This Summer in Minneapolis

 The joyful sound of my son playing basketball in the driveway. The echo of the ball bouncing off the garages, rim and backboard that is wearing loose and has a little jangle from a washer that needs to be tightened. The smile on his face as he heaves that ball toward the hoop is priceless.

My daughter talking to people on the sidewalk as they walk past our house. Her voice whether it is asking questions of the world or singing to herself as she hurdles cartwheels across the yard is the melody of my heart. 

There is a different hum this year. Very little rain. Crunchy grass or vibrantly colored out of control weeds. It is funny how that works. The grass that needs the most attention is the fake one that isn't normal and we some how all agreed on that standard. 

The smoke has moved on and you can walk outside without feeling like you are breathing in a Canada campfire from thousands of miles away. 

I started walking around the lakes this month. There is something too it. Something to seeing other people, all types of people bettering their selves that makes me want to continue to better myself. The smell of sweat, dead fish, lake water although independently gross somehow combine into life. It is kind of like a smelling salt given to someone who has passed out. It is a reminder to come too. That you are here and it is ok or even something better.

The rustle of wind through the trees and leaves has always been a comforting sound to me. I walked a lot as a kid when I needed to work through my thoughts a process that continues to this day. The path of Diamond lake, the Minnehaha parkway, Nokomis, Harriet, Veterans Part and later around Normandale Lake. As I mulled things over in my mind it was always like a choirs in the wind and leaves would answer me back. It would smooth my thoughts, calm my stress and somehow lead me out of what ever path I was on a little bit better than when I went in. For a long time I used to believe this feeling was my father returning to comfort me. In some cases maybe that is true. The never-ending wind blowing that carries a part of all of our breath, all of our sounds, songs and words, echoing in a pattern played in the tall grass and leaves. A pattern we are not meant to understand maybe just feel. I feel connected to eternity when I hear the rustle of the wind in the leaves. 

Advice #453

 I don't know who needs to hear this but one of the best pieces of advice I can give the world is to not use the bathroom in your dreams. No matter how cool the toilet looks, not matter the context of the dream how good you can imagine it would feel. Do not use the bathroom in your dream. 

You can thank me for this later.

My Mom Part 1

It is weird how differently you think of your parents after you have kids.  I spend a lot of my young adult life disconnected and angry at my mom for what I know now was just her trying her best to keep her head above water. 

After my dad died when I was young it was like a moment in time froze in her. 

To this day 30+years have passed since that moment and on my birthday she still brings me things I liked at that time. There is a guarantee I will get s Star Wars card or some other such offering that will be of that period. 

I think she feels responsible somehow for so much that was beyond any of our control. 

I think it is the broken-est of us that spend so much time trying to fix others. 

I always though this was because they wished someone would help fix them but I don't think that is the case anymore. Lest 30 years of therapy, outreach and compassion would show the world of phycology to be a sham. 

We have drifted in and out of each others life's for sometimes years at a time. 

It took my own kids to finally understand there is nothing in this world that you wouldn't do for them. There is no worse feeling in the world than feeling like you let them down. 

How do you tell someone they didn't let you down it is ok. I know you did the best you could have have them acknowledge it in their soul to a point of forgiveness?

I have given that pardon, asked for forgiveness for my part in it, yet I still feel her self tortures' after all these years.

I see part of her in my mirror.

Lesson Learned the Hard Way #235

I took out a bunch of student loans to put myself through school. All the way through school. As I was holding my MBA looking at a bunch of degrees and a bill for it all that was going to take me ten years to pay off I knew I made a big mistake. 

I thought I had to go to school with a name, get a big degree but the truth is I would have been fine without it or going just to a two year trade school. 

I learned much more from just doing and working with mentors that I ever did in a class room. 

Most of the textual stuff goes out the window in the real world once the complexity of organizations and people come into play. 

For my kids it is not that I don't want them to get an education it is that I want them to get the right one. 

