Love is…Simple

Last week, like many as of late, drifted by in a bland current of general … well, for a lack of better word, ‘blah.’ Work stress led to home stress which gave way to a steady state of unease. Happiness did not come easy. That is not to say, however, that it never came. It did. Three times to be exact and in the simplest of ways. A Saturday date with my wife, a Friday night walk with my son, and a Sunday outing with the family. Well, the family that is still here in Taiwan anyway.

There’s no need to put into words the details of those three events as it wasn’t what happened that brought a sense of joy to my heart. Rather it was just being  with my loved ones. On each occasion, idle chitchat about nothing in particular and everything in general led to a calm space where everyone involved felt seen and heard. There wasn’t much thought or planning that went into any of the dates. It didn’t take much for any of it to happen. All that was needed was the simple desire to just be there with each other and hang out.

Sometimes we (and by we, I mean ‘I’) get caught up in the idea that we need to be doing something special or traveling to a new and unique location to feel the excitement and zest of all that life has to offer. I think my parents instilled that push for excitement in me. I have begun to realize that as much as we crave new sites and fresh experiences, sometimes what the heart needs most is that with which we have been blessed all along. Family. Conversation. Companionship. Love.  And that is what I was blessed with this week.

Love is…simple.


 

Love is...Authentic

            It won’t be a long piece this week. Nothing well thought out or contrived. Just a short blurb about something which brought a smile too my face. In truth, I spent some time writing out my thoughts. Ranting a bit about a mild existential crisis I have been having as of late. AI and what it has in store for our future. Ugg. However, I kept pressing backspace and delete. Everything I was saying seemed contrary to that which I wanted to get out. And so, here I am starting again. Simple and to the point.

            Late last week, Rachel sent me an old video of Siaya that had me smiling the whole day. It tickled me so much that I set out on a mission to find a similar video of Onan. (Okay. It wasn’t really a mission. I just asked my sister-in-law to send me the video as I knew it was stored on her phone.) The clips were both made by my kids when they were about the same age. They both secretly borrowed someone’s phone and recorded themselves either singing or dancing. They weren’t performing for Rachel, me, or anyone else for that matter. They had no intention of posting anything. I don’t even think they cared if anyone watched it. They simply hit record as a whimsical way to express what they were feeling at the time. Maybe it was to preserve that moment for themselves. Who knows? But then again, I don’t really care. To me, it is an authentic look at who my kids were and will forever be.

          As we move further and further into the age of technology, we seem to be losing our sense of authenticity. Filters and photoshop, fake news and disinformation, trolling and manipulation. These are all so prevalent in our daily lives that it is difficult to discern fiction from reality. And that is why these moments are so precious to me. They remind me that authenticity still exists. We might need to dig a little to find it. But it is still there. For now.

Love is…authentic. 

Love is...Hands to the Sky

Love Is...Hands to the Sky

It’s funny the things we remember. The things our minds hold onto. How the most random of moments can be etched into our brains forever while our daily worries and preoccupations are often lost in an abyss of forgottenness. It says a lot for how much of it all we are really missing. How life makes it easy to tune out that which is truly important.

One such scattered moment that I have somehow held onto was brought back to the forefront of my mind as I was driving home from work the other night. A dad and his daughter walking hand in hand down the road one afternoon. That’s it. I didn’t know the father, and the little girl was not one of my students. They were just two strangers who happened to be in my path when I stepped out from my school many years ago. I can’t remember what they were wearing. I don’t remember their faces. Really, there isn’t much that I can recall at all except for the palpable feeling of excitement and joy that passed over me as I watched the father look down upon his little angel and her sweet little eyes light up as he did. It still brings a smile to my face. You see, Rachel was about eight months pregnant with Siaya at the time. For me, those bright little globes were tiny crystal balls giving me a glimpse of my future. I could see my daughter-to-be looking up at me and the whole world was there in her eyes. It was and still is. Simply. Beautiful.

Life blessed me with another such moment late last week. This time, a mother was walking home with her little girl. Like the father and daughter, their fingers too remained intertwined as they made their way home. It was their arms that caught my attention, though. Swinging them back and forth, it was as if they were both reaching for the stars above. Their audible giggles filled the darkened alley and their eyes locked in nothing less than pure delight. Again, I was caught up in a wave of contentedness. No. Rachel is not pregnant again. (Knock on wood. 😉) It was just the perfect amount of happiness at the exact time it was needed. For me. Once again. It was and still is. Simply. Beautiful.  

Love is…hands to the sky. 

Love Is... What It's All About

                I was 40 years old when I decided to write one blog per day for a year.  Memories, Insights and a Kickass Playlist. I wanted to challenge myself to do something I had never done before. I wanted to publish a book. Although I ended the year with enough stories to bring my dream to reality, my finished product was not as complete as I had originally planned.  After almost a month of daily posts, I began to realize just how daunting a task I had taken on. A blog a day was simply too much. I had neither the time nor the content to bring my goal to fruition. So, I started punching out blogs at various intervals and finally ended up with 75 posts at the end of the year.

