John Collings

A Citizen without a Government – The Holidays Day 9

It was time for a change of scenery yesterday, so I left Portland behind to head off to central Oregon. I went from skies covered in clouds spitting out rain to clear skies and ground full of snow. It was nice to get into this winter landscape and watch the change along the way. The driving got a little slow over the Santiam Pass because the roads got icy, and there were a bunch of people who had the same idea that we did as they traveled the same path, but nobody was in a hurry, so it just added to the scenery, and made for an enjoyable drive.

Along the way, there was a discussion about how the closing of the government would affect the common man, and if we would ever see any of the effects. Granted we could watch the market as it did its crazy dance everyday, but as long as we did not panic with all of the other traders, it should not affect us very much. I do feel sorry for those people without work right now because the people governing this country couldn’t come together to come up with a solution to the problem. I would hope that they would eventually get their jobs back or find something to hold them over in the meantime. There was also a talk about how the National Parks would be closed, but what exactly that meant. Did that mean that they would put gates over the parks, and not allow anybody to enter, or would they just leave them open so people could come and go as they pleased. It didn’t really hit us until we stopped at the Sweet Home Ranger Station in the Willamette National Forest. This is a nice half way point where we can usually stop for a bathroom break, and get the dog out for a bit. Even with our conversation, we did not think ahead enough to think whether this station would be opened or not.

It was obviously closed. It looked like the trailheads that were there were still available to hike if we wished to do so, and there were some port-a-potties outside that we could use, but nobody was keeping them clean. Luckily, we were early enough into the shutdown where they weren’t too trashed yet, but it was only a matter of time before this would change. There were no rangers there to guide us, and no maps or information made available. The forest service was one of the organizations that was no longer working. It was a little of a discomfort, but it did not affect us too much. On the news later that night I found out that the National Parks in warmer climes, such as Joshua Tree, were still open for people to drive through but the visitors’ centers were closed and they were not collecting money to maintain the beauty of these places. The parks in colder climes, such as Crater Lake, had closed the road up to the more scenic sites because of the danger involved with keeping them clear for visitors. It has caused some problems right now, but if this continues to when it gets warmer and visitors come out to see these sites, it might be a bigger problem with how things are maintained.

As I settled into my new spot for the night, I wondered if the government would get back to governing instead of fighting all of the time. There are people who need them to do their jobs, and the things that make this country beautiful might be eventually be compromised. It is only a matter of time before American feel more of the effects of this shutdown, and it shouldn’t be about which side is right or wrong. It should be about compromise and making this a great place for everybody to live in.

The Best Movies of the Year 2018 – The Holidays Day 7

It has been awhile since I have done a list and since it is the end of the year, I thought that this would be the perfect time to put together what I considered the best movies of 2018.

10. Deadpool 2

It was not as fun as the first one, but this story still made me laugh, and took superhero movies into a new region that they needed to go into for a long time. The introduction of new characters and the story added just enough to the story, and of course the fact that it does not take itself too seriously make Deadpool one of the best superhero franchises out there.

9. Crazy Rich Asians

Yes, it is a totally predictable romantic comedy, and you know exactly how it is going to end even before it begins. But there is something more here that makes this movie worth watching, especially if you live in Asia. There are satirical jokes in this movie that point to some of the truths of Asian culture that an American audience might not get, but I thought were hilarious.

8. Bohemian Rhapsody

Even though I am over hearing Queen songs wherever I go (Give it a break Seoul), I still loved watching Freddie Mercury’s story. I do remember watching his iconic performance during the Live Aid concert, but I did not know all of the moments that led up to this performance. And speaking of performances, Rami Malek delivers a spot on one of this legendary rock star.

7. Isle of Dogs

I love Wes Anderson’s directing style. He creates this great cartoon feel with his cinematography and tells some of the quirkiest stories ever. This works even better when he makes cartoons. I loved the fact that he set the story in Japan so we would never be able to understand what the humans were saying, but could completely follow the reasoning of the dogs.

