Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.
I got away with a buddy to go fishing for a couple hours on Wednesday. It was part of a bigger day together, and we didn’t fish for long, or catch anything. But we connected and had an adventurous day. Good food, good company, and good scouting for a future fishing trip.
It’s one of the things he and I talk about, which is the idea of connecting for experiences. When you don’t see a good friend regularly, it might be easy to ‘pick back up where you left off’ and feel connected. But it can also feel like that’s all you do… Reconnect, reminisce, and repeat.
We didn’t plan a whole day of fishing, we took advantage of the resources and time available to us and made the most of it with a new experience. We didn’t just talk about the things we’ve done or hope to do, we had an excursion. Too often we think planing and organizing needs to be a drawn out part of connecting, with an event planned on some distant future date.
Last night another buddy texted to see what I was up to and just over an hour later I was sitting on his balcony. Then we walked to a delicious dinner. This was so refreshing compared to, “What are you doing next week Friday?”
Plans don’t need to be big, and novelty and newness make for great experiences. Also, last minute plans can be so much more fun than the bigger, much more planned events can be. Novelty keeps the experiences new enough that they become the things we talk about years from now.
We didn’t know on a cold, wet, and dark Friday in January of 2021 that we would make this a usual thing. Two friends, feeling isolated with covid restrictions decided to do the Coquitlam Crunch so that we could meet outdoors when indoor meetings were restricted to your family circle. Now, over 4 and a half years later, we’ve completed our 190th Crunch together, averaging more than 40 a year.
We were about 50 in when we decided that 200 would be a great goal to achieve before we retired, and now that is all but guaranteed. Did we fathom this when we had done just one Crunch? No. We didn’t even know if we’d go again. But sure enough we kept going, with a goal of 40 a year to match the amount of school weeks in the year.
Now, I can’t think of anything I’ve been more dedicated to (besides my wife of course). We do everything we can to not to miss a week. We usually go out on Saturdays, but we’ll squeeze in a Thursday after school if one of us is away on the weekend.
Imagine being just over a year into a routine and deciding on a 5-year goal… then sticking to it. Sounds challenging, but it’s something I look forward to every week. I’d never have spent so much time with my buddy, Dave, if we hadn’t made this a goal, and an expectation. And there are more goals to come… stay tuned.
As I head to retirement, I’ve been thinking a bit about community and friendships.
When I think about my friendships I’ve come to the realization that of the friends I keep in contact with regularly, they all date back to my first few years of teaching (25+ years ago) and before (university and high school). It’s a little shocking to realize that I haven’t added very close friends for the second half of my life. I have great friends and am not actively looking for more, but that’s still a surprising thing to recognize.
I have friends I connect with when I go back to Toronto, one friend from university here in BC that I try to see regularly despite our very different lives and schedules, and then my friends I met in my early teaching career. And in thinking about retirement I’m very interested in fostering community among these friends.
When there isn’t a sport or a club that we are all members of, how do we make sure we connect regularly? What do we do to build community. My university buddy and I try to make sure that we have experiences and don’t just meet to reminisce. Another buddy and I do the Coquitlam Crunch weekly and try to work out at least one more time a week together. My wonder is, what else can I do with friends to ensure we build community, and grow together rather than apart?
It has become abundantly clear that an isolationist policy is not one that will work in the 21st century. The question now isn’t about if things will get better or worse, but rather how much worse? We have a global superpower that is going to destabilize world economies, and no neighbours or allies are going to come out unscathed.
I just have to wonder what future generations will think of this era? Who will the good ancestors be? And who will be typecast cast as the villain? While I think the answer is clear, if I go south of the border there would be close to a 50-50 split in responses to these questions. And the divide between the responses would be from people who would not be too neighbourly with one another.
Be a good ancestor with your neighbours. The premise is simple. The outcome unifying and peaceful. We could use a little children’s book philosophy about now.
I remember when I was in Grade 9, in a Grade 7-9 Junior High, and I was 4’11”. I was the second shortest Grade 9 and the shortest guy was very popular. I thought about my height a fair bit back then and it bugged me a lot. My perception was that I was tiny and that I’d never grow. The only time I was physically bullied was being put in a locker for all of about 5-10 seconds, and I honestly don’t even remember who did it… but I got a lot of comments about my size and they weren’t always nice. It didn’t help that I was nerdy and only had a small group of friends, but they were good friends and they looked out for me. The reality is that my (lack of) height didn’t really hinder me much, other than in sports, and yet I let my height bug me quite a bit, because I could see everyone growing and I just stayed the same.
Little did I know that I would grow 7-and-a-half inches in the next school year. My mom had to buy me new pants 3 times in that year because it just wasn’t cool wearing floods (pants that didn’t at least reach your ankles).
