12/23/2023 4 Comments Mental Movies & Lost ChristmasesWhen I was a kid, I would get the box of Christmas ornaments out from the garage and, before each ornament was hung on the tree, I would make my own little mental movies with them. Ceramic angels, wooden elves, little tin soldiers, they would all find themselves woken from their year-long slumber to star in my violent (and festive) holiday thrillers. Even the nativity scene pieces weren’t safe from my imagination, though those were generally handled with a little more reverence. Then, after the boredom set in, they’d all take their respective places suspended from the plastic branches of our Christmas tree, bathed in the multi-colored fever dream of lights that I wrapped around the tree with the same level of care with which I wrapped people’s gifts… absolutely none.
I vaguely remember my final mental movie - my final film before hanging it up as a young director and “putting away childish things.” The plot is as fuzzy to me now as it was then, but I remember the high-speed sleigh ride scene well. Slowly, these things started to disappear from my life, and Christmases started to mean less and less. Admittedly, as a kid, the religious and spiritual elements of Christmas didn’t actually mean all that much to me despite my parent’s best efforts. Those are big concepts for a kid who just finished staging the biggest snowman ornament gunfight in history. No, I, like most kids, was only in it for the presents. But not just opening the presents. If I knew that I got a good gift for someone (which was uncommon), I was probably just as excited to give it to them as I was to open my gift from them. But all that started to get lost in the shuffle too. Systematic gift-giving started to feel, well… systematic. Unspontaneous. Obligatory. “Here’s what I got you… what did you get me? Cool. See you next year.” And so it went... lost Christmas after lost Christmas. When I married into Katie’s family, Christmas spirit came bursting back into the room with the subtlety of the Kool-Aid Man. Family traditions, cookies, stockings, travel, gifts. It all started to make sense again. All these things were planned and constructed with so much love, joy, and connection in mind that it couldn’t be anything other than contagious. I’m not a doctor, but I felt something in my chest. I believe it may have been my heart growing three sizes. ... Well friends, Christmas 2023 is in just a couple of days. The tree is up, the lights are strung, and if I am honest with you, the Christmas spirit needs some resuscitation once again. I don’t know how many times I’ve looked at Katie in the past few days and said, “It really doesn’t feel like Christmas, does it?” So what is it? What am I looking for? Which Christmas carols do I play to murder this grinch once and for all? Do I just accept this as another lost Christmas to be added to my graveyard of lost Christmases? It doesn’t help that almost all of the snow we’ve gotten in Idaho has melted away, something I’m being told is uncommon for this time of year. It seems as if even the universe itself doesn’t want Christmas cheer to be spread. But then… as I twist my brain around trying to force the magic of Christmas on myself, I’m reminded of something: Stop looking so hard. I have been blessed with so much in life. I have a roof over my head, which is something far too many people can’t say for themselves. I’m going to eat dinner tonight, which is something far too many people can’t say for themselves. I have family and friends that I love dearly, which is something far too many people can’t say for themselves. So what if I don’t feel a specific way at this specific time of year? So what if the sparkling tinsel and glowing Christmas villages don’t cause my heart to burst with extra happiness? I’m happy anyways and in greater ways than all of that. That is something else that far too many people can’t say for themselves. This year, Christmas isn't lost, it's a blank slate. It's an empty canvas. I'll stop and listen to the carols and look at the lights, and if the traditional feelings of Christmas joy wash over me eventually, it will be wonderful. And if they don’t? It will still be wonderful because I have so many wonderful things in my life. There is no "lost Christmas" this year. Christmas is here, it's happening, and its spirit will feel however it does. I’ve spent this Christmas season longing for what isn’t here, instead of embracing what is. There is so much to embrace.
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10/27/2023 0 Comments This Moment is GoodThe shower head in our new home has been dripping.
