Living in a Cage

For the past five or so days, I’ve been unusually cranky and irritable. Maybe it’s the heat, or maybe it’s just that I’ve not been sleeping well and have been really tired. Maybe it’s the frustration of not being able to get essential things done without help, or maybe it’s not having any hot water at home for 12 weeks (and counting). Maybe it’s stress: work stress, physical stress or stress of some other sort.

I spent a lot of time yesterday thinking about this. It was Saturday, and I was physically and mentally exhausted, so I never left my apartment. Mostly, I slept – something I clearly needed. But I also tried to do some writing, and I did a lot of thinking.

The Realization

Repeatedly while I was trying to think, I found my contemplation interrupted by a variety of distractions. Someone’s stupid yappy dog was “yapping” outside (as they often do), and shortly after that, a car alarm went off (as they often do). Then there was the sound of voices outside my window: people sitting, talking and laughing on the bench outside the entrance to my building. At least they weren’t drunk – that would come later.

A number of times, the metallic door at the building entrance was slammed shut, and there was the sound of footsteps up and down the staircase. And of course there was the ever-present sound of cars on the main street: the simple whoosh of cars going by, honking horns, loud and irregular engines, and the unmistakable screech of bad brakes on marshrutkas (buses).

These are the sounds of life in a city, the sounds you have to expect with people all around you. And that is the problem, or at least part of the problem: I was not made to live in a city.

I got to thinking about a post I wrote almost exactly a year ago entitled, Just a Fond Memory, in which I compared my Kharkiv environment to the life I used to have in the Colorado mountains. Reading the post, I realized what has been eating me; it’s something I’ve realized before: living in Kharkiv sometimes makes me feel like I’m stuck in a cage… or a prison.

I’ve always been a pretty adaptable person. This is why living in a different culture is not really much of a problem for me. Whether in Japan, Peru or Ukraine, my fascination with the differences in culture and people, and recognition that we have more in common than not, has always more than compensated for any cultural discomfort.

So it’s not about living in a foreign country. For me, that’s a piece of cake. But living continuously – with no break – in a foreign environment… that’s the problem.

A Country Boy Out of His Element

For me, a city is a foreign environment. If I was stuck in Chicago, Boston, Paris or any other big, noisy city, I know I would feel pretty much the same. It’s only slightly worse here in Kharkiv, which is probably a little more intrusive on a person’s peace than most North American or Western European cities (though, I’m sure, far less than places in many other parts of the world). I'm sure I would completely lose it if I had to live in some pit of swarming humanity like New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City or anyplace in China or India.

I’m a country boy. I’ve loved the natural peace and quiet of the Colorado mountains and forests since I first met them. And I’ve found similar comfort in wild, natural places like the coast and forests of Maine, the Monterey Peninsula and the hills of Arroyo Seca, the Peruvian Andes, and any number of secluded forests, shorelines, plains and pastures I’ve discovered in my travels.

My soul craves the peace and quiet of the natural world, especially a mountain forest of pines and aspens. There is an energy in it that recharges me, lifts my spirit, and renews my sense of purpose. It helps me maintain some sense of equilibrium and not lose my sanity in a hectic, overpopulated and often insane world.

I need it!

But in Kharkiv, I don’t get it – not ever. The city parks are always crowded with people who never seem to pay attention to where they are going. And what passes for “nature parks” in Kharkiv are also too crowded or trashed to feel like you are in a truly natural environment. 

I occasionally go bicycling in what’s called the “forest park” near my home, and it’s impossible to really feel like you have “gotten away from it all” when you see bottles on the ground, pass by so many other people and often still hear the sounds of cars from nearby roads.

There may be some forests and other natural places outside of the city, but I haven’t seen them. Having no personal transportation, it’s nearly impossible. Four or five years ago, I went on an excursion to a place outside of the city that was sort of a botanic garden, but there were a lot of other people there too. It just wasn’t the same.

The Transportation Quandry

I guess the culprit is lack of personal transportation. I don’t have a car and don’t drive here. I am limited to the places I can go on foot, on bike or by bus, subway or taxi. And that is a huge limitation! My world here consists of the same streets, the same stores and cafes, the same offices, the same places, the same sights and sounds – day after day. The overall square area of my regular travels is relatively small, but it wouldn’t matter much if I expanded to other parts of the city – it’s all about the same.

In the U.S., no matter where I lived, I could just jump into my truck and head off to the mountains or the shore. When I lived in the Denver metro area, I did that regularly. I went camping in the mountains often from spring to autumn. And when I lived in Massachusetts for a couple of years, I did the same: up to Maine or out on Cape Cod. It was important to put the crowds, traffic and noise behind me and spend at least a few days with nature.

That kind of escape was like a release valve to vent off the stress of work and everyday life. It was essential. When I moved to the mountains, it was even better because I spent most of my time in nature, only venturing into the city frenzy to work, shop and a few other things.

To be honest, during that time, the scale sometimes tipped a bit out of balance toward being a bit too alone, and I have written about the problems of living alone in the post, Living Alone. But overall it was far better than feeling constantly surrounded by madness.

I haven’t been out of my Kharkiv cage since I returned from 10 days in Switzerland in early May. It’s not as much of an issue in winter, but in good weather, the need to get away becomes like an irresistible pull on the soul, like gravity, a bird’s urge to migrate, or the need to breathe. The longer I feel cooped up here, the worse it gets.

This year, I thought I might have some opportunities to get away, but it hasn’t happened, and it’s apparent now that it’s not going to. I am going to have to just find a way to deal with it for another month until I leave Ukraine for a periodic visit to… Colorado.

Relief is Coming

If I can survive the next four weeks, I’ll jet off to the USSA, where I’ll have an opportunity to really get away from it all in the Colorado mountains. To make it even better, we’re going to have a family getaway to Steamboat Springs, a beautiful resort town in the rugged mountains of north-central Colorado.

