Idaho

New York State: (Three Month Recap)

What a year it’s been! I woke up in Idaho on January 1st, drove to California where I lived for six-months, and then ventured to upstate New York where I’ll finish out the year. I say “I” but I really mean we. We means my wife and me (I). Yeah. That’s a lot of driving. Our Prius is a champ. I think I’ll buy my car a wizard’s cap for Christmas, considering he did such a good job leading us across the continent (like Gandalf!).

But New York. Man, sometimes, I still can’t believe we live here. New friggan York! What a long way from home. There’s good and bad, but we like it; Rochester is growing on us. Constant unfamiliarity can be quite exhausting, but we’ve been using our GPS less and less, so that is good. A big step to accepting a new home, I think, is learning the street names.

Without further ado, here’s my three-month recap (or review!) of NY State:

August

Humidity and lots of fruit flies. But it could’ve been worse. We came in on the tail-end of the humidity; we’ll have to wait till next year to fully experience it, I guess. With no jobs or school in session we were bored out of our minds! We were broke too. Moving is ‘spensive.

However, we did manage to see Niagara Falls after a terrible, no good-very bad day. Megan landed a job pretty much right off the bat! And speaking of bat, we woke up with a bat in our room and almost contracted rabies. August was… well, it was… a stretching experience. Oh, I also saw mewithoutYou (my favorite band). (more…)

Relook: The Perils of Landscaping (Kevin Claud Van Damn it!)

You know that awesome, cliché action-movie sequence where the hero jumps out of a car right before it shoots off a cliff? I’m sure you know what I mean.

I’ve always wanted to do that!

Today was going to be an easy day. You know… day off from my main job at the market, do a little side-job yard-work, get a little sunshine. I didn’t realize I’d be jumping off a riding lawnmower as it plunged downhill.

I should explain.

On Wednesdays, I landscape for a really nice lady named Lois. She lives outside of Coeur d’Alene in the “fancy home overlooking the lake on a hill” district. Every summer she rents her house (or yard I should say) for weddings.

She has a nice riding mow, and I genuinely love the job. It’s outside and beautiful and even fun. That said, every landscaper who works a riding mow will mention a turn that makes their teeth grind. My “turn,” happens to have a hill next to it that dramatically declines into wilderness. No problem.

Today, the grass was wet.

Moments

It’s funny how time seems to slow down in radical moments. Looking back, I felt like I could’ve prepped a tuna salad sandwich with the time I had before the fall, which was really only two or three seconds.

I better Titanic off of this thing!

I jumped and hit the ground, soon hearing the mower make a ‘crunch’ sound. I stood up, as slowly as I could muster, and turned my head towards the direction of the renegade-riding mower. God, I didn’t want to look.

“Oh my goodness,” I said. “It’s fine!”

There, downhill, the mower rested in a safe net of bushes. In fact, it couldn’t have had a softer landing. Laughing, I ran down the hill and jumped on the dusty mower and started the engine. I threw the gear in reverse but it wouldn’t go. It tried, I tried, the wheels turned and all, but it wouldn’t go. After a good ten minutes of this back and forth gear shifting, manually lifting the mower, and pushing and pulling in ridiculous helplessness, I rested.

Prayer

I thought about calling some friends, but everyone I knew lived roughly twenty-hours away in California. Lois was gone for a few hours, the only good thing.

“Lord,” I pleaded, “You gotta get me out of this, you gotta send me somebody!”

The hill looks bigger in person, okay?

During the summer, Lois turns her guest room into a bed and breakfast. I thought the house was empty, but I forgot about the B&B guests! Suddenly, I heard a door open.

“Hey! Hey!” I rushed up the hill to the guest’s door with my arms waving. Flustered and bewildered, the man stepped back and threw his fists into a fighting stance (protecting his wife).

“Do you… I… well…” I was out of breathe and apparently lost my vocabulary on the fall. It wasn’t helping my case that the stranger thought me a lunatic. Thankfully, his eyes looked down and saw the green on my clothes and (eventually) the mower in the bushes.

“Did you ride that down the hill?” He asked.

“No… It rolled down by itself.”

His eyes widened and he made the hand gesture of a rolling car. “It rolled?”

“Well no, it roooollllled.” I made the gesture of a smooth downward drift with my hand. I must’ve looked insane. Crazy or not, this answered prayer of a man helped me pull, push, and lift the mower out of the bushes.

It turned out this guy was a saint.

Fin.

Getting out of the bushes was only half the battle, but I will spare you the rest of that crazy story (it included ‘off roading’ further down). All in all, the mower was fine. I even got it back in the yard and finished mowing before Lois came home. I wasn’t sure how to bring it up. “Hey, I took your expensive (brand new) riding mow on a joy ride to the lake.”