6. The Avengers: Infinity War

I heard that there were over fifty cast members in this movie, and I wondered how they would be able to pull off a coherent story with that much going on. But Marvel has always known what it was doing when putting together their universe. Since I had spent ten years watching various movies, I got to know all of the characters, and it was not hard to follow all of these various story arcs in the movie. Then they placed the focus of the story directly on Thanos which gave the whole movie unity. Nothing like this has ever been done in movies before, and the sheer scope of it is amazing.

5. Annihilation

I first was introduced to Alex Garland when my wife handed me a copy of his first book, The Beach. I have ever since followed his career as he moved away from writing books, to writing movies, 28 Days Later, to directing them, Ex Machina, to doing his first adaptation. He is just starting to find his stride, and I expect amazing things in the coming years. This is a tour de force that will keep you guessing and stick with you long after the final credits have rolled.

4. Hereditary

Last year’s Get Out showed how the horror genre was capable of making social commentary, and this year’s Hereditary shows that this genre should be taken seriously. First of all, this is a creepy story. Secondly, it takes from the pages of H.P. Lovecraft, never really showing you what is going on, and making you guess if what you are seeing are actually in the minds of the characters or if they are really happening.

3. Black Panther

I will be honest. When I saw that this movie was coming out, I instantly thought this would be one of the Marvel movies I could easily skip. I was sick of the formula, and I did not think that the creators could bring anything new to the Hero’s Journey that I had not seen from them before. Plus, I did not need to see another villain that I would instantly forget about. I was drug to this movie, and was blown away by it. Marvel fixed all of the problems that they had with their storytelling in this story, giving a blurred line between what was good and bad, a villain who had a reason for doing what he was doing instead of just being bad, and an ending that was significant for more than just the title character. To date, this is the best Marvel movie out there.

2. A Star is Born

From the opening bluesy guitar rift, I was hooked into this story. Yes, it surprised me because I thought I would watching more of a folksy singer-songwriter going through his missteps, and was not expecting music with a little more power behind it. And even though this story has been told a few times before in Hollywood, this update of the story was great. Bradly Cooper did not only do a great job of acting, but directing as well. And Lady Gaga, whose music I am not a big fan of, showed off some acting chops that I was not ready for. This movie was a big surprise this year.

1. BlackkKlansman

Spike Lee has made some great movies. He has also made some movies that I could have easily skipped. I loved the premise of this movie, but I had no idea if it would be one of his better movies or one that I should have turned the other way for. I am glad that I watched this movie, even though it gives my home state a bad name. But this movie calls back the reason that he was a force to contend with when he released Do the Right Thing. It made me think about the tension caused by race relations in the United States forty years after the action in this true story movie have taken place. I especially loved the digs to modern politics that were snuck into the movie. Spike Lee should be considered for best picture with this movie, and it will be a travesty if the academy once again snubs him.

Have Yourself a Rainy Little Christmas – The Holidays Day 6

I know that I spend a lot of my time bringing you pictures from around the world as I get to go to some exciting places and experience some truly amazing things. I enjoy sharing these things, and I love the pictures I am able to take with my phone. Most of the pictures I share are of the landscapes and sights from the cities or countries I am visiting, and my thoughts about what goes through me as I get to see them. I am always traveling with someone, but due to their privacy I try not to include them in my blog unless I know for a fact that they will be okay with their picture up for everybody to see. Then I come back to the Unites States, and I quit taking pictures, but still blog. It is not that I do not see amazing things when I am back home; it is more that I do not go out and hunt them down. My experiences in the States is to visit with family, and do the ordinary things that most Americans do on a regular basis. Not that I don’t find this stuff interesting anymore, and that many of my followers around the world might not want to know what life is like in the United States, but I find it so routine that I have a hard time coming up with a fresh way of looking at it.