I’ll be out of my cage and free to roam the mountains, as a mountain lion spirit should. That will be a sorely needed salve for what has been ailing me, and I plan to take full advantage of it. Hopefully it will be enough to carry me through the fall and winter back in the confines of Kharkiv.

But after that, I think something will have to change. Either I’ll have to find a way to be more mobile and independent in Kharkiv, or else I’ll have to make a move. I know that I won’t be able to stand another summer in a cage.

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When Falling in Love Was Easy

Maybe it’s just me.  But I doubt it.

Nothing seems easier or feels more wonderful than falling in love when you are young. Those are magic years, from the mid-teens to the mid-20s when hormones are raging, the feelings are new and exciting, and you haven’t yet had your heart torn out, stomped on, burned to a crisp, and then tossed into a dirty dumpster – at least not more than once.

During that time, there are no fears, no worries, and everything is about wonderful feelings and endless possibilities. We are blissfully naive and without a cynical bone in our bodies, and it feels great.

We can trust without reservation. And even if that trust is broken and the object of our affection leaves, we still have the capacity to cue up some more absolute trust for the next person. Sure, we remember the hurt, but the nature of our minds and bodies in those years is such that we can pretty easily put it aside for the next warm smile, fetching body or enthralling words.

Love is the Drug

The sex in those years is mind-blowing, and that has a lot to do with why we can just keep charging forward. Common descriptions like fireworks, explosions or “out of this world” simply do not do justice to the way we can completely lose ourselves in the fullness of the physical and emotional gratification we get. And, like a drug, we can’t get enough, and almost nothing can stop us.

But it’s not just the sex (for most people). It’s also about the pure feeling of connection with that other person and the anticipation of a beautiful future together. It’s the mind picture of building something important, something lasting, even though at that age we still have a hard time really focusing on the next day, let alone the rest of our lives. But the strong emotions (and that unabated trust) give us a sublime sense of security that in this person we have someone who will stand by us forever.

For some, there might be a little worry about rejection that can make them hesitant to “make a move,” but for most of us in those years that fear doesn’t factor into our thinking… or perhaps I should say, our actions (we don’t think much in those years). If we meet some rejection, we can more easily shrug it off. At that age, the sea truly is filled with beautiful, wondrous fish. If one doesn’t take your bait, you don’t have to wait long for an even better one to come along.

Yes, falling in love at that age is mostly carefree and easy. But then, it seems, something happens. We start to develop something awful: fear.

Things Start to Change

As we move through our later 20s, into our 30s, and progress toward our middle years, the brightness of the fire begins to fade. It doesn’t go out altogether, of course, and the changes happen later for some than for others… but it happens. And that brightness starts to be replaced, to one extent or another, by a cold, dark cloak of fear.

The hormones don’t rush at hyper-speed quite like they did before. And in many ways, that’s a good thing. But without that hormone blitzkrieg to ward off the bad stuff and keep us coming back for more, our realization of the fact that bad stuff exists begins to take root and gives us pause to think a bit more before we jump.

After a few more disappointments or all-out massacres of the heart, our ability to trust so easily diminishes and cynicism becomes more prevalent. We go from “anything is possible,” in the positive sense, to “anything is possible,” in the sense of what other people are capable of doing to us.

The Lucky Ones

Now, for many people this doesn’t really matter. They found their “right ones” during those “wonder years,” married, started families, and for the rest of their lives they are no longer concerned with dating, new relationships and all that stuff. That is, they’re not supposed to be concerned with it.

And I suppose that’s how nature intends for it to work. During the feverish years, we fearlessly tread the tumultuous waters of dating life until we couple up with someone. Then we turn our attention to working, building families, raising children, buying homes and going on vacations. The hormones and naiveté of the first stage are intended to help us find mates, and then it’s all supposed to calm down so that we stop that crazy searching and experiencing, and do the rest of the life stuff with a partner.

For the Rest – Too Many Questions

But it doesn’t work out this way for everyone. In fact, given divorce rates and such, it seems that a majority of people go through the shock of seeing their idyllic “together forever” lives shattered. Then they find themselves “out there” again in the dating scene (and possibly again, and again). So there they are, trying to navigate the dating and relationship rapids once again, but now their boats are overladen with the baggage they’ve accumulated, and it becomes much harder to steer the right course toward paradise.

What was so easy and straightforward – even instinctual – in those early days is thrown into a confusing jumble, fraught with the doubt and fear that have taken over their hearts. They start to face questions they never considered in the carefree early years:

• “Is she really interested or just being nice?”
• “Does he really like me or just looking for sex?”
• “Why did she say that?”
• “Why hasn’t he called?”
• “What if I move too fast? Will she think I just want sex?”
• “What if I don’t move fast enough? Will she think I’m not interested?”
• “Why hasn’t he made any moves yet? He hasn’t even tried to hold my hand!”
• “Why did she move away when I got close? I thought she was into me?”
• “He seems so nice, but they always seem nice at first; will he become a jerk later?”
• “I’m divorced – they will think I am “damaged goods!”
• “I’ve never been married – they will think I’m a loser!”
• “What if he is actually married?”
• “OMG… I think she might be married!”
• "What if he doesn't like the way I kiss?"
• “What if we aren’t compatible in bed?”
• “What if we’re compatible in bed but not much else?”
• “Maybe I’m too old.”
• “Maybe she (or he) is too old.”
• “I’ve been living alone for years; what if I can’t adapt to living with another person again?”
• “How can I find someone who will accept my kids?”
• “My looks have faded – how could anyone ever be really interested in me again?”
• “I have to work so much – how can I find time to start or build a relationship?”
• “All the good ones are already married or in relationships, and the ones who aren’t are losers – how can I ever find someone good?”
• “I’m not married or in a relationship – does this make ME one of the losers?”

