Somewhere along the way

About six months ago now I went to a Dawes concert at Stage AE in Pittsburgh. It was a really great show, one of the best I saw last year. This post isn't really, for the most part, about that show. But ever since that show I've had parts of this post intermittently jumping around in my head. And in bits and pieces I've been making progress on writing it out. That it's been half a year since the show and I still haven't finished the post (when I first started writing it I think it began "about two months ago," which has been revised several times) is partly a reflection of how busy my life has been and how quickly the time has flown by. But it's also because this is kind of an awkward thing to write about and a part of me questions whether I really want to share this. At the same time, there's a sense of something being unfinished and I know it's going to keep on occupying space in my mind if I don't get this out into words.

Last summer Karyn stumbled upon a book called Love is a Mix Tape, an autobiographical work by a music journalist named Rob Sheffield. She was startled when she read the description, and how much it sounded like a story she knew well: the story of Cara and me.

He was tall. She was short. He was shy. She was a social butterfly. She was the only one who laughed at his jokes when they were so bad, and they were always bad. They had nothing in common [okay, that part doesn't fit, because Cara and I had a lot in common] except that they both loved music. Music brought them together and kept them together. And it was music that would help Rob through a sudden, unfathomable loss.

I read the book and liked it a lot. I liked the way Sheffield tied music to the memories associated with that music, something I (obviously) do a lot of myself. It was interesting to me how there were aspects of Sheffield's widow experience that were very familiar and other aspects that were very different from my own experience. One part that was very different was that for him, after being widowed, there were songs he felt he could never listen to again. It was never that way for me. There are countless songs and albums that are indelibly linked in my mind to Cara. I never stopped wanting to listen to those songs. Some I even had a renewed desire to hear.

On the other hand...

Going to the Dawes concert was a really big deal to me. Because I had been to one previous Dawes concert, and it was my first date with EB. I actually hadn't known much about the band before that date. Knowing I really liked going to concerts, EB had suggested going to one at Nashville's famous Ryman Auditorium, and I thought Dawes sounded interesting. That show was also really good. I didn't know at the time how much I would come to love Dawes. I listened to a whole lot of their music over the next few months. Then EB broke up with me. And I completely stopped listening to Dawes for almost half a year.

That was a very difficult time in my life. I think it was hard for most people to really grasp how difficult it was. Your wife dies? Of course that's going to be devastating and take a long while to move past. But a breakup? That happens to everyone, right? I remember on more than one occasion in the early part of last year when friends asked how I was doing and seemed surprised when I said that I had been having a pretty rough time for the last few months.

I wrote in the aftermath of the breakup about why it was so incredibly painful. I did so while also trying to keep truly detailed descriptions of the events to a minimum, partly out of a desire to protect EB. At this point, because neither of us has been in any way a part of each other's lives for quite some time, I no longer feel a need to try to protect EB. That doesn't mean I want to drag her name through the mud or go out of my way to make her look bad. I certainly don't think she's a bad person. But I also want to continue to regain control of my life and part of that means being able to tell the story of my life if I so desire. And I think it's worth sharing, because I like sharing my writing, and I do think it's a pretty compelling story, and there might even be lessons others could take from it. Lessons that could be helpful if they ever see someone they know in a similar situation.

What happened that caused me so much pain really was a perfect storm of awful. It's said that the first time someone breaks up with you is always especially hard. Check. It's also said, among those of us who have been widowed, that the first time after you're widowed that you get into a serious relationship but then it ends is especially hard. Check. And then there was the worst part of all, which was that this wasn't just the end of a relationship for me, it was my family being taken away.

Note: because I was asked to censor EB's daughter's name from my blog, I'm going to refer to EB's daughter as EBD.

As Karyn (who is probably the only other person who really knows what this has been like for me) said to me many months ago: "You were supposed to have a family with Cara. And that didn't happen. And then you thought you had found that family with EB and EBD."

And then, very suddenly and inexplicably, I hadn't.

I didn't go into that relationship looking to become a father to someone else's kid. I actually thought before meeting EB that I probably wouldn't want to date someone with a kid because the presence of a kid might get in the way of my building a relationship with the kid's mother. The first time I visited Nashville, EBD was staying elsewhere for the weekend and I only briefly met her. The first time EB visited Cleveland, EBD did not come with her. The second time I visited Nashville, EB declared that she wanted the three of us to start doing things together, kind of like beginning a test run of us being a family.

Perhaps, in retrospect, that should have been a red flag that she decided to do that so early.

I don't want to portray myself as an entirely innocent victim. EB and I are both adults. We're both responsible for our own actions. I could have proceeded with more caution than I did. At the same time, I don't think it's unfair to say that she bears more responsibility for what happened, because she was the one who very quickly and rashly put her own child into that situation.

I remember something EB told me when we were just beginning to get to know each other, that she felt like we widows were like another species. I thought that was a weird thing to say, although I didn't tell her. Sure, widowhood fundamentally changes you, but so do a lot of other experiences. I don't think that widows are so different from everyone else that we're like a whole separate species from "normal" people.

At some point later on, EB told me that she felt becoming a parent changes a person just as much as becoming a widow, just in different ways.

So she felt that becoming a widow changes a person so much that that person is like a member of a different species, and that becoming a parent changes a person just as much as becoming a widow.

She was already both a parent and a widow. I was the latter, but not the former. I knew from personal experience how becoming a widow changes a person. I had no idea what becoming a parent was like. Cara and I had tried, unsuccessfully, to have children, but back then the idea of becoming a parent was only a hypothetical to me. The bond between a parent and a child, from the parent's side, was something I had never felt in the slightest.

EBD and I quickly bonded in a remarkable way. The first weekend that the three of us spent together, one of our activities was going on a hike at a state park. During the hike, EBD decided to take off running on the trail ahead of EB and me. I decided to join her, and the two of us ran giddily together through the woods. "It was about the most amazing feeling in the world," I wrote a few days later.

EB clearly approved of and encouraged the bond between EBD and me. She did this in a number of ways, both implicit and explicit. The one that still stands out to me most of all happened on Father's Day, when EB and EBD were in Cleveland with my whole family (that year's Breathe Deep Cleveland charity event that Cara had helped found took place the day before Father's Day). The two of us were in the kitchen of my apartment while everyone else was in another room and she looked at me and said, "Happy becoming a father day."

Perhaps to her that was just an offhand comment that popped into her mind in that moment. I'll never really know. To me it was an incredibly significant statement. From that moment on, being a father to EBD was one of the most important things in my life. Perhaps even eventually the most important.

And yes, I never took on the full day-to-day responsibilities of fatherhood. It was an odd thing, I remember commenting to EB once, going back and forth between being for all intents and purposes a father to EBD (when I was in Nashville or when they were here in Cleveland) for just a few days at a time and my life by myself in Cleveland the rest of the time. I didn't feel like EB and I had a "part-time" relationship because we talked every day, but I did feel kind of like a "part-time father." Yet I embraced that father role wholeheartedly. And although in retrospect there were a few times when EB was trying to hint at the fact that she had not-insignificant doubts about our future together, she never stopped treating the three of us as a family, so I never felt any reason to doubt that the three of us would continue to be a family. And so naturally, after having in my heart and mind made that fundamental transformation into being a parent, it was utterly devastating when the magical experience of me-as-father abruptly ended.

I have no idea how EBD handled the events, but I can't imagine it was easy on her. It was clear that she was drawn to me much as I was drawn to her. I remember when, after EB returned home from her first weekend in Cleveland, EB told her daughter that the two of us had decided to become boyfriend and girlfriend, and EBD's initial reaction was to become very upset and say we shouldn't do that. EB was eventually able to draw out the reason for this reaction, and it was that EBD remembered her mommy's previous boyfriend, and the fact that they had broken up, and she therefore believed that a breakup was an inevitable consequence of two people becoming boyfriend and girlfriend. EBD and I hardly knew each other at that point in time but she already liked me a lot (the feeling, obviously, was mutual).

One of the sweetest things was how much she loved running with me. "Come on, Jeffy," she'd exclaim, looking up at me while on a walk, and the two of us would take off together. I remember well how, on the way home from a park in my hometown of Grandview Heights, a seemingly tired EBD was being pushed in a stroller, until my mom mentioned to her that the long hill we were walking up was one I had often run up when I was younger, and EBD immediately hopped out of the stroller to race up the hill with me.

