The Overstory

I have kept a travel blog for fourteen years now. It has come in four incarnations – three I share widely, one that only a select few were given access. There was Our First Year Everywhere – Emily and my one-year digital nomad (before that was a term) honeymoon circling the globe; Our Family Everywhere with Sennen, Ailyn and assorted guests including au pairs; The Space Between, the more private blog that chronicled my ten weeks on Patmos for a trial separation from which I was hoping to reboot our marriage; and this blog – Me and My Family Everywhere which is well, me and my kids and assorted guests including my mom, Michelle, Jacob, Tony, Chad, etc. The names and sites have changed mostly to denote the stages of life and to a smaller degree to manage the readership.

People often ask me how I think of the content for the blog – because I produce a lot of it. How do I come up with something new and relevant to say each day. I'm not sure it's always new or relevant – but I try to keep it interesting. Really, the biggest challenge is to figure out what stays out.

Human beings are a storytelling animal. In the past several years, our collective consciousness has come to acknowledge this more as the word "narrative" has leaked into our zeitgeist. Perhaps in the age of cable and online "news" where everyone can choose their flavor and have their "information" presented in resonance with their worldview, it becomes harder to discuss facts or converse in agreed truths. At the same time, as we improve as people – try to keep our relationships – family, friend, coworker, partner, etc – in the best shape possible, psychology has taught us that we aren't usually arguing over facts, but perceptions and interpretations. Couples therapy taught me a good many things – among the most important is how we all want our narratives and perceptions heard and understood far more than we need them accepted as hard fact.

As I write this, I hear Mrs Myer, my high school French teacher lecturing about the dangers of relativism. That there are indeed hard truths – THE truth – and societally, we're heading to a bad place if we can't see that. I had and have a huge respect for Mrs Myer who besides having taught French for more than 36 years and in her mid-60's came to school wearing the same mini-skirts and high heels she had fit into for decades (and pulled it off) arriving everyday in her gleaming 1967 blue Corvette Stingray that rumbled down the street with license plate "Espoir". I wonder both where that car is today and how she would feel about the idea of everyone having a narrative that is "their truth". 

Maybe another way to look at it is that if Mrs Myer is right – THE truth is humans not only have varying perceptions but write and rewrite stories in our heads not only in an attempt to make sense of the world but to protect ourselves against painful experiences and self-admissions. So, assuming Mrs Myer would accept my argument – which I feel confident she would because she was extremely logical and gave me a fair amount of credence – humans are constantly constructing, revising, sharing, arguing in favor of and even conflicting over our narratives which in effect are the truth to each and groups of us.

Simply because of its potential for longevity, what I write here in this blog may be seen as truth – a narrative that my kids, friends, family, whoever – may turn to as a first-hand account of things that happened. It may influence or become part of someone else's narrative largely because it will remain intact when our memories become fuzzier. Certainly, it will keep integrity as the record of my personal narrative – or at least a good chunk of it.

But not all of it.

Because it's not just what one puts in that matters, it's also what one leaves out. We're very relativist about omission. Choosing not to say what we're thinking can often be lauded as wisdom. However, sometimes omission is the real sin – a tacit and problematic lie. Leading someone into an investment without full disclosure can be a crime. Half-truths later discovered can be painful like learning later the father who raised you isn't actually your bio-dad (not my story – someone I know). 

That said, it's impossible to create any story that accounts for everything. The Society for Professional Journalists Code of Ethics acknowledges that right away. While it encompasses many facets that try to ward of bias in reporting, it acknowledges that no matter what, the bias of placement always exists. There can only be one top story. Thereafter – stories are told in order based on the opinion and views of the editors and producers who created it. And some stories are not told at all. In an hour news broadcast, it's impossible to cover everything important on Earth – so some stations don't even try and just discuss three or so big stories of the day, usually deciding that several continents aren't worth mentioning on any given day. Still, even the most ethical editor, publisher or producer cannot escape the bias of placement.

In Our First Year Everywhere – the first blog – I made the decision not to report our disagreements. Emily and I were a newlywed couple and largely very happy. We were on the trip of a lifetime and it was truly filled with wonder and amazing moments. There's nothing written that I wouldn't stand by today. It also missed the big fight on the ferry between Rhodes and Patmos or the blowup in Kerala that lasted two days into Johdpur. I included some of the miscommunications that were cute or funny – things that made for good anecdotes fit for sharing with our parents and friends. I struggled with this at the time. The idea of the blog was to chronicle our adventure of being newlyweds traveling for a year and all that went with it. I told so much of our story everyday – but I curated it, omitting one very real and human aspect – not always getting along.

