Our lives are filled with light — a thousand points of light, to borrow the line. Each point represents something good and positive that’s unique to us: family members, friends, pets, special occurrences, traditions, treasured memories. The lights that shine upon us define us. They nourish our souls as the sun to a leaf and dispel the darkness that occasionally clouds our hearts and minds.

No individual light lasts forever, though. Friendships bloom and they fade. Loved ones are born; they live; they die. Memories we savor dim with time. Familiar faces and places change in ways that sometimes prove jarring or unexpected. No light, no matter how much we cherish it, burns unflickering for eternity.

As different lights begin to falter, other and newer lights burn the brighter. We don’t often know or understand the why and how of it. We change because our world changes around us: the world we see, illuminated by the lights that surround us. To be human — fully and authentically human — is to bask in the light during the good times and to strike a match when the light is dim for ourselves or for those we love.

St. Dorothy the Matriarch, RIP

On August 14, my grandmother passed away. She was 91 and suffered advanced dementia. She had, earlier in the summer, fallen and broken a hip. She spent her last few weeks in hospice, but she had been in decline for quite some time.

My maternal grandparents were deeply embedded in my childhood. We lived next door to them for darn near 20 years. They were practically second parents to my brother and me. I am blessed with many fond memories of them from my childhood: helping in the vegetable and rose gardens, burning leaves, swimming in the pool, enjoying elaborate holiday celebrations, experiencing their hobby farm, mailing the township tax bills, learning to golf and play chess — the list is gloriously long.

My grandma was a very bright light in my life for a very long time. She took me on my first big trip, to see relatives in Oregon. She picked me up from the bus stop every day when I was a freshman and sophomore in high school; she’d make me a snack and then we’d talk about school or whatever we wanted. She made me feel loved even when I didn’t always feel it as an adolescent.

Her decline was, like many things, gradual then sudden. She was mostly fine until a few years ago. First, she lost her ability to drive. That was a huge deal to her. Then, last year, she entered an assisted living facility.

The last time I saw her was Christmas 2022. My mom and brother and sister-in-law and nephew visited her for a bit. She looked old and tired; she wasn’t the woman I remembered from just six months prior, when I had been visiting her periodically for coffee in the mornings. When we left, she made a point of giving me a long, hard hug. It felt like goodbye.

And so it was.

My mother gave me an opportunity to see her in hospice, but I understood enough about her condition that I knew she wouldn’t recognize me. I didn’t want to spoil my memory of her. Frank and Dorothy were major lights in my life. Though dimmed and now past the mortal plane, they still shine in my heart. They still shape me as a person and give me hope that I’ll be reunited with them one day. Their example still shines a path of righteousness to guide my own journey.

Relationships, Reconsidered

My grandmother’s death has, of course, prompted reflection about the other points of light that surround me — friends and family, both near and far.

Dorothy’s funeral brought the family together again. Almost all of us were there, even my cousin Callie from Colorado (although her husband and children didn’t make the trip). It left me to wonder when, or if, I’d see any them again, or all of us together. A cousin is getting married this year; that’s something. But all the big family events were driven by my grandparents. With them both gone now, what binds us?

I recently “returned” to Facebook. Most of my feed is either horses or personal stuff from my friend feed. I’ve noticed that some friends have been under the weather — Duane, Roseann — and that others seem to thrive even as they change. My high-school friends have kids graduating high school, for cryin’ out loud. That’s … something.

It’s occurred to me that maybe, instead of lamenting the loss or dimming of various lights, that I could take the initiative to tend to their flames. I’m tinkering with that — of assessing which relationships I wish to keep, or cut, or rekindle. Maybe I could be the person who brings people together?

I’ve struggled, I think, with certain relationships because I have a deep-seated aversion to conflict. Almost every relationship of mine that’s soured has done so because, in some way, it felt like a line had been crossed (even when, in retrospect, it hadn’t) and I couldn’t conceive of a graceful path to recovery. It’s worse when the other person makes demands or employs guilt trips. I also know that historically, I haven’t been the one to do the hard work of maintaining long-distance friendships.

When I moved into The Chateaux last winter, I framed dozens of photos then placed them on the walls. I had never really bothered before, but it seemed important at the time. Prints from various moments in my life grace the walls. In the dining room, for example, I have an animal wall (all pets!), a family wall, and a friend wall. Sometimes I just walk around slowly and look at all the pictures.

Sometimes, we can’t control when some of our lights fade to darkness. But we can remember the light’s former glory, through pictures and messages and sundry other artifacts.

Home Again — ?

Another thing about the funeral: it made me think about “home” in a religious sense, too. I had planned, as I mentioned in my previous post, to be a three-parish Catholic: Sacred Heart, with its beautiful liturgy and church building; St. Anthony of Padua, which was the church of my childhood and much of my adulthood; and St. Isidore, which is pretty and offers a Sunday evening Mass. But Sacred Heart has never felt like home, and I’m too new to St. Isidore for it to feel like a home. St. Anthony has always felt like home, even though it was hard attending Mass at a parish with liturgy still stuck in 1972.