But yesterday I was able to get out of the house for a little bit and not go to one of the malls packed with last minute shoppers. I got to experience Christmas in a way that I usually do not get to experience it, the Portland rain. I have been in Portland before for Christmas, but it has been a long time since I have been in its rain. I know that a lot of people will think that because I come from Colorado that I grew up with the cliche Christmas experience of trudging through the snow every Christmas morning and drinking hot chocolate while a blizzard raged on outside, but this was not always the case. I did get to have a few white Christmases, but there were other times that I was walking around in a t-shirt and enjoying the sun. In fact, my first post of the year talked about this exact thing.

But there are many people around the world that experience Christmas in a way that is not like the one that is usually depicted on the Hallmark Channel. They put up their Santa Clauses, lights and decorations, pretending that a big snow will come and give it that extra something that makes the holidays the holidays. But it never happens. It rarely snows in Portland. In fact, a typical Christmas here is usually covered with a rain cloud as a drizzle turns everything into a lush green. It is not the cliche, but it is not wrong. It is just the way that they enjoy the holidays in this part of the world.

It reminds me of the last couple of Christmases I have gotten to enjoy in New Zealand and Australia. There will never be a chance for them to experience snow on this day because Christmas comes in the middle of their summer. But this does not stop them from putting up the same decorations that we would see in the United States, and play the same carols over the shopping loud speaking that speak of snow. It felt out of place, but it did not take the holiday away.

I guess the thing that I took out of this recent experience is that the holiday is going to come no matter what. It might not be the same as it is pictured on postcards and television, but it is still a moment to spend the day with the people that make it special. It will take a force greater than the weather to not allow this day to come every year. So for all of you out there that celebrate this day, I wish you a Merry White One, or a Sunny Holiday or like where I get to enjoy the day this year, a Rainy Little Christmas.

The Fall of Giants – The Holidays Day 5

When I was a kid, the Christmas holidays started for me in October when the Sears catalogue came out. My mom would sit me down at the kitchen table and open up this beast of a publication to the last pages of it which always featured all of the toys that were available at that time. Then she would ask me what I wanted for Christmas. I would flip through those pages, looking at the various toys and games featuring the smiling kids always having fun playing with them, and wish I was in that situation at that time. My mom would take that list and I would always think that she would mail it along with the ones that my brothers and sister made to Santa Claus. I would never make the connection that the trip to Southglen Mall’s Sear’s pick up station had something to do with that moment at the kitchen table a couple of weeks earlier.

It all started with this giant of a retail store. In fact, growing up, Sears was a very important part of my life. If we needed new tires, we went to Sears. During the summer, when we needed to get tools to keep the yard clean, we would find them at Sears. Before school started every year, we would get our uniforms delivered to us at Sears. And of course, the holiday season always started with the delivery of that huge catalogue that showed everything that you could get at the store. Every mall in America had one of these stores in the corner of the parking lot that would always be packed with cars because that would be the first place that people would visit when they went to the mall. They dominated the retail market and nobody could be bigger.

I never thought about it until recently as other stores tried to chip away at the hold that this giant had on the market. WalMart would be the perfect example of this. Many people were offended that there was some store out there where you could get everything all in one place. They complained that it would destroy the ma and pop stores because they would never have a chance to compete against that. But they were just taking after the Sears model and adding a grocery store to it. People should not have thought that this was a new idea that revolutionized the market. In fact, it was only until recently that WalMart decided to allow for delivery of their items to happen and Sears had been doing that since it inception. And the only reason that WalMart decided to do that was because they were starting to struggle when they had to compete with the new giant, Amazon.

All of this hit me yesterday when I went to visit Sears for the first time in a decade. It showed me that there was always a time where the giants of the world would start to lose their power and a new entity would emerge to take its place.

I have known for quite some time that Sears was going out of business. The writing had been on the wall for years. The once packed packing lots of America’s mall was the perfect place to fins a spot these days, and there wasn’t always a Sears connected to every new mall made. The commercials selling their power tools no longer dominated the television screens during football games, and I can’t remember the last time I saw the epic volume that was their catalogue arrive in the mailbox. It was only a matter of time when they gave it up and let people come in to take the last pieces made available before they shut down their door forever.

