For Scott

At the Smithsonian, May 1983 (l-r): Ryan, Mike O'Hara, Scott Frailey.

On March 11, 2012, my friend Scott Frailey died after a four-year bout with melanoma. He had turned 40 last month.

I loved Scott Frailey. He understood the inherent supremacy of left-handers, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and milk.

This might yield some clues into his character. He was very particular. He had opinions. This was something of a surprise, a challenge, even, to the short, shy kid who was more often than not daydreaming in a galaxy far, far away.

Scott loved politics. From an early age, he was a card-carrying member of the Republican party, an ardent fan of Ronald Reagan's. I have no idea of his adult political views, but I love this. I was Republican by default, because I was a friend of Scott's. It just seemed like a reasonable idea. Scott was quiet but persuasive. Stealth. More on that later.

Scott and I often teamed up in school and extra-curricular courses. In seventh-grade life science, with Mr. Johnson, we shared a table. Scott immediately drew a line down its middle. You can imagine the border disputes that ensued. I think even then, at 12, Scott had a sense of the righteous, and of winning. And if winning meant bestowing on me a godawful nickname, something sublimely embarrassing, like - just for example - "Rupert Rasmussmelon," then, by golly, that's what he would do.

For a few years in junior high, we took Saturday-morning courses at Franklin & Marshall. Creative writing, mostly. And for a couple summers we went to smarty-pants camp at Millersville University - we studied the Revolutionary War, the Teutonic Knights, more creative writing, and biology, where one of us developed an irrational fear of contaminated stream water. We were also cited on at least a couple of occasions for being disruptive in class. This was mortifying to at least one of us - again, I really shouldn't  say whom - but now I'm thinking we should have gotten into more trouble. (I should like to point out, however, that Scott was appropriately taciturn in reporting our endeavors to his mother, when it was her turn to carpool. When she would ply me for intel, I always caved.)

Still, our time was not altogether unproductive. Together we created a vast story world, an epic war across the stars between the evil Sardinians (no relation to the fine people from the Italian island) and the noble Quatnerds. Ours was a narrative told almost exclusively in pencil drawings. We would often draw together on the same sheet of paper, each of us starting on our respective sides (again, with the fierce territoriality) and joining the massive subterranean chambers, their stalactites and stalagmites, in the middle of the page. In our world, the hammer-headed Sardinians gave no quarter to the triangular, rocket-footed people who mined for Quarternium 19. And, yes, in case you're wondering, that's exactly where your shampoo gets that indispensable ingredient. I can't be sure, but I imagine that was Scott's discovery. As you can tell, in this arena, we rocked.

With girls, we rocked to a lesser degree. Scott won't mind if we skip over that chapter.

We played a lot of football in those days. (Also, Dungeons & Dragons, but, again . . .) I played quarterback a fair bit - insisted on it, as young Napoleons do - and Scott probably picked off more of my passes than anyone else. And if you were playing receiver, woe betide you; for Scott had a knack - there is no way to say it but "uncanny" - for getting The Angle on you and getting that interception. He was the Ron Woodson of our Hamilton Park posse.

We'll Be Loyal.

Physically, he was unremarkable, you might even say gangly. But his speed was deceptive, his will of iron. He was one of the most competitive guys I've ever known. Of course, his mother - bless her soul - insisted on his wearing play clothes. And play clothes meant high waters and dark socks. None of us suspected then, but this may have been Scott's strategy to make us underestimate him on the field. Scott was stealth before there was stealth.

Several years after we graduated from university, Scott called me up, invited me over for lunch. He was newly married and he wanted to catch up. We did, and it was like no time had passed. The chicken chili was really good, too. When I had drifted away from our circle of friends, Scott remained my connection. I think in terms of temperament, of all my friends, his was most like mine.

He wasn't perfect. He didn't break out the Electronic Football every time I bugged him to. And if it were possible, his Star Wars figures were even more pristine and less played with than mine. No one had a See Threepio with tighter shoulders.

What I'm getting to, what I know that all of you already know, is that Scott Frailey was a remarkable guy. Others will be able to tell the stories of his university days, of his professional life, of his time with his family. But I will always be grateful to have been there from the beginning, and I saw right from the start: he was really, really awesome.

And left-handed.

I loved Scott Frailey. He was my friend.

High Summer

The boy is growing. The man watches the boy climb the dusty trail, one step at a time, and wonders if once upon a time he too climbed such a hill, his father climbing up behind him.

The man remembers a snowy field, being pulled on a sled by his father. The weight and firmness of the steel runners cutting through the whiteness. They were far from home, it seemed, in a vast and silent world. He had no idea, the man is sure, of one day pulling sleds or hiking hills.

The boy and his father reach the summit. The grassy path is matted and brown now, the green of the wet winter burned out by the summer heat.

The boy and his father have some food at this spot at the edge of the world. They take in the nourishment of this place. Perhaps they are both growing stronger.

The man is unsettled by the transposition of father and son, boy and man. He wants to linger a bit. But the boy takes his hand and leads him down the trail again.