My grandmother belonged to a small rural Catholic parish. When we met with the priest and deacon to plan her funeral, it turned out that I knew Deacon Tom — his family is from St. Anthony. And this little parish suffered a short-term lack of musicians, given vacations. So who could I ping on Messenger and get a commitment within five minutes, despite her being on vacation herself? Vonnie, of course, the long-time music director at St. Anthony. And the funeral home staff — almost all were friends (Steve, Lucas, Tim) from St. Anthony. Even though I had been away from that parish for more than a decade, it was my St. A’s peeps who swarmed us in our grief. So I re-enrolled there the following week. It felt like going home.

Home is a funny thing, though. Its light changes over time, too. Sometimes in a major way. St. Anthony isn’t the parish I left; there’s a new pastor, and a new addition to the nave. But that’s small potatoes compared to my alma mater.

A few weeks ago, Cade and I attended the Kalamazoo Reptile Expo. We were running early, so I drove him through the Western Michigan University main campus. And holy Moses, has it changed. I drove by the collapsed rubble of the being-torn-down Bernhard Center. New apartments occupy spaces that used to be parking lots. The Valley dorms have a “dining center” now. Roads are different, with more roundabouts and traffic lights. Old retail standbys have long since been razed and replaced.

My time at WMU, I shall always treasure. So many people and places there shined upon my life in ways too numerous for me to count. But the campus that had been so familiar to me is now barely recognizable. My Bronco home lives now in my heart and not upon a plot of land in Kalamazoo County.

The Menagerie, Reconfigured

Over the last few months, Cade’s menagerie has seen some plusses and minuses. One of his ribbon snakes, Piper, escaped and could not be found. An aquatic frog made an impossible leap to her death, and his super-judgmental American Toad — Good Queen Pudge — passed away. Regina the scorpion succumbed to old age. But a few new additions grace his little zoo: One of the ribbons had babies; he acquired three quail hens; he purchased a baby Palmetto corn snake; he adopted a bearded dragon named Cheese.

Several beautiful lights extinguished; several more have begun to glow. This is the circle of life.

Chloe, First of Her Name, Queen of the Arfs — RIP

But on September 8, Cade suffered a very deep loss. His beloved chihuahua, Chloe, died. She was a few months shy of her 17th birthday.

One of my nicknames for Chloe is The Iron Maiden. She should have passed a long time ago; a combination of heart trouble and kidney failure, not to mention a broken back and arthritis and a touch of dementia, would have knocked any pup out of the fight.

But not Chloe. Until a few days ago, she was her usual happy self despite daily subcutaneous fluids and a drug cocktail that would impress any pharmacist. But she’s been afflicted by seizures, which had recently gotten worse. The emergency vet thought she had a brain tumor, because other causes (low blood sugar, low calcium, bad kidneys) had been ruled out. Cade had a difficult choice to make, and I think he made the right call. But it was damned hard.

I’ve never had my own dog. Cats? Yup. Parakeet? Sure. Dog? No. My mom loved dogs; our family was blessed by those whom I’ll never forget — Brutus the Great Dane, Shiloh and Kate and Gunner the German Shepherds, Molly the English Springer Spaniel — but for myself, I never had that kind of loving two-way relationship with a dog. Friends of mine did, though. I know how hard it was for Tony and Jen to lose Cooper. My friends Duane and Regina lost Cody this summer.

I was fortunate that Chloe liked me and welcomed me as a member of her pack. She often accompanied Cade to the bookstore; she patrolled the book carts and sometimes barked at customers. She frequently peed on the carpet, a fact I found amusing but which sometimes distressed Cade. She tolerated it gracefully when I had to administer her fluids and Cerenia on the weekends and holidays. She gave me kisses and managed to steal my heart.

I was with her when she died. And I’m heartbroken. I cried more yesterday than I have in the last 10 years combined. Her little light shone brighter than a thousand stars; now that she’s gone, the world is visibly more dim to me.

But I only knew her for a year. Cade loved her since she was a puppy. Cade and Chloe were inseparable best friends for more than half his life. When Cade was sad, she cheered him up. When he went through rough patches in life, she licked his face. When he was sick and miserable with chemo, she curled up next to him. He’s lost a part of his soul. Worst, he had to consent to her final mercy.

Chloe was Cade’s best friend. They were beautiful together; they each indelibly stamped themselves upon the other in ways too numerous and profound to mention. The world is a much less bright without her in it, but the mark she made on Cade — and me — will arf throughout our lifetimes.

See you on the other side of the rainbow bridge, Squish.

