The Perspective that Cancer Brings

Life is short, Live it.
Love is rare, Grab it.
Anger is bad, Dump it.
Fear sucks, Face it.
Memories are sweet, cherish it.

I once read a book written by Richard Carlson called Don’t sweat the small stuff….and it’s all small stuff.  The book was about dealing with life’s simple irritations and pressing on under adversity. I liked the title and considered it a great catch phrase when little things started to mount. I tried to take the philosophy of the book to heart, with little actual success, insisting on dwelling in the minutia of the daily grind.

For many years, that is how I have lived my life; sweating the details and waiting for the next issue to become a distraction. I have made mountains of molehills and had too many sleepless nights to count.

But a few months ago I had a revelation or should I say a revelation was thrust upon me. My Mother was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. When the Doctor looked at us and said the phrase ending in “nothing that we can do” it was one of those surreal moments that you only have when life hands you a big one.

My Mom and I have always had a close but trying relationship. It was tense at times due to our overall life philosophies and the differing ways that we viewed the world. We were both rigid in our beliefs and these differences were sometimes debated, sometimes screamed about and sometimes the only thing we could agree upon was to disagree.

Her guarded, small town, fearful ways were in direct conflict with my wish to live by the seat of my pants and see the world mentality. I thought she was wasting her life because she was missing it and she thought I was too flighty and could never settle. I traveled and she stayed home. I had many friends and she was somewhat of a loner. There were so many differences, but thank God for the few similarities otherwise there might have come a time where our relationship might have gotten strained beyond repair.

But, I will tell you this….when the man in the white coat says “cancer” and “terminal” in the same sentence those differences really stop mattering quickly. I found that the small stuff (and compared to that it all is) just fades away. Dennis Miller the genius comedian has a theory that he calls “The lump in your armpit theory’’. In his theory, you stop sweating the daily crap when you discover the lump. At that moment, nothing else matters.

So, I’m spending more time with my Mom visiting and cooking meals. We talk more on the phone and I exercise a patience that I have never showed before. I will not lie and tell you its easy and that every moment is a priceless gem but they are moments that I will not get back. I hope to make the most of every one of them now and I hope that this serves as a reminder to live each day fully because there are only so many tomorrows to go around.

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,

                                      but by the moments that take our breath away”

The Traveling Jones

Dallas

If I can give you any advice.....it’s travel. Your body will hurt but your soul will flourish.

Be a part of the global picture. Get out of your comfort zone. Ask questions. Learn. Go to the airport bar, it's worth the $7.00. You'll be amazed at who you meet along the way.


To my new friends in Dallas....


Jen the lesbian, from Denver by way of Wisconsin who made me laugh. You’re my soul mate in another life. Maybe if things were different.....

"Joe" from Uganda, thanks for the five minute version of how you ended up in Dallas.

Cosel, my doe eyed Romanian Brother who tends bar at the airport and hopes people leave “moren a buck" and deserves much more than 20%. You taught me about life in "Delis" and the "Romeenian mobs" and may have been the funniest guy I've ever met. I still say the accent is money. Work it my man.

Ben from Marin, who films documentaries about fishing and wants to be Scorsese. He shoots films about trout.... and salmon for Canadian TV? Who knew? Give it time. Shit man you’re in Peru next week and British Columbia the week after. Enjoy it.

And to the drunken guy still waiting for his "girlfriend" to meet him at the airport..... Chicks not coming.....and you’re a bit of a dick..... Just sayin'.

Life is truly about people. Good or bad they all leave an impression.

Make sure you take time to notice.

The joy of watching others "win".

 

In life everyone runs.

The hard part is deciding whether

you’re running from something or towards something.

I had the opportunity to go to a triathlon on Saturday. The event, The Muncie 70.3 was a swim-bike-run triathlon which was open to pros and amateur competitors and is a qualifier for the prestigious Ironman series. The 70.3 refers to the combined miles the contestents cover during the event.

I attended the event with a good friend who is knowledgeable about the sport. One thing my friend said repeatedly was that most of the participants “Have a story”. He meant that everyone is out there for a reason and those reasons vary as much as the body types of the nearly two thousand competitors. Some were sleek and athletic and others were downright chubby. There were ladies in wheel chairs and men with prosthetic legs, all racing for their own reasons. Were they running from pain? Beating an addiction? Finding themselves through moments of Zen? Who knows, but I was humbled by their perseverance and their pride.

