Our calls at the end of the day are mostly about the day, the things we did, the people we saw, what we think of all that, our online scrabble games and sometimes deeper topics. It puts me at ease to hear her talk about those things, something that helps me end the day and get ready to sleep, and without it i find myself reading Semper or the Times and not really getting to that state of ease she puts me in.

We’re together a few times a week, and i try to make sure i’m there, in mind as well as body which has not been so easy of late, too many distractions in closing out the details of my former life, sometimes we walk one of the four little dogs frequenting the backyard and we hold hands and talk and pull and talk and pull and…you get the picture, and its all very very relaxing. We sit and watch the sun go down, light a little fire and dream together too, which i can tell you is much better than dreaming alone, and we watch the stars rise in the sky while the dogs chase whatever they brought to us to throw.

Without all this, i feel myself missing. Missing her voice and the calm it brings me, missing the warmth of her hand, the smile in her eyes, and i realized that all those little things, which some people would say aren’t extraordinary, well, they make up part of me now, and when she’s not here, i’m missing those parts of who i am.

I busied myself with drawings, sculptures and preparations for classes, but its not the same life. As i sit here at the table the card she sent me before she left is at my hand, the roses we ate dinner over are in front of me, and the stove is warming the house, but it would’ve been so much warmer if she was here.

My daughters do something similar for me. They bring out a part of me thats not usually around, and when they’re gone, i’m missing that part of me and the energy they use to bring it out in me.

We all have people in our lives who make us more somehow. Parents, spouses, siblings, children, and when they go away, to camp, or school, or vacation, its good to take a moment and consider yourself. What part of you is not there when they are gone? I think thats what missing is.

This is one way I’ll tell the one who holds my heart how much i’ve missed her, and my daughters too. I’ll do more of course, but I think its the first time i’ve realized how much they make up in my life. That line from Jerry Maguire…”you complete me” seems a bit corny and overused maybe, but i think its really a life truth. When you let someone deep into you, they become a part of you, and when they’re gone, that part is missing.

Missing you!
With all my heart

And while that worries me…will I be able to help my favorite daughters? Will I be able to provide for the one who holds my heart? It’s not what’s making me sad.

I’m remembering the wood in my hands, sitting on the steps of a rented duplex, watching my daughters playing in the parking lot. They were riding around on “pink thunder” a two wheeler with training wheels and a big wheels trike. I had been given the wood by my contractor, who was trying to get me out of his hair. It had been raining for almost twenty days, the foundation was ready, the modular house was ready, we just needed ten dry days in a row so the crane that would lift the modules into place, wouldn’t sink or tip over. My carpenter was tired of me asking “are we almost there yet?” and had handed the piece of 5/4 fir to me (with a bit of velocity) and told me to “go make sawdust.”

So I was sitting on the porch worried about the weeks passing, the lack of progress, when my favorite oldest daughter asked me to draw a hummingbird.
I took out a pencil and drew one on the board. She asked me if I would put it up over her window. I found a small chisel and carved the bird in low relief in the board. My favorite youngest daughter asked for a fish, so I drew and carved on for her. I did a few others, and brought them to the carpenter who nailed them up over the appropriate windows. My hands worked that house, tarring the basement, priming siding, designing little custom bits, all throughout the summer of 1989.

I’d start each day at the house site early, sipping a bit of juice, and having a donut while sitting in one of the ground floor windows looking over the tangle of greenbriar that would become the backyard that I enjoyed mowing in long flowing lines following the count our of the land.

To be accurate, there were times I didn’t enjoy the mowing, or the mistakes I made with the paint, and I didn’t ever like the wood for the back deck but, the house, the yard, the garden, the secret pine grove where we’d have ccokouts, and the playhouse that quickly was renamed “the pony house” I liked making them for the girls. It was all this I remembered and the idea of giving it away makes me sad.

Little things like loosening one stair tread so it would squeak when someone came in late, the little window where we’d sit on the stairs to watch for the school bus, all that’s gone now. The garden looked overgrown, the holiday lights were half heartedly draped, the work of my hands slowly rotting away.

