The Little Things.....

So, I was on BART going to San Francisco from the Oakland airport. I could see the sun setting on the bay, I can see the SF skyline. My body has just settled into the rhythmic vibration of the train, adjusting to all the stops and starts at each station...I take a look around, not too many people on board which is unusual, so I turn my thoughts elsewhere and make a conscious decision to not dive back into my phone to browse at email, texts and social media.  I look out the window and begin to  soak in the sunset and reflect......

I thought of home... and started thinking aobut each kid.  Eventually I came to Alexa.  I wondered what she might be doing right at that moment... I tried to imagine her a work, maybe finishing her homework..... and then I realized that this was her last week of school.  Woah...!  She was about done... Wait a minute... She is graduating next week!  Yikes!  I immediately realized this wasn't just my last daughter finishing high school....No, this was my last kid finishing high school!  I felt a bit panicky all of a sudden as  if I had just lost control of something and I couldn't stop it.  Like trying to grasp a quickly falling rope running quickly through my hands but unable to hold on enough to stop it.  It really caught me off guard which is silly because it isn't like a secret when graduation is in every high school across this country, but I hadn't really been paying attention when I came to Alexa.

As the realization of the finality of this event hit me I found a lot of emotions coming to the surface very quickly.  I found myself immediately missing her.  I thought about how challenging this past year had been for her... we moved far away from her high school and she had a long commute every day.  She had to get up early and would often come home late and many nights stayed over at friends because that was easier on her due to after school work schedule on top of that. She did an amazing job of making this tough routine work... I realized how much she had grown this year.  

Then I started rewinding the tape.... as I often do.  I thought about what I would miss the most.  What came to me weren't the big events, the seemingly more important milestones, vacations or family reunion type of things....rather it was the little things that I would have never have suspected I would even care about became the things that stood out.

The little bottles of nail stuff......I thought about the assortment of nail polish paraphernalia that she would constantly cart around all over the house...... All these little bottles of polish, remover, clippers, white tips, adhesive, and other nameless bottles of whatever that girls need to have to take care of their of nails.  They would seem to always be in the worst places, like on the couch, on the carpet, on the bed and they would travel together like a little gaggle of geese, always together, always in the way and in the wrong place and we would find ourselves incessantly having to move them to their proper place.  So, yes, a total annoyance.....  I am not sure why she buys 100 different shades of polish but seems to use 2 of them over and over, but such is the greatness of girls.    I have no idea why this image came to me, but as soon as it did I actually realized how much that represented her to me. This activity she would do so often was something that was part of her, something that was meaningful to her, almost therapeutic maybe and I felt an immediate pang of loss of not seeing those blasted bottles and vials here and there again...  

The little plates of food.....Then I thought of the half eaten food and half filled cups of milk that she had a tremendous talent in leaving around too.  Truly, there may not be anyone with more expertise than her in this category--once again I felt the loss of picking up after her.  Never before would I have ever thought that doing this activity for any of my kids would be something I would reflect on longingly... No, shouldn't be this way... so what was different this time with her? I wondered until the answer came.  Because we didn't see her very much this year due to the circumstances, the idea that maybe leaving this trail for us to follow was in a very strange way a way to connect with her... like because she wasn't there physically for me to get after her about I would have to actually do the work of gathering and collecting those things and then taking them downstairs to the kitchen was actually like touching her after all.... like she was there and it was a way to interact with her or at least think about her.... it hit me that way, like weird but true.

The little texts... ME: "hey... when you coming home tonight?"  HER: "yeah"   ME:  "When do you think you will be home?"  HER: "later...."   ME: "Do you need to stay the night with your friend?"  HER:  "Maybe".   Yes... I can now tell how you can see how obvious it is why I will miss these!

