What to Think About When There's Nothing to Think About

It's a wave. Humanity is a fixed number of bodies within a confined space. An ocean of humans with ripples made by those with stature and resources to see a little further but generally it's just a large pool of us. Through it all run regular swells, generations of us, every 20 years or so. But because it's a confined space we get to the end, the edge of our existence. And that's when the undercurrent forces the swell up, to reach up as high as it can get and to look around before it crashes into the future. I'm there. I'm at the crest, excited at the view because I'm seeing things I've never seen before and I'm fully aware of why I'm here; the end is near. Admittedly, the end has been a little nearer every day but I never thought about that, there was work and a growing family to think about.

Not working creates a vacuum, and you know how nature feels about that. The word 'abhors' comes to mind. I'm not thinking about my job, I'm not thinking about my union work or its members. I'm not thinking about anything a person swimming through life's ascending years would think about. Which leaves a lot of time to think, so where to direct one's thoughts? The most common response I hear from people when I ask "How you enjoying retirement?" is "I don't know how I found time for work." An empty vessel is quickly filled by the mundane. Stuff you could put off til the weekend becomes urgent. A friend's request becomes a mission. A curiousity becomes an investigation. Nature loves that.

I'm still new at deciding how to spend my thoughtful hours. The first 2 1/2 months were spent travelling so lots to think about there and it's a mindful, in-the-moment experience. In the 2 months since I've been back I've kept my hands busy as fulltime caretaker for this old house but other than writing this, my mind has been put out to pasture. I don't think binge watching series on tv during my previous work hours qualifies as quality use of my brain, as fun as it is. You can have too much fun, ask any addict. I'm approaching the point where I'll need to bring my mind back out of the pasture - while it's still in good enough shape to be of use - and resume how I spent my working years; seeking success as the result of effort. But where?

I'm renewing my nursing license in January - it'll take a third of my pension cheque - so some p/t or casual work will fill a few brain hours and if I enjoy the work it could continue into 2020. I doubt it. I retired because I could. Because my dad died at 69. Because I wanted change. I wanted to see what else I could do and I'd already been a paperboy, a janitor, bar owner, bartender, realtor, musician and nurse. I've been getting some positive feedback from people about my writing (thank you) and I enjoy the challenge so I've fantasized about writing a book. There's lots of fodder from my various 'careers' that I could fictionalize with a little effort and there's the rub.

My sister wrote a book. She told me how she had to impose a schedule on herself that mimicked her working day. She would start at 9:00 and take recess at 10:30 (she was a teacher). Lunch was a full hour followed by an afternoon of pecking. She would challenge herself to put down x number of pages in a day and if she did it early rewarded herself with a get-out-of-the-office card. Other days she'd stay late. I've been most successful when I've had the framework imposed on me. I shambled out of bed in a stupor, railed against the traffic on the way in but loved what I did and the day flew by. I know from having been my own boss that I can be way too lax with my only employee.

In the series that began with Chrysalis I wrote about my previous transformation in the hope it would guide me to a new dynamic change but ended it with the realization that there was desperation behind the motivation that fuelled that change. Desperation and unhappiness are fantastic fuel for change but I haven't felt either in many years so I need a new source. Maybe this is why publishers give an advance to authors; it forces them out of bed to complete their part of the bargain. But no-one's sending cheques my way so I need a new motivator and as I type it's becoming clearer.

Ego. Freud would have a shitload to say about this, about how well you like yourself determines how happy you are. A weak ego needs lots of affirmations to stay happy. A strong one, not so much. Both are ugly in the extreme; needyism vs narcissism. We're all on that continuum and form a bell curve that looks much like the swell of humanity rolling through. My habit has been to not stay fixed in one spot but to move around within the swell, staying aware of what my ego needs are and adjusting my choices accordingly. Just as I know when to trust my judgement and when to lend an ear, I know when I need positive feedback to keep working and when to just get the job done.

