Categories
family interpretation

Horns of Strange Places

My family recently visited Chicago, as we have done a couple times before.  Our Portland ears are always stunned by how frequently and aggressively people honk there.

I remembered one early morning walk when my son  was young enough to be strapped to my belly. He kept asking ‘what’s that?’ with increasingly frequency and curiosity. It took several long walks to realize that he was confused about horns, and had probably never heard them before.

This time we talked about how some people probably use the horn regularly at the first hint of delay or frustration. Some probably do so and forget about it a block later, never having their pulse increase or attention diverted significantly. It’s just part of the ride.

I remember all of the times when I was honked at this trip. I’ll likely remember it for years – how nervous and angry i got. It isn’t part of the ride for me, but it should be.

Part of respecting others is respecting their intent. Holding on to unintended harm is empty weight, something no one gave and no expects me to keep.

Categories
bereavement business family

Working On

business-general It’s been almost two month’s since Brian died. Though I certainly can’t say I’ll ever be over it, I no longer feel that hurt shock when I think of him and remember that he died. I’ll keep a shrine to him. I’ll remember something about our time together every day. I’ll cope well.

I had a brief period where I wasn’t working, much. I got to work on some fun things–my sister’s site, configuring a laptop juuust so, backup strategies. The weight of not working when I should be making money was a bit much. How will we pay for a new roof for the garage? A kitchen window? A new phone?

The “wait” part of “hurry up and wait” is over now, and I’m likely swamped until a planned vacation stops my work. I can be grateful that we got to the beach and I got to relax.

Categories
family professional programming technology

Pruning and Weaving

willow-wovenMy son and I worked on the willow hut yesterday. Today I worked on some inherited spaghetti code.

The winter die-off was woven in with new growth. It was difficult to find which part should be snapped off, which brought to the light, which woven back to hold the thing together. I snipped and pulled and made a mess of it. For a while it even lost much of its shape.

Now the ceiling is higher, though the walls are thinner. The door is a bit too tall and the back wall is still too thin, but this summer promises strong growth.

Categories
family personal professional

A Measure of Success

measurementFlora put this above the door down to the basement, where my office is. This pretty much says it all.

We broke even in March financially, and in its first week, April looks good. I’ve got a part-time job with customerforce along with a few new gigs, and some huge possibilities.

After being in such an ill place professionally, I wish it didn’t take global financial strife to get me to a better place, but it seems that it did. Yay!

Added “Create A Decent WordPress them for your own blog” to the todo list.

Categories
faith family personal

I Now Know Five Things

I used to know four things.

I mean really, really, know, for certain, in a shut-up-you-can’t-tell-me-otherwise. Because it’s important to feel this way about something, and dangerous to feel this way about the wrong things, I revisit the List of Things I Believe often. This time, I made a dramatic addition to the list while my son fell asleep on me. I’d like to make this into a “you know, my son taught me something today” type of tear-jerker, but it can’t be. My son was falling asleep on me, in the same rocking chair in which my mother rocked me to sleep, and I was thinking about cold certainty.

The list used to be:

  1. I am.
  2. I sense.
  3. I want.
  4. I don’t always sense what I want.

I’ve always been uneasy about that last one. It assumes something, and perhaps a great deal, about time. The last bit doesn’t count at all when I’m completely satisfied. But HA!, I don’t care about the list when I’m completely satisfied anyway, so it doesn’t matter. I’ve come up with other cheap tricks to get around that uneasiness, but nothing’s stuck for long. Here’s the next trick.

  1. I am.
  2. I sense.
  3. I want.
  4. Now is a moment different from others I can remember or imagine.
  5. At different moments my sensations correlate with my desires to different degrees.
  6. I need to work on the wording quite a bit, but that’s the list for now. In the end, this list gets me to a point where I can guess that other things exist. Why I would bother with this while a warm bundle is spreading a drool spot on my shoulder is another issue entirely.

Categories
family glove personal

Going To Have To

Me: Hold on. Glove.
Flora: Daddy, you don’t have to take a picture.
Me: No, I don’t have to. I’m going to.
Flora: Same thing.