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9月28日 333 Recently, the blog of a new acquaintance celebrated his 100th entry. The celebration elicited responses from naked men and women - practically an online bacchanal! It got me thinking (and feeling a little jelous). I have been blogging online since the summer of 2005 when I took my first trip to Europe for 35 days. That initial entry into the blogosphere was called Travel Teaches, and is still available over at Blogspot.com. But for me, most of my blogs have been posted here at my MSN space christened Edenhill from the very beginning. I've covered subjects as diverse as family, education, politics, religion, sudden death, and daily life. However, the number one topic about which I have written has been travel. I've even acquired a small following of folks who check out my postings on a semi-regular basis but have never met me face to face. Today I celebrate 333 blog postings. It would be 334, but I'm not counting one infamous posting that was written in anger and offended virtually everyone in my life - which I soon deleted back in 2006. I've been blogging for 40 months now, averaging 8 entries per month. The fewest months have had only 3 postings, and the greatest was in August of 2006 when I traveled through Italy on my own - totalling 20 entries in one month. So here's to the magic number of 333. I think it only goes to prove the Internet does bring more people closer together than ever before because it facilitates sharing of real human experiences - from the mundane, to the tragic and triumphant. Below is a pic of me making one of my first blog postings on my PDA outside Starbucks in London - 2005. Please, if you celebrate this milestone with me, don't flash your boobs at me - male or female! 9月25日 Let Me Introduce You......to Derek. Here is the man I've been dating lately. He works as a preschool teacher. He's also a former ballroom dance instructor, and a native Oregonian. We share much in common such as a desire to be a father someday and a Roman Catholic upbringing. There are four kids in my family, and Derek is one of five. He enjoys museums and history, musical theater and singing. In fact, Derek is a bit of a ham! I've been dating him for a while and I can honestly say he makes my heart skip a beat. Yes - before you make any snide remarks, Derek is younger than me....by more than a few years... yeah more than a decade. I'm learning to look beyond age, and concentrate on more important things. He asked me out several months ago and I turned him down. He asked again and I accepted, then canceled. I don't know why, but he asked me out again a few months later and said, "give me a chance." If he was an average guy, I'm sure he would have given up on me after a couple rejections and a no show, but he isn't an average guy. He's far above average in ways that matter to my heart. We finally went out on a date, and now I'm glad I was the one that grew up some. Sometimes, good things come into our lives in ways, forms, and at times we would not expect. Honestly, that is how I met Gene more than 15 years ago. I never thought anything would come of that date in 1993. Gene taught me never to say never. One negative though, is Derek brings out the dork in me. In other words I loosen up just a little when I'm with him - as demonstrated by the photo of me and a particularly furry and toothsome species of Oregonian. The picture was taken when we recently visited the Forestry Center in Portland. Yikes! What is happening to me? 9月16日 One Year Later Summer is over, school has begun, and the anniversary of Gene's death is here. All is well. School started about two weeks ago. Most of my students are the same as I follow my tradition of looping through first and second grades with the same class. This year's start has been the smoothest in the ten years of my teaching career. It feels too good to be true. I've had no difficulties, no need to call parents and discuss discipline, no angry or defensive parents hunting me down to harass me. Instead, I've had an overwhelming feeling of contentment and happiness. On the first day of school, I walked outside to meet my kids and was greeted with the same smiling faces, except for a couple that moved away to be replaced by fresh and eager new kids. It's hard to express the joy I felt on that initial morning. The return of our routines and the excitement of the work settled in and we all started to interact along the lines of old comfortable patterns. My summer was over, but I realized I had needed and had missed the structure of daily classes and work. Since then, every day I am at least content to get in my car and head to school if not downright excited. I return home in the evening feeling satisfied and energized by my accomplishments. The little problems and irritants of the past are still present, and for the most part - I can now ignore them. It all feels too easy. Sometimes, in the back of my head I fear something is wrong - some disaster will soon befall me and my "dream class" will turn into a nightmare. Most likely, it's only residual anxiety from last year. I've learned a sudden and jarring change can turn the world upside down. On this day, one year ago, Gene had a heart attack while we toured the Museum of Flight. It was a Sunday and he had been depressed about the frustrations he felt at work. I encouraged him to get out and get active with me, hoping to distract him from the anxiety of returning to work the next day. Though he followed my advice, he never did go back to work. While looking through a new exhibit on NASA's space program, his last words to me were, "I'm going to go watch the Boeing movie." Still in the midst of reading displays, I responded, "Okay. I'll meet you there in about 20 minutes." I did meet him outside the theater, but he was already dead. For all intents and purposes, Gene died on September 16. He collapsed inside the little theater built from a small section of a Boeing 737. Though he was given CPR by a nearby nurse within a couple minutes, and soon thereafter his heart was assisted by a public defibrillator, brain damage had already set in. His family history, excess weight, and stress caught up with him at the