Captain’s Log – Page 8

The Media that Made Me

My dad had a habit of going to the public library and renting VHS tapes and we would watch them together on the weekends. On each tape? Two episodes of the Original Series Star Trek from the late 1960’s. I don’t remember a time before Trek. As I got older, my brother and I would wake up late at night (or was it early in the morning?) to secretly watch re-runs of Star Trek: The Next Generation as it aired on television in the mid-to-late 1990’s.

Star Wars, that grand dystopic space opera, is a film that I don’t remember a Time Before, at least for A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. I always remember having seen those. Return of the Jedi, on the other hand, I didn’t see until I was older, something to do with Carrie Fisher’s gold bikini, I think. The first time I did see it, it was with the first 20 minutes missing, starting as the Millennium Falcon and Luke’s X-Wing soared away from Tatooine. It would take a few years before I would see the beginning of the film. But it, with Empire and Hope, became foundational to who I am today.

Both Star Trek and Star Wars made me who I am, and I never made a conscious choice to watch either one. It is strange to me that I cannot remember a Time Before those galactic adventures. They were just always on, or available, to me. I guess I have my father to thank for a key part of my identity, because it was he who truly loved both, and must have shared them with me. It was my mother who thought them slightly ridiculous, in my memory, and would censor Jedi for the longest time (But I also remember her enjoying them, to a point, so perhaps it was her as much as my dad.)

Other films and shows would be introduced to me by my parents as they discovered them. I remember that they would watch things first, and then if they were good, or acceptable, they would watch them with my siblings and I. Some have become favorites that I, or the family, enjoys today, but none so invasive to my soul as the outer space tales. But why did they grab me so strongly?

For Star Wars, it was the story that captured me. The rise, and fall, and the eventual victory of Luke Skywalker always fired my imagination. His tragedy and triumph, the loss that he experienced, as well as the exotic side characters and locales that he encountered along the way. Star Wars is supreme story telling, in all it’s color, and grime, and reality most of all, despite the fantastic trappings of the story. Star Wars resembles my current earth.

For Star Trek, it is the utopic vision of the future. To this day, there is no world I want to live inside of more (with one exception*) than the pristine Starfleet as a part of the mighty Federation. The sheer hubris of their goodwill, good intentions, and desire to love and accept all, and shepherd all to be their better selves. That is a future I despair of seeing made reality, because, it is at once too perfect, and too distant, as my current earth is too far from becoming. But I believe that it can be, that humanity has the potential to one day not only sail the stars, but to be that good. Star Trek resembles a future earth that I want to inhabit.

There are two other franchises that became central to me, and the first, chronologically, that I encountered was The Lord of the Rings, and later The Hobbit, as helmed by visionary Peter Jackson. My mother certainly did give me JRR Tolkien’s vision of a world from a distant past, as when she heard of the films, she took me straightaway to the library to check out the books first. But simultaneous was my experience with Tolkien’s words and Jackson’s films. The themes, characters, and struggles of Middle Earth hit me when I was beginning my descent into depression, and so often the hardiness of hobbits became my own. If Bilbo could walk the goblin tunnels and spar with Smaug, if Frodo and Sam could march into Gorgoroth, while Merry and Pippin roused the Ents, then I, too, could endure the breaking of my mind. I’ve carried hobbits with me ever since, as an inner source of strength.

Finally, the microcosm that is *Firefly is the only other world I want to live in. I encountered Serenity and Malcom Reynolds when I was at college. A group of friends and I watched the film Serenity, and when I learned it was based on a show, albeit a tragically short one, I immediately found it and watched it over two days. I want to be a crew member aboard Serenity, pulling heists and sharing life, and aiming to misbehave. When I was going through dark times, away from family and friends, I would watch Firefly and it felt like being with friends who were family, and I still feel that way every time I watch through that series. I can’t think of a reason why anyone would want to leave Serenity, once they have boarded her.

I suppose it’s telling that the only prop replicas I possess are Gimli’s axe, Bilbo and Frodo’s Sting, Thorin’s Key to Erebor, Malcom’s pistol, and the Mandalorian’s camtono. I now find it astonishing that I don’t own any Star Trek props, and need to remedy that as soon as possible. But these are the media that made me who I am today: Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Firefly. Other shows and films delight me, and I enjoy them and find meaning in them, but these four are core to my being. I will always love them the most, and never tire of watching them again and again.

We are all amalgams of the media that made us, and I am so glad to have been given such rich treasures as these. After all, humanity has been telling stories from the beginnings of memory, and we all wouldn’t be who we are without stories to tell, to listen to, and to learn from. Stories are humanity’s spirit, I believe, transferred from one generation to the next, to embody the best parts of ourselves for others to take in and manifest.

It is difficult to express further how and why two tv shows and two movies have embedded themselves as strongly as these have. But I am forever who I am because of them entering my life. Two before I ever remember a time without, one because my mother insisted I take it in, and one because I searched it out for myself. I am so glad that I have this media to enjoy, and to remember most of all. For when I think I am alone, I have the familiarity of Serenity; when I think the world is too far gone, I have the hope of the Enterprise; when I struggle, I have the Fellowship; and when I want to overcome, I can jump aboard an X-Wing. A man could do for worse companions in life than Reynolds, Picard, Gamgee, and Skywalker.

Smile Time

Enduring mental health disorders isn’t for the weak. I’ve been diagnosed with at least general depression and anxiety. I’ve talked about both a lot on this blog. I probably have a few other conditions, but I’ve never talked with a psychiatrist, so I don’t know. If you regularly read my blog, or like me just re-read it, I sound a little bi-polar. Whatever is going on in my brain isn’t fun, I’ll tell you that much.

