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Some years pass quietly, like the hum of a fan on a lazy summer afternoon. Other years power through, taking breath away, both figuratively and literally. And still others are like getting up after sitting too long making life unsteady, creaky, and are indeed a good reminder of every mile traveled as though “there’s a million soggy miles soaking through the soles of my shoes.” 2024 indeed was the latter! It was a symphony of dissonance and clarity of age – “a beautiful war” – threaded together by a single, overwhelming sensation: I am not in control.

The year will be etched in my memory as one long, chaotic ride, punctuated by moments so vivid they could only be divine or absurd. Moments like America electing a megalomaniac promising cheap white eggs, a duct-taped banana being considered art and costing millions, or Olympic breakdancer, Raygun, making it onto a world stage.  Yet other moments like a total eclipse to put life into scale, a tiny hippo that united the world, or a hurricane that humbled humans all existed alongside one another. So absurd they must be divine? Or so divine they must be absurd? Either way, someone or something is laughing with a sanitary napkin taped to their ear while eating a banana!

2024 was not all lost to the absurd. My wife once again endured a year of multiple sclerosis with a grace I do not know, and science, with its clinical trials promised progress and brought hope. Kari and I cling to the belief that advancing humanity’s knowledge is a mission worthy of all the heartache it sometimes demands. And yet, there were nights when I stared at the ceiling, acutely aware of how little I could do to help or steer the course of life for myself or others.

The sensation of losing control doesn’t come all at once. It creeps in slowly, like water dripping from the ceiling and rising at your feet until you realize you’re no longer standing on dry ground. This year, I waded through decisions at school, juggling the weight of administrative red tape with the raw reality of students who needed more than systems could provide. I waded through family moments, watching my beautiful bride do the same, knowing I couldn’t shield her or me from getting wet. But I knew together we would dry one another off and listen to the process of pain. It was in this loss of control that a strange freedom arises. What do you do when you can no longer stop the water? You swim! You float! You learn to find joy in the drift and meaning in the unpredictable.

So here I am, looking back at a year that spun me in circles and taught me how to hold steady anyway. If 2024 was a story, it wasn’t one I wrote. But maybe that’s the point. Stories, like rivers of water, carve their paths even when you’re too busy treading water to notice. As the year closes, the Ljs are learning to embrace the current, to find beauty in the chaos, and to anchor ourselves in the things that matter: the sound of conversation, the quiet of resilience, and the belief that even when we’re floating, we’re still moving forward.

Here’s to 2024—the year of letting go, and somehow, holding on.

Lj, Kari, Stone and Amaiya

I can point to events and moments that shaped, guided, and created something new in me – a core memory if you will. Aihara Sensei asking me if I wanted to be an ALT or a teacher, drawing a house on the moonroof of the blue Dodge Shadow as Kari and I looked up at the stars at Lake Arcadia, becoming a father…twice…being fired from OC on August 9^th so donors could feel comfortable who was on campus, March 12^th, 2020 when a meeting was had to close our schools because of a virus, and recently, the Robb Elementary school shooting on May 24^th, 2022 where 19 children were sacrificed at the altar of gun rights.

Watching testimony today from Mr. Reyes, the teacher that was shot two times and survived, created a visceral response in me. Watching him apologize to parents, administrators, and the public that he did all he could to protect these children brought such anger in me. In that moment, that moment of such pain, loneliness and trauma for Mr. Reyes, I was guided to a new core memory – apathy.

Apathy is the secret to happiness. It is not fulfillment, purpose, ability to make a difference, or money. It is apathy. To be unconcerned with the all that is happening around me, yet be in the moment with my family is what will bring about happiness. So, today, listening to Mr. Reyes apologize that the years of training, preparation, and dedication to his craft was not enough, I no longer have hope for education. I no longer believe education is the great equalizer. I no longer believe education to serve students and society. I no longer believe education to make a difference. I no longer believe education matters beyond wealth building. And I no longer believe education is my path.

Apathy.

On Tuesday of this past week, twenty-one lives were cut short along with the gunman’s life – but he was already empty and dead. I have no grace for those that harm children. I have no grace for those that disturb the sacred space of school. I have no grace for those that choose violence over conversation. Recently, my reserve for grace is empty because those that are violent, ruin sacred spaces at schools, and harm children on so many levels are ever-present. I have not seen much of an omnipresent god recently, but the evil that has come and filled the space it once occupied is in plain sight and continually adding more daily. None of this is nurturing. None of this is healthy. None of this is worthy of time, space, or matters much at all – except that it is evil. And evil must add to its numbers by subtracting those that see the wonder of life.

