I OPEN EVERY DOOR

  I am acquainted with a very nice person, nearly my age who likes this blog except for when I write about the current ideological divide (politics). Their comment was, “I could do without the political drama.” I have always invited comments and I do make a conscious effort at civility. By definition, the words judgment and opinion are almost synonymous except, one requires objective evidence while the other is driven by subjective feelings. Still I would think you can have strong feelings about objective conclusions. I feel the same way about traditional religion; I can do without self-righteous hyperbole. At the same time I keep trying to find balance. Belief & Faith are kissing cousins but (again) by definition, belief is a measure of acceptance. I can accept the weather forecast without having much faith in it. Faith goes beyond acceptance. Requiring no compelling proof it is accepted as an absolute truth. I believe in many conservative principles still I have no faith in the way they want to accomplish those ideas. 
Since I discovered Elie Wiesel (Holocaust survivor & Nobel Laureate) I have embraced his thoughts on writing. He said, “I write to understand as much as to be understood.” I write in self defense, to satisfy the 12 year-old who is trapped inside my head. He would rather have me struggle with an ugly truth than take comfort in either ignorance or denial. I cannot dig in the dirt and not get it on me; it is what it is.  There is no satisfaction in a bad diagnosis. But I feel compelled to write the story however bad it may smell. I get the benefit (Wiesel). When I’ve finished, a large, complicated story has been organized and digested. I don’t memorize anything but I can connect the dots. Emily Dickinson said, “Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.” Between the two of them I find a thread of vindication. Any political ‘Drama’ I generate is more than offset by positive, grateful stories. My unmerited good fortune and good life are almost always mentioned somewhere in my story and I’ll probably keep doing what I’ve been doing. 

