Dear Diary – Dotted Outlines – 260824
Life is a lot like jazz, it's best when you improvise.
Jal and Vim Fading Health Keeping Friends The Interloper PC vs Mac Numbers Night Cake Aftermath and Reckoning
Fading Wonder
The sunflower's glory is beginning to fade.
I noticed it while watching the bees flit back and forth from the hive this morning. I only ever notice them flying south because the sun rises just to the right of the hive and I adore the little dots of light they become as they fly through the morning rays.
My gaze drifting right, I noticed the hedge of either and nine foot tall plants didn't have their usual shock of yellow and green. I thought it was the hazy sunrise at first, but when I walked out, I could see the first hint that in 6 weeks or so, they'll be well on their way way to crumbled husks.
Fall will be here.
Summer's glory is beginning her swan song. The hottest days, the whitest sun. Everything brittle and angry.
The August heat cracked van's windshield nape to navel. It was just a tiny spot, but taking the trash to the curb in the moonlight last night, I noticed a new shape: a six foot long crack going left and right from what was no more than a discoloration.
Yay.
Jal and Vim
We have two older friends. Well, we have LOTS of older friends. In fact. as we enter our 50's and 60's with gusto and start to see the NEXT decades of our life begin to crest, I am noticing how ancient many of our lifelong friends have become.
It isn't something that is apparent to me. I still see them much as I do myself, the same robust dummy I always was. I think Neo would have called it RSI: Residual Self Image.
Welcome to the Matrix — where daily life is a glitch.
Jal and Vim are new friends. New is, of course, relative. They moved into Dust Meridian during the pandemic. I didn't pay much attention to them at first. I had my head down keeping the congregation running when we were suddenly confronted with needing to become a fully functional remote family.
And there was no shortage of other jobs to do in those days.
In their 80's, they came from the wide empty spaces of eastern Colorado. Land that no one ever talks about. It's so bleak, Dust Meridian caught their eye because of 'how lush and green it is here'.
Their words, not mine.
Eastern Colorado must be come kind of hellscape, is all I can say. But, they also found the people here to be pretty great. I won't argue that Jal, as we are both people here.
Jal is a mother of two, who married Vim 55 years ago after her first marriage fell apart. Vim still looks at her like a fresh apple-blossom. It's really sweet.
He is a farmer from farmers. Which is probably why they have chicken tchotchkes everywhere. A chicken sign greets you in the front yard. A chicken doormat welcomes you to the roost. The kitchen is rife with chicken this and chicken that.
He made his living as a farm hand for decades while he raised his family and sent them into the world. Quiet and sweet, he is a very hard worker. Vim is like many men I know: uncertain of their power and ability. This is one part humility and one part lacking self confidence.
I love his willingness to engage when he's not in the limelight though. Vim is a ditch-digger. Ditch-diggers are my favorite kind of people. They'll work at the worst tasks endlessly as long as they can do it in the shadows. This is as compared to a peacock who loves to strut around the stage. Getting those guys to get into the trenches is, eh... not a fun task.
Ditch-diggers can be trained to put on the head-dress and do the stage dance, but their heart and motive is always in the ditch. The unseen forces that move things forward. My dad is like that. He'd rather grind in the shadows that be the center of attention. My best friends are like this.
I respect the hell out of that.
I like to think I'm a ditch-digger. But, I'm not ignorant to how well I wear those shiny feathers.
Jal, is the opposite of Vim. She's brash, direct, and seems fearless. This, I have learned, is a veneer. I meet two kinds of personalities who are this way. One is arrogant and barely tolerable, the other suffers from deep lack of self-esteem and puts on the mask of certainty to hide trauma, low self-worth and that they secretly hate themselves.
Trauma it sounds like has shaped her. The tell-tale between the two types of extrovert personalities is the deep valley of humility that the latter kind exhibits.
I love this kind of personality. You always know what's on their mind and the communication is robust and direct. My wife has a harder time with the directness. She tends to see plans within plans when others speak and so when there's no secondary or tertiary meaning to what the woman says, it confuses Ng.
Fading Health
Well into their 80's now, Jal and Vim told us that her recent heart attack was much worst than they publicly admitted.
“The doctor's called it a widow-maker.” Jal told us over ceviche Saturday night.
No one wants to see their mate's health fail, but when you learn that she wasn't just seriously ill, that she should most likely be dead, it doesn't just take the wind out of your sails, it pulls them down, folds them and drops them in the fire.
So, the name of the game for our friends is NO-STRESS!
Not hard, we just avoid difficult topics like their 61 year-old-son's recent marriage to a slightly crazy woman. And any conflict in our own lives.
