Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

Reflections On 25 Years - Together/Apart

I am writing this morning from seat 1F, 36,000 feet above the ground, as I wing my way to San Diego.

And I am reflective.

Today marks 25 years since Rudy and I said "I do" in a ridiculously picturesque floating wedding chapel above the waters of Nawiliwili on Kauai.

25 years since we embarked on an adventure, a life together, a family.

As I sit here, I am finally ready to admit I have done the math on those years.  Given the nature of the hospitality business, we have spent over half of those years apart.  Sometimes six months, sometimes a couple years, most recently almost 8 1/2 years.

We joke that is how the marriage has lasted - never being together.  But in truth, the marriage has lasted in spite of the separations.

It has lasted because we are two very strong people.  Stronger than when we started, forged stronger still by the demands to step up and keep moving forward together, while apart.

If anyone had told the young, headstrong girl in that chapel that her marriage would be one of distance, sometimes one of survival, definitely one of demands, and unquestionably one of loneliness?  Well, I think that girl would have tapped out.  No bride goes into their walk down the aisle envisioning not seeing their spouse on the regular.

But walk I did.

And through the years, with each step - sometimes surefooted, sometimes faltering - I have grown.  Grown beyond the fairy tales I once dreamt of marriage.  Grown from a girl into a strong, focused, independent woman, wife and mother.

While friends have often asked through the years, "How do you do it?" in reference to the separations, the isolation, the kids, the chaos - my answer has never changed:  You do what you have to do.

Curling up in a ball has never been an option.  Not for me, not for Rudy.  We both, without words, have simply understood the parts we play in this life together/apart.  

He has lived alone, focusing daily on providing for his family.  He has sacrificed seeing so much of his kids growing up in order that they have a good life, and that in these past 8+ years they have been unafraid to put down roots.  The hours in my job may have been longer each day, the juggling of three overachievers and their schedules sometimes impossible - but I have had something he didn't.  I have had them.

Anyone who ever wonders where the larger sacrifice lay, simply read those four words again.  I have had them - the plays, the soccer, the dates, the dances, the struggles, the triumphs.  I have had a front row VIP spot while Rudy has had to cheer and parent from the cheap seats thousands of miles away.

And he has.  He may not have been the boots on the ground, but these children know they are loved, supported, and that there is nothing he would not do for them.

I sit here thinking of days that melted into weeks, into months, into years.  Anniversaries spent alone, holidays shifted to accommodate a heartless hospitality schedule, and tears shed when I did not think I had another day left in me.   When life felt too big, I felt too alone.

Those days, those feelings passed, erupted again, and passed again.  Through them all Rudy has listened to me rail on the phone, endured emails aplenty in which I poured out what I needed, what I was missing.  It is hard, sometimes damned near impossible to maintain across the miles.  There are ups, downs, fights, and folly.  There are tears, there is laughter.  There are inside jokes, shorthand texts, and sometimes silence.

Yes, even being alone all the time, we still need - or have maybe developed the need - for solitude.  The permission to not answer the phone occasionally.  The understanding that sometimes one or both of us simply need to not talk anymore at the end of the day.

We have lived 25 years in quiet agreement that this works because we want it to work.  That is not to say it has been easy.  It is to say that it has been worth it.

We have three amazing children blazing their paths into this world.  We parent together/apart.  We celebrate each other's successes - together/apart.  We have goals - together/apart.  And after 25 years, we still get hot for each other - together/apart.

Which is why I am writing to you from seat 1F, 36,000 feet in the air.  

Today is our 25th anniversary, and dammit, I am going to celebrate it with the man I love.

Together.  Not apart. 

We Are Only On Loan

Our week started with the news that David Bowie - one of a small handful of performers worthy of the title Rock God - had succumbed to cancer.  He was only 69.  In today's longevity stakes, that is certainly not long enough.  But cancer cares not who bears it within their cells.  Cancer has no more respect for "rock gods" than it does "moms of four" or "newlyweds" or "CEOs" or "fabulous fathers" or "nameless, homeless."

It simply strikes - is battled with - and still too often steals a person away.

This morning we woke to the news that cancer had won yet another war - Alan Rickman, a man whose deep bass was rivaled only by the depth of his acting ability.

He, too, was only 69.

As with Bowie, tributes were immediate.  Tweets from former cast members who had the honor and pleasure of sharing a set remembered him fondly; Facebook newsfeeds were suddenly filled with quotes from characters he played, pictures of him in any number of costumes. 

