fI watch the sun rise over the ocean a lot but rarely do I get to do it 17,000 feet in the air. Flying out of Jacksonville the pilot hugs the coast of Florida. It is black when we take off and the stars of the Milky Way are brilliant in their display. I stare out of the window trying to pick out the cities that we are flying over. St. Augustine. Daytona.
Then it begins. The ocean goes on forever and is black and brooding. Then a hint of pink appears on the horizon thin and distant. I watch it as it turns redder and redder. The black sky turns into the deepest of blues with a growing red line over a black sea that remains asleep.
I can recognize the shoreline easily now and see waves that appear to be miles long softly kissing the beach. The ocean turns from black to gray. A haze of yellow begins to erupt from the red line. The dark blue sky becomes muted. Clouds appear that are almost as gray as the sea and I can’t help but think that they are still asleep but will wake soon.
The yellow haze begins to fade and the deep red line becomes this mixture of colors that reach upward becoming one with the blue sky. White clouds roll in and the ocean turns green. And I feel blessed to witness the birth of a day.
Eventually this one took me back to St. Martin which I love. A day of travel by yourself can leave you melancholy so I was ready for action. After immigration was finally convinced that I would eventually leave the island, I was allowed in.
Because of a lengthy delay, I’d missed my ride so I met Nate, the cab driver. As we made our way to the other side of the island, he happily sang Christmas songs that were blaring from the radio.
“Hey Nate, it’s kind of early for Christmas isn’t it?”
Naw Mon,” he replied with a smile. “It starts Halloween here.”
Alright then. Nate pulled into the lone grocery store still open so that I could pick up provisions. Inside children of all colors and sizes were dressed in costumes, mostly ghosts and devils. As I made my way up and down the aisles, they would come and smile at me and hand ME a piece of candy. One little boy dressed as Superman screamed bloody murder every time he saw one. It is hard not to love it here.
I called my Mom to tell her that I was safe and she told me that I was in the New York Times Book Review. It seems that my book Tour of Homes is listed as one of the best books about Savannah by a local author. Cool Beans!
It didn’t take me long to unpack the storage bin and arrange the room. As I did so Paul and Nancy were knocking on my door. They are friends from Canada and were dressed as Jokers on the card. They told me that they had a place reserved for me at their table for the big Halloween party. It is damn nice to be welcomed and know that you have been anticipated.
So I stumbled next door to the party and the place was more packed than I’d ever seen it with everyone in crazy costumes. My friend Carlos, dressed like a Chicago mobster, threw people out of the way to give me a bear hug. “It is all good now that you are here,” he said. “Are you good?”
“I’m alright,” I told him.
And I am. It’s a new day that was ending with a hell of a party. There is no lack of people wanting to talk, all of them aware of the changes in my life. Like every place there was one who tried to be funny about it but ended up looking like an ass. But the Sabbatical on the road ended with lots of hugs (mostly from the people who work here), amusement, laughs and promises of things to come.
And I am a firm believer in promises of things to come.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Promises of things to come
fI watch the sun rise over the ocean a lot but rarely do I get to do it 17,000 feet in the air. Flying out of Jacksonville the pilot hugs the coast of Florida. It is black when we take off and the stars of the Milky Way are brilliant in their display. I stare out of the window trying to pick out the cities that we are flying over. St. Augustine. Daytona.
Then it begins. The ocean goes on forever and is black and brooding. Then a hint of pink appears on the horizon thin and distant. I watch it as it turns redder and redder. The black sky turns into the deepest of blues with a growing red line over a black sea that remains asleep.
I can recognize the shoreline easily now and see waves that appear to be miles long softly kissing the beach. The ocean turns from black to gray. A haze of yellow begins to erupt from the red line. The dark blue sky becomes muted. Clouds appear that are almost as gray as the sea and I can’t help but think that they are still asleep but will wake soon.
The yellow haze begins to fade and the deep red line becomes this mixture of colors that reach upward becoming one with the blue sky. White clouds roll in and the ocean turns green. And I feel blessed to witness the birth of a day.
Eventually this one took me back to St. Martin which I love. A day of travel by yourself can leave you melancholy so I was ready for action. After immigration was finally convinced that I would eventually leave the island, I was allowed in.
Because of a lengthy delay, I’d missed my ride so I met Nate, the cab driver. As we made our way to the other side of the island, he happily sang Christmas songs that were blaring from the radio.
“Hey Nate, it’s kind of early for Christmas isn’t it?”
Naw Mon,” he replied with a smile. “It starts Halloween here.”
Alright then. Nate pulled into the lone grocery store still open so that I could pick up provisions. Inside children of all colors and sizes were dressed in costumes, mostly ghosts and devils. As I made my way up and down the aisles, they would come and smile at me and hand ME a piece of candy. One little boy dressed as Superman screamed bloody murder every time he saw one. It is hard not to love it here.
I called my Mom to tell her that I was safe and she told me that I was in the New York Times Book Review. It seems that my book Tour of Homes is listed as one of the best books about Savannah by a local author. Cool Beans!
It didn’t take me long to unpack the storage bin and arrange the room. As I did so Paul and Nancy were knocking on my door. They are friends from Canada and were dressed as Jokers on the card. They told me that they had a place reserved for me at their table for the big Halloween party. It is damn nice to be welcomed and know that you have been anticipated.
So I stumbled next door to the party and the place was more packed than I’d ever seen it with everyone in crazy costumes. My friend Carlos, dressed like a Chicago mobster, threw people out of the way to give me a bear hug. “It is all good now that you are here,” he said. “Are you good?”
“I’m alright,” I told him.
And I am. It’s a new day that was ending with a hell of a party. There is no lack of people wanting to talk, all of them aware of the changes in my life. Like every place there was one who tried to be funny about it but ended up looking like an ass. But the Sabbatical on the road ended with lots of hugs (mostly from the people who work here), amusement, laughs and promises of things to come.
And I am a firm believer in promises of things to come.
Then it begins. The ocean goes on forever and is black and brooding. Then a hint of pink appears on the horizon thin and distant. I watch it as it turns redder and redder. The black sky turns into the deepest of blues with a growing red line over a black sea that remains asleep.
I can recognize the shoreline easily now and see waves that appear to be miles long softly kissing the beach. The ocean turns from black to gray. A haze of yellow begins to erupt from the red line. The dark blue sky becomes muted. Clouds appear that are almost as gray as the sea and I can’t help but think that they are still asleep but will wake soon.
The yellow haze begins to fade and the deep red line becomes this mixture of colors that reach upward becoming one with the blue sky. White clouds roll in and the ocean turns green. And I feel blessed to witness the birth of a day.
Eventually this one took me back to St. Martin which I love. A day of travel by yourself can leave you melancholy so I was ready for action. After immigration was finally convinced that I would eventually leave the island, I was allowed in.
Because of a lengthy delay, I’d missed my ride so I met Nate, the cab driver. As we made our way to the other side of the island, he happily sang Christmas songs that were blaring from the radio.
“Hey Nate, it’s kind of early for Christmas isn’t it?”
Naw Mon,” he replied with a smile. “It starts Halloween here.”
Alright then. Nate pulled into the lone grocery store still open so that I could pick up provisions. Inside children of all colors and sizes were dressed in costumes, mostly ghosts and devils. As I made my way up and down the aisles, they would come and smile at me and hand ME a piece of candy. One little boy dressed as Superman screamed bloody murder every time he saw one. It is hard not to love it here.
I called my Mom to tell her that I was safe and she told me that I was in the New York Times Book Review. It seems that my book Tour of Homes is listed as one of the best books about Savannah by a local author. Cool Beans!
It didn’t take me long to unpack the storage bin and arrange the room. As I did so Paul and Nancy were knocking on my door. They are friends from Canada and were dressed as Jokers on the card. They told me that they had a place reserved for me at their table for the big Halloween party. It is damn nice to be welcomed and know that you have been anticipated.
So I stumbled next door to the party and the place was more packed than I’d ever seen it with everyone in crazy costumes. My friend Carlos, dressed like a Chicago mobster, threw people out of the way to give me a bear hug. “It is all good now that you are here,” he said. “Are you good?”
“I’m alright,” I told him.
And I am. It’s a new day that was ending with a hell of a party. There is no lack of people wanting to talk, all of them aware of the changes in my life. Like every place there was one who tried to be funny about it but ended up looking like an ass. But the Sabbatical on the road ended with lots of hugs (mostly from the people who work here), amusement, laughs and promises of things to come.
And I am a firm believer in promises of things to come.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Another Journey of One
I am still not used to it. Traveling alone for work has been a norm for as long as I can remember. As the years passed though, I often was able to take my companion with me to wonderful cities and fantastic places throughout the United States. That was fun.
We traveled a lot aside from work too happily knocking out Caribbean Islands until we found St. Martin and this wonderful carnival of friends. Back in those days I kept journals of all of our trips. I would chronicle our adventures and punctuate them with drawings that I did. Memories of good times that now collect dust on a shelf in my bedroom closet.
Last April was the first time that I began a journey of one, returning to St. Martin alone. My friend Conner met me there for a “boy’s trip” because I didn’t have another option. We had a good time as he and I always do but if I could have chosen for it to be the way that it had been before I would have.
Then in June I did it again and Conner and Hania and hung out. What had been a foursome had been reduced by one. It takes getting used to.
Now I head back again. In several days Conner and Hania will join me again and we’ll have fun again, though everything is different now.
Everything about my life is different now. Very little is the same as it was just several months ago. I am on this journey though I’m not quite sure where I’m heading. Everyone tells me how great it’s going to be though and how successful I’m going to be at it. It’s interesting hearing them.
There is no joy in traveling alone. The destination may be fine and I may enjoy myself once I arrive but once you’ve had the pleasure of laughing and whispering and planning all of the things that you want to do as you make your way, well it makes it lonely and contemplative when you no longer have those things.
So I’m off today to return to a place that I love; a place that someone used to love with me. But that is the past. And I don’t live there anymore.
We traveled a lot aside from work too happily knocking out Caribbean Islands until we found St. Martin and this wonderful carnival of friends. Back in those days I kept journals of all of our trips. I would chronicle our adventures and punctuate them with drawings that I did. Memories of good times that now collect dust on a shelf in my bedroom closet.
Last April was the first time that I began a journey of one, returning to St. Martin alone. My friend Conner met me there for a “boy’s trip” because I didn’t have another option. We had a good time as he and I always do but if I could have chosen for it to be the way that it had been before I would have.
Then in June I did it again and Conner and Hania and hung out. What had been a foursome had been reduced by one. It takes getting used to.
Now I head back again. In several days Conner and Hania will join me again and we’ll have fun again, though everything is different now.
Everything about my life is different now. Very little is the same as it was just several months ago. I am on this journey though I’m not quite sure where I’m heading. Everyone tells me how great it’s going to be though and how successful I’m going to be at it. It’s interesting hearing them.
There is no joy in traveling alone. The destination may be fine and I may enjoy myself once I arrive but once you’ve had the pleasure of laughing and whispering and planning all of the things that you want to do as you make your way, well it makes it lonely and contemplative when you no longer have those things.
So I’m off today to return to a place that I love; a place that someone used to love with me. But that is the past. And I don’t live there anymore.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Get An Afterlife!
St. Augustine, Florida was the first place that I came to learn that the world is a much bigger place than what I’d been exposed to growing up in Port Wentworth, Georgia. America’s oldest city with its Spanish architecture, narrow streets and ancient fort made me realize that the world is much more than the Sugar Refinery and Continental Can Company.
I’ve been to the old city countless times and always enjoy being there. So yesterday, mainly because I wanted to go, Mom, Jeremy, Marie, and Chelsea all loaded into the car and we drove an hour to get there. After finding a parking place on the main street, we walked to the Mill Top Tavern, one of my holy places.
With an incredible view of the old city, the fort and the river, the Mill Top also has live music throughout most of the day. So we got an outdoor table on the deck and settled in for a few hours of salt air and acoustic music. We told stories and laughed and snapped photographs of each other.
St. Augustine runs in the blood of my kids, my close friends whom I’ve drug there and most anyone else who hangs around me for very long. And the Mill Top is ground zero for it all.
Once, Chelsea, Julie, and Austin and I went on a ghost tour of the city. The tour guide wasn’t especially good and when she learned that we were from Savannah, she said, “Well, Savannah is the most haunted city in the United States. St. Augustine is the second most haunted.”
“Get an afterlife!” Austin told her.
Chelsea told this story again yesterday and we laughed another time.
This morning I sit watching the sun rise over the ocean, palm trees silhouetted in the dark, and a black sky sprinkled with stars, begins to be invaded by pinks and purples. God is giving us another day to do with whatever we choose to do. Every day is the chance to start over or try again. Whatever life we had yesterday can either continue or we begin a new life after that one.