Not everyone tortures themselves with so many questions, of course. Some people may find themselves asking only a few of these questions but not the others. Some people might still have supreme self-confidence – or been lucky enough to have not had their hearts torn out, stomped on, burned to a crisp, and then tossed into a dirty dumpster (at least not more than once) – and rarely entertain any such questions.

Maybe one of the biggest hurdles has to do with trust. Trust comes easily in those early years, but after enough violations, it becomes harder to put your trust in anyone. And after each successive time that you trust and lose, it is that much harder to trust the next person. He or she may be truly wonderful and have done nothing to cause you to be skeptical, but you start to think about how others seemed that way at first too. So you hold on to your trust like a dog guards a bone, waiting for some “sure sign” that it is safe to give it up.  

Like a mountain snowstorm, life can drop deeper and deeper layers of icy cold powder on you. But whether you bury yourself under all the doubt or just get lost in the whiteout from time to time, the point is that it is NEVER as easy later in life as it was in those magical early years.

But it’s Not the End

The fact that it is more difficult does not mean that it is impossible to find a wonderful person and build that “together (for the rest of) forever” life. It IS possible, and maybe even better. I think the fact that we get more self-protective after the hard knocks can be a good thing. If you can get past the fear, you can use it to make better decisions and find someone who will NOT add another notch on your failure stick… someone who will make all the previous heartache worth it.

It’s just that the process is a little harder, so maybe you have to do a little more. We tend to get into a protective comfort zone, and if you really want that relationship paradise, you have to have the courage and make the effort to step out of your comfort zone (but in a wiser way).

You have to take some chances and not be deterred if the other person’s fears result in an initial reaction that’s not what you had hoped for.  One of the biggest fears is to broach that question: “Are we just friends or is there something more at work here?” Often both people have the same silent question and let the fear of learning the answer keep them in the friends mode, even when perhaps they both would like to jump out of that mode.

The thing in this case is that you have to really KNOW what you want. Do you KNOW that you want to just keep this person as “just a friend”? Or do you KNOW that you like this person enough (in a “more than just friends" way) to at least try to make it more. If you don’t know for sure what you want, try to figure it out, because the other person might be thinking seriously about it and looking for a sign.

Communication is the key to everything. Our fears make us very unclear, and we send out mixed messages; we don’t intend to do this, be we do it anyway. This communication glitch is a big part of what makes it all so hard.

In the early years, we are usually much more clear with our verbal and physical messages: we quickly include the other person into virtually all aspects of our lives, we touch and kiss and move into sex quicker and without much hesitation, and we say “I love you” pretty easily, even though we don’t really understand the deeper meaning of the word and may be just reacting to the rush of emotions. But our intentions are usually pretty hard to misunderstand.

So it takes some extra effort to get past the worries and make it work. You have to know what you want, do your best to figure out if this person at least has the potential to be what you want, and then you have to have the courage to be clear about your feelings and desires, and not worry if the reaction isn’t what you hoped.

This doesn’t mean you have to proclaim your love before you even know if you like the same music styles or wallpaper designs. But it does mean that you should have the courage to be clear about whether you see this person as just a friend or possibly something more. And if it is your intention to try to build something more, make that clear. If you really only see the other person as a friend, even a very good friend, make that clear too.

Communicate! Don’t let the fear hold you back. Getting past the fear can be hard, but the results can be more than worth it.

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PS - If all else fails, get drunk together and see how quickly you can revert back to being fearless teenagers.

My Father

(This is a post I tried to write a year ago, but I never got it done. And even this year, I had hoped to post it before Fathers Day but missed the mark. It’s been a hard one to write, and I’ve changed it numerous times. But it will never be perfect, so I am finally just posting what I have.)

About a month ago they observed Fathers Day in the United States. It’s not as big a deal as Mothers Day (in May), and rightly so. But it still has significance, because fathers are important too. This day makes me think about a number of things: my own father and how I look back on him, my own performance as a father and how much I know I could have done better, friends and acquaintances who are fathers (good and otherwise), and my admiration and hope for the next generation of fathers in my family.

One thing that often gets me thinking about fathers is Facebook. Around Fathers Day, birthdays and anniversaries, my cousins back in the U.S. routinely post photos and memorials to their fathers, and I have always admired the adoration they have for their departed dads. (Technically, one of them is not my cousin, but a cousin to my cousins. But his dad was my godfather, our families were close, and I always thought of his dad as an uncle and him as a cousin.)

I share their feelings about their dads because they were men who I really looked up to as well. One of them had been my father’s close friend in their early years and, for that reason, became my godfather; his younger brother ended up marrying my mother’s baby sister, so he became my uncle. 

But sadly, I don’t feel similarly moved to remember my own father the way that my cousins are inspired to honor their dads.  I don’t have that same kind of adoration for the man. I feel bad about this because if he were alive and knew, he would be terribly hurt. And I would not want that.

Many Good Points

My father was not a bad man – far from it.  And in his way, he was a good father.  He worked hard to provide for his family, and he never failed. We didn’t want for anything important. We always had a safe, comfortable home, decent clothes, food on the table, etc. My sister and I didn’t have as much as some kids, but we had more than many others. We were comfortably in the middle class, and he was the reason why.

And my father was not a drinker or carouser. He would have a few beers occasionally in the summer, but that was about it. I don’t remember ever seeing him drunk or even close to it. He was steady and reliable. And he was mostly a selfless man who did without a lot of “toys” he might have liked to have had so that he could give his family what they needed.

He was generous to his children, perhaps to a fault. He always was ready and willing to help us financially when we hit tough times. When we needed him, he was always there.

Something Was Missing

I respect and admire all of those things about him. So why do I not feel so moved to memorialize him as my cousins feel about their dads?

I guess it’s because, despite all these good qualities, there was something missing.  My father was a closed-up soul and not someone who could offer deep thoughts and perspectives on life. His advice was limited to practical matters: how to work a table saw, how to wire a trailer, how to properly use a variety of tools, how to change a tire, spark plugs or the car’s oil.

