Month: November 2023

A Scalding Hot Take to Warm You on a Cold Thanksgiving Day

/ Jeremy / Leave a comment

Thanksgiving, to me, is a better holiday than Christmas.

That’s my hot take. I can already see people loading up their muskets. Or at least heading for the exits. But please… hear me out.

I have always loved Christmas. I adored it in my childhood (even without being raised to believe in Santa), and continued to think of it as the most fun holiday of the year in my freewheeling 20s and my married 30s.

But here in my 40s I have decided, in opposition to the empire’s demands of capitalism and the emotional mandates of Hallmark, that I quite prefer Thanksgiving. This despite the notable fact that I now have young kids, and they love Christmas. And I like numerous aspects of it too.

Call me a Grinch if you need to. Or maybe the Thanksgiving version of the Grinch (Christopher Columbus, perhaps?). But on this rock I will stand… Plymouth Rock, that is.

Okay, enough cheesy jokes. Here are my reasons for preferring Thanksgiving to Christmas. Judge for yourself if I’m way out of line. And torch me in the comments if needed!

Less capitalism

I know Black Friday has shoved its slimy tentacles all the way into Thanksgiving Day, a little more each year. That is an undeniably sad development. (And frankly gross, since who wants to be covered in slime at the holidays?)

But taken by itself, Thanksgiving doesn’t coerce us into spending nearly as much money as Christmas. No wrapping paper needed. No gift-exchanging pressure needed.

As a frugal dad who is strongly suspicious of capitalism, I dig that. So thanks, Thanksgiving.

More football

This one might negate part of the last one, I admit. But as an ardent fan of the NFL, I like a holiday that includes multiple options for pigskin-based entertainment.

I do not like the idea of families spending 6-10 hours of the day watching sports, to be sure. But for a family like mine that talks a lot and plays board games even more, adding a little football into the mix makes our family gatherings even better.

So I guess I’ll suspend my aversion to capitalism when it comes to large men throwing a ball to each other and hitting each other with bone-crunching ferocity. We all make occasional exceptions to our most firmly held principles, right?

Less ideology

One thing about Christmas is that it inspires dogmatic narratives. Fun and/or wondrous narratives, to be sure!

But to me, both the “You gotta believe in Santa” narrative and the “You gotta believe that baby Jesus was born to eventually die for our sins to give us a way to get to heaven” narrative are drenched in dogma. And that is deeply satisfying if you’re in the club! But it’s decidedly unsatisfying (and alienating) if you’re not.

Thanksgiving, on the other hand? The colonialist backbone of the holiday is tricky, for sure. But most people celebrate Thanksgiving without expecting others to fall in line with any specific belief.

As an ex-evangelical who has been proselytized many times since I deconstructed, I deeply appreciate a shared holiday that doesn’t require us all to have a shared belief.

More food

This one’s self-explanatory. As someone who appreciates food deeply (deep, uh, in my stomach), I love a holiday that’s built around eating. And while Christmas is assuredly that too, Thanksgiving is the holiday that really goes for the gusto — and the gut — in its insistence that is what truly brings people together is sitting around tables and consuming large quantities of food.

Now there’s an ideology I can get behind.

Less depression

On a much more serious note, Christmas is sadly a time when people often struggle with depression. It is far from “the most wonderful time of the year” for those of us who are seasonally affected, since it’s one of the most daylight-deprived days of the year. To be fair, Thanksgiving can also present mental health obstacles for those who have strained family relations. So this one is a bit of a toss-up.

But in my personal experience, I often feel blue (or at least blah) at Christmas but I rarely do at Thanksgiving. So take that for what it’s worth.

[On a side note, I hope you feel okay this November! Feel free to message me if you don’t. I am always glad to share solidarity with fellow mental health strugglers.]

Happy T(of)urkey Day, my fellow Americans. I hope you enjoy whichever of these are enjoy-able for you: Family, friends, food, football, and — oh yeah — fall hikes in the woods. I had forgotten about that last one, but post-Thanksgiving-dinner hikes or neighborhood walks are another of my favorite aspects of the holiday! Not quite as doable in late December.