That’s what I’m doing. Building an afterlife that is much different from the one that I had last year. Like everyone, I’ve already lived several lives. I was a kid in Port Wentworth who became an adult and left that life.
In college it was another life with new friends from different places and then did it again when I went to Seminary. Children were born and a family was created. A career was born in an old worn out inner-city church. I liked this life very much but it came to an end.
Then I left that life for the one on Tybee Island, at Union Mission, kids left, success came, books were written, a love died and another was born and there was happiness. This had been a happier and more fulfilling life than anything before! But now that life has ended too.
What happens now? The black sky is now blue. The palm tree dances in the breeze. For the first time I am living life alone. The love that I’d believed in is gone. And I have stopped the carnival as I take stock of everything that comprises my life right now --- who I was and who I want to be moving forward.
I find myself after those other lives that I’ve lived. It is getting closer to the time that I embrace a new one that I believe will be happier and more fulfilling still!
I’ve been to the old city countless times and always enjoy being there. So yesterday, mainly because I wanted to go, Mom, Jeremy, Marie, and Chelsea all loaded into the car and we drove an hour to get there. After finding a parking place on the main street, we walked to the Mill Top Tavern, one of my holy places.
With an incredible view of the old city, the fort and the river, the Mill Top also has live music throughout most of the day. So we got an outdoor table on the deck and settled in for a few hours of salt air and acoustic music. We told stories and laughed and snapped photographs of each other.
St. Augustine runs in the blood of my kids, my close friends whom I’ve drug there and most anyone else who hangs around me for very long. And the Mill Top is ground zero for it all.
Once, Chelsea, Julie, and Austin and I went on a ghost tour of the city. The tour guide wasn’t especially good and when she learned that we were from Savannah, she said, “Well, Savannah is the most haunted city in the United States. St. Augustine is the second most haunted.”
“Get an afterlife!” Austin told her.
Chelsea told this story again yesterday and we laughed another time.
This morning I sit watching the sun rise over the ocean, palm trees silhouetted in the dark, and a black sky sprinkled with stars, begins to be invaded by pinks and purples. God is giving us another day to do with whatever we choose to do. Every day is the chance to start over or try again. Whatever life we had yesterday can either continue or we begin a new life after that one.
That’s what I’m doing. Building an afterlife that is much different from the one that I had last year. Like everyone, I’ve already lived several lives. I was a kid in Port Wentworth who became an adult and left that life.
In college it was another life with new friends from different places and then did it again when I went to Seminary. Children were born and a family was created. A career was born in an old worn out inner-city church. I liked this life very much but it came to an end.
Then I left that life for the one on Tybee Island, at Union Mission, kids left, success came, books were written, a love died and another was born and there was happiness. This had been a happier and more fulfilling life than anything before! But now that life has ended too.
What happens now? The black sky is now blue. The palm tree dances in the breeze. For the first time I am living life alone. The love that I’d believed in is gone. And I have stopped the carnival as I take stock of everything that comprises my life right now --- who I was and who I want to be moving forward.
I find myself after those other lives that I’ve lived. It is getting closer to the time that I embrace a new one that I believe will be happier and more fulfilling still!
Friday, October 29, 2010
My Holy Places
I’ve taken my Sabbatical on the road. Aside from a brief break from it to do work in other cities, I’ve mostly stayed in the small geography surrounding my beloved back deck. For the next couple of weeks though it is a visit back to some of the holy places in my life.
So that there is some perspective, several years ago I wrote that I love living at the beach and vacationing at another beach! And that is a very true statement about who I am. I fell in love with the ocean when I was a child and can still remember the sun dancing on the sea as my Dad drove us around the big curve on Tybee as he took the family went to the beach. I’ve never not been hooked.
Today I sit beside Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island in north Florida. Chelsea drove my Mom and me down here for the annual pilgrimage to the Georgia/Florida game, as holy an experience as there is in college football.
Two years ago I was able to convince my Dad to make his last trip to this place. He was tired and worn and sick but he made it. And he had one of the lat blasts of his life with the kids and family all swirling around him. It is nice to return here and remember that. He loved the ocean too and we would sit on the balcony staring at it in silence and I could feel a bit of him as I did that this morning.
On the drive down Chelsea asked me to name my “all time favorite” Jimmy Buffett song. I’m not sure that’s possible. “Breath In, Breath Out, Move On,” I told her.
Then I said, “No wait, let me tell you a story. When I was in Seminary it was a bitter cold February morning with snow flurries in the air. It was 7:50 in the morning and I had just parked under a leafless naked tree when the D.J. on the radio announced the new Jimmy Buffett song and it was the first time that I ever heard “Fins.”
“She came down from Cincinnati, it took her three days on the train, looking for some peace and quiet, hopes to see the sun again…”
At that moment I knew that I would be moving to Tybee Island. It took several more years but we pulled it off and it is the only home that Chelsea has every known. And there is a holiness that blankets that crazed beach town and God blesses it daily with new acts of creation every day.
Then on Sunday I return to St. Martin and this will be the first time that I’ll be there without the demands of work back home constantly interrupting me. I may stick the cell phone in the freezer when I get there so that Conner won’t have to even give it a thought. When I was there in June, I resigned Union Mission, stood on the beach talking on the cell daily, ran up a $4000 phone bill, until Conner came over and took it from me. He put it in the freezer as he handed me a beer.
This time there will be none of that. St. Martin is also the last place that I was married and with her. It was last Christmas and I recall it fondly though looking back now I can see how it was all coming to an end and I just didn’t know it.
I have a history of dancing a lot when I’m in St. Martin. I mean almost every single night. There is this little restaurant that is walking distance from the tiny beach studio that I stay in and it has music most nights. Dancing just comes natural in the Caribbean and my friend Carlos who runs the place can mimic every dancer except me.
“You do this crazy thing with your arm that I just can’t get down,” he laughs with me.
It is time for this Sabbatical to have the joy of dancing in it. Bar stools and beach chairs and waking up with the sun shinning on my face. And when I am there, the plan is to say goodbye to the past. And hello to …everything else!
So that there is some perspective, several years ago I wrote that I love living at the beach and vacationing at another beach! And that is a very true statement about who I am. I fell in love with the ocean when I was a child and can still remember the sun dancing on the sea as my Dad drove us around the big curve on Tybee as he took the family went to the beach. I’ve never not been hooked.
Today I sit beside Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island in north Florida. Chelsea drove my Mom and me down here for the annual pilgrimage to the Georgia/Florida game, as holy an experience as there is in college football.
Two years ago I was able to convince my Dad to make his last trip to this place. He was tired and worn and sick but he made it. And he had one of the lat blasts of his life with the kids and family all swirling around him. It is nice to return here and remember that. He loved the ocean too and we would sit on the balcony staring at it in silence and I could feel a bit of him as I did that this morning.
On the drive down Chelsea asked me to name my “all time favorite” Jimmy Buffett song. I’m not sure that’s possible. “Breath In, Breath Out, Move On,” I told her.
Then I said, “No wait, let me tell you a story. When I was in Seminary it was a bitter cold February morning with snow flurries in the air. It was 7:50 in the morning and I had just parked under a leafless naked tree when the D.J. on the radio announced the new Jimmy Buffett song and it was the first time that I ever heard “Fins.”
“She came down from Cincinnati, it took her three days on the train, looking for some peace and quiet, hopes to see the sun again…”
At that moment I knew that I would be moving to Tybee Island. It took several more years but we pulled it off and it is the only home that Chelsea has every known. And there is a holiness that blankets that crazed beach town and God blesses it daily with new acts of creation every day.
Then on Sunday I return to St. Martin and this will be the first time that I’ll be there without the demands of work back home constantly interrupting me. I may stick the cell phone in the freezer when I get there so that Conner won’t have to even give it a thought. When I was there in June, I resigned Union Mission, stood on the beach talking on the cell daily, ran up a $4000 phone bill, until Conner came over and took it from me. He put it in the freezer as he handed me a beer.
This time there will be none of that. St. Martin is also the last place that I was married and with her. It was last Christmas and I recall it fondly though looking back now I can see how it was all coming to an end and I just didn’t know it.
I have a history of dancing a lot when I’m in St. Martin. I mean almost every single night. There is this little restaurant that is walking distance from the tiny beach studio that I stay in and it has music most nights. Dancing just comes natural in the Caribbean and my friend Carlos who runs the place can mimic every dancer except me.
“You do this crazy thing with your arm that I just can’t get down,” he laughs with me.
It is time for this Sabbatical to have the joy of dancing in it. Bar stools and beach chairs and waking up with the sun shinning on my face. And when I am there, the plan is to say goodbye to the past. And hello to …everything else!
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Goddess
Sometimes a dog can just break your heart. This morning Goddess broke mine.
I’ve been gone for the better part of the last two weeks and am leaving again today for the next two-and-a-half.
Goddess knows. She senses it.
Everyday we have the same routine. When I crawl out of bed she lays on her back wagging her tail wanting me to rub her stomach. I do and then I dress and make my way to the Breakfast Club. She jumps up on her bed and I give her treats as I walk out of the door.
When I return she is lying on the landing wanting another rub. She gets it and then I take her for a walk, down to the marsh. If the marsh rabbits are out, she slows into a hunter’s crawl and silently stalks the bunny until it darts into the thicket. Then we take a left and walk out on Shirley’s sad little holy dock before heading down the street to Art’s house where he visits and gives her more treats or, if he’s not home, Goddess will slow down and stare intently at his house as we make our way passed. Then it is another block and then we circle back to the marsh and home again.
This morning Goddess refused to come home. She drug me to Shirley’s sad little holy dock twice, passed Art’s twice, then to the far side of the island, far away from home. Every time that I tried to take a turn towards the house she wouldn’t have anything to do it. This is when I normally run but she was demanding that I give that time to her.
So at intersection after intersection we had this stand off and she glanced at me with knowing eyes. Perhaps the forth or fifth time that it happened she glared at me defiantly and then bowed her head and came to where I stood. She rubbed herself against my leg with her tail wagging.
She was telling me goodbye?
My heart just broke. So I sat down in the middle of the street and just rubbed her and hugged her and let her lick my cheek.
I love this dog and spend more time with her than I do any person. Hours on end she is lying nearby me, often putting her head on my foot as I type, lying beside me on the beloved back deck with my feet up on the railing, or guarding me from whatever might come for me in the night as she sleeps in the doorway to the bedroom.
I am a survivor of a tremendous amount of loss over the past year. Trusted friends, a lover, my father, leaving a career that had sustained me for thirty years…and Goddess was with me for each moment. Most of the time it was only her!
One horrible winter night, I just couldn’t take it anymore and just collapsed in the floor full of sorrowful emotion and self-pity. Goddess shared it with me by forcing herself into my lap and I swear the dog knows how to tell me that she loves me without using words, which is always the most powerful way to say it anyway.
She has grown accustomed to it just being us. When the kids come over or my dearest friends or the ones whom I love, she goes nuts. She loves them too. But for the vast majority of the time it is just me and her.
Mom told me the last time that I was returning from being away, Goddess was different that day. She sensed that I was returning and spent the morning waiting on me. She was on pins and needles. Then there I was. And the very first thing that I did was love this dog because I would never have made it through without her.
I’m leaving again today but she knows I will be back. I love her far too much not to.
I’ve been gone for the better part of the last two weeks and am leaving again today for the next two-and-a-half.
Goddess knows. She senses it.
Everyday we have the same routine. When I crawl out of bed she lays on her back wagging her tail wanting me to rub her stomach. I do and then I dress and make my way to the Breakfast Club. She jumps up on her bed and I give her treats as I walk out of the door.
When I return she is lying on the landing wanting another rub. She gets it and then I take her for a walk, down to the marsh. If the marsh rabbits are out, she slows into a hunter’s crawl and silently stalks the bunny until it darts into the thicket. Then we take a left and walk out on Shirley’s sad little holy dock before heading down the street to Art’s house where he visits and gives her more treats or, if he’s not home, Goddess will slow down and stare intently at his house as we make our way passed. Then it is another block and then we circle back to the marsh and home again.
This morning Goddess refused to come home. She drug me to Shirley’s sad little holy dock twice, passed Art’s twice, then to the far side of the island, far away from home. Every time that I tried to take a turn towards the house she wouldn’t have anything to do it. This is when I normally run but she was demanding that I give that time to her.
So at intersection after intersection we had this stand off and she glanced at me with knowing eyes. Perhaps the forth or fifth time that it happened she glared at me defiantly and then bowed her head and came to where I stood. She rubbed herself against my leg with her tail wagging.