For what it’s worth, I am much better than I used to be ten years ago, or twenty. Then I was undiagnosed, and dealing with so much without the amazing help that is therapy and medication. I would say it is a wonder I made it out of those years alive, but it isn’t a wonder. Sheer force of will and a refusal to succumb to the darkness is what pulled me through. My therapist said on more than one occasion during those years that she was amazed at my fortitude. After all this time, I am finally able to accept her compliment.

Lately I have been mired in an existential quagmire. I feel that nothing will matter, does matter, or could matter. I see death smiling at me from every mirror or windowed reflection. I struggle with feeling like doing anything because nothing seems to matter. Some of this is fueled by the seemingly terrible and precarious position of the world I inhabit, but some is just me being bi-polar/depressed/anxious/whatever. Shaking the feeling is quite difficult.

I am remembering the line from Gladiator, where Maximus is talking to Commodus at the end. “I knew a man who once said ‘Death smiles at us all; all a man can do is smile back’.” I marvel at that as I haven’t much felt like smiling lately, or if I do, it is with dread looking through the smile. Maybe it is because I am thirty-five now, and getting older and more broken down every day. I admit, I know that thirty-five is still quite young, but I am older now than I have ever been – perennially true and inescapable!

Whatever is really going on – early mid-life crisis, mental illness, life – pushing through is the most on brand thing I can do. Better even than smiling back at death, I need to embrace the eventual end for what it is: a final rest. Life is exhausting, yes, but it is meant to be that way, for it is full of joy, pleasure, wonder – full of feelings. A friend recently climbed to the top of a mountain in the bitter cold to take amazing photographs of the dawn from the summit just for the fun of it! That sums up what I mean: life is fun and painful and chilling and amazing all at the same time, and if you do it right, you can walk away with memories and maybe even a photograph.

We recently crossed the thirty-fifth anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation. That show, born the same year I was, has meant a lot to me over the years. I remember a moment from the end of the first TNG film, Generations, where Captain Picard is looking for his photo album, and reflecting on life, and the trouble he has just endured. He says to Commander Riker “Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we’ve lived. After all, Number One, we’re only mortal.” What a comforting insight!

Rather than smile in defiance at death, as Maximus would, I think I will take its hand, and invite it to walk with me as Picard does, not as the Grim Reaper, but as Father Time, a companion, not an adversary. Mental struggles being what they are, it won’t be easy, or even constant, but that is what I hope to do each day. Day is dawning now as I write, and there is much to accomplish. My hope is that I can genuinely smile, full of all that life has brought, cherishing each moment. That, for me, would be living well.

Living the Questions

This feels odd to say, but: I am going to begin a Bible study this coming Tuesday.

If you know nothing of mainstream Christianity, then a lot of what I am about to write may be incomprehensible to you. If, like me, you have always lived a life surrounded and inculcated with God, then what I am about to write may sound very familiar.

I’ve undergone such a journey in my life regarding faith, and religion, and God, and the Bible: I’ve walked away from it all several times and come back a few times. Being a Christian was and was not ever a choice I made. I was born into a Christian family, and a very conservative one at that. Prayers were offered, beliefs re-affirmed, a life was dedicated and re-dedicated to following precepts and “the way one should go” more than once.

I’ve styled myself an atheist, a Jesus-follower, a Christian, and other things. Thirty-five years into living, I don’t much do labels, or even explanations, anymore. Nothing quite seems to fit, define, or include how I feel and think and, yes, believe so I tend to eschew labels altogether.

This whole business of God, of religion, of Christianity is at once simple, and so very complex. It is familiar, and very, very strange. Frightening, and comforting. Growing up, I was taught the tenants of the faith, the evangelical Christian faith, at the same time as I was taught arithmetic, reading, and history. God was so inextricably intertwined with everything that I had no hope of separating anything mean from the Divine. As an older child, and young teenager, I knew all of the answers, the stories, and the Bible back to front and back again.

But cracks began to show, at the seams, the corners, and the low levels of my life. Depression became something that I struggled with, though I did not know what to call it then. Other mental health issues became prominent in my life, manifesting as anger, and behavioral troubles. I desperately didn’t want anything to do with God or religion, but it was such a part of my identity, of everything that I knew and believed about the world, I didn’t know how to let go of it.

Then my family became uber-Christians: missionaries. We left America to travel to another country, in this case: Papua New Guinea, to spread what we believed to the people who lived there. Ironically, it was there that my life of faith exploded. I met more of my peers than I ever had before, and people from many different Christian contexts, that I had my point of view radically altered. Many of my classmates and friends had conflicts similar, or even deeper, to mine. They had Questions about God that I had never encountered before. Or they had perspectives that I didn’t know could exist. Suddenly my answers seemed small and inadequate.

Whiplash. V, a jerk or jolt (to someone or something) suddenly, typically so as to cause injury.

I experienced whiplash to an overwhelming degree when I graduated from my missionary school in Papua New Guinea and returned home to the United States. I attended a very small, very sectarian, and ultra-conservative Bible institute. For two years I fought quite hard to maintain any semblance of a Christian faith at all. Again, I was immersed in conservative religion. I breathed it, ate it, lived it, but only at night when I dreamed was I free of it. The wide horizons I had marveled at a year prior in another land were challenged hourly and almost completely condemned by this place I found myself. I never before was on the outside of something religious, but only the senior administration’s convenience kept me from being kicked out during my second and final year there. My Questions had multiplied to a level beyond reckoning, and I didn’t know what to do.

Upon graduation, I joined my girlfriend who was studying at another university, this time a liberal arts school that was Christian in name and founding, but in persuasion was much more free than anything I had experienced prior, even more so than the high school in Papua New Guinea. There, while studying one of the languages of the Bible, ancient Hebrew, I met a man who would change my life irrevocably. I don’t remember his name, but he was the former campus pastor and current Hebrew scholar. While in his class, learning to read portions of Genesis and other parts of the Bible, he taught me to Live the Questions.

