Annual Letter: Stuff About Ken

I’ve fully embraced the middle-age/income/class/ and middle-of -the-road lifestyle. We even live in the middle of the block. I may be the last generation to not only care about being bourgeoisie, but to even know what it means (actually I think I know what it means, but since it sounds French I’m inclined to ignore it). In June 2000 we attended my 20 year high school reunion in LA, a freaky experience as anyone who as been to one knows, and in June of 2003 I reunited with some old college friends and commiserated with them about turning 40. It was great to see them (everybody looks great!) and reminisce: the best part seems to be the realization that you care so little now for the things that racked your psyche at 16 or 20. Perhaps the burdens we carry around today will be so much fluff even sooner. The gang all agreed that time is way too valuable to be wasted, and the plans that still are with us need to be addressed, not ignored. It is sad to realize how out of touch we get with old friends over the years (if you are reading this you prob. already know how guilty I am!), how out of touch with the old dreams and how caught up in the mundane and everyday.

In Oct.2000 this awareness became apparent with dreadful insistence when my high school classmate Russ Kaneshiro died from a heart attack at 38. There was a huge funeral and several beautiful eulogies; such a diverse community of grief puts to bed the notion that your anguish is unique. Still, I had nothing to offer other than my presence, and the same terrible, clichéd thoughts that we all have when a friend dies so young. The camaraderie afterward among good old LA friends helped assuage my sorrow, but nothing could ever make up for the inconsolable eyes of his widow and small children.

The love of friends and family can’t be repaid with an avoidable early departure. We shouldn’t pass up an adventurous life but we can prevent an unhealthy one. I returned from LA with a commitment to get into decent shape, which still took me about a year to get going, but I steadily committed to the outrageously simple notion of "eat less, exercise more" that the docs push all the time. Who knew these quacks were on to something? I lost about 60 lbs and have kept most of it off for three years. Folks keep asking for the name of my "diet plan". Wha? "Eat less, exercise more!" It's the simpleton diet -- perfect for me. Ok, you have to count calories which means you have to read labels and add, but finally I'm using all those years of math I learned in school. I only live 3 miles from work in a nearly flat town so I rode my cheap bicycle, huffing loudly a couple times a week in the first summer, but eventually building up to every weekday, rain or shine, all year long. I had all the excuses in the past: "my life's too busy", "I get up too late", "the culture made me this way". Yikes. Silly. I'm not saying getting the habits going was easy, maintaining them is even harder, but you have to find something specific that motivates and hold on to it each day . For me it was the way good health really percolates through your system, it calms, clears, and strengthens your mind & heart as well as your body. My other constant motivation is the look in Russ's kid's eyes. Every mile on the bike, every donut deferred, puts that darkness a bit further from my own family, hopefully. Brutal but true. I may get creamed by a truck (I've had a few close calls and Andie & Anna have actually collided with cars) but at least I won't be sitting around waiting for it. The very best part? Now that we're getting serious about their health; we have better attitudes and increasing self-esteem (which is legally mandated in California), and we look mah-velous (in just the right light). Unfortunately, our dog Tom is still quite fat, but he can’t ride a bicycle.

I strive ever on to be like Phil in Groundhog Day. Not the rodent, but the jerk weatherman played by Bill Murray, who repeats the same day, literally, until he begins to learn and improve and love. Partway through his long ordeal he wonders aloud in a bar, “What would you do if you were stuck in one place, and everything you did was the same, and nothing mattered?” A pathetic beer-swiller next to him replies, “That about sums it up for me.” Lashed to the great revolving wheel of time, Phil will spin in place until he finds a way to earn his promotion to the next level. He can’t change his nature, his human nature, but he can change his expression of it, and his actions reflect it, to the eventual good of all (along with some real chuckles, heh, heh).