She was telling me goodbye?
My heart just broke. So I sat down in the middle of the street and just rubbed her and hugged her and let her lick my cheek.
I love this dog and spend more time with her than I do any person. Hours on end she is lying nearby me, often putting her head on my foot as I type, lying beside me on the beloved back deck with my feet up on the railing, or guarding me from whatever might come for me in the night as she sleeps in the doorway to the bedroom.
I am a survivor of a tremendous amount of loss over the past year. Trusted friends, a lover, my father, leaving a career that had sustained me for thirty years…and Goddess was with me for each moment. Most of the time it was only her!
One horrible winter night, I just couldn’t take it anymore and just collapsed in the floor full of sorrowful emotion and self-pity. Goddess shared it with me by forcing herself into my lap and I swear the dog knows how to tell me that she loves me without using words, which is always the most powerful way to say it anyway.
She has grown accustomed to it just being us. When the kids come over or my dearest friends or the ones whom I love, she goes nuts. She loves them too. But for the vast majority of the time it is just me and her.
Mom told me the last time that I was returning from being away, Goddess was different that day. She sensed that I was returning and spent the morning waiting on me. She was on pins and needles. Then there I was. And the very first thing that I did was love this dog because I would never have made it through without her.
I’m leaving again today but she knows I will be back. I love her far too much not to.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Underwear (The Next Movement)
I am not wearing any underwear today. Finally! I didn’t wear any yesterday either. I’m back at home on Tybee where underwear is optional and I have literally opted out of mine.
At home I have a tendency to simply wear running shorts and little else until that bastard winter shows up. Today I’m my beloved back deck and will get around to putting on the running shorts in a little bit.
Now tomorrow Rebekah is going to make me put on underwear as she and I have several meetings in town. On Wednesday my friend Jodi is forcing me to put them on for a lunch meeting in a yet to be disclosed place.
I have decided that there is a direct correlation between wearing underwear and attending meetings. I think that like 99.9% of the people who attend meetings have them on. I have another dear friend of mine who told me that she has 67 pairs of underwear. She really likes meetings!
I can only think of one friend who would go to work without putting on underwear and of course he worked at the Breakfast Club. Back in those days the cooks wore “whites” one of the uniforms of a Chef. Kyle wore the whites but never any underwear. So that when he leaned over the grill he very literally showed his ass.
My friend Jodee, the owner of the Breakfast Club is smart and an astute business man. After a couple of weeks he began to notice that showing one’s ass over breakfast is bad for business. People ordered their food but when Kyle leaned over the grill to cook it they all lost their appetite. A tremendous amount of food was being thrown away every day!
So Jodee got rid of the whites and ordered colorful Chef paints that you cannot see through. Customers ate their food again. He would have gotten rid of Kyle but the F.B.I. did it for him.
But while it may be bad for the breakfast business I think that meetings would get better if no one wore underwear to them. First of all, they’d probably be a lot shorter. Most meetings are way too long and I think that part of the reason is that participants are forever taking time to adjust their underwear.
Then others, mostly women, have bras that they like a lot so they wear shirts than dip over their shoulders so that they can show off the strap. This causes most men in the meeting to not hear much anything that is being said as they sit their staring at the purple or leopard skin bra strap wondering … so everything gets repeated multiple times.
It would be especially good if bankers, politicians, and clergy stopped wearing underwear to meetings. Or to work at all! I mean they always have their panties in a wad about things anyway!
Um…that gives me pause. Probably what is wrong with this country is that too many male bankers, politicians and members of the clergy wearing panties to work and the female ones wear boxer shorts. We already have metal detectors to protect us from things. Perhaps we need underwear inspectors to ensure that people are wearing the right kind of underwear. I mean the President of a bank doesn’t need to stand in front of his mirror in the morning wondering if it’s a see through green thong or a crotch-less black frilly thing.
It would be a lot simpler if underwear were simply banned from meetings. Especially in Congress and at the Religious denomination gatherings, the White House, Pentagon and the Supreme Court (I’m really not sure if any of the Supreme Court Justices wear them anyway. Let’s not even bring up the Catholic Church!).
It is time for a new movement of liberation and freedom! Let’s get rid of underwear in meetings! We’ll get some leopard skin ribbons and have an awareness month challenging people to “lose the laundry and jump on in” as James Taylor puts it.
Let’s do it people! Stand Up and free yourself! Be the first and enjoy the hell out of the next meeting that you are in!
At home I have a tendency to simply wear running shorts and little else until that bastard winter shows up. Today I’m my beloved back deck and will get around to putting on the running shorts in a little bit.
Now tomorrow Rebekah is going to make me put on underwear as she and I have several meetings in town. On Wednesday my friend Jodi is forcing me to put them on for a lunch meeting in a yet to be disclosed place.
I have decided that there is a direct correlation between wearing underwear and attending meetings. I think that like 99.9% of the people who attend meetings have them on. I have another dear friend of mine who told me that she has 67 pairs of underwear. She really likes meetings!
I can only think of one friend who would go to work without putting on underwear and of course he worked at the Breakfast Club. Back in those days the cooks wore “whites” one of the uniforms of a Chef. Kyle wore the whites but never any underwear. So that when he leaned over the grill he very literally showed his ass.
My friend Jodee, the owner of the Breakfast Club is smart and an astute business man. After a couple of weeks he began to notice that showing one’s ass over breakfast is bad for business. People ordered their food but when Kyle leaned over the grill to cook it they all lost their appetite. A tremendous amount of food was being thrown away every day!
So Jodee got rid of the whites and ordered colorful Chef paints that you cannot see through. Customers ate their food again. He would have gotten rid of Kyle but the F.B.I. did it for him.
But while it may be bad for the breakfast business I think that meetings would get better if no one wore underwear to them. First of all, they’d probably be a lot shorter. Most meetings are way too long and I think that part of the reason is that participants are forever taking time to adjust their underwear.
Then others, mostly women, have bras that they like a lot so they wear shirts than dip over their shoulders so that they can show off the strap. This causes most men in the meeting to not hear much anything that is being said as they sit their staring at the purple or leopard skin bra strap wondering … so everything gets repeated multiple times.
It would be especially good if bankers, politicians, and clergy stopped wearing underwear to meetings. Or to work at all! I mean they always have their panties in a wad about things anyway!
Um…that gives me pause. Probably what is wrong with this country is that too many male bankers, politicians and members of the clergy wearing panties to work and the female ones wear boxer shorts. We already have metal detectors to protect us from things. Perhaps we need underwear inspectors to ensure that people are wearing the right kind of underwear. I mean the President of a bank doesn’t need to stand in front of his mirror in the morning wondering if it’s a see through green thong or a crotch-less black frilly thing.
It would be a lot simpler if underwear were simply banned from meetings. Especially in Congress and at the Religious denomination gatherings, the White House, Pentagon and the Supreme Court (I’m really not sure if any of the Supreme Court Justices wear them anyway. Let’s not even bring up the Catholic Church!).
It is time for a new movement of liberation and freedom! Let’s get rid of underwear in meetings! We’ll get some leopard skin ribbons and have an awareness month challenging people to “lose the laundry and jump on in” as James Taylor puts it.
Let’s do it people! Stand Up and free yourself! Be the first and enjoy the hell out of the next meeting that you are in!
Sunday, October 24, 2010
A Reason to Believe
It is interesting when you live alone and you travel alone. Quiet becomes the norm. Observation becomes an intense skill. Longing for touch and talk never go away. Movement slows down. You learn that you have to get comfortable in your own skin.
In Los Angeles I was with a collection of friends that want to spend time together, eat and drink, and talk and catch up. Most I see once each year. What ended up happening is that my days were filled with people who I care about and enjoy.
At a luncheon I was sitting at a table of twelve between my friends Anna and Valerie. Another Jack Preager of Calcutta regaled us with a tail of how a long dead Mother Teresa made him sick through a boiled egg. The woman is obviously bound for sainthood because of such amazing powers. Jack, on the other hand, is not so enamored with her.
After he finished, another friend at the table, also named Jack but this one is from Columbus Ohio, asked me how my work was going. I hadn’t seen him in a year. So I told him about leaving Union Mission and being on this Sabbatical.
“Oh that must make your wife happy!” he exclaimed.
As many times as I’ve had to stop a conversation to explain that I became suddenly single I still never expect the question or am ready for it. There was a pregnant pause in what had been a light-hearted conversation. Jack’s eyes narrowed as he sensed something was wrong and my silence grew deafening in a second.
Under the table Anna placed her hand on my knee and squeezed. I glanced at her and she gave me a tender and sympathetic smile. On the other side Valarie leaned her shoulder against mine and her partner Gordon looked at me with concern. Maria Brown bowed her head. And even 80 year old Jack Preager, who has seen more sadness and death than the rest of us combined as he cares for the dying in the streets of Calcutta, looked at me and gave me a wink.
It all meant more to me than I could ever possibly put into words. Sometimes words fail writers.
So I cleared my throat and explained for the thousandth time that I now live alone. A blanket of sadness seemed to fall of the ceiling.
Jack Preager immediately launch into another story about a man in Italy who somehow came to own a few hundred Madonna’s that inexplicably came into his possession at the expense of a few hundred Cathedrals scattered across the Country.
That night these same people huddled around me in a bar after I’d gone out to dinner with Eamon and Leila. We drank and told stories and there was a great deal of touching and hugging. Jim Withers was with us and at one point someone took a picture of us which looks like a collection friends enjoying themselves. We all hugged and wished one another well when I said goodnight because of a very early flight home.
“Have a good day sir,” was my farewell from the hotel desk manager after I paid the bill.
Then there was silence… at the airport…on the plane…at another airport…
In Atlanta I sat at a bar between flights staring at my computer. I surfed through Face Book to check on my friends and the people that I love. I must have been pretty intense about it all because at one point, the young African-American bartender, put his hand on my shoulder and looked at me.
“I fixed you another one OK?” and he said it as though he were a Hospice worker caring for a dying patient.
And I leaned back to look at him and what I saw was a face full of compassion and concern, large cow eyes, looking for me to respond back to him. There were a thousand people rushing this way and that all around us. He was busy working serving the hundred or so who were demanding drinks from him. But he stopped everything for me. And I hadn’t even asked.
I nodded unable to speak.
And he nodded back.
And the word became flesh. And the holiness of love filled my broken soul. And that is reason enough to believe. Even when you don’t really want to.
In Los Angeles I was with a collection of friends that want to spend time together, eat and drink, and talk and catch up. Most I see once each year. What ended up happening is that my days were filled with people who I care about and enjoy.
At a luncheon I was sitting at a table of twelve between my friends Anna and Valerie. Another Jack Preager of Calcutta regaled us with a tail of how a long dead Mother Teresa made him sick through a boiled egg. The woman is obviously bound for sainthood because of such amazing powers. Jack, on the other hand, is not so enamored with her.
After he finished, another friend at the table, also named Jack but this one is from Columbus Ohio, asked me how my work was going. I hadn’t seen him in a year. So I told him about leaving Union Mission and being on this Sabbatical.
“Oh that must make your wife happy!” he exclaimed.
As many times as I’ve had to stop a conversation to explain that I became suddenly single I still never expect the question or am ready for it. There was a pregnant pause in what had been a light-hearted conversation. Jack’s eyes narrowed as he sensed something was wrong and my silence grew deafening in a second.
Under the table Anna placed her hand on my knee and squeezed. I glanced at her and she gave me a tender and sympathetic smile. On the other side Valarie leaned her shoulder against mine and her partner Gordon looked at me with concern. Maria Brown bowed her head. And even 80 year old Jack Preager, who has seen more sadness and death than the rest of us combined as he cares for the dying in the streets of Calcutta, looked at me and gave me a wink.
It all meant more to me than I could ever possibly put into words. Sometimes words fail writers.
So I cleared my throat and explained for the thousandth time that I now live alone. A blanket of sadness seemed to fall of the ceiling.
Jack Preager immediately launch into another story about a man in Italy who somehow came to own a few hundred Madonna’s that inexplicably came into his possession at the expense of a few hundred Cathedrals scattered across the Country.
That night these same people huddled around me in a bar after I’d gone out to dinner with Eamon and Leila. We drank and told stories and there was a great deal of touching and hugging. Jim Withers was with us and at one point someone took a picture of us which looks like a collection friends enjoying themselves. We all hugged and wished one another well when I said goodnight because of a very early flight home.
“Have a good day sir,” was my farewell from the hotel desk manager after I paid the bill.
