Ceilee Turns 40

Yesterday my son tuned 40, and it was a time for both of us to reflect. Happily, I caught him by phone last evening, just as he and his partner were waiting for a table at one of their favorite restaurants. I was sorry I wasn't there to celebrate with him, but appreciated having time for a chat.

Long Time No See

The first, obvious reflection was that I had not been in the same room with him the entirety of his 39th year—by the far the longest we'd ever been separated, and that hurts. (I also have been separated from my daughter, Jo, the same length of time and that hurts just as much.) While I understand that the pandemic has made this necessary and it's no one's fault, my heart aches nonetheless.

Child as Father to the Man

Ceilee was able to report that he is now old enough to have clear memories of me and us when I was the age he is now. That was trippy. Both of us had our first child at age 31, and both of us had a son and daughter at age 40. While he will always be my son, he is also now my peer. The wheel turns.

I didn't ask him what those memories were (of the 40-year-old Laird), but understood that they were generally precious. It simultaneously helped me feel a deeper connection, and stimulated a reflection about the cycle of life. It was sobering, for instance, to recall that my father died a month after I turned 40—which understandably adds impatience to my desire to get vaccinated and safely past the Covid travel restrictions. I have an incurable cancer and the sands are inexorably running through my hourglass. While I'm a battler with a strong will to live, and my doctors are whizzes at keeping me alive, I chafe at losing 18 months or so in quarantine, barred from the possibility of holding my children.

What Happens in Vegas

Thursdays are when I visit St Luke's (my local hospital in Duluth) for my weekly dose of chemotherapy in their outpatient Infusion Center. It's a relatively routine affair, and I generally enjoy chatting with whichever nurse gets assigned to me (after five years I've come to know most of them, and they me). Today, interestingly, Heather was tossed my paperwork and we got talking about Covid. She shared that her closest personal loss was an uncle in his mid-50s. While overweight, he was otherwise not identified as at-risk and it was a shock when he and his wife took a trip in August to celebrate their wedding anniversary, he caught the virus and didn't make it home. The kicker was that all this happened in Las Vegas—which is where Ceilee, Jo, and my two grandkids live. Gulp.

While I know that people are dying everywhere, and I have no reason to think that Las Vegas is less safe than anywhere else, per se, Heather's story hit pretty close to home, and I worry about the judgment of people who travel to Vegas these days—the people who are willing to take the risk and roll snake eyes. I get it about wanting to gin up the economy again, but at what cost? What price may my kids be asked to pay because Las Vegas, in particular, draws risk takers? It's scary.

The Bigger Pictures

Susan's kids live in Denver and St Paul. All our children have partners. There are currently three grandchildren among them, with a fourth on the way, and we ache to be with them. (And don't get me started about the dogs, which all five households among us have.) 

The next ring out are my siblings and their children. My very next trip last March—when the lockdown hit and everything got shuttered—was see to family in Florida and Alabama. Understandably, that trip got canceled. When will I see them again?

Stepping back another ring, however, I realize how blessed I am. Not only are Susan and I doing well in a safe house in a safe neighborhood, but all of the people I mentioned above are in good health and OK financially. There are way too many folks in this country who are struggling with loss of health, loss of income, and/or isolation. So my final reflection is that I have led an incredibly fortunate life overall—even if it's taken the current restrictions to bring that more sharply into focus.

Today, on this day of thanks, I'm reflecting on the joy I derive in mental agility. The delight I take in whimsy. While my overall constitution has been diminished by my five-year battle with multiple myeloma, my mental acumen has remained surprisingly untouched, and for that I am unalterably grateful.

So let me take you on a little journey I've been dwelling on…

The Joy of J

This past week I have had occasion to reflect on the power of simple words, comprised only of the consonant J and vowels (it's not a long list):

Jo

This, of course, is my daughter. Born Josefa, she has long preferred to be called Jo. On Monday she reached a particular geeky milestone (which likely would have gone unnoticed if I didn't call it to her attention): she turned exactly one-third of a century old: 33 years and four months. It seemed worth celebrating to me. Who has too much joy in their lives these days? I admonished her to go out and celebrate by thirds (not by half) and I'm confidant that she did.

Ja

While I'm basically a human mongrel (if you pay heed to the analysis 23 and Me) I'm more German than anything else, and have always had an affinity for German culture. I took three years of Deutsch in high school, but never lived there and never became fluent. Nonetheless, everyone knows that "Ja" is yes, and I've tried to live a life of affirmation (where it behooves one to try to say to "yes" as often as possible—life just works better for everyone that way). The life of ja.

Juju

Years ago, I lived at Sandhill (1988-95) with Julia Reed (from Big Lake MN). She was a dear friend and one-time intimate partner during that stretch. While our lives drifted apart when she left the community in the mid-90s, we reconnected when I landed in Duluth, while she's been living in St Paul. She found out about my cancer and visited me in the spring of 2016 during the annual Smelt Festival in Duluth (full of puppetry, parade, and goofball costumes). It's held in May and loosely corresponds to the annual smelt run on nearby rivers (where you can scoop up the little darlings in pots). For a northern culture that's desperate for a change in the seasons, it's often the first day that Duluthians come out of hibernation in numbers, and spirits abound (in both senses).

She and her partner Shari have been regular visitors to Duluth ever since (I think they'd come even if I didn't live here) but they always stop by for a visit, which I cherish. Based on a childhood appellation, she went by the moniker Juju at Sandhill, and I still call her that today.

Jeju

Years ago (2008) I conducted a facilitation training in Atlanta and when my partner (Mayana) and I lingered an extra day we used most of it to visit a Korean day spa called Jeju, and enjoyed a magical recuperative time. I have never been to anything like it before or since. For one fee, you can enjoy up to 24 hours on the premises, choosing from among saunas, hot tubs, massages (for an extra fee), light Asian cuisine offered on site al a carte, or meditation in salt domes. What a mix!

Although I don't have that many occasions to visit Atlanta, a return to Jeju, and another day of pampered relaxation, is still on my radar.

• • •

So those are the oddities that have drawn the lottery number in my brain for receiving special attention for thanks this week. I knew you'd want to know.

Game On

When I grew up I played a lot of cards and a lot of board games—Monopoly, Careers, Clue, Risk, Parcheesi, Life, Scrabble—that kind of thing. Games were an enjoyable way to learn math, strategic thinking, statistics, economic principles, and even geography.

In my teens I expanded my repertoire to include chess, go, and bridge.

When I was a young adult there was a new round of games: Diplomacy, Rummikub, Scotland Yard, Uno, followed by the family of train games by Mayfair—starting with Empire Builder, and eventually extending to Eurorails and Iron Dragon.

