Strange and Significant

I don't know what its face looks like

5 parts: The long way home, That’s a whopper, Perestroika, Stranger love, Stranger and stranger

Part 1: The long way home.

Thursday I ran the long way home. 900’ elevation. 7.6 miles. Woods. Some single track trail. It was wonderful. Cool in the near twilight. Only 4 people in the woods. I was shocked to see someone on one desolate section. I was running down, they were walking up with their dog. I called out a greeting to let them know I was there. . . come up on him and it’s a parent from school.  Not only a parent, but I’ve taught both his daughters and one of them runs cross country now. Middle of the woods and it feels as familiar as the neighborhood I grew up in. In the chaos of the world there are intersections.

Yes, I did run a ways. That’s the longest run in over 2 months. It felt good but at mile 7… oh my.  My legs were a little grumpy.

Part 2: That’s a whopper

The neighborhood I grew up in? Tumwater. Where Olympia beer was from. It’s the water, you know. Wide-ish streets, not a lot of traffic. Yes, we played in the streets. I also talked to strangers. A lot. By talking to strangers I met Farrell and Louis Ratliff. They were an older couple that lived in a little brick house just down the street. If Farrell was out when I rode by on my bike I would stop in and visit. I’d help mow the lawn, sweep, do whatever. Sometimes we’d just sit on the back porch and look out into the neighboring woods. I remember one time watching for a “mountain beaver” that was supposedly stealing Farrell's vegetables. He was going to whack it with a shovel. He did catch it one day. Thankfully I wasn’t there.

Sometimes we’d go inside and play cards (and I’d eat whoppers). Mostly, we played Kings in the Corner. I got pretty good.

A couple times they came over to my house because they had managed to lock themselves out. I could fit in through their bathroom window. It was a little high though. They’d have to lift me up and push me through.  Good thing I was a light little kid.

Sometimes I’d stop by and they wouldn’t be home but their back door would be open. I’d just stroll on in and help myself to a few whoppers. :-)

Once when I was visiting Farrell was mowing his lawn and he reached in to clean out some stuck grass (Washington has wet grass, you know, and it’s sticky and clumpy) but he didn’t wait for the blade to stop swinging around. It chopped off part of his finger. I don’t remember much of what happened ... but there was blood. I think there was an ambulance. I know he had a bandage for a long time. After the bandage came off he showed me the scars proudly and told me to always be careful with lawn mowers.

I got older and visited less often, but I went looking for them once when I came back from college. They were gone. The house had sold. No one seemed to know where they went. I hope Farrell and Louis know that I think of them. Their genuine generosity and kindness are something I still seek to emulate. They were an important part of my childhood and an important part of me still. I hate to think that in today’s world they may have just remained strangers.

Part 3: Perestroika 

My degree is in Russian and East European Studies from the University of Washington. I earned my degree in about 1994. That means I was studying Russia during the breakup of the Soviet Union. An interesting time for sure. I got into it out of interest and because the University of Washington would not accept the coursework I did in Physics while at Eastern Washington University. They would take the credits… but not the courses. I would have to take them again if I wanted to major in Physics. I had already done two years of physics in high school and a year in college. Uhm… no. So I went to the school counselor.

In the counselor’s office I sat looking through the catalog of majors and saw Russian and East European Studies. I had wanted to take a class on Russian Literature at EWU, but it was never offered. Inspiration struck. Decision made. I walked into the Counselor’s office.

She was a woman maybe 10 years older than me. She looked at me. Looked at my name and… well I don’t remember exactly, it’s all a blur. Turns out she was in the hospital the day I was born because it was the same day her brother was born and she knew my parents, my brother, my sister and they would play together. But when my family moved away from Los Osos (YES, LOS OSOS, in California!), our families drifted apart.

And so she was the one that I talked to about my major and she told me the path to take and 3 years later I had done all my coursework in History and language. I also did some chemistry and literature and math and I had a degree. Somehow I never actually saw her again. 

In my modern Soviet Union/Russia class where we learned current affairs and studied Gorbachev there was this fellow student, a woman, that caught my eye.  Big fizzy hair, thin as a rail, black leather jacket with a big skull on the back, black boots and a walk like she would kick your ass if she felt like it. As we exited class one day I managed to maneuver my way to walk next to her. (Note: I looked a bit like Lenin at the time with my, ahead of its time, Van Dyke beard). I asked her, “Are you an Anarchist?” She looked at me, smiled and became one of the best friends I had in college. Her name was Mary, but she went by Lisa because she didn’t want to be associated with Jesus’ mother. 

