Category: Personal Reflection

  • The Difficult Work of Doing Right

    The Difficult Work of Doing Right

    Lately, I’ve been trying to be more careful about what I allow into my life.

    Not only what I eat, but what I watch. What I listen to. What I repeat. What I let sit in my mind long enough to start rearranging the furniture.

    I didn’t begin with any grand declaration. There was no mountaintop, no bolt of lightning, no solemn promise made before witnesses. I decided that I wanted to work on myself.

    So I started with the basics.

    Eat better.

    Move my body.

    Pay attention to how I speak to people, especially when I am tired, irritated, or certain I am right.

    These things aren’t easy. A plate of food can make a persuasive argument. The couch has defeated stronger men than me. And kindness is simple only until someone gives you a reason to withhold it.

    Still, I expected those struggles.

    What I didn’t expect was that the hardest part of trying to become a better man would be the oldest instruction of all:

    Do the right thing.

    The Speeches We Remember

    When I was a boy, doing the right thing seemed clearer.

    I read Captain America comics. I remember the speeches more than the punches—the insistence that a person should stand where conscience told him to stand, even when the crowd moved in the opposite direction.

    On those pages, right and wrong arrived in different uniforms. The villain usually announced himself. Courage had broad shoulders and a shield.

    Real life is less considerate.

    Wrong does not always enter the room wearing a mask. Sometimes it arrives as convenience. Sometimes it sounds like common sense. Sometimes it comes from people we love, people we respect, or people whose approval helps pay the bills.

    Sometimes wrong is simply what everybody else has already agreed to do.

    That is what makes it dangerous.

    Years ago, someone told me, “If doing the right thing were easy, everyone would be doing it.”

    I understood the sentence then. Or I thought I did. It sounded like one of those sayings meant to make a young person stand straighter. I could not have known how much truth it held.

    Doing right is difficult because it often asks for payment before it offers proof.

    It may cost you comfort. It may cost you an opportunity. It may cost you the warmth of a room that welcomed you only as long as you agreed not to disturb it.

    And sometimes, even after you have paid, no one applauds.

    The Ease of Going Along

    There is a powerful current in the phrase go along to get along.

    It sounds harmless. Almost neighborly.

    Don’t make trouble.

    Don’t hold up the line.

    Don’t ask the question that makes everyone look down at the table.

    Take the shortcut. Sign the paper. Laugh at the joke. Accept the explanation you know isn’t true. Let the small cruelty pass because naming it would make the evening uncomfortable.

    We are rarely told, in plain language, to betray what we believe. The request is usually softer than that.

    Be practical.

    Don’t take it so seriously.

    That’s just how things are.

    Everybody does it.

    There’s the trap.

    When enough people choose what’s easy, ease begins to look like wisdom. When enough people repeat a lie, the truth-teller begins to look disruptive.

    The crowd does not have to be cruel.

    It only has to keep moving.

    And moving with it is easy.

    You don’t have to decide where you are going. You don’t have to explain yourself. You borrow the judgment of the people around you and call it peace.

    But peace built on abandoning conscience is not peace.

    It is quiet.

    There is a difference.

    The Question Beneath the Noise

    I’m learning to pause before I make certain choices and ask one small question:

    Is it right?

    Not: Can I get away with it?

    Not: Will anyone know?

    Not: Is this what everyone else is doing?

    Not even: Will this work out well for me?

    Only: Is it right?

    Common sense should help us answer. So should compassion.

    If a decision requires me to pretend another person’s pain doesn’t matter, there is probably something wrong with the decision. If my comfort depends upon someone else carrying the burden, I should at least be honest about the arrangement.

    But honesty creates responsibility.

    Once we admit that we see what is happening, it becomes harder to claim we did not know what to do.

    Perhaps that is why we sometimes avoid the question.

    The question follows us home.

    It sits across from us while we eat. It waits in the dark after the television has gone quiet. It knows the version of the story we told everyone else, and it knows what we left out.

    The body often recognizes a moral compromise before the mind finishes defending it.

    A tightness in the chest.

    A hesitation before speaking.

    The sudden need to explain a choice no one has questioned.

    Something within us is still keeping the books.

    What Right Costs

    We like to imagine that doing the right thing will feel good.

    Sometimes it does.

    Sometimes it feels terrible.

    It can feel like disappointing someone. It can feel like walking away from money you need. It can feel like apologizing when pride has already prepared a closing argument. It can feel like refusing to punish someone simply because you have the power to.

    Doing right does not always make us look strong.

    At times, it asks us to be gentle when anger would be more impressive. It asks us to listen when we have already loaded our mouths with a response. It asks us to tell the truth without using truth as a weapon.

    That last part matters.

    Righteousness can become vanity if we are not careful. A person can be correct and still be cruel. We can become so pleased with our own moral clarity that we stop seeing the human being in front of us.

    The point is not to win the role of the good person.

    The point is to do as little harm as we can—and repair what we have damaged when we fail.

    And we will fail.

    I do not write this from some high place. I have taken easier roads. I have remained silent when I should have spoken and spoken sharply when silence would have been kinder. I have confused being justified with being right.

    Working on myself has not made me pure.

    It has made me less able to hide from myself.

    That may be the beginning.

    The Decisions That Do Not Leave Us

    I have not mentioned another difficulty.

    Sometimes we do not know what the right thing is until long after the moment has passed.

    Sometimes we never know.

    Years ago, a friend of mine was in the hospital after a drug-related incident. While I was visiting her, she asked if she could have a new bank card mailed to my address.

    The request struck me as strange.

    She had her own apartment. She had a boyfriend. She had family. I didn’t understand why the card needed to come to me, and whatever instinct I had at the time told me not to get involved.

    So I said no.

    At the time, it felt like a reasonable boundary. We are told to pay attention when something does not make sense. We are told that caring for someone does not mean agreeing to every request.

    I had incomplete information and made the decision I thought was safest.

    Then she died.

    Later, I learned that the money in her bank account had been drained. There was not enough left to bury her. Money had to be raised for her funeral.

    I have carried that knowledge ever since.