The little "talks".... Alexa is adept at one word answers, which often means that she doesn't always need to engage in long conversations.  It isn't her thing.... so one of the things I learned to totally cheris were the super brief and not very wordy moments I had with her.  Here is what it would look like...  She would come home, not really say anything, but I might find her doing some nail polish stuff somewhere.... then I might say "hey.... how are you?"  and then she might say "yeah".... and then that would be my trigger to actually not say or really ask anything else... and then we might just sit in the same room after that for a while and then she would leave.  To some, this may seem not super deep or super content rich.  I would disagree.  This might be the best conversation we have the entire week.  Because the conversation didn't need to have words.  There just needed to be "space" not necessarily filled up with words... often unecessary words...  Creating that space actually became the conversaton..... I had to learn this and once I did, I really enjoyed them.    Not filling up space with words is not a very Aaron-like thing to do.  Anyone who knows me would probably agree.  So learning how to chill was a super cool thing I learned from Alexa.  And then to "chill" together a little here and there became a little thing that I found so sweet that I will miss horribly.  There were a few times where it was I go to CupBop and get food and then we would then just eat it together, in silence..... awesome memories for me!  I loved that I could find such great meaning in that brief, quiet exchange.

The little walks..... We live about 1 football field away from a Cup Bop store.  We are regulars.  About once a week Alexa would announce that she would like me to go get one for her.  The rule is she has to walk with me to get it.  It is about a 3 minute walk.  We shoot the breeze, not too much substance, a few questions I try and insert that she cleverly evades with precision... She knows what's coming and so do I.  No surprises... but a fun predictable routine.   Simple, short and very sweet.  Little walks that I will miss terribly.....

Is it possible that that we glean the most meaning out of life through the collective littany of little things?  As I pondered on this list with Alexa, I realized how easy it is to miss the little things that we might overlook, not see or just pay attention to.  Although I kept trying to find in my memory the bigger things that I thought I was looking for, it ended up being these small moments.... drops if you will, in a life large lake that accumulate, and grow and make little unforgettable impressions that are so easy to forget....  How ironic....

At this point on my ride to the city I found myself looking through blurry eyes... watered with the memory of each of these little things and the feeling of sound peaceful gratitude came with it.  A perfect hurt good moment.

The little Lexi....

Lexi.... my heart is full... my eyes too... what an absolute beautiful person you have become... graceful, poised, funny and precise.  In some ways you will always be this little thing  to me despite how grown up you are now...
I wouldn't trade any of these little things for anything. It has been these that have made this, your last year here at home bearable in light of the other kids being gone and so much silence we have experienced with so much transition and change.  Thank you for being generous and sharing these moments with me, and then when you do that crooked smile thing, well.... game over.

Congratulations on doing the myriad of little things that now represent your huge achievement in graduating with honors from High School.  

You did it!  

Much love and admiration......

#MYPACIFIC

Andre Gide said:  "Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore." 

This became the title for the recent documentary of 6 incredible women who made a seemingly impossible journey rowing across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Australia.    It was crazy.... For about 9 months they took ritualistic, relentless 2 hour shifts between sleeping (hardly) and then rowing....every day, every night...yes!... the whole entire time.....simply crazy!    I am a sucker for human interest stories especially if they involve the kind of stretch that changes people forever.   I was hoping this would be such a story....I decided to watch it the other night not so much because I was interested in watching women rowing hour after hour, rather I was a lot more interested in what made these women tick.  

The actual documentary wasn't that dynamic in terms of production and sheer entertainment value.  Much like the journey itself, it was a bit long, boring and monotonous at times.  In fact, after the first 20 minutes I almost stopped watching.... but, because they were so committed, I felt like I needed to be as well...  I thought... "Would I be letting them down if I didn't watch it all the way to the end?"... Ha!  Silly, but true. These women I didn't know somehow guilted me into it and so I kept with it... I kept with them....Plus, I needed to find the "squishy emotional motivational center" of this whole deal and I hadn't figured it out yet.

