Home of Luck and Choice

A friend said, "you're so lucky your mortgage payment is so low!" Our three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath, single-garage home with full back and front yards, in a small city costs just over $300 a month plus property taxes of just under $5,000 a year.

I see why they think we're lucky.

But beyond our white, middle-class privilege, it was choice, not luck.

In 2001, about to have our first child, we wanted to live close to family, in the city, and chose a good house. We could afford only five percent down. It felt like a lot. We weren't sure how we would make it.

But I remembered eight years before, when our car blew a head gasket. We'd had to buy a new car in spite of the massive monthly payment.

That Toyota Tercel cost $119 per month.

We were still driving it when we bought the house. It was long paid off and, recalling those massive payments, I smiled and relaxed about buying the house.

Within months, mortgage payments were manageable. In five years, they were easy. 283 payments later, they're almost inconsequential. Time has this effect when we choose to hang onto things.

We chose to keep the Tercel until it had to be towed away. We've chosen to stay in the house, maintaining and improving it.

We sometimes wish the house were bigger, had a two-car garage, fewer steps, and a front porch, but we choose to work with what we have.

I was born lucky to good parents and a loving brother. A spectacular woman chose to marry and raise two tremendous daughters with me. I'm blessed.

But our low mortgage payment was choice more than luck. It was predictable and I predict that in ten years, someone will hear what we pay and say, "oh my god, you're so lucky!"

Maybe by then I'll be wise enough to just nod and say, "you know, we really are."

Ridiculous Project (with reasons)

There are 247 albums in my collection. Vinyl. Analog. The kind that spin on a turntable. Playing now is Vince Guaraldi's Alma-Ville, a tremendous record from a musician who should be known for more than the great music to Peanuts.

This year, I'm trying to listen to every album. I like this kind of challenge, spending time with analog things, listening and maybe writing. A ridiculous project, but I have my reasons.

Today is Inauguration Day. Feels like a funeral. Watching, listening to, or reading the news does me no good.

Great jazz on old technology is nothing but good. No corporation tracks my listening. I'm connected with something tangible, close at hand, and beautiful.

Getting through 247 albums, some double, triple, and box-sets totaling 294 records will take a while. It's already the twentieth day of 2025 and I've listened to a scant five albums. But what's life without a good project?

Especially when the world is burning down.

I'll keep listening.

Morning Routine for Mere Mortals

For months, I've considered writing how I start my mornings, the routines that largely serve me. I usually enjoy reading how others begin the day. I haven't written the description because I've felt short on time. Often enough, I'm grinding against the routine anyway, thinking I need to do more.

I don't exercise or meditate in the morning. I fail to make and eat a healthy breakfast or pack a good lunch. I don't check my calendar and frame the day. I don't wake mindfully, breathe away anxiety, or consider what would bring me joy (other than having a pee). I don't begin with some creative act. I don't do the things I feel I should do, that would make me a good person. I've tried, but I guess I'm not that kind of good person.

Instead, I wake and lie in bed, wanting to rest, needing to pee, anxiously revving up about what has to be done so the world won't end. I turn myself out of bed, and go downstairs. I shut off the front lights, open blinds, and have that pee.

I empty the dishwasher. I boil water, measure and grind beans, brew a cup of coffee that I take to my desk. I handwrite three Morning Pages of thinking that often centers me. Then I read one passage from Daily Doses of Wisdom, one poem (I'm working through Billy Collins' Aimless Love and, if I feel there's time, one chapter of Meditations for Mortals.

In the kitchen, I wash my coffee cup. In the bathroom, I run hot water, lather my face with a brush, and shave with a safety razor. I shower and dress, pack my things for the office, and go.

This started with what I don't do because I'm trying to cope with the idea of not being able to do everything and also trying not to feel the obligation to do more and more. My Morning Pages and short readings, they serve me. Why can't I let that be enough?

Because "enough" feels like surrender and disaster in the making. Because I feel that I must do more, strive for more, and live up to my potential. Because I've learned that to do anything less is a sin, a mortal one.

The secret my morning routine tries to teach is that maybe I'm not so much a sinner as I am a human, and though it doesn't say so in my dictionary, "human" may be a synonym for "enough."

Public and Private

I prefer to write with pen on paper. There's no way for corporations, governments, or individuals to know what I write that way. But I'm typing this on the computer, my data tracked, and I'll publish this to the blog. So much for privacy.

For 3,802 days straight, I've written three Morning Pages by hand on paper. Thats' 11,406 pages no one is likely ever to see. What's the point of keeping that private?

My writing group sometimes ask if I'm going to gather my poems, find an agent, and try to publish. I suppose I should. More than Morning Pages, the poems are meant for others. But the work to publish feels like time away from other things and I'm focused now on writing and shaping of them, on the craft. For once, I don't need to put them out into the world and be told I'm a good boy.

Private writing focuses my attention on my motivations. I don't want to brag about the streak of Morning Pages as I did for years. There's nothing noble in the streak any more than getting out of bed and making coffee each morning. It's just a thing I do for me. I've gotten past needing to impress anyone else with it or even to explain the motivation to myself.

I may someday move to publish my poems. That may be what I want to do. I'll wait until I'm not chasing approval, until it's not about my ego. That's no way to overcome the habits of trying to satisfy others. I can overcome my traumas mostly in private and then see what I'm ready to do.

As for this switch from private pen and paper to public blog, I wanted it available for others to read. I'll likely never know if it has been read and so that can't be the motivation for me any more. It's enough to feel good without understanding all the reasons behind it. It's enough to accept the tension between private and public and know that I live somewhere between the two and moving back and forth as need be.