New Home 2.0: A Semblance Of Order

As an update - really probably more for myself than anyone else - I thought it might be valuable to post how things are going in the New Home 2.0.  I do not know that this will be any kind of "regular" feature, but it might serve as a reminder in the future of how everything came together. 

Because there has been progress.

This week we managed to get The Ravishing Mrs. TB back to the airport, the car checked in, and my car issued and me safely off to work, where (thankfully) they were expecting me all on Monday.  We found an apartment (for the record, I have not lived in an apartment in 25 years) that would work for us and got a lease submitted - which was accepted and for which we put down a deposit.  The lease itself is being reviewed by our relocation consultant, less to make any specific changes as much as to be clear on what is in the lease.

Benefits have (I think) been signed up for  - thankfully they took effect the day of my employment, so I could cancel COBRA before we starting paying for it starting in May (That is a huge relief.  That price tag was hefty).  And I will say that this employer has a multiplicity of different benefits and benefit platforms, so sorting through them all will be the work of some weeks.

My first flight back to New Home is scheduled (as well as the return), and the additional housing time between my return and the lease taking effect has been booked.  This means there is no interruption in me having housing, which I am a fan of.

The car transport has been booked.  There may be some slight overlap between how long I have the rental and the car arrival - if it works out, I have to turn in the rental car on the day the car arrives.  All great, if it works out.  I am guessing not, which might mean some additional days of rental.

Likely the movement of any items will not take place before May.

Another "win" is that the rabbits are going to be able to come out and live with us - although forbidden as pets, they are acceptable as Emotional Support Animals with a letter.  I have not informed them of this development; they may start demanding additional snacks as hazard pay.

My current commute takes a grand 8 minutes to get from the hotel to work; that will increase to 10 minutes when I move (or so the InterWeb tells me).  I have not had this short of a commute (where I had to go to the office) since the early 1990's.

There is a certain temporary rhythm emerging to my life.  I am grateful, even as I am conscious of the fact that it will likely slip into another rhythm in a few weeks as things change again.

In total, if the hand of God is not involved here, I do not know where it would be.  Things could not possibly be going any smoother.

New Home 2.0: A Visit To The Coast

 One of the new advantages about New Home 2.0 is that we are now much closer to the coast - a little over an hour away.  During out visit last week, we drove out to it.  It was a fabulous day.

The Collapse CXXXIX: Concept

10 July 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

I promised you last letter that I would “round out” my idea. In normal times, of course, likely this would have been a different path: long ago, we would discuss such ideas among ourselves before we would ever bring them to the light of day. Now, Young Xerxes will have to fill that role.

We all make adjustments based on circumstances.

The thought initiated in the most unlikely of places, sitting in the streambed near McAdams. Besides being alert while on watch, a man has a great deal of time to think when neither on watch nor sleeping. What tickled my mind were the things up the road from where we were.

Specifically wheat.

Food is an issue, and one that is likely not to disappear anytime soon. And it is not just a problem for myself or my relatively new small tribe, or even the small town I live in. It is a problem for the inhabitants of the entire range of the Garnet Valley, which travels up the old state highway to empty out just beyond the old county seat, where we staged for McAdams. Yes, it is easy enough to say “Fend for yourselves” – but given the recent incident we have had, “fend for yourself” is hardly the sort of thing that will lead to people rallying when the next set of Locusts come through.

The population? Fair question. The population here once upon a time tended to fluctuate with the seasons, Summer being the high point. Not during Summer? Maybe 5,000 people all told, and that maybe generous on my part: Small towns of 300 to 700 people and people living off in the backroads.

So, perhaps we do not need a proverbial mountain of food. But we need food none the less.

Which brings us back to wheat.

Just beyond where the Battle of McAdams was fought, one would find a turnoff to another state highway that, if followed, leads to the largest city in our area. It would be about 90 minutes by auto from here, once upon a time. Were one to take that turnoff, one would wind through smaller hills – and one would pass the wheat fields of Winter Wheat. It was something that I originally viewed as a novelty and scenic, not having grown up with such things.

Now, of course, I view it a great deal differently.

There are a lot of assumptions. I assume the wheat was not planted last year due to the actual impact of The Collapse. However, given the timing of a typical wheat harvest (end of July to the end of September), it is also quite possible that the wheat was not harvested from the previous year. Which in turns means there may actually be volunteer wheat that grew this year.

There are a lot of conditional statements involved in this, of course If there was no harvest. If there are volunteers. If the farmers left will be willing to deal. If the farmers are gone, that the wheat is still there and can be harvested. If people could get there and harvest it. If it could be brought back safely.

If, If, If.

It seems like a long shot to me as I continued to think it over, Lucilius. But a long shot – in this case, with some luck and a lot of planning – seems far better than any other option that we have at this point. It is not as if there is any sign food trucks will be rolling soon, and likely foods that had been set aside will be well nigh used up by the end of this season.

Beyond just the grain for food, of course, is the fact that the potential exists to grow it here. That would be the real benefit. An accessible, reliable grain crop would be wonderful and itself opens other possibilities.

And other issues, of course. The grain will have to be stripped and threshed and ground, all without the benefit (mostly) of modern technology. Which means that whole new processes need to be developed.

First things first. Young Xerxes thought the idea not completely implausible, and he in turn chatted with a couple of other individuals. In turn, he has let me know a larger group of people will be coming together to discuss it. For which, I understand, I now have to give a presentation.

I had not anticipated using old business skills again, my friend. Life has a way of continuing to surprise us.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

The Beginner's Mind

 One of the interesting things that is happening at my new job (Hat Tip to John Wilder for the idea) is that for the first time in a long time, I am coming into a career situation with essentially a beginner's mindset.

"The Beginner's Mindset", if you have never heard the term, is an idea that comes to play in martial arts (really, any art).  The idea is that we originally beginners, then we move to technique and form and strictures.  Some people stop here, but the masters always go one step further to the place where all they have learned gets re-subsumed into their practice as if they were approaching it for the first time again.  By training, they have all of the knowledge; by instinct, they are approaching that knowledge in new ways, as if they were relearning it. 

In most of my past roles, my initial start has always been for a reason:  small company that needs new systems or small company that needs their systems revised.  Here, none of that is needed.  For the first time in something like 20 years, I can simply show up and learn everything.

Biopharmaceuticals and Medical Devices are an odd combination of knowledge bases on the Compliance side.  On the one hand, we all "sing" from the same hymn book, the government regulations. On the other hand, those regulations are often not very specific in how they require things to implemented:  "You must have a suit" is quite different from "You must have a suit in one of three approved colors, and the suit must be pressed".  This is the wonder and excitement (if one can use such a term) of Compliance: the art of implementation to meet the specific company's needs. If one were to think of it as the regulatory equivalent of learning to garden in one's specific climate and soil, you would not be wrong.

