Hearing One Another's Stories

Do you ever meet someone and get the feeling they're not really connecting to you, not really interested in your story at all, they just want to sell their product or their program and their sense of mission breathes so strong in them they just can't see you as another human heart with a mission of your own?

I met some fine people today and one man in particular, and I don't want to cause him any hurt or injury so I'll just speak generally. The man burned with an intensity for his cause. He felt tremendous passion for what he had learned and the journey he'd completed, and he wanted you to take the same journey. Now this was a good man and his cause was just and worth his fervor, but at the end of our conversation he didn't know my name, or that the woman sitting next to me was my wife, that we had been separated for nearly four months and had come to this place to seek healing and recovery. These were vital facts, because his cause involved, say it with me, healing and recovery.

We have to learn to hear one another's stories, to take a vital and genuine interest in them, because the intersection and commonalities in our stories is the beginning of wisdom. In sharing stories we begin to appreciate how powerfully God is moving in our lives, beginning with the remarkable gracious gift of bringing us together. I am amazed as I discover each day how if you begin a journey of faith and discovery you will be showered with opportunities and blessings, and the chief blessing is the people you meet. People with incredible stories, people who will offer you bread for your journey. It's a Biblical principle and a fact supported by every teaching and most philosophies that when we are receptive, we receive. The blessings run over us like living water. We meet the lifechangers, the difference makers, the inspirational characters, the talented, giving, remarkable people that fill us with hope, possibility and the audacity of action. The author Tom Robbins said, "We are put on this earth to enlarge the soul and light up the brain," and the chief force in that marvelous unfolding transformation is the great gracious gift of the people you meet every day. Hear them. Be interested in them. Remember their names. Jot yourself a note of what they uncovered for you today, or what they may have needed from you.

I don't want to sound for a moment like I've mastered this. My goodness, what a clod I can be. Every day I have moments where I hurt someone with my insensitivity and my self absorption or impatience, so I have no place to condemn anyone for their efforts. In fact my friend Gretchen chastised me today, rightly, for the fact she's offered me dozens of wonderful comments and encouragements about my blog and beginning these stories, but I hadn't written anything on hers. She wrote, "I know my blogs are not as well written and don't contain nearly as much emotion as yours but they are important to me :)" Of course they are. Her entries are the story of her family, and it is a remarkable story, a story of faith and devotion:

http://gretchenanddougandfamily.blogspot.com/

The Good News in Brief

I don't have time to write much more than a note. Church is at 11 and I don't want to miss it. For one it's a date with Marie, and we'll probably go to the movies or have a picnic after.

We go to Beaverton Christian Church, led by Pastor Clark Tanner. The music is fabulous and the teaching is very positive and Christ-centered. Pastor Tanner is a wonderful man and Friday night he sat down with us, counselling us about our marriage. He talked with us for over two hours, just practical and straightforward, and recommended someone for us to see, a counselor named Matt Howell. We really appreciated the sincerity and compassion Clark showed. It's a church with over a 1000 members and he talked and prayed with us like family, incredibly generous with his time.

Last night I worked at The Battle of Bands at the Buckeroo Grounds, one of my sister's events, serving beer and bottled Mojitos with Kristy's friend Melina. She was a nice lady, married with three kids. She had a great energy and a heart for people and really connected with the folks. It was a lot of fun to work and contribute to Kristy's event. The Concrete Cowboys, a country group from Portland, won the battle, and the crowd was well-behaved and had a great time. I made $147 bucks in tips, and there was a great barbeque stand next door where I got a pulled pork sandwich and a plate of leftovers to go home. Cool, huh?

The two paragraphs above will take turns offending people. The first one will offend people who don't like Christians and the second one will probably offend everyone in some way. "See, he's a hypocrite. Running off to church on Sunday and working at a beer stand on Saturday night." That's silly. Jesus' first public miracle was making wine at a wedding. He regularly had dinner with tax collectors and prostitutes, touched lepers with healing power, befriended an outcast woman at the well. People get this image of Christians as being stuffy and judgemental, but Jesus wasn't. He loved life, and people. "I have come that you might have life," he promised, "and life more abundantly." My favorite Bible verse is, "This is a day that the Lord hath made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." They make it into a song you sing at Bible Camp.

