Grandma was wrong

Picture of me at work yesterday….20 feet in the air/ living the dream ….my dream that is;-)

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“Oh Doug.. You were such a good student…I really hoped you would go to college.”  grandma said when she found out her eldest grandson was NOT planning to go to college..instead, I had decided to follow in my dad’s foot steps and work in construction.

There was disappointment written all over her face..

I felt bad.  Not until she was dead and gone did I appreciate where she was coming from.  Not until I had children of my own, watched them make life choices  that would affect them  long term… in ways they didn’t understand…then I was finally able to understand my grandma’s concerns…

But Grandma was wrong.

There is more to life than money.  A meaningful life  has nothing to do with material things…

I have a couple of friends who are making 2 and 3 times the amount of money  I do but hate their jobs….

They have full benefits, a 401 K… and they are quick to talk about what they want to do when they retire.

No thank you.

Quoting my dad now...”The word retirement is not in my vocabulary”

(Dad just turned 80 this past year and is still active in construction)

Last week I stopped @ Loes to buy a new  skill saw.

Good morning”  I said to a woman about my age.   She looked tired.

“How are you?” I asked…”(It was about 7 AM..she was  checking inventory)

“I wish I were home” she  replied.

I felt for her..  Her life was not her own.  There were bills to pay…only God knows the series of life decisions and circumstances that have brought her to this place in life….

Last April I was invited to speak at a jobs fair for high school students.

Started by sharing a quote that has cast a long shadow over my life :

“Do what you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

Don’t just settle for a job where you punch the time clock.

You may have to work @ a job  (or three) where you  “punch the time clock” in order to get where you really want to be….

but don’t stop there.. God didn’t create you to be a mindless worker ant ..unless that is what you really love to do.

I remember the pressure I felt  in school trying to figure out what I wanted to do once I graduated.   A real part of me thought I should  be a vet…that was until Mr Guard pulled me to the side one day in the guidance office  and  “suggested ” my grades indicated I probably couldn’t handle vet school.  I know he was only doing his job..but “dream killer” comes to mind  when I think of that conversation.

(years later I built a house for a vet/ told her my story, to which she replied, “Doug, if you really wanted to be a vet,one way or the other, you could have done it.  I didn’t make it the first time or two when I applied to vet school either..if you want it bad enough, you could have done it”)

Two  of my daughters , have  the desire to be a wives  and mothers.

Period.

I remember being @ the ripe old age of 20, having the strongest desire (nesting urge?) to settle down and start a family.

So  I did.

Best decision I ever made.

Pop culture today  mock those kind of  dreams…and I’m here to tell you, pop culture is full of #@$%%.

(that’s  German for incorrect…I’ve been using more German in my blog posts lately  you may have noticed )

If truth be told, pop culture is wrong on just about everything it promotes.
“We’ve  got a form of brainwashing going on in our country.”  Morrie sighed.  “Do you know how they brainwash people?  They repeat something over and over.And that’s what we do in this country.  Owning things is good.  More money is good.  More property is good.  More commercialism  is good.  More is good.  More is good. We repeat it – and have it repeated to us – over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise.  The average person is so fogged up by all this, he has no perspective on what’s really important anymore….

from the book Tuesday’s with Morrie.

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If there is more to life than money…what do you think that “more” is?

What in your life brings you satisfaction?

What would you tell the person who is up to their eyeballs in bills, who feels stuck in a dead in job they hate?

DM

In a Funk

I’ve been in a funk now for about 6 weeks.

It wasn’t until yesterday that I could finally put my finger on why.

Due to the personal nature of two of the issues, I would be foolish to post it here on my blog…

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I’m one of those people who process life out loud.

It helps for me to get all of my stuff out on the table, so I can look at it.

Historically, I have used this blog to process life. ..hence the name of my blog : heart to heart.

I would still be willing to process  these things that are dogging me..only, it will have to be one on one.

You’ll have to shoot me an e-mail

I write because  I enjoy it.  I used to have illusions of grandeur that I would have something published that would touch people.

Not any more.

In fact, the older I get, the less I want to change the world at large.

I have enough to keep me busy trying to figure out myself.

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I wanted to write something this morning to break the silence.

