In late July, I packed up the car and headed down through San Marcos to Sattler, Texas to meet up with friends I’ve known for the better part of fifteen years. The plan was simple: grill a ton of food, drink a ton of beer (most of us), talk as much shit as possible, and make the seven hour float trip down the Guadalupe River. Having long been nicknamed “Brofest” or the “Sattler Swordfest”, this gentlemen’s gathering has become tradition, and I was happy to make the trek to lower Texas and take part in my first such retreat.
I’ve known for years now that staying entrenched in my own daily life causes my focus to become terribly narrow, small issues and experiences to seem overwhelming, and it’s only by getting away and stepping outside the routine that some shred of perspective is restored.
While what happens at Brofest proverbially stays at Brofest, I will say that in addition to the expected change in perspective, I gained an awareness that in the age of the Internet as a communication medium and the ease with which friends can become text on a screen, with the comfort of having a wife and the addition of a child to my family with all his attendant needs, it had become even easier to stay physically isolated in my tiny, daily bubble. I had, at some point, thrown face-to-face human socialization on the back burner.
Much later, on the morning of September 12th, E and I woke to our Sunday ritual of sitting in bed next to each other while L jumped around and threw pillows at us. E checked her email on the mini laptop, and received a single message stating that one of her best friends succumbed that weekend to a fifteen year battle with cancer. E was devastated beyond words. We booked her a plane ticket, and tried to pack a suitcase. Her friend had been only 38.
Less than twenty four hours later, we both sat in the airport lobby waiting for her delayed flight to begin boarding. We didn’t say a whole lot, she put her head on my shoulder a few times, and mostly talked about how she would miss me and L. But in the midst of one particular stretch of silence, I verbalized an understanding we both had arrived at independently that morning, that of the overwhelmingly temporary nature of our lives.
E and I routinely discuss life goals, changes we’d like to make, possible career moves, the pursuit of various trades and hobbies, the eventual sale of our house after the completion of its remaining projects. We talk of plans for L’s childhood, parts of the world we’d love him to see, oceans we’d love him to swim in, “firsts” we’d like him to experience. We even talk about what part of the country we’d like him to grow up in, throwing around the idea of possibly moving back to the East Coast. We’ve spoken of these things as if they’re reserved for some future time period that exists after some particular life circumstance magically changes.
In the hours that elapsed between receiving the news the previous morning and passing the pre-flight moments at the airport, it became strikingly evident that most of us walk around feeling as if we have a limitless amount of time to make our dreams happen. We think that “someday” we will travel, or rekindle some friendship, or make that career change, or reconcile with that loved one, or build that new house. In reality, that time runs out, and possibly far sooner than expected.
In the days following E’s plane departure and this change in perspective, I was again confronted with my tendencies toward isolation and myopic immersion in the daily grind, and the exclusion of almost all else. I started making small changes, first just simply making sure L and I got to playgrounds on a regular basis. This has since grown into making sure E and I make the effort to cultivate the friendships we value, and that we make time to pursue the hobbies we’ve always hoped will turn into careers.
On the afternoon that I sat with E at the airport and wished her goodbye, I later returned to work and spoke with my friend Sean. I was still overwhelmed with the weird consciousness of life’s ever-shrinking duration, while heavily overcome with a secondary grief reaction to E’s friend’s death. I proceeded to vomit all this on him in the hopes of some shred of relief.
When my outpouring finally came to a close and there was room for him to talk, he waited a minute, and simply said, “I know, B. This is why Brofest is so important.”
We headed down to Austin for Halloween, as our friend got married to his longtime girlfriend on Halloween night. I was asked to be in the wedding party, an invitation I was honored to accept.
L and E spent a lot of time in the hotel room, L unfortunately came down with an ear infection right as the trip kicked off. We arrived in Austin at 2am Thursday night, and our first night was spent consoling a screaming child followed by a 7am trip to Walgreen’s to buy a cool mist humidifier.
Within twelve hours of a visit to a pediatric association’s evening doctor group, L’s penicillin kicked in and the difference was like night and day. By the next afternoon, he was dressed up in his little skeleton sweatsuit, running around the hotel room.
The wedding was absolutely gorgeous, the venue was way up on a hill overlooking a valley, the view of the entirety of Austin was breathtaking. I got to sneak a photo of our friend spending his last few moments as a bachelor deep in reflection and contemplation.