Just for the record: I love ya, Christmas.

I just love ya more, Thanksgiving.

And I have so damn much to give thanks for.

Live Laugh Love (and Other Things I Sometimes Forget How to Do)

/ Jeremy / Leave a comment

“Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine. Which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis.”

I tried to come up with my own clever joke to this effect, but I surely can’t crack wise better than the great Jack Handey (of SNL’s Deep Thoughts fame in the ‘90s). So I gave Jack the first word.

While medicine is the most, uh, medicinal thing there is, laughter can have a similarly therapeutic effect. In fact, belly laughs might almost be as important to your health as what you can put in your belly.

But medicine can only be taken if it can be accessed in the first place. And for roughly half of each year, laughter is largely beyond my reach. I’m a patient with a prescription, but there’s no pharmacy for miles.

That’s because I’m seasonally affected, experiencing ups and downs in roughly 3-month increments. And when I am feeling down, chuckles become scarce. Mirth evades my soul. My optimistic but tightly-wound mind winds itself a lot tighter than usual, giving it a pessimistic and humorless hue. But when I come back to myself, I find myself chuckling naturally (and often).

Laughter, especially after it’s been scarce for a period of time, is one of the most freeing feelings there is. Laughter is liberation from neurosis and self-doubt. When you giggle, your mind giddily wraps your body in a big bear hug. For me, laughter is evidence of a fundamental reality: that I am comfortable in my skin. That I like myself. That I accept myself.

I know this to be true because much of my laughter, when it bubbles up naturally, is of the self-deprecating variety. I chuckle at my own goofy mistakes (the ones that don’t affect anyone else). Instead of being frustrated with myself, I laugh heartily at my brain farts. Heck, even an actual fart can make me giggle when I’m feeling myself. I find my imperfections (again, the harmless ones) to be warmly forgivable and in many cases quite humorous.

Love becomes easier too. Not that I forget to love my kids when I’m in a downswing, mind you. But my ability to consistently implement that love is considerably impeded. It’s much harder to enjoy the wide vista of each moment when I’m lost and flailing around in the thistle-strewn thicket of doubt, anxiety, and even depression.

Every time I’m in that frame of mind, worry about my kids gnaws at my brain. I fear that each mood swing (of a 7-year-old and a 5-year-old, mind you, whose prefrontal cortexes aren’t yet formed) might indicate that I’m doing this parenting thing all wrong. I vividly envision negative outcomes.

And maybe worst of all, I doubt my own innate ability to be a dad. I question whether I’m enough. My shadow self tells me lies, and I fall for those lies.

But when I come alive, I am confident once again in my dadness. Which in turn makes me confident in my kids’ kidness. I’m amazed and amused by them. I see their incredible potential, but I also see that they are more than enough, just as they are. And I instinctively grasp that they have mood swings just like I do. Who knew that kids are just smaller versions of adults?

Perspective. It’s a wonderful thing to discover, or to rediscover. When I stop catastrophizing (a term I recently learned) every blip in my children’s emotional and behavioral arc, a casual warmth and good humor infuses my mind and my mood. Everything stabilizes.

I can laugh easily.

I can love confidently.

I can live with reckless abandon.

Now if only I could permanently banish my shadow self. We live, after all, in a world of shadows. Light is not all that surrounds us. Darkness lingers in the cracks of everything. But as Over the Rhine once said:

“I will not eat the darkness.”

7 Men in a Small Cabin With No Plumbing  

/ Jeremy / Leave a comment

Every autumn for well over a decade, 7 guys from 4 states with 20 kids between us have descended upon the rivers and hills of the Appalachians (notably without those 20 kids) for 3 days and 2 nights, with 1 primary goal:

Keeping a 25-year friendship alive.

I am someone who is fortunate (and lucky) enough to have also stayed in touch with my other best buddy, who lives 6 states away, for a whopping 39 years. I’ve know that guy, Dave, since kindergarten! So I can vouch for decades-long friendships between guys not being a Sasquatch-esque myth. It’s rare but real. If you get lucky, childhood friendships can sometimes endure into adulthood.

