How I Came Up With My Blog Title

It wasn’t something we’d planned on, but after two years in China, my wife and I picked up and moved to Düsseldorf, Germany. It wasn’t the last place we thought we’d end up: Neither of us had ever heard of it. We arrived in Germany two months before our shipment. A microwave cooked our pizzas. Suitcases doubled as tables. At night we’d lie on the floor of our empty apartment, staring at the ceiling and wondering if the Universe had sent us here for a reason. Things could have been worse, but still, I was hoping for some sort of explanation.

A few months after settling in, Takayo and I attended a dinner party thrown by one of her colleagues. I sat across the table from Hans, a tightly-wound life coach from Berlin. He had arrived late, dressed from head to toe in Eddie Bauer, with a pair of Ray Bands dangling from his neck by a rubber tube. His gray moustache screamed 60, but he checked his phone with the enthusiasm of a teenage girl. We talked between incoming texts.

"Zo," he said, "do you have a favorite German dish?"

I told him “schweinshaxe,” or pork knuckle, cooked till crispy on a wall of fire. He seemed impressed, so I told him about Dan’s Old Farmhouse, a German restaurant in China, adorned with wagon wheels and thick-ankled waitresses.

            “It got out of control,” I continued. “Everything was ‘pork knuckle' this and ‘pork knuckle' that. I saw pork knuckles in my dreams.”

            He found this amusing. “You see what happened, don’t you?  It was NLP: Neuro-Linguistic Programming. You thought about the pork knuckle again and again until—well, here you are.”

Hans sat back in his chair, seeming very pleased with his elucidation. I liked how simple he made it sound, but as it stood, this whole “flying pork knuckle” theory was a bit airy-fairy.

“So,” I said, “are you telling me that pork knuckles caused the school to lay off my wife so we could end up in Germany?”

“You would be surprised at what powers the mind is capable of.”

There was a watercolor hanging on the wall above Hans, a splashy bouquet of flowers bursting from a melted vase. As he spoke, I pictured it falling down and smashing over his head. The sound of breaking glass fills the room, and everyone looks over and sees Hans’ head bursting through the frame like a daffodil. Again and again I imagined this until—of course nothing happened.

“I ate a Hawaiian pizza last Christmas,” I said. “Now, where’s my trip to Honolulu?”
He had to laugh like hell at that, but the conversation was shot.

Usually, I make a point of giving people the benefit of the doubt. Ask the right questions, and folks will generally surprise you. Hans, however, struck me as the type who read medical journals, then, whenever someone sneezed, mindlessly named off some corresponding disease. You might think now here’s a guy that loves to hear the sound of his own voice. And he might be. The problem is—in the back of your mind—you know there’s a slim chance that he might be right.
And, oh, did I hate him for that.

So, what if I was wrong? Perhaps what we think about most does help guide, in unforeseeable ways, our direction in life. We internalize food. But does it also internalize us?
At the time, my wife and I weren't ready to leave China. There was, we felt, still more to accomplish. The pork knuckle, however, had other ideas.
Anyway, life is good. But still, I wonder what would have happened if we'd obsessed over an Ethiopian or Siberian restaurant. I’m sure they’re nice-enough places, but let’s be honest: things could have turned a lot out worse.

The New Trend: Man as Trailing Spouse - Part 1

“So, what do you do?”   

When asked this, most people talk about their job – how they spend their waking hours.   It’s a straightforward question, unless you delve to deep.  What does anyone really do?  Often it’s just small talk, but no one wants to get into a metaphysical probe at a clambake.  So I play along. 

“I am a trailing spouse.”

It’s something you don’t often hear a man say, but it’s catching on.  So what is a trailing spouse?  Basically, my wife took a job and I followed her.  She’s the bread winner, and I’m all right with that.  It’s the title that’s never agreed with me.  Trailing.   The adjective makes me think of a short-legged dog, struggling to keep up with its master.  It's the same mental image. And this invariably spawns the next question. 

“So what do you do?” 

Our situation is like a NASCAR team.  While my wife’s out there burning up the tracks, I' behind the scenes, keeping parts stocked and the engine running.  And like a pit crew, the roles are countless:  Husband, chef, maid, butler, travel companion, bug squasher, barista, grocery runner, repair man, listener of grievances…just to name a few.  

Of course, I don’t go through the entire list.  I’m usually interrupted by a sigh, or, if the listener has a decent poker face, a tight-lipped nod.  Man should work; man earns money, I hear telepathically.  But I reject that, at least for right now. 

  

"This opportunity is too good to pass up.  I’ll quit my job and follow you."

That’s how it began.  The words came easy at the time, as if I were merely stepping out to the corner market.  I’ll pick up a carton of milk…and while I’m at it, I’ll quit my job and move to China with you.  And then reality sunk in.  The decision would rake up every illusion of manliness I had.  Take a look around:  This wasn't in harmony with the concept of “Man as Provider.”  Thinking about it made my stomach knot, but it was exciting.  I wasn't just giving up a job; I was diving into the shallow end of a new life. 

Of course, my wife never asked me to do this, nor did she expect me to.  It’s just one of those things: you fall in love with a person, and the next thing you know, you’re having a Vegas wedding and moving half-way around the world to a communist country.  

There’s no question that I love my wife, but there were other factors at play.  I enjoyed my job as a medical claims adjuster, for instance, and it’s not a bad way to earn a living, but spending nine hours a day in a cubicle just wasn’t my passion.  Oddly enough, I believed in what my wife was doing more.  As a special needs teacher, she seemed to exude purpose, and there is a certain allure to being around someone that knows what they want out of life.  

I’ve didn’t have a clear vision concerning my career, and maybe that’s why I was so willing to abandon ship.  I used to get this restless feeling at work.  “There’s got to be more than this,” I used to say, and when it became too much, I’d sink a bag of weed to the bottom of a shampoo bottle and fly out to Utah, say, and to spend a week wandering the desert alone.  Back then I called it a "Vision Quest," but a more accurate description might be "intellectual restlessness."

In those profound moments under the sun, I saw clearly.  What felt like a hectic work schedule was merely dazzling my brain – like junk food – providing it with no lasting nourishment.  My brain was hungry.  I was grateful for the money, but that underlying sense of tension, like a steadily rising hunger, did not mesh with the nine-to-five frame of mind.  I wanted to – no, I needed to – get away from Big Brother (as my manager called it) if I was going learn more about myself.  

 I’m not saying that the lone desert approach was particularly intelligent, or even original, but experimenting with my surroundings just happened to be my style of approach. I just listened for the call, and when it came, I went to where it needed me to go.