thedaveandkimmershow
The Dave & Kimmer Show
Adventures In The Next 25 Of Forever
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Dream Patrol.
In ten days, Thursday, April 25, Linzy's gonna pull the trigger on her first live performance of Dream Patrol.
An ambitious project, Dream Patrol is Linzy's creative facade for a sound she crafted that's a merging of pop, techno, indie, and sound design. Wet, multilayered vocals are key to the sound as well as references to hometown locations in the lyrics.
The sound of Dream Patrol can be haunting. The sound can be massive. The sound can be fun. The sound can be dark. The sound can be full-blown party.
In its full expression and its simplicity, even in its simplicity, Dream Patrol has a cinematic quality.
Once upon a time, I imagined when Linzy set sail with her own music that it would be with a band she assembled. She knows a ton of gifted musicians and vocalists. However, from the beginning, Linzy imagined Dream Patrol as an individual performance.
Just her.
Now, this isn't a problem for Dream Patrol on vinyl or streaming.
But live? On stage?
What's that gonna look like for one person on stage if not like a DJ?
🤨🤔🧐
Of course Linzy's got this covered. It won't be a band experience,of course. It can't be. It won't be a solo performance or a DJ at the helm of a club. What it will be... is something intensely personal framed against a broad canvas of emotion and production value. She already has a production crew handling light and sound triggers.
Yup.
Dream Patrol.
This has been an actual dream of Linzy's for many years now until finally the opportunity intersected with room in her schedule and bandwidth in her mind by which to take this first step. In a way, we're gonna be looking at the first draft of what she intends. She's gonna build it as she goes. Show by show.
In ten days... we get the first taste.
Me, I'm excited. There's so much space here shaped by how she strives to craft this performance, a joyous, moving, a dark, deep ride in all kinds of ways that will tap into a shared experience in a way that's tough for a band to accomplish.
But a Creative with mad narrative skills?
Yeah.
This is gonna be something.
So Dream Patrol at the High Dive. Thursday, April 25 in ten days.
You can score your tickets here.
Doors open at eight.
And I am completely.
Stoked.
🤨🤯😁☺️
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It's just a cool photograph, is all.
The kind you see in music magazines or the biography of a famous band.
That's Linzy across the stage to the right on keys, by the way. 😊
She had quite the weekend, did Linzy. One of the bands she's in, Midnight High, for which she handles keys and vocal harmonies, performed in Carnation Friday night for the official launch event in anticipation of Timberfest, the Pacific NW outdoor music festival that arrives in July and at which they'll also perform. 🌲🌲🌲
The next night, Saturday night, she performed with The Little Lies, the Fleetwood Mac tribute band for which she handles keys, acoustic guitar, and Christine McVie's vocals.
The band performed at The Spanish Ballroom in Tacoma, opening for Queen Mother, the Queen Tribute band, at an all-ages celebration, an absolute dream of a night for fans of Classic Rock.
And their kids, apparently. 🤔
There were girls down near the front of the stage by Linzy who really took a shine to everything Linzy was doing, being even more amazed as she set keys aside and whipped out her acoustic guitar.
Future musicians, perhaps?
That would be pretty cool if they took that kind of inspiration from one great show. ❤️
Now, The Little Lies have played for larger audiences than the one at the Spanish Ballroom. The maximum capacity of the venue is 700 people and it was a sold-out show that night.
There's a difference, though, between playing outdoor concerts to thousands and playing to that 700 packed from back to front right up to the lip of the stage.
Indoors.
The energy's crazy in a way you can't help but feel. 🤯🤯🤯
After the show, the headliner, Queen Mother, asked if the band would be down to open for them again.
Linzy asked her band leader if it was because Queen Mother liked their show.
Truth is, they liked how The Little Lies helped them sell out the venue.
Which is a very good reputation to have. 😁😁😁
So yeah. Linzy sent me a snap of The Little Lies in performing mode at The Spanish Ballroom Saturday night. I half forgot that's she and her bandmates up there. It's just a cool photograph, is all.
And when you're there the experience blows you away in exactly that way you get in big arena shows with major artists.
It really is a helluva thing.
🤔🤯😊😁☺️
#midnight high#the little lies pnw#the spanish ballroom#linzy collins#timberfest#fleetwood mac tribute band#queen mother#classic rock#inspiration#inspired#rock show
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Of course it's the music that carries the day when we're out experiencing a new band at a local venue.
I will say, though, that some bands manage to bring a little something extra, a little bit more of themselves.
Last Thursday we went out to Tim's Tavern in Burien to experience Young-Chhaylee. Right off the bat, the lead singer gets into his given name and the confusion it incurs with strangers. For anyone with an even mildly different name, that tiny bit of sharing rings absolutely true. And yeah. It's nice to be part of the club. Even if it exists because of mildly annoying to crazy annoying behavior. ☺️
After that introduction and not long into the set comes a confession: Young-Chhaylee admits to feeling like the individuals in his band are better musicians than he which gives license to this little piece of advice:
If you wanna start a band, hire people who are more talented than you.
It's a refreshingly humble thing to say... with a bit of endearing thrown in for good measure.
Later after that, he indulges some self-reflection from the stage that you don't see every day. A brief reminder on the challenges of human life in this very moment:
Do you sometimes think you don't know what you're doing with your life?
Of course I realize gigs aren't meant to be therapy sessions. I do think, however, that it's not the worst thing in the world to give people a touch of a sense that they're not alone.
Even at shows.
I appreciate the honesty, is all.
Toward the end of the set, he introduces the upcoming song with a story and prefaces his introduction with
"This is me. This music is me."
So what's the deal?