I also know that the view of the three of us as a family that EB instilled in me was picked up on and embraced by her daughter as well. Later in that same weekend that we visited my family, EB, EBD, and I were at the swimming pool with my mom. At one point as we played in the pool, EB, EBD, and I all went underwater together, and upon surfacing EBD declared, "We're the best family!"

I'm sure that eventually EBD will forget most, if not all, of what happened, but I know it must have been hard for her, a little girl whose life was already so affected by loss. And I do wonder if there will be any lasting effects.

I also know it was hard on my parents.

I myself was profoundly affected by the whole experience. In the immediate aftermath I became deeply depressed, and I continued to experience bouts of depression for many months afterward. The feeling of being depressed was not novel to me, but the anxiety that I came to feel about being in a relationship, that was something I had never before experienced to any notable extent. And the anxiety has stuck around much longer than the depression. I've gotten help, and my mental health now is dramatically better than it was a year ago, but those feelings of anxiety haven't entirely stopped. One thing (among many) that has helped, trivial as it might seem, is just being able to recognize what I'm feeling. When I first started spending serious time with Karyn, that uncomfortable, tense but not really a headache feeling that would pop up in the sides and back of my head was a new and strange thing that I didn't understand.

The anxiety isn't the only long-term effect on me of my relationship with EB and its dissolution. I think it's almost undoubtedly harder now for me to feel really deeply connected and attached to another person. But then maybe those feelings came too easily before. Another effect, and hopefully a more positive one in the long run, is that, as Karyn put it, usually it's women our age who have "baby fever," but I seem to have it. And I won't deny that she's right.

Every time that I see a young girl in the approximate age range of EBD, it's impossible for me not to think of her. Perhaps right now my life would be at least a little happier if that whole painful experience could be erased from my mind, but obviously it can't be. Those memories will never entirely disappear. And so I choose to cherish the memories and look back on them as fondly as I can. When I think of special moments shared between me and the girl who was briefly my daughter, I smile. It's a wistful smile, and it's not without pain, but then I already had a great deal of experience with those sorts of memories. Memories I shared with someone I loved very much, and who loved me very much, and who was taken away from me with neither of us having any say in the matter. I'm absolutely not saying that EBD was as significant in my life as Cara was, or that I miss her as much as I miss Cara, but at the same time, that girl will always be an important person in the history of my life. And so just as I'm eternally grateful for all the wonderful time I got to spend with Cara, I've also developed a feeling of gratitude for the time I got to spend with EBD.

In the aftermath of Cara's death, it was very important to me and helpful to my healing process to share my memories of Cara with other people whenever the opportunity arose. And it still is important for me to share memories of Cara, although it's no longer something I feel the need to do all the time. This experience has been different because whereas people are generally very receptive to hearing stories about my late wife, I have a sense that it would be looked at as strange for me to want to share stories about my ex-girlfriend's daughter. Like I would be doing something wrong. Obviously the situations are very different. But those memories are not going to disappear from my mind and sometimes I do feel a desire to share some of them. They really are amazing memories.

A little more than two weeks before EB broke up with me, during my second-to-last visit to Nashville, I took EBD on a shopping trip on what was the first, and as it turned out the only, outing the two of us took together without EB. We went to Target to shop for birthday presents for EB. (As it happened, we celebrated both Cara's and EB's birthdays that weekend, as they fall just five days apart.) It was a really big deal for me to go on that shopping trip. Looking back, I wonder if having her four-year-old daughter go on an outing with a man who wasn't the girl's late father caused EB to secretly experience severe anxiety of the sort I was experiencing at times last year. From my perspective, the trip went well. I knew that becoming a parent was a big responsibility and that I had not yet nearly taken on the full measure of that responsibility and it was important to me to continue to take concrete steps in that direction. My favorite moment of the shopping trip, during which the two of us collaborated to select several presents, was when we were standing in front of a display of body washes and EBD pointed to one labeled "age-defying" on the bottle and suggested we buy it. I immediately started laughing,  so she asked what was funny. Getting a four-year-old to grasp why it was funny that she had suggested an "age-defying" product as a present for her mom's 37th birthday would likely be rather difficult, but I told her that her mom would understand.

Two weeks later my parents and my brother joined me for another visit to Nashville. The last thing we all did together was visit the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center. As we walked back to our separate cars after eating dinner (I was catching a ride to the airport with my family), EBD, holding my hand, started skipping, and the two of us skipped hand-in-hand ahead of the rest of the group. At the time the plan was that on the very next weekend I would be meeting up with EB and EBD in North Carolina to attend a wedding with EB. I told EBD that I would be seeing her again in just five days. EB, hugging my mom, said, "We'll see you in December" (we'd discussed making plans for the holidays). The following evening, in a video chat with me, EB ended the relationship.

So yeah, that sure was a thing that happened.

I won't rehash the details of how incredibly painful it was, but now that a good amount of time has passed, I am able to safely conclude this: the breakup, although not the worst thing that ever happened to me, was undoubtedly the most emotionally damaging thing that ever happened to me.

I want to mention here what I think is the main lesson of this experience that I want to impart to others: in a dating situation in which one of the adults has a child, the adults and the child shouldn't start "being a family" together until the adults are sure they want to be together for a long time. And you can't really be sure after just one month of dating, even if it feels like you are.

Returning now to the topic that originally prompted this post... over the course of the relationship, the music of Dawes had become very meaningful to me. They had become, it's fair to say, one of my favorite bands. The morning after the breakup, when I began backing out of my driveway to go to work and their song "All Your Favorite Bands" came on the radio, is a moment that will stick in my mind forever. A song, about life after a breakup, by the band I had seen on my first date with my now ex-girlfriend, coming on the radio first thing in the morning the day after that ex-girlfriend broke up with me? Of all the strange coincidences that I've noticed and catalogued in my life, that just might be the strangest of all. It was certainly the most cinematic moment of my life. One of those moments that make you think this can't be real, it's all some crazy story that someone is writing and I'm just one of the characters. I recall laughing hysterically through tears at the absurdity.

I didn't turn off the radio or change the station. I let the whole song play. It was just too fitting. After that, though, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I stopped listening to Dawes. I just had no desire at all to hear their music. That was the case for almost half a year, and that was one of the most difficult half years of my life, only surpassed by times when I was experiencing truly horrendous physical pain. But eventually, a thought began to form in my mind. A thought that I had really liked the music of Dawes not just because of its connection to my relationship with EB, but because it was just plain good music, and by depriving myself of enjoying music that I really liked, I was letting EB have power over my life that I didn't need to let her have. The first time I pulled up one of their albums on my iPod, in late March, it was with a tentative feeling that I pushed the play button. But as the familiar music filled my ears I found that yes, I did still enjoy listening to it. Listening to it was very different than listening to it had been before. There was a pain associated with it that hadn't previously existed. But I still enjoyed it. And that made me feel happy. It was a small but significant personal victory. And it was around then that I really started to make progress on feeling better about my life, although there were still some further bumps in the road.

As the year progressed, the music of Dawes once more became very important to me. In fact (I know this from my last.fm charts), despite that lengthy period in which I did not listen to them at all, they ended up being not only my most listened to band of 2017, but also my most listened to band of 2018. It struck me as I began listening to them more that they have a number of good breakup songs, so that probably helped.

When I saw the band's fall tour dates, I quickly decided that it was very important for me to go to one of the shows, and with the closest one being in Pittsburgh, I had no hesitation about making the two-hour drive. Just as listening to Dawes' music again and enjoying it had been a small personal victory, I knew that going to another Dawes concert and enjoying it would be another personal victory. Perhaps a more significant one, because to me there is just something about a really good concert - so many of my most favorite memories are from really good concerts - and I knew from that evening in Nashville that Dawes would put on a really good concert. By the time the date of the show, September 12, rolled around, I was very excited to go. And I was not let down in the slightest.

Of course, there were a number of times during the two plus hour performance that my thoughts turned to my previous relationship and its dissolution. So many of the lyrics seemed fitting as a soundtrack to those events.