    I have wondered whether she was trying to protect what little she had. I have wondered whether she knew something she could not say plainly from that hospital bed. I have wondered whether sending that card to my home might have changed what happened afterward.

    I will never know.

    Grief is merciless with unanswered questions. It takes what we knew then and puts it on trial using what we learned later. It returns us to the room with evidence we did not have when we were standing inside it.

    To this day, I question whether I made the right decision.

    I can tell myself that the request seemed unusual. I can tell myself that I was entitled to say no.

    Both things are true.

    But truth does not always quiet regret.

    Perhaps doing the right thing is not always about recognizing a clear moral path and having the courage to take it. Sometimes it is about admitting that we cannot see the whole road.

    Sometimes all we can do is listen more carefully, ask one more question, and remember that an unusual request may be carrying a fear the other person does not yet know how to name.

    I cannot return to that hospital room. I cannot ask my friend what she was afraid of or tell her that I understand more now than I did then.

    I can only allow the memory to change the way I meet the next person.

    Maybe that is one of the harder forms of conscience: not punishing ourselves forever for what we did not know, but refusing to waste what regret has taught us.

    The Fear of Standing Alone

    I think many people know what the right thing is.

    What they fear is the loneliness of doing it.

    We picture ourselves standing alone while everyone else watches. We imagine invitations that may stop coming, conversations that will change when we enter the room, and the names people will give us once we are no longer useful to their comfort.

    That fear is real. Good choices do not come with a guarantee of companionship.

    But I do not believe we remain alone forever.

    I believe conviction has a way of recognizing itself in others. One person stands, and someone across the room realizes they can stand too. One person asks the forbidden question, and another discovers they were not the only one carrying it.

    Help does not always arrive like a rescue.

    Sometimes it arrives as a quiet voice saying, “I saw what you did.” Sometimes it is a hand on the shoulder. Sometimes it is the private relief of knowing that, whatever the consequences, you did not abandon yourself.

    More people may be waiting for courage than we know.

    Perhaps they are waiting for us.

    The Person We Practice Becoming

    I used to think character revealed itself in the great moment—the crisis, the speech, the single brave act that settled everything.

    Now I think character is assembled in smaller rooms.

    It is built when no one is watching. In the pause before we answer. In the story we refuse to spread. In the apology we offer without attaching an excuse. In the choice to leave something for the next person instead of taking all we can carry.

    We become honest by practicing honesty. We become kind by choosing kindness when kindness is inconvenient. We become brave in increments so small that, at first, they do not feel like bravery at all.

    Maybe that is why doing the right thing is so difficult.

    It is not one decision.

    It is a life made of them.

    There will always be pressure to hurry, to follow, to accept the easy answer because it is already waiting for us. A crowd will always be willing to lend us its certainty.

    But the quieter question remains.

    Is it right?

    I cannot promise that asking will make the road easier. It may make it harder. I cannot promise that choosing well will leave us untouched.

    Sometimes the cost will be real.

    Still, I believe help comes. I believe people of conscience find one another. I believe a decent life is not built by never being afraid, but by refusing to let fear make every decision.

    The heroes I read about as a boy stood beneath bright colors and spoke in sentences made to be remembered.

    Most of us will not get the shield. We will not get the speech. We will get an ordinary day, an uncomfortable choice, and a moment in which no one can decide for us.

    Then we will have to ask the question.

    And live with the answer.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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    Resources for Hard Times

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  • The Things We Keep Because Someone Touched Them

    The Things We Keep Because Someone Touched Them

    Sometimes, when my feelings begin to overwhelm me, I reach down and touch the bracelet my sister made.

    It is a small movement. Easy to miss.

    My fingers find the beads, and I remember that somewhere, far from where I live, someone in my family took the time to make something for me. Then she sent it.

    There was no occasion.

    She thought of me.

    Some days, I need something I can touch to remember that.

    Those who have read certain pieces here know that my childhood was difficult. I have written about parts of it. Other parts remain harder to explain, even to myself.

    I live far from my family now. That was my choice, and much of the time, I believe it was the right one.

    It can also be lonely.

    There is an awkwardness in admitting that. Once you choose distance, you can begin to feel you have surrendered the right to miss anyone. As though loneliness were a consequence you agreed to accept without complaint.

    But a decision can be necessary and still leave something aching.

    I can appreciate the life I have here and sometimes wish being close to family felt simpler. I can enjoy my solitude and reach the end of a day wanting to hear a familiar voice.

    Both belong to me.

    At times, I look at the closeness other people seem to have with their families and feel that I missed something. The ease of belonging. The ordinary assumption that someone will call, that there is a place at the table, that your presence does not require an explanation.

    I know I cannot see the whole of another family from the outside. Every table has conversations people avoid.

    Still, there are kinds of ease I wish I had known.

    There is grief in that, too. Missing something you cannot quite remember having.

    My sister is an artist.

    Some time ago, she sent me a beaded bracelet she had made. I have become attached to it in a way that might be difficult to explain if you were only looking at the bracelet.

    Before I could hold it, she had to.

    Before it became something I wore, it was something she was giving her attention to.

    There is a tenderness in that which I did not fully understand until I found myself reaching for it.

    We speak about time so often as something we lack. We are busy. We are tired. We will call when things settle down. Most of us mean it.

    Then someone takes a little of the time they have and makes you something.

    You get to keep that time.

    I think this is why certain things become impossible to throw away.

    A coffee cup with a chipped rim. A cheap watch that no longer works. A book with someone’s handwriting in the margin. A recipe on a stained piece of paper, written by a person who never understood why you needed the measurements.

    A stranger might sort them into a donation box.

    We would have to sit down first.

    The value is difficult to explain because it lives outside the object. It belongs to a kitchen, a voice, an afternoon. Someone reaching across a table. Someone writing your name.

    We can describe what a thing is and still say almost nothing about why we keep it.

    My bracelet is like that.

    It also reminds us that we don’t have to wait until someone is gone to understand the importance of what they have given us. Distance has its own way of teaching us to notice. So does loneliness.

