Blown engines and cockroaches

When I was 16 years old I received my first car, a Ford Escort, from my Aunt Brenda or Uncle Morris. The details escapes me right now, and it is not really what I am writing about. Anyway, having a job and being the first driver among my friends meant I racked up the miles on this vehicle. What I didn't do was take care of it. When the engine got louder, I turned up the radio. When my Dad said I needed to change the oil, I did what 16 year olds do, and ignored him.

This came to an abrupt stop when a rod, having ceased from overheating and no oil, smashed a hole in the side of the engine block. This was both the expensive and stupid. It could have been easily avoided, but I would have missed out on one of the greatest memories of my grandfather.

He was a dry humored man, didn't talk much, but had an intellect and wit that if you were lucky you would catch. Seeing it was like catching the glimpse of mast of a ship in a storm. It was there and gone, leaving you wondering what had just happened.

He was also a talented mechanic. So, as a result of my poor decision making, he agreed to come out and help me replace the engine. It would be a several day process where we got to do a project together. I would learn from and about him and, while I didn't know I would catch a glimpse of the man lurking underneath.

He shared my love of coffee. So, we work and sip everyday when I got home from school and he was available. One day, a few days in, I thought it would be fun to give him a cup we had picked up on vacation with a cockroach in the bottom, proclaiming itself "For my best friend.".

I worked and waited. I knew with each swallow it would be the one to reveal the ceramic bug and I would see this unflappable man twitch, if just fir a second. Nothing. We continued working. Still nothing. I filled his cup thinking his eyesight must be going.

I was dying with anticipation, knowing we would share that laugh, but he never acknowledged that there was anything wrong with his cup. I was in a word, mystified. How could he miss it. The bug was huge.

He left when our work for the day was done. His cup empty and his silence kept.

A few days later, when it was time for us to work again, I asked if he would like some coffee. From underneath the car, I heard, "Yes, but I don't want the cup with the bug in it.". I remember time getting very slow in that moment. Had he really just said that? What does that mean? Had he known I was waiting for his reaction? I can imagine the smirk the must have graced his features as this simple matter of fact statement established who had gotten who.

Then the moment was gone and I went in the house to get his coffee. No bug cup.

Unsaid Thanks, Part 4

9. If I honestly diagnose myself, I have to acknowledge I am not an easy person to have a relationship with. I don't want to be this way, but I am. I quickly dismiss emotion. I am overly logical, trying to apply it to every situation. I am judgmental, holding people to standards the aren't appropriate. I want those around me to be productive, while I am justifying my own laziness. In arguments I can and will twist the words of my opposition to get them flustered. I'm certain there are good things to counterbalance some of this, but in order for you to understand the depth of my thanks, it is import to understand the difficulty I, by my nature, present.

I am not comfortable talking about romantic things. I'm pretty sure this is because I am a man. My wife, after reading this, will be rolling her eyes.

My wife Shelly and I met at Arby's. It is there we became friends. How we became friends is a bit of a mystery. She read cheesy romance novels, I made fun of them. She loved 80's music, I made fun of it. She was not a fan of having the things she likes picked on, but tolerated me doing it. There was no romance, but it was here we became the most unlikely friends.

By all normal expectations, when I went to college, this friendship should have ended. This is what happens, friends go to college and lose track of each other. Not us. We wrote and called and met when we could. In many ways the gap between Plymouth and Kalamazoo was one the fused us together. There was no romance, but we were closer friends than ever.

In the next few years many things happened. We got an apartment together, worked at La Cantina together, built a life together. This wasn't romance. I even remember you wrote me a letter, a beautiful letter, asking the question. What if? In my rational, reasoned and cold way, I told you no. This didn't fit into the life I imagined. What I have never said, even resisted admitting, is it was this letter, this act, that cracked the door. While I said no, my mind never stopped working the, "what if" question. It awakened something in me I had worked hard to repress, uncontrolled emotion.

I never took back my words, but you knew. I loved you, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why you loved me. I carried all of these nearly anti-love traits and you loved me all the more. It changed who I was. You made me better. Somehow fixed that part in me that was broken. This is the best way I have been wrong in my entire life.

