crdahlberg

A Tilling Experience

Saturday dawned, but I slept in. The weekend had arrived. I could handle life’s demands at my leisure.

Until I recalled that today was the day to create the new, long-promised flower bed. Ugh.

Never mind. By mid-morning I trudged out, armed with my blunt shovel, and started digging up rocks–lots of them–as I created a trench outline of the bed.

At well over 100 degrees, it was one of the steamiest days of the year. Within the hour, I hoisted the unmanly white flag of surrender. I was off to Home Depot to rent a gas-powered dirt tiller.

I narrowed down which tiller I needed: gargantuan, giant, or medium. Intimidated, I asked for something still smaller. I had to settle for the scary, medium-sized beast, the smallest that they had. Getting the thing into my car was no picnic. We dismantled the handle bar and gently hoisted it inside, being careful to place the sharp tines on a thick book of maps to keep the leather upholstery from being pierced.

Once home, I constructed a ramp of two 2 by 4s, upon which I gingerly placed the sole wheel, intending to guide the thing backwards down the ramp. The boards immediately parted, leaving me to precariously balance the heavy and awkward contraption on a four-inch wide plank at a 45 degree downward angle. The disconnected handle protruded toward my chest like the horns of an angry bull. The sharply-honed tines, intended to turn earth into shreds, hovered menacingly near my loins. One unfortunate lurch and I knew I could be singing soprano.

A lifetime can seem to pass in the course of one day. In the case of a groin gore, I was glad to already have family firmly in place. In the case that I should collapse and meet Jesus in the sweltering heat, I was pretty sure that heaven was climate-controlled. Besides, we don’t have enough put away for retirement, so I would permanently escape that spreadsheet diorama that wallpapers my office.

“Seven hours and 32 minutes,” came the report when eventually I returned the tiller to the dude at Home Depot. I was filthy from digging dirt, and I wanted my heroic efforts to be noted by everyone at the macho Home Depot store–wow, what a man.

Mr. Home Depot Rental Check-In Man congratulated me. “Good thing you chose the 24-hour instead of the four-hour rental rate!” He crowed, as though he possessed supernatural insight.

Yeah. Just think. If I had gotten my money’s worth and kept the tiller 24-hours, I could have tilled up all three bedrooms and the neighbor’s dog run.

And by then, I would definitely have met up with Jesus.

Bungee Baby

I abruptly halted my stroll through the shopping mall to gaze in wonder at a very large, very pregnant woman bouncing repeatedly on a bungee swing.

Quickly summoning my seventh grade math skills, I calculated that the repeating force and velocity upon her body could momentarily launch an unanticipated sequence of events. At each vertical bounce, I expected the abrupt squeal of a tiny baby’s voice, propelled into birth with the aid of gravity and a giant rubber slingshot. No forceps necessary for this delivery, thank you.

The bounding continued, but I didn’t want to stick around for the spectacular gravitational outcome. Instead, having empathetically sensed my own need for additional anti-gravitational support, I made my move to the men’s underwear department at Macy’s.

One thing was for sure. She owned this athletic event. In the category of Very Pregnant Women Bouncing on a Slingshot, there were no other competitors in the mall. Or, probably, in the entire city.

Recently, a friend asked me if I would consider speaking at a small seminar. He listed several topic options to consider, and he asked me which of the topics I felt that I “owned”.

Huh. I’ve never felt I am a particular expert at anything. That’s the trouble with being a utility player. Send ‘em to left field, or catch, or play third base for half an inning. It doesn’t matter much. They’ve got just enough skill to last for a few minutes. The “real” player will be back as soon as he gets that thumb taped.

To really own something requires an obsessive compulsive streak. That’s laudable. It might not even matter so much what is owned; such a person is driven to own something. The Guinness Book of World Records is full of the bragging rights of those who own a record, no matter how obscure or inane the event.

Owning no particular event makes a person feel downright…well…average.

However, come to think of it, being successfully “average” requires its own skill set—persistence, compassion, integrity, harmony.

Being obsessively compulsive might get your picture on a Wheaties box.

But being the best “average” might just get you through life better.

Okay. Got it.

I don’t know anything about slingshot bungee baby deliveries.

But do I know anything about being average? Oh, yeah! I own that gig!