So I get to read a lot of documents not with an eye to how to improve or to critique, but merely to understand.

If you have never had to enter a job where you were expected to just learn the job instead of creating or correcting it, you cannot imagine what a relief that is.  For once, I just have to intake information and actually learn. I can observe with having to immediately render an opinion.  I can try things out and practice in relative obscurity.

Oh, this will not last forever. I was hired to do things, and one of the things I was hired to do is help streamline processes and improvement them.  But not right away. And not without understanding the process in the first place.

Of all the places I expected to land, it was hardly with the ability and luxury of being able to effectively begin as a beginner again.

New Job: The First Day

 First days on new jobs can be overwhelming.  This one was no exception.

The initial part of the job was not even the job itself, but was shuttling The Ravishing Mrs. TB back to the airport, turning in the car, and then renting a new car and heading back in the direction we had been staying.  Which meant that I got to experience the joys of morning rush hour traffic, or at least the starting elements of them.  Important safety point:  Living in the city proper is not an ideal outcome, and my desire for long commutes has pretty much dropped to zero.

First days on the job are an odd mix of the one time events and things that will become actual activities, but not right away. The one time events - security badges, parking passes, computer issuance - are things that are both the same and ever so slightly different no matter where you go.  Without replicating a process, somehow within the first two hours or so you have all of the basics of operation, even though you may lack context to operate those things.

The context comes in the second bucket of items, the things that will become actual activities.

These, generally, come in the form of meetings that one is brought into.  There is a certain sense of being hurled out of the plane at 10,000 feet:  terminology that makes only the vaguest of sense, acronyms that have no basis yet in reality (Ah, acronyms.  The bane of every corporation), and ongoing discussions about items for which you have absolutely no idea what background for.

The worst part, of course, is when your opinion is solicited for something on which you have literally no idea about the overall impact.  

All of that said, it was a good day.  My coworkers seem friendly and interested.  The problems that are being discussed, at least as much of them as I can understand, are no different than the sorts of problems I have dealt with elsewhere.  And I have a ton to learn.

My evening was mostly checking into my hotel, which will become my temporary home for the next three weeks.  Other than not really having a kitchenette to speak of and thus curtailing a bit my food preparation, it seems very serviceable.  It has a small gym and laundry facilities, which are my real needs at this point.

On the longer term front, we did get acknowledgement that our lease application had been received and we were asked to provide a bit more information. If all goes well, we will get things locked in well before the move in date at the end of April, which would be pretty amazing.  The next step would be to arrange the move of stuff.

All in all, a very successful first day.

Rabbits, Easter, Quick Update

 

In lieu of an actual post, I offer you the above graphic and a short update:

1)  The trip to New Home 2.0 was a success after a bit of a rocky start - due to a malfunction at the computer check-in, we ended up being delayed by 5 hours to the arrival of our final destination.

2)  That said, apartment hunting was very successful.  We found a unit that a) Is only about a 50% reduction in total square footage from our current house; b) Is within our price range; c) Is approximately 10 minutes from the new job; d) Is actually rather close to local transit to the airport, something which will help ever so much with The Ravishing Mrs. TB's trips here (and anyone else that comes).

3)  The rest of the weekend was spent seeing the broader local area, with spectacular results.

4)  New job starts today, likely as you are reading this.

Tomorrow we return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

It Is Not Your Business

 

On Long Friendships

 One of the highlights of my visit home this weekend was dinner with Uisdean Ruadh and The Director.

The gathering of the three of us, or of any two of us, is the continuation of a conversation that has been going on for over 40 years as, in the Long Ago on a certain day in March (I always think 14 March, but the date is not really important) a curly haired mature teenager that would be The Director introduced to a flaming red head who he met in drama and would become Uisdean Ruadh to the dark haired socially awkward kid he met in band (I will leave you to figure out who that is).  Even over 40 years, the personalities still hold true:  The Director is mature and thoughtful, Uisdean Ruadh remains as flamboyant and outgoing as what is left of his flaming red hair would suggest, and I remain as socially awkward as ever.

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The conversations are always easy, picking up in many cases at the last place they may have left off - whenever the last time we met.  We arre able to separate into two groups that whirl and change like a couple at square dance:  the Director and I talking on the couch about his advisory trip, Uisdean Ruadh and The Director's Wife talking about life in general.  Later, those situations reverse at dessert and The Director and Uisdean Ruadh discuss The Director's ongoing work and I catch up with The Director's Wife.  The conversation is never forced, always free flowing and engaging - something that seems remarkably rare to me in the environment (modern business) that I have spent so much time of late, where almost nothing beyond the task at hand is discussed.

Dinner, with the four mentioned above as well as with The Director's children, focuses almost exclusively on us getting the latest update on the Director's ongoing dissertation work.  It is the sort of conversation that seems almost lost to me now on an ongoing basis:  The Director explaining, Uisdean Ruadh or myself digging deeper or making suggestions ("Have you thought about this?"), then listening to responses.  My hope is that in some way we are sharpening his thought process.  My joy is that I get to hear his thought processes as they are happening - or as I tell him later, "I get to live dissertation writing vicariously through you."

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The fact that we three have remained not only in contact at all but close friends remains something of a mystery to me:  so many high school friendships never survive meaningfully beyond the first year or two of college, and we all had different routes that took us away from Old Home.  Uisdean Ruadh remained here taking care of his parents, only gone long enough to train and serve in the Reserves.  The Director went away to school and then graduate school until he returned.  I, too, went away to school and then graduate school and then returned - until work lead me farther and farther afield; the upcoming move to New Home 2.0 will be the closest I have been in 15 years.

And yet, through all of that, we remained connected in a way that others have not.

Through weddings, divorces, the birth of children, the adoption of children, the death of parents, the loss of jobs, health emergencies - we have somehow managed to stay together in a meaningful way that enabled us not only to continue to speak with each other, but get support from each other in a way that I feel few friendships I have known can offer.  Not just the well meant "approval" button on social media, but in a way that is truly supportive.  If I have a problem, if I have a harebrained idea, if I need guidance - these are the ones I reach out to.

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One of the oddest things about growing older is not the fact of growing older - that is as it may be - but that friendships like this grow older.  More and more I find myself my working with people younger (or much younger than me.  Their youth is not nearly as confounding to me as the fact I have a friendship that is older than they are.  Explaining that fact is always somewhat revelatory as well:  One mentions the age of the friendship and then just steps back as they start doing the math.  More often than not, there is this revelatory sense of that a relationship has lasted longer than they have been alive.

