The Journey

Early Retirement

This is a cautionary posting….

Two years ago, on Valentine’s Day of 2008, I de-pledged from my job for the sake of my sanity, and set out on this journey to figure out what it is am supposed to do with my life.  Early on, when people asked about my status, I happily declared, “I’m retired!”  It was a cocky attitude for a 33 year old, but after being chewed out in front of my peers by a vice president at work, I quietly calculated my net worth and divided it by my monthly expenses, to determine how long I could last.  Long enough, I decided.  It would soon be time to go.  So whether you retire at 33, 53, or 73, here are a few things to think about.

 

Lesson #1:  You will have a lot of fun …for two months.

 

I remember at former co-worker’s retirement party when another old-timer stood up an declared, “Congratulations, Lester!  From now on, every night is Friday night!”  It’s pretty wild when the only place I had to be, or chose to be, with consistency was church on Sunday mornings.  The rest of the week was wide open to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.  I still couldn’t sleep past 7 AM (too hard-wired for mornings, I guess), but the rest of the time was spent running, sitting in coffee shops, and reading the pile of books I’d collected.  But all of my friends were still working, and before long, the times between 9 AM and 5 PM became pretty lonely.  After about two months, the novelty of free-time as a seemingly renewable resource wore off and the real search for “what’s next” began.

 

Lesson #2:  You will get bored.

 

Take money out of the equation for a moment.  If your basic bills are paid, it becomes a matter of what you’ll do with your time.  I’ve known entrepreneurs who’ve sold their companies and pro-athletes who’ve retire with far more money than I’ve seen so far.  In both cases, they’re driven to keep going, to do something.  I recently read an article about Brett Favre’s annual dilemma, and I think it shows his heart.

 

“I asked Favre what he planned to do.

 

‘I have no idea,' he said. ‘I know I'm not going to replace throwing touchdown passes by cutting down three trees tomorrow. I do know this: I've gotten bored with everything in my life at some time. I love to hunt, but I get tired of that. I love to work on my property, but I get tired of that. We'll see.’”

 

Ref.: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/peter_king/02/14/offseason/2.html

 

I love garlic mashed potatoes.  They’re a treat.  But I don’t want to eat them everyday for the rest of my life.  We all need variety, but more than that, we need purpose and accountability.  Without them, we get mired in ourselves, which I don't recommend.

 

Lesson #3:  You will spend more money than you planned.

 

Now, add the money back to the equation.  Unless you’re a former NBA player, you’ll need to watch your pennies carefully.  In my case, I still balanced my checkbook by hand with each purchase or ATM withdrawal.  I thought I was frugal, and in a normal system, I am.  But when you sit in a coffee shop all afternoon they typically expect you spend some money to keep them in business.  Then you go to lunch.  Then you go buy a new pair of running shoes because you’ve run more than normal and cut down the life of your current pair.  It’s no fun sitting around the house by yourself with nothing to do, so a long drive is in order (at nearly $4.00/gallon in 2008), or maybe a plane ticket to go see family for a while.  Books from Amazon aren’t free, either.  Because you’re not chained to a desk for eight hours a day where it is nearly impossible to spend money, you’ll find yourself spending more.  I’m a tightwad, but even I was surprised by the drain that I allowed from my savings.  Couple that with watching a portion of my cash evaporate during the second half of ’08 and suddenly I was a lot more interested in going back to work.  I have yet to meet a money manager talk about this.  They tell you that you’ll spend less in retirement.  For me, it wasn’t the case at all.

 

Lesson #4:  You need to work.

 

The bottom line is men and women were created to work.  Theologically, working in the garden was the commission given to Adam and Eve BEFORE the Fall.  I’m just telling you what the book says.  About half of the book of Proverbs (I’ve had time to read it several times) directs people to work, to avoid sleeping too much, or goofing off too much.  Some is refreshing, but too much gets a man in trouble.  We disdain work because we associate it with cubicles and conference calls, bosses and bureaucracy.  I’m with you there, but what would it be like knowing when you wake up in the morning that you’re about to go to the kind of work you were meant to do (and that yes, there will still be food on your table).  What could be better?

 

Lesson #5:  Re-wirement, not retirement.

 

A friend and former co-worker put this eloquently and coined the term.  Like her, I didn’t quit because I didn’t want to work.  That’s never been the case.  I quit to find my purpose and my calling.  There will likely be several steps in the discovery process, but I accepted that journey two years ago, though at the time there was no way I could have articulated it. 

Despite actuarial tables, IRS laws, and Social Security expectations, I never want to stop working, at any age.  At 34 I’ve already had my retirement, so God willing I’ll be working until the day I die.

 

In for the long haul.

 

JRH

Unsteady State

A great thing about being an engineer, specifically a chemical engineer, is that times of general ambiguity and vagueness can be given a bit of articulation.  Nothing is necessarily solved, but at least I have a name or term by which to describe the situation.  I take comfort in the description, and thus, a position of futile self-presumed intellectual superiority, kind of like Wiley Coyote had.  I don’t know how to fix anything, but I have a clever way of describing things, so over the cliff we go….

 

My favorite example is Le Chatelier’s Principle.  In simple terms it states that things flow from areas of high concentration to low concentration.  Drop a bit of red food coloring into a glass of water and it slowly distributes throughout the water.  It was concentrated, and now it is distributed to the point of equilibrium and the water is pink.  But most interactions are seldom singular.  Because the water in the glass is open to the atmosphere, the water molecules desire to go from a point of high concentration as a liquid to a point of low concentration as vapor where they may roam freely.  So while even as the food coloring tries to become equally distributed in the glass, it is ironically being concentrated again as the water evaporates. 

 

Socially, what some people see as the natural ebb and flow of life or seasons of blessings and testing, I see an overarching pattern at work.  The high concentration of money in my pocket mysteriously wants to find an area of low concentration at a sporting goods store, but soon my pocket will want money to flow back in to refill it.  I get hungry (empty), so I eat too much (full), then wish I were empty again. 

 

Feeling “just right” has only ever occurred a few times in life, but never lasted. 

 

People fall in love, then get burdened and wish they were single, then get lonely and wish they weren’t single after all.  We want to be needed without imposition, but too much free time also leads us to create problems so we’ll have something to do.  I sometimes dread preparing for my Ironman races and despise myself for signing up to do another one, but without a big, hairy, audacious goal hanging over my head, and the subsequent victory, I am even more miserable.

 

Solomon declared in Ecclesiastes that there is nothing new under the sun.  I think he was right.  My dad, Tom, always says, “parts is parts.”  Manufacturing widget A is seldom different that manufacturing widget B as there are basic processes involved.  In the cases of heat, water, money, or love, flow is flow.  A heat sink is the same as a tank of water is the same as your checking account is the same as your heart.  In flow and out flow, high level and low level, depending on the source of the pressure and the circumstances.

 

 

So like the red food coloring, dispersing and concentrating at the same time, I realize that life isn’t really designed to be comfortable.  As long as the experience isn’t arbitrary and has the intended purpose of growth and preparation, I can endure.  I’ve either been on the road or sleeping on a friend’s couch for most of this year.  In April I started the commute to Brownwood from Austin, spending my weeks in isolation away from friends while being forced to grow beyond my old comfortable boundaries.  At 3M I was crushed and overwhelmed so I quit.  I took a year off work to decompress, reset, and remember who I was.  I went back to work because I missed the rigors of a full day of chaos.  I’ve worked harder and learned more in the past eight months than I did in the past eight years.  Maybe it was time not to just grow, but to grow up. 

 

I still have desires, but daily seek God’s will due to the complexity of life, situations, and relationships.  I desperately want to isolate one aspect of life or another, to control it, in a perfectly defined system, but I can’t.  I’m either rested or tired, lonely or surrounded, happy or sad, and I'm always moving from one to another.  I want a home of my own without a crushing lifetime of debt.  I want to be needed to solve problems, but not the same ones day in day out.  I want both stability and adventure.  I want to settle down with the girl God designed for me without, well, settling. 

 

In reality there is no happy medium because change is the only constant, but I believe there can still be happiness in the midst of it all.

 

Parts is parts.

 

JRH

Knee Deep

Sitting in the office of the service manager at the auto dealership, I was quietly wondering how much the repairs on my truck were going to be.  Living off savings for over a year leaves little room for big-ticket expenses, unless it's my annual $2500 Ironman experience.  I can live without A/C in my truck but not without some great memories of riding my bike in Idaho.

Tired of continuing to go backwards financially, I called a friend.  "Rick, this is Joel.  You still need some help?  You do?  OK, I'll start Monday morning."