To be clear, this isn't meant to be a revisionist history of my marriage and the "tell all story" of the things I could look back at as "early warning signs." We had a fantastic year during a wonderful part of our marriage and we were very much two people in love navigating life together. In some ways, that year might have been the easiest because we suspended all the rules of reality and more or less got to live our dreams.

The blog just wasn't the whole story.

The third blog which still remains in the Restricted Section was the most honest of all. In March to May of 2022, going through a separation and fearing what seemed like a reasonably likely divorce, I wrote with an open heart. I bled onto the pages until there was nothing left to come out. I hoped for the best and prepared myself for the worst. I chronicled taking refuge on a small island the storm of my life and tried to heal and steel myself to be ready for whatever came next. In it are a few of my favorite blog entries and I felt relieved not to curate. That blog allowed me to be supported both by myself and a select group of very loving family and close friends to whom I am deeply grateful.

The current blog you're reading began in December of 2022 in a very new, different and still painful chapter of my life. Meant for broader public consumption and with the realization that my kids would probably read it sooner than later, I went back to curating life – filtering out or omitting some of "my truth" because it is indeed wise not to say everything you think, let alone write it down. 

On this trip, I've chosen to omit a lot of Michelle – which is weird in a sense because I spend a lot of time with her and in short summation, it's all going very well. No big issues, problems or regrets – 100% true. We're having a great time and I'm so enjoying it. That's what got me to thinking that it's just as weird to omit the joy as the pain. I suppose it's just a better problem to have.

While it's far too soon to say with any certainty – and I hesitate to speak what might tempt fate – at the moment, I feel as though the storm of the past four years might be letting up. I feel as though maybe I might have made it around Cape Horn and the Pacific lies ahead. Maybe. The divorce concluded May 7th. In eight days I will no longer be temple president. My crazy, narcissistic, pathological former boss and lead investor is out of the picture (not that it hasn't posed some new work challenges – but still, I'm better off). At one point late last year when there were some very difficult things with the temple, work and of course the ongoing divorce, I felt like I was fighting a three-front war and that something might have had to go. Two fronts is the most I have in me.

Luckily, the situation at temple improved enough to make do. Now, it feels like the load is coming off and I am regaining bandwidth – resources to put into other areas of my life, to pursue projects that have been on hold or not even possible before, and maybe just to breathe. For four years, it has felt like I've either had a gun to my head (when I was trying to save my marriage) or that a nuclear bomb or two had gone off (divorce and sometimes craziness with work). I am no longer trying to regain the status quo ante, but in a position to create. Or in Stages of Grief speak, I'm somewhere between Acceptance and Hope.

I guess this is where Michelle comes in. Dating and relationships involve exploration and possibilities inherently laced with curiosity and hope. Sometimes hope surprises you. I certainly didn't expect to meet or be seeing Michelle, let alone having anyone here with me during this part of the summer. I wasn't looking to date and probably wouldn't have if not for an introduction that I simply didn't say "no" to. 

Taken altogether – the shifts in the contents of my life, their acuity, bandwidth and a relationship – omission began to feel dishonest in a sense. This blog has had a few moments of emotional revelation – particularly a couple of entries in December 2022 – but more or less it has stuck to the old rules. That isn't bad or wrong. The rules were and are there for good reasons.  This isn't the moment I decide I'm finally done filtering and curating  - that I will speak my truth openly and widely. Mrs Myer and I both know that's bullshit.

This is just a moment to true up – acknowledge the broader story – the overstory – has taken a turn. Because all the other posts – the smaller pieces I put out day to day take place against the backdrop of my life. As I'm sure Orhan Pamuk would appreciate, I am the unreliable narrator of this story.

Oddly enough sometimes – in just the right circumstances – the omissions can be the language in which a story is written. Every Editor-In-Chief of the The Daily of the University of Washington used to be given a copy of their "bound editions" – the hardbound book of newspapers that would be officially stored in the school libraries – as a gift at the end of their editorial terms. I am one of a small group of people who can read mine. Among all the editions, pages, stories, ads and small but observable mistakes I can remember what happened those days – to me, to the 40 or so people who put the paper out together every night, to the 120 staff members who contributed in their various ways. All the quirky, outrageous, funny, sad and horrible things that happened – in the newsroom, around campus, across the city and in Washington state. The story of our experience – of the back scenes of how it was all made and the very human drama behind it – is on every page plain as day to me, especially on the pages with spot color.

The bias of placement was clear and we discussed it all the time. We understood the stories we put forward and the designs used to accentuate them. We had no idea that the omissions told their own story and that the space between them contained everything.