    Sometimes a gift becomes precious because the person who made it is alive, somewhere else, carrying on with her day.

    And here you are, carrying a little of her care through yours.

    A difficult childhood can make care complicated to receive.

    I sometimes wonder whether part of me is still learning what to do with affection that arrives without my having to ask for it. Whether I am so accustomed to managing my feelings alone that a small kindness can reach places a grand gesture would never find.

    There are moments when loneliness begins making claims beyond what it actually knows.

    You are alone becomes You have always been alone.

    No one is here becomes No one cares.

    When I am overwhelmed, those can feel like the same sentence.

    Then I touch the bracelet.

    My sister made this.

    She sent it to me.

    Whatever else I am feeling, those things happened.

    The bracelet does not settle every question I have about family. It does not repair my childhood or erase the reasons I live far away. I would not ask something so small to carry all of that.

    But it helps me leave room for a fact my sadness sometimes overlooks.

    Someone cared enough to make this for me.

    I am trying to let that matter without immediately qualifying it.

    Perhaps that is part of learning how to live with a complicated history: allowing a kindness to reach you without requiring it to answer for everything that came before.

    My sister’s gift deserves to be received on its own terms.

    She made something.

    She thought I should have it.

    And I do.

    There are still lonely evenings. I still live far away. Some feelings arrive with more force than I know what to do with.

    When they do, I reach down.

    My fingers find the beads.

    I think of my sister, and for a moment I can hold on to the thought that I may not be as alone as I feel.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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    Resources for Hard Times

    If you’re looking for practical help, food support, or community resources, you can visit the Salt, Ink & Soul Resources Page.

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  • I Came for the Fair Food. I’m Glad I Went Anyway.

    I Came for the Fair Food. I’m Glad I Went Anyway.

    Today I went to the New Mexico State Fair.

    I have written before about how much effort it can take to just go outside. Crowds add another layer. They gather somewhere, and I consider going somewhere else.

    Lately, I have been trying to renegotiate that arrangement.

    There are things I want to see, places I want to go, and afternoons I would like to have without first calculating how many other people might be having them. I am not expecting to become someone who enjoys standing shoulder to shoulder with strangers. I would just like a little more say in where I spend my day.

    So I went early.

    Almost at opening, with rain coming down and most children still in school. I had purchased a five-dollar flash-sale ticket that morning. One day only. Use it today.

    Apparently, even my reluctance has a price.

    Five dollars got the conversation started.

    The accessible parking was free and fairly close to the entrance, which I appreciated. When walking requires some thought, the distance between your car and where you are going becomes part of the outing before it begins. Having that part be manageable made it easier to enjoy what came next.

    I entered without the usual wall of people.

    There was room to walk. Room to stop and look without feeling that I was obstructing someone else’s afternoon. The rain had made the day less attractive to some people and a little more possible for me.

    I was grateful for that.

    The rides looked good. The people on them appeared to be having a wonderful time, which is exactly where I prefer my amusement-park excitement: happening to other people.

    I watched from the ground.

    There were T-shirt vendors everywhere. Plenty to look at. Bright signs announcing things that could be fried, things that could be put on a stick, and things someone had apparently decided needed both.

    But I had come for one thing.

    Fair Food.

    Colorful food booths lining a walkway at the New Mexico State Fair.

    There is a particular optimism involved in arriving at a fair hungry. You imagine that somewhere between the entrance and the Ferris wheel, someone is preparing something that will justify the price, the walk, and whatever conversation you later have with yourself about your choices.

    I looked at the photographs on the booths. I looked at the food people were carrying. I walked and waited for something to call my name.

    Nothing did.

    That surprised me.

    At my age, I have been to quite a few fairs. I have eaten quite a bit of fair Food. Perhaps some of what I once experienced as excitement was simply the pleasure of encountering something for the first time.

    You cannot ask every afternoon to give you that again.

    Still, I was willing to let lunch try.

    I found a stand selling Alligator on a stick and deep-fried boudin balls. That seemed promising. Two foods I associate with Louisiana, a place whose cooking has never suggested to me that seasoning should be approached with fear.

    I ordered both, found somewhere to sit, and ate.

    Deep-fried boudin balls topped with ranch in a paper tray.
    Alligator on a stick topped with Ranch and served in foil.

    Or, more accurately, I began looking for the flavor.

    Both tasted unseasoned to me. There was the Food itself, the fried coating, the expectation of something that should have arrived with it.

    I kept waiting.

    Louisiana would be disappointed.

    I wondered whether anyone cooking those dishes had ever lived there. That was my disappointed appetite talking; I had no way of knowing. All I could say was that the Louisiana I expected to taste hadn’t made it into my order.

    Food carries a place into rooms that place will never see. Someone takes a bite and forms an impression. Of a kitchen. Of a region. Sometimes of people they have never met.

    That is a considerable responsibility for a paper tray.

    I don’t expect a fair booth to reproduce somebody’s grandmother’s kitchen. I know there is work behind that counter, and I know a disappointing meal does not tell me everything about the person who prepared it.

    But I had hoped for more than the shape of the thing.

    I wanted the seasoning.

    I ate both dishes anyway.

    Then I stood up and wondered how two small portions had made me feel as though I had gained twenty pounds.

    There should have been more pleasure involved in feeling that full.

    I kept walking.

    After a while, that familiar feeling began settling over the afternoon.

    Been here. Seen this. Done that.

    It is an easy conclusion to reach as you get older. Sometimes it is accurate. Sometimes you really have seen enough T-shirts and fried Food for one day.

    But I wonder how often familiarity makes us stop looking before we are finished seeing.

    I had arrived with an idea of what would make the trip worthwhile. The Food was supposed to be the reward for getting myself out of the house and through the entrance. When it disappointed me, I was beginning to let it speak for the whole Fair.

    Then I saw the African American Pavilion Art Gallery.

    I had never been inside.

    In the middle of all that feeling that I had already done everything, there was a place I had yet to explore.

    I did not go inside today. I plan to visit soon and give it time, attention, and an essay of its own here on Salt, Ink & Soul.

