Renegades

I have lost count how many times I’ve said in these LONG six months how much 2020 has fucking sucked at an absolutely biblical level.

In the midst of a historic international pandemic, you’d be hard pressed to predict anything happening to put that narrative on the back burner somehow.

Then officer Derek Chauvin said “hold my beer!”

Little did any of us know that our country was going to explode into this inferno of sadness, anger, rage, and disillusion.

But make no mistake…this is our generation’s Civil Rights Movement.

In the past two weeks, I’ve run the gamut of emotions over the murder of George Floyd and it being the straw that broke the camel’s back when it comes to racial injustice, systematic racism itself, and police brutality.  Thankfully, I am not alone.

Never in my lifetime have I seen, with such furor, such frustration, such passion, people of all creeds, races, ages, sexual orientations, etc., rise up and stand for our black friends, family members, colleagues, and strangers.  Enough is enough.

These historic events have forced me, and other white people like me, to really dig down and look at what has been a very privileged life for us.  Personally, it hit me like a gut-punch how long I’ve sat on the sidelines avoiding conflict to a fault, avoiding uncomfortable questions and conversations, and betraying an entire race by being silent.

No. Fucking. More.

I refuse, for a single breath longer, to sit idly by while others are oppressed, taken advantage of, ignored, looked down on, and devalued.

I was raised by parents who are both liberal in their thinking in comparison to what sometimes can be the North Country norm when it comes to race.  I distinctly remember asking questions about black people, gay people, and disabled people when I was little, and every single time my parent’s answer was the same.

“They are people, just like us.”

My father was a correction officer for my entire adult life up until last year.  He worked at Upstate Correctional Facility in Malone.  It was the first prison in New York State to be built as a supermax prison.  These prisons are designated for the “worst of the worst.”

It’s well-documented that the prison system is a cesspool of racism and abuse.  A place where whites can exert power over Blacks, Latinos, and others who are viewed as sub-human.

But my father and others like him were in the minority adhering to that “they are people, just like us” rationale.  He treated inmates, regardless of their crimes, with respect in his daily interactions with them.  He didn’t befriend them, or let his guard down, but he also didn’t demean them.  In return, he received their respect as well, to the point where I absolutely feel if any sort of uprising or violence occurred there, he’d be spared and protected.

That’s the thing to take away here.  If you treat someone with respect, you get it back, you get an ally.  If you shit on someone for 400 years, that shit is bound to hit the fan, and you create an enemy.  The sad part is it, we’ve been here before.  That shit hit the fan in the 60s, OVER THE SAME CIRCUMSTANCES!  It’s 55 years later and we are still fighting the same fight.

We cannot go on like this.

That is why you see rage, rioting, looting, protest, and discord.  Condemn it all you like, it is the language of the oppressed and unheard.  Whites threw tea overboard in Boston,  we fought a war to throw off the chains of England, and we intervene in other countries because of human rights violations. But we blanch when its our own country where those violations are happening to our own citizens.

When we chant “BLACK LIVES MATTER” we’re met with a misguided response.  “All lives matter.”  I am PERPETUALLY confused why people think when we say BLM that we are somehow saying “your life doesn’t matter” or “white lives don’t matter”.  All lives do matter, but not all lives have had their necks knelt on for four centuries.  All lives matter literally can’t exist until we start valuing black life the same as others.  So far, we’ve failed MISERABLY in this regard.

Those of us standing up to systematic racism, are renegades.  We will no longer sit idly by while people and government continue to willfully devalue other people.  We are seeing how things work when there is no moral compass at the top, and standing up and fighting for change is the only choice.

We need to use our voice, our ballots, and our hearts to make our world better for everyone in it.  The fact that I need to hold a sign at a protest that says “legalize being black” should not have to happen.

But I’ll do it until we fucking get there.

 

 

Listen

I’ve recently come to the realization that I’ve been wrong about my “favorite” band.  Now, let me preface this with the fact that I think that whole concept is fluid, and at certain times and in certain circumstances different bands and music speaks to you at a deeper level.

For a long time now, I’ve been under the impression that my favorite all-time group/band has been The Lumineers.  I simply adore their sound, love just about everything they put out, but there are some songs that I’m kind of “meh” about and skip over.  But I do love how their entire albums tell a story, especially with their latest.

However, this morning, I realized that there is a band that exists and I am never, ever moved to skip a song.  As the kids say, every song “slaps”.

Ladies and gentlemen, stop what you’re doing, and listen to Sylvan Esso.  Or better yet, keep doing what you’re doing, just have Sylvan Esso energizing you while you do it!

I’ve mentioned them in a recent blog post but they absolutely deserve some spotlight and proper reverence.

I first stumbled upon Sylvan Esso listening to Alt Nation of Sirius Radio when they released their single “Coffee”.  I just instantly recognized that it didn’t sound like anything else that I had heard before.  There is so much energy, so much unique to me about their sound, it just really resonated with me.

Seeing them live is amazing.  The lead singer, Amelia Meath, is so open, expressive, and unapologetically herself, you cannot help but hang on her every word and movement.  She is an incredible entertainer.  I’ve been lucky enough to see them at small venues (Higher Ground), medium venues (Shelburne Farms), and huge venues (Boston Calling).  At each and every level, their energy and show was incredible.

Do yourself the favor of taking ~20 min an check them out in a subdued but still awesome Tiny Desk concert.

And, if you aren’t convinced, friggin Erin McGill loves them, and there is zero doubt that she is one of the most incredible human beings on the planet. She pulled Nicolette and I up to the front of a Sylvan Esso show and standing next to the speakers feeling the bass in my chest, was the closest thing I’ve had to a religious experience at a live show. 🙂

Positive Contact

Last night, Nicolette and I had a lovely FaceTime session with our friends Heidi and Lindsay.  It was filled with laughs, great conversation, and smiling faces.  It was absolutely fantastic and a wonderful tonic to lessen those feelings of isolation.

During my morning music/gem-matching session today I stumbled upon a fantastic idea…

…since we are all cooped up in our own homes not able to go out and have social contact with anyone, it’s easy to be inundated with negativity.

Unless!  Yes, unless you have the sort of epiphany I did this morning.  My great idea?  I decided I was going to start going through my phone contacts starting with the letter A and just FaceTime everyone, even if for a few minutes, to say hello, check in, and generally hope to give them a positive moment of respite from the “new normal”.  All the while also giving myself that positive contact with people that is so desperately missed.

Number one on my alphabetical list?  One of my all-time favorite Momot kiddos Miss Abbi Crahan, a 2020 senior at PHS who is missing out on her final softball season for PHS.  I cannot imagine how devastating that must feel after putting in so much time and work over the past three years.  I can just see her face when she gets the FaceTime request from Coach Terry.  O_O  Then her thinking that old man must’ve made a mistake.

NOPE!  No pocket FaceTiming here!