And so it began.  A friend from church has a small landscaping business.  Three guys, some equipment, and two pickup trucks.  He asked why I wanted to work for him.  My answer was easy.  I needed to feel productive again.  More than the money, I longed for the days of pointing to something and saying, "I made that."  It was the reason I got into engineering in the first place, to be able to take what is around me and change it for the better, to make it produce more than when I found it, to build with it, to fix it, and to refine it.  It's a form of stewardship.  It's one thing I discovered about myself while working in the vineyard last fall.

I thought I would work a few hours a day for my friend, then go home and relax for the rest of the afternoon, but I missed seeing a job completed.  Immediately, I was working from 9 AM until 6 PM, because I just don't know how to do anything half-way.  I couldn't just work less at 3M; I had to quit altogether.  Likewise, I couldn't just do landscaping part time; I needed to jump in completely. 

For weeks I was tearing up yards, putting in sod, planting flowers, and cutting stone.  Let me tell you, Michaelangelo with a powered masonry saw couldn't have done better than I did.  I've seen his work.  I came home tired each day and slept better than I had for years.  Exhausted.  Beaten up.  Sore.  Cut and scratched.  Satisfied.  But deep down my pride was screaming for recognition.  At one point, I was on my knees, taking orders from a 25 year old kid, learning the proper way to spread compost in a flowerbed.  I was soaked from the spring rains, and my hands and forearms were black from the compost.  I thought, "What am I doing?"  At that moment, God said, "You're learning how to be a good employee."

It was a moment of absolute clarity, and repentance.  Almost since the day I walked into 3M, I had a problem with authority.  It had started with some dishonest coaches from my youth, then a problematic college professor.  Finally, I realized people in authority aren't as smart as I gave them credit.  In order to push my agenda, I was mouthy, hard-headed, and flat-out disrespectful.  I should have been fired early on, but mercifully wasn't.  I'd found favor with a few individuals who tried to coach me positively, and to them I am grateful.  Because my work-world was largely separated from my home life, most people never saw this side of me.  I was a phony.

So now I'm starting completely over.  Most people worry that surrendering to God's will means that they'll end up becoming missionaries overseas somewhere.  To me, that sounds cool, so long as I get to build something.  In my case, God wanted to rebuild me.  I'd forgiven some of my tyrannical bosses for treating me and others like crap for so many years, but never once did I apologize.  So now I repented for being a bad employee, for accepting my generous salary in full, despite the days when I didn't do my job because I thought what I was being asked to do was inefficient and irrational.  Lord, I'm sorry.

There is always a test.  A few weeks later, I was scalping a yard when the neighbor with a Mercedes SUV and a condescending attitude approached me.  He asked if we did landscaping, and I said we did.  He looked around, pulled out his wallet, and asked if I'd like to mow his lawn.  I wanted to hit him with a shovel.  Didn't he know who I used to be?  Didn't he know about my academic record?  My professional accomplishments?  The awards I'd earned?  But I couldn't say anything.  To do anything other than be humble would have instantly destroyed my friend's business.  I explained to him how we were on a schedule, but if he'd call Rick, we'd get him taken care of.  He left and I returned to my work.  Humbled.  I whispered, "Lord, how much longer...?"

That afternoon the phone rang.  It was a friend from church with a mortgage company.  We'd discussed a project last year, and he called asking if I still wanted to help.  I said sure.  It would be a chance to serve my friend and awaken my old problem solving skills.  Mostly, it would be a reason to play with Excel again.  I would start on Monday and work for the week.

The next day, I got another call.  Another friend with a business in Brownwood had fired his production manager and needed some help.  He asked if I was interested in working for him, if only on contract.  I said yes.

In 3 weeks I went from working on my knees spreading compost, to managing 22 people in a factory.  I'm responsible for production, maintenance, and distribution.  I live at the factory, and the isolation is difficult sometimes, but that's the life of an engineering mercenary, and I know there is a greater reason that I'm there. 

I have no idea where things are headed.  I ran out of answers a long time ago.  I pray for placement, and significance, and look at each day as a chance to serve my friend and those who work for me, be a good employee and a good boss, and to trust this is part of the Plan.