    Exterior sign for the Alice K. Hoppes African-American Pavilion Art Gallery.

    But noticing it interrupted my mood. I had been walking around thinking about how familiar everything felt, and here was something I still knew so little about.

    I could leave the rides to the people enjoying them. I could decide the boudin balls had let me down. Still, there was a reason to come back.

    And nearby, something else caught my attention.

    A prominent marijuana dispensary had set up a tent.

    At the New Mexico State Fair.

    I smiled.

    I do not partake. I had no plans to start. But there was something quietly amusing about seeing that business with a booth among the other businesses, participating in the ordinary machinery of a fair.

    I have lived long enough for that sight to surprise me.

    No purchase was necessary. I could simply stand there and notice how much the scenery had changed.

    A few minutes earlier, I had been thinking I had seen it all.

    Apparently, I had not.

    Ferris wheel rising above trees near the New Mexico State Fair entrance.

    I would have preferred better Food. Let the record show that I have not become so philosophical that seasoning no longer matters.

    But I was glad I went.

    I had found a way to be somewhere that could make me uncomfortable. I had given myself an early start, a quieter entrance, and permission to enjoy the day at my own pace.

    For once, the crowd had not made the decision.

    I had.

    And somewhere between a disappointing lunch and making a plan to return, I stopped deciding what the afternoon should be.

    I looked around.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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    Resources for Hard Times

    If you’re looking for practical help, food support, or community resources, you can visit the Salt, Ink & Soul Resources Page.

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  • I Chose the Better Room

    I Chose the Better Room

    I chose the better room on purpose.

    That probably doesn’t sound like much of a decision.

    People choose hotel rooms every day. They look at the pictures, compare the prices, decide whether they want the larger bed or the better view, and click the button.

    But I sat there for a while before I clicked mine.

    Because somewhere inside me, an old voice was doing the math.

    Not the math of whether I could afford it.

    I could.

    A different kind of math.

    Do you really need that?

    I know that question well.

    I grew up with it.

    When you grow up without much, necessity becomes its own kind of morality. You learn there are things you need and things you want, and good people are supposed to know the difference.

    You don’t pay extra for the view.

    You don’t need the bigger room.

    A bed is a bed.

    A room is somewhere to sleep.

    Why spend money on something you can do without?

    There was wisdom in that.

    I don’t want to pretend otherwise.

    Those lessons came from people who understood what it meant to stretch a dollar until there wasn’t much stretch left. People who knew that money spent carelessly today might be money desperately needed tomorrow.

    They taught us how to survive scarcity.

    The problem is that nobody tells you what to do with those lessons when scarcity is no longer your everyday condition.

    Sometimes the circumstances change before the thinking does.

    So this time, I chose the better room.

    Not because I needed it.

    I chose it because I wanted to be comfortable.

    Even writing that feels a little strange.

    My brother arrived a day earlier than expected.

    He wanted me to meet his wife, and while he was still on the road, he called me. Somewhere in the conversation, we started talking about the hotel.

    My brother has done well for himself.

    Very well.

    At some point, he mentioned that he doesn’t usually stay in places like this.

    I didn’t think much about it at first.

    Then I did.

    Because I know where he came from.

    He came from where I came from.

    And I found myself wondering whether an old voice was still doing the math inside him, too.

    I can’t say if there is.

    His reasons belong to him.

    But I wondered.

    Two brothers, years removed from the circumstances of their childhood, both successful enough to make choices our younger selves couldn’t have made, perhaps still hearing echoes from a time when spending money on comfort would have seemed foolish.

    Maybe even irresponsible.

    It made me wonder how much of our past continues making decisions for us long after we believe we have left it behind.

    Scarcity teaches you things.

    Some of them are useful.

    You learn how to make do.

    You learn how to repair instead of replace.

    You learn that expensive and good are not synonyms.

    You learn not to confuse wanting something with needing it.

    Those are lessons I hope I never lose.

    But scarcity can teach other lessons too.

    It can teach you to feel guilty when you have more than enough.

    It can make comfort feel suspicious.

    It can convince you that choosing the cheaper thing is always evidence of wisdom, even when the difference no longer matters much to your life.

    And perhaps most quietly, it can teach you to ask whether you need something when that is no longer the only question available to you.

    I am not talking about living beyond your means.

    I am not talking about buying things to impress people who aren’t paying your bills.

    I am not talking about mistaking luxury for happiness.

    I have lived long enough to know better than that.

    I am talking about living comfortably within your means.

    There is a difference.

    And I am beginning to think that difference matters.

    Maybe there comes a point when the question changes.

    For much of my life, the question was:

    Do I really need this?

    That question served me well.

    But there are times now when I can ask something else.

    Can I afford it?

    Will it make this experience better?

    Am I making the choice responsibly?

    And if the answers are yes, maybe I don’t need to summon hardship as proof that I still remember where I came from.

    Maybe remembering is enough.

    That is the part I am still learning.

    Because there is something complicated about doing better than you once did.

    People talk about success as though it simply opens doors.

    They don’t talk as much about how long you can stand in the doorway wondering whether you are supposed to walk through.

    Some of us become very good at surviving.

    So good that survival follows us into rooms where it is no longer required.

    We carry it in the way we shop.

    The way we save.

    The things we refuse ourselves.

    The small calculations nobody else sees.

    And perhaps that isn’t entirely bad.

    I don’t want to lose the boy who understood that money mattered.

    I don’t want to become careless simply because I no longer have to count every dollar the way people around me once did.

    There is honor in remembering.

    But there should also be some room for living.

    So I am sitting in the better room.

    There is more space than I need.

    There are things here I could certainly do without.

    And tomorrow morning, when I wake up, none of it will have transformed my life.

    It is just a hotel room.

    I know that.

    But perhaps choosing it was never really about the room.

    Maybe it was about giving myself permission to enjoy something I could responsibly afford without immediately explaining why I didn’t need it.

    Maybe it was about understanding that the people who taught me how to survive would not necessarily want survival to be the ceiling of my life.

    I don’t know.

    I’m still thinking about that.