Well, it turns out that once upon a time he was at a bar and became quite taken with the bartender. So he took to sitting at the bar when he was there so that he could strike up conversations with her. He went on and on about this woman, pouring his heart out from the stage.
Here's the thing, though. Earlier that evening I was introduced to his girlfriend.
Whoops.
Okay no. False alarm.
He was talking about her this whole time which was very very very very super sweet.
Plus, it was a great song about feels. ❤️❤️❤️
I think we're all suckers for stories like that.
In the end, it was an all-time great performance. More personal. More relatable. I asked Linzy if these were originals because the quality of music was so astonishing. I told her this band should open for Bruno Mars and she replied
"They should open for Silk Sonic" which is an R&B/soul/funk/hip-hop/pop super duo composed of musicians Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak.
It's a helluva thing the quality of professional music and musicians you can see around town anymore that are worth seeing again and again.
Add one more to the list:
Young-Chhaylee
#tim's tavern#young-chhaylee#musicians#humble#personal#relatable#talented#public self-reflection#honesty#life#modern life#challenges#love#infatuation#feels#talking#conversation#pouring your heart out#quality music#quality musicians#professional musicians#bruno mars#anderson .paak#silk sonic
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My uncle passed away a few days ago. Tuesday, February 20.
He died in Bali, Indonesia on what would be his final journey to the country of his birth.
We received the news a half hour after his passing, 130ish in the morning at our home, 530ish in the afternoon some eight thousand miles away across the Pacific Ocean.
He was my mom's older brother in a family of four. My mom's older sister and her younger brother passed away twenty years ago within months of each other, leaving my mom as the last serving sibling.
My uncle was super old by the way. That's not a knock on his age, by the way. Another nine years and he would've spent a literal century having lived on this third rock from the sun.
So safe to say he lived a full life, ending, believe it or not, with the title of Great-Grandfather.
My family in Holland is my family that I sometimes think of as my mythological family. This is the part of my family that lives in The Netherlands, has lived in The Netherlands for most and all of their lives, and who probably will always live in the Netherlands.
So yeah.
Distance is a thing. I can't just point to them and declare There they are!
You pretty much have to take my word on it.
Still, I tell people about the weird connection we have with roots in our collective childhoods. I tell people about our similarity of personalities, a modern-day tell that we're from the same tribe. And I tell people that time and distance don't diminish our shared connection. Which is a helluva thing given that twenty years just filled the space between last month when we were with them... and the time before that.
Twenty years ago.
And no. It doesn't, does not, seem to diminish us or our relationships with each other.
My uncle, by the way, my mom's older brother, was a drummer. He was on the kit with bands at a young punk age so it was hard not to think of him as a pretty cool dude. We met for the first time when I was a child. I had to be younger than ten when I met he, my aunt, and their son, my cousin. Later, a daughter would come along, another cousin for me, but it was that first meeting, the family of three, at which we were introduced. At the time, I think it was the company, Phillips, that he worked for. The sound recording company. Long play records. Cassette tapes. Electronic sound equipment. I'm not sure where he was in the company or how he came to be there but professional musician was his vibe.
He was a kind man. A clever and silly man. The man for whom Kimmer 'n I got on a plane to travel the five thousand miles to his home where we spent hours of every day with him. And where I got to tell him that I love him and thanked him for being my uncle. I don't know what that last bit means, actually. After all, an uncle's an uncle. It's a label of relationship within a family.
Gotta say, though, he brought a lot of honor and, yes, a certain X-factor to the uncle gig.
In the end, as in the beginning, he made an indelible impression in my memories. One who always made me smile. And one, I'm certain, who's passing will take a while to set.
Why?
Because with friends and family I don't see often, their passing doesn't register in the same way as someone who suddenly drops out of the middle of my life. There's gonna be a part of me that naturally thinks my uncle's still there across a country and an ocean, a great-grandfather, a husband, drummer, a good man. Enjoying his life surrounded by family that moves through his home like a natural current. There's a part of me that'll assume my uncle's living his life on the other side of the world until...
Until...
Until the part of me that knows better reminds me that he has, in fact, left the building.
I miss him, though. Right now as I'm thinking about him, I miss him. Just like I miss his sister and his younger brother whose memories I keep from childhood, whose memories sometimes prevent me from remembering they're no longer with us.
It's the only benefit I can think of, this thing where my family lives so far away and years go by between those times that we see each other: my sense that they're present on this earth with me is stronger. It's a bedrock reality for me that they are simply there.
Always.
My uncle passed away a few days ago. Tuesday, February 20.
He died in Bali, Indonesia on what would be his final journey to the country of his birth.
It's a fitting end to the story of his life, one that was absolutely made possible by his wife, his son, and his daughter. What I'll remember is that it was a quest. A literal adventure, traveling more than a thousand miles by plane, train, and automobile just to get started, moving from the west of Indonesia all the way to the east. In a way, it was also traveling back in time, revisiting the country of my uncle's youth, back where the life as he knew it started.
It's the quest I'll remember more than anything else.
One that remains ongoing.
☺️❤️
#indonesia#holland#family#uncle#passing#my uncle#love#friendship#laughter#tears#relationships#connection#home
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Once Upon A Time we were new to each other as a couple. Got all kinds of feels going on. All kinds of tingles. All kinds of adventures. All kinds of hours of talking. 😉
Once Upon A Time we were a pretty focused pair. She had a job. I had a job. We were dating. And that was pretty much it. So we were all about each other. 🥳😎☺️
Once Upon A Time we had our first Valentine's Day. Which was a pretty big deal since it feels like straight up validation that I, in fact, had a girlfriend. That she, in fact, had a boyfriend (which she told me later she wasn't looking for). 🤔🤨
Valentine's Day was a fun sort of approval. An official stamp on our couplehood. I don't know why that would be... that's just how it felt. 😘
Of course later you get married and that. Is the official stamp on your couplehood. Valentine's Day was just the first. 🙂
Nowadays, when I think back on getting married, when I think about our wedding day on each wedding anniversary day... I think about the actual day we got married, the days leading up to it, the days following after it. It's more celebration of this massively intense experience we remember. 😍
Valentine's Day isn't like that, though. There's not an event we celebrate. There's a love we celebrate. Our love. As it grows over days, months, years, and decades. It's a helluva thing. 😁
Once Upon A Time we were a pretty focused pair. She had a job. I had a job. We were dating. That really was it so we could be all kinds of about each other.