THE PERCEPTION OF CONTROL

Good StoryTellers need be able to reflect on their own story, how it fleshes out as experience and more important, what it means. Some would dismiss my reflecting as Navel Gazing but what do they know! I’ve been reflecting on and off for a week on the same idea. I wouldn’t say it’s funny but it is interesting how important experiences can lay dormant for years and then bloom again when you least expect it. 
Thirty years ago my awesome job in Kansas City imploded along with the school district. All of the resource teachers (over 100 of us) our jobs were eliminated and we could either move on or be reassigned to a traditional classroom position. As a (door closes & a window opens) kind of person I moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana and a science teaching position at an alternative high school. Our students, all (120) of them had been expelled from public schools. They were in trouble with the courts regardless of their age and answered directly to court appointed case workers. The only thing they had going for them was a serious desire for an education and tough love at Northdale Academy. As long as they stayed out of trouble and were making progress toward a diploma they stayed in a state of limbo between self-defeating influences and the promise of an open-ended possibility. The Northdale Story would read like a Tom Clancy novel and we have neither time nor space here for that.
Driving to school on the interstate in late October, traffic was stopped in gridlock and I was hit from behind. The impact sent my little Mazda truck up and on top of the car in front of me; a total loss. If you have never been in such a violent collision I don’t think I can translate the feeling into words. I’ll never forget the force of that jolt or the sense of helplessness. After that I got a ride to and from school with another teacher, rode my bicycle otherwise but not anxious to replace the truck just yet. The challenge at school was surreal. As a white man from the North we had a culture clash where neither understood the other’s purpose and accepting the other’s ground rules was out of the question.
By Thanksgiving I realized it would take more time and energy than I could justify to break the ice with my students and I gave notice to my Principal. He thanked me for my efforts and assured me the kids were trying. They had softened some with me but I wanted more than just a job. What I had been doing was negotiating a cease-fire and I needed to see academic progress or I wasn’t doing my job. Long story short; my son in Kansas City started looking for a used truck for me. He is the real-deal truck guy and I trust him to do a good search and make a good deal. When I returned to Kansas City on Christmas break of ‘95 there was a blue, 1980 GMC Sonoma parked in his drive. Before that I had applied for a midyear opening at Allendale High School near Grand Rapids. The week after Xmas I drove my GMC Sonoma to Michigan, interviewed and signed a contract with Allendale to begin teaching the second week of January. The gig at Allendale turned out to be a fairytale ending for a 35 year career, consolidating all previous retirement benefits from 4 states into Michigan’s system. It was absolutely the right place and exactly the right time. The Louisiana thing was a grand adventure, by definition a situation where the outcome is unknown and it holds the possibility of both victory and defeat. It turned out to be both. The (Life Lesson) was one you could only appreciate through perseverance, a relentless struggle and to some degree a sense of loss. Still it set me up perfectly for the Allendale opportunity. The door closed and a window opened. 
Leap forward 30 years; Kansas City, MO. January is supposed to be windy and cold with snow and ice and it has been but the roadways are clear and dry again. I was driving a familiar stretch of road through some woods. Cresting a hilltop I saw remnants of ice and snow on the blacktop ahead. There was no shoulder, none at all, only a narrow, snow filled ditch and a wire fence stretched between roadside trees. It is mind boggling how fast the perception of control can be stripped away. I tried to make course corrections but felt the right front tire drop down into that thin ditch and in a split second I knew I couldn’t keep us out of the trees. I don’t know if it was before or after the air bags went off but I felt the jolt and saw cracks run across the windshield like a spiderweb. We were stopped cold in a heartbeat as the Dodge Caravan and the tree became one together in a grim, abstract sculpture. 
I was upset, still am; a total loss and I had only liability insurance. They had already raised my rates because of my age and any significant claim would either put coverage out of reach or result in cancelation. I knew that going in. My decision had been and still is; drive an inexpensive old unit and take my chances. Since there were no injuries and no property damage other than the van, no violations, hauling the wreck back to my driveway was the only consequence. The police didn’t care who I was as long as the firemen said I was OK, just wanted to get the road cleared. But even as I rode with the tow truck driver, before we got to my house I couldn’t help but think about an open window somewhere. The Dodge had some nice features but I didn’t like its looks, named it Feo (Spanish for Ugly) and hated the way it drove. I had been driving a pickup for decades and the van simply couldn’t measure up to my expectations. 
        It’s been a week now. I am without transportation other than family offers to help get me where I need to be. I still have flashes, reflections on riding the end of a bull whip when it cracks. I reflect on the crash on I-10 back in ’95. This one didn’t make me ache and pain but I was going much slower than the car that plowed into me in Baton Rouge. Kinetic energy is going to have its way. On the brighter side I just got a text message from my son, the same son. He found an older but well cared for, low mileage Ford Ranger online. He talked with the old man who owns it and we are driving maybe 5 hours to (Oklahoma) next weekend to look at it. His asking price is within my reach but barely. Still, if it proves out I’ll feel a lot better turning the key, big side mirrors and pulling hills at 1,800 rpm. I think this is a window opening. How long windows stay open is another thing so if this one closes I trust there will be others and I’m not giving up. The crash itself will never be a good thing but sometimes bad things require a course correction that leads to something better. If not for the crash in Baton Rouge and the struggle at Northdale Academy the road back to Michigan would never have unfolded. One cannot know how things might have turned out on the road not taken but the Michigan Story is still turning pages and I wouldn’t want it any other way. So here I am again at a new beginning.  