I'm not playing softball next summer. I play most every year but last year I had switched over to a men's over-50 league. These are guys who had been pretty fair athlete's as youngsters and continue to play into old age. Their bodies are softening but their self-image is still weekend warrior come to do battle. I've always been healthy but rarely athletic. I think it's a timing thing and on the athletic intelligence continuum I'm just barely in the top half. I got a lot of negative feedback which I pushed through but at the end of the season I looked back and said "Well that wasn't very much fun". A stronger ego might ignore other's displeasure and focus on enjoying playing. I'm not that strong and if I'm not having fun it's time to do something I'd enjoy more.

So you, Dear Reader, are my fuel. The most energizing moment in my writing came when someone who had tripped over my blog (Fine Young Weasel),  read a piece I wrote, "Talking About Grief" (April 11, 2008) and liked it so much asked my permission to submit it to Post of the Week competition. It won and I suddenly had high octane fuel in my tank. I wrote with a vengeance, I tried poetry, fiction, op/ed; anything that came to mind. Those ageing warriors have trophy cases at home to stroke their egos and keep them playing, I go back and read comments.

Day 13 Santorini on display

After a week in Galatas it was time to move on. So we went to Perissa on Santorini Island.

We stayed at this place mostly cuz

it had a pool which was an 

absolute necessity in

35+ weather.

There was hill behind the hotel and from our poolside vantage point we saw a small chapel. We climbed up for a closer look. 

The chapel wasn't much and it was locked,

                                                                   But the view made the walk worthwhile

There were a few nice buildings in Perissa,

But it's mostly a beach town.

Which is where we hung out with Lui and Anita

When we weren't chilling, we visited the other towns on the island and saw Fira...

And Oia.

Pretty, but not a lot of greenspace.

 The most popular tourist attraction was free; watching the sun go down.

The sun sets on Santorini.
And we're off to cruise a canal in southern France.

At Journey's End a New Life Begins

The adoption process was exhausting

Morning came. Earlier than usual cuz, well, we had a baby and they just wake up whenever. It had been a dozen years since I'd held one of my own or got up in the middle of the night so as much as I loved the weight of him in my arms, the work of fatherhood was making itself known. But this morning was looming large. We were going to meet our son's mom and she was getting her chance to say goodbye. Sometimes we have to say a permanent goodbye to our kids, sometimes they die, but to say a forever goodbye to a child you knew was going to be alive all your life?

The agency was in a strip mall in Oak Park (hometown of Frank Lloyd Wright) just west of Chicago. For the second time we sat and stared at the door. Inside was our son's mother and...what do you say? Thanks for the gift? But Tammy was a wonderful young woman whose courageous strength made the transition from her to us happen. She held him in her arms and as I held the camera she explained to him why she had to let him go. She told him that he was a gift from god, that she loved him, loved him so much that she would suffer the loss of him to get him a better life. I cried, we all cried, even Luka cried and then we laughed, nodded and hugged. It was done.

We talked a while longer and she told us about her hopes for her son. She wanted him to have opportunities and support. She wanted semi-annual letters and pictures so she'd be kept abreast of his growth. She wanted him to be all that he could be and she wanted him to be Catholic. Now I was born and raised on that stuff. Choir boy, altar boy, catechism class and fulltime Catholic education. At an all boys school. It was our family culture, diet, routines and why I'm number 7 of 12 kids but in 1981 (Oct 31, 9am) I did a 180. I decided there was no god. Life is a result of random but predictable phenomena, nature plodding forth, so no need for a mythical being.

She wanted him baptized. "Uh, ok" I said. It didn't mean we'd have to go to church or forgo meat on Fridays. They sprinkle some magic water on his head and he'd be instantly absolved of original sin and - if he doesn't fuck it up - get a ticket to heaven. It was a small price to pay compared to the $20,000 we'd spent to get to the point where we would be holding him and agreeing upon terms. And besides, how hard could it be? You call up the church, tell them you want to baptize your kid and they say "How about Sunday at 2?" I put it on the list of things to do.

