Swimming for My Life

A couple of days ago, I nearly died. It seems worth admitting.

The wife and kids and I went to a local beach on Sunday. A little lake with a sandy beach, a shallow swimming area, a dock where you can rent pedal boats on one side and a fishing pier on the other. While my wife supervises the 2-year-old sleeping in the car, we set up shop on a picnic table, lay out the towels, snacks, water bottles, squirt guns, a pail full of shovels and a beach ball.

First off the kids decide that Daddy should take them on a pedal boat ride (or is it a 'paddle boat'? It does require a lot of peddling...). We boat about the lake, riding to other side and back again. After much begging, I make up a superhero story for the ride.

One thing I should mention is that I was fasting that day. It was for a medical test and it turned out negative, so no worries, but I was really hungry. Feeling kind of weak. I'd intended to take it easy that day, but there I was out on the lake with the kids, furiously peddling the boat. And, with much banging of the dock, we made it back just fine and I worked up a little sweat and decided that this was good -- I'd gotten my 30 minutes of excercise in for the day.

At this point the romping and playing in the water begins. A massive squirt gun fight erupts.
The 2-year-old awakens, and my wife brings the pail, shovels and beach ball to the edge of the water. A mound-style castle is formed and the dirt around it is excavated and filled with water. Imaginary dragons patrol the moat. While vigorously defending myself from the onslaught of SuperSoakers, I break a squirt gun.

My wife interrupts with a shout: "The beach ball!"

The beach ball, it seems, has floated unnoticed to the boat dock. Another dad has a toddler in an inner tube floating off the dock, and is gamely trying to grab the ball as well.

"Don't let him do that," my wife says. "Go get the ball."

I sigh. I go to get the ball. The dad is now fumbling between his toddler and the ball as I jog to the dock. Finally, he chooses the toddler and lets the ball go. I reach the end of the dock. The dad shrugs and I laugh. Yeah, of course you'd choose the kid!

The ball is just out of reach, so I roll my eyes and reluctantly jump into the lake.

"It's pretty shallow here," the dad says helpfully.

The ball is a good, I don't know, 10 feet ahead. No problem. I forge ahead, trudging through the brown-green water with my arms up like a GI in a Vietnam movie.

The ball is still a good 10 feet ahead. Maybe eight now.

Water's getting deeper. I'd probably get there a little faster if I swam. We'll start with a crawl. Don't want to go crazy -- I'll go heads-up style. Gotta keep my eye on the ball.

I maybe make up a foot or so. Getting kind of tired. How far have I swum?

I turn around. Whoa.

The dock looks rather small. For a moment, I recall that it actually took quite awhile to get this far ... in the boat. Hrm.

Ball's still out of reach. Maybe if I can just reach it, I can lean on it. I can float. Let's try a breast stroke. Always been my best. My form is perfect ... I can do this forever.

Wow. How far am I away now? The dock looks pretty small from here. The ball's still maybe, I don't know, 10 feet away. That's even farther than before. This might be a problem.

I strain to keep the rhythm -- sweep arms, breathe, head down, frog kick, glide, sweep arms, breathe, head down, frog kick, glide -- my heart is pounding. I'm getting tired.

But, I came out here for the ball. I'm breathing hard. I can't go back without the ball.

It's at this point that I realize that I could die, right here. In the lake. Chasing a corporate logoed beach ball we got for free at some long-forgotten summer festival.

I stop swimming. I tread water for a moment. The wind carries the ball swiftly across the lake. Soon, it looks as small as the dock behind me, back where I started. Where I have to go now.

I'm too tired. I'm not going to make it. I gulp a mouthful of lake water. Heart pounding harder. Breathing heavy. I yelp, squeal. I'm having a panic attack. I look up at the bright blue sky of a perfect Sunday afternoon, and I float.

I can float.

I can float here all day. I start in on a new rhythm: Arms out, kick, legs straight, arms sweep back, glide...repeat. Elementary back stroke. Keep going. I can keep going.

As I swim, I write the news story in my head: Area man, father of three, drowns in lake pursuing a free beach ball. Talk radio has a field day: "What kind of guy gives it all up for a beach ball? We'll miss him...not!"

I keep swimming. My six-year-old is shouting for me. "Daaaady! Daaaady!" I try to answer. Bad idea. He can wait.

I keep swimming.

The climax is anti-climactic. I live. I make it to the dock. The six-year-old meets me there on the dock. We walk together to the shore.

My wife is back at the picnic table. I catch her eye and smile weakly. She's shaking her head at me.

