The Saints Win And My Father Smiles

The New Orleans Saints have won the Super Bowl and I feel my father's tender presence full inside my heart.

I was 8 years old when the Saints played their first season in 1966. My father was 43, almost a decade younger than I am now. I remember how excited he was, for this put an NFL team just 100 miles down the road from Hattiesburg, in the city where he completed his medical school residency, the city where his first child, my sister Carol, was born.

The first play of that first season made all things good seem possible: a 94 yard touchdown return on the opening kickoff. I imagine it was a brief but glorious light for him during a time when his country was shifting in a way he must have struggled to understand. I remember attending a Saints game with him around 1970 and being scared when everybody would begin to stomp their feet on the metal frame of Tulane Stadium. It was there in 1971 that Tom Dempsey, born without toes on his right foot, kicked a 63 yard field goal, a record unsurpassed to this day.

In 1966, Mississippi felt the world closing in around it, and football steadied its besieged heart. I remember taking trips to Jackson or Oxford on fall weekends to watch the Ole Miss Rebels play. We would tie a rebel flag to the car antenna and wave to the other similarly adorned fans on the highway. It was exciting, yet I remember how that flag would be ragged by the time our trip ended, as its threads were slowly whisked away in the wind. The metaphor seems quite poignant to me right now.

Archie Manning was the Rebel quarterback, and he "sure was something". Folks thought he deserved to win the Heisman trophy but suspected that he wasn't getting sufficient recognition because of the nation's view of Mississippi at the time. I remember repeatedly playing the 45 RPM record of The Battle Of Archie Who" which claimed that "Archie 'Super' Manning could run for President".

When Archie was drafted by the 1971 Saints in the first round, my father had great hopes for his team which hadn't yet compiled a winning season. Unfortunately, this was just one of the many dreams that slipped away from him during his life, for the Saints never won more games than they lost until 1987, 16 years later. I bet my father watched hundreds of those games. I remember endless Sunday afternoons when he would be sitting in his "easy chair" watching his beloved, beleaguered team. I'm sure he dearly wanted me to watch with him, and I tried a few times but quickly grew tired of the endless back-and-forth that never ended well. I could get that at the kitchen table every night.

I attended Tulane from 1976 to 1980. Tulane "Sugar Bowl" Stadium, where the Saints had played all their home games, stood empty during most of those years, since the team vacated when the Super Dome opened in 1975. I went downtown to a few of those games, but the Saints were dull and I was wild, so the team my father loved held no sway for me. In 1980, the year I graduated, the old stadium was demolished.

My father died of a heart attack in 1997, sitting in the same easy chair that held him through all those games. He only had the briefest opportunity to know my son Lincoln. Last year Lincoln was selected as his middle school's All-County football player, and I longed for my father's witness to this remarkable achievement. When Lincoln followed this pinnacle by saying he didn't really like the game and preferred to play in the band, I was unexpectedly both surprised and relieved. I wanted him to be more than a football hero.

Tonight I watched, standing with trepidation,, as Peyton Manning, Archie's son, donned a Colts uniform and tried with everything he had to defeat the team that denied his father greatness a generation ago. Just a few minutes ago the Saints defeated the Indianapolis Colts to become Super Bowl champions. And this time I am the one who wanted his son to sit and watch and cheer with his father, just as I am the one who sighed in loving acceptance that he was not about to do this: "tell me in the morning who won, Dad."

So sitting by myself with my loving dog by my side, I cried for my father as the final seconds of this most beautiful and gloriously exciting game ticked away. I felt him so fully present in my heart that it was as if he had mustered his spirit to share that space with me for a few precious, affirming moments of almost indescribable joy. Finally, we watched a game together.

When The Horrific No Longer Horrifies

Now that school has begun we are quickly settling into a typical weekday routine. By this stage of the game (Lincoln in 9th grade and Casey in 5th) the engine generally runs pretty smoothly, and today seemed no different until Casey yelled "I hate all this killing!" and stopped making her peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich to turn off the kitchen radio. I irritatingly told her to calm down and then almost immediately caught myself to ask what she was upset about. It turns out the source of her distress was a National Public Radio story about various bombing options in the event Iran gains nuclear capabilities.

I immediately changed my tone and thanked her for being horrified by a story I barely paid attention to while standing only a few feet away. It was damning evidence of how desensitized I have become to the daily diary of death and destruction that saturates me. It is horrible when the horrific no longer horrifies.

How can I both hope and fear that one day she too will stop noticing?

Blink

Yesterday the kids started back to school. Will I ever get used to the school year starting in early August? Heck, yes! I'm very glad to return to a more predicable routine after three months of balancing my work obligations with the summer schedule.

Casey was off to school early to be in the "safety patrol" where she gets the honor of wearing a sash-and-belt and opening car doors in the carpool lane. She was very excited to participate in this program when it was announced last spring, but now that the time has come to actually put in an extra hour a day she doesn't seem so enthused. I'm sure she'll settle in just fine. She was very happy to be placed in the same homeroom as one of her best friends, although I'm a little concerned about a couple of her other classmates. Oh well, life itself is a mixed bag, so why should 5th grade be any different?

I peeked out the front window and watched Lincoln waiting for the bus on his first day of high school. I see him standing all serious but not sullen, studiously casual in the clothes he has carefully picked, every bit the young man. I said a silent but fervent prayer for the safety of my sweet children as they venture ever further into their own lives.

I don't have a strong history of journaling but I found an entry I wrote almost exactly 9 years ago:

Linc starts kindergarten tomorrow. Tonight at bedtime he reiterated that he was scared to go. I listened, empathized, offered assurance. “I know you can do it, son.” “No, Dad, I can’t. C-A-T, can’t.” It was so touching......Before I left him to find his way to sleep though his maze of feelings, I said to him 10 times, “It’ll be great!” He joined me on the 10th repetition. We talked about this-and-that for a minute more and then he said “I just remembered – it’ll be great!” A couple of hours later I went into his room to check on him and found him sleeping deeply, clutching a stuffed Babar doll. My eyes teared. This little boy, this so so little boy. He is such a good human, and he tries so hard.....As much as anything I am proud and grateful that he can say directly, “this scares me”. It is only in recent years that I have learned how to say this publicly and without shame. Tomorrow I will take him to school and we will eat breakfast together before I leave him with his kind teacher. I know it is the same boy who I will see tomorrow night. I need to repeat that 10 times.

