Anonymous asked whether the fact that my father was present at the Nuremberg trials affected me. I'll answer this way.
Dad didn't tell me a whole lot about what he saw there, but he did show me some photos and other memorabilia from Germany. He clearly had loved the German people he met, and said they treated Americans very well. He had "liberated" two German rifles, which were the things that I admired most as a little boy.
When I was about 12, I think, I found William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which I read several times. Later, as an adult, I found Shirer's brilliant Berlin Diary.
These helped me learn the context of the Holocaust. As people in my (post-war) generation came of age, the brilliant writers who survived the Nazi death camps started writer their books and films. There are too many to list here. For kids, the best was to start is with the Maus books.
The way all of this affected me, from an early age, was awareness of America's complicity in the Nazi's war crimes against humanity. Of course, we liberated the few surviving Jews from the death camps when we finally defeated Hitler's army; but one never got the sense we went to war to save the Jews.
Rather, the U.S. would have stood by, and let the extermination happen, as long as Hitler played by the rules of non-aggression set by an international community that preferred to look the other way on his "domestic" policies.
Rather like the situation in Darfur today, eh? Or, Rwanda in the 90's, right? Most Americans probably paid attention to the Rwandan genocide only after it was so completely over that Hollywood could release the movie version.
Please read, if you have not yet: We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families by Philip Gourevitch.
Inaction in the face of evil is tantamount to complicity. That is my belief. Shame on the United States of America for its complicity in the Holocaust, as well as the genocides in Southeast Asia, the "ethnic cleansings" in the Balkans, and the horrific extermination campaigns in Africa. They all happened on our watch, as the supposed "leader of the free world."
Until and unless we face this truth, Americans will not understand why most of the world sees the blood on our hands, even if we cannot bear to look ourselves.
And, please, don't even get me started about the war against Iraq and the shattering of the Geneva Conventions by the Bush Administration. Nuremberg has come full circle during my lifetime. Soon, if there is to be a fair system of global justice, it will be Donald Rumsfeld in handcuffs, facing his day in court.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Friday, November 17, 2006
Logic v. Intuition
There's a war raging around us, and I'm one who's caught in the crossfire. Modern society is being transformed by technology; principally, Information Technology (IT). That this is only the first of several large waves of transformative forces is apparent from the strides made in biotechnology, stem cell research, nanotechnology, and advances in neuroscience.
As people in my line of business try to organize themselves according to the dictates of IT, their main decision-making tool is logic. This makes a lot of sense, because logical thinking is the closest humans can come to alligning ourselves with computers. Writing code to create the software that is driving all the product innovations via the Internet requires achieving a state of logical reasoning.
You gotta think like a computer before you can program one.
Trouble is, human beings are not inherently logical creatures, nor do we make logical choices all of the time. Rather, we are emotional beings, and our feelings compete with our intellect and our physical urges to complicate any task we take on. Today I witnessed one more tragedy in the war between logic and emotional intelligence. For people who are made of stuff that sits at opposite ends of the Empathy Spectrum, misunderstandings are inevitable.
It may make logical sense but not emotional sense. When you listen to your intuition, all sorts of weird thoughts fly through your brain.You start free associating, clueless why these images suddenly appear to you: Mobile, Alabama. Oysters, writing about Biloxi on a hotel bed.
A distasteful (to me) neckless, because I knew who she'd gotten it from; but precious to her, had gone flying when we were making love on that bed. Next morning, she couldn't find it, and said "oh well." I had a visual memory of its arc when she'd cast it off. I went over and found the thing, to me a despicable symbol of a mistake she'd made. It was wedged down between a desk and the wall in a place that might never would have been found for months.
I pulled it out and gave it back to her.
Mobile, Alabama. That's my memory, about a year ago now. Why tonight? It is what I have come to think of as intuitive messages sent through the air to me, weirdly, psychic almost. These thoughts scare me, because they almost always have some basis in fact, tough I rarely ever find it out until years later, and then, only by chance.
Sweet dreams, everyone, wherever you may be laying yourself to sleep.
Only a few days until I leave the first of what I hope will be several long holiday trips myself! Can't wait to escape from the Valley of Logic, for a break, to places where I'll be surrounded by love and intuition. It's always nice to leave the coast.
p.s. My grandmother was psychic.
-30-
As people in my line of business try to organize themselves according to the dictates of IT, their main decision-making tool is logic. This makes a lot of sense, because logical thinking is the closest humans can come to alligning ourselves with computers. Writing code to create the software that is driving all the product innovations via the Internet requires achieving a state of logical reasoning.
You gotta think like a computer before you can program one.
Trouble is, human beings are not inherently logical creatures, nor do we make logical choices all of the time. Rather, we are emotional beings, and our feelings compete with our intellect and our physical urges to complicate any task we take on. Today I witnessed one more tragedy in the war between logic and emotional intelligence. For people who are made of stuff that sits at opposite ends of the Empathy Spectrum, misunderstandings are inevitable.
It may make logical sense but not emotional sense. When you listen to your intuition, all sorts of weird thoughts fly through your brain.You start free associating, clueless why these images suddenly appear to you: Mobile, Alabama. Oysters, writing about Biloxi on a hotel bed.
A distasteful (to me) neckless, because I knew who she'd gotten it from; but precious to her, had gone flying when we were making love on that bed. Next morning, she couldn't find it, and said "oh well." I had a visual memory of its arc when she'd cast it off. I went over and found the thing, to me a despicable symbol of a mistake she'd made. It was wedged down between a desk and the wall in a place that might never would have been found for months.
I pulled it out and gave it back to her.
Mobile, Alabama. That's my memory, about a year ago now. Why tonight? It is what I have come to think of as intuitive messages sent through the air to me, weirdly, psychic almost. These thoughts scare me, because they almost always have some basis in fact, tough I rarely ever find it out until years later, and then, only by chance.
Sweet dreams, everyone, wherever you may be laying yourself to sleep.
Only a few days until I leave the first of what I hope will be several long holiday trips myself! Can't wait to escape from the Valley of Logic, for a break, to places where I'll be surrounded by love and intuition. It's always nice to leave the coast.
p.s. My grandmother was psychic.
-30-
Why people hate lawyers and the media
Commenting on the news is not one of my favorite uses for this blog, which is mainly devoted to more personal concerns, but the following story forces me to make an exception. Link to Fox + O.J. story.
O.J. Simpson, murdered two people, got acquitted by some smart lawyers who put together a sympathetic jury and exploited blunders by the prosecutors. Anyone other than an extremely wealthy person would almost certainly have been convicted.
A civil jury later found him responsible for the two homicides (which is tantamont to a conviction) and assessed him financial penalties that he was supposed to pay the victims' families.
Now, a book publisher is releasing his "bone-chilling" memoir called If I did it, where he describes precisely how he committed the crimes under the scant protection of a supposition -- "if."
