I am single, and to my mothers disappointment I have no children. Letting me labor under the delusion that even though I just turned 36, I can identify as being more young than middle aged. Straddling a precarious line I have imagined exists between young and old however, occasionally causes bouts of self reflection which in turn, lead to the uncomfortable realization that what may have been half of my life is now over. It’s in those moments of self reflection that I can’t help but feel that I am untethered. I am trying very hard to seek the shelter of a port where I can moor with some hope of permanence. Having dropped anchor here and there at different periods and places throughout my life, I am surprised at how I have never managed to let it catch firm. At least not long enough to keep me from getting pulled along with whatever strong current I encountered. Over the last two years, having convinced myself that LA is not that place of permanence, I have been trying to find a way from the west coast life I have lived happily for a decade. Actively researching any way I can go out into the wider world. All of my actions impulsive or otherwise, seem to be motivated by a nagging desire to take advantage of a mobility I believe is diminishing as I age. Buying into the idea that one’s accomplishment become less valuable the later in one’s life they are achieved, I have rushed from one place to another, seeking out the sudden flash of fame and recognition that can give the impression of success, but whose true lasting value can be fleeting. In the last 2 decades a flurry of activity and half cocked ideas to accelerate my progress, may have stood in the way of true growth and actually hindered opportunities to find my way to more meaningful accomplishments. At the moment I am at a crossroads. I can feel that sudden impulse to move, to jump out of my current situation. The kind of success I have been seeking or had come to expect is slow coming, and so the temptation to give in, to change course or start something different is strong. The habit of giving in and moving along has been reinforced many times over the last 20 years. I am seeing now though how wrong headed I have been to consider myself falling short; as if success only counts before 30. The mirage of youthful success is something we run wildly towards, conditioned to think our lives are, by default, uniformly arranged. The problem with spending too much time believing that by a certain age we should all be making x amount of money, in x position, having earned x degree, from x institution is that it robs us of our ability to see how we can make for ourselves a better path. Our lives are not paint by numbers, each day we add more and more color to the image that will become a record of who we are. The only true failure in this regard, is to labor as long as we do under the illusion that our picture should look exactly like the images created by every one else. This isn’t that profound to be honest nor is it even the first time I have tried to remind myself of this very concept. I have spent many sleepless nights, laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, stricken motionless with a deep dread about how I am so far behind this person or that person. Most often the comparisons are drawn between myself and a peer (often someone much younger than me), but more than once, I have been ashamed of the fact that me and Justin Timberlake are roughly the same age, and I don't own a house. In the light of day these things may seem ridiculous, but there are times where self doubt and the vulnerability that accompanies it, makes such thoughts far too easy to entertain. Again, I am not unfamiliar with these half baked self assessments, but I believe I am getting to the point that I am finally learning to quiet them, trusting that my life is mine to live according to my own instincts. Circumstances aside, there are many versions of the life I am living that could have gone a million different ways. The struggle is, quite simply, learning to be happy with where I am and how much hard work I have had to put in to get to this point. So as this narrow interpretation I have had of myself, viewed for a bit too long through the lens of “youth,” is fading, I hope to start accepting the idea that I am in fact middle aged. I am happy to say that only a few months into my 36th year, I have experienced one of the most important shifts in my perspective, and it is as simple as remembering to fix my gaze hopefully forward. Now, rather than waste so much time looking back in regret, to those alongside me with resentfulness and envy, or inward with self contempt, I have decided to look to the future.
IDEAS ABOUT BEING BILINGUAL
When I first started at Boise State in the fall of 2004 I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. The catalog came in the mail and I found myself lost, trying to plan a semester that would build a good scholastic foundation and not interfere with the either of my two jobs. Finding work in a teaching field sounded rewarding perhaps, or maybe something in political science like diplomacy. So mindful of those goals a schedule was meticulously plotted, arranged and registered.
Language had always fascinated me. To be able to communicate in a larger part of our world couldn’t hurt and it seemed like a foreign language would dovetail nicely into either of my potential interests. Even better though language was a gen ed requirement so there was a zero downside. A huge fan of the French New Wave cinema movement and the film Amèlie I decided French 101.
“This is one of the most difficult European languages,” was the first thing my professor said and I cringed just a little bit. I knew French was tricky, but the most difficult? The class was supposed to fill out my schedule and take care of a gen ed credit. It wasn't supposed to entail hours going over tables that indicate the thousands of ways that verbs can be conjugated or figuring out all of the arcane rules by which the French carefully guarded the tradition of their language and by extension their national identity. By the end of the second class however I was hooked. And less than six weeks later I had formally declared French as a major.
