I❤️cORvallis!

The last couple of posts were about roundabouts.  Traffic circles.  Like the one at the intersection of West Hills and 53rd.  The only roundabout in Corvallis.  There was one at 10th and Grant, but it was demolished—years before our family arrived here.  I like roundabouts, having spent years of my life (a third of it in fact, I just did the math) overseas where roundabouts abound.  They are faster, safer, and more efficient, if you use them correctly.

But, I don’t really want to talk about physical roundabouts; I want to talk about the extended metaphor in my prior posts.  We’ve exited.  Perhaps we’ve even parked the car.  We are here in Corvallis, Oregon, and life is good.  Exceptionally good.

I’ve become a Realtor®️.  I’m at the best brokerage in town.  In the valley, if you ask me.  I love what I’m doing: leveraging my knowledge from personal transactions (and for over a year, now, from daily study and analysis), helping people buy and sell real estate as painlessly and profitably as possible.  I’m still an educator, and I love what I’m doing.  (I’m also directing a couple of music ensembles, and still supervising student teachers, on a part-time basis, for a university).  Arlee is writing, and involving herself in community theater.  Life is good.  Did I mention?

We did our research, and chose Corvallis intentionally.  We thought we would like it here, but, it just keeps getting better and better, as we dig in.  And I’m happier and healthier than I’ve been in years.  Turns out (Twain’s boiling frog) I was stressed out, and not even fully aware.  Now I’m choosing my own hours, and my own associations.  I’m in a business that focuses in large part on building and nurturing relationships (fun and rewarding).

So, thank God for the (metaphorical) roundabouts, and for the road finally taken (it made all the difference!)

Leaning In

I'm revisiting a draft post, that I never finished, from last March.  The whole summer passed since I wrote (but did not publish) this:

"Last May I posted a metaphor--our family was in a traffic circle, circling round and round, as we explored divergent paths.  Here we are, coming close to a year later, and still circling.  And, how many roads there seem to be, beckoning with divergent possibilities!  It's unsettling, and stressful, and exciting, and hopeless, and hopeful, and still dizzying."

So, in July, something finally happened:  we shot out of the traffic circle.  Into another traffic circle.  In Europe, roads are indeed set up that way sometimes.  So, still sort of circling again, but now in a different circle.

In July, we sold our Medford home, and moved to Corvallis.  We are in a wonderful neighborhood, and a wonderful house, the idea is it's our retirement house, our "forever" house (though, perhaps there is no such thing, with us...)  We love it.  We chose the community very intentionally:  we fell in love with Corvallis through regular visits to our son in college at Oregon State University.  We find that the ethos, the vibe, the norms, the "feel," and so forth, here...fit.  We are with our tribe.  As I'm found of saying, everyplace has its charms and its challenges, and everything is a trade-off.  So far the shine has not worn off, and the charms are, well, charming.  We like it here.

I still don't know what the future holds for me professionally.  I'm open to options.  I'm working on putting together a video blog, on the theme "Parents are Partners." I'm consulting with a communications agency.  I'm preparing articles for publication.  I'm still open to, and interviewing for, a variety of K-12 leadership posts, internationally (that would mean leaving our wonderful new home--at least me leaving it, perhaps the family staying back for awhile).  I'm looking at (and being looked at) for post-secondary teaching positions--both online and traditional.  I'm intrigued by looking at opportunities outside of education as well:  investing, and real estate (investing and sales).  I'm looking at teaching music, part-time,  and busking and gigging a bit, for fun (and nourishment of the soul).  So, yeah, in that sense, more roundabout.  And I guess that means the challenges are, well, challenging.

But, there's still plenty of gas in the car, and we're leaning into the curve.  So, for now, it's fun!

Waiting for my TARDIS

So I'm a Dr. Who fan.  Also Star Trek, all of the series from the original to the latest, and excited about the new one in production.  I think what appeals to me in both fictional and futuristic universes is the hope, and the celebration of humanity as a beautiful, wonderful, meaningful force for good.

I successfully defended my dissertation, and have completed all requirements for the Ed.D. in Interdisciplinary Leadership at Creighton University--with conferral scheduled at the end of this term, in August.  So, while it is not exactly what my dear mother had in mind when she said she wanted me to be a doctor (she expected an M.D.) for the whole of my childhood, well, I guess I'm a "doctor," at last.