What he meant by that was to develop a life that was comfortable with uncertainty, with ambiguity, and with not knowing. The complete opposite of me as an early teenager who knew everything, me as a young adult knew nothing about the Bible or God. All my answers had evaporated in the past two years. Sure, I heard them often and loudly at the institute, but they rang hollow and empty now. I didn’t know where to turn. My life was un-anchored, adrift, and tossed. Living the Questions was a philosophy that became a safe harbor. Now I could ask questions prolifically, and be ok to not have answers.

If God is everything I was taught he is as a young child, then he should be big enough to handle a few questions from me. He shouldn’t condemn me for being uncertain, unbelieving, or, for the first time in my life, unafraid. I graduated three years later and almost completely gave up God, religion, and faith. Now, twelve years after that, I’ve yet to come back to where I was even in Papua New Guinea. I am still Living the Questions, and I have even more Questions than I ever did before. Answers are what are scarce. The Bible is at once more clear and much more opaque.

Life my professor before me, I want to model a life that Lives the Questions. I would like to introduce anyone who attends my study to this concept and way of looking at the Bible and the Christian world. I am not out to destroy faith, though certainly mine resembles not what I had before leaving my home as an elder teenager. I consider that a Very Good Thing, but not everyone in my life would agree. What I would like to do is introduce a life comfortable with not knowing, and to help dispel the fear that comes from being uncertain about ideas that one has been taught to be certain about. I lived in abject religious terror for seventeen or more years. No more is that true, and most of that is due to learning to Live the Questions.

I’ve taught Sunday School, attended numerous churches, graduated from two faith based colleges, and read the Bible more times than I can count. I have a passing knowledge of Ancient Hebrew, and am well versed in doctrine, tradition, and church history. I am certainly credentialed enough to lead a Bible study, though it remains to be seen if I am qualified. But, come Tuesday, I will once again be leading a Bible study and be back to all the old familiar places, though in a completely different light and way. I will always Live the Questions, and maybe I can teach a few other people how to do that as well.

UPDATE: the Bible study was canceled after just three meetings, two of which were attended only by myself, and the other by four people on purpose. It did not go as planned.

September Sound-Off

I’ve just finished watching Apple’s fall keynote, and if I were a wilderness explorer or pro photographer on a budget, I would be ecstatic about the new Apple product lineup. As I am neither of those things, I found the announcements iterative. That is actually saying a lot, but no one seems to notice anymore.

I remember when the first ever iPhone was announced in 2007. Itself a quantum leap above handheld, and other, computing at the time, here 15 years later with the iPhone 14, the leap forward is objectively jaw-dropping but it has become so routinely predictable as to be merely “iterative”. That doesn’t stop it from being amazing, however. A combination of limited resources and no iPhone 14 Mini will keep me from upgrading (seriously, I don’t want a huge iPhone), but what they offer is still impressive.

In other Apple product news, the AirPods Pro 2 and Apple Watch 8, I have the previous generations of both, so I won’t be upgrading there either, but I do love some of the features of the Apple Watch Ultra, and hope they eventually make their way to a more affordable Apple Watch in the future. At any rate, software is the other half of the hardware picture, and while not directly announced during the keynote, new software updates will be available soon across all products, and that will bring plenty of new features and functionality for free. Color me excited. Speaking of which, put me down for an eventual Starlight iPhone. While not exactly white, it bespeaks Apple Classic to me, and when I finally upgrade my blue iPhone 12 Mini, I want something classic.

To a product I did purchase just about two months ago: my mattress. It has been a great upgrade from the old one we had (now gone in bulk trash pickup). My wife and I both enjoy sleeping and lounging on it, as does our dog Cassie. It is comfortable and supportive, and were it any more of either, it would be a fantastic therapist. Anyway, I am just happy to have something that doesn’t sag and destroy my back each night I sleep. I am ready to call it worth the funds we spent on it.

Speaking of spending money, our new water heater has been doing exactly what it should, and without complaint, and all’s well as ends well there, I suppose. The summer is becoming fall, in season if not in weather in north Texas, and with it things seem to almost be settling back down from the Week of Hell I spoke of awhile back. Football season starts on Sunday, the baseball playoffs begin in a few weeks, and I’ve already decorated for Fallowe’en. Almost. I’ve yet to create a painting I want to use for the final decoration. Fear of not fulfilling my vision keeps me from beginning that project, but it is a fear I think I will soon overcome.

Keeping a reading journal has got me reading a few nights a week now, and I’ve almost finished reading Dune (Frank Herbert) and am already contemplating starting something by JRR Tolkien or maybe Shoeless Joe (WP Kinsella). I am not sure, but am super glad that reading is once again part of my life. I’ve missed diving into a book, even if only for about 30 minutes a day. A far cry from when I could read for hours, but reading is reading and I won’t gatekeep myself.

I watched Dune the other night, the latest version by Denis Villeneuve, and with one or two quibbles, it remains a fantastic adaptation of the first part of the book. I eagerly await the next chapter in the film series. I still have other shows and films I want to view, but I’m in no rush.

What was a rush was finally buying a new LEGO set: Obi-Wan’s Jedi Starfighter from Star Wars: Episode II. I owned the first version that came out many years ago, and this updated construction is a worthy improvement in many ways. I enjoyed the build, and it looks great on my LEGO shelf next to the AT-AT Walker from Star Wars: Episode V. I realized two things: one, I didn’t have any sets representing Attack of the Clones, and two, for too long I was considering LEGO only as something I could photograph, and not something I could enjoy for its own sake. Buying this set was all of the second and none of the first, and it brought pleasure on that level. I look forward to my next builds, which should arrive tomorrow (what could they be??).