Not consistently, but sometimes. When? And why? I think I figured it out but… I’m not sure. It's the kind of drip that hunts down wandering minds in the wee hours of the morning and lures them down dangerous paths. “Can I fix this? Do I need to call a plumber? How much money will this cost? How much money is this costing us right now? Small drips add up to gallons… how much was our recent water bill again? This could cost us millions.” It's two in the morning. I walked over to the bathroom. I'm awake, on edge, and standing in my underpants beneath the dimmest light I could turn on, staring at my new archenemy: the dripping shower head. I'm convinced this shower head is sentient now. It knows what it is doing, and it is evil. It has the goal of subtly breaking us financially over the course of our lifetime, and it's relying on my procrastination to do so. My defense? Kinda being able to fix things while voiding warranties, mangling my hands, and potentially making things worse in the long-run. What am I supposed to do at this hour? Turn off the water to the house, get out my wrenches, and loudly clang around in the bathroom in order to make the whole house as miserable as I am? And what if I make things worse? I can see it right now: One quarter turn of a 13mm wrench and all the fire hydrants in the Western United States blow open, foundations collapse, and a small hurricane forms in the Pacific Ocean. This seems like a bad idea too. So instead, I reached over and counterintuitively twisted the shower handle a fraction of a centimeter toward the “on” position. The dripping stopped. The battle seemed to be over. Already? I assumed this was some sort of trick that the shower was playing to lull me back to sleep before it continued driving up the water bill, so I laid back down in bed and started scrolling around on my phone with half of my attention on what I was reading and the other half listening for drips coming from the bathroom. Nothing. Silence. Whatever I had done had apparently worked. I slowly fell back asleep. I realize that this story is silly. But it’s a silly instance of being unsettled that is a part of a larger mosaic of unsettledness that has decorated this year. And I know this isn’t unique to me. There has been a clawing sense of uncertainty about what will be brought with the next year/month/week/day/moment. “What’s next?” I don’t know. I can’t know. “Will everything work out?” I don’t know. I can’t know. And despite being blessed with one of the most successful and smooth moves in the history of moving, my brain doesn’t want to take a breath. It doesn’t feel like it’s allowed to. It’s helplessly listening for the next drip coming from the shower. ... I had a pending “Thank You” note to send to my grandmother. In the clutter and mayhem of moving boxes and random sundries, our collection of thank you notes had gone AWOL. After riffling through some garage boxes, I finally came across a blank card from a local (Alaskan) art shop that I had purchased partially because it was beautiful, but mostly because I sensed the shop owner’s eyes following me as I browsed and felt an obligation to buy something. Anyways, after days of delays, the card was written and ready for its trip to my grandmother – a trip that would start with a brief walk down the sidewalk to the mailbox. “Tomorrow.” I thought to myself, as I sat the envelope on the chair in the entryway. Well, "tomorrow" happened to bring the first day of winter to us in our new home. A light scatter of fresh, wet snow fluttered though the overcast sky. The crisp air sat at exactly 32 degrees Fahrenheit. The snow wasn't accumulating much, and it could mostly be seen on the roofs and windshields of the neighborhood, with a thin layer barely covering the shorter blades of grass. It was negligible, but it was beautiful nonetheless. The arrival of winter made me more excited for my little trek to the mailbox. I threw on my thickest hoodie and my knit cap and stepped into the mild sting of the freezing air. As I strolled down the wet sidewalks with my cheekbones questioning my decision, I had a passing thought: “This moment is good.” I quickly responded (internally, of course) with hesitation: “No, ignore that… there are too many upcoming problems and to-do lists to take a break from the uncertainty now.” But with quiet confidence and calmness, I heard it once more: “THIS moment is good. Enjoy THIS moment.” I looked down at the brittle little branches of some recently planted trees. And I looked up and squinted at the blare white of the sky. And I looked across the quiet sidewalk though the sparse flakes of snow in front of me. For a moment, there were no other moments to be concerned about. There was just that moment. And that moment was good. This isn't a new thought, of course; It and its paraphrases have been copied and pasted onto every single piece toilet decor that Target sells. However, when the thought strikes naturally, it feels like it means something. Will the shower drip again? Probably. Will the paint start to peel? Eventually, I’m sure. Will some of my plans fail? Will my loved-ones be lost? Will I keep making mistakes? Yes. Yes. Yes. All these moments should be responded to appropriately. But there are so many moments that could be good, if I would let them be good. This moment can be good. 8/27/2023 1 Comment Goodbye, Alaska...As a lifelong Alaskan, I’m ashamed to admit that I have become jaded to its beauty. Residents of any city often have a cynical viewpoint of tourists and fail to acknowledge the wondrous and newlywed-nature of a tourist’s eyes. When I visited Kansas for the first time, what were seen as boring and dead flatlands to many Kansans were incredibly vast stretches of stark beauty to me. I had never seen anything like it before. I was a newlywed to the landscape. But the mountains of Alaska? I’ve seen them since I was a toddler. They are glorious, without a doubt. I’ve also ignored them most days.
