Timing isn't everything...

...but it helps. Geography isn't everything, but it makes some things impossible, or at least rather difficult. Money isn't all that important, especially in the land of instant credit, and (still) easy bankruptcy. Intelligence isn't all that useful sometimes, even in age where we worship the geek. Creative ideas that die in one age thrive in another.

The most unstable of all realms is the emotional. It remains, to me, unpredictable, moment to moment. If anyone ever wonders about which gender has an advantage in modern American society, the case is closed when you consider women's emotional advantages. By comparison:

*Geography is powerful, but airplane travel can easily render it meaningless. (I always have a free ticket in my hip pocket, just in case.)
*Money is a better path to misery than happiness. The best feeling money ever gives is when you give it away.
*IQ is vastly over-rated. Smart people eventually come to a moment of comprehension that their brain power is only as good as how well they can integrate it with their hearts.
*Timing isn't everything, but it is primarily important in the emotional realm. It also affects all of the others mentioned above. But, for love, to cite one example, to have any chance at all, the timing has to be right.

For love to be right twice, the good timing has to recur. Odds are always against that. But hope is not. No one knows how to quantify hope. Or explain why it lives on, against odds.

How Music Lives and Dies

Once upon a time, in the spring of the year, a lovely singer suddenly lost her voice. A man appeared at her side and offered to write down her words so that her music could be preserved. Eventually, she regained her strength, and the world soon began to hear a most beautiful new song coming from her lips.

Two winters passed. Again it was springtime. Now, it was the man's voice that began to falter, so he turned to his friend for help. But she was too busy with her own singing. She told him he would have to look elsewhere for help.

Dispirited, the man lost his voice.

As far as anyone can tell, that is how this story ended.

Raising Kids, circa 2006

I don't recall ever hearing the word "parenting" when I was growing up. These days, you can't even turn around without bumping into it. There's a lot more published, both in the academic literature but also in popular press, about the topic than there used to be. And, everyone seems to have a pet theory.

I don't have a theory, but I do have some experience and some observations. I've spent most of my adult life as a parent. One of the first benefits of becoming a parent is the possibility that (for the first time, really) you may start to understand your own parents. I suppose this may be because unless you're extremely careful, you'll find yourself repeating their "parenting" styles, some of which may no longer be culturally or politically correct.

You may also have come to the conclusion that your own parents made some mistakes, including serious mistakes, when raising you. If so, you're determined to not repeat those errors with your kids.

Your peers have lots of influence, and as I noted, everyone seems to have a theory, and everyone feels free to share theirs with you. As a single Dad, I'm particularly sensitive to how often people approach me (mainly women) with unsolicited advice as to how to do this job of mine, this parenting.

Hey, I'm lucky. I have great kids, period. In many, many ways, they make it easy for me. But still, I am conscious that I make many mistakes as their father. I regret things I say to them sometimes or ways I behave. I always regret when I get angry. I often wish I could hide parts of my own angst from their view. In my fantasy they would only get the good, never the bad, I have to offer them.

Over the years, I've noticed something else. Good parenting is hardly the exclusive province of those who qualify as biological parents. Many childless people may possess advantages we parents do not. This is logical; they are not necessarily as burned out around kids yet. And, in special cases, they have preserved the memories of their own childhood in ways that remain unclouded by the experience of becoming a parent.

This may be because while we benefit by understanding our own parents when we become parent ourselves, we also lose a bit of ourselves as children. For every gain there is a loss.

Many who try to grow and change for the better in middle age talk about locating their inner child. Without commenting on the lingo, which I detest, the concept is solid. I have learned from friends who do not have their own children that it is possible for some of them to stay clearer minded about both the good and the bad of being a child since they never have had to fully become an "adult" supervising other children.

I think this is a major downside of being a parent. Others will disagree with me -- entirely. Some will claim being a parent helps them merge with their own inner child, and I believe them. But that has not been my experience.

My friends who do not have kids sometimes complain about all the children around them and the family dynamics they observe. They complain about parents. I'm sympathetic. Many of us seem to have forgotten how to have our own lives, we are so wrapped up in theirs. We are not always very good friends to those who do not have kids because the business of raising a family seems so all-consuming.