age of 51. When I met up with Gene, he was surrounded by paramedics and slipping into a coma. It took five days for the doctors to understand the extent of his brain damage. The neurologist gave me "the talk" in a side alcove off the main hall in ICU. Gene was never coming back. On September 16, 2007 I was suddenly and shockingly alone and any hope I had that Gene would recover was only hope - not reality. The man to whom I said every morning and every night, "I love you, " was gone forever. Today, one year later I'm still alone. I've moved to a new house, I'm back at work and doing well. My life feels like my own. I've taken responsibility for building a new identity on top of the old one, and that's a good thing. Family and friends come to visit. I have dates and pursue my interests, but my consistent companion since September 16 has been loneliness - day in and day out. In a way, it has become a familiar friend. I don't like being alone. I never have. I can be independent and self-sufficient, but it isn't my preferred way of living. I'm not one who needs to be surrounded by friends and family. Certainly, most who know me will agree with that. But still, I miss having one person to whom I am attached. I miss being part of "we" instead of only me. I've learned to cope. And there lies the crux of the work I've done on myself over the last year. For more than fourteen years, my identity was plural - and I liked it. I was perfectly happy to be in a flawed but fulfilling relationship with one person. Isn't 't that a strange thing? A stubborn and independent man like me, needs to counter his isolation by finding and holding onto one other person? It seems ironic, but it's true. Gene was a person who could live with "me" in every sense of the word. He accepted me for who I am. He never tried to change me. He never put me down or called attention to my flaws, beyond the mere acknowledgment of their existence. He accepted that sometimes I was "uptight" and saw it instead as consistency and commitment. Gene embraced my "elitism" and saw it instead as refinement and intelligence. In every way we spent fourteen years integrating our imperfect selves into each others lives and personalities until it no longer felt like we were alone. Instead, we were a seemingly contradictory combination of separate people but one life. I suppose that's what they call a marriage. Sadly, it's also true that marriages last until "death do us part." Gene said his unremarkable and final words to me one year ago today, but his voice hasn't been silenced. He still talks to me. In the last week I've heard Gene's voice again and again. He's saying something I didn't expect to hear. I hear his quiet and calm patterns within my head and my heart. He says: "John, you are your own man again. The times ahead will be nothing like the past. Everything will be different. Keep your eyes and heart open for wonderful things you never expected. Embrace the new. Don't be afraid. It's okay to be and find and create something new. Let go." And so I have, and so I shall. 9月1日 Seemingly Without Labor Today marks the beginning of September and the end of Labor Day weekend - the unofficial terminus of summer. Over the last few days I have done my fair share of work, but none of it has seemed like labor. It's been a great weekend. Below you can see my newest piece of furniture - a Chinoiserie cabinet and mirror which are now properly placed in an empty corner of my dining area. The reduced capacity of my new china case is supplemented by the new cabinet which will serve as a bar during parties. Also completed this weekend was the planting of some baskets that hang on the fence outside my kitchen window, along with a new dwarf cypress in a green pot by my front door. And, as shown in one of the middle pictures - I've planted new Italian Cypress outside the dining room window along with a birdbath and a small decorative piece of ironwork. I think the display draws the eye outside and serves to extend the room into a green space. Hopefully the cypress will receive enough light to survive if not thrive. I worked at school today, prepping my class for the arrival of students on Wednesday. I also hung the new wood blinds in my home office and TV room. Some laundry, dishes, vacuuming and dusting completed my weekend tasks. I say this was a weekend without labor, not because I accomplished nothing - for obviously I did. Instead, all that work was a load so easy to bare because I also spent a lot of time with a new guy named Derek. He has a relaxing effect on me. While with him I felt natural and true to myself - like being me was impressive enough. Derek has an air of self-confidence about him, and he brings out the same in me. I didn't have to be anything but myself. I wasn't nervous at all, with the exception of the time I arrived 20 minutes late to pick him up for dinner due to traffic for a Seahawks game. I gave profuse apologies, and he did quickly forgive me. Derek is a very handsome guy. Combine Enrique Iglesias, Mario Lopez, and a football player with a dash of Broadway starlet and you might get a picture of him in your imagination. He's a pre-school teacher, so we have much in common. He also loves to play rugby and is at ease in the kitchen. Derek has a sparkling personality, an appreciation for pop music, oldies (like me), literature and musical theater. He is a ballroom dancer and instructor as well. What could be better? Spending time with him made all the work I did this weekend seem like nothing. We have experienced an immediate connection, but only time will tell how that connection will develop. Finally, I'm coming up rapidly on the one year anniversary of Gene's death. During Labor Day of 2007 I surprised Gene with a trip to Vegas and tickets to see The Producers. Three weeks later he was dead. I can hardly believe it has been almost a year since his passing. So much has happened! I wonder what September 2008 will be like? If the first few days are any indication, it will be full of labor, relaxation and reflection - for I live a blessed life, but perhaps the load of memories will seem light because I have many new memories I'm building. |
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