"What did you want?" I say to my six-year-old, casually, trying not to show how hard I'm breathing.

"I was just saying, 'Hi!'," he says. I give him a hug and rub his head.

Tethered

I work in a tall building in Minneapolis, on the top floor. Nothing special about that, it just worked out that way for my company. This morning, it's a longer wait than usual, so I take out my Blackberry wireless device and start to mess around...I check the time, check emails, and then start in on a half-hearted game of BrickBreaker.

This guy gets on board the elevator with me and hits a button two floors below mine. Out of the corner of my eye, with most of my attention focused on the tiny, bouncing pixel charged with destroying the artfully arranged bricks on BrickBreaker's 2nd level, I take note of the guy. Boring brown-grey suit, tie, about six-foot-two, brown hair, weathered face of a guy who makes a lot of money and gets outside to enjoy it once in awhile...must have been in his early 50s. He nods at me.

"We're really tethered to those things, aren't we?" he says.

"Uh...yeah, yeah we are, aren't we," I say, taking a second to realize that he's talking about the Blackberry.

"Seems like we're always tethered to work these days. Work has to go everywhere with us."

"Yeah, it does. But you know, I kind of like it. It gives me fair warning on what's waiting for me at the office." It's always a pleasure to have someone new to hear my standard line on the Blackberry. It's getting old for everyone else.

"Well, sometimes, you don't want to know, right?" I tear my eyes away from the device and hit the escape key, pausing the game. The guy has a stony look to him, gazing off in the distance ... all the way to the elevator wall somewhere above me.

"Ha," I laugh, "I guess that's right."

"We have to turn those things off sometimes, right?"

"You just have to set your limits, you know?" I say, trying to be helpful.

"We're really tethered to these things. It's like there's no line between work and home. We're always on," he says, again, with a sadness in his voice that translates itself right into that place where sadness weighs heavy on you, just around the jawline and over the eyes.

"I guess so," I say, and I look down, sharing his ... ennui, I guess.

The elevator "bongs" with the signal that it's reached his floor and the man exits.

"Well, try and have a good day," he says.

"You, too," I say.

And I realize in that moment that this is a profoundly sad man, who, despite whatever else he has going for him, feels powerless over the forces of his life, powerless to do anything to assert control over his time, unable to set boundaries. Powerless, except for his ability to reach out, over a 45-second elevator ride, to someone who might just be a kindred spirit, who might just understand. I realize all that, and the fact that he has no idea that I would soon attain a personal high score on BrickBreaker, and the resulting sense of accomplishment would carry me a good hour into this second day of the week.

# # #

Parent of the Year Award Application

So, I'm outside with my two-year-old the other day. He's great. I'm trying to do some yard work -- pullin' weeds, puttin' up flower fences so the irises don't droop, weed whackin', layin' down mulch in the garden, that sort of thing. I call him "Pig Will" from this old story by Richard Scarry about "Pig Will and "Pig Won't", where Pig Won't is the kid who won't do anything his parents say -- won't help out, won't do chores, won't go with Dad to work on the boat and just sits around and gets bored while good 'ol Pig Will does all of this, has a great time with Dad working on the boat and at the end of the day gets an ice cream treat. At the end, Pig Won't learns his lesson and becomes "Pig Me Too!"

Anyway, my two-year-old is a little Pig Will -- anything I ask he shrugs his shoulders and says "OK" and off we charge. He's a good kid and a tough one -- he rarely complains, and doesn't 'sweat the small stuff' as my Dad would say. So I'm getting ready to haul 40 lb. bags of mulch across the yard to the garden, so I plop him down on the rock bed by the side of the house by a strange toy that involves pushing boats and water and little spinning wheels and set to work.

I walk by with the first couple bags and he's playing just fine. Drop the bags, trudge back, think about how I should be using a wheel barrow, pick up two more bags and trudge along. Pig Will is still playing, but he's shifting around a bit. Wonder if he needs a diaper. Mental note -- check later. Drop bags, trudge back. Pig Will is waving his arms, but this is nothing unusual for a two-year-old. Who knows what's on his mind? I sling another bag over my shoulder and trudge back to the garden. Now Pig Will is grunting, still waving his arms. His voice is starting to sound like a kind of whimper, or something. Never heard that particular sound before, actually.

Now, my little guy is a pretty good talker, so when he grunts and whimpers and waves his arms, well ... it's time to go back to the garden and drop off another bag and see how he is when I get back. So I do, and he's still doing it -- the whimpering, the grunting, the waving of arms, the confused and possibly horrified expression. Something clicks in the parental part of my brain -- perhaps I should check this out!