Tomorrow is another day, and I am looking forward to living it exuberantly, which may be a challenge. My wife’s income varies due to the nature of her work, and this month was lower than expected, which puts paying bills and affording necessities at a bit of puzzle to be solved. However, considering what we’ve been through and how big needs have been met this past summer, I think we will be ok. But it is still scary to look at a new month and wonder how we will, in fact, make it through. As Sam Gamgee would say “Let’s just make it down the hill, for starters.”

That catches me up from July to September in things I have been writing about. It has been an eventful few months, and the rest of the year looks to be no different, though I do hope it will be calmer overall. I am looking forward to the holiday season in 2022, and what it, too, may bring. Today has been a relatively good day, despite the bit of bad news this morning regarding income, but for now I’m settling down with a baseball game between my Cleveland Guardians and the Kansas City Royals. Go Guards!

The Years of Living Exuberantly

Oddly, after my last post, I feel energized. I discussed not being able to choose what to do, and while that problem persists, I do not want to be bogged down anymore and miss out on enjoying life. I want these to be my years of living exuberantly. I want to embrace what I have before me, and not worry about what I can’t do.

I am done with my own internal gate-keeping that says watching tv is wasting time. Lately I’ve been telling myself “I don’t want to waste this evening watching tv” but it doesn’t follow that a few hours of good television is time wasted. There is, of course, moderation, but taking time to immerse myself in good storytelling is not a waste, any more than reading a book is a waste. And the truth is, I miss watching a good tv show or movie. I think I will actually draw up a list of what I am wanting to see and plan times to watch things.

My parents and my sister recently added three new dogs, collectively, to their families. That brings their total to five in one house. At the time, my heart said “that’s so awesome” and my mind went “but…but…is that wise?” In the end, the more the merrier. Embrace the messiness of sometimes doing the unexpected, the un”wise”, and the silly, and if you want to live with five dogs, live with five dogs. Who cares? In the end, my nieces will have some furry companions and my family will have some fun. Will there be frustrations, headaches, and growing pains? Yeah, but, so what? Those pains will always be there, but now so too the sheer exuberance of pups galore. Honestly, my house and yard isn’t quite big enough, but if it was, I might get in on the fun and adopt another dog and bring my count to three.

Soon I will decorate for fall and Hallowe’en. Around north Texas, where I live, it is still hot as blazes, but enough with the noise that says it has to feel like a traditional autumn season in order to enjoy some fall decor. I will put up my fake maple leaves, my jack’o’lanterns, and some fun stuff and enjoy the season. It may be 85F-95F still, but I’ll eat a pumpkin cookie nonetheless! And then when it is time, I will decorate for Christmas and enjoy the 70Fs until it gets kinda cold in January. I won’t let the weather rob my joy.

This year, holiday plans are up in the air still. Do we stay home? Go visit family? Part of me wants to take time and go explore someplace with my wife. Just a few days and our car and the open road, then a quiet cabin and reflection. That to me sounds really relaxing and quite fun right about now.

Speaking of October and November, it will soon be time for playoff baseball. I think I will purchase a subscription to YouTubeTV or something similar so I can watch the postseason. It may cost a bit, and seem frivolous, but its my favorite part of the baseball season, and I want to enjoy the magic and see which team makes a run for the World Series.

I have this dream of visiting all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums, and this year, I won’t get to a new one, and while I am sad about that, I am not going to despair. Instead, I will plan my next trip all the more fervently. Arizona? Colorado? Atlanta? St. Louis? I don’t know where I will head next, but I am excited already to go and experience what is out there. I was taking time to visit a city or region, go to a ballgame, and also go to museums and parks and explore that team’s environment. I want to get back to that idea. There is so much to see and experience, and I don’t want to miss it!

Timidity and fear have invaded my mind and my soul. Cautious living has been my state of affairs, always worrying about what disaster might come next, like a car repair or a household appliance replacement, but in the past, those things have been handled one way or another. Life also needs living. I am not saying I will spend all my money on frivolities, but neither will I put off living to save all my pennies. In the end, that way is sadness and I will have done nothing along the way. I refuse to be someone who spends life not living.

Lately I’ve been thinking a bit nihilistically, wondering “what is the point of X if I am just going to be dead and gone in another XX years anyway” and really, what bleak universe did I jump into? Yes, death comes for us all, but spending the time I have exuberantly before it leaves me is part of the point of life itself. Get out and see the world! Paint a stormtrooper! Take a picture! Read a book; watch a movie! Live, for living’s sake!

When I’m gone, a mathom house can have my stuff, or someone else can have fun with it. It’s not like I’ll need it anymore, but I will have curated a collection for another, like Andy passing along Buzz and Woody to a new kid in Toy Story 3. I want to be Andy, enjoying my toys, and then letting the next person play with them. There is all the right in that.

So what comes next? I am not quite sure yet, but I can’t wait to see what it will be. I think I may enjoy a burrito from Chipotle and then watch a movie. Part of the fun is not quite knowing what is in the minute to follow this one. Whatever happens, I am going to try to enjoy it. Someone once said that life is dirty, and it hurts, but it also feels really, really good. I want to embrace that philosophy to the fullest. Otherwise, I really am wasting my time, and that I won’t do!

Choices

It may be a neurodivergent trait, but I often find it hard to choose what to do. I have no shortage of activities waiting for me to pick up and enjoy.

I have four television shows I want to watch: Ms Marvel, She-Hulk, Sandman, and The Orville. I have many movies on my list, including the new Prey, Grey Man, and a few others. As far as reading, I am trying to read a few books: still struggling to finish Dune by Frank Herbert, which I started over a year ago, and Still Just A Geek by Wil Wheaton. I want to re-read Every Tool’s A Hammer by Adam Savage, and have a few others on my bookshelf that I haven’t read yet.