Many who have been blessed with a passionate longevity in their appreciation for the beauty of Alaska would probably be puzzled as to how any Alaskan could look out their window with indifference. I’m not proud of the indifference, but it has become an unwanted traveler on my back. It follows along behind me, pulling just enough of the saturation out of the colors around me to stop the whole picture from coming to life. Sights that should be met with awe are met with shrugs instead, and that’s if I even bother to notice them in the first place. One of the biggest problems with moving (until now) has been the perception that I’ve had more time than I did. I’m thankful that I knew my most recent trips to the beautiful towns of Homer and Seward would be my last. At that point, however, moving was still not quite real. Why didn’t I look at those mountains longer? Why didn’t let myself get overtaken with all the wonderful memories of all my other trips to these places? What other last times have I been overlooking? Can I have them back if I promise to hold on to them tightly this time? No… sorry. They’re gone. Can I ask you a favor, my friend? Please, if you find yourself in one of these amazing towns on an overcast day, put an ambient album on in your headphones (might I recommend Ambient 1: Music for Airports by Brian Eno? It will change your life). Then stand on the muddy shore and let the smell of the ocean fill your nose. Let the grey gloom of the clouds envelop your soul. Let the enormous sense of well-being that can only come on murky days overtake you as completely as it can. There is a transcendent sense of life that comes with moments like these that can’t be described, it can only be felt. Katie and I start our long drive down the ALCAN tomorrow morning (August 28). This departure date has always been off in the distance and stuffed behind the clutter in our brains. But our alarms are going to go off in the morning and pull us straight out of our sleep and into the rest of our new lives. Tomorrow has always been weeks away. Now, tomorrow has rounded the corner, and it is charging straight at us, hungry and horns sharpened. Soon, there is going to be a last time I drive these streets. There is going to be a last time I stand in our backyard or pull out of our driveway. There is going to be a last time I sit in the shadow of the tree just outside our living room window, whose leaves have grown alongside us for the last seven years. There is going to be a last time, outside of my memories, that I see the faces of the incredible people that have made my time in Alaska so wonderful. Some of these "last times" have already happened. There is a devastating beauty to these “last times,” because if we can understand and acknowledge them as such, the reality of the moment possesses us, and our appreciation for the things we’ve been taking for granted suddenly expands immensely. It’s like the last days of a head cold, when your airway suddenly opens again, and you can draw in a breath that isn’t strained though swollen membranes and lung slop. We’ve taken hundreds of millions of breaths in our lives, but suddenly breathing is special to us again. The last time this house had any sense of emptiness to it, it was to welcome Katie and I into its space. The emptiness was an invitation to let us paint with our own brushes on its walls, and to let us fill its corners with bookshelves, laundry hampers, and baskets overflowing with pet toys. Now, the emptiness means saying “goodbye.” The emptiness is a hand on our shoulder and a quivering thought whispered in our heads, “It’s been wonderful.” This isn’t our last time in Alaska. There is too much for us here to never return. But the filters and screens between myself and my appreciation for the things I have been taking for granted all these years are beginning to erode as the inescapable reality of time and distance finally arrives. How long until we see these people, these places, and these things again? I can’t be sure. The reality that I may not see all of this again for a very long time has made everything from mundane trips to the grocery store to the grand mountains that I’ve been looking at since I was a child absolutely burst with beauty. As much as it shatters me, I love these last times. I love them because to do anything other than love them would be to take them all for granted again. I love every fresh breath I’m given as I’m pulled from this self-inflicted head cold of disillusionment and indifference. We are stepping away from a lot of last times. We are also stepping toward so many firsts. Thank you for everything, Alaska. And goodbye. For now. 8/18/2023 0 Comments The Dying Light of SummerA point of mild and unserious conflict in Katie's and my marriage is the fact that I am a morning person. Beyond the initial 5-10 minutes of groggy delirium and misanthropy that happens immediately after hearing my alarm clock blare, mornings are when I have energy, interest, and a generally positive outlook for things. This is also when I am at my most unpredictable and will talk to you about everything from politics to whether or not you can make a spaceship out of milk cartons and zipties. Only Nighttime Jon can admit that Morning Jon’s enthusiasm was inexcusable. All of this is amplified during the bright summer months in Alaska, when the boundaries between day and night are only made clear by a clock display, and mornings have a natural buzz about them that accompanies the steady daylight. As summer begins to wind down and the darkness of night once again starts to clarify these boundaries, it becomes more strenuous to be a morning person. Every 5:00 a.m. becomes harder to greet when it feels like Mother Nature is directly challenging me to disengage and go back to sleep.