Then there was silence… at the airport…on the plane…at another airport…
In Atlanta I sat at a bar between flights staring at my computer. I surfed through Face Book to check on my friends and the people that I love. I must have been pretty intense about it all because at one point, the young African-American bartender, put his hand on my shoulder and looked at me.
“I fixed you another one OK?” and he said it as though he were a Hospice worker caring for a dying patient.
And I leaned back to look at him and what I saw was a face full of compassion and concern, large cow eyes, looking for me to respond back to him. There were a thousand people rushing this way and that all around us. He was busy working serving the hundred or so who were demanding drinks from him. But he stopped everything for me. And I hadn’t even asked.
I nodded unable to speak.
And he nodded back.
And the word became flesh. And the holiness of love filled my broken soul. And that is reason enough to believe. Even when you don’t really want to.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
How to plan a wedding
Last night, Eamon Sheehan whipped into the hotel parking lot and I jumped into his car and off to the other side of L.A. we went. Eamon grew up on Tybee Island with my kids and I was dear friends with his father Daniel. Eamon lives in L.A. now with his fiancée Leila and is looking for his big break in acting.
I’ve been close to the Sheehan’s since Dan called me one day over twenty years ago. He told me that he wanted me to serve on the St. Michael’s Catholic Church School Board where our children attended.
“Um, Dan I’m not Catholic and am pretty busy right now. I don’t think that I can,” I told him.
“Great!” he replied. “I’ll pick you up at 7:00”
And he did. And I served three years on the Board with him and we became very close friends.
Daniel passed away a few years ago but the bond with the family remains and Eamon and I laughed and caught one another up on things until we parked in front of his apartment to pick Leila up. Though both are from coastal Georgia they are now the typical Hollywood beautiful couple. I had already met Leila on the beach over the summer so we reconnected and she gave me the tour of their four room apartment.
The girl is an organizing master! I still marvel at how they got that much stuff inside of their closet yet it looks neat and tidy. I’m not sure they can actually get anything out of the closet as all of their clothes are pressed so tightly against each other some serious prying would be involved.
We hopped back in the car and they drove me to their favorite Prussian restaurant. Eamon and I had stopped to pick up bottles of wine on the way in so we carried them inside of the place. Leila did the ordering and in no time various rices, beef kabobs, chicken kabobs and grilled vegetables lay in front of us.
“So tell me about your wedding,” I told them.
“It’s in May,” they both excitedly answered, “and we’ve got the most important thing already done. We’ve booked the Tams!”
“What?” I busted out laughing.
“Yeah,” Eamon explained, “we were at a wedding that they played and it was fantastic! We knew then that when we got married it had to be the Tams.”
The Tams were famous in the early sixties with such hits as “Hey Girl, don’t bother me”, “I’ve been hurt”, and “What kind of fool do you think I am?” They were a fantastic beach band and though all of the original members are dead, their DNA was passed on and when I heard them last summer on the pier the music still sounds good.
“Seriously? You’ve build your wedding around the Tams?”
“Yep!” they proudly beamed.
Growing up on Tybee does make its impressions. So we laughed our way through dinner and toasted one another and it felt like I was with family though I am far away from mine.
Afterwards they drove me back to my hotel and we make promises to see one another soon where I will return the favor and take them to A.J.’s for dinner and we will toast one another again. And as we clink our wine glasses against each others, I will tell them. “Be Young. Be Foolish. But be Happy!”
Because they already are.
I’ve been close to the Sheehan’s since Dan called me one day over twenty years ago. He told me that he wanted me to serve on the St. Michael’s Catholic Church School Board where our children attended.
“Um, Dan I’m not Catholic and am pretty busy right now. I don’t think that I can,” I told him.
“Great!” he replied. “I’ll pick you up at 7:00”
And he did. And I served three years on the Board with him and we became very close friends.
Daniel passed away a few years ago but the bond with the family remains and Eamon and I laughed and caught one another up on things until we parked in front of his apartment to pick Leila up. Though both are from coastal Georgia they are now the typical Hollywood beautiful couple. I had already met Leila on the beach over the summer so we reconnected and she gave me the tour of their four room apartment.
The girl is an organizing master! I still marvel at how they got that much stuff inside of their closet yet it looks neat and tidy. I’m not sure they can actually get anything out of the closet as all of their clothes are pressed so tightly against each other some serious prying would be involved.
We hopped back in the car and they drove me to their favorite Prussian restaurant. Eamon and I had stopped to pick up bottles of wine on the way in so we carried them inside of the place. Leila did the ordering and in no time various rices, beef kabobs, chicken kabobs and grilled vegetables lay in front of us.
“So tell me about your wedding,” I told them.
“It’s in May,” they both excitedly answered, “and we’ve got the most important thing already done. We’ve booked the Tams!”
“What?” I busted out laughing.
“Yeah,” Eamon explained, “we were at a wedding that they played and it was fantastic! We knew then that when we got married it had to be the Tams.”
The Tams were famous in the early sixties with such hits as “Hey Girl, don’t bother me”, “I’ve been hurt”, and “What kind of fool do you think I am?” They were a fantastic beach band and though all of the original members are dead, their DNA was passed on and when I heard them last summer on the pier the music still sounds good.
“Seriously? You’ve build your wedding around the Tams?”
“Yep!” they proudly beamed.
Growing up on Tybee does make its impressions. So we laughed our way through dinner and toasted one another and it felt like I was with family though I am far away from mine.
Afterwards they drove me back to my hotel and we make promises to see one another soon where I will return the favor and take them to A.J.’s for dinner and we will toast one another again. And as we clink our wine glasses against each others, I will tell them. “Be Young. Be Foolish. But be Happy!”
Because they already are.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Closer to my Future
Dr. Dave Buck of Houston and I had been in my hotel room planning for things that need to be done to advance the work that we’ve been doing in L. A. At six o’clock I told him that I had to meet some friends for dinner and he got up and walked with me to the elevators.
The doors open and as I took a step to get on he grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “Hold on! I need to tell you something.”
Now there were three very attractive girls who happened to be on the elevator and I was very much looking forward to the ride down from the 14th floor but the doors slid shut and I’m just left to think about what could have been.
I turned and looked at Dave. We’ve known one another for six years. He is a pioneer in street medicine, teaches medicine in Houston and is currently developing hand held electronic medical records that can be used on the streets. I’ve visited him in Houston and he had visited me at Union Mission. We’ve blindly stolen from one another’s work.
“You know something Mike you’re different from the way you used to be. You’re warmer. I mean you’ve always been nice and stuff but you’re different.”
I was taken aback because this isn’t the kind of things that friends normally tell one another; especially those who only see one another four or five times a year.
“I think that it’s good,” he continued, “you don’t seem as burdened or as heavy or as hurt as you used to be.”
We embraced and I thanked him and we rode an empty elevator down to meet my friends.
It is true over the past several weeks that people have been telling me that I am different from how I used to be. “You look good!” they tell me though when I look at myself in the mirror I think that I look the same.
I called my friend Bob Colvin recently who went through major transitions in his own life last year. “Mike you sound great,” he said after we talked for a few minutes. I told him that he did too and while I thought that I sounded like I always do, his voice was lighter and friendlier than I remembered it.
At dinner in a Brewery because none of us could stand anymore Japanese food, Gordon and Valerie from Hawaii wanted to know about my future. Valerie reads my daily musings and we write from time to time so she is pretty current on what’s happening in my life. Afterwards we found ourselves back in the hotel bar quietly talking what we want our futures to be. It was a conversation full of encouragement.
“You’re so much closer to your future than I am to mine,” she said at one point.
I think about all of these things and know that they are true though it takes other people telling me as I’m not at a place where I can recognize them for myself. It’s probably true that most of us fail to see the changes that are taking places in who we are and how we live. We get better or we get worse, happier or sadder, emptier or fuller and we don’t recognize it as it is happening. Then we wake up one day and we are in such a different place than we ever thought we would be.
Today is my last day working before I return to my Sabbatical (except for Tuesday when my new partner has me scheduled to do all kinds of things). The last two weeks have been a world wind of travel, people and activity.
And it is coming to an end with affirmation from different people and in different ways that I’m headed in the right direction, happier… More content…less burdened… warmer.
Closer to my future.
The doors open and as I took a step to get on he grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “Hold on! I need to tell you something.”
Now there were three very attractive girls who happened to be on the elevator and I was very much looking forward to the ride down from the 14th floor but the doors slid shut and I’m just left to think about what could have been.
I turned and looked at Dave. We’ve known one another for six years. He is a pioneer in street medicine, teaches medicine in Houston and is currently developing hand held electronic medical records that can be used on the streets. I’ve visited him in Houston and he had visited me at Union Mission. We’ve blindly stolen from one another’s work.
“You know something Mike you’re different from the way you used to be. You’re warmer. I mean you’ve always been nice and stuff but you’re different.”
I was taken aback because this isn’t the kind of things that friends normally tell one another; especially those who only see one another four or five times a year.
“I think that it’s good,” he continued, “you don’t seem as burdened or as heavy or as hurt as you used to be.”
We embraced and I thanked him and we rode an empty elevator down to meet my friends.
It is true over the past several weeks that people have been telling me that I am different from how I used to be. “You look good!” they tell me though when I look at myself in the mirror I think that I look the same.
I called my friend Bob Colvin recently who went through major transitions in his own life last year. “Mike you sound great,” he said after we talked for a few minutes. I told him that he did too and while I thought that I sounded like I always do, his voice was lighter and friendlier than I remembered it.
At dinner in a Brewery because none of us could stand anymore Japanese food, Gordon and Valerie from Hawaii wanted to know about my future. Valerie reads my daily musings and we write from time to time so she is pretty current on what’s happening in my life. Afterwards we found ourselves back in the hotel bar quietly talking what we want our futures to be. It was a conversation full of encouragement.
“You’re so much closer to your future than I am to mine,” she said at one point.
I think about all of these things and know that they are true though it takes other people telling me as I’m not at a place where I can recognize them for myself. It’s probably true that most of us fail to see the changes that are taking places in who we are and how we live. We get better or we get worse, happier or sadder, emptier or fuller and we don’t recognize it as it is happening. Then we wake up one day and we are in such a different place than we ever thought we would be.
Today is my last day working before I return to my Sabbatical (except for Tuesday when my new partner has me scheduled to do all kinds of things). The last two weeks have been a world wind of travel, people and activity.
And it is coming to an end with affirmation from different people and in different ways that I’m headed in the right direction, happier… More content…less burdened… warmer.
Closer to my future.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Taking it to the Streets!
“I’m really afraid that there are going to be more of you than there are people on Skid Row,” our host told us.
She was addressing a room full of 170 doctors and nurses who are heading out to practice medicine on the street as part of the International Street Medicine Symposium. Dr. Susan Partovi and Michael Arnold have worked to serve as our hosts in L.A. And have organized teams that will invade homeless camps throughout the city.
Yesterday I got to welcome everyone to this year’s Symposium. It is the sixth one and it continues to grow every year. I serve as the Chairman of the Board of Directors and am one of the few non-medical people associated with the effort.
What started out as a small grass roots movement in Pittsburgh has grown and we’ve invaded Santa Barbara, Houston, San Juan, Atlanta and now L.A. And these folks are doing amazing and holy work.
Hand held electronic medical records that can submit for billing as health care is being delivered is ground breaking stuff. These folks are preparing for the future of health care which will turn the current system on its head.
Now if you are sick you have to drag yourself out of bed and go to where health care is --- be it a hospital, a Health Care Center, or a doctor’s office.
If you step back and take a look at that system, something is wrong. It is the responsibility of the person who is sick to go to where the help is. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Should help go to where the need is?
Doctors used to make house calls because they understood this back then. Fewer people were admitted to hospitals because of this. Health care costs were a lot cheaper. Insurance companies didn’t rule who got what and how.
So today these guys are demonstrating that all over again and they are starting with the worst of the worst, crazy and intoxicated people living under bridges, in abandoned buildings and on subway grates! And they are pulling it off!
These crazy patients stop going to emergency rooms and getting arrested thereby saving the rest of us millions of dollars. They learn to trust people again, get properly diagnosed, stabilize and move into their own apartment. They get jobs and then they pay their own way. Some always will need someone to hold their hand but this is a hell of a lot cheaper than continuing to arrest them over and over again. And it stops them from going to the hospital emergency room multiple times every month.
My friend Johnny O loves to look at the mug shots posted every day by the Savannah Metro Police Department. He is looking for his friends I think, but then again Johnny O is not like the rest of us! He finds amusement in the craziest of places.
“We could save ourselves a lot of money if we’d stop arresting the same person over and over and over again,” he recently told me sitting at the counter of the Breakfast Club. “These are people who drink, are sick, and get arrested for peeing in the bushes. It’d be cheaper to do it another way.”
