ON BEING AFRAID OF THE GOAT

By Kallie Culbertson

The air outside Wrigley Field had a distinct smell on October 13, 2015. A strange combination of beer, sweat and that unmistakable stench of victory. The Cubs had just beaten the Cardinals to advance to the National League Championship Series, and I stood on Clark Street in awe of what was happening around me.

People jumped on cars and climbed up street poles, waving “W” flags that I presume they had just pulled down from their frat-star Wrigleyville apartment walls. It was debauchery at its finest, and I was ecstatic to be a part of it.

Only I hadn’t actually been a part of it. I was working late that night at my job as a PR associate and decided to walk home from my office to get some fresh air. I checked Twitter for the score a few times and heard some cheers out of bar windows as I walked by. As I got to my door, I refreshed my Twitter feed and saw the breaking news that they had won. I entered my apartment to my screaming roommate who was throwing on her Cubs gear.

“Let’s get out there! We have to be out there!” I threw on my Cubs fleece and followed happily out the door into the crowded streets. She was right. We had to be there.

“During the common pleasantries and small talk at parties, we talk about our jobs and say things like, ‘The people are great, and I’m learning so much,’ which is not a lie but certainly leaves out the harsh details we all know to be true of adjusting to real, adult life.”

And that’s when we saw the goat. Some brave (or others might say cruel) man dared to bring a pet goat with him to the celebration — a definitive symbol of the curse that the Cubs were so hoping to leave behind them that fall. The Billy Goat Curse goes back to game four of the 1945 World Series when the owner of the Billy Goat Tavern was kicked out of the ballpark because of his smelly goat, damning the Cubs to never win another series. And, as most people probably know, they haven’t.

We followed the goat up the street and eventually got the owner’s attention to take a picture. My roommate sent it to her parents. I immediately put it on Instagram, as if to say, “I’m a Cubs fan, and I’m going to prove it. I was here when they won. I’m winning.”

Only I wasn’t.

These first few years out of college, a lot of people (myself included) focus on trying to make it seem like we’re still winning in the same way we were in the college glory days. During the common pleasantries and small talk at parties, we talk about our jobs and say things like, “The people are great, and I’m learning so much,” which is not a lie but certainly leaves out the harsh details we all know to be true of adjusting to real, adult life.

We post pictures of birthday parties, concerts and Cubs victories, proving we’re still fun, a task which seems slightly more daunting but also more urgent than it did in previous years. Like a pack of hungry Cubs fans, we hold onto the wins and hope we can convince ourselves that this will, once again, be our year.

“Maybe that fear is a blessing in disguise. It forces us to plan for upcoming wins, to string together the moments when we forget about the stress and the rent and the new life we were pushed into.”

At the time when I posted this picture, I didn’t feel fearful at all. I was excited and by all accounts happy. There was nothing to be fearful of other than the looming possibility of someone falling from a lamppost onto my head. But I also knew that a large part of me was only there because I wanted to say I was there. I wanted to be amongst the myriad other “winners” of that night who were sharing stories of how they were there, how they witnessed history (hopefully) in the making.

Seven months later and two days after the next season’s Opening Day, things feel slightly different.

The classmates I graduated with seem a little more comfortable and a little more honest about their losses. As college days get further away, we start to compare our new experiences less to them.

The Cubs are off to a solid start, and I’m trying to actually pay attention and earn my right to be at the victory parties. But I also can’t stop thinking about that goat. The new season brings a new air of excitement but also a little bit of fear. The fear of that stupid goat. The fear of not winning. The fear of not being in the right place if they win.

But maybe that fear is a blessing in disguise. It forces us to plan for upcoming wins, to string together the moments when we forget about the stress and the rent and the new life we were pushed into. And soon, the wins we were forcing will start to feel more natural and frequent.

We’ll accept that sometimes wins are just hard to come by. And we’ll remind ourselves that, hey, even if things aren’t going our way now, just remember, there’s always next year.

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Kallie Culbertson is a healthcare account associate at Golin, a public relations firm in Chicago. She lives in Wrigleyville and plans on attending as many Cubs games as possible this year.