I didn’t say that.

My conscious got the best of me, and I did tell her. She took it great and actually laughed when I gave her the story. She felt bad for me, could you believe that?

Epilogue

What’s the moral to this tale? Hmmmmm…

Watch out for wet grass?

Don’t cut too close to the edge?

God answers prayer?

Before I left, I took one more glance at the spot where it all went down. The soft breeze was blowing and the sun was finally shining. Down the hill, the bushes were tromped and a freshly made ‘mower size’ trail existed, showing my fateful path. I stood and looked, both triumphant and stupid, gazing with astonishment, and thinking only “Man, that was bad ass.”

http://www.flickr.com/photos/grufnik/3195361137/

[NOTE: This blog post came from 7/28/2011. It has been slightly edited and reworked. I hope to get back on track next week and share some new thoughts. Until then, I hope you enjoy some of my older (odder) tales.]

Kevin & Megan: With a Vengeance

My third wedding anniversary is today! Oh man. Three years, can you believe it? Time flies. It seems just like yesterday Megan and I got hitched at the Coeur d’Alene Kroc Center and rode off together on a moped scooter.

“Don’t crash,” she said.

“No promises.”

To celebrate lucky number 1095 (in days), we’re biking the Hiawatha Trail, grabbing dinner in the bustling metropolis of Wallace, Idaho, and—if time allows—seeing a show at the Sixth Street Melodrama.

Broke, jobless, and parent-in-law basement squatters (we’re “basement people” now), we decided to forgo anniversary gifts this year. But shhh, don’t tell her. I’m surprising her still: in two weeks, we’re driving to Rochester, New York where we’ll live for two years.

“Happy Anniversary!!!”

I love my wife. I do. I love her more each day and each year. We’ve stuck it out. She’s seen the worst of me and has suffered through. I’ve lived through her macaroni and cheese.

Together, we make a good team—Team Us.

We talk and laugh and fight. We have inside jokes, and words and phrases of words that make no sense; in public settings, I sometimes forgot I shouldn’t use them.

Strong and independent, beautiful and full of grace, my wife is a wonderful woman who I learn from every day. Thanks for the memories, adventures, and stay-in nights.

I’m looking forward to a few more.

Our love is here to stay.

The Lie of Nostalgia, The Truth of Home

We’ve been traveling a lot lately—following the West Coast heat wave it would seem. We left San Luis Obispo, California for Coeur d’Alene, Idaho on June 30th. On the way from SLO, CA, we stopped in Reno to see my mom and then in Boise to see my sister and her kids. We made it back to Coeur d’Alene just in time to jump in the lake on the fourth of July. Long trip.

We’re here for the month. Soon we’ll be making the Great Drive to Rochester, New York where I’m certain our car will explode in protest.

I apologize for the lack of posts, but you know how travel goes. Moving. Yawning. Sunflower seeds. Gum on the seat. Wishing you were home—wherever and whatever home is.

It’s an interesting subject, home; I’ve been thinking a lot about it.

For a long time I confused nostalgia with home. I assumed they were one in the same. I know now they’re not. And while it’s true that one springs from the other—like a seed from a tree or a son from a father—I’ve found that the two are quite separate, quite different.

Nostalgia is a dream. It’s a desire, sometimes sweet but usually bitter. A little nostalgia can go a long way and I believe it’s healthy in this dosage. Quickly though, nostalgia can consume and take root. It’s good to know the difference.

These last six months in California have shown me the difference between nostalgia and home. I always assumed California was my home—the city I grew up in, the town where every street, side-street, and park had a memory—but that wasn’t the case. California is not my home. It’s just a place, a place I once lived. And just like her burritos, California bursts at the seem, overfilled with people I love and places I’d be happy to die in.

But this is not home. It’s just a place.

The few years of marriage have taught me the truth of what home is. My wife is my home. Not any one place in particular, just her. I think home can be a place for some people, but not me. When I’m away from her I’m not myself, nor am I home. It’s just the way it is. Home is her.

Wherever we go we’ll be home—even in Rochester, even without furniture—and I’m excited about that.

Epilogue

I’m working on a blog post for next week and I’m really excited about it. It’s more in the vein of what I usually write. Before I jump back in to the blogosphere, though, it seemed wise to explain my absence and also reflect on what the last couple weeks have taught me.

Thanks for being patient. Stay tuned.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/badwsky/1548005222/

PS: I have a new page on my website. It’s called Top 5 Music, Movies, and Books. Give it a gander and let me know what you think.

Adventure: Not All it’s Cracked Up to Be

Adventure is weird and complicated. Like ordering a martini for the first time or Thai food, it’s not easy. It’s sexy, sure. We escape the familiar in favor of the unknown. We leave our friends and family behind. We buy maps (or iPhones) and plot new courses.

