Now that the lowly Oregon State Beavers have lost both the Civil War and the Las Vegas Bowl it's the Oregon Ducks' turn on the big stage. To paraphrase the words of the immortal Joe Willie Namath, the Ducks will win the Rose Bowl. I guarantee it.
To be truthful that's a prediction I make with my heart rather than my head. I've been a Duck fan long enough to remember when having a winning season was the most we could hope for, when an invitation to the Poulin Weed Eater Bowl was a big deal and worth spending $650,000 to buy in. There were years when the only high note in six months of miserable and inept football was a single victory, usually over the slightly more miserable and inept Beavs. But times have changed. Duck football has a national profile now, with Times Square billboards and ESPN Gameday appearances, five-star recruits getting steak dinners at the nicest restaurant in town, escorted from the airport in a custom Humvee limousine that has the Nike-designed "O" emblazoned on the front doors.
On the field, my hope is the Ducks have the edge in speed and athletic ability, and their potent spread offense is more varied and challenging than anything the Buckeyes faced this year in the Big Ten, or in their patsy nonconference schedule versus New Mexico State, Toledo or Navy. Comparisions like this are usually far from perfect barometers, but Ohio State has two losses this season, to USC and Purdue, two teams Oregon also played and defeated.
The Oregon running and passing offense strikes from too many angles and defuses opponent's pressure with quickness and tempo. The no-huddle offense will ensure the Buckeye starters have to stay on the field, and by the second quarter they'll have their hands on their hips. Watch for LaMichael James to scoot through small cracks on the way to big gains. A series of vaunted defenses have vowed to stop him, but his ability to create and break free is utterly amazing.
Defensively the Ducks thrive on shutting down one element of the opponent's offense, and they will force Terrelle Pryor to beat them with his arm. The young quarterback doesn't have the pocket presence or the decision-making ability or the throwing footwork to win a game on his own. His counterpart, Jeremiah Masoli, is far better at creating and improvising, managing a big game, and responding to pressure situations. He's led the Ducks to fourth quarter comebacks in each of their last two games, and seems to love the tense, dramatic situations that require leadership and cool. Masoli's toughness and quiet purpose characterizes his whole team, and that's perfect for an environment like national tv on New Year's Day. These Ducks won't get rattled or overwhelmed. They'll be ready and jump out early.
The last big advantage the Ducks have is their coach. Though in his first year as headman Chip Kelly is a master of both detail and perspective, and has a tremendous flair for the correct bold decision. Oregon went for it on fourth down three times in the clutch versus Oregon State and converted each time. He wants destiny in his own hands. He wants to dictate the tempo and the pace of the game. Ohio State's Jim Tressel, on the other hand, is often undone in big games by his own conservative, careful nature, and unwillingness to take risks or vary his approach. The Buckeyes, like their coach's trademark sweatervest, are often staid and predictable. Speed and boldness and aggression will win the day.
Ohio State wants to overwhelm opponents with tradition, but that won't work in Pasadena. The Ducks may be cutting edge and fashion forward and the butt of many jokes, but they know how to block and tackle, and they do it faster and with better preparation than anyone else.
But I could be completely wrong. The thing to remember is, after all the hype and hoopla and fan posturing and passion, is that this is a game played by 19 to 22 year old kids. We'll get excited and lose our voices and throw pillows and swear, but they're the ones who run and pass, and when we're finished celebrating or crying in our beers they'll go back to midterms, video games and calling their girlfriends like nothing ever happened. I watched the "Road to the Rose Bowl" special on Comcast 37, and when the players were interviewed, I was shocked at how young they looked. You could pass David Paulsen or Mark Asper or Morgan Freeman in line at Safeway and think they were off-duty bag boys--they look like ordinary kids who might live down the street. And they are. They're just highly sought after and successful when they put on a helmet and pads.
We'll find out how successful tomorrow. For the second time in 50 years, the Oregon Ducks are in the Rose Bowl. The last time they were they got overwhelmed by traditional power from the Big Ten with a stingy defense. There were agonizing missed opportunities and they gave up too many big plays. Kijana Carter broke their hearts with an 80-yard run. Oregon drove down inside the ten just before half and failed to score as time ran out. Even though quarterback Danny O'Neil passed for a Rose Bowl record 456 yards, Penn State tacked on a late touchdown and the final wasn't even close.
This time it will be different. I guarantee it. And if not, there's always next year.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Clearing Out the Blog Closet of Unaddressed Topics
I feel a wonderful sense of serenity and well being today. I don't really want to question why. Maybe it's the progressive relaxation exercises I've started doing again, or the eve of the Rose Bowl, or all the chocolate I consumed over Christmas. Sometimes it's best not to question. There are always plenty of reasons to return to being depressed or anxious in life. Today I choose not to remember any of them.
At the end of the year the papers and magazines are full of retrospectives, reflections and recollections (my that's a lot of r's) on the biggest or most memorable stories of the year, the top ten this and the top ten that. It's the creeping Lettermanization of the world. We want everything packaged and classified, cut into neat little bites of information. They say no one reads anymore. We want everything quick and neat and digestible, on platters like holiday hors d'oevres.
To me two of the most intriguing stories of the last year were the Hudson River plane crash and Tiger Woods' fall from grace. The first illustrates some of best human qualities and the second the worst. Let me explain. No, no time to es'splain, let me sum up.
