Being thoughtful

In  the midst of a long afternoon of interviews, I hear this one statement on describing how to be a good employee: "be a servant." A servant to the boss, to the public, to farmers.

In the list of lessons learned this day, that is at the top.

My father had a similar lesson for me, years ago. A lesson not fully learned, still.

"Two rules to follow, Mark."

"First, no matter how much you think you know or you think you've learned when you go off to college, remember to be humble and listen. No one ever gets ahead talking more than listening"

"Second, be a servant."

"Be a good servant."

The museum

We go from room to room. Stopping to take in a painting of a young princess. Sadie is dressed in the costume to look like the princess, who grew up to be a queen, married to Louis VIII of France.

This is one of our interests, art. We share it with her as much as we can. No matter what is happening out there in the world, clouds of economic crisis and war, these bits of old paint and canvas from centuries ago lift us. The common thread, desire for beauty and love and comfort and mystery. It's all in these paintings, done well.

a yellow bus

Rowan, then 12, and Sadie, then 2.

I wrote this almost a decade ago ...

How many times had we watched the big yellow bus go by? A bunch, I’d guess. Me, pointing it out, saying to her, “Some day, you’ll probably ride that bus.” Her saying, “When, Daddy, when?” Some day soon. But, “soon” always seems like it’ll be a while.

So, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it, that day down the road when the little girl goes off in the big orangish-yellow school bus to be with strange children in a strange building, far away from the friends she’s been with since she was 3 and left the confines of home. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about first grade and all it’ll mean to the girl as she takes on new confidence as a “big girl.” I don’t think about it much at all. Instead, I spend my time doing my work, putting the piece after piece together that makes up a busy life with as many of the trappings of success that I can cobble together. I even stop every once in a while and think to myself that maybe I’ve achieved some of those goals I thought about the day I left the college in Chapel Hill. Not all of the goals, mind you, but just enough to say to myself with some bit of integrity that life’s working out.

But then, “soon” turns into today and the big yellow school bus is coming up the road to pick up the girl on her very first day of first grade. * * * You sit there with your little girl on the tailgate of the F-150 pick-up and watch the bus stop, lights flashing, at the big white house most of a mile away between the fields full of corn that’s beginning to lose its best shade of green. The next stop is here in front of your house. The border collie dances around, putting on a show for the little girl who has contained her excitement, barely, even now that the bus is almost here. No tears at all. Just a grin remarkable for the recently missing front tooth. * * * She kisses us both, first mommy, then daddy. The big yellow bus stops, she gets on, finds a seat one row back and waves to us. You can still see the gap in the smile, even from here next to the tailgate of the truck. Then, she is gone. And, you almost wish that “soon” hadn’t come yet for the little girl and the big yellow bus.

***

Now, the little girl is 14. I watched her, along with Tiffany and Sadie, 4, up on a stage performing Les Miserables this weekend. She seems farther and farther away now, on stage or not. 

Waylon done different

"Someday, I'll get over you. I'll live to see it all through. But, I'll always miss dreaming my dreams with you."

The lyrics go through the headphones on the Ipod. Waylon Jennings done different by a new country singer, Jamey Johnson.

Filled with loss. 

I think my daddy would have loved this. He loved sad country songs. He lived sad country songs from the sandy roads of his home in North Carolina.

What is about this music that connects me?

looking up

On my back, I am looking into a bank of lights as they insert an IV, attach electrodes and talk to each other. 

It's the weight. I know. 

"It's going to kill you someday," I've heard many times.

I've lost and gained and lost and gained for a lifetime. I'm on the gaining side of that equation now, with every bit of excuse and explanation possible. Genes, all those fat Todds; love of food; lack of time for exercise; lack of discipline.

Today it all comes to this after chest pains and feeling spacey.

All around me, the doctor and nurses are busy, doing their thing. 

I focus just left of the lights and try to remember what I said to Tiffany last, and Rowan and Sadie. Just in case. Thoughts I could hang onto.

"Am I right with God?" I think. 

I hope so. I try to be. 

It turns out to be nothing. I have a heart that skips beats and produces an irregular heartbeat every now and then. I should lose weight. I should get some rest. I shouldn't let stress get the better of me.

Just now, I remember looking just left of those lights. Seems like I have to do better. Get that health, work, family balance into something resembling plumb. This is tough.

daddy

Here I am. The big guy, with the big belly, blue jeans and all those busy thoughts of the work, the things to get done. I'm in this metal chair on this hardwood gym floor. In this line of other adults with other adult things to do and think about.

And there she is. All in pink. All about this moment on this hardwood gym floor. In tights and a tutu.

She smiles. At me.

I am transformed.

1964

My mom, my sister, Teresa, and me, about 1964. 

A passport photo as we got ready to move to Japan.

My guess is that who we are, who we are going to be is set pretty much on a straight path when we are very young. Some of who we are is born into us, a mix of genes and the divine. Some is mom and dad. Some is where we are. 

I think, it's the love, mostly that makes us who we are. Enough love from those early days will stand in you in good stead for a lifetime. It makes you cry when you know what you're missing, when it's gone. It bucks you up, knowing where you came from and that you were loved. 

Those of us who don't have that love early, spend a lifetime searching for it. That's my guess. 

Some find it. Thank God. Some, I am here to say from personal witness, do not.

If there is anything I know -- on the dark days when I don't know nearly enough to get by -- is that I was loved from the time I was born. My mom. My daddy. My brother. My sister. They all adored me. My sister died when she was 7. I was 3. She talked about me constantly. Even when she sickest.

I'd say that powerful knowledge can still carry from across those years separating 1964 from now.

I'd say, I'll never forget.

geocaching

I stumble through what I think is solid earth and find, instead, cold, semi-frozen mud over the bottom third of my boots. Sadie and Tiffany are up the slope, not in the mud. 

The walking stick helps. It steadies me, with the GPS in my other hand.

"14 feet," I say.

The GPS is good for about 10-13 feet, so anywhere around here is the geocache -- some plastic container with bits and pieces of things people leave when they find it. 

Sadie is worried about me stuck in the mud. Crying.

I  tell Tiffany, look around up there.  She finds it right away. Sadie stops crying and enjoys the treasure we've found.

This day we combine a longish hike in an area with no hunting, no fear of stray lead, with two geocaches. This one, on a wet, cold slope and then another in a field in an evergreen.  One has a "travelbug," which, we find out later online, has gone from its start in Maine to Oregon and Wyoming back to the Western Shore and now on this side of the Chesapeake.

We decide that it will find a home in geocache west of the Bay and hopefully catch a ride to some more distant place.

I think, again, "why is this so much fun?" But, there it is, undeniable. At 45, I am having a fun akin to that I had when I was 10 playing hide and seek at dusk with a group of sweaty, running boyhood friends. It is a pure thing. Like childhood.