There is a small handful of you who do regularly stop by this blog and interact.

I enjoy that.

Thank you .

The older I get, the more I value the time we have each been given.

Conversation with a Zen Master

Like many Westerners in the late sixties, I wanted to be somewhere else in my religious journey.  Confusion reigned in the kingdom of my mind, and I yearned to construct a framework of understanding that seemed beyond my present cultural tools.  I couldn’t seem to get “there” from “here.”

Zen and its idea of enlightenment appealed to me.  That one might sit very still and empty one’s mind and suddenly be hit by a mighty wave of comprehension beyond words – well, that would do.  Hit me with the big news and let me walk away with a sense of “I get it!”

Took a leave of absence from my dailiness and went off to Japan to get Zenned properly.  Got connected to a temple and a master.  Shaved my head and face, put on the drab grey robe of novitiate, and stood in line to get enlightened.  Figured to become a pretty holy man in pretty short order, like in about six weeks, which was when my return ticket home expired. Right.

But of course it was not to be.  Sitting still gave me hallucinations and cramps, but not enlightenment.  The food gave me diarrhea.  Sleeping on a board gave me a backache.  And my fellow monks treated me like a Western fool, laughing at me behind my back.  It was one of those times when you know enough to realize there’s something everybody but you knows, but you don’t know enough to know exactly what it is you don’t know.

But I did know it was time to leave.

To my surprise, an invitation was extended for an interview with the master of the temple.  Which was like a stock boy being asked to have lunch with the president of the company.

Since it was largely because of his reputation that I had chosen this particular temple, and since he rarely spent time with tourists like me, the master’s invitation seemed a special honor.

Manabu Khohara, Ph. D. in economics from Tokyo University, solver of all Zen koans (mind puzzles) adviser to captains of industry, writer of books, speaker of seven foreign languages, a paradigm of the treat teacher.  Wise, good, respected, accomplished.  If he didn’t have “it” all figured out, then nobody did.

After I was ushered into his private study, we knelt on cushions and bowed our mutual respect.  He out of courtesy and I out of awe.  For a long time he looked at me and into me.

Very deliberately he shifted his weight to one knee, and just as deliberately reached for his backside and scratched himself in a way and in that place your mother told you was a no-no in public.

“I have hemorrhoids.  They hurt and itch.”

There was nothing in my mental manual as to how to reply to such an opening remark.  I kept my mouth shut and pretended to be thoughtful.

“The hemorrhoids come from stress, you know.  From worrying about tourists burning down this firetrap of a temple.  From worrying about trying to get enough funding from businessmen to keep it in repair.  From arguing with my wife and children, who are not as holy” – he smiled – as I am.  And from despairing over the quality of the lazy young fools who want to be priests nowadays.  Sometimes I think I would like to get a little place in Hawaii and just play golf for the rest of my life.”

He leaned to one side and scratched himself again.

“It was this way before I was “enlightened” you know.  And now it is the same after enlightenment.”

A long pause while he silently gave me time to consider his words and actions.

Rising, he motioned me to follow him to the entrance alcove of the temple, and we stood before an ancient scroll I had often passed.  He said it was time for me to go home, where he felt I had been a “thirsty man looking for a drink and all the while standing knee- deep in a flowing stream.”  Yes…..

from the book It was On Fire When I lay Down on it.  by Robert Fughum

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DM here   Grant Wood (artist of American Gothic fame)  grew up just a stones throw from where we live.  He traveled all over the world studying the masters of paint  and palate . Eventually he  returned home to Iowa, formed an artist colony and painted profusely until the day he died.

I love that line  “thirsty man looking for a drink and all the while standing knee- deep in a flowing stream.”

Someone once told me if I had to go somewhere else in order to be happy..it wouldn’t take long and I wouldn’t be happy there either.

We tend to take our baggage with us.

American Gothic  DM Style

Stupid things I have done and lived to tell

Yesterday afternoon as I was pulling into the parking lot of the Prescription Shop I heard  what sounded like breaking glass  and a loud thump come from behind my  truck.  When I got out , I discovered  a parking lot covered with  2 inch roofing nails.   On the top of my cab, a wooden nail  crate lay on it’s side, nails spilling out everywhere.    15 minutes before, I had tried to unload  a walking tractor from the back of my truck. The box of nails and a small plow  were  in the way, so I’d temporarily plopped the box of nails on top of my ladder rack, forgetting to  set them  down before I left the shop.