Marie and I watched a documentary on both on Discovery recently. I love that channel, and TLC. With all the soul-destroying junk out there they consistently inspire and illuminate. We love the stories they tell, the people they celebrate. Two of our favorites are the Rolloffs and the Duggars.
In the story of Flight 1549, Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger displayed some the most remarkable grace under pressure imaginable. The force of his training and inner composure are amazing to contemplate. Moments after takeoff the US Airways plane collides with geese and both engines are lost. His mind races through options and the copilot scrambles for an emergency checklist. It's nine miles to the nearest airport and not enough time. The engines won't restart. They're flying, or rather, gliding, powerless, over some of the tallest buildings and most densely populated real estate in the world.
As the control tower tries to clear a runway or guide him to another landing site he realizes there's no time. "We're going into the Hudson," he radios. From 3,000 feet, making a series of critical decisions in the space of two and half minutes, he guided the plane a few hundred feet over the George Washington Bridge, managed his air speed and angle of descent perfectly, and got the plane onto the water without breaking it up. Everyone survived, 155 passengers and all the crew, evacuated in just minutes as the cabin filled up with water. Captain Sully walked down the aisle three times to make sure everyone had been safely evacuated. He was the last to leave the plane.
What struck me as we watched were the passengers, telling their story. They hear a loud bang and look out the window. The engines are on fire. This can't be good, they think. The plane starts to sink in the sky, and soon they are below the buildings and over the water, heading for the bridge. One man sends a good bye text to his wife and daughter. "We're about to crash. I love you." The Captain makes a terse announcement over the loudspeaker, "Brace for impact." The passengers reach for one anothers' hands and prepare themselves to die. One man thinks, I'm not ready to die. I'm not ready for my life to be over. There's so much I haven't done and so much I've failed to do. Many of us would have that feeling, the sense of lost opportunity and regret. On the ground, frantic witnesses think they are seeing a repeat of 9-11.
Moments later the plane hits the water and they realize they are still alive. One passenger leaves his seat and as he heads for the exit door he looks back to see if his body is still sitting. A woman thinks, "I survived, but now I'm going to drown." The water is rising. They climb out over the wing and have to chose between the frigid winter waters of the Hudson or the sinking plane. The temperature in New York was 20 degrees about the time of the crash off Manhattan's west side. Some jump into the Hudson. The water is 36 degrees. Help arrives, first a nearby tour boat and then the 911 crews.
Imagine yourself the next day. You thought your life was over. You thought you would never hold your children again, never taste warm bread or snuggle in a cozy blanket. You would never have the opportunity to redeem yourself or heal wounds or make amends. Your life, though over, would be unfinished, unsettled, and incomplete.
You wake up the next morning in your own bed or your motel room and you realize you've been given a second chance and a new hope. Anything is possible. You're alive, you're healthy, you have your job and your family and all ten fingers and ten toes. Breathe. That's real, sweet air, filling your healthy lungs. Your heart is beating and your eyes are clear. That's your spouse next to you, looking better than she ever has. You get to hold her with your own two arms.
And that's exactly where we all are this morning. We may not have avoided a near-death experience, at least not a literal and earth-shaking one, but every day is a miracle. Every day is a gift. There are a thousand close calls we never even knew about, the red light-running text messenger who missed us by half a block because he stopped at the hallway mirror to check his hair. There are over 150,000 men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan this morning, with families half a world away, who live every breath exposed to mayhem and misery and senseless death, who would give anything this morning to wake up next to their spouse, to have their little ones bounce down the hall and jump into their bed with both knobby knees and pajamas smudged with jelly from yesterday's toast.
We've all been given a new beginning. The plane landed in one piece. We're still here, and anything is possible. A good life. Hope. The opportunity to say thank you, I'm sorry, or I still love you no matter what. We can do a better job. We can love our children more fiercely. We can say good-bye to this world and all those we love in a little better way. We can live with passion and attention rather than indifference. We can wake up and realize what a tremendous gift it is to live and breathe. Nothing is over. We're not doomed. We don't have to be imprisoned by our circumstances or excuses. I think that's the enduring value of heroism and heroic stories. They remind of the great sacred value of life, its precious, fleeting and irreplaceable richness. We're here. We're safe. We're together. Hold someone and remember why you love them so much.
Another story sticks with me for an entirely different reason. Tiger Woods. Here is a guy who had everything: fame, money, success, celebrity, adoration, challenges, two cute kids, a lovely wife, and he endangered and squandered it, for what? Sleazy barflies. Common sluts. Cheap, social-climbing tramps. It as though he loathed himself and his life, and wanted to have the most sordid and risky and senseless secret life imaginable. He was two people, the public face of champion athlete and disciplined warrior, and the private, masked face of twisted pleasure seeker. And he sought his pleasure in the lowest, rankest, most tawdry places he could find. "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." But it didn't. He craved depravity and excess and indulgence, and he lost all the most important things he had.
