WRITTEN MARCH 1ST-- 25TH ANNIVERSARY DINNER AND GIANT'S SUPER BOWL VICTORY REFLECTIONS

I know I keep using words like FINALE and FINISH and "sabbatical ends", and you're not going to hear from me again UNTIL I'm working-HAVE a JOB, you know, AM EMPLOYED!!!!

But I've continued to adjust and subsist in this spiral of a sabbatical and the joys and experiences that have been encountered.

It's TOUGH out there---- and I'm not kidding!!!!!!

My wife and I decided to go to Anguilla for 5 days as I told her our 25th Wedding anniversary would be approximately one month into my new job and I didn't think it proper to tell new boss(es) I'm in need of a vacation after having been on one for a straight 18 months!!!!!

So off we go, we learn about the Island, we read the books written by the Blanchard's, the salad dressing couple from Vermont who moved to Anguilla 15 years ago to take "a trip to the beach" and made it their home. We arrived at Cap Jaluca, an out of this world beachfront resort that seemed appropriate for celebrating the likes of us (Liz and I) and our hard and enjoyable work of being in love throughout these 25 years time. We love the beach and its relaxing, mellow nature. I think of all the things we have done together sitting on the beach and it fits us truly best. Talking, enjoying company, dining, drinking, reading, contemplating, praying, walking dogs, mourning, recovering, even WRITING can be done quite simply and comfortably on a beautiful, sparsely populated beach with nothing on your feet, very little clothing on your body, and suntan lotion smothering your skin. It fits us. WE are an US. No two ways about it, we get on and examine our lives and reflect and observe, and we look again at each other and say-- is it us? Are we deluding ourselves into thinking we're really normal and committed and comfortable in each other's space or in our own (six weeks without me, six weeks in Spain without her, and we know that it works either way. We are tethered at the hip, like an adult umbilical cord that has gone wireless and telepathic over 28 years (I met her at a bar in 1980, don't forget). Traveling in Asia for weeks, frequent, constant trips the world over for something called "work", and just the normal I'm not going anywhere for two weeks, then I leave on any particular Monday morning at 5:45 am and the next time we have a conversation is Friday night sometime between 7-9pm, depending on which year or decade of the work-career path I was in. And I always relied on Liz to pursue her career with equal and fervent passion, as I was somewhat passionate about her focus, which was of course the one, then two, then ultimately three children I was part-time assisting her in raising. It was an unspoken, unwritten, non-verbal agreement that we had committed to this particular life and woke everyday seemingly enjoying it, pausing occasionally and getting away one-on-one (an essential ingredient in a one-on-one relationship is to go away from here to there (wherever) to make sure there IS a one-on-one; when kids, jobs, clubs, stress, strife, and exterior family presence exists nonstop during the everyday thing we call life!!!!) to regroup the mental and physical nodes of connection and affirming that enjoyment of one another.

So there you have it, we went away and found ourselves at this wonderful restaurant, Blanchard’s, on the NW side of Anguilla looking out to the Ocean, with the beach sand about 5 yards away, our table's two seats facing outward to the Caribbean, and the night sky just turning pink/blue as the Sun has set on the western horizon, and we sit down to a magnificent, slow-paced, sumptuous, naturally fresh dinner. The non-cream based Corn Chowder flavor actually pinged inside your mouth, letting you know there were no fresher ingredients for this soup on the face of the Earth!!!!!! The restaurant's colors and the Blanchard's son's artwork, which adorned each and every wall, oozed beach and blue and soft and subtle but celebratory. We weren't having dinner in a restaurant; we were participating in a culinary and sensory event. The ocean scent combined with the food and the wine combined with the wait staff's deferential but extremely attentive treatment allowed Liz and I to spend some time thinking back on all that has been, all the twists and turns, all that we know, and truly take a breath in our own little space at that table, and reflect and actually discuss, man to woman, what it was like to be.... us. And that's exactly what we did. We know, are fully aware, and as best we can try to fully APPRECIATE, how incredibly blessed we've been on this, our 25th anniversary dinner. We went deep, recognizing that we enjoy and are pretty good at enjoying each other’s company. In a REAL way, without artificial ingredients like pomposity, ostentatious ness (this email excluded because I'm a little concerned with how carried away I'm getting but seem to think there is some higher purpose by me writing this-- you know, a couple in love or “falling out of it" reads this and says "let's try and do that" or something--) okay, where was I-
Without pomp, condescension of others or each other, acknowledging how incredibly quotidian, residential, middle/lower class roots (she's the middle one, by the way) heritage'd, rural, working class, political outsiders, unmoving and non-shaking--- JUST THE TWO OF US in a restaurant with every table full, but without awareness or distraction of their presence, enjoying the moment of celebration for all that has come, and being thankful and thanking God for it, and praying he keeps us safe for all that is to come ahead.