Of course we're not those ADHD young adults we used to be, footloose and fancy-free. We're adultier ADHD adults with a mortgage and business licenses. 😐
You know when you're young you say all kinds of things about your love because the future's a blank canvas and you can imagine all kinds of awesomeness that's gonna be painted on that canvas. For us, we've got a lot of our canvas painted. And there are plenty of things I know for a fact. Plenty that I know from actual experience.
So when I say she's the love of my life...
I mean she's the Love.
Of my life.
For real.
And when I say she's my Rock...
Yeah.
Thirty-one years of living this life together together is all the proof I need.
She's dynamic. She's a passionate beauty. She is off the charts smart and a blindingly fast thinker. She has a multi track mind and a relentlessly creative imagination.
I say she's my Valentine, though, and the word doesn't seem to do her justice even as today it's pretty much the only word at my disposal.
Plus, it's what all the cards and candies say. 😕
Once Upon A Time we celebrated our first Valentine's Day. Today and in the next few days we celebrate maybe our thirty-third, thirty-fourth Valentine's Day. A time during which I get to reflect on how breathtakingly lucky I am to love this one woman for decades and be a better man for it. ❤️❤️❤️
From our very first kiss, our couplehood's been this grand adventure, this edge-of-our-seats expedition, this life together painted on a massive canvas in all the colors we can imagine and a few we'd rather not.
I realize those words conjure a sort of Jackson Pollock vibe but still.
It's a helluva thing.
You know?
☺️
#Valentine's Day#love#life#couplehood#togetherness#adventure#expedition#celebration#anniversary#lucky#feels#tingles#young adults#adultier adults
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When January officially started, we were flying high above the Labrador Sea, the one right there above the North Atlantic Ocean. We were flying somewhere south of Greenland, three hours behind Greenwich Mean Time, as December 31, 2023 became January 1, 2024.
Earlier, when we boarded and took our seats, I asked one of the stewards if there was a way to know when New Year’s would arrive on the plane.
He said “Yes there is… but it involves math.”
Oh good grief.
Fortunately there was WiFi on board and I managed to figure it out.
After that, we were on a fully immersive and meaningful visit with my family in Holland through Sunday, January 7th.
The way it felt is as if we jumped into 2024 midstream.
“Midstream” with a touch of jet lag that hung on for a week, week-and-a-half.
“Midstream” where, after the 7th, I mean the very next day, I immediately returned to all the different places I work including my personal edit suite.
“Midstream” where Kimmer continued her doctoral studies during our trip and every day after, a relentless exercise of writing writing writing after reading reading reading on top of lectures, tests, and class discussion.
Oh yeah. And then Kimmer's full-time job.
My uncle, aunt, and their two kids (my cousins who are, in fact, no longer “kids”), took off from Amsterdam mid-month and we've been following their grand adventure to and across Indonesia in an app called Polarsteps ever since with about a week, week-and-a-half to go. A ton of photographs, a map tracking their progress, and the occasional post updating their experiences.🙂
This is also, legitimately, the beginning of the year and we're considering any and all things that need to be done differently. Or even… things that need to be done. Mostly those considerations have to do with businesses, receipts, and accounting. You know. The super fun stuff. 🤣🤣🤣
I'm also seeing us wanting to be more intentional in our relationships including (and especially) the ones five thousand miles away and the ones temporarily adventuring eight thousand four hundred miles away. Largely because the experiences we had with the people closest to us at the top of the month (even as they live far away) created a lot of continuing memories.
Continuing memories?
Yeah.
Like imagining what happens next. Like thinking about what would be great if it happened next.
Continuing memories.
Here's something new, though.
We are now a family of four.
Four?
Yes. Now remember, we're empty-nesters so by definition we’re a family of two. Add a cat (Dinker)...
Now we've got a family of three.
Our fourth comes to us from a dear friend who's heading off to New York either to live at a friend's place while she's away a few months… or to be there be there.
No idea what's gonna happen.
So as of Monday afternoon, 2:30pm, we're a family of four in which cat number 1 (Dinker) and cat number two (Quarter Note) are aware of each other…
But they’ve not laid eyes on each other.
It's part of a routine we’re following from a YouTube channel to manage a good meeting and outcome between the two cats rather than let ‘em loose in the same room and hope for the best.
So far, Quarter Note’s spent a solid twenty-four hours under the protection of the family room couch, only venturing out from its safety for food, water, and bathroom breaks. When no one, of course, is around.
Over the last hour, though, Quarter Note's been sending mixed signals, coming out to rub up against my legs, enjoying his sides being stroked or his head.
And then low-key hissing.
Don't know what to tell you. There's no claws out. No arching back or incredibly puffy tail…
And then he's enjoying strokes and rubbing up against my legs.
At one point he considers jumping onto the couch. He's got his front paws on the edge… but decides against it, opting instead for wandering back and forth while letting his tail stroke against the bottoms of my extended legs.
Cats are weird.
Right now he's under the couch again. But every so often pokes his head out to look at me for a moment before pulling back underneath.
So that's happening.
