Clear Air Turbulence

I would presume that any of you who have had the occasion to fly very much have had the disagreeable experience of finding a nice rough pocket of sky in the middle of a cloudless blue day.  No rhyme nor reason for it, and I don't think there's really a good scientific explanation for them.  Just a rough ride masked by over-lying calm.  I feel like maybe 2011 has been like that.  A veneer of calm and success when what's really going on is a damn bumpy ride.

I'm ending this year much the way I felt at the end of 2005.  That year was a tough; lousy job situation, rough year at home, nearly got killed and spent half the year recovering.  Just ended up feeling exhausted and totally sandblasted.  Also at the end of the year I changed jobs, much as I am doing now.

This year, it's been the same tough job situation, same drama at home, except there's two spawn instead of one, same trying to find my way in life.  I guess I managed not to try to get myself killed in 2011, though I guess I did a few kinda dangerous things, and had a few close scrapes, but just didn't end up with any good scars to tell the tales.

And all of it looking like it's flying through nice calm skies.  It gets old after a while, things looking good, but being jarred about, white knuckling the arm rests.  Or worse, just sitting and waiting, knowing that there's that air pocket sitting out there, invisible, waiting to slam the plane down a few hundred feet in the blink of an eye, and ruin my barely managed sense of calm.  One way or the other, you get off the plane feeling like you've been put through the wringer.

2006 managed to be a pretty good year.  I liked what I was doing for the first time in a while.  I started to find myself a little bit.  But it's certainly different now.  I've reshuffled myself once, maybe twice since then.  I am certainly not the same person.  So I guess we'll see.  I'm going into this with a sense of anticipation, but also trepidation.  Am I on the path?


As I come back to this post some days later, I chuckle to see my typo.  I meant to write "Am on the right path."  Perhaps I should have should have capitalized the "P".  Am I on the the Path?  Frankly, I still don't know.  I become less certain of all but a very few absolute rights and wrongs every day, so I'll just settle for the Path, wherever it leads, as long as I'm on it.  I've got a decent pair of boots, a pretty good compass, and I can read a map.  I guess I'll just start walking.


Forgive me.  I'm not all the way awake, and now I'm mixing metaphors, or some such thing, and just writing the words as they fall out of my head.  Flying, walking.  Sitting and waiting versus plotting my own course.  Here's what I think I really need to do: stay off of metaphorical airplanes; sitting, waiting, fearing.  Keep my feet on terra firma; use my tools, forge ahead on a bearing of my choice, select my own terrain instead of trying to fly over it.


The weather isn't always good on the ground, but at least you're not strapped into a chair watching it happen.  That's fine, I'll take my ability to deal with it over somebody else's.  One week to a way-point.  If there's not a cairn there, I will build one, shoot my bearing, and start walking.  Forget airplanes.  Time to move under my own power.


-Grey

The Death of Mainline Churches

So Christmas morning was pretty pleasant.  Got up early, opened presents.  The kids are happy.  I got a few things myself, and none it crap for a change.  Then we got everyone dressed and headed to the church for a Christmas service.

Now, it had been made known that this would be a casual service, Called knew it would be sparsely attended, and that there would be no child care;  both Spawn would be in the sanctuary.  They were suitable wound up, as kids are want to be on Christmas morning.  Spawn II was pretty spooled up, so I took her out and went back to one of the empty rooms to play.  After a short while, one of the older members of the congregation walked in and says to me "I heard you're getting a new job."  I replied, "I am."  He then proceeds to tell me "You're going to have to look for one for your wife too.  Your daughter is dancing in the service.  She is letting your kids ruin the church."  In a spectacular act of self-control I replied "Then let me go get her.", which I did.  

Shortly after that, I rounded them up and left.  And I'm never going back.  Ever.  I don't want the kids to go back either, but I'll let Called make that decision.  I've related this story to her, and she seems a little more laid back about it than me.  I'm furious.

These people wonder why the churches are dying.  I'll tell you why, because they are killing them.  They simply refuse to see that society is changing around them, and that people are looking for a church that will help them and their families be seekers on journey, not a place to be told what to think, where their kids are ignored, and where there is no room for openness and exploration.

Maybe it'll change when all these people pay the ferry man.  Maybe one day it'll be a place where someone like me can be accepted.  Maybe, but I won't hold my breath.  Until then, the church will be an obstacle on whatever path I'm on.

Should you happen to stumble upon this post, I hope you and yours had a pleasant day, whatever your faith tradition, or lack thereof.  I'm going to simmer for a while, and then work on cleaning up the debris of the day.

Peace out.

-Grey 

Risk

I moved into Katherine-Parker Hall at Hanover College on a Saturday morning.  Mom and Dad had left by noon.  By the middle of the afternoon I had met a guy named Sam Krieg, who lived in the Fiji house across the street.  Sam knocked on my door and asked if he could run a zipline out my dorm window to a tree in front of the house.  My answer: "Of course".  So we ran the zipline, and I met the Dean of Students within my first couple of hours of as a college student.....

But I digress, Sam was something of a character around Hanover.  He had a climbing wall in his room, ran around campus naked, crashed junk cars into appliances on the Fiji lawn, and still managed to find time get good grades, and be involved at school.  Much to the consternation of the administration, he was elected to give the keynote speech at his graduation (my sophmore year).  He walked to the podium, pulled a Rolling Rock beer out of his robe (Hanover is dry), popped the beer, and much to the relief of the administration, fully clothed, began his speech.

He recounted traveling to Argentina to climb a mountain, and how the expedition nearly went fatally wrong.  During that speech, he said something that is with me still, and brings me to the real point of this post:  "A man who risks nothing, gets nothing.  A man who risks nothing, has nothing.  A man who risks nothing, IS nothing."

I find myself at a cusp where this is very relevant.  Within the next few days, I will be receiving a job offer that will afford me an opportunity to leave Bush League Consulting; something I have have sought from about the fourth hour after I walked in the door.  And now I find myself hesitating.

As much as there are days that I hate HATE working there, I am well compensated, appreciated, and generally speaking, good at what I do.  If I decide to move to the Fifth Floor, I will be putting myself at tremendous risk.  I will have to stretch myself personally and professionally, and unusually for me, I don't have the gut feeling that I know I will be successful.

So now I have to figure out how much risk I am willing to tolerate.  I've done plenty of hard things in my life.  I've never ever been afraid of hard work and exertion.  But as I sit here contemplating this decision, I have come to wonder if I've ever risked myself, have I tried to do anything I wasn't pretty sure I could succeed at?  As a scientist, I am forced to admit that there are no certainties, but generally you can constrain the variables, and with some thought, have a pretty good feel for where you're going to end up.  This time I cannot; and it is very uncomfortable.

Relative comfort versus unknown challenges.  Continued success versus an unknown set of problems.  Leaving my Anchor for waters unknown.

However, there exists Potential:  Building something of my own, recognition for what I'm good at AND like, long term success.

So now, over the next few days, I must explore, think, challenge, weigh.

Who am I?

What do I have?

WHAT am I?

-Grey

Transition

I cannot take credit for these words - they are by Iain M. Banks - but for some reason I am drawn and must share.

"Perhaps we all find such coincident place marks in the books of our lives reassuring.
Still, it seems to me that that such congruencies, while useful in fixing what one might call one's personal eras within our shared history, are effectively meaningless. Lying here, during all this time after my own small fall, it has become my conviction that things mean pretty much what we want them to mean. We'll pluck significance from the least consequential happenstance if it suits us and happily ignore the most flagrantly obvious symmetry between separate aspects of our lives if it threatens some cosily comforting belief; we are blindest to to precisely what might be the most illuminating."

Grey. Grey, Grey, Grey.  Grey is in a negative place right now.  If you're looking for some philosophical musings, or recounts of a good adventure, get bent and go some place else.


I am so fucking sick of it all.  Sick of Bush League Consulting.  Pissed that the bright light I had to do real consulting may be trying to build someone else's dream.  Again.  Can I get a chance to work in a thriving practice again, with people as smart and driven as me?  Is that too much to ask?  Is this my future if I choose to follow Called around?


I'm sick of 0445 mornings.  Sick of feeling like being half an hour early to work is late.  Sick of the Administrator making me feel like I do shitty job, even when I'm already grinding myself to the end of sanity and health.  Sick of the clutter in this hell-hole.  Sick of be unwilling to have someone else in my house.  Sick of living with a business partner with no interest in more.  Tortured by want of more.


I want nothing more than to get in the truck and start driving.  I'm sure I could get three days before Bush League killed my gas and credit card and put an APB on the rig.  Leave that fucker at a rest stop, make one last call on Bush League's electronic leash to tell those assholes where it is, and then begin walking, becoming Grey. Into the night and fog. Disappear well enough to cash out my insurance so that Spawn of Grey can have what they need.


Perhaps some of you know.  Perhaps the Writer.  Perhaps the Anchor. Me; I'll contemplate becoming Grey.  Contemplate the lure of the Void; drifting in a present existence.  Maybe I'll be here again.  Maybe I'll just be Grey.

Millions of Tiny Bubbles

It's been just about three years even since I started occasionally writing in this space.  My first post was about presence, and a white water rafting trip.  I just got back from another similar trip, and somehow it seems appropriate for me to write again.  I don't have any more profound thoughts about presence, but I surely know that I continue to desire it just as much as it seems elusive.

So this weekend we rafted again, but this time we took along some old friends.  I've been wanting to go again since the last trip, but the fact that the river was going to be running at at least 115% of its normal capacity, making for some really big water, pretty much decided that I was going even if I had to go alone.

We did the same trip this time, a Lower Gauley run on Saturday and an Upper Gauley run on Sunday.  If you're not familiar, the Lower is kind of a warm up, and the Upper is the biggest commercially run white water east of the Mississippi.  On Saturday we had a very small trip, the seven in my group, and three total strangers who turned out to be from here on the Coastal Plain with me.  The outfitter wanted to break up the groups evenly into two boats; not an unreasonable idea.  Something possessed me to say I would ride with the complete strangers. 