I have never looked back. There has been a bounty of bad ideas and lots of regretful decisions during the course of my life rushing into or out of things, but the decision to try to achieve fluency in French will never be among them. After another short time this lead to the start of the process of becoming a teacher. And it was only after spending a cold dark miserable winter in Quebec that I started to question that decision. A plan catalyzed from that northern hibernation to try for film school. A decision that led me to the sunny coast of California and eventually to the French Riviera where I spent a winter and spring on the mediterranean. C’était joli là et je passais mes jours parlant avec des amis internationales en train de changer ma pointe de vue sur le monde entier. C’était grâce à ces moments où je decidais de faire confiance en moi même.
As time went on I continued to become more and more fluent until after my time in France I was certified Niveau B2. Basically, fluency had been reached. Over the next 7 years however I worked in the film industry in LA surrounded primarily by native Spanish speakers, and so the Français I had worked so hard to learn slowly disappeared. Realizing this caused a small crisis, after years proclaiming French fluency to realize how much of it had been lost, felt like a piece of my identity had been lost too.
Luckily in our modern era, radio stations broadcasting in French can cover the globe and phones in pockets anywhere can access them all. So an ear that might have lost its ability to comprehend a language it once knew, can re-acclimate itself, which is exactly what I have been doing. The last five weeks have been spent listening almost exclusively to France Info, France Culture, France Bleu, etc…
This has practical implications, as I hope to try my hand at international aid work, or as an teacher of English to foreign speakers, should I be given the opportunity for either. But it also has to do with the with the way language can reveal new perspectives, allowing a point of view of the world that is much more intimate. Being able to experience another culture not just passively as a spectator, but as a participant. If time permitted I would dedicate my life to becoming a polyglot, learning every language in the world. Truly discovering the nuance each culture has imbued into the way in which it communicates. Next month is the start of my basic Italian classes, to hopefully compliment my French studies. And then on from there.
There are multiple studies that show learning and speaking multiple languages helps with abstract problem solving and may even combat the effects of Alzheimers. Those are no small benefit to being bilingual but the truest benefit I have discovered is the way it has enriched my interaction with the world. Compared to one human being the planet is enormous and covered pole to pole with more than six billion human beings each with a unique story and each with a unique point of view. When the world seems to be dividing itself into this group or that group, it's easy to feel more and more compartmentalized and isolated, even as communication puts all of humanity into our pockets. But in the midst of a chaos that feels like it is always on the verge of overwhelming who we are, the ability to communicate with an even larger section of this mad planet’s inhabitants is a wonderful gift we can give ourselves.
IDEAS ABOUT NOSTALGIA
I have recently come back to a playlist that I created more than 13 years ago. It is a "smart" playlist that counts how many times I have played a particular track on iTunes and compiles my 400 most played songs ever. After a 4 year absence, during which I used only Spotify the 400 tracks on offer feel a bit like a time capsule. It is full of surprises and soaked through with nostalgia. Weighted heavily with Sufjan Stevens, early Arcade Fire, Vampire Weekend, and tracks that dig even deeper into my musical history. Many imported from CD's carried over from my pre iPod days. Radiohead, Weezer, Bush, No Doubt… and on and on. The specificity of memory every one of these songs brings forth is remarkable.
I can hear the White Stripes “Ball and a Biscuit” and suddenly be standing in a Banana Republic in the Boise Town Square Mall at three thirty in the morning hastily hanging racks of clothing to set the holiday mens line before 8 ‘clock came and I had a test in my French 101 class. I remember a verbatim conversation explaining that the two guitar solos were my favorite from the last 5 years. In that moment I was on the precipice of a decade that would take me from Boise to the cold of a Canadian winter, the thin glamour of the French Riviera, and the sunny beaches of Orange County and Los Angeles. But while trying to get through a long night of tedious labor, those things were not even a thought in my head. I can vividly recall the anxiousness of that moment. Feeling it now as I sit at my desk color correcting soundbites, it is exhilarating.
Damien Rice’s “Eskimo” which just followed, has me laying on a bench in the back hallway of the Boise State University library more than a year later. Around the corner from the language lab where the criminal justice department was quiet and peaceful and great for a nap. It was almost finals week and my two jobs plus my 40 minute commute had drained me completely. It was a Wednesday and I had intro to art history coming up so I had been intending to read my textbook. Instead I spent the two and a half hours between classes that afternoon, eyes closed in and out of sleep with the epic, soaring, operatic, crescendo of that song on repeat. Each new play feeling more hopeful than the last. Against a tide of melancholy that tried and failed to wash over me, those notes leveed me onto dry ground. I remember the feeling of the bench, hard against my back, and the leather bag full of books, in that moment neglected, making a fine pillow. I wish I could somehow transcribe the sounds onto this page and write out the ephemeral nature of those moments. But music is special in that it is invisible so without form it can really only exist when heard. And only being heard can it be felt.