From "Somewhere Along the Way":

But somewhere along the way
The dots didn’t all connect
The promise became regrets

From "Things Happen":

Let’s make a list of all the things the world has put you through
Let’s raise a glass to all the people you’re not speaking to
I don’t know what else you wanted me to say to you
Things happen
That’s all they ever do

From "Roll With the Punches":

You just roll with the punches
Until you can't feel a thing
You just roll with the punches
Aww yeah

("Roll with the punches - that's what we do," I recall EB saying to me, referring to our experiences with loss. Yep.)

"Somewhere Along the Way" closes on a more hopeful note:

But somewhere along the way
I started to smile again
I don’t remember when
Somewhere along the way
Things will turn out just fine
I know it’s true this time

In the summer of 2017, when I was dating EB, these lyrics already had a lot of meaning to me. It's now become a recurring theme in my life - horrible, painful things happen (that's all, it sometimes seems, they ever do), and then I claw my way back, and somewhere along the way I start to smile again. I'd like to think that things in my life will turn out just fine. I don't know it's true. But I'd like to think it's true.

My starting to listen to Dawes last spring happened to come around the time when I once more started to genuinely smile again. And my going to the concert last fall happened to come around the time when that smile finally began to more regularly and consistently come to my face. Since then, things in my life have continued to be pretty good. Being able to say that for more than a half year running is something to be grateful for.

Of course, Dawes also played "All Your Favorite Bands" at the concert. And as I sang along with the rest of the crowd, I of course thought back to that morning in my car. Hearing that song at that moment, as surreal and painful as it was, is now something I'm grateful for too. How many people have the ability to truthfully tell a story like that? When life throws something that crazy at you, sometimes you just have to laugh and appreciate the craziness.

Among the lyrics to the song are these lines:

When I think of you, you've still got on that hat that says "Let’s Party"
I hope that thing is never thrown away

Naturally the Dawes merch table sells a hat that says "Let's Party" on it, so after the show ended, on a giddy concert high, and in the spirit of embracing and owning the events of my past and taking as much control as I can over my present and future, I bought the hat.

Maybe it was a weird thing to do. Probably most people wouldn't buy a piece of merchandise so strikingly symbolic of a past relationship that ended in a painful breakup. For me, just like starting to listen to Dawes again and just like going to the concert, buying and wearing that hat was a small declaration of victory, of being able to move on and have a happy life after another traumatic experience, while acknowledging that that experience is something I'll always carry with me and will forever help shape the course of my life. And so I look forward to wearing the hat to more Dawes concerts in the future.

There's a sweetness in us that lives long past the dust

A couple of weeks ago I learned, in short succession, of the deaths of two people. Neither person was someone I knew personally, but both were people who had played some small part in my life, and both deaths moved me deeply.

The morning of November 12, 2018 started like any other Monday, and then everything changed when I saw a friend's Facebook post reporting the shocking news that Nikki Delamotte had been murdered.

As I said, Nikki was not someone I knew personally, but her name was very familiar to me. A local journalist, I'd seen her name many times on wonderfully written articles about Cleveland's music and arts and culture scenes. As time progressed on that Monday I saw more and more posts popping up on my Facebook feed from friends expressing their grief and horror at the event. Many of the posts contained a picture of a face that was familiar to me despite my never having known her. I went to her Facebook profile and saw that I had 34 mutual friends with Nikki. She'd probably shown up in my "suggested friends" at some point. She'd undoubtedly been to a number of concerts and other events I'd attended. The more I read about her, the more I wished I had gotten to know her.

I felt a deep sense of grief for Nikki, for her family, for all my friends who had known her, and for our community for losing such a special figure. As details came out of her tragic death, I felt sickened at what had happened - at 30 years old and with such a bright future ahead of her, Nikki had reconnected with an uncle of hers she had not seen in years, and had made plans to go hang out with him, and then, after entering her uncle's trailer, had been shot to death by that uncle before he turned the gun on himself. It's one of the saddest things I think I've ever heard.

This isn't a political post, but I have to mention it. I hate guns.

It's rare for me to be moved so deeply by the death of a single person who I did not know, but Nikki's death deeply moved me, especially because of all the tributes and remembrances I saw my friends post.

One of those posts helped lead me to the line of thought that made me want to write this blog entry.

I have a friend named Annie who I met in a rather unusual way. I met her because when Cara died Annie, then an undergraduate student at Case, reached out to me to ask if I'd be willing to be interviewed for an article in Cara's memory in the Case student newspaper. I gladly granted the request, and the article turned out to be quite a beautiful tribute. Since then, our paths have occasionally crossed. Annie is now a reporter for cleveland.com writing primarily about music, and in the past year especially we've run into each other at a number of concerts. The most recent of those was the Case radio station WRUW's Studio-A-Rama music festival held in October, at which we were both excited to see headliner Lucy Dacus.

Annie was a coworker of Nikki's and was very close to her. On November 13, Annie shared the Lucy Dacus song "Pillar of Truth" and wrote this on Facebook:

I just remembered and wanted to share.

This song brought Nikki some comfort when her grandma passed away. She even got to see Lucy perform it live, the same day as her grandma's memorial. I remember that she was excited that she made it to Cleveland in time for Lucy's performance, after spending the evening driving back from Toledo.

I don't know but maybe now it can bring us a little bit of comfort too.

"Pillar of Truth" is a heartrendingly beautiful song that Lucy had described as being written about her own grandmother, and I was taken back to that night in October when I had stood there mesmerized by Lucy Dacus's performance of that song (the final song of the night), and there in the crowd not far from me had been Annie, and Nikki, as well. And I thought of the feelings that Nikki must have had that night, and that Annie must now have, for the story reminded me so much of things I myself had experienced in 2015. Things that in some way simultaneously feel like they could have been just the other week or could have been a lifetime ago.

I thought of seeing Lady Lamb perform at the Grog Shop on July 28, 2015, the day after Cara's grandmother Margie passed away, and little over three months from Cara herself's passing. And how the day after the show I had shared the song "Ten" (the final song of the night) on Facebook, tagging both Cara and Gram in the post, and quoted the line, "There's a sweetness in us that lives long past the dust on our eyes when our eyes finally close." That live performance of that song gave me some comfort after Cara's grandmother, who had become to me like my own grandmother, passed away, and I thought that perhaps what Nikki had felt at that Lucy Dacus concert was a little something like what I had felt at that Lady Lamb concert.

And I thought of seeing Sufjan Stevens perform at the Masonic Auditorium on April 16, 2015. Cara was supposed to go to that concert with me but ended up not going because she didn't feel well. Our good friend Troy ended up going with me instead. Troy, as it happens, was also a good friend of Nikki's and posted beautiful tributes to her as well. Cara and I had a tradition running back to very early in our friendship where when I was at a concert of an artist Cara liked and Cara wasn't at the concert with me, I would call her on the phone during the concert so she could listen to a song. There's one Sufjan Stevens song that was especially meaningful to us, because it was our wedding recessional. So when Sufjan played "Chicago" (the final song of the night), I called Cara.

It was the last time I would ever do that, because she passed away barely more than a week later.

So I thought that perhaps what Annie felt, thinking back on sharing a special concert experience with her friend who it turned out was unexpectedly short for the world, was a little something like what I had felt thinking back on that Sufjan Stevens concert after Cara's death.

The next day, November 14, was when I learned of the other death. There's a radio show on WJCU, the John Carroll University station, called Beautiful Mess (for the Diamond Rio song of the same name), that airs every Wednesday from 6-8 pm, and because I'm usually driving home during that time frame I often have it on in the car. It's a country music show, playing a wide variety of country and related genres from a wide range of years. I've been a listener of the show, albeit a casual one, for probably five years now. Which is kind of funny because as a kid and into my early adult years I couldn't stand country music. But I've become much more open-minded about music in general, and although I don't love all country music (especially the sort you'd most tend to hear on modern country radio), there's a lot I do enjoy. And the show Beautiful Mess has been one of the things that has helped broaden my tastes in that direction.

Anyway, the show is hosted by a woman named Holly, whose age I don't know but who I'd guess is a bit younger than me. Over the years one of the things I've most enjoyed about her show is how she started occasionally having her dad on as a guest DJ, co-hosting the show with her, and eventually it became a regular thing. And between songs you'd get to hear this father and daughter talking about the music and the memories that went with it. It was just one of the sweetest things.