Others of us seem almost pathologically oblivious to how selfish we have allowed ourselves to become in the larger social-political-economic context. We put our own families first, which in this and all cultures is an honorable choice, but we also can forget that many others are suffering a lack of resources compared to those devoted to the dominant culture of the mainstream family unit. None of this is meant to understate how difficult it truly is to support a family in today's expensive, middle-class American society. Frankly, it often feels overwhelming. You cannot ever earn enough money, for example, or do all the things others claim would make you an ideal parent.

I'm not sure where all of this is leading me. But I've had the benefit of watching a non-parent, one who swears she would never want to have her own children, add many layers of richness to my own children's lives these past two years. This is only one aspect of what I am talking about here, but an important one. She taught me a lot in the process, and that informs what is written above.

Baseball Therapy

Tonight, an old friend invited me to go see the Giants play the Cubs in China Basin, my first game of this season. Baseball has beeen a passion for me since as far back as I can remember (the '50s) when Al Kaline of the Detroit Tigers was my hero. Since moving to San Francisco in the '70s, and having kids, I've transformed into a Giants fan, but really it is baseball itself that I love. I've often turned to it in times of trouble for comfort.

It's a complicated game that involves multiple skills, communication, strategy, patience, statistics, and good instincts. For players, it requires courage and selflessness. It's a game that teaches you about how to lose and move on. And how there always will be another chance to do well, even after your worst mistakes. In this way, it is a forgiving sport. But, at the moment that you stand alone, bat in hand facing a terrifying pitcher; or, alternatively, stand alone on the mound facing a terrifying batter; it's the loneliest of all individual sports. That's why it is the "American" pastime, here in the land of the rugged individual, supermen and superwomen pretending they can make it on their own.

Tonight the Giants beat the Cubs, 6-1. Two old franchises. Barry Bonds just missed hitting his 714th homerun, the one that would have tied Babe Ruth. Maybe he'll do it tomorrow night.

I have so many baseball memories and journal entries I could write ten books on this subject, and maybe I will. For the past five little league seasons, I've helped coach my son Aidan. Years ago, I used to attend every game his big brother, Peter, played as a little leaguer. Both are stars.

I also have played softball on a coed, slow-pitch team called the Michigan Mafia since the late '70s(I am not a star); and I manage a (very weak) fantasy baseball team called the Mud Lake Mafia. There are stories behind all of these teams and names.

A few years ago, when I first was single after my second marriage ended, I used to take girls to baseball games. It was one way to find out whether we could enjoy being together, a test of sorts, you know? (I had always been concerned about my compatibility with my dear second wife when at the first game we attended together she asked whether a double play meant "two men on second base" and also whether the teams had enough balls to cover all of those fouls that went sailing into the stands. We did break up, but not because of that.)

Some of the new women I escorted didn't have a clue what was going on, especially those who came from other countries. Others did.

Then, one very special woman went out with me to a night game in 2004. We sat in the centerfield bleachers. She got very excited at the game by all the noise and stimulation. I forgot to notice whether she knew what was going on or not, as I started seeing the scene through her eyes. The most memorable moment came when she spotted another woman nearby with copper-colored hair. "That's the color hair I want," she stated emphatically. I can't even remember the score of that game or which team won.

But, after that game, she got that color, more or less. And still has it, two years later.

And it still looks good on her.

So, maybe I'll go back to the park tomorrow night, and then lots of more times this summer. The Giants are an exciting team, and Barry Bonds is the greatest show on earth. And if you think this post is about baseball, I've got some beachfront property in East Bilxoi to sell you, on the cheap.

Just throw me one down the middle of the plate.

Lament of the investigative reporter

There's an old story about Bob Woodward; after his parents' divorce, he suspected that his step-siblings would getting more Christmas presents than he would, so he went downstairs early one Christmas morning and carefully counted them all before anyone else was up. He substantiated his thesis.

It's a familiar situation to anyone who has ever worked as an investigative reporter. We always seem to have to fight the urge to know more about whatever it is that interests us, and of course that is what we got rewarded for when we did that work. The way we pursue subjects is by chasing a hypothesis. But the key to doing the work well is being able to adjust your hypothesis when the facts don't bear it out.

I was reminded of this yesterday while talking to a veteran investigative reporter. We agreed that the best stories often come from surprises -- when we find out we were wrong about a key assumption.