So, for loving me when I was working to be unlovable, for completing me when I had so many holes, for making every year better than the year before, for being right when it mattered most, Shelly, thank you.

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This is the last in this series of Unsaid Thanks, and I can't think of a better place to end. I originally started with ten, but the tenth one seems so trite after this. I may in the future do some more of these but for now I'll be moving onto something else.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Unsaid Thanks, Part 3

6. I am always astounded how quickly "normal life" can consume me. I build daily and weekly routines and pretty soon days are rapidly dissolving in my past. Do you know it is almost September? If you are lucky, though, God will bless you with a friend to break those routines. A friend who points out to you, "Hey, that dream you just had, that's your exit ramp, take it.". They don't let the routines blind them. For me, that was a friend I met in Kalamazoo, Josh.

I, in all honesty, never remember being Josh's acquaintance. From the moment we met it seemed we were friends. We had great conversations, played off beat games and just had a good time. Our lives were so different, but we were kindred spirits.

After being friends for a few years, I had begun to develop a little game called Empire, just for fun. My gaming group played it, but it was just a diversion. It was Josh who said, "This is it.". He was convinced that with some tweaking this game could have mass appeal. While not financially successful, that little game got published, sold in eight countries, was nationally distributed and changed everything I knew about the business. I'm proud of many things about that complete experience.

For recognizing my dreams were worth being chased, and convincing me that they could become a reality, Josh, thank you.

7. At church, I am surrounded by couple who give up their time for various ministries. They come in all flavors. You have the couple where only one even really attends the church, while her husband is completely unknown. Next to them, you have the man who serves so faithfully there, he is loved and loyal, which his wife is dragged into his ministry, but her heart is not their. Next to them you have wife who teaches and her husband offers complete support, so she can, but hasn't ever been in her class. Each in there own way falls short of the ideal model.

When We came back from Kalamazoo and started attending Main St. again, I pretty quickly started sighing with the youth group. I had done this in Kalamazoo and I knew I had a heart for the kids. The leaders they had at the time were perhaps the best couple in ministry I have ever met. They were in the ministry together and made it clear they were called as a team, by God, to be there. The opened their house and hearts to the kids. They co posted each other, strength covering weakness Nd weakness being covered by strength. In was clear to all God had called them for this. Their names were Steve and Brenda.

Over the years I got to know them and m opinion never changed. I was impressed by them, but more importantly, I was inspired. This became even so when, on a leap of faith, they began life as missionaries at Pine Ridge Bible Camp. How could you not be inspired?

For following God's call and being a role model for believing couples in both faithfulness and devotion, Steve and Brenda, thank you.

8. One of the things I have been learning recently is my need to be pushed, not by myself, but by other people. Left to my own devices I spend too much money, I eat food that is bad for me, and I don't get the things that need to be done, done. I'm not happy with that state, I'm just lazy. Add to this the fact I am hard to push, and you have wicked combination.

For too long I have been a writer that didn't write, or at least not much. I was in this state when friend of mine broke this struggle wide open. I had just had a very serious conversation my friend James on some struggles he was having, when he said to me, "don't you have anything like this?". I squirmed and game him and half answer. The lazy writer was not to be uncovered. At this point nearly all of my friends stop, but he didn't. I was uncomfortable as he probed around looking for what he knew what must be there, In the end, he gave me assignments to effectively kill the laziness and it might be the best challenge I have received. You might think, this is a one time event, but that would miss many of the details. He pushed because he had pushed previously and afterwords he continued to push with harder assignments.

This has changed my life. Not only is my writing getting better, but I have greater desire to connect emotionally and man of my relationships have improved because of a friends pushing. It annoys the crap out of me sometimes, but it is always what I need.

So, for not letting my own stubbornness win out and forcing me to recognize my own flaws and continuing to push me into uncomfortable situations so that I can grow, James, Thank you.