For the previous show or two, there had been a substitute DJ for the show instead of Holly, but I hadn't thought much of it (and I'm usually only listening to the show for ten or fifteen minutes if I'm simply driving straight home). On November 14 I was driving to Target before going home, meaning I'd be spending a longer time with the show. Holly was back, and after a song finished she started talking, and at first I was only half-listening to what she was saying, but then it struck me somehow that she seemed to be talking about her dad in the past tense, and this feeling of dread overtook me, and I gave the words coming out of my car speakers my rapt attention, and soon it was confirmed for me. Her dad was gone.

Already full of sorrow that day because of Nikki's recent death, the sorrow in me grew for the rest of my drive. I remember sitting behind the steering wheel staring at the road and just feeling this immense feeling of loss for this man I had never met. And at the same time there was something beautiful about the way that Holly was using the songs on her show to try to begin to work through that horrible loss.

I don't know the details of Holly's dad's passing, but I do know it was unexpected. In the subsequent weeks, she's continued to use the show as a tribute to her dad. This past Wednesday found me with an unusually large amount of driving to do in the 6-8 pm time slot, and I listened as Holly described how she was carrying on with playing music her dad had picked out for the coming weeks on the show. I smiled at the appearance of "Piazza, New York Catcher" by Belle and Sebastian (a surprising selection for a country-centered show), remembering seeing it live in concert with Cara. I don't know whether that song was one Holly or her dad picked out. Perhaps they had a memory involving it too. My strong sense of sorrow returned as I listened to Holly's show this week, but as I've written before, feeling sad is not necessarily a bad thing.

As you might have picked up on, the theme that's emerging here is that I'm struck by the way music helps connect us to loved ones who have left this world. I think it's a special power that music can have and it's almost hard to describe it.

I have a few other anecdotes that have reinforced this to me.

A few months ago, Karyn and I were watching John McCain's funeral on TV. I remember being struck by how, throughout the lengthy proceedings, McCain's wife Cindy's face betrayed little emotion. There was just one moment when tears were evident. It was during a performance of an especially meaningful song.

Earlier this year, Karyn and I were watching the Tony Awards. (That, incidentally, is something I never would have imagined myself doing before meeting Karyn, but I'm glad we did it.) By far the most moving moment of the night came when students from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School drama department, months after the horrific gun massacre at their school, took the stage and performed "Seasons of Love" from the musical Rent. It was so powerful and so beautiful and I remember Karyn and me sitting there side by side on the sofa, both awestruck, with tears forming in our eyes.

There's something really profound about the effect music can have on us and the way it can help us connect to lost loved ones. I'm fascinated by this phenomenon. Why does music have this power? Why, come to think of it, do we even have music? It's actually quite easy to imagine an alternate reality in which humans had never developed music and society was otherwise much the same as it is (in contrast to, for instance, the written word, the lack of which would result in a tremendously different society). And yet music must be something that we've had for a very long time. It existed, in fact, long before there were any humans. We aren't the only species that sings songs - so do many birds, and some whales, to name a couple of diverse examples. I find that music has an almost mystical power, and although I wouldn't presume that it has the same effect on everyone, I know I'm far from alone in feeling this way.

I have countless other examples of songs, particularly during live performances, stirring deep emotion in me because of their connections with Cara. I've written about many such instances in the past and I'm not going to go back over them here, but I did want to share one other personal anecdote. My Aunt Donna, my mom's oldest sister, passed away early last year from multiple system atrophy, a cruel disorder of the nervous system that presents as similar to Parkinson's. The last time I visited her, just days before her passing, while I was there she asked her husband Dave to look up and play a song. The song was "Joy to the World" by Three Dog Night. Donna had requested that the song be played at her funeral. While listening to the song, Donna, who by that point had little remaining ability to control her muscles, was lightly moving her hand and head in time to the music. One of the other people in the room asked Donna if she was remembering dancing to the song.

"I was remembering joy," Donna corrected her faintly, for speaking was also becoming a struggle for her. Then she looked at me and continued, "Joy was Cara's middle name, wasn't it?"

I answered in the affirmative. "I'm going to dance with Cara in heaven," Donna said, one of the most touching things anyone has ever said to me. And I'd like to think she was right.

Year of the cats

On the evening of November 17, 2017, when I was walking into (sadly now closed) wine bar La Cave du Vin at the corner of Euclid Heights and Coventry for my first date since the traumatic ending of my previous relationship, I don't think I'd have predicted that one year later I would be celebrating the anniversary of that date.

And yet last weekend found Karyn and me in Chicago, happily commemorating our first anniversary.

The two of us have done a whole lot of traveling together in that year. The list of destinations for our trips includes: Columbus, Detroit, Washington DC, Toronto, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Pymatuning Lake, Sandusky, Steubenville (yes, Steubenville - a day trip for a concert by Typhoon's Kyle Morton, and one of my favorites of the whole bunch), Put-in-Bay, Los Angeles, and now Chicago. Quite a year of traveling, and the year was quite a journey for both of us in other ways too. This last trip was perhaps the best of all, so I decided to write about it.

Karyn likes to come up with hashtags for trips. For this trip she decided on #yearofthecats, which I quite liked. The meaning of the "year" part is obvious; as for the "cats" part, many of you are probably aware that we have a lot of cats. Eight cats, to be precise - my Eponine and Gavroche, plus Karyn's Grady, Hogan, Rupert, Martin, Rusty, and Tortellini. One big happy family!

We said goodbye to our cats and headed out to Chicago on a cold and windy Friday morning. The weather we had for the weekend was not particularly nice, but you don't go to Chicago in November for the weather. At least the high winds of Friday did not stick around for the rest of the weekend.

One of the big themes of the weekend was delicious food. This started with a brief stop at Eataly after we finished getting settled into our posh accommodations at the Loews Downtown Chicago hotel. Eataly is a massive two-story market full of Italian food for eating in, taking out, or grocery shopping. We were both in awe of the place. We didn't have much time to spend there that day so we vowed we'd return before we had to leave town. That we did on Sunday afternoon, our last excursion before departing, and I'm pretty sure that Sunday visit led to the largest grocery bill of my life, but I have no regrets!

After we grabbed a quick bite, we headed to a nearby barber shop where Karyn got a haircut. She was pleased to find a place that did not discriminate by gender on pricing.

I wanted to go eat in Chinatown at some point during the weekend, something I've greatly enjoyed doing on several previous Chicago visits, so we caught a train there early Friday evening. Before dinner, I decided I wanted to stop in at a gift shop I'd previously visited with Cara. I recalled how on that previous visit, we had bought one of Cara's numerous Chococat plushes. Chococat is another character from Sanrio, the company responsible for Hello Kitty, but Chococat is not nearly as well known. Cara adored Chococat, who she nicknamed "Boco." I honestly did not go into that shop last weekend with the intention of purchasing more Chococat merchandise, but once inside I naturally started looking for Chococats as I always had when visiting any sort of Asian gift shop either with Cara or by myself in search of a gift for Cara. And I was saddened to see that there were absolutely no Chococat plushes in the shop.

As I said, Chococat is not as popular as Hello Kitty, and there was never a great abundance of different Chococat products at any given time. But it now appears that Sanrio has almost completely stopped producing Chococat merchandise. And that makes me very sad.

Karyn has also come to like Chococat. We have a gigantic Chococat pillow on the sofa and she has said that it's seemingly impossible to lie on it and not fall asleep. Seeing my desire to find a Chococat in the gift shop, Karyn joined my search, and I have to say I was deeply moved by her great determination to find something, anything, with that familiar wide-eyed feline face on it.

Ultimately we did succeed in finding three Chococat-branded items: a phone case, a pocket-sized notebook, and, best of all (and discovered by Karyn), my new wallet!

You see, for most of this year I have been saying that I needed a new wallet because my old one (a pretty standard-looking leather wallet) is very worn out. And from time to time we'd be out somewhere and see some wallets and I'd look at them but I hadn't come across one that caught my fancy. So when Karyn presented this wallet to me in that Chinatown gift shop I instantly realized that this was exactly what I had been looking for. I think she was surprised at first at my intent to actually use a Chococat wallet as my everyday wallet. "You're a very confident man," she said. True, I suppose.