A house you build has something of you in it, like anything we make, food, cards, stories, the thinking, the effort is a gift, one we usually give freely hoping the gift will bring pleasure. I think in the case of this house, it feels like it was stolen, at least those parts that came from my mind, and my hands.

I’m not in the habit of wishing anyone ill, but I’m hoping that if a person takes a gift, that the cosmos will look badly upon them, and that no joy will come their way….well it’s the worst I can wish…

Losing the house may be appropriate as an analogy, that life is past, nature will take back the wood in time, and soon maybe, I’ll get to put my hands on some wood again and build something. 

It was quiet then, there were a few birds calling, a train whistled in the distance, and what light remained painted everything in shades of orange and yellow. Behind the fence a football would pop up, then fall down, much to the consternation of the dogs, and some disappointment with the Aggies overtime performance could be heard.

Before long, the one who holds my heart was there, and i readied a fire in the chimenia, a little portable fireplace pretty common around here. I hadn’t built a fire in a while but the old “little sticks first, bigger sticks on that” was the principle that always worked at the cabin so I thought it would work here too. In not time the fire was at a healthy roar, and we started putting the piñon pine blocks in to give the smoke a better scent.

The smell of burning pine took me back to the cabin, not the new cabin dad and i built, but the one before, the one dad bought when he had his falling out with grandpa. Maybe it was the spite cabin. It had been built in the early 1920’s and was a cold cold place each evening, we needed fire to have a comfortable evening playing cards.

I remember we’d spend most of a day unloading (mostly rolling logs downhill, trying not to roll them through the cabin) and splitting the logs into burnable chunks. Dad looked hard for oak, was comfortable with pine, but didn’t really like burning balsam. Balsam burned fast, had lots of sap in it, and would spit and pop and send sparks from the chimney…something not so good during dry years.

We split the wood with a maul usually. Its a dumb lump of metal at the end of a handle, tapered to a wedge to split the wood, with the back of the head shaped like a sledge hammer. Sometimes the maul would get stuck in the log and we’d have to take a sledge and drive it deeper till the log split. Good wood (dry with a straight grain) would split in one maul blow. It made you feel like you weren’t just a paper pusher, like you were a woodsman, but then the next piece would be wet, have a knot buried in it, and would tangle up the maul on every swing, reminding you that no, you were just a paper pusher and not a woodsman.

We’d stack the split wood, cover it with tar paper, weight down the paper hoping that it would come through the winter drier than it started, which sometimes worked, sometimes not…thats the thing about fire making, it keeps a person humble. We usually never burned the wood we split that year, depending on the previous stack that was nice and dry from the year before. Hauling the wood inside was often a bit of an adventure as we’d inevitably disturb a whole bunch of ants who’d been nesting for the year, and a few big wolf spiders.

Once inside, we’d choose out some straight grained dry splits to turn into kindling. This usually required taking the hand ax and splitting kindling from the log right there on the hearth. It takes a stout concrete arch to deal with this pounding, and a person has to keep a close eye on the sharp edge of that axe. More than once it skid off the log (ok i missed when i swung) and bounced off the ankle of my boot (keep your boots on when splitting kindling) When that would happen I’d look up at dad as if to say did you see that? I almost cut my foot off! but we’d never say anything, he’d have his eyebrows up and tell me to keep my eye on the axe.

The kindling would go in the firebox just above a few wrinkled sheets of newspaper, whatever cardboard we had (cereal boxes) and if we were lucky, a split of birchbark. Birchbark was magic fire starting material. It burned hot, always caught, and its heat would get the kindling going almost every time. We’d lay one or two split logs on the kindling pile and then bet on whether this was a one or two match fire. (any more would be an embarrassment and would result in removing and rebuilding the fire)

If i did it right, if the wood was well chosen, if the kindling was not too big, if the paper was dry, I could take one match and it would come to life, not quite like a gas log, but almost. Dad would say something like “one match, you’re almost as good as me!” and I knew I’d done well.