Hitting 40 does feel a bit like just that: hitting 40. There’s a more than slight amount of aches and pains, especially after taking up a regular gym regimen. For our contemporaries, and older folks, you know what I am talking about. But if you work at UPS, climbing in and out of the truck dozens of times a day, lifting, twisting, pulling, etc., the aches are pervasive. I was pretty bummed to see Vioxx taken off the market because I was planning to use a lot of it in the coming years. The company has graciously provided us with a simple and consistent policy toward our decomposing bodies: it’s your fault. Ok. Working out does help it feel better overall but man, I’m tired, yet surrounded by restless youth. How beautiful that in a world obsessed with youth & beauty, we would have an example set for us by the Pope who would not hide his infirmities nor hide them as a badge of shame. He set an example for me to follow into the last half of my life (Should I, God willing, live that long), “Do not be afraid.” I’ll do what I can to stay healthy and vigorous, but someday my body will let me down and hopefully I’ll remember him and his example.

We’ve been raising kids for so long, even though we never finished being kids ourselves, in a society that tells us to remain children forever, so how do we age gracefully and usefully in a culture obsessed with youth and ephemera? At least folks my age always have the baby boomers just ahead of us, all that constant marketing aimed at older folks, all those Cialis and Lipitor ads to make us feel younger (not to mention the once “dangerous” Led Zeppelin now selling Cadillacs). In a house full of teens, I seem like Gandalf at times, wizened and wise (I need one of those big staffs) but I lack even an old wizard’s amount of cool. I try: I still listen to all my old music, but now I carry it all around on my iPod. We watch a few movies and programs together, and that’s fun, but I’m a bit of an alien among these youths. I’m like the Ugandan Ambassador to the UN; living in Manhattan, dining with swells, picking up slang and sophistication here and there. He’s observing a lot, having a pretty good time, even seems like a New Yorker, but in the end, he’s still from Uganda, often clueless, perhaps more than a bit put-off. Dig? I’m not hip; I’m just assigned to deal with it as part of my mission, which includes judgment and criticism. And for me, that’s cool enough.

Is it all so anti-climatic? I've already lived to see so much accomplished not just by civilization but even, wonder of wonders, by myself (mostly by somebody whipping me, but whatever it takes...). I've seen things in the natural world of great beauty and spectacle, and take comfort that they will endure long after me, and I've seen the disappearance of things, such as the mountain glaciers, I never thought would fade. I've seen humanity take great strides toward peace and health and comfort, yet still too many live lives of stunning fragility in the face of man's neglect and nature's ravages... the Sudan crisis, New Orleans, and the horrific tsunami being perfect examples. I know but there but by the grace of God go we, perched on the edge of a similar quake fault and an even deadlier ocean, yet so fortunate to be born here... and in this time. It is a great time and I've seen an amazing span of it. I've seen technology let us down, build us up, or both; the internet comes to mind on that one. I can bore my children endlessly with tales of "back in my day, we had hard, heavy black telephones and they lasted 40 years!" An old world where the products outlasted our desire to depend on them. I revel in the new stuff as much as the next guy but I already sense the growing bewilderment the old must feel at the exponential growth of gadgets and systems and sheer changes that are pushed at us everyday. It's cool looking, but do I really need a cellphone that takes a bad picture of me? I'm still a bit amazed at phones without cords. It’s exciting that potato chips have evolved from a time when having “ridges” was cutting edge to myriads of varieties, including “organic roasted red pepper and goat cheese, kettle-cooked”, but it doesn’t change the fact that I can’t eat them anymore. I use expressions that I hardly anyone still uses or has the slightest idea what they mean, in fact I use more of them than Carter has pills. My car cost more than my parents' house. I recently took a class at the local college: the professor was in diapers when I started at HSU. My doctor is younger than me and my music is older than "classic" but not “classical”, which I now appreciate so much more. I’m older that Teddy Roosevelt was when he became president. I’ve outlived Elvis and Martin Luther King. I've seen comets, religions, revolutions come and go. And I have to chuckle at the goofiness of some of what I've lived to see. Most aging baby boomers, in whose shadow we '60's babies are condemned to forever dwell, are a constant source of amusement. Can it really be that Sting is a Vegas singer and Led Zeppelin sells Cadillacs? At least Dylan is still Dylan, though in his recent autobiography he admits that he really wasn’t Dylan, which oddly, sort of makes him more Dylan than ever. More often I'm beginning to feel like I have enough stuff. Acquiring (now that I have acquired) isn't as much fun as doing. And what the hell was I doing during those years when all I could afford was "doing", not acquiring? Well, I tried to be a husband and a Dad, with often mixed results, but I can easily say that those are the best things I ever did and ever will do. I am ready to add to the to-do list, as is Anna, and that means more than just learning snowboarding (though I want do to do that before my joints give out).