Is this unusual?  I would say the answer is largely "Yes", at least in my own sphere.  I am used to thinking and hearing of marriages lasting this long; I am not used to hearing of friendships enduring this long - especially if they involve people that are geographically separated. Too often it is just easier to readapt to the current "place" than pull those relationships along with you:  They take time.  They take effort.  They take commitment.

It strikes me as I write this that outside of my relationship with my sister and cousins, this friendship is the next longest thing in my life.  It has existed longer than my marriage, than blogging, that Iaijutsu - longer than any other thing.

It saddens me - deeply, profoundly - that this is not, or at least no longer, the norm.  Like so many other things in our modern culture, we have become a mile wide and an inch deep to our detriment.

And besides - there is nothing better than a running joke which been running for forty years.

New Home 2.0 - Away!

Friends, as you read this post The Ravishing Mrs. TB and I are safely in New Home 2.0, where we are beginning a day of apartment hunting.  We actually arrived yesterday, but I keeping finding reasons to not post from Seneca on Thursdays and he has begun to suggest I am avoiding him.

When your own alter ego is pointing things out, it might be time to pay attention.

As some may recall, we had a home finding tour assigned as part of our relocation package.  In a bit of interesting impacts on planning, if we came prior to my start date the entire trip - airfare, lodging, meals, rental car - would be covered. If it was after I started, only airfare and rental car would be covered.  Perhaps not surprisingly we chose to come directly before I start the following Monday.

Today will be a day with our relocation consultant visiting apartments.  At the moment we are looking at something with two bedrooms and a single bath, the extra bedroom to accommodate any visitors that we might have (as Na Clann have never been to New Home 2.0 it seems likely they may come, and host of folks that were previously out of range are now within an easy flight).  As you can imagine, there is a financial consideration as well as for the better part of a year we will be carrying both a rental contract and a mortgage payment.  My hope is that we will walk away with at least one actual apartment we can look forward to moving into in April.

Saturday and Sunday are now left to visiting locales in the area.  We are both in the position of not having been in this area for many, many years - for me, likely over 30. As our dining is covered, The Ravishing Mrs. TB has already selected some restaurants for our enjoyment.  I am certain they will be both delicious and something I would never have thought of otherwise.

The other thing that is on my mind as we do this is at least starting a discussion about the next several years.

If I am honest with myself, this job potentially represents the "last lap" of my career in this industry. It has the potential to make things happen, perhaps even at a quicker pace than I had anticipated.  This year also brings additional changes:  if all goes as it seems to, likely we will have one house in New Home with some aspect of income and rental, an apartment, and The Ranch with at least one rental (The Cabin) and other possibilities.

In other words, like it or not things are changing a great deal.  The changes have every possibility to make other things possible - if properly managed and consciously decided on.  And I am not always the best at both of those criteria.

It is only a starter discussion for sure; we do have things to enjoy over the weekend and I am sure that I will immediately be submerged into my work and starting to establish a new routine.  But better conscious thinking than unconscious blundering.

The Collapse CXXXVIII: Sorting

09 July 20XX +1

My Dear Lucilius:

Pompeia Paulina, when a suggestion is made, does not delay – unlike myself, who can often push things off to when choices have been effectively eliminated and only one decision is possible: “procrastination”, I believe is the vulgar term. Within 12 hours of my thought that we might want to examine everything we owned in order to organize it for the future, a list had been produced and a categorization matrix presented.

I should watch myself around this wife of mine, Lucilius; a suggestion can be a very dangerous thing.

The categorization presented itself into three buckets:

A) Items which are required for survival (e.g. food, shelter, protection);

B) Items which are not required for survival but make survival “better” (better, of course, being a somewhat subjective term);

C) Items which have limited or no intrinsic or extrinsic value in the current environment.

Category A is pretty well defined: items for food, shelter, and protection are rather self evident at this point as we have been in the situation for almost a year now. And Category C is also pretty well defined, although in some cases I do not know that getting rid of things makes sense: for things like lamps, they take up little enough space and a refrigerator can be used for simple storage. And DVDs, while useless, have no more use to anyone else than they do to us – except, I suppose, as potential targets.

Category B, items not required for survival but which make survival better, is the sticking point.

Many things can be considered to fall into this category. Books? Not every book I have is directly related to survival or survival skills, but does every book have to be? At some point who knows: I may end up with the last copy of Dostoevsky this side of the Mississippi. Decor? It adds nothing to surviving, but it does break the monotony of walls and even prehistoric man may have “touched up” their living quarters.

I wrote of things like dehydrators, where the tray may have benefits while the unit does not, or even my clothes washer, which might have parts of value while the unit does not. For now, these things have been parsed out as things to consider; we are in no immediate rush to get rid of anything.

Even before everything essentially stopped, I had made a conscious decision to minimize my needs and wants – that said, it is apparent that this had not extended to the possibility that things might drastically change. I had based my thinking on what seemed likely to happen, although I will be fair to myself: worst case scenario thinking sometimes seems beyond the Pale to us in normal circumstances, except when suddenly it manifests itself in ways we did not expect.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

(Postscript: Following up from my last letter, my initial discussion with Young Xerxes went well. He actually discussed it with a couple of other people. I need to flesh out the idea soon, which gives me a perfect topic for the next letter.)

Tuesday Morning 0930

I write this from the comfort of a house warmed with fire as the rains drizzles down outside.  It has drizzled down since around 0230 as I recall; the forecast calls for the same most of the day.

Today is an odd bonus day, the sort of day that only periodically appears:  unplanned, unexpected.  Back at The Ranch, I find myself with almost nothing on my calendar for the day:  some picture selections for the upcoming funeral, a visit with The Director this evening, cleaning for my early morning departure tomorrow.

I have consciously made a decision to temporarily halt any packing or additional moving activities, partially because we will return in about two months for the funeral (and more packing for Na Clann to take things home) and partially pending the settlement of the estate:  any move to rent the house now will wait pending final settlement.  And if we are not going to sell the house, keeping some of the furniture that we might have gotten rid of makes perfectly good sense.  

It also represents a sort of last moment:  after this, all trips here will originate from New Home 2.0, not New Home.  The locus of all originations and returns shifts.

This is now third Spring since my parents left, but life here know nothing of the ultimate arrival and departure of humans.  The cattle slowly move through drizzle, eventually ending up under the cover of trees.  The turkey flock that was in the Upper Meadow this morning migrated back into the forest, their daily rounds curtailed by the wet.  The jack rabbit I surprised in the front of the house this morning fled to the back of the house and down the slope, black tipped ears erect.