The realization came like a “well no duh” moment.  We can create our own positive environment.  It’s something we have control of.  Choose to be a positive force, and you will absolutely feel better about your day to day.

So if you could use a smile, or a conversation, or an ear to vent to and don’t think I have your phone number, shoot me a DM on Insta or Facebook, and I’ll be in touch!

My Blood Type Is No Negative

As we enter the third week of this forced isolation because of COVID-19, I am sure many of you, like me, are trying to find ways to not go stir-crazy with cabin fever.

My saving graces have come in the form of a pair of things that I’ve spent time with in the past, but have now discovered to be incredibly therapeutic given the circumstances.

I’ve always considered myself a fan of and appreciator of music, of all genres. One of my new favorite pastimes, since I can’t stop getting up at 6ish AM for some reason, is to toss my AirPods in, and just let Spotify do its thing.  I’ve coupled this with hot coffee, breakfast, and a match-3 gem game on the Switch, and let me tell you, it’s an amazingly calm way to start a morning.

The title above is a lyric from a song by M.I.A.  It instantly stood out to me when I heard it while listening to her unique brand of hip-hop, alternative, electronic, dance, and world music before the sun comes up. In a time where everything seems like it’s a downer, I’ve actively chosen to filter out negativity from my day to day.  Not necessarily to outright ignore it, but to notice it, recognize it, and let go of it instead of “picking those scabs”.  (Shout out to everyone who read my other post, “Regeneration”, look at me scaffolding connections!)

One particular artist that was near and dear to my heart long before our societal shift to social distancing is Sia, the incredible Australian singer/songwriter.  Aside from her music, I’ve absolutely identified with her struggles with depression and anxiety, and how she’s come out the other end of it to create some of the most empowering music and lyrics I’ve ever experienced.  Her music videos feature Maddie Ziegler (check out Chandelier, Elastic Heart, The Greatest, and Cheap Thrills for more Maddie awesomeness), and usually tell a great story just through the lyrics and the dance interpretation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzXyYqSYkIk

That song in particular affected me big time.  The lyrics are particularly poignant to me considering her unique and some would say off-kilter voice and her struggles.

And I don’t care if I sing off key
I find myself in my melodies
I sing for love, I sing for me
I shout it out like a bird set free

Also, how about the fact that her This is Acting album is mostly made up of songs she wrote for other artists that chose not to include them in their albums.  She made an album out of her own rejected songs!

If there was ever a metaphor for making the best of a situation, to make lemonade from those lemons life gives you, it’s that.  I am sure that a lot of us are in a rough, rough state right now mentally, (and maybe physically as I’m working my way towards the Quarantine Fifteen), but I’ve found that the music I listen to and the realization that I should focus on the things that are under my control have helped me immensely in terms of a day to day survival.

So here are some unsolicited recommendations from me of artists that you should check out if you want to inject some energy into your days:

  • Sia (particularly her new LSD collab with Labrinth and Diplo)
  • M.I.A.
  • Sylvan Esso
  • Chvrches
  • Lorde (her latest album)

But maybe, just maybe, you’re already vibrating at a high level, either due to stress, anxiety, or just a default setting.  Maybe you need to go the other way and slow things down a bit.

Enter my saving grace numero dos, books.

I have found so much solace in sitting quietly, reading, and being still.  Books are definitely a form of escapism, and news is getting progressively more and more depressing and negative.  So instead of following CNN’s live feed for minute to minute updates on the coronavirus situation, I’ve thrown myself into Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Erik Larson’s new book The Splendid and the Vile.  Add to that some of the other books I’ve read this year, Stephen King’s The Gunslinger, Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, and Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, I’ve definitely been to a lot of different places in the last three months.

Nicolette and I have spent a lot of time sitting in our car down by the marina to soak up sunshine and turn a bunch of pages.  It has felt like getting out and about without really getting out and about.  Spending time reading for a chapter or two, and then just looking up at the lake, the mountains of Vermont, and the seagulls stalking us, have been cathartic for sure.

So, unsolicited book recommendations?  I thought you’d never ask!

  • The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
  • The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson
  • Isaac’s Storm, Erik Larson
  • The Light Between Oceans, M.L. Stedman
  • The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffeneggar
  • The Martian, Andy Weir
  • The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
  • The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss
  • A Darker Shade of Magic, V.E. Schwab
  • 10% Happier, Dan Harris

That’s a sampling of my favorite books I’ve ever read.

Now, whether or not you take any of my advice or recommendations is up to you, but if you only take one thing/main idea out of this post, I hope its the idea that we should try our damnedest to attend only to the things that are under our control.  Get yourself some music and get yourself a good vibe going while you’re doing dishes, doing laundry, drawing, crafting, lesson planning, or whatever else it is your filling your time with during this self-isolation!  When it’s quiet time, grab yourself a good book, make a cup of tea/decaf coffee, wrap yourself in a blanket in a comfy seat and get lost in the pages of the magical land of somewhere else, self-improvement, and/or pursuit of knowledge.

These are two things that we can absolutely control in our environment when the world outside seems to get more and more out of control on a daily basis.

Just remember:

When you try to control everything, you enjoy nothing.

Choose instead to enjoy the things that bring you happiness, solace, and make you feel safe.

You won’t be sorry.

No Take Backsies

I was stuck this morning by what I believe to be a weird thought.

I wish I could have a do over on high school.

Now, that might have popped into my head because this year marks 20 years since graduation.

But I’d somehow want to do it over with a lot of the knowledge and social skills that I’ve accrued to this point in my life.  Not necessarily know everything I know now, but mostly I wish I had treated some people better than I did, done more for people I cared about back then, and maybe even been a little braver when it came to things I was uncomfortable with.  (I’m looking at you drama club!)

Now, we all know that hindsight comes with 20/20 vision.  I’m not talking about Marty finding the sports almanac in Back to the Future 2. (Although maybe I’d like to have all the musical love I do now so I can catch my favorite bands from their inception).  I wish I could live high school again with the social skills I have now, the interests I have now, and the realizations and perspective I’ve developed to this point.  There are absolutely situations where I would’ve made some different choices, not necessarily to change the path that has brought me where I am, but maybe to save some time, appreciate some people more, and maybe even save my Mom and Dad a headache or two.

But think of how amazing that could be if you could go back with even just the social skills you’ve developed to this point in your life.  You’d be a walking therapist for so many people who were having trouble with life at that point!  I don’t mean saying things like “this is high school, it won’t even matter to you in five years” because that doesn’t actually help the guy who’s struggling with a break-up, or someone who has crippling social anxiety but just wants to be accepted, or the person who deep inside has the terrifying secret that they are gay, or trans, and there is no way in hell a high school in the late 90s is going to make shit like that easy for anyone.  I remember the words “faggot, retard, gay, queer, etc.” being tossed around left and right with zero thought to the actual pain they could cause.  You could legit save someone’s life.