My Spectacular Seven

Although I never had a dog, I now have a horse. There really is something about the bond between a man and his horse that aligns with the old cowboy slogans. Horses are one-ton prey animals with a strong flight instinct. When they trust you, it’s beautiful and complete. And humbling.

Tyr trusts me. He comes to me in the pasture. He leads perfectly. A few weeks ago, I was standing in the pasture giving him treats. No lead rope. I had to take off running to fetch a different gelding who snuck into the barn — and for more than 300 feet, Tyr ran with me, unprompted, in perfect formation. Like we’d been practicing this for years, but I’ve only had him for two months. When we’re in the pasture and he’s nervous about other horses, he hides behind me and I shoo them away. When something new or scary happens and he shows signs of distress, I tell him it’s OK and stroke his neck and he immediately calms down because I myself am calm.

On Saturday, Cade and I had to pull 10,000 burrs from his forelock and mane. He didn’t enjoy it, but he stood for it. (Treats helped.)

I love my cats, but they’re cats. They view me as a mostly hairless two-legged butler who generates warmth for snuggling. I love my snakes, but they view me as a friendly tree branch that sometimes provides rats for dinner. Tyr is different. This partnership is different. It fills me in a different way. He’s well on his way to being my heart horse.

On the feline front, everyone seems to be doing well. Theon and Kali — Team Grey, at the office — have settled into a comfortable mutual toleration. Theon is sweet and vocal. Kali is getting braver; she lets others touch her now, sometimes. And she’s growing evermore Reubenesque. Murphy and Fiona — Team Orange, at home — just passed a senior-cat vet check with flying colors. They’ll be 16 in a few months.

The snakes noodle on. Apollo is back to being hungry before brumation. Athena is becoming even more of a chonk. She’s almost two thick feet of ball python excellence, who’s gentle to handle but eats like a kingsnake.

Murphy, Fiona, Theon, Kali, Apollo, Athena, and Tyr — they’re seven very large lights who bring me joy and help make me a better human. Long may they thrive.

Election 2024: Attack of This Double-Hater

I’m one of those “double-haters” the political commentators talk about — for the 2024 election, I hated that my choices were Joe Biden, whose cognitive decline cannot be ignored, or Donald Trump, whose moral decline cannot be ignored.

But lo! Nancy Pelosi shivs CornPop, and suddenly we have JOY Kamala Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket. Problem solved, right?

Not so fast. I don’t like Harris, either. She is a fundamentally un-serious candidate who didn’t even make it to her first primary in 2020, and has proven to be an unpopular and lackluster vice president. She is where she is because the Democrats are good at machine politics. Not because she’s the best possible candidate for the Democrats to field.

So — I’m still a double-hater. When I vote in November, I’m leaving the POTUS box blank, and then will vote for any down-ballot Republican who isn’t batshit crazy. Fortunately for my specific precinct, all of my choices are solid, but that’s not necessarily true in all parts of the state.

It’s a shame that our best and brightest lights aren’t the ones seeking high elective office, and that their self-serving shenanigans cast a shadow over our Republic.

Writing, Reinvigorated

In my last post I mentioned that I had migrated my personal knowledge management from Logseq to Bear to Obsidian. I find Obsidian to be “sticky.” That application syncs perfectly and its logic model maps fairly well onto the way I’ve taken notes on paper over the years. I therefore took another tech plunge, and consolidated all of my writing into the Ulysses app. Now that I’m an all-Apple person, I don’t need to worry about cross-platform or online-only jankiness.

I moved stuff from random Word files, Scrivener backups (and Holy Moses, Scrivener lost a shit-ton of info from very old projects because the updating process frequently borked), and even OneNote notebooks. All into Ulysses.

And it turns out, I had way more “stuff” than I really remembered. I discovered several polished flash pieces and even one entire novel that I had utterly forgotten about. Plus a few workshopped poems. So I’m feeling pretty good about that. And the Ulysses UI is bare enough that it does what I want without burdening me with what I don’t. Between Ulysses for drafting and Vellum for production, I think I have a very solid process flow going now — one with substantially less technical debt that I incurred when I drafted LaTeX in Visual Studio Code with frequent git commits.

I haven’t done a ton of writing lately but this coalescing and refreshing of my body of work proved inspirational. Writing generates a bit of light — for myself and, I hope, for others.

Business Updates

Business has been — well, business. Most of my consulting stuff is “on track, as planned.” The Lakeshore Literary Foundation has been slowly crystalizing; I don’t want to do too much, too fast, or take on work that requires huge short-term time lifts. So I’m just slow-building the infrastructure and handling programs one at a time.

The bookstore is growing. Every month, I sell books and buy books. We’re a break-even business right now, which is fine, but I’m accumulating several repeat customers. Which is nice! I’m past 4,000 used books right now, so it’s a right-proper bookstore. In time, I intend to add local small-press and self-published authors to the mix. We’re closing every Friday in September for various-and-sundry reasons (including me visiting other local indie booksellers to network in person). But so far, so good.