Yesterday, I found that perfect parking spot as I went to do some Christmas shopping in one of America’s various malls and took a stroll through the dying days of the local Sears. It was probably the most packed I have ever seen one of these stores because people were there hoping to find that last deal before the death rattle. But there was not a lot to offer. The clothes were horribly out of date and the sizes were the weird ones that only fit a lucky few. The shelves were bare except for a couple of items that would only be sold during the holidays such as fake plastic trees and their lights. It was a little depressing, but it was also the nature of the beast. It was just Sears’s time to go.

But Sears’s destiny should be a lesson for all other companies out there. It is the fate of all of them. If you do not believe me, go to your local Blockbuster and ask them how they are doing right now. WalMart is also starting to show its age as it has closed down a few of its grocery stores, and no longer can claim hold to the American economy anymore. Even giants like Anheuser-Busch are trying to find ways to hold on to what they once controlled. I have been lucky enough not to see any commercials over the last couple of years because I have lived out of the country, but the Bud Light marketing campaign is a direct example of this. Budweiser, the self-proclaimed king of beers, has seen a huge portion of its market shares cut as smaller local breweries keep on finding more and more success. They have started putting characters into their commercials that are snobby about their beer consumption, and the king eventually goes with the beer of the masses, Bud Light, instead of the mead. In truth, Budweiser is having a problem because people demand a beer with more taste now instead of the bland, over-produced swill that they have been shilling for over a hundred years. They need to make fun of those beers in the hopes of gaining back the market that they once dominated. It is nothing more than a sign that the once mighty giant has fallen.

Not every company can accept that this will eventually happen to them. It is the way of the world. We no longer are under the rule of the Roman empire, and Spain no longer controls the world. There would always be a time where the mighty must fall. Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, recognizes this as he told his employees recently that even this company will see this fate as well. It is just a matter of time, but they should enjoy their success while it is still happening. They just need to not complain when thing start to fall apart. Instead, they should carve out a small slice of the market that they once so comfortably controlled, and enjoy what they have left, instead of always trying to be the giant.

It is a difficult lesson to learn, but one of greatness must always embrace.

The Winter Solstice – The Holidays Day 4

Depending on where Hanukkah lands, the Winter Solstice is sometimes the first holiday of the season, and the one that is celebrated the least, except for those few scientists that are now stealing it, and claiming it is theirs. But those scientists were not the first ones to steal this holiday. It has been stolen many times over and adapted to fit many religions, but it gets its origins in the Celtic tradition. (And yes, you would say that with a hard C, not like what the people from Boston have done when they stole the name as well.)

It has been the tradition of these people to have their customs and holidays stolen in order to repress their beliefs. The first people to do it were the Christians. When the Romans started to take over the British Isles, and they ran into the Celtic people, they encountered a very popular holiday on the Winter Solstice. They hoped to combat the popularity of this day among the people they were trying to incorporate into their empire, so they came up with a holiday to become more popular. They took some of the Anglo-Saxon traditions from one of their legends, Krampus, and blended it together with the birth of Jesus to create Christmas. The Winter Solstice never had a chance.

But this pagan holiday had a lot of great philosophy behind it that it could offer the world. The Celtic people believed that this was the start of the New Year, and if you think about it, it makes more sense that it lands on this day instead of January 1st. It is the shortest day out of the year. It is the time of absolute death if we look at the condition of nature at this time. The only thing left for it is, the renewal that will eventually bring us life again. It is a time of rebirth for us as well. If we look back at those pesky scientists again, we can see that this is the time that the sun starts to thaw out the world and we can eventually shed off those winter clothes to enjoy the fruits of spring. There are a lot of similarities between this holiday and what we do when we celebrate the New Year.

It all comes back to those Celts and the way they looked on the world. We do not know a lot about them anymore, but we still hold on to a lot of their traditions, claiming that they were originally created by other traditions. So as you celebrate your holidays during the next couple of days, think back to the Celts and give them thanks for all of the traditions that we enjoy now.