You look around and you see broken lives and a broken world, and untold miseries of celebrity obsession, sports fixation, shameful behavior and lost people, and you might start to realize that all the wealth and entertainment we have isn't making us happy. In fact we are the most depressed nation in history, and ahead of us lies a time of uncertainty and despair. A broken economy. International terrorism. Global warming. World-wide food and energy scarcities. In Zimbabwe right now a loaf of bread costs a billion dollars in their currency. For all the technological know-how and scientific wizardry we've achieved we've made a mess of our world and our lives, and there's a lot of hurting people. Marie and I of course have troubles of own, and of our own making. We're working on that. But somehow all of us have to consider that man isn't perfectible, and the sorrows and concerns we have an ultimate spiritual solution.

It's worth considering, anyway. After all it is Sunday. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go on a picnic with my wife. Best wishes, and thanks for visiting.

My Life II, expanding.

It came to pass. That I reached fifteen. Wary, nervous, tense, guarded. Full of secret shame. I started a journal. My parents read it. Intertwined on my bed. Oddly the worst time. Was when they reconciled. Then we were targets. To be bullied, mocked. Identification with the aggressor. Remember, like Patty Hearst. My mother learned from him. Learned to use weapons. Of sarcasm and bitterness. Their sneers like acid. Reading aloud my secrets. Hopes, resentments spilled out. Exposed like raw nerves. I felt shame and humiliation. Learning again it wasn't safe. To think, create, or feel. Five words, I know. Fine, so sue me. Or get your own blog.

I adored sister Kristy. A pure, sweet child. Love, unconditional and safe. After school I would. Set her on the bed. As she was learning to crawl. It was a game. I would stretch out. To keep her from falling. My arms, my legs. A barrier of protection. She would laugh and giggle, infectious. A silly game. But the message was. "See, you'll always be safe. I'll keep you from falling over the edge." Holding her, reading to her. Was the only safe thing. In a house of madness. Where things could erupt at any time. To this day I love small children. And am irresistibly drawn to them. And they to me. I love to read to them. Invent silly songs. With their names in the lyrics. Give them rides. Make them laugh. I want them to feel safe. And be happy. And not be like him. It's my way of forgetting where I came from.

At school and among people. Tense, intense, nervous. Always smiling ridiculously wide. Bravely covering up. I tried to befriend everyone. Please everyone, straight A's. President of my sophomore class. Earnest athlete in every season. But too full of fear and secret shame to compete freely. Athletes must have confidence, grace, freedom of spirit. I just had effort. And failed utterly. A great disappointment to my father. Who like The Great Santini. Wanted sons in his image. For years he'd carried in his wallet. A newspaper clipping. Of a key block he threw. In eighth grade. His last year of school.

Remember the good times. I ought, I realize. But there weren't any. It was just grim and secret. We buried ourselves in television. The Brady Bunch and Gilligan's Island. Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres. Happy families with problems. That could be solved in a half hour. I stayed away. To church, to friends. Endlessly practicing pass patterns. I would drop in the game. One moment of glory. Newton 25 pass from Elliot. West Linn 63, Tigard 0. In my junior year. It wasn't enough.

Hopelessly shy with girls. And desperate to be gentle and tender. Not like him. God, please don't be like him. On a clear morning at Malibu. In the summer of '73. Mountains rising out of the water. Reflections like glass. This incredible place God had carved. From solid rock, over time. I found Christ, as they say. But even my religion. Was filled with guilt and shame. And I struggled, though fervent. Wracked within with doubt. Over my worthiness, my purity. Don't be like him.

I entered adult life chaotic and ill-equipped. Met a girl. Fell in love. Conceived an ill-conceived baby. Repeating the pattern. A beautiful baby. The first one born in Clackamas Country. On June 1, national Dairy month. My father's birthday. Ironies abound. The Dairy Farmers of Oregon sent a blanket. Inscribed in one corner. As a child Stephanie clutched it. Her favorite, always sleeping with it. With the inscription clutched in her tiny fingers. Till the lettering wore away. My parents finally divorced. Then we did. No chance, really. I didn't have my mother's courage.