If I was helping them foot the bill it would probably be something closer too...

2 Years of trade school or community college with Summers off to live abroad. 

I think living outside the us and learning practical skills would do most people more good than keg stands and frat parties.

The traditional path of life needs an overhaul. If we just do what we are supposed to all we do is shackle up with debt we don't really need following a dream we don't really want.

I spend 20% of my week working to cover something I was "supposed" to do. 

Shame on me for never questioning up front...but then what kid really knows they need to?

Dark Moment #1

 They say it is good to record these things so you can look back and know the truth aloud that you often wish you could brush under the rug. 

It was a summer about 5 years ago. Warmers than most. I don't remember the occasion but I remember the empty Angels Envy bottle that I through out the next day. 

I am a go to bed by 10 person with an airtight routine but was up later than normal this night. 

My routine was usually to let the dog out, brush my teeth, use the bathroom and let the dog in and we all go to bed. 

Tonight though I passed out before I let the dog in. 

We have sound proofing since we live so close to the airport so I didn't hear him barking. 

Around 2:00AM I woke up to the sounds of someone in my house yelling my name. 

Super confused, I looked at my phone about 20 texts and calls from my neighbors about the dog barking. 

Lucky one of them had a key and came over to let him in the house. 

They recently moved.

While nothing like that has ever happened again not a day went by where I would run into them in the ally where I dint feel a tinge of absolute shame from that night. 

Shame in front of a neighbor whose dog almost killed mine but that is another story altogether. 

Will To Be a Better Person

 

It is an odd place to be to know that you have to change, know how to change, know you will be better if change but still not make the change.

Health wise I am at a cross roads. I need to lose weight, a lot of weight. I walk bout 5-7 miles a day so it is not like I am missing a lot of physical activity. I eat well for the most part.

But I drink. More than most. If I am honest probably  5-6 drinks a night which usually leads to a snack before bed. The weekends will come with maybe more drinks, dinners, social events. None of it out of control but it is the thing in the way of hitting my goals. Of me being the best me and I know it. 

So much of my calendar is filled with these event it has become a part of identity I am struggling with changing over.

 

But like any act of courage, it just simply starts with change.

For the first time in a long time, I am ready to do that and ready for the consequences.

I have a date with destiny and my will to be a better person on the 26^th

Bed Time

 Somewhere along the lines I quit being a person who can be up past 10:00PM. 

There was no good decisions that happened and stuff isn't really fun if you don't remember it or you waste the whole next day because of it.

I am going to bed. 

Short Term Thinking

 Pissing your pants will keep you warm, for a while.

Keep your eyes pealed

 Keep your eyes pealed was an expression that always puzzled me for some reason. 

That is until I was watching my daughter peal a banana.

Your eyelids are like the skin of the banana. When you peal the banana you remove the barrier to the fruit just like opening your eyelids removes the impediment to your sight. 

The fact that the expression is keep them pealed instead of just keep them open makes me think that at sometime in the past there probably was a pealing of the eyelid maybe as a punishment for a watch guard falling asleep or something. 

That part is just speculation of course. 

Carry on and keep your eyes open for opportunity.

Breakfast

 

Is breakfast just a leftover from an outdated era? I rarely if ever wake up hungry let alone thinking I need to make a full meal before I start the day. I usually don’t feel hungry until around midday so I am good to go in the morning with coffee and piece of fruit.

 I remember my mom forcing me to eat in the morning. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Studies show you will fail out of school if you don’t eat breakfast.

 I started to wonder if Breakfast is like school, something that is outdated from our industrial\farming past where you might have needed a meal right away because you were doing vigorous manual labor the moment you work up until you were done. Where your body might have needed the morning fuel to sustain the activity of the day.

I sometimes find myself doing the same things to my kids….or feeling like a bad dad if I send them off in the morning without a full stomach.

 How weird is that.

 If you are not hungry don’t eat.  Listen to your body. Listen to your kids.