A Well Run Life

Don’t worry The song Don't Worry, Be Happy was written expressly for me. Because if there is nothing to worry about - than I worry about the absence of something to worry about.   I am concerned I may not be getting my point across.... (see what I mean.)   Over the years, I have tried to focus on what gifts I have as an antidote to paralysis. They say comparison is the thief of joy, and they may be right.   However, I am keenly aware that I have many privileges not afforded everyone. My body is not the strongest nor my brain the smartest, but I have good use of both. I am far from rich, but I have been employed steadily since I was old enough to work.   And so I try even when I worry I will fail-   because I know there are so many circumstances that would make the act of "trying" impossible for me.   On October 20th I will be hosting another Pop-Up dinner on Grace Farms in Chandler, AZ. It is a farm-to-table event that I am very proud of.   Am I a restauranteur by training or experience? No. Am I an expert in farms? No. Basically, do I know what I am doing? Not really.   But in the act of trying, I brought a set of experiences many people have loved into the world.   Those of you who’ve been long term listeners and those of you who have purchased one of our handmade charms –   You’ve helped me in this imperfect journey of mine.   Thank you and I promise that I am trying my best to be worthy of that trust.   And  - don’t worry –   I am doing enough of that for both of us.

I don't think of myself as a violent man, but when I hear:   "You look great..... for 48."    I get a little nutty. That qualifier sort of negates the compliment, no?    Am I vain? Ok, so I am vain.   I agree, it is not an attractive quality. And, I am sure that I have some measure of all the 7 deadly sins in my character.    My oldest daughter is 23 and launching the next phase of her life. I sat with her this week. She is marvelous.   People occasionally compliment me as a parent regarding the quality of my kids’ character.   I assure you, the astounding people they are becoming is born entirely of their own hard work and discipline and openness to the good in the world.   I am very lucky.   I am heading into another birthday. Reflecting on what remains the same about me, and what has changed, it is hard not to feel like I should be better a better version of myself.   What failings I have are not due to a lack of effort. I need to external prodding to remind me to improve the quality of my character everyday.   I am not sure if the next stage of my life will be to take all I have learned in the past half-century and accelerate the pace of my development as a person.   Or will I relax into the mixed bag of good and bad traits that comprise my character.   I am habituated to the struggle of overcoming my shortcomings.   I have no idea where I will land.   But – should you be interested – I will keep you posted.  

I have been traveling to big cities these past three weeks. Austin, Chicago and San Diego.    I have walked to nearly all my meetings on these trips. The number of homeless people seems overwhelmingly high in these places.   Is the number higher than usual?   I can't say.   How to give someone their dignity while keeping a reasonable expectation that I deserve personal space- is a question that nags at me during these encounters.   Walking about 6:3 0 AM in San Diego a woman is ensconced in a restaurant’s doorway. She screams at the top of her lungs:   I WANT ICE CREAM.   She is a woman after my own heart.   I fully recognize that each person I meet carries their own unique story and set of circumstances that brings them to their current state.   I am grateful for my life - so in front of you and the divine - let me be unambiguous that I am aware of how fortunate I am.   There is an arrogance to thinking I can help all these people.   Yet there is a moral cowardice in thinking I am disconnected to them all and I can do nothing about any of their plights.   I have picked my spots over the years.   Buying food here and giving cash there.   I am not sure on what the best course of action we should all take.   I admit I did not do it.   But I hope someone got that girl some ice cream.

My Mom is Italian and my Dad is Irish.   I am in the immigrant cycle of Americans where the immigrants were passing in the first 10 years of my life.   Those born in this country primarily identified with their country origin.   As a kid - When I was with my Dad's side  - I was Irish.   When I was with my Mom's side - I was Italian.   A cultural schizophrenic you might say. 
 Each side of the family embraced a specific set of rules of behavior.   Although the underpinning values of those rules were consistent, the expression of those rules were not the same. 
 I knew each side of the family loved me a great deal. However, one side was decidedly more demonstrative when it came to physical affection.  
 As a parent, I followed the side of the family that thought it wise to kiss babies until they cried and hold kids tightly in public until they grew physically strong enough to escape your grasp. 
 We've a new baby in the family.   I learned long ago that people in the west,   far from the Italian and Irish neighborhoods of my youth,   did not have the same frame of reference when it came to hugging and familial affection. 
 It was hard not to kiss the new baby until the poor thing couldn't take it anymore.   I managed to control myself.   From a hot July day in the Arizona desert   I am sending you hopes that someone is loving you more than you can stand it.

It was a big week in our family.    I have a new niece as of last week.   My brother-in-law and his wife added a perfect little cutie-pie to the family. Mother and baby are happy and healthy. And we are so happy to have the new one.   I am rarely accused of being relaxed or calm. Even in repose, I am thinking of what to do next.   One antidote to my monkey-mind has always been taking a nap with a baby on my chest.   I've yet to squish one and my body's instincts seem to keep them safe even when I am unconscious. It was one of my great discoveries when I first became a parent a very long time ago.   And so, I have another chance to relax for a small bit.     In the hospital where she was born, my sister leads roughly 200 nurses that work with babies in all states of health and sickness.    Walking with my sister and seeing premature babies and the expressions on their families' faces reminded me that truly have no problems.   It reminded me that my worrying is generally wasted and misplaced.   As you would expect, my life’s journey holds my attention most often.   In the presence of the newly born, I find it easier to remember how each person is on their OWN unique journey. Seeing someone at the very beginning of all that awaits them causes me to contemplate what their lives will contain.   Focus and care on another.   That turns out to be the best way to relax.      

I am not saying I am competitive, but I was 48 when it happened.   He was 50.   By “it” – I mean having to buy reading glasses.   By “him” – I mean my Dad.   The optometrist handled me well. I told him that I was there to confirm I did not need glasses.    He appropriately and politely ignored me while conducting the exam.   The journey from non-spectacled to bespectacled took less than 30 minutes and did not in fact kill me.   And so, on July 9th 2019 my denial - that my eyes need help reading the newspaper on Sundays - came to an end.   For most of my life, my eyes were superbly sharp. And so, I saw myself as person who would never need glasses.   Now, I can see how silly my complaints about “poor lighting” and my smug attitude of invincibility look.   But, there was an unforeseen gift in the transition this week   As a dyslexic, my typos are legendary in number and the degree of embarrassment they have caused me.    But from now on, if you see something amiss in my writing – it’s probably because I forgot my glasses.   Here’s looking at you.  

The ocean brings me peace in a way no other place can –   In the waves of the Southern California Pacific Ocean I feel divine generosity and a safe smallness.   Salt water and the oxygenated white foam always wash away fatigue and move me towards an awareness of my body that I can’t get on land.   I am suspended. I am unequal to the power of the sea.   And somehow, I am safe.   Body surfing and diving under the waves never bore me. No two waves ever strike me as the same.   Some defect of character makes me suspicious of ease. Nowhere do I notice this aspect of my personality more completely than when I am in the waves.   The mismatch of the ocean shifting it’s weight towards me and my puny strength heighten my sense of how small I am in a universe of bigger things.   But then, when I yield to the waves – when I align myself with dignity to their power – I surf.   You can’t flop into the wave You just tumble   With a humble but dignified turn in harmony with the energy in the water that started far from shore, you can be a small partner in a very powerful dance.

I am in a season of change.   Although, it’s occurred to me that perhaps we are always in a season of change   and we just come in and out of realizing it.   Whichever is the case, I sense newness emerging in my life and myself.   I can’t report precisely how I feel about it –   Right now It’s just a fact to me.   I remember listening to a wise spiritual man give a talk, and he was describing the basic motivations, fears and aspirations present in human beings.   He concluded his remarks by saying:   “This is the human condition. It ought to sound familiar – you all have it.”   I recently took a personality test called the Enneagram. You may be familiar with it. I kept my test results from 7 years ago – and they came out identical.   Am I the same person?   I believe in death and re-birth.   In all my spiritual studies, I always gravitate to the notion that the divine is bigger than us.   I hold on to the idea that I don’t know everything is going to turn out – and that there are outcomes grander and more generous than I can imagine.   My personality may not have changed much in the last 7-years but I insist I am not the same.   We are all living out the human condition – in identical and entirely unique ways.   I am doing my best to renew myself daily. And each time, to be just a little bit better.     Many of you know already like our Facebook page: A Well Run Life. And many of your know we have an online store called A Well Run Life Gear.com   We sell our handmade charms there. Today’s podcast was inspired by the word RENEW and you can find a Teeny Tiny Reminder to RENEW there now.    

The word Grace can mean so many things but idea of un-merited favor is my favorite. I live a life absent so many problems and full of so many blessings. My strengths and weaknesses are so closely bound to each other, that they often work simultaneously for me and against me.  The divine is gentle with me. And I find enormous Grace in my everyday existence when I simply stop to notice.

For years, it’s been my habit to do a podcast near my birthday to mark the moment. Well, it’s been 6 months since my last birthday and so I realize I will soon be staring another one in the face soon. It is certainly a feature of aging that time is measured in different increments as we get older. 5 minutes seemed a reasonable length of time when I was 4, and now I measure time in decades. There will come a time when this annual podcast is full of wisdom, great instruction on living a full life and hilarious wit. But now is not that time.