But what has stood out to me more than anything is that Alan's passing, as with David Bowie's, has left people stung, open mouthed, and sad.

The sadness is palpable.

I turn 50 this year.  Bowie is a part of my childhood.  My teens, my 20s, and on.  He represented a human rainbow when I first saw him - growing up in the midwest, I simply did not know people, hell, amazing performers, like him really existed.  He was, to me, dangerous, yet somehow safe.  A look that was unconventional, but a message that spoke directly, frankly.

And he managed to do what few performers can - he changed with the times.  He did, indeed, turn and face the strange ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.  His music evolved, his look evolved, and with each evolution he revealed more and more the depths of the talent pool within.  It is because of these successful evolutions that so many of all ages know him, his music, his looks, his talent.  It is why so many were struck by his passing.

And so it goes with Alan.  Whether you new him best as Snape - and we have raised an entire generation on the adventures of Harry Potter; relished him as a villain in Die Hard; swooned over him in period garb; laughed at his alien interpretation; loved him in spite of his wandering in Love, Actually; or hated him as a heinous figure who got the shave of his life in Sweeney Todd - Alan Rickman was a force.  Subtlety was wielded as weapon, and his delivery often left us shaking. 

But, as one of my friends put it this morning, he was also our "movie boyfriend," capable of making us stare off in the distance, imagining... well, a lot of things.

We sit this week, struck at the fragility of life, the unfairness of lives cut short, the talent taken too soon.  And the reminder that death simply does not care.  It comes for us all eventually, taking us back to that from whence we came.  We are the world around us, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, organic material brought to life for an indeterminate amount of time.

We are, quite simply, on loan from the universe.

As we mourn the passing of these men we all held as touchstones in our lives, in our years - let their contributions be the inspiration to try harder, to, as Whitman wrote, contribute our own verse.  Love deeply with the breaths you are given.  Give as much as you can.  Touch lives.  Share stories.  99.9% of us will never attain fame on their level, but we can be a touchstone to someone else.  No, we are not all Yo-Yo Ma making an instrument perform audible gymnastics.  We are not all Lin-Manual Miranda teaching history in a way that is so damned infectious.  We are not Adele or the Pope or Elvis or Spielberg or Zuckerberg or Gates or Alan or David.  But we can live a life that would give others pause should we not see tomorrow.  With each breath, endeavor to not throw away your shot (I hate you Lin, in a totally-love-every-fiber-of-your-brilliance-kind-of-way).

Because we are not now, nor ever, guaranteed a tomorrow.  Cancer, age, accident - death is the one thing that unifies us all.  None of us will escape it.  We will all return to those ashes, blow away like that dust.

But then, that, too, is just one of those ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.

RIP David & Alan.  Thank you for all the verses you contributed that added to the stories of our lives.

This Election Year Be A Political Vegetarian - Redux

It's started.  The constrant drone, the poo flinging, the mudslinging, the name calling - the political run for the roses, as it were - the contest to see just who will take on the task of continuing to pull this country out of the ditch in which our tires are still spinning.

Frankly, I don't see why anyone would want the job.  It's huge, it's scary, it's impossible. 

But just as on the left, the hunt for the GOP nominee is also on. 

I have said in the past, and I will restate now as we enter the ass numbing, nerve grating fray of 2016, I do not care which side of the aisle you call home.  I only care that YOU care enough to be well versed in the issues, that you give a shit enough to actually invest some time each day in researching the possible candidates, staying abreast of the news, and for the love of whatever you call holy - understand that FACTS may sometimes NOT support your position.  (And don't give me the "Obama hasn't done anything" BS because I will give you the laundry list of what he has done that Rush has kept from your airwaves.  Has he done EVERYTHING?  Of course not.  But 1.  We don't live in a dictatorship  2. We don't live in a dictatorship. and 3. Obama is not staying in office despite what RedState and Stormfront would have you believe.)

My advice, my plea to people is to be a political vegetarian in 2016.  Eschew the red meat every hopeful throws out at you.

That red meat is meant to do one thing - have you slobber over a single issue, be it abortion, gay people being baaaaad, or a word like socialism - a word still misused by those who learned it during the media reign of Sarah Palin and the Mighty Joe The Not Plumber.

Red meat is dangerous.  It doesn't educate, it separates.  It doesn't have true substance - think salisbury over filet mignon.  It has one purpose, to raise your blood pressure, make you angry, get your intestines in an uproar.  Every Trump rally is basically a meat market.