My wife and I have only five days left of our six-month stay in California. From here, we’ll pack up and drive to Idaho for a few weeks and then drive, finally, to Rochester, New York, where we’ll settle.

The idea of living in three states in one year sounded fun, initially. A couple of fair-skinned gypsies in a Prius-charriot awaiting adventure—that was us.

All I’ve ever wanted was adventure, and truth be told, I’ve had my fair share.

I’ve back-packed through Ireland; I’ve driven to the Grand Canyon on a whim; I’ve rode through a carwash on a razor scooter… Adventure is in my blood.

Is adventure good for blood?

Fake Adventures

I grew up idolizing movies like Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and The Mummy where characters traveled to the ends of the Earth, or universe, to conduct business. I’d watch TV shows like The X-Files and swoon. The monster-of-the-week storyline, on the search in a new area, fascinated me (and still does).

But it’s all fake. It’s exciting, but truth be told, if I met a new monster every week and I’d be dead by now. I’d be digesting in some mutant’s stomach and that’d be an awkward funeral.

Then there is the whole social media thing. All the fake adventurers. I recently read an article about the “Instagram Envy Effect,” which, really, is just how it sounds. Instagram captures everybody’s good moments, new moments. The rest of us watch and wish we could have those moments. Really, it’s all just fake. We post the interesting moments and leave the rest hidden, like reality TV.

I bring the Instagram article up because social media—as well as movies, music, and books—teach us some falsehoods about adventure. They tell us adventure has no downside. That it’s all just fun all the time and YOLO and pose!!!

Warning: Adventure is not all it’s cracked up to be.

Here are some tips to make sure you never, ever have an adventure.

Issue number 1:

You’re basically always packing. I’m not sure how you feel about packing, but I’m not a big fan.

Issue number 2:

Friendships are rare. It’s hard to get close to people when you’re always on the go. It’s not like the comic books where the hero has all the friends. The real-life hero, the traveler, is awkward at parties, unable to connect—not sure if he even wants to.

Issue number 3:

It gets harder and harder to leave. Maybe I’m getting older, maybe the traveler’s heart is just failing to pump like it used to, I don’t know. Maybe a six-month vacation wasn’t a very good idea. All I know, is that it’s getting harder to leave.

My friends, my family, my town. Sometimes, adventure just kind of sucks.

The memories are worth it, and that’s what I’m holding on to, for now.

What are your thoughts on adventure?

Versatile Blogger Award!

Well, well, well. Looksy what eye’s got here. A bloddy blawgah award! (Can you tell I’m in a good mood?)

I was recently nominated for a Versatile Blogger Award by Adeline from Dancing in the Storm. She writes a great blog about her faith, her marriage, and her missionary work. She says that writing keeps her “grounded,” reading her posts does the same for me. Thanks Adeline!

Embarrassingly I must admit, a couple months ago I was nominated for this by Tony from his amazing blog, A Way With Words. Tony, thank you. I’m sorry this took me so long! Simply, your blog inspires me to be a better writer.

To accept the award, I have to tell Adeline and Tony seven things about me. Let’s keep this brief.

Seven About Kevin

1. I started the year in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; the next day moved to San Luis Obispo, California. By Fall, Rochester, New York will be my home.

2. Science fiction is my favorite fiction genre. I grew up watching The X-Files, and reading books about UFOs and conspiracy theories. I’m currently reading Sphere by Michael Crichton and it’s awesome.

3. I never wanted to sing, nor have I ever been good at it. Yet, I’ve fronted a local rock band AND led worship at various churches through the years. The microphone has always had it out for me.

4. Singer/Songwriters that inspire me: Denison Witmer, Ben Folds, The Avett Brothers.

5. Oddly enough, Ecclesiastes is my favorite book in the bible.

6. I’m married to a great girl named Megan. She puts sunscreen on my back. The beach and I have since reunited.

7. Favorite Movies: The Truman Show, Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade, A Bronx Tale, Empire Strikes Back, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind!

Fifteen I’ve Nominated

Around the time Tony nominated me, I had just taken up blogging again (at least, on a consistent basis). I wasn’t really sure what a blog award was.

Also, I was a wordpress hermit—there weren’t 15 other bloggers I knew to nominate.

Times have changed; we have microwave ovens now. I read more than I write, and I’m writing better because of it. The best part of this award is that I get to give this gift that was graciously given to me.

Here you go; you all deserve this (in no order):

1. Immortal Nobody

2. ArcSurf

3. Wild Magik II

4. Dream A Lot Louder

9. The Misfit Christian

10. Roots Like Oaks

11. Mark Block