I WISH YOU WERE HERE

By Sam Watermeier

Three years later, I feel like I’m still sweating under the fluorescent lights at the funeral home lectern, straining to look at my loss on a piece of paper.

Just a few days before my father’s service, I had been struggling with another paper. 

I was hunched over a computer at the Ball State University library, writing a thesis about horror films, when I received a starker reminder of mortality.

“Sam, you need to come home. It’s … it’s Dad … he’s … you need to see him,” my older brother, Harry, stammered over the phone. 

I had dreaded this call for years. Its inevitability hit my stomach as soon as my parents closed the dorm room door before my freshman year back in 2010. By that time, Dad had been battling cancer for two years. He was in remission for a while, but time still felt precious; we never knew how much we would have with him. 

“Cancer is an insidious little disease,” my dad often said after he was diagnosed, and he was right — it snuck up on us that weekend, bringing a shock more devastating than when he was diagnosed five years prior.

“‘Cancer is an insidious little disease,’ my dad often said after he was diagnosed, and he was right — it snuck up on us that weekend, bringing a shock more devastating than when he was diagnosed five years prior.”

The November wind bit my face and froze my tears as I staggered back to my dorm to wait for Harry to pick me up. 

Tears were welling in his baggy eyes when I got in the car. My 27-year-old brother looked like a haggard old man; his face was as wrinkled as the shirt through which his ribs were poking. 

After a few minutes of silently riding through cold, gray mist, Harry stopped at a gas station. “I gotta get some coffee,” he uttered with an edge of guilt, looking at the seconds sprinting around the face of his watch. I turned down his offer for a cup. I didn’t want to be caffeinated and alert for what was about to follow. 

When we got home, Dad was in what the nurses called the “active phase” of dying. I walked into the den, where a hospital bed faced his TV and cords from various medical monitors spread across the carpet like the weeds flooding our backyard. Dad slouched over the edge of the squeaky bed while his nurse, Debbie, held a thermometer in his ear. He turned around and his dry lips cracked into a wide smile.

“Look, it’s my son,” he slurred. 

“Hey, Dad, how ya doin’?” I asked, fighting back tears. 

I bent down and hugged him tightly. I didn’t want to let go. My once-burly father was now a frail stick swallowed up in my arms.   

Harry shuffled in shivering and sniffling. Streams of hot tears fogged up his Clark Kent glasses. He nervously ran his fingers through his hair, which is dark and wavy like Dad’s used to be. Harry lingered over him, looking down at his bald, shivering scalp. 

“Geez, you’re cold,” the nurse said after she read Dad’s thermometer, trying to sound surprised. She left the room, and Harry sat down in a stiff wingback chair across from the hospital bed.

We sat in silence, looking at our father, as if our stillness would stop time. 

“I love my boys, my beautiful boys,” Dad said in a sedated yet sincere voice. Then he looked at both of us, seeming to break through the haze of medicine, staring with startling clarity. 

For a fleeting moment, I felt nothing but love. Like a little boy held in his parent’s arms after falling off a bike, I forgot about all of my pain and fear. And then I wanted to apologize — for all the juice I spilled, all those years of silly teen angst, all the times I stayed out late without calling home, all the anxiety I caused. 

“For a fleeting moment, I felt nothing but love. Like a little boy held in his parent’s arms after falling off a bike, I forgot about all of my pain and fear. ”

Dad sighed, lay back in bed and closed his eyes.

Debbie then whispered with both urgency and hesitation, reluctant but obligated to give us the bad news.   

“Alright, you guys … it could be hours, it could be days,” she said. “He’s very cold, and his breathing has been irregular. I know this sounds strange, and I know he’s asleep, but … he can sense you in here. Parents don’t like to die in front of their children. When the time comes, you might want to step out of the room.”

After Mom finished making all the necessary family phone calls, she came in quietly, her face swollen with sorrow and streaked with stress like her mousy blonde hair was with gray. Without breaking eye contact with Dad, she sat on the edge of the bed, holding her breath as he did, waiting for him to exhale.

Part of this active dying phase involves long pauses in breathing, which we spent most of that night counting by Dad’s bedside as he slept. Each of us took a shift sitting by him, and no one could sleep when it was their turn. 