It goes without saying that it's because of how much Cara liked Chococat, but it's still hard to exactly put into words just how happy it made me to get this wallet, and I'm very grateful to Karyn for finding it. I told her that it might be one of my favorite things I've ever bought, and I really meant that.

So finding the Chococat wallet was for me one of the highlights of the trip, but it was one of many highlights. The stop at the gift shop was followed by a delicious dinner at MingHin Cuisine, and after dinner, because it was right there I could not resist getting a bubble tea from Joy Yee, as I've done on more than one previous visit to Chicago's Chinatown. We then headed back to the hotel.

Saturday was a very busy day for the two of us and it was a very wonderful day as well. It started with another great meal, breakfast at Cupitol Coffee & Eatery. After a brief stop back at the hotel, we headed out for a day spent wandering the streets of Chicago and enjoying various holiday festivities. It was a dreary day, and a light rain fell for much of the morning and early afternoon, leading us to remark that at least it wasn't windy like the day before.

We began the journey from our hotel by heading south across the river and toward Millennium Park. Now, the one unfortunate thing about our hotel's location was the skyscraper obnoxiously and aggressively emblazoned with the letters TRUMP staring across the river at us. As we crossed the river, Karyn paused to take a photo of the skyscraper, its upper levels disappearing into the misty sky. It would have been quite a pretty sight if not for those letters:

Karyn posted the image to Facebook and called it "The Tower of Kefka in real life." She had to explain to me the Final Fantasy VI reference she was making, because I knew nothing about that video game. As she told me, Kefka was the game's villain and was an evil, clownish, self-obsessed nihilist character who pretty much destroyed the world, and built a massive tower from the wreckage of all that he'd destroyed. And apparently in the early part of the game Kefka seemed like a minor threat worthy more of mockery than anything else, but then in a surprising twist he rose to power and went on to wreak enormous destruction. Good comparison, right? I really enjoyed listening to Karyn describe this as we walked.

At Millennium Park we of course enjoyed seeing "The Bean," although the weather was far less than ideal for taking in the scenery.

Fortunately our main reason for visiting Millennium Park that day, the Millennium Park Art Market, was held inside a giant tent. We went there with the intention of doing some holiday shopping and also buying something for our new apartment. We found plenty of great offerings to choose from! I really was amazed by the tremendous display of creativity and talent and effort from all the art students whose wares were displayed. I was also struck by how much of the artwork, almost all produced by people younger than Karyn and me, clearly reflected the world in which our generation and the generation after ours is growing up. The uncertain future in a society and a planet plagued by climate change and growing inequality and other ills. The technological advances that have so dramatically changed the ways in which we communicate and interface with the world. The never-ending struggle for basic human rights and dignity fought by members of various marginalized groups and the growing sense of solidarity among members of those groups and their allies in a nation where reactionary forces have seized power and are desperately and viciously trying to stem and even reverse that tide of progress.

We ended up making purchases from a number of the artists. When we checked out I remarked that the total bill was actually not bad at all for all the great stuff we were getting. And I always like to support small independent artists like those at the market. One of my favorite items we bought was this poster by a young woman named Meha Ray:

She has a series of robot illustrations and Karyn suggested that she should make a book based on her robot character.

Our next stop after the art market was Macy's, where Karyn suggested we go get our picture taken with Santa Claus. While waiting in line, we were amused by the fact that we were the only ones without children, but it was fun! When Santa asked what we wanted for Christmas, Karyn said a Cleveland Browns Super Bowl win and I said world peace. Santa said world peace might be easier.

We ended up spending quite a while in Macy's, where we both bought (among other things) much-needed new winter gloves. By the time we returned to the street, it had thankfully stopped raining. Our next stop was Christkindlmarket, a German-themed outdoor holiday market with plenty more artwork and plenty more delicious food. The cheese melted directly off the wheel onto a toasted baguette was a revelation.

We couldn't resist making a few more purchases, including these adorable hand-carved wooden animals, a cat and a snail:

(I picked the snail because it was the closest thing to a slug. If anyone ever comes across a wooden sea slug, please let me know.)

The main attraction that weekend in Chicago was the Magnificent Mile Lights Festival and we next made our way to the Magnificent Mile on Michigan Avenue where we joined the throngs who were waiting for the festive parade and the accompanying lighting of the trees. It really was quite cool to see all the Christmas lights on our block's worth of trees simultaneously spring to life at the command of Mickey Mouse who was passing by on a parade float. I also greatly enjoyed seeing the high school marching bands in the parade (including one from Akron) and, of course, Santa Claus and his reindeer on the final float. It was a chilly night to be standing outside for that long, but we had fun! One of my favorite parts, to be honest, was seeing the excited reactions of all the children near us.

After the parade we returned to our hotel, but our busy day was still not over. The last item on the agenda was a late night anniversary dinner at Gilt Bar, a restaurant Karyn had found. She said that she had picked it because, from the pictures, it seemed to have the most similar vibe to La Cave du Vin's dimly lit interior. It was a good choice! The roasted garlic appetizer was amazing, our salad and our pasta entrees were great, and our meal concluded with an enormous and delicious slice of carrot cake on the house. While dining, our conversation turned to everything we had been through together over the course of that year. It really is remarkable. And the trip to Chicago was a perfect way to celebrate that year.

At some point earlier in the weekend, we had walked by the original Pizzeria Uno on Ohio Street in downtown Chicago and then just up the street its sister restaurant Pizzeria Due. My thoughts instantly turned to my first visit to Chicago, for a cross country meet as a sophomore in college in the fall of 2002, and how the team had dined together at Pizzeria Due (Uno having had a longer wait). I looked up from the street and could see the room where I remembered sitting all those years ago. Karyn wondered what I was looking at and I explained it to her and how it was hard to believe all that time had passed.

In March 2011 Cara and I took a trip to Chicago and I wrote a blog post about it and one thing I wrote, regarding our visit to the park where the aforementioned cross country meet was held, was: "Going to a place that you've visited before and remember well but haven't seen in years is an interesting experience. Memories rush back at you. In a way, I'm a different person now than I was then, yet there's obviously a very strong connection with my past self." That's even more true now. I guess I've always had that keen interest in staying in touch with my own past. But it all has an extra poignancy now after all the things that have happened in my life in between that 2011 visit and today. And reading something you wrote many years ago can be a similarly interesting experience to visiting a place you haven't seen in years, one of the reasons I'm glad I've kept this blog.

My and Karyn's visit to Chicago had to end on Sunday, but the good times and good eating were not quite over when we got up that morning. For brunch we decided to try a restaurant called Beatrix and there we found what was not only perhaps the best meal of the weekend, but also almost undoubtedly the best customer service we've ever experienced. Karyn decided to order the pecan French toast special, while I opted for lemon pancakes and a side of brown sugar bacon. Before ordering, Karyn had told our waitress (named Kelsey) that she was thinking about the cauliflower grits, which Kelsey had recommended as her favorite. When our food came out, the first item was the cauliflower grits. We hadn't ordered that, we said, surprised. The rest of the order was correct, so the server returned to the kitchen with the cauliflower grits. A minute later Kelsey came back to the table with the grits and explained that she had wanted us to be able to try them, so she had added them (the full size plate) to our order, and they were on her!

And that wasn't all. We both expressed our tremendous gratitude, and after we finished eating Karyn told Kelsey how it was our anniversary weekend and this meal had been a perfect conclusion to it, and then Kelsey brought us a slice of pecan pumpkin pie to go, also on her. It really was an extra special way to cap off a very special weekend.

After brunch we made that final excursion to Eataly, and then headed to the car and made the drive back home to Cleveland, where we returned very tired but happy to our new apartment and our eight cats.

Life is a roller coaster

When I was in seventh grade, one of the major school projects was the writing of an autobiography. Mine was entitled Life is a Roller Coaster, or at least I'm pretty sure it was; I don't have a physical copy and the computer file I have does not include the cover. But I can still picture in my mind the cover art I drew, a roller coaster with the train coming toward the reader and a cut-out photo of my face pasted onto the body of the front seat passenger.

