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.

Forward Momentum

I used to have this little thing I did at the beginning of the school year every year, where the girls and I would go to the basement and mark their height on a vertical support of the stairs. The girls enjoyed it. For them, it was exciting to see how much they had grown over the previous year, a signal of progress that satisfied their eagerness to grow up, to move forward, and to experience the things to which they looked forward. It was the reverse for me; I did it to freeze a moment in time that I knew was passing and needed to be captured. How many of us have done this?

I remembered this annual ritual just the other day as the girls and I were driving home from school. The girls have been abuzz about school these last few days, as they always are when the end is so near. They’ve been excited about the summer ahead, with trips and lazy days at the pool already planned, and—to a degree—they’ve also been excited about the next year of school that awaits them after the summer.

Megan was telling me about the classes she had chosen for next year, some of the options she had, and why she chose the classes she did. She listed trigonometry as one of her classes, and it struck me that she was getting into a class with which I would not be able to help her. I never took trig, or any higher level math classes, for that matter.

But, on the heels of that thought, I recognized that the choices she was offered the next year meant that she was getting into the tougher study years, and slowly the realization that Megan was going to be a freshman in high school next year kind of washed over me.

Megan is going to be freshman in high school next year. Even when I repeat it and understand its certainty and inevitability, it still takes some getting used to.

In trying to get my head wrapped around that realization, I began to recall some of my most treasured memories of Megan as she has grown up. I think, as a parent, I have tons of catalogued memories and experiences of my daughters as they grow, but some stand out more than others. What makes them more memorable to me, or significant to me, is probably the emotion I attach to them.

One of those memories is of one of the first times I took the girls camping at a lake not far from our home in Chatham, Illinois, when Megan would have been nine or ten and Kylee only five. The lake was close enough that we could wait out the weather until the last minute to see if it would cooperate, and Michelle was on a trip back to Des Moines to visit friends. The girls and I needed something to do, and the idea of a night around the campfire making smores and sleeping in tents seemed like just the thing.

We loaded up the gear and headed to the lake on a Saturday afternoon and managed to get one of the last spots left open at the campground. While I made camp, Megan and Kylee ran off to the playground nearby to keep themselves busy for the hour or so it took me to set up the tent and break out all of the food and supplies we’d brought along. It was still early in the evening when I finished and the girls had tired themselves on the merry-go-rounds and swings, so I suggested we go for a little hike on the trail that wound along the edge of the lake for a ways.

The remarkable moment of this trip was not anything that happened on that stroll or during the evening by the fire; it was something that happened on the way back from our little hike. The sun was just setting on the campground as we came back up from the lake and were making our way back through the campground, winding our way through the other campers in the grass. The girls were playful and excited, anxious to get back to camp and build a fire to make their smores and hot dogs. They were barefoot and running a little ahead of me, and as I watched them I could see the sun washing through their bouncing, long, blonde hair, already made lighter by the summer days.

They were pretty oblivious to everyone and everything else around them, and Megan never noticed, or paid any attention to, a small boy about her age that was approaching her on his way toward the lake on a bike, his fishing pole strapped across his handlebars. But the boy noticed her. I watched it—almost as if it were in slow motion—as the boy noticed Megan as he approached, then watched her intently (mouth gaping open) as he passed her, and then nearly broke his neck turning back to continue looking at her as he rode on.

An instant parental instinct arose in me. I wanted to make sure the boy saw me—her father—and that I was fully aware of his eyes and thoughts being so locked on my daughter. But, because he was so focused on Megan, he never saw me, nor did he see the tree into which he crashed his bike. I stopped to make sure he was okay, and after I was satisfied he was, chuckled a little as I walked away. Karma, I thought.

That was the first time I ever saw any boy ever take an interest in Megan, and it awakened me to the fact that Megan was (and I know this is the perspective of a proud and biased father) a stunningly beautiful little girl, and that she was becoming more so with each passing day.

I have only recently shared that memory with Megan. In the years since, because she has sensed my worries about her and boys (Because I was one!), Megan has always kept that part of her life fairly private from me. I’m sure it is nothing new between daughters and fathers, that privacy, and as much as I would like to know every detail so that I can protect her, I am held back by the instinctive feeling that if I pry too much by even being curious, I can drive her to even more secrecy. So, I trust, and I hope, while at the same time enjoy the thought of her experiencing all those magical feelings and thoughts that come at her age.