I find that my current reading of 'The Body Keeps the Score' is handy for skimming how early trauma can manifest at any time, meaning avoiding difficult topics isn't just keeping someone comfortable, it is preventing the the body from unleashing the flood of hormones that come when we are stressed.
We spent an hour talking about hummingbirds. How their fountain brings the most wonderful wildlife. The skunk that wanted to live under the shed. Their first television. How she became an accountant. How they met. The way she learned about the Bible and how infant-baptism was a key hook for her.
Conversation with well-experienced people is shockingly easy.
Especially when you have good conversationalists involved.
“We don't like to have just anyone over. Not everyone is a stress-free conversation.” Jal says.
And I know what she means. It takes some skill to trade speaking roles, not talk too long, add to the index of what's being said and know when to shift topics.
Good conversation is as much fun as any game ever was. Only there's no scoreboard or goal other than to just enjoy each other moment-to-moment.
I don't know how long we'll have Jal. I hope it's forever. She's a good soul and he energy, even diminished is invigorating. I wish I had more people like her in our life, and when we lose her, she won't be replaceable.
Good souls never are. They just leave dotted outlines in your soul where they used to be.
Keeping Friends
We had a robust conversation yesterday at worship about friendships. How to keep them especially.
A google search says most people have about 4 close friends. Makes me think of 'King of the Hill', the Mike Judge animated television show that ran for 15 seasons about twenty years ago. Want to know what life is like in Texas? King of the Hill nailed it. My dad was Hank Hill, the eponymous lead character of the show. He had 4 close friends.
Checks out.
Dunbar's theory says the human mind can only handle about 150 meaningful relationships. I make a note to add this to my list of things I'd like to learn more about.
If there's true wealth, I think it is the number of people who will answer the phone when you call. Not because they need you or expect something from you, but because they like to hear your voice. They miss whatever adventure you are on. Wanting to be a part of your life. And yes, they'll show up if you need a helping hand and take yours if offered.
True friends aren't just missed. They are remembered. Unforgettable even if they are truly gone. Which means they never really are. True friends live in our hearts.
But, they ain't perfect.
Because WE aren't perfect. In fact, some of us are pretty damned imperfect. But like ink drawings, we are what we are and our friends learn to love the shape of our indelibility. They don't want to change us, just love who and what we are.
But those flaws create conflict. And the hour-long conversation in the congregation was al about how Bible principles can help us put up with one another when we're at our worse.
There's a copy of a poetry collection on my desk: 'Please love me at my worst' by Michaela Angemeer.
You cannot use Someone else's map to find yourself
and
And when the shore seems out of reach don't forget that you can always float a while
It's very mushy stuff. it is romantic love Angemeer writes. Eros.
This is NOT the kind of love we are applying to our friendships. It is what the Bible refers to as agape, or principled love. Meaning: you do the right thing because it's the right thing, not necessarily because you feel like doing it.
Got a friend who's a dummy or aggravating or offensive (or YOU are that person)? Patience, kindness, humility and compassion smooth over the challenging parts in the short term. And over time, we learn that those things weren't as bad as we thought. In fact, we can learn to love the person not just in spite of those 'flaws' but because of them. We begin to see them as God does, for their potential, not necessarily because of their current state.
The illustration of an engine was used. Engine's need oil or they burn up. Our friendships need the oil of God's word or they to will seize.
It's such a terrific illustration because engines have incredibly tight tolerances and it takes a shockingly small amount of oil to keep them running for hundreds of thousands of miles. For instance, the main crankshaft of an engine may have a space half the width of a human hair that allows oil to wash between two pieces of metal spinning thousands of times per minute.
Just a little bit of God's word, His principles, can keep our relationships running smoothly for decades.
But, let that run out and the friction can destroy a perfectly functioning machine in moments.
i have not always been the best friend. It is one of my many regrets. But, my hope continues to be that those failed relationships will teach me something about myself and how to be a better one in the future.
We are all, after all, works in progress.
Me? I'm at that ugly sketch stage where you can start to see the forms and role your eyes and think 'I thought this guy was an artist'.
I have potential. I bet you do to.
The four loves mentioned in the Bible:
Philea: Familial love Eros: Romantic love Storge: Brotherly love Agape: Principled love
English is such an inadequate language for such a deep topic.
Interloper
After our meeting for worship, I'm feeling mixed feelings on the kind of friend I am and where I've failed in my friendships when another friend (friend, friend, friend, friend, write it enough looks so strange) admits he's struggling to accept a personality associated with the congregation. I understand, because I struggle to accept her too.
However, it's not that i cannot accept her, I have and do. But that doesn't mean I want to be around her. She's a full blown narcissist and manipulator. Which is a terrible combination for my wife. I've experienced the woman pull my wife out of a meeting, drive across town to deliver ice cream because the interloper wasn't feeling good and needed a pick-me-up.