I wonder what I will be writing in another 9 years, when he is 23 and she is 19? Rather than fret about whether I will still be around I will affirm the blessing of a long and healthy life and strive to take not a single day for granted. There is still much to do.

Shoe

Since I titled my last post "Hat", I think I'll call this one "Shoe" since it touches the ground, which is the root word for "humility".

Last week my daughter Casey had her 10th birthday celebration, delightedly hosting 10 similarly squealing girls at a local park pavilion which I had rented for the day. What turned out to be a valuable life lesson for me began when we arrived to set up the decorations and found a large group of people gathered under the very pavilion I had reserved.

I quickly noticed they were praying and so maintained a respectful distance. When they finished I walked into the throng with my orange "RESERVED" notice in my hand and asked to speak to whoever was in charge. Eyes and fingers pointed to one man and I informed him that we had the pavilion and they needed to leave. As the crowd began to disperse I added "and please clean up after yourself".

When I began lugging ice chests from the car, one young man from the dispersing group asked if he could help me. "Wow!" I thought. "These folks are the good kind of Christians!" However, as I went back to move my car closer I'm pretty sure I heard one of them mumble in a voice just loud enough for me to hear, "asshole." I didn't blame the person or get upset, since I figured I would be saying or at least thinking the same thing if the roles were reversed.

The group was obviously already near the end of their gathering (I subsequently learned they were affiliated with some sort of church softball league) and most all of them were piling into their cars, saying good-bye to each other and so forth. With this potential crisis thus averted I turned my attention to figuring out the lay of the land.

I walked into the nearby activity center to inquire about the bathroom set-up, since that came with the pavilion rental. The woman behind the desk checked her records and told me that she had no record of my reservation for the day. I looked at the orange form I was still carrying and noticed.......

I had reserved the wrong date!

Somehow in my perpetually addled brain I had made the reservation for the following Saturday! My knees started to buckle and my head went all swimmy as I struggled to keep panic at bay.

The very nice staff member checked the reservation forms and determined that the prior group had reserved the pavilion only until noon, so our 2 o'clock party did not infringe on their designated time span to be there. She then told me that since I had already paid the money and nobody else was scheduled to use the pavilion for the rest of the day that it would be fine to go ahead with our party. She even took out a felt-tip pen and wrote the right date on my precious little orange form which I had only moments before used like a mighty talisman and which now tagged me as an oafish and officious little man.

Tragedy was thus averted on two fronts: that I was able to bring about a party for my excited daughter and that I had not thrust out God's pious children from their rightful haven like some evil idolater in a Biblical morality play.

This incident serves as a reminder to me to walk with a humble and soft step through any adversity or opposition that exists either in the world or (more often) between my ears, that wide and barren expanse where the seductive, tenacious and cunning tyrant that is my ego repeatedly bids me to blindly march headlong into brick walls and over perilous cliffs.

40 years in the desert seems like a day trip compared to my own personal quest to reach the Canaan of my soul.

Leprechaun Trap

Last night I helped Casey, almost 10, construct a "leprechaun trap" for St. Patrick's Day. She designed a clever little box (covered in cotton balls to disguise it) on a string and we carefully set it up so that the string was held tautly in place by the weight of a small pile of coins and other shiny things so that the box would fall on the little creature and capture it when it tried to take the treasure.

But this morning she awoke to find the coins gone and the trap on its side in partial ruins, alone with a "Kiss Me I'm Irish" shirt and this note:

Aye lassie, ye almost caught me but good this time! I had to call to me friends to help me escape – I was mighty afeerd ye would hear me, I was! They came a’scurrying from all around the neighborhood in order to help rescue me from “Caseystrap” which is what we are keen to call your diabolical device! It’s a good thing I owed them all a lot of money or they may not have tried so hard to save me! You are quite the clever bonnie and a worthy one to boot! I’m leaving this shirt to remember me by, for that’s the closest you will have hold of me!!

By th’ way….I took the quarters and left the stuff I cannot spend. I’m not a magpie, sweetie – I knows the difference between what’s valuable and what’s merely shiny!

Now it’s off with me for another year.
Ta-ta!!

That's one crafty leprechaun!

Tooth Fairy

Just before bedtime last night Casey lost a tooth. As is her established ritual she placed it in the pocket of her special "tooth fairy pillow" and went to sleep. In the morning she found this letter along with a five dollar bill:

Dear Casey:

I’m so happy to get another one of your special teeth. I can tell it’s eaten a lot of yummy food and now its job is done. Do you know it’s been almost exactly one year since I last visited you?

Just like last time, I’m leaving you a little “green” to help you on your way to adult teeth. I’m glad your teeth aren’t green!

Keep doing such a good job brushing your teeth, and it wouldn’t hurt to floss a little now and then (you know how tooth fairies prattle on about good dental health!)

By the way, you were fabulous at your last dental check-up. We tooth fairies always review dental records late at night. Don’t ask how we get into the offices (which we laughingly call “orifices”, heh heh....that’s a little tooth fairy joke, dearie.)

OK, enough chatting for now. I have to zip over to Montana where a little boy lost a tooth and then swallowed it. He wanted his parents to search his poop for it but they said there has to be some limits in this world or otherwise what’s the point of it all? I’m just sayin’…..

Ta ta, precious.

I wish I could write like that. Hey, wait a minute.......

Double All-County

Lincoln was selected Most Valuable Player on his middle school football
team this past week, earning his way onto the honorary DeKalb county all-star team. This is a very high honor for him and a testament to his dedication, focus, attitude, academic performance and familial support. In some ways it's an award the whole family shares much the same way we were all responsible several years back for Gina's graduate degree, right down to Casey who was still a toddler at the time.

