Jim Baumer's Blog, page 27

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I am writing this post from a public library that rests along Main Street in one of Maine’s quintessential small towns. For what it’s worth, it could be a stand-in for Main Street, USA if producers truly cared about places removed from the population centers on the left and right coasts.

Driving “down” the coast from Woodward Cove, the morning’s radio waves were crammed with news of another shooting. Even sports talk wasn’t immune from the hosts adding their two cents worth of political grandstanding.

Libraries are always full of little treasures.

Where I live, if you want to know what the conservative talking points are for any given day, just head over to the AM side of the dial and WGAN will let you know the pulse of the angry, white (predominantly male) pitchfork-bearers in five minutes or less.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been repulsed by the ugliness of humanity. Mark would have had an antidote for me, but in case you’ve forgotten, Mark’s no longer with us.

I’m not sure what noble explanation there is for a right-wing media bunker spewing ugliness and hate on the scale that emanates from WGAN’s studios. But, they’ve been doing their thing for as long as I’ve been back in Maine. Back then there were “Rush Rooms” (actual restaurants, bars and other places where Rush fans gathered at lunch to listen to “The Great One”) scattered around Portland. While they no longer exist, sponsors continue lining up, hoping that angry conservatives will buy the wares that they pitch.

Shortly after the president delivered his press announcement (I was listening to NPR during this), I switched over to the AM side and predictably, Laura Ingraham came out of the break announcing that the shooter of Republican lawmaker, Steve Scalise, was a Bernie Sanders supporter. So much for not politicizing things. And by the way—hate is hate, no matter how you dress it up.

I’m about 25 miles down the coast. I’ll be visiting with an old friend, or I will be in another hour. Ever since Mark was killed, he’ll occasionally send me an email to let me know he is thinking of Mary and me. He’s always been like that, really, not just because tragedy has visited us.

We once worked together. He’s in my top 10 for smartest co-workers I’ve ever had.

The last time the two of us sat across the table from one another was probably 10 years ago.

Like me, he’s done a little bit of everything, including selling cars. He’s also been a journalist, one who I admired for his integrity and grit. And like me, he’s embraced reinvention. It’s what it takes to survive without totally selling your soul, I think. At least that’s been my experience.

Social media is surely filling up with people pledging allegiance to the police, America, and law and order. I won’t be one of these. That trio did little to protect our son, minding his own business, walking along the side of the road in Florida last January. And please, enough of your empty, fucking spirituality (prayers). I’ve had enough of it.

Tonight, a group of Mark’s friends (and friends of ours, too) are driving up from Boston to spend some time with us. Mary and I are really excited, and anticipating their visit will help get us through another difficult 9 to 5 stretch.

Trump Tic Tac Toe

Donald Trump dominates yet another news cycle. How often can one man suck the air supply from the room as illustrated by yesterday’s Trump/Comey media circus, masquerading as functional governance? We seem to have slipped into the political version of Groundhog Day.

Back when Trump was a reality star of sorts, it was kind of funny, in a late-night joke-telling kind of way. Now that he’s president, it’s become fucking scary.

What is it about America that empowers (and emboldens) stupid, doughy (and angry) white men like Trump? They continually feel the need to tell you how great they are, how rich they are, how smart they are, while downplaying the size (or lack, therewith) of their hands.

Dueling white men.

Trump isn’t a new thing for me. Remember, I had LePage first. He also reminds me of almost every business leader I used to have to rub elbows with back in my nonprofit days. There is an archetypal quality that fits men of this ilk in America. Often intellectual-lite and damn proud of it. They’re never lacking an opinion and an inside baseball solution to whatever they perceive the problem to be. They were exceedingly bold in reminding me how inefficient and insignificant my nonprofit was, in most cases, simply because we were somehow loosely affiliated with government, inevitably part of the problem for them. These men were binary thinkers, through and through.

Of course, they never faulted their own exploitative treatment of workers, or that by gaming the system, they were a major contributing factor in the societal race to the bottom.

When a former board member (who ended up with a prominent role in my being kicked to the curb in 2012) joined forces with a cabal of business types in Central Maine that became instrumental in electing Paul LePage as our governor. This guy—someone who once bragged to me that he didn’t read when I mentioned a best-selling business book I’d recently consumed—became LePage’s “brain.” Seven years later, it’s easy to see how well that worked out.

If you aren’t imbibing large quantities of Trump’s Kool-Aid, it should be fairly clear to you now that he is just plain stupid. Ascribing anything else more diabolical—or even that perhaps our current president is savvy—is an exercise in futility and not worth the time.

Checkers, chess, or tic tac toe?

Political writers are regularly asked to weigh-in on current leaders, offering comparisons to those from our past. Since Rick Perlstein has written extensively about Richard Nixon that’s a link he often makes, like in a recent article in The Baffler.

 Nixon is an interesting comparison point for Trump. Both were certainly paranoid and suffered from bouts of inferiority. But that’s probably where it ends.

Here’s Perlstein on Trump vs. Tricky Dick and checkers and chess (or not). Avert your beautiful, unspoiled minds, Trumpkins. It isn’t pretty.

Again and again, I’m asked to compare Nixon to Trump, and I’ve found myself recurring to a growing array of metaphors, none of which fully bring us to the core preposterousness of the comparison. First time as tragedy, second time as farce. Trump as Nixon turned up to eleven, a la  Spinal Tap. Nixon played chess, Trump can only play checkers.

