Man’s Best Friend?

People may ask: are you a cat or dog person? I don’t think I’m either.  

I used to think I wanted a dog. My sister had this gentle, beautiful border collie named Gulliver. Gulliver got his name because they had to travel to Illinois, I think, to get him from the litter. He was the runt of the litter, his fur part light brown, not the typical collie black and white. He had these gorgeous blue eyes that you couldn’t help but fall in love with, a patch of brown fur around one and white the other. He would play ball with you all day. Literally. It was a contest of wills, Gulliver never ceasing to nudge that fuzzy ball a little closer with his big, brown, wet nose. I remember sitting on my parents’ black, leather couch when I was, oh, 13 years old I guess, seeing Anne walk around the side of the house with this brown ball of fur in her arms. Twelve years later, Anne and Jon had to put Gulliver to sleep.

But as I grow a little older now, I’m not sure I want to deal with one of my own. Some couples say that they get a dog first, to prepare for having a child later on. I’m not sure I need to deal with puppies to know how to love my son or daughter.

What’s the advantage, companionship? At times, I get on board with this, but then I lose a little support when I see my so-called best friend licking himself. 

*Note: this post is written as I sit at my principal’s house dog-sitting his two co-dependent canines who confuse the living room carpet for a fire hydrant and bark at their own shadows.

A Scary Proposition

I’m about to find myself in a new position. Next week, once Spring Break ends and I go back to school, I’ll probably be handed a contract that says some scary things, most notably: full-time teacher, campus minister, and head coach of the largest sports team in the school. Yikes. For the first time since I graduated from college, I’m about to end an academic year with concrete knowledge of where I’ll be 12 months later. And probably even beyond. No longer will there be a hint of possibility that I could be entering the Great Unknown, moving across the country or world to a city that right now I might not even know exists.

But I don’t want to give the impression that I think life will suddenly be predictable. It never is. I’ll just be encountering my surprises and new possibilities in relatively established parameters. You know how when you’re young, the world and your own place in it seems so limitless? Well, my own place is about to grow a little more defined. And though I feel great about the life I’ve found, part of me is scared about this movement.

Then again, I’m a guy. Struggling with commitment issues. Go figure.

This is the New Year

Yesterday, I sat at my desk and looked out over a bright, sunny afternoon. The air was crisp, but earlier that day the sun urged me to drive with the windows down—though to be honest, I also fired up my seat warmer. You know, just to be sure.

But a few days ago was a different story. It was a very mild December day, odd for Christmastime in St. Louis, the kind of day about which Al Gore might laugh all the way to the bank. Art Hill sled-hounds mustn’t have been happy to see temperatures soaring well above the critical mass for the white Christmases so many people dream about. Too bad, too, because strong storms lingered over the area all day. We would have been knee-deep in the white stuff.

But for as good as I felt driving down the road that day, sailing along in my car with my coat bundled and eyes wide open, the other day I couldn’t help but feel scared. The mild temperatures were nice, but no part of me wanted anything to do with the outside. I sat in my room and, for the first time this Christmas break, wished school would just go ahead and start, putting me out of this sudden misery where even the most innocent of question about my future sent me into a tailspin of self-doubt and anxiety.

In some ways, I feel my life these past few years has been similar to these St. Louis weather patterns. I’ve been doing some hardcore head-scratching. I’ve been given much and have worked hard for where I have gotten, but what the hell am I doing now? Some days now I find myself staring down something I feel to be a vocation – where my deepest sense of happiness and desire really does seem to grab hands with something helpful and positive for the world – but other days I find myself curled up and throwing around the what if questions. I should be doing something more. At these times I usually just grow frustrated and with a whimper concede that this is just what it’s like to be twenty-five. At these times I also take a look around me and see the very real pain of so many.

