by Chris Duffin
This principle applies to all aspects of life. If we place ourselves under constant stress and deny ourselves recovery time, the body and mind will never truly adapt. If you burn the candle at both ends, year after year, after year, you cannot expect your performance to hold up, let alone to progress. Over time, you will see performance begin to degrade.
However busy your life is, make sure that you find time to properly recover. Otherwise your body, mind, and nervous system will pay the price.
From Idaho to Oregon
La Pine is a high desert ecosystem in central Oregon, situated at the edge of the Cascade Range of mountains. The area is a hotbed of volcanic activity that, over many millennia, has hollowed out numerous lake beds. This makes it a rich source of fish and an exceptionally popular fishing destination. People travel from miles around—even internationally—to seek out some of the best championship fishing in the world.
Pat’s mother was in the hospital with cancer, from which she would never recover. This sad situation had just one silver lining: the cabin her husband had built before he passed away was, in the eyes of the state, a safe, stable living environment for my three sisters and me. When Pat and my mom moved into this cabin, they were able to prove that they could take care of us. They regained custody of me and my three sisters, and we moved with them to live in La Pine, although my brother stayed with his father in California.
Our parents drove out to Idaho to collect us and drive us back to Oregon. I accepted the change in my circumstances without question. As much as I loved living with my grandparents, it meant a great deal to me to be reunited with my closest family. By this time, the change in location hardly concerned me. I had already seen so many different places that I didn’t care too much where we lived.
Chapter Three
4. Functional and Dysfunctional Relationships
1986–1987 (Age Nine to Ten), La Pine, Central Oregon
My father inherited two houses in Sonoma, California, in the heart of Wine Country. My grandfather and great-grandfather owned a large and successful concrete company. Their organization was involved in the construction of the Boulder Dam, now known as the Hoover Dam. Later, my grandfather lost his fortune on another project in Hawaii. Nonetheless, he was able to bequeath two houses in Sonoma to my father, who lived in one and rented out the other.
For the most part, my father didn’t work. He occasionally did some odd jobs, but mostly he lived off a disability allowance that he received from the state. His struggles with depression left him unable to hold a job. Sometimes, during the summer, I boarded the Greyhound bus and traveled from La Pine in Oregon to his home in California. He didn’t drive, so I took the Greyhound into San Francisco, then changed to a series of regional buses to reach him in Sonoma.
When my dad was in good health, summers in Wine Country were phenomenal. Orange trees were so abundant that we could reach up and pull fresh oranges from their branches as we walked. The golden-brown hills, dotted with oak trees, were postcard perfect. Sonoma was blessed with hundreds of bike trails, so we rode around on our bikes visiting museums, stores, and the library. We usually found time to visit Sue and Tom’s Mountain, where I reconnected with my friend Ganya.
We spent a lot of time at the library, seeking out practical books on how to make and do things. I borrowed a book on origami, and we spent many happy hours building as many different origami animals as we could. We researched go-karts and built one of our own, my dad taking me out and pushing me down some of the hills in the neighborhood, so I could build up a head of speed.
My dad loved to teach me about the things he enjoyed. For example, he trained me to read and write in Morse code and use a Morse code transmitter. In the evenings, we listened to transmissions on his ham radio and deciphered what they said. He was fascinated by trains. He collected scale models and, on trips out, we always traveled by train if possible. We hiked the hills around Sonoma, exploring old limestone quarries and hanging out in groves of eucalyptus. The eucalyptus trees were originally planted as windbreaks, to protect crops growing in the area. I loved to hear them rustle and inhale their aroma as we hiked up the hills where they grew, in search of remote lakes.
Influenced by his time in a Tibetan monastery, my father was a Buddhist. His house was dotted with Buddhist statues and other artifacts of his faith. When I visited him, we often went to meetings where a facilitator led us in a guided meditation practice. My father was also attempting to conquer his alcoholism; he and I spent a lot of time together at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings while I was in town.
Ultimately, he sold both the houses he owned in Sonoma. The proceeds from the sale of one went toward his living expenses. The profits on the other he donated to a New Age guru, who was little more than a scam artist. He saved enough from the sales to purchase a condo in Santa Rosa, close to Sonoma, and the location of the hospital where I was born.
While the good visits with my dad were amazing, the bad ones were devastating. I remember visiting him in Santa Rosa and disembarking the bus at a store close to his new condo. It was my first visit to his new address, so I called him to come out and meet me. He told me he’d be right there. When I saw him, he was wearing sweatpants and a shirt. He had clearly been wearing the same clothes for weeks. I could see ring after ring of piss stains, indicating that he had been going to the bathroom in his clothes. His gait and the expression on his face looked strange. I could tell that he was happy to see me, but it was obvious something wasn’t right.
When we got back to his condo, he called a taxi driver to buy him beer. I later found out that, by this time, none of the local stores would allow him to purchase alcohol, a restriction he sidestepped by hiring local cab drivers to buy booze and deliver it to him. It became clear that he was spending his days—his weeks—in a depressive state, lying in bed drinking.