A couple of years ago I got a peek into that world of hers, as well as a signal from her that she was not ready for her father to see that side or her life. I was walking home from the visiting neighbors one afternoon, coming from the cul-de-sac up the hill and through the back yard of the neighbor that butted up to the back of our place. Megan and Kylee had stayed home, as I had just gone up to chat for a few minutes and was coming back soon to make dinner. On my way back, as I rounded the corner of our neighbor’s house I could see Megan in the back yard, talking with a boy whom I recognized from elsewhere in the neighborhood.

They both looked up in surprise to see me coming, and then each took off in different directions, Megan headed for the house in a full-out sprint and the boy headed towards parts unknown with Achilles-like speed. When I got to the house, I found Kylee sitting alone and watching television downstairs.

“Where’s your sister?” I asked.

“She ran upstairs and slammed her door shut,” Kylee answered.

I got busy making dinner and decided to leave well enough alone for the moment, but I thoroughly enjoyed the different shades of pink Megan turned when I asked her over dinner who the boy was. I got some mumbled answer, which I barely understood, but understood enough to know that I shouldn’t ask anything else. So I didn’t.

I have been sometimes perplexed by what it is a young girl (I’ve only had girls) decides is strictly private territory and what it is she wants to share. I am sure my inability to understand that is due in large part to my being a guy and from my being a guy my age. It has been a few years since I was a teen. But I have learned to respect Megan’s need for feeling she has a life and a world of her own, and that in turn only makes me appreciate more the times that she feels she can include me or show me a part of it.

Just a couple of years ago the girls and I went on a ski trip with several other families from the neighborhood, a trip that proved to be one of our most memorable experiences. There were four families along and we had a large rental together, so there was a great sense of community to the trip. It was also the first significant trip that the girls and I had taken as just the three of us and was part of that effort I was making of creating new memories together in our new lives.

None of us had ever skied before, so we all spent the first day or half-day in lessons. But, after that first day, I felt pretty comfortable on skis, and I could see that Megan felt even more comfortable. She had no issues with running ahead of me down the hill at speeds I couldn’t match and in terrain I was not yet confident enough to tackle. At one point, on our second day skiing, Megan ventured off with a neighbor who was a very good skier and made a run down a couple of black diamond hills. Of course, I never knew about it until after the fact.

On our third day there some of the group decided to take a day off from the slopes and either relax or spend time on other activities, but Megan and I had not had our fill of skiing. We wanted to ski every day we were there, and so we headed for the slopes while Kylee stayed behind to play with the other kids at the house.

On the lift to the top of the mountain, Megan could barely contain her excitement. She was trying to convince me to go down a black diamond with her and wanted to show me all the slopes that she and others had been down that I had likely not seen. She was too cute. And, after we unloaded from the lift and got into our bindings, Megan took off for the head of the trail before I was ready. When she realized I was not with her she stopped, and looked back for me, and waved her arms at me to hurry up and join her.

Seeing Megan waiting there for me at the head of the trail, beckoning me, produced a moment that has long stuck with me. Megan had gone off and discovered and learned something on her own, and now she wanted to share all that with me. She wanted to show me her world. The student wanted to become the teacher, or at the very least, display her pride in what it was she had learned in her independence from me.

There have been many moments similar to that since then, as Megan’s independence grows more important to her and her learning without me increases. But, that moment on the slope was the first time I recognized it, recognized her need for it, and recognized her need for me to appreciate and understand it. And as much as I worry about what she experiences and learns outside my reach or vision, I look forward to all the moments in the future when she will ask to show me her world and what is new about it again.

Last night Megan asked me to take her out for a driving lesson. Driving is a huge milestone for both a parent and a teen, with implications beyond the challenges of learning the skills of operating a car. With the ability to drive comes independence, and the ability to sometimes move outside of our protective reach. It also means that there are times and memories that are now in the past, and that there are experiences unexplored and unknown in the very near future, maybe a little sooner than we wish.

