Author: Pete Schloss

Trip, Vacation, Journey, or More?

Posted on by Pete Schloss

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Approaching our next departure, we have begun considering what it is. People with whom we have spoken have usually referred to our previous outings as “Trips”, “Vacations”, and “Journeys”. Often the word “adventure” is thrown in as well.
Driving back from New Mexico we took time to discuss and deconstruct those descriptions. We concluded the following:

• A Trip is any travel that takes one from point “A” to point “B” without regard to distance or purpose. It is the barest transport of a body from here to there. Purpose is irrelevant as is the quality of the experience.

• A Vacation is a departure from the routine of one’s life. It may or may not involve travel, such as a “staycation”. It evinces an intention to temporarily detour from one’s duties without shirking one’s responsibilities.

• A Journey conjures up the image of travel that is of an extended duration. “Journey” has the character of uniqueness relative to one’s prior experiences. It is self-directed, assumed as a personal responsibility, and not left into the hands of another. “Journey” can result in a redirection of one’s life and perhaps the lives of others.

Our travels these last 3 years have rarely just been trips. Going to the grocery store is a trip. Traveling to visit my mother in Illinois is a trip. But once our trailer is in tow it becomes something more than a trip. I look in the rearview mirror and see only the white fiberglass of “Rigel”, the SUV accelerates with a grudging reluctance, but my spirits soar… Not a Trip.

In the last 3 years we have covered over 60,000 miles with our trailer, “Rigel”. We have camped in 49 States, 8 Canadian Provinces, and the Yukon Territory. This has been our reality and not a departure from the routine of our life… Not a Vacation.

In 3 weeks we depart for our next outing. This one extends for 3 months, crosses the Atlantic Ocean by ship, sees us visiting up to 23 nations and territories, and includes approximately 350 miles of travel by foot. Very little has been planned in advance as many of our decisions about destinations will be made on a day-by-day basis. Everything that we need will be carried on our backs with Christine’s pack weighing about 16 pounds and mine about 18 pounds. Extended? You bet! Unique? Check! Self-directed? To be sure! Is there a potential to redirect the course of our lives and to impact the lives of others? Hopefully! So, it must be a “Journey”?  Yes, but there is more.

In 2013 we walked the 525 miles of the French route of the Camino de Santiago to Santiago Spain. From Medieval times this has been one of the 3 great pilgrimages in Christendom. For me the Camino began as an item to be checked off of my “bucket list”. I was oblivious to the notion of “Pilgrimage”. However, ignorance of gravity does not prevent one from “falling” to its effects. After a few days walking I became captive to the spiritual qualities of the Camino. I now understand that “Pilgrimage” is an intentional journey to a spiritual place during which the pilgrim is open to being changed within. “Life changing” is an overused and underappreciated term. However, it accurately describes our experience in 2013. Among the eyes reading this are those of many who live around the world and who became our lifetime friends when we met walking the road to Santiago.

Our upcoming Journey includes the aspect of Pilgrimage. We are again walking to Santiago but this time we begin the walk in Porto, Portugal. It is difficult to avoid developing expectations for 2018 from our experiences in 2013. Expectations are the garden from which disappointments are harvested, and that may be the single greatest challenge for me on this coming Journey/Pilgrimage.

Peace Everyone! Pete

But is it Safe?

Posted on by Pete Schloss

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We are nearing 3 weeks from departure for an “epic” (even by our standards) adventure to Europe. I will be posting more details soon, however a “highlight” is another walk on the Camino de Santiago Compostela. This time it will be the 150-mile-long Portuguese route from Porto to Santiago Spain.

I have been asked more than once, “Is it safe… aren’t you afraid of crime?”
Spain is a county with a population of nearly 47 million souls. In 2016 there were fewer than 300 homicides in the entire country. Metro Kansas City has a population of approximately 1 million people (2010 census). In 2017 there were 208 area homicides.

Sadly, compared to where we live, we feel pretty safe walking in Spain.

Peace Everyone. Pete

Memories Not Included

Posted on by Pete Schloss

As I drove home from my regular morning visit to the gym I saw 4 different “Estate Sale” signs. I know that there is a defacto “Garage Sale Season”, but I have never heard of Estate Sales being seasonal.

It occurred to me that each of those sales represents a house full of mementoes with a life-time of associated memories. In the course of a weekend the owners’ possessions will be disbursed like the windblown seeds from a dandelion.

It may be a kindness for an owner to have passed away before the sale, each item falling under the auctioneer’s gavel as a mere chattel. Imagine a couple’s pain as the rocker that saw small children fall to sleep in a mother’s arms is unceremoniously hauled off by a dealer who sees only new upholstery and profit in its possession. Think of the tears that might fall from the eyes of one who sees family photos, the ragged stuffed animals of a long-grown child, a rusted bicycle, a tarnished trophy… cast into a pile destined for the trash dump.

