Anyway, as I was going through Craigslist and seeing all those positions for CNAs, the thought occurred to me: I could do that. It wasn’t that I could do one thing as opposed to something else. Rather it was: I will do that. Taking care of elderly people seemed like such a natural thing to do. I did some research into where I could get training and then talked my plan over with Robin, who was  supportive of the idea. In fact she said something like: “Maybe you could work at that place down the street.” I’d driven by it hundreds of times without giving it any attention, but there was an adult family home (AFH) in my neighborhood. In my imagination, working there was agreeable and rewarding.

Training as a certified nursing assistant is a first step to nursing school for many people. They can work in the field while going to school. The program is short—three weeks for me—and relatively inexpensive. But I wasn’t thinking of going to nursing school (even now it hasn’t occurred to me: I could do that.) I was just looking for something part-time. Nothing more. 

So I enrolled, starting  classes on November 19. I was the oldest person in the class of 12 students, although there was one woman in her 50s. The youngest was 19. Training consisted of learning and practicing 24 (or was it 26?) procedures including proper hand washing, changing an occupied bed, taking blood pressure, transferring a person from bed to wheel chair, giving a bed bath, measuring urinary output, and, peri care. Part of the training took place in massive long-term care center where we worked in “memory care.” That’s the contemporary way of referring to the dementia ward. The experience confirmed my first thought that I could do this and eventually do it well. 

Meanwhile, I started looking for potential places to work. I created a small database of information on various agencies and care centers in my area that I would apply to once I passed my exams, which I did on December 19. After I applied for my license, I sent an email to the owner of the home in my neighborhood, at the address I found on their website. I never got a reply. I called, too, but the phone just rang and rang and finally disconnected. I put that idea aside and started working on other leads. 

I went back to Craigslist where I found an ad for a part-time caregiver at an AFH about 20 minutes from my house. I inquired, then sent my résumé on request. In reply I learned they don’t usually hire people with no experience, but she did ask why I wanted to be a CNA. The door was entirely closed, so I stated my case. Curiously—and it could have been a coincidence—the person I was corresponding with had the same name as the person who owned the AFH in my neighborhood. 

Yet it was no coincidence. The owner, an RN, had recently opened a second adult family home, the one I answered the ad for. After exchanging a couple more emails, I gained an interview then a job in the very place I’d imagined myself working just a couple of months earlier. A staff shift between the two homes opened the spot for me. My first day at work was New Years Eve, and I’m there three days a week. So far it’s been agreeable and rewarding. And I walk to work too, something I’ve never been able to do before.

I wrote this essay 25 years ago—two years before my youngest child, Kathryn, was born. It’s a vignette of my life back then. It was published in the January 31, 1988 edition of “Northwest Magazine,” which once upon a time was the literary supplement to the Sunday Oregonian. The original title was Father and Son Secrets, which I’ve given it here. I never liked the title given to it by the editor. I didn’t care too much for the illustration, either, because it showed only three kids instead of four. I know grouping things in threes creates balance and is aesthetically pleasing, but life makes its own rules. 

I sit on the step in front of my house. Next to me is an assortment of bags and backpacks full of clothes and stuffed animals, drawings and other paraphernalia. The younger two of my four boys, David and Patrick, play in the yard. Occasionally one of them darts to the end of the driveway and peers down the road. The other boys, Daniel and Philip, whiz by on their bicycles. The afternoon is warm and sunny, but my thoughts are far from the weather.

A faded green Ford Maverick approaches and stops in front of the house. I immediately recognize the woman on the passenger side of the car; the man driving I’ve never seen before. The woman gets out, and the kids gather around her. Just as they had gathered around me a week earlier. Their stay with me is over for now. It’s time for them to go home with their mother. I help put their bags in the trunk, say goodbye to the boys, walk back into the house and shut the door behind me.

***

Variations of this scene, some more poignant than others, have played out perhaps seventy-five times since I left my home in the Old Country, a rural region south of Portland, Oregon, where my kids were born. I’m only now beginning to put The Big Change into perspective.

When your children are born, you want to believe that they’re yours forever. Yet, you know they are not, for you know that it is your job to prepare them to leave you. Eventually. It’s the natural course of events.

But then comes a piece of paper that tells you in great and seemingly irreversible detail just how your relationship with your children has changed, long before you thought it would. The paper describes, among other heart-rending things, visitation rights and child-support obligations.