In addition to my pride in his accomplishment I feel some vindication (which I'm not proud about) for how last year's football season ended for him, which I've never written about until now, so here goes:

You can read past postings to catch up on the adventures of last year's season, especially in the way my role as father continued to adapt and grow. As the season progressed Lincoln's morale began to steadily decline due to the attitude and decisions of his coaches regarding his role on the team. The head coach personally promised me that he would get to carry the ball (something he'd always wanted to do) in the last regular season game, since neither victory or defeat would change the team's post-season standings. Unfortunately the coach did not do what he promised, and Lincoln's spirit was crushed. The next week he missed practice due to the start of the wrestling season and despite the advance notice I gave about this the coach made the decision to bench Lincoln during the first play-off game. Lincoln came to that game fired up and ready to rock and was stunned to be penalized in this manner.

He was devastated and I was furious. When half-time started he came to me and asked what he should do. I told him I would support whatever decision he made. He thought about it a few seconds and then said "I'm done." I nodded, realizing the import of what was happening as I watched a young MAN emerge from the boy in front of me. He walked calmly, directly and unbidden to each coach and extended his hand respectfully and firmly while announcing his immediate departure from the team.

The coaches were "fit to be tied" as the saying goes and stormed over to me simultaneously defending their actions and condemning his. I didn't allow this to continue for long (what good would a continued battle of wills do at this point?) and escorted Lincoln to the car with both our heads held high. I remember we went to Blockbuster and rented a slew of Japanese monster movies to watch together (they're not very good, in case you're interested).

I was emotionally conflicted for months about whether I was enabling a lasting template of what society calls "being a quitter", but I have found that my most abiding feeling has been one of immense pride at the courage and self-esteem he demonstrated in response to the way he was disrespected (I almost wrote "pissed on") by adults who will never be half the man he is proving himself to be.

His team went on to win the league championship without him, so he did not get an opportunity to fully experience the feeling of riding a season all the way to the very top. We've got a team photo from last year that neither of us has expressed an interest in framing. I've had to work hard and not altogether successfully to avoid holding onto a resentment against the coaching staff for the way they handled him. What helped me greatly was simply knowing how toxic such an approach is for me.

I've subsequently looked for and found unintended positive consequences that would not have occurred if this event had not taken place exactly as it unfolded. (So many times in my life I've found that seemingly difficult times revealed hidden meaning as my attitude softened). For instance, this year's personal victory for Lincoln is much sweeter for last year's disappointment. His demonstrated ability to "gut out" an entire season on a losing team while maintaining a perfect grade point average is a resounding rebuke to any implied charge that he is a "quitter". And in retrospect the way he comported himself by walking away from an important game that he cared deeply about brings to my mind Cyrano's grand retort to the charge that giving away his gold was foolish when he proudly responded "but what a gesture!"

So I came to the decision that it was time to finally forgive last year's coach and move on. Almost immediately after I came to this conclusion Lincoln was selected to play trumpet in the all-county middle school honors band. I was surprised but pleased, of course. A few days later he auditioned to determine his seating order in the band and was chosen to be principal trumpet! First chair! Best trumpet in the county! Who IS this man, and how do I deserve him?

Important Addendum as Of December 12th: I'm almost relieved to say that Lincoln did worse than he expected at the All-District level and did not qualify for All-State. Also, he flubbed a solo at the middle school end-of-semester concert and was embarrassed about it. I gave him less than a minute of advice about handling disappointments with dignity and just saying to folks "it wasn't my finest hour" because people may admire you in victory but they will come to respect you by how you handle defeats, even relative ones. I also pointed out that the more goals you ahve for yourself the more often you will not rise to the level of your hopes and expectations. Only a person with no goals is never disappointed in himself. He seemed to shrug it all off like water from a duck's back, which is comforting to see on a number of levels.

My Favorite Stories Often Begin With "Well"

I saw a television commercial recently that asked the question: "Do you know what game your child played in recess today?" The answer is that I generally do (that is, on the days when recess actually exists. This time-honored free-for-all is slowly but surely being phased out of elementary school. Another "No Child Left Behind" victory!)

As a middle schooler Lincoln doesn't tell me about his day as frequently or descriptively as his sister, but she more than makes up for the shortfall. I am able to find out all sorts of incidents, dramas, rumors, conjecture and flat-out balderdash (I love that word) simply by asking her to tell me about her day. One of my favorite games last year was what I came to call "Ellison Says". Any sentence that began with those words caused me to immediately sit up and listen keenly because absolutely anything could follow. "Ellison says his driveway is a mile long", "Ellison says one species of turtle can live a thousand years"; "Ellison says he was born without tonsils"; "Ellison says Pluto is gone". Casey and Ellison are now in different 4th grade classes and life is poorer for it.

I've found that a similar treat follows any time Casey answers a question by starting with the word "Well". "Well" is a clear indicator that a thoroughly entertaining tale is ahead, chock-a-block (another favorite word!) with a fascinating mix of vagary, circular logic, accidental profundity and more than a few extraneous or omitted key points. Sometimes all she has to say is that first word and I start laughing, much to her annoyance.

Things have now gotten to the point that I typically notice when almost anyone starts an explanation with the word "Well". Politicians do it all the time, and it's an immediate "tell" that they are either being defensive or slinging total bullshit.

As the old pun goes, "well" is a deep subject.

Family On A River

This weekend we went as a family to the Nantahala River in western North Carolina for a couple of rafting runs down the popular class II-III dam-controlled two hour stretch of river. I think this is the 4th time we've rafted the Nantahala in as many years. (The first time we rafted it Casey was barely up to the 60 pound minimum weight so we hid a couple of one-pound ankle weights in her pockets to insure she would "make weight".) This is a really fun and safe trip that I heartily recommend for just about anybody.

This year both kids took turns "riding the bull", which is the term for sitting on the front end of the raft as it goes through the rapids. Casey fell into the water twice and did a great job of following the instructions that are taught to everyone before they get in the river: point your "toes and nose" downstream, don't try to stand up, and let someone haul you back into the raft. Gina was a good sport about my gentle ribbing that she looked exactly like a classic movie scene of a desperate mother reaching out while mouthing in ultra-slow motion: "My Baaaayyyy-Beeeeeeee!!" (As a perfect example, look at 2:14 into the staircase scene from the 1987 Kevin Costner film "The Untouchables".)

The picture at the top of this post is taken by a company that does nothing but photograph rafts and kayaks going over one particular spot near the end of the Nantahala run. If it's not maneuvered just right it's easy to get a chance to "count fish" (fall into the water) very suddenly. We feel like old pros by this time. I'm already scouting around for a river in the western U.S. to travel on next summer, maybe a guided tour of the Salmon River in Idaho.