I’m not specifically a summer advocate, since heat and bright sunlight make me hiss and wither like a miserable vampire. Every season has its upsides though, and the increased daylight and the ability to go outside without having my eyelids freeze shut are just two of the benefits of summer. Everyone knows fall is the best season, though sometimes it feels non-existent in Alaska. Winter is clearly the dominant force here, and it has its own benefits and costs. Alaskan winters can be breathtakingly beautiful, but the darkness can feel oppressive. I approach driving in the new darkness with a certain trepidation after a season of being spoiled by incessant daylight. Suddenly, every shadow on the road might be a stray dog, and the edges of the sidewalks are only marked by the glow of streetlights. Lumbering and jaywalking pedestrians pop out into the road in less than a split-second, causing a verbal crossword puzzle of unfortunate language to instinctually spill out of my mouth. Yes, there are still summer days left, but winter is beginning to stir in its sleep. I realize that it isn’t bright at 5 a.m. in most places, but darkness at 5 a.m. in the late-summer in Alaska feels like an especially bad omen. Winter is just around the corner… Are you ready? My answer to this is usually, “No. Not yet. Please. Just a little more light.” I came to no clear conclusions this morning after I admitted that the light was dying for the season, except that it should be held onto for as long as possible. It feels like just yesterday we were celebrating its birth. You could see it starting to peak over the mountains, subtly at first, and then bursting forth across the sky with joy and optimism. I am happy to be moving to a place in which the seasons, summer and fall specifically, are represented in a more well-rounded way. Still, my soul sinks now as it has every year during this seasonal transition, even if I am leaving it all behind. It’s too early to start the long slumber of winter. It’s too early to chant an elegy for the light. 8/12/2023 2 Comments Confidence/Friends/Charlie SheenI’m sure Charlie Sheen was describing his public meltdown in 2011 as a “victory lap” of some sort. You remember it, right? It involved a batch of interviews that included lots of erratic descriptions of tiger-blood, partying, cocaine, and “winning” (winning what exactly is still to be determined… life in general, I suppose). He insisted that he was completely sober after a recent hospitalization, and now his uniquely powerful alpha brain was on fire with a passion for life and victory and so on. Nobody was buying it.
This moment in pop-culture history was cemented into my generation’s memory particularly because many online content creators at the time were editing movie clips and celebrity interviews into insanely catchy electro-pop songs and posting the results to YouTube. Specifically, Charlie Sheen’s “Winning” interviews were remixed into a club-worthy earworm of nonsense that still gets stuck in my head to this day. In fact, just a few weeks ago I woke up every morning with the song on loop in my head despite having not heard it for years. If none of this means anything to you, that’s probably a good thing. I can’t recommend trying to go back and discover any of it now because, beyond fulfilling some natural morbid curiosity, there is nothing of value behind watching another human in a self-destructive state. If you take anything from this, just allow it to set the stage: A few weeks ago, I, in my tendency toward pessimism and over-thinking, was feeling lost in a cycle of life that was being narrated by a movie star who was improvising the worst motivational speech that you had ever heard. The question that was in my head and at the heart of all this nonsense was this: Why is confidence so often reserved for those who either don’t deserve or will misuse it? Katie and I have been wanting to move for a while. Katie moved up to Alaska from Idaho as a teenager, and though she has discovered a life up here that she loves, she’s always wanted to return to the northwest. As more and more family move into that area, the decision to move became even more clear. As for me, I spent the first two(ish) years of my life in Hawaii. I have no recollection of living there. My parents, sister, and I moved to Alaska before my memories start, and I consider myself a lifelong Alaskan because of it. There’s a restlessness in this spot of my life. Alaska is wonderful, but I want another experience besides the Alaskan one. Katie and I are not unhappy in Alaska at all. Saying that would seriously undermine the things that we love about our lives here, especially the people that have permanent placemats set in our hearts. We aren’t shedding everything about Alaska with reckless abandon… we absolutely feel conflict about leaving. “Best friends” often change throughout our lives, but there are a small handful of people who never lose that status, and my heart sinks when I think about putting thousands of miles between myself and some of the best friends that I will ever have. Katie would say the same thing. Still, the pull down to Idaho remains. The problem? Neither of us are particularly confident when it comes to pursuing big life choices, especially when the status quo is comfortable. So then, I ask again: Why is confidence so often