THAT DEPENDS

  I don’t remember when I learned but as I recall, the name  Madeline Murray O’Hair was as much a curse as a name. She was the flesh & blood embodiment of what it means to be an Atheist. Before I knew better the word ‘Atheist’ called up images of witches, grave robbers, child molesters and worse. Madeline took on the government over the constitution’s article for separation of church and state. Through her efforts in 1963 the Supreme Court ruled that reading from the Bible in public schools is unconstitutional and that benchmark decision is still fueling controversy. 
For as long as they lived my parents believed I was faithful to the religion we were born into. They didn’t know that for decades I had been a closet Agnostic. Disclaimer: Atheism is as much a belief as any other doctrine. It is just negative in gender. Atheists believe from a strong position that an omnipotent, omniscient, supernatural god is nonexistent and any religion that submits to that authority is not only flawed but also distorted to manipulate large numbers of brainwashed people. So I distinguish between disbelief (Atheism) and unbelief (Agnosticism). One is a well framed construct while the other is simply a vacant space.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was a prominent British philosopher and mathematician who believed that religions were harmful and untrue. He became an Atheist at age 18 after questioning the existence of God and finding no evidence. He could speak to religion from both an Atheistic or Agnostic frame of reference and it made his critics furious. They tried to pin him down: “Which are you, Atheist or Agnostic?” He said more or less: “That depends. In theory I side with Agnostics, since the lack of evidence for or against something doesn’t prove anything. The fact that we cannot find evidence doesn’t prove there isn’t any. We can say without reservation that we just don’t know for sure. But in practice I side with the Atheist.” 
Since the early 80’s Bertrand Russell has been one of my champions. For myself I am comfortable with the idea; “I don’t know.” There would have to be compelling evidence (proof) for me to Believe in the supernatural. Giving my (I don’t know) a more qualified context would be; “Furthermore, I don’t care.” It would follow, hanging with Atheists puts me in good company. In good humor they accuse me of lacking courage to admit my Atheism and I counter with, “Show me the proof.” It’s a Catch 22. For my sake it doesn’t matter either way. 
I attend (belong to) a Unitarian Church and identify as Secular Humanists. Not many of us in the USA, only about 150,000 altogether and most Christians think we are a Christian denomination. When they learn otherwise the conversation can cool and you sense how thoroughly brainwashed those Believers can be. Our belief is that it doesn’t matter what you believe, what one truly believes will be manifest in what they do. So be the change that you want to see. We tend to be progressive with high priority on social justice, environmental responsibility and cultural diversity. My own personal observation is that we all agree that democracy swings on liberty & justice for all. The major political parties have fine tuned liberty and justice to their own purpose but have problems with addressing the ‘ALL’ part. That would be everybody. 
I have no qualms with Christians or their beliefs. I think religion is a self induced drug. If you need it or want it you should have it but I know people who identify as Recovering Christians. They carry emotional scars and bruises from abusive bias and self righteous mistreatment, so much so it takes a long time for the hurt and the anger to go away. I am neither scarred nor bruised. I sensed early in that there had to be a better story and my recovery is no more than moving on from an unbelievable expectation to a real possibility. My dad would have labeled Madeline Murray O’Hair a Heathen, an insult by any measure. In his last years I didn’t have it in me to tell him I am one of those heathens. It would have spoiled his day and that’s not how you be the change you want to see. 

HORSE POOP

  I heard a story ever so long ago about twin siblings, one a naive, unrealistic optimist and the other an unreconcilable pessimist. The parents tried every strategy imaginable to move them both to a more balanced perspective. On their birthday their presents were wrapped in large, identical boxes. The pessimist twin was first to open the gift. In the large box was a beautiful, new bicycle with a bell on the handlebars and a headlight on the fender. He looked at it for what seemed like a long time and began to cry. When asked what was wrong he replied, “I’ll crash and get hurt and then someone will steal it from me.” and he continued crying. The other twin started tearing the wrapping away from his gift, pulled open the lid and began to laugh and shout with excitement. The box was full of horse poop. He threw it down and ran from room to room, looking behind things, then outside in every space around the house. When his parents finally cornered him they asked, “What are you doing; your present was poop, why are you so happy?” The little boy could hardly contain himself replying; “I’m looking for my new pony.” 
Then I went to college, made a career and watched my children grow up and move on. Somewhere on that journey I learned that life is a bitch and then you die but I also learned that when a door closes a window opens somewhere. I have no idea how one becomes an optimist or pessimist but I made the connection between hard/smart work and a reward. I also made the distinction between pushing the rock up the hill and being dragged along behind it. I learned that living in the moment cannot be sustained but it can be framed into a repeating pattern, which I have learned to do. I cannot pause, rewind and undo a troublesome backstory but I can look for an open window.
Eckart Tolle wrote a little book titled, The Power Of Now. I am neither a fan nor a critic of Eckhart Tolle but his little book speaks a profound truth. “Nothing ever happened in the past nor will anything happen in the future. Everything that happens, happens in the present, in the moment, in the Now!  When tomorrow or next year arrive, in that moment they will have been transformed into the Now.
There was no ‘Ah-ha’ experience but I got it. It is good to reflect on good times and on lessons learned and making plans is good as well. But the message I get is this; don’t waste the moment waiting on the future or reflecting when there is something more important that can be addressed immediately. I don’t think anybody can keep track of every variable that lands in their lap or stay totally focused on the moment. But I nurture the pattern and with even the slightest prompt I am reminded; look for the open window.
I had one of those bad days recently and I got upset and angry, not knowing how to behave. But then it came to me like the hook-line from a favorite song. I can’t measure how good this life has been to me and even on good days sh*t happens, it’s the tail-side of life’s coin. I can be in the moment, find the open window. I’m not happy but neither will I beat myself up over a the consequence of a bad day last week and a new pony won't change anything. As long as there is no angst or malice on my part, I’ll keep moving my feet and let Happy find me. 