This was not the best choice I could have made.  I was joined in my endeavor by The Writer, who has a mile of guts, but only one (after this weekend) rafting trip under her belt.  To make a long story short, the three people from the Coastal Plain might as well have been paddling with tennis rackets.  We didn't spill, but I don't think I've ever had to paddle so hard in my life.  It made for a long cold day.  Good company with my family and friends, less awesome on the river. Which leads us into Sunday, which really, was much more interesting.

The day started cloudy and cold.  It was sleeting on me when I walked out to my truck.  That opening makes it seemed like at some point the day ceased to be cloudy and cold.  It didn't.  We checked in for the early run, loaded on the buses, and headed for the put in.  We ran our first class V with no problem, and I think the group was feeling pretty good.  Which brought us to the second big rapid, and the primary subject of this post, Pillow Rock.

Pillow is the most violent rapid on the river.  It's big, it's fast, and sometimes it will punish you even when you do everything right.  We ran a perfect line in, went high side on Pillow Rock, and then time slowed down.  I very clearly remember the raft being vertical underneath me, and thinking "Shit, we're swimming."  as I dropped the 8 feet or so into the river.  I hit the water and had time to think about how much warmer the 55 F water was than the air, and that it felt pretty good.  You can see the white of the froth, and the green of the surface water, and feel the waves on your head.  It's almost pretty if you can get past being in the middle of a giant rapid.  I surfaced, had time to get about half of a breath, at least some of which was river water, and then got Flushed.

Just river right of Pillow is another rock, named The Volkswagen, which I can only assume is because it is kind of Beetle shaped.  In between the two is a hydraulic called the Toilet Bowl.  You go in, and you're getting Flushed.  It's 20-feet straight down and about carries about about 100-yards or so downstream.  Underwater.  You see, in this order, and in very rapid succession, white foam, green water, black.


Down there its strangely quiet and warm, though the warm I would imagine was a result of the coldness of the day.  There is very little sensation of movement, because all the water is rushing along with you at the same speed.  And you're down long enough to think a bunch; notice that you still have your paddle, become aware of the amount of breath you still feel like you have in your lungs, wonder if there are any rocks at the bottom waiting to grab your ankle.  And then, as you're beginning to think to yourself "Grey, you have been down here a long time.", you pop up.  By some happenstance, I popped up near my boat, which was upside down.  Our guide was trying to roll it back over, and a few of use were trying to drag our compatriots back to shelter.  About that time, I noticed another damned rock, and realized we were going to hit that one too.  You don't want any part of rocks while you're swimming, so I chose to abandon the raft, swim back out into the river, and ride the next rapid au natural also, though I did get a good view of the guide heaving the The Writer back out into the river, so she didn't have to eat shit on the big rock.


I swam the next rapid, got to another raft, and the rest of the scene was pretty much me hollering for a paddle and exhorting the people in the raft to "Paddle, God damn it!", so we could round up the rest of the crew.  Afterward was interesting.  I don't get the adrenaline shakes very often.  I had them then, though I couldn't afford to show it to my crew.  I needed the next two big stretches of water to get all my confidence back.


What did I take from it?  I dreamed of the swim for a couple of nights after.  Clearly it got into my head. And I'd do it again.  I was just talking with The Surfer about that today.  I think there's a spring trip in the works.  Really, I think it comes full circle again to presence.  Those visceral experiences that tell you you are alive, and can be made not that way in a terribly short instant.  How much more in the moment can you get than wondering if that one is your last?  I'm not sure if that's really a good way to live your life, but there for a few moments, it is exhilarating.  Priceless.  Present.

All Points Converge to Here

I was recently talking with a friend who is going though some big changes in life. She was sort bemoaning the size of the decisions she was making, the far reaching impact on her life, and being scared by the potential of screwing up. While assuring her she was on the right track, I developed another train of though in some parallel neural paths.

I got to thinking about all the really little "nothing" decisions that irrevocably changed my life; the passing comment that probably ended my relationship with my high-school girlfriend, stopping for Chik-Fil-A putting me on a collision course with the sleepy driver who almost killed me, and probably a million others that I don't remember.

It occurred to me that while you may be able to more easily predict SOME of the downstream consequences of a "big" decision, you can't really see very many of them at all. And most of us don't usually consider the downstream flow from what you did or didn't miss from the time you decided to stop for the extra cup of coffee on the way to work. Might have missed being hit by a bus crossing the street. Might have missed holding the office door for your soul-mate.

What it comes down to, in my opinion, is that all your decisions are really the same size. They lead you down into a web of interaction with everything else that is far too complicated to ever predict. The sum of all of those decisions leads you to where you are right this very second, and where you'll be the next, and so on.

That being said, what I am trying to take away from all that is to not belabor the stuff that looks too big to deal with, and to not marginalize the hundreds of small decisions that I make every day. I need to keep that in mind as I sort through things right now. Move forward. Act consciously, but decisively. Everything I have ever done leads me to typing this post, right here, right now. And so will the next keystroke.