In a book I’m reading right now, Chris Lowney uses the point of view of a CEO or Fortune 500 president to describe how the Jesuits have seen exceptional leadership create a “company” atmosphere that has led to its enduring success over the past 450 years. Each chapter is dedicated to different qualities of successful leaders, which in the case of the Jesuits Lowney says boils down to four traits: self-aware, creative, loving, and ambitious. His contention is that this four-pronged head of effective leadership not only molds men in a particular Catholic religious order, but it also can create more effective leaders in all parts of life and work.

As most of you know, I’m now in my second year of teaching high school in St. Louis. Life has been unfolding itself to me, sometimes too slowly for my taste, but all too often incredibly generously—as if to say, the bright days are never far off. I am abundantly blessed with health, my family, and an array of friends over the world that I don’t always keep up with in a way that matches my love for them. These things I know. But, am I doing my life as I should? This is my only shot at it, right?

Just as the Jesuits hold the Spiritual Exercises—an exercise in self-awareness that culminates in specific actions that is akin to the Socratic condemnation of the unexamined life—as one of the foundations for all they do, whether as novitiates or priests celebrating their 30, 40, or 50-year anniversaries after ordination, so, too, have I been becoming more self-aware these recent years.

Having a job right out of college that I absolutely hated better taught me how and in what capacity I want to spend my working years.

Seeing former friends and relationships drift away spoke to me about the need to sometimes just accept the fact that there’s no one I can control but myself—and even that can be a dubious feat at times. But you know what, I say with a quiet laugh, next time I know what I might be able to do a little better.

Being connected with the retreat experiences that can help shape the lives of at least 750 young men at my high school has forced me to reconsider my own experience as a spiritual seeker. So, too, did suddenly blanking on the words of the Our Father in my daily PA-prayer to the school community.

Being embraced into a resident community of students, staff, religious, and other warm and friendly faces at Washington University’s Newman Center this year has taught me about the overwhelming effects of true hospitality.

Getting my hands dirty with some of the less glamorous behind-the-scenes aspects of coaching has taught me more about humility and my gifts as a patient organizer.

The point being, I think, is that these are the years which are forming me exponentially. I couldn’t quite do it yet, but I’ve considered what it’d be like to draft my own mission statement. What do I stand for? What are the pillars that I fall back on to make all my choices? What are the non-negotiables? I am my own president, and this is the impact that I hope to make on the world. This is my legacy.

So this coming year, I’m just hoping to continue finding happiness in my work, family, and friends. I’m hoping to seek out the idea of magis, the more, in all that I do—and hopefully maintain my beauty sleep on top of that. I’m hoping to cut down the mindless preoccupations that lead me to glide along so superficially and blissfully unaware of the rumblings of my heart. I’m hoping to find new, fresh ways to adapt and seize the opportunities I’m given. I’m hoping to learn how to better deal with and love those around me. I’m hoping to become even more ambitious to motivate myself and others.

It is my prayer that in 2009 you may better realize the things in your life, work, and family that you most care about. It is my prayer that you, too, may see the number of ways that you touch and inspire others. I know this email is going to areas far and wide, so whether I last talked with you earlier today or if we made it all the way through 2008 without talking, know that you are loved and have been in my thoughts. I wish you the deepest sense of peace and joy.

I’m sure the weather will go south again sometime soon, but why do I worry? It’s not like my fair Irish skin would carry any sort of tan anyway. I’m ready.

Yours,

Brian

Ozymandias: a sandy warning through time

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
-”Ozymandias” by P.B. Shelley

This gem nearly got lost amidst the theme of this week for my students: Christmas break starts Thursday and I’m not gonna listen to anything you have to say. It’s okay, I pretty much felt the same way about anything they were telling me. But, despite all their groaning and my own sluggishness, let it not be missed that this is a pretty amazing piece of short poetry.

Take one look around you. How many people spend effort on inflating, bottling, controlling, and repairing their self-image? Take one look inside you. We do it, too. The amount of time and energy we spend on making ourselves look good is quite considerable, and this poem I think talks about pride taken to the extreme. Pride taken to an extreme, but this extreme is not unrecognizable.

