Our plane touched down in Albuquerque. No sooner had my feet hit the airport terminal floor than I knew immediately—call it gut intuition—that Albuquerque is definitely a city with two Qs.

Jamie, my cousin Randa, and I arrived at the theater where I performed my one-man shipwreck before an audience of extraordinarily friendly Southwesterners who were kind enough to give me a standing ovation. True, the ovation was moving toward the exits. And true, nobody in the ovation was facing me. Come to think of it, nobody was ovating, either.

But after the show I went to the lobby and met some lovely people from the audience.

I met a young woman who grew up in a strict Mennonite sect, who loved music but was prohibited from playing instruments. As a little girl, she learned the fiddle in secret, taking lessons up in town, despite the risk of being excommunicated from her community.

We also met a man who arrived wearing braids and a bandana. The resemblance was shocking. He looked exactly like Willie Nelson would have looked if Willie Nelson had been born looking like someone else.

I also met an Apache elder and cowboy who was chewing an actual mouthful of tobacco and used words like “pilgrim” non-ironically.

I met a 95-year-old New Mexico woman named Martha Ann who hugged me and then grabbed my butt.

“I may be old,” she said, with a firm handful in her grasp, “but I ain’t dead, sonny.”

Next, we awoke in Texas. Texas was nice, but Amarillo was windy. And hot. The ambient heat index was approaching 2,106 degrees Fahrenheit. It was windy, too. I haven’t experienced that much hot air since the Baptist sermons of my youth.

That morning, we traversed the Oklahoma Panhandle, briefly. Then, we crossed the Kansas state line.

The scenery in Kansas was arresting. I saw the long fields of hard winter wheat. The sunflowers, the grain sorghum, and the uplifting roadside billboards, reading: “Sin now, burn later. God offers no layaway plans.”

The prairie grass shot past our windows like a green streak. The miles of wildflowers, like smears of pink and violet. My cheeks were tight. I was smiling. And I realized moisture was accumulating in my eye region.

Visiting Kansas is a big deal for me. It’s been thirty-odd years since my father’s suicide—which took place here. I’ve only returned to this state thrice.

And each visit hurt like heck. It was always a deep, familiar hurt that I couldn’t unfeel no matter how I tried. The hurt always began the moment we crossed into the 34th State. Just as we passed the “Welcome to Kansas” sign and all the Baptist church signs which read: “Don’t let worry and depression kill you, let the church help.” Or “Hell is real, come early and listen to our choir practice.”

The pain of the trauma suffered here usually started as a dull mental ache, deep in my emotional core. A feeling of profound loneliness. Or helplessness. Maybe even a little fear. The feeling would swell until it became physical. A literal aching in your sternum. A throbbing. Like a brick stuck in your throat.

I was born in Kansas City. I began my life on a Kansas farm. And even though I did most of my actual growing up in the South, you can’t forget your original biology. You can never divorce yourself from the physical energy of the land that made you. I am what I am. And as we shot across the prairie I realized that—no matter how desperately I’ve tried to be something else—I am a fifth-generation Kansan.

I never wanted to be a Kansan, mind you. My father was a Kansan. I did not want to be anything like him. After my boyhood trauma, we moved away from here. I hated this place. Namely, because it was here, on this land, where bad things happened.

Here, my dad tried to kill my mother. Here, he threatened to kill me and my sister. It was here that sheriff’s deputies broke into our home, bearing riot guns and ballistic vests, freeing us from the lone gunman.

My last image of my father was of him entering a Leavenworth County police cruiser. He spent one last night on earth before pulling the trigger on himself. And so I despised this soil.

But as of the last few years, Kansas has changed for me. This place has grown to represent a land of redemption. Of healing. Although I’ve avoided this place for thirty years; although my family would not even speak of Kansas after we left; although my brain mysteriously blocked out this landscape, and the prairie topography ceased to exist in my imagination; although I had forgotten about this state, when I returned it was like riding a bike.

It all comes back to you.

We drove for hours across the lonesome plains. And I felt a spring of beautiful memories frothing to the surface of my consciousness. We pulled over in Great Bend, a town so small that census takers only use their fingers. The cashier at the gas station called me “hun,” although she was half my age.

That evening, I performed my one-man train derailment at the historic Crest Theater, downtown. A few of my cousins were in the audience. Other Dietrichs I’ve never met before. People I might’ve known before our family split in two, long ago.

I played old Kansas tunes on my Kansas fiddle. I told old jokes. I strummed “Home on the Range” on my guitar. No sooner had I begun singing our state song than the whole theater began singing along.

Their warm voices swelled, trickling across space and time, like the melodic sound of a soft waterfall. I felt as though someone poured warm oil on my head. And as we sang of “home,” I began to cry onstage. Happy tears. My cup runneth over.

How often at night,

When the heavens are bright,

With the light of the glittering stars,

Have I stood there amazed,

And I asked as I gazed,

If their glory exceeds that of ours.

Home, home on the range,

Where the deer and the antelope play,

Where seldom is heard,

A discouraging word,

And the skies are not cloudy all day.

That evening, I hugged necks until midnight. Nobody grabbed my butt.

Next, we traveled across the state to the tiny hamlet of Paola. That morning, I borrowed the rental car while everyone at the hotel remained asleep. At sunrise, I visited the old haunts of boyhood. I also visited important traumatic landmarks of my youth. Such as the site of my father’s suicide, where I played “Amazing Grace” for him on the fiddle.

Later, I performed my one-man maritime disaster at the Paola Community Theater. I told more jokes. Sang more songs. And then, more hugs. This time, there were tears, too.

My old Sunday school teacher. My boyhood minister. My second-grade teacher. Cousins galore, cousins I never knew existed. Who look like me. Who look like my dad. Old friends of my father’s. Neighbors. Preachers. Farmers. Coaches. Teachers. Men in cowboy hats, with wads of chaw clenched in their lower lips. Lots of boots. Lots of denim and plaid.

When the meet-and-greet was finished, I sat in the dressing room in rapt silence. Numb with the startling beauty of life. My wife found me staring into nothingness. Blank look on my face.

“What’re you thinking?” she asked.

“I’m thinking about the pain.”

“The pain of being here?”

“Yes.”

“What about it?”

“That’s just it,” I replied. “It’s gone. It don’t hurt anymore.”

She smiled.

Tenderly, my wife touched my knee and, in this moment of existential gravity, she said solemnly, “I think you mean ‘doesn’t.’”

The following night we arrived in Fulton, Missouri, only a few hours before showtime. I performed my one-man dumpster fire before an animated crowd of warmhearted people who evidently had such a marvelous time that, instead of clapping, many theatergoers simply snored in unison.

My dear friend, champion Texas contest fiddler Michelle Kuhlman, joined me onstage. When she played “Orange Blossom Special” the audience went slap nuts. After the show, everyone wanted to shake Michelle’s hand or embrace her. I don’t know whether anyone grabbed her butt. But I’d like to think they tried.

The next morning, we drove to Belleville, Illinois, where I performed my one-man structural collapse at the historic Lincoln Theater. At the end of the show, I played my father’s favorite song for the audience. Then I hugged people until nearly 11:00 p.m. while Cousin Randa took pictures.

I met beautiful humans in Belleville. Such as Chris, an 11-year-old boy who gave me a piece of glass art, shaped like a sunflower—the Kansas state flower.

“This is because I love you,” said Chris, presenting me with the precious gift, shortly before I smothered him in an embrace.

I met Chantelle, a 41-year-young woman with Down’s syndrome who was not expected to live past her first birthday. We hugged maybe 250 or 300 times throughout the night. Even when I was busy talking with other people in line, Chantelle would waltz up to me, arms open, and just randomly hug me.

“I love you so much,” she kept saying. “You’re my favorite insane person.”

Then I’d drop what I was doing and we’d hug tightly once more. Then she kissed me on the hair. It was the most beautiful and innocent moment when she looked me in the eyes and said with complete sincerity: “I want you to be my husband.”

Everyone laughed.

But Chantelle didn’t.

After the night finished, I sat in our hotel room and sort of took it all in, the entire previous week. A marathon tour lineup of my one-man-uncontrolled-burn performances, now finished. And now something even bigger awaited me.

Something I’ve been planning for thirty years.

And so it was, this morning I awoke early in our hotel. I packed my bags. I packed my fiddle. And my running shoes. I packed a meager breakfast of apples and dates. I kissed my wife goodbye. And I headed for the airport via hotel shuttle.

With a full heart, a sunflower ornament in my pocket, and Morgan Love’s handmade bracelet on my wrist, I departed Saint Louis for Denver.

I’m in the air now as I write this, hovering 40,000 feet above Purple Mountain Majesty. I will be landing in Colorado before lunchtime. I will be meeting my sister in a few hours. Then, in two days she and I will be running to the top of Pikes Peak to visit my father’s ashes—on foot—for the first time in our lives. There, we will offer our respect. Our love. And our forgiveness.

So I want to thank you, whoever you are, for attending my shows this past week. Thank you for your undeserved love toward my wife and me. Thank you for helping me heal over all these years that I’ve been writing and performing across this country. Thank you for your kindness. For your encouragement. And most of all, thank you for grabbing my butt.

I only hope I can return the favor someday.

Over the years, I’ve written about Morgan many times, keeping notes on many of the conversations Morgan and I have had, so I’d never forget the things she told me.

They are the words of a young woman with a wisdom deeper than I am able to understand. She spoke these things in casual conversation, with no idea that her words are extraordinary. We call them “Morganisms.”

Some of the following paragraphs were spoken directly after she was placed under hospice care. Here are a few of my favorites:

—“I don’t think it’s fair that life is measured in years. There are some people who live many years and don’t do much with their lives. There are also people who live a short time and do a lot of stuff. I think life should be measured in the amount of love you collect. And the amount of love you give. If that’s how life was measured, I would be very, very old and very wealthy.”

—“Life is too short to fight with people. I’m hard to fight with. I just stay silent. Let the other person win.”

—“Every day is a chance to make a new best friend.”

—“I’ve heard that in heaven there is no time. No clock, no future, no past. Only eternity. So, since the future and past are all happening at the same time, this means everyone is already there in heaven. I’m there. You’re there. My mom and dad are there. All my loved ones are there. We’re all in heaven. Right now. All the people who are alive right now on earth, they’re waiting for each other in eternity.

“This means that as soon as I close my eyes in death, time won’t be holding you here. So the first thing I’m going to see is all my friends and all my loved ones. You’ll be there, too. I’ll see you instantly, on the other side; it will be like we were never apart. Then maybe you and I will laugh together and wonder why we ever took earthly life so seriously.”

—“Up there, we’ll be perfect. No more chronic pain. I’ll be able to get a full breath. And I’ll finally be able to see.”

—“Don’t live like you’re dying. Die like you really lived.”

—“Whenever it’s my birthday, instead of my friends singing ‘Happy Birthday,’ I ask them to sing ‘Amazing Grace’ because after all, it’s not my birthday that allows me to stand here. It’s grace.”

—“I hope they have Kraft mac and cheese in heaven. The blue box.”

—“Of all the things I can’t do anymore, I think I miss seeing most of all. The beauty of this earth is something people take for granted. Seeing is so great. Trees, birds, skies, stars, colors. Is there anything better than sight? If I could see like sighted people can, I would never close my eyes.”

—“I don’t want a funeral. I want a party.”

—“I recently went skydiving with my friend Kylie. I was in the beginning stages of sepsis, and I knew my time was short. I knew this would be my last chance to skydive, so I went that afternoon.

“The infection was already getting bad, I had a fever and chills, and I knew I wasn’t going to survive this. I knew I wouldn’t have another chance. So I went skydiving.

“Jumping out of the plane was like falling into big, strong arms. Total release. Being set free. My parachute opened, and we got sucked up into a cloud. And it was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Even with my dim vision, I could see nothing but beauty.