By morning, there were no pauses left to count. The winter chill crept into the room as Dad lay lifeless. 

“No, Steve. I’m not ready. Don’t go,” our mother cried into his stiff arms, tangled up in the breathing tube that drooped from his nose.

Harry and I sat paralyzed in the stiff chairs next to Dad’s bed. We didn’t look at each other, but I felt like I could sense what he was thinking: Comforting Mom — and ourselves — was impossible. 

The deafening silence from Dad’s absence was soon broken by a knock on our front door. The men from the funeral home who came to pick up his body couldn’t look at us when they stepped inside. The younger one — a buff 20-something — stared at the floor. “Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of him,” he said. They carried Dad out the front door on a stretcher; a ragged blanket rested on top of him. 

This was the last time I saw my father. 

Not only did my dad bring me into the world, but he made me love it, taking me to movies and nudging me in my seat to signal that what we were witnessing on screen was pure magic. 

Now, I could no longer show Dad my movie reviews. I couldn’t share the paper about horror films I was writing before that weekend. I wish he were here to read those, to make little comments in the margins with his pen, to share his thoughts on films, on anything. 

I didn’t say any of that at the funeral, shaking under the harsh lights at the memorial center, nauseous yet also comforted by the aroma of Italian food from the restaurant Dad managed, Biaggi’s. I could sense him there, but I wanted more. 

I ended my eulogy with all I could think to say at that time, sometimes all I can say about it now.

“All I know is that I love my dad, and I always will.”

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Sam Watermeier has been a movie buff since practically before he was born, as his mother went into labor with him in a movie theater during “The Godfather Part III.” He lives in Carmel, Indiana, writing about film — and sometimes other subjects — for NUVO Newsweekly and The Film Yap.

BUILDING A BIKE

By Natalie Davenport

This is a picture of me last year with my new bike, The Horse, which I built piece by piece in spring 2015.

I first fell into bike culture in the second half of my senior year at Michigan State University, living in East Lansing. Many of the people around me were into bikes and that was a thing we did together. The dudes I hung out with rode hard and did all their own mechanics, so naturally I rode hard and started to learn my own mechanics.

The bike I was riding at the time, which I nicknamed Pistachio (the frame is close to a pistachio color green, but mostly I wanted to give it a cutesy food name), was an old 70s road bike that had average components when I bought it. I started to ride Pistachio for bike delivery and worked through the snowpocalypse, the snowstorm of the decade that pretty much shut down our school and city for two days.

The snow and salt tore up the old components, and it was quickly apparent that I needed to tighten some parts and lube up some others if I wanted to continue to ride through the winter. I decided that in a three-days window I had off work I would take everything off, clean it and put it back together — a full overhaul to fix the parts worth saving and to put new parts on where others just didn't work.

I had a lot of help from the mechanics at the shop I frequented, and the dudes in the crew were excited to help. In the process we lost a lot of parts, put things back together wrong several times, broke a lot of parts and bought new parts that didn't fit. I wasted a lot of time reading mechanic books and dreaming about fancy bikes that would be easy to put together. The folks around me were excited by the strange parts on my old bike and gave me history lessons about the evolution of bike parts, usually stopping in between work and class to maintain their own bikes through the erratic winter weather. In those three days I learned about every piece that was on my bike and soon became confident I could fix everything in the future when I needed to.

“They were so ready to escape, right as I felt like we had built something important — something worth staying for.”

This crew and I continued to hang out and maintain our bikes after the initial overhaul, which turned out to be an incredibly important foundation for my understanding of bike culture. I liked finding a role in a space that was designed for men, learning by watching as others worked on their bikes and having the freedom to mess up on my own knowing that most things can be undone. I like that our group rode hard, and often I could feel myself shaking from exhaustion, but I was able to keep going. I liked that bikes could be used for necessary transportation and exploring and making money as a delivery rider and as an excuse to be alone or an excuse to get a group together. I liked that as I gained knowledge I felt like I could help other people understand their ability to fix their own bikes.

In all of my learning and exploring I fell in love with one of the guys who was helping me overhaul my bike. He knew enough about bike mechanics to be helpful and yet vulnerably admit what he didn't know. While doing mindless tasks or waiting for help we learned worlds about each other and the things going on for us outside of bikes. Later I realized I felt safe at the shop, a space of mostly men, because he was standing up for me when he noticed the flash of terror in my eyes, not knowing how to respond to some seriously sexist shit. Leaving the shop we would check in about the vibe of the day, making sure the dude/bro culture wasn't wearing us down. For months we met at the shop on a pretty regular schedule, and the vulnerability and care soon moved outside of the shop beyond those scheduled hours.

Just as I was falling in love with my new hobby and the people I was doing it with, my friends, who were so enamored with bike culture, decided they needed to bike cross country. They would leave after graduation, heading West with no real plan for a return. Being the rooted, stable person that I am, I didn't invite myself along and instead tried to be supportive as they prepared to leave. The boy I loved and our friends prepared their tour bikes and bought new racks; they talked about departure dates that were eventually moved back. They were so ready to escape, right as I felt like we had built something important — something worth staying for.

New relationship energy was high regardless of impending distance and our different life goals. Communication would be very different, but my partner and I decided it was important to continue caring for each other.

When they left, I found myself missing a large part of the community I had established and desperately looking to recreate that space of mental stimulation, physical health and relationship building. I tried to go back to the shop — maybe I could grow closer to the people working there — but my bike was in pretty good working order, and it was summer so they were busy and didn't have time to talk to me. I tried to take rides alone. I tried helping other people working on their bikes. I tried to find a social group to ride with. Nothing came close to the feelings I first felt when working on my bike with my friends. I missed them, and I was jealous of their tour. I began thinking maybe they had the right idea when they decided to escape this place.

“While yes, I am very proud of this bike and the fact that I built it mostly on my own, I also hate that I had to do it on my own. It would be too simple to call this a story of realizing the only person I needed that whole time was myself.”

So, like any good consumer, I bought a toy to ease my pain. I bought a shiny new bike frame, All-City’s Space Horse, in July 2014. But I did not put one ounce of effort into assembling it until my partner returned home early from the bike tour and suggested we could work on it together.

Finally I thought we would be back to our old selves, making time to be vulnerable building something together. But we both had limited patience for picking out bike parts when there was so much other stuff to get done between work and school. Building the bike became a weekly conversation about a chore we just really didn't want to do.

Winter set in, and I thought maybe it would be a good winter project — like rebuilding Pistachio last winter, while the shop was quiet and people were looking to hang out. But then he decided to take a semester off school to travel for six months, see Europe with his family and explore himself, returning to East Lansing for visits when possible. We again agreed that communication would be tough, but we wanted to continue to care for each other.

I kept busy that winter and didn't have the time or energy to go to the bike shop. The Horse lived in the attic in a box, while I organized in my community and worked a soul-sucking job, my best friend living a thousand miles away.

There was always a glimmer of hope that maybe he would come home early again or take up an interest from afar in helping me pick out parts for my new bike. But when it became clear his trip was solely about himself and his own self-discovery, I’d finally had enough. By spring I had quit my job and decided I wasn't waiting around for anyone to build my bike with. I would do it alone and enjoy it, and things would be different but OK. Make no mistake, it wasn't lost on me that the unbuilt bike was a metaphor for my failing relationship.

And so I did it. I built this damn bike, picking out each component, sometimes with no real thought except just getting the damn thing built. The mechanics at the shop stood by as I inevitably needed their help — I no longer had a crew of friends to help me.

And while yes, I am very proud of this bike and the fact that I built it mostly on my own, I also hate that I had to do it on my own. It would be too simple to call this a story of realizing the only person I needed that whole time was myself.

For me, biking is about the people around me who help me be a better mechanic or faster rider, and while this fancy bike does make the mechanics a whole lot easier and the riding a whole lot smoother, it's nothing compared to riding an old bike I fixed up with some seriously awesome people. My friends have scattered across the country, my relationship can't be rebuilt, and my desire to crush out 20 miles just because has faded.

Now, it's my turn to escape. This picture is me holding my head high, knowing it is only a matter of time until I leave the area too — until I find another group of friends and bikers who want to build something together.