    But I know this:

    There is nothing wrong with remembering how to live with less.

    I just don’t want to become so faithful to scarcity that I forget I no longer have to.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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    Resources for Hard Times

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  • Maybe a Good Life Is Smaller Than We Think

    Maybe a Good Life Is Smaller Than We Think

    I grew up poor enough to know what government cheese tasted like.

    Powdered milk too.

    Those were not stories we told about hardship. They were groceries.

    They were what helped get a family from one part of the month to the other.

    When you grow up like that, the good life can take on a particular shape in your imagination.

    It gets bigger than necessary.

    A giant house.

    Luxury cars.

    Vacations in places you have never seen.

    A refrigerator full of food, so nobody has to worry about running out.

    Bills paid before they are due.

    Maybe even the kind of life we used to see on television.

    When the electricity was on.

    The houses looked enormous.

    The kitchens looked spotless.

    Nobody seemed to worry about the light bill.

    Nobody opened a refrigerator and stood there doing arithmetic.

    Nobody looked at the last few slices of bread and wondered how many people still needed to eat.

    On television, there always seemed to be enough.

    More than enough.

    As a child, I thought that was the good life.

    Maybe that made sense.

    When you don’t have much, abundance looks a lot like happiness.

    You imagine that if you can just get far enough away from what you knew, everything will finally feel safe.

    A bigger house will do it.

    A nicer car.

    More money.

    A vacation where nobody has to count every dollar before ordering dinner.

    I don’t judge the younger version of myself for wanting those things.

    He was trying to imagine security with the only language he had been given.

    Money.

    Space.

    Possessions.

    Distance.

    The farther you could get from government cheese and powdered milk, the better you must be doing.

    But getting older has a way of changing definitions.

    Sometimes you simply wake up one day and realize you are no longer chasing the things you once thought would prove you had made it.

    I don’t live in a giant house.

    I live in a nice apartment.

    And I like it.

    I have an SUV that I love, and unless somebody takes the keys away from me one day, I plan to keep it forever.

    It gets me where I need to go.

    It is comfortable.

    It is mine.

    I have a small group of close friends.

    Not a crowd.

    Not a room full of people.

    Just a few of the best friends I have ever known.

    People I trust.

    People I can laugh with.

    People who know enough about me to understand when I am talking and when I am avoiding what I really mean.

    There was a time when I might have looked at this life and thought it was smaller than what I wanted.

    Now I wonder if I was measuring with the wrong ruler.

    Maybe the good life is smaller than we think.

    Not smaller in value.

    Smaller in scale.

    Maybe it does not require a mansion.

    Maybe it requires a place where you feel at peace when you close the door.

    Maybe it doesn’t require a luxury car.

    Maybe it requires something reliable that takes you home.

    Maybe it does not require being surrounded by people.

    Maybe it requires a few who would notice if you disappeared.

    Maybe it does not require eating in expensive restaurants.

    Maybe sometimes it is knowing there is enough food in the refrigerator and not having to worry about what will be left next week.

    There are things you notice differently when you grew up without enough.

    A full pantry can feel like wealth.

    A paid electric bill can feel like wealth.

    Being able to turn on the air conditioning without fear can feel like wealth.

    Buying something at the grocery store because you want it, instead of because it is the cheapest option, can feel like wealth.

    Going home to a place you actually enjoy living can feel like wealth.

    Having someone call and ask how you are, and knowing they really want the answer, can feel like wealth.

    None of these things photograph especially well.

    That may be part of the problem.

    We live in a world that is very good at showing us what success is supposed to look like.

    But somewhere along the way, we can begin confusing a life that looks impressive with a life that feels good to live.

    Those are not always the same thing.

    You can own a large house and dread going home.

    You can sit in an expensive car and feel completely alone.

    You can stand on a beach halfway around the world and still carry every worry you packed with you.

    Money can solve many problems.

    I would never pretend otherwise.

    People who have lived without enough usually understand that better than anybody.

    Enough matters.

    Maybe more than excess.

    There is a particular peace in enough.

    Enough food.

    Enough money to breathe.

    Enough space.

    Enough people who love you.

    Enough time to sit still for a while.

    Enough confidence in yourself that you no longer need everything you own to explain your worth to somebody else.

    That kind of enough does not make much noise.

    It doesn’t need to.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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    Resources for Hard Times

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  • It’s Too Hot to Cook, But We Still Have to Eat

    It’s Too Hot to Cook, But We Still Have to Eat

    It has been hot here in New Mexico.

    Not simply summer hot, where you expect the afternoon to be uncomfortable and learn to live with it. This has been the kind of heat that makes you reconsider ordinary decisions.

    Like cooking dinner.

    There is something almost absurd about standing in a kitchen on a hundred-degree day and deciding that what the house really needs is a 400-degree oven.

    You walk into the kitchen.

    You look at the stove.

    You think about what you planned to cook.

    And suddenly, a sandwich sounds pretty good.

    There is nothing wrong with that.

    A good sandwich, some chips, maybe a salad or some cold fruit can feel almost perfect when the heat outside seems determined to follow you into the house.

    But you can only eat that way for so many days.

    Eventually, you want something cooked.

    Something hot.

    Something that feels like dinner.

    And hunger, unlike the rest of us, has never been particularly impressed by the weather.

    We still have to eat.

    So after thinking about it for a while, I finally bought an air fryer.

    I had resisted getting one.

    I’ve lived long enough to watch plenty of kitchen appliances arrive with promises that they were about to revolutionize the way we eat. Some of them eventually found permanent homes in cabinets, sitting beside other machines that had once promised to change breakfast forever.

    But this time, the heat made a better argument than any commercial could.

    An air fryer is small. It cooks quickly. Most importantly right now, I can make dinner without turning the kitchen—and eventually the rest of the house—into an extension of the desert outside.

    So I’ve been using it.

    And I like it.

    I know not everyone has one.

    That is worth saying.

    Because conversations about food have a way of becoming conversations about privilege without anyone noticing.

    We assume everybody has the same kitchen.

    The same appliances.

