Happiness Is...

Lately I've been pondering happiness. Not my happiness, really, but happiness in general. Happiness can be so fragile, and what combination of things makes one happy? 


Wait, let's back up a second. Things don't make people happy, do they? I've never been a person who had to have the hot item or the newest gadget. Commercials make it seem like having the latest phone can lead to euphoria, or drinking a Diet Coke can lead me to break out dancing (which no one wants to see). I do believe that for each person, there are material goods that can enhance contentment. If I have a hobby, something related can lift my spirits for a bit. I'm a huge baseball fan, and being able to listen to any game makes me relax, so I have a subscription for the MLB At-Bat app.


I remember being a kid and thinking that Christmas morning would be so great. Gifts under a tree, gifts, gifts, gifts for me, what could be better? And it was nice, but for how long? Those He-Man action figures were fascinating for a while, but the imagination only goes so far. The years pass, the action figures get sold or handed down, and it's on to the next thing. And as an adult? The time spent with family seems so much more important than whatever someone bought.


So if material things aren't the key to happiness, what then? Friends, loved ones, and family come to mind. Feeling like part of a family or a circle of friends can provide fuel, but that's still relying on other people. How does a person build happiness for him/herself? 


My thought: I don't think it is done alone. I think a person needs love and faith and connection to make his/her inner voice one to rely on. What you hear from others feeds your inner monologue, and that's why it's so important to realize that kindness is so important for the world. Spread the word of love and patience and encouragement. Make other people in your life feel valued, so that they realize that whatever they're about to face is doable and attainable. Put a hand on their back when they don't understand. Realize that it's human not to get everything the first time.


There's so much ugliness out in the world. More than ever, people (and especially children) need to know that there's love and not just division. More than ever, people need to step away from the devices that bring them that other world, where trolls seek to jump on anyone with whom they disagree.


Happiness is fragile. Make sure kindness is out there to protect it.

Infinite

Our living room
It was not
Until you came around


Countless nights
In front of screen
But no motion


Now
Crawling, shrieking, laughing, climbing
Screen still on but not the focus


Paradox
At home, you seem so dominant
Outside, so fragile


Sleep
Once precarious
Now more steady
Once afterthought
Now much appreciated


Free time
Before was mindless
Now recharging


Love
Everything is about this
Everything is done with this
True when we were two
Infinitely more so now








 

Zen and The Art of Blogging

I just started reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. In the opening chapters, author Robert Pirsig expresses his belief that motorcycling is much better than driving a car because the shell separating the rider from nature is removed. You're in the elements, and what seems like boring farmland or plains becomes more immediate because of the feeling of the wind at your back. 

Pirsig also reflects on the difference between doing work yourself versus having work done.  He had an experience where he went to a service shop and the mechanics butchered what should have been a simple procedure.  He felt that it was because the mechanic had something separating him and the bike he was working on, as it was just another job to him.  Pirsig began taking care of his own motorcycle, and as a result he could always tell when something wasn't right, whereas his friend left it up to chance even on a long trip, having faith that his mechanic did everything correctly.

I know it's not exactly along the same lines, but I want to go down a road of my own here. I consume so much media on a daily basis. I'm a podcast junkie. I love movie review podcasts, news podcasts, sports podcasts.  I think podcasts are a brilliant way to get information. I also devour information on news and entertainment sites. I'm also an avid reader.  My parents started me early, and I tend to feel a little itchy if I don't have a book going, even if I don't get to read as much as I used to.

The point is, I consume. I have subscriptions to podcasts (which mostly don't cost anything), streaming TV networks (which certainly do) and streaming music (also a monthly fee). I fill my head with a lot of other people's thoughts. I like hearing their points of view, but what about mine? I've done reviews on this blog, but they're usually a paragraph at most, and they don't really tell you a lot about me. They tell you if I liked something or I didn't.

I'm not making a resolution to write weekly or monthly.  What I write may not even appear on this blog, but it's time to stop consuming and breathing all these things in without exhaling and releasing some of my own thoughts into the world. 

Do We Ever Know?