Fox Network is paying him $3.5 million for two television segments in late November showing him talking about the gruesome murders detailed in his book.
This development disgusts me so much that it is diffcult to find any words to capture my feelings. This man not only feels no shame, remorse, or sensitivity to the victims' families, he wants to shove in their faces the brutality of how he beat and slashed Nicole Simpson (his estranged wife) and Ron Goldman to death.
There is someone I hope will analyze this book. His name is Don Foster and he is a professor of English literature at Vassar College. He analyzes writings, especially anonymous writings, and identifies their author. Among his many successes were discovering that the author of an unattributed poem was Shakespeare.
He also figured out who Anonymous was after the book Primary Colors, appeared. He demonstrated that it was Joe Klein. He also has contributed to the famous Unabomber case. His book, Author Unknown, shows how he worked on these cases and others. I'd like Professor Foster to study O.J. Simpson's book for details he may have revealed that only the killer could have known.
I would hope that on the basis of such new evidence, Simpson could face new charges. Who will ever punish his lawyers? Who will punish the publisher, and who, indeed, will punish the Fox network?
A concerted outcry might yet force Fox to withdraw its deal. Otherwise, a consumer boytcott will be in order.
-30-
O.J. Simpson, murdered two people, got acquitted by some smart lawyers who put together a sympathetic jury and exploited blunders by the prosecutors. Anyone other than an extremely wealthy person would almost certainly have been convicted.
A civil jury later found him responsible for the two homicides (which is tantamont to a conviction) and assessed him financial penalties that he was supposed to pay the victims' families.
Now, a book publisher is releasing his "bone-chilling" memoir called If I did it, where he describes precisely how he committed the crimes under the scant protection of a supposition -- "if."
Fox Network is paying him $3.5 million for two television segments in late November showing him talking about the gruesome murders detailed in his book.
This development disgusts me so much that it is diffcult to find any words to capture my feelings. This man not only feels no shame, remorse, or sensitivity to the victims' families, he wants to shove in their faces the brutality of how he beat and slashed Nicole Simpson (his estranged wife) and Ron Goldman to death.
There is someone I hope will analyze this book. His name is Don Foster and he is a professor of English literature at Vassar College. He analyzes writings, especially anonymous writings, and identifies their author. Among his many successes were discovering that the author of an unattributed poem was Shakespeare.
He also figured out who Anonymous was after the book Primary Colors, appeared. He demonstrated that it was Joe Klein. He also has contributed to the famous Unabomber case. His book, Author Unknown, shows how he worked on these cases and others. I'd like Professor Foster to study O.J. Simpson's book for details he may have revealed that only the killer could have known.
I would hope that on the basis of such new evidence, Simpson could face new charges. Who will ever punish his lawyers? Who will punish the publisher, and who, indeed, will punish the Fox network?
A concerted outcry might yet force Fox to withdraw its deal. Otherwise, a consumer boytcott will be in order.
-30-
Thursday, November 16, 2006
What the difference is
When you finally get home after a long workday, do you wish you had someone to talk to?
That is, in the end, what spouses provide each other -- someone to share your day to day life with.
When it's working, you both are so devoted to each other that you can provide this kind of loving support almost instinctively. The knowledge that you have a comrade who supports you helps you get up the next day and go back out to engage in the professional battles that otherwise might easily wear you down.
My view of how being in a solid relationship looks like is just this: That you can count on the other person to be there for you to engage in this kind of conversation when you need it most; and, in return, you are there for her/him.
Lots of us fall for other, artificial aspects, such as a license certified by the state, or our religion. But a piece of paper is only as good as the next lighted match.
Love is deeper. If I can confide in you and you can confide in me, we've probably got something pretty special going on. And that makes all the difference...
-30-
That is, in the end, what spouses provide each other -- someone to share your day to day life with.
When it's working, you both are so devoted to each other that you can provide this kind of loving support almost instinctively. The knowledge that you have a comrade who supports you helps you get up the next day and go back out to engage in the professional battles that otherwise might easily wear you down.
My view of how being in a solid relationship looks like is just this: That you can count on the other person to be there for you to engage in this kind of conversation when you need it most; and, in return, you are there for her/him.
Lots of us fall for other, artificial aspects, such as a license certified by the state, or our religion. But a piece of paper is only as good as the next lighted match.
Love is deeper. If I can confide in you and you can confide in me, we've probably got something pretty special going on. And that makes all the difference...
-30-
State of Dreaming
For a long time, almost all of the past year, I seemed to be having no dreams at night. Probably I wasn't sleeping long enough to get into the proper state for dreams to occur. Plus, when I did have a dream, it was almost always a nightmare involving the person I loved leaving me for another.
I don't know if this is a sign of emotional health or not, but both my dreams and my nightmares are about much more diverse subjects now. I rarely mention these night visions, but last night's was too good to ignore. I know that my friends Brad, Joel and Howard, at a minimum and my sister Carole and her husband Tom will be able to appreciate it.
We all grew up in Michigan, which is one-half of the population whipping itself up into a feverish pitch for Saturday's football game at Ohio State. In my dream, I was busy doing other tasks, but I saw on a TV that late in the first quarter it was what the announcer called a "defensive struggle" and that the score was:
UM 0
OSU 3
My dream went on, and I was multitasking as always (feeding kids, cleaning up the apartment, doing laundry, burying the dead rat the kids discovered in the backyard, paying bills, setting up plans with a friend to see her Saturday night, returning a few incoming emails, checking a website to make sure the big soccer game is still on this afternoon, etc.)
I again passed by the TV and at first glance I thought one team was way ahead and that it was OSU. But when I looked closer, the score was
UM 19
OSU 17
and Michigan was driving with the football into the Ohio "red zone,” led by its talented back, Mike Hart. It was late in the 3rd quarter and the announcer was talking about how Michigan was winning the battle for the line of scrimmage, and that Ohio State's defense was wearing down.
The dream ended without resolution of any sort, not unlike most of my real life dreams. I'll have to wait and see, like everybody else, what happens on Saturday.
***
Does anyone else remember when those little 3 oz. sample sizes of toothpaste and shampoo used to be free giveaways in bins in stores? I think the companies that distributed them must have considered them as branding opportunities. They were too small to be of much use to anybody, in an age where air travel was still more of a novelty for most than the necessity it's become.
Nowadays, the prices on those tiny sized items seem to be rising, ever since the Department of Homeland Security identified those "sample" sizes as the maximum legal containers of liquids, gels, etc., you can carry on an airplane. I'm guessing that the manufacturers are churning out a lot more product in small sizes than ever before.
This is the opposite of the "supersizing" that has occurred in our food and beverage industry. Everything comes together in the security line at your airport, where supersized Americans unload plastic bags of sample sized shampoo and toothpaste for security guards to see.
