and I can humble myself to whatever I need for them.

Even the youngsters I worked with accepted me. Lauren, that girl that taught me everything I know about the place, turned into a great work partner. We could crank out a closing faster than anyone else’s. We would have fun with the nice customers, and laugh at the rude ones after they left. Sometimes she would ask me for advice about things, and I would feel flattered. Eventually she moved on and went to work at her mother’s law firm, so she could earn more for college this fall. We felt like our little girl was growing up, Shane and I. But, she still stops in now and then.

At some point, I kind of became Shane’s trusted partner and trainer. He began taking more and more time off, and even asked me to watch the place a couple of times so he could go out of town. I started getting all the new hires to train on my shifts.

Gabe, another young girl from the local high school, passed through briefly. She was a good kid; she learned fast and worked fast, and was fun to have around at work. But, Girl World and cheerleading eventually swallowed up her life, and she left to work somewhere a little more socially acceptable to her friends. I worry about her, from time to time.

Tommie—the girl I work most with now—will be the one I might miss most when I leave Shane. She is a sweet girl, bright, with a good heart and a good head on her shoulders. The friends who stop in to see her all seem like good kids as well, so I worry about her very little. She is making her way through a childhood very similar to mine, a split family, but doing a much better job of it than I think I did at her age.

Things change, as they are wont to do, and in my case, they changed for the better. Come April, I will not need both jobs, and I am reducing to one so that I can live a little more sanely, can offer better time with the girls, maybe even enjoy myself a little more. But—believe it or not—I am going to miss working at the Q and the people I see there as much as I see them now. I will miss being a part of each other’s lives as much as we are now. And I will leave a little changed.

If everything in life happens for a reason—and I tend to believe they do—then my time there has had far more value than just the income of a silly, little part-time job making sandwiches. The guy who would never work a job like that is no longer; he’s been replaced by someone possibly a little more humble. The invulnerable, disbelieving suburbanite is gone, supplanted by the person who understands everything material can go away in a heartbeat, and that the most important things in life are family, and friends, and new friends you can find in the least expected places. And those unexpected friends and little unexpected lessons: sometimes they prove to be the most valuable of all.

Originally published 3/11/2010.

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

My Fortunate Life

I am the world’s most self-absorbed and least charitable person. Well, maybe not. There is always Simon Cowell, so maybe I run a close second.

Like the rest of the world, I have been watching the recent tragedies of Haiti and Chile panning out across my television screen, my web browser, in my radio. So many lives. So many families. It is hard to get your head around the immensity of it, really. But, even in the age of instantly breaking news reaching into our homes as fast as a camera can switch on, it all seems so far away, so abstract compared to our own corner of the world.

Which makes it easier, actually, to become jaded to it. News of this sort comes to us so much more often now; it seems commonplace. I sometimes wonder if equally sad but lesser events—not ones on the scale we have recently witnessed, mind you—have always been this numerous and common, but that we now only know of them because of the speed of the internet and global communication. It seems like there is almost a daily occurrence of some kind that makes the news.

So I, like millions of others (I think, I hope, so as not to seem so singularly aloof), find it just a little easier to take a back seat, a spectator’s position, and not pick up the phone when a telethon, or some other vehicle, is raising money for victims. I watch for a while, watch the millions rack up and the entertainers parade past, and then I move on. My dollars do not move from here to there, do not become a part of those millions of others that so many feel compelled to give. And I seldom wonder why.

I never used to think this way about involvement and responsibility, or the misfortune of others; not even about myself. In fact, I once worked hard toward quite the opposite. I once started a successful food drive when I still lived and worked in Kansas City, one which was viable and raised several tons of food annually for needy families. I used to contribute and work with several organizations that made real differences in peoples’ lives. I did these things because it was rewarding to do so and because I thought it was important for my daughters to see and understand the importance of it.

But at some point, I had to make a decision. Charity had to start at home. Every bit of my time and energy and resources had to go toward them, toward the two most important people in my own life. I knew I was no longer offering the example, or the learning experience, but it was the choice I had to make in order to answer more pressing needs. In the process of withdrawing from that, I must have become desensitized. I became a little closed off to the needs of others, or how I may be able to help with them, even in the smallest ways.