I went to the event to support a competitor, my good friend Sean. I have known Sean for roughly twenty years. We are both members of the same college fraternity but are separated in age by several years. Sean has his "story” too. I knew him when he was a cocky undergrad and watched him struggle through the cancer treatments that nearly took his life. I also watched that experience humble him and make him the tremendous man that he is today.

Sean competes in triathlons. He’s not particularly fast. He may never win an event. But for him, competing is about much more than winning. To him the act of doing the training and participating is winning. It is his way of looking cancer in the eye and knowing that he won the battle and is winning the war.

I was overwhelmed to witness all the "stories” on display on Saturday. I would love to know more about many of the competitors and their particular reasons. I’m sure I missed out on some very inspiring details, but on this day one story mattered the most and I will always be happy that I was there to share in my friends’ personal victory.  

“Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat.”- Malcolm S. Forbes

The Blink of an Eye

Walt Whitman once said, “I see great things in baseball. It’s our game- The American game.”

Walt was right. He knew the bond between the American people and “our game”. He knew that baseball was a game that afforded its fans the chance to fall in love, to feast and to feel; to bleed Dodger blue, dream of pinstripes or wait hopelessly for next year.

The game of baseball is chocked full of traditions. One of those great traditions that is so endearing to fans comes when a player flips a ball into the stands, The ball is meant to be caught by a fan, who’s memory of the moment shared with a big leaguer with be regaled at pubs and picnics for many years to come.

Last night, Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers caught a baseball and looked into the crowd. He spotted Shannon Stone who was yelling for him to throw him the ball. Josh Hamilton tossed the ball to an excited Stone. Stone misjudged the ball, lost his balance and fell twenty feet to his death. These encounters happen hundreds of times every year. Rarely is there any other outcome other than a fan that is thrilled with their souvenir. However the stadium did not have a safety net and a man died. In the blink of an eye a family was forever altered by what was intended to be a warm gesture.

This is significant in other ways as well. For those unfamiliar with Josh Hamilton his life’s story reads like a fiction novel; a former number one pick, his injuries and drug addiction addled his body. His three year blacklisting from baseball shook his confidence to the point of depression. Hamilton's struggles are widely documented and today Josh Hamilton will once again question himself. He will struggle with the part he played in the death of another. He will always wonder what would have happened if……

Josh will also know that in the blink of an eye the world can change. I hope he will realize that his part although intergral to the event carries no blame. I hope those questions that he will ask won't take him back to his earlier self doubts. I also hope  the next time he’s in a similar situation…..he smiles and does the right thing. Toss it again Josh. No regrets.

Life is too short to live our days in fear and self doubt. Live your life, take a leap, feel the scrapes and have no regrets.

Diversity and the Big Green Mansion

Around 1985, I left the small town that I grew up in to attend college at Ball State University. I was a small town boy with small time attitudes. Having attended a high school that was 99.5% white, I was Wonder Bread white. Not exactly worldly in my views, I knew like twelve black people and the three Vietnamese kids who were adopted after the war. The thought of having a friend who was gay never crossed my mind. I mean what would people think?

I, like many others decided to go through Greek Rush and see if I had what it took to be a “Fraternity Man”.  At that time the way you looked at the organizations was to go on a round robin walk where you visited every fraternity on campus. This gave you the chance to decide which house that you wanted to pursue.

As I visited the houses I took mental notes on each one; Lamba Chi’s were stuck up and rich, Phi Delts were jocks, etc. Then I walked into the Phi Sig House. Phi Sigma Epsilon was a house full of mutts and the house was…..um, less than stellar. The green farmhouse stood out against the backdrop of brick mansions. The weird thing was that it just felt right, comfortable as an old shoe. So this was the place that I wanted to be.

Over the next few years I learned how truly different this group was. We would always profess to not be like the other fraternities. I have joked afterwards that we were the “Statue of Liberty of fraternities; give us your weak, your poor and your huddled masses.” Our similarities made us friends and our differences made us brothers.