Unsaid Thanks, Part 2

3. When I think back on middle school and high school one of the central features of those days was my church youth group. The kids were cool, but they were the same ones I went to school with, just a different mix. The church, as a whole, wasn't at it's best. The events we did were fun, but not remarkable. In my mind, the youth group was great because of the leaders, who so clearly loved us. Perhaps that is why I have spent so much of my life working with youth. In that group of leaders, though, there is one who always stood out to me, who I owe thanks. His name is Julius.

Julius was Rock and Roll cool. A talented artist, singer and musician. He loved Jesus with a passion that was catchy. He was proof of something that needed to be true, that you could love Jesus 100% and be cool at the same time. He was the leader who I brought a couple friends to when they wanted to learn more about Jesus. He was the leader who would just talk to me, making me an equal. He was the leader who brought me to a professional studio to help me with my senior art project.

For your love and support, for telling me it was not only ok to be me, but that it was cool to be me, Julius, thank you.

4. I suppose everyone has their favorite elementary school teacher. I have one, too. She was my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Eckler.

In fifth grade we had this story writing competition which took place across several months. Before this time, I don't remember liking writing that much, it was hard, I was slow and sloppy. Not a very rewarding experience. This competition changed that experience for me. More importantly, Mrs. Eckler changed this experience for me. As I would write my story, should would tell me how much she liked it, tell me where it needed more details and point out my bad spelling, no penalty, just so I could fix it. I could do a new draft and she would help me take it to the next level. The whole time she was saying, I like this story you are telling. Suddenly, the fixes didn't seem that bad and story became fun to tell. I had found something I really loved.

For encouraging me and helping me discover the writer inside of me, Mrs Eckler, thank you.

5. I'm going to venture a guess my college days were not like yours. When I went to Western Michigan University, I knew I would have to pay for it myself and I knew I didn't want to end school with a huge school debt. In fact, sticking to the plan I graduated with only a very small loan, for the first semester. While this is an achievement I'm still a little proud of, I could not have done it without some huge support from my Aunt Nancy.

See, in order for this plan to work I would need to go to school full time at the same time I was working full time, and I would need some very cheap housing. My Aunt lived in Portage, right next to Kalamazoo, and offered me her extra room. She put up with my crazy hours, I was up late and up early to get my school work done, and crazy choices, like driving to Holland when I was dog tired after work. She always took care of me, even when my teenage/adult brain was not. I don't remember what the deal was, or how much I paid to live there, if anything, but there is no question that she financially carried most of the expenses for the two of us. My life was very good. Much better than I deserved.

So, for taking care of me, but never holding it over me, for taking my plan and making it something I could enjoy, for indirectly paying for a good chunk of my education, Aunt Nancy, thank you.

Unsaid Thanks, Part 1

Restored (Thanks for having my back James) after a technical glitch ate it.
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Recently, I have been looking back over the relationships I have been blessed to be in. Not universally, but with some consistency, I am finding something disturbing. I don't like what it says about me. I have missed lots of opportunities to give the thanks to people who really deserved it. Now I'm not going to overanalyze why, or dwell on my failure, instead I'm going to take this tread to say a few of the unsaid thanks.

Before I get into it, I am very aware if the dangers of doing a post like this. I'm going to forget someone. I'm going to mess up some of the details. My perspective of the events will be skewed. I'm sorry for each of these things, but I am not going to let that stop me. It is time to say what beforehand has not been said. I'm also going to note, for those people who might try to read something more to what is written, there is no sarcasm here. These thanks are for people who made my life better and I never had the thoughtfulness to tell them before.

1. When I need help, it is my church family that helps me. When my wife is going out with her friends, her girls, it it almost always friends from church she is talking about. When my daughters are invited to a party, it is most often friends from church who have given them the invite. The amount of love my family and I experience everyday is a lot because of our church family. This is not a thanks to them, though. This is a thanks to my parents. First, they lived a life that made it clear the value of having a church family. Second, in spite of the difficulty, they followed God's direction to go to a church better for their kids. Better for me, and the ultimately my family.

For your faithfulness and your example of what it means to be a part of a church family, thank you, Mom and Dad.