Edit - thanks to my mother for sending me this picture:

This post is about both that autobiography and roller coasters.

I read the autobiography recently for the first time in many years and decided I'd like to share some of the more interesting tidbits. It's fascinating for me to be able to look back at how I viewed my life at the age of 12 and I'm really glad I still have all my old computer files from over the years.

So here are some noteworthy moments from my seventh grade autobiography:

• I listed a number of "firsts" from my very early life. "The first time I slept all night was August 13-14, 1983" (I was born June 20) and because August 13 is my dad's birthday I'm sure my parents probably said that it was a birthday present from me! "The first time I saw snow was November 4, 1983." I've always loved snow so I do think that was a significant first, funny because November 4 is also my dating anniversary with Cara.
• I mentioned that I didn't have any nicknames "unless you count Jeff" (the content of most of the book is clearly a series of responses to questions that were asked in the assignment prompt), but that my dad used to call me "Buddy" a lot (something I remembered) and that at one point my sister had even thought that was my name (that part I had forgotten until reading it)!
• Here's a story I've told to many people over the years: "My earliest memory is from when I was three.  My best friend was Joe Delphia, a kid who lives on our street.  He is only a few weeks younger than I but he's a grade below me.  We went to preschool together.  Anyway, I remember that we were always arguing about one subject.  It was actually quite humorous.  I said that we were "tree," while he said we were "free."  My mom finally told us that we were three.  I probably remember this because it was funny."
• My response to a prompt about what influenced me the most cracks me up: "Nothing really influences me a whole lot right now.  I am probably influenced by my peers more than anything else.  I am also influenced by my parents, teachers, and the media.  What really influences me the most is my own brain.  This is probably true because I am an intelligent person and I know, for the most part, what I should and shouldn't do." Okay, Mr. Smart Guy!
• I correctly foresaw my career path: "For my career I would like to be a scientist.  There are a lot of different kinds of scientists, and I don't know which one I would want to be.  I would want to be a scientist because I enjoy science in school and am very interested in science-related stuff.  I would probably want to be some kind of biologist.  I really enjoy observing animals.  Other organisms can be interesting, too." Looking back, I think ever since middle school I had a vague sense that I might become a biologist, but there was never any moment where I thought, That's definitely what I want to do! It was more that I never felt any other strong calling so I just continued on that path, perhaps due more to inertia than anything else. But it is work that I've come to enjoy.
• In one part of the book I was asked to look ahead to what my life might be like at the ages of 20 and 40. At 20 I of course thought I would be in college. At 40? "Since that's so far away, I really don't have a very good idea.  By that time, I would probably be married and have kids." I'm sure it would have been very difficult for me back then to comprehend the path my life would take, but 40 is still five years away and that married with kids part could still end up being true.
• Also from the age 40 prediction: "I would still like to use the computer.  I would probably be on the Internet." Probably.
• And this struck me: "I'll probably always still be a kid at heart." I think there was a lot of truth in that. Karyn has told me that she thinks I'm still like a kid in some ways (good ways, I think!). It's interesting that at the age of 12 I was able to see that about my future self. I suppose most everyone retains some element of still being a kid at heart, but I feel I have more than most.
• The last chapter is devoted to interviews with three relatives. One of the interviewees was my Great-Uncle Bob. The last question in the interview was clearly something along the lines of, "What major changes have you seen in your lifetime?" My summary of Bob's response: "He has seen that people have gotten meaner and more skeptical, and says that civility is disappearing from human intercourse.  He has also found that the revolution in communications is altering the entire planet, in both good and bad ways." I'm sure many would read these words from over two decades ago as prophetic, and I do think there is a lot of truth in those words, but I also think there's another aspect of the apparent decline in "civility" that a lot of people would rather not consider. Back in the days when society was more "civil," who was it more civil for? A lot of people would undoubtedly say there is less civility today than there was in the 1950s. What if you could go back in time and ask Emmett Till's family how "civil" society was back then? Our country has always been a place in which certain groups of people have not had the full set of human rights that others take for granted. The history of our country has been a long struggle to extend the principle of "equal justice under law" to more and more people, and inevitably when marginalized groups gain rights, there's a backlash from some in the more privileged group. We're seeing that right now and it's no coincidence that it's coming in the wake of the first non-white President and the first woman major party nominee. I think a lot of the reason society used to seem "more civil" was because the people to whom society was not civil had much less ability to make their voices heard. And now that those people are more able to speak loudly, the reactionary voices seeking to keep the underprivileged in their place have likewise become louder in response.

Those are the main observations I wanted to share about my autobiography, save one, which is that the main thing that comes across from the autobiography is that I really loved roller coasters. There are several places where I mentioned my love for roller coasters, and the chapter "The Best Day of My Life" describes my family's visit to the Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio. My passion for, and knowledge about, the thrill rides is very evident from the way I wrote about them (it's also evident to me that my writing in this section was influenced by posts on the Usenet group rec.roller-coaster that I avidly read in those days). Here's a description of my ride on the Magnum XL-200: "After climbing 205 feet we dropped 196 at a 60 degree angle.  The top speed at the bottom is 72 miles per hour, and it seems faster because of all the wind you create.  The next hill is taller than most first hills at 150 or so feet.  The second drop goes into a tunnel before going over another hill and then into a pretzel-like turn around.  After another tunnel you turn and go over the return hills.  As you fly over them the only thing stopping you from being ejected from the train is your lap bar.  After another tunnel you finally hit the brakes before slowly coasting to the station.  It's a pretty intense ride!"

One of my predictions of my life at age 40 was "I would still be into roller coasters then." So it's interesting that, although my passion for roller coasters continued through high school and college, at some point I just... stopped going to amusement parks. At some point early in my getting to know Cara I told her that I really liked roller coasters and she told me they gave her motion sickness, and because we did most everything together, trips to amusement parks just didn't happen. It's not like Cara made me stop. I remember her encouraging me to go to Cedar Point with another friend some time. I just never did. It's funny how without me even really thinking about it, something that was once my very favorite thing to do gradually just ceased to be a part of my life. People's interests can change over time, of course, but that's not really what this was, because I never actually stopped liking roller coasters. I guess I let myself forget how much I liked them.

Two months after Cara died I took a trip to Denver for a Belle and Sebastian concert at Red Rocks and while there I went to Lakeside Amusement Park and rode its classic Cyclone roller coaster, my first ride on a coaster in many, many years. It was fun, but for whatever reason it didn't spark a resurgence of my roller coaster fanaticism. (I also remember it giving me a mild backache.)

This past summer, the weekend before my family's Adirondack vacation started, Karyn suggested we take a little getaway to visit Pymatuning Lake on the Ohio/Pennsylvania border, a place she'd been many times with her family. She mentioned that if she had a tent we could camp on the trip, which surprised me, because I remembered her saying early in our relationship that she wasn't into camping. I was glad to hear she now wanted to try it! "I have a tent," I said. Then Karyn looked up campgrounds in the area of our trip and decided on a place called Camperland in Conneaut Lake, PA, which was very fortuitous. I didn't realize until we arrived that the campground was across the street from the old Conneaut Lake amusement park, home of the classic Blue Streak wooden roller coaster that I remembered reading about in my old Usenet browsing days. I also didn't realize that the amusement park was open; I thought I had remembered it shutting down and I found out later that it had shut down for a year earlier this decade but it had since been brought back to operation.

The whole trip was great. Karyn was surprised at how much it turned out she actually liked camping. We also did a little bicycling and hiking. And since the amusement park and the Blue Streak were right there, I decided I wanted to make a stop there before we drove home, and Karyn agreed. At $10 for an unlimited rides pass, it was an affordable little afternoon excursion. Karyn did not go on the Blue Streak because some roller coasters, especially old wooden ones, are painful for her, but we did enjoy a few other rides and mini golf together. For my first ride on the Blue Streak I got in the back seat, which I remembered very well from my coaster enthusiast past would provide the most "airtime," and settled in for the ride.