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Natalie Davenport is a community organizer working with local food systems in Lansing, Michigan.

LOSING CONTROL, GAINING SOUL

By Laura Hieb

I never in a million years thought I’d be near death at age 23. But it happened in November 2015 on a vacation that went seriously awry.

I contracted typhoid fever, a rare form of salmonella, on vacation in the Dominican Republic. It is still not clear what exactly I ate or drank — maybe bad food or the ice in my drinks — that made me sick. 

The first three days of the trip were full of sun and adventure with my boyfriend. We enjoyed sand volleyball, boogie boarding and walks on the gorgeous beaches. I didn’t start feeling ill until my last 24 hours there — I was not looking forward to the long day of travel ahead. 

The pain started in my hip. At first I thought maybe it was normal pain, perhaps a slipped disk or sciatica, but as the day went on, the pain worsened, and I wasn’t even able to walk on my own. We had made it back to South Dakota, and I went to a small urgent care clinic. They gave me a shot for the pain, prescribed some painkillers and sent me on my way. But when I arrived home, I wasn’t even able to get out of my car. I had to wait for my boyfriend to get there to carry me to my bed. 

The next morning, I woke up in a sweat. I could tell I was burning up. My mom came and brought me to the doctor immediately. I had some typical initial tests done, and oddly enough they all came back normal. It was so frustrating. Though my mom thought I should just see a chiropractor, the doctor urged me to get to the emergency room for an MRI. Between the 10-minute drive from the clinic to the ER, my temperature spiked from 101 to 105 degrees. 

“People in my social media news feeds did things like take photos and play music and run half-marathons on the side. But instead of making that phone call or sending that email to actually be a part of something new, I would just bitch that exciting opportunities weren’t happening for me.”

Still, it didn’t hit me that something was seriously wrong until 10 p.m. my first night in the hospital. After a long day of tests, I had finally fallen asleep, so my family and boyfriend left for the night. But two hours later, I woke up.

It was almost as if I was in a drunken dream. My room felt like it was the size of a coat closet, while my throat felt like it was closing in on me. My heart was racing at triple the normal rate. I screamed for my nurses and tried to rip out my IV’s.

Even after I had calmed down, I couldn’t form real words. I was speaking gibberish to the rapid response team. In my mind, I was thinking, Will I ever be normal again? What if I have brain damage? But I couldn’t get those words to come out of my mouth to the doctors. 

☐ ☐ ☐

Before I left for the Dominican Republic, life had gotten so repetitive. I felt like I could go through my days with my eyes closed. 

I loved my job, but I hated that I wasn’t doing much outside of it. I constantly questioned what I was good at and wondered if I even had any interests — people in my social media news feeds did things like take photos and play music and run half-marathons on the side. But instead of making that phone call or sending that email to actually be a part of something new, I would just bitch that exciting opportunities weren’t happening for me. 

I didn’t know if my dissatisfaction stemmed from the fact that I was uninspired by my surroundings — I had lived in South Dakota my whole life — or if I really was just lacking that motivation to do something more. But I needed to clear my head. 

Cue the vacation.

☐ ☐ ☐

After 10 days in the hospital, finally able to function without medication through the IV’s, I got to go home. Most of my doctors and nurses had never seen an illness like this, so I wasn’t given much information on how my next few months of recovery would pan out. They didn’t know when I’d be able to walk, or if I would need future treatment. I was given antibiotics to take for the next month but was told it could be a long time before my body and immune system fully recovered. 

“There was this negativity in my life that I wanted to blame on others when really I needed to make a change in myself. So I’m making it now.”

I thought I would be more excited to go home, but I was uneasy. I felt safe at the hospital, and now I had to return to daily life back without knowing what to expect.

I was unable to walk (unless shakily with a walker and a high dose of pain meds) for three weeks. Frustration, depression and discouragement best describe that time. I even wound up back to the hospital when my intense pain compromised my vision.

I wanted so badly to be able to walk normally and prayed I wouldn’t have permanent damage. Though I practiced walking, I felt helpless, just sitting in the same chair for much of the day, day after day. My mom and dad would work from my apartment because I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything without their help. They fed me, helped me shower, helped me get in bed, helped me go to checkups. I felt like a huge burden to them and my boyfriend.