For Ozymandias, or Ramses the Great to his ancient Egyptian homies, his ultimate sense of hubris paves the way for his ironic undoing. He commissioned a sculptor to memorialize his face and his power. Over three thousand years later, all that remains of the once-great king and his glory and civilization is a battered, crumbling memorial surrounding by nothing but blowing, endless sand. Time conquers even the most powerful. But despite the statue’s state of disarray, the arrogant sneer of Ozymandias remains visible. As once-pharaoh of one of the great world civilizations, Ozymandias’s sense of pride and power (“Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair”) is underpinned by the isolation it finds itself in now, yet the spirit of his commission remains. Nothing of the king’s glory remains, but the sculptor’s ironic message is still alive.

What’s lasting in this world aren’t achievements or physical conquests. What’s lasting is the spirit of our actions. People won’t remember all your accomplishments, but they might remember the kind of person you were along the way. What catalyzes our lives? A constant desire to establish permanence or a desire to make the most of the time we have?

My Holden Caulfield Moment

Here’s Bill. Bill is an incessantly polite, upbeat, innocent, happy sophomore…an incessantly polite, upbeat, innocent, happy sophomore who just happens to be one hell of a fierce runner. Fierce, as in, damn the torpedoes, damn the pecking order, and damn you, too, because I’m taking your spot on the line. The kind of guy who you can’t help but root for. A pure athlete in love with school and in love with life.

Moments after the state meet ended, it didn’t appear to me that our previously undefeated team would wear that banner into the night. Our runners didn’t stack up quite as highly as we had expected, leaving the door open for a small handful of teams to rip away the title we had worked so hard for.

In this shot, taken minutes after he had finished, I had found Bill, in the midst of the chaos and confusion of the moment, and embraced him, congratulating him on a courageous race and a great season. A varsity runner all year, he had completed the odyssey of a cross country season without once questioning or subverting his coaches. Even though he and I both knew it probably wasn’t his best race, he was overwhelmingly happy. And, so was I. Happy not only for his success all season, but for how proud I was of him — and all the other guys — giving all they had in that one final race.

You can’t totally tell by the picture, but there was a lot going on at that moment. The runners were regrouping, teammates were coming over to congratulate them, parents were embracing their sons and shooting photos, coaches were scrambling to recreate the finish to calculate who might have won, our “blue army” was simultaneously spreading hugs and body paint. The season hung in the balance, yet I was able to find Bill and his moment of pure happiness in the midst of the chaos. Much of this year has been just that — chaos — and it’s only in these memorable moments, set slightly apart, yet still surrounded by the action, that things can really sink in. Miss the moment and the next one will be on you before you know it.

When I found Bill, I didn’t want someone to run over to our camp and say we were second, third, or even fourth. I didn’t want Bill to in any way think that his best, on that day, was anything less than what he deserved: a team victory. As unrealistic as this was, I suppose I didn’t want Bill to realize that sometimes your best efforts will still leave you short. I wanted that youthful innocence to remain. The notion that if you work hard enough for something, nothing can stop you. But, I sensed his genuine happiness while we talked, and suddenly, I guess I knew he’d be okay, win or lose.

For as much as I’m teaching this year, I’m learning an awful lot.

Independence Day in Rogers Park

Looking out from my third-floor balcony, most people would say I don’t have much of a view. An alley runs below the porch, and other than a couple of church steeples in the near distance, the immediate view consists of backs of apartments, a traffic light, a small segment of my street, and a parking lot. Yet, it’s rarely uninteresting to sit out there and take it all in. City life is largely characterized by a bombardment on your senses: sirens blaring, people constantly on the go, indistinct noises in the distance, a constant flow of planes leaving or coming to Midway and O’Hare – even the occasional odd smell drifting your way. It doesn’t matter how late you’re out there, there’s bound to be something going on.