My goodness, I thought
When I first started running this year
The trees were bare
My son was this fragile little newborn thing


He's now smiling, squawking and sometimes giggling
We're headed towards September
School buses swarming, football players getting warmed up
And I'd like to pause it a minute


Sometimes I wonder
Do we ever know
We're in the best time of our lives?


Do we get so caught up in tomorrow
That we forget who's around us today?
Do we spend all our time running around and forget to play?


It's not an original thought that time never stops
We all know it, we've all pondered
Yet the special days, they get away and
We just have memories and pictures


Before we make those holiday plans
Figuring out who is going where
Before the trees again go bare
Let's appreciate the fading summer air

Album of the Week

I have a subscription to a music service, but I found I haven't been good about listening to new music. This week, I decided to listen to eight albums that I hadn't heard before in hopes of hearing something fresh and adding to my collection.  I enjoyed the experience so much that I'll probably do it again in the future, and each time I'll choose the album of the week.

Album of The Week:

Edge of The Sun, by Calexico

There wasn't a track on this album that I would skip, as each song creates a mood, and on Edge of the Sun Calexico accent their sound with strings and excellent harmonies featuring guest vocalists. Different styles abound here, so I never felt that Edge of The Sun was in any way tedious or repetitive.

Best tracks:

"Moon Never Rises"

"Tapping On The Line"

"World Undone"

 Other albums listened to, in order of preference:

Hudson by Jack DeJohnette, Larry Grenadier, John Medeski, and  John Scofield

Different styles of jazz, most of which I enjoyed. I don't really care for stuff that isn't too structured,  and a couple of songs got on my nerves.

Best tracks:

"El Swing"

"Lay Lady Lay"

Sour Bridges by Sour Bridges

Sour Bridges played in the Milwaukee area recently, and although I didn't go, I thought I'd check out their latest. Lively bluegrass, and some songs made me laugh.

Best tracks:

"Meet You There"

"Carry On"

                                                           
First Comes The Night by Chris Isaak

Sarah checked The Baja Sessions, an older Isaak release, and that has a very relaxed sound. I wanted to see what Isaak's most recent release sounded like, and he's a guy who can vary his style from track to track. 

Best tracks:

"Please Don't Call"

"First Comes the Night"

 Windy City by Alison Krauss

I hadn't listened to anything of Krauss's except Raising Sand, which was an album she did with Robert Plant. I highly recommend Raising Sand, but this one wasn't my cup of tea.  She does a great version of "Gentle On My Mind", a classic song by the late Glen Campbell.

You Don't Own Me Anymore by The Secret Sisters

I had seen The Secret Sisters open for Brandi Carlile once, and this album was produced by Carlile and her bandmates Tim and Phil Hanseroth.  The harmonies are great, but overall I thought You Don't Own Me Anymore was kind of monotonous.

Best tracks:

"You Don't Own Me Anymore"

"He's Fine"

                                                           
                                                           

Middle Western by Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

Sarah and I had seen H & HG live, and they put on a very lively show, but I discovered where my preference lies with bluegrass, and it's more along the lines of Sour Bridges. Middle Western was a little too twangy and manic for me.

Best tracks:

"Forest For The Trees"

"Make One Today"

And then we get to Eternally Even by Jim James.  I do run hot and cold on My Morning Jacket, James's band.  I think some of their songs are fantastic, and others test my patience.  My patience was stretched beyond its limits with Eternally Even, which has an instrumental lasting six-plus minutes and doesn't really go anywhere.  The other songs are kind of murky, and there wasn't a song I wanted to hear again on the album.

99 Homes

In 99 Homes, Dennis Nash (played by Andrew Garfield) is evicted from his home. Desperate to move back in to this home with his mother Lynn (played by Laura Dern) and son, he decides to work for the realtor working for the bank that seized it. This realtor (played by Michael Shannon) entices him with the ability to make quick money, but his operation proves not to be above board. Dennis suddenly is able to make the money to at least move his family back into his home, but he's not able to tell his mother and son what he does, and he sometimes has a hard time looking himself in the eye.

