Humor, please

I need to make something funny or humorous happen fast!  I was reading through some old posts and it seems I only write when I am sad or nostalgic.  Maybe these are the only feelings I possess… DAMMIT

Eric Krepela

On November 22nd of last year.  I lost a friend and my business partner, Eric Krepela.  It feels like an eternity, so much has changed and everyone at Atmosphere is a bit worse for the wear as we have tried to navigate and survive such a drastic change to our DNA.

I got a call on Thanksgiving during dinner from one of our employees and a close friend of Eric's.  I thought when I saw the call come in that the warehouse had burnt down, there was no other reason Jason would be calling me on Thanksgiving.

Jason is a no-nonsense guy and he apologized for interrupting my holiday but he didn't know who else to call.  Eric had been in a biking accident and was dead.

"Are you kidding?" I asked.  Of course he wasn't.  Eric had gone out for a ride after putting the turkey in the oven and hadn't come back.  His son found him 200 yards from the back door of his house.  No sign of trauma or a crash, it just looked like he had fallen off of his bike.

This kind of news is so surreal.  There really isn't any way to process it in the moment so our practical brains kick in and we do what needs to be done.

I needed to call my other partners and break the news to them.  I needed to cry.

Eric was a good man.  During the time I had known him, he had been overworked and bitter but in the last year of his life, he had taken control of his work and personal life and was happier than he had ever been and I don't say that as a cliche, he had truly taken his life and turned it around to take  control of what was making him unhappy.

In the year prior to his death, Eric had made a connection with his birth mother and all of her other children just before losing both her and his adoptive mother to ongoing health issues.   It had been a very big year for him.

Mourning Eric's death has been tricky.  It was such a profound loss for me but he wasn't mine to mourn in a public way, which made me feel like I had to mask my sadness.  Eric and I had a tight connection but he wasn't my dad, my husband, brother or close friend.  He was my business partner who had become a friend but there is a difficult line to draw in a work relationship.

There is an additional element of difficulty because his widow never liked Atmosphere and had often commented on how much she resented the time he spent at work.  He confided in me about many of his difficulties at home because I was safe person to talk to but it was not my place to act knowingly after such a profound loss.

I did what I could to reach out to his family and offer help, trying not to be overbearing or intrude into such a personal time but I was desperate to share grief with someone.  Anyone.

At the service, people had the opportunity to say a few words and I had written some notes intending to speak because I desperately needed an outlet, a forum to tell everyone how much he meant to me. When the time came, it seemed trite and selfish.  Yes, I had lost him but I had only known him a few years compared to most.  There was a robust and full life outside of my relationship with him that I had no access to.  The people in those relationships were hurting much deeper than I had a right to be.  This was their venue, not mine.

After some time had past, I thought about sending a letter to Eric's widow to express my feelings to her but as I planned to do that, the situation with re-distributing Eric's share of the company got messy.  Really messy.  In the interest of the remaining partners and all of the other employees of Atmosphere, it was best for me not to be in touch with the family at all.

It is infuriating and sad that in death our worst selves can emerge.  I watched this happen after my mom died and as the legal troubles developed with Eric's estate, I watched it happen again.  It took nearly a year to settle with the estate and no one involved was happy with where it landed so talking about Eric among the partners is tense.

A year later, this is my forum.  These are the notes for a speech that was never delivered:


Compassionate

Craftsman

No Malice.  Trusting and kind.

Endless curiosity and veraciously seeking knowledge

He was a confidant, friend and partner. 

He was ever encouraging to me and believed in my ability to overcome and succeed

There was a constant and annoying drive for improvement 

To his children:  

• The more people you meet, the clearer it will become how extraordinary your father was
• He was so proud of his family.  Thank you for letting us borrow him, 
• He leaves a great professional legacy that you have not had a chance to experience but should know exists
• As someone who lost a parent too early, know you can carry him with you by recognizing the things that he gave you.  

To his "guys in the shop": 

• Eric had absolute faith in you as craftsman and people.  
• He stood behind you as an advocate, defender and promoter or your skills.

Atmosphere still has so much of Eric in it.  I think of him often and I miss his crazy hair, lust for improvement and good humor.  The pace and cadence of his walk and his distinctly heavy feet always announced his presence before you saw him.  I miss the balance he brought to our business partnership and his confidence in me.  I appreciated how encouraging he was to me as a new parent, reminding me often that it is all worth it.  He was gentle with Q, holding her during meetings and keeping her entertained so I could focus.  

Truly a good man it was a pleasure to know.  

"It's just a place" - Golde

231 North 1200 East
Orem, UT 84057

The address where I grew up. In a yellow house with a peach orchard separating the front yard from the dirt road that connected Grandma's house next door.  There was a sumac and iris lined canal running in front that our parents effectively trained us to fear.

The grass was watered by flooding it a few times a week when dad would go out, often @ 4am to turn the water down our ditch.  This type of watering made it possible for asparagus to grow wild at the base of the peach trees in the orchard between ours and Grandma's house to the south.

My earliest memory is learning to buckle my brown sandals sitting on my mom's feet in front of the french doors leading out to our big grass covered yard and horse corral.