I thought to myself as I was scrambling  to pick up the nails (and keep one eye on the traffic so as not to get run over) it’s a good thing this happened in the parking lot and not in middle of the intersection I had just crossed.  I was embarrassed  and  wanted to laugh @ the same time..

lesson:  slow down and count my good fortune.  It could have been much worse.

Most of the time, we don’t like to tell other people about our  screw ups because we don’t like to look stupid…when if truth be told, all of us screw up once in a while, even you have

Ever hear this little ditty?

Dentists mistakes are pulled; carpenters turn their mistakes into sawdust; doctors bury their failures and lawyers lock them up from the public view.

At the  end of this post I’d like to invite you to share a blooper from your own life and  your lesson learned

Here’s two more from my own life:

* In 2006 we decided to convert part of our home into a B and B.  As we upgraded our bathroom, we ended up installing, not one but (3) different tubs before we finally got it right…the first one was too small, the second one too tall but the third tub was just right.  (yes, all of these tubs were actually installed, and functioning..it was not a cheap lesson.

Lesson:  sit in a tub before you purchase it./ don’t just order over the phone.

* decided I wanted to sell ice cream back in the early 90′s (like those guys who drive around in the summer playing that silly music)  After spending  hundreds of dollars fabricating my little mobile stand, I am told I need to be bonded, to the tune of $900.  So I had to pull the plug.

lesson:  do my homework before spending a bunch of $ a new great idea.

DM

To Hell with it, let the story begin….

“How does the creative impulse die in us?  The English teacher who wrote fiercely on the margin of your them in blue pencil: “Trite, rewrite,”  helped to kill it .  Critics kill it, your family.  Families are great murders of the creative impulse., Particularly husbands.  Order brothers sneer at younger brothers and kill it.  There is that American pass time known as “kidding” – with the result that everyone is ashamed and hangdog about showing the slightest enthusiasm or passion or sincere feeling about anything.”  Brenda Ueland

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I have been sitting on a mother load of raw material for another book for 4 years,  every bit as interesting as the Little House On the Prairie or  Janette Oke’s Love Comes Softly series, and yet I’ve done nothing with it.

Saturday  Steve stopped by  for coffee.   He asked me (again )  “Well, how’s the book coming?”

“I’m stuck,” I said.. “I have writer’s block”…(I thought to myself….in good measure because of you”

(Hi Steve!  I know once in a while you stop by the blog..so just in case, I know you mean well )

Tonight I picked up my favorite book on writing by Brenda  Ueland  “If you Want to Write.”

And  it felt like someone was stirring the coals down in the furnace of  my soul. .  She  is the type of  friend we all long for…a friend who can speak grace into our timid souls.  I love her, even though  I never met her and she’s been gone since 1985 @ the ripe old age of 93.

Brenda encouraged me to write  ” Bold, Free, and  Truthful.”…

and on that note, I thought I would give the book another try….

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Introduction

On The Trail Of Lyman Dillon

 “I can still see that man …had a dam rod as thick as my arm over his arm…he was laying there, couldn’t move.  Both engines were laying in the ditch.  Then the Doctor hollered. “Does anybody got some whiskey???  Come on get some!  If you got nothing, get some!  We’ve got to have whiskey for this guy.”  They poured the whole pint in him.  He was suffering….  It took all day and all night… It was 35 to 40 below.  You don’t ever forget those things….”

Grandpa  recalling the train accident South of his farm in 1929

One afternoon   May of 2007 , on a lark I  listened to a  tape I’d made of my Grandpa  from 1999.  He retold several stories from his youth.

After  the tape finished , I got on line  and did a search of Iowa History –    The February 21^st 1921 edition of The Palimpsest came up.

The article described the journey of Marcus L. Hansen and John E. Briggs retracing the route of Old Military Road September of 1920 as they came into my home town.  They  imagined  who else had  traveled the   road….Concord stage coaches,  circuit riding preachers,  dragoon soldiers, immigrant wagons  by the hundreds, even Lyman Dillon, who was famous for  plowing  a furrow to mark the original route in 1839.