And he is exactly right. And the Street Medicine movement is proving that! And after it is proven with the crazy and drunk person bundled in multiple clothes and pushing a grocery cart full of crap, then we’ll swim upstream and prove that it is cheaper to take health care to the rest of us too.
And soon I hope, when we are sick and hurting in our bed, a nurse or a doctor comes to us. Rather than making us go to them.
I mean this stuff isn’t rocket science.
She was addressing a room full of 170 doctors and nurses who are heading out to practice medicine on the street as part of the International Street Medicine Symposium. Dr. Susan Partovi and Michael Arnold have worked to serve as our hosts in L.A. And have organized teams that will invade homeless camps throughout the city.
Yesterday I got to welcome everyone to this year’s Symposium. It is the sixth one and it continues to grow every year. I serve as the Chairman of the Board of Directors and am one of the few non-medical people associated with the effort.
What started out as a small grass roots movement in Pittsburgh has grown and we’ve invaded Santa Barbara, Houston, San Juan, Atlanta and now L.A. And these folks are doing amazing and holy work.
Hand held electronic medical records that can submit for billing as health care is being delivered is ground breaking stuff. These folks are preparing for the future of health care which will turn the current system on its head.
Now if you are sick you have to drag yourself out of bed and go to where health care is --- be it a hospital, a Health Care Center, or a doctor’s office.
If you step back and take a look at that system, something is wrong. It is the responsibility of the person who is sick to go to where the help is. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Should help go to where the need is?
Doctors used to make house calls because they understood this back then. Fewer people were admitted to hospitals because of this. Health care costs were a lot cheaper. Insurance companies didn’t rule who got what and how.
So today these guys are demonstrating that all over again and they are starting with the worst of the worst, crazy and intoxicated people living under bridges, in abandoned buildings and on subway grates! And they are pulling it off!
These crazy patients stop going to emergency rooms and getting arrested thereby saving the rest of us millions of dollars. They learn to trust people again, get properly diagnosed, stabilize and move into their own apartment. They get jobs and then they pay their own way. Some always will need someone to hold their hand but this is a hell of a lot cheaper than continuing to arrest them over and over again. And it stops them from going to the hospital emergency room multiple times every month.
My friend Johnny O loves to look at the mug shots posted every day by the Savannah Metro Police Department. He is looking for his friends I think, but then again Johnny O is not like the rest of us! He finds amusement in the craziest of places.
“We could save ourselves a lot of money if we’d stop arresting the same person over and over and over again,” he recently told me sitting at the counter of the Breakfast Club. “These are people who drink, are sick, and get arrested for peeing in the bushes. It’d be cheaper to do it another way.”
And he is exactly right. And the Street Medicine movement is proving that! And after it is proven with the crazy and drunk person bundled in multiple clothes and pushing a grocery cart full of crap, then we’ll swim upstream and prove that it is cheaper to take health care to the rest of us too.
And soon I hope, when we are sick and hurting in our bed, a nurse or a doctor comes to us. Rather than making us go to them.
I mean this stuff isn’t rocket science.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Today in L.A.
As soon as I got off the plane my cell phone was buzzing and Dr. Jim Withers of Pittsburgh was calling. Jim is the founder of the International Street Medicine Institute and I serve on the Board of Directors. We are here for the sixth annual symposium and almost 200 health care providers will gather, share best practices and hit the streets to give health care to people who don’t have it.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Just landed. What’s up?”
“Joe is at the hotel and they won’t let him check in because he doesn’t have a credit card. Can you handle it and we’ll sort it all out later.”
“Sure. No worries,” I reply and hop into a cab for the ride to the Little Tokyo district of the city where we will meet.
$60 later I’m at the hotel looking for Joe. He is a formerly homeless Vietnam Veteran who lost his legs in the war. He is nibble in his wheelchair and is a member of the National Health Care for the Homeless Advisory Board and a member of Jim’s Board with me.
I found him in the hotel restaurant enjoying the Asian buffet. Joe has a grand personality and had charmed the waitress into letting him eat without checking in on the promise that I was showing up. Once you master panhandling it can always come in handy later.
“Hey Mike!” he bellowed when he saw me, forcing everyone in the café to stop eating and look at me.
He wheeled away from the table telling the waitress that he’d be right back and rolled beside me to the front desk where we checked in.
“Thanks Mike,” he grinned wheeling away, “I got to get back to my waitress.”
I suppose he was hungry for more than food.
Throwing my bag in my room, I took a walk through the Japanese district but the weather wasn’t cooperating and it started to rain. I made my way back to the Kyoto Grand Hotel and Gardens where we are staying.
“I recognize that cute butt,” I heard someone yell.
My friend Dr. Maria Brown of Chicago was sitting in the bar drinking and eating so I did my best Conner impersonation and strolled over to her. Maria is a teaching doctor who runs clinics for the homeless in the windy city. Anna Murphy who also treats homeless folks on the streets there. So we sat and talked and drank sharing with one another has friends who haven’t seen one another in a while. We mostly laughed though eyes grew moist a couple of times as we caught each other up. Maria keeps up with me on Face Book so she was more pointed in the things she wanted to know.
After they left, I ordered another glass of wine by myself. The bar was slammed and I was surrounded by laughing guys watching baseball and romantic couples holding hands and lovingly whispering to one another. I was an objective bystander.
I am glad to be here with friends from across the country who go to work every day determined to change the world from what it is to what they think it should be. These are passionate and committed women and men. I am proud to be associated with them.
And I’m mindful that while I restructure my life and have laid low at home, it is different when I am in Atlanta or New Orleans or L.A. I have rich and deep relationships in those places. I get a lot of requests from people and organizations to help them do something better or to emulate the things that I’ve done in my career.
So…it’s time to go dive in with them and figure out ways to make this a better place to be.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Just landed. What’s up?”
“Joe is at the hotel and they won’t let him check in because he doesn’t have a credit card. Can you handle it and we’ll sort it all out later.”
“Sure. No worries,” I reply and hop into a cab for the ride to the Little Tokyo district of the city where we will meet.
$60 later I’m at the hotel looking for Joe. He is a formerly homeless Vietnam Veteran who lost his legs in the war. He is nibble in his wheelchair and is a member of the National Health Care for the Homeless Advisory Board and a member of Jim’s Board with me.
I found him in the hotel restaurant enjoying the Asian buffet. Joe has a grand personality and had charmed the waitress into letting him eat without checking in on the promise that I was showing up. Once you master panhandling it can always come in handy later.
“Hey Mike!” he bellowed when he saw me, forcing everyone in the café to stop eating and look at me.
He wheeled away from the table telling the waitress that he’d be right back and rolled beside me to the front desk where we checked in.
“Thanks Mike,” he grinned wheeling away, “I got to get back to my waitress.”
I suppose he was hungry for more than food.
Throwing my bag in my room, I took a walk through the Japanese district but the weather wasn’t cooperating and it started to rain. I made my way back to the Kyoto Grand Hotel and Gardens where we are staying.
“I recognize that cute butt,” I heard someone yell.
My friend Dr. Maria Brown of Chicago was sitting in the bar drinking and eating so I did my best Conner impersonation and strolled over to her. Maria is a teaching doctor who runs clinics for the homeless in the windy city. Anna Murphy who also treats homeless folks on the streets there. So we sat and talked and drank sharing with one another has friends who haven’t seen one another in a while. We mostly laughed though eyes grew moist a couple of times as we caught each other up. Maria keeps up with me on Face Book so she was more pointed in the things she wanted to know.
After they left, I ordered another glass of wine by myself. The bar was slammed and I was surrounded by laughing guys watching baseball and romantic couples holding hands and lovingly whispering to one another. I was an objective bystander.
I am glad to be here with friends from across the country who go to work every day determined to change the world from what it is to what they think it should be. These are passionate and committed women and men. I am proud to be associated with them.
And I’m mindful that while I restructure my life and have laid low at home, it is different when I am in Atlanta or New Orleans or L.A. I have rich and deep relationships in those places. I get a lot of requests from people and organizations to help them do something better or to emulate the things that I’ve done in my career.
So…it’s time to go dive in with them and figure out ways to make this a better place to be.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Goodbye Again
At 4:30 this morning I stumbled in through the door marked “Exit Only” at the Breakfast Club to be greeted by the owner Jodee who was there alone doing prep work.
“Morning Mike,” he said in a chipper voice, “going to the airport?”
I told him that I was and he got me a cup of coffee. We chatted for a minute as he told me that he’s joining Cheryl in Chicago for a wedding and he’s looking forward to the trip. He then wished me safe travels and I sipped coffee as I drove in grateful that there was someone to tell me goodbye and safe journeys.
I used to have that constantly in my life. Someone to wish me off and someone to greet me with love when I returned. I don’t anymore and it makes me thankful for the little things that really do mean so much. Too often we take them for granted when we have them.
Though Goddess did kiss me goodbye before I left the house but it’s not the same.
After I boarded the plane I was people watching as the other passengers drug their carry- on luggage towards their seats. At the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport (which is an oxymoron) most of the passengers are from Hilton Head. More often than not I never see anyone from Savannah on the same flight.
So I sat there people watching when I recognize a face who is recognizing me at the same time.
“Micheal!” she said. “How have you been? It’s been forever! I was just at your place last week.”
I am terrible with names and had no clue who she was. I just recognized the face as familiar. Obviously she knew me from my Union Mission days and thought that I am still there.
“Oh, sorry I missed you,” I replied as she made her way passed.
This break from my Sabbatical has already gotten old. Three cities in five days last week, a day and a half at home and now I am off to Los Angeles for the rest of the week. It is for a good purpose as the sixth International Street Medicine Symposium is being held and I’m the chairman of that Board.
Almost 200 of us will descend on L.A, mostly doctors and nurses, who will take to the streets and help another city redefine health care for those on the streets. These are not like most nurses and doctors as they care passionately about those who have no access to care so they take the care to them. There’s something very Biblical about it all.
But to be honest I’d rather be on my beloved back deck continuing my pilgrimage back to myself.
Last night Rebekah came out to force me to have my weekly staff meeting with myself and we spent a lot of time planning for when my Sabbatical is over. We normally meet on my beloved back deck but I had already spent special time on it yesterday so I took them out to Stingrays. She gave me timelines and things to do before next Monday.
I sighed.
I told Jodee this morning that I am beginning to get a glimpse of what my new life is going to be. More trips will begin and end on airplanes where I’m surrounded by people that I do not know, traveling to as many cities as can be crammed into the fewest days.
All in all, I am OK with this. I like helping other people and travel is fine. But it would be a hell of a lot better, if there was someone to kiss goodbye and someone’s arms to fall into when I return.
So if you’ve got a lover, a spouse or kids that tell you goodbye or welcome you home, even if they often drive you nuts, be thankful for what you have. It is a special thing.
“Morning Mike,” he said in a chipper voice, “going to the airport?”
I told him that I was and he got me a cup of coffee. We chatted for a minute as he told me that he’s joining Cheryl in Chicago for a wedding and he’s looking forward to the trip. He then wished me safe travels and I sipped coffee as I drove in grateful that there was someone to tell me goodbye and safe journeys.
I used to have that constantly in my life. Someone to wish me off and someone to greet me with love when I returned. I don’t anymore and it makes me thankful for the little things that really do mean so much. Too often we take them for granted when we have them.
Though Goddess did kiss me goodbye before I left the house but it’s not the same.
After I boarded the plane I was people watching as the other passengers drug their carry- on luggage towards their seats. At the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport (which is an oxymoron) most of the passengers are from Hilton Head. More often than not I never see anyone from Savannah on the same flight.
So I sat there people watching when I recognize a face who is recognizing me at the same time.
“Micheal!” she said. “How have you been? It’s been forever! I was just at your place last week.”
I am terrible with names and had no clue who she was. I just recognized the face as familiar. Obviously she knew me from my Union Mission days and thought that I am still there.
“Oh, sorry I missed you,” I replied as she made her way passed.
This break from my Sabbatical has already gotten old. Three cities in five days last week, a day and a half at home and now I am off to Los Angeles for the rest of the week. It is for a good purpose as the sixth International Street Medicine Symposium is being held and I’m the chairman of that Board.
Almost 200 of us will descend on L.A, mostly doctors and nurses, who will take to the streets and help another city redefine health care for those on the streets. These are not like most nurses and doctors as they care passionately about those who have no access to care so they take the care to them. There’s something very Biblical about it all.
But to be honest I’d rather be on my beloved back deck continuing my pilgrimage back to myself.