And college buddies, if they make it a priority — and get a bit lucky too — can find a way to cross paths every year well into their 40s. Our 7-man crew is Exhibit A for that premise.

Roughly 2 out of every 3 of our autumn convergences is a canoe trip. The venerable Potomac is our favorite float route. On the other years, usually the ones where we can’t meet up until later in the fall (when the water level drops, both in depth and degrees), we do a tent-camping and day-hiking trip instead.

One fall, when most of us turned 40, we rented a houseboat on a lake and lived like kings for 2 days. Kings whose luxuries included a cramped hot tub and a slide on the back of the boat that hucked us into the dark 200-foot depths of Raystown Lake. (Seriously, it’s that deep! Weird, right?) That was our one decidedly non-roughing-it year. After all, you only turn 40 once.

This year, we split the difference being living like houseboat-dwelling royalty and tent-dwelling vagabonds. Our convergence didn’t happen until November, so canoeing wasn’t an option. And we opted for an upgrade from our usual tents. But we decided there’s no need for fancy running water. I mean, we’re not divas. Flush toilets are for those hoity-toity elites, right?

So we rented a rustic cabin in the woods of Virginia, within shouting distance of West Virginia. The cabin boasted electricity (a fridge!) and a wood stove, but no sink (water is overrated) or TV (cable is overrated) or plumbing (pooping indoors is overrated). There was also no direct cabin parking (also overrated), so we had to schlep all of our stuff a quarter-mile down a semi-rocky trail.

The schlepped stuff in question included quality food, quality beer, and an electric guitar and amp courtesy of our resident ax man Chris, who provides the ambient strumming soundtrack for our conversations each year. He usually lays down his licks and his ballads via acoustic guitar, but the luxury of electrical outlets allowed for some monster ballads (in terms of their amp-enhanced volume) this time around.

In addition to riffing with his loop pedal, he regaled us with jams like “Tennessee Whiskey” by Chris Stapleton, “Shine” by Collective Soul, and “Fare Thee Well” by Marcus Mumford and Oscar Isaac. Chris even took requests, and my nostalgia-fueled shoutouts were “The Freshmen” by The Verve Pipe and something by Dave Matthews. (He took me up on the latter.) On Sunday morning I think Chris also played “Amazing Grace,” written in 1772 by legendary classic rocker John Newton.

For posterity, here’s our full 7-man roster: Nate from Philly, Chris from North Carolina, George from Indiana, Matt from New York, and Rodney, Josh, and me from central Pennsylvania. We were also accompanied by Josh’s dog Cupcake, maybe one of the 10 most well-behaved dogs I’ve ever met. Well, other than when she stole my sleeping bag under cover of night while I used the outhouse at 4am. But I immediately forgave her when she looked up at me with her big sweet eyes.

The 7 — make that 8! — of us tackled a challenging day hike on the singularity known as the Appalachian Trail, which was a short walk from our front door. I hike the A.T. regularly and this stretch was easily the most high-traffic one I’ve traversed in ages. This fact was likely due to our relative proximity to the nation’s well-populated capital, and the trail containing two different unimpeded, stunning rock-ledge views in the span of 3 ½ miles. (Panoramas are a bit hard to find in the mighty, tree-dense Appalachians.)

We hiked 7 ½ miles total, a distance which would have been no sweat for me in my more fit and trim 30s. But my 40s have taken their toll — or was it just all those late-night bowls of Chocolate Chex? — and my bones were creaking and possibly rattling by mile 6. To be fair, this trail took us up and down more times than a rollercoaster at Hersheypark.

(Hey, maybe we could go there some autumn when we get too old for these canoeing and hiking shenanigans. I hear the Hershey Hotel has running water and everything!)

Hiking in a group of 7 is delightful because it leads to every possible permutation of conversation in the span of a few hours. People change paces, stop to pee, shift places, and you end up talking to each guy, or group of 2-3 guys, over the course of the hike. As an extrovert, and as a guy who appreciates the unique vibe of each of my buddies, I love that fluidity.