As I read Hansen and Brigg’s account 87 years after their walk, it stirred something deep within me-

     As far as I knew, no one else had ever retraced the route on foot since Hansen and Briggs, and if so,  it wasn’t well-known.   I said to my wife, “I think it’s time someone does it again.” 

      That set in motion a series of events.

  The Palimpsest article mentioned Mr Lyman Dillon-

   “In 1839, 147 years ago, Lyman Dillon plowed a furrow from Dubuque to Iowa City.  Reportedly it is the longest furrow ever plowed- almost 100 miles.  Using a prairie breaking plow and five yoke of slow, lumbering, stubborn oxen…”

I tried to imagine Dillon with a breaking plow and 10 oxen cutting a furrow through virgin prairie.  Tall grass prairie  ten feet high- you could loose a man on a horse in it.  black bear, wolves – not to mention Native Americans being crowded off their land.

Hanson and Briggs had retraced Old Military road in 1920.  As far as I knew, no one had done it since, so I said to my wife, I think it’s about time someone does it again…..I chose September of 2008 to retrace  it myself.

I was curious to know what the landscape would have looked like, if any of the original road still existed, and what significant events might have happened along the route.

I became a student of   early Iowa history….

to be continued….

Where my mind has been

Long term gardening goals.

That’s where my mind has been.

I would like to raise 90% of what we eat.

Labor free as possible

Organic/ or at least as chemical free

only grow what we will eat and  as much as we will use

I’ve read articles, attended workshops, bought books… everything from  Permaculture gardening, square foot gardening, raised bed gardening,  Ruth Stout and Mulching, composting, organic gardening, self watering container gardening,, hoop buildings, three sisters gardening, earthworm composting…

and I’m still confused.

Here are some random pictures from the last couple of gardening cycles…..

just to get your mind  percolating:

Cortland apple tree in bloom

Heirloom Brandy-wine tomato  Grew this from seed

Close up of pole bean climbing  Mandan Bride corn in our 3 sisters garden patch

Heirloom tomato in bloom

my first attempt @ braiding onions.  Don’t let this picture fool you   they were not very big.

close up of Mandan Bride Heirloom corn  at pollination stage

Another Mandan Bride in pollination.  Didn’t realize there was so much color diversity.

Winter Greens experiment.  The past couple of months  I have been trying to grow Kale in our basement under a grow light.

Kale chips.  (think potato chips, only lighter)   Very easy to make…toss in olive oil, salt lightly, bake @ 250 or 300 for 15 minutes/ until crisp)

Farm fresh eggs.  We have (1) rooster and (2) hens currently

Red Delicious ready for the cooler

Black Futsu squash

Wild grapes behind the barn. ( I didn’t grow them or do anything with them, just

loved the picture and wanted to share)

Mandan Bride drying

Did I mention, I love watch things grow (people too for that matter)

Talk to me about  food, gardening, or  things  related.  DM

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Update 2/2/2012

Just came across this utube clip…I’m not interested in doing everything they are doing, but at least it gives me an idea how much you can cram in a 4000 sq ft space. Wow….Imagine what a person could do with an acre (43,560 sq ft)

Guess I better start eating more vegetables

10 reasons why you need to plant an apple orchard.

Hanging scale in our sales area

1.  Photo opportunities.   Our apple orchard constantly changes with the seasons.   There is always something catching my eye and bringing me joy.

Royal Court apple tree in bloom this Spring

2.  It provides the perfect blend of solitude and social interaction.  I love my peace and quiet.  There is nothing more nurturing for me than spending a Saturday morning alone, picking apples.  At the same time, I do love meeting and bantering with the public on occassion, and when the mood strikes, I will load up the pick up and head to our local farmers market.

Hawking apples at the farmers market last season

3.  Supplemental income.   Sure there is some work involved in tending an orchard, but not nearly as much as you might suspect.  One Semi dwarf tree  will cost you  $20 to $25.00 and once it’s mature, it can produce between 2 to 4 bushel of apples a year. = 80 to 160 pounds of fruit @ $1.50 a pound that’s $120 to $240 gross, from one tree…per year..not bad for some additional pocket change if you ask me

4.  mental stimulation.    While the basics of tending an apple orchard are pretty easy to grasp, there is always something new to learn.   Did you know there are over 750 different varieties of apples in the United States alone, and over 2000 varieties world wide?