The metaphoric potential of a family navigating a river together is obvious. Lazy stretches interspersed with seat-of-your-pants decision-making, the need to stay balanced and work together, the necessity of going with the flow.....all of these and more are part of the life of a family working to live and grow together in such a way that everybody stays on board safe (if not always dry) until the end of the ride.

Best Book Ever?

Today I had to take Lincoln to the pediatrician for a nasty-looking rash spreading up one leg, which started at a blister he got at football practice. It turns out he has bullous impetigo which is treated in a pretty straight-forward fashion with antibiotics. I was initially scared he was developing MRSA, the flesh-eating and antibiotic-resistant skin infection that is spreading rapidly through the world of youth contact sports. The first pediatrician who examined him, who was pregnant, practically leaped backward out of the exam room in initial fear that he had shingles, of all things, which is apparently related to chickenpox and therefore a risk factor for babies in utero. She called in Dr. Jackie Gottlieb, who is a pediatric icon in the Stone Mountain area. It took her all of one second to diagnose, prescribe and wish us a good day. What a relief.

Anyway........I wrote all that to say that while we were in the exam room waiting to be seen I found a copy of the classic young child's bedtime story, Goodnight Moon, first published in 1947. Millions of copies of this little book are in print, and I probably read this sweet tale to my kids hundreds of times over the first years of their lives. I hadn't thought about it in years but reading it today carried me back to those many nights tucking the kids into bed.

For those who don't know, this is a very simple description (it hardly merits being called a story) of a young bunny falling asleep. With each page an object in the little bunny's bedroom is told "goodnight". Kittens, mittens, socks, clocks, pictures, a balloon, a bowl of "mush" (which I always changed to "cereal" because who the heck knows what mush is any more?), etc. Eventually it's the stars, the air, the "noises everywhere" that are being bid a good night. My favorite line is "Goodnight nobody." Perhaps only "Jesus wept " surpasses the powerful brevity of those two simple words.

Along with "Guess How much I Love You" and "Love You Forever", this book defines the reassuring innocence and safety of a parent's love. There are some very funny deconstructions of "Goodnight Moon", which is a true mark of its status as a classic of its genre. I can't imagine a world in which it would ever go out of print.

Goodnight nobody.

No Runs, No Hits, No Errors -- Just Memories

Lincoln stopped playing youth baseball this season. His commitments to wrestling and off-season football conditioning were so extensive that adding baseball was just too much to consider. Of course I supported his decision, but if I had realized at the time that last summer was his final season I would have paid more attention and savored the waning moments of his relationship with the sport. We truly don't fully appreciate what we have until it's gone.

I can think back to his first year in T-ball -- was he really FIVE years old? I remember his successes and disappointments, the "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat", the batting lessons, the rain-outs, the stolen bases, the big plays, the dropped balls, the experiences at both pitcher and catcher, the teamwork, the never-ending nuances of the game's finer points, my early years coaching, the dreams and fantasies, the conversations and hugs....

There is a wonderful book called "Little League Confidential" that I have bought for several of his coaches over the years, which chronicles the generally crazy and often exhilarating world of youth baseball. At the end the author writes:

Here's what happens in the end: they stop. The kids just....stop playing baseball. They stop, which is a good thing to keep in mind when you're out there on the Little League playing fields.

.....I guess I still believe that if I'd insisted Willie live at the batting cage, insisted that he be a pitcher even though he didn't want to be, that he'd be an awfully good baseball player right now, maybe even good enough to...well, never mind. Let it go.

He has baseball in proper perspective. He and the other kids always did; for the adults, particularly the fathers, it has taken longer.

I think I'm finally starting to get it now, starting to understand. So, it really is a game, huh? And if it's not being played for fun, why play at all? To learn values? That's asking a lot of a game. Play for fun and they'll learn the values, I think. Come to think of it, that is a value.

We still play catch in the yard, my son and I. But it's more pleasant now. No more expectation, no judgments, no instruction, no disapproval, no hard feelings. Just a game of catch. He is careful not to throw the ball too hard.

And that about sums it up. As i reflect on the last 7 or so years in baseball I'm actually relieved to find that I'm relieved -- the promise of the game was generally more than the payoff, the hopes were often outweighed by the heartaches, the dreams by the disappointments. He had a better childhood baseball experience than I did, and I'm very grateful for that.

Long Past "Poopy-Head"

Casey, who is almost nine, came home from school last week and remarked at dinner that "Nolan called me a fat asshole today." She wasn't complaining as much as reporting on the day's events. When I asked her how she responded she simply said "I told him to blow it out his nose." You go, grrrrrl!

We had practiced the "blow it out your nose" retort weeks ago and she's used it to good effect a number of times. Generally the boys (it's almost always boys who throw out the first verbal punch) then try in vain to recoup their mojo by actually saying "OK" and pretending to blow their nose. Casey was delighted when I pointed out that by doing this they are actually complying what she directed them to do, thus underscoring her control of the situation. Verbal jujitsu in action!

As recently as last year she would get pretty bothered by insults, but with coaching she's grown to handle them in a much more conscious and assertive manner. She consistently follows the first rule which is never to defend herself. Rather than engaging in a argument on its merits she immediately confronts the verbally abusive behavior by going directly after the perpetrator. It's a strategy straight out of the teachings of Patricia Evans.

Here are the retorts she has at her ready. I pity the fool who thinks he can score an easy victory at her expense.

"Who cares what you think?" A good basic comeback.

"Tell it to someone who cares." Similar to the above, this automatically puts her a half step above the fray.

"You're boring." This is quickly deflating to any little boy who is looking to gain a reputation as a provocateur.

"Grow up, little boy." I think this is my favorite reply, because the deepest fear of a pre-adolescent spouting pseudo-adult insults is to be outed as a "little boy".

"What's wrong with you?" This immediately puts the spotlight squarely on the perp.

"So what?" An old stand-by, a variant of the "So?" used by the cartoon character "Little Bill".

"Blow it out your nose." This is so unexpected that it almost always catches the perp off-guard.

