Steve Fernlund and The Long Way Home

From an early age, I hoped to be accepted and admired by everyone, despite that niggling feeling that I didn’t deserve to be. What if it turns out that most people actually don’t care about me at all?  Most people, I think, haven’t quite come to terms with that question. The reality is that, with all the crap going on in this world, people don’t have the bandwidth to pay much attention to you or me. If they don't care, we might as well say what we actually think when we get the chance. There’s actually a name for this kind of self-torture. Psychologists call it the ‘Spotlight Effect’, which is the feeling that everyone is watching and judging us, even though most people aren’t paying attention. I realized this half a lifetime ago and adjusted. My worry about fitting in was a massive waste of emotional real estate. There are lots of reasons for thinking that growing up in the 50s and 60s was blissful, and most of them are BS. The reality for me was hand-me-down clothes that older co...

“It’s complicated.” Whether hearing that two-word phrase from a friend or relative trying to avoid talking about a toxic relationship or a paid consultant hired by the county board to solve the housing crisis, it always offends my senses. “It’s complicated” is just an easy way to avoid the pain of accountability for whatever situation the speaker means to obscure. Whatever the problem, uttering “it’s complicated” is a way to demean others and avoid real solutions. Because real solutions are hard--not because solutions are complicated, but because real solutions upset someone’s apple cart. Bringing real solutions to our communities’ problems isn’t complicated—it’s just hard. For example, clearing snow requires shoveling; it’s basic and clear, but it takes effort. The difficulty lies not in the complexity, but in the hard work we must do to reach solutions.  Of course, no one is offended by your hard work with the snow shovel. Usually, you can bet that someone will be impacted and of...

During her transition to end-of-life care, my mom moved first from her two-bedroom townhome in South Minneapolis to a fairly modern, corporate-owned assisted living facility in Richfield. She’s always been fiercely independent, despite her frail health that might get others down. Like all of us old-timers expecting the Golden Years, the changing reality of advancing years and declining powers made surrendering her freedoms and putting up with every inconvenience of institutional living lead to much weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. My sister and I thought a separate apartment with a kitchen and bedroom in a modern building would make the transition acceptable.  There were a few complaints about the apartment's temperature control, the windows that didn’t open, and the stove, which was different from what she had before. On the other hand,  she knew some of the ladies in the building, and they welcomed her right away, inviting her to join in for mealtime and other activi...

After 53 years, a wedding anniversary requires just a modest acknowledgment for me and the Bohunk. We dropped the stress of gift-giving years ago, and once the price of a greeting card cleared five bucks, we dropped those, too. Now, we exchange a 'Happy Anniversary' before the coffee is even brewed and call it a day.  For most of those special days now, we say morning greetings like “Happy Anniversary” before the coffee is brewed and go out for an afternoon meal. It’s our comfortable routine, making each occasion feel like just another day, in the best way. This comfortable routine set the tone, as on the second-to-last Tuesday of March this year, we headed to Canal Park in Duluth for a special lunch at Cloud Nine, a new-to-me restaurant. It is a modern Asian-fusion restaurant and is rumored to be one of the best Sushi restaurants in our new hometown. The Bohunk doesn’t do Sushi, but I do, and to show her love and appreciation on our anniversary, she offered to buy and agreed t...