On Wednesday, after I lost my shit at work and caused several to walk down the hall to investigate the commotion, I left my office to walk the halls at one of the schools in my district. I needed to recenter. I needed to focus on an empty school filled with promise and potential. It was an overwhelming walk that was not helpful but rather needed. I was unable to shake the image of the tragedy out of my mind. I felt as though I was coming apart. I felt for the first time, defeated – not battle defeated, but lost the war defeated.

There is no hope in this post. I have no story from Japan that will make it all better. I have no appealing image that corresponds to this post, and I certainty do not have any words of wisdom of what this all means. Tuesday broke me, Wednesday scattered my pieces, and Thursday and Friday were filled with trying to work at school feeling overwhelmed not knowing if I would come back together.

While I have no words of wisdom, I will ask if you know a teacher, reach out to them. For two years society placed so much on the shoulders of teachers. Corporations, politicians, pastors, and parents placed tremendous amounts of stress on educators to do what others would not – just show up. This educator needs far more than a break…but, alas, summer school starts on Wednesday. And my track record for Wednesdays as not been so good lately!

It doesn’t have to be like this
All we need to do is make sure we keep talking

Stretched. Broken. Hopeful. 2020 has indeed proved to stretch us all beyond our limits. Yet, we continue with one foot in front of the other. Is there any other way?

It’s a Wonderful Life was on the other night and I was struck by the scene when George Bailey heads up the stairs and the knob on top of the newel post comes loose in his hand. He becomes angry at how broken the entire system is and the loose knob is just a reminder of how broken and fragile life truly is. It is easier to cover all this brokenness up in a bad vibrato of forced joy rather than recognize and sit among the brokenness. I encourage you to not force dreams – either your dreams or other’s dreams – but rather live life. Even if this season is not dreamy, live it and engage the brokenness. We are all human beings struggling to create meaning and purpose in a year filled with shit and no toilet paper. We are human beings that have headed up the proverbial flight of stairs with each floor adding a new broken knob to our collection to be held and juggled as life unfolded in COVID-19 fashion. This year was messy, and no vaccine will inoculate life from being messy.

George Baily, after heading up his own set of stairs, said this:

– “…It’s this old house. I don’t know why we all don’t have pneumonia. Drafty old barn! Might as well be living in a refrigerator… Why do we have to live here in the first place, and stay around this measly, crummy old town…”

It’s not the house. It’s not COVID. It’s not the anti-science conspiracy nut jobs. It’s the lack of…the lack of relationships that have made this year hard. The mess has changed. It has become more personal in sorts, while becoming less personal in other ways. We all have had to deal with the demons placed in our lives, and it has been difficult to slay them because our people are not there to journey and fight alongside us. We are alone. But we continue because we understand there is value in the struggle. A broken knob is better than no knob! And that is what the Ljs have learned in 2020…relationships are everything!

Nadia Bolt-Weber, an unorthodox Lutheran minister, writes these words concerning relationship and community:

“Jesus does not just cure people’s diseases and cast out their demons and then say, “Mission accomplished.” He’s always after something more than that because the healing is never fully accomplished until there is a restoration to community.”

May we all enter 2021 holding on to the community we have and making a point to have relationship with that community. 2021 will be different than what we expect, so let the expectations die and the community live. Together we will put one foot in front of the other…and in doing so, our family hopes to walk your way in 2021!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Ljs!

I am tired. Like really tired. Like did not get enough sleep for the last six months tired. More like too much sleep mixed with not enough sleep, then tossed in a bag of emotional fuckery to be mixed with a magical blend of spices that include anxiety, joy, depression, confusion, anger, shapeless ambiguity, and a constant on state to create the most delicious middle finger-lickin’-good bucket of cosmic twaddle this side of a pandemic. And it’s an election year! Between an incompetent old man and another incompetent old man, I feel as though my choices are full virtual school with no internet or a limited blended model with classes every other Friday with band still meeting every day at 5 AM.

I feel disconnected. I feel overwhelmed. I feel as though the house of cards will soon fall. I feel. And for this, I am grateful. I am able to feel. I am indeed in a funk. And G.I. Joe would tell me that self-awareness is half the battle. And I would tell G.I. Joe to mind his own business before I remove his arm from his socket. Of course, I am now talking to a G.I. Joe doll but this isn’t strange, is it? As long as he does not talk back, we are good, right? Goodness! But don’t I want to feel? Existence has a lot to do with pain! The religious among us will quote some obscure book, chapter, and verse to a promise of a better afterlife. I am here now. Suffering happens in real time, and if God cannot deal in real time, what’s the point?

Now before anyone offers an essential oil, invites me church, or brings a brother to admonish me, stop. Just stop. Here’s what you can do. I’ve been praying for six years for God to take away MS from my wife. It hasn’t happened. My righteousness needs more righteousness. Maybe you really are more righteous than me as you believe. Let’s find out together as we bow our heads to pray.

I am tired of the twaddle, the tweets, the twats, MS, and the fuckery. Aren’t you?

All you do is scare and lie to try and get what you want. You’re a godless woman. Ain’t you tired, Miss Hilly? Ain’t you tired?

Thin walls have a burden to hold in the sights and sounds of those inside their confines. They never did their job worth two shits when I was growing up. Between the ages of thirteen and what felt like forty, I lived in Plattsburgh, New York – a small town in upstate New York nestled on the shores of Lake Champlain close to Vermont and nowhere. Plattsburgh Air Force Base found refugee in the beautiful and serene landscape with a dozen intercontinental nuclear missile silos scattered about the landscape. As young teenagers, my friends and I wondered if the silos were actually as cold and empty as we were told by the adults. I do know the concrete bunkers held secrets tighter than the fragile walls of the quarters where we all lived at Plattsburgh Air Force Base.

My father was stationed at PAFB in the Air Force during the end of the era of the Strategic Air Command. Responsible for the land-based intercontinental nuclear arsenal, SAC was the enduring phallic symbol of war never fought with a set of brass balls in a sac of kevlar. There was plenty of testosterone to go around, and nowhere to exercise it. My father did not work in a silo guarding over a set of codes. Rather, he sat in an office and handled paper for the assignments, promotions, and separations of his fellow Airmen on base. Not nearly as spicy as guarding over a blinking red button, but processing paperwork has its perks. For one, my father did not beat the shit out of me. For another, he was not in harm’s way. It was a win win. Sadly, not every military brat was as lucky as me.

I moved from Springdale, Arkansas to PAFB in 1987 during the decline of glam metal – voices were high and leather pants were tight. Def Leppard’s Hysteria album dropped shortly after arriving on base as did U2’s Joshua Tree album. With or Without You and Love Bites equally shared and fueled my young teenage angst. I still find comfort on U2’s One Tree Hill, and Def Leppard still ignites my Rocket. I never could sing high or wear my leather pants tight, but damn, my high and tight haircut was the bee’s knees.

On the south side of base was a large swath of trees stretching as far as my imagination would allow. The South Side Trails held many paths for me – none of them good, yet all necessary. I learned to smoke cheap Doral cigarettes, drink cheap wine, and enjoy the fine essays written in Playboy. I learned what made a true friend and what did not. I learned I was alone with others in this world and it was a fucked up place. The South Side Trails was the place within the place that I grew up. Not that I knew my head from my ass, but I woke up while my father was stationed at PAFB. I was able to see the world was not all Ho Hos and Sno Balls.

As I mentioned, the walls were thin. For my house, it was of no issue. My father did not beat me or my mother, and my brother and sister were out of the house. My parents did not talk much to each other or me. Before you assume I found this to be a problem, I did not. It was just the way it was. My neighbors, friends, and my friends’ neighbors were not so lucky. The walls of their quarters did not contain the domestic violence, the alcoholism, the porn addiction, the hate, the vocal emptiness, and the gross abuse. There was a reason we all hung out at the South Side Trails – no one got hit, raped, or cursed out because they forgot to replace the lid of the trach can or rinse the sink after doing the dishes.

Recently, I have been wanting to connect in a meaningful way with my childhood domiciles. I started with PAFB because it was the most impactful. I found a treasure trove of photos online that brought a flood of emotions back. Those walls did not contain the human sensations – no matter how gross – back then or now. I am thankful for my awakening at PAFB that led to years of angst because peace has come. I reminisce about the outings of my friends and me at the South Side Trails and I know I took the right path.

Two million coconuts a month are exported from a small island in Thailand Kari and I visited back in 2001. The island smelled like a 1970’s ad for Banana Boat tanning oil. The locals were golden, the vacation was golden, and the company was golden – may the “Great Eight” reunite soon! Kari and I went on many excursions while we visited this beach paradise. One of those excursions involved a hike into the jungle to enjoy the scenery offered by the surroundings. On the way to the trailhead, our hair waving in the wind as we rode mopeds sans a helmet – nothing bad could possible happen while on vacation, right? –  we spotted a few monkeys swinging from the trees.