For years, I have a helped a friend work on investigating a cold case -- the murder of her mother over 30 years ago. We have had dozens of hypotheses as we sort through complex piles of evidence, and we are still discovering new leads this many years later.

These days, the tools at our disposal have expanded rapidly. It has become easy to trace unlisted cell phone numbers via the Internet, for example. Just the other day, I ran a check on one in another case and got a surprise result that altered a hypothesis of mine, possibly susbtantially. I'm still trying to assimilate this new information into my view of how things work in that particular case.

Underneath the investigator's urge is the desire to always know more. The hardest thing, for us, is to know when to back away and not try to learn more. Sometimes, that is the appropriate next step: to stop. But the urge remains, which is why we so often get drawn back into the game.

No doubt, we are driven by intuitions that something is wrong about what we've been told. Someone may be lying. Something doesn't add up.

Then again, things don't always add up, do they? And, operating under a false set of assumptions is a sure way to convince yourself someone is guilty when they are not, or something is unjust when there's a more complex explanation hidden in the data.

Personally, I kind of like surprises in stories. I didn't mind finding out I was wrong, since my worst fears or assumptions can perhaps now be replaced with more innocent explanations. After all, the most likely explanation for how two events are connected is always straight line -- i.e., the shortest distance -- between them.

Pattern recognition. The investigator's best friend.

Just Before Dawn

Even the loneliest and darkest moments have to yield to the light, eventually.

What has been experienced can never be taken from us. I've learned a lot about this from my memoir class students the past few years. These students, all of whom are over 50 (many are in their 80s), study with me through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State. We meet one night a week to discuss the nature of memory, love, hate, loss, recovery, hope and hopelessness.

Many of their stories have an honest beauty one rarely finds in published works. Inevitably, their struggles helped me put mine in perspective. I have nothing to complain about in my life, though I often do complain.

The hardest time is always just before the sun rises, announcing the next chapter of the rest of our story. I got a nice note today from someone who said I'd captured a character we both love perfectly. That note made my day. Why do I write?

Because I have to.

What's Love Got To Do With It?

We live in such a competitive society, where money rules almost every aspect of our lives, it's often hard to find any other value system outside of pure capitalism to identify with in 2006. This is one big reason that religious fundamentalism is growing in influence, because it offers a type of comfort no alternative political ideology or alternative economic model can provide.

A couple years ago, I made a new friend, who said her philosophy was that focusing on friendships would be better -- that we could screw the system by creating an alternative value structure. I agreed with her. We tried.

But the momentum around us proved too great. And we, ourselves, chose love for each other over friendship. We too privatized our relationship. Maybe that is the fatal flaw for all romantics? In a world such as this one, what place is there, finally, for love?

If the most jaded and cynical among us are right, the answer to my question is "no place at all." God may or may not be dead. But love certainly seems to be.

Baseball History

Barry Bonds hit a towering home run into the upper deck in Philadelphia tonight, which gives him 713 for his career, one behind Babe Ruth. Everywhere Bonds plays, except San Francisco, he is greeted with derisive boos and signs. This is, of course, due to the allegations that he used steroids for several years before they were regulated by major League Baseball. (Bonds is only one of many players alleged to have used these performance-enhancing substances, but he is the main focus of media criticism and fan anger.)

One of my favorite baseball movies, "61," chronicled the remarkable season when Roger Maris broke Ruth's single-season HR record of 60 by one. Maris was subjected to a great deal of negative fan and media attention as well.

Only one player has hit more career home runs than Ruth and that was Hank Aaron; the season he passed Ruth he too faced a negative barrage of unwanted attention, including death threats.

It is one of the sad things about baseball that these three great hitters -- Maris, Aaron, and Bonds -- all have faced such a tense, joyless reaction from people as they approach and achieve new home run records. Swirling in controversy, they soldier on, seldom smiling, probably not enjoying the national pastime nearly as much as they did previously.

One of these days soon, Bonds will pass Ruth. He will probably end his career second to Aaron for career homers (755). People who know baseball well enough to assess Bonds' career know that with or without steroids, he is thye greatest hitter of his time, and one of the very best of all time, right up with Ruth and Aaron.

But the careers of these stars seem destined to end amidst a sea of boos, as controversies overwhelm appreciation. Personally, I've never seen a hitter better than Bonds. So, when he hits a HR, I'll always stand and cheer.