Sexual sin and infidelity are the most damaging kinds of brokenness in a family. Nothing wounds a marriage more than a partner failing the other with a disloyalty to the most tender and vulnerable part of their union. It's hard to heal when you've been hurt all the way to your soul. I did that. In the year we were separated I turned to pornography. I ogled strangers on the street. I had a sick fascination with the dark side of human behavior, an unchecked need to act out and fantasize. It sucks you in. Our culture's view of sex, the way it's depicted on television and in advertising and movies, distorts things beyond comprehension. The Internet has all these dark tunnels of lurid immediacy, waiting to be explored. Three words typed into Google and you are in the grip of soullessness. I succumbed to all that. I chose that over real life, and the price has been awful. Some days, I am so lonely and ashamed I can barely breathe. I have tried so hard to make amends, but how can you make amends for betrayals that hurt so deep, betrayals that are so senseless and stupid? Maybe you can't.
The tabloids say that it's a done deal, that despite all Tiger's efforts at damage control and repentance that Elin Nordgren Woods has packed up and left and hired lawyers, and she doesn't care that he wants to change or go to counseling or plead for another chance. She's probably heard it all before. She knows it's his problem, it isn't about her, and with him or without him she'll have plenty of money and all the privacy she needs. I think she probably did go after him with a nine iron. A lot of women probably wish she'd gotten an opportunity to finish the job.
How do people heal and forgive? How much forgiveness is possible, or even advisable? I suppose anything can heal with time, but it will never be the same. Once, we had joy and real togetherness. These last few days after Christmas have been very gentle and pleasant. and I feel like slowly we're learning to live and get along and focus on the good things. We're communicating better. It helps that Marie is working and we don't have the crippling financial pressure of one inadequate income. It helps we have a new grandbaby to remind us of what is really joyous and important. It helps we came to a compromise about poker and writing and using the computer. We're learning to trust one another in baby steps, not to be so hypervigilant about everything, particularly the time and activities we do apart. We seem more focused on what we CAN do together, the simple things we enjoy.
It's been very quiet between us romantically for a while, and I think that's just as well. We are affectionate but not passionate, positive and kind but not intimate. I think that's right for now. Maybe we can heal. Maybe we can forgive. In the hypercharged world of supercelebrity where Tiger Woods lives, things are too public and too painful for that to happen. Today we are lucky we are not rich and famous. We didn't drown and we didn't die and our sins and faults and ugly undersides have not been displayed to the world in all their lurid detail. So we have a choice. We can lie down together and take a nap and wake up with a kiss. And that's a good beginning. Call it the quiet heroism of not giving up.
At the end of the year the papers and magazines are full of retrospectives, reflections and recollections (my that's a lot of r's) on the biggest or most memorable stories of the year, the top ten this and the top ten that. It's the creeping Lettermanization of the world. We want everything packaged and classified, cut into neat little bites of information. They say no one reads anymore. We want everything quick and neat and digestible, on platters like holiday hors d'oevres.
To me two of the most intriguing stories of the last year were the Hudson River plane crash and Tiger Woods' fall from grace. The first illustrates some of best human qualities and the second the worst. Let me explain. No, no time to es'splain, let me sum up.
Marie and I watched a documentary on both on Discovery recently. I love that channel, and TLC. With all the soul-destroying junk out there they consistently inspire and illuminate. We love the stories they tell, the people they celebrate. Two of our favorites are the Rolloffs and the Duggars.
In the story of Flight 1549, Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger displayed some the most remarkable grace under pressure imaginable. The force of his training and inner composure are amazing to contemplate. Moments after takeoff the US Airways plane collides with geese and both engines are lost. His mind races through options and the copilot scrambles for an emergency checklist. It's nine miles to the nearest airport and not enough time. The engines won't restart. They're flying, or rather, gliding, powerless, over some of the tallest buildings and most densely populated real estate in the world.
As the control tower tries to clear a runway or guide him to another landing site he realizes there's no time. "We're going into the Hudson," he radios. From 3,000 feet, making a series of critical decisions in the space of two and half minutes, he guided the plane a few hundred feet over the George Washington Bridge, managed his air speed and angle of descent perfectly, and got the plane onto the water without breaking it up. Everyone survived, 155 passengers and all the crew, evacuated in just minutes as the cabin filled up with water. Captain Sully walked down the aisle three times to make sure everyone had been safely evacuated. He was the last to leave the plane.
What struck me as we watched were the passengers, telling their story. They hear a loud bang and look out the window. The engines are on fire. This can't be good, they think. The plane starts to sink in the sky, and soon they are below the buildings and over the water, heading for the bridge. One man sends a good bye text to his wife and daughter. "We're about to crash. I love you." The Captain makes a terse announcement over the loudspeaker, "Brace for impact." The passengers reach for one anothers' hands and prepare themselves to die. One man thinks, I'm not ready to die. I'm not ready for my life to be over. There's so much I haven't done and so much I've failed to do. Many of us would have that feeling, the sense of lost opportunity and regret. On the ground, frantic witnesses think they are seeing a repeat of 9-11.
Moments later the plane hits the water and they realize they are still alive. One passenger leaves his seat and as he heads for the exit door he looks back to see if his body is still sitting. A woman thinks, "I survived, but now I'm going to drown." The water is rising. They climb out over the wing and have to chose between the frigid winter waters of the Hudson or the sinking plane. The temperature in New York was 20 degrees about the time of the crash off Manhattan's west side. Some jump into the Hudson. The water is 36 degrees. Help arrives, first a nearby tour boat and then the 911 crews.
Imagine yourself the next day. You thought your life was over. You thought you would never hold your children again, never taste warm bread or snuggle in a cozy blanket. You would never have the opportunity to redeem yourself or heal wounds or make amends. Your life, though over, would be unfinished, unsettled, and incomplete.