Right now, the majority of the GOP candidates are running around trying to out-God one another.  Trying to play to the gay bashers, trans tormentors, Islamophobes - while attempting to come off as "openminded."   Droning on and on about smaller government - which from where I sit seems to be so they can fit it into my uterus (or in Santorum's obsessed mind, into my rectum).

They cast aspersions against other countries where theocracy rules, yet cannot see they are campaigning to create the same thing here.

Look, I don't care what your religious flavor is.  I really don't.  Just keep it away from the governance of this country.  YOUR beliefs, Cruz's beliefs, Huckabee's beliefs, Carson's beliefs - they have no place in the Oval Office.  This country is a melting pot - and like it or not - YOURS is not the only religion being practiced.

Your founding fathers were largely deists - believing in something bigger, but not giving it a name.  They understood the danger of allowing government to dictate religion AND of allowing religion to dictate government.

Yet, it is a huge piece of red meat again this political season.  GOPer wannabes understand this and use it at every turn.  One need only look at Cruz constantly fellating the conservative religious base in Iowa and his subsequent bump in their poles polls.

Don't take the bait because that's all it is.  Just like the gay marriage baiting they are all continuing to do to pander to the religious right.  Gay people are not a threat to national security, they are not a threat to your straight marriage, and for the love of God, a child is not better off with a parent in jail than with two gay parents.  (That lovely, oft beaten GOPer drum.)  Just like the fomenting of hatred, fear, and bigotry being openly done at every Trump stump.  All Muslims don't wear explosive vests.  All Mexicans aren't rapists who are stealing your jobs.  They are PEOPLE.  That's it, that's all.

This country is still crawling out of the financial shitter, people are still hurting, still out of work, struggling daily to simply put a little food on the table.  Our military is continuing to come home - they need support, jobs, too. 

We need politicians in all offices finally acting like adults - adults who understand they are there to assist in making the lives of EVERY citizen better - not just the ones who go to their church, bash the same folks they bash, hate the same people they hate.

This year swear off the red meat.  In fact, throw it back in the face of the candidates.  (Demand behavior from all of them that is better than a middle schooler bullying on Facebook - looking at YOU, Donald - adults don't get into daily pissing contests on Twitter).  Because until they focus on what actually matters (and it's NOT our sex lives, marriage partners, or choice of church) - our national arteries will remain clogged and one heart attack away from flatlining.

It's started.  The constrant drone, the poo flinging, the mudslinging, the name calling - the political run for the roses, as it were - the contest to see just who will take on the task of continuing to pull this country out of the ditch in which our tires are still spinning.

Frankly, I don't see why anyone would want the job.  It's huge, it's scary, it's impossible. 

But just as on the left, the hunt for the GOP nominee is also on. 

I have said in the past, and I will restate now as we enter the ass numbing, nerve grating fray of 2016, I do not care which side of the aisle you call home.  I only care that YOU care enough to be well versed in the issues, that you give a shit enough to actually invest some time each day in researching the possible candidates, staying abreast of the news, and for the love of whatever you call holy - understand that FACTS may sometimes NOT support your position.  (And don't give me the "Obama hasn't done anything" BS because I will give you the laundry list of what he has done that Rush has kept from your airwaves.  Has he done EVERYTHING?  Of course not.  But 1.  We don't live in a dictatorship  2. We don't live in a dictatorship. and 3. Obama is not staying in office despite what RedState and Stormfront would have you believe.)

My advice, my plea to people is to be a political vegetarian in 2016.  Eschew the red meat every hopeful throws out at you.

That red meat is meant to do one thing - have you slobber over a single issue, be it abortion, gay people being baaaaad, or a word like socialism - a word still misused by those who learned it during the media reign of Sarah Palin and the Mighty Joe The Not Plumber.

Red meat is dangerous.  It doesn't educate, it separates.  It doesn't have true substance - think salisbury over filet mignon.  It has one purpose, to raise your blood pressure, make you angry, get your intestines in an uproar.  Every Trump rally is basically a meat market.

Right now, the majority of the GOP candidates are running around trying to out-God one another.  Trying to play to the gay bashers, trans tormentors, Islamophobes - while attempting to come off as "openminded."   Droning on and on about smaller government - which from where I sit seems to be so they can fit it into my uterus (or in Santorum's obsessed mind, into my rectum).

They cast aspersions against other countries where theocracy rules, yet cannot see they are campaigning to create the same thing here.