The iOlympics

I’m an Olympics junkie. I know that because during this year’s games I‘ve been unapologetically watching synchronized diving, beach volleyball, and badminton cheating scandals. These sporting events would typically garner my apathy. But during the Olympics, the post-event television reruns keep me up too late at night.

It’s enough to make me wish I excelled at either an exotic or uncelebrated sport. Any sport will do. All the hubbub makes me want to compete and excel at something.

But how do I identify that special sport? The trick to Olympic excellence is often whittling down to a very narrow, specific sporting event. There are dozens of niche specialties in sports such as track and field, swimming and gymnastics, each event intended to highlight the expertise of a person matching the requirements of that special niche. Can’t run a marathon? No problem. How about 10,000 meter? 5,000 meters? 3,000 meters? 1500 meters? 800 meters? 400 meters? 200 meters? 100 meters? 60 meters? See? There’s something for everyone.

I’m also secretly grieving my now-absent sporting prowess. Once universally recognized as the fastest runner in my elementary school, my glory has faded, leaving this former sixth grader not-so-impressive and not-so-imposing.

I need a new sport in which to compete—perhaps a much more specialized, personal competition, a sort of iOlympics. But still, how do I discover my own uniquely tailored made-for-me iOlympic event?

A few months ago, I complained to my doctor about ongoing lower pack pain. After an x-ray, he revealed the prognosis. I didn’t appreciate the chuckle in his voice as he told me.

“There are three certainties in life,” he began. “Death and taxes are the first two, and you’re fortunate to have experienced only one of those so far.”

“Great,” I replied, sensing I was being lured into a medical humor trap. “What’s the third?”

“Degenerative disk disease!” he grinned. “It comes with the territory as we get older. Some people feel the pain more than others. For you? Eh—it’ll probably get worse over time. That’s how aging is, you know.”

On my way home, I flicked on the seat warmer in my car. It seemed to help ease the lower back pain. I haven’t turned it off since. But in 100 degree summer temperature, it can sure make the backside sweat.

Thus I discovered my iOlympic event. Like the pentathlon, my physical disciplines are several strenuous elements combined into one back-pain busting event: stretching, pulling, arching, bending, and lifting to develop core muscle toning and strong abs.

No, it’s not exactly an Olympic event that could result in a gold medal and the obligatory national anthem, but it’s good enough for me. My gold medal iOlympic routine will help to keep me on my feet and out of the doctor’s office.

Now that I’m getting pretty good at one iOlympic event, I’ve got a feeling I’ll be adding some more performances to my repertoire. The Ten-Pound Belly Fat Drop? The Eight-Hours per Night Sleep Stretch? The Extended Book Reading Marathon? The Staying on Budget Until the End of the Month Grind?

There are probably plenty of iOlympic events to go around.

Finding the “Real Me”

From 1950 to 1967, CBS ran the game show What’s My Line? Notable celebrity personalities served on the panel, posing questions of various contestants in order to guess their occupations. They were usually strange or exotic jobs, which would be difficult to guess. I recall one female wrestler who successfully stumped the panel.

By chiseling away with their questions, the panel attempted to carve out the “Real Me” vocational identity of the guests. Their outward appearances often belied their occupational prowess.

The lives of these What’s My Line? celebrities–among my favorites were Bennett Cerf, Steve Allen and Soupy Sales–could be just as strange, interesting and mysterious as the vocations of the people they interviewed.

Dorothy Kilgallen, for example, one of the celebrity hosts, was the only reporter to have interviewed Jack Ruby, the killer of Lee Harvey Oswald. She is widely believed to have later been murdered, so vociferous was her criticism of the U.S. government.

Celebrity status can, of course, be achieved through many other means besides being a guest or contestant on a popular game show. For example, the Olympic Games can bring out surprising—and sometimes shocking—performances from athletes, making or breaking their celebrity. The very public exposure of their talents on display may either impress through a great performance or dismay with a humiliating disaster. Then who, exactly, is the Olympian’s Real Me? It may be as fickle as a single day’s unanticipated performance.

Life can expose the Real Me of ordinary people through such uncertain elements as time, circumstance, environment, and the people we associate with. They can help determine our Real Me at any given moment. Like a many-layered mystery, the Real Me that we present might be kind, responsible or heroic. Or, at a weak moment, we can embarrass ourselves by becoming an irresponsible nogoodnick. Ouch.

