I have a super great old friend from college, Jen. She’s a writer (here’s her book) and a journalist. And a mom.

She lives in Des Moines and recently she acquired chickens.

She and her husband and her kids have chickens in their backyard. 

Do you ever look at your friends, when they do something cool/amazing/odd/wonderful/outrageous and think:

“Uh oh.”

Here it comes. The Existential Chicken Crisis.

The other day, my friend Deb was over and she mentioned chili or something and then she said:

“Ah I saw that article you posted on Facebook, what was it? The 10 Foods You Should  Never Eat? And I thought OH NO!! Here I thought I was doing something great, making homemade chili! But I use CANNED TOMATOES! Ah shit. They were on that list.”

See?

Uh oh. Existential Tomato Crisis.

There are times — many times — when I have wished I were a moron. Existential Chicken Crises are definitely one of them.

Oh don’t worry. It’s not a permanent feeling. It’s just passing moment when I think:

“OH wouldn’t it be so much easier if I were an idiot and didn’t notice ANYTHING at all and could just work as a waiter forever, and then come home and roll around mindlessly on my Made in China sectional, right after I put ALL of the wrappers from my fast food — include the recyclable and compostable ones — in the trash can?

Then I have  to say no to myself. My days of waiting tables and eating quesadillas at midnight — for the most part– are over. That’s fine with me.

It’s just then I have to DEAL with the new information. I have to DECIDE: am I going to be a person who hosts chickens in MY backyard, or am I going to keep buying them from the chicken factory?

Or something in between.

Once new information seeps in, it makes just living a decent life a tussle.

I don’t think it’s keeping up with the Joneses so much. It’s keeping up following our own ideology: what our family wants to be.

Existential Chicken Crisis commence.

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When I lived in Kansas City, I was single.

This meant that I spent a great deal of my energy and mind space being frustrated and unhappy about my “alone”ness.

Like most young women (and men too, I guess), I really wanted to find someone special to connect with, to be with, so long as we both shall live.

And I did! YAY!

But before that time, I spent many Christmas times alone. Not the actual holiday itself, because on the that day I would head back to my parents’ house and hang out there.

But that time from Thanksgiving and the Plaza Lighting Ceremony to Christmas Eve … that was spent pretty much on my own.

This week, I’ve been nostalgic for Kansas City. I have so many great friends there. This is how I am remembering that time.

Even though I was “alone,” — a girl on her own in the big city — I had a family I created from people I met who loved me even though I wasn’t related to them at all.

Now that I have kids around here, I have lots and lots of things on my To Do List for this time of the years. LOTS.

So it is nice to reflect now and then on the “alone” days. I guess some days I even pine for them. But I also try to remind myself to not make them seem more wonderful than they actually were. Because I know I was pretty lonely back then too.

Now, I just want to remember them… the good, the sad, the beautiful.

The lights, the porches, the roommates, the parties, family visiting, the demanding customers I waited on, the smoky bars, the uncommitted men, and the house with two cats.

But most of all, the friends, the hugs, and the laughing.

–

This post is part of my BIG QUESTION December series “If Only in My Dreams.”

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–
Part of the December “If Only in My Dreams” series. Thanks.

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I’ve discovered that my friend Colleen Bradford Krantz and her colleague, Paul Kakert (who is from my hometown!) have had their documentary film, Train to Nowhere, nominated for a regional Emmy.

I’m so proud of them, but not really for the recognition from the awards people. More than that, I am proud of Colleen and Paul for all the hard work they did to to tell the story of these forgotten immigrants.

I think sometimes it is easy to imagine dead things as just that — things. As if somehow, the moment something dies, all its history and humanity goes with it.

Today, Isaiah asked me:

“Mom when we die, do our bodies explode?”

I said: “No, our bodies decompose. That’s like what happens to the food bits we put in the compost.”

“So, we rot?” he asked, not particularly freaked out.

“Yes, kind of. Our bodies break down and turn to back to dirt, like the food in the compost does,” I said. “But the important part of us, our soul, that’s the REAL us. It isn’t in our bodies. It leaves our body when we die.”

“What happens to that?”