She was probably the most intelligent person I met at the University of Washington, but she had her issues. She was promiscuous, drank a lot, did some other things that you might or might not be able to imagine and then there was me… I barely drank and have never been a “get around” kind of guy.  We would have discussions on Communism and philosophy and religion and sex and everything. There were no filters. But we remained platonic. At one point I stayed too late at her apartment and missed the last bus home. I was there with her and 2 of her, also promiscuous, girlfriends. We all slept on her big king sized bed that night. Platonic. Relationships are funny. She had a boyfriend and he didn’t care that she slept around. But apparently when she started talking about me and our conversations and how we would hang out he became jealous. Sadly, we drifted apart after that. I don’t know what happened to her. I imagine she went to Russia and actually used her degree.

Part 4: Stranger love

After my first marriage, back in 2001, I returned to Monterey. Definitely better than Hineseville, Georgia, but still the land of loner artists and retired old people. Co-workers are great and can be friends, but it’s a pretty limited frontier and I don’t like mixing work and pleasure too much. It would have to be magical for me to consider a romantic relationship with a co-worker. Eventually I gave up on the idea of meeting a woman randomly on trails in the middle of nowhere and tried online stuff. I think I was on Match.com and eHarmony. I had a couple of local dates that ended at one date. Disappointing. At the time I was really into going to concerts. So, if I saw a concert I wanted to go to, I would buy two tickets and then post on Craigslist to find someone to go with. This actually worked pretty well and I met two women in particular that were really interesting people, but still.. never more than one date. At one point I did meet a woman from Colorado and we talked on the phone and I bought a plane ticket to fly out and meet her. That never happened because one night I had an inspirational write and just laid it out on Craigslist and was honest and open and mentioned a few key things that caused Katie to notice. She wrote to me the next morning.  We talked a few days later.  We met at McDonalds a few days after that and were married just over a year later. She’s why I never went to Colorado. 

Part 5: Stranger and stranger

20 years later and I’m alone again. I don’t think I’m built to live out my life alone. I need someone to give to. I need someone to hold and share and talk openly with about anything. Dark secrets? Heck no. I’d love to have someone with common life goals and priorities and a love and understanding of the world that is greater than a typical selfish self promoting selfie. My grieving will continue, but that should not dominate my life. I don’t want that and I know definitively that Katie does not want that either. She told me. Several times. Strongly.

But I still have clutter, both physically in my apartment and in my mind. I did have a recent revelation regarding the clutter, thanks to MC. The thing is, it’s my clutter. I get to decide what to do with it. I just have to be open and honest and trust that those meant to love me will understand and have an open heart and know that my heart too, is open. I am capable of huge amounts of love. This is not a circumstance where I have to stop one piece of love to have another. It can just simply grow. 

I was talking to my adventure buddy a couple of weeks ago and the topic of dating sites came up. My mind, as it does, of course, fixated on this idea. So over the next few days I did some research. I looked at site reviews and joined three sites just to see what the world is like now. The first? Oh my.  Far too adult for my blood. The second? Interesting and seemed to be trying to find good pairings, but they were all really far away and the pay walls to communicate were hard to navigate and my bank thought they were fraud. Erg. The third? Basically just pictures and superficiality. I began to realize that my thought process was shifting to the totally superficial based only on faces and well, no.  Not for me. I really want to see how people move and interact with others. I need to see if they are kind and decent and concerned about the world. I canceled #1 and #2.  #3 I had managed to pay a small fee to so I was thinking I’d let it run out before I canceled. Then, a couple days ago I got annoyed with the email notifications and erg… so I went to the site with the intent of canceling. An image popped up that was interesting. Oddly enough I mentioned Anarchy in my message and she replied. She seems to be kind and decent and cares a lot about the world. Maybe I will get to see how she moves and interacts with others. I hope so.

I don’t know what this is or where it is going but it is a universe full of strangers, black holes and many many stars and it is all marvelous. Stranger danger? Yeah. I understand. But no.