Last Friday, I congratulated myself for being my best Real Me. With miniscule custodial help to clean my classroom, I took it upon myself to raid the janitorial closet, seizing broom, mop, bucket and detergent. For the next three hours I sanitized my room. Drenched in perspiration and aching, I fancied myself as something of a heroic figure.

Until, that is, I realized for how many months I had avoided doing this obviously long-overdue chore, leaving undone that which I knew to do. I easily qualified as a nogoodnik.

A What’s My Line? contestant rises or falls on the ability to conceal the Real Me.

But in reality-anchored non-TV-land, being unafraid of knowing the Real Me, and then nurturing the best possible Real Me, is the most hopeful way forward.

Señor Duck

Goose Envy is a common malady among less glamorous birds. Birds as diverse as the Dodo and the Greater Adjutant Stork have long wished for incarnation as a glamorous goose.

The sometimes snarky Señor Duck suffered from the malaise. Perched on top of a Corinthian-inspired pillar and having donned his handsome sombrero, he resembled a south-of-the-border hood ornament. He pictured himself, however, with elegant broad goose wings, their handsome plumage folded against his ribs, his head supported upon a great length of graceful gooseneck, rather than his own squatty cervical vertebrae.

The other fantasy that crowded his brain was Lucy. If anything could, she had partially restored his faith in Duckdom. She was the most gorgeous duck he had ever laid eyes on, with elegant, teasing feathers and a sly, pouting beak. He briefly met her prior to Lucy’s southward migration flight to Mexico last season, and he couldn’t get her out of his head.

Señor Duck was so conflicted over Lucy’s southward departure that he donned the Mexican sombrero and perched atop his Corinthian post, hoping that upon her return fly-by from Mexico his festive outfit would catch her eye, and that she would be curious enough to stop for a chat. If he got lucky, they might wind up preening together at a local pond.

He waited, waited, and waited for her return. Each time he replayed the fantasy of the last time he saw her, his fantasy grew. He could still imagine her noble and strong silhouette against the dawn’s first light of her Southward departure.

So there he sat with his own private thoughts, wishing his appearance were more handsomely goose-like, and despondent not to be reunited with Lucy, flown to Mexico.

Throughout his long weeks waiting for Lucy, he did not recognize that as he sat, his wings had atrophied, growing weaker with each passing day and month. The skin on his feet grew pale and brittle from disuse. The world waddled painfully and slowly beneath his unmoving limbs.

During the most disappointing times, fantasies are all we can hold on to. But the trouble with fantasies is that they are a record of realities as we once perceived them, not necessarily the current state of affairs. They are manufactured dreamworks—realities as we want them to be, but not as they actually are.

The Lucy of his fantasies never did return; the Lucy who eventually did come back was not the same gorgeous Lucy that had left for Mexico.

Instead, she returned as a mother duck with a handsome drake alongside her. Her once-glamorous feathers were now worn and faded from the long flight and the strain of raising ducklings. She had a new purpose in her eye—the mellowed purpose that experience gives.

But sombrero-donning Señor Duck had not waited for her to return. A few weeks before her migration return from Mexico, he had stretched his withered legs from on top of his Corinthian post, spread his atrophied wings, fluttered to the ground, and started gingerly waddling.

The time alone on the Corinthian post had gradually mellowed his fantasies. The strain of trying to become more goose-like had eventually helped him to accept himself. The more he viewed the silhouetted profile of himself perched upon his column, the more comfortable he had become with it. And Lucy—well, he figured that she probably had gone on with her life also. They had both changed. He gradually squeezed shut the door to his fantasies, took a deep breath, and leaned forward.

The fantasies—those things that never really should, could or would have happened—gradually faded like dark shadows, bleached away by the dawn.

Testing his withered but strengthening legs, Señor Duck began reclaiming his own best possible destiny, one step, two steps, three duck waddle steps at a time.

Limbs Lost Long Ago

His rehabilitation therapy at the hospital was the easy part. Figuring out how to make do with part of his body missing was the hard part.

Adapting to life as a damaged soul would be this soldier’s next battle. Still, he felt strong and up to the task, except, that is, for the fuzzy, lightheaded glow he felt whenever his nurse made her rounds.