“Suddenly I forgot about my fever and my chills. There was whiteness everywhere. And it was so cold. It was like a dream world happening before my eyes. And then I got to thinking, you know, we see clouds every day. But sometimes we forget just how big they are, how ever-present, and how special. Sometimes we treat God the same way.”

—“Life is too short not to eat chocolate ice cream.”

—“If you ever want to feel my spirit after I am gone, go watch the sunset. No matter how far apart we are, we can always watch the sunset together. Of course, I’ll have a much better view than you.”

—“After my death, I’ll give you signs from the other side to remind you that I am not really gone. Little winks. Pay attention. Especially to the color purple. That’s my favorite color.”

—“When you grow up as a child with health issues and disabilities, you learn to feel different than everyone else. A school nurse sits with you all day, in the middle of class, and all your classmates sort of look at you like you’re weird. But the truth is, you’re not weird. You’re gifted, because unlike them, YOUR whole life isn’t about fitting in, or chasing boys, or being one of the crowd. Your gift is learning how to surrender, learning to accept, to allow, and not resist what is; you learn to receive and accept love, and then give that love back. Everyone’s life is about this. The only difference is, most folks don’t know it.”

—“Where I’m going, I’ll finally get my miracle.”

—“I love you, Sean. I love that we are friends. I love that we happened.”

—“My whole philosophy? Jesus loves me. This I know.”

Dearest Morgan,

It’s four in the morning. And I’m awake. Just sitting here. Thinking about you.

I haven’t slept since your last text. Your text about how doctors placed you under hospice care. Your text asking me to come say one last goodbye.

Here I am, in the dark of morning, sitting in my kitchen. Lost.

And for some reason, I’m thinking about the thief on the cross. The Sunday school story about the remorseful thief who hung crucified next to the Humble Nazarene. Remember him? I’m thinking about how in his final moments of life, life became so clear to him.

Right now, I feel a little like that thief. I’m thinking about the impact you’ve had on my life. Thinking about all the little ways I have changed since we first met. So many changes. Too many changes to count.

Beautiful little changes. Millions of them.

Like the way I say “yes” to stuff now. Even stuff I don’t want to do. I choose yes instead of no. I say yes to friends’ schemes more often, whereas once upon a time I wouldn’t have. I do this because it was you who once told me, shortly after you almost died, “I’ve learned to ALWAYS say yes to fun, especially when it’s bad timing.”

You were 19 when you said that.

Also, I work less now. Because it was you who once told me—and you said this while attached to life support—you said: “I’ve learned that life is not about how hard you work.”

I also hang out with people more often now, even when I don’t feel like peopling or being social. Because you once told me, after one of your near-death experiences, you said you learned that life itself wasn’t the main gift. You realized people were the gift.

I use my phone less. I listen more. I strike up conversations in the supermarket with random people, anyone who seems like they want to talk.

And, not least of all, I pay more attention to the food I eat while I’m eating it. I try to consciously enjoy every bite. I FORCE myself to be aware, noticing how amazing this gift of food is. How delicious. How beautifully sacred food is. How amazing food feels in my mouth, and how privileged I am to be eating it.

I do this because I once watched you eat a supper consisting of only five tater tots. You were still attached to your TPN line, the life support system that feeds you through your bloodstream; you hadn’t eaten an actual meal for a long time. Your teeth ached because they hadn’t been used. Your stomach was burning because it had been empty for literally years.

But you could tolerate five tater tots.

And so you did not waste them. You ate slowly, savoring each bite, spending upwards of half an hour enjoying them. I watched you in a kind of dazed wonder. Namely, because you experienced more enjoyment from five tater tots than I’ve ever derived from a single Thanksgiving feast.

Those are just some of the lessons you taught me. Just a few of the changes you brought to my life. Each minor change, like poking a hole in my Canopy of Existence, thereby letting more sunlight through.

You see, a man can go through life so hidden from the sunlight that he forgets the light is even there. He lives in darkness, with scales over his eyes, hidden from the noble truths that govern all things. He gets lost. He loses his bearings. His priorities get out of whack.

But no matter how confused he gets, no matter how screwed-up, Heaven always sends him a guide. This messenger is often disguised for man’s benefit. For man is too dense to recognize God. But beneath the guide’s flesh-and-blood cloak is the beating heart of an ancient master. Someone sent to earth to point the way home. Someone to show us how to love. How to forgive. Someone to knead, shape, and bake our daily bread.

You were that teacher to me.

It’s funny how you remember significant moments in life. The moments which, at the time, you did not find significant at all. They just seemed like average moments. You had no idea these moments were divine when they were happening. But they were. They were nothing short of divine.

When I first met you, I was on assignment, writing a story about service dogs. I was interviewing people who used these dogs. Veterans with PTSD. People with autism. You were the afternoon’s last interview. You were waiting for me in the meeting hall. I saw you in the corner, sitting on the floor, playing with your dog, Clarabelle.

Your violent red hair, bound in a single braid, falling over your shoulder. Your milk-white complexion, like a newborn’s. Your smile, electric. You were just a kid.

“Who is she?” I asked someone.

My liaison got this warm look all over their face. “Oh, that’s Morgan.”

And I’ll never forget the tone they used to say those three simple words. It was the same tone of voice a grandmother uses when removing a sheet pan from the oven, saying, “Wait until you try these brownies.”

You and I talked. And that’s when I learned your story. You told me how a stroke left you paralyzed. How your intestines were paralyzed. Your leg. Your arm. Your hand. You told me about your epilepsy. About your near-fatal diabetic adventures. About your blindness.

And the whole time we talked, I felt chill bumps. All over. Like, actual gooseflesh. I held back tears.

You could not have known what I was going through at the time. I was undergoing a very difficult period in my own life. Maybe the worst period I’ve ever experienced.

But after our meeting, I felt lighter. I felt peaceful. I knew, somehow, that something had happened to me. Something divine. Granted, I was too stupid to know WHAT happened, exactly. But I knew it was real. And even though I am no rocket scientist, I knew I wasn’t wrong—even a broken clock is right twice per day.

After that encounter, I knew there was no going back for me. I knew we would be lifelong friends. Allies. Buddies. I knew that something had shifted in the cosmos. Something had happened.

Unto me a great light had shone. A gift had been given. A gift to all. To your family. Your friends. To me. To my wife. To the world. To everyone. And the gift was you.

I refuse to say goodbye, Morgan. I don’t believe in goodbyes. For this life is an illusion. An intense dream. Nothing more. You taught me that. It is only when one awakens from the dream, safely in the arms of the Gentle Nazarene, that real life shall begin.

I love you more than you’ll ever know. And in the time that we will soon be apart, I will hold you in my bosom, every moment. Every day. Every breath. I only ask one favor of you, dearest Morgan. I ask that you remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.

Your forever friend,

—Sean

My dad was a runner. He started just before I was born. One day after work, they say he came home and decided it was time to quit smoking and start jogging. He stabbed out his smoldering cigarette and he tore off running, right then. He finished the cigarette later that evening.

He ran marathons throughout my childhood. Marathons were his thing. And although, occasionally, I still saw him sneak Marlboros, it was ONLY on special occasions. Such as Wednesday.

But he couldn’t smoke much because running and smoking contradicted each other. But then, the old man was a walking contradiction.

My father was an ironworker. Union man. Local Number Ten. He wore denim and boots every day of his professional life. The man hung suspended from 40-story skyscrapers, tied off with a safety harness, and stick-welded column splices from nine to five.

When he got home, he’d be covered in soot, with little white patches of skin around his eyes, and he smelled like diesel. And yet, the first thing he’d do was change into running clothes and go for a six-miler.

He began running the Pikes Peak Marathon on a whim. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. One day he came home from work, loaded up our van with camping gear, and announced that our family was going to Colorado where he would run 26.2 miles, climbing 14,000 feet above sea level. My mother responded by picking up the kitchen phone receiver.

“Who are you calling?” Daddy asked.

“I’m upping your life insurance,” my mother replied.

We camped in Colorado for a few days. I remember the morning of the race. The old man was nervous. He wore red cotton shorts. A Coors Banquet Beer ball cap. He was unprepared. But he believed he could do it.

He kissed my hair and left camp before dark. He played Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” on his truck cassette player before running off into the darkness with hundreds of other deranged people in sneakers and race bibs.

We waited for what seemed like years for him to finish.

“Do you think Daddy’s okay?” I would ask my mother.

My mother would pat my head. “If he’s not, we’re set for life.”

Then she’d play the cassette tape again.

Mama and I greeted him at the finish line. My father was cut up, blood trailing down his calves, and limping badly. Apparently he’d fallen several times on the descent. But he was smiling. And crying. His first words were:

“Cigarette.”

But he never got one. Instead, he got a cheap T-shirt. And that night, we went out for burgers. My father hobbled around Colorado Springs, sipping a chocolate malt, riding a marathon high—the physical euphoria induced by a cocktail of painkilling hormones and chemicals released by the body during extreme moments of stupidity.

He ran the Pikes Peak Marathon every year after that. Every year until he died.

I remember one year, the morning after the race, I was in first grade, the old man took me to see the mountain. Just the two of us. It was almost sunrise. The clouds were low, clinging to the peak like a damp dishrag. The sky was electric blue in the dimness of morning.

Daddy was in a daze as he stared at the same mountain that inspired the lyrics to “America the Beautiful.”

“I want my ashes scattered up there,” he said.

My father said this casually. But overtones of sincerity were in his voice. After all, this mountain was the biggest thing he’d ever done. Years later, I realize now that this race was special to him because it was his. Nobody else’s. Just his.

The mountain hadn’t been part of his job. Nobody forced him to run this marathon. He wasn’t in the military. He did this purely for himself. The achievement was all his.

We scattered my father’s ashes on Pikes Peak one frosty morning. I was a little boy. It was not a good day for me. I was in a pissy mood. I was angry. I was bitter. I was flirting with a lifelong grudge against the old man.

My father, after all, left this world by his own hand. He left little more than memories of mental illness and abuse in his wake. He also left me with a host of issues.

The first of which was unforgiveness.

Unforgiveness is a tricky disease. You don’t even know you have it until it’s finally gone. You think you’re fine, even though you aren’t. You think all is well. You even swear to people that you’ve let all ill feelings go.

But then one day you realize the bitter emotions that rise in your throat whenever the unforgiven’s name is spoken are not your true feelings at all. They are the disease.

So anyway, I started running when I was 14. I was a fat kid. I had dropped out of school. I was alone. I was aimless. I had developed a crippling Frito-Lay habit.

One night, after a shower, I looked at my little white belly, staring back in the mirror. “Oh my God,” I thought, “I am so ugly.”

Feelings of self-hatred swept over me. I cried. I curled into the corner, wrapped in only a bath towel, and wept. I despised myself. I despised my broken family. I hated the life given me. I hated waking up in the mornings. I hated going to bed. I hated all the hours between. I hated it all. I didn’t want to die per se, but I didn’t see the point of being alive.

That’s what nobody ever tells you about unforgiveness. You don’t actually hate the wrongdoer. In the end, you are hating only yourself.

But something changed inside me as I wept, there on the bathroom floor. I decided I was going to be happy. I didn’t know how I could be happy. I didn’t know if it WAS even possible to be happy. But dammit, I was going to try. But first, before I could accomplish this, before I could begin the road toward self-care, I needed chips.

That same night, I suited up to go for my first run. I wore cutoff jeans and Chuck Taylors. I ran under the cover of darkness so nobody would see my jiggly body and laugh.

I ran four minutes. I almost died. I barely made it to the mailbox. When I got back home, my heart rate was elevated, my skin clammy, and I administered emergency Cheetos.

The next night I ran five minutes. The night after: six. Then, seven. Eight. Ten. Fifteen. Thirty.

After that, I started running from telephone pole to telephone pole. Just a few more poles each night. I never skipped runs. And if for some reason I missed one, I would go for two runs the next day.