I taught my wife to be my straight man for the schtick:

ME:  Yeah, so now I'm just waiting for them to send my TARDIS.
SHE:  Honey, I don't think you are THAT kind of a doctor.
ME:  Wait, what? (expression of shock and dismay)

Unfortunately most of our friends do not share our affinity for Dr. Who, and are merely puzzled by what I think is patently amusing.  It loses impact with explanation, "See, the doctor, he is just called the doctor, but is a time lord, and travels through time and space in a phone box that is bigger on the inside, and I'm acting like I thought all this time if I were a doctor that I too would get a TARDIS--that's what they call the device--and be able to travel through time and space, and go around making a difference..."

Well, as I think about it, I am traveling through time and space (though on a humbler trajectory), and I do aim to make a difference--and use my doctoral studies in the process.  And, I do maintain optimism and hope for humanity, and a belief in its intrinsic good.

I'm still waiting for them to send my TARDIS, though.

Moving Towards Normalcy

It's over a year since Richard, my father-in-law, died.  It was his terminal diagnosis last spring that seemed to start the roller coaster ride:  Arlee moving in with them to help care for him and her mother; me resigning from my principal job at Sacred Heart; my own mother's hospice and death; my mother-in-law's rapid decline deeper and deeper into dementia, and through three moves in care facility and many hospitalizations, then her hospice, and passing; handling the logistics of those estates, that is, bringing three lives to legal and logistical closure, with so many threads dangling; dealing with the gamut--those "seven stages of grief," they churn around--of emotions that Arlee, and my sons, and I experienced and are experiencing; our continuing to manage our lives and household and futures throughout, as life indeed goes on; my continued attempt to finish my doctoral dissertation, to look for a good fit job for next school year; and just for the heck of it teaching a couple of music classes to help out at St. Mary's the local independent Catholic high school.  That was a long, rambling, breathless sentence like it was a long, rambling, breathless year.

Now, things are settling down, shaking out.  I am realistically going to finish my dissertation and have it ready for defense this summer.  I have faith that whatever is right--whether that is a position that takes our family to a school elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest, overseas, or something that keeps us here locally--will work out, professionally, for the ensuing year.  We are coming to terms with our losses, and also, as Arlee has put it, our new roles and station (we were the children who "came home," and now the patriarch/matriarch "home" that is "come home" to...) in the circle of life.  We are looking for the "forever house" that will help us fill that role:  even if it ends up we move away for a bit, as has been our nomadic want, it we be there (temporarily rented out, perhaps) for us to return to and eventually retire to.  We are looking in Ashland, and suburbs of Portland and Seattle, for the right space and the right neighborhood and the right "tribe."

Life is far from settled, but that's OK.  I've described it as reaching not exactly a crossroads, or fork in the road, but as if we've entered a roundabout, or traffic circle, and are just circling in a holding pattern, considering the multiple paths.  Soon, but not quite yet, it will be time to take a turn.

We are back to doing "normal" things (as opposed to doing "whatever is next," limping along in "normal" life while doing "the next thing," in care of our parents).  In the last couple of weeks, we've been living our more "normal" lives.  We went to see a fantastic play, a production of Henry IV in a modern setting (kudos, OSF).  We have been to a couple of Ashland art walks, and an author talk, and a Disrupting Hate in Public Spaces workshop at the Medford Library.  I've done some re-engineering on our backyard deck, saving an oak tree from strangulation.  We've seen Eli march in a parade, playing his clarinet with the middle school band.  We've hiked in Prescott Park, and Lithia Park.  We've gone out to dinner and lunch and brunch a number of times.  I got a new used iPhone5 (the battery on my trusty 4 gave out after seven years).  We've watched some nice movies together on Netflix.  We sold our Reedsport home, a vestige of our time there, that had been rented once but had been sitting vacant for some time, and thus costing money and stress in upkeep, taxes and so forth; we sold it to a family that I believe will love it (it's a wonderful house) as we did.  OK, that's not such a "normal" event--it's not every day you buy or sell a home--but, a move towards "normalcy."  One less distraction, one less thing to worry about.  Never mind the capital loss (seems like "buy high, sell low," is not necessarily the wisest strategy).  We're getting there, yes?

Things are bound to return to "normal."  Whatever that is.  Because, I'm getting dizzy in this roundabout.

Onward.

Alzheimer's hurts!

