#gratitudeNow: A never-ending echo

So one of the bad things that resulted from Spacey’s passing was that it also, eventually, took down the website and feed for the Big Little Podcast.

I struggled for a while trying to figure out what the heck to do about it.

Brother really was the technical arm of our podcast effort. He secured our hosting, set up our gear. In hindsight, I wish I had been more involved with that, and that we’d made sure to share credentials and responsibility for that stuff equally.

But, there’s really a subtle but important psychological reason why it was that way. Spacey was really quite introverted. Being behind the mic was always exciting but exhausting for him. As we created the show, and grew it over time, each of us struggled with bringing equivalent effort to the show.

I have a big personality, a big mouth. I’m a charismatic and compelling public speaker. I don’t say that in a boastful way. Brother was a technical genius, and a skilled artist. Everything he designed and created had a beautiful look and feel. We sort of naturally fell into our roles, with me as the go-find-em guy for guests, and he as the wizard behind the scenes.

And together, along with Mae, we created a really special environment, that let people speak to who and what they were.

But, it did come with cost. Which is that when the horrible accident that put him in a coma happened, it caught us completely by surprise and without any sort of disaster recovery plan.

After he passed away, I found access to the recordings through a different means. Thank goodness. So, I bought a domain, and ended up creating the archive.

It’s not done, but I’m steadily getting it together. There are 57 episodes, and most of the little-somethings already up in the archive. And I won’t stop until it’s all there.

I was going to wait until I was done to release the thing to the world. But three or so weeks ago, I changed my mind.

And I’m so glad I did. The work of creating the archive is sometimes really, really heavy. I think about Spacey all the time. I miss him terribly every day.

But sometimes, as I work on the archive, and re-listen to our shows, it’s joyous. He was so smart, sweet, funny, and kind.

There’s roughly 200 hours of the show. 200 hours of him helping others, lovingly teasing me and joking with me and our guests. 200 hours of us appreciating one another.

And as much as I can, I’m going to make sure all that never fades from the world. I’ve got my eye on it. When the archive is done, I’m going to approach some folks about ways to make sure it never goes away.

So many people have contacted me about what the show has meant to them, about how sad they are at his passing. And that is helping me process my own grief.

I’ll say too, that there’s work on the archive people can help me with, if they want. I’m definitely looking for help filling in those missing show notes and transcripts. If you want to get involved in any of that, go to https://www.biglittlepodcast.info/news-contact, and use my email link there to drop me a note.

There’s a saying that as long as we speak of them, those who have passed away never completely die. I know I’m going to be talking about him forever. And listening to him through the archive.

It brings me a whole lot of joy to see that all over the world, people are still listening to him.

#gratitudeNow: Nug it.

So sometimes, life teaches me things I don’t particularly want to know about myself.

One of those things is that despite literal decades of study of mindfulness, and Taoism, I’m not a patient person. Particularly with myself.

It’s not even been three weeks since Spacey’s death. As you might imagine, I’m a mess.

Some days, I’m carried aloft by decades of happy memories, shared laughter, the delight of shared work, values, and priorities. Other days, all those things wrap around me like a shroud, holding me so tight I can barely move, barely breathe.

I’ve been having a whole lot of trouble sleeping. I wake up around 3 in the morning, remembering seeing him at the viewing, touching his body, and feeling how cold it was. As opposed to the way he gripped my hand so tight, just the week before.

When people bring him up, I’m inclined to burst into tears.

I don’t concentrate well.

I alternate between not wanting to eat at all, and gorging myself on foods.

It’s not a surprise really. Anyone and EVERYONE I’ve been talking to about this, has assured me that this is all perfectly natural.

Except to me. Because I often seem unable to treat myself with the same patience, kindness, and compassion I give so easily to everyone else.

Today I slept in until around noon. I mindlessly watched television.

At one point, with my partners Squee and Moliére’s urging, I took a shower, put on fresh pajama pants, and, you guessed it - made myself some chicken nuggets.

We watched Ted Lasso together, remotely.

I leaned into my love of the show, and shared it with them. It helped me a ton.

Sometimes, simple comfort food and care from others is what’s important to have. I’m not required to operate at peak efficiency all the time. Sometimes you have to rest.

#gratitudeNow: Departures

I’m sitting at my gate at the airport, waiting for my flight home from Spacey’s funeral.

I feel calm this morning, safe.

The weekend was hard, very very hard but also good.

Sister and I spoke about him and in a way for him, at the funeral, at the viewing, and in all the little times and places that other mourning people sought solace and comfort.

I made deep connections with PowerFlower and her lovely husband. She spoke at the service too, in a deep and mighty way.

Between us we gently but firmly cradled everyone there and sort of shook the rafters.

It felt good.

And we spent quality time wrapping Mae in the warm loving embrace that is the continuance of our family during such an abrupt and painful departure.