The train exited the station, dipped slightly into a dark, winding tunnel, and then started its climb up the lift hill and out from among the trees. At 78 feet high, the ride isn't a terribly imposing structure compared to some of the behemoths at Cedar Point, but it still provides its share of thrills! I tend to scream on roller coasters, but it's usually not because I can't help myself - it just makes it more fun. The speed of the Blue Streak's first drop took me by surprise, though, and I let out an involuntary yelp as we plummeted downward and I felt myself lifted from my seat. As the train traversed its out-and-back circuit, that familiar old giddy feeling washed over me. I ended up going on the ride three times (the line was quite short), and Karyn said she liked seeing how excited I was about the roller coaster.

I guess I had a little epiphany that day. I still really like roller coasters. In fact, in certain ways the thrill of my newest favorite pastime, mountain biking, can be similar to the thrill of riding a roller coaster. For all those years I had left behind 12-year-old me's most favorite thing, but there was no reason it couldn't still be part of my life.

The next week I left for the Adirondack family vacation. Going to the Adirondacks with my family was another thing I wrote about in my autobiography. And in addition to swimming and canoeing and hiking in the mountains, one of my favorite parts of those trips was going to the Great Escape amusement park in Lake George: "On another day, which was one of the best days of my life, we went to the Great Escape amusement park.  I rode the Comet roller coaster five times."

I'd been to the Great Escape several other times in high school and college, but despite my family's near annual trips to the Adirondacks, it had been over a decade since I last visited the amusement park. On this latest trip, my rides on the Blue Streak fresh in my memory, I decided I'd return to one of those favorite places from my childhood. The Comet is a fantastic ride. Like the Blue Streak, it's a classic wooden coaster, but taller and longer and faster and filled with more thrills. With typical waits of less than five minutes, I rode the Comet sixteen times that day (I'm pretty sure my all-time record was eighteen) and it really did make me feel like a kid again.

I also rode the Great Escape's other four operating coasters once each (the Alpine Bobsled was shut down that day) and quite frankly none of them were at all remarkable, but to me the Comet alone makes admission to the park worth it. As a bonus there's a water park included in the same admission, so I spent a little time there. Water slides were another thing I loved as a kid and had not experienced (beyond fairly small slides at swimming pools) in many years. There has been some great innovation in water slide design since I had last visited a water park. In a new style of slide called a "drop slide," riders stand upright in an enclosed chamber, and then after a countdown the floor drops away and you plummet straight downward into the slide. Not for the faint of heart, but I absolutely loved it.

Not long after I returned from vacation, Karyn and I took a day trip to the water park at Cedar Point, Cedar Point Shores (although I still think of it as Soak City). We had a great time. When I was growing up, I loved going to the large water park called Wyandot Lake (now Zoombezi Bay) near Columbus. This took me back to those days in a wonderful way.

During the drive across the causeway to the park, the sight of the roller coasters looming in the distance recalled in my mind the incredible excitement I felt early in the morning on August 2, 1995, "the best day of my life" up to that point. And as we enjoyed the water park I also enjoyed watching the trains on the Magnum roar past and those of other coasters cresting hills and traversing loops in the distance. And I knew I wanted to go there again too. Luckily, I was able to get an incredible discount from work, only $25 for admission plus parking. Two weeks ago Karyn and I went on another camping trip, this time to East Harbor State Park. It was an all around great weekend that included a nice day riding our bikes and seeing various attractions at Put-in-Bay. My favorite? Crystal Cave, the largest known geode in the world. I'd had no idea such a thing existed until I read about it on a Put-in-Bay tourism website that day. It was magical to be able to stand in that little underground cavern surrounded by crystals on all sides.

And on Sunday we went to Cedar Point, and although going to Cedar Point no longer merits "best day of my life" status, I had a great time again. Despite the fact that I lost one of the earpieces from my glasses on Top Thrill Dragster. It's a bit of a complicated story; ask me if you want the details.

Roller coasters aren't my most favorite thing in the world anymore, but that's more because there are other things I've become even more passionate about rather than me liking roller coasters less. I'm very happy that I was able to reconnect with my childhood in this way - with help from Karyn.

Life is a roller coaster. I'm struck by the fact that when I used that phrase as the title of my seventh grade autobiography, I had no real idea of what was signified by that comparison. I had no idea what a roller coaster my life would be. It's been quite a ride so far, and I don't know where that ride is going in the future, but I'm glad I'm taking it.

Home

I've been thinking this year about what makes a place a desirable one for me to call home.

I've lived in Ohio for my whole life. One year in Canton, seventeen years in Columbus, and now seventeen years in Cleveland. Undoubtedly that's molded my views, what I find comfortable in a place to live. I wonder to what extent those views are inherent to me, and to what extent they're a result of where I've lived, or of life experiences that I could have had no matter where I lived.

My sister has lived in New York City for more than a decade. Earlier this year I visited her there and I found it to be a great place to visit but my suspicions were confirmed that I could never see myself living there. Even if the higher cost of living could be ignored, there's one very important obstacle to my ability to enjoy living in such a place. I really, really like spending time in nature. I've realized that it's very beneficial to my mental health. New York is a huge city that is basically devoid of anything resembling wilderness. Spending time in nature for an NYC resident requires going far out of one's way. It's not something you can just casually do after work. I'd go crazy in a place like that.

Two weeks ago I returned from a trip to another, very different, part of New York State - my family's annual Adirondacks vacation. I love visiting the Adirondacks every year. The mountains and lakes and trees and air are refreshing to the soul. In fact, I realized that there are three places now that have come to feel at least a little something like home to me. Cleveland, first and foremost. And Columbus, of course. The Adirondacks are the third. (And yes, there was a period of time last year when Nashville also felt like home, but that's obviously no longer the case.)

I have two interests that I feel especially passionate about, though - nature is one, and music is the other. Although I could imagine myself living in the Adirondacks (setting aside the fact that there's not much there in my current line of work) more than I could in New York City, the huge reduction in concertgoing opportunities would be hard to bear. And although the Lake Placid dining scene has improved a great deal since my family first vacationed there, I'd also miss the many wonderful restaurants of all different cuisines I can frequent back home.

New York City, of course, has far more to offer in the realms of live music and dining than Cleveland. And the Adirondacks have more nature to offer than Northeast Ohio. So for someone who is strongly pulled in those two conflicting directions of city life and outdoor life, Cleveland is a nice middle ground.

It's not just Cleveland, though, that fits me so well. It's the specific location I now call home, in Cleveland Heights, a large suburb just east of the city proper. I live on a lovely street lined with large trees (much like the one on which I grew up) in a neighborhood where I can easily walk to numerous restaurants and bars, a drugstore, a grocery store, a bakery, a movie theater, and a library. At the same time, just a mile away from my house, and easily accessible within minutes by bicycle or on the way home during my short commute from work, is a gorgeous park system, running along the course of the Doan Brook waterway. Roughly marking the border between Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights are two beautiful lakes (Horseshoe Lake and Lower Shaker Lake) at which great blue herons and other wildlife can be spotted, and in between the two lakes, there is the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes.

The early evening moon reflecting off of Horseshoe Lake.

A wintery scene at the Nature Center.

Lower Shaker Lake at sunset.

My mountain bike leaning against a tree in front of a very calm Lower Shaker Lake reflecting the sky.

The lakes are beautiful, but undoubtedly my favorite part of the Doan Brook waterway is Roxboro Ravine, a narrow gorge that takes the brook downhill from Lower Shaker Lake. I've written about the ravine before, on more than one occasion, and in fact dubbed it my favorite place in the world. Cleveland is known for its great "Emerald Necklace" of Metroparks surrounding the city, and the Metroparks are certainly a reason for civic pride, but the ravine, a park hidden in plain sight in the middle of a residential neighborhood and that most people don't know exists, is to me more wonderful than anything the Metroparks have to offer. One can walk down a trail just tens of meters away from an at times busy street and instantly be transported to a place that feels like it could be miles away from civilization.

Certainly there are more remote and more secluded and yes, more beautiful natural locations that I've visited in my many travels, including in the Adirondacks, but there's just something extra special about the ravine existing in this rugged and gorgeous state right smack dab in the midst of densely populated inner ring suburbs, and the instant escape it provides from city life. Due to the thick tree cover, steep walls, and rushing water, there are places in the ravine where if one didn't know better, it would be easy to think there were no other humans for miles around. I've had so many great times there over the years, going running, hiking, riding my mountain bike, and (of course) getting engaged to Cara.