Those were good things for a boy to learn from his father, to be sure.  But I needed more. I needed someone who could talk about life with me, who could give me advice about dealing with all kinds of people – especially women – someone with an inquisitive mind who could talk about science or music or art. 

I needed someone who could enthrall me with stories and help my imagination to soar, someone whose wisdom would form the bedrock for my own spiritual and intellectual growth. And I needed someone who could teach me how to hit a baseball, throw a good spiral, deke out a goalie, or win a fight when there was no other way. 

But that was not my father. I had to learn all those things on my own.

An Odd Egg

He was not a stupid man by any means, and I think he could have been much more than he was. But he was very limited in his outlook, and perhaps most of all in his self-confidence. It seems to me that he was a man who was never comfortable in his own skin. He covered it with a façade, a false bravado, but, deep down, I don’t think he ever really liked himself very much.

My father could swear up a storm when he was angry. One of my most enduring memories is of the occasional days when he would be running late for work, hurrying to get cleaned up and on his way, and yelling curse words at the highest decibel level possible. His swearing never included the F-word or anything like that; it was limited (there’s that word again) to a short rotation of several religion-related terms (taking the Lord’s name in vain, as it were) together with the phrase “son of a bitch.”  Those were mornings when I just wanted to hide under my bed covers until he was out the door.

My father's sense of fashion was like him: black and white. He always went to work in a white shirt with a narrow black tie, black pants and black engineer's boots. His idea of casual wear was a drab green or gray shirt with his black pants and black engineer boots – always the engineer's boots. In summer, he even wore his engineer's boots with swim trunks (not in the water, of course). I recall when my mother tried to get him to put some color into his wardrobe and wear more up-to-date ties. I thought it was going to kill him. 

He pretended to be an authoritarian, not only with my sister and me, but also with our cousins when they were in the care of my parents. It was something he could get away with when dealing with children who were not wise enough yet to question his orders. Looking back, I suspect he had a harder time doing that with adults, like on his job… but I really don’t know that side of his life at all.

And that segues into another issue: I knew almost nothing about his job, what he did there, or what it was like. I knew that he was a supervisor and then a middle manager at an electronics manufacturing firm – a branch of the Texas Instruments company. But that was all. I never saw where he worked, met only a few of his coworkers over all those years, and had no idea what his work life was like. He never talked about it; when he came home, he left the job behind.

My father was not an unkind man. As I mentioned earlier, he could be quite generous, especially with his family. But he was mostly aloof and insular. The only “stories” he told were of his army days in Panama, but I suspect that not all of these stories were real. He often mentioned about how he had his own Harley-Davidson motorcycle there and rode with some friends. That he rode a motorcycle, at least, there is proof in photographs. The rest of it… I don’t know. 

He had a scar on his shoulder that he said came from the .50-caliber gun of a fighter plane he was servicing. But a .50-caliber is a large and powerful gun, and its bullets are designed to destroy airplanes and other machines. It seems to me that such a slug would have damaged his shoulder more than was apparent. But I am not an expert, so perhaps it was true.

Most of all, my father was not an openly loving person.  Through all of my years growing up in that house, I never – not once – saw a display of affection between my parents. I never saw a warm embrace, never a kiss. My father simply found it difficult to make such displays; he was enormously reserved when it came to physical touch. I wrote once in an ironically humorous family history that, as they had two children, I was reasonably certain my parents had had sex at least twice.

I suspect that this kind of reserved nature and embargo on outward displays of affection ran contrary to my mother’s way, and she simply changed over time and adapted to the reality of her life. She was better at showing affection to her children, but even she became more reserved as we grew older.

What Shaped Him

I have often wondered why he was the way he was. What forces shaped and molded him? What made him so insular, so incapable of letting his feelings out?  I think it was because of his own father. I never knew my grandfather; he died shortly after I was born. His wife, my paternal grandmother, passed away before I was born, and there seemed to have been some bad feelings and controversy surrounding their relationship and her death. But my father rarely spoke about his parents, and he had no brothers or sisters, so it was all pretty much a mystery.

What little I learned about my father’s growing up and his relationship with his own parents came mostly from one of my aunts (my mother’s older sister).  My grandfather was a tough – and apparently mean – Irish cop in the small Massachusetts city where I was born. He had a fractured relationship with his own family, told a Catholic priest to “go to hell” and left the church, and made life difficult for both his wife and son. My impression is that my father grew up without having real relationships with grandparents, uncles, cousins, etc.

My father, it seems, wanted to please his demanding father, as any son would, but he couldn’t seem to measure up. So I guess he grew up feeling like something of a disappointment to his father. And it seems that it was from his own father that he acquired his emotional aloofness.

In a rare moment of openness, my father once told me that he was very proud of me, of my accomplishments and the man that I had become. I appreciated that, of course, and it meant a lot. Looking back, I suspect that it was something he wanted badly to hear from his own father but perhaps never did.

But all of this is mostly conjecture based on just a few facts. I could be way off base, but I don’t think so. His life growing up in that family seems to have been filled with a lot of hard feelings. My father was prepared to be the hardworking breadwinner for a family, but not to be a source of inspiration.

Not a Condemnation

After writing only a few positive paragraphs and so many that seem negative, it can certainly appear that this post is a condemnation of my father. But that’s not the case. I am simply trying to call it as I see it, and I’ve analyzed him a lot to try and understand where I picked up some of my own, similar tendencies, as well as to put into context how different from him I am.  I could have done much, much worse for a father. He was a good man.

It’s just a simple fact that I needed more. The person I am – the child I was and the adult I became – is very different from my father. I have some definite physical similarities to my father, in appearance and some facets of speech, but I think there is a lot more of my mother in me, in my nature, in who I really am on the inside.

But boys learn how to be men from their fathers. They adopt most of their fathers’ behaviors and ways of dealing with the world. When these behaviors and tendencies don’t work for them, they are left confused and wondering why.