Finally, after six weeks of recovery, I was ready to go back to work and more than ready to start living my life again. It was a drastic change from my mindset before my trip.

After being sick, I was inspired to live my life differently on so many levels — to do things in love rather than in hate, jealousy or negativity. I wasn’t going to do or say hurtful things because I disagreed with someone or something. I was going to remember that people breed negatively because of who they are, not because of who you are. 

Newly inspired, I had a second thought, though. How disappointing that I wasn’t able to fully understand that until now. Looking back, I realized I had oftentimes been a bit of a drama queen and felt so sorry for the misery I had caused myself. There was this negativity in my life that I wanted to blame on others when really I needed to make a change in myself. 

So I’m making it now.

Before, I was afraid to do things like seek advice at work, or ask someone about their life and their projects and what I could learn from them. I was afraid to write, even though I love writing and it makes me happy. I didn’t want others to think that I was failing. I always told myself, People won’t read that. I will do that when I have more money, more time. 

Well guess what. I’m finally asking. I’m finally writing.

I want you to know that you don’t have to get sick to get better. Life is happening now.

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Laura Hieb works as a project manager for a website design and development company in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She enjoys anything that involves the outdoors and puppy kisses.

FEARLESSNESS: THE GREAT FACADE

By Robert Guttersohn

Look at me. Less than a week in the Army, and already I’ve got down the hardened-yet-young look. Stone-faced. Ready for war. Never mind that my cap is cricked, that my body is sloping to the right for some reason or that the flag behind me looks as if it is falling to the ground. I look born ready for battle. Fearless.

The truth, though, is I was scared shitless.

This photo was taken back in August 2002. The Afghan war had started and so had rumors of an Iraq invasion, but neither was an immediate concern to me. I had something more urgent to cope with: 30th Adjutant General, the Army infantryman’s purgatory.

I come from a long line of military men. My mother’s maiden name is Custer. Since George Armstrong Custer’s rise to fame during the Civil War, nearly every American war had a Custer, and they all served with distinction. George, for example, is the youngest to be promoted to general. He did so at 23. Tom Custer, his brother, won two Medals of Honor. My grandfather, George Armstrong Custer III, served in three wars: World War II, Korea and Vietnam. He earned the Silver Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

“Less than a week in the Army, and already I’ve got down the hardened-yet-young look. Stone-faced. Ready for war. Never mind that my cap is cricked, that my body is sloping to the right for some reason or that the flag behind me looks as if it is falling to the ground.”

Whenever I think of my grandfather, I have a hard time recalling what he looked like as I knew him. I didn’t see him all that often growing up. He and my grandma lived out in California, and he died when I was 7. Instead, I see a photo of my grandfather in Vietnam. He’s middle aged, a colonel in his fatigues, pistol holstered at his side. He’s facing the camera but looking beyond it like he’s in the midst of strategizing. War and the military in general seemed a natural fit for him and all other Custers. When I arrived at 30th Adjutant General I guessed those genes hadn’t made it down to me. I was having a hard time making it through the first week.

For context, I had lived up to that point an extraordinarily sheltered life. I was 18. Raised in Canton, Michigan. At that time, it was a half-rural, half-sprawling suburb about an hour’s drive from Detroit. To add another layer of cushion, my life was structured around church and the school affiliated with it.

Not so different from most teens, my biggest concern was my relationship status, whether driving around an early ‘90s Ford Aerostar harmed that status and — probably not like most others — what Jesus thought of me worrying so much about girls.

Then, the September 11th attacks happened my senior year, and suddenly I felt the tug of patriotism and ancestral duty.

I graduated high school in May 2002. By August, my bus was pulling up in front of 30th Adjutant General in Fort Benning, Georgia. It was where all future infantry soldiers hoping to fight Al Qaeda, Hussein and whomever else we decided to declare war on were sent for uniforms, immunizations and all the supplies you’d need to make it through 14 weeks of infantry training.

There was nothing physically hard about the place. In fact, you weren’t allowed to do anything physical at all because the life insurance paperwork hadn’t been finalized. The tough part was instead the overwhelming boredom I imagine a prisoner must feel that got to me.