Our hours of banter each evening were sterling (and so was the accompanying IPA selection), but I won’t try to distill the specifics of our verbal camaraderie. Just like Vegas, what is discussed in a cabin in the woods stays in the cabin in the woods.

The 7 of us have numerous things in common, but our personalities are also very distinct. We represent a spectrum of politics, beliefs, and parental approaches. What unites us is friendship, fatherhood, mutual respect, and a pretty solid amount of laughter. Not to mention a faintly sophisticated but distinctly blue-collar appreciation of good food and good beers. Oh and Nate channeled Tom Cruise in Cocktail and made each of us an old fashioned too.

We are a brotherhood, forged a quarter-century ago and maintained through careful adherence to our annual traditions (which also include a spring camping trip with our kids but no wives, to give them their own weekend). We look forward to these bonding times together, and the time always goes way too fast, and then the vivid memories fade as we reenter our real lives as husbands and dads.

Everything is fleeting, be it a conversation or a camping trip or fatherhood itself. Everything, and every one of us, is transient.

Moments and memories are all that matter.

And we’re stockpiling ‘em over here.

Walking Beside My Self

/ Jeremy / 2 Comments

Every time I swing low, and the sweet chariot of my mental health veers wildly into a ditch, my self-care tumbles into the back seat. It gets lost under a floor mat and I almost forget that it even exists.

But when I extricate my mind from the ditch and I’m back on the straight and narrow, I remember how to take care of my self once again. The self — that ineffable thing that if you don’t find a way to love, you can’t adequately love anyone else.

And how does one go about taking care of that ineffable self?

One of my favorite ways, both tried and true, is by driving into the woods, to one of the dozen Appalachian Trial intersections within easy reach of my house, and taking a hike.

By myself.

For the last 4 weekends, I have made time for a solo hike. Usually on Sunday morning, after I carpe the Satur-diem (and the late Fri-diem too) with the kids. I carve out 2-3 hours to take a walk with no one but me, myself, and I. A trio with whom, I have found, it is imperative to spend quality time.

The forest feels like home to me. Walking quietly among the hundred-year-old trees, over the rocky contours of the billion-year-old Appalachian Mountains, connects me to the ancient earth. It reminds me, deep in my not-nearly-so-ancient bones, that the world is vastly bigger than me. And that my problems, though as valid as anyone else’s, are but a tiny drop in the infinite ocean of the universe.

Solo hiking is rejuvenating for the body, the mind, and the soul. But only if you’re comfortable in the presence of your own thoughts.

When I’m in a depressive funk and don’t feel like myself, being by myself without any distractions available is far from relaxing, and somehow not therapeutic. It can even make me feel worse, because it reminds me how dampened and decayed my inner voice has become.

But right now, my inner voice and I feel good. And in this resurgent season of my life, I’m savoring some autumnal hikes on the mighty Appalachian Trail. In the course of this fall, I might cover 22 unique miles of the trail’s 2,200-mile total span. (That’s based on 2-3 miles one way, times 8-10 different trail sections within a 30-minute drive of us.) Which means, 1% down and just 99% to go!

(On a shamelessly self-promoting Appalachian Trail side note, in the last 30 years I have also hiked 30 miles in the Great Smokies on a youth group trip, the “100 Mile Wilderness” in Maine with my brother, and 50 miles from PA to WV with my best friend. So in truth I’m far beyond 1%, maybe even close to 10%, and well on my way to completing the entire trail roughly halfway through my 3rd lifetime. Here’s to hoping that reincarnation turns out to be true!)

Trails are my happy place. My Zen place. My lucid place. I think out loud, I listen to my favorite music, I pry out my earbuds and hear the singing of the birds and the murmuring of the trees. I feel the soft earth (and the un-soft boulders of Pennsylvania’s rocky terrain) beneath my feet.

I bathe my lungs in the clean, fresh air. I breathe deep.

I calmly exist in my skin. And I feel comfortable in that skin.

Which is a good thing, because even though psoriasis afflicts me and splotchy patches aggravate me on a regular basis, this particular epidermis is the only skin I’ll ever have.

Might as well settle in, get comfortable, and enjoy the view.