A year ago I never thought I'd end up in the position I'm in now.  It speaks to the adventure of living by faith.  It had gotten to the point where life moved to a crawl.  Now is a time of acceleration.  Things are happening quickly and I just have to go with it.  If I stop to analyze the situation for too long, I'll freak out due to lack of details, and I might miss what it is I'm supposed to see at that moment.  I am focused on my Ironman on June 21, but that is merely a milestone, and now is not the time to look for comfort.

Onward.

JRH

Launch Pad

"...and so the journey continues.  In today's exciting episode, our hero finds himself strapped to a rocket, the clock ticking down toward blast off, and wondering, 'How in the world did I end up in this position?'"

Only, I'm not the one about to reach escape velocity and fly off over the earth to enjoy a view seen only by the lucky ones.  Instead, the rocket I'm on goes careening to the side, ripping across the landscape seemingly out of control, while I pray it lands, somehow, in a safe place, somewhere.

A year ago, after leaving my corporate gig, I moved out of the apartment I'd been in for the past 7 years and moved into a small home in the middle of downtown Austin.  The location could not have been better.  It was clean, recently remodeled and updated, and best of all, my share of the rent was only $600 and the owner paid the utilities.  Truly a blessing.  I had a roommate for the first time since my junior year of college, but Jim turned out to be more of a clean-freak than I am, and is now a good friend.

The best part about the house was its nickname:  the Launch Pad.  It had earned the moniker due to the series of guys who'd lived here before.  Each time a guy moved in, ultimately he moved out upon getting married.  Jim was the only constant in the equation.  Being 50 years old and a friend of the owner, he seemed as fixed as the foundation of the home itself.

In January, the owner sent us a note saying she was going to sell the house.  It had been a good run while it lasted.  We didn't know when things would happen, and Jim had said she'd tried to sell the house before, so we decided to go on about our lives until the time came to make a decision and force us into action.

Throughout the spring, life took me here and there (to be written about in my next entry), and ultimately to a factory in Brownwood, TX.  Oddly enough there is a completely furnished apartment in the factory itself.  We all joke about sleeping on the job, or setting up a bed in our office.  Well, this is about as close as one can get.  I stay here during the week, then go back to Austin on the weekends to see friends, do laundry, go to church, workout, and live life.  About the time the anxiety of finding a new place to live reached fever pitch, some friends said I could live in their condo as they were moving into another home.  It's a short term solution, but one I am grateful for.

However, it all has me feeling like I'm living in some sort of a country song about a guy whose life hasn't gone quite like he expected.  The history of the house is:

Ralph and Jim shared the house.
Ralph got married and moved out.  Craig moved in.
Craig got married and moved out.  Scott moved in.
Scott got married and moved out.  I moved in.
..but the house got sold, Jim got engaged, and now I'm living in a factory in Brownwood.

I also drive a Chevy pick-up with big tires, so if you can work that into the chorus somewhere then we might have a gold record on our hands.

All that to say that now is not the time to get comfortable.  Just when I begin to feel settled, something else happens that challenges my faith.  I have always talked a big game on faith, trusting that God really will take care of me, but it's taken this past year of refinement to get to the point where going with the flow is not so scary.  It's been 15 months off the grid as of yesterday, and I'm still moving forward.  It's a time of acceleration, much like the rocket pulling away from the launch pad, so I'm hanging on for dear life right now.

I wouldn't trade the ride for anything.

JRH

Self Made

Self help books are everywhere, encompassing a multitude of topics from health, to finance, to faith.  The theme of each book is that you can become the person you want to be, and the author will show you how.  They promote the notion that you alone can determine your destiny, have the power to shape your circumstances, and that if you want it done right, do it yourself.  Americans celebrate, above all, the self-made-man (or woman).  The individual.  The leader.  The visionary.  The man who said, "I'll make this happen," and then does.

Despite the massive sections in bookstores promoting leadership, goal setting, and that never-say-die attitude, I will dispute the notion of the self-made-man.  He never existed.

Bold statement?  Pick a book and let's look.  "Failing Forward" by John Maxwell.  "Atlas Shrugged" by Any Rand.  The Bible by, well, God.  Pick a character or historical figure.  Steel tycoon, Andrew Carnegie, had Charles Schwab as his lieutenant.  Henry Ford had his engineers.  David had his friend Jonathan.  Moses had Aaron, Joshua, and Caleb to carry out God's orders.  If you look closely, and read between the lines, you'll see that the most successful and noteworthy individuals in history had a team.  Even in "Atlas Shrugged," a book celebrated by those who see the individual's work as their highest personal calling, reveals that each character still needed the other in order to be successful.  Hank Reardon had Dagny Taggart.  John Galt had his college professor, friends, and community of like minded individuals.  They were all working, in their giftings, toward a common goal.  Even in a celebration of the individual, the power of community is revealed.