I explained to him that we don’t really know. I gave him the short list of  possibilities: Heaven, reincarnation, and just stopping.

“I choose reincarnation. I’d like to be a bear or something,” he said. “Or a baby again.”

What was inside the railcar was just the explosion of those 11 lives. It was just the thing we see after death.

What was missing was all stories of the human lives that reminded us they were not just things, but people.

The soul is a string of memories, in some ways, a compilation of the thousand kindnesses we do, the funny things we say to our parents when we were 6. Our quirks and our passionate entanglements.

Decomposed immigrant skeletons in a rail car once knew mighty love too.

Colleen and Paul did good work — in the book and the film — reminding us that all the little tragedies that flash by us in the news and in life are their own kind of tragedy … because of the beautiful humanity they hold within them. Millions of stories heaving to be heard.

Each is a story holding all the dreams and heartbeats of someone.

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Eyes fixed on mine,
Nearly.
Chin cupped into
Palm.
Furrowed brow,
“Huh.”
Call and response.
You listen.
You don’t agree.

Day 12, July A River of Stones

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Out of the blue, I got a call/voice mail from T. Mallie the other day.

It was one of those lovely long rambling messages in which she updated me on her job status and her life and her hairstyle and the general feelings of things on the Other Coast.

Last time I laid eyes on T. Mallie was in London. She was travelling just to travel — she’s an ace at that sort of thing — and made her way to see me, along with her son Daniel. We went to the Tate Modern together.  Adrian came along one day, too.

Mallie and I met way back in College. She’s the sort of friend who sticks with you, even when you hardly see each other anymore. The sort  of friend that pops up at odd times– just when you need a travel buddy or phone call. She arrived to meet me after I’d been 4 weeks lonely in Italy, for example.

There are some people we meet and they are our friends. They attach to our lives and become a part of who we know ourselves to be. We have stories, and they the main characters. Immediately you are thinking of a friend of yours in your life. I am too. I do not need to names my friends here: they know who they are.

Of course, there are some people we meet who are friends, too, but not quite the same. They help us through. They fill our time. They listen and give to us. But we aren’t going to be with them forever. That’s O.K. We are grateful for them too.

Anyway, it’s often hard to say which is which until after we walk away.

Yesterday, driving home from swimming, I was thinking about Marcy and Heather and Karin: these are my bookclub friends here. I think it’s my turn to schedule bookclub but, sigh, you know how life and vacations and family members and work and kids sort of shuffle time around.

Thinking of them, makes me think of my bookclub friends from London, too.

Hey girls, just wanted to tell you– it’s 5:30 a.m. And I’m sending you a message. Good morning.

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Colin and I met when we both lived in Kansas City. This June we will have lived away from Kansas City for 7 years.

We left because we felt the call of life all its opportunities. We wanted to launch our life on a raft of experience we could build together.

On Understanding Risk

I am not sure if we knew this definitively when we got together, but this attitude towards life was essential to what holds Colin and I together. Even though our some of our interests and our careers are different, we have a parallel vision of life.

Life is risk. The human frame takes on Mother Nature at every turn. Everyday we wake up, we don’t have the answers to what is to come. We can’t save ourselves from certain death by any means!

If we want to delude ourselves into thinking “we know” or we are “safe,” well that is a choice to make.

As for Colin and me, we prefer to ride risk, love it, and find what is there for us.

Colin lived that way before he met me. It was the sort of life that made him quite happy to ride his bike from North Vancouver to UBC everyday. And back. It was the sort of mindset that makes him love skiing and rock climbing.

I lived that way before I met him. I quit my stable job as a TV news director to work freelance. I took internships at Disney World, and I was a live-in volunteer at a soup kitchen and halfway house when I was 19.

It was natural that we continued our lives in that way. So even though we both had dozens of friends and a happy life in Kansas City, we chose to move on.  We felt life and all its risky expectations calling again to test the boundaries of our joy. We sold it all and moved to London.

In the seven years since we got married and moved away, our life has been a domestic roller coaster. On the outside, it looks quite suburban and blase.  We even have white pickets and a minivan. But our life of risk rolls on in magnificent tumult as we say “yes” to the unexpected twists and turns of “normality.”