I’d sit by the growing fire, feeling the heat dry out my wet boots, begin to bake my jeans stiff, and start to make that almost falling asleep heat on one side of my face. I think dad would start to see me fade and then begin dealing gin. It was always just a tenth of a cent a point, but i never could play well with that fire warming me.

Those fires were all the entertainment we had at the spite cabin. TV reception was poor to impossible, there was only one channel, and it was public tv. Dad and I would listen to the radio, a country station, the only time he listened to a country station was at the lake (wkkq?) and we’d play cards into the evening. The fire would begin to fade when we did, and we’d go to sleep with the crackle and pop of the remaining logs.

I remember that there was seldom hot water at the spite cabin, so we didn’t shower often, and that I’d smell mostly like pine smoke for the days I was there with dad.

The growing fire in the chimenia reminded me of all this. The first whiff of piñon pine brought all this back, in an instant. We sat together in the cold air, the one who holds my heart and I, watching the fire, holding hands and transporting each other back and forth into our memories. It was a dark night and the flames in the fire were brighter than the moon that night. The stars showed up and once we were well frozen we let the fire die and went in to the warm and light.

It was a perfect saturday night. Fire, long shadows, steamed shrimp, and life stories shared slowly.

It’s fall now, across most of the country. I hope you have a chance to safely enjoy a fire, to remember marshmallows, chocolate dipped strawberries, and mysterious sounds in the woods beyond the firelight. Making fire is what distinguished our species from others early on. It kept them alive physically, and fed their minds and spirits. I hope you have a chance to teach fire making (responsible fire making) to your children, to sit around and watch the magic in the flames.

Be good to each other, teach each other well!

Time is the topic, and while walking to the office yesterday, i was thinking of people who don’t have time. Not the ones you might think of, not the presidents, department heads, overworked middle managers, or the armies of people who work under their supervision, no i’m thinking of people who live on the land, in australia, in africa, in the great plains, people to whom time and life are one and the same.

Maybe its because I have some time now to think instead of just doing, that brings all this up, but also i’m feeling acutely aware of time passing. Mornings to afternoons, to evenings, to nights to mornings….and wondering how all this time is passing and I’m not accomplishing much?

The short answer is, of course, i’m thinking about time too much! But the more real answer is I’m not measuring time much beyond the sunup and sundown, in between, as the days shorten, is work. Work i love, to be sure, but the moments outside of work are barely enough to get me out of work-mind and into life-mind. Yet there are incidents, a conversation that becomes unexpectedly interesting, a sight or sound that seems to fill all the time of the day, its odd I know, but sometimes time stretches it seems and sometimes it shrinks.

I can see I need much more thought to make something out of this, but I’m out of time! Have to go and talk about glass to some earnest chocolate-loving students, hoping they don’t see through the lecture and realize i’m still thinking about all that could be done without time…

I’ll try again on this later, be good to each other, give each other a moment that will last forever, we all need that from time to time.

I was waiting for a meeting today, thumbing through (can one “thumb” through digital images?) my images searching for an scene I know I photographed back in 2004, but can’t find today. It was a priceless image, one of those construction images that nobody usually takes, but I enjoy when I walk into one.

As I was thumbing through, I came across some video and still images I took one of the last summers Dad and I were at the lake together. Video of the just-completed rooms, of Dad showing the house to the Gum sisters, showing them his catch of the day down at the dock, and Dad on the last tractor we bought together.

There were photos of the beauty of the lake, the placid surface on a sunny afternoon, Asters in closeup bloom, Lotus’s that didn’t quite choose to enter focus, and a very proud Swamp Iris. There was some video too, limited as it was in resolution, and weak in the sound quality, I could hear crickets, frogs, and the crack of a deer stepping on a twig (at least I hope it was a deer!), there was video of a thunderstorm and the woosh of a steady forest rain. Photos of the monument mom had made for the driveway garden where all of us kids, sprinkled some of Dad’s ashes so he’d be there always. But as I sat here in Texas, seeing, hearing, and remembering the lake, I found myself wondering, “is it still beautiful?”