AS BLIZZARDS GO

  I don’t remember how wide spread it was but the blizzard of January ’77 brought West Michigan to a standstill for two weeks. I taught biology at the high school and we bussed kids home early on Friday, January the 7th; didn’t resume classes again until Monday the 24th. We lived on a blacktop road a mile or so south of town. The house was good but old, poorly insulated with inadequate storm windows. The wind changed direction every other day while the temp hovered around zero during the day and plunged in the dark. Snow plows ran but the roads drifted closed again immediately. Driveways were buried by the snow plow and if you didn’t have a tractor or front-end loader there was no way out. One family followed the snow plow into town and got stuck there for the night as the road drifted in before they could finish their business. We burned fuel oil in the furnace and the delivery truck couldn’t deliver; naturally our 250 gallon tank was near empty. We also burned wood in an airtight stove in the family room but with subzero cold it took both to keep the water pipes from freezing.
After the first week I walked to town every day with a 5 gallon can, filled it at the fuel depot, carried it home and funneled it into the tank to be sure we wouldn’t run out in the night. Our car was buried in the driveway. Cabin fever took over so several times a day we bundled the kids up and took them outside for supervised play. Fifteen or twenty minutes and back inside but the diversion and the cold took the edge off. I have a photograph of my twin boys, age 6, standing on top of a huge drift which was actually their snow-covered swing-set. 
From Kansas across through Indiana we have just hunkered down in a blizzard that took two and a half days to pummel us with subfreezing temps, high winds with freezing rain and snow. Most places measured 6” to 18” of snow over a layer of ice and many people who ventured out in it never got to where they were going. I got home on Friday just as the freezing rain began. This is Monday, the temp is forecast for 1 degree tonight but the snow and wind have moved on. I took it seriously, checked temperature in the garage and it stayed in the low 40’s while it was single digits outside. 
Meteorologists and TV stations treated it as if the end times were here and rightly so; it doesn’t take many aggressive, over-confident, unskilled drivers to shut down the Interstate network. Today YouTube was saturated with jack-knifing semi trucks and helpless commuters sliding backwards or sideways on ice covered bridges and banked curves. But as blizzards go, this was maybe a 5 on a 10 scale. The slippery conditions are enough to keep me off the road but uneducated or indifferent drivers send me hiding under my bed. The teeth of the storm lasted about 48 hours at best and public works had been treating roads long before the freezing rain began. 
I won’t criticize foolish people for their poor judgment, it has become a way of life. How many today would walk into town for a five gallon can of fuel to get their furnace through the night? Still I can’t help think about early settlers who wagon-trained and homesteaded here and on the plains in horse and wagon days. None of them had a town nearby or a five gallon can. Even more so we should admire those indigenous people who had survived and prospered on the North American plains for thousands of years. No permanent houses, no matches to start fires, no sharp, cutting tools, sleeping on the ground, under animal skins, in a tent; they had to function in blizzards as well. American Exceptionalism is an idea that feeds on modern technology and self-serving ambition. As awesome as we may be there is a dash of the evil stepmother’s arrogance, “Mirror, mirror on the wall; who is fairest of them all?” But good and evil come in the same package. I think exceptionalism should include those primitive people who prospered without a parachute, without investors or C.E.O.’s, before invading Spaniards brought horses to the great plains. For thousands of years they sustained a loosely organized network that was civilized. Their culture was not predicated on expansion and material wealth but they provided food for all, recognized leadership, demonstrated a spiritual investment and participated in a trade system with other nations. 
It will be cold again tomorrow and the next day but the sun will shine. I’ll shovel enough to get the car out onto the street and see how the roads look. The weather got everyone’s attention but likely soon forgotten. I’m too old to be taken seriously. This is the day of podcast, ‘X’ and TikTok and no blizzard is going to change that. If someone were to scold me over a hint of sarcasm then I credit them for paying attention. 

