Love, Death and The Point System

Saturday marked nine years since John died. Rosie and I were in California. It was a beautiful and busy day – we woke in the home of devoted cousins on John’s side, and went to sleep in the home of generous cousins on my side. In between, we visited Santa Clara University, where I communed with my late cousin Paula Kirkeby, who died three years ago of metastatic breast cancer. I found Paula’s bench next to the museum where she donated some of her art collection. Paula was an art dealer, a renegade, large in body and spirit, who made me feel beloved and special despite the generation and continent that separated us. 

Paula told stories with a particular breathiness, moving from hushed conspiratorial tones to riotous head-thrown-back laughter along with eyerolls, head shakes, hand gesticulations, mock outrage or maybe real outrage. It was always theatrical, always exciting to be in Paula’s orb. Her husband, a tall Dane named Philip who died before Paula did, would greet me with enthusiasm when I showed up on their doorstep in Palo Alto. “Paula! Godammit, look who’s here! It’s wonderful to see you, Godammit! Come in, sit down, where you been, Godammit?” His sons referred to him as Godammit. I can still hear Paula muttering to me, “Honey, I’m going to kill him, I swear,” wagging a finger to convey how serious she was. Their home was a cacophony of words, art, eccentric characters, liquor, and laughter. I adored my California cousins. 

And so on the anniversary of John’s death, I sat on Paula’s bench with ghosts and family and loss mingling amidst a hazy travel hangover. 

This past summer while I was in Juneau, I went to Methodist Camp to visit Lynn Canal Running Camp. A few months after John died, Merry Ellefson approached me with a vision of a weeklong experience designed to support the growth of high school runners in mind, body and spirit. We made a contribution from John’s memorial fund to help establish the camp. 

I hadn’t been out to visit camp since the first year. I went this summer with my friend Mary to help her friend Greg, the camp cook, prepare an ambitious dinner of make-your-own-pizzas for 50. I surprised Merry, who asked if I’d share some words about John with the campers after dinner. 

After chopping onions and rolling out dough, I searched for scrap paper, found an envelope and a dull pencil, and scratched out John Caouette’s Top-6 Tips for a Happy Life. I could have written ten more, but I didn't have much time, and it was a small envelope. Here they are: 

6. Use The Point System to motivate yourself. John devised this system himself, and gave himself five possible points a day: one point for running, one for not drinking coffee, one for no sugar, etc. Some would change, depending on what he was Working On. Bonus points: Track your progress in an Excel spreadsheet and run stats on it. Don’t forget the 13-week “smoothing.” 

5. Cultivate your inner smile. 

4. Come up with cheesy mantras like “cultivate your inner smile.” 

3. Be a cheerleader – because your friends and family are AWESOME! 

2. Instead of saying, “This is delicious,” say, “It’s a party in my mouth.”

1. If someone says, “Hey, wanna ___” as in, run the Twin Cities Marathon this weekend, or go  to the Outer Coast for ten days, etc., the answer is always YES. 

A few days after my visit to running camp, as I picked sour cherries with a friend, I told her about my Top-6 list. Oh yeah, she said, we do The Point System. 

What? I said, laughing. 

Her sons’ dad was one of John’s closest friends and perhaps his only convert to The Point System. And what a convert he was, faithfully sticking to his own Point System and persuading the rest of his family to join him. 

I confess I never fully embraced The Point System, though the seed of the idea came from me when I learned in my teacher preparation coursework that stickers are powerful motivators, even for high school students. I tested the theory at home, using a page of yellow smiley-face stickers I’d found. John and I put a sticker on our wall calendar for each day we didn’t use the car, and counted them at the end of each month. We became so determined to earn stickers we’d skip evening events that required driving on an otherwise car-free day. When we ran out of stickers we drew smileys with a highlighter and pen. Soon John was tracking more things, awed by the power of quantitative feedback to influence our behavior. And so was born The Point System, which John approached with 100 percent earnestness and zero irony. 

If you’d like to start your own Point System, I’m told it’s easy. You don’t have to tell anyone what you’re tracking or how you’re doing, you just have to be honest with yourself and faithful in logging your points. Who’s in with me? 

Paula Kirkeby's bench, de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University

Girl discovers typewriter. 

San Francisco has portable "Public Parklets" that nest against the sidewalk in place of a few parking spaces. Who knew?

Boy scales the hallowed halls of Harvard.

Look who came to Cambridge! My friend and former boss Bill Walker gave a talk at Harvard on what it was like to be the only Independent governor in the nation. In a word: lonely. In another word: freeing. We miss you, Governor.  

Massachusetts cousins on Yom Kippur, breaking the fast no one kept.