Although I fell well short of my target, I was still pretty proud of myself at the end of 2012. I hadn’t hit publish every day, but I had consistently been at the computer. Writing. Sharing. Reflecting. For me, that was enough. It was a cathartic year in which I was able to release a lot of thoughts and ideas that normally wouldn’t have slipped off my tongue. Beyond that, a few years later, in 2018, I actually scratched publishing a book off of my bucket list. Not too shabby.

Now, at 53, I have once again taken to my computer in an attempt to begin another blog. Love is… The reason for starting a new blog is twofold. Firstly (and most importantly) I have lost/forgotten the password to my WordPress account. ☹ What is it they say? The first thing to go is your memory… Maybe it is for the best, though, as the second reason for starting this blog is completely different.

Recently, I have found myself staring into a hazy darkness. Not in terms of me or my family. Just people. Humanity. Life in general. Maybe it’s me processing my dad’s passing. Maybe it’s me listening to too many podcasts that feed me with existential threats that seem to plague the world. Maybe it’s the constant bombardment of wars, disasters, and general strife. Maybe it’s all of this. Or maybe it’s something else. Whatever it is, it has caused me to lose my sense of optimism. My sense centeredness. My sense of peace.  And that, for me, is problematic. I hate being pessimistic. I used to pride myself on being that glass half full kind of a guy. But now, I can’t help but focus on the emptiness.  And that brings me to this blog.  

I am going to try and sit down once a week and reflect upon one piece of happiness, love or joy that I have seen in the world. I hope that with a bit of effort, I will escape this bleak outlook I have adopted and I will be able to find the happiness that I know is hidden deep within me. And so, let me begin with the hope that….

Love is…

Love Is... A Chaotic Thing

              Last week, Rachel, Onan and I found ourselves at a skateboarding park a few kilometers from our house. For a while now, Rachel and I have been pushing Onan to try different extracurriculars so that he might find an outdoor activity to draw him away from the almighty screen. Like many children nowadays, our son seems more enthusiastic about electronic devices than anything else. We have done our best to help him develop an interest in something a little more active than the digit calisthenics he strives for. Soccer. Basketball. Badminton. Swimming. Jogging. Hiking. Guitar picking. Snowboarding. Skiing. We have tried them all. Unfortunately, they have all been met with a fairly resounding thbbbttt. Well, that’s not true. He was quite keen on snowboarding. He actually got pretty good at it during our winter trips to Japan. But therein lies the rub. We can only partake in winter activities where there is snow. There isn’t any in Taiwan. And so, rather than giving up, and allowing him to be washed away by the electrical current of today’s generation, we decided to give skateboarding a try.

              Being honest, I had never actually been in a skatepark before last weekend. Oops. Another untruth. I did walk by one last summer whilst taking my mother out for a stroll. But it was empty. The vibe there was so different. Without any skaters to bring the ramps and rails alive, there was no vibe. It was just a vacant lot. The park we walked into last Saturday, however, was something different. The boys, girls, men, and women whipping around on their boards and scooters brought that place to a different level. It was electric. It was so much more than anything I had expected.

              One of the first surprises that really took me aback was the fact that although phones were present, nobody was on them. No one. Well. Shit. Another fib. I was. I was perched up on the levee that bordered the back of the park playing paparazzi for my son. Everyone else, though – they were focused on what they were doing. On nailing that trick. Making that jump. Finding the flow. It was amazing. I must admit that at that moment I felt a little embarrassed at having my phone in front of my face. So, I put it away and just watched. I forced myself to sit and just be in the present. And that was when the magic happened.

              Almost instantly, I began to notice the cacophony of sounds that echoed around the park filling the empty spaces with a hypnotic rhythm. The disorder of wheels slamming, sneakers scuffling, boards snapping and rails screeching blended into a chaotic symphony of motion, passion and drive. I sat staring for more than a few minutes in a trancelike state. Watching in awe as these strangers – Strangers to me. Strangers to each other. – danced around. No competition. No confrontation. Just focus. Everyone there was sharing in this moment. Together. Live. With no distractions. It was a beautiful thing.

              I’d like to say with confidence that we will be spending a few hours each weekend enjoying everything that that park has to offer, but that too would be a lie. Based upon Onan’s track record, I am less than optimistic that he will continue skateboarding much past the four lessons in which he was enrolled. And that’s okay. We will keep trying. Onan will find something. Of that, I am sure. However, for me, those moments shed a few rays of light into the pessimistic darkness that has been plaguing me for the past little while. For me, it was enough.

Love is…a chaotic thing.