Finally, I read an article in the New York Times that captured perfectly these weeks following Christmas. The article’s called “The Joy and Sorrow of Streaming”. Written by Melissa Kirsch, Desiree Ibekwe, and Melissa Clark, it starts like this:
“The year continues to get its bearings, to establish itself. Right now, it’s still a collection of post-holiday weeks, getting-going weeks, weeks for planning the year to come. An on-ramp where we get up to speed. Soon we’ll be properly in the flow of traffic, soon we’ll really be on our way.”
Of course being on an international flight leaving the States December 31 of 2023 and arriving in Europe January 1 of the New Year, 2024…
Definitely feels like we're already on our way.
We’ll see how this plays out.
In the meantime…
Onward!
☺️
#international flight#greenland#new year#old year#holland#jet lag#returning to work#doctoral studies#homework#writing#reading#lectures#tests#class discussion#family#cousins#aunt#uncle#adventure#indonesia#polarsteps#travel blog#planning#new year's changes#maintaining relationships#growing relationships#continuing memories#memories#the new cat#cats
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Turns out the story I've been telling this whole time is really Part 1... because Part 2 actually happened last night.
By the way, time elapsed between Part 1 and Part 2?
Forty-one and a half years.
Ish.
PART 1
After high school graduation, a bunch of us spent a weekend during the summer at Ocean Shores. One afternoon while we were there inside the lodge, one of my friends walked us through a relaxation exercise where we all lay down on the floor on our backs. After that, we're instructed to contract each muscle in our bodies one at a time, and then release.
Every muscle. One at a time.
Contract.
The. Release.
Followed by...
Close your eyes.
So we close our eyes and our friend walks us through the visualization. From this distance in time, I don't remember anything about the narrative. Linzy, though, would recognize it as a rudimentary dream patrol because each of us had parts of the visualization to fill in. For example, at one point we're walking along a path when we come upon something. What color is that something?
Orange, was my answer. Orange, because earlier that day, walking on the beach, I think I found an actual orange. Or maybe it was an orange ball. Something like that.
Orange.
By the way, that was the last thing I remember because right after that, laying on the floor with my eyes shut, I fall straight into a deep sleep.
In the middle of the afternoon.
Heckuva thing, that.
PART 2
Okay so forty-one and a half (ish) years later, I'm at the bedside of a little boy who's doing everything in his power to not go to bed. He's very clever about it, this little one. He also happens to be my honorary grandson.
So I'm sitting at the end of his bed while he's thinking about what his next move's gonna be 'cause I'm not playing by his rules just now. Because what I just said is
You don't have to go to sleep at all tonight.
Huh?
No really. I told him that.
You don't have to go to sleep.
At all.
Tonight.
Now, next to his bed's a little radio looking gizmo that's playing a bedtime story.
It's on a little loud, though. So I turn it down to one or two, maybe three.
"I can't hear it," complains my little bedtime combatant.
"You can," I say. "In fact, the most powerful hearing we do is for soft sounds when our ears work harder. Here. Let's both be quiet for a sec and just listen."
So we do.
And then I say
"See what I mean?"
No idea if he does, by the way. He's just rollin' with it. So I continue.
"Now, there are a couple things that make this work better. The first is to close your eyes. Don't do that yet, though. Just know that when our eyes are closed our ears work extra hard to hear what we can't see."
"But I can't see the screen," he objects.
Turns out the little radio has a screen built into it as well. A bit of over-engineering, in my opinion.
"Well," I say, "that's what your ears are gonna do for you. Because you're going to imagine in your head everything you hear from your radio. "
He nods.
"Here's the most important thing, though. You need to put your arms to either side of you. And you have to relax all your muscles."
I shake my shoulders and arms in such a way as to give him a sense of jello.
"Okay. So remember. The most important thing is to relax all your muscles. They all have to be loose."
Hmmmmm.
So far, so good.
"Now. What's gonna happen next is I'm gonna turn the volume down another click. You're gonna relax all your muscles like jello with your arms at your sides. You're gonna close your eyes. Then you're gonna imagine inside your head what you hear from the radio.
Ready?"
He nods his head.
So I turn the volume down a click. Then I turn out the light.
In a moment, all I can see is by a colored string of lights hanging by the bed.
"You doing okay?"
He doesn't say anything.
I look at him a little more intently in the dark and see that he's flashing me a thumbs up.
And so, with my work done, I exit stage left with a "I love you, buddy" and close the door behind me.
It worked, by the way.
He didn't turn his lights back on, didn't get up and leave his room again. Because at some point...
He fell straight into sleep.
Man... I love it when a plan comes together.
😉
#bedtime#bedtime story#going to bed#visualization#relaxation techniqúe#sleep#falling asleep#ocean shores#high school
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It's been a fascinating day-and-a-half following family through the Polarsteps app as they race through time zones ever farther and farther away.
I'm not sure what's going on but definitely I'm hooked, fascinated, and completely engaged as their trip advances one step at a time from one destination to the next.
This is definitely like days of old (not even my days of old but older) when reports came from remote locations by runner, by train or boat, by telegram, when even basic news stories had to be serialized. And since my family's both on the adventure and documenting it... their reports from the field are necessarily brief.
Perhaps, as they get into the groove of their adventure, they'll be able to detail the story of their travels even more. 🙂
The app includes a satellite map of the world featuring the current trip's destinations connected by dashed lines or straight lines depending on where along their route they are. On the left, photographs along with the text entries for each destination.
It's not Around the World in Eighty Days...
But it sure feels like it.
🤯
#travel#international travel#polarsteps#travel app#trip narrative#adventure#photographs#challenge#navigation#story#text
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After Christmas we basically launched into the next thing... which was Holland. So I forgot to do what I usually do at the end of the month: a quick what happened this month.