Christine’s 99-year-old father, Bill, returned to his Kansas City roots from his Florida retirement home. He was a refugee from Hurricane Irma. The accumulation of 75 years married to the love of his life was already culled to the barest of items. Things precious to him and few others. After nearly 3 months with us Christine made arrangements for him to acquire a wonderful 1-bedroom apartment in an assisted living community. It was complete with a living room, kitchen, and a balcony with a view. However, it was just empty space until 2 sturdy young men from Ikea spent 4 hours creating furnishings from flat boxes, and turned the space into a residence.

The place held no more charm for Bill than a motel until his few personal items were hung upon the walls. Pictures of 2 deceased children, a deceased brother’s picture, a 4-H lifetime achievement award, a “100,000 Mile Club” certificate from TWA with the watermark image of a 4-engine prop plane of 1950’s vintage, and of course images from a life lived well with his wife, now deceased. These and other similar items changed the sterile residence into a home. Bill often walks the perimeter of his apartment, stopping before each of these things which are the playback buttons of treasured moments, people, or places in time. Bill has spontaneously voiced his pride in his new home. In reality it is his pride in the old things that have a new place to share with him.

Someday, many of the “treasures” that Christine and I have accumulated will become the possessions of strangers, or merely add to the volume of a landfill. In any case, whatever their fate, memories are not included.

Peace Everyone. Pete

Hey Siri! Where Am I?

Posted on by Pete Schloss

This last weekend Christine and I were walking through the neighborhood, taking advantage of the Spring-like weather. This is an area of stately 100-year-old homes with towering oak trees. Periodically one encounters sections of sidewalk thrust out of level by massive subterranean tree roots. Ahead of us we saw a young mother with her 3 “little people” in tow. One of the children, perhaps 5, pushed an empty stroller that was likely intended for the 3-year-old who waddled along. The three children appeared to be stair steps in age. I estimated the middle child to be 4. Suddenly, the youngest stopped and squatted. Giving full attention to the bare black earth at the side of the walkway. He reached out and pointing, calling “Look!”. We were in time to see that the child had spied the earliest signs of sprouting flowers beginning to emerge from their Winter sleep. The siblings and mom were quickly engaged in the examination of Nature’s wonder.

The child lived in the moment. He saw, examined, marveled, and smiled. In turn, he caused his Mother and siblings to bring their focus to that moment, also examining, marveling and finally smiling. We stopped and smiled. Perhaps you are now smiling.

As children make their passage into adulthood they lose the gift of living in the moment… the skill of just being present. We who were once children spend most of our time distracted by our work, bills, goals, successes, and failures. We are slaves to the electronic devices that tear us from where we are, casting our minds into “the cloud”, the land of Google, and other far flung places. It is ironic that “smart-phone apps” obsessively want to know our location as they distract us from being there.

Being in the moment provides the kind of rich satisfying happiness that young children experience… happiness that is infectious. The distractions of adulthood are barriers that prevent us from seeing, examining, marveling, and smiling at the simple things that exist all around us. I have come to believe that everyday miracles exist. They just go unnoticed by all except the children.

Peace Everyone! Pete

Symbols of Marriage

Posted on by Pete Schloss

It comes as no surprise that I am a fan of the institution of marriage. Yet much of the first half of my professional life was spent helping people to end their marriages in litigation. The last 10 years of my career was largely dedicated to helping people end their marriages with dignity, preserving their joint roles as parents through Mediation. My motivation was the belief that children have only one opportunity to experience the joy of childhood. This opportunity can too easily be infected by the fallout of an angry and dysfunctional divorce. Through experience I have come to believe the following:

  1.  Marriage is permanent or impermanent as a matter of choice.
  2. Some marriages are toxic, notwithstanding the best efforts of one or both spouses.
  3. Some marriages fail because of a failure of effort on the part of the spouses.
  4. A child raised by divorced parents who have a well thought out and well executed parenting plan is better off than a child raised by parents fettered to one another in a bad marriage.
  5. Children learn the tools of parenting by the example of their parents. Bad relationship habits are trans-generational. An abused or abusive parent usually raises a child destined to be abused or abusive.
  6. Marriages most often fail along the fault lines of finance. The second most likely cause of failure is one partner’s belief that the other partner has the responsibility for happiness in the marriage. Failures in either or both of these two primary areas leads to the casting of blame upon the partner, disgust for the partner, and a sense of suffocating incarceration in the relationship.

There is more that 35+ years in the practice of law has revealed, but you get the point.

Early in my career I came to disagree with the most common symbol of marriage, that being two permanently interlocked circles. I found the symbolism flawed because marriage is not permanent. Also, marriage (good or bad) changes people. The symbolic circles retain their pre-joined shapes in spite of the reality that people flex and shape to accommodate the other person and the demands of their partnership.

I believe that a more appropriate symbol is that of two flexible intertwined loops that create a strong yet severable bond. The loops are not broken in order to be joined and need not be broken in order to be separated. They retain their basic nature but must change their shape in order to be joined and accommodate the shared connection. In addition to our wedding rings, my wife and I wear rings that I designed over 30 years ago. On the face of these rings, against the background of a Templar Cross, is this well-worn symbol that I believe more accurately reflects the cooperation, respect, and continuing commitment to the work of marriage.

Peace Everyone. Pete