"You just don't get it." This is a very effective response because it leads the boy to momentarily harbor the dreaded secret possibility that he indeed does not "get it".

Finally, I told her that if all else fails and she is repeatedly tormented by a classmate then she has my permission to tell the person to "f*** off". I warned her that if she uses this phrase more than once a year she is over-relying on it. She asked about the possibility that she could be suspended for using it (and she probably would) yet I told her I give her my complete blessing and support if this occurs. I also said that if someone threatens to tell her parents what she said that she should reply that they taught her to her in the first place.

By the way, the picture above is a scanned image of Casey's drawing of mean things boys have said to her ("Your fat....you freak....your a martian.....I'm gonna draw a picture of you and use it as a dartboard") and the retorts discussed above. Freedom through art!

As A Parent I Sometimes Struggle.....

As a parent I sometimes struggle to be firm without being punitive, fair when doling out expectations and consequences, and able to find teachable moments in the daily interactions and dramas of family life without coming across too preachy or pedantic. An example presented itself to me yesterday involving my son, my daughter and a book of Roz Chast cartoons.

My 8 year old daughter wanted to look at the book, and I allowed her to do so with the caveat that some of the words and concepts are both obscure and mature and that she must be prepared to deal accordingly with those realities, which was okey-dokey by her. I also cautioned her that this book is new, pricey and special to me and so I wanted her to treat it gingerly and not subject it to any creases or dog-ears. She agreed to both conditions and I took her at her word, as she is by nature both a dutiful and precocious little human and her daddy's generally a pushover around her.

She curled up in an over-stuffed chair and lost herself in the cartoons. If we had a bar across a doorway allowing her to hang upside-down by her knees she would be in heaven, as she reports that is her favorite position to read, but around here she has to make do with more mundane environments.

Into this peaceful tableaux entered her 12 year old brother who happened to be in a particularly festive and loving mood between cycles of pre-teen sibling surliness. He descended on her with tickles and attention, an irresistible combination, and as she convulsed into the delirious laughter of the loved the book went sailing onto the floor with several pages creasing under the full brunt of the fall.

I walked immediately over, picked up the book and placed it on a high shelf while saying to her "This book was your responsibility and you did exactly what I warned you not to do, so you've lost the right to read it." I tried to say it in a matter-of-fact tone, without excess recrimination or force.

My son immediately took responsibility for the accident, admitting (rightly) that his behavior was the direct cause of the damage to the book. He even offered to buy me a new copy. I thanked him for his willingness to be accountable for his behavior and emphasized that it was not the cost but the principle at stake. I commiserated with them both but emphasized that she had agreed to take responsibility for the book and while it was in her care I had to hold her to the bargain.

Nobody was happy, nobody felt at peace, nobody felt that true justice had occurred. I truly didn't expect an 8 year old about to be tickled by the brother she adores to have the presence of mind to put my book away before the fun started.

I cogitated on the event for a lot longer than it took to occur. I discussed it with a friend, my wife and later with both kids individually. What I grappled with was that nothing I could think to do felt right. "That's OK, don't worry about it" seemed too lax a response that avoids teaching the often hard lesson of responsibility. Holding my son fully responsible for stirring up the pot when he should have recognized she was engrossed in a book could cause him even further reluctance to be nice to his sister in the future.

It was in sharing my thoughts and feelings with everyone that I realized that the immediate decision was not as important as my willingness to debrief about it both inside my own head and in my family. By bedtime everybody was fine, we were just that much closer to each other, the kids got a chance to watch a parent negotiate through a little ethical maze and the value of talking through feelings was reinforced.

I continually find new ways to learn the same essential message, that I don't always have to know what to do, that there is in fact many possible answers to any particular problem. The value comes not merely in the decision du jour but in the process of how we stumble through to the other side with some sense of personal values intact.

It's not news, but it never ceases to be meaningful to me when I see it in action: raising kids forces me to grow. Being a parent, like being a spouse, is a process of raising myself more than anyone else.

Trudging to The Awakening

Last year my family and I went to Washington, D.C. for an enjoyable week-long vacation. At the ages of 7 and 11 my kids were neither too young nor yet too old to appreciate all of the historic attractions the area has to offer. We toured both the White House and Capitol, rode the elevator to the top of the Washington Monument, gazed at the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives, and on and on. Now over a year later I find one memory that stays with me more than almost any other (except for the hauntingly somber Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington Cemetery). It is an unexpectedly exhausting and seemingly interminable walk that we took from the Jefferson Memorial to see a 100 foot tall statue of a buried giant rising out of the ground called The Awakening which at the time was installed at the end of East Potomac Park.(I understand it has apparently been sold and is being relocated to Maryland.)

I had read about this unique statue in various on-line tour guides of D.C. and learned that it had been installed a quarter-century earlier, that it was little-known to tourists but that it had repeatedly been voted the area's favorite statue by local residents. "The Awakening" is composed of five pieces, showing the head, an arm, a hand and two feet of a large giant struggling to emerge from the ground. I understand that when the Potomac River occasionally flooded the giant could be seen rising out of the water. It's very striking, and seemed like a unique sightseeing destination.

It also turned out to be deceptively far to walk, especially during an early summer heat wave with two kids in tow and carrying a couple of backpacks filled with water bottles and sunscreen. I just now checked the About.com "D.C." web page and discovered that it still contains the wildly optimistic line that "You can access the park on foot by following the trails from the Jefferson Memorial." Ha! Good luck with that!

We had already walked to the Jefferson Memorial from the National Mall, a trek in itself, but I was optimistic in our endeavor to push on to see the weird statue. My family had no reason not to trust my guidance (my tendency to exhaustively research vacation itineraries has generally served us well) and so we began following the path I had written down for us to take. In no time at all we had completely left all other tourists far behind as we followed the banks of the Potomac River. All along the riverfront African-American and Latino families were fishing and bar-be-cuing (it was Memorial Day weekend) and our white skin and red and blond hair designated us as the clear strangers in the area.

On and on we continued to walk, through the midday heat. After awhile I picked up my tired daughter Casey and carried her snug against me. It seemed like the park must be around each turn we would approach and before very long we had traveled too far to give up and turn back. By this time our little jaunt had become a quest. We're all basically troopers and good sports and so nobody dared to complain, but nobody was happy either. We all did our best to keep the conversation light and cheerful, especially Gina and I as the parents.