Shopping – The Holidays Day 3

I know that it is the third day of my trip and this is only the first picture I have shared on my blog. I am usually a little bit better than this, but I am sorry to report that I have not been any place really exciting yet. So far, it has been sitting around the house and bracing myself against the gloom of the Portland fog. I did have to escape once to go out and finish my Christmas shopping. In all truth, I had to go out and start my Christmas shopping, but luckily enough I really did not have a lot of shopping that I had to do. This has always been a problem with me ever since I have become a teacher. December is a busy time of the year for people who teach high school English. I always have a stack of final essays to go through and I do not have a lot of time for anything else. Fortunately, most schools get out with enough time for me to go out and get this other thing done before the actual holiday. Over the last couple of years, I have spent my time sitting in front of a computer and having everything sent by Amazon. It is an easy and convenient way of doing this, but I really need to go to the website knowing what it is I am getting everybody because there really is no browsing going on. Considering I am usually a few thousand miles away from the people receiving the gifts, somehow this impersonal approach works, but I do not know if they really appreciate what they are getting. That is why I think that the malls are a better shopping option. It makes me go out and find that perfect gift for everybody. I go out looking with nothing in mind of what I am going to get, and go out and search for the one that will make them happy. It takes some stumbling around as I look, and I do have to fight Christmas shoppers, and battle for parking spots, but I think that I get something better by going through it this way. It is the only thing that I have done so far on this holiday away from school that did not involve traveling from one spot to another. I know that things will get more exciting as the weeks progress, but for now it is all about the buildup. It might be the boring part of the story, but it is necessary to making a good one.

The Long Day

Airport travel.

I know what a lot of you just did. You screamed loudly and clicked off of this blog post because there was no way that you ever wanted to read a long post about traveling through airports. It is the comedians cliche. It is the third topic that should never be spoken about at bars after religion and politics. It is something that nobody ever enjoys, yet there is always a large group of people congregated at the airports around the world looking to shift their location from one place to another. And this time of the year seems to bring a bigger group of people to these places.

But do not worry. I will try not to bore you with the details. There were the typical delays. The lunches being held down on the shaky approaches in. And of course, there were the long hours wandering around the airports, looking for ways to make the time go quicker. But there was a certain excitement in the air as well that I had not felt before a long airplane flight for a very long time.

It could have been that I had just finished one of the hardest semesters I have ever been through in my educational career. It wasn’t because my students were cruel, or because administration was always breathing down my back. In fact, in both of those cases, they were both some of the greatest students I have ever had the pleasure of teaching, and after a couple of stumbles with a new administration, they are finally finding their stride and making a community at the school that makes a great environment to teach and grow in. It was just the fact that I had taken on a little bit more than I could chew, and it really ran me ragged. This break was something I was looking forward to, and the vacation would be one that I would take full advantage of.

It could have been that I took the school bus out the airport as soon as the last day of school was over, and I had an opportunity to visit with people that I usually do not get to hang out with, due to the fact that we live in different parts of the city. The extra time that I got to spend in the airports was actually fun, and added to the excitement that I would be traveling to a different part of the world for the holiday season.

But I think the real reason that this trip was not that I was dreading so much was that it was a last minute decision to go home for Christmas instead of spending the holiday season in Vietnam and Thailand. There were certain events happening in that part of the world that required our attention during the break, and it made sense that we would be down there then. But then the situation suddenly changed, and it didn’t make sense to go down there anymore. We were left with the option of picking from anywhere in the world. Of course, we only had two weeks to really decide where we would go, but only one place really made sense, home. I know we spent the holiday season in the States last year, and it wold be like going over the same routine again, but there is really nothing like spending the holidays with the people you love. It brings with it the warmth and joy that you always think of when you think of the holidays. It was in anticipation of this warmth that made the twenty-four hours spent in the world’s airports and planes worth the time. The delays, bad food, and turbulence could not bring me down as I slowly made my way home, and now that I am here, I can just relax and enjoy a much needed break.