The infirmary held his wounds together, and soon, as he healed, she held his heart together with her hand on his. He had lost his leg to the war; he lost his heart to this woman, now so long ago.

Then, with her own unforeseen illness, the hospital held them both, long florescent corridors distancing them from one another, her leg also lost now so long ago.

After their release from the corridors, the doctors were unsure how much more time they would have left to share together.

So they moved their fast-track courtship from the hospital floor to the dance floor, balancing the uneven steps of their imitation legs with a slow-motion waltz, their limbs lost long ago.

The winds that finally blew out the flames of the exhausted war served to fan their love. Gradually, unexpectedly, their years together gathered and grew; they savored each one as a welcome, precious gift.

And on each side of their bed every night, their wooden legs rested like attendants ready to serve, faithful companions to replace their limbs lost long ago.

When at last his life had run its course and later, when her life had done the same, they carried her carefully from their bed.

Then, gently, they brought out their wooden limbs, where every night of their lives together they had been carefully laid by the bed, patiently awaiting the next day’s dawning.

Now they, too, like the soldier and the nurse, would remain together, limbs lost long ago.

The Next Bigger, Better Version

Being successful entails making changes: new mindsets, new goals, new promises. Like the ever-increasing bottle sizes on display at California’s Niner Wine Estates near Paso Robles, they are new, improved versions. Each one is bigger and better than the one before. Obsolete systems and old versions that have grown clunky become obsolete.

The personal computer industry is replete with examples.

The evolution of the great cats began with Cheetah, at least according to Apple. Every so often, this computer company convinces its users that its software operating system, with each successive version named after one of the great cats, has morphed into a newer, more powerful version of its former self. Cheetah begat Puma, which began Jaguar, followed by Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, and Lion, soon to be followed by Mountain Lion. If this keeps up, I am concerned for Apple. One evolutionary cycle too many, perhaps not long from now, and they will run out of cat names. I fear Feral Cat could be the final, dissatisfying version of their evolutionary software.

They could, of course, begin a new evolutionary track for their software updates. Invertebrate sea animals might be catchy. This tactic would lead them to fearsome and memorable creature names such as Giant Squid and Giant Octopus. But where would they go from there? Cuttlefish hardly inspires software prowess, suggesting instead a soggy romantic embrace. Starfish could pass muster, but after that, there’s no where to go but down. Eventually, Apple would wind up with versions called Sea Biscuit, Sea Worm and Sea Snail. It’s difficult to imagine software geeks hovering over their Starbuck Frappuccinos comparing the outrageously cool features of Apple’s latest Sea Slug operating system.

Better find a different evolutionary trail to follow.

No matter what they are called, when old systems become outdated, they need to be replaced. Times change. Needs change. Strategies change.

Likewise, newer versions of our lives should evolve. How long has it been since we’ve rolled out the next version of the personal operating system governing our lives, employing new mindsets, new goals, new promises.

At a recent conference I attended, I realized that I was probably the oldest guy in the room. I also recognized that my function and purpose had changed. No longer was the activity centered around me; it was all about them. They were the team. I was a cheerleader of sorts, older, more experienced. Simply being there—showing up—helped give credence to the others that this event was, in fact, worth doing. I had entered into a newer version of the expectations governing my life’s operating system.

We need updates to the long-ago life goals scratched in our high school year books. Perhaps we’ve been running Operating system Sophomore beyond its intended useful life. To re-tune our current endeavors and re-think our future plans, maybe it’s time for a system upgrade to discover the next version of our bigger, better selves.

A House in Underwear

The gigantic lettering on the white background should say Hanes instead of Lowe’s. The house has been caught in its underwear. But a house is neither a plumber, stooped to do his job while displaying three inches of peek-a-boo underwear, nor is it the slouched and sloppy wannabe gang banger with his barely-hanging-on undies. Typically, one doesn’t see what’s beneath a house’s siding, its protective exterior veneer.

In this case, a contractor has surgically removed the house’s damaged skin. Over time, it succumbed to dry rot, which gradually ate away the wood siding like a cancer. The disclosed vulnerability invited the appetites of hyena-like termite invaders, patiently awaiting their opportunistic feast.

The house, which we entrust to shelter us, is now in its most vulnerable state. Without outside protection, the Lowes underwear merely hides its shame against total indignity.