I would like to paint a few action figures, and create some more diorama pieces for my action figure photography. Many canvases litter the craft room, waiting for paint. There is a project for my nieces I have yet to start (shh, it’s a secret). I have other ideas I haven’t even explored.

I have podcasts unlistened to; a book unfinished that needs to be edited and then completed; a blog on which to write. The trouble? I am often struck still by the choices. Which do I start? What do I do? How do I choose one over the other? What do I put off, what do I start now? Most times it seems there is too much to do, other times it seems I just don’t know which direction to go. Occasionally, I dismiss most ideas one after the other and end up with nothing left after five minutes. I sit about and play Scrabble on my iPad or just endlessly refresh social media.

If this is neurodivergency, I don’t know how to overcome it. If it is depression, I don’t know how to dispel it. Lethargy? Something else?

Adam Savage, one of my muses, has said before that when he doesn’t know what to do he cleans his shop, just to gain momentum, and then once he has started to do that, he usually has figured out what to do next, or what to work on. A few times that has actually worked for me, and tonight I simply opened the WordPress app on my iPad. I had the first line of this entry on my mind, but nothing else. I’ve just kept typing and have arrived here.

Sometimes, though, that doesn’t work at all. My craft room isn’t untidy because I haven’t used it. Nothing is out of place. If it feels as if I am making excuses, I am not trying to, but it isn’t like I can pick up a broom and start sweeping the carpet. A few times I have gone and sat down on my spinny chair and just looked at my easel, my action figures, my paints, and whatever else just to see if something strikes me. A few times something says “work with me” and sometimes I just spin in a circle.

Frustration mounts and I still don’t start anything. I don’t have a permanent solution. To reading, I have begun a reading journal. I write down the date, the time, the book, and the page numbers just to track what I read when. That has worked three out of four nights in the past week, so that may be an impetus to get me reading again. I wonder if I should create a calendar: Mondays for baseball/tv/movies, Tuesdays for writing, Wednesdays for podcasts, Thursdays for crafts and painting? But what do I do if I can’t engage in that evening’s task, just sit there? I don’t know.

What gets you going, when you don’t know which of several great choices to choose? What sparks your creativity? What gets you out of the fog and into the clear light of day? These aren’t rhetorical questions, if you have answers, do feel free to share them. Otherwise, I am going to keep contemplating what I can do to help myself out of the mire. Tonight I took a nap, something I almost never do in the evening. Well, nap is a bit of a misnomer. I reclined with my CPAP mask on and closed my eyes and let my mind drift. I could breathe easy, and just bounce from thought to thought. It ended up being refreshing, and I’ve even managed to write a little something. Tonight I’ll call good.

Which is the other little thing I’ve learned to do: celebrate the small victories. Even a diminutive accomplishment is what Adam Savage would call “forward momentum” and success really can breed success. I at least have a feeling of satisfaction at the end of the night, and that feels good. Today, I really had that sluggishness of mind. But a little, what, meditation?, and then I wrote something. Boom. A little success, a little dopamine (is that the correct brain chemical?) and I’m feeling better than I was an hour or so ago.

I’ve written about this before, but the fact is I am able to do more and more than I used to be able to, and and each time I spend less and less time in the doldrums. That itself is encouraging. So I suppose if I am saying anything with all this it is: don’t give up on yourself and find a way to move in any direction. Once you are moving, you can change directions more easily, and you’ll always end up somewhere else. If you don’t move? You’ll stay exactly where you are and grow old there. I’d rather go somewhere, and any way I can get moving I’ll take.

Dark Ages

Whenever the air conditioning turns on, and the ceiling fan is spinning overhead, I feel a certain feeling. It is hard to describe. Equal parts nostalgia, comfort, and excitement. And just the right amount of cool breeze. Those were the exact conditions of my childhood whenever I would get out my LEGO and get building, and whenever I feel those physical and mental sensations, I get the urge to pull out my LEGO and get to work.

Ideas flash through my mind, I feel inspired, and I want to build once more. The trouble is: I have no LEGO. I mean, I have a few sets around the place that I have purchased; a few Ultimate Collector Series, and favorite builds from Star Wars, but no collection of LEGO bricks just laying around waiting to be built. I don’t even have the vast majority of my minifigures anymore, having sold almost the very last of them a few months ago. I saved only my childhood figures, and a very few that go with a few of the sets I still have.

I am in what most Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOL) call my Dark Ages. It is a term they use for when they left home to go to college, having been a kid that played with LEGO, and didn’t “play” or build with LEGO again until they were post collegiate adults, hence the term AFOL. Only for me, my Dark Ages came lately.

I took LEGO with me around the world to Papua New Guinea in high school, and to three colleges in the States and Lithuania. I then took them with me after university to my first home “on my own”. It was there that I first started to lose the love affair with LEGO. I sold most of my childhood LEGO when my wife left and I needed money to stay afloat. It was a very difficult decision, and one I still regret. I also sold many of the sets that I had collected in the years prior, many of which I wish I still had. Then I moved to Texas and carted LEGO from housing to housing, but sold what I had yet collected a few years later. As I said, I sold my minifigures just a few months ago.

Why?

My depression had grabbed hold and I no longer felt the joy of building. One of the last creations I built, a custom version of the Millennium Falcon, took all I had left. It was a difficult build to begin with, and never got easier. It was frustrating, never-ending, and in the end, still did not come out right. I was ready to call it quits after that. Then, I had saved several hundred minifigures for my toy photography, but it was right at that time that I had started to become enamored with six inch scale Star Wars action figures and the photography possibilities they represented. I lost the love of photographing tiny LEGO figures. These days I spend my discretionary funds on new action figures, and not LEGO.