But even checkers gives him way, way too much credit. Maybe tic tac toe? 

Trump does do Twitter, a lot. That’s 140 characters (not words), folks.

Note:

To have the audacity to question a leader’s mental acuity and intellectual curiosity (arguably, Trump might be “sharp” in terms of acuity, but it’s clear in the latter category—much like LePage and his toadies—he has little or none) might offend some. I’m sure supporters of Mr. Trump are crying “foul” and have already bailed prior to my note. However, I’m just “calling ‘em as I see ‘em.” That’s what arbiters do.

It’s interesting how for eight years, conservatives bashed President Obama’s supposed lack of intelligence. Regardless of how you felt about him as a president (and I had my own issues with his policies), no one with any awareness of who he was as a thinker and a deeply reflective human being with intellectual depth could honestly question that.  Of course, it’s never about facts and honesty with that crowd.

Trump has serious issues relative to his own self-esteem. Marry that with his vacuity and the vanity, too, and top it with his authoritarian leanings, and you have a pretty nasty combination.

Since so much of the Trump administration’s smoke and mirrors plan has been focused on Russia, it’s interesting to know that many there don’t hold a high opinion about their fearless leader, Putin, and his intellectual heft, either. In a Russian man-on-the-street segment on this morning’s NPR Morning Edition with Mary Louise Kelly, she spoke with Anton Nosik, a popular blogger and who is sometimes referred to as the “father of the Russian Internet.” He considers Putin and the Russian government a “bunch of morons and idiots.”

Imagine that!

Rainy Mondays

For a year now, I’ve been leaving the house at 8:00 in the morning and spending part of my week working at a part-time job that helped supplement my income and offered a bit more than most part-time gigs tend to proffer. That all ended last week.

Once again, I’m sitting at home on a Monday, in an empty house (no offense to our cat, Lucy), wondering what’s next on the horizon. The last time I found myself in this place of uncertainty, I could always send an email, text, or call my biggest fan and cheerleader—that would be Mark Baumer. Today is also Mary’s first day back at work since Mark died, so there’s a bit of a double-whammy effect.

I’m not sure what happened other than my son was killed, I probably went back to work too soon, and my manager lacked the capacity for empathy. I dared to point that out. That’s the Cliffs Notes version, anyway.

There’s not a whole lot to say about this without it sounding like sour grapes to some. It really isn’t and it made me feel like crap and a criminal of sorts. Once again, my crime seems to be that my son was killed and in a capitalist economy, there’s not much wiggle room beyond three days bereavement and “running a business” for some.

Sheryl Sandberg’s book about losing her husband has been sitting at the bottom of my reading pile. I wasn’t expecting much when I picked it up yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised.

Sandberg writes, “I have long believed that people need to feel supported and understood at work.” She wrote this from personal experience, having lost her husband, Dave, and faced the weirdness of co-workers unable to come to terms with what happened to her.

Option B-Better than expected.

She cites that loss of productivity associated with grief-related losses “cost companies as much as $75 billion annually.” Talk about tending to what’s best for “bidness,” right?

While coming to terms with losing Mark is probably going to take more than simply embracing Sandberg’s “three P’s,” I’m glad I’m making my way through her book. Oh, and I did like her talking about learning to “kick the shit out of Option B,” which is where I’m at, I think.

All is not bleak, of course. I am in the midst of umpiring season and if it ever stops raining, I’ll have a slew of summer games to arbitrate. Last Friday, I also pitched and landed a story that’s right up my alley that I’ll be working on over the next two weeks. It’s probably time to ratchet-up the freelance writing with a bit of a vengeance.

Today, however, I’m reminded of brothers and sisters and a song about rainy Mondays and “the blues.”

Memorializing Mark

Our Memorial Day weekend centered on burying the remains of our son, Mark Baumer. In case you may have stumbled across this blog and lack context, Mark was hit and killed by an inattentive driver in Fort Walton County, Florida on January 21. He was an award-winning poet and writer, and was engaged in his second crossing of America on foot. He walked across the U.S. in 81 days in 2010.

Because of the newsworthy nature of Mark’s walk, his cause (raising awareness) about climate change, while also walking America’s highways and byways barefoot, the story of his death received widespread media coverage. In my opinion, this article in The New Yorker was the best of them, written about Mark by a writer, Anna Heyward, who made an effort in understanding the arc of the story, and “got” Mark, as a creative genius and activist, also.

Mark’s been gone for four months. For Mary and me, his parents, our lives continue to be affected each and every day by the grief associated with this loss.

Losing an adult child that you loved more than life itself isn’t something that you simply get over in four days, four months, or four years. Yet, there are people at work and elsewhere with unrealistic expectations who don’t seem to understand the devastation associated with an event like the one visited upon us.

Here are remarks that I delivered at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Saco, on Saturday morning, prior to interring Mark’s remains:

For the past four months, I’ve been trying to locate meaning for why Mark was killed. I’ve been unsuccessful on that front. How does one imbue an event with any meaning, like the one that robbed our families of Mark, a loving, vibrant 33-year-old?