In the '90s the pace picked up. I was introduced to the breakthrough Eurogame Siedler von Catan (Settlers of Catan in English) designed by Klaus Teuber. Eurogames emphasize strategy while downplaying luck and conflict. They also tend to have economic themes rather than military and are more likely to keep all players in the game until the end.

Designed for 3-6 players, Siedler allows opportunities for players who are lagging behind to slow down the leader, and offers multiple winning strategies. The best version (for my sensibilities) is the Cities and Knights expansion, employing the fish feature and a deck of 36 cards substituting for all possible rolls of two dice. Over the past two decades I've played this game hundreds of times and it remains an all-time favorite.

Then came the no-dice games of which there are now many: Puerto Rico, Trajan, Hansa Teutonica, Caylus, and the games of Uwe Rosenberg, notably Agricola, Le Havre, and Ora and Labora. I am in awe of constructors who can figure out how to craft a game that minimizes random chance yet remains balanced.

For those who want to do more than one thing in an evening, there are shorter games like Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, Dominion, Race for the Galaxy, and Splendor.

For the more cooperatively minded, there are a handful of offerings where players unite against the game (either everyone wins or everyone loses). Examples include Arkham Horror, Pandemic, Forbidden Island.

While there are way more games than those named above (who can keep up?), these are ones I've played most and which essentially comprise my gaming universe.

Coincident with the emergence of Siedler, my kids (Ceilee and Jo) became old enough to join me at the gaming table and it was something we did together (instead of a television, we played board games and I read thousands of pages of fiction to each of them). Sometime in the late '90s we hit upon the idea of conducting Game Days: marathon sessions where we'd play all day and occasionally into the night.
(It amuses me to observe that in the last decade Jo and I have exchanged roles with respect to board games. When she was a child I used to introduce new games to her; now it's the other way around. In fact, Jo met her husband, Peter, at a game store in Asheville NC, and they typically participate in gaming nights twice weekly. While Susan and I both enjoy games, we don't play that often.)

Game Day Rules
1. The first game is always Monopoly (which takes us experienced gamers about 45 minutes).

2. The person who finishes last in a game (or the first person eliminated) picks the next game. 

3. No game will be played more than once.

4. In addition to the games themselves, we play a meta game where we kept a running total of points earned this way:

   o  You earn a raw score of 5 points for winning a game; 2 points for second, and 1 point for third.
   o  In addition, there is a multiplier for each game (anything from 1.0 to 1.8) that is used to determine the adjusted score (taking into account the degree of skill/difficulty for that game). By definition, Monopoly has a multiplier of 1.0; for each additional game the players agree on the multiplier at start of the game.

5. The winner of the meta game is the person who accumulates the most total points over the course of the Game Day.

6. Players may selectively drop out of any game. While they score a zero for that game, they preemptively earn the right to select the next one.

Over the years there have been quite a number of people who have participated in Game Days, but the hard core—those who have most consistently indulged in this particular brand of fanaticism—are Jeffrey Harris (who lived for seven years at Dancing Rabbit, just three miles from Sandhill), Ceilee, Jo, and myself.

We tried to reprise this configuration last Friday at Jo's house in Las Vegas, but unfortunately Ceilee was not able to get away from Los Angeles to participate. Still, we had a potent gaming group: Jeffrey, Jo, Peter, and myself—with Susan flying in from Minnesota for a long weekend. While Susan decided to stand back from the intensity of Game Day, she joined us for a recreational game of Ticket to Ride Thursday evening, and a marathon game of Mah Jongg that started Saturday evening and extended into Sunday.

For Game Day we played these five games:
Monopoly
Colonia
Trajan
Railroad Tycoon
Anachrony

While Jo and Peter knew all five games, I was playing Colonia for only the second time, and Railroad Tycoon and Anachrony for the first time. Excepting Monopoly, Jeffrey was playing every game for the first time. While there's a marked tendency to be subject to fool's tax the first time you pencounter a complex game, it was a testament to Jeffrey's game savvy that he hung right in there.

After a stout breakfast we started play around 9:40 am and played until 1 am (with breaks for lunch and dinner). Notably, all four players finished first at least once, and all four of us finished last at least once. (When we played Colonia, Peter won with a score of 26; I finished dead last with a score of 23.) The competition was remarkably even, and I had a wonderful time connecting with family and an old friend. 

Given my improved health these days and the fact that Ceilee, Jo, and Jeffrey all live in the Pacific time zone, I'll be looking more assertively for future Game Day opportunities in the months and years ahead. It's hard to get too much fun and games with family and friends.

Connor Has Game

I'm visiting Ceilee and his household clan in Los Angeles this week, and yesterday I played a game of Ticket to Ride—the Nordic Countries with my grandson, Connor. 

The game is relatively straight forward to learn. The board consists of a map (in this case, Scandinavia plus portions of the Baltic States) on which major cities are connected by would-be train routes. Routes are of various lengths and are arbitrarily associated with one of eight colors. For the most part, turns consist of players either: a) drawing cards (in one of the eight colors); or b) playing cards of the appropriate hue to claim a route. With some exceptions (where there is double track between busy cities) only one player can build a given route; others have to go around. You score points both for building routes, and for establishing track that connects cities for which you have route cards (where points are awarded in proportion to the distance between cities).

When I asked Connor if he knew how to play he assured me that he did. OK, I thought, let's see. In our first game he demonstrated that he clearly understood the mechanics of turn-taking and how to build track, but he was clueless about route cards. He did not complete a single one of his five routes, and his score was terrible. Once that was revealed I spent time with him explaining how the route cards worked. He didn't need to be able to pronounce København, Örebro, or Åndalsnes (which is a good thing because I'm not sure how much better I could do); he just needed to be able to locate them on the map. After 15 minutes of teaching him how to do that we played again. The second time around he completed four of five routes and scored four times better. While he didn't win, he was competitive. 

Connor is only five years old and I was impressed: both that he hung in there for the lesson, and that he was able to immediately apply it. It won't be that long before he's beating me, and it was a proud Papa Ward moment.

• • •

For reasons that are not all together clear, I grew up playing a lot of board games. I am well aware that many of my peers got bored playing games, but not me.

I went through a phase in my 30s when I has hooked on correspondence chess, and I dived into the arcane world of duplicate bridge around my 50th birthday (a passion which continues today), but it turns out that we are living in the golden age of board games—the last 20 years especially—and I consider myself lucky to have been around to enjoy it.

I recall occasionally playing chess, Monopoly, and Scrabble with my father, but he lost interest in a game whenever I got good enough to consistently beat him, so he was not a regular competitor. (His best game was gin rummy, which we occasionally played together throughout his life—in part because I never got as good as he.)

As a kid my favorite game was Clue, because of the variety of winning strategies you could employ and the subtleties of logic and inference (to be really good you needed to be able to learn from the fact that the person two to your right could not refute the suggested combination of suspect, weapon, and room, while the person one to your right could).