Another fascinating thing about my neighborhood is the diversity. Not only is there a glaring sense of economic diversity among living spaces, with burgeoning condominiums shooting up on street corners beside a mishmash of low-income housing, one-family brick houses, multi-story apartment complexes, and two-flats, but the racial and ethnic diversity is even more acute. The 2000 U.S. Census reported Rogers Park to be among the most racially and ethnically diverse communities in the country (second behind somewhere in New York City, I believe). Anywhere you go around here, there’s a mix of every shade, color, and shape. Shop at Devon Market, and you’re apt to believe you’re at a corner market in Bucharest or Kiev. A short walk from there holds much of the best Indian cuisine in the city, and keep walking for another few blocks and you’re in the middle of the neon lights of Mexico City. There’s an Iraqi art gallery, a Pakistani hair dresser, many Thai kitchens, an eastern Asian liquor store…all within a very short walk of my apartment. Even though gentrification threatens to push out many of the ethnic minorities from an area whose affordable rents and welcoming spirit attracted them in the first place, Rogers Park remains microcosmic of the American Dream as a whole – people from all over coming together, making ends meet, and trying to lead an honest, happy life. Coming from an area of St. Louis dubbed affectionately by some as Mr. Rogers’s Neighborhood, where my idea of ethnic dining was a night at Taco Bell and of racial diversity was watching a movie on cable, the past five years I’ve lived in Rogers Park have been eye-opening, if nothing else.

As I sit out on my balcony tonight, with the official Independence Day festivities having long since wound down, the celebration in this hodgepodge community in the far northeastern reaches of the city is only getting started. Stepping one foot off the bus at my street tonight, the smell of fireworks and smoke flooded my nose. There’s been a near constant barrage of fireworks for the past four hours, finally dying down a bit in the past hour, now with only the occasional blast or sparkle. This is my first Fourth in Chicago, and never before have I seen such a steady stream of unsanctioned fireworks; it’s almost as if people in the community coordinated how they would time it to make sure the celebration run deep into the muggy summer night.

Tonight in Rogers Park is a true American celebration. How do you say “Happy Independence Day” in 80 different languages? If you listen closely, amid the rumbles and screeches of the fireworks, you may be able to pick up a few. It’s in the air tonight.

Jack Jack the Milk Monster

This is Jack. Pretty damn cute, I know. Jack has become a very important and even symbolic little boy in my life. Born December 5, 2006, I came to know Jack through Kids Club, when his mother, Anne, would drop baby Jack off in our care while she would work out at the gym. Jack and I formed some sort of bond over the days and weeks ahead, and that bond became even more obvious as Anne, closer in age to me than any of my own siblings, and I got to know each other better and formed a bond of our own. I gained her trust in a way that has allowed me to babysit her little angel and house-sit for a week while they were away on a holiday. Last week, over dinner and a beer with Anne and her husband, she confessed that she feels like I have become part of her family, and she even offered me a invitation to live with them should life bring me back to Chicago next year. Jack and his parents will definitely be among the people I miss the most when I leave this city.

Jack also means a great deal to me in a very symbolic way, a coincidence that I only realized a few weeks ago. On the very night of Jack’s birth, an otherwise dark and chilled December night, Lisa and I broke up. Breakups happen, and they’re rarely easy for either person, and this was no exception. I tried my best to hold my head high during the day, but once night fell, I would inevitably lose my composure, raw emotion guarded only by the silence and privacy of my own bedroom. I quit my job, moved home for a week, and went on a last-minute ski-trip to Colorado before moving back to Chicago with no job officially in place — the second time in five months I had pulled off such a feat. Just as Jack and his parents entered a world of firsts, I entered my own time of new beginnings. The time came for me to relinquish control and build fresh, knowing that I could not alter the past but hoping I could help shape the future.