At 30th AG, your civility is stripped away. They buzz off your hair and replace your civilian clothing with ash gray t-shirts and black running shorts. We all looked like mole rats ready for exercise. Privacy was gone. Everything from where you sleep, eat and shower was communal.

Talking was not allowed. Neither was reading unless you wanted to read your field manual, and let’s be honest, no one ever wanted to do that. Instead, we’d stare at vanilla-colored walls thinking about this poor life decision we had made and how badly we all stunk. (They took away our deodorant.)

“My first call home was a Saturday. My mom answered. I told her everything: how boredom was torturing me and how everything felt perversely alien. I told her I’d made a mistake and that I felt selfish for leaving. Like the prodigal son, I had learned my lesson.”

When we’d march, we’d sing cadences about killing. There’s one about opening up a machine gun on a crowd of people. There’s another about laughing as you watch a guy whom you’ve just thrown into a river drown.

“Kill yourself now” and other similar suggestions were scratched permanently into the metal frames of the bunks, presumably by trainees who came before us. Apparently a handful had tried suicide and failed, or at least mentioned wanting to try it. To keep an eye on them (or just to humiliate them), the Army had them walk around 30th AG with blue reflector vests and shoes without laces.

My first call home was a Saturday. My mom answered. I told her everything: how boredom was torturing me and how everything felt perversely alien. I told her I’d made a mistake and that I felt selfish for leaving. Like the prodigal son, I had learned my lesson. Unlike the prodigal son, it’d be four years before I was allowed to return home.

The first time I can recall seeing this photo of me was well over a year after it was taken. It was hung on a corkboard in the hallway of my old church with the words “Pray For Our Military Men and Women.” I spotted it when I was home after my first year in Iraq. By then, the military felt normal to me. I was comfortable with the short haircuts and the cadences calling for murder. Even Iraq felt more like home than home did.

The photo surprised me. I didn’t see the miserable, homesick individual that I actually was when it was taken. Instead, I saw a façade, like I was playing the role of soldier.

Maybe despite my miserable state, stepping in front of that camera made me think of all the photos of all those Custers. Maybe I thought that if I ever have grandkids or great grandkids, they’d find this photo of me after I’m gone. Maybe I wanted them believing I was another fearless one among the many appearing in their family tree — truth be damned.

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Robert Guttersohn is a writer and photographer living in Ferndale, Michigan. He served in the U.S. Army from 2002–2006 and has written essays and articles on the Iraq War. He is currently the spokesman and multimedia coordinator for the Education Achievement Authority of Michigan.

CHANGE OF “THE PLAN”

By Alison Adams

Looking through old Facebook pictures, I was struck by this one of me flying through the air on the new-at-the-time zip line at the resort where I used to work five years ago. This image of a 23-year-old, fresh-faced adult captures more than a moment; it reminds me of the friendships I have built, the places I have seen and the jobs I have held since this picture was taken.

At 23, I was supposed to have it all figured out — or at least the next five years.

During college, my professors always asked about my “five-year plan.” In most of the interviews I had during my senior year, it was a standard question.

I thought having a five-year plan was the be-all and end-all of being grown up. Of course I understood that it would probably not play out exactly as I expected, but the general gist would take shape as I imagined. At that time, my plan was to work for two years at any ski resort that would give me my first job, then move on to another ski resort for two more years, and hopefully by then I would figure out what it is that I truly wanted from a career and where I wanted to live. Not a traditional plan by any means, but still, such a blueprint was expected.

“Set some goals. And then be flexible. Instead of getting hung up on the details of what is or is not going right at any given moment, just keep moving forward.”

The choice to follow this uncommon path was easy for me to make, probably because I took to heart advice to travel and see the world while I was young. It took a leap of faith to move across the country to a state where I did not know a soul, but I slowly developed friendships and my resume, which in turn made that place home.

Still, almost seven years later, I can tell you that my “plan” did not go as planned. And I can't help but wonder, What was the point of that question?

