Comfort Food

I had a treat recently—a non-travel Friday—so I cooked dinner.  With a chicken roasting in the oven, I wrote on my Facebook page that we were about to enjoy a comfort food dinner.  Shannon, Rayna and I were just about to sit down to eat, when a text message from Nolan arrived on my iPhone.

“Dad, that dinner sounds sooo good, everything here is covered in cheese!”

“It is good,” I replied and sent an 8 megapixel photo of a heaping pile of mashed potatoes and gravy, kale and a mouthwatering chicken thigh. 

“you poop.”

A few minutes later, I sent another shot of a clean plate with a chicken bone and some gravy smudges.  I’ve been told I have a wicked sense of humor.

My mom was a high school cafeteria manager, so I understand about industrial food.  Let’s face it, school food then as now is not about inspired cuisine.  There’s a reason for chili fries—you can cook the fries hours earlier and then throw some hot chili on and you’re good to go.  Or cheese pizza—unless you're lactose intolerant, most people under 21 will eat it and what’s left can be reheated the next day.

I had my share of that stuff.  When I left for college I had to fend for myself—no three-squares-a-day meal plan for me.  And since I had a full time job wrangling sheep, I quickly learned about the one pot meal with the help of an ancient crock pot I got at a yard sale.  My second week of school I called my mom for advice on what I could make in my fifty-cent crock pot; once it stopped smoking. 

“hey mom, the hot plate burned out”, so I bought a crock pot, I began.

“you boiled a pot dry didn’t you?” she guessed.

“Yeah, some sheep got out in the middle of dinner and headed for campus”, I’d been boiling a dozen eggs at the time, and it took me and two sheep dogs an hour to get the escapees off the lawn in front of the administration building.

“Well, you could make beans, get a ham hock and some navy beans; put it on medium and in two or three hours you’ll have dinner.”

“That’s it?”

“yes, it’s cheap and you should get a couple meals”

Well, I reasoned that a couple ham hocks and a lot of beans would make a lot more than a couple meals.  I was in business, something besides hardboiled eggs and fried egg sandwiches.  My parents came down the following weekend for the one visit they made.  On the table in the corner of the sheep barn office was my little crock pot; in it bubbled a nice little batch of beans.  It was about noon.

“oh, you made some beans”, my mom observed lifting the lid of the crock and releasing the warm smell of smoked ham.

“Yep, Sunday night,” I beamed with a look of proud self-sufficiency.

“Two batches in one week?” she started to look skeptical.

“Nope, just one, all week.  I made it Sunday and just kept it warm.”

“You what? You could get food poisoning.”

Before I could say Ramboullet, my crock and its steamy goodness where in the bottom of a trash can. There were other culinary close calls my freshman year involving attempts at menudo at Christmas time and a pigeon sausage in Meats Processing class using “locally sourced” meat. Mom never knew about those, and she didn’t visit again.  So maybe a meal plan for Nolan is a good idea, even if it is a little cheesy.

On the Friday that I snapped a picture of a plate of home cookin’ it had been four weeks since we dropped Nolan off at school.  Four weeks is a long time to go cold turkey—not just with a different diet, but the ritual of eating together.  For lots of cultures sharing a meal is sharing your life.  Since Nolan and Rayna were little, we have eaten together as a family more often than not.  Four or five times a week it has been a touch-point, an opportunity to reconnect. 

We visited Nolan two days later and took him out to eat.  It was a Mexican place; good, but not remarkable.  We all talked through the whole meal.  We all needed the sustenance of the family.  It wasn’t just the comfort food of roasted chicken and mashed potatoes Nolan hungered for; it was the company of his family, and the ritual of a shared life.

We Need to talk

In the space of a week, two college students have perished—one, because of bullying, took his own life. The other perished after leaving a party the first weekend of school.  His body was recovered from the bay and the police don’t yet know what happened.  One in New Jersey and one in Washington; unrelated.  No doubt there are others, but it would be heartless to react that these are just two losses of many that occur in college and tut-tut them away from our minds. 