We were accepting of nearly everyone and we had guys of all shapes and sizes. There were very wealthy brothers rooming with guys that were living on Ramen noodles. We had ROTC students and guys who followed the Dead. Our parking lot was littered with what looked like a used car lot. But somehow this socio-economic soup worked, with one small exception. We didn’t discuss that some of our brothers might be gay.

As I said, this was 1985 and some things were still a bit taboo. We accepted these guys as brothers, but we really didn’t want to question things too much. Our “Don’t ask-Don’t tell” policy seemed to work and there was peace and tranquility except for the unspoken fact that several of our brothers were living secret lives. These brothers were afraid to tell us who they really were and probably rightfully so. Who knows what the group think would have been if we would have truly “known”.  I’d like to think that once again, we would have been stepped up and been different but who knows how a twenty year old me would have reacted?

Now over twenty years later, several of our brothers have come out; some in grand fashion and some in very private ways. Has it been easy? No. Have there been moments of angst? Sure. Have they gotten their fair share of barbs thrown their way? Of course, but their Phi Sigs and that’s what we do. But I’m very proud to say that they were not embraced because of being gay. They were embraced, as they always were for being one of us. Friends are friends and brothers are brothers and what makes us different makes us great.

Both time and life’s lessons have taught me that life is too short to sweat the little things. In some ways age does bring wisdom. Take time to learn and grow and change. Embrace the differences in people and learn the lessons that they bring. Your life will be much richer for it.

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish as fools.”

                                                        - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Unexpected Inspiration

"We are all civilized people, which means that we are all savages at heart but observing a few amenities of civilized behavior." - Tennessee Williams

I knew who Dhani Jones was; pretty darn good Linebacker for the Cincinnati Bengals….well spoken…star of that travel show…..cool cat in the bow tie. He’s been around for a while, so yes, I was familiar. But in the last few weeks he’s been everywhere, being interviewed about his new book, The Sportsman. I’ve heard him on radio and TV; I’ve seen some written articles. The man’s like a Visa advertisement, he’s “Everywhere you want to be.”

These interviews have helped me understand that this guy is “different”.  He is not your stereotypical self absorbed jock like so many we see on the late night news. Dhani is an entrepreneur and a philanthropist, a true modern day renaissance man with more interests than time will allow. He travels the world and firmly believes that you can only learn about a culture by being immersed in it.

The man is also a damned good football player who balances his life by embracing his “softer” side. A bone crushing Linebacker who tackles Quarterbacks with reckless abandon he also designs bow ties for charity, opens cafes, and authors books. His balancing act is an amazing feat worth noticing and emulating. As I struggle to find my direction, I will look to him and people like him who show us every day that you can embrace things that seem diametrically opposed and that those things can coexist in amazing ways.

I too have many passions.
I must learn to find ways to embrace them all.

Thanks Dhani for showing me the road.

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing” – Helen Keller


To learn more about Dhani Jones
http://dhanijones.tv/

The Ecstatic Experience

"The soul should always stand ajar,
ready to welcome the ecstatic experience."
-Emily Dickinson

Some days are made for beauty, today was such a day. Today I purposed to adventure into our local botanical garden, Zoo and Museum of Art on a quest for the beautiful. My soul needed beauty and culture and soul and I found it in the heart of Indianapolis.

Indianapolis is a city on the come. It is known as a great event and sports city. But to most, including yours truly, it’s a highly underrated city. Often times I forget what a great city it is and compare it to places in past lives or of future dreams. I am guilty of forgetting to live in the moment and look around to see the now.  

“If you don't stop and look around once in awhile you could miss it.”

- Ferris Bueller

Ferris had a great point. Live in the now. Take time to cherish the moment. Don’t be afraid to feel. Feeling is what makes us know that we are alive. Don’t spend so much time dreaming of tomorrow at the expense of today.  

So walk into a specialty store and learn about tea or a gourmet store and sample cheeses. Drive a few extra minutes. Listen to new music. Read a good book.....Look under the rocks. Visit new places. Look for the experiences. I promise that you…and I will not regret it.

It is nice to plan and to dream as long as we do not forget to live.