2. I would venture to guess that anyone that knows me, knows my love of games. When I walk down the game aisle of a store I can't help but stop and look, letting my imagination run. Every rulebook is a secret code to go to a new place. Most of my friends I met through gaming. One of the things I will regularly do for parties is put together the games. I love it. My life, mostly for the better, has been shaped by games. This might seem dramatic, but games rescued me.

I was a socially awkward child. I wasn't one of the popular kids in school. My friends were the kids my mom babysat. One of these kids, the one to which I owe thanks, was Geoff. Geoff was smart, had great toys and a great house. More importantly, Geoff was a gamer. He played computer, roleplaying and console games and these became a bridge for the two of us to be friends. He taught me how to play a large selection of games, then we would sit and play those games together. It didn't seem to matter I wasn't one of the cool kids when I played games. From him I learned the power of games, of teaching people games and of giving someone an opportunity to be something else for a while.

For befriending this socially awkward kid and introducing him to something that would help him make friends for the rest of his life, thank you Geoff.


To be continued.

Spearmint Gum

I love spearmint gum. Don't get me wrong, the flavor is not particularly remarkable. Spearmint, as a taste, is not enough to do much for me. But the experience of unwrapping a thin pack of five, silver wrapped, pieces of chewing gum sets a spark in my mind. To the rest of the world it may be the most common thing in the world, but to me It is the ignition of something much more. Opening the door to another place.

In 1989, more than halfway through my eighth grade year, my grandma died. In the days leading up to it, I told myself and my brother it would be OK. I never really understood how sick she was. I only remember one day, just days before, when she looked sick. We couldn't really hug her because of the pain it caused. Then she was gone. This is not what the gum brings to mind.

In the aftermath, I remember crying, wanting to see her, wanting to be strong. I watched as my Mom, who was so close to her mom, was reminded by everything around her about this void. I read, what may be the best piece of writing my Dad ever did, about an Astronomer watching a star he loved burn out. He was grieving too. I learned, for what sees like the first time, how people deal with loss. This, also, is not where spearmint gum takes me.

The reason I love the gum so much, is it as a passport back. It is before the illness, before the days of grieving. It is a way for me to be face to face with someone I haven't seen in more than 20 years. Someone I can almost hug, without the pain.

I don't know the exact date of the memory, but I am around ten years old. My brother and I fidget in the seats of the little, maybe even makeshift, church my grandparents attend. My grandfather leads the dozen or so people who are there in "It is Well with my Soul". He is a little too loud, but Grandma, who plays the piano, is perfect. When it is time for the pastor to speak, she comes to sit by us. She is not upset by our lack of attentiveness, she doesn't act concerned by our hushed conversation. Instead, she offers each of us a piece of the gum she always carried. Spearmint gum.

This grandmother, the grandmother brought to mind is not tarnished. She doesn't get upset, she quiets you with treats. She makes crazy, fun breakfasts out of normal things. She beats my Dad at Scrabble and plays instruments by ear. This woman, caught in the amber of my mind, is healthy and loving and perfect.

As I draw the flavor out of the gum, I can feel her.

Found Things

When I step into the heat of my garage, I can't help but let corners of my mouth pull into a smile. Maybe a smirk. I tell my wife that we need get everything out the the garage. And the basement. And the rooms. And the junk drawer. In short, we have too much junk. And, while that is true, there is an advantage to having boxes in the garage.

To understand this, it might help know about a few things I have at arms length as I sit at my desk. I have an English to German dictionary. It is from my college days. It brings back the work I had to do for what would be my toughest classes, but it is not nearly as useful as the information you can find on-line. I also have a 2nd edition Dungeon Master's Guide, which was my chief source of entertainment all through high school. I don't need it anymore, but it reminds me of weekends on Sill's floor with half a dozen or more of my friends weaving stories of dragons and vampires. The nostalgia on these things is a treasure, but I don't know what to do with the items themselves. I don't want to get rid of them, but I can't figure out how to make them useful.