You wake up the next morning in your own bed or your motel room and you realize you've been given a second chance and a new hope. Anything is possible. You're alive, you're healthy, you have your job and your family and all ten fingers and ten toes. Breathe. That's real, sweet air, filling your healthy lungs. Your heart is beating and your eyes are clear. That's your spouse next to you, looking better than she ever has. You get to hold her with your own two arms.
And that's exactly where we all are this morning. We may not have avoided a near-death experience, at least not a literal and earth-shaking one, but every day is a miracle. Every day is a gift. There are a thousand close calls we never even knew about, the red light-running text messenger who missed us by half a block because he stopped at the hallway mirror to check his hair. There are over 150,000 men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan this morning, with families half a world away, who live every breath exposed to mayhem and misery and senseless death, who would give anything this morning to wake up next to their spouse, to have their little ones bounce down the hall and jump into their bed with both knobby knees and pajamas smudged with jelly from yesterday's toast.
We've all been given a new beginning. The plane landed in one piece. We're still here, and anything is possible. A good life. Hope. The opportunity to say thank you, I'm sorry, or I still love you no matter what. We can do a better job. We can love our children more fiercely. We can say good-bye to this world and all those we love in a little better way. We can live with passion and attention rather than indifference. We can wake up and realize what a tremendous gift it is to live and breathe. Nothing is over. We're not doomed. We don't have to be imprisoned by our circumstances or excuses. I think that's the enduring value of heroism and heroic stories. They remind of the great sacred value of life, its precious, fleeting and irreplaceable richness. We're here. We're safe. We're together. Hold someone and remember why you love them so much.
Another story sticks with me for an entirely different reason. Tiger Woods. Here is a guy who had everything: fame, money, success, celebrity, adoration, challenges, two cute kids, a lovely wife, and he endangered and squandered it, for what? Sleazy barflies. Common sluts. Cheap, social-climbing tramps. It as though he loathed himself and his life, and wanted to have the most sordid and risky and senseless secret life imaginable. He was two people, the public face of champion athlete and disciplined warrior, and the private, masked face of twisted pleasure seeker. And he sought his pleasure in the lowest, rankest, most tawdry places he could find. "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." But it didn't. He craved depravity and excess and indulgence, and he lost all the most important things he had.
Sexual sin and infidelity are the most damaging kinds of brokenness in a family. Nothing wounds a marriage more than a partner failing the other with a disloyalty to the most tender and vulnerable part of their union. It's hard to heal when you've been hurt all the way to your soul. I did that. In the year we were separated I turned to pornography. I ogled strangers on the street. I had a sick fascination with the dark side of human behavior, an unchecked need to act out and fantasize. It sucks you in. Our culture's view of sex, the way it's depicted on television and in advertising and movies, distorts things beyond comprehension. The Internet has all these dark tunnels of lurid immediacy, waiting to be explored. Three words typed into Google and you are in the grip of soullessness. I succumbed to all that. I chose that over real life, and the price has been awful. Some days, I am so lonely and ashamed I can barely breathe. I have tried so hard to make amends, but how can you make amends for betrayals that hurt so deep, betrayals that are so senseless and stupid? Maybe you can't.
The tabloids say that it's a done deal, that despite all Tiger's efforts at damage control and repentance that Elin Nordgren Woods has packed up and left and hired lawyers, and she doesn't care that he wants to change or go to counseling or plead for another chance. She's probably heard it all before. She knows it's his problem, it isn't about her, and with him or without him she'll have plenty of money and all the privacy she needs. I think she probably did go after him with a nine iron. A lot of women probably wish she'd gotten an opportunity to finish the job.
How do people heal and forgive? How much forgiveness is possible, or even advisable? I suppose anything can heal with time, but it will never be the same. Once, we had joy and real togetherness. These last few days after Christmas have been very gentle and pleasant. and I feel like slowly we're learning to live and get along and focus on the good things. We're communicating better. It helps that Marie is working and we don't have the crippling financial pressure of one inadequate income. It helps we have a new grandbaby to remind us of what is really joyous and important. It helps we came to a compromise about poker and writing and using the computer. We're learning to trust one another in baby steps, not to be so hypervigilant about everything, particularly the time and activities we do apart. We seem more focused on what we CAN do together, the simple things we enjoy.
It's been very quiet between us romantically for a while, and I think that's just as well. We are affectionate but not passionate, positive and kind but not intimate. I think that's right for now. Maybe we can heal. Maybe we can forgive. In the hypercharged world of supercelebrity where Tiger Woods lives, things are too public and too painful for that to happen. Today we are lucky we are not rich and famous. We didn't drown and we didn't die and our sins and faults and ugly undersides have not been displayed to the world in all their lurid detail. So we have a choice. We can lie down together and take a nap and wake up with a kiss. And that's a good beginning. Call it the quiet heroism of not giving up.
Friday, December 25, 2009
I Love My Ducks
Want proof that anything is possible in our crazy, mixed-up, media-saturated world? Three kids from Oregon got together in November and created a comic rap video, "I Smell Roses, I Love My Ducks," pasted it on youtube, and a month later it has over a half million hits. They call themselves Supwitchugirl. Coach Chip Kelly loved it and blared it over the loudspeakers at the indoor practice facility. Dan Patrick had them on his radio show. Nike signed them to a licensing agreement, and now they've made over a hundred thousand dollars selling tee shirts. They've spawned a host of lame imitators and ignited a small controversy, all before the age of 22. The creative landscape is changing, my friends. Anyone with an idea and some original energy can reach the world.