I cannot fathom what the parents of these two young men are going through.  Their loss and grief must be bottomless just now. I need to say something.

So, Nolan, we need to talk. 

First, you and Rayna are the most important thing in my life, period.  You can’t really know what I mean until you have kids, though I know you to be a very empathetic person.  I’ve tried to never pass up an opportunity to tell you this, but if for some reason it hasn’t struck you, I love you.

Second, if you are ever in trouble or have a troubled heart or mind, call home.  Nothing you can do, no situation will befall you that will change how I feel about you or what I would do to protect you.

Third, be safe.  There are so many things that can be undone, death is not one.

Some other thoughts:

Be thoughtful of others feelings.  Hurtful words and acts can have consequences beyond your imagination---people commit suicide because of things others have said.

Respect yourself. Others will treat you as you treat yourself.  If you respect yourself, and treat others with respect—it is unlikely you will be mistreated.

Always have a buddy.  I hope you will continue to share your feelings with mom and me—it has been the true nirvana of being your parents—if you find there is something you can’t tell us, tell a friend.  You need to develop that friendship now.

Be someone's buddy.  You are a good listener, but develop the ability to sense when something isn't right for your friends and let them know they can trust you to help them.

Know when you’ve had enough and stop before that.  Whether it is fun, lack of sleep or alcohol—too much is not a good thing.  I know you know what happens—my advice is to know when to stop.

Call home often. Stay safe.

Thanks for listening-you have always been good at that.

I love you, Dad.

I Love You Too

When Shannon and I were first married we made a pact that we would not go to sleep mad at one another.  Young lovers do things like that—make covenants they have no idea how hard they are to keep, but bye and large we have done it. 

It doesn’t happen often, but I can say or do some things that are pretty insensitive. Sometimes I say something so monumentally asinine, I need only the IQ of a cucumber to realize I have forfeited the match.  No matter how right your position, “I’m sorry” is the best and only response.  And maybe a foot- rub.  Yes, with the scented oil.  Or roses.

No, I’m talking about the slow burning ember.  Those can lie just under the surface and spark up weeks later in a discussion over whether to have romaine or arugula in the salad.  Early in our marriage I learned that if I wanted to honor my commitment and get some sleep, I needed a way to tease those embers out into the open.  So, I honed my talent for sensing when something isn’t quite right in the fabric that is holding two people together—lovers, coworkers or parents and children.  For the family I have a special tool:  I love you.

Those three words are like a miners gold pan. Now don’t misjudge my intent—If I say those words I mean them; but I’ve discovered a person’s response is telling.  I can reveal little nuggets of hidden truth in their reply.  A sensitive and discerning ear can hear so many things.  Anger. Fear. Uncertainty. Loneliness. Despair. Affection. Resolution. Reconciliation. Love. 

By dent of this utterance, I’ve done my part for domestic harmony.

So, Shannon and I end most every parting with “I love you”, (unless we’re at Wal-Mart  and I’m going to check out the hygiene section).  It is not a throw-away, it affirms that our bond is secure while we are apart and we will refresh that bond soon.  Even a short phone call, “I’m on the 4:30 ferry. Love you. Bye”has the power to afirm and connect. 

I admit for a long time, I feared I would end a call with someone, not my wife, with an “ok, love you, bye.”   You have to guard it becoming a rote habit; habits have a way of assuming their own life.

“Ok, Tim, our meeting with the City is set for next Tuesday.”

“So you can get the evaluation matrices ready?”

“Sure, I have two started.”

“Alright, see you tomorrow”

Ok. Loveyoubye.”

“....Uh, what’s that?”

“Huh? Oh, I said ‘wear a tie.’ You know how the city is?”

“Uh. Yeah.”

True story.  Glad that’s behind me. But I still say it.