In college I was enthralled by Diplomacy, a board game played on a map of Europe where seven players took on the identities of England, France, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Russia to conducted a battle royale. You had to master both the logic of battle (maneuvering armies and fleets to gain military superiority) and the art of negotiation (developing allies to gain political superiority). That was my first exposure to the possibility of a great game that was not based on chance (dice rolls or card drawing).

As an adult I played fewer board games—it was hard to find anyone interested—until I discovered Siedler (which translates from the German to "Settlers of Catan"). That changed everything. It was, by far, the best board game I'd ever played that involved more than two players. As it happened, Siedler came along just as my children got big enough to understand gaming strategy and it quickly became my family's favorite (the expansion version that we consider the best is Cities & Knights, with the fish and pond replacing the desert, and with the deck of cards replacing dice). Years later, that same game proved to be the household favorite for Ma'ikwe, Jibran, and me. 

Since Siedler opened the gates, a flood of excellent board games has ensued, the best of which are diceless. My favorites include Agricola, Le Havre, Ora and Labora, Puerto Rico, and Caylus. For those who have trouble with games that last more than 60 minutes, try Splendor or Carcassonne.

There are also cooperative games, where players unite in a effort to defeat a common faceless enemy: Pandemic, Forbidden Island, and Arkhem Horror all work that way.

Over the last three decades board games have played an important role as a medium for quality time spent with my kids (Ceilee and Jo) and my stepson, Jibran. My daughter, Jo, and her husband, Peter, met at a gaming shop in Asheville NC and today they play with friends at least twice a week in Las Vegas—which I am welcome to join whenever I visiting. Gaming teaches logic, geography, strategic thinking, and how to win and lose with equal grace—all important life lessons. And it's a lot of fun.

It's great to be on hand this week to see the next generation picking it up.

He Is Risen Indeed

I know I'm mixing religious seasons in my title (this is Christmas, not Easter), but it feels something of a miracle that I've been able to get out of bed after a week of being down with intense lower back pain.

It's hard to know what to attribute the improvement to: a) alternate applications of cold packs and a heating pad to the afflicted area; b) upping my dose of ibuprofen from 400 mg to 800 mg; or c) bed rest. Maybe it was all three. In any event I'm improving.

I went down late Wed night (Dec 16) and did nothing more courageous than walk (slowly and gingerly) to the bathroom for five days. By Monday (Dec 21) I knew it was time to get help, and I was up for five hours going to an Urgent Care facility and getting a couple prescriptions filled with the caring assistance of my son, Ceilee. I am now taking Flexeril as a muscle relaxant and Naproxen as a more potent substitute for ibuprofen. While achy throughout that adventure, I suffered no muscle clenching and it was great for my spirits to know that I could do that much.

Tuesday I rested (excepting that I took a shower and did boy that ever feel wonderful—especially having hot water streaming onto my lower back), and yesterday I geared up for a five-hour bus ride from Los Angeles (where Ceilee lives) to Las Vegas (where my daughter Jo lives), which required my being upright for nine hours straight. I wasn't sure I could handle it but it worked out OK. Jo was waiting for me when the bus finally pulled into the drop-off in the back of the Excalibur Hotel. I'd made it!

I lay down for a 60-minute nap and then went out for a two-hour blowout teppanyaki dinner with Jo & Peter (a belated birthday present). By 9:30 pm I was toast and gladly went to bed.

So here it is Christmas Eve, and I'm now semi-ambulatory—which doesn't feel so good on the way down, but it feels surprisingly hopeful on the way up. I don't move very fast, but I'm moving, and I feel that I now have a clear path to my red-eye plane flight to Minneapolis (followed by a van ride to Duluth at dawn) in the wee hours of Sunday, as it will require nothing more heroic than I accomplished yesterday.

OK, so what am I going to do to turn around this 16-month back problem?

I asked that question of the physician I saw in Urgent Care Monday, and her take was that I should first see my primary care physician and follow their recommendation for physical therapy. The main awkwardness about that is that I don't have a primary physician (yet) , but I'm just about to change that. In fact, I get back to home base in Chapel Hill late Jan 9 and I have an appointment to establish that very relationship Monday morning, Jan 11.

The Urgent Care doc walked me through her protocols to determine that all I had was a sore back (fortunately, I had all the right answers: no shooting pains down my legs, no difficulty urinating, no numbness in my hips, groin, or thighs). When I shared with her that friends had advised me to consider Rolfing or myofascial massage (by the way, I've discovered that opinions about how to treat back problems are remarkably similar to belly buttons—every has one), she suggested that I hold off on alternative therapies until I tried the PT that my primary care physician advocated. Then, she reasoned, if that brought no joy I might get the physician to sign off on something else (say, Rolfing or myofascial massage) which would make that treatment far more likely to be covered by health insurance (because it was backed by a health care practitioner that was acknowledged by Aetna—my Medicare provider).

While I'm in over my head trying to sort out the bewildering array of options, the important thing is that I've finally reached the point where I'm ready to do something about addressing it. I've decided that back pain is clearly overrated as a recreational pastime. There has to be an easier way to take a break, and the long-term solution cannot lie in a pill bottle.

Thomas Wolfe Was Right

In the four-plus weeks since Ma'ikwe told me she wanted a divorce, I've been sitting with the question of where is my home, or even, where do I want it to be. I had relinquished any claim to Sandhill (my home of 39 years) last summer, in the context of my recommitting to my marriage in July, and now I'm adrift.

And I moved to Dancing Rabbit (in November 2013) with the understanding that I was primarily investing in my marriage. While I liked DR, I wasn't planning to invest in it in the way I had Sandhill, in part because I was trying to husband time in my busy life to make more of it available to my partnership with Ma'ikwe—that being one of her points of dissatisfaction with me.

Now, inadvertently, I find myself with an embarrassment of riches when it comes to time. While this is unsettling and unlooked for, it is also opportunity—even if the ramifications are only now unfolding, like the petals of a flower that only blooms by the light of the full moon.

Here, in broad strokes, is the changing landscape of my life:

Partnership
It is both humbling and ironic that I have placed so much of my life force in my marriage—even shifting major commitments to devote more to it—only to have my partner unilaterally choose to go another way. I had meant for our commitment to be for life, yet it turned out be only for as long as I was able to retain my wife's interest.

Now, instead my marriage being a centerpiece of how I apportion my time, I am facing an immediate future completely devoid of that component.

To be sure, I have many precious relationships (which have been playing no small part in sustaining me through the emotional chaos of the last month), so I don't want to imply that I am friendless. That is not the case at all. I just don't have my partner and best friend—which is a very large hole in the bottom of my relationship boat.

Work
For decades my work scene has divided into three parts: a) as the main administrator for the Fellowship for Intentional Community; b) as a group process consultant and trainer; and c) and as a homesteader living on an organic farm. I have cherished all three roles and was very happy with that mix (not the least of which was the variety and spice it added to my life).