If that isn't enough to get you excited, the Ducks are going to the Rose Bowl for the second time in 50 years. They're playing The Ohio State University in The Granddaddy of Them All on New Years Day. God it feels good to say that. The Ducks are in the Rose Bowl. I watched the Comcast rebroadcast and the internet highlights three times each just to make sure. That's why we love sports. Miracles happen every day, moments of courage or tenacity or resilience that remind us that anything is possible.
In many areas of our lives many of us come to this Christmas Day in need of some kind of miracle, some breath of new hope. I've always thought that the most tender and poignant part of the Christmas story is that when the angel came to say "Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people" he came to a lowly group of shepherds abiding in the fields, guys in need of a shower and a shave, lonely and cold and largely unloved in the world.
Wherever you are this Christmas, hold on to the promise and the joy. A football game doesn't matter all that much, not by itself, but I choose to think of it as a symbol of the power of believing and bonding together. I smell Roses. I Love My Ducks.
If that isn't enough to get you excited, the Ducks are going to the Rose Bowl for the second time in 50 years. They're playing The Ohio State University in The Granddaddy of Them All on New Years Day. God it feels good to say that. The Ducks are in the Rose Bowl. I watched the Comcast rebroadcast and the internet highlights three times each just to make sure. That's why we love sports. Miracles happen every day, moments of courage or tenacity or resilience that remind us that anything is possible.
In many areas of our lives many of us come to this Christmas Day in need of some kind of miracle, some breath of new hope. I've always thought that the most tender and poignant part of the Christmas story is that when the angel came to say "Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people" he came to a lowly group of shepherds abiding in the fields, guys in need of a shower and a shave, lonely and cold and largely unloved in the world.
Wherever you are this Christmas, hold on to the promise and the joy. A football game doesn't matter all that much, not by itself, but I choose to think of it as a symbol of the power of believing and bonding together. I smell Roses. I Love My Ducks.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Rambling Back to Where We Started
Luuucy! I'm home from the club. You got some 'splainin to do.
--Ricky Ricardo
A year went by and I didn't blog a line. I was trying to play it safe. But playing it safe is just a slow way of dying. In poker if you never play any hands you just blind out. Every time the deal goes around your stack just dwindles till it's gone. A life can dwindle away that way too, trying to be careful, trying to do the safe thing. There's no future in living fearful, timid or sad.
How did a year go by so chaotically? There were moments I couldn't breath. There were other moments I didn't want to. I went a whole year without writing anything because I couldn't bear to risk the repercussions. I also couldn't bear to see how ridiculous I sound, vacillating between hope and despair, helpless one day and full of myself the next.
For better or worse, I have to write this. Let the dangling participles fall where they may. I can't worry about repercussions anymore, about fallout or storm clouds. Just write it out. Say what has to be said that day, realizing it won't always be fair or rational or pretty. But it will be the truth of what I'm feeling and experiencing, and that's the best I can do.
A lot happened while I was away. Numerous titantic fights and brushes with ultimate despair. Humiliations galore, most self-inflicted. A whole summer went by and I played golf twice. Our kisses are tentative now, sad and mostly passionless. Things happened.
A few good things happened too. I got a new job that started three days after the old one ended. This December Marie got a job,25 hours a week for now, but $13.00 an hour, good pay for a temp assignment. It's a huge relief. I don't make enough to support our household alone. After all my years of mismanagement and poor decisions, I barely make enough to support myself. The Ducks won the conference championship, winning the right to go the Rose Bowl for the second time in fifty years. They might win. Should even. The smart, funny, beautiful daughter is raising her smart, funny, beautiful children. They're in Montana for Christmas. Thomas may be deployed to Afghanistan in the surge, a very bad place to be a munitions and explosives experts.
This blog isn't about politics, because I'm largely naive and ill-informed about political complexities. But I see a picture of the forbidding moonscape of that land and I can't think how we can believe that we can accomplish what the Mongols or Alexander the Great or 100,000 Russians with six tank divisions couldn't. One look at the jagged peaks and icy twisting roads and hidden caves and I can't think how anyone could believe reason or rationality or order could prevail there. The enemy is unseen and untrackable and committed to fight to the death. It's the largest home court advantage in the world. We're not fighting terrorism; we're maiming a generation and burning a billion dollars a day. But I have futilities of my own to worry about, and that's all I have to say about that.
Sporadically in November I started writing again, usually when things were at their worst, and I have to say I did some of my most whining and self-justifying work ever. But we're not here to pretty it up, to tell just the good parts or pretend everything is okay. Even so there are still moments that are inexpressibly beautiful. Marie had a baby granddaughter born last week, Madelyne Rose, so pretty and pink and sweet and soothing to look at you can believe happy endings are really possible. At least for some.
I'll try to make more sense tomorrow. It was important to get in motion. The November entries are dead awful morbid and frantic, often one-sided or full or rage or resentment, but that's how it happened. We don't edit out the bad parts. That would be cheating. Go Ducks.