The bottom line is that life isn't about you, me, or any other single person.  It's about being part of a team.  We love the superstar and forget the about the team that scored the rest of the points.  We see the man who beat the odds, but don't often enough acknowledge the wife who stood by his side, encouraging him through good times and bad.  We see the single mom who beat the odds, but we forget about the friends from her church who provided food, necessities, love, and encouragement.

In my time out of the loop I've learned that no amount of freedom, free time, money, or sunny days can replace a quality conversation with someone I respect.  I don't think it has to be lonely at the top.  It's only lonely if you forget those people who helped you get to the top.  It's lonely if you fail to seek out others whom you can serve.  It's lonely when you focus on yourself all day, every day.  You'll never be lonely when you're trying to lift someone else up.  If you do that, everyone will want to be your friend.

Looking for a team.

JRH   

Script Change

My mom asked, "So, how are you going to tell people you spent this Christmas?"  My cousin, Brett, calmly replied, "I spent it with family."  My parents, cousins I hadn't seen in 10 years, and I converged on Rapid City to spend the last few days of my Aunt Helen's life together.  She'd been diagnosed with cancer and the slope was steep. 

But life can be great.  The potential is always there, and sometimes it is even realized.  My mom found a note that my Aunt Helen wrote to herself:

"I hope to live this day to the fullest.  Hopefully, I may accomplish something which will also cause me to be worthwhile to the world.  Maybe I will chat with a loved one, write a letter to an absent person, execute a pleasing painting and appreciate my life." - Helen Williams, 1981

The sad and completely unfair part of life is that we will never get to realize how much we've touched other people.  There is just no way to know.  By grace, perhaps a few people will come around and tell us a story about how we helped them at a critical point, or how we just listened, or provided what they needed right at that moment.  If someone ever says those things to you, thank the person for sharing, and be sincere.  Be thankful that you were used in such a positive way, and that you are blessed to know about it.

I believe that God brings people into your life when you need them the most.  I could name a thousand people who have appeared in my life, but I know I'll never thank them all.  One person I'm glad to thank was my Aunt Helen.  Throughout my college career, her home served as a refuge for me.  On days when the stress was too much, or the weather was too cold, or the distance home was just too far, the door to her house (and refrigerator) were always open.  Her scratchy voice was always one of reason, even if spiced with a dash of cynicism, and peppered with sarcasm.  She spoke truth.  Unfortunately, in all the years I knew her, she suffered.  Rheumatoid arthritis attacked her early, and so she has been frail for at least the past 33 years that I've been around.  With cancer now a participant in the scene, there was little left.

Prayers change.  My prayers changed.  I am a Christian who has seen actual healing occur, so I prayed for her to be healed, for the cancer to disappear, and for the arthritis that has wracked her with pain to leave.  But, at some point, you concede.  Too often my prayers are attempts to control the situation, to appeal to God to make things the way I want them, or to make them the way I assume the other person I'm praying for wants them.  For my aunt, this was not the case.  In a medicated whisper, she said, "I'm going to share something personal with you.  You know, all life comes to an end.  Eventually, you get to the point where you look forward to it, but I just don't know how long this staircase is."

She was ready to go on up.  The words of my prayer changed from, "Lord, please heal her," to, "Lord, just take the pain away."  I'm not in control.  Never was.  I appealed to God, but His will was different than mine.  No matter if your system of beliefs (or unbelief) differs from mine, I hope you can see that somewhere in the statement lies compassion, and submission.

Aunt Helen died last night.

I really miss her.

JRH

Loose Ends

-5 F?  It can't be that cold in Rapid City, SD, can it?  Is that the high for the day?!  I'm headed north for Christmas, but this is rough.  I endured 4 years in the Great White North for college, but most of my time was spent in the classroom or chemistry lab, so outdoor temps were of minor concern.  Such a change from the brutally hot summer my fellow Austinites and I survived, and the spectacular fall my buddy, Matt, and I savored near Florence.  Austin these days isn't too bad, though this week was a little raw.  Give it a few days and the runners, bikers, and general sun-worshippers will reemerge.

