Friends

• "One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives."

Euripides, Greek playwrite

• "You can't stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes."

Winnie the Pooh

• "To the soul, there is hardly anything more healing than friendship."

Thomas Moore

• "A friend is someone who, upon seeing another friend in immense pain, would rather be the one experiencing the pain than to have to watch their friend suffer.”

Amanda Grier

It has been too long since I've seen my friends. Part of my vacation was spending some time with three of my friends. I haven't taken the time to see them and that silly little fat bear seems to know more than I. It has been a trying year and in some ways I was just attempting to keep my head above water - to make it through. I wanted to spare my friends when in fact they wanted nothing more than to help me. I mostly likely hurt them deeply in order to spare my own pain. The irony is that they are the only ones who could have taken my pain. Ah, what we do to ourselves! The very act of hiding is so counter to friendship. When I consider what I would do for my friends I think I might smack 'em up side the head for failing to let me know when they need anything - for not letting me be what I am - their friend. We have a number of responsibilities to our friends primary of which is to let them be our friends. That takes honestly and perhaps a little courage. Maybe woman do it naturally, but I think men do it poorly or at least I did. Maybe next time I'll get smacked up side the head.

Recreating Ones' Self

I think it is important to realize that we are still everything we have been. That is, everything we were is still inside us, still part of us, and still relevant, still real, and still very much alive. Once I was a boy of 10 roaming the fields and woods, dog in tow, and BB gun at the ready caring for nothing more than some new place to get wet and finding a tree and climbing with reckless abandon so I could possibly spy some new adventure. Once I was a winning gritty high school wrestler facing someone just like me and fighting like hell until an arm was raised. Once I was a Marine, shotgun in hand peering out into the night, or "snapping" the presidential flag for an arriving Reagan. Once I drove a semi along dusty, muddy, or snow covered roads loaded with diesel fuel looking for the lights of an oil rig and waiting for what surprise the rough-necks might pull out of their black bag of tricks. Once I was a mountain climber, ice tools in hand, leading grade 5 ice up a col; screaming calves, cold hands, and summit lust. Once I was a collage student running from class to class, hating my roommates, and loathing the fact that hunger met the dining hall. Once I loved for the first time and when she left I thought my heart was broken forever. Once I was a racer, pain banished, body flexed and honed working only for the love of sport. Once a master carpenter, fitting and working with fir, mahogany, redwood, oak, and walnut; creating beauty and very deep satisfaction.

Now I am a husband, a father, a construction executive, a mountain biker, an adventure racer, and a friend. Yet I am still a child of 10, still a Marine, and still that same carpenter. They are all deeply part of me - they are me.

Mark Cohen has a song off the Rainy Season album about his father who did one thing his entire life or at least was seemingly trapped for most of his life. My father-in-law has worked in one place; a Mack assembly line, his entire working life. I don't know how he did it, but he has. It is more than I could do - the sameness would do me in. Due to responsibility, these men seemingly had no power to recreate themselves.

Rest for the Weary

My father was a working man
But his work was never done
He stood behind a counter
And he smiled at everyone
He bought himself a business
Worked seven days a week
Took a holiday for Christmas
Then he fell asleep beside the tree

But one day One day
There'’s love for the lonely
One day
They walk in the sun
One day
Rest for the weary
Rest for the weary ones

Now my mother stood beside him
She did what she could do
But if you look at some old photograph
She looks tired too
I hope there was some laughter
'‘Cause I know there were some tears
Now all I can say is I pray to God
That after all those years
After all those years

That one day One day
There'’s love for the lonely
One day
They walk in the sun
One day
Rest for the weary
Rest for the weary ones

Now I'’m just another traveler
On another winding road
I'’m trying to walk some kind of line
I'’m trying to pull some kind of load
Now sometimes I move real easy
Sometimes I can'’t catch my breath
Sometimes I see my father'’s footsteps
And man it scares me half to death

But one day One day
There'’s love for the lonely
One day
We walk in the sun
One day
Rest for the weary
Rest for the weary ones


I'm not sure if our "recreation" masks our former selves or magnifies our existing selves. Perhaps it will be as we make it. I think an intimate knowledge of what we were and a clear, ever-present memory of that person surely enriches our current life. Stop and remember what you "were". I am happy (and I think my temperament would allow nothing other) that I have had many "lives", many careers, and many adventures. I will have many more - what, I don't know. But, I am quite certain that I am not finished. After all, what better than to be a grandpa and a little boy all at the same time.

I just returned from vacation with some perplexing questions; a number I intend to pursue in some forthcoming blogs, that is when I get around to thinking about them.

It was typical vacation - go, go, go. Temperatures were outrageous (105 daily), sleep deprivation was common, and I came home with embedded soil samples and in quite a few different colors from purple to dark green. It was wonderful, life-giving, and each day holds memories I will never forget. My friends did the same and felt the same.

The question is why do some people go on vacation and waste themselves with activity while others prefer more sedentary leisure? Where's the difference? Each thinks the other's vacation is absurd and can't stomach the thought of either so much activity or so much inactivity. Many of my colleagues look at my vacations and know insanity lurks just under the surface, yet many other people I know envy the manic pace of my adventures. The truly wonderful thing is that my wife is on my side of vacation equation.

I don't question the fact that some people do not like sports (climbing, biking, backcountry exploring, dangerous activities or exposed situations). To each his own, but "the others" have to be passionate about something besides sitting around. History, art, cities, museums, or foreign travel come to mind. Why aren't they exhausting themselves with such endeavors? Where's the passion? Where's the spirit of adventure? Where is the zest for their particular passion? Are they bereft of passion or are they so spent by their daily existence that sloth is the only cure?

And what of you? Do you secretly wish for some adventurous vacation or do you loath the idea of the unknown, the untried, or simply the strenuous? I actually think the people with boring vacations are jealous. Perhaps they live vicariously though those who do break the mold. Perhaps they know nothing else.

About two years ago I met the woman who wrote Hitchhiking Vietnam. She falls in the great vacation category. As a matter of fact, I don't even believe it was a vacation - she just went Asia and ended up writing a PBS series. Beside a road in the pouring rain she rubbed my very muddy and very stinky feet, and also there's the potato, but that's another story...

Oh yes, and the worst - sleeping in. My god man, vacation is finite. Sleep when you get home, watch TV when you get home, lay around when you get home, but don't waste something so precious, so wonderful, so life giving as time SET ASIDE to have fun. Such times come only rarely and never can you get a bad one back. "My vacation sucked, I need another", won't get you very far and if it did, it might get you a very long vacation indeed. Go get crazy!