If, when I’m old, you were to ask me to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I predict I’d tell you we had our 72-year-old next-door neighbor Janet Donald over for leftover Stilson rotini dinner, homemade quick bread, a thirteen-year-old shiraz Janet had donated to us a month prior for Carla’s birthday, and some after-dinner Dixit at the kids’ prompting, all while piano jazz played on Spotify and the thermostat was set to a balmy 67°F.
I told her I love having her over.
Did I say it because I love the feeling of moral pride it gives me to know I have my aged next-door neighbor over for dinner and counter her as a friend? In part, yes. But I also said it because I really do like her.
If, in my old age, you asked me to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I predict I’d tell you it was the day I metaphorically threw my hands up in the air about whether I have a principled reason for supporting Friends & Farmers Food Co-op: I don’t. I support the co-op because I enjoy hanging out with those kinds of people at the kinds of functions they hold.
I could go into my reasons for suspecting that “buy local” is a slogan with slippery ethical foundations (hint: for a start, it smacks of egogeocentrism), but I think I’ll leave it at this: I buy local for the pleasure of it. That’s all. It is a luxury. It makes my community a smilier, more human place.
If, in my old age, you asked me to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I predict I’d tell you it was a day I had intended to go hear Paul McCartney play at the Bryce Jordan Center—his first and probably last concert in State College, PA—but had neither found someone to go buy scalped tickets with (Carla was at a Council meeting) nor communicated well with the babysitter, Molly Hunter, who wasn’t going to have a ride home. Top that off with a $475 bicycle maintenance bill earlier that day, and you get me canceling with the babysitter at 6:30 p.m. It helps that I’ve never cared much for arena concerts and that the babysitter had four big exams happening all the next day.
Such is life when you prioritize: Some things go neglected. And very often they are the things that should go neglected.
The thing I’m most grateful for today is all the music-making that happened in my house, especially the “Beautiful Star of Bethlehem” with Matt and the three Christmas carols at the piano right before bedtime with Carla and the kids.
It was a delight yesterday to hear with the kids the Penn State senior flute quartet play with this piece, which had a lick I think they borrowed from Debussy. They did just that: play, passing the fetching melody back and forth, making for an exquisitely planned but apparently ludic soundscape. It made me think of God.
For our date tonight, Sullivan and I purchased the Estes’ Shuttle Express model rocket kit today from HobbyTown USA over in the Benner Pike Shops. He was delighted, and when we returned home, we got started right away. It was gratifying to contribute toward something about which he is avid.
Plus, we found out that there is a maker space in State College now that has open houses every Wednesday evening. Sullivan and I could finally have a medium between us that will help us connect.
The most important thing to happen to me today is that I asked the church to pray for me that my anxiety that lingers and pops up unbidden (for instance, upon looking at an old photograph in the CD insert for Down the Old Plank Road, I felt anxious that the people in the photograph weren’t alive any more), that You, God would take it away. Most memorable among the prayers was that Dave asked you to “talk loud.”
Oh, and I want to watch all ninety episodes of Curious George with the kids via Greta’s Netflix account. And I won a few golf passes by winning the donut-on-a-string contest at Millbrook Marsh’s annual Historic Harvest Festival.
I spent the entire afternoon torpid. I mean, I took a nap on a picnic tabletop today during a church visit to Talleyrand Park. What is it about Sundays? Is this a lethargy I can end by flipping a switch in my brain? Tea this afternoon didn’t help.
The best solution is probably to just go ahead and take the nap.
I enjoy watching my family do things I suspect other families do not but which I consider healthy. In this photo, all three of them are leaning out or about to lean out past the boardwalk rail in searching of jewelweed pods ready to pop.
To our surprise and disappointment, Council voted 3-2 to reject the ordinance as written. That settles the matter until at least after the next election; to insist Council take the matter up again any earlier would be inconsiderate and likely rejected.
How they can go from a consensus agreement at the previous public hearing to keep the chicken ordinance alive, directing staff to make specific modifications, to a 3-2 vote at this public hearing to completely reject the ordinance, staff having made the very modifications they specified, is baffling.
I am very proud to walk town with my children. Among several reasons that came to mind this evening, Éa insisted we take this photo of this 150-year-old magnolia tree planted by Fred Waring, the northernmost species of magnolia—because she loves her friend whose middle name is Magnolia.
For the second consecutive year, I’ve been referred to Chris Kiver by an outstanding member of the State College Choral Society to audition for the Orpheus Singers: Colleen emailed me today about it.