In deference to my advancing age and my wife's urging that I divide myself among fewer things so that there would be more available for the partnership (believe me, the dark humor in this has not escaped my attention) led me to exit Door C (my homesteader role at Sandhill) and to prepare for getting out of the center of FIC (Door A). 

This year we are replacing me with a new Development Director (we hired Aurora DeMarco last month and I'm training her now) and a new Executive Director (likely to be hired this spring). By the end of the year I expect to have all (or at least most) of my administrative tasks handed off, which will make an enormous difference in the time I devote to FIC, dropping it from 25-30 hours/week to less than five.

Door B is the one I'm retaining, along with writing.

Home
For the last four decades I've mostly taken this as a given: my home was Sandhill Farm. Then, at a crossroads in my marriage in 2013 (the crossroads before the current one), I chose my marriage over my community, and started a new adventure at DR. Though that hadn't lasted very long (15 months) before Ma'ikwe opted out of the marriage, now I'm a stateless citizen—since my main motivation in coming to DR was my partnership.

In the last four weeks I've been sitting with the novel question: where is home, or where do I want it to be? Here's a current overview of the possibilities:

—Dancing Rabbit
To be fair, Ma'ikwe is not asking me to leave DR, nor has anyone else at the community. Rather, it was my knee-jerk reaction to Ma'ikwe's decision. DR is her home and it didn't make sense to me to live under her shadow, especially with the critical things she had to say that led to her decision that I wasn't a suitable partner. I didn't need to be reminded of that.

Since then, however, there's been a shift and DR has been rehabilitated as a possibility. A big part of that is that I believe Ma'ikwe to be gracious and I don't think she wants me out of her life all together; just out of her bed. We have a dynamic and constructive teaching life together and we both want to continue that. Naturally, this would be facilitated working out of the same home base. Further, I feel confident that Ma'ikwe and I will be able to rescue a substantive friendship if aided by proximity. I'm confident that we can suss out that distance that still celebrates the attraction without engaging the repulsion.

Another attraction for me is ongoing participation in the Men's Group that meets weekly at DR. I've been part of that every Sunday evening that I'm on campus and ambulatory, and have come to highly appreciate the depth of caring and honesty that characterizes our time together.

—Sandhill
One thought I had early on is that I could try to recross the bridge I walked over in November 2013, to see if my old community would have me back. Sandhill has the advantage of known people, known land, and known rhythms, making it easier to plug in after forays to distant communities. Plus, Men's Group would be just as accessible from Sandhill (only three miles from DR).

For many years I was convinced that I'd die at Sandhill and was comforted by the thought. I would be going back to the Place where I had the most profound sense of home I've ever experienced. and that has a spiritual quality for me. The members there already have a good sense of the work in my life and what it means to me, and I could exchange my income for a room from which to write, read, and meditate. It's a cozy image.

But I had relinquished all claims to membership at the time of Ma'ikwe's and my recommitment ceremony last July, and the community was not obligated to have me back. From the road, I wrote and asked if I could meet with the community to discuss this when I was next in town. I turned out that there was no time in the March 4-10 window when everyone would be home, but Stan offered to get together with me and let me know what the group was thinking.

That happened Sunday. While assuring me that the community would absolutely be there for me if I had no other options, Stan gently let me know that the community felt it would be better if I didn't return. Sandhill has always been small and intimate, and since my departure there has developed a flow, ease, and camaraderie that is precious and that several members felt might be jeopardized by my coming back.

While sad, I accepted the news, appreciated the honesty and caring with which it was delivered, and knew right away that I did not want to impose myself on my old community. The energy would be all wrong. It evoked for me Thomas Wolfe's novel, You Can't Go Home Again, that was published posthumously in 1940. In it there is this dialog:

You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time—back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.
 
Though I had only been gone 15 months, the community had moved on and the bridge was closed. It was the risk I took in choosing Ma'ikwe.

—Near My Kids
It happened that I visited both my adult children in the days immediately following Ma'ikwe's announcement, and my daughter, Jo, reached out to me, suggesting that I consider finding a place to live in Las Vegas (where she and her husband, Peter, live happily). The point being that I could be nearer both of my adult children (Ceilee lives in Los Angeles, with my two grandkids) and it would be just as easy for me to travel from Las Vegas as anywhere else. 

Though Amtrak doesn't stop in Vegas any more, and trips to the East Coast (where over half of my work has been centered in recent years) would be a slog, I was both touched and attracted by this offer. I want more contact with family, and I never have too much time with my kids. Also, as a consequence of dating Ma'ikwe while she lived in Albuquerque, I discovered that I enjoy the desert climate (who knew?), so Jo's offer has merit.

—With Close Friends
Throughout the past month I've received a considerable outpouring of support from friends, which has been a balm on my bruised psyche. Included have been a number of offers to have me live with or near some of these folks. Perhaps in the same community.

My sister, Alison, offered me temporary sanctuary in her home in Chicago. My dear friend Annie (Ceilee's mother) offered her home to me in Floyd VA as well. I've been deeply touched and honored to receive these offerings.

In addition, I've been thinking about speaking with some of my closest friends to see if there'd be interest in forming a community together (a non-residential version of which is featured in the current issue of Communities: "Time for Tribe: Boomers Get Connected"). I haven't made any inquiries yet, but it's on my mind.

• • •

Taken all together, my life has undergone tremendous upheaval this past month (shaken, not stirred). On the one hand I'm sitting with terrific uncertainty, which may not yet be done unveiling itself—witness Sunday's conversation with Stan. On the other, I have unparalleled opportunity (something my Men's Group helped me see two nights ago). It's an interesting place to be, and that's what I'm concentrating on right now: just being and letting all the feelings and energy flow through and around me. It's fascinating, for example, that in all the swirl of emotions I've been experiencing, fear is not present, and anger only a little bit (thank you, EMDR).

I am not rushing to decisions, and Ma'ikwe is giving me room to sort things out, for which I am thankful. The work immediately in front of me is sorting things out with Ma'ikwe: where are we now, where are we headed, and how to get there as gracefully as possible. She is, after all, still the love of my life.

In the pre-dawn tomorrow, I'll board a train for Chicago, and then switch to the Empire Builder, bound for Portland OR, where I'll be with Ma'ikwe for two days. It will be the first time we'll have been in the same room, or even heard each other's voice, since her decision (all communications from Feb 6 to the present have been by email). In addition to doing a workshop together (planned well in advance of the divorce), we'll have the chance to delve more deeply into the questions I posed above.

I'm looking forward to it very much. 