You’d realize that when your math teacher said “yes, you’ll need the Pythagorean Theorem when you’re an adult” probably only applied to people who wanted to be scientists, engineers, or carpenters.  Maybe you’d save yourself some stress.  I know it would’ve been huge for me since Math was the bane of my existence.

99563-and-then-satan-said-put-the-alphabet-in-math

Wanna know how dumb high school was?  Someone once spread the rumor that I was a “test tube baby”.  To this day I have no freaking clue what that was supposed to mean, (other than maybe in vitro fertilization was frowned upon by this one particular high school male?) but I know it came with a heavily negative connotation at the time.  But that’s what middle and high school was, and I am sure, still is.  You just say shit.  There is no filter.  So many of us didn’t have the brain capacity to intercept a thought before it turned into something we said.  I am absolutely sure that I was very guilty of this.  I am absolutely sure that I said things that gutted people and that made them feel tiny.  I regret that.  I would absolutely go back with the mindset and understanding I have now and rectify that bullshit.

Understandably so, our middle-school and high school years are where we really start to figure out the very beginnings of who we are.  But like I said above there are things I look back on that I did or said, cringe, and believe that couldn’t be farther from who I am.  I think it’s much harder to be a kid in our current age of social media, cell phones, and unrealistic expectations put on adolescents by the society that those first two things have created. Our middle and high school kids have so much more shit to deal with on a daily basis.  As my niece Ava and nephew Jack grow up, (she’s an 8th grader, he’s a 5th grader), I hope and pray that they can navigate these choppy seas that are adolescence in the 2020s.

This post isn’t about negativity, or regret though.  As I write it and as I think about it, I just want to express some gratitude for some people who had a big impact on my time back at Saranac, and had a hand in teaching me something about life, whether they were a teacher or classmate.  I think too often we don’t tell people how much they mean to us and then sometimes it’s too late.

I look back fondly on some truly indelible things that are forever etched in my memory and make me smile to this day.  It’s funny to know these people now by different last names, but we’ll go back in time a little for this sappy love letter to some of my high school friends.

-Brandi White, your sweater in Spanish class with those huge puff balls.  I have no idea why that came into my head, but I feel like it was such a personification of the bright and positive force that you were!  Thanks for being you!

-Cristi LeClair, I look back and realize you were truly one of my best friends.  We shared so much real talk on the phone, watching Braveheart, etc.  Going hard against each other in basketball on the playground.  So much fun.  Thank you for everything.

-Jess Lashua, you were one of the few people who never hesitated to call me on my shit.  I was lucky enough to be one of the popular kids, and probably got a way with a lot because of it, but you were always there to keep me straight, even if I didn’t wanna hear it.  Thank you.

-Luke Sanger, much like Brandi above, I just remember you being this effervescently positive and energetic guy who you couldn’t help smile around.  You are still like that!  I loved the competitor you were in sports, and really felt like we had that sense of drive and duty when it came to a team in common.  Thanks for being you man, to this day.

-Kati Topel, you truly were a kindred spirit of mine.  I feel like we instantly clicked, and I had such an amazing time learning about you and your culture back in Germany, making fun of your attempts at difficult American phrases and pronunciations, and being on the cross-country team with you.  Thank you so much!

-Marta Tomas, in a similar vein as Kati, I will never ever forget you taking the time at lunch and study hall to help me try to figure out my math homework.  You were super patient, super kind, and an absolutely blessing that probably helped me pass the class!  Thank you!

-Mr. Jeff Ehrlich, you weren’t my guidance counselor officially, but I, like a million others I am sure, felt like you were EVERYONE’S guidance counselor.  When I flunked out of freshman year, you were the first person I thought of going to for help, and you went above and beyond for me to get me back on the correct path.  I will never, ever forget that.  You are a great, great, great man.  Thank you.

-Nikol (HA) Mattila, you were. and I am sure still are, one of the sweetest and most genuine people I have ever met.  I remember middle school study hall chats in the hallway about significant others and about crap we both went through in school.  You were such a big help.  Thank you.

-Katie Weinberg, where do I even start?  Much like Jess, you never hesitated to call me on my shit, so thank you for that.  We went through a lot of ups and downs, some silly feuds, some feuds that were in good fun (mostly about your Yankee fandom and the merits of soccer as a sport, which I’ve done a full 180 on, you’d be happy to know), and some really silly antics in art class.  I remember one of us pissing off Mr. Perry by pushing a pencil through the screen or something.  LOL.  I also remember excellent birthday parties at your camp on Chazy Lake.  Sitting on docks, laying in hammocks, and sleeping on floors.  I miss it for sure.  Thank you!

Cassie Alexander, I look back and cherish picking you up every morning for school.  I remember great conversations about running, relationships, and everything in between.  I was always inspired by your grit and determination as a competitor, and was truly in awe of your positive and fun-loving spirit.  Thank you.

-Aaron and Jessica Matoon.  I don’t think I can ever fully put into words how much I looked up to you both because of your boundless kindness, empathy, and athleticism.  There is so much of your mom’s amazing spirit in the both of you.  I greatly miss you guys.  Thank you both for being who you were and are.

-Matt Dashnaw, dude, having gym class with you as a freshman when you were a senior, Boy Scouts, I just remember every single interaction with you being one where I felt like I was talking with the kindest guy I’d ever met.  I remember you being super helpful with sports, in the Scouts, and overall just being a fantastic human being who I looked up to big-time.  Thank you so much.

-Sarah Paul, I remember “meeting” you on AOL (wow, how crazy does that sound at this point) because you had SCS cross-country in your profile and I was like “I don’t know this girl, who is she?”  Hahahaha.  Thank you (and your Mom!) so so so much for being so supportive over the years in XC and track.  You truly ended up being one of the sweetest people I knew, and one of my absolute favorites.  Thanks for everything.

-Bret Rock, thank you for being my rock throughout the awkwardest years anyone can go through.  Your house always felt like a second home, and I truly see you to this day as a brother.  I cherish the memories of football sims, all-nighters being GMs of whatever sport with Kyle, and then me going to do the paper route and coming back to continue. I cherish the goofiest of Ouija board sessions, swatting fucking bats with a broom in the basement of your unfinished house, Redford Bowls, and trampoline WWE matches. Thanks for everything, my brother.

This is hardly a comprehensive list.  I could go on, and on, and on, but I don’t think that’d be an entertaining read for any of you if it ended up being tens of thousands of words.  Let me just leave you all with this…

…be excellent to one another.  Remember that we have no idea what other people are going through just by looking at them.  Be a positive force of nature every single day.  Make someone smile.  Make someone laugh.  Tell someone you appreciate them.  You could be the difference.  I know everyone I listed above was for me.

There are no take backsies.  We are only guaranteed the moments we are in.

Make them count.

Regeneration

I cut my finger on a staple the other day as I was delivering some takeout for DoorDash. (I now have a side-hustle job).  As I searched frantically for a napkin in a napkinless car, I did the only thing I could think of and popped my finger in my mouth.