The media world has an annual cycle of its own. We know that the period at the end of each calendar year is a slow period for us, normally, unless a monster news story breaks, because the minds of our audiences begin to wander. The two holidays Thanksgiving and Christmas bracket one last, frantic work period, but for most people it is largely devoted to shopping, mailing presents and cards, or attending office parties.
Precious little work actually gets done at that time of year. For a reporter or writer, if you have no pressing assignments, it's time to take stock and dream of what the next year might bring.
For a single person, without a partner, this can be a dangerous season. Last winter, I was in a dangerous state, barely eating or sleeping, worrying about my relationship, shedding pounds almost as quickly as I did when wracked with disease in India 36 years ago.
This time it was a heart ailment that was responsible, but not one doctors can treat. What can you do about a broken heart? For something that comes up for virtually everyone sooner or later, we seem to remain basically defenseless against the invasive disease caused by experienced this kind of wrenching loss.
I'm in a lot better shape this winter, and I hope you are too. As clichéd as it may sound, I'd rather be having this year's dream over last year's nightmare by an order of magnitude or more.
Go Blue!
I don't know if this is a sign of emotional health or not, but both my dreams and my nightmares are about much more diverse subjects now. I rarely mention these night visions, but last night's was too good to ignore. I know that my friends Brad, Joel and Howard, at a minimum and my sister Carole and her husband Tom will be able to appreciate it.
We all grew up in Michigan, which is one-half of the population whipping itself up into a feverish pitch for Saturday's football game at Ohio State. In my dream, I was busy doing other tasks, but I saw on a TV that late in the first quarter it was what the announcer called a "defensive struggle" and that the score was:
UM 0
OSU 3
My dream went on, and I was multitasking as always (feeding kids, cleaning up the apartment, doing laundry, burying the dead rat the kids discovered in the backyard, paying bills, setting up plans with a friend to see her Saturday night, returning a few incoming emails, checking a website to make sure the big soccer game is still on this afternoon, etc.)
I again passed by the TV and at first glance I thought one team was way ahead and that it was OSU. But when I looked closer, the score was
UM 19
OSU 17
and Michigan was driving with the football into the Ohio "red zone,” led by its talented back, Mike Hart. It was late in the 3rd quarter and the announcer was talking about how Michigan was winning the battle for the line of scrimmage, and that Ohio State's defense was wearing down.
The dream ended without resolution of any sort, not unlike most of my real life dreams. I'll have to wait and see, like everybody else, what happens on Saturday.
***
Does anyone else remember when those little 3 oz. sample sizes of toothpaste and shampoo used to be free giveaways in bins in stores? I think the companies that distributed them must have considered them as branding opportunities. They were too small to be of much use to anybody, in an age where air travel was still more of a novelty for most than the necessity it's become.
Nowadays, the prices on those tiny sized items seem to be rising, ever since the Department of Homeland Security identified those "sample" sizes as the maximum legal containers of liquids, gels, etc., you can carry on an airplane. I'm guessing that the manufacturers are churning out a lot more product in small sizes than ever before.
This is the opposite of the "supersizing" that has occurred in our food and beverage industry. Everything comes together in the security line at your airport, where supersized Americans unload plastic bags of sample sized shampoo and toothpaste for security guards to see.
The media world has an annual cycle of its own. We know that the period at the end of each calendar year is a slow period for us, normally, unless a monster news story breaks, because the minds of our audiences begin to wander. The two holidays Thanksgiving and Christmas bracket one last, frantic work period, but for most people it is largely devoted to shopping, mailing presents and cards, or attending office parties.
Precious little work actually gets done at that time of year. For a reporter or writer, if you have no pressing assignments, it's time to take stock and dream of what the next year might bring.
For a single person, without a partner, this can be a dangerous season. Last winter, I was in a dangerous state, barely eating or sleeping, worrying about my relationship, shedding pounds almost as quickly as I did when wracked with disease in India 36 years ago.
This time it was a heart ailment that was responsible, but not one doctors can treat. What can you do about a broken heart? For something that comes up for virtually everyone sooner or later, we seem to remain basically defenseless against the invasive disease caused by experienced this kind of wrenching loss.
I'm in a lot better shape this winter, and I hope you are too. As clichéd as it may sound, I'd rather be having this year's dream over last year's nightmare by an order of magnitude or more.
Go Blue!
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
War, sex, kids, cops, baby beds and Islam
If that title is not random enough for you, allow me to explain. This will have to be a stream of consciousness post tonight, because I feel over-stimulated. At times like this, even though I want to write, I must start with no clear idea where this is going.
I picked up a baby crib tonight for my grandson, because my daughter is in her final trimester. Our mutual friends have two young daughters, both cute as can be, one with dark brown eyes and one with bright blue eyes. Both parents are attentive. These were the first really young kids I've seen lately and I felt drawn to them.
I realized something. Even though I never gave much thought to being a parent (it just never occurred to me as something I particularly wanted), I came to know it is what the women I loved wanted, badly. And so it gave me a lot of pleasure to help make that happen.
But from the start, I was not much suited to be a father, really. At the age of 29, when my first child showed up, I was probably the emotional equivalent of a young teenager. Part of my problem was I was mainly brain; I approached life from a cerebral place, and had not yet worked out how to integrate any of my physical needs with my over-active imagination.
Worse, I did not yet even have a language for emotions; if you'd told me that the things we call "feelings" mattered, I would have (privately) dismissed you as a fool. How could something as ambiguous as a feeling have any validity whatsoever?
I didn't think so.
But I also was hopelessly naive and inexperienced. I'd married my first sweetheart on the day we graduated from college. I did notice that my knees had quaked uncontrollably during our marriage ceremony, but I had nowhere enough self-knowledge to understand why.
Thoughtlessly, I repeated the patterns of my father in my youthful marriage. I never even thought about it; I just did as I'd seen him do. Although my father was an inherently gentle man, he somehow knew that was not how he was supposed to be, so I believe he fought against his own nature almost all of his life.
He certainly feared any question of his own masculinity, which is very sad, because he was naturally drawn not to the world of manly men (locker rooms, the Army, power) but the more subtle worlds of art, music, and teaching. I came to think over the decades that he fought all of this as hard as he could, letting out his natural impulses only in private moments.
He always wanted the world to see him as he actually was; in fact, he craved that attention, but he never got it. The world pressed in on him. His Dad died when he was ten. He was the youngest child. His older siblings disappeared across the border to America. He and his Mom auctioned off all the farm implements and moved into an apartment in "town," which was London, Ontario.
Soon, the two of them joined the flood of "nickel immigrants" grabbing the ferry across the river from Windsor to Detroit.
He held what are (almost) unimaginable jobs -- at the notorious River Rouge factory, Detroit's answer to the night flames of Gary, Indiana. He worked in a paint factory. Back to the auto plants. Finally, the onset World War Two put an end to this working class nightmare that had ended The Great Depression, and he enlisted as a fighter pilot in training.