At first, I was afraid that my children would drift away from me as time went by. But I was fortunate. The mother of my children—a term whose meaning has a far different implication than it once had—is supportive of my desire to stay a strong and influential part of my children’s lives. “Reasonable visitation rights” have been liberal indeed. Because the kids live within an hour’s drive from Portland, hardly a weekend goes by that I haven’t had at least one of my children with me. And this summer I’ve seen much of them. Though I am a part-time parent, still I am a full-time father.

In the early stages of this new relationship, I was confused when the responsibility for the well-being of my kids was taken from me beyond the compartmentalized responsibility of a monthly check. But there’s more to child support than such allotments.

***

It’s Friday evening. The kids are here and there, doing what they normally would, playing or working on various projects. I’m happy just to have them around. But I want more. I want interaction. “Game of chess?” I ask Daniel, the oldest. “I play the winner,” Philip says, hunkering down to watch.

Now the games are over. “Let’s talk,” I say. “Talk about what?” one of them asks. “I don’t know. Whatever you want.” This is how they usually start, those conversations that sometimes don’t end until a new day has begun. Actions speak louder than words, sure, but it is with words that we seem to best make up for lost time together.

The older boys chide me about these conversations, because I am one who makes liberal use of verbal parentheses and cannot avoid going off on one tangent to another. While spending a week at the beach last summer, a discussion of how the moon affects the tides evolved into what effect the Beatles had on society. Don’t ask me today to produce a connection. The best I can offer is a shrug of the shoulders and a “you had to have been there.”

***

Saturday morning. I notice Patrick needs a new pair of shoes. “And while we’re at it,” I say, “you could use a haircut, too.” Even these modest “dad things” are regularly available and no less a pleasure.

During the transitional period, when I was still getting used to my modified parental role, I struggled to find meaningful things to do with the kids while I had them. Weekends were filled with trips to the zoo and Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, the airport and the park, RiverPlace and Saturday Market.

When the phrase “quality time” became part of the vernacular, it meant that it was all right for working parents to shuffle the kids off to day care so long any time spent with a child was “meaningful.” I once chuckled at the notion, recognizing it as an excuse, a way to assuage the guilt. Kids need to be around their parents, no matter what the quality of the time spent together. So why did I feel compelled to make each weekend a “quality” weekend? And why did I feel as though I’d let them down when it wasn’t?

But, I wondered, is it good for me? Is it good for them that I try to give so much more than I ever had before, to make their weekends with me always stimulating and fun? I don’t know the answer. What’s important is that we’re together. The big excursions are still meaningful and fun, but so are the small things like taking Patrick for a haircut or just being together in the same room.

What I worried about most when I first left the Old Country was that David, my youngest, would forget who his father is. He was not yet talking and barely walking when I kissed him good night in his own bed for the last time. I’ve been his weekend father for half his lifetime already. It’s just about the only way he will ever know me.

But I no longer worry about his not knowing who I am, as long as I can see him regularly. When I pick him up from his legal residence for a visit and see his cheerful face as he bounds toward me, it puts an end to my fears and gives new meaning to the child-parent bond. And at tuck time, when he says, “Gimme hug-kiss,” and then, “I wuhvoo, Papa,” we both know who we are.

***

It’s another Sunday afternoon. I swing the car into the driveway in front of the house that years ago I built for my growing family. Some of the boys have fallen asleep during the long drive, but they rouse quickly. And just as quickly they are out of the car and grabbing their things from the trunk. I say goodbye as they scurry into the house, already changing mental channels, switching to mother mode.

I, too, must switch modes—from active father to passive parent. But the cycle continues. And during our times together, there are hints of camaraderie, of secrets to share, of intimacies to treasure.

I’m grateful Barack Obama won reelection. Of the two candidates he is the more principled and the one more able to understand and address the needs of the entire country, not just the other 47%. In spite of the powerful propaganda that says he has done nothing during the past four years, Obama has a long list of accomplishments to his credit. But I’m not writing to extol his accomplishments and virtue or cheer his reelection. I’m writing about sadness.

Yes, I’m grateful that, as a country, we did not pay the ransom demanded by the Republican party, which has held the president—and the country—hostage since Inauguration Day, 2009. It says a lot about our collective national character. But Obama’s first term brought another aspect of our national character into the world spotlight. What it exposed is very ugly and destructive. 