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So I’ve been home in the town where I grew up for a few days to visit my ailing Dad.

I am always relieved to get here, and feel it viscerally. But at the same time, my visits are filled with the anxiety of missing someone, letting someone down, not seeing enough of who and what needed to be seen and done.

And eaten, of course, too. Like Whitey’s Ice Cream, natch. And Mexican Food.

I was so happy to see, in person, my old friend Nicole, from high school. We hadn’t “seen” each other since high school days, even though we’ve been emailing and facebooking for a year.

I almost missed her, actually. She and my sister, Mary, go to swimming practice together with their daughters. I hummed and hawwed about going to meet Mary for some swim practice. I really just wanted to stay close by Dad. But Mary said, “You gotta come! Your friend is here!”

It was great to see her… We’re old friends and good friends, not just acquaintances.

Still whenever I come home — even though I have been doing it for half my life — i still find it hard to gauge what others really need from me. I don’t have a sense that they REALLY miss me if I have been away so long. If we haven’t been in contact much, how can I judge accurately how much you might really want to see me for those 3 days or so when I have arrived.

Is it curiosity? Loneliness? The desire to feel acknowledged? I wish I understood.

I felt badly when Nicole and I parted. I felt like I hadn’t given her enough time. I felt like she wanted more from me. I felt like a person who walks away in the middle of someone else talking.

I feel that way whenever I visit someplace I’ve left behind. Revisiting the past is like trying to find a younger version of yourself in the mirror — you just can’t seem to see yourself anymore.  You squint, lift your head and look around.

It’s not there, but something is.

The mission to recapture is always unsuccessful. And yet, we try, try again.

Eventually, I hope to just accept what is right here in front of me.

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Larry was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease,

He’s at the beginning of the journey toward the end. Yeah, I mean, they’ve given him the magical pill, but there aren’t any guarantees.

Well, just that one guarantee.

Larry’s been making art that evolves from nature for a long time.

He’s put the essentially impermanent into a state of forever. He’s too old and dyslexic to be on Etsy. He sells a piece now and then when the spirit allows it.

What is this diagnoses all about? Does it starts a long walk into tomorrow or nothing or what? How is it changing things?

Larry doesn’t have family. His sister died from Alzheimer’s. He lives alone. All he has is a few friends, a very old dog, a house in the ‘hood, and his art.

I don’t know how I feel, other than desolate with the news of my friend. I don’t know what to think of about this. Or how to help.

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We went to Africa. We wanted to make a difference.

My wife and I spent five years in the noisy, crazy city of Nairobi, Kenya. My day job made a difference, but our “side” stuff was what really made an impact.

Steve (name changed because of how small the world is now) was a gate guard. That’s about the lowest job one can have in Nairobi. The pay was $5 a week. He supplemented his income by washing cars in the housing complex he worked for. One of those cars was ours.

It broke our hearts to see someone with such promise stuck in such a dead-end place. After a lot of research, we found an inexpensive school where he could learn car mechanics. He enrolled, and we paid the tuition. About nine months later, he was ready to work. But it’s not easy finding a job in a city with roughly 40% unemployment. So I found a job for him – he started working for the mechanic who fixed our car. The pay was actually less than what he was making as a gate guard. But it was a stepping stone. Then I found him a job at another shop – one that was a much better environment and paid him enough to live on – and eventually get married and start a family.

That’s the short version of the story. Each step in the process was a lot of work – filled with frustration, tears – and sometimes joy. And knowing that Steve’s life is better today because we made that connection is huge.

So why did we leave Nairobi? My day job was not something I could do forever. And the traffic, 5 am Muslim calls to prayer that woke us each day – as well as needing to reconnect with our families in the States – drove us back to suburbia.

What gives me joy today? Connecting with you. It may be small, but it can be a huge thing. The difference I might make in your life will probably be less dramatic. But maybe I’ve encouraged you to make a difference too. Right where you are.

**

Writer and social media expert Paul Merrill travelled to Kenya to save the world, one family at a time. These days, he’s observing the world, one bit at a time, from his blog Shiny Bits of Life. He lives in suburban Colorado and contributes to this blog from time to time.

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