P.S. I selected the title for this blog intuitively, and with no conscious thought of Ma'ikwe when I did. Rather, I was thinking about my relationship with Sandhill, which has been powerful in my life for a long time. I have realized only now, with amusement, that the wolf is Ma'ikwe's totem animal. Make of that portent what you will.

Family Renewal

Back on Feb 6 my wife told me our marriage of seven-plus years was over. While I knew from mid-Jan onward that she was wrestling with the question of whether to continue with me or give up, it was a unilateral decision that I deeply didn't want her to make. My wishes notwithstanding, it was what made sense to her and the die was cast.

As you might imagine, the reality of her rejection and my loss have never been far from my consciousness since her announcement. While I've experience waves of sadness as I picked my way through the boneyard of our marriage, it has been a balm to me that I've spent the last 12 days with my two adults children: first six days with my son, Ceilee, in Los Angeles; followed by six days with my daughter, Jo, in Las Vegas.

While I thought I'd made the strongest relational commitment possible to my wife (both when we first married April 21, 2007, and again when we re-committed to the marriage July 14, 2014), I realize now that the bond I was able to create with Ma'ikwe was not nearly as strong or elastic as what I've created with my children. The potency of a relational bond depends on what each person contributes and, in the end, it was clear that the Laird/Ma'ikwe commitment did not have the resilience that I was looking for. While I am the same flawed guy for everyone, my kids have stood by me even when my wife walked away.

To be sure, Ceilee and Jo have their own households today and have long since stopped living with Dad. While they both welcome me for visits, it's not the same as living with me every day—which Ma'ikwe grew weary of. Nonetheless my kids' love for me has never been more precious than now, as I cope with Ma'ikwe's rejection. Ceilee and Jo's loving care for me have been two oases of nurturance in a desert of rawness.

A friend of mine (who had his own experience with being left by his wife), asked me what I was doing for self care right now. A good question. 

o  I'm taking full advantage of the time with my kids to just be with them. That means doing less work and immersing myself in their lives for the time we have been together.

o  I'm not overindulging, whether that means eating, drinking, watching television, or surfing the internet—I'm doing all of those things sparingly. And shopping doesn't interest me at all.

o  I'm getting plenty of sleep, but am not using it to escape.

o  I'm still focusing on recovery from back strain, which (unfortunately) means dealing with the ongoing aggravation of sore ribs as I work through a cough associated with a cold I contracted last week in Los Angeles. (It's like someone is gouging me with a knife every time I cough.) While it's just a run-of-the-mill cough, the pain is exhausting.

o  I'm not rushing to decide what's next for me (where I'll live, or with whom). I'm not trying to open up a new romantic relationship.

o  I'm giving myself full permission to grieve, while steering clear of the cesspool of major reactivity (wallowing there is not helpful). I'm sad a lot, but not particularly angry, and that feels good.

Does all of that add up to adequate self care? I'm not sure. But I know I won't die, I know that I have useful things to still do in the world, and I know that I yet have joy for living. Maybe that's as good as I can hope for this soon after losing my wife.

Mildred Gordon Crosses the Bar at 92

Sunset and evening star,
         And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
         When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
         Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
         Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
         And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
         When I embark;

For though from out our borne of Time and Place
         The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
         When I have crossed the bar.

                 —Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1889

Mildred Gordon died peacefully in her sleep this morning, surrounded by family and friends at Ganas, the community she helped found on Staten Island in 1979.

I knew Mildred for about 30 years. We first met in the mid-'80s when she and others from Ganas came down to Twin Oaks to participate in a Federation of Egalitarian Communities assembly, to explore what other income-sharing communities were doing and the extent to which it made sense to make common cause.

While it would have been enough that we were friends for 30 years and both founders of income-sharing communities, I'm taking this time to eulogize Mildred because she was also a teacher and mentor to me in the field of group dynamics, and she counseled me through some poignant, difficult times. I recall three in particular:

a) When Elke and I broke up in 1989, she wound up moving at Ganas with our two-year-old daughter, Jo. Mildred, and others at Ganas, worked hard to help Elke see that there was no good thing to be gained by vilifying me and wrapping herself in victim's raiment. Thus, in a period of months, Elke was able to move through her grieving the loss of our intimate partnership and start to rebuild her life based on the positive things in her life—the things she had control over. In addition to making it far easier to be friends (instead of estranged lovers), this helped enormously for me to continue being an active father for my daughter—which has been precious to me—and for Elke and I to co-parent without ever using our daughter as a football. That was huge.

b) It happened that I was visiting Ganas when my father died unexpectedly of a heart attack in November, 1989. While plans were settling for the family to gather in South Carolina for the funeral, Mildred spent a lot of time with me one-on-one getting me to explore my feelings and whatever came up. It was the first time I had ever lost someone that close to me and I had no idea about grieving. Luckily, Mildred did. 

She knew I needed to talk, and the initial sorting I did with her (along with the reflective time I had taking Amtrak's Silver Meteor from New York City to Yemassee SC) enabled me to be clear enough to request a special, two-hour conversation with my mother and siblings, where we started to unpack the volatile and conflicted feelings we had toward Dad, taking advantage of the vulnerability and spaciousness unique to loss. 

This was, to be sure, something we'd never done before as a family, and it was a watershed experience for me in terms of how I related to family members from then on. Looking back, it's doubtful that I would have had it together to have made the request without all the work Mildred did with me in the first 36 hours after learning of my father's death.

c) I was visiting Ganas at some point in the mid-90s, when I had an important facilitation gig lined up, working with a sister community where I knew I'd be called upon to labor with a friend about founder dynamics. My challenge was how to get the issue authentically out in the open without it coming across as an ambush.

One magical evening I was visiting Mildred up in her room and we decided to role play the dynamic, where Mildred was me and I was my friend. For about an hour we had this freewheeling conversation where I got into being my friend and voicing how I expected her to respond.

This experience turned out to be terrifically insightful. Based on that preparation, when it came time to actually do the work I was able to establish to my friend's satisfaction that I understood and could empathize with what they were going through. I was able to demonstrate viscerally that they were not alone, and this proved to be pivotal in maintaining a constructive and pliable tenor to the examination.

It turned out that this experience was foundational for me as a professional facilitator and group consultant, and I've carried it with me the last 20 years whenever I'm in a situation where someone feels backed into a corner.

• • •

My relationship with Mildred was not that of peers. She was always the teacher and I was the student (who was sometimes enthralled by the lessons and sometimes repulsed); she was the facilitator and I was the respondent. While she enjoyed probing what was going on with me, she did not encourage that kind of examination in the other direction. While I chafed at this imbalance for quite a while, I finally came to accept that learning from Mildred was a gift and it was unwise of me (not to mention churlish) to push away the invitation just because the exchange did not flow both ways.