But he washed out of that for "psychological reasons." He had met and married my mother and adopted my older sister by this time. As he told me, by the age of 26 he didn't have enough of a "killer instinct," to be a successful war pilot. He said it was because of his wife and daughter back home, but I knew better.
It was his essential nature to not kill and not die needlessly. Though his formal schooling ended with graduating high school at age 16, he was way too smart to fall for the lines that the old-man empire builders have employed for generations to exploit youthful hormones to conquer other nations.
My Dad became a stenographer instead, which led to his being present at the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, but that is another story.
Suffice it to say that since he was my main male role model, and I was his main male witness, I knew things about my dad that he never would have been able to admit about himself to anyone else. I have come to think of these qualities as his beautiful side.
Like all young people, however, he was not my preoccupation -- I was. "Me, myself, and I," is how he would have put it. Compared to him, I was easily an order of magnitude more attracted to the arts and music and self-revelation. It has taken a long time to work all of this out, and find the socially optimal way of presenting myself to the world, but each generation has to do the best that it can. I never, ever had any sense I was a "normal" man, as our culture presents that stereotype to be, nor do I today.
However, finally letting those differences out in my 40s and 50s has been the key to the relationships I have developed at this stage of my life. I can't help but wonder how my life would have been different had I started recognizing and expressing my emotions at, say, age 20, instead of at age 40...
***
Having children, as I've said, was never my idea. But having children is what ultimately provoked me to discover my emotional side. Had I been more clued into myself, I would have been able to explain my propensity to fall in love. I don't mean lust, I mean love.
But since I headlined sex in this post, let me say, briefly, that this is and has been my favorite exercise for all time. My oldest son walked in on his Mom and I once when he was probably too young to now remember. But his concern was that I was "hurting" her. We assured him I most certainly was not.
I've loved sleeping with every girlfriend I've had. It makes me sad to read about this new supposed disease, ED, but I can't help but wonder if this isn't what happens when a man is inserting himself somewhere his heart doesn't want to be? I don't want to offend anyone, but I strongly suspect the problem lies elsewhere than in the organ, and I doubt any little blue pill will fix that!
Anyway, maybe when I grow old, I'll find out what that is all about; so far, that is not a state I have experienced.
***
Do you know why babies like me? Because I am animated when I talk. I speak in paragraphs and I make lots of gestures. My eyes sparkle.
I don't ever speak down to babies. I talk to them in the same way I am talking to you. Why condescend and make foolish noises when the eyes you are gazing into are every bit as intelligent as your own?
I don't get it. And I really don't get people who claim they don't like kids. I think they are kidding themselves. The greatest privilege of aging is to still be able to affect the young ones.
They, not you and I, will carry this life, this society, this language, this emotional narrative forward. Ignoring children is tantamount to saying you don't think you are part of history.
And that, my friends, would be the saddest statement of low self-esteem you could ever choose to make.
***
Addendums:
* I am reading Karen Armstrong’s excellent “History of Islam” for my book club.
* The campus police shot a UCLA student tonight with a taser because he couldn’t produce his ID: LINK-- http://www.dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=38958.
Stay tuned, this may undue the Patriot Act, eventually, once the Democrats take control of the hearings process in Congress.
-30-
I picked up a baby crib tonight for my grandson, because my daughter is in her final trimester. Our mutual friends have two young daughters, both cute as can be, one with dark brown eyes and one with bright blue eyes. Both parents are attentive. These were the first really young kids I've seen lately and I felt drawn to them.
I realized something. Even though I never gave much thought to being a parent (it just never occurred to me as something I particularly wanted), I came to know it is what the women I loved wanted, badly. And so it gave me a lot of pleasure to help make that happen.
But from the start, I was not much suited to be a father, really. At the age of 29, when my first child showed up, I was probably the emotional equivalent of a young teenager. Part of my problem was I was mainly brain; I approached life from a cerebral place, and had not yet worked out how to integrate any of my physical needs with my over-active imagination.
Worse, I did not yet even have a language for emotions; if you'd told me that the things we call "feelings" mattered, I would have (privately) dismissed you as a fool. How could something as ambiguous as a feeling have any validity whatsoever?
I didn't think so.
But I also was hopelessly naive and inexperienced. I'd married my first sweetheart on the day we graduated from college. I did notice that my knees had quaked uncontrollably during our marriage ceremony, but I had nowhere enough self-knowledge to understand why.
Thoughtlessly, I repeated the patterns of my father in my youthful marriage. I never even thought about it; I just did as I'd seen him do. Although my father was an inherently gentle man, he somehow knew that was not how he was supposed to be, so I believe he fought against his own nature almost all of his life.
He certainly feared any question of his own masculinity, which is very sad, because he was naturally drawn not to the world of manly men (locker rooms, the Army, power) but the more subtle worlds of art, music, and teaching. I came to think over the decades that he fought all of this as hard as he could, letting out his natural impulses only in private moments.
He always wanted the world to see him as he actually was; in fact, he craved that attention, but he never got it. The world pressed in on him. His Dad died when he was ten. He was the youngest child. His older siblings disappeared across the border to America. He and his Mom auctioned off all the farm implements and moved into an apartment in "town," which was London, Ontario.
Soon, the two of them joined the flood of "nickel immigrants" grabbing the ferry across the river from Windsor to Detroit.
He held what are (almost) unimaginable jobs -- at the notorious River Rouge factory, Detroit's answer to the night flames of Gary, Indiana. He worked in a paint factory. Back to the auto plants. Finally, the onset World War Two put an end to this working class nightmare that had ended The Great Depression, and he enlisted as a fighter pilot in training.
But he washed out of that for "psychological reasons." He had met and married my mother and adopted my older sister by this time. As he told me, by the age of 26 he didn't have enough of a "killer instinct," to be a successful war pilot. He said it was because of his wife and daughter back home, but I knew better.
It was his essential nature to not kill and not die needlessly. Though his formal schooling ended with graduating high school at age 16, he was way too smart to fall for the lines that the old-man empire builders have employed for generations to exploit youthful hormones to conquer other nations.
My Dad became a stenographer instead, which led to his being present at the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, but that is another story.
Suffice it to say that since he was my main male role model, and I was his main male witness, I knew things about my dad that he never would have been able to admit about himself to anyone else. I have come to think of these qualities as his beautiful side.
Like all young people, however, he was not my preoccupation -- I was. "Me, myself, and I," is how he would have put it. Compared to him, I was easily an order of magnitude more attracted to the arts and music and self-revelation. It has taken a long time to work all of this out, and find the socially optimal way of presenting myself to the world, but each generation has to do the best that it can. I never, ever had any sense I was a "normal" man, as our culture presents that stereotype to be, nor do I today.