Which makes the feelings I get in the afternoon, after work, all the more curious. Am I re-awakening long dormant feelings? Will I split my funds into LEGO and action figures? Will I build a LEGO man cave and get to construction once more with the small plastic bricks? I doubt it, at least, not now. I still remember the arduous Falcon build, and that stops me. But, there is the itching in my fingers I can’t ignore. My depression is better now, and I understand myself more than I did even a few years ago.

LEGO remains a huge, if largely sidelined, part of my life. I still consider myself an AFOL. Just…not an active one. My Dark Ages linger, and my glory days slip further away. But the encouraging thing is that life is not linear. It so often is cyclical. A “Golden Age” can become a “Silver Age” in a hurry. Things thought behind can appear on the horizon ahead.

I’m in no hurry. I feel that if I wish to pick up LEGO again it will happen when I am ready, and not before. (Honestly, right now, I don’t have the space to put into storing a bunch of LEGO.) I am content to let sleeping LEGO lie. For now. Feelings are great for keeping us inspired, energized, and comforted. They do not always need to be acted upon. Dark Ages? That term is so fraught with negative connotations. Better to call this a brick separation, and hope that one day a re-building will come. Who can say? In the build of life, we don’t get to see the entirety of the instruction booklet, just the page, and the build steps, that we are currently on. What we are even building sometimes we never know, as the construction continues beyond us. I am excited to turn the page, and see what comes next. Then I will sort out what I need, and add to what I have already assembled. It may be LEGO, it may be something else entirely! I can’t wait to find out.

An Internet Timeline

I still remember visiting my first webpage: LEGO.com. It was in 1996. Little me was nine years old, and if I remember correctly the page featured a picture of some bricks, no animation, and a little bit of information about the LEGO company. The internet, LEGO’s website, and I have come a long way.

My brother signed me onto the web then, over dialup. It was not AOL, like a lot of people had, but it was some local provider I think. We looked around for a few minutes, and then logged off, because dialup only worked over the phone lines, and meant no one could call the house. My mom, as ever, was an avid phone talker, and never wished to miss a call. It wouldn’t be until later that my dad would invest in a DSL connection for the house, allowing for (mostly) unlimited and simultaneous talking and browsing.

Around that time, I first learned about social internet use. There were these things called message boards where one could be a member of an online community and share a mutual passion for something, or many things. I found a Star Wars centered message board called BlueHarvest.net, which is now something in French and not that anymore. Back then it was where I hung out. It had been founded by a Swedish woman, and a lot of the people I met were pre-teens from Australia and Europe. We chatted and posted about Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and wrote really bad fan fiction. Actually that was my first foray into sharing my writing, and I wrote an entire short story on BlueHarvest before I was in high school.

Now, of course, there are many social networks and message boards are, in my experience, not nearly as prevalent. There were all sorts of early social networks that I do not remember, but the big three (Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace) came out while I was attending various colleges and universities. I was never on MySpace, but Facebook I signed up for to stay in contact with a girlfriend, and Twitter was a fun thing that has since become largely toxic and stressful, though I still maintain an account there. Later I signed up for Instagram to share photos and find photos of things I enjoyed.

That, too, has changed. In an effort to monetize their networks, the overlords of social media have invited advertisers in and now do an incredible amount of work to drive views and clicks and interactions with the ads on their sites in order to feed the great demons of capitalism and profit. It has made the experience of social media much, much poorer. Half of my feeds now are so interlaced with ads, I can hardly see the posts of my friends, family, and those I follow. Facebook and Instagram in particular have become almost unusable. I despair and long for, at the risk of being an old man yelling for the kids to get off my digital lawn, the halcyon days of the internet.

But I have been made aware of a new-old green space online. Tumblr is a blogging social network where a user can post almost any kind of media they want, be it photo, video, text, or reblog someone else’s media. Tumblr was that in the early days, and it soon became full of mature content, which pushed away users who didn’t necessarily want to find that there. In a somewhat controversial move, Tumblr almost entirely killed their site by banning, or hiding, all of that content. People left in massive amounts, seeking elsewhere to post their risqué stuff. Now, in that same space made new, Tumblr has emerged as a haven for photographers that want a simpler, cleaner interface.

Lately on Instagram, which is full of reels, or short videos, which makes it difficult to see the photography that grew the site, there is a movement to exodus to Tumblr. At least for now, Tumblr promises that with rare exception, their users will only see posts from those that they follow. No suggested posts, few ads (which the user can hide with a paid subscription), and a clear focus on the content the user wants to see. It is so refreshing. I had a Tumblr from ages past, before I got started on WordPress for my blog that you are now reading. Apparently I never actually did anything with it because I had no posts and hadn’t set anything up, which I discovered when I logged on for the first time in years last night. I had simply created an account and then seemingly abandoned it. I think, if I remember correctly, that the old format of Tumblr was a bit clunky and difficult to use. Plus, the ads were atrocious and the experience was not easy or fun. Things are different now.

I’ve restarted my Tumblr, PhilRedBeard.tumblr.com, and have begun to post mostly old photos along with new photos as I take them. If it remains a platform I enjoy, and if more of the photographers I follow on Instagram sail to clearer waters, then I may (mostly) abandon Instagram altogether. I would not be sad to go. Even this morning, when I went back to Instagram to try to catch up on my feed, it felt cluttered, claustrophobic, and closed off. Tumblr, by contrast, felt open, inviting, and refreshing. And I even enjoy the process of composing each post and seeing those I follow.

