The Firsts Thanksgiving.

Just back from an enjoyable weekend in Alabama with a friend. Among the highlights:

• First time spending a significant amount of time in the rural South.
  
• First sighting of an armadillo. (While rocking on the front porch at night. Without a jacket. In late November.)
  
• First time going to Mississippi. My 43rd state! (Even if it rained the entire time.)
  
• First time seeing the Gulf of Mexico. (See above.)
  
• First time on a goat farm. (In rubber boots, of course.)
  
• First time sleeping in a house with 25 people. 11 adults, 14 children. (I realize that the 25th doesn't make much of a difference at that point, but I'm grateful the Martins let me crash their party and take up bed space.)
  

Family ties.

I made a quick trip to SLC this past weekend to visit my Grandma. As every time I'm in town, we took a walk down to the city cemetery where we’ve had family buried since the 1840s. This year it was Veterans Day, and we put a flag on Grandpa’s grave. Here is what I was thinking about:

Born in 1920, Grandpa (having always hated his given name) went by Bud to those who knew him. Buddy to family. Drafted in 1941, he served 3.5 years in WWII, from North Africa, up through Italy and into Germany. He also worked over 40 years for the phone company as a lineman and supervisor until retiring to golf, snoozing in the lazy chair, and summer fishing trips to Alaska with his brother.

His five grandkids were his pride and joy, and I was his Peanut. Besides blood, we didn't have much in common. He loved hunting and fishing and sports and beer and company. I was quiet and shy and loved science and books. As for schooling, he finished high school and that was it... but was he ever proud of mine. He didn't live to see me finish my last degree, but his morning coffee buddies knew all about it.

In the last several years of my grandpa's life, he faded into Alzheimer's. I hesitate to use the word faded, because it was anything but passive -- he was angry and combative. He no longer knew my grandma or his kids or grandkids or where he lived, and you felt he knew on some level that he was no longer in control of his mind and body and fought it with everything he had left. (There were some funny moments, too, though. Ask me about the pantyhose.)

Until the very end, he had brief periods of normalcy from time to time where, although a little forgetful, he would still remember names, and places, and his personality. In early 2005, my mom and I had flown to Salt Lake for a long weekend. He was himself the whole time I was there. He couldn't process things as fast as he used to, and he was foggy on some details, but he knew who we were, he joked with us... he was Grandpa. The morning we left, he pulled me aside and slipped me $100. He'd taken to hiding money around the house where he thought my grandma couldn't find it, and he'd been holding that for days waiting for the right time to give it to me. As we were about to walk out the door to leave for the airport, we realized he was no longer there with us. When we found him standing around the corner, he turned to us in tears (the only time I've ever seen my grandpa cry) and said, "I don't know when I'll see you again. You're never here enough." Then I gave him a big hug, and left.

That was the last time I ever saw him. A few months later when I got the message from my mom that he had died, I wasn't surprised, but I cried for a little while. He had fallen and hit his head a few days prior and was in pretty bad shape. He was a strong man -- in his retirement years, he fought off a heart attack, two strokes, and emphysema. And in the end, he hit his head. That was it, and he was gone. The cause of death on his death certificate reads "Alzheimer's". Five years later that still bothers my grandma. "You don't die of Alzheimer's," she says. I was just glad that my last memory of him was of him, and not his illness. Tender mercies.

An island age.

"In my opinion, all men are islands. And what's more, now's the time to be one. This is an island age. A hundred years ago, for example, you had to depend on other people. No one had TV or CDs or DVDs or home espresso makers. As a matter of fact they didn't have anything cool. Whereas now you can make yourself a little island paradise... And I like to think that perhaps I am that kind of island. I like to think I'm pretty cool. I like to think I'm Ibiza."

--Will in "About a Boy"

I am an island. I can do what I want, when I want. Or not, if I don't want. My life, my job, my happiness. Me. Me. Me. I do not have a spouse or significant other. I am not responsible for the livelihood or rearing of any children. I live 1,800 miles away from my family. Consequently, I could live my life with very little but a baseline level of impact on anyone else, and the hard truth is that frequently I do.

Let's be clear. I am an introvert. I like working on my own. I don't like big groups, or lots of external stimulation. I enjoy having time to myself. But, I may play that card a little too often, especially lately. Having a grown-up job and a house takes up time and energy, and I get busy and tired, and it's just easier. Also, it's safe. I can extract myself from the parts of life that are actually a lot messier in reality than in theory, and focus on the part of it I can control. Namely, me.

I read a speech by David Foster Wallace ages ago, where he called that "the freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation." I found the speech still online, and he continues: "This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day."

A hypothesis: I am not an island. I am a daughter, I am a sister, I am a friend, I am an employee, I am a supervisor, I am a member of my church, I am a resident of my neighborhood, I am a voter, I am a taxpayer, I am a citizen. All of which means that what I do and say -- or more importantly lately, don't do and don't say -- actually does have an impact on the people whose lives intersect with mine.

Among my first goals: I need to spend less time on my own. This may include more time spent building (or rebuilding) quality relationships with family and friends, putting as much energy into my group projects at work as solo projects, more involvement in my community, etc. I also need to work on being more open. Even a little seems to matter. I'm often surprised at how much I think should just be obvious that isn't unless I actually say it.

P.S. These goals violate just about every natural instinct that I have. Which is why I'm saying it publicly. I (thankfully) have people in my life who will never let me forget I just wrote those words.