However, finally letting those differences out in my 40s and 50s has been the key to the relationships I have developed at this stage of my life. I can't help but wonder how my life would have been different had I started recognizing and expressing my emotions at, say, age 20, instead of at age 40...
***
Having children, as I've said, was never my idea. But having children is what ultimately provoked me to discover my emotional side. Had I been more clued into myself, I would have been able to explain my propensity to fall in love. I don't mean lust, I mean love.
But since I headlined sex in this post, let me say, briefly, that this is and has been my favorite exercise for all time. My oldest son walked in on his Mom and I once when he was probably too young to now remember. But his concern was that I was "hurting" her. We assured him I most certainly was not.
I've loved sleeping with every girlfriend I've had. It makes me sad to read about this new supposed disease, ED, but I can't help but wonder if this isn't what happens when a man is inserting himself somewhere his heart doesn't want to be? I don't want to offend anyone, but I strongly suspect the problem lies elsewhere than in the organ, and I doubt any little blue pill will fix that!
Anyway, maybe when I grow old, I'll find out what that is all about; so far, that is not a state I have experienced.
***
Do you know why babies like me? Because I am animated when I talk. I speak in paragraphs and I make lots of gestures. My eyes sparkle.
I don't ever speak down to babies. I talk to them in the same way I am talking to you. Why condescend and make foolish noises when the eyes you are gazing into are every bit as intelligent as your own?
I don't get it. And I really don't get people who claim they don't like kids. I think they are kidding themselves. The greatest privilege of aging is to still be able to affect the young ones.
They, not you and I, will carry this life, this society, this language, this emotional narrative forward. Ignoring children is tantamount to saying you don't think you are part of history.
And that, my friends, would be the saddest statement of low self-esteem you could ever choose to make.
***
Addendums:
* I am reading Karen Armstrong’s excellent “History of Islam” for my book club.
* The campus police shot a UCLA student tonight with a taser because he couldn’t produce his ID: LINK-- http://www.dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=38958.
Stay tuned, this may undue the Patriot Act, eventually, once the Democrats take control of the hearings process in Congress.
-30-
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
All in a day's work
I know that many of my readers do not work in Silicon Valley. As a writer, and a teacher of writing, I am acutely aware of how off-putting insider lingo can be. Here's how we talk day to day:
Scope creep
Iteration
Monetize
Page config
Style Sheets
RSS
Navigation
Interactivity
Connectivity
Load
Dev
Scrum
Server
Architecture
Surfacing
Categorization
Bandwidth
Granularity
Sprint
Epic
UI
Interface
Program
Content
Noise
Signal
Back office
Front office
Release
Keystroke
Usability
Click tracks
QA
Pipe
Colo
Toolbar
User-generated
Pixels
Optimize
Tables
Link
Post
ITS
Chip
Memory
Functionality
Feature Set
Html
File sharing
Mouse over
Flouts
Scroll down
CPC
IP
Xml
Resin
NetApp
DNS
API
Objects
Template
A build
Recency
If you have any questions, please ask me. But please do not expect that I can actually answer them. Because I am a student in the Valley, not a teacher. There is a lot of meaning imbedded in this dialect, but it reveals itself only slowly, like the skins peeling off an onion, or a lovely woman taking off her clothes.
The end result is a beauty you can only appreciate by engaging your heart. Very few, perhaps no others will say this, but the march of technology that engulfs us scares even those creating it. We don't know where it is headed, but we hope it will result in a better world, a more loving place.
Math, meet English Literature.
Philosophy, meet Physics.
Man meet woman. No, wait a minute, that would be a plug for Match.com. Oh well, you get the general drift, or as Google's search results would have it, the Zeitgeist (Google's Year Review Product)of this particular moment in your life and in mine...
Scope creep
Iteration
Monetize
Page config
Style Sheets
RSS
Navigation
Interactivity
Connectivity
Load
Dev
Scrum
Server
Architecture
Surfacing
Categorization
Bandwidth
Granularity
Sprint
Epic
UI
Interface
Program
Content
Noise
Signal
Back office
Front office
Release
Keystroke
Usability
Click tracks
QA
Pipe
Colo
Toolbar
User-generated
Pixels
Optimize
Tables
Link
Post
ITS
Chip
Memory
Functionality
Feature Set
Html
File sharing
Mouse over
Flouts
Scroll down
CPC
IP
Xml
Resin
NetApp
DNS
API
Objects
Template
A build
Recency
If you have any questions, please ask me. But please do not expect that I can actually answer them. Because I am a student in the Valley, not a teacher. There is a lot of meaning imbedded in this dialect, but it reveals itself only slowly, like the skins peeling off an onion, or a lovely woman taking off her clothes.
The end result is a beauty you can only appreciate by engaging your heart. Very few, perhaps no others will say this, but the march of technology that engulfs us scares even those creating it. We don't know where it is headed, but we hope it will result in a better world, a more loving place.
Math, meet English Literature.
Philosophy, meet Physics.
Man meet woman. No, wait a minute, that would be a plug for Match.com. Oh well, you get the general drift, or as Google's search results would have it, the Zeitgeist (Google's Year Review Product)of this particular moment in your life and in mine...
A new day, post #301
It is amazing (to me) that I've probably written over 180,000 words here over the past 7 1/2 months. That's the equivalent of a book, I think. But this blog has none of the consistency of a book. It's been all over the map, guided by my emotional gyrations, not the intellectual discipline of telling just one story. Here, I'm trying to tell many people's stories, and I trust that is clear.
First, my former girlfriend. My love for her (I hope) has come through clearly through all of my expressions of pain, grief, confusion, and occasional flashes of anger. Her story, in my eyes, is a hero's story. She is a person who gave up everything familiar and safe in her world (including me, though that was no great loss) to help people in much more desperate condition than most of us, God-willing, will ever be.
She hasn't checked in with me in a while, and I'm a tad worried about her, but usually when she does she offers a way for me to help people down there long-distance. That has been one of my joys this past year -- being able to publicize the disaster that ruined the Gulf Coast, and shine some light on those helping to rebuild it.
Biloxi will be back, as will Waveland, Gulfport, Bay St. Louis, and the entire Mississippi coast. And although she would never, ever accept credit, my wonderful friend is one of the reasons the region will not only rebound, but will include the diversity of voices that men of power and influence would otherwise silence as they extract profit from the adversity of others...
Suffice it to say she has been this past year and will always be my hero. And I will always love her.
***
This space, with all of my wordiness, is also an attempt at honoring my family, in the complete sense. My parents, both now passed away; my two ex-wives, both of whom I respect and love a lot; and my six children, who are my treasures. I mention friends, but out of privacy concerns, I don't often mention how important they are to me, but they know, I trust.