As much as I enjoyed the travels, and as much as I want to go back, I still missed the familiar, like chips and salsa.  Among the familiar these days is the expected question, "How was it?"  Everyone wants to know.  Like my plans at the beginning of the year, so are my answers:  minimal.  I tell people if you want to know about the things I saw, go buy a Rick Steves' travel guide for Italy.  If you want to see what I saw, go buy a picture book of Tuscany.  People ask, "Is it as nice as the pictures?"  No, actually it's better.  Whatever your question is, just assume that what I saw and experienced is better.  Lastly, if you want to know how I felt in the midst of it all, read my blog.  The only sad part is that there is simply no substitute here for the food and wine I tasted, and the people I befriended.  Those things were starting to become familiar, too, but there is also no substitute for my friends at home.

Thinking back, this whole year could have been so much different.  In my case, the end result was already determined.  I was to let go.  How that was to come about is where God's grace enters the story.  He said, "You can either lay everything down, or I can take it from you.  Because I love you, I'll give you the choice."  Hmmm.  Better take the easy route.  In prior entries, it's easy to see that a fair amount of internal wrestling occurred while working at the farm and bouncing from one end of the country to another.  A minor anxiety attack while pruning vines forced me to see life as a process of continued renewal, albeit painful.  Mindless labor picking grapes taught me to live in the moment.  A simple pasta recipe from a family I could not understand reminded me of the value of my own family.  The scenic expanse of the Mediterranean, without blemish or interruption, showed me it was time to come home and start over.

I got to experience all of this in Tuscany.   And again, that's where God's grace comes in.  I was not sent to war or fired from my job.  When given the choice to let go of the things I once cared about and go overseas, I raised my hand and said, "I'm available."  It's that simple.  Whereas analysis paralysis used to hinder my progress in life, I finally began to recognize that the table for this adventure had been set at least several years ago.  Chances are, we all have these opportunities, but because we didn't plan it, we don't take them.

So where to now?  The pot of gold isn't endless, so it's time to go back to work.  Working in the fields to bring in the harvest reminded me that I miss working with people toward a common goal.  I miss the camaraderie.  I miss the challenge.  I miss building things, and trying to make the world a little bit better in one way or another, whether by tangibly changing the landscape, or simply encouraging the person next to me.  I'm not sure what my next career will look like, but if you have any ideas... I'm available.

JRH

Oil Man

The past few weeks seem to have flown by upon returning home, and to my own bed, back in Austin.  The differences in the pace of life are drastic, but had I never experienced life in Tuscany, I would have never known there was another way to live.  The same can be said of this entire year.  Before I left my job, a trusted friend said, "Take at least two months off.  You have only known one thing, to get up, go to work, and come home.  You need a reset."  He was right.

Two months turned into six, then I went to Italy for two, and I've been home for one.  I've been making the rounds, reconnecting with people, and delivering the few cans of fresh olive oil to my family and a couple of friends.  Each can that I filled, with oil pressed from the very olives we picked on the farm, reminds me of a comment Giovanni made.  Working in the olive grove toward the end of our stay, we were discussing the merits of fresh Tuscan olive oil, and what sort of a price it would command back in the States.  Giovanni, once again in his broken English, said, "Jo-el, when you get home, you can tell people that you are now an oil-man."  I laughed.  "Giovanni," I said, "I'm not sure that will translate the same way back in Texas."  Turns out I was only half right.  Tuscan olive oil seems to be more popular than $1.45 gas.  Who knew three months ago?

Again, what did I know three months ago, or nine months ago, or a year ago?  If you had told me that I would have spent 2008 bouncing around the country, and eventually over in Europe, I would have said it sounds like something I would really like to do "someday."  Unless your calendar is different than mine, I don't see "Someday" anywhere on it.  Monday, Tuesday, Someday, Wednesday?  Doesn't sound quite right.  Sure, we're in the midst of the worst economy our country has seen in decades, but if you wait for the perfect situation, you'll be left searching for Someday.  For me, there was no perfect time to step away, but there was never going to be a better time, either.

No regrets.