    The same grocery budget.

    The same amount of time.

    The same energy when the day is over.

    They don’t.

    Food writing sometimes forgets that.

    Cooking can become theater.

    Beautiful kitchens. Expensive cookware. Perfect ingredients arranged across countertops. Recipes requiring twenty ingredients, three pans, and an afternoon nobody seems to have to work through.

    There is nothing inherently wrong with any of that.

    Cooking can be art.

    It can be recreation.

    It can be something we do simply because creating something beautiful with our hands gives us pleasure.

    I understand that.

    I love cooking.

    But cooking has another purpose that existed long before anybody photographed a dinner plate.

    Somebody has to eat.

    And somewhere tonight, somebody will come home tired from work, stand in front of a refrigerator, and try to figure out what can be made with what is inside.

    Somebody else will look at a grocery bill and quietly put something back.

    Someone will be feeding children who do not care that the person making dinner has had a difficult day.

    And somebody will be standing in a hot kitchen wondering what they can cook without making an already uncomfortable home even hotter.

    They are cooking too.

    Maybe that is cooking in its most honest form.

    It doesn’t matter that you worked late.

    It doesn’t matter that you’re tired.

    It doesn’t matter that groceries cost more than you expected.

    And it certainly doesn’t matter that it is a hundred degrees outside.

    Eventually, someone still has to answer one of the most ordinary questions in family life:

    What are we going to eat?

    It is such a simple question.

    But those words can conceal an extraordinary amount of labor.

    Because somebody has usually been thinking about the answer long before anyone asks.

    They checked the refrigerator.

    They know what is left.

    They remember what everybody ate yesterday.

    They know what needs to be used before it spoils.

    They know what the family likes and what somebody will complain about.

    They have considered the weather.

    They have considered the money.

    And perhaps most importantly, they have considered how tired they are.

    Then, somehow, food appears.

    We rarely call this extraordinary.

    Maybe because it happens too often.

    Care has a way of becoming invisible when it becomes dependable.

    Dinner appears.

    People eat.

    The dishes are washed.

    Tomorrow comes.

    And eventually the question returns.

    What are we going to eat?

    Families have been answering that question under conditions far more difficult than mine for generations.

    Before air conditioning cooled our kitchens, people still cooked through the summer.

    Before refrigerators kept everything safely cold, people found ways to preserve food.

    Before supermarkets offered strawberries in winter and nearly anything else we wanted regardless of season, people learned to make meals from what grew nearby, what could be preserved, what could be stretched, and what could be shared.

    Somewhere inside that history are countless people whose names will never appear in a cookbook.

    Mothers.

    Fathers.

    Grandmothers.

    Grandfathers.

    Aunts.

    Uncles.

    Older brothers and sisters.

    Neighbors.

    People who stood in kitchens while everyone else waited somewhere cooler.

    I remember some of this from my own childhood.

    When food was being prepared, we children were often chased out of the kitchen.

    We didn’t belong in there underfoot while somebody was trying to cook. There were hot pans, sharp knives, grease popping on the stove, cabinet doors opening and closing, and grown folks trying to finish a meal.

    So we were sent somewhere else.

    Go play.

    Go sit down.

    Get out of this kitchen.

    At the time, I don’t remember thinking very deeply about it.

    I was a child.

    The kitchen was simply where the food came from.

    Only later do you begin to understand what was happening in the room after you were chased out.

    Someone kept track of what was cooking, what needed stirring, what was almost done, and what still needed another few minutes.

    Then, when everything was ready, the rest of us came back.

    I remember something else too.

    My grandmother would bring my grandfather his food before she sat down and joined the rest of us.

    That was simply how things were in her kitchen.

    And in so many other kitchens.

    As a child, I didn’t question it.

    Children inherit rituals long before they understand them. We watch how the adults move around one another and assume this is simply how the world works.

    Grandpa sat.

    Grandma brought his plate.

    Then eventually she sat down too.

    I know people may look at that differently now.

    Some may see an old expectation placed upon women. Others may recognize a particular language of marriage, family, and care from another generation.

    Maybe both things can be true.

    I don’t need to turn my grandmother’s kitchen into an argument.

    I only need to remember what I saw.

    Because what stays with me now isn’t simply that she brought my grandfather his food.

    It is that she brought his food before she sat down herself.

    There is a difference.

    As children, we tend to remember the meal from the chair.

    Someone else remembers that same meal from their feet.

    We remember what was on the plate.

    We remember whether we liked it.

    We remember asking for seconds.

    We remember the conversations around the table.

    The grown folks talking about things we weren’t supposed to understand while we quietly listened anyway.

    Maybe that is one of the strange things about getting older.

    You begin revisiting childhood memories from the perspective of the adults who were standing just outside the frame.

    You finally notice what their hands were doing while yours were empty.

    We remember the food.

    Sometimes I wonder whether we remember the heat.

    We remember fried chicken.

    Greens.

    Beans that seemed to cook all afternoon.

    Cornbread pulled hot from an oven.

    We remember smells that could travel through an entire house and tell us what was coming before we ever saw the plate.

    We remember sitting down.

    We remember eating.

    We remember asking for seconds.

    Memory is generous to the person being fed.

    It can erase the sweat from the person doing the feeding.

    There was labor inside those meals.

    There was time.

    There was planning.

    Sometimes there was sacrifice.

    And sometimes there was simply someone who would have preferred to sit down but remained standing a little longer because the people they loved needed to eat.

    I didn’t understand any of that when I was a child.

    I only knew that eventually we would be called back into the kitchen. There would be food on the table, my grandfather would have his plate, and my grandmother would finally take her seat.

    Back then, I thought that was simply dinner.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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  • Watching Live Aid Again

    Watching Live Aid Again

    Tonight I watched a documentary about the history of Live Aid.

    It carried me back to my teenage years. Back then, the story seemed simple. Millions of people were starving. The world came together. Musicians sang. People donated. Food would reach those who needed it.

    That was enough for a teenager.

    Adults, unfortunately, don’t get to keep many simple stories.