After a few minutes of that metallic taste on my tongue, the cut began to stop bleeding.  Eventually, over time, that little cut starts to scab over.  My skin breaks down and begins to build itself back up, scabbing over, as good as new.

Unless I pick at that scab.  If I pick it, it may fester or scar and take much longer to heal properly.

This made me think of the last few years of my life and fighting things like anxiety, depression, and negative thoughts.  I had a lot of things bubbling under the surface that were starting to manifest externally through a loss of patience with myself, students, athletes, etc., exasperation in the face of simple frustration, and a general listlessness in my daily routine.  You may be surprised to hear that.  I think a lot of us have gotten too good at hiding how they really feel day to day.

One thing became clear to me though.  I had to do something.  I couldn’t keep ignoring how I felt.  This wasn’t the life I wanted to live.  I wasn’t behaving like the person I wanted to be.

The first step, I think, was realizing that a lot of the reason I was feeling the way I was ended up being a direct result of choices I’d made in my life prior and also exacerbated by conscious and unconscious denial of some of my own negative behaviors, habits, and social skills.  Sure, some of the problems I was dealing with were external, but stress obviously all mixes into a big stew anyway, no matter where it comes from.  What helped was realizing that I couldn’t tackle everything at once.  I wasn’t prepared to attack the credit debt I’d accrued, didn’t have the time or motivation, or grit to organize the entire house, or able to really come to grips that I needed to change my entire outlook and possibly, more terrifyingly at the time, who I thought I was.

If you’ve gotten this far, and reading over this makes you think of something that maybe you are feeling, or someone close to you is feeling, let me simply say:

It’s gonna be ok.  It really is.  Take the first step…whatever it may be.

You know something has to change.  If I have to suggest starting with something, it’s to understand that you really need to let go of the idea of who you think you SHOULD be, where you think you SHOULD be, and all the other useless SHOULDS that social media and society impose on us.

I’m 38.  For a long time I beat myself up over the idea that I didn’t have kids, I was living paycheck to paycheck, and that I generally didn’t do enough with my life compared to a lot of other people I saw on Instagram or Facebook.  Do other people eat cereal for dinner?  Is that what adults should do?

It’s so easy to let our anxiety, depression, and negative thoughts to overwhelm us.  So easy to stay in bed all day mindlessly binge-watching Netflix and eat an entire bag of Doritos.

All too easy to keep picking at our emotional scabs.

My regeneration into the person I wanted to be started with (I think unconsciously at the time) seeking out professional development opportunities that involved mindfulness, yoga, meditation, and other stuff that for the vast majority of my life I wrote off as some sort of cross between hippee stuff/voodoo/delusion.  For whatever reason, likely my own lack of self-confidence/self-awareness, I’d attached a negative stigma to these things.  I perpetuated the idea that they couldn’t possibly help me.

I didn’t need a counselor, or therapy.  That’s for crazy people who can’t deal with their own problems, I thought.  I was the type of person who internalized every slight, every hurt, said yes to everyone else regardless of what I actually wanted because I felt some sort of obligation.  I was tough, I could cope.  Swallow it all down.  I set up defense mechanisms to continue avoiding conflict to a fault.  I’d order at a restaurant, and not say anything about any mistakes in the order when it arrived because of some stupid social anxiety.  I WOULD EAT A MEAL I DIDN’T ORDER!  I’d refuse to take responsibility for my own deficiencies.  Felt too embarrassed to speak about ongoing problems in my life and relationships.  I ignored the effect those behaviors were having on my life, my marriage, others around me and my emotional well-being.

What a f*cking moron I was.

giphy

Okay, that’s probably a little harsh.  I regret it getting to the point and extent it did.  It was a lack of self-reflection that lead me to where I was.

It took reading some great books on the subjects (Dan Harris’ 10% Happier being required reading) and working with some amazing mentors living their own examples of mindfulness (thank you so much Danielle Seem and Jenifer Guay), in some professional development classes focused on yoga, meditation, mindfulness, etc., for me to realize:

Holy shit, I need this stuff.

I realized the first thing I had to let go of were those preconceived stigmas I had developed about mindfulness and meditation (it’s not at all about finding enlightenment for us normal everyday folk) and really starting to look honestly at my own behaviors and habits.

Hindsight is 20/20.  I think had I adopted these things into my life much sooner, I would not be dealing with a lot of the stuff that made me need it in the first place.  Much stress, pain, and anxiety could’ve been avoided.

Here’s the thing though, like three years later….I don’t think the point of life is avoiding negativity, feelings of anxiousness, and stress.  There’s a space for noticing those negative feelings that pop into my head, and instead of perseverating on them, letting them overwhelm me, I’d try to analyze them.  Asking myself “why?” actually took a lot of the sting out of them and lead me to some profound discoveries about my own role in creating them or the situations that caused them.  It also let me detach myself from them emotionally and helped me make some logical choices and changes to the way I did things in order to repair whatever breakdown had caused them in the first place.  It’s a process that sometimes I need to actively force myself to do, but it works.

A lot of the wounds I’ve suffered in my life are figuratively self-inflicted.  Again, think of the scab analogy from earlier.  If I pick and pick and pick, it gets worse.

The goal isn’t to be wounded and move on though.  I think anything that makes us suffer physically, mentally, emotionally, should teach us something…should improve us in some way.  We can’t ignore the damage caused.

Enter Kintsugi.

No, not the 2014 Death Cab for Cutie album, but in retrospect maybe more of that would’ve helped things too.  Ben Gibbard’s voice and lyrics do have healing powers.

Kintsugi, or “golden joinery”, is the Japanese art of of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum.

The philosophy behind it is profoundly simple: the breakage and repair are part of the object’s history, not something to be disguised.

kingsugi

The damage is part of who we are.  It doesn’t define us, but ignoring it or trying to hide it only leads to more damage.

It’s ok to fail, ok to mess up, ok to make mistakes.  The idea though, is to come through the pain, the fire, the anxiety, the depression as a stronger, truer, wiser version of yourself.  We make the mistakes part of our story, instead of feeling like they are the end of it.

I’ve only scratched the surface of my own existential regeneration.  I’ve taken some long, long looks at myself and started cutting out the bits that don’t mesh with things I’m passionate about.  I’ve gotten better at saying no, and not feeling guilty about doing so.  I’ve owned my shit, so to speak.  I go to counseling every two weeks with an absolutely amazing therapist.  Talking with Sarah at North Country Behavioral Medicine in Peru has been absolutely incredible.  I take meds to help me curb those bouts of anxiety.  I’m no longer crippled by those negative thought vortexes that would keep me up at night or wake me up at 4AM.

I don’t pick the emotional scabs.