To me, Jack represents the promise and amazing possibilities that accompany any change. The winter months weren’t easy for me, but as I began my job at Kids Club, I slowly uncovered a world that would brighten my days and nights. Not only did I truly love going into work to hang out with the kids, parents, and the staff, but my coworkers grew into my group of friends. On any given night of the week I can be assured that there’s one of them who will want to go out and do something with me. Birthday parties, softball games, dinners, movie nights, barbecues, house parties, game nights — there’s rarely a dull moment with this fun-loving group. I don’t think I’ll often again be out on a Monday night with a buddy singing “Minnie the Moocher” standing on top of the bar with only our bunch and the bartender in the whole establishment. Even though Jack still has never hit the bars with me, I definitely consider him part of the reason why I’m there with an incredible group of people beside me.

I’m very sad to be leaving behind Jack, Anne, and the rest of Kids Club, but from darkness comes light. From love came Jack. From pain comes renewal. I had a job that will forever rest favorably in my memory. I made new friends, went on good dates, went on bad dates, laughed about it all, took new chances, entertained new thoughts, and challenged complacency. As I move my operations down I-55 to St. Louis, it’s time to do it again. I know I can.

Jack Jack, I raise this bottle (of baby milk) to you. For you I dedicate these final two weeks in Chicago.

And This, Mr. McLean, Is Why the Music Will Never Die

You know you can hear any song (almost anything: sorry, Nickelback) and do a bit of mental gymnastics with the lyrics so they seem like they were written about no one else but you and what you’re going through? You know, one of the classic reasons why good music is timeless.

But is it just me, or do we all have this thing where music lets us dwell in our past moments of loss? This dark side of music is not a totally uninvited intruder, either. We hear a song that was playing the day our mom died, but we don’t turn it off right away; rather, we reach for the volume and turn it up. We don’t mind hearing it; sometimes we actually want to hear it. We can deal with the painful memories that well up, but we can’t deal with the pain of forgetting. We remember the good, at any cost, even if that means a moment of pained recollection. For that brief moment, we’re involuntarily transported back to a time in our lives when things were different, a time when dreams we’ve long since seen fade away were just beginning to shine.

It doesn’t have to be about something as painful as losing a parent or loved one, either; music recalls feelings of all different kinds of life events. Any time I hear “Fred Jones Pt. II” by Ben Folds, I’ll instantly think of the four years I had with all the guys at my high school. Whenever I hear a certain song by Dave Matthews Band, I’ll think of my first kiss. And if anyone ever puts on “Tiny Dancer,” first I’ll pump my fist in the air, then I’ll remember the joys of my first longterm relationship.

But music can be a mixed bag. For all the good memories these songs recall, some of it still hurts to remember.

In high school, I can also remember getting made fun of for a stupid genetic problem and the pained awkwardness of trying to figure out who I was. Yeah, my first kiss was a sweet moment, but then what about the next few years when I wanted to recapture with her that innocent connection? And God, what an intense, helpless feeling it was to watch three years in a relationship end because she met someone new. Even though these things don’t cut as deeply as they once did, that doesn’t mean the scarred memories cease to exist. Sometimes a song evokes the good, sometimes the bad, but most of the time, it evokes both.

I got slapped in the face with such an evocation one day this week. Hard. When I was driving home from work, a country song came on the radio that months back I had somehow associated with a recent break up. No, they’re never easy. Before yesterday, I’d never told anyone about my connection with this song. I guess this was my little bit of private catharsis. And as I heard the first notes of the song kick in, my thoughts immediately swerved down that same road I find myself on so often, usually during the quiet of night. In that instant, all the ups and downs of the past year flooded through my head. I turned my head and glanced out the window, looking for answers I knew weren’t there. Everything again seemed so vivid and so real that I could have sworn that I saw her standing on the side of the road, a look of pure joy on her face that was the same one I fell so deeply in love with over a year ago. I held the glance a moment longer and realized that it was her standing on the side of the road, laughing and saying goodbye to a friend, at the same damn moment when Gary LeVox was talking to me about her through the radio. I drove off before she could join my moment.

As long as music (and art, poetry, fiction, etc.) holds such an ability to capture a moment of human emotion and present it in a way which becomes transferable to our own lives, music will never die. We become too invested.