    Watching it now, I found myself noticing things I never would have seen then. Not just the images of hunger, but the people standing around it. The officials. The governments. The negotiations that always seem to appear whenever suffering becomes visible enough for the world to notice.

    One interview stayed with me.

    An Ethiopian official seemed more struck by Bob Geldof’s appearance—his long hair, his beard, the fact that he wasn’t wearing a suit—than by the catastrophe unfolding around him. Maybe there was context I didn’t see. Maybe there was more to the exchange than the documentary showed. But it left me unsettled.

    I found myself looking less at Geldof and more at the official.

    As a teenager, I probably wouldn’t have noticed him at all.

    As an adult, I couldn’t stop noticing.

    His appearance stood in sharp contrast to the images of starving people surrounding him. Fairly or unfairly, I found myself wondering how someone could stand so close to such unimaginable suffering and seem so emotionally distant from it. It felt, at least to me, as though the people who were starving had become something to point toward rather than people to grieve.

    I eventually turned the documentary off.

    Not because I couldn’t bear to look at the victims.

    Because I couldn’t stop thinking about everything happening behind the camera.

    Over the years, I’ve worked alongside more people from different parts of Africa. I’ve learned how deeply history, politics, ethnicity, and tribal identities have shaped many nations there.

    That complexity leaves me with questions I cannot answer.

    How much suffering was caused by drought alone?

    How much by war?

    How much by corruption?

    How much by governments that placed power above people?

    History is filled with stories of trucks waiting at checkpoints. Food sitting only miles away while paperwork, politics, greed, or war decided whether starving families would eat.

    How much of that food never reached the people it was meant to feed?

    Perhaps that is what disturbed me most.

    Not simply that people were starving.

    But that even starvation can become something to bargain over.

    A convoy waits.

    Someone demands payment.

    A permit.

    A tax.

    A favor.

    And while adults negotiate, children continue waiting.

    Live Aid showed the world extraordinary generosity. Millions of ordinary people opened their wallets because they believed another human being deserved to live.

    The people who donated weren’t thinking about politics. They were thinking about hungry children. They believed compassion could bridge the distance between their table and someone else’s empty plate.

    I hope that generosity reached those it was meant for.

    I also hope history continues asking difficult questions about the systems that allowed so many people to suffer in the first place.

    I miss believing that kindness was enough.

    Because feeding the hungry is an act of compassion.

    Asking why they were hungry for so long is an act of responsibility.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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  • Every Family Has That Story

    Every Family Has That Story

    Every family remembers it a little differently. That’s what makes it ours.

    Some of the best conversations I’ve ever had didn’t begin with someone asking a question.

    They began while pouring another cup of coffee.

    While washing dishes after dinner.

    While someone looked out the window and quietly said,

    “You know what I’ve been thinking about lately…”

    That’s all it takes.

    Not an agenda.

    Not an interview.

    Not a carefully prepared topic.

    Just a moment when life slows down enough for someone to open a door to a memory.

    I’ve come to believe that families don’t stay together because everyone remembers every detail the same way.

    They stay together because they keep telling the stories.

    Every family has that story.

    The one that somehow finds its way into the conversation whenever everyone is together.

    The one everyone laughs about before it’s even finished.

    The one each person remembers just a little differently.

    For my family, there is one story that always seems to make its way back to the table.

    I was too young to know all of the details.

    Even today, I don’t know everything that happened.

    What I do know is that it involved a corrupt landlord, my uncle getting out of his car without putting it in park, a dog, and somehow several members of my family ending up in jail.

    Even writing that now makes me smile.

    It sounds unbelievable.

    Yet every person in my family who remembers it tells a slightly different version.

    My older brother remembers one part.

    My older sister remembers another.

    Someone interrupts to correct a detail.

    Someone else starts laughing before the funniest part has even been told.

    Then another memory surfaces that no one had thought about in years.

    The story changes a little every time it’s told.

    Not because anyone is trying to rewrite history.

    Because memory isn’t a recording.

    It’s something we carry together.

    Each of us holds a different piece.

    When we gather around the table, those pieces somehow begin finding one another again.

    Two of the people who were involved in that story—my uncle and my favorite aunt—have since passed away.

    Every time someone begins telling that story, it’s as if they find their way back to the table.

    For a little while, we aren’t just remembering what happened.

    We’re remembering them.

    Their voices.

    Their laughter.

    The way they told the story themselves.

    What begins as a funny family memory quietly becomes something more.

    It’s one of the ways we bring them back to the surface, if only for a little while.

    I’ve started to think that’s one of the quiet purposes of sharing a meal.

    The food brings us to the table.

    The stories remind us why we came.

    We spend a lot of time making sure family recipes don’t disappear.

    We write them down.

    We pass them from one generation to the next.

    We treasure the handwritten recipe cards tucked inside old cookbooks.

    Those things matter.

    But stories matter too.

    Maybe even more.

    A recipe can tell you how to make dinner.

    Only a story can tell you who was sitting around the table.

    Only a story can make someone who has been gone for years suddenly feel close enough to hear them laugh again.

    I’ve noticed something else over the years.

    The stories we tell most often usually aren’t about our greatest accomplishments.

    They’re about the unexpected moments.

    The family disasters that somehow became family legends.

    The misunderstandings.

    The road trips.

    The holidays that didn’t go according to plan.

    The moments that seemed impossible at the time but somehow became the ones that make everyone laugh the hardest years later.

    Time has a gentle way of sanding down some of life’s rough edges.

    Not all of them.

    Some memories deserve to remain exactly as serious as they were.

    But others become reminders that we survived together.

    That we laughed again.

    That we kept going.

    Maybe that’s why the best conversations don’t start with a question.

    They start with a memory.

    Someone quietly says,

    “You know what I’ve been thinking about lately…”

    And before long, one story becomes another.

    Coffee gets poured again.

    The dishes can wait.

    Nobody is looking at the clock.

    For a little while, the people we’ve lost pull up a chair beside us once more.

    They live in the stories we continue to tell.

    Maybe that’s one of the greatest gifts we can give the people we love.

    Not perfect memories.

