About 12 hours after my day of “Life, Phase 3” started, I received a phone call from my cousin—my brother died, apparently of a heart attack.   He would have been 75 in June. It was May 1, my first day off state payroll in 27 years; I retired from higher education to return to my roots and love of writing, photography, speaking, coaching and such.  Life was to begin anew.

Listening to her as she conveyed the news and her palpable grief after losing her special friend, listening to my niece and my sister as we talked, listening to my memories of conversations and emails with him, listening to the memories of my mom and dad telling me stories about my brother (he and I never lived in the same house because of our age difference)…listening….listening….to life….and to death.  There is much wisdom to be had.

Take care of yourself:  My brother had the curse of McInnis genes when it comes to his heart—he had suffered two heart attacks in the past dozen years or so, and the treatment for the last one was the last option, according to the doctors.  They told him about six years ago that the stints they used were his last chance—if he were to have another heart attack, there would be nothing they could do.  And they told him the stints might last as long as ten years.  It is hard fighting genetics, but it seemed to me that he always took care of himself.  He wanted as much time as possible.

Pursue your dreams:  My brother had the blessing of McInnis genes when it comes to his heart—it was strong for the things he believed in and for the people he loved.  He had been working very hard to improve the little house that he and his wife bought in rural Arizona, and he was putting in a 2500 square foot garden.  It had long been his dream to have such a place:  rural, independent.  I am reminded that my grandfather suffered a heart attack while building a home in Rockport more than 50 years ago.  Never give up on your dreams.

Never give up-fight on courageously:  My brother had the blessing of McInnis genes when it comes to his heart—it was courageous enough to take chances throughout his life.  We, unfortunately, were not very close in terms of conversations and sharing, but for what we did share and what I heard from my family, I know of his courage in many ways:  he had his pilot’s license at 14 and held myriad licenses over time, he travelled the world in all sorts of gnarly places in challenging times, he loved adventure and was an adrenalin junkie from early on, he shared stories that I thought could only be fiction…but they were true.

Have a metal box:  During the flow of communications last night, questions arose as to his plans and wishes.  My sister said, “Yes, he knew what he wanted.  The plans are in a metal box.  Find that.”  We all need a metal box, literally or metaphorically, to convey to others our desires, wishes and intentions.  It is, after all, a matter of heart.

I peeked.  I couldn’t help it.  I am the better for it, and hopefully you will be, too.

Yesterday, I attended a full-day monthly meeting of the Houston Chapter of the National Speakers Association.  As I returned to my table with a cup of coffee, something caught my eye.  On a piece of paper was written in felt tip pen boldness seven words with the letters taking about two lines in height.  “Yippee.  Yippee.  Yippee.  I am making progress.”  The paper was part of a “composition book”—you know the ones, with the black and white distinctive looking cover—that she had on the table, folded open to that page.  None of the handwriting was any of my business, so I looked away, but the size and energy in the seven words caught my eye and attention.

The seven words were full of excitement, pride, optimism and affirmation; the seven words were simple, a blend of child-like exuberance and adult evaluation; the seven words had a special spot on her page, a bold reminder to herself in a place that was impossible to ignore.

Life is full of peaks and valleys, highs and lows, victories and setbacks; however, if life is about growth—and it is—we need to remind ourselves gently and often that we are, indeed, making progress.  Amidst a day-long professional meeting and class to help attendees build their skills and businesses appeared a simple message for us all.

I peeked.  I couldn’t help it.  I’m glad that I did.

I spent today creating photographs for a web site that I am developing to teach people how to love photography and life more by seeing differently and with all their senses. I also spent time scouting a location that might be a great place for me to create photographs and teach workshops on photography and writing. And then a friend and I went to see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (the movie is set around the demise/redefinition of Life magazine, the once-upon-a-time photography powerhouse that helped awaken the world). All in all, a perfect way to wrap up the year and set the stage for 2014 and all its changes…some I’m planning, but most will probably be surprises. Such is life. Such are the joys of life.

The message of the day and the message of the movie are the message I wish to share with you, and that I wish for you: live each moment just a bit outside yourself.

As part of my planned changes including retirement from higher education, I am developing my skills and business acumen in professional speaking. When speaking to my mentor while trying to explain why I do what I do the way I do it, he said, “You aren’t trying to help people see better; you are trying to help them grow.” I couldn’t be more pleased with an assessment than that. A couple of weeks after he shared that insight, I participated in a facilitated planning meeting as part of the Pearland Chamber of Commerce board of directors. One of the exercises that we had to complete involved picking three words that define who we are. My answer came immediately: “See. Change. Grow.” As in “see differently to change perspectives in order to empower growth.” In 2014, I must live the message that I share, and share the message that I strive to live…though I don’t and can’t succeed at that commitment all the time.