Do I still have a lot of work ahead of me to dig out of some of the cavernous holes I’ve dug for myself?  You betcha.  But I can tell you without a doubt I am 10,000x more prepared for that project than I would’ve been before getting the help.  I can’t recommend talking to a therapist enough.  Seriously.  Holding onto pain, anxiety, and depressive thoughts is like forcing yourself to go through mental cancer.

You aren’t alone in this.

You are not the one person that deals with these awful thoughts, you aren’t the only one bothered by something that someone said to you, you aren’t the only one overwhelmed by the repercussions of your choices, and aren’t the only one in pain.

The first step to healing what is broken is realizing it’s broken.  The second step is realizing that you aren’t alone.  The third is realizing that help is out there and getting it.

If you’d have told me I’d be saying all this and offering it up to everyone I knew via FB, I’d have probably had some sort of panic attack, vomited, and/or tried to de-invent the internet.

But I’ve come to understand through my own journey that communication and honesty are what destroys stigmas.  Honest self-inspection is necessary to a healthy life.  Don’t like this part of your life, cut it out, and regenerate.

Start simple.

I got sick of looking at clothes and shoes piled on the floor on my side of the bed.  I had the epiphany that if I bought a yoga mat, oil diffuser, and set myself up a dedicated mindfulness space on the side of my bed, I’d do it every morning, therefore connecting with myself, breathing, and be better at working through my shit.

I did it once.  🙂

My yoga mat sat there, unused other than to cushion my feet as I stepped on it, and occasionally had both clean and dirty laundry on it.

In the past, I probably would’ve viewed this as a failure.  But mindfulness helped me realize that the space didn’t have to be hard-wired for one particular idea I had for it.  That through being fluid with what I thought the space “should” be, (we need to be careful with that word in our lives), I could make it something functional and mentally pleasing.

So I bought a couple six foot bookshelves.  That was the logical progression of all those thoughts above, right?

The bookshelves were actually a manifestation of something on my pre-2020 bucket-list of things I did towards the end of last year.  Having a more mindful introspective view into what I wanted my life to be led me to making a list of things I wanted to do, or do more of, in the coming year.

The list is as follows:

  • Paint
  • Skydive
  • Hike
  • Bake
  • Photography
  • Learn to sew
  • READ MORE
  • Travel
  • Visit Mike and Erin more!
  • Blog (added about two hours ago when I started this post)

The bookshelves purchase came out of this, basically:

marie-kondo-on-books-ideally-keep-less-than-30-books-61503837

Books are my vice.  Yard sale books, used book store books, thrift store books…I am a glutton.  The problem with this, is that for a long time I really only read before going to bed.  Getting through five pages and then zonking is not a recipe for churning through novels.  I literally own hundreds of books.  After putting together the bookshelves, I began the process of shifting books from the small bookshelf that was previous over-stacked with them to the new ones.  The painstaking process of extricating the rest of my boxed up books from the attic was and epic undertaking and one that had me dealing with sore muscles for a few days.  However, after a few days of sweat and organization, and some purging that fell disastrously short of Ms. Kondo’s recommendations, I had ALL the books I owned shelved.

IMG_6064

I’ve been reading so much more because of these beautiful things staring me in the face every day.

See?  Small, simple changes can make all the difference.  Can I still have my yoga mat there and try to spend some moments in meditation?  Absolutely.  Do I need to beat myself up if I don’t?  Not at all.

I made the list above with things I wanted to experience more of.  Things that I didn’t make time for prior.  Do I expect to become a painter who sells his works?  Not in the least.  I just wrote it down one day when I had an idea for a painting pop into my head when I was feeling a certain way, and mindful thinking allowed me to say “hey, that’s interesting, I should do something with that”.

Even if I only sky dive once, or bake some cupcakes a couple of times, I can at least say I tried it if it ends up being something that doesn’t stick on as something I want to keep doing.  Learning to sew came about through me wanting to be able to repair holes and rips in my own jeans.  Can’t be that hard, right?  I don’t think I’d have thought of this if I hadn’t tried to actively slow myself down mentally.

Our very best friends, Mike Hollis and Erin Cashman have moved from Boston to Addison, VT, a mere hour away instead of like 4.5.  Their old stone farmhouse has literally become one of my happy places.  Mike is gonna be my skydiving buddy this summer, since there’s a place that offers it like five minutes from said farmhouse!

Ok, I have to wrap things up, you have things to do today.

I tend to spin off on tangents easily.  I’m working on it.

TLDR: I was a skeptic about things that could’ve helped me a more well-rounded a better person…a stronger person.  I didn’t think the logic applied to me.  I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong.  I probably wouldn’t have made the big mistakes that lead me here.

I messed up, but I’ve owned it.  Little by little, I’ve started making things better for myself and others around me.

The path I’ve traveled isn’t littered with the pieces of myself that I’ve managed to break along the way, but I’m proud of the golden scars I have now that I’ve begun the process of repairing/renovating who I am and want to be.

You can too.  Let’s talk.

Lost Mine of Phandelver Session 2-Massacre of the Goblins

Fresh off defeating the bugbear Klarg and his cadre of goblin and wolfish defenders, our heroes delve deeper into the cave hideout of the Cragmaw Goblins.

Leaving Klarg’s lair, the group stealthily discovers a room within the cavern that is half-filled with two large pools of water.  A battle ensues between the party and many goblins, with reinforcements arriving bringing two more goblins and a wolf.  The party managed to deal with the threat, but took some scratches and dings of their own.  An investigation of the room and the pools gave the party the intuition that the way the pools were set up had them serve as a security system for the main entrance into the cave.  Posts could be knocked loose to unleash a torrent of water to hopefully wash-out any intruders.  Since the party managed to avoid the main corridor on their way in, they were never noticed, and the security system was left unused.

A choice lay ahead of them as two paths led out of the cave they were in.  They chose the right after their rogue, Draxan (Corey) scouted ahead.  He discovered that this path led back down to the main corridor (and a potential sneaky back up to their current level) and that the other path led to a rope bridge above their current position.

p961199516-3

Basically, they are all at (4) above on the map, where there is loose gravel and rock that inclines about ten feet up to a flat surface, and then after that another ten foot escarpment to scale before arriving in the upper hallway.

Cue the hilarity.

Agnar (Erik) the dwarven paladin manages to climb up with a successful Athletics roll (and Dexterity saving throw roll) and drops a rope to the rest of the party.  Unbeknownst to the party, if anyone fails on the saving throw on their way up, the entire slope of escarpment lets loose.

Magnus the dwarven barbarian (Miles), failed his saving throw and tumbled ass-over-teakettle down the incline, landing on his back in the stream, defeated, dejected, and damaged from the fall.

Maran, Tuck, and Draxan make their way up to Agnar with due to low athletics rolls on their part, and successful strength checks saw Agnar doing almost all of the work to get them up, leaving Wil and an embarrassed Magnus last up to join the group.

