Yes. I'm fine, now, thanks. But, have been making some deliberate changes in vector. Began this spring with a horrendous ear infection. Massively painful. Mushrooms growing in my head sort of thing, pushing things around. First one ear... then the other. Lost most of my hearing for about a month. Still slowly regaining function in my left ear. So, while still struggling with that... obvious need for change... I began putting all... most all... my stuff in storage. Intended that in order to enable change while also regaining some greater mobility. You own your stuff... but, it also can come to own you... and, I'm rebelling against that.
A first plan was to spend some time with my daughter and her family, getting to know my daughter and her husband better, and getting to know my granddaughter. As a younger man, when I was in the portion of life you now occupy, I was absent from home a fair amount. I grew up in an itinerant family, and I do have a tendency to get feeling a bit antsy when I've been in one place more than a year or two. But, work also tends to choose for you where you will visit... and that choice of work conditions the nature of your experiences when you travel. I'm looking for travel to allow a different sort of experience now... perhaps the opposite of my prior experience ?
My daughter's personality, from a very young age, almost the opposite of my own in many ways, did not well position her to accept the demands of, or allow her to thrive in that lifestyle I grew up in. Our having made the deliberate choice that we wanted her to be able to grow up having "roots" I never had... it also meant I would be spending a lot of time away from home. Traveling the world for work was natural for me, but spending 50 to 85% of my time away introduced some difficulties in our relationship. Addressing those concerns properly had to wait while my wife was ill and required my full time attention. Now... its time for me to dig out from under the history and get back to... doing something else. So, first, turned down an offer to return to doing the work I was doing "before".
And, from there... I have no shortage of plans or ideas... rather than a massive backlog in a "to do" list generated over the last years. The kids are first on that list now. But, also, not getting any younger, I've been working on how to triangulate an optimal course from here to getting done what I think needs doing.
A first wrinkle... in the changes resulting from making that choice to get mobile: I did just fine avoiding Covid, at least, while managing living on my own in isolation. But spending time with the kids... meant going for about three weeks before the girl brought Covid home from work to roost. She was first in... then the granddaughter... then me... then her guy... making us a pretty sorry lot for quite a while. But, me being 65... and being pretty beat up from moving everything by myself while still recovering from the ear issue... and only just recovering from the fatigue of the move itself when I got it... it whacked me pretty good. Never put me in any real danger or anything... just dragged on, and on, and on... sapping energy I didn't have to spare.
So, been there, done that, now... but, also, rediscovering that while I'm getting older, 2 year olds are both saprophytic and highly energetic petri dishes... I'm just today recovered from a cold she brought home from our recent visit to the park, where she got the lately rare opportunity to actively share cultures with other peoples petri dishes.
But, in spite of it all... making good progress in implementing the first tranche of changes needed here. Both kids... should say all three... are doing well enough at work. Daughter just got promoted from GM/sommelier in a restaurant she deems good enough to work for... to director of the wine program for all of the restaurants in the group. Hubby is the head chef at one of the top places in town. His son returned from an internship at Noma last year, and has been making waves working for others.
I've encouraged and helped catalyze all that pre-existing ambition, fostered required focus and the necessary organization, made a few introductions... and by the end of this month they'll (knock on wood) have closed on the purchase of their first restaurant... which is intended to be only the first in the gastronomic "empire" being planned as the family legacy they want.
A key driver in my choice for this year... not all that happy with where in the city my daughter and granddaughter are living in relation to railroad tracks, the homeless population and sporadic gunfire... the plan now unfolding should enable them in relocating to a more rural habitat within the year... where she might play outside in the yard without fear of... all those bad things that can happen to kids in overly urban places. And, then, we'll see... what other change appears that needs some effort from me in sponsoring needed catalysis... of the same sort... in which I'm not in any part directing or "doing it for them"... rather than guiding them in taking on the challenges of doing it themselves.
But, beyond help in the planning and the logistical elements... getting to know the girl again is proving amply rewarding... while spending time with the granddaughter is... also rewarding... but surprisingly challenging. Who knew that 2 year olds these days could be that crafty ? She's often more than a match for her parents in her scheming for how to avoid bedtime. Grand-dad, having done this before with a similarly precocious one, is proving not quite as easy to manipulate, while providing a role model in how to succeed in addressing a strong willed child without squashing them. Perhaps in part also an impact of Covid... kids who've spent the last two years living without the normal outside social challenges... will tend to more directly reflect the nature of the engagements they have with adults inside the home. Her verbal language skills are off the charts for a 2 year old. She converses like an adult, with a vocabulary better than some adults I've met. She's ready to begin reading and of her own volition has begun work on word recognition. She asks me to teach her about numbers... likes learning as much she likes watching TV. And, of course, she's a source of great joy in her family.
So, the last six months have been... filled with change. I've done nothing but (at least try to) deliberately ignore the markets in that time. I've been reading actively, again... a mix of history, literature and popular novels... and outlining a few things I need to write about... as well as doing business planning for projects I'd like to put "next" on the development queue... while also trying hard, but often failing, in seeking to avoid other engagement in "fixing" things I find that need fixing.
But, I'd planned to be on the road a lot more this year than I have been. My usual geological exploration projects were limited to the virtual this year. I never made it out into the wilderness at all this year...... a need I used to be able to meet with daily hikes starting within minutes of home. This year that has me pounding pavement, instead... exposing me to wild life of a very different sort in the urban environment.
Also have enforced something of a moratorium in time spent on computers, so far, this year... the exception focused on enabling that bit required to make the kids capable of managing their work.
But, as you can see... I'm back now... Or, at least, from here will not be feeling the need to enforce on myself the same sort of rigor in focus as I have. I can't imagine beginning to write without using a computer... ? |