I ran, overwhelmed. From jobs. From Responsibility. From conflict. Out of control. No plan or purpose. My twenties were a blur. The Lost Potential. The Straight A student, the writer. Sleeping in his car. Rages, mood swings, gambling. Occasional brushes with respectability. Then more running. I managed fast food restaurants. Sold restaurant supplies. Drove garbage trucks. Saw Stephanie on weekends. Took her to see "Top Gun" thirteen times. At the second-run theater with sticky floors. Popcorn was a 1.80. She was 11, I think. And loved it each time. Probably the volleyball scene. And crisp white dress uniforms She decorated my apartment. Five trips to Fred Meyers. Borrowed art prints from the library. "The Luncheon of the Boating Party." Stephanie danced to Madonna in the living room, in a pink satin dress. Two more chaotic marriages. And more failures and more scenes. Don't be like him. Please don't be like him. Faulkner said, "The past is not dead. It's not even past." Gambling and madness. Sleeping in my car. Somehow I got to 50. It happened so fast. I was a gentle father, I think. Kind and loving, not like him. But inconsistent and often absent. Lost in some fog. Somehow they forgave me. And Stephanie and Roger are the two good things. I've done in a wasted life.

My father died at 68. At heart attack at the back of the semi trailer. Delivering a load of coffee. In Layton, Utah. He had mellowed some over the years. The rough edges worn down. And the anger defeated by time. We saw a high school football game. A few months before he died. West Linn lost to Tigard by 25. Some kid from Tigard ran for 200 yards. A scatback, fast and quick. They couldn't stop him. Like we couldn't stop time. I forgave him a little. He did the best he could. He thought he was preparing me for the world, in his own way. This I read in a book. Legacy of the Heart, by Dr. Wayne Muller. "The spiritual advantages of a painful childhood." I spoke at Dad's funeral. The act of getting up and speaking before people. Trying to convey meaning and hopeful ideas. Awakened in me the desire to write. I quit another job, angry. Delivered pizzas and washed golf balls. And wrote a failed novel. About a redeemed monster who played baseball. I had it printed and sent copies. To my children and brother Mike. It lacked a consistent voice. I am still searching for the consistent voice.

My mother died the year I turned 50. June 11, 2005. I told you before, buying strawberries for shortcake. A sudden, wasted death. Rear ended in her car. Just months after her retirement. Just months after a financial ruin and another deep secret. Another tumbling spiraling failure by one of us. The hardworking tense Newton kids eager to please. With addictions and missteps. A few who overcame in their own way. Death brought us together as she had wished in life. I spoke at her funeral. A beautiful service, outdoors before a wide beautiful meadow. Max and Mitzi lent us their farm. We'd raked weeds to get it ready. I gave the children rides in the wheelbarrow. I tried to convey her courage and devotion. Again I wanted to write. If I could tell this story I would have done one thing worthy of what she tried to teach me. I suppose there's still time.

My life in 3-word sentences

Born in shame. German girl mother. 16 and rebellious. Father long dead. Sacrificed to war. Poor ravaged country. Crisp Khaki uniforms. Hershey bar pockets. Sinatra and Presley. Glamor of America. Mother devout Catholic. Horrified and helpless. Handsome soldier, penniless. Precocious rebellious teen. Fascinated by America. Only an idea. Not a place. Something from movies. Clean hopeful place. Streets of money. And John Wayne. Broad shouldered soldier. Holding a rose. She fell, seduced. Panicked and pregnant. Imagine the scandal. Outrage and embarrassment. Painful for all. Army, nations, families. Covered in disgrace. Not yet 17. A school girl. In plaid skirt. And wool sweater. Riding the streetcar. To sneak away. To the American. Mother wracked, helpless. Though liked him. Pregnancy horribly wrong. No options really. This was 1955. A hasty wedding. Late in September. Wrinkled pudgy baby. Just weeks later. In knit cap. Crying and helpless. The Army hospital. Whispers among staff. The paperwork said. "Mother resident alien." "Father American national." Private first class. A hasty discharge. And slow boat ride. Slower train ride. Across oceans, mountains. Distant and unfamiliar. The colicky baby. And German-English dictionary. Clutched tight, terrified. Her thick accent. The rushing crowds. Hopeless, broke, alone. To join him. Across continents, oceans. On a farm. Sagebrush and dirt. Cupboard with mice. A cramped trailer. Her life now. Far from Presley. Sinatra, Hershey bars. Memories and dreams. A desolate reality. Eastern Oregon desert. Dirt farms, manure. No money, prospects. Husband big dreams. Coarse, angry man. Angry at life. Suspicious and friendless. Hated bosses, races. Authority, rules, banks. Buried his money. In coffee cans. Forgot where they were. A giant chip. And lingering bitterness. Poisoned his life. And ours too. Doomed to failure. By his blindness. Worked furiously hard. But no plan. And little grace. Embittered and angry. Abusive, unfaithful, ungenerous. Life in America. Homesick and alone. Imagine this, friend. How to endure. What possible hope. Imagine the courage. My earliest memories. My mother, alone. Over the sink. Crying and sobbing. In German, alone. How to endure.