The barn and the fence were a source of great angst for my father every spring as the maintenance was more than he bargained for.  He was not a horse lover but he did it for my mom.  He assisted in births, tried training the beasts and carried water to thaw the horse water during the winter.

We had epic Sunday dinners in this house.  Life long friends were made here and it was a time and a place that is etched firmly in memories of those who gathered to be with our family in our yellow house.

The house was a symbol of sacrifice for my parents.  At one point, my mother sold her diamond to pay the mortgage and dad worked ungodly hours to keep the businesses open and the bills paid.  Mom valued that house above all other things and after she passed, dad let it go.  A symbol to him of too much sacrifice and the closing of a chapter that may have gone on too long.

We are preparing to sell our house. The house where I intended to raise my family. The house where we have been in hand to creepy-hand combat with raccoons, celebrated marriages, births, engagements & life milestones.

In this house we have hosted wild enough parties that it took a shop van to clean the front yard.  We came home to its plaster walls for comfort after death, recovery after surgeries and this is the roof we chose to protect our Quincey when we brought her home for the first time.




We are leaving because this house has been a constant struggle.  The ongoing project in the attic that has caused divorces of the last 3 owners.  We have sunk money into an un-winnable game of home improvement.  There have been floods, ceiling collapses, 6 years of never ending construction dust, mice, chickens, chicken murders and coop fires.  Years of abundance and years of disappointment in our vegetable garden.  Digging, digging and more digging to replace sprinklers, tear out the lawn, put in garden boxes, replace more sprinklers.


The house has become our unwilling hobby because we never seem to make any progress.  Now that we are getting ready to sell and are working hard to finish all of the aesthetic projects that have been nagging, the house becomes more appealing every day.  I knew it would be emotional for me to say goodbye but this struggle is deeper than I expected.

Update:  The house sold after 3 days on the market.  We backed out of the sale because the appraisal came in well under the offer price.  Now, we are going to go at it again in the spring and I am already tired.

Patriot's Day - Boston 2013

Written April 15, 2013






Here I sit in Boston, just having left the Marathon with E & Q and we have had a terrorist attack.

This is so reminiscent of  9-11 for so many reasons but one of the things that makes me the most uneasy is that although we are close to the site, we didn't know anything about it until I got a call from Timmy asking if I was ok.  So here we sit in the hotel;  Scared, unable to help, listening to the sirens outside the window and watching it all unfold on the news.   I don't mean to compare scale of incidents, just my disbelief that I have been in such close proximity to 2 landmark terrorist events and have managed to avoid being hurt, when so many have not been as fortunate.  At this point, we don't know much and I cannot pull myself away from the TV.    

I find it so disconcerting that in both incidents, I am sharing the same space with people who are suffering and I might as well be all the way across the world because there is nothing we can do to help.  All we can do is stay off the streets and out of the way.  Avoid crowding the airwaves with unnecessary chatter and stay vigilant.  It just isn't enough.  We should be able to help and it feels selfish to be tucked away safely in our hotel room.

Q and I had spent the morning marching with the Patriot’s Day Parade, I cried a little as we walked along the freedom trail next to the Italian North End band.  It was a beautiful morning and I was feeling so patriotic as we watched the Paul Revere reenactment.

E and I had such a good time at the marathon a few years ago, ee decided to take the T to the finish line.  I have been on the subway a million times but standing there, sardined in with our stroller, not able to move, I have rarely felt so vulnerable.  I said to Elliott, “this is a death trap”, “this is the perfect recipe for a panic attack for me” and I insisted we get off at the next stop.  We made it out just fine and I was felt ridiculous for panicking.

Q and E one block from the finish line @ the marathon

We went to the marathon and had some cocktails near the finish line at the same spot we had enjoyed them last time we were here, 2 years ago.  I sent a text to Amy with a photo of an interaction I saw happening on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.  Ironically, it was a text about the goodness of strangers.

We walked over to the race and Quincey started to get very restless so we headed back to our hotel, about 2 miles away.  The subway had been such a disaster on our way to the race we decided to take a cab.  We left the area of the finish line at about 2:30.  The bombs went off at about 2:45.  The bomb went off while we were in the taxi on our way back to the hotel and we had no idea.

Elliott had been at work all night so he went to sleep with Q and I went across the street to Quincy Market. While I was walking around I got a all from Timmy asking if I was ok.  At the same time, there were quite a few other phones in the store that started to ring and I could hear as each person responded the same why I had, "I'm fine.  Why, what happened?"

All Tim could tell me was that a bomb had gone off at the marathon, he didn't know anything else.

I ran back to the hotel and it was on lockdown.  They asked for my room key and my ID in order to approach the front doors.  I woke Elliott up and told him to text his family to let them know we were fine, still not knowing what exactly we had escaped.   Just knowing that we needed to communicate while we still could.

On 9-11, all communication systems were taken down and it seems that has happened again.  We cannot call out and I am sure others are trying to reach us.

I am so grateful that Q was tired, that the subway trip on the way to the race was so trying and that I am with my family.