In a few short weeks, the house will again be fully clothed in new, high-tech siding, boasting new energy-efficient rebate-worthy windows throughout and upgraded air conditioners surgically implanted into the walls instead of crazily hanging onto window frames. The foliage, trimmed back to the extreme for this reconstructive surgery, will recover and bloom, calling home the temporarily displaced honeybees and hummingbirds. Soon, it will stand out as the most gleaming house on the street.

And I will be proud because this house belongs to me.

One day, inevitably, I will move on to my Permanent Home, and this house will no longer belong to me. The new owners will have no memory of its kindly, welcoming days of service, providing lodging for my guests. Nor will they recall the rowdy noise of laughter, the boisterous joy of holidays, and even the occasional weeping, all of which left their indelible marks within its walls. They will know nothing of the hospitality of its front yard—the children’s Slip ‘n’ Slide gatherings, and later, for those same children, the wedding receptions.

The blueprints will tell the new owners it is the same house, but it really won’t quite be the same house for them.

They will have missed this parental-like connection; they will not have seen the house at its most vulnerable, standing in its Lowes underwear, with the labels showing. They will not know of our efforts to save her from decay.

For each of us, the place we call home harbors significant events and memories of our lives, secreting them from others, selfishly enshrining them as our own private treasures.

1-1-3

Working in a parole office, there are moments to suspend belief. Or perhaps there are rarer moments to actually engage belief. It depends upon which side of belief you start on.

Life stories stretch and relax with no logical explanation. You pick up some and discard others.

Last week, two new students who are on parole began the interminable paperwork required for each new student to enroll in my literacy class: name, address, social security number, parole agent’s name, birthdate…

Wait. What? Birthdate?

One student’s birthdate was January 13, 1979.

I reviewed the other student’s data. And his birthday, amazingly, was also January 13. Even more astoundingly, the year was also 1979.

Two students registered for my class at the same time, on the same day, who were also born on the same day, the same month and the same year.

What are the chances?

How many of us have experienced similar weird circumstantial encounters in our own lives? And, perhaps, we have narrowly missed other up-to-chance events that we will never find out about. How could we know if we passed a first grade classmate, thirty years later, walking just beyond our sight on our hurried way to the post office?

Oh…one other detail. My own birthday is also January 13. So three of us sat together, joined together by a common birthday, and that was all.

Two fellows on parole and one teacher. All joined by January 13. Numerically expressed, the date becomes 1-1-3.

We held up our fingers to mark the circumstance. In some small and weird way, we bonded over something so apparently trivial as our birthdays.

I wondered how many other “one-one-threes” are waiting to be discovered in the people right around us. “Something-something-somethings”—they are the small things that can remove barriers.

In a world shredded by criminal backgrounds, race, religion and social class, we may find ourselves repeating the seemingly inane quote by the late Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along?”

By discovering more 1-1-3s in the weaving of our lives, perhaps we can.

Mega-Stretchfabric Man

In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best time for me to enter the candy and soda pop store, just when Mega-Stretchfabric Man was on the prowl, examining the goods and consuming the high-calorie, caffeine-injected junk food lining the shelves. The store was being held hostage by this super-villain gone bad. He is a superhero gone astray, a powerful force who used to advocate for a the low fat, low sugar lifestyle. Not any more.

But still, he’s Mega-Stretchfabric Man. He can do as he pleases.

What happened to him can become the fate of any one of us when we pursue destructive, self-indulgent behavior. In our own thinking, we can do no wrong. All is justified.

We can easily list political leaders, spiritual leaders, bankers, business folks, even physicians who have, over time, become their own version of Mega-Stretchfabric Man. They’ve fallen.

Somewhere on that list we can probably add our own name because change can happen gradually. Self-interest seeps in, drowning our nobler aspirations. We can all fail to live up to our aspirations.

Slowly we devolve, morph, change into that which we do not wish to become–and we may become our own version of the irritating, crimson-suited, Mega-Stretchfabric Man, an unwelcome transformation that is apparent to everyone else but ourselves.

But hold on. The End has not arrived. Remember, in Comic Book Land, there are heroes to counterbalance every villain’s influence. Every hero has equally powerful choices to make to turn things around. Heroes conquer one thought, one action, one attitude at a time.

Put on your stretch suit, hero. We’ve got work to do.