reserved for those who either don’t deserve it or will misuse it? Katie and I are responsible with money, we’ve made pretty good life choices, and I can say with 99% certainty that neither of us have robbed any banks. The black duffel bags full of money that Katie has been stashing under the stairs are just a part of the décor, right? So, where is all this confidence that these good choices ought to have earned us by now? But confidence isn’t an item, is it? It’s not a punch card that fills up after a specific amount of good choices. Ten good life decisions? Great, now you can feel good about buying a new house! There’s also no marketplace of confidence where buyers and sellers are competing, and the Charlie Sheens of the world are making out like bandits with truckloads of it, while the Jons and Katies of the world are scraping their sporks at a rusty can of confidence just trying to get enough nutrition to survive the night. Confidence is within everyone’s reach, but it involves some growing pains as we force ourselves to do things that we need or want to do but aren’t confident about doing. So that’s what we’re doing. The fear? It’s there. The doubt? Big time. Confidence? Sometimes, but not quite. This is a step in both of our lives toward being more confident though. If it works, we can look back on the experience and say, “Remember that one time we moved, and it worked out well?” If it doesn’t work, we can look back and say, “Remember that one time we tried to move to Idaho and learned a lot about the moving process?” Why move? Because we’ve always wanted to be in the northwest with family. Why move now? Because, for some reason, now is when we’ve been granted the courage to pursue it, despite the fear. And as we pursue it, we find new areas to be confident about – slowly, but surely. Confidence is not reserved for those who don’t deserve it or will misuse it. It’s there for everyone. It might be really, really, really hard for some of us to find naturally, but it’s a muscle that can be built. 8/7/2023 10 Comments Ghosts & Emptying RoomsThere is a very specific aura to a slowly emptying room. It’s a sobering sight to see sunbeams that once bent with sharp angles across shelves and picture frames suddenly spread unbroken across the floors and walls.
“No, there should be a clothing rack here… I remember putting it together. And there should be a table over there… that’s where we have game nights with our friends.” If this were just a mystery of disappearing shelves like some sort of Bermuda Triangle for furniture, it would actually be a thrilling excuse to call Mulder and Scully over to open up an "X-file" on our house. But the reality is much more bittersweet and explainable: Katie and I are moving out of Alaska and down to Idaho. I don’t know how to feel. I’m insanely excited. I’m insanely intimidated. I want to share this journey with you partially as an exorcism of the exhaustion and stress, but also because it feels like an amazing journey, and I want you to be a part of it. There is an incredible amount of work behind buying and selling a house, coordinating with a moving company, finding/starting new jobs, and connecting with experts that know where all these pieces fit together. All of that is piled on top of alternating bouts of crippling self-doubt and misty-eyed optimism that turn the stomach and chest into a sickening stew of nerves. There is a buzz of wonderful excitement in the air that comes with all these nerves too. I am excited to be closer to family. I am excited to see new scenery and breathe new air. Change is exciting. Still, as these rooms start to empty, it makes me remember all of the people I love here in Alaska. They’ve been in these rooms. They are a part of this place. It makes me want to hold tight to the things that are starting to disappear. I feel like I’m murdering memories and leaving them as ghosts to haunt this house. It’s safe to say that I’ve had a hard time going into some of these emptying rooms lately. “Can we maybe put that shelf back where it was? Just for a moment?” But don’t let these melancholy thoughts lead you to believe that this move is being made with utter sadness. The northwest is calling Katie and I, and it has been for a while. I decided to call this project EST.NORTHWEST because for as long as Katie and I have been together, we’ve always discussed the desire to put roots down in the northwest. We have been wanting to establish ourselves up (down?) in that beautiful corner of the country. The northwest is a part of Katie’s DNA, and a part of the country that I have increasingly fallen in love with as I’ve been able to see more and more of it. What about the memories that we have here? Well, that’s the beauty of them… they get to go with us. Once we start settling into our lives in Idaho I don’t necessarily want this writing project to end, so a name like Moving to Idaho wouldn’t only have been a little dull, but it would have also implied that the journey itself would have an endpoint after the move was complete. But this journey won’t have an end. This journey is always happening. I want to write about all of it, and I want you to be there for all of it. Thank you for reading my first post, friends. You are a part of our journey now, and we are so happy to have you! |
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