Home Stretch
This is reunion weekend at my Alma Mater. I matriculated at Cornell in 1971, so 51 years ago, and graduated with my BA in Economics and Government in 1975 (47 years ago) and with my MBA in Finance in 1976 (46 years ago). I have often noted that it seems wrong that we are forced to decide at age 18, 20, 22 or even 25 what we want to do for the rest of our lives. I am 68 now and a lot closer to the finish line than the starting gate and I can still barely can figure out what I like doing enough to want to say that’s what I want to do for the rest of my life. I was chatting with some new friends last night and when I got onto the subject of all the writing I do every day, the comment was passed to me that perhaps I had missed my calling and should have been a writer. I didn’t really know how to respond to that. What I usually say if I have my footing at the moment is that I am more a storyteller than a writer. That certainly has been the case for a long time, but now that I can say that between the books, blogs and expert witness reports I have written at least three million words, the equivalent of perhaps 50 books (I have actually published or am in process of publishing seven actual books which can be purchased online), perhaps I have written enough to say that I am a writer in addition to a storyteller. I have no idea what that really means, but it sounds correct for me to say it that way.
There are things one does in life that run their course. You do something for a while and then decide you have done it enough and want to stop doing it. It was that way with skiing for me. I thoroughly enjoyed skiing for many years of my life, but there came a time when it was necessary to stop skiing (that was in 2007 at the age of 53, though it was not on account of age, per se). I am glad I skied and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I have equally not felt compelled to ski again and doubt that I ever will. That race seems as though I have run it and ended well enough to satisfy whatever reasons I chose to run it in the first place. Other activities I still do and wonder whether I will hit a wall or turn a corner and decide I have had enough. The example of skiing is always in my consciousness and I am always assessing if I still want to do this particular thing more. It is not so much about wondering if I can do it (though that could always enter the picture, I suppose), but rather more about whether I want to continue to do it. A good example is taking international motorcycle trips, something I have planned and done for many years now. These have a certain amount of travel component to them, but also an element of sporting activity (riding a motorcycle is more physically taxing than non-riders imagine), as well as camaraderie and adventure. As we get older we generally want more camaraderie and less adventure, but that is rarely a smooth or predictable transition. Sometimes something brings this all to an abrupt stop or course change. I have often used the expression that I will do something until “I hit the wall.” That is fun way to describe something, but not such a fun experience if it really happens.
I used to say that I would stay in banking until I hit a wall. I always said it with a bit of tongue in cheek because it seemed like bravado and fun to say it. Then, in 2007 I found out just what a wall in banking felt like as I ran into it squarely and at speed. I hit the wall. And while I wobbled back onto my feet, I found myself wandering around for six months telling people that I had actually hit the banking wall and been forced to dismount from a lofty position to the skin abrading hard-deck of the pavement. It went from feeling like a fun thing to say to feeling like an appropriately self-deprecating thing to describe (since everyone knew it anyway), to finally, a slightly humiliating penance that I could not ignore and needed to say to get the conversation onto something more pleasant. Remember the 1967 self-help book, I’m OK, You’re OK? It explained something called transactional analysis, which describes altering the ego state as a way of getting through traumatic episodes in life. That is actually a perfect description of how I got through my career trauma. It just so happened that it also gave rise to other life changes, specifically like quitting skiing by virtue of selling my Park City ski house, which was a storehouse of liquidity which I thought I might need to get through the income transition I was facing. Specifically, I actually thought that if the worst happened and I got indicted for something (sometimes that shit happens even if you think you have done nothing wrong), it would be far better for me and my family if I was more rather than less liquid. But, hey, it turns out I was OK after all.
I have written about the trauma I endured last year as I fought with Cornell University about the transition of my 25-year homestead in Ithaca. I resolved the issue in a compromise by accepting the fate that I needed to vacate the premises and by not taking the matter into a court of arbitration, which I thought I had a fair chance of winning. I decided that adding that experiential trauma on top of the potential loss was simply not worth it. I did not want to risk erasing three generations of loyalty to an institution that had been so meaningful to my mother’s path, my path and the paths of all three of my children. Instead, I chose to take this year and close the book on my physical presence in Ithaca. At this age it is not unusual for people to move on from their roots, in whatever form that takes for them, and I thought that I could handle that. After all, I love and much prefer the climate of where I currently live on this California hilltop. It is easy enough to revisit the rolling hills of upstate New York just as I do for the other meaningful places of my life path. I just went back to Rome this Spring and found myself wondering how many more times I felt I would or would want to return again. Rome has perhaps run its course with me, not in any bad way, but, like skiing, in a way that is just that I may have had enough.
Maine occupies a similar memorable place on my life path (I had lived there for three years before my three years in Rome). I haven’t returned there as much as I have to Rome and I probably have at least one more visit in me to exorcise that memory and put it on the permanent shelf for myself. As I go backwards in time, before Maine it was Wisconsin (where I lived for four years), and I have returned there even less often than to Maine. The only other spot where I have a specific quantum of memories of living is probably Costa Rica, where I lived for two years. I’ve been back there several times and think it is fair to suggest that I have been there, done that and bought the t-shirt as they say. This is when the announcer says prophetically, “This is YOUR life!”
So, this week I am preparing for yet another home stretch. A week from today, Kim an I set out on our cross-country trek to go to Ithaca for our last stay in my home on Warren Road called Homeward Bound. It is and has been my home for twenty six years. Since I will take the Homeward Bound plaque when I leave, it will remain my home in perpetuity, frozen in time and space, so to speak. I have gone through the cathartic act of writing my mother’s biography, so I have cleansed my soul of her Ithaca history. I may have to write something about Homeward Bound that is more than a blog story to get it completely out of my system, but that is a project that must marinate (nice word for me, given my last name, don’t you think?). I am so very glad to have Kim by my side for this voyage. She is my soul mate and we will pass through her Ithaca in Wabash, Indiana on this trip as well. Like Ulysses, we all have our Ithaca and we must all run the gauntlet of our home stretch in whatever way we must and at one time or another.