So for all of you that will be going through the same experience in the next couple of days, try to find that joy that you know you will eventually get to, and do not let the long time that airport travel forces you into bring you down. It will make everybody else’s experience even that much brighter, and this holiday season will be a joyous one for all.

The Long Goodbye

I have always hated goodbyes. I am so bad at it that I will linger at certain places a little longer, holding on to mundane conversation just so I do not have to say that final word and take my leave. I have even spent nights at people’s homes, so I could wake up early and sneak out of the house before anybody starts to stir just so I can avoid doing this.

It is not because I am fundamentally opposed to the idea of goodbye, not at all. I could not begin to fathom a world in which nobody utters that word. Society would turn into a place where everybody was so self-centered because they would not care about ever seeing someone again, or a place where we would start to gather in clumps because we would never be able to depart from one another.

The second idea does not work because we all eventually have to take that leap and say goodbye. Society would become stagnant if we never said goodbye. We would see only that small group of people and share the same ideas over and over again until we reached the point that we thought that we were original and not just another rehashing of an idea that has already been spread amongst ourselves a million times before. The conversations would be the same because there is nothing new to say if we stay within the same group of people. And nothing would ever get accomplished because we would be too busy holding onto that mundane conversation to go out and get something accomplished.

And of course we could never go on living a life where we just moved on without saying that all important word before we moved on. That word gives us a sense of closure to those moments that we have spent with those individuals. It gives importance to those moments that we get to share, and wraps them up into a nice tiny package that we can carry around with us to open up when we feel the need to revisit a happier time when we were with people that we cared about. Oddly enough, it is that goodbye that allows us to open up that moment again so we can work backwards to that single snapshot that we hold with such high regard. Many times the snapshot that we look back to his that final hug and the utterance of that word, goodbye.

And there is always that ultimate sense of closure that we all have to reach at sometime in our lives. How will that moment play out if there is no loved one there to say that word to, or who can say it to us with our final passing? Will that mean that the life we have lived is not worth the time that we spent on it because that all important word is not hovering over the air to document the moment? Is it the word or people to say it to that gives life meaning?

This leads to the ultimate question: if I understand the importance of this word so much, then why do I hate goodbyes so much? I think it is because of the importance that this moment has causes me to despise any time I am forced into one of them.

A great example of this comes at the end of the school year at my current school. It should be a time of rejoicing because the whole faculty has pulled together to deliver another great school year, and help so many students move on to that next stage in their lives. The grades have all been recorded and the final comments have been chiseled into the stone of the PowerSchool gradebook. There is nothing left for us to do except enjoy the warm weather of the summer and get back to the lives that we left behind in the little corners of the world where we are from. But there is one more thing that we have to do before we can cut loose and enjoy our time off. The whole school gathers out in the front of the high school as people load on to various buses that we whisk them off to the airport and new adventures, and we have to say our goodbyes. There are many hugs given and buckets of tears that are shed as some people are faced with the reality that they may never see some people again even though they have been a significant part of their lives for so long.

I can definitely see why these people would like to have that moment of closure in their lives, but for me, it is really uncomfortable. All of a sudden, people who I did not think that I had that big of a connection with come up and try to find that moment with me. The embrace that we engage in feels a little forced as if it were not meant to happen in the first place. Do not get me wrong, I do feel sad that these colleagues of mine are moving on to different parts of the world. There were moments that we had shared that I will be able to bring up again someday when I want to smile, but they are people that I worked with and I do not need to hug everyone of them goodbye. Some of them were very good friends of mine, and I made sure before they left that I had their contact information so we could get together again when we find ourselves in the same part of the world, but still it felt awkward to make a big deal of their leaving. They wanted to leave, and I was happy for them because they believed it was the right decision for their lives. I should not consider myself to have such a large ego that I need everybody to stick around to prove that I have some worth in some people’s lives. They need to have the right to make these decisions on their own and I should not be considered when that decision is being made.

