greggillis

Category: Journal

  • Journal – 03/30/20: Getting Started (during a time of pandemic)

    (This is a note I wrote to myself; I’m sharing it in the off chance others might get something out of it.)

    I’m stuck. And I’ve been stuck for longer than I can remember.

    (more…)

  • Loss, Grief and Recovery

    I haven’t written about my recent life, partly out of avoidance, mostly because the wounds were too fresh. I’ve lost three of the most important people in my life and it hurt a lot, more than I could prepare myself for. I’m writing this to draw a line in the sand for myself, to encourage a formal transition out of active grief and into what I intend to be a generative period. I’d also like to think by sharing my feelings, it might be of some small help to others.
    (more…)

  • Journal – 5/19/19: A Sense of Ending

    I haven’t written much, if anything, of note in the past year. I’ve had a lot to say but not the words to express it, I still don’t, but I never will so I might as well get back to it. Both of my parents died, leaving me and my siblings orphans. My parents weren’t great the way Picasso was great, they were great the way milk is great. Nourishing, constant, available and kind of sweet. I won’t try to capture them here, they were both (individually and as a team) too much to do justice to. No, today I’m just working through the unanticipated impact of their loss, and what I need to do to honor the gifts they gave. (more…)

  • Prologue: The De-Decrepitudening

    Look, we’re all on a freight train to the grave, and I must admit that lately I’ve had the sensation that I’m in one of the forward cars. The bottom line is that after a legit lifetime of zero physical ailments, this past year smacked me around like a butterfly in a cyclone. A kidney thing, a skin/nerve thing and a personal loss thing (which didn’t help) and most recently an Achilles tendon thing which is really giving me the business. The machine seems to be grinding to a halt, I don’t like it. Whether it’s a delusion or not, I firmly believe there’s always something to do to improve a situation.

    (more…)

  • In Memoriam – Col. (ret.) Charles Allan Gillis

    (My mother wrote this beautiful obituary of for my father, and I wanted to share)

    Col. (ret.) Charles Allan Gillis
    November 11, 1929-December 30, 2017

    Col. (ret.) Charles A. Gillis (Chuck) was born November 11, 1929 in Colorado Springs, Colorado where he attended St. Mary’s Elementary School. (As did Mary K. Schmidt whom he eventually married. His one recollection of her was at a dance class in which the instructor made him dance with her. He says that not only did she have frizzy black hair, she was FAT.)

    He went away to high school in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin and the Admiral Ballard Academy in New London, Connecticut. He was accepted at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, where he graduated in June, 1951 as a “distinguished military graduate” which earned him an automatic appointment as a second lieutenant in the US Army. He had extensive training in the Army including the US Army Command and General Staff College in Leavenworth, KS and the US Army War College in Carlisle, PA. He majored in International Politics at Tulane, University. (more…)

  • Journal – Finding Meaning in Goodbye (getting unstuck)

    My father died Saturday (December 30), as do all fathers, as do all sons. Ubiquity doesn’t erase uniqueness – not of feelings, nor of the individuals caught in the gristmill of existence. Mortality, the thought of it and the fact of it, is either the source of dread or the source of inspiration. And that can change moment to moment; particularly if I don’t keep an eye on the manic hobgoblin I call my subconscious.

    I love life but you wouldn’t guess that from how I’ve been living, around Thanksgiving I slowed down and life began to happen at me – like being overtaken from behind by a leopard. Today was the day I was going to turn it around, as was yesterday, and the day before. I’ve been here before, and will probably return, and I thought it would be a good chance to take a moment to observe myself in this moment of inaction. As a reminder to me (and maybe a help to you) of how to break “the spell” of this kind of inertia. (more…)

  • Journal – 7/16/17: Goals, Success & Failure

    Howdy! This’ll be the first of many weekly journal entries where I do a quick analysis of the previous weeks successes and failures, which I’ll share both as public shaming, but more seriously to share the formal process of personal goals.

    Last week I started a 39 week goal cycle for weight loss and maintenance, plus two 16 week goals for exercise and wrapping up writing a novel that’s proven a tough nut to crack. I’m using two tools to help this process along, stickk.com and Fitbit. Stickk is a simple goal-setting platform that lets you set a goal, apply financial stakes and include a referee for your goals. There’s two parts to Fitbit I’m putting to use, the first is the tracker to monitor daily activity, the second is the food log on their site where I get to be horrified by the sheer volume of calories I consume when I’m not paying attention. (more…)

  • Journal – 1/26/17: Ungrateful, Mindless and Whiny

    It’s been awhile since I’ve journaled, as usual that has more to do with me letting life get on top of me than lack of nonsense to spew – my sabbatical ended, a new job took its place, a grand-niece was born, I got a kidney stone (I’m still waiting to give birth to), we had a family reunion, and on a surface level I enjoyed every minute of it. On a deeper level, as happens from time to time, I’ve had the feeling of experiencing life rather than living it. Losing touch with my goals, and reverting instead to habit. I have good habits, and I’ve got bad habits – the good ones take care of themselves, but my bad habits tend to fall under the umbrella of laziness. (more…)

  • Journal – 1/26/17: Keys

    Fumbling to find the key to the Master lock protecting the treasures in my storage cage, I wondered why it took so long to find it. I have a ridiculous number of keys on this ring, ridiculous because I don’t know what half of them fit.

    This got me thinking about two things; one, I need to throw away a bunch of these keys and, two, is my key-ring a metaphor? How many psychic “keys” do we carry around in life to locks we’ll never encounter, or have long abandoned? Once useful tools that now weigh us down for no reason. (more…)

  • Journal – 11/23/16: Because I Can

    MeSmallThirteen days ago I began a new sabbatical, then promptly lost track of why I took sabbatical to begin with – a loved one in pain, a political choice akin to hiring a florist to do your plumbing and some self-pity that things in general weren’t working out exactly the way I wanted.  Being distracted isn’t anything new for me, it’s the reason I put so much stock in personal goals, which is why these thirteen days won’t become thirteen months. I thought I’d share my slate of personal initiatives with you, dear reader, both as a way to think out loud, and to refine what I’m really hoping to accomplish. (more…)