Beauty is as beauty does. I don’t really know what that means. I imagine it, imagine the beauty of the lake, and I’m sure its still pretty, still peaceful, still a home to fish, frogs and the occasional mosquito, but will it be beautiful without my reason for being there?

Its hard to say, and I’m guessing, but I think beauty and the beholder are connected. Beauty is the ability to see beyond the mosquitos, flies, and ticks. Beyond the winter break-in damage, the reluctant water pump (maybe it wanted to be a firetruck pump?) beyond the endless list of things to fix, tractors to start, grass to cut, beauty is.

So maybe beauty is an editing of some things and a golden glow our minds use to frame meaningful people and places.

There was a movie called a beautiful mind that was out a few years ago, about a genius who was overwhelmed by the things in his mind, I was never sure why they titled it as they did, but thought that our minds are really the key. Its us who see beauty, or not. Its us who are stricken by the small flower that’s fought its way up through the crack in the sidewalk, or by the arc of shorebirds taking flight at sunset.

We make beauty…and I think we need it in our lives.

I was in a meeting today, an administrative discussion of changes and possibilities and was struck by how often I heard my peers say “but the problem with that is…..” when all it takes is to say, “it could be done this way” or “it could be a real chance to do something.” But all too often we see why we can’t, not how we can. I struggle with that on many days, I wake up look at the empty space beside me and wonder “how could we….?” or “we could do this…” I’ve not hit on the answers to the big challenges in life yet, but I’ll keep pitching and see what comes up.

I’m sure I’ll go to the Lake next year. Step out of the car one fine June afternoon, take that first breath of pine deep into myself, close my eyes and hear it all, the croak, the trill, the splash, and then will go about the ritual of mowing, priming the pump, changing out old gas for new, sweeping out the remnants of the winter guests, and when the ritual is done, sit at the edge of the dock and see how beautiful it all is.

Find some beauty in life today! You need it!
Be good to each other.

It was one of those moments, like the moment she opened my eyes to mom’s creativity as a mother of six children. (see my blog “Creative Motherhood” from this past March) I was stunned, then watery-eyed thinking that yes, my brother, sisters and I were casting wildly about at the front of the boat while dad steered the boat along the invisible path above the dropoff.

Dad was steering, letting us learn how to anticipate the wind, how to lead our cast ahead of the boats path, how to sequence our casts so we would get our lines tangled (as often.) He was showing us the way around the lake, and the lake was showing us that more often than not, our time on the water was about fishing, not catching.

I can think now about those hours in the boat with dad, that fishing is a lot like parenting. Its not a lecture class, its a hands-on-make-mistakes-and-learn (or don’t) kind of education. As the one who holds my heart and I talked, I remembered the saturday mornings going with dad to the warehouse, stopping at Mary’s coffee shop for bacon and eggs and seeing that everyone knew dad’s name. Then sweeping the warehouse, washing trucks, loading trucks, and heading to lehrners delicatessen to buy lunch meat for the family and getting the reward for working…orange crush!

Parents teach us even when they don’t think they are teaching us. I can’t say that I had intentions to teach my daughters by taking pride in my work, whether it was in the pattern that resulted from mowing the lawn with the contours of the yard, or the look of a freshly armor-alled tire on the car. But I realize now that I learned those things from my parents. Its a good thing for much of the time, and seeing my daughters working hard with their heads and hearts gives me great pride and makes me hope I was a part of them learning that. I think too that those things that we do (or don’t do) as parents teaches our children too. I’m thinking about being able to ask for help when needed.

I know that by not asking for help from my daughters, I missed out on chances to let them learn, I’m sure that’s just one of the things I taught them without knowing I was teaching them something that’s not a good life-skill. Theres not much better than having people pitch in to help when you’re overwhelmed with something, and its a pretty good feeling to pitch in and help too.