--Ricky Ricardo
A year went by and I didn't blog a line. I was trying to play it safe. But playing it safe is just a slow way of dying. In poker if you never play any hands you just blind out. Every time the deal goes around your stack just dwindles till it's gone. A life can dwindle away that way too, trying to be careful, trying to do the safe thing. There's no future in living fearful, timid or sad.
How did a year go by so chaotically? There were moments I couldn't breath. There were other moments I didn't want to. I went a whole year without writing anything because I couldn't bear to risk the repercussions. I also couldn't bear to see how ridiculous I sound, vacillating between hope and despair, helpless one day and full of myself the next.
For better or worse, I have to write this. Let the dangling participles fall where they may. I can't worry about repercussions anymore, about fallout or storm clouds. Just write it out. Say what has to be said that day, realizing it won't always be fair or rational or pretty. But it will be the truth of what I'm feeling and experiencing, and that's the best I can do.
A lot happened while I was away. Numerous titantic fights and brushes with ultimate despair. Humiliations galore, most self-inflicted. A whole summer went by and I played golf twice. Our kisses are tentative now, sad and mostly passionless. Things happened.
A few good things happened too. I got a new job that started three days after the old one ended. This December Marie got a job,25 hours a week for now, but $13.00 an hour, good pay for a temp assignment. It's a huge relief. I don't make enough to support our household alone. After all my years of mismanagement and poor decisions, I barely make enough to support myself. The Ducks won the conference championship, winning the right to go the Rose Bowl for the second time in fifty years. They might win. Should even. The smart, funny, beautiful daughter is raising her smart, funny, beautiful children. They're in Montana for Christmas. Thomas may be deployed to Afghanistan in the surge, a very bad place to be a munitions and explosives experts.
This blog isn't about politics, because I'm largely naive and ill-informed about political complexities. But I see a picture of the forbidding moonscape of that land and I can't think how we can believe that we can accomplish what the Mongols or Alexander the Great or 100,000 Russians with six tank divisions couldn't. One look at the jagged peaks and icy twisting roads and hidden caves and I can't think how anyone could believe reason or rationality or order could prevail there. The enemy is unseen and untrackable and committed to fight to the death. It's the largest home court advantage in the world. We're not fighting terrorism; we're maiming a generation and burning a billion dollars a day. But I have futilities of my own to worry about, and that's all I have to say about that.
Sporadically in November I started writing again, usually when things were at their worst, and I have to say I did some of my most whining and self-justifying work ever. But we're not here to pretty it up, to tell just the good parts or pretend everything is okay. Even so there are still moments that are inexpressibly beautiful. Marie had a baby granddaughter born last week, Madelyne Rose, so pretty and pink and sweet and soothing to look at you can believe happy endings are really possible. At least for some.
I'll try to make more sense tomorrow. It was important to get in motion. The November entries are dead awful morbid and frantic, often one-sided or full or rage or resentment, but that's how it happened. We don't edit out the bad parts. That would be cheating. Go Ducks.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Play Free Bird
Sometimes I long for the simple life, when I didn't have to devote so much energy to taking the emotional temperature of the room.
I think about the life I would create if my life really belonged to me. I'd read and play poker and go to the gym. I'd smile at people and seek out conversation and new experiences. I wouldn't walk around with my head down feeling wounded and defeated and ashamed. I'd greet life with eagerness and curiousity instead of shame and doubt.
My God, listen to me. I'm living like a prisoner in my own skin. I've surrendered my worth and hopes and heart to someone who regards me as a person of no value. I've swallowed whole the messages of contempt and powerlessness, waiting to be redeemed or forgiven or released. As if I had no say.
It would be amazing to have space of my own and permission to live and be alive. How do I reclaim that permission, extricate myself from the mess and ruin and neglect? How do I get out of Marie's terrible shadow, the screaming I wear like a shock collar.
I think about the life I would create if my life really belonged to me. I'd read and play poker and go to the gym. I'd smile at people and seek out conversation and new experiences. I wouldn't walk around with my head down feeling wounded and defeated and ashamed. I'd greet life with eagerness and curiousity instead of shame and doubt.
My God, listen to me. I'm living like a prisoner in my own skin. I've surrendered my worth and hopes and heart to someone who regards me as a person of no value. I've swallowed whole the messages of contempt and powerlessness, waiting to be redeemed or forgiven or released. As if I had no say.
It would be amazing to have space of my own and permission to live and be alive. How do I reclaim that permission, extricate myself from the mess and ruin and neglect? How do I get out of Marie's terrible shadow, the screaming I wear like a shock collar.
Kiss Me It's My Birthday
If there were ever a day you thought hopes would be high for a thaw or a miracle or a seminal moment, it would be your birthday.
Marie's kids came over for my birthday tonight. We had shrimp and pasta and homemade chocolate cake. Everyone sat around telling funny stories from when they were little, long before I arrived on the scene. I was an outsider at my own party. I don't blame them for that, not at all. The love and deep affection they have for one another, the good humor, it is quite lovely to see. It's just bittersweet to be on the outside of it. This isn't the way things are meant to be, third and fourth marriages, broken bonds, shattered families. an occasion like this should bring whole families together that share the same stories, memories as sweet and satisfying as homemade chocolate frosting. I'm not a part of those memories and I can't be and shouldn't be--it's an ugly haphazard seam in a beautiful tapestry. Shared history and shared hopes are a sacred thing, the way things were meant to be in our living rooms and dining tables. These are lovely young people but people I scarcely know. They belong at the table of their father and mother, but that table was axed and burned long ago. It shouldn't be like that, but it is so all over the country. We try to blend and build new families but it isn't the same. Still it was kind of all of them to come and share dinner and have cake. Stephanie sent me a sweet text message and my brother did me the tremendous honor of embarassing himself singing a silly song in a voicemail. These are the fleeting embraces of the electronic age, better than despair, worse than a gathering at the fire. It's what we have.
