Good Things about Being Home #1

(originally published March 24, 2010)

The pets were glad to see me. Olivia, the maddest cat in southwest Ohio, has not let me leave her sight since I got home from The Jewish Hospital on Tuesday night. Eloise, the monster dog, dashed around the yard in a paroxysm of joy, pausing to drop her big head in my lap for pets every few circuits. Frannie, our blind cocker spaniel — if God created anything cuter than cocker spaniels, he kept it for himself; tracked me by sound and scent wherever I laboriously moved around the house, her collar tags jangling, her funny little snuffle announcing her arrival. Of course Thor, the Fat Bastard in feline form, just gave me his half-lidded "Oh, were you gone?" look and went about his business.

Good Things About Being Home #1 (Transition piece)

 Good Things About Being Home #1

(Transition piece)

When we first arrived in Ohio in 2006, I had no job and no plan — which will surprise no one who has been paying attention. To support myself, I was a substitute teacher for several school districts, so I spent most days driving from Oxford to Cincinnati, Eaton, and even west into Indiana. As a traveling sub, the work took me to urban schools and rural ones, wealthy districts and poor ones — a cross-section of southwestern Ohio I never would have seen otherwise.

 

The Best Show I Ever Saw

(orig published Wednesday, April 7, 2010)

One of the things I admire most about my wife Adrienne Cohen is her ability to make a plan and see it through. Getting a PhD was a goal she had set for herself in 1979, after graduating from high school. Now that her children were living independent lives and she had earned her Master's, a quarter of a century later she was ready to begin the final stage — getting her PhD. She was accepted into the brand new Gerontology PhD program at Miami University, my alma mater. 

Now was the hard part. Miami University was nearly a thousand miles away from our home in Shoreham, Vermont.  And Adrienne had certain conditions she wanted fulfilled before starting the last leg of her journey: to not have to work full-time while studying, to live near her school, not be a long-distance learner, and to have me with her. These were big, scary conditions but I had complete faith in her.  When she asked me to quit my job and move with her, the answer was easy. I can rarely make a plan beyond my next meal, but I believed in her vision for us both. I simply said, 'Sure.'

Weird, Wild and Wonderful

(Blind Boys of Alabama Transition)

Weird, wild and wonderful – that was what I was thinking as I stood on the football field at Norwalk Junior High School in 1983, waiting for my high school graduation ceremony to begin. As in, “I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but I hope it is weird, wild and wonderful.”

All I knew for certain was that after a summer working on the county road crews, I would leave the house I grew up in on Main St. and begin attending Miami University. I had no plans — just wishes, hopes, and maybe a prayer.

Introduction to a book I will never write - Warm Bodies (2013)

Introduction

Early spring of 2013, I was sitting in a movie theater and as the lights came up, tears began running down my face. I didn’t know why, but the film we just watched had reached into a place I didn’t know needed touching.

I got asked to make a video

Freedom Through Recovery, a local sobriety community asked me to make a video about What Recovery Means to Me. 

 

Five Year Update - The Words of My Mouth

Well, heck, it has been a while. I am fine. Really, things are good. We moved to Georgia, I got sober, went back to school and now work in IT for the local school district.

God has been good.

Recently we have been attending the local Unitarian Universalist Church. Last Sunday's service was devoted to discussion about Christianity and I spoke. Being able to address the congregation was a wonderful experience, but what was truly amazing was the process of putting into words things that I had never said before. Here is  what I said: