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Burning linoleum clings to the nostrils like damp fabric to the skin. It is an unshakeable, sharp, acrid, and chemical fume with a synthetic odor of something unnatural breaking down. It has a mix of plastic-like fumes and an rubbery undertone, as if the very chemical seams holding it together were unraveling in the heat. It evokes a sense of danger or urgency that requires a brief search for smoke or flame. And the stench lingers long after the flames have been extinguished seeping into the air and memories alike.

Fried chicken was meant to be dinner that night, but it never came to be. After burning down the kitchen, the very thought of eating, or even cooking, felt out of reach. That afternoon, after school, I rushed through my homework so I could spend time with my baby niece, who lived with us along with my brother and his wife. We curled up on the couch, her tiny body nestled on my chest as we watched television. When she finally drifted off to sleep, I gently carried her upstairs and settled her into her crib.

My parents would be home around 6:00 or 6:30 that night. Of course, as a veteran latch key kid, I had mastered the art of self-sufficiency, patching the gaps where parents might normally step in. I was accustomed to an empty house. To be honest, the house wasn’t filled with any more sound with them there…the silence between all of us filled every room, even when they were home. I helped out where I could to keep the peace. I mean, what do you say to two adults acting like children that have not broken the silence in years?

“Pass the salt?”

Indeed, it is straightforward, unbothered, and void of ceremony. It skips the heavy lifting of awkward small talk and jumps directly to the kind of casual familiarity that says, I could hold a grudge, but honestly, I’m just trying to eat. It’s not an olive branch, it’s a salt shaker. Simple, necessary, and just enough to break the silence without opening old wounds or inflicting new ones. Because sometimes, the best way to bridge years of silence is to pretend they never happened and hope no one asks about the smell of burning linoleum lingering in the air, right?

I started numbing at age twelve. Life hurt before that, but twelve was two after ten and a lifetime before I understood why. Fast forward nearly forty years and it seems learning is not as intuitive as I once believed. I’ve been rereading all the classic dystopian novels recently, and soma offered a little pill with big relief in Brave New World. Of course, this chemical escape was more about control and pacifying a population than a recreational drug, but the two indeed have something in common. Soma was never forced; however, it was wanted. It was welcomed as an eager surrender to blissful oblivion – “I’m breathing in the chemicals…I’m breaking in, shaping up, then checking out”.

Distraction, sedation, and instant gratification are on demand and reek of the ash of soma. It now comes in the form of glowing screens, endless scrolls, and curated algorithms that keep attentions locked and minds numb. Binge-watch, doomscroll, and swipe…all losing hours, sometimes days, to what feels like nothingness. When the discomfort bubbles up whether it be it existential dread, social unrest, or the ache of disconnection, the soma of the fingertip drowns it out.

Being numb and enjoying soma is not about addiction, rather it is the desperate cycle of opting out. It is a collective shrug in exchange for the illusion of contentment. And in a world where disconnection from nature, from each other, and from ourselves is the norm, opting out has never been easier. My social media accounts have been dark for more than a month and as I wake up, I ask myself was I self-medicating to endure the noise, or to anesthetize myself to avoid asking hard questions about the systems I live in and the life I lead? Did I trade freedom for comfort or critical thought for convenience. Did we all?

“Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarrelling with one another about the steering — every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who says the contrary. They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard…”

Fast forward two and half millennia and people are holding signs in an empty National Mall that read, “We Won”, “God, Country, and Trump”, and “Make America Great Again” celebrating a man who moved his inauguration indoors due to the cold weather and did not invite the masses. The compass needle doesn’t have seemed to move far in two and half millennia.

Funny how a simple block of wood can turn you into a walking pool of nostalgia. Kari and I cleaned out a closet yesterday and we stumbled across this unassuming piece of hardwood, still bearing its faded Joyful Honda price tag from Japan. To most, it’s just a scrap of wood, a forgotten remnant from an unrealized project, but to me, it’s a time capsule.

This block of wood holds the weight of moments and choices with a sense of possibility that comes with raw materials. It is a reminder that we all could be shaped and reshaped into something new. Objects, even the ordinary, become talismans of who you were and what you carried through a moment. I don’t know if I’ll ever do anything with this block of wood. Maybe it’s destined to stay as it is, a reminder of the unspoken poetry in our everyday choices.

For now, it will sit on my shelf to remind me to remember where I’ve been and that there is beauty in unrealized projects and scraps.

Lj

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.