5.  Keeps you physically active. “ Keep those muscles moving”  my grandpa used to say.  Between the pruning in the early spring, to the picking in the fall,  having an orchard provides me with lots of  opportunities  to be physically active outside, all the while,I’m getting paid  and enjoying some fresh air.  As I  get older  I will probably do more of that “you pick” marketing, but for now, I can still climb and honestly, I love picking apples.  Last Saturday, I picked about 1200 pounds of apples in about 6 hours.

6.  Provides me with lots of opportunities to bless others.  I’m not going to brag and tell you how this works itself out except to say, I try to sell mostly our #1 apples, which means, what to do with the seconds?    The opportunities  to give are all around.

7.  Get to enjoy some varieties of fruit that are hard to come by normally – plus if you can find them, you’ll pay through the nose.  Sure we have Honey crisp, was told last year they were charging up to $5.00 a pound for those little rascals.   So far this year, I’ve picked 11 crates of them and probably have at least another 8.  My personal favorite is called the Ginger Gold:

Ginger Gold.

It is every bit as crispy as the Honey crisp and sweet.   Last year we had 32 crates of these little jewels.

8.  Fresh apple cider.    You haven’t lived until you’ve had fresh apple cider pressed from your own apples.   It’s got a texture and taste you’ll never , ever find in a store -ever.  If you come to visit, and the apples are in season, you can help me press out a batch.

9.  You’ll  give the bees something to talk about.  Ever hear of the “waggle dance”?

10. Provides me with lots  of spiritual insight.

Life is full of mystery.    I believe God has hidden the answers to some of our questions about life in the apple orchard.

Pruning and suffering.  I hate it when people try to slap pat answers onto my life when I’m in the middle of something hard.  It makes me angry.  So I will not disrespect you and do that now.  Sometimes it feels like I’m getting “pruned”  and when it does, I barely have enough energy to survive, let alone  do more.

Fruitfulness (ever see an apple tree grunt?    Me neither.

Seasons.   Apple trees don’t produce fruit 12 months out of the year.  In fact, they need large blocks of “down time”  in the winter..to get ready for the next season.  They literally need that time, which is why apple trees don’t do well in warmer climates.

Variety.  Already mentioned this one, but it bears repeating.    Apple trees vary widely and differently in the type of fruit they produce.  I think people are created much more varied than culture tries to tell us.   I found an apple tree on an abandoned farmstead a few years ago like nothing I’d ever seen before.  Some heirloom variety I’m sure.  It looked and tasted just like it was designed to taste.  Definitely not some domesticated boring apple.  So why do you and I sometimes think we have to look like everybody else?   Nothing more beautiful than someone being 100% alive just the way they were designed:

Heirloom variety I found at an abandoned orchard near here

As always, thanks for reading my stuff DM

I am Ostfriesland

I never  thought much about my  Low German roots until a few years ago when a friend of mine (who happens to be from Germany) explained to me the distinction between High  and Low German ( Plattdüütsch)

High German is the language of today, spoken by pretty much anyone who says they are German.    Low German   (depending on who you talk to)  would be considered  slang,  spoken by the  uncultured, back woods poor peasant types).  My Grandpa (Opa) came from Low German stock, where as  Grandma (Oma) came from the city, was  more refined and spoke both.

There should be no shame in having  Low German roots but just between me and you, ever since hearing the distinction, I’ve  felt just a wee bit second rate….until this week.

      I’d  heard growing up  that my ancestors came from the Northern part of Germany called “Ostfriesland” (pronouned  Aush-Freeze-land)   ( or the Freeland).   This week I’ve done some reading…

It seems that way back in the time of the Roman empire,  the people of Northern Germany lived in freedom and did not want to submit themselves to the bully called Rome. The area they lived in was in fact called ”The Free lands”     Rome decided to conquer these farmers,  instead, they (the Romans)  got their butts kicked in the  Battle of the Teutoburg Forest  (A.D.9)   The peasants knew there would be hell to pay  and there was.  It resulted in 7 years of bloody conflict, but in the end, Rome never was able to completely subdue them.