I don’t know what the future of the internet, or social media, will be like. Will it be augmented or virtual reality based? Holographic? Some new technology yet to be invented? Almost certainly the latter will drive the far future, but the near future, I hope, will be better about removing toxicity, and allowing a free, safe, and fun exchange of ideas, creativity, and passion, no matter what format it takes. And also somewhat ad free. I know that hosting and maintaining a social media takes money, but I don’t think every spare pixel needs to be monetized. I hope Tumblr stays that way for a long while. It may not, and I may be compelled to migrate somewhere new, but that is getting exhausting and I just want a space to see what I want, and ignore what I don’t want. Is that too much to ask? Maybe. But for now, Tumblr doesn’t think so, and so I am happy to be there.

The Week of Hell

One of my dogs is sleeping, buried in a couch pillow next to me. The other is resting his head on the couch cushion, begging me to pet him. Occasionally, I oblige with a few rubs. My wife relaxes in the recliner, working on a crotchet project. Warm, late evening sun is making the closed blinds on the window glow with golden light. Behind me, the air conditioning whooshes cool air into the house. It is a peaceful evening that ends the week of hell.

It all started last Sunday, when a friend of our housemate came to stay with us for one night that turned into two, and was a stay fraught with stress. She turned out to be manipulative, and while I am still not sure what her endgame was, she wanted to take more than we could give her, and we ended up needing to force her out of our house. I don’t blame my housemate at all, she had no idea who this person really was. On it’s own, it was a two-day event that one could move on from, but it turned out to be only the beginning.

The next day, Tuesday, our water heater ruptured. The tank sprouted a bump on the back that began to leak whenever we used the water, despite having turned off the heater and shut off water to the tank. Cold water, as it turned out, was still circulating through and filling the tank, causing it to leak out of the rupture. Fortunately we had picked up some free puppy pads, and among other uses, they are extremely absorbent and managed to sop up the leaking water.

My wife and I didn’t have the ready money to replace the water heater, and thought we had enough of a limit on our credit card to cover a new one, though we hate having to carry such a large balance on the card. I shopped around, and eventually settled on using Home Depot. The box home store would provide and deliver not only the heater, but also the plumber to install it. All for double what our credit card balance was. When he told me the final price, my heart skipped a beat. We can’t afford that, I told him, with dread in my soul. I took a copy of the estimate, and was forced to turn him away while I stood staring at our old, slowly leaking water heater. To be clear, for what work needed to be done, the estimate wasn’t exorbitant, it was right on, but we simply didn’t have the required funds to cover it.

It wasn’t too long after this that my wife and I, and our roommate, headed to court for a hearing. A little while ago, our housemate had been talking a walk through the neighborhood when she was suddenly and viciously attacked by a pack of dogs that had broken out of their yard. They chased her down the street, biting again and again, causing grievous bodily harm. It has been a long process of healing for her, and part of that was a hearing to determine whether or not the dogs involved should be put down. My wife and I wanted to support our housemate in her hearing, but that turned out to be a multi-hour affair in which the defendant, who was representing himself, badgered our housemate with questions, argued with the judge, and made a menace of himself in the courtroom. It was altogether exhausting, upsetting, and nerve-wracking. And after turning away the plumber that morning, by the time we all got home from court, what emotional reserves we had were leaking out of our spirits like the water still dripping from the water heater.

In despair that night, my wife and I discussed what to do. None of us had showered, and we were trying to use as little water as possible for other things so as to minimize the leaking. We called family and friends, but were unable to secure any funding. Finally, our housemate came through. She has been helping us throughout her stay with rent, though there is no formal agreement between us. She has been faithful to help with the mortgage payment, and we have been as family to her. She offered to pre-pay the next several months of her contribution, through no obligation of hers, and it was exactly what we needed to offset the extra cost of the installation. I called Home Depot that minute and rescheduled.

But that day was not yet over. The man who owned the dogs, who badgered our housemate on the witness stand, who has threatened neighbors, civil servants, and been a public menace, came to our house. He was standing outside for fifteen minutes before we knew he was there, swearing and muttering to himself. We have a Ring doorbell and caught footage of the event. We retreated to a back room and called the police. While at the courthouse, we had been escorted by a Marshall to our car, even after this man left (he was free of charges, and free to recover one dog – the rest were ordered destroyed). We feared retaliation, and thought this was it. However, the man left of his own accord, though was walking down the street when the police arrived. They strongly encouraged him to leave us be, and threatened him with criminal trespassing charges should he ever be caught stepping foot on our property again. Our housemate and my wife were thoroughly shook up and frightened, though we went to bed safely.

The next morning, after trial, tribulation, and trying house guests, we finally crested the wave of difficulty. The plumber returned Thursday morning to complete the installation of a new water heater. I worked from home on my laptop while he did his job. It was the quietest, most professional work we have yet had in our journey of needful home repairs and improvements. My wife had returned to work, and our housemate went to a friend’s house to shower and study. Good news was ahead yet: while at work, the chaplain of the university at which my wife and I work, presented her with a check for the amount of money we put on the credit card to cover the water heater. Between an Emergency Fund that we didn’t know about, and our housemate’s generosity, we could buy the heater without incurring a heavy balance on our credit. With that blessing, the rest of that day passed mostly without incident – until evening.

That evening my wife and I had a spat. The tip of the moment was a small dispute, but it really was the outpouring of emotion from our week of hell. We ended up having a long, intimate talk, expelling many frustrations, fears, and feelings. It had been coming for a long time, and was a cathartic release when it finally happened.

Yesterday, Friday, was the first normal day we experience since the previous Sunday. Surprisingly, nothing terrible happened. It was quiet at work when I went in for a few hours, while my wife stayed home for some peace and tranquility with our dogs and her yarn. Today, another workman came to examine our washing machine, which has developed a nasty thumping on the spin cycle. Turns out it needs a few parts replaced, and that will happen next Tuesday afternoon. I spent the morning watching some videos on YouTube from Adam Savage, former Mythbuster turned Maker extraordinaire. I then installed a new security camera outside the house to give us further peace of mind, and evidence should our neighbor come calling again. My wife and I have spent the day quietly (I went to Home Depot for some crafting supplies) and this evening we had a nice dinner and watched a TV show.