    Not flawless stories.

    Just the willingness to keep telling them.

    Because as long as someone around the table can begin with,

    “Do you remember when…”

    they’re never really gone.

    Every family has that story.

    I hope we never stop telling ours.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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  • Why Do We Stop Noticing?

    Why Do We Stop Noticing?

    There is something I’ve been guilty of lately.

    Not noticing.

    If it were left up to me, I could happily spend most of my days at home. I’d write, cook, read, and if I needed my daily dose of sunshine, I’d probably just stand in the doorway for a few minutes and call it enough.

    I know that’s part of who I am.

    So every day I make myself go outside.

    I go for a walk to get my steps in. To spend a little time in the sunshine. To breathe fresh air. It’s become part of my routine, and I genuinely enjoy it.

    At least, I thought I did.

    Before I leave the house, I do what I’ve done almost every day for months.

    I start my Apple Watch.

    I put in my earbuds.

    I choose something to listen to.

    Then I start walking.

    There’s nothing wrong with any of those things.

    But recently I realized something.

    Almost all of my attention was somewhere other than where I was.

    I was watching my pace.

    Checking my distance.

    Listening to music.

    Thinking about how many steps I had left before I reached my goal.

    My body had switched to autopilot.

    I was aware of people around me, but mostly as objects to walk around.

    I wasn’t really seeing my neighborhood.

    I was simply moving through it.

    One morning I caught myself looking down at my watch again.

    I looked up.

    The mountains were there.

    They had been there every morning.

    The sky was a deeper blue than I remembered.

    A breeze moved through the trees.

    Somewhere nearby, birds were carrying on a conversation I had apparently been missing for weeks.

    None of those things had suddenly appeared.

    I had.

    Or maybe that’s not quite true.

    My body had been showing up.

    My attention hadn’t.

    That made me wonder how often I was doing the same thing in the rest of my life.

    How many meals had I eaten while thinking about what came next instead of tasting what was already on my plate?

    How many conversations had I rushed through because my mind was already working on tomorrow?

    How many mornings had I traded for another item on my to-do list?

    I have spent so much of my life trying to be more efficient.

    Looking for the best way to do something.

    The quickest way.

    The smartest way.

    Anything to save a few minutes.

    And to be fair, that mindset has helped me in a lot of ways.

    My walks have improved my health.

    My Apple Watch has encouraged me to keep moving.

    The watch wasn’t the problem.

    Somewhere along the way, I realized I had become more interested in finishing my walk than experiencing it.

    I wasn’t only trying to reach a step goal.

    I was trying to live a healthier life.

    Part of living a healthier life is noticing the world you’re walking through.

    The sunshine.

    The mountains.

    The changing seasons.

    The maintenance man who always waves.

    The ordinary things that quietly become the memories we miss one day.

    Maybe beauty hasn’t become rare.

    Maybe we’ve simply become busy.

    Busy enough to walk through beautiful places without ever really seeing them.

    Tomorrow I’ll probably still wear my Apple Watch.

    I’ll probably still listen to music.

    I’ll probably still count my steps.

    But I think I’ll leave one earbud out for a little while.

    Because it would be a shame to spend my whole life moving through beautiful places…

    …without ever really noticing them.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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  • One Step Up

    One Step Up

    Sometimes a song stays with you because you realize it has been telling your story all along.

    There are lyrics from Bruce Springsteen’s “One Step Up” that have followed me for years:

    “When I look at myself I don’t see

    The man I wanted to be.

    Somewhere along the line I slipped off track.

    I’m caught moving one Step up and two steps back.”

    The first time I heard those words, I understood them.

    The older I’ve become, the more they’ve come to understand me.

    When I was young, I had a picture of the life I would live.

    It wasn’t extravagant. I wasn’t dreaming of fame or fortune. What I wanted was much quieter than that.

    I wanted to be married.

    I wanted a home that always felt full. Children running through the hallway. Grandchildren years later. Birthdays that needed another chair pulled up to the table. Sunday dinners that lingered long after the plates were empty because no one was in a hurry to leave.

    I thought I would grow into that man.

    Life had different plans.

    Some dreams end all at once.

    Others fade so slowly that one day you realize you’ve been mourning them without ever knowing when they disappeared.

    There isn’t always someone to blame.

    Sometimes life simply unfolds differently than the version we carried inside ourselves.

    For years, I measured my life against the man I expected to become. Every birthday became another quiet comparison. Another reminder of the distance between the future I imagined and the present I was living.

    That can become a cruel way to measure a life.

    Because the mirror only reflects what is.

    It never shows what has been survived.

    It doesn’t reveal the disappointments that taught you compassion. It doesn’t show the losses that made you gentler. It cannot measure the strength it took to keep moving after discovering life wasn’t interested in following your plans.

    Somewhere along the way, I stopped asking where I had gone wrong.

    Age has a way of changing the questions.

    I no longer ask myself as often, Why didn’t my life become what I imagined?

    Instead, I find myself asking something else.

    What kind of man would I have been?

    If I had married.

    If the house had been filled with children.

    If life had unfolded exactly as I had hoped.

    Would I have learned empathy without loneliness?

    Would I have become a writer if I had been busy living the life I thought I wanted?

    Would I have paid such close attention to ordinary moments if everything had come easily?

    I honestly don’t know.

    We spend so much time grieving the lives we never lived that we forget those lives would have shaped us differently.

    The husband I imagined.

    The father I dreamed of becoming.

    The grandfather sitting quietly at the end of a crowded table.

    He would have been another version of me.

    But not necessarily a better one.

    Maybe he would have been happier.

    Maybe he would have been wiser.

    Or maybe he would have missed the lessons this life insisted on teaching.

    Because while I didn’t become the man I expected, I became someone else.

    Someone who learned that kindness often grows where certainty once lived.

    Someone who discovered that stories matter because they remind us we aren’t walking alone.

    Someone who writes in the hope that another person, somewhere, might recognize themselves and feel just a little less alone.

    Maybe that writer could only have been born from this life.

    Not the one I planned.

    But the one I was given.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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