I cried during those runs sometimes. Namely, because I felt close to my dad out there. I knew he was watching me. I could feel him. I felt his soul at rest. I felt his love for me, as he watched me jog and care for myself. And this feeling of his love would make me hurt even worse, and miss him even more. Which made me cry harder. Which made me feel more of his love.

By age 15, I was running five miles a day. My life had changed. I lost weight. I now subscribed to “Runner’s World.” I no longer wore cutoff shorts to run. And instead of All-Stars, I wore ASICS. And most of all, I had given up Cheetos, cold turkey. Now I ate Chili Cheese Fritos.

Over the years I have run many marathons, but I am the world’s worst marathoner. I am slow. I am gangly. I am uncoordinated. My wife says I run like an infant penguin who suffers from constipation.

How slow am I? At more than one marathon, during the final miles I have glanced behind myself only to see a hearse following me.

The last marathon I ran, I finished in nearly last place. Seriously. I galloped to the finish line with an 83-year-old woman named Marge whom I met at mile 26. We had our arms slung around each other’s shoulders. Marge’s feet hit the finish line a split second before mine.

“Beat you,” were her first words.

But for all these years, somewhere in the back of my heart, I’ve always wanted to visit my old man atop Pikes Peak, on foot, while wearing a pair of running shoes. Life has always gotten in the way, of course. Colorado seems halfway across the world from me. And I’m too busy.

I’ve only visited my father’s mountain once since his death, and it was by car. I healed a lot during that visit. Not entirely. But a lot.

Still, this is a year of firsts for me. This is the year I’ve decided to quit idle talk and finally DO some of the things I feel I must. To visit people and places I’ve always known were awaiting me. To take care of my own mental well-being.

My sister is going to Colorado with me. It will be just the two of us, meeting in an airport, carrying our gym bags. We have been training for months. We have been calling each other for support and motivation while running hill repeats. We have been jogging the bleachers. Doing squats. And one of us has even suffered a debilitating Cheetos relapse.

But in a few weeks, we will run up that mountain together. We will stand at the top together.

I don’t know whether I will cry. But I know the disease of unforgiveness is gone. I know I’m a different man than I was before. And above all, I know there ain’t no mountain high enough to keep me from getting to him

.

There was an old man sitting outside the dusty bar. He sat in a plastic lawn chair. There was a dog with him. The dog was either asleep or dead.

He was whittling a stick for no reason—the old man, not the dog. This is what old men did before TikTok.

A truck with out-of-state plates arrived in the parking lot. An electric vehicle. One of those steel truck-looking things. The kind that looks like a stainless residential refrigerator.

The motorist stepped out. There were kids in his backseat. A wife on the passenger side. Luggage and cardboard boxes loaded in the back.

“Excuse me,” said the motorist, who was thumbing away on his phone. “My GPS isn’t working. Do you know where I can find a ChargePoint station?”

“A WHAT-station?” said the old man.

“To charge my truck.”

The old man lifted his Coke-bottle glasses. “THAT’S a truck?”

“It’s about to die.”

“Sure hate to see what that thing looks like alive.”

“It needs to be charged. I need a NEMA 14-50 or a standard public J1772 Level 2 station.”

“Run that by me again.”

“A V4 Supercharger, or a V3 charger, with a CCS-to-NACS adapter?”

“Do what?”

The young man finally ignored the old man. Soon, he was walking in circles, searching for cell signal in the parking lot.

“What brings you to these parts?” said the old guy.

“I just moved here. I’m opening the new data center in town.”

“Oh.”

“What’s this town like? What kind of people live here?”

“Well,” said the old man. “What were folks like back where you come from?”

The traveler laughed. “Honestly, the people were awful.”

“Really?”

“Yes. That’s actually why I moved. People were selfish, complained all the time, dishonest, and always gossiping. Nobody minded their own business. Nobody EVER helped their neighbor. Everyone was ALWAYS talking politics or looking for something to be angry about. We couldn’t get out of that place fast enough.”

The old man nodded sagely. “Well, I’m sorry to say you’re gonna find the same kinda folks here.”

The young man was annoyed. He climbed into his big triangle and drove away.

A few hours later, the old man was still outside the rundown bar. Still whittling. Still spitting. The possibly deceased dog was still there, too.

A vehicle pulled into the gravel parking lot.

“Excuse me,” said the motorist, stepping out of the car. It was a young woman in city clothes. “My GPS isn’t working. I’m lost.”

“Lot of that going around.”

“Which way is the highway?”

The old man pointed south.

“What brings you to these parts?” the oldster asked.

“I was hired for the new manager job at the Dollar General opening in town. Have you lived here long?”

“Since Truman.”

“What are the people like?”

Spit. “Well, young lady, what were folks like back where you come from?”

“Oh, people were great. Everyone was so nice. They were friendly, honest, and giving. If ever you needed help, someone always offered a hand. Nobody argued, or bickered, or found fault with each other. I hated to leave that place. I loved those people.”

The old man smiled.

“Well,” he replied. “I’m happy to say, you’ll find the same kinda folks here.”

And with that, the dog finally moved.

Tonight, we walk the streets of Savannah with royalty. Traffic does not part when she walks by. Her unwitting subjects, trudging along the sidewalks, do not pay her a genuflecting glance. When they see her, they do not even recognize her sacred station. But they smile just the same. For one cannot help but smile at royalty.

Her sovereign vestments are made of cotton and denim. Her robe, of spun atmosphere. Her jeweled crown, invisible to the human eye. But she is royal nonetheless.

Her name is Maddie. Or as we like to call her, “Your Majesty.”

Her Grace stops at a crosswalk to wait for a string of traffic to pass before crossing Habersham Street. She is smiling at each car that passes, for no reason at all. It is Sunday evening, and for no explainable reason, she is happy.

“Why are you so happy?” I ask Her Excellency as she monitors the traffic situation.

Maddie cannot hear me speak, of course. She is deaf. But she has trained herself to feel vocal vibrations and read lips. The random vibrations she senses, she associates with mental colors. The colors help her earmark all sounds and place them into categories. It is in this way that Her Highness can identify different noises. She can, for example, tell the difference between the deep-purple thrum of an A/C unit and the bright-red explosion of a dog barking.

She replies to my question after sensing the peach-colored vibrations from my voice and reading my lips with her one good eye.

That’s another thing. Her Highness’s left eye was removed because of glaucoma complications. Her right eye has glaucoma, but right now it works fine. The bad eye was giving her migraines.

Maddie spent her teens in a murky depression. Sometimes Maddie wouldn’t get out of bed for six days, paralyzed by the encroaching void. She was not ready to be blind and deaf. She was not ready to be locked in a dark and silent room for the rest of her life. But fate so often has other plans. Maddie is twenty-two.

“I tell my friends that I am three-quarters Helen Keller,” she says.

Her Eminence laughs as we cross the street in tandem. “Don’t get me wrong,” she adds. “I respect Helen Keller, and I admire her. But I don’t want to BE her.”

Helen Adams Keller spent her entire youth learning to speak. She passed her teenage years taking lessons, six days per week, fighting just to use her voice. All Helen ever wanted to do—her highest aspiration in this life—was to simply have a conversation.

Helen’s lifelong friends, Anne and Polly, initially discouraged her from learning to speak, saying it was a waste of her precious energy. But Helen had a mind of her own. In her career, Helen delivered speeches to millions, she was a regular on the vaudeville circuit, and she could carry on vocal conversations with groups of people. She, too, could hear vocal vibrations.

But even Helen could not compete with Her Illustrious Highness. Maddie is able to sense passing airplanes, approaching vehicles, babies crying, distant sirens, and she is able to understand people speaking who are standing behind her. All from the subtle tremors of air against her skin.

She is still in chronic pain from migraines, which have never entirely left her. And heavier than the pain is the constant quiet, a constant state of readiness she must live in—the heavy knowledge that any day, without warning, her right eye might finally fail her. She is a twenty-two-year-old girl who memorizes the faces of her friends, just in case tomorrow her world goes dark.

“I am in pain all the time,” she says, standing beneath the glow of a streetlight. “But I refuse to focus on pain anymore. You become what you think about. I am more than my pain.”

Maddie is a senior at Georgia Southern. She is on the dean’s list. She is working toward earning her master’s in creative writing. Maddie has almost finished her first novel.

She also directs and produces theater productions at Georgia Southern. In addition to this, Maddie works as a professional historic tour guide in Savannah, leading long tours for sighted and hearing people. And, not that anyone’s counting, Maddie also sings and performs in local productions.

“How do you SING when you can’t HEAR?” I ask Maddie, as she guides us through Colonial Park Cemetery.

Her Highness smiles at me. “Hard work.”

I’ve met a lot of people in my career as a writer. Some names you’d recognize. Most you wouldn’t. But I’ve never met anyone like Her Grace. I’ve never met anyone standing so close to the edge, whose mind and spirit remain so brimming with unquenchable joy.

“I have bad days,” she explains, “just like anyone else. There are some days that the pain is pretty bad, and things just suck. But I made a choice a long time ago, I said to myself, ‘This is MY life. There’s a lot I can do. I can choose to be sad, or I can get out there and live and make friends.’”

And make friends she does. Maddie cannot go anywhere without finding new friends. Maddie is the kind of person who goes out to eat and exchanges numbers with the entire wait staff before she leaves the restaurant.

She is the Queen of the Forest City, but her people knoweth her not. She walks among her people, hidden beneath the cloak of a common woman.

But her true identity cannot be hidden for long. For when she encounters strangers, a light comes into their eyes, and they recognize a latent power within this young woman. A unique and precious gift. The defiant power of happiness. This world has tried to take everything from her. But Maddie wins everyone over by refusing to frown.

“Happiness,” Maddie says. “That’s my only trick to life. I learned a long time ago, there are only three things I can’t do with my condition: I can’t be a doctor, I can’t be an astronaut, and I can’t be in the military. Other than that, I can do whatever I set my mind to. And I set my mind to be happy.”

Long live the Queen of Savannah.

To answer this, I need to start by telling you about our trip to Spain.

Not long ago, we walked the Camino de Santiago for a second time. For a second time we were on foot in Spain, living out of our backpacks, communicating fluently in Spanish hand gestures.

For a second time, we read Spanish signage, watched Spanish TV, ate Spanish foods, and enjoyed many authentic Spanish foodborne illnesses which transform the lower digestive region into nuclear field testing sites.

While we were there, something kinda cool happened to me. I heard a voice. I don’t know how to describe the voice. I don’t even know whose voice it was. But it was definitely a voice. It was, however, a quiet one.

I suppose I could only hear the voice because the noise of daily life died down. And I became acutely aware of the present moment. I had never really connected with the present moment before. I’d always been living in the next few moments. Or worse. I was reliving the decades of past moments. But in the silence of the Camino, I was here. I was now. And I heard the voice.

We live in a loud world.

Smart TVs, mobile phones, tablets, and other media devices blare frightening news, twenty-four-seven. The news isn’t even news anymore. It’s cleverly worded headline phrases with trigger words and slanted spin phrasing. Stories are announced by talking heads, capable of discussing a single media event for upwards of six or seven hours without once pausing to reapply hairspray.

And the News People don’t just make a lot of noise, they directly tell you what your opinions should be about “the issues.” They tell you, subconsciously, how you should feel. They urge you to wallow in negative emotions about nearly everything. With each broadcast, they TEACH you to feel, think, and react negatively.

Often, news channels even format their shows as round-table discussions where several negative people discuss multiple negative topics wearing negative expressions on their made-up faces, and they argue for 60 minutes—except for the 2,348,197 pharmaceutical ad interruptions.

The pharma ads are the worst. They offer fear-based advertisements. They advertise meds for disorders like acid reflux, diabetes, weight loss, AIDS, depression, eczema, Crohn’s disease, ALS, GERD, COPD, HIV, PCOS, CHF, CKD, IBD, PID, RA, SLE, TB, and IBS. Then, an announcer doing his best Morgan Freeman impersonation reads a disclaimer warning that this medication might cause headaches, diarrhea, dizziness, mood swings, loss of personality, loss of the marital impulse, liver infections, blood infections, paralysis, seizures, uncontrollable muscle spasms—which might be permanent—and lastly, thoughts of suicide.