Looking back on my life, I can see that in my early adult years, I carried a lot of my father’s tendencies with me. Most of them ran counter to who I really am, and it was a mystery to me why these ways of reacting to the world caused more difficulties than they solved. It took me a long time to figure it out.

Me as a Father

One result of all that confusion, I think, is that I wound up not being the kind of father to my own daughters that I wish I had been. I was not a complete failure, of course, just as my own father was far from being a failure. My daughters have both grown to be enormously intelligent, talented, kind and considerate young women, and my relationships with each of them is positive, open and with a lot of love.

But it seems to me that their achievements are more despite my influence than because of it. I know that for most of their growth years, I was not “there for them” nearly as much as I should have been. Divorce can make that happen.

Where my father was steady and content to work for years at a routine job and a routine life, I was not. Where he was willing to, as he put it, “be miserable in life and his marriage” for the sake of “responsibility,” I was not. Where my father was a stranger to any form of spirituality (and even seemed to fear it), I am not.

I don’t assert that this makes me better… not at all. Just different. My path in life has been far different than his: more spiritual, more inquisitive, more questioning, more open, more social, more emotional, more sexual. I am glad to be who I am. I could never have lived his life, and I’m quite sure he would not have been able to live mine.

But I do wish that living my life could have included being a better father in some of the ways that he was. That would have been nice. But it’s not how this life unfolded for me. Just as his life happened the way it needed to for him, so mine has followed the path that I need for the lessons I need to take from this earthly trip. 

Looking in on Colorado Sports

I call this blog A View from Afar, and when I started it, I mentioned that one of the reasons was that I was looking at the United States from far away in Ukraine.  And in the United States, Colorado is home, so I still try to follow the local professional sports teams.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Avalanche and Broncos gave us four world championships.  The Rockies sucked, but they were still relatively new, so there was hope.  It was a great time to be a Colorado sports fan.

But lately, Colorado sports mostly make me want to cry, or at least be disinterested.

Denver Broncos

The Broncos looked good last season until they got to the Super Bowl, then it was a major embarrassment on par with the "glory days" of the 1980s and early '90s.  Only 12 seconds into the game and Peyton Manning couldn't find the ball, allowing Seattle to score a safety.  And it was downhill from there.

And to get smoked by Seattle - a place overrun by socialists, depressed by constant rain, who need to drink a gallon of Starbucks coffee just to make it through each day.  How can there be real football fans in a place where physical games amount to "bullying" and winning is a sin because it means that some other person will suffer an inferiority complex by having lost?

But I digress.  

OK... so let's forget about the Donkeys.  At least they did switch back to Orange as their predominant jersey color.  That was an improvement.

Colorado Avalanche

Then there is the Avalanche - my favorite team (because hockey is my favorite sport).  They had been in the doldrums for almost a decade.  After the glory years of Sakic, Forsberg, Roy, Foote, Blake, etc., and Stanley Cups in 1996 and 2001, it's been hard to see them fall to the bottom of the heap in the salary-cap era.  Especially when the Detroit Red Wings seemed to have taken the cap restrictions in stride and hummed right along (damned "Dead Things!).

Bad management - that was the problem.  Pierre LaCroix had become like the senile old man pulling the strings from his hiding place in the proverbial tower, a master of wheeling and dealing whose genius turned to insanity with age (hmmm... sounds like Al Davis).  He left the handling of personnel affairs to bean counters and other assorted idiots.

And to rub salt into a fan's wounds, they messed with the uniforms, reducing the beautiful burgundy in favor of more of that sickening shade of blue.  And to rub acid into the salt already in the wound, they dropped the beautiful all-burgundy third jersey for one that is all sickening blue.  Instant vomitization!

But the Avs are definitely showing signs of a comeback.  They actually have a management brain trust in Sakic and Roy that engenders optimism and a feeling that the guys running the hockey side know what they are doing.  And this past season, they were successful beyond anyone's expectations.

They have been drafting well in the past five years, and that is coming to fruition: Duchene, O'Reilly (if they can keep him), Landeskog, McKinnon, and a few others down on the farm.  Thanks to Roy and the goalie coach he brought on board, Semyon Varlyamov has gone from being a bad trade and waste of money to a legitimate star.

So things are looking up on that front.  Can't complain.  But the future remains to be seen.

Still... they need to fix those uniforms.

Colorado Rockies

The Rockies still suck!  They seem to be doing their best to damper interest and drive away fans.  After teasing their fans with a World Series appearance in 2007, in which they were swept in four games by the Red Sox (the team I grew up idolizing), they have pretty much managed to create a worse smell at Coors Field than a hot summer day in Greeley when the wind is blowing in from the Monfort feed lots.  

Interesting mention of Monfort... owner of the hapless Rocks.

This season they are - once again - doing their usual routine of enticing fans with early success, only to lose a whole bunch of game and be completely out of the race by the All-Star break.  They don't seem to have a single pitcher who belongs in the major leagues.  Sad, sad, sad.

I would REALLY like to be able to support the Rockies.  I really would.  But how can anyone support a team that is so poorly run, so cheap, and so devoid of a winning mindset?  The only reason to go to a game at Coors Field seems to be to enjoy the sun, drink some beer, and watch other people through your binoculars.  

I feel really, REALLY bad for Troy Tulowitzki, a true superstar stuck on a team that truly super-sucks!

Other Sports

Well, there really are no other professional sports in Colorado.  OK, so there are the Colorado Rapids soccer team, but c'mon... it's soccer.  And there's that bunch in the "gangsta rapper, drugs and guns" league that occasionally puts their stupid wooden floor over the Avalanche's ice in the Pepsi Center.  But that team, league and sport have not been relevant in Colorado since the days of Alex English, Dan Issel and Fat Lever.  Who cares?