The plants, too, are in their awakening mode.  The daffodils so beloved by my mother have erected their heads and are blooming, weighted down this morning by rain drops; behind them the poppies have begun their climb to glory.  The Meadows are themselves turning green as this year's new growth slowly overtops the remaining stems from last year.  The irises, remnants from my maternal grandmother's garden, stand with their leaves sword-straight, waiting for their turn to shine in the sun.

The mist obscures the mountains beyond but they, too, register little of the mortal lives of humans.

I have written before that one of the things that marks a transition between immaturity and maturity is the realization of kairos, those specific called out moments of time which were originally "the right or critical moment" versus chronos, the simple passing of time.  A useful distinction, that: as with many things, Ancient peoples had a way with things that we moderns lack.  

When we are young our world seems to be filled with chronos moments, the passage of time that seems to go on and on. At some point - early for some, later for others - we realize that things end and we had not been conscious of that ending.  Certainly, we recognize some things:  the graduation from our various stages of education, the beginning of a married life (or the end of it), the birth of child, the death of our parents.  But these are hardly the sum total of all the chronos moments:  they exist far more often than we think, often only caught out of our eye as they pass (if we are lucky) or in the rearview mirror of life as we realized the last time we did X or saw Y was many years ago.

This - this day, this time, I suddenly realize - is such a moment.

It is of course not "a moment"; there are still things that need to be done and events that need to occur.  But this time, this day or even series of days and weeks even to the end of the year, represents multiple transition points.  It is the beginning of a change for the ownership of this place and this land, of the assuming of responsibilities and active management in a way I have not done before.  It is the beginning of a new job (well, in less than a week) and the beginning of a new locus of focus in my own life, as New Home 2.0 becomes "home" and New Home becomes a place I have a house and where some of Na Clann and The Ravishing Mrs. TB dwell (for now).  

In a way - even though in some ways this has been true for the last three years - this is the beginning of my life with almost of all of my parent's generation gone in my family. In the cycle of life, we have now assumed the position that they, in turn, inherited from their parents.  

I remember that transition for them.  I can scarcely think of a time I realized the burden would fall to us.

I realize with a start as I write this (12 March), is is birthday of my father.  He has been gone almost two years now.  That seems like forever and yet no time at all.  The moment he left was kairos, the time after has been chronos.  The difference has suddenly never been clearer in my mind.

Sighing, I look outside.  The rain has slowed to a fine mist, a sort of falling haze seems almost as timeliness as this moment, a continuous motion machine as the drops hit the earth and flow down the sidewalk or stems and into the grasses or streams below.  Heaven and Earth seemed joined for a moment in a sheen in which can only detect motion if one closely examines it.

The fire quietly sighs and pops, a reminder of the passing of all things.

On The Estate

 

My sister, The Outdoorsman, and I met with a lawyer yesterday about the settlement of my parents' estate.

For various and sundry reasons, I will (obviously) not be discussing most of the details here publicly - not that there is anything really to hide or secretive, just that with most legal processes I am sure that the less said about them in public, the better.

In general, it appears to be a rather straightforward process - again, many thanks to my parents' who planned so well against this day.  One or two minor paperwork matters and then the settlement of the accounts can begin. 

We will need another appraisal of the property.  This was recommended course of action - not that we do not already have one, but having a second one after the death of the second parent would resolve any potential issues about value. Also, it serves as a good faith effort to make sure the estate is being settled equally, which is just as important.

As before, we have essentially confirmed that my sister is interested in the cash and I am interested in the property.

I am having mixed feelings about all of this.

On the one hand, the fact that we are at this point makes the passing of my parents a very real event.  It is easy for me to segregate their passing in my mind from the reality of their things.  Now, in a very real sense their things are passing - to us - and their memory is what will remain.

On the other hand, there are my own considerations to be made.  There will be an increase of expenses in my own account, as the estate will not cover the ongoing expenses (nor should it after the departure of my parents).  It is good that I have a job again; it does meant that there are additional considerations and planning to made.  

The process was never not going to happen; like many things, we cannot predict when it will start - until it actually does.

Requiem For A Band Director

Last week, a somewhat cryptic post appeared on the page of a fellow graduate from my high school, some years older than myself.  A little digging made the context more clear:  my high school band director had passed away.

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Band directors, like rare other types of teachers, hold an odd place in the high school teacher hierarchy.  They are in fact teachers, and in that sense issue grades and provide instruction as any teacher will.  At the same time, they are seeking to pull from students a certain level of performance that is not strictly called out merely by the issuance of assignments, quizzes, and question and answer sessions.  They have to somehow get into the lives of students in a way that a "hard" scholastic subject teacher of math or science or social studies or English never completely does, at least on such a large scale.

Band directors, like coaches and any other teacher involved leadership role, end up spending a lot more time with their students than normal.  In a marching band season, there is Summer Camp before instruction starts, followed by the actual class or classes itself (in my time, Band and Marching Band in Autumn were separate back to back periods), and non-class rehearsals, and actual performances for games and travel and performance for competitions, then the shift as the season turns and concert season starts - less overall afterschool practices perhaps, but still instruction and travel and performances.

Over time, the Band Director inhabits a space where they are neither only a teacher nor really a peer in the sense that they are always with you during the activity.  They become a Presence, to be respected yet also included in the banter and life of a high school band in a way that other teachers may not be.  Perhaps in one sense, they become that "uncle" that families have, a figure from a previous generation that is involved in your generation's foibles in a way that your parents and others are not and perhaps never can be. They and their students inhabit a world which can only be apprehended by those on the outside, but is understood by anyone that has ever been in a high school band.

Ultimately - for all of the good ones, I suspect - they essentially become a mentor and friend.

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In retrospect,  I realized that I thought my band director was far older than I was in high school.  To be fair, that was partially due to encroaching hair loss and a beard (mysterious adults things to a recently minted teenager).  It surprised me - years later, of course - to realize that he was much closer in age to us than seemed possible at the time, perhaps a mere 10 or 15 years older instead of the 20 or 30 that I saw in my mind.

He had high expectations of all us, expectations that we probably often failed to live up to as much as we should have. I can still see him in his chair in the center of the band room, quietly waiting with his hands in his lap as we slowly brought ourselves down from the dull roar of teen age interaction and turned to the task of music as hand.  And yet seldom, if ever, can I remember him becoming truly angry at us (it happened, upon occasion - and as you might expect, the shame of disappointing such a man overwhelmed the actual event itself).

He was one of the best sorts of band directors in that he truly loved music.  Beyond the high school marching band and concert band seasons, he oversaw the Pep Band for basketball - but his true love was jazz, which was an invitation only group and to be honest, was the first time that jazz had even entered my consciousness.  And his activities with music did not end there:  he was forever involved in the local civic orchestras and music festivals - and himself not unskilled trumpet player who seemed to enjoy playing as much as he did instructing.