Today, a little girl almost died before my eyes--at least it looked that way. Mark and I were having lunch in a Mexican restaurant near the office. It was crowded and loud with multiple conversations (in English, Spanish, Hindi, Mandarin, Hebrew, Urdu, French, Russian, Japanese, and baby talk -- i.e., it was a normal lunch hour in Silicon Valley) when suddenly there erupted a commotion nearby.
"Is there a doctor in the house?" somebody's panicked voice repeated several times. I looked over, two adults, a man and a woman, were swinging a two-year-old girl in the air like a rag doll. Her eyes were rolled back into their sockets. She was very pale. She appeared not to be breathing. But only a few people at nearby tables realized what was happening. The din in the place was too loud for others to even realize a crisis was at hand.
Time stopped for me. Adrenaline shot through my old, bent, overweight body. I summoned my loudest voice (which my fellow soccer parents will agree is, well, rather loud) and screamed: "D-o-e-s a-n-y-o-n-e i-n h-e-r-e k-n-o-w m-o-u-t-h t-o m-o-u-t-h? A b-a-b-y i-s c-h-o-a-k-i-n-g!!!
The room froze and for a moment all was silence, like in an old movie. The frightened parents were the only people in motion, albeit slow motion, trying to will their little girl back to consciousness.
Then, all hell broke loose. I saw a man dressed in black race through the restaurant like a halfback, pushing his way to their table. He grabbed the little girl, turned her over, and began to pound on her back.
Nothing came out of her mouth, but she seemed to start breathing again.
I was dialing 9-1-1. I got through.
Long story shortened. Mark, ever the reporter, informed me the fire truck arrived seven minutes later. One minute before that, a doctor from a nearby clinic ran up, summoned by other patrons.
The talk among those evaluating her was of a possible "seizure," of a high temperature, and other possible explanations.
I went over and looked at this little girl. She was very pale, laconic, yet scared.
I don't know how her story turned out. But I hope she is okay.
***
Three and a half hours later, I realized I was still shaking. I zipped up my computer and headed home a half hour early. I climbed into bed and slept, sort of. I awoke in a cold sweat. I drank some orange juice, heated up some spaghetti leftovers, and went to my night meeting.
-30-
First, my former girlfriend. My love for her (I hope) has come through clearly through all of my expressions of pain, grief, confusion, and occasional flashes of anger. Her story, in my eyes, is a hero's story. She is a person who gave up everything familiar and safe in her world (including me, though that was no great loss) to help people in much more desperate condition than most of us, God-willing, will ever be.
She hasn't checked in with me in a while, and I'm a tad worried about her, but usually when she does she offers a way for me to help people down there long-distance. That has been one of my joys this past year -- being able to publicize the disaster that ruined the Gulf Coast, and shine some light on those helping to rebuild it.
Biloxi will be back, as will Waveland, Gulfport, Bay St. Louis, and the entire Mississippi coast. And although she would never, ever accept credit, my wonderful friend is one of the reasons the region will not only rebound, but will include the diversity of voices that men of power and influence would otherwise silence as they extract profit from the adversity of others...
Suffice it to say she has been this past year and will always be my hero. And I will always love her.
***
This space, with all of my wordiness, is also an attempt at honoring my family, in the complete sense. My parents, both now passed away; my two ex-wives, both of whom I respect and love a lot; and my six children, who are my treasures. I mention friends, but out of privacy concerns, I don't often mention how important they are to me, but they know, I trust.
Today, a little girl almost died before my eyes--at least it looked that way. Mark and I were having lunch in a Mexican restaurant near the office. It was crowded and loud with multiple conversations (in English, Spanish, Hindi, Mandarin, Hebrew, Urdu, French, Russian, Japanese, and baby talk -- i.e., it was a normal lunch hour in Silicon Valley) when suddenly there erupted a commotion nearby.
"Is there a doctor in the house?" somebody's panicked voice repeated several times. I looked over, two adults, a man and a woman, were swinging a two-year-old girl in the air like a rag doll. Her eyes were rolled back into their sockets. She was very pale. She appeared not to be breathing. But only a few people at nearby tables realized what was happening. The din in the place was too loud for others to even realize a crisis was at hand.
Time stopped for me. Adrenaline shot through my old, bent, overweight body. I summoned my loudest voice (which my fellow soccer parents will agree is, well, rather loud) and screamed: "D-o-e-s a-n-y-o-n-e i-n h-e-r-e k-n-o-w m-o-u-t-h t-o m-o-u-t-h? A b-a-b-y i-s c-h-o-a-k-i-n-g!!!
The room froze and for a moment all was silence, like in an old movie. The frightened parents were the only people in motion, albeit slow motion, trying to will their little girl back to consciousness.
Then, all hell broke loose. I saw a man dressed in black race through the restaurant like a halfback, pushing his way to their table. He grabbed the little girl, turned her over, and began to pound on her back.
Nothing came out of her mouth, but she seemed to start breathing again.
I was dialing 9-1-1. I got through.
Long story shortened. Mark, ever the reporter, informed me the fire truck arrived seven minutes later. One minute before that, a doctor from a nearby clinic ran up, summoned by other patrons.
The talk among those evaluating her was of a possible "seizure," of a high temperature, and other possible explanations.
I went over and looked at this little girl. She was very pale, laconic, yet scared.
I don't know how her story turned out. But I hope she is okay.
***
Three and a half hours later, I realized I was still shaking. I zipped up my computer and headed home a half hour early. I climbed into bed and slept, sort of. I awoke in a cold sweat. I drank some orange juice, heated up some spaghetti leftovers, and went to my night meeting.
-30-
Monday, November 13, 2006
Post #300
Tonight I had a reason to search back through my old email files, something I rarely do. Suddenly, the following caught my eye. It is a dialogue between a man and a woman. What possibly could have happened to this sweet couple? Why did they let this connection slip away?
He wrote:
I have been looking at you a lot lately -- you look wonderful to me, very tanned and healthy and slender and lovely...I feel I am very lucky to be with you...I really like your near-sighted gaze when you're intent on kissing me...shall i start a list? Now that is a kind of homework I could sink my dipstick into...
She wrote:
I want to feel now like I can keep looking at you, but am afraid that when I do, you feel pressure or just don't see me. It's hard to get your attention, particularly at11p.m..., when we're both exhausted or you're sitting at the computer, and I need your attention. Do you have enough to give?? I want to feel "high" when I look at you, at least sometimes. That kind of feeling requires cultivation. Or maybe it's just a sick expectation/desire, that no one should expect after a while.
No pressure now, please, don't add it to your worry list, let's just
talk when you feel free to...
She wrote:
I know you're busy. But I'm not. So, I was just thinking...Sometimes, when I'm bored, and waiting for (bleep) to get me corrections, I read old emails, for a little cheap thrill. Doing it helps to remind me. As things have shaken out, and maybe you see me more clearly now, all my faults and shortcomings, and all the ways I don't live up
to your expectations, I think I need a list...