Today I have a false sense of my height. I’m a little shy of 5’10’ because I’ve shrunk a bit in the last decade, but I often think of myself as taller. I am often surprised when I get close to someone and I realize that I’m 2-3 inches shorter than them… My first impression being that I’m the same height as them. I don’t know if this misperception is related to confidence or something else, but that’s the way I see myself.
I remember playing basketball against a colleague that I’d worked with for a few years. I went to check him and realized he was a lot taller than me. I literally asked him when he grew, because for years I considered us the same height and he’s 6’1. It seems weird to me that I would have this perception of my own hight considering where I came from in Grade 9.
I wonder what other misperceptions I carry with me that I’m not as aware of as this one? What are the things that I think about in ways that help or hinder me as I move about the world? Do I sell myself short in ways that do not serve me well? Do I walk around obliviously confident in other ways that help me navigate things better than I should?
Have you ever had a friend tell you that you needed to work on something that you thought you were good at? Or have you had them compliment you on something you thought you weren’t good at? I think that’s one of the strengths of a good friend, that they don’t see you with the same misperceptions that you see yourself. Because it’s really hard to see your on misperceptions… if you could see them, they would just be perceptions.
I call it the most important book I never read. It’s called “Bowling Alone”. I asked Microsoft Copilot to synthesize the message of the book for me:
“The main message of “Bowling Alone” by Robert D. Putnam is that social capital in the United States has been declining since the 1960s. Putnam argues that this erosion of community engagement and participation in civic life has led to a weaker democracy and a decline in personal well-being. He emphasizes the importance of revitalizing social networks and community bonds to strengthen society.”
I say that I didn’t read it, but I tried. It was suggested for a book club I was in 20+ years ago and while the premise is why I call it the most important book I never read, the actual text was very much like a textbook and way too boring. None of us finished it, but we had very interesting conversations about it and I’ve thought about a lot in subsequent years.
I think the message about lost community is more relevant today than 20 years ago. I have lived in the same house for over 25 years. I know my neighbours on either side of me well, but vaguely know the rest of my neighbours beyond that. I don’t live in a community as much as we cohabitate in a common local area.
Community should describe our neighbourly connections not our geographical location. Close community bonds strengthen a society. I think about this as I think about retirement. At some point my wife and I will downsize our home. Where do we move to? To me geography matters less than community. The more specific question to ask is, where do we move to in order to maximize our connections to our friends and community?
The difference between living 15-20 minutes away from a friend versus 45-60 minutes away is the difference between seeing them regularly versus making monthly plans. It’s the difference between living in a community and commuting to occasionally visit and see each other.
In the future I want to create the community that I want, in close proximity to me. I want to cohabitate with my social community, not travel from a place where I cohabitate with strangers to get to my community of friends.
Today my buddy Dave and I did our 160th Coquitlam Crunch together. It started during covid, January 2021. We had just come off of Christmas break where we had to isolate with our family/inner circle, and so we had spent 2 weeks not connecting much, if at all, with anyone outside of our household. Dave and I were both feeling really disconnected and so on the first or second Friday back at school (neither of us remember exactly), we decided to do the Crunch. This was an acceptable thing to do because it was an outside activity.
Ignoring the fact that it got dark early and that it was cold and wet, we set off to climb this steep, 250m high, powerline trail. It was so wonderful to connect face-to-face with a friend that we decided to do it again the following week.
And here we are, 4 years later, averaging exactly 40 crunches a year… and we have plans not only to keep going, but to do something pretty challenging on this trail in the future. More on that later.
I just had an hour long conversation with a friend. Now I’m going to drive almost an hour to go work out with him and hang out for a bit before my hour drive home. The phone conversation was great, but it doesn’t replace the opportunity to share time face-to-face.
Tomorrow I’ll meet another friend for our weekly walk and coffee. Those times together have evolved a great friendship into a brotherhood that we would not feel without making the effort to connect so frequently.
I love technology. I had a great conversation today on the phone. I had another great conversation earlier today on Zoom with my uncle. He lives over 4,000 kilometres away and a face-to-face is not possible, so a digital connection is necessary. Zoom lets us still see and be with each other when we can’t physically be together.
I prefer physically being together, but whether physical or digital the idea of connecting F2F with people you care about is not just nice, but actually food for the soul. It’s a chance to fundamentally connect in a way that feeds your wellbeing and enriches your life.
Who do you want to, need to connect with F2F? What’s stopping you from doing so (now)?