Watching them forced me to put myself in their place, attempting to imagine their insane existence and yet time after time, when I would think that I would have just stopped.... they wouldn't.....they didn't.  No way.  As a result I felt myself being drawn into their emotion every so slowly, but it mounted.  There was this one point where I began to feel more connected to their cause when one of them mentioned this quote again....

"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore."

The words carried deeper meaning and weight.... It was only then, that I started to reflect on my own life....I recalled some of the hardest things I had experienced in my life...  Memories came, feelings resurfaced, and I had to reconsider how I handled them in light of this quote... "Did I traverse my trials with this type of courage of willingly losing sight of the safety net to cross the chasm without knowing what was up ahead?"  "Did I dig down so deep as these women did?"  "Going past the point of exhaustion, finding that new place where there is nothing left to give?"  This definitely made me reflect and wonder.  How many times have I believed that I had left it all on the field, only to later realize I hadn't?  How many times have I convinced myself that I had nothing left in the tankto give or to try, only to find more drops to spare looking back at me...... 

It was interesting to watch these women pass through their crucible at the same time wondering and contrasting my own experience....  My respect for them grew considerably.  By the end, the story had won me over, it had managed to slither its tendrils down and wrap them tightly around my heart...My emotion spilled over and it felt awesome to somehow be part of their joy of accomplishment and super human achievement.  

They talked about what this journey would mean to them later.... All I knew is that they would never be the same, ever again... it reminded me that whenever we do things for the right and best reasons, we can be forever changed, if we have the right frame of mind and intent.... those ripples will never stop, forever increasing outward....

At the end, Natalia, who seemed to the leader of this group, summed up everything so beautifully by sharing this :

"Everyone has their Pacific to cross" 

That is what I needed to hear. That sealed the deal for me.   I needed to be reminded of my own Pacific crossings... this is why I needed to finish this particular story... I knew something was there, but I hadn't connected to it until the end.  These women weren't just breaking some record, or raising awareness for some noble cause, or trying to prove something for their ego.... at least not to me.  What they were doing was doing something remarkable to remind you and I and everyone else, that we are all rowing our own versions of the Pacific Ocean somewhere... and that our lives may not be always exciting, in fact, we more often experience long spells of routine and mundane repitiveness, and that we need to remember that we can win, that we will win, that we can overcome all adversity and not just endure, but be refined in the process..... to come out as something brighter, more durable, more resilient, more beautiful then what we started with..... Like these women did.  To acquire a deeper love for life and empathy for others.  It was really cool to cross the finish line with them.....

So.... I wonder.... 

Is it possible, that somewhere in the recesses of my earliest memories.... a memory before "here".... one so faint and fragile that I can barely pretend to remember I can believe I was with you and others on a distant shore... a shore far away, in a different time, a different plane, a different universe...before you and I knew we existed as we do now here, in this life?  

A place where we longed to cross an vast spiritual ocean.  An ocean of forgetfulness, that with each stroke of an oar, our memory of this place and shore would slowly fade...yes, as if like a veil one might say, might cover our mind and eyes to total forgetfulness.  But with with clear purpose, great hope and exceeding faith we would row, like these women did, to a beautiful destination, a place we had not been before.  A destination that would reunite us forever if crossed and rowed with enough faith and determination.  I would like to think that you and I both, held hands, leaned and looked forward and lept from that shore never looking back, knowing we would risk not coming back--completely losing sight and courageously willing to cross this unknown ocean together. The journey would seem so long and uncertain—so filled with risk. It wouldn’t be easy, but we knew it was worth every effort because deep inside, a whisper of a memory that reverberated in our hearts that we would be reunited again with others in a grand celebration of reunion.  If this crossing resembles even the smallest part of the crossing these women made, then... yes.  It would be worth every oar stroke.....

I wonder.... 

How am I doing?  Can I go the distance even when I can't see the shore ahead?  

All I really know is that I won't stop rowing.  I might stop and rest at times... but i am not going to quit.  How about you?  How is your Pacific crossing going?

Until then, keep rowing... and I will catch you on the flip side where all will be well again....