Last night Rebekah came out to force me to have my weekly staff meeting with myself and we spent a lot of time planning for when my Sabbatical is over. We normally meet on my beloved back deck but I had already spent special time on it yesterday so I took them out to Stingrays. She gave me timelines and things to do before next Monday.
I sighed.
I told Jodee this morning that I am beginning to get a glimpse of what my new life is going to be. More trips will begin and end on airplanes where I’m surrounded by people that I do not know, traveling to as many cities as can be crammed into the fewest days.
All in all, I am OK with this. I like helping other people and travel is fine. But it would be a hell of a lot better, if there was someone to kiss goodbye and someone’s arms to fall into when I return.
So if you’ve got a lover, a spouse or kids that tell you goodbye or welcome you home, even if they often drive you nuts, be thankful for what you have. It is a special thing.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Political Decisions
The politicians are in full season spending money, making decisions, and running up the deficit. Good times if you are a politician though it pretty much sucks for the majority of the rest of us.
So I would like to share all time my favorite political decision that has ever been made. Of course it was on Tybee Island where I live though this is exactly the type of decision that many politicians make almost everywhere. In fact, if you have one that is just as good, please share it.
When I first moved to Tybee the island was even more laid back than it is now. In fact in those days, most everything about Tybee seemed stoned. Come to think of it, perhaps that is how this decision was made. I’ll have to toke on that for a while and will get back to you.
The Mayor back then was Pat Locklear, a really good guy. He is conservative and a tremendous supporter of the military as is everyone who is elected in Georgia. I think that there are court marshal laws if a politician is elected in the state that does not support the military. But I digress.
The local military bases were looking for a place to train soldiers on how to invade a tropical island. In those days most of our enemies were in Central American countries so it seemed like good planning from a military perspective. Ever the patriot, our Mayor agreed to have Tybee invaded.
In and of itself, this is not particularly a bad idea. It helps the military, provides training for soldiers to protect the nation, and probably contributed to the local economy. The only problem was the Mayor forgot to tell anybody. Perhaps he told his wife though that has never been confirmed and everyone may have been stoned at the time. Who knows?
It is a beautiful day and I am laying on the beach working on my tan. The first clue that we had that something was going on was the sun suddenly was blacked out by the several hundred military helicopters that were in the sky. Now we are used to seeing military helicopters fly over the ocean but never had this many been in formation at the same time.
Then the beach started to rumble so much that I had to grab my beer to keep it from spilling, which is one of the seven deadly sins on Tybee (unlike the rest of the Country Tybee came up with its own list of deadly sins one night during a Beach Bum softball game…but that’s another story).
Looking up there was a squadron of soldiers dressed in full military war dress, carrying rifles, running to where I sat mostly naked in my beach chair. My first thought that I was impressed by what they thought of me to send that many to take me down but then they ran by, jumped over and one of those guys grabbed my beer and took it with him! (It could have been a woman, I really don’t know. I was just staring at their guns!)
That was pretty much my experience though other island residents had it far rougher. Former politician Mallory, before he was a politician, found his house surrounded by guys wearing masks and lighting flame throwers. They had repelled down from the aforementioned helicopters on the Tybee School and several missed their mark and landed in Mallory’s yard. Of course he runs screaming into the street for them to stop so they took him prisoner.
Johnny O can confirm all of this.
They also invaded the famous Sunday night talent show at the old Desoto Beach Club where several hundred would show up to either entertain or be entertained. Of course no one had ever repelled into the talent show before, though many had fallen down, so a group of soldiers with guns won that night.
The following day I was driving home from work and someone had taken the time to make a new sign welcoming visitors to the island. The old one used to say, “Welcome to Tybee Island.”
This one said “Welcome to Camp Locklear!”
You gotta love the elected people of this land!
So I would like to share all time my favorite political decision that has ever been made. Of course it was on Tybee Island where I live though this is exactly the type of decision that many politicians make almost everywhere. In fact, if you have one that is just as good, please share it.
When I first moved to Tybee the island was even more laid back than it is now. In fact in those days, most everything about Tybee seemed stoned. Come to think of it, perhaps that is how this decision was made. I’ll have to toke on that for a while and will get back to you.
The Mayor back then was Pat Locklear, a really good guy. He is conservative and a tremendous supporter of the military as is everyone who is elected in Georgia. I think that there are court marshal laws if a politician is elected in the state that does not support the military. But I digress.
The local military bases were looking for a place to train soldiers on how to invade a tropical island. In those days most of our enemies were in Central American countries so it seemed like good planning from a military perspective. Ever the patriot, our Mayor agreed to have Tybee invaded.
In and of itself, this is not particularly a bad idea. It helps the military, provides training for soldiers to protect the nation, and probably contributed to the local economy. The only problem was the Mayor forgot to tell anybody. Perhaps he told his wife though that has never been confirmed and everyone may have been stoned at the time. Who knows?
It is a beautiful day and I am laying on the beach working on my tan. The first clue that we had that something was going on was the sun suddenly was blacked out by the several hundred military helicopters that were in the sky. Now we are used to seeing military helicopters fly over the ocean but never had this many been in formation at the same time.
Then the beach started to rumble so much that I had to grab my beer to keep it from spilling, which is one of the seven deadly sins on Tybee (unlike the rest of the Country Tybee came up with its own list of deadly sins one night during a Beach Bum softball game…but that’s another story).
Looking up there was a squadron of soldiers dressed in full military war dress, carrying rifles, running to where I sat mostly naked in my beach chair. My first thought that I was impressed by what they thought of me to send that many to take me down but then they ran by, jumped over and one of those guys grabbed my beer and took it with him! (It could have been a woman, I really don’t know. I was just staring at their guns!)
That was pretty much my experience though other island residents had it far rougher. Former politician Mallory, before he was a politician, found his house surrounded by guys wearing masks and lighting flame throwers. They had repelled down from the aforementioned helicopters on the Tybee School and several missed their mark and landed in Mallory’s yard. Of course he runs screaming into the street for them to stop so they took him prisoner.
Johnny O can confirm all of this.
They also invaded the famous Sunday night talent show at the old Desoto Beach Club where several hundred would show up to either entertain or be entertained. Of course no one had ever repelled into the talent show before, though many had fallen down, so a group of soldiers with guns won that night.
The following day I was driving home from work and someone had taken the time to make a new sign welcoming visitors to the island. The old one used to say, “Welcome to Tybee Island.”
This one said “Welcome to Camp Locklear!”
You gotta love the elected people of this land!
Saturday, October 16, 2010
What I'm trying to do
I woke again this morning in an empty hotel room. Just in a different city. I’ve always traveled a lot at Union Mission making regular trips to Atlanta and Washington but have also had occasion to go almost everywhere. So I’m used to waking up alone in hotel rooms.
Over the past few months though I’ve grown accustomed to waking up at home with Goddess snoring beside the bed. Then it’s a bike ride to the Breakfast Club and then to the ocean to start my day. From July until this past week I haven’t traveled anywhere other than a quick trip to Chicago. It’s the longest amount of time that I’ve simply spent at home.
I’m taking a break from the Sabbatical that I’ve been on, returning home tomorrow before leaving again on Tuesday for the rest of the week. Last week was good for me as I’ve felt revived and had good talks with peers who are advising and helping me put together the plans for what I’m doing next.
Then Conner and I hooked up and he and I always have fun. I remember some of what we actually did, but we’ll be together again in a couple of weeks in St. Martin and there will be new adventures setting sail with Captain Morgan and Hania.
Last night was with the kids and Athens friends. It is homecoming at the University of Georgia so we watched the parade and went out to dinner. Afterwards they had other things that they wanted to do so I commanded the room for myself for the first time that I can remember.
Now I sip coffee in silence and contemplate things. I’ve got a couple of friends who are going through life transitions that are just as major as the ones that I am navigating. Both have reached out to me over the past couple of days asking for guidance and telling me what is going on with them. Sadness abounds in these conversations.
I don’t mind listening to them. The other day I was talking to my Mom and we both noted that nobody likes to hear anyone describe things that are wrong in their lives. People just want to ignore bad times because it may prove to be contagious.
Once my friend Frank Stanton asked me how I was doing. When I began to tell him, he held up his hand to stop me from talking and said, “Mike, I was just being nice. I really don’t want to know.”
He was poking fun but I do believe that is how most folks are. They don’t want to know.
So I’m thinking about my friends this morning as they make themselves get through unwanted changes. I think about where I am now, calmer and quieter than I was just a few months ago. I’ve learned who my friends really are and remain surprised at the number who aren’t. I’ve let go of a great deal of pretense that once ruled my persona. I’ve learned to appreciate the beauty of my surroundings and linger over them rather than rush pass them. I’ve learned to let things come to me rather than chase after them.
Now I’m trying to reframe the changes that have occurred in my life. I am a big believer that life is a gift that each of us shares and none of us asked for. We don’t know how long we get to keep it or how long it will last. The people in our lives and the things that we do are also gifts and we don’t know how long any of them remain. But one thing is certain … gifts don’t last forever.
People come and people go. Jobs end and adventures begin. I think that the trick it to be thankful for what you’ve had (even if it would be your preference to still have it), appreciate the hell out of what you’ve got (friends, places, things to do), and to do your best to prepare yourself for whatever is coming your way (hopefully better days).
At least that’s what I’m trying to do.
Over the past few months though I’ve grown accustomed to waking up at home with Goddess snoring beside the bed. Then it’s a bike ride to the Breakfast Club and then to the ocean to start my day. From July until this past week I haven’t traveled anywhere other than a quick trip to Chicago. It’s the longest amount of time that I’ve simply spent at home.
I’m taking a break from the Sabbatical that I’ve been on, returning home tomorrow before leaving again on Tuesday for the rest of the week. Last week was good for me as I’ve felt revived and had good talks with peers who are advising and helping me put together the plans for what I’m doing next.
Then Conner and I hooked up and he and I always have fun. I remember some of what we actually did, but we’ll be together again in a couple of weeks in St. Martin and there will be new adventures setting sail with Captain Morgan and Hania.
Last night was with the kids and Athens friends. It is homecoming at the University of Georgia so we watched the parade and went out to dinner. Afterwards they had other things that they wanted to do so I commanded the room for myself for the first time that I can remember.
Now I sip coffee in silence and contemplate things. I’ve got a couple of friends who are going through life transitions that are just as major as the ones that I am navigating. Both have reached out to me over the past couple of days asking for guidance and telling me what is going on with them. Sadness abounds in these conversations.
I don’t mind listening to them. The other day I was talking to my Mom and we both noted that nobody likes to hear anyone describe things that are wrong in their lives. People just want to ignore bad times because it may prove to be contagious.
Once my friend Frank Stanton asked me how I was doing. When I began to tell him, he held up his hand to stop me from talking and said, “Mike, I was just being nice. I really don’t want to know.”
He was poking fun but I do believe that is how most folks are. They don’t want to know.
So I’m thinking about my friends this morning as they make themselves get through unwanted changes. I think about where I am now, calmer and quieter than I was just a few months ago. I’ve learned who my friends really are and remain surprised at the number who aren’t. I’ve let go of a great deal of pretense that once ruled my persona. I’ve learned to appreciate the beauty of my surroundings and linger over them rather than rush pass them. I’ve learned to let things come to me rather than chase after them.
Now I’m trying to reframe the changes that have occurred in my life. I am a big believer that life is a gift that each of us shares and none of us asked for. We don’t know how long we get to keep it or how long it will last. The people in our lives and the things that we do are also gifts and we don’t know how long any of them remain. But one thing is certain … gifts don’t last forever.
People come and people go. Jobs end and adventures begin. I think that the trick it to be thankful for what you’ve had (even if it would be your preference to still have it), appreciate the hell out of what you’ve got (friends, places, things to do), and to do your best to prepare yourself for whatever is coming your way (hopefully better days).
At least that’s what I’m trying to do.
Friday, October 15, 2010
The Drive Home
Conner must have driven me home last night.
I mean to the hotel. At least I woke up in the same hotel room that I had been in the night before. I have no recollection of leaving the French Quarter last night, several blocks away from my hotel, so it must have been Conner who drove. It could have been Jim Withers. He was with us. One of them must have driven me home.
Though we didn’t have a car.
It all started innocently enough.
It was a glorious afternoon in New Orleans. I strolled down to Jackson Square to the Cathedral of St. Louis where I lit some candles for people I love and paid good money to the Catholic Church to do so.
Stumbling outside there was a five piece band with a hot girl bass player. I sat on the steps sipping wine. Savannah and New Orleans are the only cities in the country where you can do that. It is part of what makes them great cities.
Anyway I’m sitting there, enjoying the music, when Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion walk by. They are arguing. In fact, the Lion is cussing Dorothy out. She’s just staring at him as they briskly make their way back to Kansas I suppose. It’s not something that you see every day.