Each track has a memory attached.
Peter Bjorn and John - Young Folks
Driving to Will’s wedding with Daniel.
Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
The first time I drove to Chapman heading into a desert night in the summer
The Geese of Beverly Road - The National
When I spent my first Thanksgiving alone in Orange county. Cooking a chicken instead of a Turkey and heating up my store bought pie in a microwave.
Belle and Sebastian - For the Price of a Cup of Tea
Hanging out with my sister on a spring break when we drove around outside of Nampa in the rain while farmers prepped their fields for sowing.
Stronger - Kanye West
The first time I had a Chipotle burrito with Dobbs during our second semester at Dodge. I ordered a beer but he wasn’t 21 so he couldn’t.
I could go on. This playlist will only grow and evolve as time goes on. Like music, time is ephemeral. It only exists as we know it because we are here to participate. To measure it and watch it pass. Just as the sounds that we manipulate into music would exist with or without our interference, so too would time march. We find in those sounds the notes and melodies and rhythms that we dance, kiss and cry to. Music has made our lives richer and our numbered days more valuable. The right song can stop time, or transport us back to memories good and bad in ways no other human invention has been able. So as I wander across my past, and down each alley of memory on this playlist, I can only be grateful about what I’ve learned and be excited for what I might learn. When songs I haven’t yet heard let me catalog all the moments to come.
IDEAS ABOUT LETTING GO
I have lived the better part of the last decade in Southern California, most of which was in the city of Los Angeles. Some of the best years of my life have happened here and I have been in LA long enough to not only call myself a Californian but also long enough to feel like a Californian. The part of me that had thought about LA as a stinking cesspool where egos and wannabes are always ready to backstab and lie and fuck their way to the top has faded into the background. Replaced over time by the nuanced understanding that comes from living in any city for so long. After 10 years it becomes clear that as in any place the bad lives alongside the good. Los Angeles will defy expectations at every turn and under the layer of grime and graffiti is something so uniquely special that to understand this city is only to love it.
I have fallen completely under it’s spell, unintentionally joining the hordes of beach going health conscious burger loving narcissists. Our beers are brewed locally and organically and our meat and vegetables are as hormone free as possible. We love chasing our favorite trucks from neighborhood to neighborhood because the tofu burrito from Kogi is just that good. And rather than scoff at a the idea that one of the best meals I have ever eaten came from the back of an old delivery truck, I advocate for more meals to be made in the backs of old delivery trucks. I am now an Angeleno, and not in the stereotypical sense that I refuse to buy anything but organic dairy products, or that I will always prefer to drink fair trade locally roasted coffee (though both of those things are true). I don't speak with overly accentuated vowels or know how to surf, but I am home in LA because after all this time, the yellow warmth of the perpetual summer sun has soaked through me. Deep down past my skin and bones and expectations to become integral to who I am. It's a part of me. The charm of a city being cradled by so vast an ocean, hugging a border where north becomes south and east meets west is boundless. In it’s miles and miles of roads there are run down strip malls where a dentist's office might share a store front with a Vietnamese restaurant that sells the best Pho you have ever eaten on this continent. There are movie studios and dive bars and taqueria's and just down the street from a Lamborghini dealership.
The beach runs alongside the madness of traffic backed up along PCH from Venice to Malibu while the 10 ending in Santa Monica pours tourists and locals from within the city to the shore. I have spent countless hours lazily walking up and down a beach following the line where dry sand is kissed by the tide, letting the gentle waves wash over my feet to the ankles while children play and birds dip in and out of the water blah blah blah. The sun setting on an unusually warm January afternoon is something that cannot be denied as perfectly magical. It is impossible to resist the occasional urge to swim out past the break and bob up and down in the surf, turning from the horizon to the shore as the lights in the homes and hotels illuminate and begin to give shape to the dusky shadows that line the Santa Monica bluffs. I have in those moments laid back to float listlessly staring at the changing colors of the sky, as the moon tugged at the waters around me. The swim back to shore, away from the darkening oblivion of the Pacific Ocean will always make me feel minuscule. Each time reflecting that I am only a tiny part of an immense and beautiful world.