JRH

Big Blue

With our time at the farm complete, my buddy, Matt, and I set out to explore the country during our remaining time.  Leaving Florence, we traveled south, through Naples, to the little town of Sorrento.  From there we explored Pompeii, the island of Capri, and the Amalfi coast, all situated along the  Mediterranean Sea.  Bus rides, day trips, lots of walking dictated our schedules.  It rained most days, but tourist were few and far between here in the off-season, and I was thankful for the lack of crowds.  The history of the area, with 2000 year old buildings and ruins frozen in time, is still difficult to comprehend even after all of my time here.

Each trip up and down the coast left me peering out at the sea.  The texture of the clouds above matched the movement of the waves below, such that it was difficult to tell the difference between the two on the horizon.  Both surfaces were effectively clean, and only the spec of an occasional fishing boat interrupted the mirrored image.  Unlike the concentrated cities, with tiny alleys, narrow streets, and seldom a view of the horizon, the Mediterranean offered a place where my mind and eyes could wander.

A clean slate.  That's what came to mind.  These past two seasons, and frankly this whole year, have been about starting over.  All of the time spent this summer, all of my travels in Italy, and all of my time helping with the grape and olive harvest led to this moment.  There is a certain sense of peace I think most of us, on some level, can derive and appreciate when we look at the ocean.  It is inherently ancient, mentioned in the earliest words in Genesis, and only it's boundaries and inhabitants have changed since it's inception.  From the surface, it looks the same.

From the surface, aside from the beard and slight weight loss (walking everywhere and manual labor will burn even the richest pasta from your frame), I look roughly the same as when I left.  However, unlike the city, and unlike my life before I left for this trip, I feel uncluttered.  Despite news of recession and economic collapse back home, I am unconcerned.  As a good friend once told, "at this point, if you lose everything, you haven't really lost that much."  By letting go, it's amazing what I have gained in the process.  In my quiet time the other morning, I read Isaiah 43:18 - "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past."  Sounds like good advice.  I'm looking forward to coming home empty handed, but full of optimism.

Onward.

JRH

 

Last Supper

Saturday night marked the end of my time helping with the harvest.  The family's farm sits on a hill overlooking a valley, where the town of Cerbaia sits quietly in the bottom, and the evening glow of Florence peers out from over the hills beyond.  Across the road from the farm is a retreat center where the family occasionally works, hosting youth groups, ladies' and men's retreats, church groups, etc., per the instructions of the Duchess who used to own the land.  The wine cellar was built in the 1400's, when the people in this region brought the grapes from the surrounding hills to this building for wine making even before Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

Caty, the eldest daughter of the Ammirabile family, made dinner for 80 American middle-school kids, mostly from military families, who gathered from all over Italy for a two-day getaway.  I watched carefully as Caty and a few volunteers prepared the food, making sure that I committed the recipe to memory.  Memorized recipes don't take up any space or add weight in my luggage, so the more, the better.

So, if you care know what I have experienced at mealtime more often than not, here is your chance, but it must be followed exactly to appreciate it's authenticity:

Rough chop some Roma tomatoes and put them in a large mixing bowl.  Then, chop basil, the fresher the better, and cut fresh mozzarella into tiny cubes (none of the cheap bag mozzarella), and toss them in as well.  Add some salt.  Finally, pour in enough olive oil that you begin to think that you've probably ruined the meal by adding too much.  Then add some more.  Stir the ingredients to let the flavors blend.  For the pasta, use either penne or fusilli.  Cook it until it's done, then drain it.  Put some pasta in a bowl, and dress it with a generous scoop of the fresh tomato mixture.  Is this a traditional Tuscan recipe, steeped in the deep history of the region?  Honestly, I have no idea.  All I know is that it was prepared by a real Italian woman in Tuscany.  That's authentic enough for me.

At this point, don't ask how much of each of the ingredients you will need.  I never once saw a measuring cup.  If you want to add or remove an ingredient, go ahead.  The family cooks with whatever they have on hand.  That's life, too, though.  Do the best you can with what you have, and let the tastes and variety surprise you.

Open a bottle of chianti.  Finally, serve the pasta with some chunks of good crusty bread for sopping up the oil, and make sure your wine glass is never empty until the bottle is finished.  Take your time.  Most importantly, don't eat this dish alone.  Prepare it for those you care about and break bread with loved ones as often as possible.  Even the most simple and uncomplicated dish will taste amazing.  The key isn't preparing the dish right, but serving it in the right situation, with the right people.

Enjoy.

JRH