Is this thing on?

I've not written or posted here in ages, obviously. Work and life are keeping me more than busy enough, and then there's school. I reread some earlier posts, and noted that when last I wrote, I was still contemplating whether to consider taking a class. Now I'm enrolled and pursuing a degree. (Yes. Another one.)

Not that I'm swimming in free time, but I'm experimenting this weekend with a few possible alternatives, including WordPress as well as Blogger here, to start capturing more of the writing I'm doing offline. There's a few things I'd like to write with a shred more anonymity, but then I ask myself why I'd bother - it's not like there's a lot that is hidden from the world, from my school, from my employer.

Not a decision for tonight - for now, suffice it to say that my writing plans are as well-constructed as I-880 between San Jose and Oakland, or the view of Calle Genova in el DF, depicted here. It exists, but in great disrepair.

The Flight Not Taken

OK, in truth - it was a flight not ticketed, either. Just one spotted yesterday while I was wandering around SNA (I can't call it "John Wayne"), waiting for my flight back to SJC. Pre-9/11, could I have approached the counter, passport and credit card in hand, and headed down to my beloved Distrito Federal? I don't remember ... and in any case, those days are now gone forevermore.

Many other days are "gone forevermore", namely the ones between last August when I last posted, and today. I made a commitment to a few people over the weekend to write more, and write more about the intersection of faith and politics and high tech and (maybe) grad school where I find myself, and how I'm discerning a direction there. "Discerning" sounds so mature, so premeditated, so spiritual - and on some days, it can be. On other days, it leaves me standing wistfully in front of an empty gate at a random airport, wishing I could just fly away to Mexico City, eat a taco or two, and breathe.

Perhaps I'll start that writing tomorrow.

Tonight. Tonight I sit in my home office in San Jose. It's my favorite room in the condo, perhaps because it's the smallest of the three bedrooms. In it are bookshelves, my bike, my desk, and the twin futon that is meant to be a guest bed, but it's just tossed on the floor right now. It's still the most comfortable place to sleep, though.

A cat is meowing in the other room. I was gone for a few days at the Archdiocese of LA Religious Education Congress, and the Kid stayed with our friends down the hall. The cats were visited daily, but otherwise left to their own devices, which seems to suit them quite well.

We've adjusted to San Jose, mostly. It's not Portland. It's certainly not Mexico City. The kid's school here isn't his school there - good, but different. I miss the community up there terribly. I miss the weather not at all.

So - we're here. "For the duration" would be a stretch. We're here for now, and part of what is included in "now" is my own process of discernment about whether to apply to begin a MA/PhD program in theology up in Berkeley - or whether to close that door and explore what happens next with my corporate employer. And if grad school is in the future, how and when do I do that, being responsible to the kidlet, our family, my colleagues...

Many questions, and much to think about. Running away on a flight to Mexico City was pretty compelling yesterday. (Among other things, it'd have spared me much of the health care reform politics. Of course I have opinions, but they're not soundbytes. Maybe I'll post 'em tomorrow.)

For those of you so inclined, please pray for us - for me as I discern where to go from here, and for the kidlet - or preteenlet - as he navigates the treacherous waters of middle school, and the uncertainty of those next steps himself.

More soon. Pax out.

Settling on being unsettled

School has started for the kidlet, and after four days' vacation, I'm back to the office on Monday. There's still boxes remaining to be unpacked, and furniture I need to acquire - you wouldn't know by seeing the place that I've been here nearly two months. I'm mindful that the lease is only for 12.5 months - by 07/2010, I have to have some idea of What Happens Next.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch... my dad is moving into my house in Portland. The interior's been repainted, he's transferred the utilities into his name, and by mid-September, he'll be in place. He's indicated that he plans to remain there for the rest of his life, and as he's off today to hike around Mt. St. Helens, that could be a pretty long tenure. (Note to Dad: the mortgage payoff date is in about 26 years.)

POR ("plan of record", for those not conversant with the Corporate Masters' lingo) is to return to Portland next July. For those who know the Corporate Masters(TM), you also know that "POR" is often a moving target at best. Three doohickeys, two widgets, and a half-sized thingamabob in April, targeted for release in November, can turn into five bits of stuff, a double-sized thingamabob, and all doohickeys delayed 'til the next release - which will be in June, following the October release of the first version. "POR" can be most ephemeral at times.

All of which is a long way of saying "I have no clue where we'll be in a year." Honestly - there's about a 25% chance it'll be Portland, 25% chance it'll be San Jose, 25% chance it'll be Mexico - maybe Guadalajara, maybe Mexico City - and then another 25% chance it'll be an undisclosed location, NOT with Dick Cheney, but for various reasons can't be discussed at this time. The kidlet's aware of the liminality of it all, and so far, appears to be doing well. As I commented to another mom of a strikingly similar son this morning, he spends a lot of time in his own world. He's got his cats, he's finally learning to use his cellphone to call family - friends to follow - and he's fascinated by the world around him. Keeping an eye on him closely through the transition, but so far, so good.