How did the anniversary sidetrack start?? Oh yeah, I said "it's TOUGH" out there!!!!! And I mean it.

What do I mean? Well, one week building houses in New Orleans (December '07) will open your eyes, one meeting with someone dealing with a child (young adult) telling you (their father) to go to hell, one coffee with a single-divorced mom whose child is in college and recognizing her life's focus is moving on and she is left asking "what's next??” all the while wondering if she will ever love another with the faith she put in her original love???-- That’s kinda what I mean?

Or going to the local bar/restaurant, and realizing the majority of that's nights clientele are all falling out of one relationship, managing others, managing kids, and at war with lawyers and money and someone who use to be their "dream" partner.

Or, someone dealing with the incredible loss of their special someone and knowing they have to rebuild, renew, and "get on"--but HOW?

Or the professional executive or working class laborer caught up in the current economic malaise and wondering how he burdened himself with commitments that seem extraordinary large now that the professional work path has been tossed up in the air and no one knows where it will land!!!!!!!!


That’s what I mean by "it's TOUGH out there.

And you know what??? YOU, and certainly I, don't know!!!!!!!! We DON'T KNOW how tough it is for "them", and we don't know the story we think we KNOW, and we don't know DICK or Harry or Mary or Suzie of Johnny so well that we can truly appreciate what they are going through, how they are dealing, and what their Camino holds in store for them when they go home, or next week, or next year or even the dramatically dark thoughts that they had last night----

SO, we should really, REALLY stop talking and judging and opining on the stuff we THINK we know-
We SHOULD just LOVE!!!!! That's it, JUST LOVE!!!!!!

Again, I'm the one just off the trail, you know, that 500 mile walk that took 36 days and spent it walking through Spain, the Camino de Santiago, and I've rejoined my Camino here, my road, my path, and I'm observing people on theirs, and I'm saying here that as people go through their 40's, their 50's, their late 30's, and they midway through make-or-break years or episodes of relationships, or career paths, or lack thereof given Wall Street continues to implode peoples own confidence in their futures, there is a WHOLE LOTTA stuff going on-- and I'm HOPING everyone gets through the STUFF and we all wind up HAPPY TOGETHER-

you know

Remember you and me,
- think about u day night,
So happy together!!!!
For all my life!!

And poof, something twists and turns and the divorce rate is 50% and the LOVE rate is going the other way!!!

That's right, the LOVE RATE!!!!!!!!

The amount of time we spend each day loving one another as we love ourselves each day, every day, it's called the "LOVE RATE" and its going down while the divorce rate, the hate rate, the gossip rate, the judge 'em because I think I know and she's been wronged and he's an a-hole rate (or visa versa)-- all those rates are going up----

It ain't right, people, and we gotta start givin a "lotta love"

It's gonna take a "lotta love", by Nicolette Larson circa 70's music scene-

NOT the love you feel in the 500 person plate charity dinner you attended 3 months ago, I MEAN the "love" you gave while spending time with someone clearly in need of it (your time) and actually listening to what it is THEY are saying, THEY are dealing with, and sharing some compassion and perspective.

And this brings me to ANGER!!!!! We have got to lose the ANGER, people--and we've got to help the people who've got it to LOSE THEIR ANGER. How many stories do I hear about a relationship that has fallen on hard times and a breakup progresses and
the whole objective becomes get the kids AS ANGRY as I am at the OTHER Spouse--- if you're a friend on one side of these things you might even agree that he/she (the other one) is a real a-hole and deserves whatever consequences they are getting--

But encouraging, coaching, coaxing, and conniving someone else to hate one part of two that was responsible for their being kids in this world to begin with is, in my book, hurting the LOVE RATE!!!! Not to say it's screwing with the kids mind ("heck, I'm all messed up I might as well take the whole ship with me!!!")

Well, this where we come in, or maybe one day you come in for me or I for you or who knows, as WE don't KNOW!!!!!! But WE, YOU and ME, we gotta be there showing the path to love, engaging with love, embracing with love, and getting people to surrender to LOVE---

So, if you're wondering how I'm doing after having left my Camino way back in Spain, I guess you can see I'm observing things here but one of my lenses sees things from there--- the walk, the peace, the solitude of a contemplative, SLOWLY moving mind that captures the moment and tries, really tries, to find the goodness and the Godliness in those moments.

What am I doing about? The LOVE RATE? Simple, I'm spending time talking, and listening, and I've even come up with an alternative career path for sometime in my future which I'll go on record here and say anyone feeling they'd like/need to talk to me about it (whatever the "it" is for them) I'm available, and in fact I've already had a few of these-- unscheduled, unplanned, natural conversations that start somewhere and end up, unpredictably, somewhere else that no one of the two would have even dreamed a mere 5 minutes before (I'm not a mind reader, and I've already established above we know nothing, or certainly less than we think about whatever is going on in who we are talking about).