For many years Ganas went by the name Foundation for Feedback Learning, which was their educational nonprofit and very much the center of their social experiment. Mildred was keen on investigating the ways that people shoot themselves in the foot by limiting or distorting the intake of critical information about how they are perceived. (The idea here is not necessarily that others are seeing you accurately, but that it's never in your interest to not know how your statements and behavior are landing with others. In fact, it's highly beneficial to discover at the earliest opportunity any discrepancies between what you intended and how you are received.)

It turns out that most of us engage in all manner of shenanigans to avoid or insulate ourselves from receiving feedback, even when it's directly against our best interests to resist it. 

In the process of doing this work, Mildred was among the most adept practitioners I ever encountered at working a dynamic both emotionally and rationally, which approach had a profound influence on how I developed as a professional facilitator. After witnessing Mildred at the top of her game, I wouldn't settle for group work that didn't simultaneously engage content and energy, and I'm not confident I would have come to that understanding without Mildred's guidance.

Another reason I appreciated Mildred and my time at Ganas was the intensity of the engagement (it certainly wasn't for the coffee, which was every bit as weak as the conversations were strong). I've never encountered another group that devoted so much attention to group dynamics (and I thought I was a junkie). 

Ganas in the '90s—which was the decade when Jo was splitting time between there and Sandhill, and I was visiting regularly—held planning sessions every morning six days a week, and then had freewheeling after dinner conversations most days as well. On your birthday you could decide what personal growth topic you wanted to work on all day. In fact, they were into the process tank so spectacularly that I use Ganas as the poster child for one end of the spectrum on how-much-do you-want-to-be-in-each-others'-lives-by-virtue-of-being-a-member-of-this-community. (On the other end are communities that hold potlucks once a month.)

While most people who visited Ganas or heard about their strong commitment to group process found the attention they gave interpersonal dynamics appalling, I loved it.

The last time I saw Mildred was in October, 2012. I visited Ganas for three days and spent an hour sitting with her each afternoon letting the conversation go wherever it wanted. Though I'd been cautioned ahead of time that Mildred was starting to lose her cognitive abilities, I couldn't discern any loss of focus or relevance to her comments. They say that long-term memory is the last to go and I suppose I benefited from the vast majority of our common history falling comfortably into the long-term column. Or maybe she was just having a good week. 

In any event it was a touching and connecting final visit.

One of Mildred's foibles was the feeling that she was going to die young, which she was mildly obsessed about. I believe many of her immediate family had died young and she expected a similar fate. Well Mildred, having lived to be 92 it's hard to say you got cheated—and all those who knew you are the richer for your longer stay.

Like Daughter, Like Dad

OK, I know this is going to come across as fairly geeky, but hey, I was a math major.

Playing with Powers
Tomorrow, my daughter, Jo, will turn 27. Not only is that the bloom of life, but it's three cubed. While novel in and of itself, what caught my attention is that I'm four cubed (64 if you're scoring at home). I realize, of course, that it's not particularly difficult to have a parent who was 37 when their child was born, but think about it. Realistically, this is the only dual-cubed parent-child linkage that is likely without raising eyebrows.

Sure, I could be one of those older guys who just can't stop breeding (think David Letterman) and be 64 when my child was eight (two cubed), or an undisciplined teenager who got their family started right out of the box at the testosterone-enriched age of 19 (resulting in dad being only 27 when their offspring turned eight).

Powerful Playing
While you may think that math oddities are not a particularly loving or respectful way to celebrate the anniversary of my daughter's nativity, you'd be wrong. In addition to being related by blood, Jo and I share a geeky fascination with board games. (While I know that equates to "bored games" to many, not so with us.) In fact, she has boardgamegeek.com bookmarked on her laptop. 

Let me put this in perspective. Last month I spent a week in Guelph ON doing some consulting with forming communities and attending a four-day conference in nearby Kitchener. Because the conference ended too late for me to catch the once-a-day bus to Ann Arbor MI, I had a leisurely last evening with Derek, who was my concierge and chauffeur all week.

While I put a pork roast in a crock pot with vegetables for dinner—cooking for a group is an excellent way for me to relax—Derek rustled up some friends to come over for board games after I assured him that I thought I could hang with his crowd. After dinner five of us settled on a game of Puerto Rico, which is one of the first excellent no-dice games. It was released in 2002 and nominated for the coveted Spiel des Jahres Award (Game of the Year in Germany). Twelve years old—which is long in the tooth for board games—it's holding steady as the #2 rated game at boardgamegeek.com.

Having played before, I adopted the high-income strategy, emphasizing tobacco and sugar (which allowed me to buy the best buildings) and I cruised to victory with 25% more victory points than the person in second. In contrast, when I play with Jo and Peter (my son-in-law), I'm lucky if I win one time in three. When it comes to board games, I live in a tough family.

Additional Power Plays
While it would have been enough that July 23 is Jo's birthday, there's more. I learned Sunday that my good friend, Jennifer, has a daughter Cynder, who'll turn 16 tomorrow (which, of course, is two to the fourth). In turn, that reminded me that for five months last winter I was 64 (eight squared) while my stepson, Jibran, was 16 (four squared). Pretty powerful stuff, eh?

 

Finally, on a less quirky note, Dancing Rabbit founders Tony Sirna and Rachel Katz will be leaving the community tomorrow to begin an indefinite leave of absence. As the last two standing since their land purchase in 1997, it's a fairly big deal. Last night the community celebrated their inestimable contributions with an appreciation evening, which included oral testimonials, the presentation of a book of written memories, a puppet show, cupcakes, and a dance party. (Isn't that just about the best way to be sent off with love?)

Here was the tribute I gave Tony:

This last May I got my 40-years-in-the-wildeness-of-community-living pin. While that’s a long road, for the last half of that journey I’ve been walking with you, Tony. That’s two decades. Frequently enough, we were in the same room.

I remember your first FIC meetings at Christ Church of the Golden Rule in fall 1995, where you helped staff the Community Bookshelf table. I remember visiting the Dancing Rabbit House that you rented on Prince St in Berkeley near the Ashby BART, before you started your cross-country land search. I remember facilitating the where-will-we-buy-land meetings on Sandhill’s front porch with Rachel, Cecil, Aaron, and Halley. We go back a long ways.

You have been a precious friend because, like me, you are a community builder, you've always been able to see the big picture, and you’re not afraid of the fire. We both know what it’s like to be heart sore about our community, and to come to grips with the painful decision to leave it.

I appreciate you as someone willing to trail blaze as a leader in cooperative culture, as someone who emphasized social change work ahead of income production, and as someone who was a good friend in a storm—and we’ve seen plenty of heavy seas together. You were at both of my weddings to Ma’ikwe: the first one seven years ago and the one last week.

While I’m sad you’re moving away, I don’t expect to lose our special connection. From now forward we’ll just have to substitute quality for a paucity of opportunity.

Whatever is next, Tony, my heart goes with you.