After about an hour we finally made it to the statue. By that time we were pretty well wrung out from the long walk that we didn't have much energy left to enjoy ourselves, and it was hot as blazes anyway. We had previously arranged for my sister-in-law to pick us up and she eventually located us. We drove back to the Jefferson Memorial where I treated the kids to paddle boat rides in the Tidal Basin. I had to do most of the paddling and by that time my legs, strong as they are, were pretty wobbly. I remember relying on flat-out willpower to keep peddling so the kids could have a good time. My sister-in-law had brought a little picnic chest with her and the watermelon I ate under the cherry trees that day never tasted so satisfying in my life.

I'm not sure why I'm writing about this. My soul tells me it has something to do with the necessity of keeping your feet moving, to continually press ever forward despite exhausted muscles, anxious feelings and strained relationships, especially when others are depending on you, in order to eventually scale the unpleasant hot hand of a silently screaming giant continually struggling in vain to lift himself from the ground where he has been buried for years.

Drawing On The Walls

In 2004, I sold the house where I had lived for 13 years and moved with my wife and kids into a friendly intown neighborhood. The purchaser of my property was a developer who bought it along with several others on the street in order to level the land and build a tract of townhomes. Since there wasn’t a need to leave the house in a livable condition, I gave both kids magic markers, cans of spray paint, and permission to write and draw anything they wanted on the walls. It turns out there was a lot to say.

Here’s some history: I bought this house when I was still a single guy, and in many ways it reflected some of the core elements of my personality and lifestyle back then. It was the last house on a short dead-end street, across from a municipal water tower surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. I was originally attracted to its proximity to my office and the extent to which it offered seclusion while being close to major thoroughfares. Like me at the time, it was essentially hidden from sight.

After Gina and I married and became parents, the house gradually became less of an asset and more of a liability to my emerging lifestyle. Since we were not part of a neighborhood, the kids were more socially isolated than either she or I wanted them to be. We had to get in the car any time we wanted to visit another human, and there wasn’t even a concenient way to take a simple evening walk. So it was a blessing the day a smiling broker drove up the long driveway and asked if he could interest us in working out a deal to sell the place.

The sales contract was contingent upon the purchaser successfully petitioning the local county board of commissioners to rezone the area to allow townhomes instead of single family residences. This process took well over a year. During that protracted time period, we stuck with our decision not to put any money into the house for upkeep or repairs, even though it increasingly needed a lot of both. It therefore became a sort of snail’s race to see if we could close the deal and move before the house fell in on us. We just made it.

Even though it was a definite boon to relocate, each of us grieved the loss of this residence in our own ways. I hope it makes sense to say that although Gina never liked the place, she loved it. After 13 years, it was the longest she had lived at one address in her life. It was where we held our wedding reception, where she breastfed both of the kids through many long nights, where we ate thousands of meals.....in short, it was where we lived out an incalculable number of life's varied textures. I'm remembering now of how my wonderful Great Dane Java died in my arms in our living room and how I felt her spirit pass through my heart before I wheeled her body in a wheelbarrow to the back yard and buried her with her bowl, leash and favorite toy. One year to the day later my first child was born.

Then in the blink of an eye ten years had passed and I was helping my kids prepare to leave the only home they had ever known. Lincoln had to go from being student body vice-president (the most prestigious position a 4th grader could have) to entering a school where he would simply be known as “the new kid”. At least he had a theoretical understanding that this move was ultimately going to be good for us all. Casey, poor thing, was too young to know anything other than her world was changing and that she didn’t like it one bit.

As the time for the closing of the sale grew nearer, I went around the acre announcing to the various little species around me that soon their home would be gone too. I figured the squirrels, rabbits, possums, birds and other creatures had a right to be treated with at least that much respect. On the day the deal finally went through, a tree fell across the back yard fence. The basement had already begun flooding every time it rained. I could feel the house's ambivalence toward its impending destiny, and like the admonition in Dylan Thomas' famous poem, it was not going to "go gentle into that good night".

This remembrance is bringing to mind the Shel Silverstein fable of "The Giving Tree", in which a tree gives a man what he needs from youth (a branch to swing from), to adulthood (the wood to build a house) through old age (a comfortable stump for sitting). In our case, what was once 7935 Benwell Drive gave us the chance to move into a real neighborhood, put away money for our kids to go to college, and build some retirement savings. A dearest friend couldn't do more.

In retrospect the recognition that drawing on the walls could be an act of catharsis seems like an inspired idea. It allowed each of us to embrace and celebrate the house by adorning it with our feelings and memories about how it had held us through the years. Slowly, aspects of our life story began appearing in different rooms. I started by writing “We cooked a lot of good food in this kitchen”, even though our oven had a habit of varying wildly in termperature, turning something as simple as a batch of sugar cookies into a mystery adventure with a surprise ending every time. Both kids drew pictures of themselves in their rooms. Lincoln touchingly wrote “This is the room I lived in for 9 ½ years.” Casey drew a larger-than-life girl with giant tears streaming to the floor. Like Ray Bradbury's "Illustrated Man", every picture told a story. Some of the most intimate ones were left to the realm of invisible ink where only Gina and I could see them.

We were able to take our time moving after the deal closed, but finally, by mid-December we had almost completely vacated the property. As a final act I climbed onto the roof and spray-painted in giant letters: “SANTA WE MOVED TO DECATUR”, underlining the words with a large arrow pointing toward our new home. With that, we were done.

Every few weeks after our move was completed I would drive by the old property to see if the house was still there. Then one day, it was gone. The image was surreal: where my home had been was now just a giant hole in the ground. The real shock came several weeks later when I drove by to find that the entire property had been bulldozed. Every tree was gone. I thought at least a couple that had been encircled in red ribbon would be left to stand, but nothing remained, everything was leveled.
In the ensuring months, 42 units were built, sold and occupied where once three houses stood.

Benwell Drive is gone, and in its place stands Telfair Gates. For a brief period I wondered if I was contributing to something essentially destructive, but I got over it. People tend to decry such infill as overdevelopment, but they generally only do this after their own house has been built. The new residences have increased property values in the area and increased the tax base for the community. And less quantifiable but even more meaningful to me is the fantasy I maintain that the people who live there sometimes experience a sense of inexplicable well-being, contentment and joy for no apparent reason, and that this happens because the spiritual legacy of my family continues to occupy that land.