Adopting a child from another country means dealing with not just the legal process of adoption, but simultaneously sponsoring someone to become a Canadian citizen. Both processes had lengthy steps that consumed the next week. We went to court to see a clerk who filled out a paper and handed it to a sheriff who tapped Luka on the head and told him he was officially being served papers to inform him that his parentage was being challenged in court. Two days later we stood before a judge to answer her questions about why we wanted to be parents, how we could provide for him and what his family life would be like. I guess she liked our answers because with a nod of her head a paper was stamped and Luka Alexander Antonio Gojevic became a legal entity.

I was a father all over again. Rejuvenated by necessity, I charged into the new life I'd created. I loved school and with all the change around me I knew I was on a highway to my future. I worked hard and graduated at the top of my class (hey, if you can't brag on your own blog, where can you?). And my transition was complete, the suffering, single dad was gone and replaced by married John with a child on his knee. The routine of a job gave a structure to the day that had been missing all those years and allowed me to climb in any direction I chose. I'd never been happier.

Then 15 years went by. Luka never did get baptized but not for a lack of trying. I called the local church, the same church I was baptized in and was directed to the nun in charge. "Well" she said, "You need to be a member of this church." "I can do that" I thought. And then I thought some more. I wasn't willing to park my beliefs to get access to a local baby and with a baby in my arms I felt even less inclined to be hypocritical. Breaking a promise competed with compromised values for my attention  and eventually lost. I chose to remain loyal to my beliefs and quietly forgot my promise.

It's cliche to say "When you're having a good time..." so I won't say it but my career flew by. I'll write in future pieces about my experiences in the downtown eastside, hospital work, a psychiatric forensic hospital in Wales and a geriatric outreach team but those years are now behind me. I'm still doing some casual work but for the most part I'm reinventing myself and writing about my last reinvention has been an attempt to look at that process from a distance to discern the key components. More than anything I needed the support of my wife who shared not just half the load but provided the encouragement I needed. And that's still here. I still have the energy but there's no stock-piled fuel for change that existed when I went through this before. You need to be unhappy to want change but I was happy in my job so no deposits to the change-fuel bank were being made.

So change this time will be different. I won't be exploding in any direction any time soon. I'm looking at a lot of things but mostly it's just looking. I'm enjoying idleness and the small accomplishments in an unstructured day and waiting. For something.

Day 6 Galatas

Day 6

Galatas

*click to enlarge

The Assumption of Mary (when god's mom got into heaven) is celebrated by Catholics on Aug 15 all over the world but it's celebrated differently everywhere. Here there's candles in bread, sermons in microphones to big speakers on closed streets and a parade led by a guy in a black-hooded cloak.

The view from our front door.

I wasn't very good

We had to endure a week in this place

That's our hotel, the Poros View, on the hill across the water.

It was named for the hill I was standing on.

Best little beach ever.

And possibly the worst. It was called Koloni and was a half hour cab ride outside of town. It was billed by UK's Guardian as one of the best beaches in Greece. 50 meters of gravel with no services.

Somebody paid somebody.

But we had a pool at the hotel so we didn't suffer tooo much.

How I Met My Son

The call. THE call. It was a Thursday afternoon, I was home from school and the phone rang. It was the agency in Chicago that had a proposition. There was a baby, it was already born but only a week old. Were we okay with that? Uh, YEAH. “And sorry, you know all of our kids are African-American but he’s actually Mexican descent. Is that okay?” Uh, YEAH! “Okay, well don’t get too excited, she’s kinda flaky but I have a meeting with her tomorrow in a park to show her your portfolio and a few others. If she shows up and it looks good, I’ll call you.” She said maybe 4:00.