 

99 Homes is a very tension-filled film from beginning to end. The film opens with a gut-wrenching sequence in which Dennis and family are evicted and given a short time to collect some of their belongings while the rest are thrown out on the front lawn, and eventually Dennis is in Rick Carver's shoes, responsible for getting people out of their homes so that those homes can be sold. 

I'd recommend the film for the performances of Shannon and Garfield. Michael Shannon almost always is worth the price of admission, and here he plays a captivating villain. Garfield's face shows the constant struggle that his character is undergoing. His heart's in a good place, but his head's telling him something isn't quite right.

One quibble I had with the film was that it was a bit on the repetitive side once Dennis starts working for Rick. Another was that I thought Lynn would have pieced things together a little bit faster than she did.  Overall, though, 99 Homes is a tense two hours with some great performances.  In my movie standings for 2017 (link below) I'm placing it just below Split, a film that to me was even more intense.
 
2017 Movie Standings: https://letterboxd.com/mfrets78/list/matts-movie-standings-2017/

A Moment For Mom

 I was rocking a fussy Levi in the nursery at 2 in the morning in late April, thinking about the transition to parenthood.  It's a transition, no doubt.  Two people who are used to sleeping through the night, coming and going as they want, are now beholden to a newborn's schedule.  Naps are suddenly very necessary for both mom and dad.  It's possible to go out, but it's not as simple as it was.

Anyway, I was thinking about all this, and it seemed to me that there had to be an acceptance of all this eventually.  Three weeks in, it all still felt a bit surreal, as surreal as the idea of being a parent was nine months ago. There's a new member of the family in the house to care for, to love, to see grow.

Levi was slowly calming down, breathing was becoming deeper.  I was holding him to my chest, and I had a CD on that had a heartbeat over soft music and sound effects.  My mind began to wander back to the weekend before.  The three of us had gone to South Shore Terrace Beer Garden along with my brother, and something about the location seemed very familiar to my brother and me.  It seemed like we had been here as little kids.

I asked my dad about it, and he said that we had been there.  He shared a detail that I vaguely recalled.My mom had packed so many toys when we went to the beach that other kids started to drift over and ask if they could play with them. 

I don't know what it was about remembering this with the heartbeat in the background and Levi in my arms, but I started to remember THAT mom, mom before she developed multiple sclerosis, mom who took care of us before she started needing care.  I realized that when she passed away two years ago that I had never really mourned THAT mom.  I felt my mouth start to tremble. Something had been unlocked.

My mom did pack us a lot of toys when we went to the beach, just as she packed a box of stuff to do when we went on long car trips.  Her sons were not going to be bored.  We had books, games, you name it, we had it in the back seat. 

My mom really scheduled us out in the summertime.  She wanted us to get a taste for many things, so we had sports camp, journalism camp, drama, tennis team.  She fought for us too.  One time, she told me that if I passed this swim class, I could have this book that I wanted.  Last day of swim class, we had the final tests.  One of them was treading water, and I kind of thought something was kind of funky about the way the test had gone.  I mentioned it to her and she marched down to the instructor, who must have conceded that something was awry because we were re-tested and I passed the class.



Levi wriggled in my arms a bit, let out a deep breath, and went back to sleep. 



I continued to remember my mom, who from an early age passed on her love of reading.  She always had stacks of books on her nightstand, and she'd be up until the early hours of the morning working her way through another page-turner.  One night when I was a sophomore in high school, she and my dad were out, and she called home to tell me that the library was hiring.  She brought home an application, and I wound up working there for just over six years.  My first job was as a library page, mostly shelving but also working the front desk, which I really enjoyed, but my favorite role there was being in charge of the volunteers during the summer.  The volunteers helped the little kids and parents when they returned their reading logs and earned prizes or prize entries.  I felt like part of a family at the library, so incredibly fortunate.

My mom lived in assisted living for almost four years when she passed away.  I came every week (usually on Tuesday nights) to deliver groceries, her audiobooks, and to talk about life, TV, and current events.  For months after she passed away in the hospital, I had this lingering feeling that I was only remembering my mom as she was the last few years. 

As my son slept contentedly in my arms, I blinked through the tears and smiled.