Frequently, if we find ourselves out for a meal with Interloper, she finds a mark to buy her meal. Or she sends it back and then asks for the manager to comp it because something was wrong. Or buys, wears an expensive garment and then returns it after a function.
I've known this woman for forty years. I watched her marry my best friend. Then ruin her marriage to him with a string of men.
I know. I know. I can't hold a persons past against them. I can't freeze them there. However, I counter that it isn't freezing a person in the past if they continue to practice those actions which abuse and current relationships.
If I only show up when I want something from you, am I really your friend? Or are you just an asset? A convenience?
My conclusion was: some personalities require a PHD in acceptance.
If you have to keep someone at arms length to protect your psyche, your sanity and your family, that isn't 'not accepting them'. It is protecting yourself.
I fact, one could argue that by being a stranger, you are showing love. Love to them to yourself and to those you are charged with protecting.
Someday, Interloper will be safe to be around. I hope. And then those safeguards of distance can come down.
PC vs Mac (This is really about my ego)
New computers and hardware in our house of worship.
the mind is a strange place. I have neither the energy nor the desire to be involved in replacing the hardware in our congregation. I actively choose to not be involved. But for some reason it's bugging me to see these guys wild-west things instead of following published protocols for equipment selection and setup.
WHY am I like this? I don't need the stress. I CAN'T have the stress. But I still find it aggravating to watch my fellows just make it up as they go.
Breath breath breathe.
Not my monkey. Not my circus.
This is mostly related to the argument that 'all our problems are this apple computer! We can't update the OS and so we can't fix the problem.'
The problem is and was a failing mixer. I knew this two years ago and it continues to be the problem today.
This to shall pass. Which is an idiotic thing to write because 'this' isn't even an issue. Maybe it's related to pride? Being 'the guy' for so long was more ego-stroking than i realized?
The ego-keeper. Maybe that should be my moniker. Big fat giant ego. I'm surprised my hats still fit.
Numbers Night
We spent a couple of hours watching an old tv show called 'Numbers'. It isn't intended as a comedy, but the writing is SO ridiculous.
The premise: Arnie is a math genius who teaches at a university. His brother works for the FBI. The FBI agent calls his brother Arnie to use complex math equations to solve crimes.
Think: Good Will Hunting meets Men in Black.
Those are both great. But so are chocolate cake and sauerkraut.
I spent the time filling sketchbook pages and making pithy remarks on the absurdity of using Brownian motion to solve why a criminal would talk a hostage at FBI headquarters and then extrapolate what his next target will be.
What is so comical is how absolutely serious the show takes itself. HIGH on the high drama. And each episode ends with a 'HEAT' level shootout. Heat as in the 1995 Michael Mann-directed Pachino/Deniro crime thriller famous for its 10m concluding gunfight. Thousands of rounds are fired.
Honestly, a more accurate comparison would be 1988's Naked Gun.
Dumb.
I turn on Psyche. Funny, crime-based and anything but serious.
Cake
I stopped eating cake several years ago. It was a big choice: I LOVE chocolate cake. It is a food that simply can do no wrong.
Well, it seems that my sabbatical from eating the stuff has created a bit of a problem. I can no longer eat the stuff!
Ng brought home a slice of the choicest, softest, most moist chocolate cake in the universe. and it was delicious. We shared it and licked the frosting out of the container like children.
We laughed and giggled and talked about how much we loved cake and why didn't we eat it more often.
An hour later, after coming out of a sugar coma and taking something to settle my stomach, I admitted that I think I may have to permanently break up with chocolate cake.
It wasn't just a tummy ache either. I was in a FOUL mood. Only after having some fantastic grilled chicken, did the protein and fat offset whatever assault my body and mind were under.
Too bad. Maybe homemade cake will be different. Commercial oils just wreak havoc on my biome!
Aftermath
So, dear reader, youre all caught up on my adventures. Last week saw the end of my month-long grueling project. I fully expect a call from my client today, shocked at how I can bill him so many hours in such a short period of time. Three hundred hours in 4 weeks.
So it took 5 days to start to feel human again. Friday was billing and vegging. Saturday was Vegging. Sunday we finally started to do human things, like go to worship.
Today... today will be marveling at the heat. Scheduling a windsheild replacement. Preparing for the the weeks's activity. Planning some time on the road. I think a beach trip would be a good reward for weeks of hard work.
Write draw and live.
But first, it's 10am. I've been writing for hours.
Breakfast time.
Jal and Vim Fading Health Keeping Friends The Interloper PC vs Mac Numbers Night Cake Aftermath
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“May your seas be wide enough for wonder, your harbor always waiting, and your light never fail when another soul is searching.” – The Lantern Keeper