You got to love New Orleans!
Then I made my way to Bourbon Street which was likely mistake number one. I stumbled into a place with a really hot band with a girl singer. They were doing classic rock and were really good. I stayed for several drinks. They were that good!
Stumbling back outside, I wondered where my bicycle was. I can never count on my bike. Oh wait! It’s back on Tybee. Probably getting in trouble!
After that I went back to the band in front of the Cathedral. They were too good to simply leave behind and the crowd was great, the weather nice, the trees in Jackson Square danced to the music, and the bass player was hot.
After an hour or so I made my way back to the hotel. Several Community Health Leaders and I were talking when Conner strolled in. Conner doesn’t walk or rush or run. He strolls, never in a hurry, always calm and in control. Except for that time he passed out in the kitchen on Brant Island in Canada.
Anyway I introduced him to Jim Withers and we were off. Conner immediately got us lost, but he was cool with it. We followed him around until he found a place that he thought he had been to before and we ordered a gumbo feast.
Then it was off into the night for a good time!
Then I woke up this morning wondering who drove me home.
It must have been Conner.
He owed me big time for driving him home last time.
I wonder what happened to Jim?
I mean to the hotel. At least I woke up in the same hotel room that I had been in the night before. I have no recollection of leaving the French Quarter last night, several blocks away from my hotel, so it must have been Conner who drove. It could have been Jim Withers. He was with us. One of them must have driven me home.
Though we didn’t have a car.
It all started innocently enough.
It was a glorious afternoon in New Orleans. I strolled down to Jackson Square to the Cathedral of St. Louis where I lit some candles for people I love and paid good money to the Catholic Church to do so.
Stumbling outside there was a five piece band with a hot girl bass player. I sat on the steps sipping wine. Savannah and New Orleans are the only cities in the country where you can do that. It is part of what makes them great cities.
Anyway I’m sitting there, enjoying the music, when Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion walk by. They are arguing. In fact, the Lion is cussing Dorothy out. She’s just staring at him as they briskly make their way back to Kansas I suppose. It’s not something that you see every day.
You got to love New Orleans!
Then I made my way to Bourbon Street which was likely mistake number one. I stumbled into a place with a really hot band with a girl singer. They were doing classic rock and were really good. I stayed for several drinks. They were that good!
Stumbling back outside, I wondered where my bicycle was. I can never count on my bike. Oh wait! It’s back on Tybee. Probably getting in trouble!
After that I went back to the band in front of the Cathedral. They were too good to simply leave behind and the crowd was great, the weather nice, the trees in Jackson Square danced to the music, and the bass player was hot.
After an hour or so I made my way back to the hotel. Several Community Health Leaders and I were talking when Conner strolled in. Conner doesn’t walk or rush or run. He strolls, never in a hurry, always calm and in control. Except for that time he passed out in the kitchen on Brant Island in Canada.
Anyway I introduced him to Jim Withers and we were off. Conner immediately got us lost, but he was cool with it. We followed him around until he found a place that he thought he had been to before and we ordered a gumbo feast.
Then it was off into the night for a good time!
Then I woke up this morning wondering who drove me home.
It must have been Conner.
He owed me big time for driving him home last time.
I wonder what happened to Jim?
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Waiting In New Orleans
It is hard not to think about my friends Stacy Jennings and Karen Jack when I’m in New Orleans; Stacy because this is her town and Karen because her son Tyler is in school here.
Stacy burst into my life just as unexpectedly as the Saints marched to Super Bowl victory! We’d met but it was a distant knowledge of one another and then through Face Book and blogs and messages to one another this abiding friendship grew deep and fast. We gather together when we can for deep and longing conversations.
Tyler was a baby when we met but his mother Karen and I go way back to the early days of Union Mission. She came on board as the Director of the Magdalene Project eventually taking over financial operations. We became close friends then she moved to Michigan and we touched base from time to time. Then Face Book brought us back together again and we keep up.
I stare out at this magnificent city this morning from the 17th floor of the Loews Hotel where the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is hosting the annual meeting of the Community Health Leaders. I was fortunate enough to win in 2000 and received national recognition and a $100,000 cash award. I gave the money to Union Mission and we ended up buying the property around the Starfish Café with it.
The thing about Community Health Leaders is that we are this fraternity of peers who are out there trying to make the world a better place. It is like a home coming when we gather and of course no one here follows any of the rules.
As soon as the meeting began, Sharon Rohrbach, Judy Bentley and I sat in a corner to talk about the things that we’re doing. Sharon’s getting ready to be on Oprah … again! She was advising me on my career moves. Judy wants me to come to St. Louis to work on a project with her.
Last night this year’s winners were recognized. They are amazing people who are in the trenches of taking health care to people who would never get it otherwise. Dr. Jim Withers opted to skip the ceremony so that he could join a group of New Orleans medical students to go out of the streets and treat homeless people living under bridges or in parks. That’s the kind of group this is.
And Lord knows as I made my way around the city yesterday, New Orleans has its fair share of homeless people! It is hard not to love this city though. The food, jazz, Bourbon Street, voodoo and art tickle the senses constantly.
I’ve made many trips to New Orleans over the years. Most of them had particular missions to them. This time it is different. I’m here with no particular purpose other than I happen to be a Community Health Leader. There will be the opportunity to learn things that the Foundation has orchestrated and many opportunities to network with the other Leaders. I’m waiting on things to come to me even when I’m here. There is no particular agenda except to see what happens.
But then there is Conner. He and I often get in trouble when we’re together. I just got off the phone with him and we’re taking the city tonight. We’re heading back to St. Martin soon together so we need to get in shape for whatever we end up doing there. What better place to do so than New Orleans!
Stacy burst into my life just as unexpectedly as the Saints marched to Super Bowl victory! We’d met but it was a distant knowledge of one another and then through Face Book and blogs and messages to one another this abiding friendship grew deep and fast. We gather together when we can for deep and longing conversations.
Tyler was a baby when we met but his mother Karen and I go way back to the early days of Union Mission. She came on board as the Director of the Magdalene Project eventually taking over financial operations. We became close friends then she moved to Michigan and we touched base from time to time. Then Face Book brought us back together again and we keep up.
I stare out at this magnificent city this morning from the 17th floor of the Loews Hotel where the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is hosting the annual meeting of the Community Health Leaders. I was fortunate enough to win in 2000 and received national recognition and a $100,000 cash award. I gave the money to Union Mission and we ended up buying the property around the Starfish Café with it.
The thing about Community Health Leaders is that we are this fraternity of peers who are out there trying to make the world a better place. It is like a home coming when we gather and of course no one here follows any of the rules.
As soon as the meeting began, Sharon Rohrbach, Judy Bentley and I sat in a corner to talk about the things that we’re doing. Sharon’s getting ready to be on Oprah … again! She was advising me on my career moves. Judy wants me to come to St. Louis to work on a project with her.
Last night this year’s winners were recognized. They are amazing people who are in the trenches of taking health care to people who would never get it otherwise. Dr. Jim Withers opted to skip the ceremony so that he could join a group of New Orleans medical students to go out of the streets and treat homeless people living under bridges or in parks. That’s the kind of group this is.
And Lord knows as I made my way around the city yesterday, New Orleans has its fair share of homeless people! It is hard not to love this city though. The food, jazz, Bourbon Street, voodoo and art tickle the senses constantly.
I’ve made many trips to New Orleans over the years. Most of them had particular missions to them. This time it is different. I’m here with no particular purpose other than I happen to be a Community Health Leader. There will be the opportunity to learn things that the Foundation has orchestrated and many opportunities to network with the other Leaders. I’m waiting on things to come to me even when I’m here. There is no particular agenda except to see what happens.
But then there is Conner. He and I often get in trouble when we’re together. I just got off the phone with him and we’re taking the city tonight. We’re heading back to St. Martin soon together so we need to get in shape for whatever we end up doing there. What better place to do so than New Orleans!
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The Smaller Stuff
Atlanta is a perennial traffic jam with skyscrapers and housing divisions built around it. I was sitting in the back of Lucy Hall’s SUV while she and Kim drove me back to the subway station. I stared at the long lines of cars in every direction. Blinkers and headlights and break lights and horns almost make it like a moving version of New York City’s Times Square.
Lucy’s office is near the northern most subway stop and I would be heading to the southern most at the airport. It would take about half and hour which is far better than drive time and there I would sit amidst the diversity of urban culture. Races mixed, multiple nationalities represented, music blaring from earphones … and a collection of people who look …worn out and tired.
I’ve had my share of urban in my life. Eight years in the inner city of Louisville, Kentucky then led to Union Mission in Savannah and the opportunity to do work in most every major U.S. city. I’ve been blessed to visit most of them, many on numerous occasions.
I have my favorites. I love Pittsburgh! The drive through the tunnel in the mountain as you make your way from the airport to the city is an explosion of the senses. One moment you are in a lush green countryside then you go through this tunnel and BOOM …the entire city lay before you. Of course I also have good friends there, one of which who has a hot tub.
New York is always a rush because everything in the universe is there. Talk about subway rides! Talk about wonderful entertainment on Broadway and in little taverns and just on the sidewalk. Talk about poverty like you’ve never seen it! NYC has it all.
Washington D.C. I love it but I probably hate it a little more. It is a wonderful city and I have dear friends there too (though none have invited me to their hot tubs …umm… likely cause they’re all on Capitol Hill). But you see the majesty of Congress and sleeping outside is a man on a subway grate with several empty Soda containers filled with his piss because there are no public restrooms that will let him in. The place is a city of extremes that slaps the senses.
Cleveland is a wonderful place if you hit it on a sunny day. Baltimore is wonderful so long as you stay within two blocks of the river. Cincinnati is fantastic and sin-free (just go across the river into Covington, KY for that). San Francisco is as sweet as it gets, especially if you are standing on Martha Ryan’s rooftop garden and seeing a whole city spill down a mountain into the bay. Buffalo is a trip into what American city’s used to be. And Chicago (How could I leave my extended family at the Breakfast Club out?) has Wrigley Field … nuff said!
All of these places are like anywhere though. They’re just on a grander scale. There are good things and there are bad things. There is rich culture and barren landscapes. There are rich and there are poor. There is happiness and there is sadness that cannot be measured.
I sit in another airport again today on my way to New Orleans, another city that I love and have had wonderful times in. This trip ought to be a hoot because two different worlds will collide. Jim Withers, famous doctor who is changing the world, meets my friend Conner, who orchestrates body waxes. The place survived Katrina and bad political reconstruction … I’m not so sure about this.
When you boil it all down though, wherever you’re at, it all comes own to the same things. We’re trying to find ourselves. We’re trying to get out of relationships or get into them. We love what we do or hate what we do. We are sick or we are well. We’ve paid all of the bills or we haven’t.
And while you may have done some combination of the above, the person next to you has done some other some other collection. We only have ourselves to get one another though.
I see lots more kindness in small places than in large places. Maybe that’s why I love Tybee Island as much as I do. People rally for one another. Sure, there are angels and there are assholes like anywhere else, but there is a kindness that blankets a larger geographic area than in the cities.
I’ve seen lots of sadness in my life and have more tee-shirts than I can possible wear in a lifetime (most of them given to me in urban areas). So I’m drawn to the little things now; a Phone Call from a friend; a Face Book private message from another; text message exchange from someone who cares about me.
So urban is great. This smaller stuff is better.
Lucy’s office is near the northern most subway stop and I would be heading to the southern most at the airport. It would take about half and hour which is far better than drive time and there I would sit amidst the diversity of urban culture. Races mixed, multiple nationalities represented, music blaring from earphones … and a collection of people who look …worn out and tired.
I’ve had my share of urban in my life. Eight years in the inner city of Louisville, Kentucky then led to Union Mission in Savannah and the opportunity to do work in most every major U.S. city. I’ve been blessed to visit most of them, many on numerous occasions.
I have my favorites. I love Pittsburgh! The drive through the tunnel in the mountain as you make your way from the airport to the city is an explosion of the senses. One moment you are in a lush green countryside then you go through this tunnel and BOOM …the entire city lay before you. Of course I also have good friends there, one of which who has a hot tub.
New York is always a rush because everything in the universe is there. Talk about subway rides! Talk about wonderful entertainment on Broadway and in little taverns and just on the sidewalk. Talk about poverty like you’ve never seen it! NYC has it all.
Washington D.C. I love it but I probably hate it a little more. It is a wonderful city and I have dear friends there too (though none have invited me to their hot tubs …umm… likely cause they’re all on Capitol Hill). But you see the majesty of Congress and sleeping outside is a man on a subway grate with several empty Soda containers filled with his piss because there are no public restrooms that will let him in. The place is a city of extremes that slaps the senses.