This confuses me. First, the ads scare you into TAKING the meds. Then they scare you spitless for even CONSIDERING such medications. Sometimes I watch these commercials and wonder what exactly it is that pharmaceutical companies are actually asking me to DO. Do they want me to use their products or soil my undergarments whenever they use the word “suicide”?

In addition to the noisy ads and negativity, you also have the rise of the smartphone, which is taking over our lives.

We used to read books. We used to write letters and send postcards. We used to rifle through newspaper pages on Sunday mornings. Neighborhood kids used to ride bikes, build forts, and climb trees. We used to play outside until dark, then race inside to catch “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.” Today nearly 12 percent of American children ride bikes regularly. Fifty years ago it was 80 percent.

The quiet way of living is disappearing from modernity. But I re-found the quietude in Spain.

I had missed it. I missed a life where media outlets, advertisers, mega-corporations, and pharmaceutical firms weren’t yelling at me. The pace was slower, too. The Spanish TVs played old John Wayne movies. The radio stations played old Elvis hits. Farmers still used walking sticks and wore actual straw hats. People drove cars with actual chrome on the fenders. Sometimes it felt like you were stuck in 1953, minus the threat of nuclear war.

And, as I say, it was quiet. So quiet.

The countryside was so silent you could hear your own heartbeat. You could hear yourself think. You could hear that little voice inside you. The voice that isn’t you speaking, but sort of sounds like you because it talks through your brain.

The same voice that reminds you to slow down. To breathe. To chill out and not panic. The voice that tells you to stop and look around you, right now, because life is flying past, and you’re missing it.

The same voice that tells you, gently, that you ought to value people instead of your job. Not new friends you wish you had. Not old relationships that went bye-bye a long time ago. The voice is talking about the people who are in your life right this moment. What if you treated them—each one of them—as if THEY were your job?

“What if,” the voice suggests, “all that energy you spent on your writing, working, and producing Internet ‘content,’ you instead spent on people?”

After all, people are what this life is about. It’s always been about people. Their love is the only possession you can carry with you when you leave this Earth.

When the voice says stuff like this to you, it makes you weep. Namely, because you realize that you haven’t been doing what the voice suggests, for many years now. You’ve been winging it, out there on your own.

But when the voice speaks, it gives you a little courage. It gives you a shot of confidence to step back from the noise, and just be.

Since I have slowed my writing career down, I have been investing my daily energy into people. People who matter to me. Instead of producing another 300-page book, I have traveled more, visiting old friends. I have eaten more good food with loved ones. I have shared more cold beers with pals. I have watched more reruns of Lawrence Welk.

I have cried more happy tears with people I care about. I have stayed up laughing until 1 a.m. with those who love me and found myself wondering why the hell I haven’t been spending more time with them.

In short, I think I’m finally getting it. I think I’m finally learning what my life is truly supposed to be about. I think I’m finally seeing a less selfish me emerge. I’m only sorry it took me so long to get over myself. How can I ever forgive myself for such an error?

“Aw, don’t beat yourself up,” comes a quiet reply. “I already forgave you a long, LONG time ago.”

At least that’s what the voice said to me.

Morgan arrived at the little lake cabin around lunchtime. Her sorority sister Grace was driving the car. The car wheeled into the gravel driveway. When Morgan crawled out of the passenger seat, we all rushed her and embraced.

Everyone was laughing and carrying on, hugging necks, and back-slapping. Dogs were turning circles and barking with glee. And during all this social excitement, someone may or may not have accidentally peed in the kitchen.

Now, I won’t say WHO in my family circle urinated directly on the kitchen floor. But I will say that I am almost certain—at least in this particular instance—that it wasn’t me.

Next, Grace and I carried Morgan’s bags inside, while my wife gave Morgan the dime tour of the antiquated lake abode.

Jamie showed Morgan where the wooden floorboards warp and where, precisely, she should watch her step. She showed her the vintage bathroom, with a toilet that predates the Truman era and a rust-covered bathtub with flaking paint, and a tiny lizard who lives in the overflow drain whom we have named Albert. We showed Morgan exactly which hazardous ungrounded electrical sockets to avoid, and made certain everyone understood the finer points of electrical injuries and basic CPR.

Then, while everyone got settled in, my wife cleaned up the pee in the kitchen.

“I’d like to know WHO peed in my kitchen,” she said in an ominous voice, glaring at me and our three dogs.

“I would like to know as well,” I said.

But my wife was now glaring solely at me.

“What are you looking at me for?” I asked.

Glare.

So I went onto the porch and hung out with Grace and Morgan. The porch overlooks Lake Martin and is the perfect place to spend a serene afternoon. Morgan was sitting on the porch swing, gazing out at the water.

Morgan Love is 20 years old and my dear friend. We’ve been compadres for years. I first met Morgan when she was a teenager. I was on a writing assignment, doing an article about service dogs in Alabama. One of my interviews of the day was Morgan and her service dog, Clarabelle.

I’ll never forget meeting Morgan for the first time. Her shock of red hair is the first thing you notice. There are only a few in the world with hair this particular shade of fire. Then you notice her viral smile. Morgan’s smile sort of infects the whole room, one person at a time. If you aren’t smiling within a few moments after meeting Morgan, you’re not living right.

And it is only then, after the smile, after the hair, that you notice Morgan’s slight limp. You soon realize that she is paralyzed on the left side of her body.

Then you notice her backpack, which she wears all day, every hour, because it contains her TPN feeding-tube apparatus, which is a form of life support. Then, after talking to her for a moment, you notice the blindness in her eyes. And then you learn that she has practically grown up in a hospital bed. In some ways, Morgan’s past few years have mostly been lived in sterilized medical rooms, lying in a hospital bed, connected to tubes and wires.

And yet she is the happiest person I know. Not “one of the happiest people I know.” But the actual, bona fide, happiest person I have ever met. She walks around this world, health concerns notwithstanding, with the sunny disposition of a recent lottery winner.

So anyway, Grace and Morgan and I played Clue on the porch while my wife cleaned up pee. I haven’t played Clue in many years and needed Grace to give me a refresher course. Grace is a medical student who is studying to be a nurse and then become a doctor. She is very methodical and serious when it comes to explaining board-game rules. Do not interrupt her, or you will need resuscitation.

The game was fun. Morgan was Colonel Mustard. Grace was Miss Peacock. I was the maid, Miss White. As it turned out, Miss Peacock committed the atrocity. With the candlestick holder. In the kitchen—of all places. You have to worry about this world sometimes.

Then, it was time for supper. The fireflies made dappled light designs in the evening air. We ate on the screened porch among the myriad of glowing yellow dots. We all bowed heads as Morgan said the blessing. Her prayer was short and spartanly simple.

“Thank you, God, for friends. Thank you, God, for food. Thank you, God, for life.”

This was followed by a beat of silence.

The rest of us ate hotdogs while Morgan painstakingly ate tater tots. My heart swelled with pride after each tot she ate. For I can still remember when doctors told her she’d never eat solid food again.

And for years, she didn’t. Nothing passed Morgan’s lips. Her teeth ached from lack of chewing. Her paralyzed intestines processed no solid matter. Her life was devoid of all taste and savor. For years, Morgan would simply watch from afar as the rest of us shoveled food into our greedy little mouths, enjoying the most basic pleasure of our human existence.

But Morgan refused to accept the doctors’ bleak outlook. Although her intestines are still paralyzed, she has forced herself to learn to eat food again. She started small, with lone bites of mashed potatoes. Then, she worked her way up to waffles and tater tots and pretzels. Now she can eat many normal foods.

As I watched her eat, I found that my cheek muscles were cramping and there was a strange, warm fluid running down the side of my face.

“People do not know what a gift it is to eat,” said Morgan.

Supper ended. A good time was had by all. And as I was clearing dishes from the table, once again—brace yourself—someone who was not me peed in the kitchen.

My wife was the one who found the bodily fluid. She stared at the golden puddle with an unmoving face. I could feel the air vibrating with Jamie’s silent but unbridled wrath.

“There is pee in my kitchen,” she said through gritted teeth.

“I see it.”

“Someone peed in my kitchen.”

“Yes,” I pointed out.

She just looked at me. “Take these dogs outside.” She said this in a voice so quiet it was almost inaudible to the naked ear.

So, I took the dogs outside and gave them a stern talking-to. And by “stern,” I mean that my serious lecture involved doggy treats and complimentary rawhide chews.

Then, I asked if Morgan wanted to drive the pontoon boat.

“Me?” she said. “You want a blind epileptic girl driving your boat at night?”

“I can’t think of a better way to go,” said I.

So, Grace and I piled into the pontoon while Morgan piloted the watercraft across the mirrored lake at sundown.

The sky was on fire with pinks and purples and reds. The cicadas and crickets were singing the day’s finale chorus. And a flawless sun descended beneath Coosa County clouds.

Morgan kept her non-paralyzed hand on the wheel, periodically adjusting the throttle, silently staring into the beauty surrounding us. There was no need to talk. No need for words. Because all of nature was doing enough talking and singing for us all. All creation was crying out to the heavens in one unified voice, saying exactly the same thing, all at once:

Thank you, God, for friends. Thank you, God, for food. Thank you, God, for life.

On our first date, we went to a bookstore-slash-coffee-shop. I asked the young lovely if she wanted something to drink. She replied that she would like some water, please.

So, I found the coffee station, which featured a small pitcher of free tap water. I poured a Dixie cup full. I gave the water to her.

My date handled the tiny cup like I’d just presented her a container of warm sputum.

“What’s this?” Jamie said.

“Water.”

“Didn’t they have any bottles of water?”

“I think they sell bottles, yes.”

She glanced at the Barbie-sized cup in her hands. “Are plastic bottles against your religion?”

Shrug. “They’re expensive.”

“So it’s a moral issue?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“What would you say then?”

I smiled. “Would you like a bottle of water?”

“No,” she said.

“Let me get you a bottle of water.”

“No, thank you. Not if they’re ‘expensive.’ Heaven for-BID.”

“I’ll be right back.”

“No. Don’t bother. I don’t want a bottle of water. I couldn’t have you spending a whole DOLLAR on your date. That would be a bridge too far.”

Jamie tossed back the water like it was commercial-grade tequila. She slammed the empty cup on the table. “I’ll take another, Mister Rockefeller.”

And I knew I would marry her.

In my defense, this happened nearly a quarter century ago. Bottled water was still a relatively new thing to the American public. It was considered bougie, at the time. This was an era when bottled water was typically reserved for persons with a credit score of 780 or higher.

Moreover, when you came from the other side of the tracks, like me, you did not drink water from plasticized bottles. You drank water the way the Good Lord intended: from recycled jelly jars, or directly from the hosepipe.

For this reason, I was a late convert to the Bottled Water Party. It was the principle of the matter. Bottling water was unnatural. Water wasn’t supposed to be bottled and sold as a product. Water was one of God’s free resources. Like oxygen, sunlight, or Milwaukee’s Best.

It’s times like this that make me grateful my father died before the modern era arrived. Namely, because he would be rolling in his grave if he’d known they were packaging water and selling it.

Today, however, I drink bottled water all the time. I am compelled to because we are always on the road—my wife and I. These days I walk into a gas station, fork over nearly $5 for a large bottle of water, and that’s that. I don’t even think about it anymore.

It’s not special water, mind you. It doesn’t taste any different than normal water. In fact, this is evidently a major selling point for bottled water brands inasmuch as it states right on the bottle that it’s not special water. The label makes it sound like the bottling companies don’t “do” anything to their water. According to manufacturers, they simply walk down to a virgin babbling brook, usually a stream with a name like “Antler Creek,” “Serenity Falls,” or “Ebola Springs,” scoop up some water, and sell it for five big ones.