Cue the group strategy session when Draxan scouts ahead and finds out the path their climbing up to connects across the bridge to the twin pools cavern they came from earlier and that there is a room in front of them with five goblins arguing over a cook fire.  They decide to split the party (GASP!) so that they are spread out to deal with the force, and are in the middle of a debate of their own regarding ambushing the goblins or trying to draw some out when one of them says he’s going to check with Kleenex (spontaneous Goblin name I came up with) the bridge guard to see if he wants some of the food.

The players rolled well on stealth checks and the goblin rolled poorly on his perception checks so he moves out into the hallway, oblivious to the danger he’s walking into.  The group begins to debate whether or not they should grab him and have Agnar, who speaks Goblin, try to draw out more or if they should just take him out.  This lasts for a couple of minutes so I begin rolling behind the screen to see if any other goblins move out.  I set a high DC for this roll and just kept rolling for the remaining four goblins while the group talked.  Adam was the first to notice I was doing this, and urged the other players to make a choice.

After the debate continued, Adam made the choice himself.  Leveling his longbow directly between Tuck and Maran, he fired an arrow that connected with the goblin’s collarbone who then let out a yelp of pain that alerted the rest of the goblins that something was not right.

ROLL FOR INITIATIVE!

The goblin’s fellow archer buddy rushed forward and failed to notice Agnar in the shadows, (whom I forgot to have him roll his stealth check at disadvantage due to his armor, now that I think of it), but did see Tuck down the hallway so fired an arrow at him for some damage.

The party then hears a disembodied voice yell from the room in Goblin, “What’s going on?! Are we being attacked?”  Unbeknownst to them, this is Yeemik, the leader of the goblins, and he has Sildar Hallwinter, the human the group is searching for, hostage on the upper level of the room.

The three goblin fighters rushed up and attacked Magnus, managing to almost take him out before the party dispatched them.  With one goblin left, Yeemik yells to the party in Common, “TRUCE, or the human dies!”  As the lone goblin henchman remaining tries to retreat back into the cavern, Magnus gets and attack of opportunity and manages to slay him, launching him into the room for Yeemik to see.  (Had Yeemik rolled high on my check to see if he followed through on his promise, the party could’ve walked into the room to a downed and bleeding out Sildar).

The party entered the room and began to parley with Yeemik.  He tells the group that he wants to be the leader of the entire hideout, and if they bring him Klarg’s head, he’ll let the human go free.  (Unbeknownst to him, Klarg has already been defeated, along with every single other goblin in the hideout.)  Wil and his fox fetch the head and bring it back to him.  Yeemik, however, decides to push for more and demands 500 gold pieces in addition to the head of Klarg to free Sildar.  Numerous attempts to persuade (AND AN AMAZING INTIMIDATION ROLL OF 1 FROM MAGNUS) bring the situation no closer to being solved and as players start to close the distance between them and Yeemik, he decides that he’s had enough negotiating and shoves a almost-dead Sildar off the edge the 10′ cliff he stands on.  Sildar, at 1 hit point, takes enough damage to go unconcious, and the players make short work of the lone goblin.

Maran stabilizes Sildar and the human tells the party that Gundren had indeed found a map to the fabled Lost Mine at Wave Echo Cave that houses the fabled Forge of Spells, a great source of magical power.  The town of Phandalin prospered before a host of orcs invaded form the North and laid waste to all in their path.  A monstrous battle was fought between allied humans, dwarves, and gnomes against the orc forces and the ensuing spell-heavy war destroyed much of Wave Echo Cave and few survived the battle and cave-ins, leaving the location of the site lost for centuries.  The map was taken from Gundren when they were captured and he believes it has been sent to the goblin chief at Cragmaw Castle.

He’s glad they dispatched the denizens of this hideout, as he had overheard that they have been ambushing travelers and supply wagons along The High Road from Neverwinter for a while.  He asks the group to escort him to Phandalin whereupon he will pay them a 50 gold piece reward for rescuing him.  They rest and recuperate for the evening and continue the journey with the mining supplies and now Sildar to Phandalin.

I’ll spare you the give and take in town between the PCs and townsfolk unless it’s either super funny, or super important.  They’ll chat up some NPCs, buy some equipment, get some quests, etc.

Long story short though, Phandalin has a local thug problem.  The Redbrands are an issue for everyone, and the party might have to try to put a stop to them somehow.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

As the campaign progresses (in its young state, only two sessions) I’m getting a better idea of the power level of our party.  Goblins aren’t really hardy creatures (they have 7 hit points) and even at level 1 the characters are generally one-shotting them.  So going forward, I’m going to be looking at trying to balance the encounters more so that it’s more of a challenge than a cakewalk for the group.  I’ve been doing the enemy initiative rolls separating enemy groups (i.e. the goblin archers from the fighters) and going forward I think they are all gonna be on the same initiative so that the party gets a tad more pressure put on it.  I dunno, we’ll see how it goes.

This was also my first time wearing the DM hat as well as playing a character since Rich had to miss.  I didn’t get Maran, the dwarven cleric killed, so I guess that’s a success on my part!

See you next week! Happy Thanksgiving!

Lost Mine of Phandelver Session 1-Goblin Ambush!

Setting up the table for our first D&D session had me feeling quite a mixture of emotions.  Firstly, I was super-excited to finally be doing playing the game with a group of friends.  Secondly, there was definitely an ample amount of nervousness and anxiety that came with the fact that I was responsible for telling the story, describing everything the characters saw, heard, felt, smelled, etc.

After sitting down in the DM chair at the head of the table I took a deep breath.  “What did I get myself into,” I asked myself aloud.

Turns out, a lot of friggin’ fun!

Our player’s characters (from here on out referred to as PCs) are contracted by a dwarf named Gundren Rockseeker to escort a cart of mining provisions from the city of Neverwinter to a trading post in the town of Phandalin.  He’s found “something big”, and needs the goods delivered there post-haste.  He goes on ahead of the PCs with a warrior escort named Sildar Hallwinter to “take care of business” in Phandalin before the PCs arrive.

Being the over-prepper I found myself turning out to be when it comes to being a DM, I queued up the sound I had on my iPad for a cart being pulled by oxen.  (Yes, that exists in Spotify!”

Even though we went forward with the idea that they all somewhat know of one-another in accepting this job, I asked our PCs to introduce themselves to the table.  Miles unveiled his dwarven barbarian’s accent too much laughing and snickering from the table, and Adam’s mysterious half-elven ranger’s introduction consisted of “I’m Wil.”  It seems like the other PCs will have to tease more out of him if they want to know more.

A few days of travel on the trail had Rich’s character Maran driving the cart, Miles’ character Magnus “had a rough night” and was trying to sleep in the back of the cart among the shovels, pickaxes, and bags and barrels of supplies.  They came upon a grisly scene blocking the path when they found two dead horses, riddled with black-tipped arrows, that they recognized as Gundren’s and Sildar’s horses.