College sports?  Same old, same old.  My CSU Rams, who were great in the 1990s, have fallen into the same loser mold as when I was at the university.  Things might be looking up now, but even still... they will never be a top-tier program.  And the CU Buffaloes?  Oh... please... don't even mention them.  The only thing they are good for is giving the Rams an occasional extra-special win (although last year the Rams didn't take them up on it).

Yeah... it's a sad state of affairs when I look at the Colorado sports scene from over here.  This post has been inspired mainly by the completely UNinspiring play of the Rockies, but the whole scene is pretty wretched.  Only the Avalanche seem poised to offer some relief.

But at least Colorado doesn't have a war going on in its neighboring states.

Finding Your Personal Mount Everest

This is a piece I first wrote back in the early 1990s. I have revised it a few time since then – added some things, changed some wording – but the basic premise has stayed the same. I think my last revision was around 2009 or so. I remembered it as I was working on my new post about soul mates and soul friends, and I thought I would go ahead and post it.

Relationships! 

We spend so much time thinking about them, talking about them, laboring and anguishing over them, but we never seem any closer to understanding them.  With the possible exceptions of learning where socks disappear to from the clothes dryer or Michael Jackson’s planet of origin, there are few greater mysteries than romantic relationships. 

Why are we drawn to certain people, but repelled by others?  Why do we so often find that after a certain amount of time, we’re repelled by those same people to whom we were at first so drawn?  Why is that time shorter with some people than with others?  Why do we sometimes find ourselves drawn to people toward whom we should feel repelled? 

Why do we sometimes fall in love with people who don’t feel the same way, who don’t love us back?  And most important, is there any hope of finding someone who really will love us back and toward whom we won’t eventually feel repelled?  The answer, definitely, is Yes, which is good, because it means I can keep writing.

Every once in a very great while, each of us runs across someone who seems almost immediately to stand out from the crowd, a person who touches some special chord on the piano keys of your inner being, who may be just ordinary to the other 99.9999 percent of humanity, but is mysteriously extra special to you.  But it doesn’t happen often, and if this does seem to happen often for you, seek professional counseling. 

Why are these wonderful people so very hard to find, and why do even these seem to have a better than average chance of not working out in the long run?  Why are you still reading these pointless questions as though you’re going to find some profound answer? 

Perhaps it’s because the title has led you to believe this column has something to do with Mount Everest, which is said to have many wise gurus sitting on its peak, freezing their butts off while contemplating the mysterious nature of the universe and waiting for simpletons like us to climb up and avail themselves of that sage knowledge – all the while wishing they were sitting in a nice, warm Jacuzzi someplace getting deep, therapeutic back massages, instead of sitting cross-legged in a frigid, windy patch of snow. 

Of course, if someone chooses to sit out in a windy patch of snow, why would you want his advice on anything?  But enough deep questions!  Probably the only reason you’re continuing to read this drivel is because you’re hoping that somewhere along the line it involves sex.  Is this ultimately about sex?  Sorry, you’re just going to have to read on if you want to find out. 

Let’s get back to the point. 

I have come to realize that for each one of us – you, me, the guy at the gym whose biceps measurement doubles his IQ, your old aunt Edith who eventually decided to give up on men entirely and live alone with her 47 cats, even the crazy guy sitting in the snow on the mountain top – there are, at best, only a handful of people who will cross our paths in our entire lifetimes with whom all the required qualifications for a superbly deep and meaningful relationship exist.  In other words, for each of us, it really only “clicks” with just a few individuals – ever.

So, how many is a handful?  Well, how big is your hand?  I’m guessing that, if you’re really lucky, the most would be three or four.  But for the majority of us, it’s probably only two or three – and perhaps only ONE.  And that’s through an entire lifetime.  I believe too that a great many people stay too blind to find even one of their special handful, or if they do, they don’t realize it and allow them to pass on by.

Very often, we just think we’ve found one of that handful when what we’ve really got is just something a few ticks above ordinary.  Pretty bad odds, but that’s how it seems to be set up, because I’m not talking about really good, or even great; the kind of relationship we’re learning about today transcends even fantastic.  We’re talking about something spiritual here.

We hear a lot of talk about soul mates, and that’s probably what we’re talking about here too.  This is because finding and connecting with one of these handfuls of people, and then making it last, requires a sort of divine intervention, the focus of universal creative energy – God if you prefer – to get behind and give each of us a push in the right direction.  But even the best efforts of the Divine can be ruined or ignored by us humans, because once we come to Earth we tend to become really stupid.

Now, you’re probably saying to yourself, “wait a minute, that can’t be right; I’ve met lots of guys (or gals) with whom I really hit it off, and I’m sure there are a ton more just waiting for the chance to meet me.”   Sorry!  Wrong!  Please move to the back of the class.  What we’re talking about here is a whole different level of relating, a level that moves past the surface and gets deep inside of you, a level that is soul-based and unlike anything else you’ll ever experience.   

So what’s it all about?

In a relationship like this, the most important elements are there:  You find yourselves on the same page of your intellectual and emotional operating manuals, and your “view of the world” is very similar.  When you say “red,” the other person sees the same shade, not something a tad more toward orange or purple.  The other person has attitudes, interests, behaviors and tendencies that fit well with your own, and vice versa. 

(A note here to those of you who think this means you both need to “like all the same things or have completely the same beliefs” – wrong again!  Too much sameness is boring and ultimately invites ruin.  But the ideal balance is where you have a great many things in common and you can freely agree to disagree on the others.  But more to the point, you perceive things similarly.  Remember too that while “opposites may attract,” real opposites eventually go in different directions.)

You find that you meet each other’s needs almost without effort.  Perhaps you like being touched, holding hands and being held closely and the other also enjoys touching and hugging.  On the other hand, maybe you are more reserved and not as comfortable with a lot of close contact and the other feels the same way.  You don’t find yourself wanting for an emotional, sexual or intellectual stimulus that the other just doesn’t seem to be able to figure out, and you don’t leave the other lacking (or overwhelmed) either. 