Whenever I part with Nolan or Rayna it’s the same, I say those words.  It’s been kind of fun to see them reply without appearing to hurt their teenage independence. It is very much a meaningful statement of my feelings for them; and it is a probe to test their emotional state.  I love you, also asks “how we doin’?”

Recently, I texted Nolan about something or other.  He’d had a week that he was glad to have behind him. I closed with the test:

“…ok, we will call you tomorrow about coming up to visit. Have fun tonight.  Love you, Dad.”

“haha, you bet.  We should go to the Mongolian grill.”

“love you too.”

Love you, too.  It told me everything. An unfinished thought that he didn’t want to pass unsaid. It said we were doing good.  It said he was doing good.

We’re getting the hang of this.

His and Hers

The arc of time that describes the year that leads up to, and into, those first few months in college is all about you.  Not you and me: you, The Graduate. 

If you want to survive that as a parent, you had better have achieved a fairly high level of competence in other aspects of life—particularly marriage and work. Our little 17-year-olds can be black-holes for attention—not because they want it, because they need it.  So much of our energy is focused on their success.  As I look back on this year, several analogies come to mind:

A Formula 1 pit crew

Mission Control at Cape Canaveral

The President’s Secret Service Detail

I count myself fortunate that Nolan, in fact his whole circle of friends, are a darn good bunch of kids.  But let’s face it, in order achieve lift-off they seem need a support team. They need advice, coaching, protection—sometimes they just need a new set of tires and some fuel in the tank.  And then, in a cloud of smoke, they are gone.

As I watch the F1 that is Nolan get up to speed, I wonder how the rest of the “crew” is faring.  In particular I am considering how our next F1 driver, Rayna, the one waiting in the wings, is experiencing this.

He is swerving and braking, shifting and accelerating as he works to gain control.  She is still on the kiddie track with big protective bumpers. But she is watching it all and taking it in.

When Shannon and I were first married, we took a winter trip to Florida.  We visited Cape Canaveral to see the space shuttle.   It was so impressive to see the shuttle sitting on the launch pad—there was a latent power you could just sense.  A few miles away, in an enormous hanger the other shuttle was being readied.  As the bus dodged armadillos on the road out of the compound, I thought about those two shuttles in juxtaposition.  It struck me how different it must be for the two crews—one in the frenetic throes of a launch, the other methodically inspecting, repairing and preparing.  Life is like that, part of your focus on performing, part on preparing.  His and hers.

The trick for me is to watch and enjoy his race and not lose sight of her long preparation to get behind the wheel of her own life.

Boohoo to Woohoo

Since I began writing my thoughts about the journey to empty nest-hood, I have talked with colleagues and friends who have all said they have or are experiencing similar emotions of loss.  It is an interesting phenomenon. Oh, they’re happy that their kids are embarking on this new, wonderful life experience; but they are also burdened with intense sadness—they use the word grief.  ‘scuse me?  I hadn’t heard people associate grief with this happy event before.    Did I suddenly tap into peoples’ emotions?  Have I given them permission to show their grief as I mopped through my day? 

Grief is a pretty strong word.  It carries an unambiguous meaning, and people don’t typically misuse it.  So I am wondering what it is we grieve.  Our kids aren’t dead—the texts and Skype calls can bear witness to that.  So why the long faces?  

When Nolan was just two or three years old we lived in the Sierra foothills in California.  It was five of us back then too, me, Shannon, Nolan and two boxer dogs.   We had the dogs first, thinking, since neither puppies nor kids come with an owner’s manual, if we could manage to not ruin the dogs, maybe we could chance a kid.

One warm summer evening about 15 years ago, life as we enjoyed it came to a sudden halt.  I’ll spare the grisly details; but our older dog, Banner, had to be euthanized.  Banner was not old; he was barely four years old.  He was fun loving, but he was the serious one.  He was the “achiever.”  He was the classic, first child, and that night Shannon and I made a gut wrenching decision to end the life of our “first son”.  All the talk about being humane, while true in my logical mind, was little consolation to my suddenly shocked and torn heart.