Mark loved baseball for a time in his life. In fact, baseball is where we may have ultimately forged our bond as father and son. In baseball terms, a 33-year-old is in the prime of his baseball abilities and acumen. In a creative sense, I believe Mark was just hitting his stride as a writer, poet, and digital gadfly.

Why would someone who worked so diligently and was ever at their craft, cruelly taken away before they ever got to the zenith of their creative capabilities? Perhaps you now see why finding meaning has been so difficult a task for me since the end of January.

A day doesn’t pass, no, nary an hour transpires without both Mary and me thinking about our beloved son who is no longer with us.

While it’s comforting in some twisted logic, wishful thinking sort of way to think that Mark might be somewhere else, waiting for us, the rational in me doesn’t allow for that. The best I can come up with is that Mark’s energy that spark that makes up our life force is now somewhere, just not in the hulking physical form that we came to know as Mark.

  At funerals and graveside events like this one, it’s traditional for the reading of a prayer, or a poem, or some saying that leaves attendees with some kind of hope for the future. I’ll try to carry on that tradition in my own flawed manner.

  Among many of the Indian nations in Massachusetts there was the idea that after death, the soul would go on a journey to the southwest (which at that time, was a place, far, far away). Eventually, the soul would arrive at a village where it would be welcomed by the ancestors. In a similar fashion, the Narragansett in Rhode Island viewed death as a transition between two worlds: at the time of death, the soul would leave the body and join the souls of relatives and friends in the world of the dead which lay somewhere to the southwest.

The one brief respite from my own grief and loss regarding Mark has come while being in nature. Mary and I felt Mark’s presence while we were in the desert, at Joshua Tree a few weeks ago. Each morning, Mary and I have developed a routine. When we wake up and look out on our beloved Woodward Cove—especially those mornings when the sunlight hits the water making  it shimmer, and the birds are delivering a symphony of sounds—Mark’s presence is all around us.

  Mark, your life mattered and was ended prematurely. We’ll miss you forever.

Afterward, we left Saco and drove 90 minutes into the heart of Maine’s western mountains. There, we planted two trees at Mary’s sister and brother-in-law’s house where we come together the week before Christmas every year. We wanted something that would capture Mark’s presence and keep his memory alive in that special family gathering place.

Bryant Pond, ME

 

Trees for Mark.

Our families stepped up this weekend. We also were so pleased that Mark’s girlfriend could join us for the family ceremonies in Saco and Bryant Pond, and then spend time with us on Woodward Cove. As difficult as the weekend was at times, there were also times of beauty that Mark would have been happy to have had a hand in bringing about.

 

Nature’s Way

Spring is when our natural world emerges from hibernation—at least that’s how it works in places like New England—especially in the far-flung northern locales of the region. Buds appear, perennials poke up through the earth, and dormant lawns demand attention by way of a lawn mower.

Even in the midst of coping with the fallout from death and loss, it’s impossible not to notice and be affected by spring’s rousing “hallelujah.”

May moves forward and folds into June. Summer’s official commencement isn’t far off. And yet, the defining event rooted in winter’s cold and darkness travels with Mary and me, no matter how bright the sun shines, or how directly its rays reflect.

Upon returning from California, I was shoved into normalcy. I say “normal,” knowing that for us, normal will never be the same again. How can it be after losing someone we loved as deeply as Mark?

I’ve blogged about being a baseball umpire. Spring is a busy time when you officiate high school baseball in Maine. While our season is shorter than other parts of the country, by the first week of May, high school schedules are in full swing. With rainouts backing games up and umpiring numbers being down across all four umpiring boards in the state, you can work as many games as you want and can physically tolerate.

Beginning with an extra-inning contest at the Ballpark in Old Orchard last Friday night, I have logged nine games over the last week. Three of the nine have gone extra frames.

On Wednesday, I was on the plate between Greely and Falmouth. Mark played for the Rangers of Greely. This game between neighboring rivals pitted Falmouth with their undefeated record, and Greely having only one blemish on theirs. I had two of the best pitchers in the state going head-to-head.

When I received the assignment, I almost turned it back. Part of me had doubts if I was up to the task in terms of the emotional aspects associated with it. Like all similar situations in my life, I steeled myself for the task and decided to face up to it.

Save for Mark’s former coach being a bit too vociferous about a few pitches that he thought his pitcher should have had, things went without a hitch. I dealt with questions about balls and strikes like I had in the past—informing this coach that I wasn’t going to listen to him “chirp” about balls and strikes any longer. That took care of that.

On the way out to the parking lot to change and debrief, my partner said, “great job, buddy.” I knew he was right. While I won’t say this was easy being behind the plate in a key schoolboy contest involving Mark’s alma mater, I can say that it felt good to face up to the challenge and succeed. Mark wouldn’t have wanted anything less from his dad.

Mary’s been my rock for as long as I’ve known her. Gracious, even when her heart’s been broken. She continues to amaze me in how she’s been able to carry forth.

She’s handled what seems to be a never-ending list of Mark-related administrative tasks with courage and competence. “What else is there to do,” something we’ve both said to one another, time and time again. With our return, Mary’s resumed her weekly training with her beloved SheJAMs sisterhood. She’s focused on July, when she’ll be entering her fourth Tri for a Cure triathlon, this being the 10th anniversary of the event.