Like a lot of dads, i don’t have a boat, and my children are far from my sight, so i can’t help point out good places to cast their lines, or help them land the big fish, but i’m hoping my path is something they can extract the good things from and leave the rest behind.

Keep your casters in mind as you troll along from the back of the boat, try to stay on the path. Remember, our children are always learning from us, not just the times we think we’re teaching.

Take care, steer a productive path

This week the distance grew to about 7,500 miles as my favorite youngest daughter began her internship with UNRWA in Beirut. I got to talk with her today (the miracle of skype!) and she sounds like she’s done well in finding a room with a good roommate, learned which white bus is the UN’s and which aren’t, is keeping alert, finding her way in her neighborhood and overall doing very well! My head has confidence that she knows what she’s doing and will do good for the UN when they put her to work. My heart of course is full of pride knowing that she can plan and then actually live her plan, even if it takes her to some of the shakier parts of the world, in order to help people.

The pride I feel for my daughters makes me have to dab at my eyes every now and again.

One of the hardest parts of being a parent is letting your children out from under the protection of your wings, and then realizing that they have grown their own wings. It is incredibly rewarding to see my favorite oldest daughter and my favorite youngest daughter both working hard in the world to do good. And even though I trust both of their capabilities and their judgement, every morning, and many evenings I think about them and hope their where they’re supposed to be, safe, curious, having fun, working hard, and keeping perspective. I think most parents have daily moments like that.

I was sitting on the Riverwalk with the one who holds my heart recently. We were watching a family of ducks on the river. Most of the ducklings were in tight formation on the momma duck but one kept drifting out towards the inevitable shower of chips from the people on shore. From time to time the momma duck would issue a sharp call and the duckling would scoot back in line. But I could look forward a few months and see the wings grow on that duckling, see the time when the momma duck pushes them out of the nest, and then its up to them.

Its hard to welcome your children as adults, but its a critical part of having them grow up in our eyes. When you recognize them as adults, its like recognizing that they have their own wings. From time to time they might ask questions about flying, and as a parent, we’re always happy to help, but having them know that they choose the course, the speed, and the destination is a success I think.

Fathers day is coming up soon. I was trying to remember when I thought Dad recognized me as an adult. I kind of think it was after I joined the business. There wasn’t any fanfare or ceremony, I think it just was.

If you’re fortunate enough to be with your parents this fathers day, enjoy it. Let them spread their wings and you tuck yours in and step into the nest for just a little bit so they can enjoy your presence, marvel in your children, and be warmed with pride in what you’ve done. And if you can’t be with them this fathers day, take a moment or two, find a big chair and curl up there, feel their memory in you, thank them for the protective nest they offered and their recognition that you can fly your own way. Maybe take an extra moment quietly, then get back on course.

Take care, keep us parents in your thoughts, keep your parents parents in your thoughts too, we never fly alone in the world.

I first met VG at his apartment at “the compound” as he called it, a nice independent living center in a small town in South Texas. The one who holds my heart and I had knocked on his door from the garden in early winter. As we stood in the canadian air that morning, i noticed that the usual landscaping we architects provide, and its always the first thing cut in budget challenges, was different. The meager planpts were more vigorous, more lush around this door, a sunflower stood almost 6 feet tall in a flowerpot! Beside the door, a well-used rocker, statue of St. Frances (my patron saint) and a turtle statue distinguished this apartment from the rest.

I came to learn that VG was very much like the stories i’d read about St. Francis, a friend to doves (thats how the sunflower appeared in the pot, bird breakfast that went uneaten, then was nurtured to grow where its not supposed to be able to…”o ye….”.) VG would look after life around him, the doves, the mouse that made its way into his house, the tree frog desperate for water in the drought and when a person would move to get rid of these critters, I’m told VG would say “he’s not hurtin anybody.”