It is a little disturbing to see that in yourself, no matter how you rationalize it. It’s disappointing. I wonder also if it is a byproduct of an experienced life. In our years, do we draw our circle of concern closer to ourselves?

Recently I have had a number of reminders pile up around me—closer to home reminders—that have somewhat shaken my perspective of my own life in relation to others. They are things, old and new and some new only to me, that beg me to rethink the way I see my life and how fortunate it is, or has been.

I used to think my life somewhat unique, a story worth telling. Growing up with, and surviving, a severely bipolar mother (a fact that, until now, was known by very few), traveling the world extensively at a fairly young age, seeing and having done the many things I have in my life—I thought these things set my life apart just a little from all the “normal” lives I saw all around me. I wore it as a badge of courage. I considered myself a survivor. I was still standing, and still (arguably) somewhat normal, even a little accomplished. I won.

But are all those lives all around me really so normal, or so uneventful? I think probably not. By comparison—at least in gravity—my life is at once both pale and fortunate.

Two of my closest friends are fighting off thyroid cancer. One of them received her diagnosis while she was eight months pregnant. From the outside looking in, many people dismiss thyroid cancer as “the best cancer to have” because the successful cure rate is pretty high. But that rate is little comfort in the face of the very word “cancer.” In that one word, for even those of us that have never faced it in any form, lies ominous and fearful feelings. It is still a great unknown in the world of medicine, let alone to the rest of us. Imagine hearing the news that it is in your body. You never expect it. And when you do hear that diagnosis, even in combination with all the statistics that support hope of overcoming your particular form, its presence is, at least, unexpected news, and that leaves you feeling very vulnerable.

Their fight against the “best” cancer is still very difficult. It involves surgery, and radioactive iodine treatments, and time away from loved ones, away from a newborn, and healing, and waiting, and wondering, and lifelong medication. I think it is safe to say that neither of my friends feels fortunate to have their particular kind of cancer. But, I also know both of them to be very strong, and each is showing immense courage and poise in the face of it all. I admire them both, greatly. I wonder how I would fare under the same circumstances.

And when I look around me, their stories are not the only remarkable ones. I have another friend, someone with whom I have only recently reconnected, who has suffered loss in their lifetime beyond anything I could ever fathom. Their courage and strength in the face of those losses seems so incredible, so beyond me, that I feel humbled, and wonder why I ever thought myself a survivor.

There are others. One friend I know has had health problems similar to those I spoke of earlier. Someone else close to me fights daily with bulimia—an affliction rooted so deeply in one’s self-image—despite the fact that they are both intelligent and beautiful, and they have the brightest of futures ahead of them if they can only overcome it. I know a number of people who are either going through, or have been through, family splits that are horrendous, are far more bitter and spiteful and challenging than was mine. One friend had so much more (in material terms) than I ever had, and then, for a time, lived so much harder than I ever have after their family changed. Yet another friend suffered a childhood trauma much, much worse than anything I ever witnessed, but today possesses the strength necessary to be a loving parent in a situation where many of us might not be.

The more I look around me, the more fortunate I begin to feel. I think maybe I just had to open my eyes a little to all those around me to know that. The challenges of my life are very real to me personally, and I suppose we all feel something similar about our own circumstances. It may be only through the lives of others, others close and very real to us, that we learn of life’s bullets we’ve dodged, learn how fortunate we are, or have been. Then, maybe we, when we true up our view, might see our way to reach out, or to do something of value, of real impact, in some form that we feel comfortable.

I still won’t pick up the phone and send money, anonymously combined with millions of other peoples’, to Haiti or Chile. For myself, there still remains a need for the direct connection, the feeling of being close to the cause. So, this June, I run in the Dam to Dam. It’s a 20k run which has, to this point, been a run of fun and personal challenge for me. This year I want to leverage it to do more, so I will be running to also raise awareness for thyroid cancer. It’s the least I can do. But it’s something, and I’m pretty fortunate to be able to do so.

Originally published 3/7/2010.

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