A small solace hitched to spring’s arrival that I’ve been paying attention to is the busyness inherent in  the natural world—at least when I’ve slowed down and truly paid attention to it. I’ve been working at cultivating a daily ritual of descending the stairs from our bedroom and looking out the cove-facing window that sits at the base of the stairwell. I’m enjoying cranking open the window and spending  a good five minutes taking in the sound of the birds, watching for the shadowy movements of squirrels in the trees, and marveling at the earliest flecks of sunlight shimmering on the surface of Woodward Cove.

A window into nature.

The natural world is where we both feel Mark’s presence. We noted this when we were in the midst of the desert and Joshua Tree National Park. We felt him with us at the edge of the surf, on Santa Monica Beach.

Mark’s spiritual presence isn’t enough to mitigate our sadness and stop us from missing his physical form, but it’s what we’re left with and worth holding onto.

Travel Writing

[Leaving LA and Santa Monica]

Our time in California is coming to an end. We’ve been on the road for nearly two weeks, nearing the completion of a trip we felt we compelled to take. We’re missing home a bit, even our cat, Lucy. Odd how our heartstrings pull at us.

This journey has been centered on Mark. Emotions Mary and I have been contending with in losing our only son don’t seem close to dissipating. Love doesn’t disappear just because someone we loved dies. Tears continue streaming, while the holes in both of our hearts remain (and will be forever).

Time spent in Santa Monica and Los Angeles was beautiful. Seeing Gabi again was one of the highlights of our time in this magnificent state. When political types slag California either through ignorance or ideology, they know not what they are talking about. It’s hard to put into words what we’ve seen and experienced during this briefest of stays in a place that could just as easily be its own county if it wasn’t one of America’s most important states.

Checking out of our cottage near the beach, we began trekking up the Pacific Coast Highway last Monday. We stopped and watched an amazing group of surfers spend their morning catching and riding waves at Malibu Lagoon State Beach (also known as Surfrider Beach). Our morning in Malibu was close to perfect.

A surfer catching a wave in Malibu.

For an encore, we drove a bit further and spent the afternoon at Zuma Beach. Here, I met two young men from LA, Mike and Hike. They’d asked me to watch their keys (and cigarettes) while they went for a dip to cool off. We began talking and one thing led to another. I shared Mark’s story with them and they were touched by it and also compassionate in how they reacted. They were both about Mark’s age, and cousins. They told me they’d decided to take the day off and hit the beach. Both were of Armenian descent. Mike had been a long-haul trucker and was now dispatching and Hike owned a liquor and package store in LA.

Later, as I headed out to the parking lot to change, they called out to me from their SUV. They’d made a beer run and insisted that I share a cold Heineken. I was touched that these two young men would reach out with their own gesture of kindness. Say what you want about big cities dehumanizing people—these were two human beings that I was glad to have met. As we got into our car, they called out to Mary and I, wishing us “safe travels.” We reminded each other of Mark’s ability to push aside fear and wariness and connect with others by being open and vulnerable. It was like he was nodding his approval as we made our way north.

One of “tools” that has served us well on this particular journey is using places to “layover” on our way to another destination. Instead of pushing our mileage to the breaking point, we found places that originated merely map points that happened to have a hotel we might consider staying at. Often, they offered enough local flavor and a hint of geography that made an impression.

Oxnard was one of those stopovers. We decided to grab a room given our usually positive stays at Marriott properties. In Oxnard, they had a Residence Inn, which we like. Not only was this particular location well-maintained and staffed by friendly employees, we found an amazing Mexican eatery with a significant portion of their menu devoted to vegan cuisine.

It’s become apparent to us that California is a plant-based vegan paradise, or so it seems comparative to the Northeast. It’s rare not to find a place that doesn’t serve at least one vegan option on their menu. In California, probably if you run across that rare place, it’s some kind of political statement and they’re going out of their way to not accommodate those of us who don’t care to eat meat or consume dairy products.

Norte-Sur was and eatery in Ventura (just across the line from Oxnard) located in the back of a strip mall in a former food court. While it was a bit tough to find—we had to drive around the back to find it as our GPS kind of fritzed out—we were rewarded for persevering. They had six or seven options on their menu that were vegan. The owner, Gerald, was great. He obviously knew the difference between vegetarian and vegan, and his menu indicated this.

We woke the next morning and got in a needed 3-mile run near our hotel. We weaved our way through a beautiful, tree-lined neighborhood near an elementary school. Oxnard truly delivered a great return for a small investment of our time staying there.

Up the road we went, to Santa Barbara. This was partly due to Mary’s iPhone failing and also knowing that this city of nearly 100,000 had an Apple Store. The upside to this was that we spent the morning and early afternoon walking around downtown Santa Barbara. The Mediterranean climate and friendly vibe impressed us. Mary actually spent a day here during her prior visit to California in 2008, hanging out with a family friend who lived in Lompoc, about 30 minutes outside the city. They’d also visited a local winery.

We located at an older, locally-owned hotel on Yelp just a mile from the beach. Santa Barbara was also where experienced our best meal on the trip. After a swim in the hotel’s outdoor pool, we put on our best duds and Uber-ed out and back to Mesa Verde, an incredible restaurant that we absolutely loved. The food was terrific and our waitress, Sarah, was quintessential California—blond, trim, tattooed—and Mary asked her if she surfed or did Yoga (which we thought she would); the answer was “yes” to the latter and she told us she had just started taking lessons to begin surfing.