Some dirty rotten scoundrel stole my Trailer at Grace Farms. I doubt the thief realized that it was my trailer. To the thief, it was “A” Trailer or “The Trailer.” Be that as it may I am taking it personally.

Every wave seems to make it a point to let me know how powerless I am to stop it.   But this doesn’t bother me.   I go over or under their power without any fear.   I don’t sit still easily. I prefer motion to rest.   And I must like to worry –   Because I do it all the time.   I have a relentlessness to me that is endearing if I am solving your problem   And irritating if I am trying to get you to answer my question.   The ocean keeps me quiet by forcing me to hold my breath.   I have been taught by some that A man should know if limitations   And told by others “I am large, I contain multitudes.”   You sit wherever you please. I don’t have any advice today.

I am staring at the Kale. And the Kale is staring back. When it was a seed – small and full of potential – it needed me to coax it from it’s confining shell out to a wide-open world of possibility. Now, it’s life is largely its own. Sun and water feed it and it grows nearly perceptibly in front of my eyes. Always reaching towards the sun I assist nowadays, but mostly does the work without me.

If you are wondering if you are ready for the big adventure ahead.   Let me report form the edges of competence   It’s a dangerous ledge with risks of may even be fatal.   But, let me be an example   I have survived all the consequences of my mistakes   – serious as some have been.   Let the voice in your head keep you humbly honest   And believe me when I tell you:   None of us are hitting mark all the time.   Attend to the details of your desires and try your best to be a good example.  

I am crying. Two seconds ago, I was a middle-aged man planning his day over an Americano. Then, I get a text from my cousin. I am not crying quiet – dignified-like. My nose is running and I am thanking god the bill is already paid. On the way to the car, I compose myself. The week is chock-full of the type of news you carry in your belly. In what appears to be a moment of calm, I call my boss. I report to him that I won’t really be myself today. And then As if to prove the point I start to cry again.

I am standing in front of a steaming pile. It’s taller than I am, and so I get to work. I am raking and shoveling the mulch delivered to Grace Farms with the discipline of an army ant. It’s about 6:30 AM – my morning farm shift – As I shovel deeper into the pile of chipped trees, the heat is obvious. The tree was upright, then it wasn’t. The tree was alive, then it wasn’t. And again – it is one thing becoming another. The morning shifts are short, the responsibilities of day have no pause button for my messy farm project.

The desert winter can be harsh. There are times when it I so wicked one is compelled to put their socks on. Since I am a tough guy, I am going without socks this morning. Out into the garage I step to retrieve the almond milk for this morning’s Americano, and I am stabbed with a razor sharp ice pick straight to my bone. Ok – perhaps that over states the moment  I stepped on a scorpion who met the assault with a sting on the bottom of my middle toe. A scorpion sting is some sort of poison that is basically a cross between Cobra venom and Agent Orange. And for weeks I can trace the nerve that leads from my big toe to somewhere just below my ass. Because that little bastard lit up that neural pathway like so much napalm.

It is an hour after Thanksgiving dinner. Family traditions throttle the pace of any high holiday – national or religious. I am currently throttling my 13 year-old nephew on the nearest basketball court in a post-turkey dinner game of HORSE.  In my family, you won every contest against an adult until you were a certain age. The victories may have been assured, but every adult made in feel authentic. They would wince under the weight of the child’s crushing strategic genius on a game board, cry tears of frustration as the little one dribbles a soccer ball mercilessly or yet another goal, and howl under the pain of the kid’s wrestling I can still remember thinking: I am clearly a genius! I am an unstoppable force of nature in mind and body - the worlds of both Checkers, soccer and wrestling never witnessed such brilliance until the beginning of my reign.  And so we launch you out into the world with the notion you are unstoppable. This Golden Era of your Life lasts until you are about 4 and half – maybe 5. Then – and perhaps it is the lingering influence of the Catholic Church or the immigrant experience or simply a desire not to raise spoiled brats –  The Adults in the family crush the kids in every possible contest that occurs.

I am 20 and playing lead guitar.   I am by far the worst musician in the band.    They likely would have been a house-hold name if they had not been saddled with me.    We played together for a year, and thank god You Tube had not been invented - my children would not survive the embarrassment.   BUT   There was this one gig. We were wedged between two head banging acts - but the crowd had a few friendly faces   And out there.   for one night   we rocked the house.   And I was a rock-n-roller   Or at least that was my experience of it.   27 years later I am on Grace Farms.   We are throwing a party - a dinner - an event.   I am  - by far – the least important person in the execution of   I safely report to you: we rocked the house.    Seriously.   It was awesome.

The Road Runner at Grace Farms is eye-balling me. He was there before me, and he is intent on not letting me forget it. The bird presents himself to me every time I arrive. The colors of his plumage are much more subtle than I realized. I know Road Runners differently because I focused on this Road Runner.