Tomorrow, I hope for more of the same: a quiet, relaxing day. I wish to work on some diorama pieces for my toy photography, and take it easy. I hope my wife will do something that brings her joy as well. Together we may just endure whatever is over the horizon. If it be maladjusted, I trust it will be slow in coming. We could use a break from the horrible just now.

I know many people struggle, and there is much evil in the world, and shit happens, but usually you don’t get all of it in such a short period of time. I relate this week from hell, not for sympathy or pity, but for myself, to put in place what has been. It is usually said that one has survived everything that happens to them, from birth to the present moment, yet without expiration, and how true that is. Nothing has been bad enough to kill me yet, and everything past is prologue to the next day. I feel strong to confront it because of the scars and muscles I now bear. Life shouldn’t be this way. Men shouldn’t raise aggressive animals with cattle prods. Needful repairs shouldn’t cost you more money than you have. Your house and neighborhood should be safe places for you to take a walk and relax while watching a baseball game, or crotcheting, or petting your dog. But sadly that often isn’t reality, and so we endure and search for the zen where we can find it.

Maybe we will have peace for a while now. I know we will at least have hot water and squirrel’s eye view of the neighborhood around our house. And we will keep going. We can hold to the love we have for each other, my wife, myself, and our housemate, and our families and friends. And that is stronger than any evil or maliciousness that would stalk from without. And that is an encouraging thought. In time, it is the little acts of love and kindness that keeps the darkness at bay, and we have that more than a dragon has treasure.

Two Times Three

I’ve been here before.

It isn’t exactly a secret that I’ve been married before. In 2010, I married a girl I knew from high school before I’d even graduated from university. She and I had been through a lot already together, and I thought I had found the person I would love forever and grow old with.

Sadly, it was not to be. Whether because we were truly incompatible, or too young, or too afflicted with mental illness and other troubles, we soon realized that being together was driving us apart, she sooner than I, and just after our third anniversary she left. It would take another year for the divorce to be finalized, but we really didn’t make it past three years together.

Today is my (second) third anniversary. I married again in 2019, this time to a woman I had only known about a year. But it was clear from the beginning that we got on very well together. She had never been married, but had experienced enough previous relationships to know what she was looking for. Similarly, having been there before, I also had a clear idea of what marriage meant for me. Once it became obvious where we were headed, we saw no reason to wait and went over to the Justice of the Peace to make it official.

Lots of thoughts have been firing in my brain about my new third anniversary. In some real ways, it feels as if I am on the edge of a precipice. Having been through the failure of one marriage, I am in no way eager to repeat the process. I haven’t exactly been holding my breath for three years, but at the same time, I feel like I’ve been waiting for something to go terribly wrong, and for this one to end in tragedy.

That doesn’t seem to be happening. In fact, it is exactly the opposite: my wife and I enjoy a stronger marriage today than we had three years ago. We have been through many challenges, fights, and upheavals in three years (covid, anyone?) that could end and have ended other marriages. Today we are happy and ready for the future.

Obviously I don’t know what the future holds, but I trust and hope that it will be with my wife beside me, facing what it brings. I wish to reach four, five, ten, fifteen, even as many as twenty (and more!) years together. Honestly that feels an incredibly long time to be together with one person, but I am excited to see how we advance through life as a couple instead of as individual people.

I have many flaws, and still face the challenges of mental illness and other difficulties. She would be the first to tell you she hasn’t arrived at the plane of perfection either. We are works in progress, separately as well as together. The only way to is through, and marriage is hard work. Anyone who says differently either isn’t married or isn’t trying. I don’t care how much love you have for another person, or how attracted you are to them, there is work to be done to love a person at all times in all ways. Love is a verb, and it takes effort to action.

We have built something good here, and I trust it will endure. Neither of us is going anywhere separately, but have committed to going as two together. Three years. Wow, has it been that long already? I can hardly believe it, and yet it has been a good, fun, difficult at times, three years. My previous marriage was in January, and if I were to ascribe meaning in hindsight, getting married when things are at their dead-est may have been a harbinger of the doom to come. This go around, we got married in July, and while in Texas that means some truly hot weather, things are yet growing and enduring. May that be a good omen for us: when things are trying, we can thrive through them.

Some of my favorite memories with my wife are the adventures we have shared traveling to Michigan or Pennsylvania or North Carolina, and the quiet moments hanging out in our studio, she working on crochet or a painting, me taking a toy photograph or watching baseball on my iPad. That is what together-life looks like: the quiet moments with occasional adventures thrown in. It isn’t all excitement and drama and flash, thank goodness!, but it is also quiet and peace and watching a sunset.

I love my wife. I am so thankful that three-ish years ago, I mustered the nerve to send her a Facebook message asking to get to know her better. We met over the lunch line, and soon were taking walks with her quirky dogs, going to see The Lego Movie 2, and getting comfortable with each other. Three years later, we share regular lunches at work, and dinners that we cook side by side, still love on our (sometimes) ridiculous dogs, and enjoy watching The Mandalorian in the evenings while deepening our relationship. I like that I can be me in this relationship, she be her, and that is what continues to attract and draw us closer. In the end, that is what will hold us together through whatever comes next: our individual strengths blended into a strong cord that won’t break.

Three feels good. Tonight we will do our typically fancy thing: go to Red Robin for burgers, and then to the craft store. It may not be wine and high dining and exotic indulgence, but it is exactly what suits us. I can’t wait!