No matter how you slice it, July 23 is setting up to be a powerful day.

Giving Thanks

I know that Thanksgiving is tomorrow, but I'm going to start early. 

I'm chugging inbound on the eastbound Southwest Chief, having boarded in the wee hours of Tuesday in Kingman AZ. I was awakened in the pre-dawn of eastern KS this morning as they stuffed the empty seats with heading-home-for-the-holidays passengers at Topeka and Lawrence. That means I have four hours until I'll be collected at the Art Deco Amtrak depot in La Plata MO—just enough time to jot down (well, peck down) all that I'm thankful for in the final hours of my four-week road trip.

—Home 
I'm thankful for the home that I am returning to. On a basic level, homelessness is a serious societal ill, symptomatic of the inevitable consequences of our winners-and-losers competitive culture. As a road warrior who travels mainly by train, I get to see more than my share of the not-so-pretty sides of cities and the people for whom the American dream has become a nightmare. I was raised with plenty of privilege and advantage and I've been able to parlay those into a life that works pretty well.

On a deeper level, home is more than just a roof over my head: a) it's a place on Earth where I have sunk deep roots, and where I have found a strong sense of Spirit, even though I didn't know I was looking for it; b) it's a community where I have established deep personal connections with fellow travelers in the social change business; and c) it's served as a living foundation from which I operate as a cooperative process consultant—my work is grounded in the reality of my life experience much more than any books I've read or workshops I've attended.

In many ways, connection to place has crept up on me. It was not the way I was raised, and I stumbled upon its preciousness as the years went by and I accreted in my psyche the natural rhythms of my community's farm in northeast Missouri as season followed season, year after year. This is a profound gift that I discovered in spite of my slash and burn cultural conditioning.

—Wife
I'm thankful for my intimate partner, who loves me profoundly and pushes us to be all that we can be—on stage as public figures, on the couch, at the stove, and in the bedroom. (There's a reason that the kitchen sink is a metaphor for everything—and the goddess only knows we've spent our share of time there, talking about how to build it, how to get water to it, and how frequently to clean the dishes. There's an amazing amount of domestic dynamics that revolve around the kitchen sink.) 

We have been a couple for eight years now, and we've worked our love harder in our eighth year than in any of the previous seven. For one thing, most of this past year we've been doing couples counseling, getting help looking at the parts we've rather not see. I'm telling you, a good marriage (and why settle for anything less?) is not for the feint of heart, and our relationship is a work in progress if there ever was one. All together, I feel blessed and I return home eager to begin our grand experiment in maintaining a single household for the first time.

—Paid Work That Aligns with My Values
I'm thankful for my parents who instilled in me a strong sense of self—as a person who could be all that he could be. While my choices confused my mother and confounded my father (who was hoping he was raising a midshipman of industry who would grow up to be a captain), I've found my place in a life centered around community with a minimal amount of wandering in the wilderness. It was from my upbringing that I learned to be risk tolerant, from which I derived the courage to insist that I make a living from activities that embodied my values and which satisfied my soul, not just my wallet.

Whenever I encounter people who are weary of their jobs, or peers who turn longingly toward retirement, I realize how fortunate I have been. I still get up each day looking forward to speaking at the next conference, facilitating the next thorny meeting, or crafting the next report. People pay me to do what I love and are happy with the bargain. Is that a good life, or what?

—Service Work That Aligns with My Growth Path
I'm thankful for my work in a second way also. More than being consonant with my values, my work is also the way I try to be a social change agent. Rather than heart work that I do on the side as a volunteer, as a community builder (though I know my way around a hammer and trowel, I mean this more in the sense of social sustainability than bricks and mortar) I've made it my business to place the creation of cooperative culture at the very center of my life. And the way I know that's a good choice for me is that my work regularly results in my getting up close and personal with my blind spots and human frailties—often in a spectacularly public way! I figure that when your service path coincides with your growth path it's a cosmic affirmation.

—Living in Interesting Times
I'm thankful for all the amazing opportunities there exist for doing good in the world at this time of flux. While today's global reality (peak oil, climate change, population pressures on water supplies, economic instability) translates into a general malaise of uncertainty and anxiety—and that's no fun, especially for those craving stability—it also creates openings for reexamination and experimentation where there were few before. We live in a time that's rife with possibilities. Though all seeds won't sprout and some fields will be overtaken by weeds, I find it an exhilarating time in which to be cultivating new culture.

—Friends
I'm thankful for the amazing wealth of people who know and care about me, and who open up their hearts for me to be there for them in return. As John Donne succinctly pointed out four centuries ago, no man is an island, and I am buoyed by the archipelago of my myriad close relationships. This was poignantly brought home to me in July when Ma'ikwe was ready to throw in the towel on our marriage, and I struggled to come to grips with what my life would be like with the center blown out of it. Slowly, I realized that I would be fine. While my relationship with Ma'ikwe remains precious to me, I had a good life before her and all of the elements of that would remain if she left. I remembered that I am not an island and that even in emotional free fall I could expect my friends to be there to help break my fall.

—Grown Children
I'm thankful for my two adult children, Ceilee and Jo, who both take responsibility for their own happiness and for their commitments. They know how to work hard, and how to take into account how their behavior affects those around them. Most of all, I'm thankful that we love each other, that we freely acknowledge that love, that we make time for one another, and that we enjoy each other's company. No sooner does one visit end than I am looking forward to the next.

—Family
I'm thankful for my four siblings, all of whom cultivate the scared garden of familial relations. Though we don't see each other often, we are there at times of need and celebration. Two months ago I visited my youngest sister in Toronto. Two months from now I'll see my brother in Fairhope AL. Blood ties are the long waves of relationship, where the currents are deepest and steadiest. This is not so much about a mind meld or an alignment of values. Rather, it's about a common history and the shared water of our earliest memories. It's recognizing and honoring bonds that is operates on a visceral level. I am thankful that we all know that.

—Wholesome Food
I'm thankful for living in a community that has a core commitment to growing and processing its own food. It's not possible to eat any better than we do. Though I did not move to community because of food, it turns out that I love working with food and didn't know it! I am grateful that my community has a spiritual connection to raising and consuming organic food. It is integral to our symbiotic connection to our land, which we interact with on a daily basis. We feed our land and it feeds us, body and soul.

—Health
I'm thankful for a body and mind that still work pretty good at 64—which is a good thing given all that I ask of them. The older I get, the more I've lost friends and acquaintances who have had their health (or luck) run out. Increasingly, these people are younger than me and I have occasion to be thankful for the good cards I have been dealt. It is up to me to honor that gift by playing them well.