This year, since it's our first back at the house and we've not left any trace of Christmas decorations (mainly the tree), we started from scratch with nothing but my traditional reminiscing of childhood, teenhood, young adulthood, marriedhood, and parentalhood experiences. I also started poking around "A Christmas Carol" for thoughts and quotes to share online illustrated by a touch of generative AI.
I also wrote a bunch about hope.
And making a difference in this world.
Call it my way of entering and re-entering the season.
Aside from my inner Christmastime journeys, outdoors in the real world there was plenty of low-hanging fruit being out and about in the world at Christmastime after Thanksgiving when everyone, all the stores, has license to blow out the season with displays of all kinds.
I saw a tremendous amount of Christmastime cheer commuting through downtown Seattle. I saw it in the basics of poinsettias on tables in small businesses. There were lights everywhere whether big business, small business, or homes. I was on a mission to photograph everything that reeked of Christmas at various Value Village stores and GoodWills. Even Top Pot Donuts for the donuts of course... and also for the decorations inside.
Christmas cards were now on the table so I spent the first coupla weeks with all the Christmas card parts to assemble including our end-of-the-year one-page (front and back) Christmas letter that I also wrote in those pairs of weeks. My first time even thinking about What We Did This Year.
Top of the month we hit on a fantastic YouTube video featuring an animated living room while it snowed outside the windows at Christmas... accompanied by traditional Christmas songs simply arranged for piano or music box.
We played it every morning.
On the music front, Linzy played a songwriters showcase at the Blue Moon Tavern on the edge of the U District on the 5th. The Littles Lies, the Fleetwood Mac tribute band for which Linzy handles Christine McVie vocals, keyboards, and acoustic guitar... performed at the Alladin in Portland alongside a sold-out live podcast show.
That was the night after the Blue Moon, the 6th.
And then the weekend, Sunday evening, The Little Lies was the house band for the Minnesota Wild at Seattle Kraken game at Climate Pledge Arena, their first gig of such magnitude that was covered by three cameras transmitting coverage of the band's performance to the big screens hanging over the center of the ice.
Totally high profile.
Kimmer 'n I actually got to say "we're with the band" at the press entrance to Climate Pledge. Then we were handed passes that actually said "band". We got to hang out with the Little Lies between sets in one of the green rooms and then at a bar a half-block down the street.
The perfect night!
Okay so in the super not perfect column, our car was stolen as part of a spree aided and abetted by Tik-Tok videos. Ours was one of four cars stolen that night by the same crew and we spent the rest of the month coordinating our car's recovery from Bellevue to various lots to finally the first shop that would handle a bunch of the repairs... although not all.
December was a record-breaking month for home-baked goodies by Kimmer. She cooked waaaaaaaay more than usual in the midst of her professional work, in the midst of her doctoral work writing papers and blogs, attending classes and online discussions, in the midst of Christmas shopping.
I talked to a friend of mine a bit about our end-of-the-year traditions. Ours, of course, is the Christmas letter. Theirs is based on daily notes that are reviewed New Year's Eve one entry at a time. Variations on where we all are, how far we've come, and all the good in our lives that otherwise gets overshadowed by the bad.
Finally, in the days leading up to Christmas, we pulled our Christmas decorations from the garage to transform the rooms of our home. We even strung outdoor lights along the front of our house along the gutter, something we've not done in a loooooooong time. And then finally, Kimmer asked Linzy to decorate our tree...
Which she then did to perfection.
FYI, the tree was set up only with lights when Linzy got to it.
Okay so my birthday's on the 23rd... which makes for a packed three full days: my birthday, Christmas Eve Day/Christmas Eve, and finally...
Christmas. 🎄🎄🎄
So yeah.
We enjoyed the season to its fullest.
However.
A family circumstance was brewing in Holland and, a coupla days after Christmas we made the call to hop a flight to Amsterdam on New Year's Eve.
By the time the New Year actually dropped... we were south off the coast of Greenland thinking about how, exactly a year ago we were on a domestic flight to join family also.
At the last minute.
And that's how we exited the month. On sustained bouts of fun and joy, hope and faith, right alongside sadness and concern. It's a recipe that's certainly not new to our days, light overlaying dark and vice-versa. So it's not uber surprising that we launch from the end of the old year into the new one in this manner.
What can I say but
Onward!
😁🥲🤨🥳😕🤣✈️🤯♥️
#december#old year#new year#2023#2024#family#friends#season#Christmas#Christmastime#hope#love#joy#laughter#tears#peace#travel#Christmas cards#Christmas lights#Christmas decorations#birthday#Christmas Day#Christmas Eve#Christmas tree#The Little Lies#Linzy Collins#Blue Moon Tavern#Climate Pledge Arena#Christmas Letter#end of the year
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So we've been back barely a couple weeks and now another branch of the family's traveling internationally between continents. And I can't get enough of it. I'm following along every morning. 😊
It's a huge undertaking, the flight time for which is six hours and change and then eight hours and change. To start.
Once again, I'm behind the times when it comes to apps. Last time it was WhatsApp that most of my family and friends in Holland use. For ten years or more, as it turns out. Enough time's gone by of me not using the app that one of my cousins was visibly perplexed I wasn't on board yet.
Gave me The Look, you know?
This time around, the app's from a Dutch company called Polarsteps that hasn't been around too long. The app's for documenting adventure... which my family's definitely taking.
From my end at this point, I can see an itinerary. I see where they're starting. I see where and when they're traveling. And I'll see it all in real time as they adventure from destination to destination.
Each destination (like the airport and then the next airport) will be documented by photographs and text, essentially a travel blog with real-time map data and comments.