This might be viewed as being callous, and uncaring, and this might come from all of my years growing up in Denver. I know many people think of this city as an up and coming one that is constantly growing bringing many people from all over America to try and find a job there, but this was not always the case. Back in the 1980s, Denver was still considered a cow town by many people when they thought about the place, and there was some truth behind it. There were many places that had not been developed yet, and if you walked out of my house when I was really young, you only had to walk a block before you reached what everybody in neighborhood fondly called the field. Today, that field is non-existent, and I would have to hike a good twenty miles through city and suburbs before I came to a place that was even remotely like what I knew from my childhood. When I was growing up, Denver’s economy was based solely on oil, and when the bottom dropped out of that industry, so did the economy of Colorado. People started to move away in droves. Houses were sold way under the buying price, and I had to learn at a very early age how to say goodbye to my friends.

This education of loss continued on in my college years. I got a job at Olive Garden, and if you want to see people come and go on a regular basis, you should work in the restaurant industry. People are always looking over the other side of the fence at how green the pasture is over there. They constantly hop over the fence and take a role over there. But what they do not realize is that there is always another fence to hop over. When you work in the restaurant industry, you can stand on the rail of the fence you have found yourself on, and look out over all those pastures, and see familiar faces at all of the places. Every once in awhile, one of those familiar faces will come over and say hi to you, and you will reminisce about the times you were on the same side of the fence. It is nice to talk about the old times, but it is not the same friendship that you had when you were together. In fact, it is only a matter of time until those friendships start to fade away, and you will remember the face but eventually forget the name. It is not because you did not have good times together. It is because you have moved on in life, and you can only make the assumption that they have done the same thing, and they are now making new memories with a new group of people.

The goodbyes that people expected were always delayed in the restaurant industry because we were always expecting to see each other again. I was once again trained how not to have that moment that by this time in my life had become something that was an awkward and uncomfortable experience. It were these behaviors that I learned earlier in my life that make it difficult to say goodbye to those that I have come close to, especially when I know that those people will no longer be a central part of my life. Facebook and other social media sites have been created to take a little bit of the pain out of this bite. I can still pay attention to the major changes that are happening to many of the people I have at one time considered close friends, but seeing updates on a computer is not the same as creating those memories that made the relationship so meaningful in the first place.

Does this make me an awful individual because I never learned how to have a meaning goodbye? Some might think yes, and they would be able to make a strong case for my behavior as being selfish. And the more I think about it, they are probably right. But it is a selfishness that is rooted in the time I get to spend with those special in my life. I don’t want those moments to end; therefor, I do not wish to deliver that final goodbye. I believe by never saying it, the moment will last forever.

My students would be angry at me for making such a statement. The whole purpose of giving a goodbye is to give closure, and I am always talking to my students about how important that closure is in what they write. It is great to leave you readers wanting more, but if that is the case, the end should satisfy their audience enough to make them feel that satisfaction of flipping over that final page. This is the purpose of a heartfelt goodbye. We all have to move on in our lives, and there are times where that goodbye is necessary. If we stayed in those moments all of the time, we would never be able to grow as individuals. There is a time where we need to cut those connections off, not because we did not enjoy them, but because it is time to move on. It still does not make it any easier to do, and I will always still have a problem making it come out as meaningful as it really is in my heart, and I guess this essay is an attempt to start that process. It might take some time to reach its intended audience, and many of them might never even read this, but I do want those people to know that the experience has been great, and I have grown a lot of memories that i have gathered that I will always cherish. But there will be a time when I will need to say goodbye, and this is the start of that process. The date and time may be a long way off in the future, but it will eventually come.

Let us just consider this as my long goodbye.

The View from Quanary Peak

All of us can make it to the summit,
Only if we give out encouragement.
It does not matter if we are all fit,
Or how the cold of winter months spent.
It’s through the various conversations,
We will be able to ignore our pain.
It is through the loss of inhibitions,
We will value the friendships that we gain.
On the top, we’ll share our tribulations
And the obstacles we have overcome.
They now look like minor irritations
When we look at them at the height we’re from.
Community may not be what we seek,
But it’s what we found on top of this peak.