Somehow It's November

and there are flyers to fly and
bookings to book and
names to remember and the
house needs tidying and buses need riding
and markets need marketing
and the holidays are coming
(with in-laws visiting)
and there is work to be done
and
meetings to call
and bone broth to brew
and stories to tell
and fears to face
and courage to find
a woman to love
a boy to hold
and many, many
miles
to run

But

I look at the boy's face
while he sleeps and
hear the waves pounding on the shore
just outside our little white house and
the windows rattle in the sea wind like
something from a distant age
I once knew and
I remember myself and know that when
I am right here and nowhere else
really right here
I am already
home.

Right There All Over

Right Here All Over (Occupy Wall St.) from Alex Mallis on Vimeo.

Three!

Here's a tired old joke: one moment your son is being born and dropping into your expectant hands, the next he's offering you a bowl of Noodle Chewbacca soup.

HAWK: I will cook it and you will eat it!
RYAN: I'll get sick!
HAWK: YES!

It goes by crazy fast. And also crazy good.

I'll steal a line from one of Hawk's good friends, the man with the yellow hat: "I'm proud of you. Today, the whole world is proud of you." Happy Birthday, Hawk.

A Good Day

New Digs 2.0

One way to draw a woman's ire, if you're interested in that kind of thing, is to move house and then, when asked if you have doubts about the move, to answer honestly that you do. This approach is particularly effective - and I'm speaking philosophically here - if your woman has been the principal architect of such a move, has supported the "direction" you provided, followed the project brief, as it were, to the letter.

In this way we rather suddenly found ourselves living in a beach cottage in the neighborhood of Seatoun, on Worser Bay, on the peninsula of Miramar, Wellington, New Zealand, the World. And if any doubts were expressed and any ire drawn, they were resolved after only a couple days; for living in a beach cottage on the water and across from mountains is pretty damn awesome.

It's not like things weren't already pretty spiffy. The routines, the ways and means, we had them all down to a science. A seven-minute walk to work, another five to the harbor. A Victorian house tucked away in a lush park. A split schedule where Jenifer and I each worked half a day in the office, half a day in the field with Hawk.

A great big abundant life.

We first became acquainted with Seatoun during our first visit to New Zealand. Our tour guide Jack drove our party through the seaside suburb to show us the grounds where Orlando and the Hobbits had trained for The Lord of the Rings. Over the past year, as we contemplated which neighborhood to settle in, Seatoun kept coming back to us. Okay, mostly to me, as such a move would require a wholesale lifestyle change and put us about as far away as possible from the Steiner school we were investigating for our son. But Jenifer plugged away on Trade Me, scouring the listings for houses here, there, and everywhere; and ones we really liked popped up time and again in Seatoun; and we suddenly started making lots of new friends who lived in Seatoun. Eventually Jenifer's logic centers had no choice but to acknowledge the fundamental correctness of my intuition. (Boy, I'm gonna get it.)

Our place is small but cozy and full of what the Danes call hygge, that warm feeling of contentment and well-being that comes from sitting by a warm fire at the end of a long day out of doors. This time around we have a mud room ("the airlock"), a wee back yard, and even a greenhouse, which Hawk already refers to as "the playroom" and which will soon feature a sandbox. The house faces northeast, which means more sunlight. The key feature, though, is the view. Our windows look out on wind-carved rocks (crawling with hermit crabs the size of peppercorns), brilliant green water, the endless passing of ferries and frigates, and an active, welcoming community: walkers, dogs, triathletes, the odd blue penguin. Everyone here seems to keep their curtains open most of the time, and you often can't help but look in (or out) because of the view.

Where Te Aro was wooded, dark, dense, Seatoun is open, bright, airy. As a new friend observed. our move quite literally affords us a broader perspective. Our walking world is now circumscribed not by office buildings and bus lanes but by Scorching Bay to the North and Dorset Point to the South. At the latter Hawk and I now routinely "go an an adventure," a nature hike along the rocky shore that wraps around to Breaker Bay or up the Pass of Branda through the "poky" pine trees of the Beacon Hill Reserve. From here you see the flat blue line of Cook Strait, which separates the North and South Islands. Massive shipping vessels crest what looks like the edge of the world. Here if feels like we are at the edge of the world.

This is our neighborhood now. This is where Hawk will grow up, where he will clamber through the bush with his goblins-in-arms, where he will mount spy missions on unsuspecting hikers and investigate long-abandoned military bunkers and sit in the tall grass of the old Maori pa and listen to the wind.

Shortly after we moved I had occasion to walk by the old place. Passing through the park beneath it, I suddenly felt very clear: our energy had moved on. I had grieved the place, our ways and means, the morning after our move. Now, I smiled in gratitude for our entry into a new world. Our old house protected us, held us during a year that was at times very difficult: one way to make enemies, if you're interested in that kind of thing, is to take over an existing business. Fortunately, it's also a way to make friends.

No, the move was necessary, and if any doubts arose, they did so only because, as is ever the case with leaps in the dark, we are called to make them before we think we are ready. Or maybe that's just how it is with grownups. As Hawk would yell every time before sprinting down the path to our old house: "Two, three, go!"