The Place: Austin Java on Barton Springs
The Hour: 10:00am
The Cup: Peter arrived early and already had his cup going. Large something or another. I had a large coffee which I spiked with some half and half and a dash of sugar.
Background: When I was wrapping up my 7th cup with Ruben, Peter stopped us at the door and said, “I believe we were supposed to meet. I’m not sure why, I just feel like we are supposed to meet.” He had observed our interview/conversation and thought I was a reporter. I explained that I had a blog and Ruben told him about his media company. We gave him business cards and by the time I got back to my computer, I had an email. Peter told me he’d checked out the blog and that we was impressed. So in the true spirit of the blog, I invited this stranger to coffee. He graciously accepted.
Not unlike everyone I’ve visited with thus far, Peter is an interesting guy. Each person has their own flavor of interesting though and I’d say Peter’s is akin to chocolate raspberry jalapeno. Not following me? Well, it might make more sense as the story of our coffee story unfolds.
Peter and I begin our chat by recounting our initial encounter. He wanted to know how I met the other people I’ve interviewed for the blog and as I explained the the process (for the most part it’s as simple as I ask the people I meet who they know that would be up for coffee with a stranger) he exhaults, “No one comes up to you at a coffee shop and tells you they believe you were meant to meet?” Uh, nope. You’re a first Peter. He tells me he’s good at firsts and that he’s not at all surprised.
Back to that flavor thing for a second. Chocolate. Good stuff. Pretty popular across the board. Now add raspberry and all of a sudden we go from plain old to something different. Doing things differently or, more accurately, not according to plan, that would be a decent description of how Peter’s life has been going the last several years. But it certainly hasn’t always gone this way.
As recently at 2007 Peter was living the high life. He was a successful financial planner living in California and his life was looking great. He had cars, boats, houses, a closet full of custom clothes and all the prestige that goes with that level of success. At forty years old, Peter was hob-nobbing with the California elite and for all intents and purposes, he was on top of the world.
In a matter of months, his life took some pretty serious detours. A casual relationship was made serious by a pregnancy which led to a shotgun wedding of sorts. The country was entering into some rough financial waters which significantly impacted Peter’s wealth management practice. He decided to sell his business and homes and relocate his new wife to Austin. So as far as major life events, we have pregnancy, marriage, major relocation, sale of business and home…oh, add to that a tumor that had to be removed from his leg and the fact that once his son was born, he had to spend six days in NICU and I think we’ve got the list.
How do you make it through all of that with your sanity in check? For many, it would require vast amounts of vodka or perhaps Shiner Bock. Others might opt for the harder stuff like Oreos or Ben and Jerry’s. For Peter, he tried like hell to push everyone away – namely his wife. He literally told her that the ship was sinking and she needed to save herself and get out. As he tells it, thankfully, she stayed. Perhaps she knew something he didn’t or saw something in him that he couldn’t see in himself at the time. And it was her strength (and stubbornness maybe) that buoyed him and kept their new marriage afloat.
Around this time Peter also found God. Well, he found a Jesus-freak (Peter’s words, not mine) who found a way past layers of cynicism and years of guilt that according to Peter, every good Catholic carries around. This man became a friend and a mentor to Peter and was able to paint a very different picture of God for him. Now that Peter was a father himself, he could truly understand the magnitude of a father’s love. Peter told me one of his greatest joys is the excitement his kids feel and show when he comes home. “Daddy, daddy! You’re home!” are the sweetest words for Peter. So with his wife and God at his side, Peter was a new man.
One of Peter’s passions is now a business that he operates. When his son was born, he was in the NICU for six days due to jaundice. He had to be kept under a special light which meant he had to be in the hospital taking up space in the NICU usually reserved for kids with more severe conditions. Peter and his wife now operate a business which rents out Bili Blankets so parents can treat their new infants at home. Check out his site to learn more.
So how does Peter look back on that dark time when everything that could go wrong seemed to? “The best thing that ever happened to me!” Really? Did I hear him right? If you’ve read my other interviews, you know I was not at all surprised and secretly relieved to get this answer. I love a great trial to triumph story. But most of all, I love, love, love a happy ending! Nothing wrong with that, right? Enter the jalapeno.
As you recall, we started with chocolate (fabulous in and of itself) and took a wacky turn by the addition of raspberry. We went from predictable to unexpected just like that. Now, what happens when you throw jalapeno into the mix? You get totally unpredictable with a lingering burn. How does this translate into the interview. Let me explain beginning with unpredictable.
About an hour into our chat (incidentally; I’ve still not asked a single prepared question) Peter’s turns the table and the interviewee becomes the interviewer. It starts off innocently enough. “So, what’s the expectation here? What do you expect from this blog?” I talked about meeting new people, personal growth and encouraging an openness and freedom to share personal stories. This led to questions around defining freedom and boundaries. Which in turn led to me talking about my struggle in writing people’s stories and balancing their truth and my truth about sitting in that experience with my concern over how reading my account of our time together will leave them feeling. Because this truly is the hardest part for me. I want to share people’s essence but sometimes the things that strike me have very little to do with them and are largely about me. I worry that after giving me their time and sharing lots and lots of wonderful stories they will read the blog and be left wondering where all the good parts went.
So, back to Peter. After I share this he asks me my least favorite question in the whole world. “And how’s that working out for you?”.
I don’t know if it’s the cliched use of the question that bothers me or if it’s more about the personal nature of it this time. A little of both most likely.
If I’m honest, the answer is not very well but good enough. I think what I end up posting is fairly well-written for a “non-writer” and it makes me happy each person interviewed sends me a note telling me how much they enjoyed the post. Many of them even share a link with their networks of people which is a wonderful treat. But in terms of writing for me; writing about how I feel about the person and the experience, there’s a lot that gets left unsaid. For countless reasons; each blog post would be 10,000 words if I didn’t edit, sometimes I don’t agree with the person I interviewed and I don’t feel like putting that into the post, the thoughts I have aren’t always nice and I try (and fail) to live by the Buddhist philosophy of Right Speech which has you consider before you speak (or write), is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve on the silence?
Hoping we were done with the probing and feeling a little uncomfortable, Peter keeps going. At some point I have told him that I strive to leave any person, place or situation better than I found it. Referencing this stated desire, he asks me to consider what would happen if I were to leave a conversation and the other person felt terrible. I told him I wouldn’t like it and that I would do all I could to make the situation better or OK. He brings me back to my statement about the purpose of the blog which is in part to encourage people to tell their authentic stories, no matter how mangled and ugly they may be on the outside. He wants me to consider how a person can be truly authentic when I’m working so hard trying to help them be happy.
I suppose he has a point. Which brings me to the jalapeno burn. Not so bad at first, but it’s that lingering pain that gets to you. You try water, beer, a packet of sugar. But the burn is still there. The idea that in an attempt to keep everyone around me happy and content I may be preventing them from being their authentic selves is a tough pepper to swallow. And as much thought as I’ve given it, I’m really not sure what to do now.
I accept the truth of it and that’s as far as I’ve gotten. Pouring beer or sugar on it might provide temporary relief (and sounds like at least a little bit of fun) but won’t prove to be a lasting solution. Much like the pepper burn, you’ve just got to ride it out. And that’s OK.