I'm trying to find my heart and soul and person in all this turmoil. I live with a wife who no longer loves me or respects me, that in her angry hours scalds my soul telling me how pathetic and weak and unworthy and inadequate and contemptible I am, in the harshest and most awful words, with a sneering viciousness that tears me to the core. I'm trying to be calm and think what I should live for and how I should measure my days. I try to read a little and throw up an occasional prayer. We are so tentative with each other and so lost. I'm nostalgic for solitude and lonliness. It felt safer. I don't know if the rage and betrayal will ever end.
I could just walk out, but I'm afraid I'd miss some grand chance to make everything right. I'm afraid of the moral failure it would represent walking out on two women with no means of support. I feel as though I'm waiting for them to walk out on me or run into my arms, and either possibility seems painfully remote: it seems more likely we'll just suffer and exist until something awful or overwhelming happens to throw everything pitching forward. I don't know what to do or how to cope with all this. I don't at all. I pray for understanding that never comes.
Marie's kids came over for my birthday tonight. We had shrimp and pasta and homemade chocolate cake. Everyone sat around telling funny stories from when they were little, long before I arrived on the scene. I was an outsider at my own party. I don't blame them for that, not at all. The love and deep affection they have for one another, the good humor, it is quite lovely to see. It's just bittersweet to be on the outside of it. This isn't the way things are meant to be, third and fourth marriages, broken bonds, shattered families. an occasion like this should bring whole families together that share the same stories, memories as sweet and satisfying as homemade chocolate frosting. I'm not a part of those memories and I can't be and shouldn't be--it's an ugly haphazard seam in a beautiful tapestry. Shared history and shared hopes are a sacred thing, the way things were meant to be in our living rooms and dining tables. These are lovely young people but people I scarcely know. They belong at the table of their father and mother, but that table was axed and burned long ago. It shouldn't be like that, but it is so all over the country. We try to blend and build new families but it isn't the same. Still it was kind of all of them to come and share dinner and have cake. Stephanie sent me a sweet text message and my brother did me the tremendous honor of embarassing himself singing a silly song in a voicemail. These are the fleeting embraces of the electronic age, better than despair, worse than a gathering at the fire. It's what we have.
I'm trying to find my heart and soul and person in all this turmoil. I live with a wife who no longer loves me or respects me, that in her angry hours scalds my soul telling me how pathetic and weak and unworthy and inadequate and contemptible I am, in the harshest and most awful words, with a sneering viciousness that tears me to the core. I'm trying to be calm and think what I should live for and how I should measure my days. I try to read a little and throw up an occasional prayer. We are so tentative with each other and so lost. I'm nostalgic for solitude and lonliness. It felt safer. I don't know if the rage and betrayal will ever end.
I could just walk out, but I'm afraid I'd miss some grand chance to make everything right. I'm afraid of the moral failure it would represent walking out on two women with no means of support. I feel as though I'm waiting for them to walk out on me or run into my arms, and either possibility seems painfully remote: it seems more likely we'll just suffer and exist until something awful or overwhelming happens to throw everything pitching forward. I don't know what to do or how to cope with all this. I don't at all. I pray for understanding that never comes.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Alternating Moments of Grace and Terrifying Uncertainty
In the aftermath of all that's happened and scalding criticism and awful arguments, the ground is unsteady under my feet. Rather than day-to-day I am moment-to-moment, filled with uncertainty and self doubt, anxiety and fear.
Yet we have moments of redemption and unaccounted for grace, moments when anything seems possible. A tender embrace. Genuine affection. Reflection, quiet conversation and the beginning of belief, understanding and healing. A pleasant night watching The Rolloffs or Duggars, or playing Sequence at the kitchen table. Marie makes a favorite meal or holds me tightly before I leave for work.
When she leaves home and is gone later than I thought (three hours for a job interview?) my mind starts racing and I'm apt to start watching the clock. My heart doesn't stay calm. Alone in my thoughts I start questioning the wisdom of trusting again, and I'm filled with discouragement that she might not ever forgive me for my own sins and flaws of character. Can we make it out of this fireswamp of hurt? Some days it seems inconceivable, and others it seems true love can survive even death.
Yet we have moments of redemption and unaccounted for grace, moments when anything seems possible. A tender embrace. Genuine affection. Reflection, quiet conversation and the beginning of belief, understanding and healing. A pleasant night watching The Rolloffs or Duggars, or playing Sequence at the kitchen table. Marie makes a favorite meal or holds me tightly before I leave for work.