When Obama took the electoral vote, I felt a surge of relief. But I feel no joy or excitement. I feel no momentum moving forward. I feel sad about the whole thing. I’m sad because we will have four more years of resistance and obstruction from the House of Representatives—all for the purpose of preventing one man from doing the job we elected him to do and denying him any credit for the good he’s done and will strive to do. I’m sad because we must endure four more years of  hatred spewing forth from Limbaugh, Coulter, Palin, Hannity, Beck, O’Reilly, Rove, Trump, Breitbart, and so many others whose sole purpose is to foment dissension and even revolution.  

A world free of differences of opinion is not possible, nor is it desirable. In a reasonable society, people can overcome their differences, find a balance, and work together for the greater good. The fomenters of hatred, dissension, and revolution do not have the common good in mind. They may talk about the Constitution, but they don’t believe in we all the people. They may point to the Declaration of Independence as an inspiration for revolution, but that document is built on reason, not on hatred. 

No good will ever come from speech fueled by hatred. Never—no matter how tightly wrapped in a flag of patriotism or supported by a cross of religion—will speech steeped in hatred be a force for good. Never. It is always a force for evil. Freedom of speech is an American hallmark. But what happened to integrity and responsibility? It’s sad that we’ve given so much power to hatred. Very sad. 

I don’t believe that all those who supported Mitt Romney were inspired or influenced by the evil speech that is so prevalent today. But millions and millions of people were and are, and the world knows it.  

Had Mitt Romney won the election, we could have expected profound changes—for good or bad—in law and the economy. We will never know. Certainly, we would have had relief from the hateful, misleading diatribes that masquerade as truth. But all that is superficial compared to the deeper character flaws that would yet be festering within our national psyche had the election turned out differently.  

But it’s Obama and not Romney who is president. What comes next depends on what power we, as a country, will give to the hate mongers and obstructionists. I just can’t bring myself to feel very good about any of it.

electing for truth—
discernment and wisdom
are trustworthy guides
to peace and clarity

chasing shadows of
greed and hatred—
the deceived
cycle through endless delusion

My point was lost, however, because equating the 9/11 attacks with a natural disaster evoked its own kind of angry response. After all, other people did this to us. Our anger and thirst for vengeance were justifiable.

There is an old Zen story where a man is fishing from his boat on a fogbound lake. Through the mist he senses another boat coming directly at him. The startled fisherman shouts an angry warning. As the oncoming boat strikes, the fisherman curses the other. Quickly, the mist clears and the fisherman realizes the boat that rammed him is empty and adrift. Embarrassment replaces his anger. 

Why is it that when other people, rather than nature, are the cause of our misfortune our reaction is different? I think it’s because, first, we believe other people should know better (as we always know better). Second, even though we can mitigate the effects of nature to some extent, we can and should control the actions of those human beings who would thwart, threaten, or harm us. Third, if we can’t control the actions of those who would thwart, threaten, or harm us, then we can justify doing whatever necessary to deter, punish, or avenge. And of course, somebody must pay. 

Religious beliefs entwine natural events with references to acts of God. We like to know why bad things happen. If the cause isn’t human, then it must be divine. If the cause is divine, then who are we to question? Historically and psychologically, God provides a needed explanation for the otherwise inexplicable and helps make tragic natural events easier to bear. Religion tangles things further when disasters become for us God’s judgment and retribution for things other people do, justifying one group’s destructive acts against another.

It’s ironic how easily so many of us accept natural disasters as God’s judgement on others, but when science tells us the progressively worsening changes in our global climate are the result of human activity, many of those same people deny it’s happening and call it a hoax.

Regardless, we humans and our descendants will have to live with and adapt to whatever climatic changes come our way. Ten, twenty-five, 100 years from now, no one will care that Al Gore was right and Rush Limbaugh was wrong about global warming any more than we care today that Galileo was right and the Church was wrong about heliocentrism. 

Over eons of time, earth’s climate has changed in many inhospitable ways. The world has seen massive earthquakes, floods, droughts, tornadoes, and volcanic eruptions. But these events never matter unless humans are in the picture. It’s all about us, isn’t it? We humans are right in the middle of this swirling ocean of change that goes on and on. We are part of it, and we have adapted. So far.

