What Happens Next

"...You may be right

It's all a waste of time

I guess that's just a chance I'm prepared to take

A danger I'm prepared to face

Cut to the chase

What kind of difference can one person make?

Cut to the chase..."

–Rush, Cut to the Chase 

I needed a distraction. Something fun with the family that could shield me temporarily from work stress, from America slipping away, from grieving my best friend's passing, and from existential exhaustion. Feeling helpless and overwhelmed by it all, I just needed a break from how my brain has been reacting of late. 

The Santa Cruz Clam Chowder Cook-Off was upon us and never disappoints. It's a weekend full of yummy local chowders cooked up by both amateurs and professionals and held at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. And this year our oldest Beatrice worked the event, selling tasting kits and merchandise. 

Beatrice finished her shift and joined my wife Amy, her sibling Bryce, and me to start tasting the chowders. It's always a busy event, rain or shine, and this year the weather was fabulous. Within the first hour of tasting there was wall-to-wall people walking around, waiting in chowder tasting lines, or waiting to ride the amusement park rides. But mercy me the chowder is always a treat with dozens of chowder booths to choose from. After a few samples I'm always full. 

It was fun, and momentarily distracting, but my life nagged at me like a child pulling on my shirt on the verge of a tantrum. I looked up to watch the 100-year-old Giant Dipper roller coaster train race down the first precipitous drop. That's the trope, I thought. That the world is just a big, scary roller coaster without safety bars or straps, and we've got to hold on with all our might for fear of flying out and plunging to our deaths. 

Yikes, Kevin. What the hell?

There were so many people at the Boardwalk, that it was a little overwhelming at times, but we were still so glad that we went. Families and friends alike who all just wanted a break from whatever daily stress they face to have a little fun, ride some rides, play some arcade games, and eat some chowder (and a variety of amusement park junk food). 

But after the chowder cook-off, I was still full of existential exhaustion. Since my dear friend Robby passed, I've struggled more than I thought I would with his death, my own mortality, and what I've done with my life. Over the years, he'd always say to me, "You know, sometimes I wish this would all end, but then I think, I still really want to see what happens next. You know what I mean?"

I know, Robby. I do. And even at our lowest points, we still wanted to see what happened next. The difference you made in my life, and so many others, was indelible. 

Because of that, I just can't feel this way today. I'm still here and I can't feel like I don't and won't make a difference. You would tell me I have much work to do, just as my inspirational wife and children do. They are working hard to make a difference in the world around them. They proudly speak actionable truths that took decades for me to articulate and live. They not only want to see what happens next; they want to be the positive change of what happens next. 

And dammit, so do I. 

To Brave the Hope

The blue tag swirled down the streetlight pole like a sloppy signature, which was exactly what it was. I hadn't noticed it before and had no idea how long it had been there. Knowing me and my sometimes marginal peripheral awareness, it could've been there for weeks, even though the streetlight was directly in front of our house.

The Mama (what I lovingly call my wife) was delivering a Kidpower workshop that morning and our daughters and me had just finished a packed morning of soccer and the grocery store.

After unloading the groceries, I filled a bucket with soap and water and a new scrubbing sponge intent on cleaning up the graffiti. Before I went outside with the bucket, I told my daughters what I was going to do.

"Girls, I'm going to clean off the poll out front, okay?"

"Why?" Beatrice asked.

"Because someone painted on it when they shouldn't have. It's called graffiti and I want to clean it up."

"Okay," Beatrice said. Bryce was too engrossed in her iPad to comment.

"That's very helpful of you, Dad," Bea added.

I smiled. "Why, thank you, Bea."

"You're welcome."

It was a glorious day outside, a warm fall day bathed in cerulean blue sky. Heavenly even, like a day from the Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep comedy Defending Your Life, where everyday was 72 degrees, there were all-you-can-eat buffets where you'd never gain weight, bowling alleys, comedy clubs and more. When in fact, this was purgatory in the movie, the weigh station to heaven and hell.

I conjured the silly 1991 rom-com because the world had become more violently absurd than ever. A bizzaro pre-apocalyptic world where the super heroes aren't so super anymore, much less heroes. A disrespectful world where others deface and tag in the name of marking property that'll never be theirs. A wag-the-dog world teetering on the edge of civil wars where fake news is real and real news is fake. A world full of splintered agendas and raging biases where our leaders compromise principles and laws and bastardized religion for partisan short-term gains. A world where the worst inside all of us is celebrated because an angry few feel they've been legitimately oppressed as others had truly been for hundreds of years. And a world where violence against women and sexual assault are compartmentalized, rationalized and diminished in the face of overwhelming bittersweet awareness.

All this swirled inside me while I scrubbed the blue tag off the pole. Except that it wasn't coming off. At all. I even scraped at it with a putty knife and nothing. I started sweating and decided to try window cleaner on it. Still nothing. We didn't have anything else stronger, so I stood helpless starting at the pole. A neighbor drove by and then stopped in front of our driveway.