I bend down and look at him, and he looks up at me sadly and says, "Ahh!". Oh, hey, there, I say, it's okay!

Then I notice an ant on his leg. Actually, a couple ants. I brush them off. "It's okay -- it's just a couple ants! Brush, brush, brush!" Then I notice the ants on his other leg. And another crawling on his foot. "Ooh...lots of ants...wow...it's okay. Brusha brusha." And I brush them off his other leg.

But I'm starting to get a feeling that there's a theme at work here, which is when I notice about a dozen ants on his overall shorts, two on his left hand, a few more on his right arm and one on his forehead. Wow, I think. That's a lot of ants. That's when I decide to pick up Pig Will and see what's going on here. And then I say it aloud: "That's a lot of ants!"

Because it was a lot of ants. Where Pig Will had been sitting were about half dozen very large little sandpiles with holes in the middle -- ant hills -- hundreds of ants swarming about, no doubt in a frenzy over the giant diapered create sitting atop their homes. It's at this point that I realize that the giant diapered creature had been mostly stoically enduring a swarm of dozens of ants crawling over his entire body -- up and down his legs and arms and even under his shirt.

"Wow, kiddo," I say. I call him kiddo sometimes. "You've got ants all over you!"

"Yeah," he says. "Ants. On my legs."

"Yeah, and on your nose...beep, beep. Let's get these ants off of you. Do you like ants on you?"

"Nooooo."

"Yeah. Daddy sat you down on an ant hill. Sorry 'bout that."

"Yeah," he says, giving me a very stern look as I peek down his diaper to be sure I haven't missed any stray ants. "I don't like ant hills."

In Search of a Rose

Where will I wander and wonder?
Nobody knows.
But wherever I'm a'going I'll go
In search of a Rose.

Whatever the will of the weather
Whether it shines or snows,
Wherever I'm a'going I'll go
In search of a Rose.

Don't know where it's found,
But I don't mind.
As long as the world spins around,
I'll take my time.

I'll savour the softness of summer;
I'll wrap up when winter blows.
Wherever I'm a'going I'll go
In search of a Rose.

--Mike Scott/The Waterboys

Idleness and depression are often the direct result of idealism. For some, the Ideal is all that is worth doing. Anything less is not. Idealists quickly find that they have two routes: They can devote their entire being to reaching the Ideal, turning life into a quest for Perfection -- excellence at their job, the perfect mate, the ideal home, model children, the perfect life. Or, they can lay their hammer down and give up the quest, knowing that the Ideal is impossible...
choosing, through inaction, the perfect path of least resistance, perhaps hoping that the Ideal will find you. Counter-intuitively, perhaps, both ways are equally effective.

The "third way" is to choose the Journey over the Ideal, knowing that Truth and Beauty can be discovered along the way. To keep searching for the Rose, not because you expect to find it, but to savor the boundless paths you'll take on the way to Wherever.

In a Curmudgeonly Spirit of Sharing...

Vacation has come and gone, and I'm back, ready to take on the world and stuff. Or at least to blog and blog again. In the spirit of sharing, here are some things that I've been thinking about...

> I hate summer. There's too much pressure. "Oh what a nice day! We can't waste such a nice day!" There's a lot of pressure in a nice day. You have to embrace it. You have to plan for it. You have to have amazing experiences during them. You have to go outside on nice days. Sometimes, I'm perfectly happy in my air conditioned family room watching the damn television. I shouldn't have to feel guilty about not meeting some artificial standard of nice day ecstasy.

Oh yeah: And it's too damn hot.

> My new-ish Blackberry email machine came pre-loaded with a game called "Brick Breaker". I've discovered it. This is a bad thing. But amid my assault on the digital bricks with my digital ball and laser blasts and what have you, I am being careful this time around. My old Palm Vx has a broken Calendar button as a result of my heavy-thumbed obsession with a handheld Asteroids game.

> My oldest son finished kindergarten yesterday. Nothing terribly remarkable here, but it brings back memories. Putting him to bed last night, he suddenly says, "Why do we have to be done with school? I like going to school." I'm glad he can say so, but feel sorry as well. Later, he'll discover, as I did, that it's not politically correct to admit that you like school and that you actually want to learn something.

> Credit the Newsarama blog for this one: Check out Alienware's Superman Notebook computer. A sign of the apocolypse? Or of the coming rapture...?