Look, I don't care what your religious flavor is.  I really don't.  Just keep it away from the governance of this country.  YOUR beliefs, Cruz's beliefs, Huckabee's beliefs, Carson's beliefs - they have no place in the Oval Office.  This country is a melting pot - and like it or not - YOURS is not the only religion being practiced.

Your founding fathers were largely deists - believing in something bigger, but not giving it a name.  They understood the danger of allowing government to dictate religion AND of allowing religion to dictate government.

Yet, it is a huge piece of red meat again this political season.  GOPer wannabes understand this and use it at every turn.  One need only look at Cruz constantly fellating the conservative religious base in Iowa and his subsequent bump in their poles polls.

Don't take the bait because that's all it is.  Just like the gay marriage baiting they are all continuing to do to pander to the religious right.  Gay people are not a threat to national security, they are not a threat to your straight marriage, and for the love of God, a child is not better off with a parent in jail than with two gay parents.  (That lovely, oft beaten GOPer drum.)  Just like the fomenting of hatred, fear, and bigotry being openly done at every Trump stump.  All Muslims don't wear explosive vests.  All Mexicans aren't rapists who are stealing your jobs.  They are PEOPLE.  That's it, that's all.

This country is still crawling out of the financial shitter, people are still hurting, still out of work, struggling daily to simply put a little food on the table.  Our military is continuing to come home - they need support, jobs, too. 

We need politicians in all offices finally acting like adults - adults who understand they are there to assist in making the lives of EVERY citizen better - not just the ones who go to their church, bash the same folks they bash, hate the same people they hate.

This year swear off the red meat.  In fact, throw it back in the face of the candidates.  (Demand behavior from all of them that is better than a middle schooler bullying on Facebook - looking at YOU, Donald - adults don't get into daily pissing contests on Twitter).  Because until they focus on what actually matters (and it's NOT our sex lives, marriage partners, or choice of church) - our national arteries will remain clogged and one heart attack away from flatlining.

A Challenge For 2016 - Because You Can

I must admit that I did not stay up to ring in the new year.  One of those I'm-a-grown-up things I enjoy doing - like eating ice cream for breakfast, or keeping my pajamas on all day - I go to bed when I feel like it - because I can - secure in the knowledge that the next year will be there waiting when I wake up.

Today is cold, drizzly, and bleak here in Austin, but I woke feeling hopeful, not hungover, happy, not harried.

Our world today is just as complicated, divided, war torn, and dangerous as it was yesterday, but it is also still just as wonderful, full of possibilities, interesting people, amazing places, and the potential for change.

And it is in the latter part of that sentence where I will focus my attention in 2016.

As an advocate for change.  Changes in policies, changes in attitudes, changes in beliefs that are born from ignorance, stagnated thinking, outdated and misguided mindsets.  Because I can.

I have written before that I still believe all people to be complex, that despite what singular stance may seem to define them, like an onion, they have many, many layers.  In those layers are overlaps - places where minds do meet, where feelings find a match.  And underneath all the layers, at the very core - we are much more the same than we are different.  (Something to remind ourselves of over and over as the 2016 election cycle truly heats up.)

We all want to be happy, feel secure, hold our families, find love and companionship, prosper, and be allowed to pursue our bliss without being told that our bliss is wrong, dirty, or unworthy.

In 2016 I challenge everyone to question any beliefs, tenets, doctrines, stances, and teachings that you hold to so rigidly in your lives.  Because you can.  Question each one of them and be honest in your answers.  Do they keep your life, your thoughts, your decisions small?  Or do they allow you to continually grow?  Do they make you believe you are somehow better or more worthy than someone who is different in thought, appearance, background?  Or do they allow you to welcome variety into your life?  Do they allow you to embrace differences and learn about them, or force you to revile differences without thought or consideration?

In 2016, I challenge everyone to be wrong.  About at least one thing.  And to be brave enough to admit it, face it, and change it.  Because you can.

Rigidity is based in fear.  And fear is based in security.  Bravery is found in turning your back on that fear, that false security, and opening your life, your heart, your mind, your world to replacing it with new information, personal experience, and unique thought.

A new year is here, bringing with it 365 sunrises and sunsets; myriad opportunities; changes we know are coming and twists and turns we cannot even anticipate.  But that's what the horizon is for - that's where all things are still possible.  So run towards it.  Because you can.

As you wake up and greet this new day, this new year, I wish you will face your own horizon with hope, determination, and the desire to grow in every way possible.  Because you can.

Happy New Year to you all.  Let's make it a great one.  Now excuse me - these pjs are really comfy and I am craving ice cream for breakfast.

Because I can.