So, me, I'm setting up the TommyT Life Coach sessions, and anyone is invited and welcome--- (by the way, I'm not kidding and I'm READY and I'll be AROUND and available!!!!)
We'll let's just see how it goes---

What can you expect???

1) Music analogies for sure!!!!! And I'll probably pick an opening song for listening and reflection and maybe even a closing song--
SONG/MUSIC THERAPY, although I don't like that word associated with "coaching" because I'll be COACHING, NOT CURING!!!!! If you need a CURE then I'm not the right way to go!!!!

2) An email follow-up with my afterthoughts that might take longer to read then the session!!!! Oh yeah!!!! I can see it now--- dear xyz, -I've been thinking, and--

Well that's how this email, the one your reading right here, got started-- I started with the plane door closing on my way to Steamboat to go skiing with Allie and Matt is meeting us there Tuesday (it's Saturday, march 1st) and the plane door closed, I started reading a story about Bono and how great a world citizen he is and all, and then started thinking and put the article down and the bbery up and AWAY WE GO--- and I started with the concept of sharing the magnificent time this group of people had being together on Super Bowl Sunday watching the Giants win, --- really, that is where I started and you know what, an hour or two into and I haven't even told you about that and you've joined my 25th anniv celebration, we've discussed a very important and new governmental index, the "LOVE RATE", and I've launched a new business even as I can't determine which of three paths I'm going to pursue as I go back to "BEING EMPLOYED"!!!!!!!!

And now I've written a short, non-fiction story!!!!!!


SUPER BOWL SUNDAY!!!!!!

Well, we can't have the GIANTS in the Super Bowl without first talking about how I didn't go to Green Bay for the Championship game after telling a good friend we were going AFTER the Giants beat the Cowboys!!!!

Well I told Bonnie (friend whose Mom is a bigger fan than all of you!!!!) we were going, but then Tuesday became Wednesday and the Green Bay weather report was for MINUS 2 degrees at game time, coupled with the fact that I had an old small TV in my great room, convinced me to let my MS boys have all the freezing fun
And I would go buy a new TV and have a party----
So a small crowd came over (yes, you were invited, I'm quite sure!!)

We watched the game and the emotion continued to rise to the point that it burst as the GIANTS won, and we're going to the SUPER BOWL!!!!!!

And heck, I actually WENT to the SUPER BOWL last year too!!!! So, I started my planning and stuff and then reminded myself that the Super Bowl is one DAMN expensive game and despite my calling it a sabbatical, its still UNEMPLOYED and my BURN RATE would make a DOT.COM look conservative--- oh, and the whole family would "love" to go!!!!

So, I strategically gather the troops in fiendish plan to save a TON of money (my personal life coach skills coming into play!!!)--
Who are the troops???? Well, there all as old as me and have been around me since I was a kid, my homies, my boys from St. Joe's of Toms River, my lifelong friends from grammar school and high school, mostly known as my football teammates (except Jack, he's the musician!!).

Well, I send the signal out to them via radar that we are going to have the "mother" of all super bowl parties, and softly whisper to Liz that we should stay home and have all the troops and their families and in-laws and all up to the house for the party since a lot of them are Giants fans!!!(Oh, did I mention, I'm a NEW YORK fan, no bias--love 'em all, but in ‘69, as a 9yr old kid, my affinity was my dream team seasons of METS, JETS, and KNICKS!!!)

Taking my dad to the 1986 World Series Gooden-Clemens game was just one way I thanked him for making me a Met's fan (again, love the yanks, but I am what I am).

And the troops give the signal that all systems are go, and all the kids are coming, and we are going to have North Carolina outer banks vacation (that where we all would go from 1993-2004, until life got too complicated with ALL the kids and ALL the sports and ALL the schedules) reunion right in my great room, and there'd be this pretty big (okay, HUGE) TV there to watch the game!!!!

The kids, all of them from the North Carolina crowd show except my girls, who are away at college. The rest of them spread from age 16/17 to age 5 or so, and a whole potpourri they are!!!!! Matt, my son, and all these kids just come together like they have grown up their lives together, which they have, and its like they are all cousins and we are all called uncle Tommy or Aunt Lizzy and the like--

And most of the people who are invited come, and the neighbors come, and Baktu from Pakistan, who is visiting as a student with one my of my homies, well he comes too!!!!! Baktu lives with John and Adam and he's attending St. Joe's of Toms River,
only now they call it Monsignor Donovan as they named the school after the founder, Father Larry Donovan, who we all knew quite well.

Well, we had been doing these Super Bowl party in the 80's and 90's, but the lateness of the game and the kids going to school and the rest of us going to work the next day made it inconvenient for everybody to do this every year and traveling to Rumson from all over the state was just a hassle.