This is a tough, tough year for our family.  Thank God we had the foresight to come back stateside a couple of years ago, to be with our aging parents and ease their transitions.  Thank God we had the resources and will for me to be able to take off work, to support, physically, emotionally, logistically, our parents in a time of need, this year.

Arlee's dad passed away in May, after a bout with cancer and a few weeks on hospice.  My own mom went on hospice, with a whole soup of health issues, on the same day.  She passed away last October, thankfully peacefully after her own set of struggles.

With Arlee and I both as only children, we have carried all aspects of those care transitions:  advising and managing hospice care, making final arrangements, and working to learn about and sort out the legal and financial details that accompany departing from this planet.  It turns out, if you have never done that, that these things can be quiet complex, and very time consuming, at the same time as being very emotional.

But the biggest, hardest piece of all this turned out to be caring for Arlee's mom, diagnosed with Alzheimer's and vascular dementia.  Arlee's father, before he got sick, had done an outstanding job, misguided though his approach was, at hiding the progression of his wife's disease from her, from us, from friends, neighbors and doctors.  We knew mom was a bit forgetful, but only when dad took to his sickbed did we learn she was forgetful of things like, what happened five minutes ago; did I eat breakfast this morning; which way is my bedroom again?

Arlee moved in with them in their home, some fifty miles from our own home, during her dad's illness, and for some time thereafter, but we concluded that an assisted living setup was going to be necessary for her mom.  Arlee had her own family to care for.  Staying there in her parent's home was not tenable, nor was the thought of moving her mom in with us at our house--the stairs were an obstacle, as was her literally constant demand for attention and reassurance.

We ended up moving her to a very nice, upscale assisted living facility about twenty minutes from our home.  It was really nice; upon touring it, my question was--when can I move in (the director said I would be old enough in about five years--I'm not quite sure how I feel about that).  Sadly, she did not take to the place.  We visited almost daily, but she would not remember our visits.  She called us scores of times (literally) each day, sometimes pleasant, more often fearful or angry or agitated.  Sometimes she wanted to be picked up from "this hotel."  Sometimes someone had stolen her money (it was in the locked drawer we would remind her).  Sometimes her husband had left her for another woman.  Sometimes we had stolen her driver's license (we were holding it for her, at her request), or her car (she had not driven in years).  Or someone had taken her ironing board (the facility did her laundry for her).  Or all her clothes (she had closets full of them).  We ached for her, and it smarted when she said cruel and hurtful things to and about us, as well, as paranoia is part of the disease.  We learned about the Thirty-Six Hour Day.  We tried to make happy interactions and activities, taking joy in a passing smile, a foot tapping to music, a piece placed in a jigsaw puzzle on the card table.  She had happy moments, but sad, anxious, angry, and frightened hours, and days, despite our and the staff's best efforts.  The worst was the hundreds of times she had to experience the grief anew, realizing her beloved husband of sixty-two years, was dead.  Had been dead for months, and she had forgotten that again.  "How could I forget that?" she would lament.

It became apparent by November that the staff at that facility, geared toward a different clientele, were not able to meet her needs; she moved at their impetus to an associated memory care facility.  The good news was it was only five minutes from our home, and the staff there were geared especially towards her specific kind of needs.  The bad news was she never took to the place, isolating herself in her room, grieving, eating less and less, and becoming weaker physically as well as cognitively.  She was in and out of the hospital, and towards the end did seem happier and more at peace in many ways, but was progressively less present with us--she recognized us less, forgot our names more, began to call Arlee by her long-deceased aunt's name (Lorraine saw herself as the little sister, being cared for by her big sis).  She entered hospice in late January, and left us for good on Groundhog Day.  That is, she died on Groundhog Day.  She had actually left us much earlier.

Bless the caregivers at these places, and the hospice workers--they were wonderful to her, and to us.  It did not make any of it easy at all, for any of us.

Now, we are sorting through our own grief and loss, some guilt, some self-pity, financial and legal affairs, estates, probate, and so forth.  It is complex and time consuming, and seems to involve interminable waiting on hold, endless recitation of social security numbers and birth dates, a few "catch-22s" and a lot of just plodding forward one step at a time.

We keep telling each other it will be over soon.  But, it won't.  In a way, the process, especially working through all the artifacts that make up a life, is a way of saying goodbye.  It is a reminder about what is really important in the end:  it's our relationships and the difference we make for and to one another.