Within a day or two of my arrival, it became clear that he was not going to sober up enough to take care of me or spend time with me while I was in town. He spent his entire time in bed, mumbling under the pillows when I bugged him to get up. After a couple of days, he got extremely drunk and depressed—I imagine he was disappointed in himself for the state he was in. He found some gasoline, poured it over himself, and stood outside his condo with a lighter in his hand, threatening to set himself on fire.
At this point, his neighbors intervened. He backed down, dropped the lighter, and eventually called his AA sponsor. When his sponsor arrived, it was obvious that my dad was in no state to take care of me. My dad made a few calls and I found myself staying with a friend of his for two weeks, hanging out with people I hardly knew, while—with the support of his sponsor—he struggled to get himself together.
I didn’t tell my mom about the incident because I knew that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to see my father again.
Theme: Functional and Dysfunctional Relationships
At this time, my relationships with family were the center of my life, for good or bad. I had no consistent home base, few friends, and no other real relationships. Family was the cornerstone of my life. While everything else around me seemed to be in constant flux, family was the anchor that enabled me to feel some sense of security and stability. Admittedly, that sense was sorely tested at times, notably when I was placed in foster care and I didn’t know whether I’d ever see my parents and sisters again. Nonetheless, when the chips were down, the only people I could truly rely on were members of my family.
The stories in this chapter are primarily about functional and dysfunctional relationships. Without the relationships I had with members of my family, I wouldn’t be the man I am today. My parents, siblings, and I were close, despite the dysfunctional elements of our relationships. Working together in the mountains forged strong bonds between us. We were always together. While Pat and my mom cultivated weed or chopped wood, I would take care of my siblings.
Some of the other relationships you’ll read about i
n this chapter shaped me in a different way. They helped me understand who I wanted to become, and who I emphatically did not want to become. Through my relationships, I discovered what I value. That set of values has been an essential resource over the years, guiding my decisions and helping determine my purpose.
Growing a Deeper Connection with My Stepfather
The log cabin where we lived in Oregon contained an enormous open kitchen and living room, which gave us a lot of space to play with. One year, for example, we erected an enormous Christmas tree. It must have been fifteen or twenty feet tall.
La Pine is primarily a retirement community. The town is secluded and surrounded by tall trees, such as ponderosa and lodgepole pines, and well-known fishing lakes and rivers. Aside from some volcanic buttes, the area is flat, a major contrast from the mountainous terrain I was used to in California. Our new home was a log cabin, built by Pat’s father, my step-grandfather.
My mother worked odd jobs such as cleaning houses. Pat wasn’t working at the time, which was the first time I remember him being without a job. He took the opportunity to invest a lot of time in his relationship with me. My three sisters were his biological children, so you might imagine that he gave them more attention, but that wasn’t the case. He told me that he had always wanted a son and that, in his eyes, I was his son, not merely his stepson. In fact, he revealed that he did have a son, from his first marriage, from whom he was totally estranged. He said that he had arrived home one day to find his wife and young son, Patrick Jr, gone. He didn’t know where they were or how to find them.
One of the activities Pat and I enjoyed together was fishing. The rivers that flowed through and near La Pine were slow, beautiful, and meandering. They were also full of trout. Pat and I would get in our tan 1982 Toyota pickup and catch rainbow trout on the Little Deschutes River, which was just five minutes from where we lived.
In La Pine, my parents promised me that they were done with growing weed. After Pat escaped from the cops in California, he succeeded in hiding out in the mountains and selling all the crops he had grown. They told me that my sisters and I were their priority and they weren’t going to participate in any activities that would put the family in jeopardy. Before they made that break, however, they wrapped up activities in California and used the majority of the money to purchase that Toyota pickup. I was proud of my parents for owning such a nice vehicle. It had a canopy to keep the rain out and it was the first automobile we’d ever owned that was less than a decade old.
Over the course of the summer, Pat and I spent many happy hours fishing and talking about life. Pat taught me how to choose a good fishing spot, where to drop my line, and how to hide my shadow from the fish. Occasionally we captured crawdads, but the majority of our time was spent fishing.
When we weren’t fishing, I enjoyed building and firing off model rockets. Pat and I went out into the woods behind our house, fired them high into the sky, and watched as they deployed their parachute and drifted slowly back down to earth. Most of the time we fired the rockets in areas that had been clear-cut for lumber, so there were few trees to snag them. Occasionally, however, one of them traveled further than we anticipated, floated into the woods, and got caught in the branches of a pine. We didn’t mind, though; it was all part of the fun.
Pat was an interesting man. He could be warm and spontaneous, yet he was riddled with insecurities. In particular, he was terrified of losing his family. My mom’s parents hated him and only visited us once the entire time we lived in La Pine. When they did, he was too scared to face them. He took his rifle, climbed a tree close to the house, and sat there, waiting, until they left.