Our heroes stopped the wagon, and went on high alert.  This wasn’t good.

Erik’s Paladin Agnar moved forward to investigate the scene, and from the woods heard a Goblin yell, “NOW!”

Roll.  For.  Initiative.

For me, watching the player’s strategize this battle (and ensuing ones) was one of the best parts of the night.  With some rough rolls from me, the goblins didn’t surprise the PCs, but suddenly five of them poured out of the woods near the horses, with three charging Agnar and two hanging back to pelt the characters with arrows.  Corey’s rogue Draxan managed to peel off into the woods, moving around to flank the goblins.

However, their ambush did not go as planned.  A well-timed entangle spell from Louis’ druid Tuck managed to catch a pair of the front-line goblins in a mess of vines that grew from the ground and wound their way up to restrain the goblins.  The third was able to pull free in time to jump back.  (Being restrained gives enemies advantage to hit (they roll their 20-sided attack die twice and take the higher of the numbers and gives you disadvantage on your own attacks where you roll it twice and take the lower of the totals).

Agnar is hard to hit normally (though he did get tagged by the goblin leader early), but with disadvantage on attacks the goblins only managed to bash their scimitars off of his shield and armor, with no hits taking purchase after the vines were in play.  Wil fired his longbow from the rear lines and felled a goblin archer with one hit to the heart.  Slowly but surely, the tide of battle was shifting towards the PCs.  Goblin archer #2 took an arrow to the shoulder and abandoned the field and rushed into the underbrush and our final goblin fighter was slain, giving our adventurers their first victory!

Investigating the area revealed that this area had been used for goblin ambushes for quite a while, and Wil’s ranger tracking skills noticed a trail where the retreating goblin ran, finding tracks of about a dozen of the creatures as well as marks that looked like two larger creatures were dragged from the road.  Our players deduced that Gundren and Sildar were captured and decided to hide the wagon and its goods and follow the goblin trail.

Goblins are tricksy folk, but Wil and Draxan lead the group in proceeding cautiously, uncovering and avoiding both a snare trap and a pit trap on the trail following the tracks.  They follow the trail for about five miles and come to a clearing where the trail leads into a cave with a stream flowing out.  As they approach, they come upon a clearing and surprise four goblins (the escapee from the earlier fight telling the tale of their clan member’s demise) and manage to surprise them and dispatch all but the injured party whom they interrogate for information.  They learn that the leader of the cave, Klarg, is a bugbear who answers to the goblin King, Grol.  Gundren and Sildar were kidnapped on the order of The Black Spider.  Sildar is inside the cave, and Gundren was taken to Cragmaw Castle along with his map.

Our heroes decide they need to rescue Sildar so enter the cave on the sly.  Creeping up into it, they find three wolves chained  up in a room and decide they aren’t a threat and keep going forward into the cave.  (The wolves eventually are agitated by the intruders, and two of the three break free from their chains and attack).  After dealing with the wolf threat, Magnus the Barbarian manages to scramble up a 30′ rock face and feed a rope down to bring up his compatriots.

klarg

Within the chamber they’ve scrambled into, they spy two goblins, a wolf, and the bugbear, Klarg.  Yet again, they’ve gotten the drop on their enemies since apparently I can’t roll good perception for the monsters to save my life.  What ensues is a full surprise round for the adventurers, and they lay waste to the not-so-mighty-when-surprised Klarg and his allies.

They find his hidden treasure chest among crates and barrels of stolen provisions and end up with some bling in the form of copper pieces, silver pieces, some healing potions and a small jade statue of a frog.

That’s where we wrapped it up for the evening.

As I wrote in the last entry, I wanted to get into D&D so that I could roll a character and be a player, but I (a bit begrudgingly) decided that if I wanted to play with my friends, I’d have to take up the mantle of DM.

It was WAY more fun that I had anticipated!

Some of my favorite takeaways was seeing the guys actually get into their characters.  Trying voices, (sometimes to great comedic effect), thinking like their character would and making in-game decisions based on that, (even if it led to contradiction when one character questioned and let the goblin go, and as the goblin moved to escape, another slew him where he stood), and the various in-game zings sent each-others way over a roll, or something said, etc.

I can’t wait to see what happens next and how the guys get even further into their characters and I’m glad you’ll be along for the ride!

Guys, I play D&D now…and am even going to run it for others!

Almost two years ago, I wrote up a post in which I confessed that I played Dungeons and Dragons by myself as a teenager.  D&D/Critical Role Blog Post

How I managed to grow up well-adjusted from that harrowing experience, I don’t know.

But in that post I discussed my discovery (and here I’ll detail the ensuing obsession) of the online show where “a bunch of crazy-ass voice-actors play Dungeons and Dragons”.  Since then, it’s been nearly a two-year journey watching those people play the game with such passion, have so much fun, and tell such a great story.

But one of the things that always appealed to me was the fact that these 8-9 people regularly got together every week and just friggin’ have fun together.

So it got me to thinking…life is short.  If I know I would have fun doing this, why aren’t I doing it?  I came to the realization that if I wanted to play D&D, I’d have to search for it or create it myself.

Although I really wanted to play a character, I started to understand with no friends who played the game, I was in the same situation as I was in middle-school with no one to play with or run a game for me.

It hit me, that I had to be the Dungeon Master.

So a couple of months ago, I bought the Player Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, Monster Manual, the D&D Starter Set adventure pack, a bunch of dice sets, and minis, and battle mats, and Dungeon Master screens, and pencils and notebooks, and…..you see where this is going.

I tossed an invite out to a group of friends.  Some excited, some luke-warm, and some downright not interested.  I’ll admit I was a bit deflated after both the time and monetary investment I made.

I figured I’d scratch the itch another way.

So I looked around online for the Plattsburgh area (and even Burlington…I pondered commuting to play) to see if there were games anywhere and found that Medusa Comics and Cards hosted a weekly game.  Success!  Or so I thought.  When I contacted them about whether or not they accepted new players, I found that they do, but basically just host the venue for a group of friends who play there, and their party was full.

That’s when I found Under One Roof video store (Under One Roof Video Store) hosts a Adventure’s League game (basically just public organized play sanctioned by the company the makes D&D, and Magic: The Gathering for that matter, Wizards of the Coast) every Thursday night.  I reached out and found that I was welcome to show up and play!  Excitement!  Celebration!  Loud noises!

I don’t remember how much time was in between finding out I was going to play D&D for the first time in what no joke amounts to over twenty years.  I did have the advantage of learning all of the rules basically of 5th Edition D&D through watching hours upon hours of Critical Role so I was by no means going in as a noob.  I threw myself into making characters.  I’m pretty sure I ended up making at least 10 characters, some with complete back story and personalities set, the way they look figured out, the whole shebang.

I anxiously awaited Thursday night, and I remember telling Nicolette before I went that I was legit nervous.  Even as a 35-year-old, it still felt like going out on a first date in middle-school.  Like that feeling of walking into a situation completely blind, knowing no one, and not knowing what is expected of you or what is going to happen.