Until I had read the obituary, I had forgotten the fact that in the year of my graduation at the Spring Concert he - along with the Chorale teacher - announced their retirement from the musical side of their teaching duties.  Leading a music program is hard, and perhaps after 20 to 25 years he simply felt it was time to move on.  Timely for my graduating class, of course:  one of the most difficult transitions of all is for students to have a new band director, especially one that is previously unknown.  More often than not, the program always suffers a drop off as the new ways are never quite like the old ones.  The memories and the attachment often remain too strong.

----

For some years after I graduated I continued to see him; myself, The Director, The Director's brother, and a rotating fourth person (we could never keep anyone more than two years) would do a form of instrumental caroling at Christmas, always ending at his house around 11 PM.  He and his wife and family would be there waiting for us.  We would play our requisite carols, then come in and chat for a while about the previous year and what had occurred.  It was nice to be able to have post high school contact with him in a way that transcended the student/teacher relationship, connecting with him as a friend and peer in a way that had never been possible as a student.

----

He, along with - of all people - my Geometry and Trigonometry teacher, remain the two most influential teachers of my high school career - not only the ones I continued to keep in contact with, but the ones that were had the greatest impact on me (perhaps not surprisingly, they themselves were friends outside of work).

From my band director, I learned the basic practice of...learning to practice.  That seems like an under-rated skill, but I assure that for me, who was seldom able to keep with such things up to that point, it was a major achievement. It paved the way for me to learn that practice was the price of learning to do something, at least to do something well.

Something I realized I learned from him even now that I had not realized is his way of dealing with people.  He seldom raised his voice, seldom became angry - and yet, things were done, music was learned, and performances happened.  He first of all lead and invested his energy and effort in the task in hand and us - and we, of course, reciprocated.  He had the authority, but he seldom used it as such, much more focused on getting us to do those things that needed to be done by both leading us and showing us how do them - a useful skill for someone such as myself in roles where I often have minimal power but a need to see things done.

Finally, of course, he gave me a love of music.

I cannot know how many people passed through his music programs over the years.  It was likely in the hundreds, given a rather small high school district in a small town.  And likely every one of us walked away with some appreciation of music, even if we did not follow it as far or as long as he did. For me, that went through to college marching band and even beyond, to the harp.  And while I do not play nearly as much as I should these days, I can still take simple joy in the execution of a marching routine well done or a song well played across any genre.

It is not unfair to say that once a band nerd, always a band nerd.

----

Even last week, when I posted the news of our relocation to New Home 2.0, he not only "liked" my news but took the time to comment on the upcoming adventure.  This, in what turned out to be a week before his passing, well over 35 years after I had been a student of his.  Even then, he was still following up on all of us and our lives.

It was not quite a "Mr. Holland's Opus" moment where the entire history of a teacher's life is brought together in a single room, but looking at the number of comments on the notice of his passing - many I had known in high school and many others that either preceded or came after me - one can see the rich tapestry of a life which was dedicated to others through music and ultimately, of service.

It is no bad things, paraphrasing J.R.R. Tolkien through Bilbo Baggins, to be able to celebrate the simple yet impactful life of one's mentor.

Your Life As A Christian

 

Tales From Product (A)Isle: Aloha

(Author's note:  All post are now aggregated on a new page, Tales from Produce (A)Isle)

This past Thursday was my last night on Produce (A)Isle.

The time itself was not atypical of all the other closes I have had:  Do tomatoes and peppers.  Do bananas once, or at least twice.  Circle around to the other areas at least once.  Cull expired material and do the 50% mark downs for tomorrow's expiration.  Hum along with the piped in music (currently hits of the 50's and 60's, mostly Motown sound).  

My departure in and of itself will not create a ripple.  My boss did let me know he was genuinely sorry to see me go and had nothing but good feedback from me from (A)Isle coworkers, other coworkers, and management.  My fellow (A)Islers have wished me good luck and told me they will miss me - in fact, one, told me myself and one other were the only people that "got" closing. I will let whoever checks me out of the department tonight know.  But with the number of people that work at the store, my disappearance will likely cause little or no comment.  People come and go all the time.

As a surprise and lucky timing on my part, they handed out a $100 "Cost of Living" gift (Not a bonus; I was corrected by the Store Manager.  They do not give bonuses.) so I got to depart with crisp new $100 bill in my wallet.

This was a good job.

It was a good job for many reasons.  Some of them are very pragmatic - for example, having something of a second income helped both for things like being able to attend training in Japan without worrying about financing as well as having a little income coming in during Hammerfall 3.0. A standing 10% discount on in-house brands, occasionally having a 25% discount on in house brands. The fact that it kept me up and moving for anywhere from 6 to 20 hours a week, covering about 5 miles a night in steps. And in terms of pay, I had nothing to complain about:  Starting pay of $15.50 an hour, $0.50 raise after 3 months and - I just figured out - another $0.50 raise sometime in January or February of this year to a departing hourly rate of $16.50.  A 6% raise in approximately 9 months.  That seldom if ever happens in my "real" career life.  And not one, but two $100 "gifts".

In terms of stress there was almost none, especially once I got my feet under me and realized that the expectation was to do your best, but that was all that you could do.  I never had to face an e-mail inbox loaded with questions and required actions.  If we were out of something on the floor, I went to the back and looked - if we were out, we were out and there was nothing I could do.  The amount of difficult customers I experienced were minimal (2?  3?) compared to the number of people I interacted with.  Other than the stress of having to fill and tie balloons as we managed floral in their absence (which was a stress even up to my last night), it was a very even keel sort of position - always busy, seldom too busy.  

My coworkers were always pleasant.  My boss was great.  They always worked with my schedule without complaint and so I was able to travel (both back to The Ranch as well as to just go) without ever having to beg or cajole my way into another day off.

However, the biggest reason it was a good job had nothing to do with the conduct of the work itself.

Oftentimes in my primary field career (Quality), I am often plagued by the sense that I have secured the position through things that had nothing to do with me.  I am experienced enough to know that lots of things go into selecting a candidate just besides them being the "best" candidate.  Sometimes it is pay, sometimes it is location to the facility in site.  Sometimes it is desperation because they have been searching for months and not been able to find anyone everyone agrees on.  Many times I have felt I was "the lowest common denominator" for the selection instead of being the best candidate.

Produce (A)Isle was different.

I had nothing to offer for the application and interview, nothing other than years of keeping a job.  The interview, as I might have related, was scheduled for 30 minutes but took less than 10 minutes and during which we hardly talked about the job at all.  He "had a feeling".

For the first time in a long time, I felt like I got a job because I really was the best person.