The ravine and the lakes are truly a treasure, cherished by many who live in the area. So it might be hard to imagine the threat they faced half a century ago. A plan was put forward that, had it come to fruition, would have made the Heights a far different place from the one I now love to call home.

In 1964, Cuyahoga County Engineer Albert Porter proposed the creation of a new system of freeways to connect the eastern suburbs to downtown Cleveland. These freeways would have run through Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights - the Clark Freeway would have run almost directly along the path of Doan Brook.

I have been aware of this history for some time, but recently, perhaps due both to my continuously growing love for Doan Brook and my growing unease about all the troubling changes happening in our country and world, I've taken a greater interest in learning more about this history. I happened upon the existence of a limited run 2011 book called The Legacy of Clark Freeway Fighters that recounts the history with a focus on interviews with the now elderly women who took the lead in fighting the freeway plan, and I quickly decided to track down and purchase a copy for myself. Once I had the book in hand, I fittingly took it after work one day to the spot by the ravine's waterfall where I've come to enjoy doing so much of my leisure reading. As it turned out, a seemingly endless torrential downpour stranded me under the rock overhang there for almost two hours (much longer than it took me to read the book), but I didn't really mind. I had nowhere else I needed to be, and it was great fun to experience the sights and sounds of the storm, including the sudden rapid expansion of the waterfall, as well as the two very wet raccoons I spotted in a tree on the other side of the ravine.

Getting back to the Legacy book... as I sat there, and began reading the book, and looked at the map of the proposed freeways on one of the early pages...

...I suddenly felt overcome with emotion, as I thought about the wonderful community I call home, and the fact that one of the freeways on that map would have run a stone's throw away from the waterfall by which I sat, and another of the freeways would have run pretty much right through or next to the house in which I live. In one of my recent posts, I wrote, "It's absurd the extent to which our society has prioritized fast automobile travel over so many other things that are so much more important." In that post my focus was on the lives lost as a result of that excess prioritization of fast automobile travel, but those lives are just a part of the "so many other things that are so much more important." I'm so, so grateful to the residents of the community who knew their homes and parks were more important than the ability to get downtown a few minutes faster and who got together and organized and succeeded in stopping the freeway plan. And not only did they stop a negative outcome, they turned it into an additional positive outcome, as the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes was intentionally created at the site of a proposed freeway interchange to help demonstrate the value of what would be lost if the freeways were built.

It was the women of the community, members of garden clubs and civic organizations, "little ladies in tennis shoes" as they called themselves, who took the lead in the fight, and it was a wonderful thing that the editors of this book were able to obtain (via interviews conducted by students at The Intergenerational School in Cleveland) and share the decades later perspectives of some of those women. I'd like to share with you a few of my favorite quotes from the interviews.

"I just couldn't believe that they would put a freeway through there. It was too beautiful of a park.... Many people who lived east of Shaker Heights and beyond just couldn't wait for the freeway to be built because they wanted to hop onto it and whiz downtown.... It is a challenge to get other people to appreciate nature because they're accustomed to looking at it but not seeing it." - Kay Fuller

"The whole thing is just unthinkable and Albert Porter, then County Engineer, boasted that he was not afraid of a bunch of Shaker Heights matrons being able to interfere with his freeway. He was stomped on in the end. I think it was the first time in many people's lives that they realized that they could do something.... I think that it should be evident to young people that with a well-organized protest - and this was very well-organized with lots of people with expertise in many areas - you can achieve a lot. The lesson is you can't say, 'I can't possibly do that.' or 'We can't possibly stop that.'" - Gloria Reske

"Activism was in the air. The Civil Rights Movement was inspiring to everybody. The fact that there were people out there who were fighting for their rights, and who were marching, and really taking a position, often at great risk to themselves, was a model for us. If they can do that, what are we doing sitting around doing nothing, twiddling our thumbs? When people were so active in defense of their rights, how could we just sit?" - Kathy Barber

"My mother was a tremendous nature lover and we would drive down to her hometown in Wellington, which we thought of, as little girls, as a very long trip - it was 60 miles and she liked to go the hilliest way. We would get to the top of a hill and she'd stop the car and gasp, 'Let's just look at this beautiful view!' This sort of excitement about beauty was a big part of her life and that carried over to me and I hope to my children." - Sally Burton

I'll be forever grateful to those "little ladies in tennis shoes" for standing up for what was right and for helping preserve and shape for the future the amazing place I now call home. Their actions and the effects of those actions are a lesson for us all of the importance of activism, and it's a lesson that's especially important today. We all have a role to play in deciding what the world in which we live and in which our children will grow up looks like. Not all such actions will be successful, but if no one takes action on an issue, failure is assured - you never know until you try. And in a world with so many big and seemingly consuming threats, the Freeway Fighters remind us that even at the small local level, people working together can make a meaningful difference.

It does occur to me that the Freeway Fighters had advantages that many activists don't. It saddens me to think of all the other communities, disproportionately populated by people with less wealth and darker skin, that have been destroyed by America's obsession with freeway building. How many other places with homes and parks just as beautiful as those in my neighborhood have been torn apart so that people who lived somewhere else could "hop onto" a freeway and "whiz downtown"?

(It's also worth noting that the Shaker Lakes are not natural lakes but were created by the Shakers who settled in this area in the 19th century - so human beings are capable of shaping their environments for the better as well as for the worse.)

Near the end of the book is a short essay titled "Proving That Trend is Not Destiny" by David Beach, director of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History's GreenCityBlueLake Institute. It's a great distillation of the issues that I want to highlight in this post so I'm going to quote extensively from it:

In a narrow sense, Albert Porter was right. In the '60s he was the Cuyahoga County Engineer, and when he looked at Cleveland and the eastern suburbs he saw that there was going to be a mess if more roads were not built.

With his rational, engineer's mind, he studied projections of population migration and increasing traffic flows. He saw that the east side was going to need more road capacity to keep traffic flowing smoothly - a lot more capacity. Indeed, the east side would need enormous freeways in multiple locations, so everyone would have easy freeway access.

The overriding concern was "the convenience of the motoring public," as the highway planners were fond of saying. Our whole society had to change so more people could drive more cars faster. And this made perfect sense if you cared more about speeding through places than the quality of places - if your vision of "progress" was the development of a sprawling, frenetic, high-mileage, high energy-consuming society.

For Porter, these were the inexorable trends, and he had to plan for them. But some people in the path of those freeways refused to be held captive by such trends. They believed, as urban critic Lewis Mumford once wrote, that trend is not destiny. People can have a different vision. Behaviors can change. Different public investments can be made. And the trends can be deflected to create a different future.

So they rose up and stopped the freeways that would have destroyed what they loved about their communities. The battle against the Clark Freeway, especially, became one of the iconic struggles for conservation in the history of Greater Cleveland. It was a training ground for dozens of community and environmental activists. It inspired thousands of people to believe that they could have a voice.

Fifty years later, this area on the east side of Cleveland is the hole in the regional highway donut. It's a very inconvenient place for the motoring public. And that is wonderful!

A lot of people who don't live in the Heights complain about the lack of convenient freeway access to this area. I've come to realize that my home is a great place to live not in spite of the lack of convenient freeway access. It's a great place to live in large part as a result of the lack of convenient freeway access.

I read another book recently called Rust Belt Chic: The Cleveland Anthology. It's a collection of personal little stories (published in 2012) about what makes Cleveland the place it is and I liked it a lot for the diversity of perspectives it presented to paint a realistic picture of Cleveland with all its grandeur and all its flaws. As I read the book, I of course enjoyed every mention of a place that was special to me. The beginning of Stephanie Gautam's "One that Denver Lost" especially struck me:

As a child growing up in Cleveland Heights, I felt that my hometown was a paradise. The ravine off North Park Boulevard was just steps from our duplex on South Overlook, yet to me, it was a wilderness promising adventure and otherworldly discoveries.

I never set foot in Cleveland Heights as a child, and yet as an adult, the ravine to me has been much as it was to young Stephanie. I've found so much adventure and made so many discoveries there. How wonderful it would be to grow up in such a place. How much we owe to the activists who preserved it. And how important it is that we carry that same spirit of activism into the future.