When Adrian and her family were in Tokyo during the earthquake, I was panicked that I couldn’t be near her.  I lay in bed that night shaking with sobs, feeling a sense of helplessness like I have never felt.  I couldn't stand being so far away.

Q on the balcony of the hotel, hours after the bombing

Tonight I went to the North End to get dinner and all the streets were abandoned.  We were the only people in a very popular restaurant and the mood is obviously sombre.  As more information comes out, it seems that the people who planted the bombs are on the loose.  We will see how this all unfolds.

Bored and restless in our hotel, waiting for news

A side note:  There is an interesting lesson I learned this week about people's behavior in emergencies.  2 nights ago, we were evacuated from the hotel because of a fire.  I had always heard that women and children got to go first but as we reached the stair well, Q strapped to me, everyone moved aside and I led the pack down the stairs. I was so touched by this.  These people were making the decision that my and Q's  lives more valuable than theirs.  What an incredible and humbling gesture from the strangers on the 3rd floor.  

Public Therapy

Written sitting in rehearsal for "Why We Tell The Story" 


Tonight I have chosen to do something very public as a form of personal therapy.  Selfish?  Perhaps.

I chose this venue to conjure my mother because the theater is one of the only physical places left that I know I can find her.  Most of the places I associate with her are gone but her spirit will always dwell inside the walls of theaters, so that is where I will go to be with her.

It has been a strange experience asking to be a part of the fund raiser this year.  This event has been a source of resentment for me for a few reasons but years have brought enough perspective and time has softened me and I have found I don't have room in my soul for resentment.

It was so funny to say to people that I had rehearsal.  We would mock my mom for that being her key phrase and I found it endlessly frustrating that no matter what my ask, that was always her excuse.  And here I was, not able to attend a family function or help with packing up our house to move because I had rehearsal.

This event was a great reminder that we all loved Syd differently and each knew her in our own way, conjuring different strengths.  I love these people.  I love Ashley Gerrett's disarming laugh, Chris Higbee's crooked mouth when he sings, I love that Angie Boyle is unaffected by all the drama surrounding her and her sincere gaze, I love that Zac Wilson can shed his shyness under the lights of the stage and I love that Natalie Hill is no nonsense.  These people are frozen in time for me.

I am wearing my mom's wedding ring tonight.  Hoping to feel her close while I stand on the stage knowing that she is cheering for me.  She is sitting on the edge of her seat leaning on the row in front of her or perhaps with her right hand on her knee, elbow popped. A 44oz Dr pepper perched precariously on the arm rest on front of her, leaning into my performance.  When I finish, she will clinch her fists an say a quiet but triumphant, "yes".

I know I can sing this.  I know I can.  Can I get over my fear?  I will tell myself the same thing I tell people who are heading into an audition,"the people who are here want you to succeed, as much if not more than you want yourself to succeed."

I got an email today from my beautiful aunt Cori that put the situation perfectly:  You carry her name, and have inherited her gifts and struggles, and I have confidence that she will help you tonight because she is just that way, and she loves you, too. She can direct you from within.

2012 Closes. Finally.

This year has been too hard and I will raise a glass to see it pass.  We should not wish away time, not when it is so scarce and precious but the passing of time this year has been heavy.  I had no idea there could be such deep sadness and such profound joy all tangled together.  I suppose that just means I haven't lived long enough yet.

Q joined our family this year and I would say she has changed me but I think it is more that she has tapped me.  Meeting her has released a better version of myself than I had access to before we met.  It is clear to me now that although I have doubts about my daily approach to parenting, being a mother is what I was meant to do.   I am often cynical about it and dismissive of how fulfilling it is, but I truly feel that this tiny, infuriating, person was the missing piece.

Q joining the family was its own set of dramatic circumstances I care not to repeat.  Thinking about them makes me cry for the frustration of the pain, the length of recovery and for the time lost while I was in a pain killing stupor and should have been loving and bonding with my baby.  In 2013, I hope to be able to let go of the guilt and anger surrounding her arrival.

Too many people were lost this year. I had 4 dear friends lose their fathers: Allison Green lost her dad, Garry.  Amy Holt lost her dad, Holt. Angie King lost her dad, Doug and Natalka Zeleny lost her dad, John.  Our friend Jeff, husband to Natalka lost his sister, Kristi.  E' s long time best friend, Elaine, lost her younger brother, Alex.  I lost my friend and business partner, Eric and we also lost E's Gram, mother to my favorite people and the matriarch of a tight, wonderful family.

Each of these losses was no more than one person removed from our daily lives and it has profoundly effected me.

I also need to mention all of the lives lost in mass shootings across the country.  The Colorado movie theater massacre, the Sikh worshipers in Wisconsin and the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings.  151 people lost members of their families to crazy people with guns. It has made me question if bringing Q into this world was too selfish.

I feel the loss of life very profoundly, not necessarily more than others but it strikes me deep.  It has been a year of aching hearts for so many around me and I feel helpless to comfort them.

This year has made me tired.  I go into 2013 with deep breaths and hopes of a calmer, kinder passage of time.

Happy New Year.