Funhouse

Tomorrow is one of those braking points.  My oldest daughter hits 13.  That can take your breath like the chill in the pool that opens in April.  Shocking at first, but you have to get used to it and adapt.  It's just hard for me to say.  She will be fine.  It's amazing watching your children grow along their path to adulthood.  You hope you give them the guidance they need.  So much of life is how you deal with situations both good and bad.  I just want the best for both my daughters.  The world is a scary palace when you are 13.  Not so much scary as mysterious.   Sometimes you have to find your way through the darkness.  

Human Math Doesn't Add Up

The human experience is a strange one most of the time. We all get used to our equations; our  comfort zones.  When these change just slightly it can geatly change the outcome. Assumptions and lack of communication also has a great affect on outcomes.  When it's only two people involved and you know each other fairly well, then the equation is pretty simple.  The outcomes are predictable and become clearer and clearer.  But we all know nothing is that easy.  Because these too people are products of equations and their influences, some of which are evident like fingerprints, others hidden well below the surface.  These products are also shaped by their environments, like trees shaped to capture sunlight.
If you look backwards you must also look foward.  If these equations from the past have shaped  these two people, then these influences will also shape the future.  The beauty of math is that it is a constant never changing equation.  Nothing about dealing with people is constant, we all bring our diversity to the equation and this is manipulated by the factors involved.  There are no rules, only variables.  I prefer the challenge of the unexpected.
Note: an obandoned train wreck of thought, that I came back to

Parent's Panic

Sometimes others having a braking moment can cause you to do the same.  This week had a prime example.  My daughter had played softball with the same core group of girls now for 6 plus years. We have sat through the same tortuous practices and games.  One of  the girls' parents are teachers, so a lot of people in the community know them and respect them.  This week they received one of those calls that no one ever wants to receive.  Their oldest daughter.  had been in a car wreck on the way to school.  In the day of instant knowledge, word speead pretty quickly.  The buzz was she had been in a head on collision and had airlifted.  When you hear something like this you automatically assume the worst possible scenario.  Your heart goes out to the family, and you prey for a quick recovery.  Then you put the brakes on your own merry go around and take inventory of your own life.  Then the what ifs creep in, and you do your best to shove them away.  You put yourself in a similar scenario.  It's incidents like these that give you strength and preserveirence to face the next hurdle.  Unfortunately life is not a linear journey from A to B.  It's the turning points along the way that build character.  The benefit of being an observer to something like this is you get the chance to slow your own pace down, without dealing first hand with the pain and suffering.  You can offer supporter because it's the right thing to do, but it's not the same.

.

Smokes

There is nothing like getting away.  Whether its for a week, a weekend, or even a 30 minute lunch break in the car to get away from that annoying coworker you are stuck with all day.  A recharge and refocus can do a lot for your mental state.  We have our favorite get away spot too.  This summer we have tried to soak in every minute we could too/. Especially now with the ever so quickly approaching shadow of the return to school.  Then our time sponge will be squeezed by the forces of homework, pickup/drop off, softball,  the list goes on and on.  Then the holidays will rear their ugly heads again.  So here we are in the relaxed time of year relaxing as much as possible.  Enjoying time with our in the moment, before the next wave of challenges try to overpower us.  So much of life is how we process it and deal with it.  The mental clock runs at a higher
singer said you keep songs in your pocket like a pack of cigarettes.  These songs take you on trips and remind you of a place and time where you heard them.as backdrop of your life..  I totally agree.  One reason I started watching deadliest catch is for their theme song-Bon Jovi's Dead or Alive.  We must have played Rob Base's It Takes 2 a thousand times that week after graduation.  But to bring this story full circle, there are two sounds from my child hood that I have heard at our get away that take me back to my childhood.  The eerie call of a hoot owl and the call of the bill frog. Bruce fiunny story of the bullfrog first.  I must have been about  the same age as my youngest daughter or probably even younger.  My grandparents have a pond in from of their house,  and this pond is home to bullfrogs among other things.  I was spending the night there one night, and apparently I was a little homesick.  I swore the chorus of frogs was saying " go home, go home, go home". , because apparently they didnt want me there.  I here this same chorus from a group of frogs down by the pool here.
The owl sound has a similar story as far as setting goes.  My grandfather and his brother would imitate sounds of animals one of which was an owl.  I can still remember riding with him to my grandmother's house one night, the windows down riding the short road through the woods to her house. He  did his owl call out the window.  I enjoyed the sound and the short trip with my grandpa.  A couple months ago, I heard an actual owl while at our getaway.  A sound I had heard, not too many times since that night with my grandfather.  He drove International trucks, and had several around his house.  If I was any kind of gear head, I would like to redo a similar truck or even better like to drive his truck, but I am sure they have found a final resting stop somewhere else.  Hopefully with PawPaw and his owl call out an open window on a warm summer night.

