Friday, July 23, 2010

Home

I have been married, to the same woman I might add, for twenty one years. We have been together for about twenty five years, over half of my life. While that in itself is pretty uncommon these days, it is not what is on my mind. Change is in the air.
Since we married in 1989 we have lived in six different homes, seven if you count that year of sin we tried before marriage. Five of these homes we owned and every time we sold we came out on top. A good track record based on some good decisions. We loved every home that we lived in, but not enough (I guess)to stay there forever. I will never forget coming home from work one day to a home on 11 acres that I had built myself. It was a beautiful and large home with every feature we dreamed about. Heart pine floors, ash cabinets, walnut built-ins, cypress ceilings and alot of sweat. We lived there five or six years, I think, and I was very proud of it. When I walked in the door PJ had this odd look on her face as she was sweeping the kitchen floor, and I asked her what was wrong. "We need more dirt and less house", she said. Time for a change.
When I was a kid I always thought if I had a home on 100 acres I would never want anything else. That had always been my dream and it sounded like PJ now shared it. So we begin to look for land and put our house on the market. Everything happened pretty fast at that point and we ended up with 80 acres, a small house and no mortgage. Taylor (my daughter) was pretty small at that point and really didn't seem to notice the cramped quarters. We eventually added on some more room and lived there for seven years. Seven years that Taylor went from 3 to 10 years old. The fun years.
Well the itch kind of got us again and we built a house in town. We kept the "farm" in the country and stayed there some weekends, but as time wore on we went there less and less. Somebody offered to buy the place after a year or so and we let it go. What had once been my lifelong dream was now just another place I had lived.
But as I sit here, scratching that familiar itch, I realize that something is different this time. It is not just PJ and I to think about, there are three of us now. Three decision makers. A wealthy investor once told me "if you let your kids make real estate decisions for you, you are making a big mistake". But that is not it. What I realize is that the last home I sold was where her memories began. It was home. I sold the door jamb that tracked her growth, in pen and pencil, for seven years. A lifetime.
The home we are in now is nice and we love it. PJ says that it "doesn't really seem like us", but I'm not really sure what "us" means. It is, once again, too large for three people, but that is a good problem to have. But for the last few months we have spending the weekends at a much smaller home we bought on the lake. Living on the lake has never been a dream of mine, but I like it. I think that more than liking the lake I like the closeness of a smaller home.
Taylor seems to be coming around to the idea of moving again, but we are going slow. I want her to be a part of the decisions we make, and to be happy with them. I want her to understand that a house is where you live, but a home is where your family is. Those marks on the doorjamb are probably gone by now. I can imagine the new owners pausing for a second before the paintbrush makes them a memory. Smiling as they realize that this house is now their home.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

communication

It was bright outside and light was streaming through my bedroom window. I had just turned over and put the pillow over my head to add a few more minutes of treasured darkness when something like a finger poked me in the nose. I don't remember what I was dreaming, but the poke ended it quickly and sat me straight up, ready to run. I sleep with earplugs so I never heard it coming. Whatever was poking me now had me!
Well my fear turned to anger when I realized it was my cat. "Are you up?" said the look on her face. I don't know if I swore out loud (another benefit of earplugs), but I think she got the gist of a few choice words. Well luckily PJ was getting up for work about this time so the cat turned her attention to another subject. An easier mark. They left the room and I replaced the light filtering pillow to it's respected position. I tried to doze a little longer but it was too late, the damage was done.
A few cups of coffee later and it's mid morning. The cat is asleep outside with the full stomach she told me she needed at six AM. Time to wake Taylor up so I enlist the help of my dog. "Lets check on Chickie" I say, as I do every morning, rain or shine. He jumps up and heads to the door of the room upstairs. He waits for me to open it, then dashes upstairs. Dash being a relative term for a 10+ year old border collie, maybe 'proceeds' would be better. As he walks up the stairs he shakes his head to make the tags on his collar jingle. At the top of the stairs he makes a noise that is half whine and half growl, a canine good morning. I can see Taylor begin to stir before we get to the edge of her bed, and she too puts the pillow over her head. We are both up now, thanks to the work of our pets.
As I head downstairs I think about just how effective the communication skills of these animals are. No dancing around the subject or sugar coating the obvious, just simple logic. Pets don't have and electric alarm clock with battery back up, they have a natural one. They have the engines of our ancestors that slept in caves and rose when the sun came up. They get tired, they sleep. They get hungry, they eat. They are creatures of habit and they expect the same from you. But above all, when they have a want or need, they communicate it perfectly, you just have to listen.
Our twenty first century lives have become much more complicated than those of our ancestors. It seems crazy to apply the logic of a dog to the life of say, an attorney or a banker, but the basic interactions are the same. If another dog walks past my house, my dog barks. We assume this is agression, but how do we know that? What he really said was "here I am and there you are, I see you". The obvious. The logical. There are enough mysteries without adding more.
If you are hungry, eat. If you want your spouse to take you out to eat, ask them. If you love someone, tell them. Life is too short to assume that others understand your true feelings. If you want them to wake up, poke them in the nose.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Body Language

Like many Americans in the new millenium I get my medical and psychological advice from any place other than a professional. Why go to the doctor when you can go to Webmd or just google "why does my ankle make that clicking sound first thing in the morning?" All of this is done in the privacy of your own home and you never have to try to believe a nurse when she tells you "trust me honey, I've seen a million of them". But really how good is this diagnosis? If someone wants to ruin my computer by putting a virus on Facebook, why would they also not want to hack my health? Give me a virus!

I thought of this yesterday while listening to the John Tesh show on the radio. I don't know how old you have to be to admit that you listen to John Tesh, but I just did. John started out talking about germs and public contamination but has moved on to topics more relevant to me. What to say (or not to say) in a job interview, how to talk to your kids and just generally how to interact with others. Yesterday he said that psychologists now believe that body language depicts more accurately what you mean than the actual words that come out of you mouth. He read some statistics that 90% of psychologists now believe....Ya think! Haven't we always known this? How many times have you watched your kids, after almost begging them, try a new food. They take a bite, gag and swallow. You asked them how they liked it and they say "It's good". Do you believe the answer or the body language?

I guess this means that before the new statistics psychologists would say the patient is fine, he told me so himself. This is why I think the advice and common sense knowledge you get from others is often as important as a professional consultation. Yes I treated dry skin with ringworm medication once and made it much worse, but you know what I mean. Sometimes you need a trained eye.

But I say take this common sense approach one step farther and use it in your day to day interaction with others. Sure, you went to Walmart and didn't actually insult anybody, but does this make you a kind person? You wanted to scream at a lady that was more interested in catching up with an old friend and less concerned with the fact that both of their buggies were completely blocking the isle. You didn't say anything.

Kindness by omission, this doesn't count. My daughter cringes when I ask the man in front of me at the checkout how he is going to cook the 14 packs of chicken wings he is placing on the counter. When I ask the lady blocking the isle in one of those motorized shopping carts if she needs something she can't reach. When I touch the lady on the shoulder that is in front of me at the checkout and tell her that I'm going home with her because she is buying a turkey and a ham. Nobody has slugged me yet and I while I have made very few lifelong friends like this, I have been the direct recipent of some really cool smiles. Some day changing smiles.

Let's all try to use a little common sense in our lives and be kind to others. That smile and touch on the shoulder goes alot further than what comes out of your mouth. I know it's true...John Tesh said so.