More children followed. Five more quickly. Brink of failure. Electricity shut off. Stern foreclosure notices. Creditors brusk visits. Husband a wanderer. Job to job. Place to place. Woman to woman. She finds condoms. Condoms, why now. After six kids. He buys condoms. Presents for them. Notes, phone numbers. Aqua Velva bottles. Crisp white shirts. She ironed painstakingly. Going to town. Angry quarrels, manipulation. Coarse demands, roughness. But always promises. No choice really. Had to go on. She cooked, cleaned. Worked the farm. Amidst two miscarriages. Three in diapers. Three in school. Children wary, clinging. Fearing his rage. Streams of profanity. Belt in hand. Angry, ugly man.

But the bravery! She'd roast weenies. Cooking fire outdoors. Boil bath water. Hand scrub laundry. Kitchen still spotless. Ragged old farmhouse. Sagebrush and sand. Cows were milked. Before school, chores. Each child scrubbed. Handed down shirts. Made it somehow. Endured. Long letters home. Brown paper packages. Wrapped in twine. The crisp handwriting. Real German chocolate. And Eduscho Coffee. Her whole pension. Every other month. She never forgot. Saved every picture. My grandmother, Therese. Met only once.

The children grew. As children do. In 1966, changes. Got her first job. Away from home. At a truckstop. A Umatilla cafe. 1.65 an hour. My sister Therese. Feeding the babies. Drawing their bath. "Be good kids. I'll bring treats." A Mounds bar. From her tips. Quarters in jar. For groceries, gas. Husband building dam. John Day Dam. Hells Canyon Dam. Driving semi truck. Welding, carpentry, explosive. The Alaska Pipeline. Gone then home. Boom then bust. Bring in crops. 8 years old. Driving farm trucks. Backward and odd. Awkward at school. The fear showed. Like a stench.

Trip to Germany. With my mother. At age 12. Just us two. Jet over pole. PanAm to London. Stewardesses showering snacks. Blankets and pillows. Ginger ale rivers. Above the clouds. London, long wait. Lufthansa to Frankfurt. My German uncle. Racing the autoban. Rapid, excited talk. Home and reunion. I spoke little. Just nein, ya. Danke, thank you. Gut morgen Oma. She spoiled me. The miracle Grandson. Grown and handsome. In her eyes. Just like father. Don't say that. I shuddered inwardly. Knowing by then. Coarse sordid truth. Felt his rage. Betrayal, hypocrisy, crudity. Didn't respect him. How could I. Lectures, random cruelty. Puzzling dark memories. Secrets and lies. With the babysitter. While we're away. It never ended.

New resolve then. My mother applied. Granted a scholarship! Manpower, Training and Development Act of 1967. An LBJ legacy. The Great Society. Empowering the poor. Tested for placement. Bright and resilient. Entire day testing. She won grant. Blue Mountain Community. Two year program. Accounting and business. Graduated with honors. Cap and gown. Six proud kids. Hope and possiblity. Finally real job! Pacific Fruit and Produce. Meet our bookkeeper. Rosemarie Newton, graduate. Fiercely intelligent, strong. Determined and courageous. She left him. Moved to town. Pendleton, Ladow street. She took him back. They made another baby. Now seven home. I'm 15, 1970. Kristy is born. Mom worked, drove home in her yellow Volkwagen, said kids, "I'm going to have the baby now. Therese, you bathe the little kids. I'll call you when the baby comes." Nine months pregnant. My brother rode his bike with the banana seat to the hospital. "She has black hair and blue eyes."

Old man gone. Pipeline in Alaska. We wrote letters. Then in Idaho. Another affair there. We called her. Why did you? "I'm a decent person." She told us. A master manipulator. Mom took him back. Ardent love, promises. Loud violent arguments. Shame and humiliation. I hated him. I realized now. A difficult secret. Chaotic, tumultuous life. Tortuous, uncertain upbring. Eager to please. All six Newtons. Straight A students. Eager to escape. Painfully, incredibly sad. All the shame. Hiding, laying low. In our rooms. To the ballfield. Anywhere but here. Ran the mile. A school record. In junior high. Always running further. As far as I could. Four word sentence. So sue me. The rest tomorrow. The Mother's courage. In grim circumstances. Refusing to surrender. Imagine the devotion. Character and will.