Probably my favourite moment on any tv game show is John Carpenter on ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ He received the final, million dollar question and had his 3 support lifelines still available to be used. He hears the question and says he wants to use his ‘Phone a friend’ lifeline, and so a call goes through to his dad. Once his dad was on the line John tells him, ‘I don’t need your help, I just wanted you to know that I’m going to win the million dollars.’ He then gave his final answer… and won.
Not directly related but on a similar topic, a favourite movie scene of mine is from the movie, The Town. Ben Affleck’s character, Doug, walks into a room with Jeremy Renner’s character, James, and says, “I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is, you can never ask me about it later, and we’re gonna hurt some people.” After a quick pause Jeremy responds, “Whose car we gonna take?”
If you needed help, not just a skill testing question but real help for a challenging situation, who would you call?
As I reflect on the year that has passed, I have a great appreciation for the connection I’ve made to my good friend, Dave. In January of 2021, with Covid restrictions in full effect, we had just come off of our winter break where we were mostly isolated and home bound. We decided we would do a walk called the Coquitlam Crunch, because it was an outdoor thing that we could do and actually see each other, and still maintain a respectful distance from each other.
This morning, we witnessed a beautiful sunrise over Mount Baker as we did our 158th Coquitlam Crunch since that first one back in January ’21. These crunch walks represent 158 opportunities, basically 40 times a year for the past 4 years, where we’ve had a chance to connect face-to-face. These would not have been a chance to spend time together if it wasn’t for our planned walk. We went from not seeing each other regularly to our visits becoming a committed routine.
(A beautiful sunrise on our walk this morning.)
In 4 years we have only skipped out on one walk after driving there on a cold, wet, miserable, sleet-blowing-sideways day. Just once despite many other miserable and even snowy days. These walks have been medicine for the soul. They have been ‘phone a friend’ kind of support, except with the joy of being in person.
So, to end the year, I’d just like to thank Dave for the opportunity to connect so often. It has been an enriching experience to have so much time together with a friend. It reminds me of how valuable friendship is, to have scheduled companionship, and to have someone that I need not have any filters or pretence to talk to.
These walks have been ‘phone a friend’ moments that have enriched my life… and I get to have them almost once a week.
If I could give anyone advice for the new year, if anyone is looking for a resolution, my advice would be to routinize connecting with friends. Do you want to build a relationship where you can phone a friend up and ask for anything at all? Well that kind of bond is created by spending time together. In this day and and age, if you don’t schedule time with people, you just won’t see them enough.
PS. Hey Dave, need my help? Just one question, “Whose car we gonna take?”😜
As time passes, and I’m looking ahead at retirement, I think about the time I have left with family and friends. I wonder how do I create experiences rather than just reminiscing? When we meet up, are we doing something together or are we reflecting and sharing stories of the past?
On Facebook Al Lauzon commented,
I don’t think you are wrong but we need to recognize that developmentally we revisit our past and tell stories as we are engaged in making sense of our life as we age. Even in the elderly the repeating of the same stories of the past is making sense of our life. We have tendency to attribute the repeating of the story to forgetfulness but that is not necessarily the case. It is our attempt to make sense of our life. We should also note that we are not always conscious of what we are doing when we are engaged in this developmental process. According to the psychologist Erikson successful development during this stage of life leads to integrity and peace. Failure to make this developmental transformation leads to despair. Revisiting our life is important just as engaging new experiences is important.
And I responded,
Al Lauzon well said. I completely agree. My thoughts while writing the post related to my friends at a distance that I don’t see often. I think it’s easy to get caught up in the mode of ‘catching up’ and reminiscing, without planning new experiences. It’s wonderful to look back at old times fondly and conversations can fill with laughter and happy thoughts as old times are re-lived. You are so correct about the value here… but when you don’t see someone often and that’s all you do, then you are missing out on creating new memories to hold on to at a different, future date.
Then today I saw a clip of a podcast I heard not too long ago. It is of Trevor Noah talking to Steven Bartlett on Dairy of a CEO. The title on the clip is ‘The importance of Liming (Caribbean style)’. The clip describes hanging out with friends, with no agenda, just to be together.
It reminded me of a Bajan saying growing up, ‘Le-we-go-lime’, an accented, Bajan way to say, ‘Let us go hang out together’. Unlike a set plan, that statement could be said even before a destination is chosen. It’s not an invitation out, it’s an invitation in… in to a circle of friends that are just getting together to be together.
Al’s comment and Trevor’s video clip are reminders to me that although it’s important to create new experiences, it’s also important to find time just to be together with friends, and with good friends you don’t need to have an agenda, an activity, or even a plan beyond just being together.
Case in point, I haven’t seen Al in over 30 years, and if I had a chance to see him face to face, I really wouldn’t want to be doing an activity beyond sipping a coffee or a beer when we got together. I’d want nothing more than some good time to lime.