Other than the remarkable depth to which my telling her as an aside that I wasn’t going to sing with the Choral Society this season felt like a confession, the thing I found most remarkable about my emotional response to this message was how much it stirred up again my desires to be a specialist. To pick something, just one thing, and concentrate all my energies into mastering it. Choral singing, solo singing, pop singing, hootenannies, improving neighborhood walkability, improving neighborhood bikeability, building relationships in my neighborhood, front-end web development, sales, tweeting, music appreciation—the list of possibilities feels endless. However, nothing pulls my affections like singing, perhaps because it’s the one with which I have the longest history, the one for which I feel most guilty not having pursued.
But unless my soul changes, I need to consider the following: I want to do those other things. If I plunge into singing to the depth I feel like I want to, I will not be able to tweet, organize Houserville Social Club, engage civically, work on my house, listen through the classical repertoire, or any of the other activities I so enjoy. I would only be able to stand utter commitment to becoming a singer for so long before I’d bail in favor of my life as an enthusiastic generalist.
Walking is one of my favorite activities. That means this afternoon made my happy: I not only got to walk the sheep pastures with God and sing snippets of Delirious? numbers to Him, but also got to walk from Sunset Park to Pattee Library to Rec Hall and back—about one mile each way—with Sullivan and Éa, who enjoyed seeing the sights and climbing things as much as I enjoyed watching them enjoy them.
On our Saturday morning errands, feeling proudly countercultural, I suggested the kids walk ahead of me to Barnes & Noble while I returned spoons Carla had bought from Ross Dress for Less. Sullivan’s eyes widened with excitement at the prospect. So they did it, following the sidewalk as much as they could, as instructed.
In my perfect world, there would be sidewalks connecting Ross to Barnes & Noble, and it would not be extraordinary for a six-year-old to walk to a building three hundred feet away from his dad.
(The photos is from our walk back to the car together.)
A simple experiment in making friends (and thus a community): Let’s gather for a potluck dinner on the second and fourth Thursday evenings of each month.
Open to anyone living in Houserville, Bathgate Springs, Clover Highlands—anyone at all, really, but intended for folks for whom, say, Spring Creek Park is a walkable destination.
“What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured” (Kurt Vonnegut).
This write-up of mine describing the Houserville Social Club on the potluck sign-up sheet on SignUp Genius and the accompanying Vonnegut quote has taken on increasing value in my life recently. As if it really is my mission. Maybe it’s Robin Williams’ death and the admissions of depression that are being published everywhere in its wake that has helped galvanize it.
After an evening with the Houserville Social Club that included a LifeFlight helicopter takeoff, new friends Janine & Kimberly joining us at the table, Wengyi signing up for the email list, a game of cups (frickets) played heartily with Carla, Lara, and the kids, then more dowel/disc/cup fun with just the kids, I find further peace in my current station. I am a:
lover of God,
husband,
father,
brother,
son,
dilettante,
DiamondBack Truck Covers desk jockey,
church member,
neighbor,
community organizer,
someday adopter of children in need,
helper of the cause of the Gospel in the Maldives,
prayer warrior,
and patient, skilled, act-ive lover of anyone who happens to be around me at any time, regardless of socioeconomic class, IQ, or other human differentiator.
The list above is enough of an identity and set of pursuits to satisfy this hungry-for-meaning soul. I need do no other “great” things. If I fulfill my roles above with all my might (the specific, mutable ones subject to Your redirection), I shall be happy, and I shall not blink on Judgment Day.
More importantly, I shall no longer be subject to judge-and-second-guess-myself day, which used to happen, like, every day of my life but now wanes in frequency until it shall soon disappear completely.
And as for my doubts and questions, whether You are a restrictivist, an inclusivist, a universalist, or even a religious figment, my life will be best lived if I live it as though You are completely real. My prayer is that my doubts have three effects: More sympathy, less dogma, especially toward my children, and more action, since faith-as-action is much more important than faith-as-specific-credence to Inclusivist Yahweh, and Restrictivist Yahweh seems to prefer action as well.
Tom Lundin, Dan Sharda, and I trotted over to the ballfield at Spring Creek Park to toss a disc this evening during a Shardas-are-here! shindig at our house that also included Stacy Tibbets. In the end, we ended up playing a game in which Jori Sharda tossed the disc long-distance to all three of us and we fought for it. What happy, sweaty exercise it was! And now that I think about it, the fun bears some relation in my mind to my recent hypothesis that physical affection between heterosexual men in Western societies such as our own will rebound once homosexual men no longer face stigma.
Carla: Are you ready for your [chickens] meeting tonight? Scott: Yeah, it’s just a brainstorm and catch-up meeting. Sullivan: Ketchup? Ketchup is for eggs. Ketchup? Ketchup is for eggs.