If you have never had that happen, or it has been a long time since it happened, it is hard to describe what that does for your confidence.  The idea that you are selected because of your ability and not any "contributing factors" is immense.  The thought that "I went out and got that job.  I did it" is an amazing confidence boost.

Did that confidence boost help?  We will never know for sure of course, but I like to believe that the interview process for my new job in New Home 2.0 reflected that.  No, the fact that I was again applying for a job for which I was likely overqualified did not make me feel less enthusiastic about the job.  Yes, I had every reason to believe I could do that job as well as any other job I had done.  And no, essentially starting at the higher end of the lower end was not an issue.

The other thing this job reminded me of was flexibility - more specifically, that I can be flexible.  When a challenge presents itself, such as losing one's job, I am able to respond.  I can take action instead of sitting at home bemoaning my fate.  And I can be successful at it.

All of this, from a job handling fruits and vegetables.

I will keep my nametag in the glove box of my car as I have for months now, mostly as a good luck charm - but also as a "just in case".  After all, while I have every reason to believe and hope everything goes well in New Home 2.0, it is never a bad thing to keep your options - just in case.

And besides, where else am I going to gather such valuable knowledge such as being able to identify the readiness of an avocado for guacamole merely by a 10 second touch?

On Conversations

This past week I had the good fortune to have coffee with The Dog Whisperer,  part of the larger "Grand Farewell Tour" that has been going on since the notification of the new job became confirmed.  

By the time I looked up at the watch, I realized that over three hours had gone by with us just talking about this and that:  our former employer, her job search, iaijutsu (when will I never talk about that that), animals, life in general.  "This was great" I commented as we were leaving.  "I never seem to have these sorts of conversations any more".

-----

This is not the first conversation of late I have had to this extent: recently my standing call with Rainbow ran a full two hours and coffee with another former employee ran 1.5 hours.  Conversations with La Contessa when I am in Old Home do not go less than 1.5 hours and often over that.  And as I thought on these things, the comment I made to The Dog Whisperer came up again:  Why do I not seem to have these kinds of conversations any more?

Or perhaps more appropriately, why do we - I, at least - not make the time to have them?

----

Social media and technology has done a great deal, both good and ill. One of the good things that it has done is that it has allowed people to find other people that share their interests in a way that one could not before:  many of those that share my interests live in other states or other countries, and even on this blog I have "found my tribe" thanks to the InterWeb.  And it allows us to keep in touch with each other in a way that we would not have been able to before: information (pictures, conversations) can take place in virtually real time from anywhere in the world (not that I often awake to watch the live coverage of the annual Kobudo Kyokai demonstration with a massive time difference, but I could if I wanted to).  A large part of the origination of the more frequent writing on this blog, in fact, was to be able to share my life in New Home with my family, primarily TB The Elder, who faithfully read it daily up to the end of 2020 (although, as he often informed me, he did not always "get" everything I wrote about).

That said, social media and technology bring issues as well.  A simple issue is simply that by finding "more people like me", I also tend to focus on communication with those people and less with others, something that - like or not - we had to do in the analog age of society.  Another thing is that conversations often are not in "real time", but rather in the time it takes to respond.  It is rather like an author writing a book:  the author can get up, walk around, get a drink, and then get back to writing.  For the characters, it is as if no time has passed.  Thus, conversations are often always a sort of hanging conversation, with responses drifting in and out based on availability and interest.  

It can be great for keeping in touch.  It is less great when one is seeking deep and engaging conversations.

----

Along with the fact we seem to talk less to each other, we also seem to set aside less time to talk to each other.

Once upon a time - within my lifetime - we dropped by to "talk to people".  I would be tempted to say that this is a preserve of the older generation (as I am almost "in" that generation now), except that habit seems to less prevalent than it used to be even among them.

On one hand, I can understand that.  In the modern day society in which we live, people are busy.  Schedules can be mapped out for days, weeks or even months in advance.  Simply "stopping on by" almost smacks of a certain rudeness, a sort of enforced demand to make conversation:  "Behold, it is I, descended from the bounds of Mt. Olympus. Stop ye thine activities and converse".  Most people will make an attempt, but there is nothing less conducive to conversation than someone constantly checking their watch or phone or the clock, fidgeting as the seconds tick by.

On the other hand, our modern day society can program time to where we simply have none to give:  every hour, every minute, every second needs to be "productive".  We must do the things and meet the objectives, personal or familial or corporate.  Conversation becomes something that happens "in between" other things, snatched at the beginning and end of meetings or mentioned as individuals pass in the home or church or social events on their way to the next thing - or, as noted above, in the quasi-timelessness of electronic space.

Unemployment gives one an odd reprieve on this order, almost a unique one:  one has all the time in the world and yet no time at all, flipping between the driving force of needing to find work and the reality that one cannot will a job into existence.  Conversations become easier when the currency one has is time itself with no other pressing thing to spend it on.

----

In high school, and even into our community college days, Uisdean Ruadh and I would walk the rails and talk.

The walk to the railroad near my house was not more than a quarter mile; from there we would walk the rails into my home town - if one walks far enough, one ends up at the former train station from years gone by.  This was long ago, when two young men walking the railroad tracks in small town America was likely to cause no more fuss than a recommendation to "Watch for trains".

These walks could take two or more hours, the crunching on the gravel giving way to the slap of our shoes on pavement and sidewalk as we walked the streets until, tired or talked out, we would make our way back to my house.  The conversations are not now specific in my mind, except the fact that we talked - about everything: school, plans, wild fantasies of imaginations, girls, religion - in many ways like our conversations now. 

These were never forced, and likely we seldom had a specific goal in mind for for our conversations.  We just walked and talked, two young men with no money and no better activity than to banter with words.

----

If one has a conversation - a true conversation, not just the banal sort of exchange that seems to pass for such these days - one forgets the wonder of what a conversation can truly be.

To talk back and forth, to see point and counterpoint spiral up and above and overtopping one another, to find out things one never knew about the other - "Oh, you enjoyed that too?" -, to spend the time truly talking about a subject without worrying about the time ticking down:  this is perhaps in some ways a very faint reflection of Heaven. I can never see myself talking to God in this way - the difference between us is far too large - but I can see having such conversations with The Saved, where time simply has no meaning and conversations can truly go on as long as they need to (as a side note, I suspect prayer is supposed to be like this, but mine never feel this way).

But all of this starts with something.  And that something is a conversation, a real conversation.  And to have a real conversation, one has to reserve and spend the time.

I cannot say that I will suddenly change how I do such things, or even that I can.  But these slivers of the real sort of thing make me hunger for such intellectual stimulation and true sharing of the intellect and souls are the more.

Odd that technology allows to connect more than ever, yet seems to deny us the ability to actual converse.