What a Man Ought to Give to a Woman

Marie and I are having a tough week. The strain of separation is really taking a toll these last few days. We had several dates last week but this week work and distance and time and money and family tensions have thrown up all kinds of emotional road hazards. Add to that the multinational cellular telephone company that starts with T and ends with Mobile is dropping all of our calls. Here we are trying to have vital, tender, difficult conversations, critical ones, really, and over and over the signal is lost or the network fails or the screen reads "emergency calls only." I highly recommend all of the other cell phone companies. But getting out of a cell phone contract is harder than losing the last ten pounds. (I was doing really great today until I got to the Wheeler Ranch. and Alyssa had made chicken and mashed potatoes, with homemade cookies for dessert, the white, soft kind with lots of buttery goodness. Even though I'd had chicken teriyaki after my workout I had to have some. It would have been impolite to refuse.)

For today I made another list that I wrote for Marie on my trip to Selah to see the grandbabies and my smart, funny, beautiful daughter and become a 4-time gold medal winner in the Backyard Olympics. I'd pulled over in The Dalles about 7 on Friday night, too tired to drive any further. Blogging was an exhilarating adventure in its early days, the night of June 12th, and I slept for a while and woke up around midnight to write half the night, charged with enormous energy and cockeyed optimism, thinking I was certain to be discovered by the blogosphere within a few days and become as famous as The Christian Comedy Lady or the Youtube girl catching a flyball. It could happen. But I'm not quitting my day job, just showing up late once in a while. I did have perfect attendance in May though. Won a free lunch, which they're serving on Friday from the Airport Cafe. I chose the fajita sandwich.

The list that follows is a love letter to Marie, but by this point she is probably so frustrated with me it might not matter. There's a phone message I haven't listened to from last night, and I don't think it's going to be a good one. But this is what I wrote for her, from the delicious quiet at the table of The Motel 6 in The Dalles, on the night of June 12th:

What I want to give to you:

1. I want to give you security, comfort and devotion.

2. I want to give you strength, affection, and tenderness.

3. I want you to know you are loved, adored, and desired. I want you to know how deeply I appreciate your wisdom, courage, heart, spirit and strength. I want to demonstrate to you that you are my heart's desire, my soul mate, and my precious treasure, The Girl of My Dreams, the One Great Love of My Life For All Time and Forever, Amen.

4. I want to gather you in my arms, early, late and often, and tell you how much you mean to me, how beautiful you are, and how greatly and completely I love, desire and respect you.

5. I want to help you and fulfill your needs, to serve you and reward you and express kindness to you, to do practical things that ease your burdens and lighten your heart and take the stresses and irritations of life away. I want my voice to be be a bubble bath for your spirit, a sound that soothes you comforts you and makes you feel safe and renewed.

6. I want to be your refuge, your sounding board, your helpmate. I want to lift you up and provide for you and enrich your life, to give you a fine home and material comforts and adventures and activities that fill you with light and possibility.

7. I want to relieve your anxieties, relieve your fears, comfort and restore you, and inspire your soul to trust and believe in the God that is greater than all things, that God that sustains us and covers us with his mercy and grace.

8 (intimate and personal) I want to make love to you, to embrace you and please you and l**k you, early late and enthusiastically and often. I want you to know I want you and you alone.

9 (intimate and personal) I want to fulfill all your deepest desires and needs: sexually, spiritually and emotionally. I want you to guide me and push me down to the place where you hunger and need to be satisfied and satisfy and pleasure you to your very soul. I need you to know your are my deepest desire and I am eager to woo you and date you, to open doors for you and rise to me feet when you enter the room. I will dress up in my best clothes for our dates. I will take you dancing and hold you close to me, keep my eyes on you, letting the world know by my conduct that you are my celebrity, my star, my constant and unyielding desire.

10. I want to give you my partnership and devotion, to offer you trust, hope, safety, constancy, tenderness, devotion, faith, hope and love. I want my life to be a gift to God and to you, and our lives to be a light to other people.

11. I want to lather rinse and repeat, and to allow you to choose the numbers you want lathered, rinsed and repeated, because you are my one and only and my deepest desire.

12. I want you to have time time with your friends, and for you to have good, positive friends that renew you and restore your spirit, that make you laugh and cry and relieve the cares of your day. I understand the company of women with other women is a sacred thing, a powerful bonding that restores and enlivens and underpins the whole human community. Women united are the fabric of life and the strength of our village, and we are lost without this. Our world needs the powerful wisdom of women united, offering their strong voices to embolden and refocus and revitalize our communities and churches and neighborhoods in a powerful and profound way. The audacity of action begins with the wisdom of women bonding together and uniting their spirits, giving one another bread for the journey. I want you to go and be a part of that, because you have a powerful gift of encouragement and a light within you, a hunger for God that needs to be nurtured and shared. You belong to this family of women and you need time to be with that family, your sister, your daughters, your friends. Don't live a day without this. Don't ever ignore its importance.