When she leaves home and is gone later than I thought (three hours for a job interview?) my mind starts racing and I'm apt to start watching the clock. My heart doesn't stay calm. Alone in my thoughts I start questioning the wisdom of trusting again, and I'm filled with discouragement that she might not ever forgive me for my own sins and flaws of character. Can we make it out of this fireswamp of hurt? Some days it seems inconceivable, and others it seems true love can survive even death.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Our Story So Far
I grew up in a miserable, violent, scary family but I don't want to overplay that. No one ought to be blaming their life on their childhood at 53. At 53 we have the face we deserve to have. Someone said that once. In the words of the immortal Casey Stengel, you could look it up.
I watched my father beat the hell out of my mom. I watched him knock my brother's front teeth out, and I watched him brutalize all of my seven brothers and sisters. I felt the sting of poverty and embarassment, of yellow teeth and having the Pacific Power and Light lineman come striding up the lane to disconnect our electricity. I was nine, bounding up to him like a puppy, asking him why he'd come to visit. We lived eight miles out of town on 60 acres half full of sage brush. Visitors didn't come often. My fourth grade teacher came once to hunt arrowheads. My mother filled our ears with bitter sarcasm in her embarassment over our shabby furniture and rundown farmhouse. I loved Mr. Deeds. He was our flag football coach and wore white short sleeved shirts and skinny ties. I bought him one for Christmas. I hated my father. When I was 18 and grew tall enough I challenged him to a fist fight in the kitchen. He didn't hit me back.
Thirty six chaotic years passed, and nothing prepared me for the brutality and bullying oppressiveness of my current marriage. I've never felt as raw and naked and unloved as Marie makes me feel when she is angry. I want to escape with every fiber of my being. But she doesn't have a job, and I have no place to go.
I watched my father beat the hell out of my mom. I watched him knock my brother's front teeth out, and I watched him brutalize all of my seven brothers and sisters. I felt the sting of poverty and embarassment, of yellow teeth and having the Pacific Power and Light lineman come striding up the lane to disconnect our electricity. I was nine, bounding up to him like a puppy, asking him why he'd come to visit. We lived eight miles out of town on 60 acres half full of sage brush. Visitors didn't come often. My fourth grade teacher came once to hunt arrowheads. My mother filled our ears with bitter sarcasm in her embarassment over our shabby furniture and rundown farmhouse. I loved Mr. Deeds. He was our flag football coach and wore white short sleeved shirts and skinny ties. I bought him one for Christmas. I hated my father. When I was 18 and grew tall enough I challenged him to a fist fight in the kitchen. He didn't hit me back.
Thirty six chaotic years passed, and nothing prepared me for the brutality and bullying oppressiveness of my current marriage. I've never felt as raw and naked and unloved as Marie makes me feel when she is angry. I want to escape with every fiber of my being. But she doesn't have a job, and I have no place to go.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
If You Live Long Enough
If you live long enough you have the opportunity to eventually realize that sometimes getting what you think you want winds up being the worst possible thing that can happen. This is not a profound or original realization, but it is the kind that can hit you full in the face and leave you gasping for air and swallowing your own blood.
Marie and I have been back together for 11 months now, and it has been 11 months of misery. Insanity is repeating the same behaviors and expecting things to change. They rarely do, not without a profound shift in attitudes. They have been no such shifts.
We are repeating the same arguments and fomenting the same resentments. A bad relationship is full of its own unreal reality. Those of you who have witnessed, or come out of the other side of such craziness must know exactly what I mean. You begin to believe the worst messages you hear about yourself. You begin to think, she treats me this way because I deserve it. You surrender the power to change things, or walk away from what you can't change.
I've run all my life. Run from conflict and run from failure. My thinking was, I'll stick this out, I'll change, I'll try harder, and things will get better. They haven't. New battle lines are drawn every day. No combination of sacrifices or gestures invalidates the fiercely stored bitternesses of the past. The script is maddening and exhausting and futile. I hurt all over. The walk up the steps to work is the lonliest and most miserable of my life. I come home to a crazy, lost, hurting house, and I want to escape. Pack up a few things and sleep in my car. Show up at my sister's or my best friend's doorstep. Anything. Anywhere. Just go. Can the unknown and uncertain be any worse than this hate-filled oblivion?
Marie and I have been back together for 11 months now, and it has been 11 months of misery. Insanity is repeating the same behaviors and expecting things to change. They rarely do, not without a profound shift in attitudes. They have been no such shifts.
We are repeating the same arguments and fomenting the same resentments. A bad relationship is full of its own unreal reality. Those of you who have witnessed, or come out of the other side of such craziness must know exactly what I mean. You begin to believe the worst messages you hear about yourself. You begin to think, she treats me this way because I deserve it. You surrender the power to change things, or walk away from what you can't change.
I've run all my life. Run from conflict and run from failure. My thinking was, I'll stick this out, I'll change, I'll try harder, and things will get better. They haven't. New battle lines are drawn every day. No combination of sacrifices or gestures invalidates the fiercely stored bitternesses of the past. The script is maddening and exhausting and futile. I hurt all over. The walk up the steps to work is the lonliest and most miserable of my life. I come home to a crazy, lost, hurting house, and I want to escape. Pack up a few things and sleep in my car. Show up at my sister's or my best friend's doorstep. Anything. Anywhere. Just go. Can the unknown and uncertain be any worse than this hate-filled oblivion?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
photo by Kajo123 from the website flickr.com
The Hawthorne Bridge at sunrise, Portland Oregon. Photo by Joe Collver, from flickr.com
"It's a Wonderful Life"
George returns home to everything he ever wanted.