You can talk for hours about everything and nothing at all – without losing interest.  Yet you can also sit together in silence without it being uncomfortable 

And the sex is simply the best and most satisfying either of you can have.  You enjoy playing or experimenting to the same degree and share equal levels of “kink.”  Alternatively, you may be reserved to the same extent, but whichever level you are at, you are both comfortable with that level.  Most important, however, you share equivalent levels of emotion in the process.  Sex is more a tool to express and strengthen your bond, rather than an end to itself – and you both have learned this.

Perhaps the most important things you find with someone like this – things that are so often lacking in more ordinary relationships – are genuine understanding, empathy, trust and respect.  Both partners put the other, and the relationship, first.  The relationship is the most important thing in life for both; you protect it and are careful not to do anything that puts it in jeopardy. 

Each of you knows, almost instinctively, when to “be there” for the other, and just as important, when not to be.  You understand that respecting the other’s individuality and independence can be as important as being ready with a strong shoulder. 

There can still be occasional disagreements and even fights – after all, even the tallest mountains suffer avalanches that can bury you, crevasses you might fall into, and icy gales that can freeze you solid – but they are less frequent, and they don’t last.  Anger is fleeting and is never allowed to intensify or become intentionally hurtful.  You don’t fall into game playing.

A relationship like this doesn’t add to your stress, it’s your safe, snug harbor from the stormy sea of a lousy day.  It makes you feel satisfied, fulfilled and happy.

The Spiritual Side

When all of this exists with someone, it’s what I call a Mount Everest.  But there’s something more with a person like this, something that goes beyond all the tangible factors you can see or feel.  When you look into that person’s eyes, you might both be carried off to another place or another time.  There is, right from the start, an intuitive familiarity between the two of you, almost as though you have known each other before, even though you know that’s not the case (in this life).  There is a spark that runs deep into both your souls, something you don’t find with anyone else.   There is a kind of magic!

This is the phenomenon I call spiritual completion.   I believe that each of us is a spiritual being existing temporarily on the material plane and struggling to find our true spiritual nature.  The essence of being, with which each of us is endowed at birth, runs back much farther in the past and continues long past the end of our short lives.  As such – and whether we realize it or not – we feel a certain detachment or incompleteness in this existence.

To help us grow past that spiritual incompleteness, I believe we are meant to find in our lives certain other people who possess a spiritual essence that is precisely tuned to our own, a spiritual essence that represents our perfect polar opposite (masculine to feminine and vice versa).  If and when we find it, we are changed.  Rather than being two separate souls, we may become two halves of a new spiritual entity, one that brings each of us closer to the ultimate completeness, which is with God, or the universal creative force.  This new entity is inseparable, even if the physical halves are disjoined by distance, circumstance – or death.

There’s an important point to make here for all you hopeless romantics and devotees of romance novels displaying partially clothed caricatures of impossible-looking men with names like Fabio.  There is a world of difference between spiritual incompletion and feeling incomplete on the earthly plane.  So many people feel empty, incomplete or lacking self-actualization (there’s a nice psychological term for you to chew on).  And too many of these people seek to fill that void through reliance on, or even addiction to, other people.  They feel they need someone to love them in order to feel whole. 

Well, I think we all know what happens with these situations, don’t we?  Unless you have gained that self-actualization, you won’t really be able to function in any long-term relationship, not even with your Mt. Everest. 

But that is an earthly or human kind of completion, a sense of independence and self-reliance.  You might even say that a person who hasn’t achieved a mental and physical sense of self-actualization isn’t prepared to become spiritually complete.  It’s like climbing a tree: you have to successfully navigate the lower branches before you can climb up to the higher ones.

So what’s this got to do with mountains?

Anyway, I call this the Mount Everest Theory, because mountains seem to provide the most convenient illustration; they are big and very hard to miss.  Since I’m a guy, I’ll compare the mountains with women (men frequently do).  And since this is a non-gender-based (if not politically correct) theory, you ladies in the reading audience may certainly compare the men you’ve known with mountains; however, no derogatory comparisons to dormant volcanoes are allowed.

When I compare women to mountains, I find that most are foothills; they may look nice from a distance, but up close they’re nothing special.  Whoa!  Down girls!  Remember, we’re talking about our own individual perceptions where the potential for relationships is concerned. 

Now, each of us meets many, many, MANY foothills throughout our lives.  Occasionally, we come across one that’s a bit taller than most (or maybe we’ve just been a little too lonely lately), so we go out a time or two, and perhaps we establish a casual friendship, but that’s about the extent of it.  Then we go our separate ways, continuing to plod through our individual ranges of foothills looking for mountains a little closer to the clouds.  The foothills are just no big deal, but remember, just because you may be a foothill to most mountain climbers, to a select few, you will be a great deal taller.

Eventually we do find some taller peaks, maybe 8,000 to 10,000 feet or so.  Who are they?  Well, for me, these are women to whom I’m attracted enough to actually date and not just because I was looking through beer-colored glasses at the end of the evening in a crowded bar.  A relationship with a mountain this high might actually go on for a while, but it’s not likely to go very long-term, unless you are extremely lonely or make a very stupid mistake. 

How long?  Well, like everything else in this theory, it’s very individualized, but probably not longer than several months for those of you certified by your local love doctor as more or less emotionally healthy beings.  If you’ve been hanging on to something like this much longer than three months, get some reading material on codependency.

So for a few months we’ve been on a slightly higher emotional plateau.  We’ve had a companion for a time, probably gotten enough “nookie” to ward off serious withdrawal symptoms, but we’ve only found part of the puzzle here.  Eventually, we find ourselves unfulfilled (except that we might again form some decent friendships) and we leave that peak to wander again among the foothills in search of something better.