And we, the public, buy it. We all buy it. We don’t even bat an eye. It’s no big deal, purchasing water. We buy it by the palletful. It comes in different brands. It is sold under different names. The water even advertises different features such as added electrolytes, additional minerals, or alkalinity. But no matter how you gussy it up, it’s still just water.

But then, water is never “just water.” Water is everything. Water is arguably the only thing that matters in this world.

Your body is 60 percent water. Your organs are water. Your heart is 80 percent water. Your liver is 75 percent. Your brain, lungs, and kidneys are 85 percent. Even your bones are not completely dry, but are 31 percent water.

The Earth itself is 71 percent water. Trees are 50 percent. Grass and leaves are 80 percent. Flowers are 70 percent. Vegetables are 90 to 95 percent water. Even the microbial bacteria that cover every living thing on this planet, including our bodies, is made of 85 percent water. Even our air holds water.

In fact, it could be said that everything we consume, everything we touch, everything we breathe contains—more or less—water. Water envelops our entire being. You cannot escape water. The human body cannot survive 72 hours without water.

And yet, you are always losing hydration. Every exhalation you take, you lose water in the form of vapor. With every organ function, your body expels water. Every time you sweat, you relinquish your internal water supply. So this means we, as human beings, are always in water debt. We live in a constant deficit, always searching for water, just to survive.

Water is more than merely precious to our species. Water IS our species. Water is the essence of our very existence. Water is in every breath we take, every blink of our eyes, every thought from our brains, every beat of our hearts. Water is our whole world. Water is life.

Why do I bring all this up?

Because after 23 years, Jamie Dietrich is still my water.

The complainers speak in all caps sometimes.

“AMERICA IS FALLING APART,” they often say. “THINGS ARE WORSE NOW THAN EVER BEFORE.”

But just because something was typed in capital letters doesn’t make it true.

Actually, things are not worse than ever before. Less than 100 years ago, in 1933, nearly 30 percent of Americans were unemployed. Over 2 million children abandoned schoolhouses for factory jobs. About 150,000 families were starving, eating weeds and roadside scraps to combat malnutrition.

Whereas today, the unemployment rate is 4 percent. Meanwhile, we’re more educated than ever—federal law mandates free K-12 education for all youth. Also, over 86 percent of households are food secure.

“WHATEVER!” the angry people type while compressing the Shift key. “THIS IS STILL THE WORST PERIOD IN HISTORY.”

Is it? Let’s talk Earth history for a moment. Millions of years ago temperatures were approaching 150 degrees, which is almost as hot as a Porta-John at a bluegrass festival. Earth creatures retreated to polar regions, en masse. They starved, of course.

Mass extinction was the norm. Acid rain burned plants, killed trees, and destroyed animal eyesight. A super-volcano spewed enough lava to cover North America in a layer of lava half a mile deep. Meantime, here comes an asteroid. Whereas today, you have Starbucks.

“OKAY, MAYBE THE WORLD ISN’T LITERALLY FALLING APART. BUT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS DESTROYING OUR WAY OF LIFE.”

This is exactly what they said about machines during the Industrial Revolution, but we survived.

“WHAT’RE YOU TALKING ABOUT? MACHINES HAVE RUINED US! THEY MAKE LIFE SOOO COMPLICATED.”

Complicated?

“YES!”

But machines make your life easier.

“NUH-UH!”

Yes-huh.

“NUH-UH!”

Okay.

Do me a favor. Go to your pantry. Select an item from your shelf. Any item. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Great. That can of pineapple you’re holding didn’t just land on the shelf by itself. And YOU certainly didn’t pick the pineapple with your own two hands. You were too busy fondling your caps lock key. I’m going to tell you how that pineapple got to your shelf.

“NO. PLEASE DON’T.”

First, tractors somewhere in Hawaii dragged mechanically intelligent implements across the soil, unrolling plastic onto soil beds to control weeds and retain moisture. Pineapples were then planted by machines, then watered by automated irrigation systems.

Whereupon, self-propelled farming equipment harvested each pineapple, placing them into cargo trucks. Next, pineapples were dumped onto conveyor systems where automated circular saws sliced off their leaves. Fruit then passed into industrial baths of high-pressure water jets which scrubbed away soil, debris, pesticides, and mammalian excreta.

“GROSS! YOU SAID MAMMALIAN EXCRETA!”

Next, high-speed digital cameras inspected each pineapple, calculating diameter, then routed each pineapple to its correct processing area.

Then, the fruit was ushered into the “Henry Ginaca machine.” The Henry Ginaca machine was invented during the Technological Revolution, in 1911, by a guy whose name was… Well, I can’t remember.

In one lightning-fast swipe, the Henry Ginaca machine topped, tailed, and punched out a perfect pineapple core, while simultaneously carving away the tough outer rind.

“PLEASE STOP TELLING ME ABOUT PINEAPPLES.”

Afterward, the fruit was dropped onto rotary blades that chopped it into uniform slices. While this was happening, a depalletizer was pushing empty tins off pallets with robotic arms, flipping them upside down, and blasting them with steam.

Pineapple slices were then stacked into cans and sent to an automatic “syrup injector.” Then came the automated vacuum sealer. Then the lid crimper. Then the quality-control machine, then...

“I’M BEGGING YOU.”

Sealed cans then traveled through a massive, multi-story intelligent pressure cooker to heat them, cooking pineapple inside the tins, which destroyed dangerous microorganisms. Hot cans then passed under a machine, spraying them with cold water to stop the cooking process and prevent fruit from becoming mush.

Then rapid-fire rollers labeled each can. Then, cans were robotically packed. A mechanical palletizer then wrapped the shipment in plastic. Then came a forklift and…

“FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! I GET IT! MAYBE MACHINES AREN’T SO BAD. BUT I STILL THINK THIS WORLD STINKS.”

Wrong again. Before the late 19th century, nearly all cities featured open street gutters overflowing with raw sewage, rotting animal carcasses, and mountains of mammalian excreta. Whereas thanks to modern sewers, daily bathing, and municipal trash collection, our lives are less stinky than ever before in the history of civilization.

“OH MY GOD.”

I know this is hard for you.

“WHAT ABOUT KIDS? THEY’RE LAZY! THEY DON’T WORK AS HARD AS MY GENERATION DID!”

Well, I hate to be the proverbial mammalian excreta in the punchbowl. Even though today’s young workers might not be driving steel or traversing the Oregon Trail, studies show they might be working harder than any generation before them. This is because they carry their workplace in their pockets.

Smartphones, emails, text messages, and project management apps have made the cognitive burden heavier than ever. The unspoken expectation to respond to quick questions, late-night texts, or over-the-weekend emails breeds a state of chronic, low-grade alertness. Today’s workers no longer operate in shifts. They are on the clock indefinitely.

“BUT WHAT ABOUT THE FAMILY UNIT? WE’RE SEEING THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN FAMILY!”

Are we? According to studies compiled by organizations like the World Economic Forum and the University of California, Irvine, parent-child time has skyrocketed since the mid-20th century.

American children now receive an average of four hours of daily face time with parents. This might not sound impressive, but only 50 years ago, the same child would have gotten 17 minutes.

“REALLY?”

Really. During the Industrial Age, for example, kids could expect an average of two minutes of face time. Likewise, only 50 years ago an average mother would spend 40 to 56 weekly hours on housework. Today, the American mother spends 18 hours.

“OKAY, MISTER SMARTY-STATS. IF THINGS ARE SO GREAT, WHY ARE AMERICAN DIVORCES HIGHER THAN EVER?”

Well, that’s the thing. They aren’t. In 1980, U.S. divorce rates peaked at 22.6 divorces per 1,000 married women. That number has dropped and is currently hovering around 8. This means—and believe me, I know this is difficult to hear—Baby Boomers have 40 percent more divorces than Generation Xers, Millennials, and Gen-Zers combined.

“BUT WHAT ABOUT CRIME? WE HAVE MORE WEIRDOS OUT THERE. CRIME IS WORSE! THIS WORLD IS MORE DANGEROUS!”

Nope. You might be confusing this era with the 14th century, when annual homicide rates in cities like, for instance, London, were around 110 deaths per 100,000 people. Today, the average homicide rate in Europe is around one per 100,000.

On a global scale, however, things have changed more dramatically. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found that worldwide homicide rates—even in just the last 30 years—have dropped sharply. In the United States alone, violent crime fell by more than 50 percent since 1993.

You might want to read that last sentence again.

“I STILL DON’T BELIEVE YOU. YOU’RE SMOKING CRACK.”

Of course you don’t believe me. This is because whenever a crime is committed, anywhere on Earth, the crime is immediately displayed on your phone screen before the crime is, technically, even finished.

In turn, your brain—which is still wired with prehistoric wiring—interprets this hi-def video as a threat existing in your own yard. Which causes you to exhibit physiological symptoms of fear. Symptoms such as stress, anxiety, elevated heart rate, shallow breathing, sudden interest in reality television, etc.

“GIMME A BREAK! THIS WORLD IS A SICK PLACE. YOU CAN’T CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE!”

I will agree with you there. Because negativity is definitely a disease.

Jim was stuck. In the middle of the rural two-lane highway. Right there on the pavement. Not far from the solid yellow line. Tucked tightly in his shell. Scared to death.

Vehicles sped past little Jim, on both sides, shooting by with the deafening roars of F-16s.

All he could see were their tires from this angle. Big black wheels, flying past so quickly they looked like grayish blurs. Thick synthetic rubber treads, gripping the highway floor, making loud rubberized noises on the pavement, only inches from his tiny head.

Jim knew what these machines were, of course. Everyone knows. And, more importantly, he knew what they could do to a small creature like himself. He’d seen the aftermath before.

Squirrels. Possums. Raccoons. Even dogs. Fast and agile creatures, each one of them. But they were no match for the machines with tires. The unfortunate animals were struck. Their limp bodies often lay on the highway shoulder. Unattended. Forgotten. Picked clean by the turkey buzzards.

“What shall I do?” Jim was thinking to himself. “If these speedy machines can kill quick-moving creatures like dogs and cats and chipmunks, they can surely kill slow things like me.”

He had only been crossing the highway on his way to the pond. The pond where he was born. This was what his species did, each year. They returned to the old homeplace.

Year after year, all of Jim’s kind came from distant parts of the forest, following their internal compasses. They reunited at the old pond where they had hatched. They came here to nest. To mate. To lay eggs. They’d been doing this for hundreds, if not thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years. Ever since the earth cooled.

Human scientists would call this behavior “site fidelity.” Scientists would marvel at this tortoise instinct. These creatures could follow thousands of miles of featureless oceans, skies, and terrain without a map, using only magnetoreception (magnetic fields) to find the place of their origin.

But it wasn’t instinct. It wasn’t magnetoreception. It was intuition, really.

Every creature knows the way. They are born with everything needed inside themselves to do what needs to be done. Nobody teaches a lizard how to be a lizard. Nor a fish to behave like a fish. Somehow, they just know.

But it’s easy to get lost. And it’s even easier to meet manmade obstacles like trafficky highways, parking lots, or mountainous hunks of speeding steel that block your path.

So Jim stayed put. Vehicles whizzed past. SUVs the size of national monuments, spewing exhaust. Massive trucks with chromium silhouettes of naked ladies on the mudflaps. Commercial vehicles with a few dozen tires, speeding right over the top of him.

When you’re caught in the middle of a busy highway, sometimes your only option is to stop moving. As looney as it sounds, your safest place is sometimes the yellow line.

The center of the hurricane.

After all, if Jim were to turn around and go back where he came from, he would die. Likewise, if he kept going forward, he would die. If he made a move in ANY direction, he would become a tortoise-flavored pancake.

So Jim sucked himself into his shell. And he waited.

He closed his little eyes and hoped. Maybe things would slow down eventually, he was thinking. Maybe the noisy, rumbly, gassy machines would stop, and he could keep waddling forward. Or, perhaps, he thought, this is the end for me. Maybe it’s just my time to go.