Next day Deb and I, sitting, watching the telephone at 4:00. Still watching at 5:00. At 6:00 we looked at each other, took a deep breath and sighed into the next valley. Then the phone rang. They were in a park, she’d seen our package but wanted to talk to us before making a final decision. She told us a little about herself, about the father, about her other two children and how she couldn’t handle any more with just her and a welfare cheque. She asked about us and I kicked into salesman role. I told her about me becoming a nurse and my other kids, Deb told her about being a teacher and working with young kids and when she said she’d named him Antonio I sang a song my mother sang to my brother Tony…”Oh my Antonio…” It was thicker than peanut butter but this was our chance. The social worker got back on the phone and said “I’ll call you back”.

And she did half an hour later. “How soon can you get here?”

We were on a plane that night and took an empty baby car seat with us. Antonio was with a family that did a lot of short term foster care for this agency. Shortly after his birth (and maybe long before) his mom decided she had to give him up and when she got home gave him to a neighbour. A day later she walked by the adoption agency and then stopped and went in to ask questions about how to legally give away her child. They sat her down and gave her a cup of tea. After hearing her story and finding out where her baby was, they told her what had to happen for her child to be given up for adoption. They discussed her rights and what would be in her best interest as she moved into her future. I wasn’t there for that conversation but there must have been talk about where she wanted him to grow up, what colour or religion should the parents be and how much contact did she want. They told her that the people that had her baby had to go through the same process as all other prospective adoptive parents did for it to be legal. They said it was important that they get the baby away from the people that had him before they got too attached. And she agreed.

We got off the plane with an address on a scrap of paper. Get a car, get a map, get a son. A freeway here, a highway there and a few side streets later we were parked in front of the house and we stopped to look at each other in our last childless moment. “This is it, last chance to change your mind”, I said. She whispered “I’ve waited my whole life for this”. We held hands and looked at the front door. Another deep breath and we leaned into the peak we were about to climb.

Antonio, soon to become Luka, had been with his mom, his neighbours and this foster family in the first week of his life; he nestled into my arms in sleepy contentment. We gathered what little info was available: “He sleeps well”, “He has 3 ounces each feeding, sometimes more”, “Very settled baby”. It was time to fill the empty seat and put this new family in forward motion, it had been a very long day and there was an even longer week ahead. We were to meet his mom the next day at the agency but first we had to find our hotel. We didn’t have cell phones or GPS but we had a map and an address and a baby happily settled into the back seat. 

With Debbie the Navigator calling the shots we arrived at the hotel just as our son began to stir. It was feeding time. We pulled in front of the hotel and I jumped out to check us in. Deb got our son out of his seat to comfort him realizing we needed to get into our room to make his formula. She came into the lobby to inform me of this and closed the car door behind her. I had left the keys in the ignition. The auto-lock function, meant to make us feel safe, sealed the formula in its steel and glass prison with the engine running. Panic set in immediately. Deb had an empty bottle in her hand and nothing else. The stores were all closed and Luka’s stirring became a wail. We called AAA who said they could get into the car but it would be at least an hour. Up in our room we paced and patted and hoped it would be sooner than later. I put some of the complimentary sugar in warm tap water to try and fool him into thinking he was getting a meal and he was curious at first but soon realized it wasn’t hitting the spot. He wanted real food and communicated that real well.

And thus began our new life with our new family. The guy showed up around an hour later, released our belongings and took our money. Luka, with a full belly and a dry bum went to sleep while mom and dad opened the champagne they’d brought for this very moment. Deb, the grandmaster of orchestrating the adoption process, mapped out the week ahead; there was paperwork waiting at the agency, at immigration, at the doctor’s office and the courtroom. But it was meeting Tammy, Antonio’s mom, the next morning that took up most of the conversation. She hadn’t seen him since he was removed from the neighbour’s house by the foster family a few days before. Would she change her mind? Could she change her mind? Would Luka go to her and become Antonio forever? I brought our movie camera to document the moment for Luka and knew it would be intensely emotional; I knew nothing.