Mesa Verde’s signature dessert is baklava. We opted for cheesecake instead, one of the few times we’ve had sweets on the trip. The owner made his way around to check on us. He asked if we had food allergies. When we answered “no,” he came back with a slice of baklava. What an amazing treat and such a nice gesture!

By Wednesday night, it was apparent that it was time to cease our northward trajectory. We had business in the desert and would require making our way eastward across the mountains to the High Desert and Joshua Tree. We were aware that Mark had passed through there on CA-62 based upon his blog posts from 2010. We had been carrying some of Mark’s remains with us. Our intent was finding a resting place in an appropriate part of Joshua Tree National Park.

Thursday morning, we checked out of the only crappy hotel on the trip. The Quality Inn in San Luis Obispo was overpriced and full of the kind of yahoos on the road for work that always get the hair up on my neck. I was happy to hit the road and make a direct cut across the state traversing CA-58 for most of the way, down into the Central Valley. This also happens to be the growing region where much of our fruits and vegetables in the U.S. come from and are trucked to us from there. We figured on yet another layover, this time in Bakersfield, which happened to have a Residence Inn.

Vintage Bakersfield photo [taken at Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace].

The only other thing I knew about Bakersfield was my awareness of the “Bakersfield Sound,” and guys like Buck Owens, who made it famous. My Dad was a country music fan and growing up, I remember Owens (and his partner Roy Clark) on HeeHaw .

If you know any of Owens’ history, before he was a worldwide phenomenon and became a country music icon, he drove a truck and Bakersfield impressed him enough that he moved there with his wife in 1951. As they say, “the rest is history.” That history is well-represented in Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace—a restaurant, museum, nightclub, and shrine of sorts to Owens and his music. We stopped by on Thursday afternoon, paid our $10 each, and took a self-guided tour.

Wouldn’t you know that our passing through Bakersfield coincided with a bout of scorching heat. Afternoon highs hit 105, which also set a record. Normally, this time of year, their daily readings are about 80. We marveled that a place so hot and arid was also so lush and green and teeming with food being grown. A marvel, really, attributable to oil and the Happy Motoring way-of-life it has afforded us as humans. We also recognized how important water is to the perpetuation of food being grown in California and trucked across the country to us on the East Coast.

****

[The Desert and Joshua Tree]

It would have been nice (if our lives were in fact, normal) to continue on our way north, along the coast. Mary loves the ocean and I can’t say I don’t enjoy my time along the shore. However, this trip—whatever you want to call it other than what some might call a “vacation”—has been about locating some shade meaning in Mark’s untimely death. We also felt a personal obligation to commemorate his first walk across the country in 2010—while also trying to bring even the tiniest sense of completing his second journey, which ended in tragedy. That’s a lot to accomplish for two people, still grieving, in a mere two weeks.

Reading back through Mark’s blog he kept chronicling his first trek provided clues to where we wanted to stay and offered a desert destination for the conclusion of our trip. That’s why we headed our rental vehicle towards Joshua Tree and the national park located there.

In 2010, Mark passed a few miles from the park’s northern entrance, making his way along CA-62, exiting the desert (which nearly did him in back then). I enjoyed reading some of those posts, like this one when he reached Yucca Valley. How ironic that we’d stop at a supermarket, Stater Bros. (after a suggestion from someone at the park’s information center), wondering if this was the one Mark photographed (with the bananas in his cart). After shopping and sitting in the parking lot, I went back to this photo on my phone and enlarged it. If you do the same you’ll see that the cart clearly indicates STATER BROS. We cried.

Shopping where Mark shopped in 2010.

We actually cried a lot over the weekend. How could we not? This isn’t some minor life event we’re going through but one that now defines who we are and will, until both of us are dead.

Joshua Tree National Park is a vast, diverse parcel of land of nearly 800,000 acres. Just reading a bit of the history about how it came to be a national monument first and then a park helped us in deciding where we wanted to place the rest of Mark’s remains that we’ve been lovingly transporting since leaving our house on April 26.

Northern park gate, Joshua Tree National Park.

It’s never easy to figure out a way forward when in a new geographic location, one that’s so unfamiliar as the High Desert is to Mary and me. What if we make the wrong calculation, while totally winging it? Perhaps our lives lived taking chances, daring to cast out from the shore when others told us “it” couldn’t be done, especially when we were both so young and Mark was in Mary’s womb made all of this trip possible. Learning to gather information on the fly and make mistakes while not being hindered by “paralysis by analysis” is something that we’ve embraced for much of our 30+ years of being married. I do think Mark picked up some of this from us, and then made it his own unique brand of living in the moment.

Friday afternoon, we touched down along Mark’s route. We drove directly to the park’s info center and gift shop. We fortuitously picked out a book, Best Day Hikes: Joshua Tree National Park (one of the Falcon Guides put out by Globe Pequot Press). This would be the best $10.95 we’ve spent on our California sojourn.

On Friday night, reading about Keys View and Inspiration Peak, detailing the “spectacular views of the south-central area of the park,” especially the times of sunrise or sundown, I knew instinctively where we’d be when the sun came up Saturday morning.

Things like this are never a given or something you assume will come off perfectly, let alone, well. As a result, I didn’t sleep well at all. I felt the responsibility to get us up and on the road before light.