—Books
I'm thankful for being able to read and for the existence of more good pieces of writing than I will ever be able to get to in one lifetime. I'll never run out of good material to read, and I still buy books faster than I read them. Some of this is the chance to be exposed to new thinking. Some is enjoyment of a well-crafted story. Some is appreciation of word crafting (which is not the same thing as a good plot—J K Rowling is a terrific story teller, but a wooden wordsmith; Charles Dickens was superb at both; Ambrose Bierce was so trenchant and clever that he could make a dictionary good reading).

—Blogging
I'm thankful for the excuse to pause every three days and reflect on what's happening around me, and for the chance to practice my craft as a writer (striving ever to be more like Bierce, though perhaps less acerbic). I have tried at various times in my life to maintain a journal, but was never able to manifest sufficient discipline until I began this blog six years ago. While I have sometimes been successful with an epistolary approximation (when investing in a particular relationship at a distance), these would invariably peter out after some months.

In this format I have chanced upon just the right mix of public service and private inquiry to sustain my interest. Although my primary inspiration for starting this blog was public service, it's proven to be such a personal benefit that I would probably continue it even if no one read it—it's been that much fun and helpful in clarifying my thinking. Today, if someone casually asks how I've been, I can generally swamp their boat by simply giving them the URL to this blog.

—Coffee
Finally, I'm thankful for my favorite way to start the day (other than sex). I prefer French roast, brewed strong enough to put hair on your forehead, balanced with a generous glug of half and half, which neutralizes the acid while preserving the essential bitterness that I crave. It's my only non-negotiable when clients hire me to work with their group.

Where there is life there is coffee
Where there is coffee there is life
We all worship the brown bean
Body of the God Caffeine

This Semi-Old House

I wrapped up a 10-day visit with my daughter (Jo) and son-in-law (Peter) in Las Vegas Tuesday. Monday was the one-year anniversary of their marriage (no fooling, they got hitched on April 1)and they "celebrated" by putting in a normal work day and then coming home to construction mess, joining me in progress to reconfigure the partition wall between their kitchen and living room. Happy Anniversary!

We knocked off about 10:30 pm, with everyone bone tired but the lion's share of the work done—which was a good thing because I had a hard deadline to depart for Arizona last evening and they were nervous about completing the project themselves.

Having always enjoyed working with my hands (my high school academic advisor tried to discourage me from taking shop as a freshman because that was not what college-bound students did), I got plenty of on-the-job experience in basic construction skills as a homesteader at Sandhill Farm, where the default mode is DIY, not HIO (hire it out).

As a person who's on the road a lot and frequently someone's house guest, it's turned out that having handyman skills has come in rather, well, handy. When I have sufficient breathing room in my work load and a long enough visit, I'm often available to tackle modest construction or remodeling projects. Commonly enough, my kids and some of my closer friends save them up for me.

Thus, Jo had the wall project in mind before I got to town. Basically she had a solid stud wall that extended from the hallway seven feet into the space between the kitchen and the living room, such that it created a visual barrier, and somewhat of a noise barrier (mitigating blender noise drowning out living room couch conversation, or, going the other way, a blaring television from intruding upon food prep). Not being worried about noise, Jo wanted to create more flow and a sense of greater spaciousness by manifesting a large pass-through in the partition wall, essentially removing everything from three feet up, leaving only the end studs.

Jo & Peter moved into their house in October and so far they've had no problem thinking up ways to change things for the better. They're limited not so much by their imagination as by the time, skill, and money needed to achieve them. That's where parents come in. Jo's Mom, Elke, has been willing to finance remodeling—within reason—while I've been asked to help with execution when I'm in town.

Though the house is new to Jo & Peter, it was built in 1972, which means it's modern stick frame construction (where you can count on studs being 16 inches on center), yet there's plenty of dust in the attic crawl space. Call it semi-old (kinda like me, who started his homesteading career in 1974).

We discussed this project as soon as I arrived, but we didn't get serious until Sunday morning—about 56 hours before my departure. While we speculated about what the wall remodeling would entail, we really couldn't know the full story of what we were up against until we peeled off the drywall—after which we'd be committed. Once we took the plunge, we stayed right with it. Fortunately, Home Depot was open til 6 pm on Easter.

Two questions loomed large:

o  Was the partition wall load bearing? It wasn't obvious from the room layout. If so, we'd need to install a beam (or header) to handle the weight after the studs were removed.

o  There was an electrical outlet in the middle of the wall on both sides. Would the wiring need to be moved? And if so, would we have access to a junction box, or need to install one?

Drywall removal confirmed that we indeed had stud wall construction and that we'd need to relocate the electric line feeding the outlets (rats). Our next step was a trip to the attic to discover how the ceiling joists were supported, and to see if we could track where the electric came from. 

—The good news was that there was access to the attic in the ceiling of the master bedroom closet; the bad news was that Jo & Peter don't own a ladder. 
—The good news is that Home Dept rents ladders; the bad news is that it didn't appear that anyone had been in the attic in the last 40 years (imagine the dust accumulated on top of the open batts of fiberglass insulation after four decades in a desert—yuck). 
—The good news is that it was spring and outdoor temperatures were in the 70s—the attic foray would have been brutal in June. The bad news was that Jo & Peter didn't possess a working flashlight.
—The good news was that there was a ventilation hood right above where I needed to look and it miraculously provided all the natural lighting I needed. The bad news was that the roof had been built with king post trusses and I couldn't tell whether there was a live load on the partition wall or not. 
—The good news was that there was a readily accessible junction box only four feet from where the wiring passed through the top plate into the partition wall, which meant that rerouting the wire feeding the outlets was going to be straight forward (whew).

By the end of Sunday we had completed the rewiring, had bought supplies from Home Depot (various tools plus the lumber we were going to use) & returned the rented ladder, and had cut the drywall back to the wood we were going to leave in place. 

After writing reports Monday morning (man cannot live by construction alone), I resumed work on the remodeling, cutting wood to dimension and sanding out the saw marks. Peter got home early and was on hand when I held my breath and cut the middle studs out. Fortunately, the ceiling didn't sag (free breathing restored), and we kept going. I recycled some of the removed studs to craft a top plate to cover the cripples left behind, and then mounted the main shelf (a lovely piece of eight-foot long 1x12 poplar with rounded corners—I was thrilled to have an excuse to use a coping saw).

We kept at it long enough to frame the remainder of the rough opening with 1x poplar and then cut fir 4x4s to assemble a simple post-and-beam support—just in case that partition wall really was load bearing, and we didn't know it yet because wasn't enough wind load Monday afternoon to manifest damage.

In any event, Jo nailed in the final piece of trim five hours before my departure. Yeehah! Here's an image of what we created, with Jo & I standing in the pass through (imagine the solid wall that was there just three days ago, and notice an avuncular Einstein overlooking our tableau from the back wall of the living room—I like to think he's adding his approval to our constructive family dynamic):

I figure I'll be a hero for at least another three months… until I return next and Jo has a new home improvement project lined up for her journeyman father.