At some point in our Love Trek, we come across a really tall mountain, one that looms a good 14,000 feet, 15,000 feet or more into the sky.  This one is really special, better than all the rest.  It’s way up there, and we find almost all of what we’re looking for.  Is this the one?  Well, it might very well seem like it, but you’ve probably already figured how this is going to turn out.

These 14ers or 15ers are the people with whom we get into very long-term relationships.  We might even marry one.  In fact, I believe this is what most people end up with, and for the most part we may be very comfortable in this relationship.  It may last a lifetime, provide us with children, mothers- and fathers-in law, mortgages, parent-teacher meetings, and the whole extended-family thing.  And if we don’t know any better, we may go through our lives feeling like we pretty much found all there is.

But sometimes life takes us to that rare point where, having already climbed to the top of a 15er, the clouds are blown away to reveal a peak almost twice as high as the one we’ve already reached, something so incredibly substantial and awesomely lasting that even the 15er never looks very tall again.  We’ve discovered Mount Everest.

The Mount Everest relationship is all those things I described earlier and so much more.  In a way, finding a Mount Everest relationship is almost a curse – unless you’re able to keep it the rest of your life.  This is because after a Mount Everest, anything less is just that: less.  You’ll always know it, and it will always leave you feeling a little empty, not because the 14er or 15er doesn’t try, but because we’ve become so much more aware of how immense the possibilities of human relationships can be… with the right person.

How do you know?

How do you know when it’s a Mount Everest and who are these wondrous people who so rarely cross our paths?  I can’t tell you, because, again, it’s extremely individualized.  

Sometimes it’s immediate eye-lock at your first meeting, as though you recognize the person and have some familiarity, even though you know you’ve never met before (in this life).  Perhaps more often, it takes time to sweep away the clouds and discover the attributes that make a Mount Everest; we allow the time for those qualities to reveal themselves through a special friendship, before we take the plunge into the ultimate intimate relationship.

I think this becomes more the case as we get older, partly because we have endured more failures in our attempts to scale the highest peaks, so we approach each new mountain with the caution (fear) accumulated during previous, unsuccessful climbs.  But perhaps it’s also because as we get older we are better able to appreciate the value of good friendships and realize how important this is as the basis of an enduring romantic relationship.

But one of the problems is that the more we shrink away from those emotional risks, the greater the chance we’ll move right past our own Mount Everests, especially if we’re not connected with that creative spiritual energy flowing through the universe.  It’s like baseball:  You can’t get to second base if you’re afraid to take your foot off first. 

Yet, on the other hand, there is always the very real danger of deluding ourselves, letting ourselves believe we’ve found “the one” just because we want it too much, not because it’s real.  Sometimes we’re too focused on just one part of the package - looks, intellect, kindness - and not the total package.  For all too many people, it seems to be the outward physical appearance, the looks (or money) that becomes the focus.  We blind ourselves for a time, especially in those first few months of a new relationship. 

This may be why we so often let a real Mount Everest slip on by while we’re desperately trying to mold someone less into what we really want, but what he or she just doesn’t have the capacity to be for us.  It’s one of the hardest things to be sure about.  Perhaps it takes luck; I think it takes prayer or meditation.

But wait… there’s more. 

I like to believe that God, the universe, spiritual intention, or however you prefer to define it, actually tries to bring our Mount Everests to us at some point in our lives through combinations of “coincidences” for each of us… synchronicity, if you like.  But at the same time, that universal energy seems to like to challenge us, get us to step outside of the cozy boundaries we’ve learned through our cultural domestication. 

Thus, it may be that a Mount Everest might be someone a lot older or younger than you would expect or it may be someone of another culture, language, political viewpoint, nationality or even race.  A Mount Everest may include a challenging circumstance, such as a disability or illness, or the person may already have children or not be able to have children.  There can be an array of circumstances that may be present, but if the actual relationship between the two people is strong enough to overcome those challenges, it becomes even more of a growth experience for both people.

I said earlier that I believe a Mount Everest may only come to you just a precious few times in your entire life.  So, you’re probably wondering how I’ve come to this conclusion – what has happened in my own life to validate this point of view.  Well, I know that I’ve had a Mount Everest at least once and it’s possible that I have already seen my “handful” of possibilities.

The one “for sure” Mount Everest did not work out, which certainly can happen.  At the time, she wasn’t self-actualized, and I wasn’t in the right place emotionally and spiritually then either.  I wondered for a long time after whether it was real or if I was just looking at a 15er through a distorted glass – a glass I was reluctant to put down.   But as the years have passed I’ve come to understand that, for me, she actually was that extraordinarily high peak, which just goes to prove that even with Mount Everests, timing is critical. 

I thought a second time that I had found the potential with someone, but circumstances never allowed us to really find out.  We had an incredibly intuitive kind of closeness and rapport.  But my fears paralyzed me, and I kept my feet on first until the game was over.  Eventually, we both had to move on.  She’s married now and we’re friends, but whenever we run into each other, there is still a special look in her eyes that makes me wonder what we might have had.

At any rate, I do know that I don’t have an enduring Mount Everest in my life yet.   But I’m aware, and I know what I want, so I use that creative universal energy, trust my desires to it, and have faith that it will come at the right time.

The truth, probably, is that only a few people really do find it and make the choice to keep it in their lives; so often it relies on timing (and how many of us feel like our timing is always lousy?).  This could mean that I might not be intended to be so lucky this time around.  The same may be true for you. 

But that’s all right; there’s never a need for desperation in anything (except for finding a clean rest room on a long road trip or running out of beer during the seventh game of the Stanley Cup finals).  I like to think, though, that each of us is held back in anything more by ignorance than by any other factor and that awareness is the key to success (as in: I was aware before the seventh game that I needed more beer). 

But seriously, with awareness, hope and faith, your odds do become a lot better to find and keep one of those few perfect someones who are out there waiting for you to find them.  Besides, even if you don’t make it up Mount Everest this time around, who’s to say you won’t get more chances?