Tag Archives: family

Whither The (dis)United States?

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This morn I should’ve been staring at the black line on the bottom of the pool. Instead, I sampled the paper of record’s “Great Reads” series. In this case, “Depressing Read” would be far more accurate.

The headline will save you ten minutes. “They Argued About Trump at a Dog Park. Then They Pulled Their Guns.” Yes, for some unexplainable reason I read that headline, and then, like the swimmer I shoulda been, dove in.

Just one sampling:

“In the back of the police car and while being booked, he asked four times about the well-being of his dog, Frankie. He did not ask about the condition of the man he had shot.”

Top reader comments:

Depending upon who you are, your socio-economic status, where you live in the (dis)United States, and what content you selectively choose, life is either steadily getting better in the (dis)United States or worse.

Violent crime is way down, yet you can get shot at a dog park. Personal technology makes it far easier to keep in touch with many more people, yet loneliness is on the rise. Despite far less funding for medical research, and a greatly weakened CDC, impressive cutting-edge medical advances continue, extending lifespans.

I’m of two-minds. Due to my economic and related privilege I’m optimistic, but more generally, pessimistic. It’s obvious to me that most people’s lives are not improving anywhere near as much as mine.

Timothy Snyder sees my half-filled glass and empties it.

Two things can be true at the same time. In October, 2026, in the (dis)United States, life can be getting better for the New Aristocracy and future historians will convincingly argue that the world’s preeminent superpower had already begun it’s steady decline.

Postscript. Wonderful antidote to the dog park debacle.

The ‘Secret’ To Happiness 2

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Recall the shortest possible answer. “Feeling loved”. That resonants with me.

After Lynn died, I pressed pause, for not nearly as long as my grieving daughters would’ve liked, but I reflected on my life to this extremely sad and disorienting turning point and had an epiphany.

My default tends to be optimism, confidence, and happiness because I’ve been so damn lucky in love.

And as the authors of the aforementioned book explain, feeling loved isn’t just a romantic thing. Why does a parent who gets a tender note of appreciation from their young adult child immediately attach it to their refrigerator? Because it’s a constant reminder that they are loved. Today, two friends who I’m not in regular contact with, both out of the blue, asked me how I’m doing. Making me feel like I matter a wee bit more. Loved, if you will.

Most fundamentally, from the beginning, my mom’s unconditional love convinced me I mattered. That I was lovable. Her affection for me was the single most important source of my well-being until the middle of high school when I fell in love for the first time. After 3.5 years, Cindy dropped kicked me, and shortly thereafter Sally did the same. WAIT, I’m detecting a pattern!

More seriously, I had this overwhelming sense of being loved by my mom, then Cindy, then Sally, then there was, in the grand scheme of things, an incredibly short period of maybe eighteen months where I was adrift, unsure that I was loved much before meeting Lynn who deeply loved me for four decades.

So, for those keeping score at home, I’ve known I’m loved about 97.7% of my life.

The authors of “Feeling Loved” might say that’s less lucky than me being attentive, kind, and caring enough to family, friends, and romantic partners that love has almost always been reciprocated. A boomerang effect.

Both/and I suspect. I have tremendous gratitude for everyone that has loved me and is loving me currently. I will continue doing my best to hold up my end of the seesaw by striving to be more attentive, kind, and caring, so that, in the end, love and well-being prevail.

Going Against Type

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My mom was famously antisocial on planes, which is a bit odd since she was quite personable. She’d literally psych herself up not to talk to her neighbor(s). And she had strategies. Other people in my lineage lean anti-social.

So on my way to London yesterday, I decided to blaze a new path of airplane neighborliness. My next-door neighbor was a young, East Indian man with two phones. Uber courteous when I first sat down, he took my man purse and stowed it for me since there were no seats in front of us. An hour into the flight I dishonored my mom by asking him, “Are you from London?” He smiled and said, “No, I’m from Seattle, but I travel to London frequently for work.”

Definitely the most interesting dude I’ll meet on my two week Euro sojourn. When I told two of my friends that in Heathrow, they were hurt, but I clarified “most interesting new dude”.

Can’t believe I didn’t get his name because I’d love to follow his career. 33 years old. Ohio State grad, but let’s not hold that against him. Got a PhD from Rice University in Oncology at 26. Works for Eli Lilly doing “small and large” drug development deals. Was on his way to Barcelona for a conference.

I knew he had serious science chops when he was familiar with Multiple Systems Atrophy. We talked about Lynn’s passing and his grandfather dying in India right before his 90th birthday. And him, afterwards, moving his parents from Chennai to Lynnwood, WA.

He met his wife when he was 19 and she was 18. Despite him spending the next 10 days in Barcelona, they’re trying to get pregnant. They’re vacationing in Japan in October.

He speaks English, Tamil, Hindi, French, German, Arabic, and Spanish poorly. He learned Arabic while teaching English in Cairo as a part of his high school education.

We bonded in ways my mom would never understand. So much so, when British Airways informed half the plane, him and me included, that our bags didn’t make it on our flight, he felt comfortable bitching about it. “What am I going to wear out to dinner tonight?” First world problem for a high flyer, figuratively and literally.

Sam Miller For The Win

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Sam Miller, a comedian from my hometown, Olympia, WA, has lived a few lives. As a comic, he has a lot of momentum, performing before increasingly large crowds.

Speaking of momentum, no family ever sits still. Families are organic, every single one always with some degree of momentum, either positive or negative, based upon the adults’ collective decisions. Often, the momentum is barely perceptible. In Sam Miller’s family’s case, it’s plain as day.

Today, online, he wrote this. I’m guessing he pounded it out, not overthinking it. But lo’ and behold, it couldn’t be more profound.

“One time my dad picked me up and threw me off a dock into the cold waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. There was no warning. Before I realized what was happening, I was airborne. I hit that water, and even though I was a good swimmer, it was hard to peel my elbows from my side. I wanted to stay curled up in a ball but I also wanted to breathe and so I swam back to the dock. My dad’s hand came down and pulled me out. I don’t remember what time of year it was, but I just looked it up. Temperatures in the strait of Juan de Fuca hover between 41 and 54°.

He told me he did it because we spent a lot of time fishing the Straits. He wanted me to know what it would be like to fall off the boat or off the dock. That way I would know what that water felt like and I wouldn’t panic.

I thought I did something wrong. I thought he was angry. He told me he wasn’t. I believed him then. I don’t believe it now. I think he got angry and he lost control and he threw me off that dock because my dad was really bad at dealing with his emotions.

I bring this up because I just spent 8 days with my kids and my mom on a vacation/comedy tour. There were multiple moments where I became incredibly frustrated. There was a couple moments where I was just downright angry. I feel like I had really good reason to be angry a couple times.

I’m really proud to report that I did not yell or scream or pick anybody up and throw them.

I know it’s not true, but I used to think me and my family was cursed. My dad died when I was a kid. I don’t know too much about how he grew up because he didn’t talk about it that much but I know my grandma on my dad’s side had schizophrenia. When my dad and his brother were kids, she drove them to Long Beach, California from Salem, Oregon and just dropped them off in the middle of nowhere. My dad had to hitchhike back while taking care of his kid brother. Pretty sure my dad was 12 or 13 when that happened.

What I’m getting at is this…

I have such an opportunity today to do better and I’m so grateful that I have the tools to keep trying.

I’m a pretty good dad, I’m a pretty good husband, and I’m even a pretty good son now. It’s hard but it feels really good. There are times I wish I could throw people off docks.

but…

I don’t think I ever would. It’s not fair to them and it’s not fair to me. Whatever curse my family had, I’m going to try to keep doing the work to make it stop with me. I owe it to the people that I love and most of all I owe it to myself.”

“I’m going to try to keep doing the work to make it stop with me.” Amen, brother.

In The Presence Of Company And Snacks

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What has the post-‘rona world wrought? People connecting. Hell yeah.

Patricia Marx in The New Yorker:

“When my editor asked whether I’d be interested in writing about the growing trend of friends getting together to tackle to-do lists, I thought, “Sounds about as fun as a group root canal.” I e-mailed back, “YES!” It was February; I hate the cold; the research would take place indoors. Also, I figured, it might take a village to make me get that comptroller form notarized, memorize the map of South America (don’t ask), and write my will—an item on my list for eighteen years. (As for to-do-list items that never die, thirty-three years ago, the agenda of a friend of mine included: No. 1, get my figure back; No. 2, dance lessons . . . No. 8, figure out if I should break up with Tim; No. 9, leave Tim. Not his real name, because my friend is still wondering about divorcing him.)

Everyone, it turns out, has a lot of shit to do, and many find the drudgery easier to slog through in the presence of company and snacks. Over the course of two months, I sat in on eight Admin Nights, as these gatherings are often called. (“Are they, like, fossils of extinct mollusks?” a hedge-fund guy at a dinner party asked me, thinking of ammonites.) There was a meetup of young mothers who had a lot of children’s birthday parties to organize, a group of Gen Z-ers whose morning session had a live soundtrack provided by a d.j., and a group of people with A.D.H.D., based mostly in Australia, who meet regularly on Zoom. At the Women in Games get-together, a seven-year-old attendee, brought by her mother, marvelled that grownups have homework, too.”

This morning, on the way to Masters swim practice at the Y, I saw three women running shoulder to shoulder on the Henderson Rd sidewalk by Olympia High School. They were not fast, at all, but that’s irrelevant. They had found each other, agreed to meet up, and were clearly vibbing, talking through who knows what. Simultaneously improving their physical and mental health.

And props for your introverted humble blogger for livening up Masters by asking the women in Lane 3, “Do you know the Masters swim team secret?” Looking perplexed, they repeated, “Masters swim team secret?” “Yeah, this lane has the best technique.” They were touched and proudly added their lane was also the most jovial. Five women connected, happier together, living fully.

Maybe I shoulda started this out by writing . . . some people connecting. Social anxiety shows no sign of abating. And we’re way less likely to see our lonely, socially anxious neighbors struggling to find connection. Because often, they can’t even leave their homes.

Here’s to celebrating connection while continuously extending the circles of friendship we’re lucky enough to enjoy.

Little League Legend

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Sometime in the middle of my recent California cycling adventure, I wondered, what are we even doing, turning the pedals, for hours, every day?

The only thing I could come up with was extending our childhoods. We were men and women consciously choosing to be boys and girls of old.

Then, my peabrain shifted to my earliest memories of cycling in Louisville, KY in the late 1960s. When first learning to ride a bike, I remember someone, guessing an older sib, holding the seat and running alongside me until they weren’t. And then I remember swerving bigly, a few times right into metal mailboxes that dotted the edge of the road. Like Louisville’s own Cassius Clay, down goes Ron! Eventually, I swerved less and less.

My earliest, most vivid, fullblown cycling memory, was a year or two later, when I was dominating the kickball field at Zachary Taylor Elementary. It was this exact time of year, April, and Little League baseball tryouts were right around the corner.

Six or seven years old, my pals and I knew we needed a few hours of spring training before tryouts, so we laced our gloves onto some Louisville sluggers and laid them across our handlebars which we balanced precariously with balls bulging from our pockets. And then headed to a very nice, very large park, about a mile or two from our dented mailboxes.

Once we got to the park, we noticed the tennis courts sat under about 10 inches of water that had, until recently, been snow and ice covered. Maybe, we thought, as we took off our shoes and socks, we should splash around the courts a bit before officially starting spring training.

Within a few minutes, I sliced the bottom of my foot by stepping on a metal twist off beer top. The water turned red and I grew faint-headed. Someone hurriedly called my mom who lit into me. Since I’m the youngest of four, she was DONE with emergency rooms. On the way to get ten stiches, she got all up in my grill and said, “IF YOU EVER TAKE YOUR SHOES AND SOCKS OFF AND CUT YOUR FOOT AGAIN, DON’T CALL ME!” Which is pretty damn funny now, given how kind and caring she normally was. Everyone has a breaking point.

I think this was a Thursday and tryouts were all day Saturday. Even though Spring Training was cancelled on account of blood, I rallied, and showed up at tryouts on crutches. Shagging fly balls like a young Ken Griffey and even chucking the crutches and hobbling into the batters box to take some ferocious cuts like a young Andy Pages. A legend in both Louisville Little League history and my own mind.

Needless to say, the coaches were impressed with my pluck. I vaguely remember a bidding war breaking out. I told the coach that finally landed me that I didn’t want a bag, but if he could do something nice for my mom, like maybe comp her snow cones for the season, I’d greatly appreciate it.

The legend, with a scar on the bottom of his foot, fourth from the left.

Hotel California

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Friday morning, I woke up in Washington State’s capital, per usual. Then I leapfrogged from Tumwater Costco to Medford Costco to California’s state capital and M and C Griffins Sacto crib*, hemorrhaging large swaths of my lifetime savings at the pump as I migrated south.

I was asked to deliver a message. Which I did.

Gav,

Eat the rich.

Bobby

Saturday’s tuneup ride was a flat, fun affair alongside the Sacto and American rivers. Well, except for trying to stay on MGriffins wheel when he got frustrated by my pedestrian pacing.

Today’s drive begins shortly. Destination San Diego where a week-long circumnavigation of the County awaits. 16 other crazies. Different California Hotel every night. Mark scaring me a bit by saying the group is “interesting” then just smiling evilly as if words don’t do them justice.

Your humble blogger will do his best to match their crazy. It will be fun to meet new people, ride new roads, and to dry out under blazing, cloudless sunshine. If only I wasn’t so undertrained. Don’t tell the crazies I’m a lil’ nervous.

Raise your hand if you’d like me to blog San Diego County bike week. Okay, thank you, you can put your hands down.

Raise your hand if you’re a numbers person and will (somehow) be content to just follow me on Strava. Okay, thank you, you can put your hands down.

Raise your hand if you’re of the same mind as my sissy who often reminds me, “Ron it’s not all about you.” Meaning, not only do you not want to know anything about how next week unfolds on the roads of San Diego County, but you’re deeply regretting even reading this intro.

The “please, please, please blog SDC cycling tour” contingent carries the day. Congratulations to them and everyone whose lives are about to be changed by my reporting.

Remember, when it comes to the humble blog, “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

*If you ever get the chance to stay at Chez Griffin, take it. Bespoke hospitality marked by amazing food and conversation.

Postscript. If UCLA wins today, I’ll pick up the Crazies dinner tab. Oh wait, I forgot how much the drive is going to cost. Nevermind.

JJ For The Win

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JJ and I were having another meaningful convo in the kitchen recently, which has become Deep Convo Central since our lives have been turned upside down. We weren’t thinking the same about whatever it was we were batting back and forth. Finally, a little exasperated with your humble blogger, she said, “Dad, I can hold two opposing ideas in my head at the same time.” Touché.

That’s what my mind returned to when she texted me this picture yesterday. To explain more fully, a few days ago, I got her monthly newsletter which lately has been mostly, but not exclusively, a beautiful, heart-wrenching reflection on her grieving process.*

Dig this flavor flav:

“The last two years were marked by such a different version of the mom I had had for the first 28 years of my life. She was so sick, she was so burdened by her illness and her symptoms. That has been the version of her most readily accessible in my memory. That has been the version showing up in my dreams, night after night, adding salt to the wound. If I can only see her in my dreams, can’t they at least be happy? Can’t she be healthy? Can’t I have the mom from that green couch? I believe one day they will be happy. One day she will be healthy again and she will visit me at night and whisper in my ear that she loves me, whisper that she misses me, that she’s still with me, if in a different form than before.

I still don’t feel normal, I still feel all sorts of wrong, I don’t recognize many aspects of life right now, I have a limited capacity, I don’t ask as many questions, I don’t beep bop around town. So it goes I suppose. I have such a greater understanding for the people in my life who have lost a parent and the hard work they did and continue to do to survive it. This is truly such hard work. And also, when I look, I see a slowly but surely improving ability to do more things in the day, a desire to socialize a little bit more, and flickers of a self that I recognize. When I am in the space to see them, there are some beautiful corners of grief – richer friendships, increased empathy, and a deeper understanding of the things that are important to me.”

All sorts of wrong coupled with a warm smile. Two opposing feels. At the same time.

*I told her she should be writing books, not selling them.

The Winter Of Grief II

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My mom was 64 years 10 months old when my dad died from a heart attack while driving to work in Tampa, FL.

I’m 63 years 10 months old.

I wish I could go back in time and interact with my mom with the wisdom gained from what I am experiencing. It’s not that I wasn’t compassionate, it’s just that my compassion would be on a whole different level.

One painful insight that I’d bring to our relationship is the knowledge of how the person’s life lingers and how the trail they left offers constant memories which both deepen and lengthen the grief.

For example, today, after visiting Lynn I went through her collection of papers and books from the last few years. A literary tower balancing precariously on the piano bench.

And I stumbled across the attached picture. The crossed out “2020” speaks to some procrastinating, but I love how dang aspirational her list was. Ward Lake laps, haha. The “Oregon hill” is McKenzie Pass which I raved to her about after each of my ascents.

“Surf in Gull Harbor current” meant kayaking to the mouth of the harbor then riding the current into the harbor. Sometimes in the boat, sometimes not.

“Hike a lot” unchecked. “Hike Mt. Eleanor” unchecked. Fuck, why didn’t we go on more hikes?

The wisest thing anyone has said to me during this ordeal was a hospice chaplain who said don’t focus so much on Lynn’s mortality that you ignore your own. That was piercing. And stuck.

I wonder, what if things were reversed and Lynn had to interact with my material wake. Would she take the seven iron out of my golf bag and hold the grip seeking some sort of cosmic connection? Yeah, I think she prob would.

Here’s what I think about my own mortality. Lynn had just over four years left when she cobbled together her “Summer Fun” list. I’m guessing she assumed she had more than four summers left. I know I did.

I do not want to save up for the future, to put things off, to assume a long, healthy future.

One of the simplest ways I’m doing that may seem silly. These days, my uniform is t-shirts and jeans. I have about 10 t-shirts, some that I like to wear more than others. And I have one fave, that I used to reach for and then stop and say to myself, “I should save that for next time.” Now, I look for it and wear it whenever it’s clean. Because of Lynn.

Without being morbid, take your mortality seriously. Don’t wait. Hike. Cycle. Be on or in the water. In your favorite t-shirt.

It’s Happened

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A large part of the rationale for the move to the Adult Family Home three months ago was that I could recover, and therefore Lynn and I could heal and get in sync, and spend whatever time is left as positively and peacefully as possible.

I am not in a good place, but a much better one. Way, way less stress. FuFu, Alison, and Jeanette, among many others, have saved me.

As a result, for the last two months, Lynn and I have enjoyed my visits. We look at photo albums. We listen to music. I tell her about my day. We loop the hood.

Most of all, we touch. I hold her hands and massage her calves. She hugs me tightly as if she’s not going to let go. We press our foreheads against each other. I caress her head as she falls asleep. We kiss.

It’s how we communicate.

I’ve never partnered with someone who is dying, so I’m improvising. All the time. What to say?

Last week I kneeled on the floor next to her hospice bed as she cried before napping. I told her I loved her and that she was okay, which of course, was untrue. Then I told her how sorry I was for what she’s experiencing. And that she’s been fighting it every minute she’s been awake for a few years and that was why she was completely exhausted. And that I wanted her to Rest even if that meant being alone. I told her how much I am going to miss her. More tears.

Then I told her she wasn’t alone and wouldn’t be alone. That she is bearing the fruit of having built such a caring and loving family.

We have had a much more intense relationship than you would probably guess. Intensely good most of the time, intensely bad some of the time.

I told her I was skimming an old Apple Note I wrote from when we were in marriage counseling five or six years ago. And how my one regret is all the time we wasted being mad at each other. I asked her to forgive me for being so stubborn and selfish. More tears.

I suspect she wanted to say something similar, but I was okay with her not being able to because I wanted to take most of the responsibility for our epic, sporadic struggles.

Even though we wanted to at times, I told her we never quit, and that was something.

In hindsight, we probably wasted 10% of our time together being too mad at each other to thoughtfully interact. Even though we learned to repair things, 10% of 38 years is almost four years! What we would do to have four years back.

More than Lynn, I accepted that we were never going to coast conflict free like some couples seemingly do. That the heartache was part and parcel of the intense intimacy. Again, in hindsight though, I wish we had far fewer, less intense conflicts. Fewer days where we couldn’t even talk to one another.

My unsolicited advice. Don’t take whatever committed relationships you’re in for granted. Be as proactive as you can. Trust one another enough to talk about what lies below the surface so that resentments don’t build up. Learn to listen and get more comfortable probing your partners’ feelings. If possible, by yourself, or together, enlist the help of a professional to learn to have fewer, less intense conflicts.*

Most of all, don’t assume you have many years and decades left, because you may not.

*LOL, I’m gonna get slammed for that wee bit of hypocrisy. :)