They say it was 5 below in the Heber Valley the other morning. The good news is that it only dipped to 4 below up in the northeast foothills where I hang my coffee mug and outdoor thermometer. I’m going to take that as a “win,” a 1-point victory. Any port in a storm!
I’ve never really been one for keeping score unless it related to a sporting event or a bar tab, but lately, small random triumphs such as this have been catching my attention. Stuff like partaking of both the Wainwright clan at the Eccles Center in Park City and the New Year’s countdown with the Barfly Wranglers at the “Other End” in Heber on the same night.
It’s gotten to the point that I mark down in the “plus column” such seemingly inconsequential events as not finding a sock in the refrigerator. And even if I did, as long as it was clean and folded and not submerged in salsa or yogurt, I probably wouldn’t judge the portly gray dude all that harshly.
I’ve found that cutting me a bit more slack with each passing year does wonders for my always-in-flux self esteem. With a lifelong goal of remaining “in the act of becoming,” I’ve never found it all that difficult to shed psychological skin. So what if I’m flawed! So was Hemingway’s “To Have and Have Not.”
All it took last night in order for me to drift off to sleep with a smile on my face was to finish reading a new collection of stories by Sherman Alexie. “War Dances” had been a holiday gift from a close friend and by finishing it in a timely fashion I will be able to “lend” it back to her while it’s still relatively hot off the press.
Not that reading Alexie’s newly-penned fiction wasn’t reward enough in itself. I’ve always found his prose to be, at worst, quite interesting, and, at best, quite brilliant. It’s just that, this time, his always clever syntax got trumped by the personal connection. Once again I was awash in victory.
I feel like I’m pitching a shutout. If the score gets any more lopsided in my favor, I may have to invoke the “slaughter rule.” It could be argued, of course, that what’s really driving these perceived favorable outcomes is nothing more than lowered expectations. Well, you’ll have that. When it’s all about calculating the differential between the abstract and the actual, tweaking the baseline isn’t a bad default setting.
Actually doing something like, say, shoveling the back walkway or the deck would probably cause me to bliss-out in rapture. More than likely, I’d pat myself on the back until my often-problematic rotator cuff reasserted itself. I was so full of myself after quickly and gently resolving the issues inherent to a dogfight the other day that I almost booked passage to Oslo.
That same morning you would have thought I was channeling Sir Edmund Hillary the way I acted upon breaking through the inversion layer while ascending a nearby hillside with boots, gaiters, and what I laughingly refer to as my “trekking” poles. I couldn’t be dissuaded. My climb was not only heroic, but epic. More points in the win column!
Once again, the default worked. Having already decided that achieving the ridgeline, my original goal, was pretty much open to doubt, I seamlessly relocated my intended destination to where I then stood. In the best alpine tradition, I called out, more of a howl than a yodel. “Because it’s there!” George Mallory said that. “Because I don’t wish to proceed further!” I said that.
Withstanding the almost overwhelming comedic telephone onslaughts from brother McGee over the holidays from Kauai also provided plenty of positive reinforcement. I’ve always thought that conversations with this particular sibling should arrive packaged with continuing-education units, a minimum number required on an annual basis to recertify one’s quick-draw defense mechanisms.
I’m even giving myself “atta-boys” for remaining a USC Trojan football fan — no matter how much they stunk up the joint this season. Because, as they say, you can’t always choose who you fall in love with.
But if ever there was a poster child for trying the patience and unconditional love of a fanbase, it has to be my Idaho Vandals that “tribe from the north, brave and bold!” I bet they partied the bejeezus out of it up at “Dirty Ernie’s” in Kellogg when they won their bowl game by scoring on a last-second two-point conversion.
They might have even been delirious enough to allow a Meehan to open a tab! Nah! Historical differential calculus would have put the kibosh on that.
Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and a free-lance writer with a background in commercial and community radio, among other pursuits. He has been a columnist and feature writer for various Park City publications going back to 1973.