I was the first one there, which didn’t help the nerves at all, but I can without a doubt say that the Dungeon Master Don, made me feel welcome immediately.  Out of the bazillion characters I made, I decided on Perrin Hilltopple, the halfling ranger.  I’ve been playing him for a little over a month, and look forward to Thursdays every week.  I’ve met a bunch of other people who enjoy D&D, and it is truly an awesome experience.

Playing the game got me thinking more and more about wanting to get a group together of my good friends though.  I reached out to the guys I coach with, and they were excited.  They in turn reached out to others, and I grabbed one of my buds that I had touched base with at the very beginning, and out of that grew that table of six that I am going to DM for on Tuesday nights!  Nicolette’s mom was gracious enough to let us use the backroom of her store to host too!

I’ve basically spent all of my free time prepping what you’re about to see below.  I compiled a word document that ended up being 79 pages JUST FOR THE GUYS TO MAKE THEIR CHARACTERS.  Print-outs of spells, reference documents for racial bonuses, the friggin gamut.  I made playlists for background music to play during the adventure, curated into different situations like “battle”, “travel”, “tavern”, and the like.  I was so excited I arrived an hour early to set this up:

23316508_10101330498412741_889015379820717319_n

We spent a little over three hours just making their characters, and it was awesome.  Out of the 6 players I have, three are brand-new to the game, two others have played here and there, and one is pretty much my veteran who plays weekly online.

 23316844_10101330831600031_5063115090606210633_n

Starting Tuesday night, with all my nervous/excited/anxious splendor, I’ll be running six of my friends through Lost Mine of Phandelver.

Our party of adventurers consists of:

Willroar Cupshigh, Half-Elf Ranger, played by Adam

Tuck Blackwater, Halfling Druid, played by Louis

Agnar Granitebuster, Dwarf Paladin, played by Erik

Magnus Moremead, Dwarf Barbarian, played by Miles

Draxan Stormwolf, Elf Rogue, played by Corey

Maran La’saen, Dwarf Cleric, played by Rich

I’ll post more about our dear adventurers as the campaign progresses.

DVD Purge-The Adjustment Bureau

Movie #4: The Adjustment Bureau (2011), starring Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, directed by Geroge Nolfi. 

The premise of this film according to IMDB.com is thus:  “The affair between a politician and a contemporary dancer is affected by mysterious forces keeping the lovers apart.”

At a deeper level, the film explores the conflict between free-will and destiny.  Do we make our own choices, or is there an unseen path laid about before us and we’re just following it?

Exploring this idea within a sci-fi thriller/romance hybrid is an interesting vehicle on its surface.  But the story itself comes from a short story written by Phillip K. Dick, whose writings have also been adapted to the screen as Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, and The Man in the High Castle.

Our two main protagonists (Damon’s congressman David Morris and Blunt’s dancer Elise Sellas) meet in a men’s room as David is practicing his senate bid concession speech and Elise is hiding from security after crashing a wedding.  This chance encounter results in instant chemistry between the two (and serves as the beginning of many scenes of witty/entertaining banter between them), that makes it clear to them and us watching that this is a meant to be encounter.  Kismet, serendipity, destiny, what have you.

The twist here is that they were never intended to meet by the mysterious figures wearing snappy suits and fedoras.  These creepy guys meet up and watch over things from isolated places.  They are the guys, as told to David, who make sure things happen according to plan.  Who’s plan?  They are decidedly mum on that detail.

David ends up running into Elise by chance again, (which was never supposed to happen but was allowed by Anthony Mackie’s (Falcon from our recent Marvel movies) fedora wearing Harry falling asleep when he was supposed to delay David), they share more chemistry, her phone number, and she hilariously plops his cell-phone into his coffee in what was one of my favorite scenes of them together.

In a fun but eerie chase scene that involves David arriving at his office and going about his routing without noticing that the entire place and people in it are frozen in place, David walks in on the Bureau “adjusting” the frozen head/brain of his friend/chief-of-staff/right-hand-man guy Charlie (House of Cards’ Michael Kelly), David is eventually caught by the Bureau and sat down because they have to figure out what to do with him.

Here’s where I got a little feeling of “really?”  In a split second, it’s explained to David that he’s “seen behind a curtain he was never supposed to know existed”, he’s witnessed these guys apparently teleport (the fedoras and hats allow them to supernaturally move from place to place through normal doors) and the immediate solution that is set forth is to just tell him “don’t say anything, ok?”  (With the threat of completely erasing his mind, yeah, but still, this seemed awfully quick to just let him go with the trust that he’d keep quiet about what he saw.)  It’s explained that he cannot be with Elise, now or ever.  She is not on his path.  They destroy her phone number in front of him.

Three years pass, with David riding the same bus to work where he last saw her everyday, and he chances upon her again.  This starts a cat-and-mouse game between David and Elise, desperately trying to stay together after repeatedly feeling so drawn to one-another, and the Bureau, doggedly trying to keep their ducks (and outlined future for David) in a row.

The everyday Bureau agents can’t keep up with David’s improve or determination.  So in comes Thompson, a higher-up in the Bureau played supremely creepy and seriously by Terence Stamp, who lets David and the audience know that the Bureau goes WAY back. When David asks why man can’t just have free will, Thompson explains that the Bureau brought man from hunting and gathering to the height of the Roman Empire, and when left to their own devices, mankind gave the world the Dark Ages.  When given another chance after 600 years in 1910, man responded with World War I, the Depression, Fascism, the Holocaust, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.  The Bureau was done letting mankind freestyle.

From here, the movie does ramp up towards a climactic ending.  David finds out that if he continues to pursue Elise, that not only do his dreams as a politician die, but so do hers as a dancer.  A lot must be sacrificed…is it worth it?

Overall, I remember enjoying this movie the first time in theaters seeing it with Nicolette. This time, while decently entertaining, I had a hard time remembering what I liked about it so much.  Damon and Blunt are incredibly likable and definitely play off one-another well, and there are some good performances by Mackie and Mad Men’s John Slattery, but ultimately I found myself very “meh” on it this time around.

Fun tidbits:

  • After seeing this movie, Nicolette said something along the lines that it was the “best movie she’d ever seen” or that it was the “best movie of all-time”.  I kid you not.  Screw you, Citizen Kane, Gone With the Wind, Godfather, Shawshank Redemption….I could go on…give Nicolette (at least at the time, she recognizes the that is was basically just the high of seeing the ending now) The Adjustment Bureau!
  • The trailers on this DVD shown before the film were cringe-worthy…Blue Crush 2 and Bring It On The Musical.  Wow.

Verdict: I don’t recall what I would’ve rated it walking out of the theater (5 stars for Nic, obviously), but today it’s 3 out of 5 for me.  It’s our first purge.  Adios!

Next: A Few Good Men