I-42-4ever?

Like usual the road is my analogy of choice.  We have a get away stop a couple hrs down the road.  A place to go get away from it all, recharge the batteries.  Anyway, you can travel most of the way on interstate grade highways or zig and zag through a string of small towns.  The interstate is a mind numbing trip that's a little faster, but the other route demands more attention to the intricate road.  Life itself can be like that,  you zoom along while everything is going smooth without any real challenge only to look up and question where you are at or where you've been.  Where the hell did 20 years go and who are these Tweens in the back seat.  Your only focus had been on your destination, and you missed the life a long the way.  Eventually you end up on the scenic route somewhere along the way.  This route is slow and methodical.  Every turn is key to the final journey. The unfamiliar has a way of going at a snails pace, as it requires extra attention to detail.  It's as challenging as one of life's roadblocks, one which the train comes off the tracks. Two totally different paths to the same place.  They both have their downside and upside I guess.  I appreciate song lyrics that point this out.  Like Brad Paisley's "for every up there must be a down" or Mother Love Bone's "he who rides a pony must some day fall".  Truth is life is full of both and you have to learn to appreciate both.  Key is to stay plugged in and not let the cruise control age you blindly, and watch out for the bumps along the way.Brnjohnson613@gmail.com

90

This one was started but never finiahed:

Over the weekend my grandmother celebrated her ninetieth birthday.  Talk about a wow moment. And in the same week the tornado struck the elementary school in Oklahoma head on.  That's two of the kind of occurrences that inspired me to right this blog.  

My family has always seemed one sided to me.  My parents divorced when I was little.  We lived near my moms family, my dad and his family lived 3 hrs away.  So I was naturally closer to my maternal grandparents.   I enjoyed being around my grandfather.  I needed the male influence and spent a lot of time chasing it without realizing I was doing so. My grandfather my passed away when I was 18.  I don't know if I would have taken advantage of any extra time with him, but  I can't help feeling I would have.  My grandmother has seemed ageless to me, not really facing any huge health battles as of yet.  For her to hit 90 is hard to believe for me and her as well.  They have her a surprise party, and it was good to see many faces I hadn't seen in a while.   

Fugitive

I am a movie person. I can watch a few movies no matter what point I pick them up at. For example no matter where in "A Few Good Men" or "Shawshank Redemption" I find them on AMC OR TNT them I wyIll watch them. Usually during these movies they will advertise other movies like "The Fugitive". In that ad is the seen where he decides to jump into the water flowing over the damn. It's either that or be captured and imprisoned or worse. Life can be full of those decisions. We can ride along the edge of the guard rail in the mountains and refuse to acknowledge it and peer over the security of the railing. But nevertheless it is still there. If I don't see it, and accept the danger or freedom on the other side, it will magically be replaced with flowing pastureland again. The reality is occasionaly the plunge is the best option. If I am in a tight squeeze, and the only option I have is to hop the rail and jump, given enough time to make a somewhat rational decision I will choose the jump. That requires the ability to shove away any fears of the transition that have accumulated. It's pretty amazing what you can conquer mentally given the right circumstances. I and a group of friends went white water rafting in West Virginia on the new river. The trip takes you under the tall New River Bridge that once a year they base jump off of. The bridge itself is pretty amazing. This bridge repduced the need for the winding goat path roads that of course we had to take to get to water level. These roads are switch backs that offer very little in protection from the edge in most places. At this point my fear and anxiety of the water is growing at a steady pace. We get under way, and I begin to feel more at ease and enjoy the mental rush of the rapids. We click them off one by one. We come to a rock that is in a place where it is safe to jump off of. We exit the raft and climb up. The group begins to jump off on by on. I procrastinate and pretty soon I am the last one remaining. I get to edge and freeze again. Now I am staring into the fear of both heights and the river below. It's takes me a couple minutes but I am soon able to shove fear aside and take the plunge to water below. In reality I wasn't that high off the water, and had a life jacket on, so I was relatively safe. But if I had been chased by a bear, my fears would have been overcome a lot sooner. You have to pick your battles. If life were a linear, story book journey these escapes from danger would be unessecary. Somewhere along the way, you will be faced with these jump or no jump decisions. Some times have the luxury of life jacket, others there's the hungry momma bear on your tail. I have jumped to the river only to discover the bear turned out to be a lap dog compared to the rushing sess pool I am now in. So now what?