13. I want to understand you and to listen, to create time to give you my complete attention and total support.

14. I will forgive and believe in you. I will encourage you always and take good care of you.

15. I will need you and love you with all my heart. I will give you my devotion and tenderness and humor and playfulness. But I will never let you beat me in Scrabble, because I am king.

16. I will know you love me, now and always, and I accept your love and treat it as a great and priceless treasure, always and wherever I go.

17. The exact number of things on this list does not matter, and the length of my list to yours does not matter. The important thing is that we give to one another as completely as we can, and accept all the ways we are still learning and fall backward, the times our patience fails or we grow too tired. You are my beloved and I am yours. We need to make a home again and soon. I can't find my clean socks. I don't remember where I set the paper with the employee stock purchase plan info on it. I love you so much.

--for Marie, from room 212 of The Motel 6 in The Dalles, Oregon, on the way to see my daughter and grandbabies, completed at 5:47 a.m. on Saturday June 14.


Readers, it's your turn. Women, are you getting want you really want from your partners? Men, do you think about your wive's real needs, and what do you do to meet them?

Marie, I am sorry for the ways I've fallen short of this list. You are the true desire of my heart, and I want to bring the best to you, always. Somehow we've got to put together some money and end this hard and discouraging time, and find a way to make our love work day to day in the real world. I love you so much. Now I've got to hustle because I'm going to be late again.

Life at the Wheeler Ranch

Many nights the girls sleep in a big cuddle pile in the living room. They have rooms of their own but prefer to be together, despite the wide age gap, usually falling to sleep with a Disney movie on the DVD. Last night it was "Beauty and the Beast". Alyssa is 18, Tia 9 and Dahlia 4, but they are the best of friends. Alyssa is wonderfully patient with the younger ones, a second mom. My sister Kristy is incredibly busy this time of the year planning The Battle of the Bands and The Ross Coleman Invitational, plus settling in to her new office in town, working 14-hour days, so often Alyssa will cook dinner for the younger ones and see that they get a bath and go to bed. She is firm but fair, even when they wail "I don't want to go to bed," which kids have been wailing since the dawn of time.

The Wheeler Ranch announces itself to the world with 15-foot high gateposts made from three sections of 12-inch steel pipe, welded and set into place by Mark and his brother around the time Tia was born. "Don't run into it," Mark teases, "We dug it deep." At the top of the crossbeam there is "W-h-e-e-l-e-r" in block letters cut from steel and welded along the top of the beam, and on each side of the name piece there is a cutout of a horse and cowboy with a mule on a tow rope. The gate itself is two steel fence sections tied to the posts with twine. They lean on each other and most of the green paint has worn away, just enough gate to keep the horses in the pasture.

It is not a ranch at all except in the bigness of the spirit that resides here, the strength of this happy family and the love for their animals and their place. Just five acres, it is home to 9 horses, 4 cats, 5 dogs, 6 chickens and an untold number of field mice. There was a 900-lb pig, once a piglet Alyssa wanted for Christmas when she was 12, but she was sold last summer. "When they get that big they don't make good meat; they're too tough." With typical generosity and old-soul wisdom Alyssa gave the money to her mother for household expenses.

Tia made me a reference chart of all the animals, their names, coloring, the family member who owns them, and whether they are a girl or boy. One of the dogs is a scruffy looking blue heeler who licks everyone who arrives, usually at the door of your car as you open the door, even before you can get out of your seat. It can be very disconcerting in the pitch darkness of a cloudy country night, to have a cold nose on your hand before you can get your night vision. The first couple of times I jumped back in alarm. He's a very gentle dog, dumb and eager to please. Tia says, "Cole is mine because I'm practically the only one that loves him." The girls feed the stock each night after their own dinner, and they are all expected to help. Even Dallie will toss sections of hay to the horses, wearing pink cowboy boots and a bucking bronco sweatshirt. Alyssa usually wears her green and yellow school color sweatshirt, from the Colton Vikings Equestrian Team, 3-time state champions. On the back it says, "We bust our butts to kick yours." I asked her about the slogan. "The kids in our district thought it was funny and they were cool with it," she said. "But some of the big city kids didn't like it at all." At the north end of the farm there's a muddy pond the home of The Fish, a fat koi who is showered nightly with chunks of bread. He is bright orange and easily a foot long, thick and prosperous as a circuit judge. He's the only one of the girl's menagerie that does not have a name. "We just call him The Fish," Tia said.