Political and social change are as inevitable as changes in weather and climate. Societies manage themselves by creating governments, religious institutions, and other social structures, but over time these have and will change as we continually adapt to new circumstances and conditions. Social and political development and evolution are unstoppable. People do what they will to control their environment, survive, and—if possible—prosper. Sometimes what we humans do in the name of control, survival, and prosperity is grand and life-affirming. Other times it cruel and inhumane. It’s always been like this. It’s the nature of who we are and what we do.

When I told my friend my thoughts about the 9/11 attacks being no different from a natural disaster, this is what I had in mind. As individuals, the hijackers committed a singularly evil and unjustifiable act of violence. But it was just another tragic event in a very long list of examples of man’s inhumanity to man that has been part of the cycle of life and death on earth for thousands of years. Eventually, what happened on September 11, 2001, will have all the emotional impact as the events at the Alamo. Remember the Alamo? 

Had we been more vigilant (and we could have been), we may have prevented or lessened damage of the events of 9/11. But there are some things we cannot prevent. We can’t prevent droughts, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes, or arctic meltdown. We can’t always prevent other people from doing us harm (remembering that we are “the other” to someone else). We cannot prevent change, we can only live with it. 

Hurricane Sandy pounds the eastern United States, and its powerful effects will be far-reaching. People are doing what they can to protect themselves and their property. Some will fare better than others, depending on many unpredictable factors. When it’s over, some will celebrate their good fortune of surviving another massive and destructive natural disaster, others will curse their misfortune and mourn their losses. Either way, as a country, we will clean up and carry on.

Yet another hurricane awaits off shore. When it strikes, it will rake the entire country. Unlike Sandy, this hurricane, which has been brewing for many years, is entirely human-caused. But like any hurricane it is unstoppable. We’ll have better information about areas of damage by November 7. When the skies clear, some of us will celebrate survival-as-victory, others of us will react with grief and anger at our misfortune. I hope the damage is manageable and that the inevitable post-disaster pillaging and plundering are minimal.

Some interesting things I found when researching this essay are here:

http://www.beliefnet.com/News/2005/09/Katrina-Gods-Judgment-On-America.aspx

http://christiannews.christianet.com/1215711636.htm

http://www.understandingthetimes.org.uk/component/content/article/47-articles/147-gods-judgements-and-natural-disasters

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0919/Massive-Arctic-ice-melt-far-surpasses-previous-record

People use words to communicate. And if we sincerely want others to understand our meaning, then we must work hard to make sure we mean what we say—and say what we mean—with as little confusion as possible. Aren’t we all familiar with the dreadful feeling we get when we realize we’ve been misunderstood?

But what about when the intention is to confuse? Getting right to the point, this presidential election (all elections?) is an ongoing example of giving multiple meanings to words with the intention to confuse and manipulate. Communication is always a two-way course, however, and the problem gets worse when we insist on hearing meanings that were never intended. If you’ve followed the campaigns, I’m sure you can come up with plenty of your own examples.

Here’s a list of words loaded with multiple and conflicting meanings:

• American
• Conservative
• Democrat
• Liberal
• Republican
• Patriotism, patriot
• Christian
• Terror, terrorist
• Lie, liar
• Fact
• Business
• Capitalism
• Education
• Fair, fairness
• Government
• Freedom, liberty
• Program
• Taxes
• Middle class
• Social welfare
• Health care

I’m sure there are many others, but I’ve saved the most maligned and malleable word for last: Truth. When truth is no more than what you believe or what you want it to mean, then it has no value at all.

Original illustration from Through the Looking-Glass by John Tenniel.

Stairway at Abhayagiri (Fearless Mountain) Buddhist Monastery, Redwood Valley, California.

Mindfulness, as a tool to reduce stress, is in great supply these days. A Google search on the word just now returned 15,400,000 results. Among them are myriad stories of the successful use of mindfulness practice in classrooms and in boardrooms around the world. Talk therapists use their training in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction—developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn—to help their clients overcome anxiety, and the same principles are used in hospitals to help patients handle pain.

The subject of mindfulness is, of course, the mind. The mind—yours and mine—when not occupied with a very specific task, is usually in one of two places. Either it is in the past, reflecting on experiences; or in the future, anticipating what will happen next. While in either one of these places, the ordinary mind oscillates between confidence and doubt, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, humor and anger, love and hate, serenity and anxiety, and so many other conflicting states. These mind states influence what you do and how you carry your actions and attitudes into the world. 