They Call Me MISTER Mom!

After functioning as the sole breadwinner of our household for most of a decade, about five years ago I reduced my counseling practice to part-time and became the primary at-home parent during the week. The reason this dramatic change took place was that my wife began full-time employment at an HIV clinic after earning her masters degree as a nurse practitioner. This shift in roles has become a pretty well-established routine by now, but initially the adjustment, while ultimately beneficial for the entire family, was a big change for all of us.

My current routine is generally variations on a basic theme. After driving my second-grader to school (my strapping middle-schooler now navigates himself to and from school without much help from his parents), I head straight to my office. I’m generally sitting with my first client by 8 a.m. and often work straight through until mid-afternoon, at which time I’m off to wait in the carpool line for school to let out. Then it’s home for snack, homework and some free time for Twirl-a-Whirl (one of my daughter's numerous nicknames; just ask my son Whack-a-Mole). I take a half hour or so to return some calls and emails before emptying and refilling the dishwasher, carting the laundry, and doing a modicum of straightening around the house. Before long it’s time to steer the ship of state toward dinner.

For the first couple of years I was more industrious than I now seem to be. It seems like the kids were involved in more activities back then and I was constantly carting them around in the car. But we’ve scaled back: no more twice a week swimming lessons, and I’ve finally accepted that my daughter is not enthused about me putting her into a team sport every season. I also find that I’ve gradually reduced the quality and quantity of some of the tasks I perform around the house. I used to plan dinners with more forethought, often trying out new recipes several nights a week. Now I tend to rely more on the old standbys, but I’m proud to say we all gather around the dinner table every night to a meal that’s nutritious, healthy and tasty (for at least some of us. I no longer have any qualms saying “If you don’t like it, feel free to make yourself a bowl of cereal or peanut butter sandwich.”

Sometimes I don’t seem to get much done by the time Gina gets home from work, but my minimum standard is to make the bed. Even when dust bunnies traverse the hallway, seemingly on some important mission and often large enough that I want to take their picture, I count the day a success as long as I get that bedspread back into some semblance of its proper place by the time she’s pulling into the driveway.

I also don’t keep up with the laundry as much as I used to do. Although I’ve never been completely checked off on the procedures for actually washing or drying the clothes, at least I could pass muster on folding. After all, it’s kind of hard to mess that up. The truth is that the mysteries of laundry have always fundamentally eluded me. I never quite recovered from college days when my goal was to cram as much into one load as possible, pour in a healthy amount of detergent (if one cup is good, two must be better, right?) and come back hours (OK, days) later to see what happened this time. We’ve tried a number of systems to streamline the learning curve for me, including the use of three hampers for sorting hot, regular and delicate wash. I could handle the first part: white towels and washcloths go in hot, along with socks and white underwear, but beyond that point of certaity all was booga-booga to me: did a spandex tanktop go in ‘regular’ or ‘delicate’? What are some of these fabric blends anyway? (Sometimes I stare gape-mouthed as Gina watches different garments being hawked on QVC. I listen to the styles, fabrics, and colors being described and while I recognize the words as English the sentences sound like secret incantations.)

A number of years ago a sociology professor by the evocative name of Pepper Schwartz wrote a book entitled Love Between Equals: How Peer Marriage Really Works. One of its findings was that even among couples who described themselves as living egalitarian, non-hierarchical marriages consciously devoid of traditional notions of gender roles, i.e. “peer marriages”, studies show the woman still typically engages in more housework than the man. I think this is true in my home. No matter how hard I’ve tried to carry my weight around the house, I’m just not as capable as my wife in getting as much done that truly keeps the household functional. I’m not sure how much of this may be biologically driven and how much stems from the subtle and overt training that boys and girls tend to get regarding the expectations of adulthood. But the fact remains that after five years I still don’t generally notice when the toilet could use a quick scrubbing. Last week, when my daughter failed to meet her Girl Scout cookie quota, I had to face the reality that while I may be an exceptional dad, I'm still just scraping by as a mom.

Another major issue I’ve found myself facing in countless ways over the years has been the subtle differences in what feels natural for an at-home mom to do compared to me as a male primary parent. For the most part I feel just about like another one of the girls in the PTA or shopping at the grocery store. But there’s still a barely visible barrier (I call it the panty line) separating me from the moms. Nobody raises an eye if one mother invites another over for coffee after the kids are off to school, but for me to ask that same question carries a very different connotation. Even when I know that my motives are benign, I wonder what the woman would think I was doing, or her husband, or the next-door neighbor. I’m not sure of the way out of this limiting paradigm, but it results in greater isolation than I’d like to have. I know there are other at-home dads both locally and nationally, but the percentages are still small and I know no other man nearby in a similar situation.

I think the kids benefit tremendously from seeing their father on a regular basis each day, involved in the ongoing tasks of daily life. I know the ups and downs of their lives and moods, and they (for good or bad) sure know mine. I enjoy a rich, textured relationship with both of them, as well as with my wife who appreciates my efforts. Sometimes I think she misses out on some of the small pleasures of the daily grind, and when the school principal doesn’t recognize her but knows me by first name she is aware of how our lives differ from many of our friends. But for the most part we are both happy with our arrangement. I sometimes joke that she cooked for the first ten years, I'm cooking for the second, and we're going to thumb-wrestle for the third. I may just take a dive when that times comes and throw the fight.
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P.S. Somebody recently said something to me about the title to this piece that showed me not everybody regonizes it as a variation of Sidney's Poitier's famous line in "From the Heat of the Night" in which he declaims to Rod Steiger, "The call me MISTER Tibbs." I'm just sayin'.

Aquasaur, Thy Name Is Patsy!

For Christmas my 7 year old daughter wanted an "Aquasaur" kit that she saw advertised in a catalog. In very carefully penned block lettering she beguilingly wrote "May I pretty PLEASE with shugar on top get this for Christmas?" You would no more refuse her innocent longing than I did. And besides, the ad says "With flat heads, three eyes, skeletons on the outside of their bodies, sharp lateral fins, and forked tails, they are the epicenter of a child's world." Well, slap my face and sign me up!