My family's leaving tomorrow so right now their adventure hasn't started yet. Of course it's started. They're just not on the road yet. To this point it's all been preparation.
Now, we're at the tail end of our day so they're at the start of theirs. It's Thursday night in our home, Friday morning in theirs. A lot of the logistics of getting out of their homes is what's going on right now, I'm guessing.
For me, at some point in our tomorrow, Friday, I'm gonna following along on their serialized adventure much like newspaper readers of old.
And see what unfolds.
☺️
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When it comes to my family, there's only myself, my mom, and my dad in the United States.
So.
We've always been this tiny pocket of family over here with everyone else in the family being over there. To be clear, the closest of our family's something like five thousand miles from where we live.
We're used to, then, having only to take ourselves into consideration when it comes to things like travel because unless we're traveling internationally, again, we're a tiny bubble of family that's waaaaaay over here while everyone else is waaaaaay over there.
Now, what's coming up is that my niece is going to continue part of her education in Ireland toward the end of this year. This came up while we were still in Holland and we were spitballing about visiting her while she was there. At which point her mom, my cousin, reminds us to fill her in on the plans because she and her husband would love to visit at the same time.
Hmmm.
Never thought of it that way.
Because we're this tiny bubble of family. Waaaaaay over here.
And we're not used to considering these kinds of possibilities.
The best thing, of course, the revelation is that these kinds of possibilities are becoming things that we can make happen. At least, so far, this one.
Plus, Linzy has yet to travel internationally let alone meet any of her cousins. So this might be that kind of possibility for her, too.
We're definitely gonna see.
☺️☺️☺️
Oh wait. Someone has the same idea as we do! (And it's not about the yellow sticky...)
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We're back a little over a week now and I don't want huge swaths of time to pass between, well... I don't want another twenty years to go by.
Which, I fully admit, is a tough order to fill.
This is, however, 2024. There's a lot of tech to help bridge the distance that used to be massive but that today...
Is a little bit smaller.
Today's cell phones are definitely many steps up from ye old landlines. Today's cell phones are communication devices whereas ye old landlines had only one function and one function only. Today's cell phones accommodate voice-to-voice calls, WiFi calling, standard messaging, texts, emails, and video chats.
One of the most helpful things for me is that all my relatives (ish) are on WhatsApp. And since the time difference between us is nine hours, our schedules are exactly a workday off or a good night's sleep off. So the beginnings of our mornings and the ends of our nights are windows through which we can talk in real time. Anything else is leaving a message that'll be returned later.
Because of these time considerations, I'm finding myself thinking about everyone in Holland at the beginnings and ends of my days. What facilitates that effort is that they're the only ones in my WhatsApp contact list and I can see where we left off in our various conversations.
That's super helpful, by the way, to "see" them all in one place. Definitely woulda helped me back in jr. high when I had a pen pal in France for exactly one exchange of letters before I forgot I had that one one pen pal.
In France.
Anyway, it's a welcome byproduct of our latest visit that their names are in front of me every day. It's a hack, if you will, that helps prevent time and relentless activity from obscuring the reality...
That we are connected.
☺️
#family#friendship#connection#relationship#communication tech#cell phones#voice to voice#texting#messaging#video chat#email#wifi calling#whatsapp
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Whenever we can't do something on vacation that my parents did no problem while traveling... it galls me.
For example, when our flight arrived at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam beginning of this month, we got off the flight, walked a bunch, then through several security checkpoints including passport control on the other side of which was baggage claim.
Whoops. Not baggage claim. Not ours, at least. You see ours was still a bit of a walk away so we walked and walked and walked until finally our baggage claim appeared, then our baggage conveyor appeared, then finally our bag appeared. So we grab the bag, start rolling it toward the exit where I imagine my cousins are gonna be.
Why?
Because this is my long-ago memory from when I was a kid with my parents and we started making our way out of baggage claim and I saw my aunt, my mom's older sister, waiting for us on the other side of the glass, waving at us.
There was always family waiting to meet us right there as far as my memory's concerned.
So then this last trip, thirty, forty years since I traveled with my parents, we exit baggage claim and there's no one there. Now, one or another of my cousins was gonna be there but I couldn't reach either of them on my cell phone either by message or voice so...
Dead in the water.
Here we are, a long, long, looooooooong way away from home, with no way to contact anyone.
One more time:
No way.
To contact.
Anyone.
And yeah. You bet it's moments like these when I'm like
HOW DID MY PARENTS DO THIS???
Seriously.
How did they do it without WiFi and data and airport apps and voice-to-voice and texting and messaging and laptops? How on earth did they do what we're doing now only without massive, hand-held computing power with real-time functionality?
You see, they always were able to do this. No sweat.
And here we were sitting around the airport outside the recently exited baggage claim waiting for someone to find us.
Waiting for someone.
To just.
Find us.
No joke. That was our plan.
By the way I'm always surprised at how hard we lean on tech. And I'm also always surprised by the fact that my parents didn't have any.
How did they do this?
It's galling.
Planning and foresight, I'm guessing, though. Not a single minute of improvising, of winging it. They made arrangements in advance and told their relatives what flight, time, and place. And when the time came, the flight landed, we all converged on the agreed-upon place with no doubt we would soon see each other.
Call it the analog way.
And it worked.
Dang it. It worked.
Every time.
So yeah. Moments when our own limitations and inadequacies our so obviously revealed...
Moments when we're just waiting to be found because we are profoundly out of contact with anyone...
These moments definitively, unequivocally remind me of all the hard work my parents put into making things like international travel...
Look.
Like a piece of cake.