And even though, in this moment, Jim is terrified of the pain that lies ahead, he knows somehow, just like all animals know, this is how it’s intended to be.

Everything that happens must happen. And this has to be okay, because this is what is. No matter what we think about it, no matter how rigidly we try to control it, to resist it, to prevent it, to manipulate it, to alter it, to soften it, to divert it. What will be will be.

And that’s when Jim feels himself begin to float off the highway.

Soon, his feet are suspended high above the earth. He is lifted from the yellow line by an unseen hand.

And although he can hardly believe it, all the giant machines have stopped. They are all standing still on the highway, allowing him to pass. Their headlights blazing, bursts of air exiting their grille-like nostrils, and smoke blasting from their tailpipes.

“I’m flying!” Jim is thinking as he makes his airborne journey across the highway.

And he is flying. Someone is carrying him. Something is holding him.

Oddly, at first Jim’s reaction is to fight his rescuer. It’s instinct. Animal reflex. To buck and flail against the one who helps you. When you’re lifted from the solid ground, the ground you’ve clung to every moment of your livelong life, you have no choice but to convulse.

But eventually the involuntary flailing stops. And Jim’s little brain, his tiny nervous system, and his entire physiology come to a deep realization that all he can do now is trust.

That’s it. Trust. There is nothing else to do. There is no other course of action in life. So you might as well give up. The faster you quit fighting, the easier it will be.

Because the hands that hold you must know something you don’t. Did they not lift you from danger? Are they not hands that shield you from harm? Do they not now hold you against their breast?

Soon, you are placed in the tall grass, in the same direction you were going. You turn to view your hero, but he or she is already gone.

So you just sit there for a little while, taking it all in.

You do not know who rescued you. Neither do you have any way of thanking them for the help. But it doesn’t matter. Your thanks is not required by the one who saved you. They don’t need your adulation. They don’t need your applause. They don’t even need your recognition. They are completely fine with you never even knowing their name.

Because, after all, you are only a small turtle, and nothing you could say or do would change the way they obviously feel about you.

But it doesn’t mean you aren’t grateful. You are. Every breath you take is an act of gratitude. Of thanksgiving. Of joy. Of love. Of happiness.

Then, you look around at the forest. At the birds in the trees. And you have this startling moment of clarity, as you watch them soar through the air.

The birds sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

Yes.

Jim’s a pretty sharp little turtle

.

We left New York, bound for Pennsylvania. We crossed the border and entered the Horse-and-Buggy State. All of a sudden the scenery changed. We saw farmhouses, porch swings, clotheslines, and large, steaming piles of organic matter on highway shoulders that definitely weren’t left by SUVs.

We sped through Amish country on our way to meet our friend Kris at a restaurant called “Funck’s.” My wife, Jamie, was convinced the name of this restaurant was an unfortunate typo.

“That can NOT be the real name of the restaurant,” said Jamie.

“Why not?” I said.

“Because it almost sounds like a cuss word.”

“That’s not very nice. It’s someone’s name.”

“It’s NOT a real name.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Have YOU ever met a Funck?”

“No, but I’ve met plenty of people who acted like one.”

Then, I explained to my wife that this is Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, lots of people marry Funcks. Funck is a completely ordinary thing. Funck is a natural and normal part of life.

Then, I started thinking of all the imaginary Funck family reunions in the Keystone State, with everyone getting together for the annual Funck barbecue, with lots of happy Funck families running around. I imagined tiny brother and sister Funcks, a Father Funck and a Mother…

Anyway, we met our friend Kris at the restaurant where the hostess assured me that Funck is a real name and you are free to use this word in social settings without offending anyone. (“Quit acting like a Funck…”) They even use this name in religious ceremonies and nobody thinks twice. (“Do you, Liz Martin, take this man, Chip Funck, to be your lawfully wedded Funck…?”)

“I actually know a woman named Funck,” one customer in line offered. “We tried to convince her to name her first daughter ‘Uptown.’”

End of digression.

So, Kris arrived bearing handpicked flowers in a glass jar. Her smile was infectious. We hugged in the restaurant parking lot. Kris is a good hugger. And we ordered Funcky appetizers.

I first wrote about Kris when I met her at a book event a few years ago. She is a Presbyterian pastor from Thailand. She’s been a pastor for nearly 40 years. The majority of which have been spent in the States.

It bears mentioning that Kris is the first female Presbyterian minister I have ever met, let alone the first female Thai minister. Also, she holds the distinction of being the first minister I’ve ever met who ordered beer for lunch on a weekday.

“Would you like a beer?” Kris asked.

I replied yes, I would like a beer for lunch on a weekday. So, Kris flagged the waiter and, boom, just like that, for the first time in my life I was drinking with the Presbyterian clergy.

“When I was young, there were no women ministers coming from Thailand,” said Kris. “Many people discourage me from this career, but this only made me want it more. I would say to myself, ‘These people cannot tell me what God has in store for me.’ Nobody can tell you what God has planned.”

When I first met Kris, she attended one of my one-man trainwrecks along with a young Thai woman named Oat. I say “young” because this is how Oat seemed. Youthful. Although Oat is in her mid-forties. Oat quickly became my friend, too.

Oat’s parents were ministers, long ago. They were Kris’s dear friends. Oat’s father died in a car accident, and Oat’s mother died of cancer. Oat came to live with Kris for an extended period. Kris became Oat’s unofficial adopted mother. But now Oat is back in Thailand.

“Now that she is gone, I miss the sense of purpose I felt when she lived with me. I miss going to the supermarket and having someone besides myself to shop for. Now all I do is shop for my cats and make them fat.”

I asked what sort of work Oat is doing in Thailand.

With bright eyes, Kris smiled. “She is teaching seminary.” Then she wiped her eye and added, “Let’s order another beer.”

After our meeting with Kris, and some more beer, I staggered to the parking lot, crawled into the passenger seat, and my wife buckled me in and wiped the drool from my collar.

Soon, we were entering Lancaster County, just in time to get stuck behind a horse and buggy. The buggy was moving so slowly, we knew something must be holding it up.

So I rolled the window down and looked ahead to see what the problem was. Ahead of the buggy was yet another buggy. Ahead of that buggy was another buggy. And ahead of that one was another buggy. We were behind multiple buggies.

Thus, after surviving our first Amish traffic-jam, we arrived at our friends Shawn and Maile’s house. Shawn is an old friend whom we affectionately call “Shawn of the North.” Shawn and Maile are both authors who own a bookstore in downtown Lancaster called Nooks, where I’ll be performing for an event to deter any potential customers.

Shawn’s wife, Maile, had prepared Indian food for supper. The house smelled glorious, with scents of cardamom, coriander, and ginger in the air. No sooner had we entered Shawn’s living room than we were greeted by Winnie, Shawn and Maile’s enthusiastic Yellow Labrador Retriever.

All night, Winnie was content to lie on the floor and let me rub every square inch of her body, which I did for hours. Whenever I would quit rubbing, Winnie would dutifully begin to lick my palm, sometimes going so far as to lick between my fingers and even chew my fingernails with tiny love-bites until I resumed petting.

We all had deep conversations around the table, laughing and carrying on, while Winnie trimmed my excess fingernail growth. We stayed around that table until 11:00 p.m., until it was time to clear off the table.

When it was time to leave. We all participated in The Long Southern Goodbye Process on the porch. We are long Southern-good-byers, and there is a specific method for long-Southern-good-bying:

After saying your initial goodbye, you embrace again, laugh some more, descend exactly one porch step, then tell 312 more stories. Whereupon you then descend to the next porch step and do it all over again. This takes hours as you follow each other out to the car and climb into the passenger seat with departing guests, still telling stories and conversing as you drive away.

And as we all bid goodbye, and as Winnie licked every nanometer of my exposed skin, I got to thinking about how I’ve had life all wrong. For many years, I’ve had it wrong.

This is life. Right here. Right now. This. It might sound incredibly boring. Maybe even tedious.

But life is not about achieving things. It’s not about stuff. It’s not even about being happy, or about self-actualization, or about finding answers, or about ultimate truth or wisdom. Life is about people. It’s always been about people. Also dogs. Possibly cats. But mostly people. Because their love is the only thing you can take with you when you leave.

For our final goodbye, Shawn held his hand out to shake mine.

I declined.

“Sorry,” I said, holding up my dog-licked, sticky hand. “I’d love to shake your hand, but I can’t.”

Because my hand was all Funcky.

We arrived in New York City and tried our best to avoid the chaotic crowds of pedestrians downtown. But this proved to be difficult inasmuch as our cab driver was driving on the sidewalks. We tried to ask him to slow down, but he was too busy on a video call.

Ah, New York. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate this place, but I appreciate it in much the same way I appreciate, say, dental implants. This is a stressful city. Namely, because everyone here is in a big hurry. You can feel everyone’s energy constantly pulsing around you with the intensity of a trauma unit.

Downtown, I was perpetually approached by people on the street who were either trying to sell me something, trying to save my eternal soul, trying to collect my spare change, or attempting to welcome me into a reputable place of business with a name like, “G-String Theory.” Meanwhile, I was dodging bike messengers traveling upwards of 60 mph whose pupils were the size of subatomic particles.

Years ago, the first time I visited New York City, one of the first things I learned was that few residents know what to do when they meet someone who holds open the door for them. I was raised to hold open the door for anyone approaching a place of business, restaurant, community establishment, or penal institution. So, I held the door for an elderly woman who was exiting a restaurant.

She looked at me aghast and said, “What, you don’t think I can open my OWN door?”

“Huh?” I replied.

“Are you a sexist?”

“No, ma’am, it’s just…”

“‘MA’AM!?’ Who you callin’ ma’am? Are you saying I’m old?”

“No, ma’am... I mean, Miss, I was just…”

Then she cracked a smile. “Relax,” she said with a grin, “I’m only teasing. Welcome to New York.”

Then she touched my shoulder and added quite sincerely, “Now give me your [bleeping] wallet.”

Then we just laughed and laughed. But not very hard.

So everyone in New York is very cool. They wear the latest fashions and the most current trends. New York is a place so hip that coolness experts call it “the pelvis of America.”

Here, they wear high-end shoes and brandish the most geometric hairstyles. Walking around this place while clad in my khaki shorts and my “George” T-shirt purchased directly from Walmart ($6.98) makes me feel about as hip as a root canal.

The people here are so cool that even their pets wear sunglasses. Seriously. I saw a guy downtown whose chihuahua was wearing aviator shades. The dog’s name was Taco. Taco was very fun, and he even had a tip jar.

Whenever Taco had to use the bathroom, if there were no trees around, his owner would unfurl a small piece of absorbent astroturfing and place it on the sidewalk directly beneath Taco’s little anatomical region. During Taco’s moment of evacuatory reverie, his owner would play a recording of Richard Strauss’s “Zarathustra,” the opening theme of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and passersby would applaud heartily. Taco earned many tips for this.

“New York,” his owner remarked. “Hell of a place.”

We spent most of the day exploring. We even rode the subways, which was fun. One nervous and jittery subway passenger was looking at me as though he recognized me. I know he was thinking this because he was mumbling, “You look like Brandon.”

“Brandon must be a very handsome man,” I replied.

“Brandon eats [bleep]!” he shouted.

I smiled. “Maybe Brandon has a nutritional deficiency.”

“Brandon can go to hell!”

I offered a friendly grin and jingled the change in my pocket. “We’re already there, brother.”

After an interesting subway ride, we did some sightseeing, then stopped at a coffee shop to address our physiological need for caffeine.

Inside the shop was a young man, dressed in rags. He was hanging out at the counter, speaking to the baristas in gibberish.

“Do you want any coffee, Brandon?” said my wife.

I smiled. But not with my heart.

“Yes, please.”

I kept watching the young man in rags. A few of the young man’s words were recognizable, but most of them were unintelligible vowel sounds.

But the baristas just patiently listened to him as a long line of customers grew behind the young man. The servers just nodded and smiled at the young man even though they obviously didn’t understand a word he was saying.