We met some great people, L enjoyed dropping it down on the dancefloor with the ladies, and our trip home was thankfully quick and uneventful. We cleaned the house thoroughly before we left for L’s party, so we were greeted on our arrival by a clean bed with soft clean sheets.
I was finally off from work today, so our friend shipped his ugly mug over here this afternoon and managed to hold our son. It was very touching, since I know that in about 1.5 years his wife will turn 29 and suddenly be obsessed with nesting and having babies. This was good preparation.
Eilene and I ditched out to the northeast for the Thanksgiving holiday, and made the whirlwind tour of all our family and friends. Since a lot of my family is still up in Connecticut, we all spent Thanksgiving day in my uncle’s winter house in backwoods Massachusetts. We then visited Eilene’s dad and a bunch of her friends, who live right outside Danbury.
One of my personal trip highlights was finally getting to meet up with Mike Dodgy D in Bethel. I actually stood in the D’s house and talked to his mom. I’ve not seen either of them since I left Boston in 1999. We ate lots of diner food and caught up on events.
We headed up to Saratoga in upstate New York on the last day, which is where my mom and sister have wound up. Eilene and my mom get along famously.
It’s still there.
Last night E and I saw Water, the third installment in a trilogy of somewhat controversial films directed by Deepa Mehta. Outlining the circumstances faced by widows in Hindu culture, the film is set in India the late 1930s and early 1940s, a time period frought with growing backlash against long-standing tradition and culminating in the revolution against Britain and the arrival of Mahatma Ghandi.
In Indian culture, widows are apparently believed to become half dead themselves on the death of their husband, with whom they become unified through marriage, and are left with options limited to burning themselves in the funeral pyre or taking a vow of self-denial. Those choosing the latter are often thrust into ashrams, isolated with other cast-off widows, and sold into prostitution. Remarriage is considered sinful, the remainder of life is lived on the bottom of the socio-religious food chain. The film opens with a quote from the Laws of Manu, one of the Hindu sacred texts, relating that women unfaithful during marriage or the widowed period are promised their rebirth in the womb of a jackal.
Though this attitude has begun to change in the larger Indian cities, these conditions are evidently still rampant, especially in rural villages. While this is one of the many other-cultural norms that we in America see as being odd at best and deplorable at worst, it struck me while I was watching that parallels can be drawn between this situation and Americans using oddball antiquated Biblical scripture to justify bigotry toward homosexuality, or the parallels between the violence perpetuated by fringe fundamentalist Islam and the abortion clinics bombed domestically in the name of God.
I did some reading on the director and the firestorms surrounding her releases, filming for Water actually began in 2000 but was halted due to extreme opposition from Hindu fundamentalists, and only secretly resumed in Sri Lanka this past year. During the opening of Fire, which tells the story of two Hindu women who fall in love with each other, the theater screening the film was burned to the ground.
Definitely one of the better films I’ve seen in months, I just added Earth and Fire to my Netflix queue. Regardless of the grounds on which people stir the pot, I’ve always been drawn to the ones that do the stirring.
I’ve perked up a bit over the last day or so. I left surgery center equipped with rules, I’m not supposed to bend over, lay flat, exert myself, or blow my nose. I’ve only broken the first and third.
It’s extremely difficult for me to sit in one spot for long periods of time. I really overdid it yesterday, I ran errands, bought clothes, went to dinner with a friend. I cleaned, I fed Liz, I did laundry. I don’t at all like being laid up, vulnerable, helpless. One of the most frustrating times of the last 4 years was after I dropped into a half pipe at Eisenberg’s and jacked my foot sideways. I couldn’t walk for almost 2 months, and it was 10 months before I could jog on a treadmill without pain. I was so pissed off at being helpless I was left-foot-driving my car within 2 weeks of the spill.
I cooked a full breakfast this morning, consisting of blueberry whole grain pancakes, eggs with sausage and mushrooms, oven warmed syrup, sausage and whole grain toast on the side. E came over to eat, and afterward we dragged out the old school Nintendo.
I may need to just stop for a second and bask in the glory of how dope I am. I still won Super Mario Bros. original within 10 minutes of hooking up the console, after it’s sat in the closet for years. The middle finger belongs to Eilene.
feeling a bit better.
After noticing a severe lack of the west nile virus in our lives, E and I headed to White Rock Crick ™ in North Dallas to skip rocks and get lost for awhile.
I somehow got out of work early, so me and the E headed out to Fort Worth to check out the botanical gardens, and its 7.something acre japanese garden.