The Collapse CXXXVII: Things

07 July 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

It is high Summer here. Not unbearable to be sure, but certainly even with insulation it is still a little warmer than I like.

In my absence, Pompeia Paulina took it upon herself to give the Cabin a thorough cleaning and reorganization, which I understand happened at her former house as well (now Young Xerxes and Stateira’s, of course). As much of a curmudgeon as I can be, even I am forced to admit that it was both called for and merited: old men bachelors may be good at a great many things, but internal home organization and even cleaning is not always one of them.

Beyond just the cleaning and re-organization, there was of course the inevitable combining of households. As I believe I have mentioned before, my house is “suddenly” decorated in a Southwestern motif that was not there before. My armoire and closet have a selection of clothes that were not there previously. Things have moved – not enough to be lost, but enough to be inconvenient at the moment when I look for them.

And wonder of wonders, my bookshelves have all been dusted.

The rabbits – always existing in the “now” – look at me with shock when I ask Pompeia Paulina about the location of something. “It has always been that way” they seem to say as they look at me and loaf, clearly enjoying the fact that two people in the home means more attention for them.

This re-organization did, however, bring up the rather pertinent question of what to do with everything else.

Once upon a time, of course, anything that was not used would have been ended up in a yard sale, local or community, or simply sent away to a donation for some charitable group. Yard sales are a thing of the past now, and charitable groups are neither present nor near nor, likely operational. And so now we have things which, although not necessarily needed now, are not easily disposed of.

I say not easily disposed of. It is not just because those yard sales and those charitable organizations no longer exist. It is because every thing now represents something of potential value, or at least something which for all we know will never be produced again.

Some of this, of course, can still be sold or given away (charity did not die just because society did). But although I like to believe that I did a good job of cleaning things out even before I moved and tried to minimize since then, even I am forced to admit that there are things that were still held on to for nostalgia or a purpose which has now disappeared.

Buried in a small wooden chest in my closet are cards, cards that are nothing but paper and pictures and signatures – but cards that hold all the significance in the world to me as they represent snippets of my life: birthdays, anniversaries, significant days, given to me by people who are no longer there. Sure, I could use the space – but I cannot bring myself to sacrifice the memories.

Others are more practical in nature: the small food processor or food dehydrator that once upon a time I used to prepare dried fruit and beef jerky, all now silenced by an absence of power that seems likely not to return anytime soon. Yes, parts of such items may still be useful – trays, for example, can still hold things – but as a unit, they are little more than paperweights now.

It is not just an idle discussion: Even if one does not need such things, where does one put them? Just laying things out and about has never been my modus operandi; like my father I like a house that is outwardly and inwardly organized. Yet there is only so much storage space in the shed to hold extra things, in a space that already full of items needed for maintenance.

We cannot just throw things away, but neither can we just keep everything. At least it makes for an interesting puzzle to think on as we work out in the garden and yard.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

A Post-Script of Sorts: While I have not said anything to Pompeia Paulina yet, the food situation for ourselves and indeed the community this year is a growing concern in my mind. Unlike last year, we do not have the tail end remnants of a society to pull from. I have an idea, albeit a rather ridiculous one that I will field with Young Xerxes. Better to be shot down by him than continue it up a chain without walking through it.

On Losing Interest In Brands

Although I typically do not discuss "modern" or "pop" culture here, it is not something that I am completely unattuned to.  I follow a series of posters on The Tube of You that comment on such things - mostly movies, games and comics.  It is not that I am specifically into any of those currently, but I am familiar with the intellectual properties and having a passing interest in the direction of the industry.

Earlier this week I was listening to one such broadcast in which they were discuss the trajectory of a long running intellectual property.  Listening to the discussion, I suddenly made the discovery of how little I held any interest in "brands" anymore.

As I sat and thought about it more, the fact became more apparent to me.  I am generally not a watcher of "series", and I have not collected any sort of things - be they series of books, entertainment, or even "things" - in years.  Sure, I still hold an interest in 1st Edition Gamma World items and look (here and here), but seldom if ever do I find something I do not have.  Most of my purchases for the past years have either been of specific authors I like or just random things that catch my eye and hold my interest.  

It extends to other things as well:  I am far more likely anymore to purchase something from a small or specialty vendor or local chain than I am from a corporate brand.  Part of that is just a preference to fund the small rather than the large; part of that is sheer obstinance on my part even if it may cost me a bit more more.

Which of course, is exactly the wrong sort of opinion to have in the current economy.

Consumer based economies require people to purchase things - be they actual physical things or non-physical things such as e-books (real books being physical of course), games, movies, or other intangible items.  Best of all if you can convince people that they "need" to have all the things in order to be happy.

What happens when - if by finance, economy, or personal choice - people stop buying things, or more specifically non-specifically, things that they do not need?  Maybe even the things that industry has “convinced them they need?  What happens if that built in market dies?

The good news, I suppose, is I think we are getting to witness it in real time - if by "good news", I mean "actual verification of theoretical impacts".  

For many years, many companies have been able to assume that customers would simply be there, because "brands" and engagement and the power of marketing convincing people they need everything, including those things that they do not really need to survive. In the world we seem to be entering, Such things seem to no longer be a given.

It is one thing to assume and believe that the customer can and will buy your wares because they have always done so.  It is another to realize that that customers are not necessarily the captive, built in market you wanted or needed them to be.

On The Ending Of Viewing The Job Search Boards

 On of the things I am looking forward to most about starting a new job is the fact that I will not have to look at job hunting sites anymore (LinkedOut, Maybe, ObscuredDoor).

To be fair, the actual job search process using these engines has been pretty streamlined (although, as a note, not one of the potential offers I had or the offer I accepted came from these sites). They are all to some extent more or less customizable, so it becomes more of a question of simply creating the search parameters and narrowing them to the dates one wants to look (anywhere from "past 24 hours" to "past 3 days").  

No, what I will not miss is what the sites are.

Maybe is the easiest site in that regard:  there is no news or posts, just jobs.  ObscuredDoor is a little worse in that regard in that there are some discussion areas, but those can be easily clicked away from and the search conducted.  No, the real issue is LinkedOut.

Opening LinkedOut always brings you to the main screen.  Here you will find a combination of one of the following:

- People starting new jobs or being promoted

- People laid off from jobs and looking for work

- People self-promoting

- Companies self promoting

In other words, it is kind of a big promotion fest stylized as the go-to location for business.  And to be frank, days of it get tiring.

Social media is slightly different in that on The Book of Face or ProlongedGram, you generally see things posted by friends or things that are of interest to you or sometimes both.  People actually share their lives in some form or fashion; humor actually makes an appearance occasionally (to be fair, not always good humor, but humor).