I guess I need to know you're looking at me, which would mean I need to be looking at you at the same time. I realize that I don't express myself in romantic terms, I've never felt that was a safe thing, it only sets me up for disappointment and humiliation. So the tiny gestures I make in that direction are very tender and scary. In the mean time, I just do what I can, always just practical and sensible.
Funny though, practicality seems to be what you crave. Do you crave
anything else?
I wish I knew more songs on the banjo. I wish I were good at it (in other words, and here comes the cliche...I wish I'd never stopped taking music lessons as a kid). Wish I hadn't killed-off my inner child so violently.
The movie last night made me want to dance. I think everything points towards a desire to get out of my head, and into my body instead.
You're busy and otherwise employed, so you don't need to answer this..... now anyway. Looks like I'm journaling to you...blab..blab..blab... maybe not a bad idea, since I won't seem to write anything down otherwise.
***
So, you see, there was a time when this man and this woman felt so close that they exchanged these kinds of intimacies. Saving emails is just like saving old letters. I will have to do more explorations into the past. I feel certain this will reveal how and when I went so wrong, in order to lose her love.
I thought I always tried to listen. But I see now that I just was not attentive enough.
-30-
He wrote:
I have been looking at you a lot lately -- you look wonderful to me, very tanned and healthy and slender and lovely...I feel I am very lucky to be with you...I really like your near-sighted gaze when you're intent on kissing me...shall i start a list? Now that is a kind of homework I could sink my dipstick into...
She wrote:
I want to feel now like I can keep looking at you, but am afraid that when I do, you feel pressure or just don't see me. It's hard to get your attention, particularly at11p.m..., when we're both exhausted or you're sitting at the computer, and I need your attention. Do you have enough to give?? I want to feel "high" when I look at you, at least sometimes. That kind of feeling requires cultivation. Or maybe it's just a sick expectation/desire, that no one should expect after a while.
No pressure now, please, don't add it to your worry list, let's just
talk when you feel free to...
She wrote:
I know you're busy. But I'm not. So, I was just thinking...Sometimes, when I'm bored, and waiting for (bleep) to get me corrections, I read old emails, for a little cheap thrill. Doing it helps to remind me. As things have shaken out, and maybe you see me more clearly now, all my faults and shortcomings, and all the ways I don't live up
to your expectations, I think I need a list...
I guess I need to know you're looking at me, which would mean I need to be looking at you at the same time. I realize that I don't express myself in romantic terms, I've never felt that was a safe thing, it only sets me up for disappointment and humiliation. So the tiny gestures I make in that direction are very tender and scary. In the mean time, I just do what I can, always just practical and sensible.
Funny though, practicality seems to be what you crave. Do you crave
anything else?
I wish I knew more songs on the banjo. I wish I were good at it (in other words, and here comes the cliche...I wish I'd never stopped taking music lessons as a kid). Wish I hadn't killed-off my inner child so violently.
The movie last night made me want to dance. I think everything points towards a desire to get out of my head, and into my body instead.
You're busy and otherwise employed, so you don't need to answer this..... now anyway. Looks like I'm journaling to you...blab..blab..blab... maybe not a bad idea, since I won't seem to write anything down otherwise.
***
So, you see, there was a time when this man and this woman felt so close that they exchanged these kinds of intimacies. Saving emails is just like saving old letters. I will have to do more explorations into the past. I feel certain this will reveal how and when I went so wrong, in order to lose her love.
I thought I always tried to listen. But I see now that I just was not attentive enough.
-30-
That last good time
POST # 299 since 04/03/06, another grim, rainy time...
If you grew up around where I did, or anywhere else in the Midwest, you know what a big deal the annual Michigan-Ohio State football rivalry is. Two proud schools with winning traditions rivaling any in college sports. Michigan is, in fact, the winningest team in NCAA football. They won the very first Rose Bowl ever played, 49-0. The second time they got to the Rose Bowl, decades later, they again won 49-0. In all the games over all the years, no team has matched that point total -- it still stands as the record in the grandest Bowl of them all.
A lot has changed over the past century, but one thing that remains the same is the intensity of this rivalry. Only twice before have both teams made it to their regular season finale undefeated. Never before have they faced each other ranked #1 and #2 in the country.
Ohio State is the favorite, and is trying to run the table as the nation's top-ranked team end to end. If they win their quarterback may well win the Heisman Trophy, which is given to the nation's top football player.
Michigan came out of the shadows this year; no one expected them to be as good as they are. Last year they had what for U-M was a miserable record (7-5). But they also have a very good quarterback plus a great running back, two great pass receivers and a speedy guy who is a multiple threat -- returning kicks, catching passes, running on trick plays.
They also have the best defense against the run in the country, barely allowing 20 yards on the ground per game.
Football between these two schools is traditionally a low-scoring, grind-it-out, hard-hitting battle. The team that wins the line of scrimmage should win the game. But modern football includes lots of explosive offensive maneuvers that make the scores of yesteryear (6-3, 7-0, 13-12) extremely unlikely this time around. It's more likely to be something like 27-23...
***
My Dad was a big Michigan fan. And, if any of my female readers have tolerated going this deep into a post that has contained nothing but boring sports clichés so far, I promise to switch gears right here, right now.
The photo up top is of my father on our last day together. It was New Year's Day, 1999. I drove from our hotel on Captiva Island over to my parents' mobile home in North Fort Myers. My mother took this shot before I got there. Dad was so excited, wearing his Michigan hat, with the TV in the background, on which we watched our last football game together.
Michigan won that game, with a dramatic 4th-quarter comeback. We hugged and said good-bye, knowing we planned to see each other again three brief days later. On the morning of the 3rd, I talked to my parents on the phone. My Dad barely said a word. Mom did the talking.
That night he suffered a massive stroke. I got to the hospital and was with him and my mother as he died. Hours after kissing her husband of 56 1/2 years goodbye forever, she was cradling my 2-month- old daughter in her arms.
Dad never got to meet Julia. Julia never got to meet Dad.
Maybe if you don't have kids, or don't like what family you have, or never really experienced anything resembling a happy family tradition, this won't make sense to you. But I'll be thinking of my father this Saturday as I watch the epic battle on television. Julia will be running around my apartment, pursuing her dreams.
When the game is over, I'll have a silent conversation with the one who taught me to love this stuff, who put it in my blood. He was 82 the day he died. He would be 90 if he were still here today. And, even if we were apart, watching the big game a continent away from one another, he's the first person I would have called, excitedly when Michigan does what they surely will due this Saturday.
That's something I will never be able to do again; haven't been able to do for years. Much like when the woman you love hugs you, gets in her car, and drives away, leaving you standing all alone, most good things come to a premature end in this life.
And when they do, they never, ever come back again, do they?