It's harder for me right now, not having something as simple as a chair in the living room. If I can get in touch with The Teacher(TM) (also known as "friend with pickup"), I may remedy that, and pick up a desk for the kid along the way. We've also joined the Y, and getting into a routine there would be a Good Thing as well. This may be but a waystation on a bigger journey - but isn't that life itself, after all? Might as well take a look around and get to know the place while we're here, however long that may be.

Next weekend I'll go on my first trip after moving here, heading to a conference on the other side of the US. Kiddo will stay here, and I'm busily making sure that primary caregivers and backup are settling into place. More travel will follow, including a trip or two to Mexico this fall - again, a bit of normalcy returning after the big jump south. It's a start.

And So It Is

 

I find myself in San Jose - or rather, Not In Mexico. Trying to parse out everything right now, and keep tripping into Concrete Blonde territory:

The little conversations
If I tried my very best
You know I never could say anything
In twenty words or less.

Or now, in the age of twitter, 140 characters or less. Same diff. So I'm writing it out here, not on Facebook.

I spent a little time going back to last year's blog posts, back when I was on sabbatical in Mexico, first with The Student (and a visit from The Teacher), and then with The Kid. The Plan^(TM) was to figure out what it'd be like to be in Mexico City for a year, and then to take the kid there this academic year.

And yeah - in the intervening year, the plan changed. Work granted me permission to telecommute - my job can be done anywhere I can get a dialtone and WiFi - but given the uncertain state of the economy and the realization that among my friends and family, I might even have a bit of an obligation to stay employed - oh, and having an underwater mortgage, too - it just seemed to be more practical, more pragmatic to stay in the US.

I turned 40 while in Mexico last summer. My mom died in October, followed shortly thereafter by one of her brothers. My dad's retired and needed to plot his next steps. Going to Mexico for a year didn't seem prudent, but staying in Portland didn't feel right, either. I needed time and space to discern where I'm to be, what I'm to do with this crazy life. And (deep sigh) the kid was starting to struggle at school, some from boredom, some from frustration at being the geeky one, the nerdy one, the one who was just looking at the world from an utterly different perspective. Something needed to change there, even if it was just getting him out of the environment for a year to breathe and allow tensions to die down and perspectives to mellow and mature. Even had we stayed in Portland, some change would've been needed, at least for awhile.

There's a thousand different opinions among friends and family about us spending a year (the current Plan^TM, at least) in California. They range from excited and enthusiastic to ... well, sorta hostile. There's probably merit lurking in each and every one of them, but the opinions are also owned by those who hold 'em, y'know? For my part, I'm giving myself 'til September 10 to unpack, get settled, get the kid settled in school, get back from a work conference in Georgia... and then I'm going to head back to the retreat center where I spent eight days in silence several years ago, sorting out what it meant to be going back into the Catholic Church. It'll just be a day trip for now, but I'm hoping to set up a regular practice of time there over this year. This upcoming year is to be one of discernment - under spiritual direction, with very focused time for prayer, writing, and just being and enjoying life.

There's so very little that I know right now, and so very much up in the air. I'm comfortable with where The Kid will be in school, and for his part, he's having a blast on this excellent adventure. We're talking about a goal of going to one cultural event per week, starting with the Chivas Guadalajara vs. Barcelona futbol (soccer) match this weekend up in SF. If The Student finds he has to go to Chile for a bit to check out some archives there, The Kid is sooooo down with making that trip - so I'm saving points and miles and such in hopes of pulling it off. Today he asked if we might be able to go to Mexico for a year sometime later. I couldn't answer - not without breaking down.

Current POR ("plan of record") is to return to Portland in 361 days - that's when the lease in our condo here expires. Truth be told, I have no idea what happens next. I'd give Portland about 33.3% of a shot, San Jose another 33.3% - and for the remaining third - Mexico? Oakland? Something Completely Different?

I do know that I enjoyed a happy little time of denial while The Student was preparing to leave for his research year. Seeing the photos he's posted from Mexico and talking with him - so bittersweet, because my longing to be in Mexico City right now is visceral. I had the opportunity in my hand, and ... fear? uncertainty? being too comfortable, too afraid of losing my job? - held me back. So now the task at hand is to be present here in San Jose and see what I'm to learn from this time here. It will be good - but first I have to be able to let go of What Is Not. Only then can I really experience What Is To Be.

Concrete Blonde's been on the mental ipod, but even more so, the Goo Goo Dolls "Two Days in February" - an achingly poignant song about missed love - except I'm singing it not to one individual, but to the biggest city in the world.