On LinkedOut, not so much.  Occasionally someone shares a personal story or an industry appropriate humor comment will appear.  But on the whole, it is social media for business:  imagine your workplace as a connection sties.  That is LinkedOut.

It is, in a word, boring.

Do I have a presence there?  Sure; I even updated it for my job search.  But I almost never post anything there about anything; given the current business environment it is better to be invisible than to be at all visible.  And - hopefully - once I start this job, I can simply forget it exists other than to update my history with my new job information.

It is not that LinkedOut was probably not a good idea at the time it started, a business portal for individuals to connect with other individuals.  And it does have its uses:  often when I am interviewing with someone or being audited by someone, I will check to see their experience and background. So for reference, it is a great tool.

For anything else, it has become the equivalent of the town billboard, a host of information posted that has almost nothing to do with anything of actual impact to my life.

The Week Of Lasts

 This has become the Week of Lasts.

Yesterday was my last formal day at both Church and the Church Coffee Bar and at the Rabbit Shelter.  This Thursday will be my last day on Produce (A)Isle.  This Saturday will be my last day of Iaijutsu at my current dojo.  Sunday, I will be on a plane - first to Old Home to begin the discussion about my parents' estate (and The Ranch), and then the following Thursday on what will become New Home 2.0.

It is an odd thing, this packing of Lasts into a short time frame.  On one hand it makes the pain of separation bard but fast, the ripping of the existential Band-Aid with the brief pain followed by relief - there is little time to drag on the leaving of things.  There is a date and then this thing ends, and this thing, and so on and so on.

On the other hand, it it feels like a series of great losses in my life.

These activities that are ending are not - with the exception of Produce (A)Isle - recent additions.  I have been involved with these places for ten to fifteen years.  All of a sudden - essentially in the period of two weeks - they are being put to the wayside.  Sure, I may return as a visitor in the coming year and periodically after that - I have been encouraged to do so - but those returns will be different.  One is no longer an active week in/week out participant.  One is a visitor - a visitor with history, but a visitor from the past, a sort of time-traveler that returns to see how things are going without the ability to really change anything.

Over time, the memory of me will fade in all of these places.  I will become "Hey, do you remember...."  If I am exceptionally lucky, I will pass into Institutional Lore, a sort of legendary presence that fewer and fewer actually knew but many know only through the stories told about them.   

Perhaps that is the best of all possible worlds - to live in stories, long after I am gone and the actual events are forgotten.  And, of course, new stories cannot start until the old stories finish.

One Road Leads Home

 

Farming Looks Mighty Easy

 Sadly, this is the opinion of most of the modern world about farming.  Yet they depend almost completely on someone - someone else, usually, do the work.

Despise that which you rely on, and eventually it will not longer be there to rely on.

Training 2024: Learnings

 

Utagawa Hiroshige, Autumn Moon at Ishiyama, 1834 (Source)

For my trip to Japan in 2024, we have discussed location and facilities, meals, vending machines, and other places I had seen (here and here).  What we have yet to discuss is what I actually learned.

It is not as ethereal a subject as it might sound like.  We are required to write a paper every time we train with our headmaster stating what we learned during our time with him.  My understanding is that somewhere out on the InterWeb, all of these papers exist (no idea where, of course).  My Sensei has always been kind enough to share his drafts with me; what I suspect is that everyone takes away both general things and things specific to their situation.

More relevant to this discussion, of course, is what did I learn?

Learnings for these events fall into two parts.  The first is that of technique, corrections received that are general to the waza being practiced and applicable to all or specific to the individual and their practice of it.  Mine for this category were not, for the most part, surprising to me:  Posture.  Grip.  Height (e.g., I need to be lower).  Straight(er) back (something I have been battling for 15 years).  Cutting angles (hasuji).  Area and direction of my gaze (metsuke).    To correct these is practice, feedback, more practice.

The second part - what did I take away as an individual - is always the more interesting and revealing part.  These have differed from year to year, based largely on where I was in my life at the time.

It all started with stiffness.

One of the corrections I received multiple times this training was that I was too stiff.  My grip on the sword handle (tsuba) was compared to a "death grip"; my completion of any technique was noted as being rigid not just in my grip, but in my whole body.   I was strong - very much so - but with flexibility, I would never truly perform the technique.

"A living hand is pliable; a dead hand is fixed" wrote Miyamoto Musashi, the 17th Century swordsman who knew a thing or two about swordsmanship.  It was not a minor thing.  

The encouragement, therefore, was to relax.

Relaxing in swordsmanship is something that seems to be at odds with the practice itself, at least in my mind - but then, as I considered it, in point of fact it was true of almost all aspects of my life: I am tense.  I tense up.   This is true in social situations for sure, but really it is true of any situation in which I have to make a decision or sometimes even just the thought of doing anything.  I become paralyzed and I become stiff.

Enter a hot bath and fluorescent lighting.

One evening in the ofuro, the beloved hot soaking tub that is a staple of Japanese onsen and even our humble training center, I sat looking at the reflection of the fluorescent lights above the tub in the water.  The water was stirred up due to the activity of people getting in and out.  The fluorescent lights above the tub chipped and shattered into a million light shards in the pool, lighted waves rippling back and forth in endless motion.

It was only when everything stopped - when no-one had entered or exited the pool, or when we just sat there - that the fluorescent lights reflected clearly in the pool.

The moon and water is a common motif in Japanese art, a staple of poetry and paintings and woodblocks.  Even in our sword art, there is a technique that is literally translated as "Water Moon Sword", the imagery of the two swords reflecting each other like the moon and water.  

Suddenly - in what I would not name "Satori" (enlightenment) but enlightening - I saw clearly that only when one is at peace and relaxed can one truly see and reflect what is around one.  Any stress, any disturbance, and the image is lost in a jumble of moving waves and fractured light.  And so if I wanted to improve my technique - to become less stiff and rigid - I needed to practice being at peace and relaxing, even in the midst of practicing forms.  It also helps in that only when one is at peace and still that one can see those subtle visual and mental cues that in the life a swordsman determined when to draw and in the life of ordinary people when an action was required.

The lesson, at least as I understood it, became even more critical upon my return and indeed during the past week:  being stirred up and anxious prevents me from seeing things for what the really are.  If I can bring my intensity down, manage my internally generated stress, I become free to act in ways that are actually beneficial.

I cannot say I am implementing this well; like anything it is a learned activity that has 50 plus years of habit and training going against it.  But I have at least been able to make myself conscious that such a thing is happening, and if I can realize its occurrence, I can take measures against it.

The moon will always be there to reflect in the water; likewise, every day is an opportunity to learn afresh that only through stillness and calm can relax enough to see things clearly.