As we approached the trailhead on our mopeds, we noticed several signs warning tourists not to feed the monkeys, as it would upset the natural order. The long-tailed macaques feast on fruits, seeds, and a variety of opportunistic food sources – including cheeky tourists throwing Pringles their way. I looked up into the trees and I saw these relatively small monkeys jump limb from limb using their tail as a shaggy counterbalance to make sure they remain in the trees. It was amazing to see. The entire scene – the Banana Boat coconut aroma, surrounded by a jungle older than Jesus, monkeys jumping in the canopy above me, all while holding the hand of my bride – created a perfect moment. A moment I often recall with a smile!

That day, I never did see a monkey fall from a tree. But I have witnessed a monkey fall from a tree. Six years ago on a Tuesday in the late afternoon, Rick Reed fell from his tree. This day has hung heavy in my life ever since.

Hollywood does not accurately capture the last moments of a human being clinging to life. It’s not tranquil, spiritual, profound, or any other bullshit we sell ourselves. It’s ugly. It’s slow. It’s painful. It’s unavoidable. It’s tragic. Six years later, I still wake up more times than I care to admit from the sounds of my friend trying to breath.

Life does not play fair despite the belief that it does. Rick Reed was taken far too soon. He was a good man that lived his life in a beautiful struggle for so many to see. I miss Rick and have thought lately about our last two weeks together.

I regret passing up a meal with Rick shortly before he went to the hospital for the last time.
I am joyful to know I kept the pad of paper he scribbled on to communicate at the hospital.
I regret packing up his apartment and throwing away his belongings before he died. Oh, I lament this. And all under the guise of when he gets out of the hospital he wouldn’t be able to live on his own. Really?
I am joyful to know Rick Reed owned the movie Legally Blonde on DVD and a pantry full of Japanese food.
I regret the last day I saw Rick Reed because he couldn’t write what his eyes so clearly communicated – fear of the unknown.
I am joyful to have held his hand and to have been with him when he died.

The struggle of the regrets and the joys is something I know Rick would have loved to help me through. Oh, the ironic tragedy.

Somedays you must observe the ramen. Other days you must observe your beautiful bride while enjoying ramen!

I learned to read from an early age. Words were my friends. Words did not leave the page. Words stayed. People did not. The military made sure of that. I was accustomed to the ebb and flow of people in my life. I was either the new kid walking into a cafeteria of nondescript nameless eyes never brave enough to do more than offer a second glance, or I was giving the second look and offering nothing more than what was given to me to some poor soul. But words never left. Words always were welcoming and welcomed. Words wanted to sit next to the new kid. Words wanted to sit with me. So I often found myself sitting alone with words, never bothering with “Operation Awkward Blank Look”, knowing the the war had already been lost long ago.

The words on the pages of the books I held so dear never changed; they were the same as yesterday, as they were today, and will be tomorrow. Max would sail to the island of the Wild Things, Sally and Dick would meet the Cat in the Hat, Charlotte would spin her web for Wilbur, and Miss Twiggley would live in her tree with her dog Puss no matter if I lived in Alaska or Arkansas. The stories never changed – the words were always the same. My story may have moved from base to base, but Tikki Tikki Tempo never left the well. Books allowed me a sense of control in where I was, who I was with, and what we were doing because my reality dictated no control over any aspect of plot, setting, or character.

There may not be a bologna sandwich with mustard and a juice box in a brown paper bag, but there is still the proverbial cafeteria. The weird kids are still to the left, the popular kids front and center, and everybody else on the right – and once again, I have to walk into that room and pretend not to give a shit I am alone. But, I am alone.

I was deemed redundant in my job on August 9th, 2016. My job and department were cut by one of those front and center kids because popularity and power always demand fuel for the ego no matter the expense of burning it. I thought I had finally unpacked all my boxes to stay happily ever after. I was wrong. I packed my office and said my goodbyes with a familiarity only time and practice perfects like art marrying form and function. I brought the boxes home and I placed them in the back closet and shut the door.

I opened that door 315 days later. I opened the door to see the boxes looking back at me with nondescript eyes offering nothing – nothing but names like Hammermill, Xerox, and Georgia Pacific. I pulled out Mr. Hammermill and sat next to him on the ground. I opened the box and began unpacking – unpacking all of it! Next was Xerox. She offered little more than a box full of ties, hangers, and a suit coat waded up in haste not taking advantage of any of the hangers piled on top or below. But sweet, sweet Georgia Pacific offered gem after gem – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Learning to Bow, Hard Laughter, Sophie’s World, and Miss Twiggley’s Tree. Miss Twiggley’s Tree! I had not seen Miss Twiggley and her dog Puss in many years. I pushed aside Georgia Pacific and opened to page one of Miss Twiggley’s Tree:

Funny Miss Twiggley
Lived in a tree
With a dog named Puss
And a color TV.
She did what she liked,
and she liked what she did,
But when company came
Miss Twiggley hid.

Introverts unite! I love Miss Twiggley. She was still living in that tree after all these years! She still hated people and kept the company of bears. And she still slept in her crazy hat not giving two shits what people thought. I loved it. I soaked up each word on the pages being sure to take in the illustrations as it was the first, last, and only time to see them. I hunted each page for my handwriting as I often wrote in my books as a kid. I smelled the book. I think it smelled like one of the twenty-seven houses I lived in as a kid? I tried to remember how the back cover received its early departure and why my sister’s name and address were written in the front of what was obviously my book! I wonder when we lived at 103-3 H Street? Where was it? Hell if I knew, but I knew Miss Twiggley was still in that tree just where I left her. Words are precious and so was the love that Miss Twiggley had for those that laughed and ridiculed her. Wait. What? She did what? The mayor and his bitch wife, the plumb Mrs. Honk, and the lethargic Joe Pettibone? After all they did? Those front and center little twits were welcomed in to Miss Twiggley’s tree house? Yes.

And Miss Twiggley found out
Something wonderful, too:
When emergencies come,
You don’t think about you.
You help all you can.
And you never ask why.
Then the first thing you know,
You forgot to be shy.

Miss Twiggley may have stayed in her tree, but it seems she is “adulting” much better than me! And honestly, I do not remember that ending! What the hell? It’s a woman that lives in a tree with bears! Where is she going to put everybody? Ain’t nobody got space for that! Did the story change? These pages look original – yellowed and stained with what can only be peanut butter and jelly and crayons. What changed? Me? No. I am that same kid. Yes, I am that same kid. But rather than look at those nondescript nameless eyes and not be brave enough to do more than offer a second glance, I have spent my adult life making those nameless eyes my friends. I gave myself worth by giving others worth. The words did not change, and the story remained the same, but my story changed allowing me to understand Miss Twiggley in a way I had never done before. Change has always been hard, but my own literacy and love for words has proved to be a catalyst for my own understanding for what was needed, when it was needed, and where it was needed. Together, Miss Twiggley and I are changing the world…but I am leaving the “mayor” in the boat!

As I prepared dinner yesterday, I watched the live floor debate of SB441 of the 57th Oklahoma Legislature. The crux of this bill is to create a minimum number of instructional days in a school calendar year – a good thing!

In recent years, nearly 100 districts in Oklahoma have added time onto the beginning and the end of the school day and either removed a Monday or a Friday. The main purpose of why schools have taken these measures is to save funds as the per pupil spending is down about fifteen percent since 2008 – a bad thing! – and class sizes and class loads have surged. Class sizes of thirty-five to forty students are not uncommon.

As I cut the sausage into equal widths to allow for uniform cooking (equitable pieces…a novel idea), it hit me that none of the ladies or gentlemen that spoke knew education. Indeed, all may have been well educated, but not a single one knew how to educate. No one spoke of the kids except a quick political theater snippet about “remembering the kids” – don’t mind me, I just threw up a little in my mouth.

As a whole body, the Oklahoma legislators would have a difficult time toasting bread with instructions. They continually make a common mistake of nearly all freshman theology students – failure to define the terms. I believe “to educate” has yet to be defined and agreed upon by all vested parties. The legislators want good grades, the parents want safe schools, the teachers want respect, and the students want to play and learn.

At my district, we test at the beginning of the year, the middle, and the end with the MAP tests to evaluate growth and performance – six weeks. Then, state testing – four weeks. Then, speciality tests such as the WiDA – twelve weeks. Total time in testing for the district is a minimum of twenty-two weeks for the district to prove good grades mandated by the State. School is in session for thirty-six weeks. That is the equivalent of the Oklahoma legislators, who work about seventy days with Fridays off (a four day work week – WTF?), working twenty-seven long days before their nine month summer vacation starts. Testing, in its present form, needs to pretend it’s Friday and take the day off!

Can we all agree testing is not education? nor is safety? respect? or play and learning? Wait, what? That last one sounds vaguely familiar and something this gentleman needs more of to turn that RLF (resting legislator face) upside down!