***
See, I'm still working on handling losses. There have been disappointments, sadnesses, unexpected goodbyes. Last week, somone told me something innocently, not knowing it would hurt me, but it reopened an old pain. Probably I'm hyper-sensitive now because I'm going through my divorce and it's winter. Divorce is never fun, and winter rarely is. I probably need a friend to hug me but there's nobody to be found. I suddenly remember my mother, and how her feelings would get hurt when I was young, and how I would always feel her pain slicing through my own heart.
People sometimes try to make you feel better about the inevitable by giving you too much information. They don't know. They can't know. But my disappointments in people have been many, and their ability to hurt me is beyond what any of them know. I just wish some hurts wouldn't return any more. I'm tired and I'm feeling old now.
Of course, the only one I have to blame is myself for all this. I've given my love and even my friendship away so easily for so many years. Take it on the run...That's what they do. With never a look back in the rear-view mirror at the likes of me. Too late I discover they just don't really care.
-30-
If you grew up around where I did, or anywhere else in the Midwest, you know what a big deal the annual Michigan-Ohio State football rivalry is. Two proud schools with winning traditions rivaling any in college sports. Michigan is, in fact, the winningest team in NCAA football. They won the very first Rose Bowl ever played, 49-0. The second time they got to the Rose Bowl, decades later, they again won 49-0. In all the games over all the years, no team has matched that point total -- it still stands as the record in the grandest Bowl of them all.A lot has changed over the past century, but one thing that remains the same is the intensity of this rivalry. Only twice before have both teams made it to their regular season finale undefeated. Never before have they faced each other ranked #1 and #2 in the country.
Ohio State is the favorite, and is trying to run the table as the nation's top-ranked team end to end. If they win their quarterback may well win the Heisman Trophy, which is given to the nation's top football player.
Michigan came out of the shadows this year; no one expected them to be as good as they are. Last year they had what for U-M was a miserable record (7-5). But they also have a very good quarterback plus a great running back, two great pass receivers and a speedy guy who is a multiple threat -- returning kicks, catching passes, running on trick plays.
They also have the best defense against the run in the country, barely allowing 20 yards on the ground per game.
Football between these two schools is traditionally a low-scoring, grind-it-out, hard-hitting battle. The team that wins the line of scrimmage should win the game. But modern football includes lots of explosive offensive maneuvers that make the scores of yesteryear (6-3, 7-0, 13-12) extremely unlikely this time around. It's more likely to be something like 27-23...
***
My Dad was a big Michigan fan. And, if any of my female readers have tolerated going this deep into a post that has contained nothing but boring sports clichés so far, I promise to switch gears right here, right now.
The photo up top is of my father on our last day together. It was New Year's Day, 1999. I drove from our hotel on Captiva Island over to my parents' mobile home in North Fort Myers. My mother took this shot before I got there. Dad was so excited, wearing his Michigan hat, with the TV in the background, on which we watched our last football game together.
Michigan won that game, with a dramatic 4th-quarter comeback. We hugged and said good-bye, knowing we planned to see each other again three brief days later. On the morning of the 3rd, I talked to my parents on the phone. My Dad barely said a word. Mom did the talking.
That night he suffered a massive stroke. I got to the hospital and was with him and my mother as he died. Hours after kissing her husband of 56 1/2 years goodbye forever, she was cradling my 2-month- old daughter in her arms.
Dad never got to meet Julia. Julia never got to meet Dad.
Maybe if you don't have kids, or don't like what family you have, or never really experienced anything resembling a happy family tradition, this won't make sense to you. But I'll be thinking of my father this Saturday as I watch the epic battle on television. Julia will be running around my apartment, pursuing her dreams.
When the game is over, I'll have a silent conversation with the one who taught me to love this stuff, who put it in my blood. He was 82 the day he died. He would be 90 if he were still here today. And, even if we were apart, watching the big game a continent away from one another, he's the first person I would have called, excitedly when Michigan does what they surely will due this Saturday.
That's something I will never be able to do again; haven't been able to do for years. Much like when the woman you love hugs you, gets in her car, and drives away, leaving you standing all alone, most good things come to a premature end in this life.
And when they do, they never, ever come back again, do they?
***
See, I'm still working on handling losses. There have been disappointments, sadnesses, unexpected goodbyes. Last week, somone told me something innocently, not knowing it would hurt me, but it reopened an old pain. Probably I'm hyper-sensitive now because I'm going through my divorce and it's winter. Divorce is never fun, and winter rarely is. I probably need a friend to hug me but there's nobody to be found. I suddenly remember my mother, and how her feelings would get hurt when I was young, and how I would always feel her pain slicing through my own heart.
People sometimes try to make you feel better about the inevitable by giving you too much information. They don't know. They can't know. But my disappointments in people have been many, and their ability to hurt me is beyond what any of them know. I just wish some hurts wouldn't return any more. I'm tired and I'm feeling old now.
Of course, the only one I have to blame is myself for all this. I've given my love and even my friendship away so easily for so many years. Take it on the run...That's what they do. With never a look back in the rear-view mirror at the likes of me. Too late I discover they just don't really care.
-30-
Heard it from a friend who, heard it from a friend who...
Rain falls softly outside my window. There's barely any wind. It's winter here now, our greenest season of the year.
A year ago Wednesday I saw my girlfriend off to her adventures in Biloxi. She was supposed to stay two months. Instead she stayed three, then spent just a little over two months back here before putting her possessions in storage, and drove back down the lonely highways stretching from here to the Gulf Coast. I guess she's a Mississippian now; maybe she's even developed an accent.
She's one who thinks that she never changes, that's she's always the same. And there is some consistency in her nature, that's true. But I saw massive changes in her during the two years I knew her.
There's remarkably little press coming out of the Gulf Coast these days. The national media is obsessed with the recent elections and the nation's other disaster -- the war in Iraq, so there's little interest in how our southeastern brothers and sisters are faring in their struggle to recover from the twin killer sisters -- Katrina and Rita.
Thousands of Americans do care, though, and they're the ones, like my friend, who have moved into the area on a semi-permanent basis. As far as I know, she still sleeps on her air mattress in her tiny room, with polka dot curtains in the loft of the church on Pass Road. But there's probably a whole lot of stuff I don't know about her life now.
***
I met a whole slew of young writers Saturday, some Asian American, all of whom are interested in trying to develop their long-form narrative writing style. While specific rules can and are put out there in various settings (classrooms, newsrooms, magazine offices) about what constitutes a narrative and how to construct one, it really boils down to this: Your story telling style.
Everyone has a unique story telling voice. Even if ten people read the same story out loud, it would be perceived differently depending on which words they emphasized and which rhythms inherent in the language they enhanced. This is more obvious in songs as in Pat Boone's covers of Elvis Pressley songs, etc.
It's all in the interpretation. One exercise a writer can follow is to rewrite (from memory) some ancient story. