Go Farther

I’ve had some heavy travel the past two weeks, and so I spent the latter half of last week and this weekend spending time with my two-year-old son, Benjamin. He’s two, which means that he’s mostly free entertainment – a combination of a living with a tiny drunk person and Mr. Magoo.

The more time I spend with him, the more I learn about the inhibitions I’ve developed. I hear that you reach a certain age that you realize that the whole system is completely stupid, and then you unlearn these inhibitions and just go about your business. Ever watch an 86-year-old women tell a young kid to turn down his radio on the BART? The old woman always wins because of the inner fortitude that’s regrown.

The problem is that most of us, myself included, wait way too long to unlearn what we’ve learned as societal norms or what we’re supposed to do or not supposed to do, and by the time we realize that nothing really matters except for personal happiness and well-being, we’re too old to do all of these things we wish we would have done when we were younger.

In watching Benjamin go about his business every day, I’ve picked up a few lessons about living a happier life.

1. Wear whatever the heck you feel like wearing.

Rain boots or snow boots when it’s 90 degrees outside. Choose pink Crocs to wear, and then wear them for three days even if they give you blisters because you like wearing them. Wear said pink Crocs with a red shirt and orange shorts. Wear your sunglasses upside down. Put stickers in your hair. Color yourself with permanent marker.

2. Walk into sprinklers.

It’s hot. The sprinklers are cool. Why wouldn’t you? Don’t think about the wet, muddy shoes as consequences.

3. “I don’t like it… Because I said.”

All the reason anyone needs to do, or not do, anything. If you don’t like it, don’t do it.

4. Take a second ride on the merry-go-round.

You rode the cow, and now you want to ride the dog. It’s $1/ride and it’s Saturday at the Farmer’s Market. So ride the horse. Now. You don’t have to wait until next week.

5. “I do it… I need help.”

At least give it a try by yourself. Anything.  Then when you figure out you can’t do something, ask for help. It’s okay.

And once you’re on the right track, do it yourself again.

6. “Yeah! I did it.”

These were his first words on Sunday morning, cheering from bed. On some days, waking up should be a good enough accomplishment.

Celebrate the little successes because sometimes the little successes are harder than you think.

7. “Be a flying ace.”

We all wanted to be great things when we were kids. Then we let life or someone or something or no one in particular tell us that we can’t or shouldn’t or that it would be too hard or it won’t pay the bills or it’s too risky or it’s not really a job or that we shouldn’t. So then we don’t.

I saw an old guy walking out of a donut shop the other day wearing a t-shirt that read: “In every old person, there’s a young person wondering what the hell happened.”

Be a flying ace if you want to be a flying ace.

8. Knock it down and start over.

Whenever he and I finish building a block tower, he immediately knocks it down. I’m always a little peeved because I want to admire what we’ve built or that we’ve used every block.

It’s just a tower of blocks. The fun is in the process.

9. “It will be fun.”

Yes, it can always be fun. Go to Trader Joe’s and you can buy flowers, and they give away free snacks, and they give you stickers when you check out, and you can sit in the cart and pretend to be a flying ace. Yes, it can always be fun.

10. “I want to paint.”

So what if it’s 8:08pm on Tuesday and it’s bath time in 7 minutes. If you feel like painting, paint.

11. “I want to go high… Go really fast.”

What’s the point of swimming if Daddy doesn’t throw you 10 feet into the air so you can splash? What’s the point of swinging if you don’t go high? If you’re going to do something, then do it.

12. “Don’t touch me… Don’t push me.”

Hell yes. This is my space and don’t you invade it, or there will be hell to pay.

Annie Lamont talks of learning how all of us have an acre of land that we get to cultivate and as long as we don’t hurt anyone, we can do anything we want with it. If you don’t like what someone is doing to your land, you’re allowed to tell them to leave and they have to leave.

Keep your space and don’t let anyone invade you.

13. Draw on the walls.

Sometimes the hallway needs a bright blue line on it. The hallway probably needs to be painted anyway.

14. Barbecue sauce on pancakes is perfectly acceptable.

15. Walk up to complete strangers on the street and greet them with an enthusiastic “Hiiiiii!!”

They always smile back and say “Hi!” back to you. It makes everyone feel better.

We drank from the garden hose at halftime. When it was really hot, we had to wait for the hot water that had been sitting in the hose to pass before getting to the cold water. The cold water wasn’t necessarily cold, just cool enough to qualify as cold comparatively. A lot of times I was hungry and dropping lukewarm water into my empty stomach only reminded me of how long we had been playing and that sometime soon, the game would be over. Halftime never signified that the game was halfway over. It usually meant that the game was nearly over, and I never liked that. Some of my friends would want to sit and rest on the grass or in the shade or take a break on the back porch.

I would tolerate this blasphemy to retain goodwill. It was a delegate balance. While I wanted my teammates to rejuvenate and my competitors to be defeated, I wanted my teammates, whether we were winning or losing, to feel the urgency to continue the game, and for my competitors to feel rejuvenated enough to continue with the battle with earnestness. A tie game at halftime was optimal, or at worst, a score where one team was winning by a slim margin. I didn’t even care if my team was winning or losing at halftime, so long as there was collective impetus to continue to game.

It was a cold political move on my part. I’d let them have their break, an act expecting reciprocity. I assumed, wrongly, that they knew what I was foregoing by agreeing to a halftime. I would sit during breaks sometimes, but not usually. If I did sit, I sat on the edge of the chair, or on the ground with my knees bent, holding myself upright with my forearms tucked over my knees. And if I sat back at all, it was to conform to my friends sitting back in their chairs or straight-armed, holding up their bodies laid straight-legged on the ground, arms extended behind themselves holding up their torso. I think they were genuinely tired. I was sitting this way out of courtesy. Didn’t they all know what I was foregoing? A break of 10 or 15 minutes could be two or three at-bats, or a single at-bat leading to a flurry of runs, driving a stake into the competitor’s collective hearts. It meant we were foregoing the infinite fun that exists in each moment of play, and by sitting there on the grass or on the back porch, we would never experience those moments.

Restarting the game was always a challenge. I’d begin with subtle questions – “So who’s up next?” or “The score is 26-24 right?” or “Should we play to 50 or 100?” It was a prompt designed to tap the competitive rage I assumed that everyone had – sparking tinder, challenging, daring anyone to claim indifference or choosing inactivity over ecstasy of pure competition.

There always seemed to be one person that wouldn’t care about continuing. “I’m pretty tired, I think I’m gonna go home.” Unacceptable. If I was lucky, someone else would share my lust to continue our makeshift championship, and together we two, or even three coaxed the defector to continue on to the second half. “Let’s just play for another 30 minutes.” or “We’ll switch up the teams so you can play catcher if you’re tired.” The bigger the group, the more infectious a single defector could be.

When the game was four to a side, a single self-directive to leave could spread like a virus to another who would suddenly remember they had to go to the store with their mom. If two people left, it was recoverable – three to a side remained competitive. But if it three defectors emerged, then four-on-four turned into three-on-two, and all hope of competitive balance was lost. With three on two, even if a balance could be struck somehow, the energy and endurance required of the two to compete lasted never more than a few minutes, and then the game would disintegrate anyway, casting off another defector or two, leaving four or three of us left to find new entertainment altogether, a difficult task, if not impossible after the exuberance of the intense four-on-four competition last transpired over the last two hours.

This is when I would begin to accept defeat, and began to consider the available options. If it was close to 3:30, I could go home and watch Starblazers. If it was 4:00, I would watch Batman. We could try to extend the fun by swimming, except that required a trip home to change and then back. The fixed cost of this transaction was too great. Getting home to change, then back to Brian’s house to swim, then back home dried off and ready for dinner by 5:30 was a lot to ask of an 11-year old. I could make it happen if in a vacuum. The problem laid in the transaction cost of stopping at home. That meant answering questions mom would ask or worse, introducing the opportunity for my mom to ask me for help with something. No matter how small, it created a disturbance in the space-time continuum that needed to flow uninterruptedly to executive a swift transaction from Brian’s house to home, and back again within 15 minutes before his mom realized that we planned a transition from whiffle ball to swimming, because Brian too faced the potential disruption to the space-time continuum. His mom was notorious for asking for help with some small task that never turned out to be as small as described. Taking out the trash became scrubbing the trashcan with soap and said garden hose. Carrying in the groceries meant helping her to unpack them. Or worst of all, there was the suggestion that “maybe you should just stay inside of a little while to rest…” Rest? Rest? You want me to rest? What kind of person rests? It’s July. No one rests in July.

If we could somehow resuscitate the game after halftime, there would even be a genuine burst of true competitive activity, indelible moments of competitive uneasiness. Then someone would push a little too hard. Someone wouldn’t run to the next spot with the same vigor as before halftime. The score would become lopsided and the losing team became indifferent. We’d try switching up teams. We’d try giving them an extra strike or an extra out each at-bat. The minutes on the downside of the afternoon clicked away. Then the final blow landed when someone, anyone, would finally proclaim that they were quitting. It was over. The game was over. The moment was over, and I knew it. I stood there, disbelieving.

And on some days, I’m still standing there.

When I was a child and I lived in the city,
I dreamed of Alaska so far away.
And I dreamed I was flying over mountains and glaciers,
Somehow I knew Id live there one day…

– “Alaska & Me” by John Denver

The State of Alaska’s court decision this week is a sign from God. Now that the roadless parts of Tongass National Forest could be opened to commercial activity, it’s time that Lena, Benjamin, and I make this move. We’re even a little stunned ourselves as we pursue this next chapter in our life together. I only interviewed with Georgia Pacific this past Friday, and already they’ve made an offer I just can’t refuse.

It’s not the decision so much that surprises me. Decisions are just ideas; thoughts. Ideas fill my mind every day. The startling part of our lives’ next chapter is that we’re taking action on this decision. Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised. I’ve always been an intentional person. My daily view of the world is fixed and concrete. It’s just my personality. From this perspective, that I’ve had these intentions, even if hidden or buried for such a long time, and that I’m finally taking the step to move Alaska is actually consistent with who I am and how I’ve always lived.

With our move scheduled for two weeks from today, we’ve accelerated the purging of our personal belongings. In packing boxes and selling furniture to Craig’s List bargain hunters, I openly wonder how exactly we reached this point. I fondly remember John Denver as a regular guest on “The Muppet Show” when I was a kid. As a Boy Scout, I took to earning merit badges in forestry, woodworking, and conservation with wild abandon.

You won’t find this on my LinkedIn profile, but my first job out of college was with Decor-ative Specialties, an Los Angeles-based cabinet door manufacturer that had opened a manufacturing facility in Monroe, NC. As the company’s youngest outside salesman, I roamed the Carolinas visiting cabinet makers, dispensing the virtues of outsourcing the craft of cabinet door-making to our specialty shop. I quickly learned about wood grain patterns and the best places to install soft pine, cherry wood, and red oak based on expected room humidity. For example, teak wood is remarkably good for laundry rooms where clothes dryers run frequently. Few effects in a home communicate more about a homeowner’s pride than well-made, professionally-installed custom cabinetry. I really learned the beauty of the inside of a tree, and more importantly, how to control Mother Nature for the sole purpose of vanity and personal satisfaction.

About two years ago, Lena and gave away our television. We never used it after Benjamin was born, plus we needed the space for various and sundry items related to child-rearing. (Looking back now, perhaps this was the start of the subconscious disposition our personal belongings.) But all the while without a TV, I clandestinely maintained my NetFlix account to watch reality TV shows. The History Channel’s “Ax Men” quickly become a personal favorite. I’ve watched every season at least eight times, mostly on airplanes or on the Amtrak during my morning commute to San Francisco.

In checking my Amazon and GoodReads accounts, I’ve noticeably increased my consumption of Jack London books over the past few months. While packing, I came across Jon Krakauer’s “Into the Wild” on our bookshelf. I find Christopher Johnson McCandless’s approach to life in Alaska to be both comforting and profound. We don’t expect to live in an abandoned school bus while we’re there, though living in a tent for a stretch or even sleeping in open already feels like fresh water for our souls.

I experimented with vegetarianism a couple of years ago. The transition wasn’t too difficult, and in identifying the plant-based proteins and nutrients I needed for my rigorous triathlon training, I felt an interest in botany germinating.

Tying together my ingrained love for wood and the influence of such a well-crafted television series and books, we’ve decided that pursuing this new career as a lumberjack will bring me the personal happiness I’ve been chopping away to find all of these years on the corporate ladder. Even better, because I’m a college graduate, Georgia Pacific (or “GP” as we in the business call it…) included a fast track to a lead logger position as part of their offer. This is akin to an assistant foreman role in a manufacturing plant. I am very grateful to GP for this leadership opportunity despite my lack of industry experience.

Just this morning, I drove past a construction site adorn with John Deere tractors. I felt my pulse quicken thinking about the Feller Bunchers, Skidders, and Knuckleboom Loaders that I’ll be licensed to operate by the end of the Summer. It brings back fond childhood memories of playing with Mark Jeurgans and his Tonka trucks when we first moved to the Whispering Oaks subdivision when I was four.

Meanwhile, Lena will be fulfilling her dream as a full-time private commercial pilot. We’ve worked out an agreement with GP for her to transport site managers daily to and from our worksite in Tongass, and just this week she found a classified ad in the Juneau Empire for flying a US Mail route twice a week. Plus, we’re pretty confident that she’ll be able to at least find some part-time work as a consultant given her PhD research on grapes and pest management. It’s a little known fact that a microclimate exists in southern Alaska near Juneau where wineries are sprouting up to meet the demand for “buy local” consumers. In fact, rampant bootlegging now requires that both the US Immigration Services and ATF to patrol the US-Canadian border.

As a lumberjack and lead logger, I’ll be among the plants, the earth, and the soil, standing tall beneath the everlasting golden sky in the summer months and the comforting dark blanket of the cold Alaskan winter months. I can’t imagine a more delightful hardship than learning to coexist with Mother Nature during the darkest, dreariest days of December and January when the snow reaches the tall pine tree tops. Plants are such amazing creatures, and I’m becoming rather obsessed with the field of plant neurobiology and its quest to explain animal-like competitive behavior between and among plant life.  To pass the time during the logging offseason, I plan to earn my bachelor’s degree from Kensington University in cellular plant biology.

Most of all, I’m excited for Benjamin. Leaving behind a life of iPads, Thomas the Train, and his day care friends will force him to develop his manhood sooner. Kids need more structure nowadays. Lena and I are sure that an everlasting love of nature will grow as he becomes rooted in Alaskan culture. We’ve preordered curriculums and home educational materials so that we can home school him properly, and we’ve decided to speak Russian exclusively in the house starting today. As Sarah Palln so adeptly noted, you can see Russia from Alaska. Fun fact: Anchorage is closer to Moscow than Chicago.

With Lena’s regular access to an airplane and especially with the mail route position (fingers crossed!), we expect to send and receive letters pretty often. We’ve yet to figure out if there’s cell phone coverage in the national forest, but I’ll be issued a satellite phone through work. (Good ole GP!) Whether or not we can make personal calls from this phone is yet undetermined.

I’ll be sure to add another post or two before we pack up our trusty Saturn for the drive north later this month. She might be a 2002 model with 123,000 miles, but we think she has enough pep to get us to our new home in the northern hinterlands.

We love you all and appreciate the support we know you’ll give us with our decision! As Lex Luther said in Superman II: “North, Miss Teschmacher. Due north.”

Finally, and most of all, if you’re bereft in reading about these developments, double check the date of this post.

Apparently American Airlines is a believer in democratizing information. So much so, that they treat every piece of information on their booking page equally. Because when booking a flight, “Aircraft Type” and “Flight Number” are just as important to travelers as arrival and departure times.

As compared to USAirways:

I need to sleep more. I need to workout more. I need to work on that presentation for work. I need to book meetings for that conference in two weeks. I need to send thank you cards to the people I met last week. I need to finish that house project so I can have my own space at home. I need to check email. I need to review the sales pipeline. I need to call that prospect. I need to find more prospects. I need to go up on the roof because of all the rain we’ve gotten lately.

I need to write more. I need to read more. I need to keep tracking my progress. I need to be a good father and I need spend more time with B. I need to spend more time at the office. I need to spend less time at the office. I need to love my wife more today than every other day. I need to make more money. I need to fix up the house. I need to finish this post before B wakes up. I need to make breakfast.

I need to go on an artist date with myself. I need to work on my self-care exercises. I need to do my Morning Pages every day. I need to schedule my workouts. I need to sign up for another race. I need to find another race. I need to see a doctor about my knee. I need to get back on the bike, and I need to tune it up first. I need to check that text message about my dentist’s appointment. I need to start prepping for that course I’m teaching next month.

I need to clean the kitchen. And the litter box. And vacuum the hallway. And pick up the toys. And clean off the counter. I need to take the trash cans out to the curb and I need to remember to pull the car completely into the garage so bird poop doesn’t accumulate on the trunk and rear windshield.

I need to relax more and I need to be myself more often. I need to figure out who I am and what makes me happy. I need to make a list of these needs and I need to remember to do them. Need. Need. Need. Lots of needs. I need to find a way to buy an airplane and I need to make sure B has a wonderful life of opportunities and happiness. I need, need, need. I’m tired of need. Tired, tired, tired of need.