I told my wife this morning, the Ostfrieslanders  were too busy fighting off Roman soldiers to care how many spoons you needed to formally set the table.       And yet, as I’ve read more about my ancestors this week,  I also learned they were not the brute savages you might think.  Taticus (Roman historian) mentions they were fiercely monogamous.

I say all of this to tell you, I embrace  the fact that there is “Freelander” blood coursing through my veins.  It gives me a rich heritage I didn’t realize I had.

If you want to know more…check out this link:

Ancient German people

(I reposted this one by request)  DM

the meaning of (my) life

He was standing on the tracks, listening to death’s locomotive whistle, and he was very clear about the important things in life……….

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I (DM)  want to introduce you to one of my mentors.. Morrie Swartz.

What follows  is an excerpt from a book of Morrie’s distilled wisdom.

“the first time I saw Morrie on Nightline, I wondered what regrets he had once he knew his death was imminent.  Did he lament lost friends?  Would have have done much differently?  Selfishly, I wondered if I were in his shoes, would I be consumed with sad thoughts of all that I had missed?  Would I regret the secrets I had kept hidden?

When I mentioned this to Morrie, he nodded, “It’s what everyone worries about isn’t it?  What if today were my last day, on earth?”  He studied my face, and perhaps he saw an ambivalence about my own choices, I had this vision of me keeling over at my desk one day, halfway through a story, my editors snatching the copy even as the medics carried my body away.

“Mitch?”  Morrie said.

I shook my head and said nothing.  But Morrie picked up on my hesitation.

“Mitch.” he said, “the culture doesn’t encourage you to think about such things until you’re about to die.  We’re so wrapped up with egotistical things, career, family, having enough money ,  meeting the mortgage, getting a new car, fixing the radiator when it breaks- we’re involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going.  So we don’t get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, “Is this all?  Is this all I want?  Is something missing?”

He paused.

“You need someone to probe you in that direction.  It won’t just happen automatically.”

I knew what he was saying.  We all need teachers in our lives.

And mine was sitting in front of me.

Fine, I figured.  If I was to be the student, then I would be as good a student as I could be.

On the plane ride home that day, I made a small list on a yellow legal pad, issues and questions that we all grapple with, from happiness to agin to having children to death.  Of course, there were a million self-help books on these subjects, and plenty of cable TV shows, and $90 operhour consultation sessions.  America had become a Persian bazaar of self-help.

But there still seemed to be no clear answers.  Do you take care of others or take care of your “inner child”?  Return to traditional values or reject tradition as useless?  Seek success or seek simplicity?  Just Say No or Just Do It?

All I knew was this:  Morrie, my old professor, wasn’t in the self-help business.  He was standing on the tracks, listening to death’s locomotive whistle, and he was very clear about the important things in life.

I wanted that clarity.  Every confused and tortured soul I knew wanted that clarity.

“Ask me anything,”  Morrie always said.

So I wrote this list:

Death

Fear

Aging

Greed

Marriage

Family

Society

Forgiveness

A meaningful life

This list was in my bag when I returned to West Newton for the fourth time, a Tuesday in late August when the air-conditioning at the Logan Airport terminal was not working, and people fanning themselves and wiped sweat angrily from their foreheads, and every face I saw looked ready to kill someone.”

From the book Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

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I (DM) love love love this book.  I remember as my grandma was getting older, she refused to have her will made out because somehow in her mind it might hasten her death or bring her bad luck.   My wife and I on the other hand love strolling through a local cemetery, looking at the old tombstones and learning  the stories of people buried there .   It comes down to perspective.

I think that’s one of the reasons I have enjoyed this book so much. It gives me added perspective on life.

I told someone yesterday I love being the age I am now….. 53 .

Inside I still feel like a 23 year old,  just now I have  30 years life experience under my belt…

what

a

rush!

Rereading this post I realized this is just a teaser to the subject at hand (the meaning of life).  Since I am not one to jam my “stuff” down anyone’s throat, I will stop  here.  If this is a topic you’re really hankering to find answers to, I’ll make two suggestions.

First,   get a copy of the book.  It will slake your thirst like nothing else.