I’m sure that wasn’t what I was thinking about when I was nearly struck dumb with fear by her request. I was thinking more about the mental images I had of my car crumpled into a wrinkled piece of metal, and the sounds of ambulance sirens, and lawsuits, and the insurance rates I was about to face.

But, Megan did just fine driving. After a short while, I wasn’t even afraid. I was, however, very proud.

© 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.

Damsels and Dragons

The girls and I were walking in from the car one day recently, continuing a casual conversation that had started on the drive home from school. I can’t remember where the conversation had started, or what it all entailed, but I remember an exact moment when Megan asked me a question which had been posed to me by others before, and expected one day from either her or Kylee.

“Do you ever wish you had boys?”

“No,” was my brief, quick response. I waited for the follow up question, but Megan never asked it. She just kind of smiled at me. Maybe that was answer enough for her, but I thought more needed said, and so I asked her question for her.

“Do you want to know why?”

“I guess,” she said sheepishly, the smile starting to fade from her. She looked as if she was either afraid of the answer or afraid of the length of my answer. Megan has adopted her mother’s opinion that I can, at times, be either verbose or philosophical.

“Because I think having two daughters has made me a better person, a better man,” I offered. “I think that having two daughters makes me work harder, because I am a man and I don’t know what it is like to be a girl. The two of you keep me off guard. If I had two boys, it would all be too easy, too predictable, and I would have fallen into every father-son trap possible. So, I think I was always meant to have daughters, and in particular, the two of you.”

Megan never said a word in response to that, nor did Kylee. By the time I could get all that out, we were in the door, which meant Megan could make a quick escape to her room before I could make anything more of the conversation. But, in her silence, and in Kylee’s silence, I sensed she absorbed what I was saying. At least that is what I am telling myself.

I expect that I don’t speak for all fathers with what I said to the two of them that day, but I know it true for myself. I have always felt like Megan and Kylee complete me. In trying to be the best father I can for them, I really have to stretch myself to go beyond the typical male mode of behavior. I’m not saying that I am the stereotypical male; I like to think I am not, and I think many who know me would offer the same perception. But there are many things about me that are perhaps stereotypical, and those things I have to recognize and keep in their place, so as not to let them become obstacles or blind spots in my relationships with Megan and Kylee. I honestly work hard at it, and I think that any father of daughters who doesn’t loses out on a great deal.

It is challenging for any guy to understand what life is like being a girl, no matter what age he is when he attempts an understanding. I never did as a boy, or as a teen (where my misunderstanding was likely at a peak), or as a young man. Nowadays, I can safely say I know more about the opposite sex, but I don’t think I could ever say I understand or know what it is like to be a girl. I have never lived life inside that skin, so I will never know perceptions and interpretations from that kind of a life.

But I recognized that early on, and I tried to educate myself, and arm myself, for the years ahead. When the girls were both still very young, I read a great deal about girls and girl culture. One of the first books I read was Queen Bees and Wannabes, by Rosalind Wiseman. I had seen her interviewed on a news program, and the things she spoke of during that brief interview were so foreign to me that I was alarmed, and I decided I had to read the book in order to be any kind of a responsible father. Wiseman’s book gave me a small glimpse into what I refer to now as Girl World—the social structure and dynamics of tween and teen girls—and it was an eye opener, to say the least. I had no idea. Where I knew my way around the social structure of boys and men, and knew the aggressive nature it can be at times, I had absolutely no idea that girls in Girl World could be so emotionally and mentally brutal. It actually made me glad I grew up a male. On top of that, Wiseman’s last chapter discussed current trends and teen (and, yes tween) opinions on sex, which frightened me enough to give home schooling serious consideration—until they were age thirty.

Another book, Reviving Ophelia, by Mary Phipher, did nothing but frighten me even more. Where Wiseman dealt with the social forces of Girl World which come to bear on daughters, Phipher explored more, including family and cultural issues that can create so much conflict for a young girl that it leaves her defenseless in the face of such things as alcoholism, drugs, and eating disorders.

Needless to say, both of these books jolted me, but they also steeled my resolve and reaffirmed my theory. I had always believed that if you give a child a solid base at home, they will carry the strength of that with them out into the world and be able to ward off many of life’s little evils.