And therein rests the story and the message of the year that is ending and the year that awaits me, and awaits you: We must grow in each moment by living each just a bit outside ourselves. Be empowered to try, and in trying you will be empowered. Some you will plan and some will be surprises. Such is life. Such are the joys of life.

Happy New Year, my friends.

Whether or not we agree on the “reason for the season,” the truth is that this time of year can be one of healing, love and peace amidst the stress and busyness of life. May this season be one of birth or re-birth for you.

Merry Christmas, my friends.

This interview recently posted on web radio.  The topic was my Daddin’ book and the greatest “man job” out there—being a dad.  I enjoyed the interview, and hope you do, too.  I smiled when I listened to it, and I hope you do, too.

It’s official.  I don’t have “ups” anymore.  In other words, my vertical leap is hardly a leap and not necessarily vertical.  But that’s okay because I am (grudgingly) listening to the truth.

I shot hoops at the neighborhood park yesterday, taking about a half-hour of slow efforts to bring back the wonderful sound of a basketball net snapping to the force of a basketball moving forcefully through the hoop, hitting nothing but net.  I didn’t have many of those either, but I had a good time.  Slower, less accurate and frequent reminders that it has been several years since I have confronted a backboard and basket:  The truth will set you free.

I am now “free” to shoot and miss a lot, but enjoy the exercise and movement; I am free to walk and not feel badly that I am not racing at high school speed; I am free to have fun without being competitive.  As with most truths, they seem obvious but are hard to accept.  The truth is that generally we don’t have to be the best, as good as we used to be, or competing for the top position or rank of what we do; likewise, we can’t surrender to age, diminished capabilities or lost opportunities.  Never surrender, always grow:  life is a participation game.

My apologies for the long lag in the newsletter.  I will be back at it now, diligently attentive to sharing stories from listening to life.  This newsletter and blog, and my other blogs—along with some other new developments that I will share with you soon—represent Life, Phase 3.  I will retire from University of Houston-Clear Lake on April 30, 2014 after almost 13 years there and almost 27 years in higher education.  I thought I was leaving photography and writing for higher ed for a period of three years.  It lasted longer, but now I am returning. This edition of Listen to Life comes from a dream that came to me as I was going through the process of deciding whether retirement was the right thing to do.

I don’t tend to analyze my dreams often—shoot, I usually can’t even remember them once I awaken, and certainly not after a day or two—but there are times that the message seems so clear that it is obvious that one’s unconscious is trying desperately to communicate to the conscious, decision-making side of one’s brain.

The dream awoke me and I didn’t forget it.  Won’t forget it.  Can’t forget it.

I had the idea that I was going to travel to the moon on a rocket.  In my mind, it was quite simple.  I had devised a solution that only needed to be plugged into the base of the rocket—not unlike the solid fuel rocket engines plugged into model rockets used by hobbyist rocketeers of all ages—and I would be on my may.  I was convinced that the simple step would make it happen.  No one around me agreed.

Everywhere I turned, people were telling me that my simple solution for soaring into the heavens would not work.  I disagreed.  I argued.  I persisted.  Then I finally placed the triangular shaped device on the bottom of the rocket and lit it.  The rocket launched, and I awoke when my rocket and I were among the stars.

Life provides chances to soar, and the answer is usually pretty simple regarding how to make the adventure succeed.  Listen less to the naysayers, and more to your instincts about how your ideas will help you fly higher than ever before.  My dream helped convince me that now is the time to take my rocket to my life’s dream.  Don’t ignore your own.

The lyrics are great; their use inspired me.

“I’m going to make this place your home…”

I am sitting at the dedication of Turner College and Career High School in Pearland, TX and the song Home  by Phillip Phillips loops as the crowd gathers.  I hope everyone is listening.  For me, it is the greatest affirmation of what teaching, learning and school can and should mean to young adults as life begins its bloom.  Could there be a better message to provide young people than this?

Pearland is not my home nor my school district (if I still had kids in school), but that matters not a whit when I see the vision and sense of humanity expressed in the brilliance of the Turner concept, and it deserves to be recognized.  Great things will be done here by people who honor the legacy of a great man (Robert Turner, former superintendent of Pearland ISD) while also honoring the potential of each young person who enters.  I cannot help but be moved.