This morning as ‘flower and Mr. Flower (he’s going to need a nickname too and shortly, I’m leaning into “Donuts”) drove me to the airport I got a powerful message from my brother:

TAKE JOY IN NEW THINGS.

Love what was, and hold onto it, yes. But also, welcome new love and joy and connection and growth into my life, my heart, my day.

I hear you brother.

#important My brother has died

At 6:12am this morning, my brother Spacey died.

And a large piece of me has died with him.

This is the last picture of us together. I was just with him in the hospital, on Friday, He was there because he’s been recovering from a brain injury and a spine injury he got when he was out running, back in July.

When I first went to leave the hospital I asked him if I could take our picture, and he nodded yes. Then he lifted his hand and made the sign language gesture for “I love you.”

I can’t describe the pain of this loss. It’s immense.

I love his wife Mae, and their daughter so very much. They are my family, as he was my family. We are not related by blood, but in every other way possible, we are brothers.

And he is gone.

I feel empty inside.

#gratitudeNow: Kindness and Football

I just love the heck out of the show Ted Lasso. Spacey got me hooked on it. At first, I was super dubious about it. It’s a show about sports!

But it isn’t really. I mean, yes it IS a show about an American high school football coach, who gets hired to coach a professional soccer team in England. But it’s about way more than that. Ted Lasso is this irrepressible optimist, who digs in deep to the emotional lives of the people around him, and works hard to make their lives better.

The show is filled with characters you feel very strongly about. Some you love, some you hate, and some just utterly bewilder you. It’s brilliant.

If you haven’t seen it, you should.

Also, if you haven’t seen it yet, stop reading this post, because spoilers.

Kit man Will, and Assistant Coach Nate, who used to be the kit man.

So in season one, you get to know Nate Shelly, the team kit man. He's this shy, affable, sort of nobody. He loves his job, he loves football, he loves the team, and he's invisible. There is beat after beat after beat showing how he's just this big nothing burger.

The team owner Rebecca thinks she’s never met him, and doesn’t know his name. The players regularly treat him like garbage. At one point he accidentally gets locked inside the luggage compartment of the team bus.

But Ted never treats him like that. From the minute Ted meets him, he’s kind to him. And in his kindness, Nate blossoms. And other people around Ted and Nate see Ted do this and learn from him. Nate goes on to become an assistant coach. He’s really smart, really knowledgeable about the game, and his suggestions really help the team get better.

Then in the second season, this other thing happens.

When Nate becomes assistant coach at the end of Season 1, there’s this moment of surprise, where Nate thinks he’s being sacked. And he lashes out, says something really terrible to Rebecca. Which is quickly dismissed as a mistake, once he realizes he’s been promoted, and everyone laughs.

But it’s the seed of something much darker that comes to pass during season two.

The team hires a new kit man, Will. And right away, Nate takes issue with pretty much anything and everything Will does. Which seems both petty in a funny way, and funny in a petty way.

It's really smart writing though because after the first couple of times it happens, you get the sense that there's really something else much more troubling going on here.

Nate is incredibly shy and has very little self-confidence. He struggles to be respected trying to make a reservation in an everyday restaurant for his parents’ anniversary dinner.

Rebecca teaches him how to be confident by psyching himself up. And when he does it, the way he does it is sort of gross and a perversion of what she taught him. He's really mean to himself.

Later in the season you see him around his father and something starts to become quite clear. His father is an unkind bully. He diminishes Nate's accomplishments, talks down to him, treats him like an unruly child.

And Nate, in turn takes it out on people when he can too. He's incredibly cruel to players who used to tease him, and downright abusive to the new kit man Will.

As the season goes on, this gets worse and worse. Nate spirals out of control, becoming saturated in a mixture of anger, aggression, self loathing, addiction to attention, and an ever-growing need for validation.

If you get something truly astoundingly awful that I'm not going to tell you because you have to see it for yourself.

So I really love this show, and I get a lot out of it. It's a kind of comfort food to me that I watch over and over. In part, that's because it helps me feel close to Spacey. Which I really need right now, because of what he's going through.

But the really smart writing in this show also shows me something else that sometimes I struggle to elaborate to others.

Everyone around us affects us. We affect everybody else too. Nate becomes more and more cruel because that is what is taught to him by his dad. He's perpetuating the cycle of unkindness and abuse.

Ted short circuits that cycle, but he's only one guy and he has his own issues to deal with. So along the way Nate gets a taste of what it is to be valued, but it's not enough to overcome the negative messaging he was raised with and continues to receive.

Nate is not the only person in the show who have to deal with stuff like this. One of the players, Jamie who is an absolute Ace, a star is also a prima donna and an asshole. And his dad is an abusive piece of shit.

Jamie manages to get away from it, and better himself but it's clearly an uphill struggle for him too.

I want to think that Jason Sudeikis, the star of Ted Lasso, and one of the people who write the show is showing us all this as something of a cautionary tale.

I think that the show at its’ heart is about the choice between kindness and cruelty.

It's really a powerful choice.