☺️
#international travel#air travel#airports#baggage claim#communication#planning#tech#no tech#parents#before tech#schiphol airport#amsterdam#waiting to be found#family tradition#my parent's generation#wifi#data#airport apps#cell phones#voice-to-voice#texting#messaging#laptops#forsight#advance arrangements#the analog way
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When it comes to remembering as much as I can about every experience we had in Holland, every conversation, every adventure, every moment... photographs really do trigger a lot of detail my brain captured... but then later couldn't actively remember.
At some point, late in our visit, my cousin's husband was gracious in complimenting me on how much I was able to remember about the day he and my niece acted as our tour guides.
The compliment made me think about the process of capturing that kind of detail because my memory really doesn't have that kind of raw power.
Of course there's always stuff that's easy to remember. There are indelible stories or striking conversations or things that are really funny. There's even how I felt during certain experiences even if the details aren't all there.
With me so far?
That's sort of the baseline of what my memory can do.
And beyond that?
Well, beyond that are what I call prompts.
Prompts?
Yeah. These are details that conjure memories I can't naturally access.
As I mentioned already, photographs make for fantastic prompts. Especially since I take pictures of everything. A single picture can remind me of a place I visited and just that information can instantly evoke further details or full-blown memories that weren't at my fingertips. And then the process of writing those further memories can conjure either more detail or, if I'm lucky, new memories that are associated with place, individuals, or something connected to the conversation or experience we were having at the time.
It's amazing what a photographic clue can conjure seemingly from thin air and then what often piggybacks from what's conjured. A memory that triggers a second memory.
The other handy fact about the photographs is that they're time-stamped. One of the first things I do, then, is to create a schedule of the day that I experienced. To map out the day by the hour. Because sometimes just that intersection, identifying a place and a time, is enough to provoke something specific. Usually snatches of conversation. Something I was thinking just then. A lot of times (not that this is always helpful), I remember what was playing on the radio or in a podcast as we were passing some landmark.
The next step in the process—which I sometimes make the first step in the process—is mapping my day. I'm talking about our phones which keep track of our location at all times... so I use that data to geo-map my day. Even just the knowledge that, at this time, we were traveling from here to here is enough to manifest memories. The data also helps me suss out moments that may have dragged and moments that rushed. I have my own internal clock, you see. And what I'm measuring is my own estimation of how much time's passed against how much time has actually passed. For example, I might feel I did a lot of things... so a lot of time must've passed only to discover it was only an hour or less. As it turns out, I lose track of time while taking walks and taking tons of pictures on those walks. Another example is the family gatherings where I completely lose track of time when a lot of time actually does go by and suddenly the night's over 'cause it's eleven already.
Or later.
By the way, family gatherings are tricky because the place and time alone don't trigger memories. Especially when those family gatherings are happening every day around the same time.
You know what does the trick, though?
People. And yeah. Maybe a little of where I was in the dining room at the time or the living room. But largely... it's people who trigger the memory of specific conversations during large gatherings.
Most importantly, in this one case, I have to write about what I experienced on a particular night before the next one. Before the next family gathering. Either that or make quick notes in order of who I talked to and about what. Because if I do that I can recreate a surprising amount of what happened and what was said to whom.
On my own, then, I can't remember nearly as much as what I write through brute recollection. But with clues... the number goes through the roof. And, believe it or not, additional details continue to pop as I read and re-read what I've written.
It really is amazing how memory works.
Texts are also part of my process of recreating a particular day. Mostly the texts function as a kind of spice, funny things said, humorous observations made. If I'm lucky (and sometimes I am) I can copy whole graphs of funny and humorous and paste them as quotations into my blog.
Texts also capture our interactions, planning and thoughts about what's coming up tomorrow or the day after. Texts are us talking to each other. Which is always interesting.
And yes. The texts are time-stamped so they are part of figuring out what happened when on a particular day. Or at least what we planned to do.
And then last... there's asking. Nothing super deep. Just the basics like where were we when...? And when were we at...? Or what was the name of that place? Or who was I talking to that one time?
And so on.
Again, each memory can trigger further details, additional memories.
And then sometimes later...
Another one'll pop up.
It's all a process of discovery, an investigation into myself and what I've been doing this whole time. Or, at least (usually) in the last twelve hours.
What can I say?
There's a lot of moving parts...
But the prompts really do seem to work.
☺️
#remembering#memory#details#memories#stories#conversations#experiences#funny#sad#stuff i didn't know#prompts#photographs#pictures#images#place#time#location#emotional memory#physical memory#intellectual memory#triggers#measuring time#family#friends#texts#quotes#interactions#planning#thoughts#talking
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I think it was dinner, next to the last day we were in Holland, when my cousin who showed us around Rotterdam that day was giving me a hard time, telling me how I was gonna just break down and cry 'cause I'd miss him soooooooo much.
As if.
Except...
Except that triggered a memory. I'm not sure how old I am in this memory but it's a trip I took to Holland with my mom. Just the two of us.
I remember it was only the two of us because I also remember overhearing her tell dad about what happened.
What happened?
Yeah. It was after our trip was over. We spent the previous weeks hanging out with our family in their different towns. This might have been the time when one or the other of my cousins made up the now classic bi-linglual poem that goes
"I speak English very well
It is not so snell
But dat kom nog well."
Trust me.
It's both clever and funny.
It's written across the face of a beer coaster I still have...
Somewhere.
So this is after that trip with my mom. We're in our seats on the plane, my mom and I. When suddenly I'm wracked with sobs. Overwhelmed by them.
And then it's over. We fly home. And then later I overhear my mom telling my dad about that moment.
So.
What happened there? What was that about?
Because truth is that I'm an only child who loves being an only child. It's all about me, you know? I'm also quite used to this: a family branch of three in all of the United States.
However.
The full family experience in Holland is compelling as hell, I won't lie.