Now, our Faith tells us our loved ones are in a better place, a better state.  Their suffering is over.  But nonetheless, it hurts.  Loss hurts.  Alzheimer's hurts.

But, we'll take the lessons, and we will take the fond memories that are mixed in, and the blessing it has been to be able to be present, to help Arlee's parents, and my mom, transition from this life.  One day, we'll need that kind of help, too.

Onward.

The damage is done

I have been studiously apolitical on my Facebook page and in my blog.  As a school leader, I have intentionally avoided using social media as a soapbox to proclaim or forward my personal biases or agendas.

I'm about to express a political opinion.  See, two things have changed.  First, I am not currently employed or affiliated with any organization.  I do understand that I will be again in the future, and that the internet is permanent (if only everyone understood that reality!).  I'm OK with that.  Second, we as a nation, in the United States, have forwarded entrepreneur and reality star Donald Trump as a major party candidate (Republican, as it were, even though Trump's historic stances do not align with that party's platform).

Opinions, in support of or in opposition to, that particular candidate dominate the Internet right now, and I'm reluctant to add to the volume and enter that (often nonsensical) fray.  Nonetheless, I am compelled to go on record, if you can call this humble blog a record, with a thought about "making America great again."

I cannot believe Trump can win the general election in November.  I believe that in America, ultimately rational critical thinking prevails over vague assertions, hope prevails over despair, and love prevails over fear and hate.  I could be wrong about that, sadly, but let's say I'm right.

Here's the thing.  It doesn't matter.  Trump doesn't matter--he could be any hate and fear mongering demagogue*.  The damage is done, by his supporters, by those that seem to stand by and for racism, sexism, ignorance, bluster, denial and sound bite solutions to complex problems.  The world sees it, our children see it, and as a nation it defines us.

But, we are better than that.  While many are frustrated, while many are disenfranchised, while many are fed up, while many succumb to the appeal of anger, to the appeal of "outsider," enough-is-enough rhetoric, to the appeal of polarized, us vs. them thinking, we are better.  The values we stand for, as a nation are better.

We do, after this campaign, regardless of who we end up electing as president, need to make America great again.  Because the things that have been said, and supported, and celebrated have marred that greatness.

What's next, America?

*it's a bandwagon word these days, and I want to be clear here about exactly what I mean.  I mean demagogue in the modern sense, as defined here, and I want to highlight these methods as aligned with what I've seen of his campaign.

My life back...who knew?

I have really enjoyed being a building principal (at all levels, ultimately, high school, middle school, and elementary school) these past eleven years.  I've made a difference in students' lives, made a difference in teachers' professional practice, and formed many positive relationships along the way.  It was rewarding on many levels.  I look forward to more of that, perhaps at a higher leadership level, in the future.

Right now, though, I'm just getting started on my year's hiatus.  I'm just getting started at letting go of the background tension of always being on call, always being where the buck stops, always being, weekends and holidays included, the principal.  I'm starting to notice what I put on hold eleven years ago, "just for now, until things calm down."  Pleasure reading (not that I didn't enjoy reading professional journals and books and so forth--but I didn't have time for a whole lot more).  Quality family time that was not snatched in precious snippets.  Really fully being present, when together with my wife.  Taking care of house and home projects.  Exercising enough.   Mowing my own lawn.  Playing the guitar and singing folk songs, with friends and family, or just alone, just for fun.  Trying my hand at home-brewing a batch of beer.  I hadn't noticed, but I had been systematically back-burnering everything that was non-work-related, for years.

This year, whether I end up with a part-time position, or no position at all, my first focus is going to be on family.  A mentor superintendent once told me my success in the business (of educational leadership) would be defined by my ability to disengage from the work.  While I know that I will always be inclined to give my all, where I work, I'm learning, after eleven years, that I have needed and will need as I move ahead to do a better job at sometimes letting go.

I'm reminded of a story that went around the Internet (I'm not sure about, and haven't been able to find an original attribution; it references a lecture on stress management from a Harvard professor.  I found a version of it here, on Eric Crawford's blog, Eacology).  It's not if the glass is half full or half empty; it's not really how much the glass weighs.  It's how long you hold it.  For a bit, I'll just be setting down my glass.

Though it is self-funded, and not long-term, I'm calling it a sabbatical.