Out the door just after 5:00 to make the drive to the park’s gate and then the 25-mile foray into the park on strange roads, not knowing how exact our directions or trusting our orientation made this a literal “shot in the dark.” One unexpected gift was the desert’s predawn light offers semi-illumination and its own unique hue.

We pulled into the parking lot at Keys View just prior to 6:00, just as the sun peaked over the hilltops behind us, bathing us in its glow. We’d done it!

Now it was on to the task at hand—placing Mark’s ashes somewhere on the mountainside that was meaningful and honored his love of nature and the Earth. Walking up the paved pathway to the park’s well-marked lookout, we were looking across at the San Bernardino Range and San Jacinto Peak (beyond Palm Springs, in the valley below). Also, off on the horizon was the Salton Sea and San Gorgonio and it’s snow-capped peaks clearly visible. Not only did we managed to time sunrise perfectly, but the day was clear and we weren’t hindered by smog from LA that can limit visibility and viewing.

While everything came off “perfectly” in planning, there was still the task of placing Mark and memorializing him for his parents.

Leaving the paved pathway east of the lookout and scouting down about 20 yards, I found a protected area behind a mass of rocks. I called out to Mary. We both agreed this was the place. She had carried a small heart-shaped rock she’d had from 2007, gathered at Jasper Beach in East Machias during our trip to Steuben when Mark and Gabi drove up to be with us.

Mark was now in a place he would have loved—a spot in the natural world, forever protected from man and economic exploitation. It was one of those brief times—no matter how emotionally-wrenching—that seemed right and offered just a brief respite from grief and Mark’s absence.

Completing our task and honoring Mark.

****

We’ve been here in Joshua Tree since Friday. We hiked a couple of other amazing trails on Saturday and Sunday. We drove through the park and came out through the southern gate Sunday afternoon and made the loop through Palm Springs, back to our rental house.

Today, we are driving back to Los Angeles. We’ll spend the night and then, jump on our flight Wednesday morning, headed back east, to Portland.

Two weeks in California. Surrounded by Mark and memories tied to his time living there, his first walk across America, and gaining a slightly better sense of what this entailed back in 2010. Also, thinking about the road calling him back, and what he’d been living for 101 days on this most recent walk.

I’m not sure we’re any closer to any kind of understanding about Mark and his death. We did feel like a trip to California was in the offing and in that sense, we’re glad we’ve completed what we set out to do.

Not knowing much about the desert and Joshua Tree other than Mark walked through there, we were blown away by the beauty, amazing diversity and size of the park itself. Seeing the actual route Mark took and driving/walking parts of it helped forge a better understanding of who he was and what he’d accomplished. Simply flying across the country in hours, recognizing that it took Mark nearly three months to walk it affords a deeper sense of awe for who he was and how this was just part of what made him special to us and to thousands of others who knew him personally, or simply from watching his videos and following his journeys via the web. It also deepens the loss and senselessness of his death.

We’ll fall back into our lives—work, rent payments, deadlines for articles due—carrying Mark’s memory forward with us. It won’t be easy, and I don’t have any aspirations that we’ll ever feel normal again.

Mary was a trooper on this trip, just like she’s been since the night we received the awful news that Mark had been killed. I’m not sure how she does it, to be honest. Yet, she exhibited grace yet again during difficult days, handling navigation duties, while finding two great rentals for us in both Santa Monica and Joshua Tree. We find ways to support one another through this valley in our lives, now living without Mark.

Monday, our final day in Joshua Tree, we decided to walk a mile to the local post office. This walk took us along a portion of CA-62, where Mark had walked. This four-lane roadway brought us within feet of traffic blowing by at 60 and 70 miles per hour. I didn’t feel great walking less than a mile. I was happy to turn off this busy highway and make our way into the residential area where we were staying.

The highway Mark walked back in 2010, passing through Joshua Tree, CA.

Just another bit of information for complete-ists out there, or anyone who cares to know a bit more about Mark. East of Twentynine Palms, there are no services for 100 miles (that was three days worth of walking for Mark). There’s a sign warning motorists. No mention about people on foot. Yet, Mark walked from the Arizona border to Twentynine Palms, ignoring people along the route telling him he was crazy. Wikipedia say that “this is one of the most desolate stretches of highway in California.” That might be true, but Mark willed himself forward, overcame pessimism, and defied the odds.

For 81 days, he totaled close to three thousand miles that first time; beginning in October, he logged another 1,000 miles on his final walk. How did he do this day-in-and-day-out?

Just another reminder of the magnitude of the loss, and offering an opportunity for even greater admiration for the physical and mental toughness that he had in spades.

On the Beach

In 2007, we rented a camp sight-unseen in Steuben, Maine. The tiny village west of Bar Harbor, was just far enough from touristy Mount Desert Island that it remained stuck in a state that felt more like 1955 than the first decade of the 21st century we were living in.

Mark and his girlfriend-at-the-time, Gabi, drove up from Boston in her Jeep and spent the week with us. Bernie, our beloved Sheltie was still alive and seemed to have recovered from a stroke suffered in January. Our little unit of three (plus one and a dog) was back together, gathered under one roof.