I have thrown down blankets on the lawn of a cemetery filled with the ghosts of Old Hollywood and watched classic films projected on a pristinely white mausoleum wall. I have sat under the stars, sipping beers, the faint odor of weed whispering gently past me and my friend when the breeze was sufficient to carry it our way. I have held the hands of dear friends while they stuggled through the trials that tend to define and shape who someone will become, and sharing their broken hearts sat silent in sadness. I have accomplished life goals here and I have made mistakes here and I have become the man I am today because of my time here. Sharing these times with close friends has further nourished the roots I have planted and cultivated here and as deep as they may run into the desert beneath me, I have come to realize that this wonderful place is merely a stop on my journey, not my destination. I am leaving LA within the next year. The plans surrounding my escape are beginning to take shape. As a result I am becoming increasingly aware of the depth to which these roots have reached, and the effort that will be required when the time comes take them up. It is no easy thing to say such goodbyes so completely. When I consider the gifts I have received over the last 10 years, gifts of friendship and experience, I realize the incredible difficulty that I wiI face as I loosen my grip and eventually let go of this place and its people.
The beginning of something new and exciting will always mean the end of something else. And however right the new beginning might be, the ending that comes with it can be unbearable. This ending is yet a long ways off, but it is large and over this next year it will loom. Casting it’s long shadow over the usually sunny West Hollywood neighborhood I call home. But within that shadow I will swim at the beach much as I need to, and laugh, and share beers, and hug, and cry as much as I need to. The words “parting is such sweet sorrow” have never rung more true for me than they currently do. But the goodbye to come some day will not interfere with my today, and though the process of letting go has begun, there are yet things that will not need to be let go of. Things hidden away, that I have put in my heart and they will go with me onward. To wherever that may be.
IDEAS ABOUT MOVING ON
I am leaving LA soon. It is a statement that is not factually certain or even vaguely planned but I feel it so surely from deep within me. As I imagine an ocean wave that has been building knows the crest is near and soon will be the respite of the beach. Having traveled miles and miles and miles across the vastness of my last three decades, I have begun to recognize the signs and sense a coming change. The shore is nearer ahead of me than I expected and clumsily I will crash upon it, becoming suddenly unformed and made able to travel once more. Free to choose my next current and my next destination.
I have had Europe on the horizon of so many previous plans but the complications accompanying an intercontinental move intimidated me beyond my motivations. The challenge of having to endure the maze of language and legal access to a country has stalled me at every turn. However I have recently been to Italy and more than any other place I have been it’s rhythm matched mine in ways too ethereal to describe. And so acknowledging the soon to be arriving end of my time in Los Angeles I am going to begining the planning stages of a new journey to a foreign country on another continent in a hemisphere that is not currently my own. Legal hoops can be jumped through, language as a barrier can be torn down with effort and practice and distances however intimidating can be crossed over and crossed back again.
The existential fear of unavoidable mortality (no doubt instilled in me by a long study of French philosophy) has never been so elegantly assuaged as by simply observing the general Italian lifestyle. Rather than surrendering to the hopelessness of our impending deaths, Italians simply live purposefully. Purpose they express more often than not through an evening spent sharing a bottle of wine over a table filled with amazing food and amazing conversation. Or strolling across an ancient part of whatever city at dusk or dawn, reflecting on the passage of time. Modern street lamps shining down on them as they meander through streets that were designed and built many centuries past. It is calming and assuring that as terrifying as it can be to stand at any point in our lives, look forward far enough and see only the imminence of our passing, that countless others have done the same. Many have done so gracefully and openly, and the journey does not have to be fraught with constant shaking fear about something that cannot be changed. We can march to the point where each of our times becomes the time for the next and smile at any and all expressions of genuine love. We can let the music and art and poetry that has come to describe who we are be written on our hearts and try as best we can to write something as meaningful on the hearts of those who follow. So as my California swell draws itself onto the shore may I be drawn back into the sea of life with a mediterranean current at my back, propelling me forward across continents and oceans towards an ancient city where under the warm continental sun I can pass my time discovering whatever it may be that I want to write onto the hearts of those yet to come.