I’m not sure how St. Francis became a saint, some kind of miracle as i recall, and when i heard that back in Hobbs, NM, VG had trained turtles to scratch at his door for food i thought, i believed that he was a pretty special man. When he was in the hospital, on hospice care the first time, i’m told that the one who holds my heart was awakened by a persistent scratching on his door, and opened it to see generations of turtles, and a lizard, outside the door. If a person didn’t have faith, they might think this herd of turtles was just there for breakfast but now i think they wanted to know how VG was doing…”o ye of little faith.”

The one who holds my heart and her son will be laying VG to rest this morning next to his beloved Beverly, whom he spoke to often in his last days. I dearly wish i could stand behind them both this morning, sharing the tears that fall as i type this because i have faith the turtles would be peering out from the bushes with tears in their eyes too. Don’t believe it? O ye of little faith.

Look after the little ones in your life and around you today, VG and St. Francis will smile upon you. Believe it.

I sat and drew, listened as people walked by, watching their strength, hearing their resolve “we’ll get through this” “you’ll beat this thing” “next year we’ll be in Florida” and I believe many of them do, through the strength and support of family, friends and faith.

I was alone in the waiting area, windows overlooking the medical center were behind me and people would walk up with a son, a daughter, a spouse point out of the window and say “thats where your daddy will be” or “your room will be right on the top floor there”

The same people would walk one way down the hall, escorting a loved one with an iv stand. They’d be strong and chatty and optimistic. Pulling luggage filled with test results and medical images. A few would walk back alone, you could see the exhaustion in their bodies, each step a labor, privately fearful, privately worried, carrying the weight of care on their shoulders and backs. Small sniffles fighting back total collapse, these are the caregivers.

The medical system can do wonders, its true, but this hospital doesn’t produce quick cures, it helps in the fight but only the families fight the fight.

And sometimes they can’t win.

No matter what is tried, how much energy and blood they donate, sometimes cancer wins.

The cruel thing about that is, its not a quick win. It takes time.

I think this is the hardest part. The family care network pushes so hard, stretches so far, risks jobs, health, well-being during the treatment stage that its hard to keep going after those words from the doctors. Yet they do. In the 48 days since that afternoon, VG’s family found more energy, more time, more compassion, maybe more love.

These days VG seems happy when I see him on weekends. He asks about his OU team, lights up when the stock market makes a jump, still wonders about drilling oil wells on family lands, and dreams about those big pieces of wood from Trinidad that he’s stored. He’s got ideas and he talks them over with friends and family who are on this side of the veil and those on the other side too.

Giving care, knowing the win won’t keep your loved one with you, its the hardest thing in life I think. Helping them hold on to just a tiny bit more dignity, respecting their words, standing up for their rights, knowing that the loss is near, i think its the greatest gift we can give to the ones we love.

You may know someone who has been pushed to the front line of caregiving. If you do, take some time and look after them. Listen to them, cry with them, stand behind them. It’s their loss, not ours, our time will come, but know that what you give, you’ll get back.

Look after each other today. Be gentle with those around you, you can’t tell who’s giving care, but they need you right now.

Looking back, im not sure how many moms painted the inner organs of model crickets, but i think the time i spent watching her make things in her spare (does a mother of six have spare?) time might have launched me towards endless hours building model cars, boats, (my brother was always better with boats…he had more patience) and my more-recent painting-a-day habit.

Mom passed three years ago today. I wonder how much of our parents are coded into us. How much or what aspects of persona we learn by watching our parents, and how much we inherit.

The one who holds my heart is caring for her Dad these days. I watch her infinite patience and understanding and think maybe her Dad gave her some of that, set the example of being happy, curious and compassionate in life. Probably her Mom gave her some of that too. I could see that if our children learn those things from us, our patience, creativity, curiosity, compassion and integrity are teaching our children every day. And when we need them most, they return it to us, kind of a pay-it-forward thing.

I know my sisters did that for my Mom, I was too far away in a few different ways then. I’m working on that now.

Teach your children well today, we’ll all need what they learn sooner than we think.

Take care, be good to each other.