“Settle down, it’ll all be clear
Don’t pay no mind to the demons
They’ll fill you with fear…”

I envision young people entering Turner, accepting the challenge of taking an alternate path to college (with college courses while in high school) or a path to technical careers:  Certainly there are fears and energy.  The message to settle down and the encouragement to ignore the negative forces are two things that every high school student can probably not get enough of.

What I saw was more than a great model for helping young people find a path to life and to careers that enable them to be the best Selves they can be.  It reminded me of what education, teaching and learning should always be about, no matter the age or the venue.

Let us all remember this when we are in a time or place to guide, mentor or teach…

“Just know you’re not alone
‘Cause I’m going to make this place your home.”

We don’t live in the same world as others, so we behave differently.

Not quite two decades ago, my eldest son was about nine and we were returning home from a Scout meeting.  It was dark, and we lived near the end of a long stretch of street that was not heavily trafficked.  As young ones sometimes do, he feared we were being followed as the car behind us matched our moves, turn for turn.  I watched in the mirror but only said, “We’ll see.”

At the second-to-last street, we turned right and the other car continued on.  The young observer said, “Dad, when I said we were being followed, you kept going, but when mom thinks she is being followed, she drives a crazy way home to find out.  Does that mean mom is a coward?”  I said, “Not at all.  But it is great that you noticed.  If I’m being followed, we’ll figure it out and work it out.  But mom has to figure out how to protect you differently, and there are worse things someone could do to her than to me.  She has to look at all the conditions differently.  But, if you remember that men and women don’t necessarily live in the same world of options, you’ll be way ahead.”

Whether our differences are age, ethnicity, wealth, geography or gender, our varied experiences influence our decisions and actions.  It serves us well to notice the differences and seek understanding.  We’ve all likely heard the expression about “walking a mile in other’s shoes.”  There are many ways to see these differences in others, and the challenge is to try to understand before judging.  Sometimes it pays to ask the question, if only of yourself.

He had dirt under his fingernails; he wore his swimsuit over his jeans and his hoody sweatshirt over a t-shirt with a tattered collar; his pupils were tiny, leading us to believe he was under the influence of street pharmaceuticals; and, the sum total of his possessions included the clothes on him, the extra pants clenched in his left hand, and the small carry bag over his shoulder that was pretty much filled with a brown teddy bear.  And in the 20 minutes we talked to him, we learned a lot about the man and about life’s journeys.

My youngest and middle sons and I were fishing together in a river in San   Marcos on Saturday. At a distance sat a man.  As we finished our fishing at the spot, he walked toward the river, keeping a safe distance from us.  From about 20 yards away he queried, “What do you catch here?  Bass?  Anything?”  By this time the three of us, who are clearly kin when you see us together, were walking toward him.  I answered that we hadn’t caught anything there, but that one of the boys had caught a nice bass just up the way.  The man smiled broadly, rubbed his short-cropped hair in a “I’m gathering my thoughts” sort of way, and expressed his pleasure in the news.  “From here?” he asked.  “I go to Texas State,” one son said. “Family, huh?,” the man said.  “They come to visit you?,” he asked.  “Yes,” my son continued, “they do.  Good family.”  “Yes, good family,” the man said.  From that trickle of words flowed a stream of conversation with him.  My youngest son was oblivious to the potential dangers of the situation; my middle son was conversational, yet intense and secretly worked a large rock loose from the dirt with his feet, “just in case.”  Yet in that time we learned of a man who graduated from college in San Marcos to be a high school teacher in San Antonio–a “rock and roll” teacher, he proclaimed–only to find that things changed and now he was here, on the road, on a journey, as he described it.  His sharing was broken by the head rubbing to re-find his place, and by pauses where his brain’s gears churned and processed.  And we learned a lot.

This man with only a teddy bear for a companion was experienced, intelligent, current on local news, and seemed unsure how he got to this point in his life.  When I quoted the old expression–“if you want to see God laugh, tell him your plans”–he paused and reflected.  Disconnected from his father and brother; likely no longer welcome by former friends in the San Marcos area; seemingly confused at how he REALLY got to where he is in life:  he shared all of this in tidbits and stories.  All the while, my boys and I learned.

Life IS a journey, and it is not at the command of our plans or dreams or hopes or aspirations.  Family matters, and family lost forever remains a deep wound and hurt.  Reaching out to family and friends  by letter or for a shared cup of coffee is important, but difficult enough to cause fear and careful consideration.  Even when you have a teddy bear to talk to all the time, a few minutes with even strangers who listen can be a good thing.

My sons and I had a great time fishing the San Marcos rivers. We’ll forget almost everything over time, except the conversation with the homeless man on a journey.  We all learned by listening and conversing.  Such is each of our journeys.