To this day, I’m not sure what he was trying to achieve or who he sought to protect. I think he feared that they would try to take custody of me and my sisters. Seeing him up in the tree reminded me of the time he kept watch as the police approached our camp in Hyampom. On that occasion, his vigilance paid off. This time, it seemed unnecessary. My mom’s parents were a sweet couple who treated the rest of the family kindly. For Pat, however, they had only disdain. I think the chaotic nature of our lives exacerbated normal friction, to the point where Pat and my mom’s parents could hardly stand each other.
At times, Pat’s insecurities verged on paranoia. If my mom’s parents wanted to take custody of my sisters and me, the logical time to do so was when we were living with them. They never did that. For Pat, abandonment was a constant specter.
The family in La Pine, Oregon, after mom and Pat regained custody of us from our grandparents.
A Brief Reunion with My Brother
While we lived in La Pine I saw Mark, my brother, for the first time in years. He came up from his father’s place to visit us for a week. My mom briefed us beforehand that if he had a good time, he might want to move back with us.
During his visit, Mark and I played on the trails and in the woods, building forts among the pine trees. One of them was based on a huge, upturned pine stump. We laid branches of lodgepole pine against the back of the stump and filled in the gaps with pieces of bark from the various logs that lay around the woods. I vividly recall sitting in the fort with my brother, thinking how great it was to have him back and hoping that he would come live with us full time. I turned to him and said, “Ain’t this the life? Everything’s good and grand.”
Unfortunately, Mark’s father and stepmother suspected that we wanted him to move to La Pine with us. His stepmother, determined to prevent that from happening, convinced him to stand up in a custody hearing and tell the state Pat had sexually abused him while he stayed with us in La Pine. Mark was only around seven years old at the time, and he was vulnerable to his stepmother’s manipulations.
Although I did visit Mark in California years later, that was the end of his involvement in my childhood. Both Pat and my mother were deeply resentful of the charges Mark’s stepmother convinced him to level at the family. The lies Mark was manipulated into telling still haunt him to this day.
Correspondence with My Father
Although I rarely saw my father in person, we sustained a pen pal relationship throughout his life. It started while I lived in Hyampom, before I was old enough to write letters back. In lieu of writing, I drew pictures. I didn’t have a lot of available paper, so I used the paper plates we ate off as a canvas. I cut my drawings into various shapes, stuffed them into envelopes, and sent them to my father.
While I lived in La Pine, I received regular postcards from him, detailing his travels to different parts of California. Although I enjoyed writing to him, it usually took me a long time to respond to his letters. I would start a letter, stop, and restart. Only a few times per year did I succeed in completing a letter and posting it to him. Nonetheless, this pen pal connection was our most consistent form of relationship all the way until his passing in 2002.
Having grown up with only intermittent access to electricity and the telephone, I have never gotten into the habit of calling people, even as an adult. Rarely do I speak to anyone on the phone. In La Pine I had access to one, but it didn’t feel normal for me to pick up the phone and call my father. I felt much more comfortable writing letters. They gave me a way to feel connected to my father from a distance, even when I wasn’t able to visit him due to his depression and alcoholism.
My mother played an important role in helping to maintain my relationship with my father. Despite our chaotic lifestyle and his troubled mind, she encouraged me to communicate with him and never said a bad word about him. Pat was largely supportive too, although he occasionally cracked jokes that hinted at his true feelings. My father, for all his struggles, made an enormous effort to stay in touch and let me know that he cared for me. I always felt that I was important to him.
Throughout my childhood, I watched Pat and my mom spend their evenings drinking and smoking weed, sometimes joined by friends. While we lived in La Pine, my mom’s relationship with alcohol began to deteriorat
e. One evening, the two of them were drinking together when they got into an argument. My mom became so enraged that she started picking up kitchen knives and throwing them full force at Pat, with the intention of killing him. Pat ran around the kitchen dodging the knives and attempting to hide behind the centerpiece of our open-plan kitchen and living room. In desperation, he yelled at her to stop because I was in the room and yelled at me to do something, anything, to calm her down.
I remember a feeling of powerlessness. My mom was strong and athletic and disarming her seemed impossible. Moreover, Pat was always adamant that no amount of provocation justified a physical response to a woman. Even in such desperate circumstances, he was unwilling to lay a finger on my mom. The scene continued until she ran out of knives to throw, at which point she finally began to calm down. My mother of course doesn’t remember this, or many episodes that took place while she was drinking, as she was blackout drunk by this time.
It was the first time I had ever seen my mother exhibit such violent rage, and I struggled to understand what had happened. Why didn’t Pat respond? Why didn’t he attempt to restrain her when he was at risk of serious injury or death? Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the last time Pat and my mother’s relationship degenerated into alcohol-fueled violence.
Breaking My Arm, but Feeling No Pain
When we moved to La Pine, I started the fourth grade. Initially, I struggled to make friends. I was very quiet and not particularly sociable, especially in large groups. My first year in La Pine, I didn’t have any friends at all. During lunch time I used to play on the swing alone. My detached behavior worried Pat and my mom so much that they connected with the parents of another kid, who also didn’t have many friends, to set up a playdate.