It would not be stretching the truth at all to say that the week in late July was one of the most memorable ones of our married lives. We hiked, biked, played cards, and enjoyed the old house abutting a National Wildlife Refuge on a picture postcard-like portion of Maine’s coastline. “Idyllic” is another well-worn word that wouldn’t be inappropriate in framing this snapshot in time.

We never judged or compared Mark’s three “serious” girlfriends that we’ve known. However, we adored Gabi. Maybe because she was Mark’s first long-term romantic relationship—or perhaps it’s because she was so easy to like and “got” our family and the special place it occupied in Mark’s life. She also spent the most time with us and we knew her the best. When they broke up in 2009, we were sad. We wondered if we’d keep in touch.

When Mark was killed, Gabi called us that Sunday less than 24 hours after the horrible news. She was devastated. Crying on the phone, we shared an emotional 30 minutes catching up and hearing her share with us that Mark was “her best friend” and that she was so sorry for what we’d just suffered in losing him.

She continued calling us nearly every week. In February she sent a package that included photos.

Gabi was also who Mark referred to in his blog about walking across America in 2010 when he wrote,

I am on my way to a friend’s house in West Hollywood. I drank a coffee. It is my first caffeine of the trip. After I drop some weight from my pack at my friend’s apartment we will walk to ocean. We will march to an end.

Gabi had videotaped Mark barely managing to put one foot in front of the other, crossing the beach sand on his way to the edge of America and the Pacific. We watched it over and over again after she sent it to us. Our son, who had crossed the country on foot, in 81 days!! And now, he’s gone.

 While no longer boyfriend/girlfriend, their friendship was deep, of a special nature, and she continued to love Mark in her own unique, Gabi-kind-of-way.

Six weeks ago, we entertained the notion of taking a “vacation” of sorts. It wouldn’t be the normal kind of get-away that couples take. No lolling around on the beach at some gated resort for us. No, we’d head to Santa Monica Beach with some of Mark’s remains.

This was a return for us to a city that we visited in 2008, after Mark went west. Somehow, geographical separation from New England and the space it afforded from three months of running on adrenaline was something we knew intuitively was necessary.

We were overjoyed seeing Gabi again. She’d remained in Los Angeles when Mark flew back across America to the East Coast and Brown in 2009 to join their MFA in Literary Arts program.

LA and its icons-the Hollywood sign.

Gabi knew exactly where Mark had concluded that amazing journey by foot across the continental United States in 2010. This was at the edge of America bordering the Pacific Ocean, at Santa Monica Beach. This is where we’d place some of the remnants of our hulking 6’3” son, reduced to ash and bone fragments. That’s what a careless (and one could even call, “malicious”) act by a motorist renders a beautiful human being.

Late in the day last Thursday, after Gabi had driven us all over her city, we made an emotional walk together across the ribbon of sand. It’s never easy carrying your son (and best friend, too) in a plastic container.

Mary and I waded into the ocean and placed a portion of Mark’s remains in the Pacific. Gabi remained on the sand. She snapped a few photographs of Mom and Dad as we cried while the waves washed up over our legs, wetting the bottom of our shorts. There was also some symbolism in carrying him across the country with us—not as dynamically as his own completion of his barefoot walk would have been—but it provided a sense that he was again at the end of another kind of journey, one that’s nearly impossible to properly capture in words.

A moment thinking of Mark and our memories with him (Santa Monica Beach).

The next day, Mary “celebrated” her birthday. Much like my own day marking being a year older, the day was afflicted by what had happened to our beloved Mark. It’s hard to eat cake and ice cream knowing that you’ll never see his face, experience one of his unforgettable hugs, and hear him say in his inimitable manner, “hello Mother.”

We’re here until next week when we’ll jump on a big jet airliner pointed back towards Portland (Maine). We’ve since left LA and are driving up the California coast, north on the Pacific Coast Highway. Then, we’ll turn east for the desert and Joshua Tree.

Then, we’ll head for home, concluding our two week “sad vacation.”

A Starting Point

To call our trip to California a vacation would not accurately capture its purpose. Perhaps “sad vacation” is a more apt descriptor.

Mark lived in Los Angeles for a year after graduating from Wheaton and being accepted into Brown’s MFA program in 2009. Returning has been bittersweet at best. Memories of our (separate) trips in 2008 abound.

As iconic as it gets.

Mark completed his first walk in 2010 at the Pacific and Santa Monica Beach. It’s fitting that our trip begins here. 

On the beach.

We’ll spend a bit more time hugging the coast, then it’s time to head for the desert. Updates will follow in good time.

Cost of Corporations

Corporations are like vultures (and I apologize to the vultures of the world, as in the natural world; they perform a service, unlike corporations). They figuratively pick over the remains of the deceased, and they do it systematically and with precision. All with the wink and nod approval of our government overseers.

At least vultures in the natural world provide a service.

Bureaucratic structures seem designed to wear you down and extract what little resistance a grieving person might be able to muster. Life insurance is just one of the structures that comes to mind. Kafka wrote about this.

Then, there are states like Florida, where the dregs of society go to skirt personal responsibility, especially when it comes to killing pedestrians. No requirements at all for an errant driver owning anything substantive in terms of liability. Not sure how the laws developed there in terms of their homestead exemption and bankruptcy. Again, I’m sure the powers that be were tacit in the process. Oh, and Progressive Insurance, you suck!