Cleveland is a wonderful place if you hit it on a sunny day. Baltimore is wonderful so long as you stay within two blocks of the river. Cincinnati is fantastic and sin-free (just go across the river into Covington, KY for that). San Francisco is as sweet as it gets, especially if you are standing on Martha Ryan’s rooftop garden and seeing a whole city spill down a mountain into the bay. Buffalo is a trip into what American city’s used to be. And Chicago (How could I leave my extended family at the Breakfast Club out?) has Wrigley Field … nuff said!
All of these places are like anywhere though. They’re just on a grander scale. There are good things and there are bad things. There is rich culture and barren landscapes. There are rich and there are poor. There is happiness and there is sadness that cannot be measured.
I sit in another airport again today on my way to New Orleans, another city that I love and have had wonderful times in. This trip ought to be a hoot because two different worlds will collide. Jim Withers, famous doctor who is changing the world, meets my friend Conner, who orchestrates body waxes. The place survived Katrina and bad political reconstruction … I’m not so sure about this.
When you boil it all down though, wherever you’re at, it all comes own to the same things. We’re trying to find ourselves. We’re trying to get out of relationships or get into them. We love what we do or hate what we do. We are sick or we are well. We’ve paid all of the bills or we haven’t.
And while you may have done some combination of the above, the person next to you has done some other some other collection. We only have ourselves to get one another though.
I see lots more kindness in small places than in large places. Maybe that’s why I love Tybee Island as much as I do. People rally for one another. Sure, there are angels and there are assholes like anywhere else, but there is a kindness that blankets a larger geographic area than in the cities.
I’ve seen lots of sadness in my life and have more tee-shirts than I can possible wear in a lifetime (most of them given to me in urban areas). So I’m drawn to the little things now; a Phone Call from a friend; a Face Book private message from another; text message exchange from someone who cares about me.
So urban is great. This smaller stuff is better.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Taking a Break
From the moment that I left Union Mission in June people began to tell me how successful the next big thing that I do is going to be. Julie was the first, though we were newly divorced but she has always been one of the best cheerleaders ever. I was in such a distraught state over a great number of things that I remember her saying the words but was pretty numb to them.
Then it was my former Board chair Herb. “With your experience and abilities to communicate in so many different ways, you are going to be wildly successful when you decide whatever it is that you are going to do.” I sat there at the table in Larry’s restaurant just staring at him, tired and worn out and not wanting to hear such things.
Even my extended family at the Breakfast Club has consistently brought it up, telling me how excited they are to watch it all unfold. Whenever this happens I look to Johnny O who always has clever responses like “Don’t listen to that crap!” or “F**K this! I’m leaving!” and he throws his money on the counter and storms out. I can always count on Johnny O.
While I’ve pretty much laid low in public since June, a number of people have gotten in touch with me asking if they can go with me, as if I knew where I was going. I say that I’ll get back to them whenever I figure out what it is that I’m doing.
For the most part, I’ve stayed on the beloved back deck writing and thinking. I’ve walked Goddess through the marshes of the Back River to listen to the choir of mussels. I’ve taken my bicycle that sometimes drinks too much to Bernie’s or to Fannies. I’ve made my daily pilgrimage to the Breakfast Club for the communion of coffee. Those have been my days.
And I resolved that I would wait on things to come to me and not go chasing after them in some frantic or panic state. It has been hard work because I have a Type-A personality disorder and am a relentless and driven person when I want something.
But it has worked out. Good things have been finding their way to me. Friends that love me and who I know without any hesitation that I can trust were the first. Followed by the emergence of ideas that are still being formulated but a plan is coming together. A calming of the soul is still taking place as I find myself overwhelmed with the beauty of my surroundings. Then a partner showed up who is strong where I am not and she gives me homework assignments and I call her names.
Then yesterday a friend who I love deeply wrote me “I know you are sabbaticaling … I think I made up that word …but I am so excited for you and watching what is next.”
And I paused.
Throughout this Sabbatical I’ve danced with old friends who had been long lost, had Celtic Christianity continued to say that light is born in the darkness, and began the long hard journey of just being Micheal again. It has been both a terrifying and thrilling walk.
I write this in an airport. I’m taking a break from the Sabbatical for a couple of weeks, heading to Atlanta, New Orleans, and L.A. Consulting work first is then followed by a collection of leaders in health care and then an exploding street medicine movement. I am intrigued of possibilities.
Then I’m going back on Sabbatical again.
Last night I began this break when another gift that I didn’t expect came to me on Shirley’s sad little holy dock. The Milky Way was putting on its nightly show and for the first time in a long, long time I felt peaceful. It is a wonderful way to begin a break from the break that I was taking.
Now as I climb on planes, I am excited a bit to see what is out there.
Then it was my former Board chair Herb. “With your experience and abilities to communicate in so many different ways, you are going to be wildly successful when you decide whatever it is that you are going to do.” I sat there at the table in Larry’s restaurant just staring at him, tired and worn out and not wanting to hear such things.
Even my extended family at the Breakfast Club has consistently brought it up, telling me how excited they are to watch it all unfold. Whenever this happens I look to Johnny O who always has clever responses like “Don’t listen to that crap!” or “F**K this! I’m leaving!” and he throws his money on the counter and storms out. I can always count on Johnny O.
While I’ve pretty much laid low in public since June, a number of people have gotten in touch with me asking if they can go with me, as if I knew where I was going. I say that I’ll get back to them whenever I figure out what it is that I’m doing.
For the most part, I’ve stayed on the beloved back deck writing and thinking. I’ve walked Goddess through the marshes of the Back River to listen to the choir of mussels. I’ve taken my bicycle that sometimes drinks too much to Bernie’s or to Fannies. I’ve made my daily pilgrimage to the Breakfast Club for the communion of coffee. Those have been my days.
And I resolved that I would wait on things to come to me and not go chasing after them in some frantic or panic state. It has been hard work because I have a Type-A personality disorder and am a relentless and driven person when I want something.
But it has worked out. Good things have been finding their way to me. Friends that love me and who I know without any hesitation that I can trust were the first. Followed by the emergence of ideas that are still being formulated but a plan is coming together. A calming of the soul is still taking place as I find myself overwhelmed with the beauty of my surroundings. Then a partner showed up who is strong where I am not and she gives me homework assignments and I call her names.
Then yesterday a friend who I love deeply wrote me “I know you are sabbaticaling … I think I made up that word …but I am so excited for you and watching what is next.”
And I paused.
Throughout this Sabbatical I’ve danced with old friends who had been long lost, had Celtic Christianity continued to say that light is born in the darkness, and began the long hard journey of just being Micheal again. It has been both a terrifying and thrilling walk.
I write this in an airport. I’m taking a break from the Sabbatical for a couple of weeks, heading to Atlanta, New Orleans, and L.A. Consulting work first is then followed by a collection of leaders in health care and then an exploding street medicine movement. I am intrigued of possibilities.
Then I’m going back on Sabbatical again.
Last night I began this break when another gift that I didn’t expect came to me on Shirley’s sad little holy dock. The Milky Way was putting on its nightly show and for the first time in a long, long time I felt peaceful. It is a wonderful way to begin a break from the break that I was taking.
Now as I climb on planes, I am excited a bit to see what is out there.
Monday, October 11, 2010
My Time to Imagine
On the 30th anniversary of John Lennon’s death I was in New York so we made our way to the part of Central Park across from the Dakota where Strawberry Fields is, the memorial to the former Beatle. It was covered with hundreds of flowers and a large “peace” sign had been formed out of votive candles.
Many hundreds of people were gathered paying homage to him. They were of all ages and many races were represented. Several had guitars and were signing his songs and smiling as lyrics were prayed into the sky.
I remember wondering that this is what it must have looked like after Jesus was crucified. His followers continued to collect telling his stories and singing his songs and remembering. Perhaps it is better stated as Re-membering him; putting it all back together again.
Then we turned to leave and literally ran into Yoko Ono who was coming to pay her own homage to her late husband. She was dressed all in black and was hugged tightly by body guards. Her head was down and I swear that she was crying. We snapped a picture and stepped aside.
Like many people, the Beatles changed the way I thought about most everything. They introduced me to the world in a way that was relevant, unlike Sunday School lessons about ancient Israel where everyone wore robes and threw rocks. John, Paul, George and Ringo gave me my first lessons in love, lust, longing, and losing what you love.
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
The only Beatle that I ever saw was George Harrison during his American concert tour. We all hopped in broken down car and made our way to Atlanta, somehow got tickets with little money, hobnobbed with the Hare Krishna’s and were blown away as the first cords of “What is Life?” opened the show. Throughout the concert, George kept mixing religions so that Krishna gave way to Jesus who bowed out to Buddha.
My Sweet Lord! What was happening? And if you listen to that song as he did it at the “Concert for Bangladesh or at his last concert in Japan, he did it again. It still makes me shiver as he calls all of the known names for God out one after the other to end the song.
“In My Life, there are places I remember…” John sang.
“Yesterday,” Paul chimed in.
“All things must pass,” George answered.
I’ve always been mindful of the passing of things; the milestones of life; leaving home for college; my children leaving home for college; leaving Louisville where I first started the journey to become an adult (I know…many will question that!); leaving my first marriage because I knew that it was time to go only to then be left because she knew it was time to go thereby teaching me both heaven and hell; leaving Union Mission after more than two decades which was long over due.
Watching the crowd at Strawberry Fields that day, they were doing their best to make it like it was. Clapping and hugging or stoically standing there, singing old songs to the tops of their lungs, trying to make it the way that it used to be.
But there’s no going back. If we do all that we find “is old speck house and plywood,” (James Taylor was the first act signed by Apple, so this is a fair inclusion). As much as we may try there is no reconstructing the past or no changing it for the better or the worse.
So what is done is done. It all helped us to get to who we are and where we are, but it is done, never to be much anything more than a memory or a story for the rest of our lives.
The only thing that matters is now and what we plan to do next. That is what I’m trying to do. Or if I can say it as John did, it is my time to …
Imagine.
Many hundreds of people were gathered paying homage to him. They were of all ages and many races were represented. Several had guitars and were signing his songs and smiling as lyrics were prayed into the sky.
I remember wondering that this is what it must have looked like after Jesus was crucified. His followers continued to collect telling his stories and singing his songs and remembering. Perhaps it is better stated as Re-membering him; putting it all back together again.
Then we turned to leave and literally ran into Yoko Ono who was coming to pay her own homage to her late husband. She was dressed all in black and was hugged tightly by body guards. Her head was down and I swear that she was crying. We snapped a picture and stepped aside.
Like many people, the Beatles changed the way I thought about most everything. They introduced me to the world in a way that was relevant, unlike Sunday School lessons about ancient Israel where everyone wore robes and threw rocks. John, Paul, George and Ringo gave me my first lessons in love, lust, longing, and losing what you love.
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
The only Beatle that I ever saw was George Harrison during his American concert tour. We all hopped in broken down car and made our way to Atlanta, somehow got tickets with little money, hobnobbed with the Hare Krishna’s and were blown away as the first cords of “What is Life?” opened the show. Throughout the concert, George kept mixing religions so that Krishna gave way to Jesus who bowed out to Buddha.
My Sweet Lord! What was happening? And if you listen to that song as he did it at the “Concert for Bangladesh or at his last concert in Japan, he did it again. It still makes me shiver as he calls all of the known names for God out one after the other to end the song.
“In My Life, there are places I remember…” John sang.
“Yesterday,” Paul chimed in.
“All things must pass,” George answered.
I’ve always been mindful of the passing of things; the milestones of life; leaving home for college; my children leaving home for college; leaving Louisville where I first started the journey to become an adult (I know…many will question that!); leaving my first marriage because I knew that it was time to go only to then be left because she knew it was time to go thereby teaching me both heaven and hell; leaving Union Mission after more than two decades which was long over due.
Watching the crowd at Strawberry Fields that day, they were doing their best to make it like it was. Clapping and hugging or stoically standing there, singing old songs to the tops of their lungs, trying to make it the way that it used to be.
But there’s no going back. If we do all that we find “is old speck house and plywood,” (James Taylor was the first act signed by Apple, so this is a fair inclusion). As much as we may try there is no reconstructing the past or no changing it for the better or the worse.
So what is done is done. It all helped us to get to who we are and where we are, but it is done, never to be much anything more than a memory or a story for the rest of our lives.
The only thing that matters is now and what we plan to do next. That is what I’m trying to do. Or if I can say it as John did, it is my time to …
Imagine.
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