One night after badminton and macaroni and cheese the girls took me out to show me the fish and meet the horses. I gave Dallie a ride on the top of my shoulders, the way I used to with her big sister when she was small. I told her the story of one Mother's Day when Alyssa was 4 or 5. Kristy and Mom were having one of their occasional squabbles and hadn't spoken in a few weeks, a great heartbreak to Mom, particularly since she and Alyssa were soul mates. At the time Kristy had a apartment on Dollar street just a few blocks from Mom's place on Orchard avenue. I'd stopped by mom's to say hello, then got the idea to stop by Kristy's and ask her if it was all right if I took Alyssa over to see her grandma on Mother's Day. Kristy said yes, I think secretly relieved to have someone break the ice and end the quarrel. By then it had pretty much blown over and it was just stubbornness and awkwardness keeping them apart. Newton quarrels are often like that. We'll go off in a huff and stay apart more out of embarrassment at our bad behavior than anything else. This day for once I got to be the peacemaker, but throughout my life there were many more times I was the cause of the trouble.

I put Alyssa on my shoulders and we walked down to Sentry market to get ice cream bars and a bunch of mixed flowers, carnations and daisies and greenery. Alyssa and ate our ice cream and chatted, reached her mom's apartment and got in my cream-colored Mazda GLC for the surprise. I remember the look on my Mother's face, the mixture of gratitude and relief and joy and sorrow, a whole lifetime of it on her face, and the incredible comfort this little child was to her. My mother was born in Nazi Germany in 1939. Her father died on the Russian front when she three, and her youngest memories of childhood were hiding in the basement during the nightly saturation bombing runs over her hometown, Darmstadt. Years and years later she would wake up with nightmares. When I was in high school if I came home from a game or a movie, the sound of the door opening would wake her and she'd wake up screaming, "Momma, Momma!" She was back in that bomb shelter, haunted, damp and claustrophobic. On the evil side of any war are a lot of ordinary people who happen to born under the wrong flag. Her father was a waiter in a nice dinner house, earning a living for his three kids. An informant turned him in for an offhand remark he made while serving his guests at the restaurant, and he was handed a rifle and orders to the Siege of Leningrad. My mother's mother held out hope for years that he would come home. She never remarried, and subsisted on a meager pension from the government and old photographs. Her walls were lined with pictures of us, every one my mother had ever sent.

When I opened Alyssa's car door and she ran to her grandma that long history of sorrow was lifted in one remarkable moment. It was the best gift I ever gave my mother. I wish I could tell the story as nobly as she lived it.

I told a little of that story to Dahlia as we walked back from the fish, not the saddest part, just about giving her big sister a shoulder ride like this one and walking to the store for ice cream and flowers for her grandma. "My shoes are getting muddy out here," I said. Dahlia is nearly always smiling, the deep radiant smile of a child who knows she is beautiful and loved, who more nights than not goes to sleep in her father's or her mother's or her sister's arms. "Don't worry Uncle Dale, when you walk on the rocks they will dry the mud up." "That's a good observation" I said. "I know," she replied. Four years old. I am surrounded by waters, and the wisdom of three generations of women.

Tia's Chart


Animal name color owner girl or boy
horse Poncho light brown with black Dally boy
horse Patty dark brown Tia girl
horse Kasey reddish brown Alyssa girl
horse Flint black Mark boy
horse Freckles brown/white, with spots Dally girl
horse Switch brownish red Mark boy
horse Stretch Sorrel Therese boy
horse Santana sorrel Therese boy
horse Reno black/white Kristy girl

cat Tom Cat orange family boy
cat Spider calico family girl
cat Stuart white Alyssa boy
cat Jumper orange family boy

dog Polly brown/white family girl
dog Sadie gray Kristy girl
dog Lula brown Alyssa girl
dog Ausi black family girl
dog Cole gray Tia boy

Close the doors of Cosmo magazine: What a man really wants

I know women are dying to know this, because millions of magazine articles are written on this topic every year, in everything from Redbook to Glamour to Cosmo: What do men really want? Here is the ultimate list, written from the heart of one man to the heart of one woman. It's not a list of demands--it's an invitation to real intimacy, real respect, and real hope in the lives of people. Remember always the blog motto: the secret to finding the love you want is celebrating the love you have.