From this point it seems so obvious and cliché (forgive me, I’m thick): the last few years have really forced me to consider the obvious fact that life, while not necessarily short, is fleeting, and I need to live for something higher than being entertained or fitting in. That each of us matters in different ways, and I better get cracking on doing something effective. Right now our time is spent mostly on the kids and that’s plenty, but eventually the years left should be spent embracing, not hiding from, the shrinking world. After all of these years we are (to paraphrase Don Henley) trying not to settle for less out of life while careful not to recklessly let slip our contentment in the search for something more.

Amid the struggles of parenting, husbanding, and career, things have happened that have seriously challenged and ultimately enhanced my entire belief system. I found myself being presented with opportunities to test my courage and my faith (both in God and people); and involved in situations fraught with risk and vast potential for disappointment. In some cases I dodged and weaved for a time but overall, I did not run & hide and was surprised to find my faith rewarded. I do believe God is watching. Screwed-up as I was as a kid, I can’t even imagine the dangerous, rude, and hurtful things I might have done without the concept of a observant higher authority holding me accountable for everything. Higher Power: it’s not just for drunks anymore! I didn’t always do the best I could, but I found I could do better than I had ever expected, and that has made all the difference. I allowed myself to see myself better, and it was the catalyst to being better. Self-help gobble-de-gook? Well, maybe, but it’s simply looking myself in the mirror each day and saying, “Do you really want to be the same old thing again today?” I know, I know, some of you are saying, hey! Hide those mirrors, pronto! They just cause more trouble. But at mid-life it seemed nicer to start looking in the mirror and thinking, “what’s good about you and how can you use it for good?” rather than rehash the past worries, trying to avoid the bad. All these ordeals made me want to do a bit more for those around me, family, friends -- the folks we know we should put first but who often trail behind the noisy gang of Me, Myself, and I. I’m still a gaff-prone, lazy, arrogant goof, but I am taking some comfort in knowing that each day I’ll grit my teeth & keep trying to rise above the doubt & the petty selfish concerns that most of us have to struggle with.

And we have to struggle with it. All this self-doubt adds to the barely audible deep bass line of evil that permeates the world with noisy lies & quiet despair, shaking our foundations, clouding our vision, and crumbling hope, while it camouflages itself as “life”, life with all its disappointment, risk, and darkness.
“Well, that’s life,” we all say, game faces on, striving to hide our bitterness and dread. No, no, no, it isn’t. That’s death and you can reject it. Every day, every moment, turn away from that sound and rise a little higher… ascend above the rubble. Hard as hell, it’s true, but for most of us lucky, healthy, rich Americans it’s still as simple as that. Or should be. We’ve already attained great heights just by dint of where we were born or where we now live. Can’t we reach a little higher or has the altitude of our affluence thinned the air and made us foolish? Lots of people understand this need to keep pulling ourselves above the dark gravity of despair. Was this simple turnaround on my part by divine intervention or plain reason? Does it matter? I choose to believe that it is both, and what makes life grander and even more worth living is the fact that I have that choice. The choice to see a better world as possible and choose to make it happen, one faltering stumble at a time….

...to be continued...