We were devastated.  Not like, “wow, that was sad.”  We had lost a child.  After a week, we sought grief counseling with our, then, pastor. She helped us to understand the emotion of grief and how it is so different than just being sad.  She helped us comprehend that when you love someone deeply, a child or a dog, their loss leaves the same big hole. She showed us that a big part of what we grieved was not the loss of companionship, but the loss of what could have been; of “unfinished business.”

We are now a little over a week into college.  Nolan has survived through a weekend.   I’m pretty well past the Bohoo, but I’m not quite to Wohoo either. 

I think I am beginning to grasp why the act of walking away from the dorm that first Sunday was so damned hard.  The son I created in my mind died.  The one in my mind and the real Nolan bore close resemblance, but they are not the same.  Nolan, the person, continues—he was and is.  The one in my mind was not ageless, but timeless.   I would always have another day with him—enough time to do the “bucket list” that all parents have before their kids are all grown up.  That day, that Nolan ceased to exist. 

The hay was in the barn, as we used to say.  What I didn’t get to do—or do enough of—with him as a boy is done.  Sure there are hikes and fishing trips, and vacations and movies and myriad other things that we will still do.  But he will do those with me as a young man.  The terms of the deal have a nuanced, but palpable difference, easier felt than explained. 

In this moment, my image of Nolan is blurred.  Just a fraction out of focus is the other Nolan.  Each day that Nolan gets a little more out of focus—a little left behind.  I see the real Nolan in clear relief and in a new and impressive light.  I like what I see... I love what I see.  I grieve for the Nolan of my mind; I will regret those things in my bucket list I didn’t do with that Nolan. But now I think I understand why the word grief came so easily from my mouth that Sunday afternoon.  And with that, I think I can a hear tiny little "wohoo."

Jealousy

I’m jealous.  Ever since we took the campus tour last spring, I’ve had a bit of jealousy for Nolan. And it isn’t just his 37” flat screen HD, 1083MGP Visio TV.  Unloading his stuff nearly a week ago and then watching him adjust to his new life has taken my feelings from “gosh that would be fun” to full fledged jealousy.  Whoever said youth is wasted on the young must have had a kid in college.

Last spring, Nolan’s future campus was at its peak of beauty. More than just an aesthetic though, the school had so much to offer a student—a student center with a climbing wall and gym facilitates that an NFL club would envy.  His cafeteria dining area has a water-view that would make Bill and Melinda Gates gasp and wish they had not been so rash to buy that little place on Lake Washington. Oh yeah, there are academic pursuits too.

But even that isn’t what I find myself jealous of.  By the standards of the ‘80s, I had a decent campus and pretty cool activities.  The central Sierras and Shaver Lake was a short drive away.  There was a pub/grill across from the student union.  There wasn’t a long wait for computer time.  The library was big—at least it was the time I was there. 

Ok, so maybe I can be a little jealous of the amenities.  But, in my time, I did spent a lot of time in the air conditioned cabs of the newest farm tractors on the market, so there.

Technology is something to be envious of.  Cell phones, laptops, webcams, WiFi.  And the tools to use them—Skype, blogs, IM, texting—the internet.  None of these things even existed when I was in college.  The tools kids have to communicate with their professors, prepare for class and complete their homework is a huge advantage.  It has to speed the process of knowledge accumulation---that is, after all, one of the key reasons for the transfer of large sums of money to the University Bank.  I benefit from this technology largess, though—it is so much easier to stay in contact, to check in and see how they are doing.  If you’re a helicopter parent you are in business—no need for your kid to blow their nose without a conference call and a risk assessment. 

So maybe technology is a push on the jealousy scale.

