Author: Colin Davitt

The certifications I am most proud of are 0311 and 0341.

The Hill

the hill

Another memory.

I can’t recall who was there but it was a hot summer night. I think there was maybe four of us sitting on that hill just talking and drinking beer.

I can’t recall what we talked about but we sat there for hours.

My brother had this thing about telling stories. He would start down a path and he would spend ten minutes telling you about that path before ever stepping foot on it. Many of the stories where like that, never really knowing where you would end up.

I have to admit, there were times I felt like yelling “GET TO THE POINT!” but I never did. Sometimes I was at the end of the story already, having heard it before, just waiting for it to be finished. I think he liked telling it, reliving it in his own head.

I would give anything to hear another rambling tale.

I had to admit something today.

2015-05-02

I had to admit something to my brother today. Back when we were teenagers I used to sneak into his room when he was at work and listen to his records. I would even record some of the tracks onto cassettes to listen to on my Walkman. I knew if I ever got caught that would be the end of me. I can only remember some of the tracks, something about James Bond living down the street by the New York Dolls or maybe Toy Dolls. Some punk band from the UK. It was like pure bliss, listening to your albums was the best.

Once I shared that all kinds of other stories started to pour out. There was this time we were in Florida with the grandparents. That night NASA was shoot some satellite into space and we were going to be able to see the light of the rocket, nothing was more exciting than that. I’m thinking I was maybe in 4th or 5th grade and my brother was two years ahead of me in school. Well at some point PT wandered away down the beach to get a better look. My grandparents were beside themselves with worry. My grandmother whisked me away to the hotel room while my grandfather, a former FBI agent, ran some search grids. I never got to see the rocket. Maybe an hour or so later PT came wandering back into the room, not a care in the world. I was never worried, he is the smartest person I had ever met, I knew he would be fine. I had to laugh, that wandering away to get a better look sounds a lot like my son. I was super jealous that he got to see the rocket blast off.

That story brought me back to spending time in Wisconsin. Our gramps kept a small patch of dirt for us to play in. We would spend hours with a set of garden tools digging and making tunnels. Once gramps stepped on our tunnel thinking it would support him but it quickly collapsed. I’m not sure why that story stuck with us for so long but it did. We also had gramps scope out the tallest hills he could find and drive us up and down them when we were in town. It scared us to death but always wanted to do it over and over again.

Then there was that time when I visited in college. I was only in high school but we still sat up drinking beer and listening to Metallica, Master of Puppets. That was life changing, if this was college I wanted in!

I remember when you called me when I was in the Corps to tell me you just had your son, Patrick. I had just been up all night… uh… sitting on a hill watching the base burn with Crow. After that went on a 12 mile run and you called me. That was a pretty sweet thing to start the day with.

It breaks my heart to have to say goodbye to you today.

I love you and miss you dearly.

Mindful.

I’m sitting in the car outside a random house waiting for my daughter to finish a music lesson. There is something coming up so she had hire an accompanist to help her practice. This is in addition to her usual lessons. 

Lots of waiting as a parent. Lots.
Work has been stressful. Most of my week has been helping other people. Then I go home and try to get some work done, all the other stuff I needed to do that day but could not.
And dealing with a little smugness with a sprinkle of rudeness. That is hard to take some days.
A year or so ago I started looking into the big idea of mindfulness. One strategy that I learned about was listening to sounds. Try to just concentrate on just one sound, nothing else. Just that one. Then add in a second, consciously hold both sounds simultaneously. 
Hold two sounds is really hard.
After doing that for a while everything just relaxes.
Sitting in the car now with the windows down a bit. Just holding two or three bird songs in my head. Some days it is really hard but it always helps clear my mind.

Saw this on the stairs today.

I had just wrapped up teaching some 5th graders about germs and how they spread. I was walking (kinda running) down the hall to another classroom to help with a skype issue when I saw this. 
I love this idea and fully believe in it. It is like karma, just put that kindness out there. The world does not always return it to you but that kindness will land on the person who needs it.
This idea opened me up today. This message set on a better path.
I’m sure after a while it becomes invisible to some but not me, not today.
So what is your kindness that you will set free into the world?

Love/Hate Relationship

I have tried almost everything to get it to work. Consulted people and the web. Dumped money, time and effort but the results have yielded nothing.

I am about to give up on it. Totally start over.

Today I decided to give it one last try.

If my lawn does not start turning around this year I am starting over from scratch. Ripping it out and just buying sod. Well… paying someone else to do it for me. I am starting to realize that I am not a lawn guy.