Community

I am alternately amazed, surprised, and sometimes a little alarmed at how many people I know in “real life” who also keep blogs. What is especially concerning about that whole situation is how seemingly easy it is to identify them, even though many of them don’t use their real names. Most times it is simply a matter of seeing who has links to who’s blog, and who is talking about how many kids they have or the new house they just bought. It’s amusing really when you think about how many of us wander around in the blogosphere using code names for our family members and attempting to retain some degree of anonymity so we can feel at least a little bit like the things we’re writing on these pages won’t come back to bite us in the ass. Meanwhile, someone is sitting in their den not so very far away, reading through your entries and thinking smugly: “I know who you are…”

It hit home exactly how recognizeable we really are when a fellow blogger who has visited this page on occasion approached my wife at church on Sunday to tell her that I thought she (my wife, not the other person) was hot. (note to that person; I think she knows. Helloooo, we have 3 kids…) My wife, who lives more or less in happy ignorance of this blog, was a little taken aback. Not offended or anything, just a little concerned that her husband could be writing all kinds of crazy things about her on the internet. I decided when I first started blogging to just use my real name and get on with it. I mean, the way I see things, if I don’t feel strongly enough about my views to attach my name to them, then what business do I have posting them all over the internet for other people to see? The potential problems arises in the fact that I have a family, and whatever I attach to myself also sticks to them. My wife is a very private person, so for her this was a little unnerving. I had to sit down with her and explain the purpose of the blog, (what is it again?) and try to put her fears to rest.

On one hand, I can understand her concerns. I also decided way back at the beginning that I would not make our kids’ lives public, and in fact dedicated one of my early posts to the logic behind the decision. It still stands, and I don’t use our kids’ names in my postings, nor do I include any photos of them or my wife on this blog. (or my spiffy new flickr page) There are a lot of reasons behind this, first and foremost being that they have a right to their privacy. Besides, anyone who might be reading this who knows who we are already knows what we look like anyway.

Ultimately, we reach a point where the whole idea of blogging this way becomes a bit of a paradox. You’re sharing experiences and situations that occur within your life and involve those who are dear to you in quite possibly the most public forum on earth, yet at the same time you are trying to keep them a secret. Makes sense eh? The truth of the matter is that if you know me, you know my family. Still, I feel a sense of responsibility to shield them from the prying eyes of those who would do them harm or use their images for inappropriate purposes. I am quite sure that any predators out there looking for kids to target aren’t going to be spending a lot of time reading blogs like this one, but sadly in today’s world you can’t be too sure. My kids are too important to me for me to expose them to something that I am anything less than 100% positively sure about. They’ll do enough of that on their own when they get older, so I’m going to try my damndest to keep them innocent for now.

The funny thing about it is that most of the other blogs I read are written by people I either know or used to know quite well. Others are acquaintances or friends of friends. A surprising number of them live in the same city as me, some within a few miles. You would think that instead of spending a bunch of time in front of the computer reading about their lives, I would just pick up the phone and call them, right? Wrong. That isn’t how it works. We are much more inclined to be honest or forthcoming when we write. I don’t know exactly why, but most people have no trouble writing things that they would never dream of saying to someone’s face. That’s why journals are so effective, and why people return to these pages day after day to find out what new epiphany has just blessed the thought processes of their friend three doors down. Through reading blogs, I have learned things about people that I never would have expected, and I’m sure that they have learned at least as much from mine. (like, for instance, that my wife is a supreme hottie)

Curiously, it all leads to a strange sort of fellowship. You check up on people and read their posts to see what’s new with them. You are concerned when they seem down, happy for them when they seem up, and you wonder if they’re OK when they don’t post for a few days. The simple act of pouring one’s thoughts out through a medium singled out by many as cold and inhuman can actually bring people much closer together than they would have become communicating by conventional means. Blogging develops a sense of togetherness; of being a part of a group and participating in something much larger than yourself. It provides an outlet for expression, while allowing others a tiny window into your life. It’s up to you exactly how large and how transparent you want that window to be.

I wonder sometimes how long I’ll keep doing this. I’ve tried to keep journals before, and never had much success. In fact, this is the most regular journal I have ever kept. That alone must be worth something. Even when I’m not writing though, I’m still reading. There are good people out there living good lives and having good experiences, and it’s a privilege being allowed to share in them. I’m sure those people know who they are……and so do I.

Giving thanks

My family is heavy on traditions. Some last for a few years, some a few decades, some for generations. Some are timeless, some suitable only for a specific frame of our lives or a certain reoccurring situation. The only thing that is constant with them is the ongoing struggle to incorporate them into our increasingly busy, ever divergent lives.

My family began the Thanksgiving weekend Waterton camping trips while I was on my mission. In this part of the world, October in the mountains usually mean snow or at least cold and probably a lot of wind. When they sent me the pictures, I found myself asking myself why on earth anyone would want to camp at this time of year. The Thanksgivings of my childhood were warm, celebratory affairs laden with turkey and pumpkin pie in quantities that bordered on obscene. Due to a strange convergence in our family, we usually ended up focusing on the dessert aspect of the holiday. My birthday usually falls within a week of Thanksgiving, so my mother would make a black forest cake to go along with the pumpkin pie. As if that weren’t enough, my brother hated pumpkin pie so my mother would bake him an apple pie. My Grandmother, not wanting to be left out, would usually come to Thanksgiving dinner with several pies of her own; usually of the cherry, blueberry, or mincemeat variety. When coupled with the gargantuan turkeys my parents cooked, Thanksgiving Day usually turned into Thanksgiving Week at our house, at least on a culinary level.