Secondly, if you’d like my thoughts on a specific issue, ask your question and I will do my best to reply  in the comment threads.

DM

Roger and Elaine

 

Roger And Elaine

Let’s say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named Elaine.  He asks her out to a movie.  She accepts.  They have a pretty good time.  A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy themselves.  They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither of them is seeing anyone else.  And then, one evening when they are driving home, a thought occurs to Elaine, and without really thinking, she says it aloud:  “Do you realise that, as of tonight, we’ve been seeing each other exactly six months?”   and then there is silence in the car.  To Elaine, it seems like a very loud silence.  She thinks to herself; Geez, I wonder if it bothers him that I said that.  Maybe he’s been feeling confined by our relationship;  maybe he thinks I’m trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he doesn’t want, or isn’t sure of.

And Roger is thinking:  Gosh Six months.

And Elaine is thinking:  But, hey, I’m not sure I want this kind of relationship either.  Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I’d have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily toward….I mean, where are we going?  Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy?  Are we headed toward marriage?  Toward children?  Toward a lifetime together?  Am I ready for that level of commitment?  Do I really know this person?

And Roger is thinking:  So that means it was…let’s see…it must have been February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer’s which means…lemme check the odometer….Whoa!  I am way overdue for an oil change here.

And Elaine is thinking: He’s upset.  I can see it on his face.  Maybe I’m reading this completely wrong.  Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed, even before I sensed it…that I was feeling some reservations…Yes, I bet that’s it.  That’s why he is so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings.  He’s afraid of being rejected.

And Roger is thinking:  And I’m gonna have them look at the transmission again.  I don’t care what those morons say,  it’s still not shifting right.  And they better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time.  What cold weather?  It’s 87 degrees out, and this thing is shifting like a garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600.

And Elaine is thinking:  He’s angry.  And I don’t blame him.  I’d be angry too.  I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can’t help the way I feel.  I’m just not sure.

And Roger is thinking:  They’ll probably say it’s only a 90 day warranty.  That’s exactly what they’re gonna say, the scumbags.

And Elaine is thinking:  Maybe I’m just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I’m sitting right next to a perfectly good person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me.  A person who is in pain because of my self-centered, school girl romantic fantasy.

And Roger is thinking:  Warranty?  They want a warranty?  I’ll give them a warranty!

“Roger,” Elaine says aloud.

“What?” says Roger, startled.

“Please don’t torture yourself like this,”she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears.  Maybe I should never have….Oh my….I feel so…”(She breaks down, sobbing)

     “What?” says Roger

  “I’m such a fool,” Elaine sobs.  “I mean, I know there ‘s no knight.  I really know that.  It’s silly.  There’s no knight and there’s no horse.”

    “There’s no horse?” says Roger

“You think I’m a fool, don’t you.”   Elaine says.

     “No!”says Roger, glad to finally know the correct answer.

“It’s just that…It’s that I…I need some time,” Elaine says.  (There is a 15 second pause while Roger, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response.  Finally he comes up with one that he thinks might work)

“Yes,”he says.  (Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand.)

     “Oh Roger, do you really feel that way?” she says.

      “What way?”  says Roger.

      “That way about time,” says Elaine.

“Oh,” says Roger. “Yes.”

     (Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse.)

At last she speaks: “Thank you, Roger.”  she says.

  “Thank you,” says Roger.

Roger then takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when Roger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechoslovakian’s  he never heard of.  A tiny voice in the far recesses  of his mind tells him that something major was going on back in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it’s better if he doesn’t think about it.  (This is also Roger’s policy regarding world hunger)

The next day Elaine will call her closest friend, perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours.  In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification.  They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it either.

Meanwhile, Roger, while playing racquetball one day with Norm, a mutual friend of his and Elaine’s will pause just before serving, frown, and say; “Norm, did Elaine ever own a horse?”

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    Footnote:  I  first heard this story at a men’s retreat .  Every so often it comes up again in a conversation with either one of my kids in the context of dating relationships or between my wife and I when we find ourselves not communicating clearly.  I’ll refer to either a garbage truck or something about a horse  

I posted this one a couple of years ago on the blog so it may be familiar to some of you long time readers.