Mindfulness is being aware of what is happening now—internally, within the mind itself, and externally with what you are touching, seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting. With mindfulness, you can place yourself right between past and future. It’s a small but stable platform from where you can respond to events as they unfold and without preconceived notions formed by past experiences and future expectations. The external world of sensory objects doesn’t change, nor do the sensations you experience, regardless of whether they are pleasant or unpleasant experiences. What does change are your habitual responses. In that tiny gap between past and future, you can make a choice that is not based solely on liking and disliking or on emotions. Rather, you can choose the best response based on what’s appropriate. Mindfulness is a rational and pragmatic approach to experience. 

Mindfulness is a skill that, like any other, can be developed. And, as with developing any other skill, it takes lots of patience and practice. The practice hall for mindfulness is meditation. Mindfulness meditation is not prayer, nor does it attempt to transcend anything divine. It’s not a way of processing information, solving problems, or stimulating creativity. Nor is it an escape from reality or a dive into some blissful care-free state of nothingness. It’s simply focusing on an object—typically the breath—and bringing your attention back to it over and over to stay present with reality as it unfolds. 

Just about anything can be a meditation object (sounds are especially good), but the breath is best because it’s always with you. The breath is a direct connection with the body. Unlike the mind, which can wander aimlessly between past and future, the body is always in the present. Where else can it be?

When mindfulness is well-developed, and you can easily remember to bring your awareness back to the moment, you can choose beneficial thoughts, words, and actions over harmful ones. Taking the time to rest in the space between past and future, you can stay balanced and not be influenced by the forces of liking and disliking or unbridled emotions. You can more easily avoid mental states that lead to anxiety and stress and cultivate ones that lead to well-being.

A well-developed mindfulness practice can break up old, potentially harmful habits and replace them with beneficial ones. Breaking mindless habits and patterns is not easy work, but it is beneficial work. After a while you will notice a differences. And others will, too.

There is good

and evil,

right and

wrong;

There is love

and hatred,

truth and

lies.

How can you know

which is which,

with so much deception

in the world?

There is light

and darkness,

giving and

greed;

There is wisdom and

stupidity,

kindness and

cruelty.

How can you know

which is which,

with so much delusion

in the world?

Really, how can you know?

You can read about how I got my first contract, and how I reconnected with my editor years later, here. To see the other books I wrote for Stackpole, click here.

Those of you familiar with the Portland arts and crafts scene may recognize the cover photograph from last year’s Wild Arts Festival, sponsored by the Audubon Society of Portland, at Montgomery Park.

Persist: In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad with Commerce, by Los Angeles author Peter Clothier, won first place in the Art/Graphics Non-Fiction category. The book is not about art per se, nor does it contain artwork. Rather, it’s a collection of compelling essays offering inspiration and encouragement to artists and creative people of all kinds, especially those who struggle against the stream of commercialism and profit.

In the Introduction to Persist, Peter writes:

Earning a living with art is a fanciful expectation for the vast majority of those we certify as artists with the award of a college degree, thanks largely to a self-supporting, self-perpetuating system that provides teaching jobs for otherwise unemployable artists. What results is a disconnect between what students have been led to expect and the realties that await them . . . and there is an army of the walking wounded out there to prove this point. Our culture celebrates creativity from the earliest age in schools. Children are encouraged to express themselves even before they learn the ABC’s that enable them to do it. So many of our brightest young people dream of careers in music, acting, film, and television, but later find themselves in a career market that offers scant possibility of fulfilling the dream they have been fraudulently urged to dream. I live in Hollywood and go to restaurants. I talk to the servers.

This collection of essays is intended to celebrate and encourage these amateurs—or rather, more honestly, us. Because, though I myself have been fortunate enough to enjoy a good measure of success as a writer, I too am confronted with the reality of a publishing world in which many thousands of worthy writers flounder against the formidable rocks of commercial demands. If I write about the survival of the creative spirit in such a cultural context, it’s because I myself have needed to develop strategies and mind-sets that enable me to persevere with a sense of dedication, self-respect, and persistence that might otherwise seem foolishly quixotic. These essays have been written to remind myself, at moments of discouragement, that I am, first, foremost, and always, a writer—if only because that is what I have been given to do.

 The ebook edition of Persist is available for immediate download in both MOBI and EPUB formats directly from Parami Press through the Gumroad download service. You can also order Kindle and NOOK editions from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Of course, the paperback edition is available, too.