She asked what was going on and I explained the graffiti and that I couldn't get it off. She said they had some stronger "goo off" stuff back at the house and that I could use it. A few minutes after she drove away, another two neighbors were walking back from the nearby farmer's market. They too had some stronger "goo off" stuff and went to retrieve it.

Once I applied the stuff with steel wool the blue tag came right off. Like magic. After that I helped our neighbor remove more graffiti from a one-way sign on our street.

When the Mama got home from her workshop, I told her about the blue tag I found and that I cleaned it off.

"Thank you, Sweetie," she said.

"I only just noticed it this morning. How long had it been there on the pole?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"For at least I week. I was going to tell you about it."

A week, I thought. It could've been months for all I knew.

Sigh.

I know there will be more graffiti tags on streetlight poles and one-way signs. And I know we'll always be able to clean them off. But it's gotten harder to take the high road beyond the graffiti when the low road is so riddled with trolls and power predators these days.

When I shared that sentiment online a few days before the blue tag cleaning, a friend of mine answered:

Stay positive Kevin, people love that about you.

I smiled as I thought about it. I am positive most of the time. I am hopeful most of the time. But I'm even more thankful for the fact that there are many of us who are willing to take the high road, to remain positive, to make a difference regardless of our differences by taking action for the better however incremental or big, to ultimately prevent further social injustice and the literal moral unmooring of America.

I'm thankful for my wife who inspires me daily to brave the hope and put it in action, and my daughters as well who fuel my hope for the future. And I'm thankful for family and friends who inspire the same, that there is light and love and so many more of us willing to embody them both.

Right on and amen. Bring on that high road, please. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

On the Field in Front of Me

Photo courtesy of Paul Turner

I couldn't believe it; we'd been scouted. Just minutes before our game, during warm up, one of my player's parents approached me to relay that information.

"Guess what."

"What?"

"One of the hyper-competitive parents from the other team scouted us last week."

"Are you serious?"

"Yep. Supposedly they're undefeated and they wanted to find out who our strongest players are."

"Wow. We're in a recreational league. What the heck? They scouted us?"

"I know, right? Well, we haven't lost one yet either, so let's give them a run for their money, coach."

Let's give them a run for their money. As I called out our starting players to take the field, I realized I wasn't that surprised. I never would've scouted another team prior to playing them, not at this level, but I've always been pretty competitive myself. Every week we played I kept the running score of our games on my clipboard, and every week we chalked one up in the win column, except for one tie and no losses. That was something I was very proud of, but tried to temper during each game so as not to get the girls to caught up in the gut-wrenching angst of pure unadulterated competition -- some of them would there in a few years anyway. So, except for posting in our team website after the games for the parents benefit, I kept my coaching cool.

The game started and immediately we were schooled. Their team had crisper passing, better dribbling, tighter shooting and a stronger defense. Obviously they were drilled over and over again on these soccer fundamentals, and they obviously played a starter roster and only subbed in when needed. They quickly went up 2 goals to none well before the first half was done.

And that gut-wrenching competitive angst blew up inside me. I kept it contained, thankfully, but I second guessed my entire approach to coaching this scrappy yet talented U10 recreational soccer team. Yes, we drilled the basics during practice, and we scrimmaged together every single week. And yet, my focus has been teamwork and having fun, fun, fun no matter what level their girls are at. That's why everyone got a chance to play every game and rotated positions throughout the season. I subbed the girls in constantly through each half, sometimes because the forwards needed a break, but also to ensure everybody played as much as possible. There are 12 girls on the team and only eight players can play at any given time.

Momentum is a malleable thing, however. At some point late in the first half, we took it in our hands -- and our feet -- and made it our own.

Something changed on the field. Something I'd seen already occasionally during the season but only now recognized it for what it really was: pure, unadulterated teamwork. The girls settled down and it was like their individual identities were blotted out. They dribbled, passed, shot and defended like the other team, except more effortlessly, as if each girl were connected to the other, elementals on fire that scorched the earth beneath their tireless feet.

And they were having a blast doing it all.

Once inside the second half, the score became 2-1, and then 2-2. The entire second half we dominated the field and kept the ball dangerously near our opponents goal over and over and over again. The other team was getting tired. We were just getting started.

Blink. Another score! 2-3! We took the lead with only minutes left!

Wait, what? Offsides? Noooooooooo!!!

No. No. No. No. No. Crap! Keep it together, Coach. Mercy me.

Minutes later the referees blew their whistles and the game was over. It might as well been the end of every underdog sports movie I'd ever seen in my lifetime. In that moment everything I had intended to instill in my team had come to be on the field in front of me. And it gave me hope in an ever-changing world, a world going darker by the day. It gave me hope that our children may someday help this crazy friggin' world figure out how to play like a true team and celebrate together all the fragile freedoms we've fought so hard to secure and keep, that now seem to be slipping away.

Yes, I really did get all that from this game and I know what I'll be thankful for this Thanksgiving. Thank you, girls. You are the future looking bright.