In the week since we dropped Nolan off, I’ve been reminded time and again of his vitality and growing awareness of his transition from youth to adult.   Nothing allows you time and opportunity to develop into an adult like college.  Adulthood comes whether you want it or not—but the way college develops your world view and life outlook just can’t be matched. And you really can’t appreciate that in the first person, as it happens—it really hits you when you’re watching your kid experience it.

 I think that’s what I am most jealous of:  the realization that I am no longer young.  I know that if Nolan and I could trade places I could squeeze more out of college the second time around, and certainly more than him.  But let’s not get competitive.  I know what I missed and what I’d do differently. But that isn’t going to happen, there is no “do over”.  So I try to give him some insights; advice when it seems right.  I learned coaching youth soccer that it is way more difficult to teach it than to do it.  

I am jealous. I am not yet ready to live vicariously. I have to remember what is “his life” and what is “mine.”  Maybe that way I can be less jealous.  Maybe I can apply what I learned coaching Rayna in soccer, that it can be just as sweet to re-experience life through someone else’s.   I don’t know if I can be so adult about the flat-screen TV though.

Lalalalalalala

I read somewhere that it helps to seek out others who are going through the same experiences you are.  Seems like everyone I know under the age of 60 has a kid who left for college, so there’s no shortage of opportunities for shared experiences lately.  I just can’t figure out if these shared experiences are supposed to give us strength or rob us of the one defense we have—ignorance of what’s really going on.

About a year ago, little Vashon Island was thrust into a wrenching community discussion on grinding.  Depending on your age and world-view, grinding is a vulgar and provocative or creative and innocuous dance where teenage butts and groins meet.  That was nothing.  Less than a week into this journey and I’m hearing about some experiences I’d rather not “share.”  Experiences that involve sex, tattoos, binges, and pepper spray.   Pepper spray?  I never thought I’d equate the freshman semester with bear season.  Let’s bring back the grinding, huh?

Shannon and I tried to prepare Nolan for the different universe that is college.  We focused on the usual: professors, study habits, career counseling, life balance, and finances.  How do you prepare them for more practical things, like the meaning of a sock on the dorm-room door knob?  Or why you never leave a beverage unattended at a party and then resume drinking it.    

Though my parents lived through a period in history where grade school was a distant priority, second to family survival and high school an extravagant luxury, I heard plenty of stories that could have come from the scripts of Animal House.  I’m no prude.  I did my fair share of bizarre, irresponsible and, frankly, dangerous things during college.  I also found a direction for my life career (unfortunately it had nothing whatsoever to do with my major), and met my lover and life partner (fortunately, she exercises better judgment).  So I conclude two things: college is not the culprit and it is survivable.

But, how do we as a species acquire the knowledge to escape the most serious consequences? Are there some long-dormant genetics at work that allow us to experience close brushes and survive?  Is there some vestigial cave-man instinct that says “it’s OK to eat a little of that, but not too much”?

As I listen to the experience of others and recall my own, I ponder: Did we do enough in raising Nolan to prepare him for this gauntlet of stimulations, temptations and dangers? 

Probably not.  We couldn’t have, maybe shouldn’t have.  Like me, Nolan was always an experiential learner; he had to see for himself. 

“Nolan that’s hot, don’t touch."

Nolan, don’t touch.”

sssssss.

“Oowwww”.  

“I told you not to touch.”  

It was a scenario that repeated itself endlessly.   Maybe Nolan’s life approach to learning will keep him out of harm’s way.  Maybe those experiences are what awaken the cave-man gene.  If not, well maybe he’ll get a good education with a few classes in the school of hard knocks, too.

I just know that some morning in the future I’ll be sitting on the ferry and checking my email.  I’ll see one of Nolan's emails or facebook posts from late the night before; it will be a Facebook post about a “sock on the door knob”.  I’ll just have to put my fingers in my ears, say lalalalalalala and hope for the best.  Because, I can’t always be there to tell him, “don’t touch that" anymore.