There's a cheekiness there. An easy humor. A natural camaraderie. Laughs every other minute. A palpable connection that defies explanation given how mathematically little of our lives we've actually spent with each other. Count 'em in days.
All of which conjures an overwhelming sense of We. An easily recognized Us. And whenever that trip was... I'm guessing that was the first time I ever put it all together and felt the truth of it.
Again. Compelling as hell.
And definitely definitely definitely...
Tough to simply walk away from when you just lived life in full Technicolor with them until you got yanked away.
☹️☹️☹️
#holland#netherlands#family#connection#closeness#belonging#laughter#fun#relationship#relational#love#loneliness#apart#separate#leaving#memory#only child#small family
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I figured out how many days during the course of my life I spent with my family in Holland in relation to how many days I've been alive.
It's a shockingly small number, by the way. At the very most it's one third of one percent of my life. At most. The math isn't sensitive enough to account for the actual hours and minutes I spent with a specific cousin. It can only count such experience in full days.
So the real number is less than one third of one percent.
Probably much less. ☹️
With that in mind, though, it was always my intention to document as much of our visit as possible. To document our days. To document where we went and who we spent that time with. To document conversations and feelings. To document the actual people with whom I spent time.
That's writing about my experiences after the fact, by the way. I wasn't standing there with paper and pen transcribing everything. I had to remember it all the next morning.
Write it down then.
The exercise, by the way, was more successful than I would've guessed.
There was tons to write. I could remember tons to write so I wrote it all down. Which ultimately made for super long blog posts about single days. A truckload of words.
About one day.
I really did think about breaking those posts up into, say, days and evenings but the reality was our days on this trip, each single day was unique because of its density. We spoke with so many people on the day, had deep conversations in there. Our days were saturated by thoughts and ideas and experience and relationship.
Each day was an outsized day. Not only in the amount of time spent but in the sheer tonnage of intellectual and emotional discussion. And allowing each blog post to reflect that density is simply being true to the kinds of days those were and how they unfolded.
They were unique.
They were saturate.
They were wall-to-wall, full throttle experiences.
Amen.
☺️
#family#holland#netherlands#relationship#time spent together#experience#communication#conversation#fun#exploration#adventure#writing about it#blogging#writing#remembering#intellect#emotion
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Visiting family in Holland just now triggered something that's a feature of my later life: the desire to firmly establish memories as the events that'll become those memories are unfolding in real time.
Why?
Because I recognize the value and power of memories. I understand how the raging stream of Time pushes even the most powerful memories almost immediately and seemingly purposefully into the background. And I know for a fact that our darkest, most traumatic experiences create intense, negative memories that take up more headspace than positive memories, more often than not crowding those positive memories out, shoving them to the side.
Grossly minimizing them.
The first time I recognized a moment that was not only significant but a moment whose memory I wanted also to be significant... was high up in Italy's Dolomite mountains. I was on a shoot on one of the mountain tops staying overnight at a refugio, a lodge for hikers and skiers (and the occasional production crew). We just finished the day's shoot with all our gear stashed back at the refugio when I decided to wander up the rocks above the refugio to watch the sunset.
How high up was this?
Couldn't tell you. But we were so high in altitude that that night, in order to see the planet Mars in the nighttime sky, I didn't look up.
I looked across.
Anyway, finding my perch, I watched the sun slip below the horizon. I watched the shadows grow. I watched dark shapes pull themselves over our mountaintop like a blanket. I watched cliff walls turn shades of stone and rock to yellow then pink. I watched the colors of the rocks lose their saturation. I watched those colors fade until night time fully descended and eventually, later that night, I looked straight across from where I stood on this mountaintop and observed the planet Mars.
And yeah. Even in our night sky it twinkles red a little.
So.
How did I intentionally commit an experience to memory?
I did the only thing I could think of.
I stared, is what I did. Stared at the scene and all its details intently. I tried memorizing each detail. I brought my full attention to bear on the experience in which I was partaking. I tuned all my senses into each individual aspect of this moment. I soaked in it. I went into record mode.
Well...
I think of it as record mode but what really happened is that I became thoroughly present in this one moment, like all five senses present, and my brain did the rest.
My brain.
Did the rest.
So did I go into record mode with my family?
Sort of.
I was definitely focused on our conversations, interactions, adventures, and quiet moments. I tried to tune all my senses into each moment with them.
Did it work?
Well... it was definitely harder than taking in a scene atop a mountain at sunset. We were almost always on the move. There was almost always more than one element to our moments. At the very least, there was the content of our conversations, there was whatever we were doing at the time, and there were our emotional responses to either the words or the experience.
At the very. least.
Also, because it bears mentioning, human communication is very messy, massively layered, composed of different colors that obscure or blend. For example, we often drag the conversation and experience we just had into the one we're having. And we drag that one into the next. Not everything about it. But certainly pieces. Certainly vibes. Certainly colors. Things that influence, bias, and define the context in which our conversations move forward, our experiences unfold.
There's a lot to mentally record, is my point. There's a massive lot to remember across different streams of thought, wildly different emotions, and by all my different senses tuned into what's right in front of me.
It's possible, though. It is.
Not for long, though.
But it is possible to capture more detail than you'd guess. By saturating yourself with it.
Only one problem:
I can only hold onto most of what's happened until the next morning. There are ways to cheat this, of course, but when it comes to brute force remembering, I've gotta write it all out the next morning or it's gone. Or most of it's gone.
And the cheats?
I'll get into it for you later.
For now, what I know is that I have a record mode that works, that gets its power from being fully present...
In a single moment.
😊
#memory#memories#remember#remembering#recording experiences#recording emotions#senses#sight#sound#touch#taste#smell#being fully present#saturate experience#focus#detail
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