It’s never been lost on me that Mark identified many of these things during his 101 days of walking and sharing. He recognized that lie that all of us have been sold and continue buying. He told the truth in a non-judgmental  manner. And now he’s gone.

There’s plenty more to say and write, but the past two weeks haven’t been conducive to writing. Not that the previous weeks back to January 21 were, either.

A friend and former colleague told me that there would be a time when the world would return to their distractions. She cautioned us to prepare for being alone with our grief, not to mention the myriad other tasks of trying to locate some meaning in Mark’s death.

Come on, be a friend

I’ve mentioned numerous times in my recent posts that grief isn’t linear. Loss means you jump back and forth across the continuum and experience a full palette of emotions; that’s at least how I’ve been processing the death of Mark.

Two weeks ago, I felt a bit of creative intensity returning. I’ve been able to blog, mainly personal reflections about losing a son. However, I’ve been short on new ideas. Grief affects our cognitive abilities, just one of the “gifts” that grief delivers.

I remembered a friend of Mark’s that I met at his celebration of life. He had offered his eye as an editor for anything—taking a look at Mark’s work, or even ideas I might have.

Hesitant about sending something I’d put together—an idea for an essay related to Mark and my experience as his father processing death, grief, and some of the bitter/hateful reactions from some corners of the internet. I used an essay written by David Foster Wallace as my jumping off point, and the reaction that his subject had when Wallace later committed suicide.

At the very least, his reaction was disappointing. I’m fine with being offered a critique, and even some suggestions about how best to pitch something like this. Instead, he chose to be dismissive at best, offering little in the way of encouragement.

My mood over the past few weeks has been alternating between deep sadness and red-hot anger, with several outbursts of frustration. As disorienting as this up-and-down yo-yoing looks and feels, the counselor we’ve been visiting for two months assures me (and Mary) that all this is quite normal.

Someone I’ve never met, but who had been following Mark’s journey, initiated an online conversation shortly after he was killed. It’s obvious from his public profile and body of work that this person is immensely talented. He also knows compassion and how to extend it to those suffering loss. He recommended Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking as a place to find some solace and a book on mourning that was worthy of my time and effort. I’m grateful he did.

I’d read her memoir a few years ago, detailing the death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne. Just days before he died, their daughter, Quintana, was hospitalized in New York with pneumonia. This later developed into septic shock. She was unconscious when her father died. Quintana would die just prior to the book’s release. Didion refused to revise the manuscript and later wrote a second book, about Quintana’s death, Blue Nights.

I found the book riveting when I first read it. However, I had little experiential to draw upon. My second time through her book makes it feel like an entirely different read.

Didion details the disorientation and cognitive slippage—what she characterizes as “insanity and derangement.” She also writes about the lack of literature on this subject joined with grief. This is another validation of my own observations in terms of the paucity of helpful literature with depth on the topic of grief, especially if you’re not interested in what is available in spades—self-help drivel

Fueling my frustration of late has been a sense that as we’ve moved out beyond Mark’s death, there are scores of people that we never knew (and likely never would have known had Mark not been killed), presuming it’s okay to make requests for a variety of things—often related to Mark’s writing.

Then, there is the omnipresent phrase on the lips of many, “I can’t imagine how you must be feeling.” Note to the people who can’t come up with anything more original than that—take a few minutes or longer and actually attempt to stand in my shoes—use your imagination, if you have one. Then, you’ll know fractionally what both Mary and I are feeling and going through.

Of course, there have been friends and others that demonstrate that they have a clue. Like my old high school buddy, Dave. He dared to extend an invitation to ride along with him and another friend to see Foxygen at the Paradise in Boston. That was on March 25.

I vacillated about going. He never wavered in his offer of a ticket and a ride, however. He even reached out that afternoon (we were meeting at his house at 5:00 to head south) to make sure I hadn’t spaced out and forgotten.

The band was amazing and even though being at a rock club with a younger crowd (Dave and I were the two oldest dudes in the room, I think) was weirdly strange at times, I ended up having a pretty damn decent time. Dave even made sure we had a place to crash after the show, at his niece’s. We got up early on Sunday morning and drove back to Maine.

Another longtime friend and former colleague has been checking in weekly and we’ve done some cool things together; like meeting him and his partner at Maine Beer Company the first warm Sunday and drinking beer outside on their picnic tables.

Two of Mary’s triathlon “sisters,” Heather and Cathy, met us at Bunker Brewing last Sunday. We drove into Portland so I could get some photos for a freelance article on trails to taverns I’m writing about Beer City. Why not combine biz with friends and a bit of fun approaching normalcy?

There have been other longtime friends of Mary that know exactly what she needs and aren’t shy about delivering support and understanding. This might be baking bread or making soup early on. Or recognizing that she needed a day out. Something as simple as a getting a pedicure, like Mary  did yesterday with one of her oldest friends, Pam.

Easter Sunday, 2010 [Providence, RI]

Today is Easter Sunday. Holidays will never be the same.

While not enamored with the religious elements so much for most of Mark’s life, we are faced with knowing that he’ll never ever come home again for the weekend like he often did. An Easter dinner sans ham, done up vegan style would have been fun, and another thing we’ll never know with him.

Yesterday was three months. Things don’t feel like their getting any easier.

Count your own blessings today if you are spending it with the people you love and care about.