You said that this is crazy, you're a half a world away
Well I'm sitting and I'm thinking but I didn't know what to say
So I said something I can't touch, I always want way too much
Anyway

'Cause everything's wrong
Well it's all right
Everything's wrong
Well it's all right


And it is all right. I'm happy, loving the sun, excited about all of the new stuff we're learning and doing each day. It just wasn't what I'd planned. But it's all right.

We interrupt our previously-scheduled chaos...

... to bring you a deer. Really, a doe - a deer - a female deer grazing in the yard of the kid's paternal grandparents' house outside of Atlanta. Flew down here from PDX on the redeye last night, and didn't sleep at all between the kid dozing fitfully on one side of me and a poor soul who was at least 6'5" crammed into the seat on the other side. We landed, were picked up by the kid's grandparents, and then went to a local BBQ joint for grits and eggs and sausage - totally surreal. I thought about taking a photo, at the very least of the life-sized cutout of GWB stashed in a corner - but thought better of it.

And then we came home, and saw the deer as we pulled in to the driveway.

I managed a brief nap before getting up to call in to my meeting at 8am, Portland time. I've been working from here, calling in to meetings and keeping up with email. I've a few colleagues who are out this week on vacation, so I'm their coverage as well. Email's coming in, and I'm doing my best to keep calls and such limited to times that coincide with the schedule here, three hours ahead. I'm dealing with corporate lifecycle discussions; my "not-in-laws" are making cornmeal-encrusted okra and grilling shrimp.

Such a different pace of life, and one that's increasingly attractive. We drove by housing developments with prices starting "in the low 100s". Substitute the "1" for a "3" and you'd have Oregon. And maybe for a "high 400s" - and it'd be San Jose.

I keep thinking that someday I'll have time to sit down and figure out what I want to do with this one beautiful, blessed life I have - and I realize that the life's happening now, while I'm zooming from airport to cube farm. Pretty sobering thought, all in all. Especially when my thinker's pretty jet-lagged as it is. Maybe tomorrow I'll go out and talk with that doe for awhile. I think she's onto something.

Another blogger in the sphere...

Wasn't quite his idea of how to spend his summer vacation, but the Kid is now a blogger. I'm not going to post the details publicly; it's invitation-only, and I'll be watching it like a hawk. However - if you know me and know the kiddo, drop me a note if you want to get an invite to follow his adventures this summer and over the next year while we're in San Jose. It's moderated and tightly managed, but it's a good way for him to keep in touch with folks while we're away.

If any of y'all are thinking about letting your kids start to blog and want tips on how to be an uptight, retentive parent (what to lock down, how to moderate comments, etc.) - drop me a note. I'm all about responsible and careful use of technology, and just like other areas of life, this is one that the kids will learn about eventually, and really - you do prefer that they learn from you, rather than elsewhere.

What did I say about "too real"?

Timestamp on this is Friday, but really written on Sunday morning, June 28. I'm sure there's a way to update the timestamp, but today won't be the day that I figure that out.

I can give this up - the back yard with the grass and dandelions that are a constant menace. In the middle of this green space we've put in a planting bed with tomatoes, zucchini, and basil all humming along.

But damn, saying goodbye to people sucks. It's so hard, something I've never liked. Friday was the amazingly wonderful woman, she & her husband truly gifts from God, who tend the kiddo after school and during summer. If I have any regrets about the past 11 years, it's that I didn't know them 11 years ago - he'd have been with them from the outset, as were a few of his friends. Instead, it's been barely a year and a half, but it's been wonderful. He'll be back for one week later this summer after his visit to the East Coast and before we head down to San Jose, and thankfully it's a week when she's here and will have her place open for kids.

Today - the young priest who was a seminarian when the kid started at the school. Given the choice of attending his ordination in Indiana or going to Disneyland when I would be attending the annual religious ed conference, the kid picked the ordination. At nine, the kid was way more interested in church and such than he is at eleven, but it was still an experience he'll remember forever. He was an altar server today too, at the last regular Mass that this priest will preside over at the parish. Definitely hard to say goodbye there, too - we don't agree on everything, but the faith and values that unite us are sufficient to let us exist with the differences, and with love and respect for one another.

I've never liked goodbyes much, and these weeks are full of 'em.

I'm repeating the mantra - it's just for a year, it's just for a year. If we were going to Mexico, it'd be a lot easier to cling to that "just for a year" statement - we'd have to return home, for immigration reasons at the very least. This time, we'll come back, and as inevitably happens, life will have moved along its course in our absence. I'm grateful for tools such as the Internet, Facebook, etc., resources that let us keep in touch with one another, but more grateful still simply for the gifts of these people - the couple who care for kids, Father Stephen - whose lives we've been privileged enough to share. God willing, we'll stay in touch as we all move through this next year.