Finally, one of the servers interrupted, “Would you like a coffee, Larry?”

Larry started nodding, and he even began to cry. “Yes, yes! But no money!”

“I know, Larry,” said the server.

“No money!” cried the young man.

“It’s alright, Larry,” said the server again. “I know you don’t have money.”

Whereupon the barista handed him a hot cup, and the young man left.

The next customer in line, an older businessman, was so moved by what we had all just witnessed that he placed cash on the counter.

He said, “I’d like to pay for the coffee you just gave that young man.”

The barista smiled and said it wasn’t necessary. Larry always comes in here, she said. It’s no big deal.

At which point, the woman in line behind the businessman dug into her purse and said, “And I’d like to pay for the other coffees you’ve probably given that boy.”

Now the barista looked like she might cry, too.

“Does he come in here often?” asked one man.

The server nodded. “Almost every morning. He’s my brother.”

New York. Hell of a place.

I used to write about her all the time. She was just so easy to write about.

From the first moment I met Thelma Lou, when she was an itty-bitty puppy, I knew I had found a literary muse. Then, she bit my ear with her puppy teeth. Crimson blood poured down my cheek. I held the puppy in the air and announced, “This is the one.”

But then life happened. I got busy. We started traveling a lot, Thelma started spending a lot of time with pet sitters over the years, and I fell out of the habit of writing about my muse.

Currently, Thelma is curled up on my truck passenger seat, sound asleep. Like the old days. We used to spend a lot of time together in this truck.

Right now, we are on our way to spend some time together in the Alabamian woods. Just the two of us. There will be lots of father-daughter activities going on such as sleeping, eating, walking, and chewing up dolls that resemble tiny USPS carriers.

I have to frequently remind Thelma that her slobbery USPS-carrier chew toy is purely for entertainment purposes. We do not actually condone chewing the appendages of federal employees. We love our United States Postal Service carriers dearly. These selfless postal-persons make our lives so much better with their daily hard work and determination.

Thelma agrees and solemnly assures me that, although she makes our poor mail lady’s life miserable, she really loves all postal carriers. Although she admits she would love them better with ketchup.

We arrive at the little cabin, and Thelma rushes onto the screened porch to see if any new smells have cropped up since her last visit.

She uses her powerful nose to trace the perimeter. She takes her time searching each square inch of the porch with her nose, identifying every new dead bug, each fallen carpenter bee, each new pile of lizard poo, and—WHOA!—wait a minute! Here’s the ACTUAL lizard who made the poo! Look, Dad! She barks at the lizard. Look! A lizard who is making poo!

The poor lizard is just trying to live his life. He looks at me with soulless eyes as if to say, “If I were fifty times bigger, I would be digesting your entire family right now.”

Even so, it’s fun to watch a bloodhound at work. I love to watch Thelma search the yard. I love to watch her swim in the lake.

A bloodhound has 300 million scent receptors. Whereas humans only have a mere 5 million. This means that a bloodhound’s world is completely different than yours and mine. The bloodhound sees deeper into our current version of reality and exists within another realm. A realm of which you and I are largely ignorant. They see behind the curtain of society.

A bloodhound moves through life in a veritable overpopulated jungle of strong, rich, virile, verdant, decaying, festering, overpowering, and potent scents that never stop. These smells come at Thelma all day long, pounding her from all angles. She cannot escape the overabundance of odor.

A bloodhound is capable of detecting one drop of blood in an Olympic swimming pool. A scenthound like Thelma can sense odors that are 12 days old. They are one of the oldest dog breeds, too, dating back to the 7th century. And Thelma is an amateur ENT, our family’s own ear, nose, and throat specialist inasmuch as she has the irrepressible urge to constantly investigate our noses, mouths, and ear canals. This is especially true whenever one of these orifices contains ham.

I don’t know how Thel ever manages to tune it all out and carry on. I don’t know how she sleeps. Imagine if you could smell everything in the world all at once. All the time. Everything from the dust on your ceiling fan to your next-door neighbor’s dirty underpants. Imagine how you would start to judge people differently if you could smell all their secrets. Imagine how differently you would react to your world. Imagine how your priorities would change if you operated on smell alone.

Everything would change. You’d quit feeling compelled to go to your job and be stuck in a cubicle with stinky coworkers, and instead you’d probably choose to hang out in your own backyard with the fragrant mimosa trees and pine trees, or go rolling in the carcasses of dead squirrels.

What amazes me about Thelma most, however, is that even though she can smell all things, even though she knows everyone’s innermost secrets, she remains neutral and impartial to all. She never judges any new soul she meets. No matter what they smell like. No matter what they’ve stepped in.

We once had a neighbor, for example, who was sort of a recluse. Very few in the neighborhood made friends with this old woman. Her house was a wreck. She was grumpy and seemed bitter all the time. Her hair was a mess, she wore the same clothes day after day, and she had lots of cats.

But Thelma was obsessed with her. She thought the old woman was magnificent! The best human she’d ever met! And she smelled like cat litter!

The friendship between Thelma and this old woman became the best part of Thelma’s life. Every morning my dog would awaken and rush to the fence and greet the old woman before she arose. And we’d occasionally look out the window and see this hard, curmudgeonly old woman stroking Thelma Lou’s head and speaking sweetly to her.

And when the ambulance carried the old woman away for the last time, it was Thelma who stood still at the fence until dark. Even hours after the ambulance had disappeared.

I think what I admire most about this dog is that she reacts purely from her gut. Not her brain. Not her logic. Not even her nose. Her gut. She does not need to reason. She does not overthink. She can look at any situation and know instantly whether to show her teeth or show her heart.

I wish I were half the man my dog is.

I am in the backseat of our van, sitting in a tiny, hollowed-out cavern of stuff.

We are traveling to Tennessee and Kentucky this weekend where I will be performing my one-man shipwreck at theaters where, if I’m lucky, I’ll get a standing ovation like a few nights ago. Although to be fair, the ovation was moving toward the exits. Also, they weren’t clapping.

So anyway, my wife is driving. My cousin Randa is in the passenger seat. And here I sit, trapped in the backseat. Boxed in by hordes of cardboard crates, musical instruments, hanging clothes, T-shirt containers, and one female mannequin torso whom I have nicknamed “Dolly.”

Dolly models our T-shirts at the merchandise table after shows. Dolly is extremely shapely and very talented. Currently, due to our overpacked vehicle, Dolly’s talent is shoved directly in my face.

Sometimes, Dolly is my only friend in the backseat. I have long conversations with her because she understands me. Although, sometimes I worry about her. I think that on some level, deep inside herself, Dolly feels hollow.

Meanwhile, Jamie and Randa are blissfully unaware that I am having conversations with foam-core representations of female thoraxes. They’re far too busy talking.

That’s mostly what female persons do on long road trips. They talk. I realize this statement is a broad generalization, but as is so often the case, I don’t care.

Currently, Jamie and Randa are eating their Chick-fil-A salads, and talking with the trademarked hushed whispers females use whenever gossiping.

Sometimes I chime in from the backseat to ask the ladies who they are gossiping about. This annoys them. They assure me they AREN’T gossiping, they’re just TALKING, so mind your own business, dammit.

Then they tune me out.

And I go back to hanging out with Dolly who, as I say, is very talented.

This is the glamour of life on the road. Occasionally, I will open my laptop and try to get some work done on writing projects. But most of the time I just nap. I’ve gotten very good at taking naps in moving vehicles.

Then, I am woken by Jamie.

“Let’s stop and stretch our legs,” she says.

So, we pull over.

We try to pull over frequently on long road trips. Namely, because we’ve read about how blood clots caused by sitting too long can be dangerous to your health. Also, we’ve heard that people who sit too long get hemorrhoids.

We pull over at a country church, outside Dunlap, Tennessee. Ebenezer Baptist Church.

The church is small. The parking lot is empty. And there is a playground behind the church that looks like it was erected during the Woodrow Wilson administration.

“Look!” says Randa. “They have a good swing set.”

She is right. We inspect the playground equipment. This is not your run-of-the-mill swing set. This is a top-shelf adolescent entertainment apparatus.

“Should we swing?” says one of us.

“I don’t see why not.”

And so it is. The sun is shining. The weather is perfect. Why not?

True, we have no business doing something so juvenile and frivolous. True, we are all middle-aged people who, at some point in our lives, have undergone elective orthopedic surgery. But, in our defense, it is a “good” swing set. And life so rarely gives you such an opportunity.

Swinging is my favorite. I love to swing. As a kid, I used to spend entire days on a swing set and never get tired. My imagination would go wild. My heart would feel lighter. I would make big plans for my life on swing sets.

I had my first kiss on a swing set in first grade. I jumped off the swings and got the wind knocked out of me. Whereupon the Little League coach would jiggle my limp body by my waistband. I don’t know why coaches do this.

And do you know what? Every time I sit on a swing set, it all comes back to me. Youth. Joy. Lightness. Innocence. Carefree feelings of yore. Moreover, I always—always—say the same thing to myself whenever I sit on a swing.

“I forgot how FUN this is!”

Something happens when you use a swing set. First, you feel the familiar and pleasant sensation of your stomach dropping into your bowels with each pendulum movement. Then, you instantly drop about 30 years. Your emotions show on your face. The worry of time and the stress of life vanish.

At which point, you start saying dumb things which people cannot help but say on swing sets. “Look how high!” And “Watch me!” And “I’m gonna jump!”

Once we are emboldened by the joy of swinging, we decide to play on the slide next.

Time slows down. For a moment, I forget my age, name, and rank in life. For a moment, I forget everything.

When I was a kid, playground slides were the holy grail of playground activities. They were steep, treacherous, and made of highly polished zinc aluminum. That metal surface would sit in the blazing sunlight all day collecting billions of units of thermal heat, just waiting for hundreds of little thighs to scald.

At recess period, whenever innocent schoolchildren would unwittingly use the slide, usually wearing shorts or skirts, our screams of agony could be heard for miles. The backs of our bare legs became like fat sausages on a Lodge skillet.

Today, thankfully, companies manufacture playground slides out of much safer, heat-dispersing rubberized plastic. Granted, you can’t slide as fast anymore, but you still retain your ability to reproduce.

So, Jamie, Randa, and I take turns going down the slide. We laugh and cackle. We holler and shout. We lose all track of schedules. And as motorists pass, sometimes they slow down and start dialing on their mobile phones.

But I don’t care.

I don’t care because, sometimes, I’m afraid I spend so long being an adult that I forget how it feels to be otherwise. I don’t care, because a very wise soul once told me that you don’t stop playing because you get old. You get old because you stop playing.

Dolly. It was Dolly who told me that.

The bag of vegetables magically appeared on our front porch along with beer. I looked around for angels and wisemen.

Then I turned to my wife, saying, “Ray, is this heaven?”

She looked at me flatly. “Who’s Ray?”

You have to worry about this woman.

So, we brought the vegetables inside and commenced admiring the produce. Admiring beautiful things is every bit as euphoric as experiencing them.

We held the heirloom tomatoes in our hands, and just appreciated the mere weight of them.

Oh. Has there ever been anything more heavensent than a homegrown tomato? I lifted it to the light. It was so round, so firm, so fully packed.

“Look at this thing,” I said, gently caressing its supple curves.

My wife yanked the tomato from my hands. “Go take a cold shower.”

All other tomatoes were equally as glorious. Bright crimson skin, beautiful little stems, each fruit with little bits of gnarl on the surface.

Everyone knows the best tomatoes have gnarl on the outside. This gnarl is rarely talked about, rarely appreciated, but it’s important. Good gnarl gives the tomato personality, and makes the tomato an individual.

Gnarl comes in different variations. There’s “catfacing,” which is the grayish brown puckering and scarring portion at the blossom end of a tomato. Usually the bottom. Catfaced tomatoes are misshapen and lovely, and often taste like cherubs singing Handel.