IDEAS ABOUT GOING OUT AND DANCING
I am desperate to try and be better everyday of my life. I seek to be kind and grateful and hopeful all in an effort to be the best version of myself that is possible. But daily I lack bravery and fear is something that is a constant struggle. It is a challenge I must fix in my mind that if I want to be the best me, one thing I need to be is brave. When the beautiful woman I am out with is dancing I need to dance. Whether or not I will look foolish or she will be embarrassed by my flailing I need to do it. I need to not stand back convincing myself that I will be rejected and it will be humiliating. When we leave in the cab on the way home, and I want to put my arm around her waist, pull her in and gently kiss her while we talk with the driver. It might mean climbing up over an immense wall of fear in my brain, accepting that the other side might be the long hard fall of rejection. Occasionally however it could also be the reward of the touch of soft skin and salty kisses, and the gentle pleasure of sharing the warmth between two people who have danced and sang their way through the evening into the night, landing softly in the early morning hours. It is hard to know which regret will be heavier to carry… The regret of trying and suffering through the likely rejection or the regret of not finding out that there was no rejection to fall headlong into. I want to be brave, I want to take a risk that will scare me, I want to be alive in those moments. I want to take that step into the unknown.
IDEAS ABOUT AUTUMN
Autumn is my favorite season. It always has been. Even when it meant school was back and lazy summer days would be coming to an end. I loved it. I grew up in a farming community, in the mountains and it was the beginning stages of what would become a long hibernation. Where the transition between life outdoors was slowly given over to life indoors. Autumn is when darkness comes creeping from the morning and evening into the daytime hours, sending sunlight retreating to the southern side of the planet, letting a cool dark wash over the north. The change manifests itself in the way people dress and the things people eat and the things people do to entertain themselves. Tee shirts become sweaters which become jackets and eventually coats and somewhere along that trajectory there are football games and Halloween parties and a harvest that makes profitable the entire previous years efforts of many farmers. Autumn is that glorious time where we congratulate ourselves for having made it through the better half of the year, just before we snuggle into whatever winter we give ourselves. I live in Los Angeles at the moment and even here where the weather in November can feel like June in my home state of Idaho, that feeling is still present. Sitting in the heat of a late September day after a night of rain, the sight of children returning to school and the ever shorter days can still strike a chord. I enjoy the idea of sitting quietly drinking a warm cup of coffee or coco or cider, bundled on a patio with friends in dwindling early twilight talking about whatever might be talked about. Winter will come next to most of the country and it will bite and nag and bring more hardship than we care to remember from all the winters previous. But before we give ourselves over to it, lets all enjoy these final moments before this summer's afterglow fades into memory and reflect on the fact that we are all alive on this wondrous ball and that we made it almost all the way around the sun once again.
IDEAS ABOUT OPTIMISM
I have started to notice that people who seem to be the happiest are also the ones who smile the most. Generally I am not a happy person. If I am not careful I will dive right into to whatever cesspool of negativity I let reservoir in my brain. I create a narrative with myself where my job, my apartment, my relationships, my students loans... are all impeding my happiness. I will climb up on almost any cross and then complain about all things that have conspired to get me there. I am always letting myself get punched and kicked and pulled apart by my circumstances and I then excuse myself from being accountable for the things I think and the way I let it affect my life. It is only with a deliberate effort that I can maintain a positive attitude and not go down into the dark hole of self loathing and self pity. I don’t think there is any secret to feeling or acting a certain way. I don’t think mood is mired in mystery. I think there are simply moments in a day where the world presents everyone with a choice. Here are the things in your life. Many of which you have no control over, so now decide. How are you going to react? Decide who you are and who you want to be. These moments are both good and bad, and they happen suddenly and frequently. Your boss tells you that its gonna be a late night when you had plans, you find out that a good friend is coming to visit, you just won great tickets to your favorite bands sold out show, your car breaks down in the middle of a crowded street and you have to push it into a parking lot by yourself, there is some intense drama in your family. These have all happened to me and I wish I could say I chose to shine through the adverse moments and was intensely grateful for the good ones. But I am flawed and human and so in many cases I resented the good times for arriving so sporadically, and drank away the rage and sadness in the bad times. A friend pointed out how destructive this pattern was so I started to watch what people who appear to be the happiest do and take notes. Some are quietly content loners, some are boisterous, gregarious social butterflies but all of them along that spectrum almost always seem to smile. Which I believe is a physical manifestation of their conscious decision to be thankful and hopeful. It is a choice when faced with the randomness of the world to react with the right amount of joy and hope and kindness. Happiness is what happens when someone loves the world enough that all of the tragedy and pain and suffering that seems rampant and constant cannot detract from how beautiful and amazing this planet can be. The feeling of getting a text from an old friend, catching a glimpse of a spectacular sunset from the roof of the parking garage after a long day of work, returning a smile from the pretty girl on the elevator at the grocery store, all things that might go unappreciated in a world where I am too wrapped up in trying so hard to feel badly that I don’t even notice.