For the unintiated, "Aquasaurs" are ugly little prehistoric-looking crustaceans that can grow from dormant eggs to about two inches in length over the course of a few weeks. The species has supposedly been around for over 250 million years and resemble something between a trilobite and a horseshoe crab. They arrive as a packet of eggs which can survive in a dormant state for years, until some unsuspecting fool (that would be me) brings them into his life. For behold! When you substantially alter your once-comfortable daily routines to patiently nurture along their life cycle ("kootchie-kootchie-koo!"), you will be rewarded with the experience of watching them hatch, eat each other, somehow excrete way more than they consume, and magically lose the attentions and affection of your child within days.

They arrive in a package with a plastic bowl and a handful of gravel. A stick-on thermometer alerts you to the possibility that there may be more at stake here than simply dropping in the eggs and coming back next week. The accompanying instruction manual soon makes clear that there's work to be done. The water must be spring, not tap, it must be kept betwen 72 and 80 degrees (a lamp with a 60 watt bulb is recommended, "not included"), the water must be changed regularly, etc.
Beyond dumping a half-teaspoon of tiny eggs into the water there's nothing much to do initially but wait a few days to see if anything happens. Pay close attention, because 95% of all the excitement that this project will bring occurs in the initial suspense of waiting to find out if any of the eggs will hatch.

Then, on the third day, the house is filled with little girl squeals and everybody will race to observe the magic of scores of little wiggly thingies banging around the gallon bowl. They look to me uncomfortably like spermatozoa racing around like fiends searching for something to break into. Now is the time to dump in a few fish pellets and ring the dinner bell. Initially the pellets are larger than these little creature-monsters but we're all confidant they'll figure out what to do.

Their solution, apparently bred indelibly into their genetic structure over hundreds of millions of years, is to eat each other. By the next day there are half as many and they are twice as large. Darwin in action. A teaching moment! "You see, honey, in nature all the big things eat all the little things. It's all part of the circle of....stuff." The manual enigmatically informs us the life cycle of these little buggers is "20 to 90 days", so there is definitely a hint of impending drama about the whole affair.
Each day the process continued: fewer, bigger, uglier survivors than the day before. It's obvious that some of the little monsters hatched a day or two after the first round did, and that the bullies of the Aquasaur schoolyard have already firmly established their turf between the plastic volcano and....well, everything else.

We have a goldfish (which I named "Fishy Fishy Fishy Fish" after an obscure Monty Python routine), who has lived very contentedly (I can just tell) in a small bowl for more years than I can remember. I change his water every month or so. These brutish Aquasaurs will have none of that. It has to be fresh water every two days for them, due to their favorite game of dying and quickly decomposing, causing the bowl to turn opaque and take on a slight smell that I imagine could be described as comfortingly prehistoric.

At first they were so tiny that any attempts to change the water resulted in the inevitable slaughter of innocent aquasaurs (don't you wish you had a nickle for every time you'd heard that phrase in your life!) As they grew that risk diminished, to be replaced by the growing prospect that I would simply and serenely chuck the whole lot of them down the toilet.

Casey dutifully put away her reading or computer game or drawing to "help" me clean the fetid water, but it soon became apparent that it's quite a procedure and I can most quickly get it over with by doing it by myself. I find that I both resent the task yet perform it with some sense of duty and perhaps even pride, like Gandhi cleaning the ashram latrines, I suppose.

By the end of last week there were only two left, and I named them Patsy and Loretta. As of this morning only stout Patsy remains, resting at the bottom of the bowl when she isn't squirming and swishing around looking for someone to eat. When I change the water she goes into little spastic flights around the bowl, which the manual whimily calls "aquabatics", allowing me distasteful glimpses of her creepy underbelly.

I have a packet and a half of Aquasaur eggs left, and if you'd like to take them off my hands I'm sure nobody in this household would mind. Who knows? Perhaps you will be the kind of loving parents who will, as advertised, "swell with pride.....and praise their accomplishments every time they shed another exoskeleton." As for our household, 250 million years may be just about the right amount of time before we do this again.

The Game of Life

Last night the kids suggested that we break out the game of "Life" and play it together as a family. What a great idea! It was an immediate incentive to get everyone to help clear the dinner dishes and wipe off the table.

In the game of Life players spin a wheel to move a little car across spaces on a board that represent life experiences. There are opportunities to make career choices and gain or lose money for different reasons. I remember playing many games of Life as a kid. My friends and I would skip the boring, confusing parts like car insurance or stock certificates and race our cars to those paydays!

What I immediately noticed last night was how much more complex Life has become. (The metaphor is almost too obvious!) Career choices are more varied and contemporary, there's the possibility for job loss and "mid-life crisis", and houses can be bought and then re-sold for either a profit or loss. I can't imagine a kid playing this game without an adult being present to explain some of the nuances of accounting, stocks and other financial matters.

And that's the troubling essence of the game: it's all about the money. The player with the biggest pile of cash at the end wins. The game designers have obviously tried to expand its spectrum of values by having players earn "Life tiles" for various humanitarian and enrichment activities ("Help the Homeless", "Support Wildlife Fund"). But at the end of the game these tiles are awarded a monetary value, so ultimately it all comes down to the moolah. All piles, no depth.

I was also struck by the fact that all players must get married. Whether you have children is left up to chance rather than choice (my wife remained childless throughout the game), but going without a spouse is not an option. I also noticed, despite all the attempts to acknowledge life's "shadow side" (job loss, car theft, etc.) that divorce is not an available option. This is not a complaint, because I realize this is just a kids' game, but just an observation.

It was interesting to notice how the designers cleverly incorporated the actual board's shoddy construction into the game itself. The plastic spinner kept repeatedly slipping off its balance point. The rule states that whenever this happens the player who has the job of "tech support" collects a substantial sum of money to fix it!

My son ultimately won, and I noticed that the outcome didn't particularly seem to matter to any of us compared to the actual experience of playing the game together. The fun resided in the adventure of seeing what adventures and obstacles happened to each other, struggling together to figure out the rules, and laughing at the essential absurdity of it all. So that for me is ultimately the deepest metaphor of the game