DÉJÀ VU

A person described as being Wiry would be lean, tough and sinewy. That would be my dad. He was hard as nails, couldn’t have been a fraction over 5’5” with a short fuse and an explosive temper.  On the other hand my mother was patient and soft-spoken. I compare my parents to a sailing ship. He would be up there in full view, the mainsail, catching the wind that drove us forward. Mom would be out of sight under the water at the bak of the boat. She was the rudder and the course we followed would be hers to say. She had a way with Dad like nobody else. It wasn’t until after I was grown that I sensed her patient persistence was the taproot of our family magic and that our moral compass had always been in her hands. 
My morning ritual takes about twenty minutes of transition from slumber to serviced, dressed and fully engaged. That is when I turn the corner to greet the kitchen and yesterday’s dirty dishes. It’s a good time. My chores as a kid included drying dishes. I was tall enough to reach the back of the counter-top and with a step-stool I could stack plates in the cabinet. After supper that was my inside job. My outside chore was to help hang clothes on the clothesline. I dragged the clothes basket and handed up clothespins from the bag as we moved along. 
Nowadays I begin with my morning pill regimen and put coffee on. Then I do dishes, alternating between washing and drying as counter space requires. Every time I run hot water and watch suds boil up in the sink I reflect on drying dishes for Mom. I have a good dishwasher but you don’t throw dirty dishes in the machine without cleaning them off first and I figure; might as well just do it all in one stroke. Besides, the machine is a major drain on both electricity and hot water.
I could dismiss the dish-washing déjà vu as coincidence but there is more. I like to think of growing old, with the accent on ‘Growing’. The word by itself implies a natural progression, something gained and when I stop growing there will be nothing left to appreciate. This will be the second winter with clotheslines stretched wall to wall in the garage. Again, the clothes dryer requires expensive energy while dry air in the garage is already paid for. So I am pinching clothespins again and letting nature air-dry things and I think of it as (still growing). The déjà vu has legs to stand on now. I don’t have a helper to scoot the basket along or hand me clothes pins but it is what it is. 
For decades she gently influenced him to stop smoking and curb his cursing. His profane vocabulary only had two phrases: God damn and Son of a bitch that he creatively crafted into angry free verse. He went from smoking two packs a day to a couple of cigars a week and the cursing subsided from impulsive outbursts to mumbling under his breath. On the other hand my cursing vocabulary runs both wide and deep but it never surrenders to impulse or outburst. When I think cursing is called for it comes crafted to its purpose, in a tone that infers some forethought. In truth, not to misrepresent myself; I do have occasional outbursts that escape unedited. But they don’t come framed in civilized language, rather a growling, howling complaint that lasts as long as the feeling prevails.
It’s been nearly two weeks since Winter Solstice. One of my boys came over to help me celebrate the oldest, continuously observed holiday in human history. Christmas was moved by the early Roman church from March or April (when baby Jesus was born) to align with Solstice, the pagan holiday as a ploy to help convert heathens. By now it can be perceived arguably as a secular holiday now that has more economic significance than spiritual. But either way, I want to reach farther back for a touch of prehistoric human history. So we sat on the patio, ran a fire in the chiminea, welcomed the return of the sun from its southern swoop to shorter shadows, to the promise of warmer days and shorter nights. As the fire died down we borrowed from Christian tradition, communion in the spirit of Mother Nature with peach brandy and chocolate. Then we went inside and ate green chili. Our conversation ranged from ancient history to my granddaughters futures. One is in college and the other is on the cusp, soon to stretch her own wings. All things in their own time. We create our own karma, what goes around comes back around and you never know who’s watching so always wear the hat you want to be remembered by.