I had many successes and failures, opportunities and rejections, over the past seven years that weren’t part of my plan. When the opportunity to travel New Zealand for a year presented itself, I did not expect to bounce from town to town unsuccessfully seeking a job for over a month as funds dwindled, but I learned what I could and could not live without. Upon my return to the States, I was interviewed and rejected for four jobs, including my dream position with a former employer, which was disheartening to say the least. However, I returned to a part-time job where an acquaintance turned into a friend, and two years later she helped me get my current job working on a yacht.

I recently read a quote originally published in a wilderness survival book by Laurence Gonzales that resonates: “The plan, a memory of the future, tries on reality to see if it fits.”

If I had stuck to my “original” plan right after college, I would have never built the lasting relationships that I now have and would be in a completely different situation, for better or for worse. I suppose that I needed every single one of those challenges to get to where I am right now.

So go ahead, make a plan (appease those professors and potential employers). Set some goals. And then be flexible. Instead of getting hung up on the details of what is or is not going right at any given moment, just keep moving forward.

Reality is so much better, detours and all.

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Alison Adams is a stewardess on a yacht that cruises through the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, but may be doing something completely different in six months, let alone the next five years.

TO STAYING IN OUR LANES

From the Editors:

This month I’ve been thinking a lot about gratitude.

That word has typically turned me off. I associate it with guilt — not feeling “thankful” enough on a daily basis for the many things in my life that are going well. Not spending enough time thanking God directly for them. Not telling the people in my life how much I appreciate them.

My efforts toward feeling more grateful have typically been the same: listing things I’m thankful for. And it’s almost always the same list.

My family, my friends, a job I like (finally), my health.

But in working on Cropped, I’ve begun to move beyond that list to understand what being grateful means for me on a daily basis.

Of course I’m able to quickly list off the things I am fortunate to have in my life.

But there was one part I was still struggling with: looking at all the things around me that other people have, that I want, and feeling sad or frustrated or deprived for not having them too. That’s the part that has to go.

It took me 25 years to understand that doing that hurts me. It doesn’t have to be on social media (although a lot of my wanting comes from comparing myself to others’ social feeds); it happens off the screen, too. Although it’s good and positive to have goals, my life shouldn’t be about observing what is possible for others and trying to get there too.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the popular hip-hop Broadway musical “Hamilton,” talked about this idea in an interview with Charlie Rose. Rose asked him why he believes he became successful in the theater industry, and Miranda said it’s because he stayed in his lane — sticking with theater and writing, and not letting himself become distracted by all the noise going on around him.

I think gratitude is much the same. To some extent, it helps to have blinders on, and to stop thinking about all the jobs, relationships and material things I could reach for. That’s the part I want to ditch.

This month, let’s stay in our lanes.

Love,
Maria (and Marina)

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WHAT WE’RE READING

A new addition to our letter where we share links to some things that have been on our minds.

Marina:

I love these illustrations of women’s every days by Sally Nixon. There’s a woman brushing her teeth in the shower, another eating birthday cake alone at the kitchen sink, another in her underwear reading in bed, their expressions blank or contemplative or irritated. These are the ordinary activities we usually crop out of our social media narratives, but it feels so good to see them captured here. These moments are significant too.

Shout out to my mom for sending me this one. According to Chinese philosophy, we should stop trying to “find” ourselves. This idea in particular blew my mind (thanks, Mencius): “Concrete, defined plans for life are abstract because they are made for a self who is abstract: a future self that you imagine based on a snapshot of yourself now. You are confined to what is in the best interests of the person you happen to be right now—not of the person you will become.”

Maria:

I’ve become obsessed with the idea of purging items from my life that are unnecessary. Simplifying my physical surroundings makes my mind feel less cluttered, too. I’ll confess I’ve never read “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” by organization guru Marie Kondo, but I loved this article about trying her decluttering methods. It’s funny and entertaining, and it made me want to go home and purge, purge, purge.

I know everyone is sick of “Hamilton” references at this point. … And I already made a “Hamilton” reference earlier in this letter. I promise I’ll stop, but this interview Lin-Manuel Miranda did for Time changed me. “The drawback of your twenties is the terror of not knowing if you’re actually going to accomplish what you set out to accomplish or who you’re going to be when you grow up.” He gets it.