1. I need you

2. I need to be loved, comforted, and encouraged.

3. I need to be admired.

4. I need to feel strong and desirable. I need your devotion and support and tenderness. As much and as often as possible I need your kind voice and not your harsh one, and the feel of your hand flat against my chest, not pushing me away but rather you drawing near to me and into my arms.

5. I need to be trusted. I need to be free to move out into the world and express myself to people, to be a citizen of the world and a lobbyist for hope and possibility and the audacity of action. I need to work and create and build something, and as I do this I need you to know this drive within me is not one of disloyalty to you; it is out of tremendous LOYALTY to you, the desire to enrich your life and care for you. I need you to support my vision and purpose, my goals and my work, and be the voice of discernment and wisdom when I am discouraged or seeking direction.

6. This is a partnership, a life bond. I need you to be my refuge, my most trusted ally and friend, my sounding board, my help mate. I need you to fill in the abilities I don't have and the cracks I don't fill.

7. I need you to soothe my hurts, boost my confidence and restore my soul. Realize the tremendous power we have to heal and renew each other with something as simple as a gentle phrase or an embrace. We can be bread for one another's journey. We can be the beginning of hope in the lives around us.

8. (Intimate and personal)

9. (Intimate and personal)

---In our own private way we need to tell one another and remind one another and show one another how deeply we desire each other, how eager we are to please and entice one another, early, late, enthusiastically and often. The bond doesn't have to die. The energy of attraction between you and your One True Love can be stronger and more powerful with every ritual of sharing, every meal you take together, every dance you dance. You were born to be passionate and alive and hopeful in every aspect of your life, to hold one another and delight in each other and discover one another all over again. Our culture has it all backwards with its celebrity and youth obsessions: the 100 Most Beautiful People in the world are the 100 who choose each other and embrace one another with devotion and tenderness; the Sexiest Man Alive is the one who reads a bedtime story to your kids. Accept no substitutes: the love you want is right in front of you, a flame waiting to be ignited by the flame within you. Clean up, put on your best going out clothes and go dancing, laugh like hell together and drink a good glass of wine, and thank God you belong to each other. Why waste another day?

10. I need our partnership. I need us to be reunited in trust, hope, safety, constancy, tenderness, devotion, faith, hope, and love. I need our lives to be a gift to God and a light to other people.

11. I need to lather, rinse and repeat, especially 8&9, because you are my one and only and my deepest desire.

12. I need to be with my men friends occasionally, and occasionally to go off on my own. I don't do this to hurt you or to slight you. I do this because a man has to be restored and refreshed by the company of other men. And I need to go off by myself occasionally (even Christ did) because that spiritual practice, that act, allows me to restore my soul and examine where I am and where I need to be.

13. I need you to know and believe and rest in the fact that our love is unassailable and constant and no force of heaven or earth can move it destroy it or replace it. I am yours and you are mine and nothing on earth can change this. You are all I want in the world and what I desire at the beginning and the end of every day.

14. I need you to understand me.

15. I need you to forgive me and believe in me. As a man I can be clumsy, ignorant, preoccupied and maddeningly imperfect. There are times I have been selfish, stupid, stubborn, and ridiculously impatient. I am sorry for the ways I've failed you. I dearly want to please you and be a help to you. Sometimes, you have to ask me for what you need from me. There's a lot I don't know about women, and life, that only you can teach me.

16. I need you to need me and love me with all of your heart. I need your devotion and tenderness.

17. I need you to know I love you, now and always.

18. The exact number of needs does not matter. Whether your list is longer or shorter does not matter. The important thing is that our needs and desire to fill them are given to each other, and we give each day to do what we can, remembering to acknowledge one another's efforts and reach for one another in hope.

19. Men are simple, and our love languages are often cryptic. The old joke about sex and a sandwich is largely true. But all of us have to choose, and choose daily, between love and fear. If we choose cynicism and bitterness and disappointment, these will only increase over time and become a hard shell of unlovingness and hurt. But if we choose devotion, tenderness, acts of service and appreciation, these will be returned to us and increase. Remember that love doesn't divide; it only multiplies.

20. If you are with someone who is cruel or abusive or destructive, then this list does not apply. You need to find safety and begin again, begin by loving yourself. The hurt they have caused you is not your fault.


Ladies, it's your turn: what do women really want?