After the decadence of years of these overwrought dinners and their whipped-cream topped conclusions, the idea of going camping on Thanksgiving signalled a paradigm shift in my family’s mentality. Granted, by this point my Grandparents had passed away and the whole idea of the large extended-family dinner had faded away somewhat. Still, it seemed strange to see photos of my family hiking in a snowstorm when they should have been gorging themselves on pie in front of the fireplace. It was almost unbelievable that they would be off on a camp kitchen eating chips and hotdogs instead of turkey, mashed potatoes, and the usual litany of vegetables & salads. Times had very clearly changed.

It surprised me again when they went camping again the following year, and I began to realize that perhaps the Thanksgiving camping trips were not just a blip on the radar. By the third year, I was home and actually looking forward to seeing what made these late-season excursions so appealing to them. As it turned out, it would completely change the way I thought about Thanksgiving.

The weekend itself was more or less miserable. It was freezing cold and rained the whole time, which is pretty much what I was expecting. I slept in the back of the Suburban with my brother, and it was extremely uncomfortable. By the end of the weekend I was thoroughly exhausted and had caught a cold, but it had surprisingly been a lot of fun. The food had evolved into a respectable albeit somewhat downsized Thanksgiving feast, prepared with the help of the propane stove & oven in the trailer. The cake and pies (only pumpkin this time) had been prepared in advance and were just as good as I remembered them. We spent the weekend walking around town, going for hikes, and riding our bikes. It was the best weekend I could remember having in a long time.

That was 1997. Every year since, we have tried to spend Thanksgiving weekend together as a family in Waterton. When I think about it now, it makes nothing but sense. A holiday devoted to the idea of giving thanks for the good things in your life should be spent in the midst of the most important of those things. Even the location could not be more perfect. With my family’s long history in Waterton, there is no other place on earth I would rather be. It’s a perfect place to celebrate togetherness.

There have been changes over the years. Sleeping in the Suburban went the way of the dinosaur and we tried our luck with tents. Three years, two wind-shredded tents, and one torrential downpour later, we abandoned the tent idea as well. In later years, once spouses and children entered the picture for some of us, accommodations changed yet again. Some of us brought our own trailers, and some of us stayed at a bed & breakfast in Mountain View where we would still be within a 15 minute drive of the park. Making the weekend work required some flexibility, but we did our best to work things out. We missed one year completely when my mother was sick in the hospital, but rebounded the following year.

The weekend spawned some offshoot traditions of its own. One of the earliest was a family hike, born out of my mother’s impressive determination. The very first year they went camping, while I was still in France, my mother grew tired of the grumbling of a certain sibling who was not impressed at being confined to the trailer for the weekend and marched the entire family up the side of a mountain in the middle of a blinding snow storm. The story became a part of family legend, and the hike was repeated every year regardless of weather. In 2000, I invited some friends to join us for the hike and they came up for the day to meet us. One of those friends was a woman who would become my girlfriend a week later and my wife within a year.

The mountain biking also took on a life of its own. My brothers and I started making an effort to go for a ride every year on one of the three trails in the park that are open to mountain biking. The first year we tried Akamina Pass, and ended up riding through a foot of snow trying in vain to stay on the trail. We had so much fun that we decided to make it an annual event. The “Fall Ride” began to be a focus for us, and our numbers grew as friends and roommates would make the trip down, even if only for the day, to join the ride. Our crowing achievement was in 2002, when we rode all three trails in a single day.

In 2003, we added another element to the weekend. I had recently taken up golf and wanted my brothers and my father to come with me. We went to the Waterton golf course and shot a round of nine holes, the last three of which were in the middle of a developing snow storm. (see a pattern here?) We all shot horrible rounds, but we had a great time laughing at each other, and the Turkey Cup was born.

As great as these weekends were, they were not without their problems, and the Thanksgiving weekend tradition almost did itself in on more than one occasion. Bad weather, close quarters, and personal complications almost killed a few trips in very ugly fashion, but we always seemed to be able to work things out. It wasn’t until recently that an additional strain began to appear as the weekends began to become victims of their own success. My parents told some people in their ward about our family tradition, and they liked the idea so much that they invited themselves along. Then they told their friends how much fun it had been, and the next year we had half the ward camping alongside us. The weekends began to lose their ambience and took on a life not dissimilar to the chaotic throes of a ward campout. People began pressuring my parents to plan meals together, and trying to coordinate activities that 40 people would enjoy became a headache rather than an enjoyable weekend together. Of course, since my parents had started the trend, it was assumed that they would also spearhead the planning. It seemed to us that people were missing the point completely. Our fun “family” weekend had become a huge overblown production, and finally, exasperated, my parents decided to pull the plug on the whole thing.

Last year, there was no camping trip. We stayed in Lethbridge and broke routine completely. There was no hike, no Fall Ride, and we played the Turkey Cup at a crowded golf course near my parents’ home. It felt all wrong. We left feeling like we had missed something; it had been nice to see our families, but the weekend just hadn’t been the same. Thanksgiving had lost its lustre.

This year, we’re starting over. There may or may not be a Fall Ride, a hike, or a Turkey Cup, but we will be camping in Waterton. If there are other people there, they will be there on their own and won’t be part of our group. We’re returning to the roots of our tradition; going back to the things that matter. I’m glad that we are resuming the tradition. It is important to me, and it’s something I want to pass on to my children as well. There are precious few times during the year that enable you to really stop what you’re doing, take a step back, and appreciate what you’ve got and where you came from, and I’m glad that we aren’t going to let that go. Tomorrow night we will back our bags, load the car up way beyond capacity, and head for the hills. I don’t know exactly what we’ll do all weekend, but I do know two things for sure. We’ll have a lot of fun, and it will probably snow.