Then there’s “zippering.” This effect is a zipper-like scar on the tomato. My mother used to grow tomatoes; she said this happens when the flower’s stamen sticks to the side instead of shedding cleanly. A zippered tomato is worth driving across at least four state lines.

And of course, there are the beautifully decadent common growth cracks. There is nothing like a good growth crack. These cracks travel along the side of the tomato, growing with the tomato throughout its lifetime, transforming the fruit into the same rounded, full-figured, clefted shape often found in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit editions.

Sadly, you can’t find tomatoes with growth cracks in supermarkets. This is because cracks are considered imperfections. Food sellers want everything to be pretty and perfect, so they give us tomatoes shellacked in a quarter-inch of wax, with skin like an armadillo, the flavor of a commercial brick, and no crack showing.

In fact, almost everything you buy today looks perfect. Also, everything you see on television appears perfect. Every image you see on social media is perfect. When did we get rid of imperfections in our culture?

I, for one, miss imperfection. I have a weakness for imperfect things. Maybe it’s because I am one.

Even so, I love imperfections. I miss watching television and seeing imperfect people who look like normal people. What happened, for instance, to elderly people on TV? Why aren’t there any Aunt B’s, Granny Clampetts, and Fred Sanford’s? Did producers round them up and carry them off to Sumter County, Florida? Isn’t ANYONE trying to market to older people? Don’t older people BUY STUFF? And more importantly, why am I writing IN ALL CAPS?

Today, the media has conveniently ignored the aging process. Photos filters and smartphone photography can correct liver spots, skin blemishes, saggy jowls, and wrinkles. Skin is re-textured and smoothed. Teeth are whitened. Lighting is perfect by algorithms before the photo is even snapped.

It’s not just phone cameras that eliminate imperfections. There are real-life filters, too. Each year, 1.58 million cosmetic procedures are performed and 28.2 million minimally invasive procedures.

Writing has been perfectionized, too. Natural human speech was once clunky, littered with pauses, lots of typoes, and ahkward frasing. But all that’s been erased.

Today, software anticipates what I mean to say, fixing my grammatical mishaps in realtime. In fact, while typing that last sentence, the computer repeatedly changed “grammatical mishaps” to “aromatic starships, “automated pork chops,” and my favorite: “traumatic kneecaps.”

The era of the rough draft is over.

Likewise, music is losing its human soul. AI effects like auto-Tune and quantization have changed the game. Singers can sing flat, drummers can miss the beat by milliseconds, and you don’t even have to have a band anymore, the computer can write your song, play your song, then go out back with all the other musician computers and smoke computerized cigarettes in the alley.

Speaking of music, the annual number of college music majors who can actually play a musical instrument has dramatically dropped in the last five years. Degrees in music technology and digital audio composition are skyrocketing. Music professors lovingly refer to these students as “laptop majors.”

And if all this isn’t bad enough, Major League Baseball is considering an AI umpire.

I don’t mean to depress you. I suppose these things are all just part of living in a perfect world. Everything looks great. Everything feels great. Everything appears sparkly and flawless.

But don’t forget the subtle beauty of unsterilized imperfection. As you go about your day today, let your quirks show. Be proud of every wrinkle, blemish, and scar you own—you earned them fair and square. In other words, when you’re out there among the human race, don’t be afraid to show a little crack.

Thanks for the tomatoes, John and Karen.

Dear kid,

I know this is a hard day for you. It’s hard because everyone in the known solar system is throwing a party for their dad, and you’re not.

It’s difficult, because everyone’s family is posting happy pictures of themselves online, but yours isn’t. Difficult, because at every little church, in every region, all over this country, small-town preachers, priests, pastors, and parishioners are honoring fathers publicly. At which point services conclude and everyone tries to beat the Methodists to the Mexican restaurant.

For this reason you’ve grown to dislike this holiday. You feel a dull pain on this calendar date, and you’d rather forget the occasion even exists.

But I want to remind you that today is actually a beautiful day. Believe me. Even though it doesn’t feel that way to you now, take my word for it. Today is magical because dadhood itself is magical.

Fatherhood, in all its various forms, be it successful or screwed-up, heroic or tragic, wonderful or painful, is magnificent. Because being a dad means you helped create new life.

Life.

Think of that. Have YOU ever created anything that incredible? When I was your age, the coolest thing I’d ever actually created was a papier-mâché castle with a moat made of cellophane, and the role of King Arthur played by Stretch Armstrong.

But your dad helped create actual biological life. Years ago, during a moment of pure love, your dad and your mom brought life into this world. Your life. Your beautiful, rich, vibrant, amazing life. Your dad had a part in that.

Yes, I’m aware that you probably don’t feel like your life is rich and vibrant and beautiful right now. I get that. But that’s the grand illusion of life itself. But someday you’ll unsee the illusion. Someday, you’ll see life for what it is. One huge, wonderful, continuous, ongoing moment of love. From birth to death. Love.

Look around you at all the life that is happening right now. Look at the trees. Everything they are doing right now is an expression of love. Love makes them grow. Love moves them gently in the breeze. Love makes them flower with all their hearts, which probably feels so good for them. Love sends their pollen to the wind. Love, love, love.

Consider the birds of the air. They move through the sky, arms outstretched, singing. They can’t NOT sing. Because life makes them do this. It’s in their nature. Life enjoying life.

Now, think of all the things, just like birds, that YOU can’t help but do. Each beat of your heart. Each electrical pulse of your nervous system. Each image your retina sees, then your brain translates as beauty. You were born into this vast quiltwork of biological majesty and harmony not just to enjoy it, but to be an important part of it. And this all happened because of your dad.

Like it or not, it was your dad who opened the door for you to be here. Your dad had a rare opportunity—whether he knew it or not—to be a main character in your life story. And he accepted the challenge. I’m sorry he ended his own life before the game was over.

So, despite whatever mistakes he made, despite all the hard times he put you through, regardless of the repercussions of his poor decisions, remember his love brought you here. Real love.

Because that’s all fatherhood is, really. Love.

This holiday is not about special cakes, big parties, or cheesy greeting cards manufactured by the Hallmark Corporation with trite phrases printed inside that read: “Happy Father’s Day! I love you more than you love your lawn!”

Today is not about perfect social media pictures of happy families all wearing matching seersucker daywear. It’s not about ordering fried ice cream after dad finishes a chimichanga that will wreck his lower intestines for six months. Today is solely about love.

The spark of love that made you. That same love that keeps you alive. Hold this flickering love in your heart. Dwell upon it. Let it grow. This love is your treasure. This love is your birthright.

Celebrate this holiday by celebrating that love. And while you’re at it, celebrate yourself for being so beautiful. Celebrate this world for being so magnificent, albeit confusing. Celebrate the birds, the trees, and above all, Stretch Armstrong.

Then, when you’re finished with all that, take a moment to celebrate your dad. Your flawed, imperfect, gullible dad.

Celebrate all the bad choices he made that were somehow used for good. Celebrate the pure love this poor man never allowed himself to feel.

Cry if you must. Feel a little sorry for yourself if you need. But don’t stay here. Sniff your snot. Wipe your tears. And look up into the awesome heavens to celebrate the beautiful and omnipresent love that created them. Because that’s your real dad.

With love,

—Future You

I’m thrilled to announce that we are going to get fat. Namely, because my wife has been making bread.

Not just bread. Bread-bread. The real kind. The illicit kind of bread. The kind of bread that tempts you in vivid daydreams and lurid fantasies. The kind of bread you want to sign a prenuptial agreement with.

Jamie’s bread obsession all began in Spain. The bread in Spain was unusually good. We couldn’t get enough of it. We were always eating bread purchased from bakeries, and it was almost always exceptional. I was not used to bread like this. I grew up eating the supermarket bread that turns into white Play-Doh if you squeeze it real hard.

FACT: Once I made an entire school art project sculpted entirely out of dough made from smashed Wonder Bread, which was then painted to resemble a pirate ship.

But anyway, one day in Spain, in a far-off village on the edge of the earth, some locals told us about an out-of-the-way bakery in town. They said the bread was “auténtico,” and we should not miss it. Then, they’d demonstrate how good the bread was by making shuddering facial expressions as though they were having involuntary pleasure spasms.

Jamie and I eventually found this bakery, after weaving through byways and zigzagging side streets. The bakery was hidden in an alley. The store was about the size of a walk-in closet, and there was no signage. It was basically an old woman’s apartment. The old woman sold 12 varieties of bread. Each type of bread was made that same morning. She let us sample them all.

Our minds were blown.

“Omigod!” exclaimed my wife, verging on inappropriate ecstasy.

“Sí,” said the woman.

“Omigod!” my wife shouted again, causing a slight disturbance in the peace.

“Sí.”

“OmiGOD!” Eyes rolling back into her head. Neck twitching.

So I took her somewhere quiet to lie down.

Later, in a broken Spanish accent, the baker told us that this was the normal American reaction to her bread.

“Americans are deprived,” she said. “I live in Chicago once. You can’t get real bread in the States.”

Then, she went on to tell me why European bread is so superior to American bread. Firstly, because the wheat used in the States is hard red wheat, extremely cheap, commercially grown, and genetically modified in a lab to be insanely high in gluten so it can withstand hours of commercial mixing. Think: cement-truck bread.

“The human body was not meant to eat this mutant wheat,” the baker said.

I looked over at my wife, who was still lying on a cot, having violent convulsions, and uttering religious names.

Moreover, the baker explained, most American breads contain added plastic-grade and silicone conditioners originally developed for the production of shoe rubber and yoga mats. These conditioners make the dough elastic and save manufacturing companies a lot of money. Also, our American bread contains enough preservatives to embalm a giraffe.

As it turns out, most of these American conditioners and chemicals are illegal in Europe. Mostly because they are toxic and dangerous to consume, often leading to a host of medical problems including gluten intolerance, celiac disease, and sudden interest in politics.

The Spanish woman also told us that, to many Europeans, breadmaking is sacred, not to be done in laboratories or factories. Adding chemicals to bread would be like drawing dirty appendages on the Mona Lisa.

Needless to say, after that, all we did in Spain was eat bread. We’d visit some no-name town, then find the bakery and stand waiting in around-the-block lines full of locals who were all jazzed about fresh bread. Everyone in line would be downright giddy, thrumming with excitement. Sort of like Black Friday at Target, minus the fistfights and cop cars.

Amazingly, almost nobody in line was overweight. This, even though all these people do is wolf down entire loaves of bread for every meal.

“That’s because we are eating bread our ancestors ate,” the old woman baker had said. “Our ancestors did not eat yoga mats.”

“Speak for yourself,” I replied.

So, when we arrived back in the States, we looked around for good bread but found none. Even your boutique grocery-store “artisanal” bread with bougie packaging contained conditioners and more preservatives in it than your average funeral-home corpse.

This is when Jamie became obsessed with breadmaking. Within days, there were random scientific books scattered throughout our home. Loose-leaf pages with handwritten equations, ratios, and pH readings. My wife graduated from culinary school and worked for decades as a chef. She takes food very seriously.

Our home became a makeshift bakery. Each flat surface was littered with wooden utensils and huge sacks of artisan flour.

“How’re things coming?” I’d occasionally ask, passing through the kitchen, sorting the mail.

Whereupon Jamie would let loose a maniacal laugh not unlike something from a Mary Shelley novel, and speak in obscure baker’s terminology, saying something like: “Look! Ha! I just degassed the mother!”

Yesterday, she made French bread. Jamie spent the entire afternoon baking. This involved a LOT more steps than most nuclear aeronautical engineering projects.

Periodically, I’d see her spritzing the oven with a spray bottle, or placing steam pans in various locations of the range, setting timers every couple of seconds, checking her mass of dough with probes and temperature gauges.

When the bread emerged from the oven, it looked exactly like the kind of baguettes we had been eating in Europe. And it tasted like them, too. The kind of bread for which people stood in line around the block.

My wife, with flour on her face, a full mouth, and a manic glint in her eyes, said, “We’re gonna get so fat.”

Omigod.