Work is a way to generate margin for mission. But the joy of seeing familiar faces cross into the bookstore adds another few lights into my constellation.

Miscellany

A few other twinkles of note:

• A few weeks ago, I sat on the testing board for the black-belt test at our dojo. This was the first time I’ve sat on a board, given that I was a student for the previous two tests (and will be testing for sandan at next year’s test). In the last few weeks, I’ve welcomed some new students in my morning classes. I find that teaching has been invaluable in my journey as a martial artist. Helping people figure out the basics helps me to remember the basics and how to role-model them effectively.
• I began the second year of my two-year stint as treasurer of the Midwest Independent Publisher’s Association. MiPA is undergoing some considerable changes thanks to staffing and board transitions. It’s interesting to be part of a small non-profit that’s trying to articulate its relevance to people who don’t know how much they need it.
• Two weeks ago, a study circulated that suggests that adults experience two major bimolecular aging shifts that average at around age 44 and age 60. I’ve spent the last few years wondering why, over 2021 and into mid-2022, I felt as if I didn’t truly recover from a nasty bout of the O.G. Covid. I never thought I had “long Covid” and anyway, I didn’t have symptoms of it. Yet I still don’t feel as if I’m the same person, in terms of energy, that I was before the pandemic. But it’s likely that instead of some weird coronavirus thingamajig, I’m just getting older. On the bright side, over the last year I haven’t been feeling any worse. I suppose I’m just settling into a body that’s rapidly approaching the half-century mark; no need to medicalize it any further.
• For years, I’ve been participating in the First Friday Adoration at Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish. I’ve taken the midnight-to-2-a.m. shift, which is quiet and peaceful. From the beginning, I’ve been reading The Didache Bible (the RSV-2CE), exclusively during that Adoration period. I started in the summer of 2019. This past Friday, I finished the Old Testament.
• National Novel Writing Month is dead to the world. As I mentioned in a previous post, we’ve taken our region and set it as a program of Lakeshore Literary Foundation. The West Michigan Author Alliance will counter-program NaNoWriMo this coming November. So authorial shenanigans will continue but without being shackled by the stench of HQ.

Parting Reflection: September to September

Given that my birthday is this coming Sunday, I figure a reflection is in order. The last 12 months have been quite full — of happiness, of joy, of sorrow, of adversity, of relaxation. It’s been, on balance, a good year. My sky burns bright with light and for that I’m deeply grateful. But the points above don’t perfectly match the points of last September. This is normal, and expected. And, I think, for the best.

Where to begin? I moved and swapped vehicles. The journey from Prospect to Paris has granted additional space but also a chance to rethink “things.” What do I need? What do I want? What can be tossed? I moved several boxes that hadn’t been unpacked since I left Marne in 2003. Do I need what lies within? And does having additional space (e.g., a spot in the basement to practice karate) mean I’ll use that space as intended? I think, so far, I’ve been on the right track. The move was a lever that lets me do more, and more efficiently, and the move from the Cruze to the Silverado has made horse ownership more practical.

Of which, Tyr. He’s the newest light in my life. Working with him brings me joy. Feeling the growing bond of trust and familiarity makes me confident that in a couple of years — when he’s a bit older and heavier, and I’m a bit lighter — we will have a lot of fun on the trail. But for now, we’re working on the basics. It’s been a stark reminder of how much I miss the hobby-farm life I was accustomed to, with my grandparents.

The last year with Cade has been a roller-coaster. We’re approaching a full year of dating. In that time, he’s kicked cancer’s ass, and bought a second horse, and lost Chloe, and gained a corvette. He’s grown so much — more confident, more happy, more willing to be his silly self. We’re 50 weeks in but yet to have a single argument. Primarily because we talk about things and don’t get angry. We will never become “the fudge couple.” (Inside joke.)

The bookstore has taken off while my publishing work has subsided. I see a much more fulfilling future in avoiding book publishing and focusing more on retail, non-profit advocacy, and running the occasional anthology. My consulting business has been stable.

I’ve grown, too. I had a blood-pressure scare a few months ago that reminded me that one cannot abuse one’s body forever. I’ve become more patient and more diplomatic, I think. I’ve become a better martial artist thanks to being a more engaged teacher.

I have a lot left to do. In particular, I continue to be haunted by relationships I’ve allowed to sour or grow dormant. I’m also acutely aware of the need to drop some pounds — not just for my health, but also for a future of riding Tyr.

I’ve been blessed with a lot of light. I’ll miss my grandmother, and Chloe. But I am more aware of the light than I’ve been in the past. And more aware that to some degree, I have some control over the stars twinkling above me.