In 1993, a terminal cancer patient named Jimmy Valvano gave an emotional awards show acceptance speech I will never forget. Among other things, he claimed that days which contain laughter, contemplation, and emotional release are the three — and only three — ingredients that lead to happiness. A day? I went through all three in less than 20 seconds, though I admit my half-hearted laugh did drip with a bit of irony.

Is Valvano right? Did this moment somehow enrich my Tuesday? Part of me thinks he’s on to something with this, actually. I hadn’t seen that look of sheer joy in her eyes for far too long. And for her, I was happy. Life’s funny (if not a bit masochistic) sometimes, no?

Afternoon Hooky

Yesterday, just as we were cleaning up nearing the end of the morning shift, Boss Dawn said I’d been working a lot lately, so she offered me the afternoon off. Taking a look out the window and seeing nothing but blue skies and coat-free pedestrians, it really wasn’t much of a choice. March days like that just don’t come often in Chicago.

I rushed home, obviously not having anything planned, but I wasn’t too worried about being able to find something. I made a few phone calls, but nobody else had my good fortune of being free. Suckers. So, I strapped on my rollerblades, grabbed a book, and headed south down the lakeshore path. After going a few miles, I found a secluded spot in the sun at the edge of a harbor and read my book. Glancing up from time to time, I could see across the water to the suddenly subdued Chicago skyline.

I don’t know everything about what leads to a happy, fulfilled life, but things like this must rank up there somewhere.

A Reunion

Though I was in Millenium Park, firmly in the heart of downtown Chicago, I found myself alone on the metal bench that night. A handful of couples walked by, enjoying the warm spring air, but nobody really took much notice of me; they were far too caught up in their own evenings. Not even the security guards, chatting on their segways, disturbed my own little world. I was completely alone.

All my other friends were across town celebrating into the sunrise, but I knew there would come more opportunities for that. Graduation wasn’t for a few more days, and parties filled the week. For me, tonight was different. Tonight was the night I’d been dreaming about for months. Tonight was another kind of graduation, as I awaited the return of the woman who had shaken up much more within me than I even knew existed.

As I waited to get that first sight of her, my eyes darted and my stomach churned. In my head, I replayed the timeline of our relationship, still amazed at how rapidly – yet entirely naturally – our relationship had blossomed. My life will again and again prove one certainty: no significant life moment will ever be predictable. That said, I still couldn’t imagine a better first nine months of a relationship. What we had been through, especially the half of it spent at a distance of a cool 5,000 miles, was nothing short of remarkable. Remarkable, and in my mind, divine.

Then she stepped out of my mind and into the night. Backpack slung over her shoulders, suitcase rolling along behind her, her wavy brown hair rolling off her head, she strode confidently in the direction of dreams. Almost as a father would watch over his sleeping daughter, I saw her before she saw me, and a smile crept over my face. God, she was even more beautiful than I had remembered. My fears momentarily relinquished their hold on my heart. The bottom fell out of my uncertainty, only to be replaced by irreplaceable joy, the joy that I had for so long imagined.

As she walked up the sidewalk, her eyes arrived on my bench around the corner, across the grass field. Our eyes finally hooked together, and her progress halted. For a fleeting moment, we stared at each other, probably trying to verify that the other was indeed real. Then, her pace quickened. My heart jumped. She ran around the corner and down the sidewalk. Steps before she got to the bench, she dropped her bags and jumped into my open arms. We embraced. Tears and laughter flowed. Finally, a warm body (pressed against mine) behind the words that had daily filled my inbox with prophecies of love.

Hardly anything said, but so much communicated. At that moment, there was nothing more to say. The warm night breeze ushered in the May flowers, and my own flower had again taken root, locked in my arms. Indeed, it was a moment of unbridled joy; one of those moments where, for a brief second, nothing else in the entire world matters one lick.

Sometimes, if we’re lucky, we have these kind of moments. You know, the kind where you just know that even when you’re old and gray, you’ll remember more about it than you might about entire years – a tattoo on your soul that will never be taken off.