The boxes in the garage fuel my mind with hopes of a new object a new dose of nostalgia. Additionally, you have the quest, the act of working toward a find. The one thing better than finding, is looking. I love the quest. Every box is a quest waiting to happen. Sometimes you get a dictionary or a roleplaying book, but most of the time you just get the quest.

The little quirk of mine has lead me to some interesting places, with some interesting finds. The most interesting for me, my favorite quests are people finding. I do this for a hobby as often as I can. I love the research the moves, the court records, every clue to narrow down where someone has made it to. If a book is laced with nostalgia, that a person is like the straight shot. They can fill in all the gaps, they can talk about the things they remember. It is almost perfect.

I have loved the searches for people lost in the fog of time. It's like I have recovered a little bit of myself. From the girl who lived across the street in elementary school, to the high school friend who got lost after a rough couple years. When you get them, you want to hold on, want to pick up where you left off, you want the joy you remember.

It never works exactly that way, though. At some point you realize the person looking, isn't the person who lost them. I didn't stop changing when circumstances took them out of my life. They aren't they same people either. The taste is bittersweet.

What to do then? What do you do once you have found this person you have spent days or weeks looking for? Now you sit staring at an e-mail written by a stranger, to a stranger with only old history binding them together. The desire for something, but the realization that it is too far gone puts a lump in my throat.

It may be foolish, but I like being able to reach over and touch the books I have no use for anymore. I can flip through the pages and let the memories wash over me. That is enough.

Why do this?

The reason for this whole blog is pretty simple, but I think it begs a longer explanation. The reason I'm here, struggling for the right words, is this, I want to be a good writer. Across time and distance I can hear some of you questions, so let me answer a few of those now. Yes, there are other ways I could improve as a writer. No, I can't guarantee this is going to be interesting for you. Yes, there is a deeper issue, give me a second and I'll get to it.

See, in order to be a writer, you need to write. To be a good writer, you need to write a lot. It is more than that though. You need to have a voice, connect with your reader, be real on the page. There is a loss of privacy you have to be willing to endure, a vulnerability you can't manage.

Give me this paragraph to explain a little about myself, then I promise to go back to my explanation. For most of my life, as long as I can remember I've been the giver and receiver of harsh words. The secret to enduring this is something my friends call turning into the skid. It is that self deprecating art of beating your friends to the punch. If I say I am an idiot it makes them saying it seem like a waste of time. The reality is, if you are not afraid of your flaws they loose the power they wield over you. To my friend from Virginia I called his state Old Glory rather then Old Dominion. In a history conversation, I made reference to Thomas Jefferson writing the Constitution. I've made my share of mistakes that opened me up to criticism, but never have they slowed me from moving forward. They are a joke among friends, but nothing more.

For me, writing is completely different.

The first thing you need to understand, is I am not very good at the fundamentals. I make word use mistakes. I can tell you the difference between there, their and they're, but when I'm writing sometimes I get it wrong. I have the same problem with grammar. The rules elude me when I need them. Lastly, I'm a bad speller, I can look at word sometimes and know it doesn't look right, but for the life if me I can't recognize how to fix. Other times, the word looks fine and it only looks fine because I've been misspelling it my whole life. To make this worse, I can't turn into the skid on this one. Every extra comma and misspelled word makes me feel stupid and embarrassed. I can smile and joke, but on the inside I'm wondering what is wrong with me, why is it so hard to get this thing right.

I hate feeling that way. Broken. So, my writing suffers. I either don't do it, or have to force myself, or don't share it, because it's never good enough. Or, when I have something I need to share I regulate it to be something so far from myself, it becomes bland.

Yet, I need to write. There is something that has been working in me for a long time, which needs to get out. The writer I have hidden for fear of his ineptness. Me.

This blog, starting with this very post is my attempt to break the fear cycle and write. I can promise you, if you keep reading you will find bad spelling, bad grammar and probably a misused word or two. You also may, at times, find me either boring or confusing. I know my flaws are going to be exposed, and I'm trying to be OK with that. To make this meaningful, I'm also going to link to each of my posts in Facebook and Twitter. No hiding.

I want to be free to write. It sounds cliche, I know, but I don't want to be afraid anymore.