Silly me.

I learned very quickly that there truly is no formula or recipe for success in raising kids, whether they are sons or daughters. For all things human, there are myriad variables which can produce an exponential number of outcomes, and nothing is certifiably predictable. So no matter what I read, or whatever wisdom I acquired and tried to apply, it all went out the window when put up against real world experience. For all my trying to learn and understand, I was more educated, but no better armed. And so, that uneasiness about being the best father, at best raising strong and confident little girls, returned at some point, and I nervously awaited the years ahead.

I don’t think I was, or am, any different from any other father of daughters in that regard. I see the girls as my charge, and will likely always see them this way. I am the guy in full armor, standing outside the gate, doing battle with all the dragons that would like to storm the castle behind me and swallow up the two damsels of my kingdom who are enjoying a blissful and protected life within those walls. As I parry off talons and breaths of fire, I assure myself that they are safe within the fortress I have constructed, happy and content with the way that I have built it for them, and without a worry in the world about whether or not that dragon is going to get past me.

What I never counted on, however, is that the older of those two damsels would one day look out over those walls and take an interest in the world beyond. She would be intrigued by what it is she might experience out there, what there may be to learn, or what people she might meet. She was no longer content with just my company. One day, she would walk out the front gate, across the bridge, and tap me on the shoulder while I was doing battle with the aforementioned dragon.

“Excuse me, umm, dad, umm, hey look out for that fireball. Yeah, see, I want to go over there, and, umm, see what’s going on, see what those people are doing. I’ll be over there, okay? Yeow, watch that huge claw thing there, dad. Okay, see ya.”

And out of the corner of my eye, while I am busy fighting, I see her sauntering off across the field of flowers and grass and running off with a giggling group of other damsels, all the while being observed from afar by a group of young squires. I freeze. My shoulders drop, and I hear the tip of my sword clang on the ground. I look up, and I am staring straight into the mouth of the dragon, and my shield slips out of my hands and on to the ground. I am prepared to roast.

But, at that moment, the dragon sits back on his haunches, cocks his head at me and says, “What? You didn’t expect this?”

“Well…”

“You should have known.”

“Yes, but…”

“But, what?”

“Well, what am I fighting you for then?”

“You still have one in the castle, don’t you?”

“Yes!”

And as quick as that, the sword and shield and talons all go up, and we are back at it again, mixing up fire and armor and strength of will against each other.

Later, when the day is done and dragons are slain, I’ll reflect and I’ll worry. I’ll worry that Damsel One is out there, on her own, outside of my easy reach and protection, fending for herself. I’ll worry what may become of her. I’ll worry she feels she might not need me anymore. I’ll worry even more that she might be right. And I’ll feel a little torn between Damsel One being out there, and my need to continue protecting Damsel Two.

If there is anything I worry about most in my future, it is the day I know will come when Megan and Kylee will be leaving, be it for college or marriage, or whatever. I will hate to lose them, because I will always see them as my charge, and more so than I know I ever would any sons. If I had sons, I would expect them to one day go out and have families of their own and be self-reliant, to take care of their families in much the same way I would, and thus be an extension of me. But with the girls, I know I will always feel a need to protect them in some way, be responsible for them. I don’t know that I could ever shut that off. In a way, it’s me being a sexist I guess, but (I tell myself) in some chivalric and noble kind of way. It gives me and my life a purpose beyond my measly existence, something bigger to live for. What do I do if I have to tell myself that purpose is no longer necessary?

In that purpose, and in emotional ways, I feel like the girls complete me. In trying to understand them and in loving them, I have added depth and dimensions to myself that I likely never would have had, given a different experience of any kind. In being their father and trying to protect them and care for them the way I feel compelled to, I feel a calling to something far greater than myself. I’m grateful fate brought me that deeply rewarding and enriching experience.

But, how and when does that experience end, and what lies beyond? Is it feasible I can move into Megan’s dorm and serve as a dorm father? When Kylee one day gets married, will she mind if I buy the house next door? Or, for that matter, will any man feel brave enough to come near my daughters?

If he does: what challenge could a mere man be, when I’ve spent years slaying dragons?

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

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.