BUT, the Giants making the Super Bowl, and excitement with the WAY they made it made coming together as a group for this night undeniable.

So, we did it!!!!!

And so did the GIANTS!!!!

We set the rules up front, the great room was a room of focus-- plenty of space elsewhere for other talk, but once the game started the focus in the great room was to be the football game on the screen (and the commercials, of course).

Small talk, other chatter, kids playing happened, if it happened at all, elsewhere in the house or outside.

And the first half progressed and the GIANTS were very much in the game, and except for one play they outplayed the Pat's.

HALFTIME SHOW--- We had our own!!!!! We had a couple of piano players play. (Baktu being the concertist!!), we had the traditional, FULL BLASTED STEREO version of "Seasons of Love" from Rent, with everybody singing and clapping and grooving and dancing ( this was quite a sight for the neighbors as they hadn't seen this troop age of 20+ people in harmony before)

Then we watched the Tom Petty show, then went back to the stereo on superpower for Guns & Roses!!!!, then sat down to focus on the 2nd half.

It was all coming together!!!! The game, the people, the shared reunion of most and the first union of others, but this night was one of unison. It was OUTSTANDING, and we as the parents were starting to watch a few other things too, like these great kids that have such connectivity, respect, honesty and freedom with each other like they have with few other people in the world. That's right, they all have great friends and schoolmates where they live, but with this group there is no pretension, no "peer" pressure, no need to be anything other than just what they were last year and 5 years ago on the beach. I had the sense that all us parents were taking a little of the "watching the kids" enjoy each others company as much as we were enjoying the parents company and obviously we were ALL fully engaged with the game as it entered the fourth quarter.

I never sat down during the fourth quarter. After the Pat's went ahead and the Giants were getting the ball with 2+ minutes to go I proclaimed to the group that this was OUR time, right here, right now, in my very loud and enthusiastic way, to help the Giants BELIEVE, we had to BELIEVE they were going to win this game.

The same way I knew G'Town was going to beat Kentucky being down by 12 pts at the half in 1984, the same way I KNEW the Mets were going to pull it out in 1986 and stayed in the car to listen to Game 6 instead of pulling into the parking garage and losing the radio signal (and the next batter was Mookie!!), the way-- well, you get my drift.

It was so much fun being with these people in this moment, my guess is we felt just as good as the Giants did, minus 1!!!!

I'm sure many people have incredible experiences of how much fun and joy they had in the simple act of watching a game.

And that brings this post to a close. It won't be sent, so if you're reading and hopefully enjoying this thanks for coming to the blog. RAISE THE "LOVE RATE" all day long.

and for a closing, as usual, I have a little something that caught my eye in the aftermath of the Giants victory over the Pat's, and knowing that I'm writing about the Giants and also about love and romance and blessings, I thought I would close by sharing with you the public announcement at Fordham Prep High School, made the morning of 2/5/08, the day after the Giants victory.

4 February 2008 - Giants Super Bowl Victory--Fordham Prep High School announcement--
Please stand for this morning's prayer:
Today is the Jesuit Feast of the Martyrs of the Mission, but I think these holy men will forgive us if instead we reflect this morning on another great religious theme: miracles in the desert, in particular the one that took place last night in Arizona.
The sports section in recent years has rivaled police blotters for stories that seem to expose the dark side of human nature. Headlines are more likely to feature words like sadism, salaries, and steroids, than they are words like challenge, character, and championship.
But last night's victory by the Giants over the Patriots was filled with moving images and life lessons that reflect sports and humanity at their best.
The Giants game plan reminded us that the hard work of planning and executing can make up for what may be inferior talent.
Their total team effort reminded us that we are at our best when we work for and with others. And it reminded us that each of us can make a contribution, whether we're a star adored by millions or a no-name loved only by our mothers.
The play of the defense reminded us that we can do great things when we act with enthusiasm and intensity.
The images of Jacobs and Bradshaw reminded us that sometimes we measure success in inches, and, at other times, we've got to look to burst out of our current environs to seek new horizons.
Manning to Tyree reminded us never to give up even when we're being dragged down, to always use our heads to keep our acts together, and that a Hail Mary is never out of place.
Watching Peyton root for Eli reminded us that, unlike the Cain and Abel story, genuine glory seeks to be shared, not hoarded.
And, most importantly, this year's Super Bowl is a reminder, going as far back as the Tower of Babel story, that it is not for humans to seek perfection; rather, we are called to do the best with we've been given and to ask God that that be enough.
Let us pray: Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of sports in our lives, for the fun and recreation they make possible, but especially for the values they can teach and the virtues they can instill.
Amen.

italics are mine---

May those "virtues", those we saw on that field that day, flourish in a world that needs them
tt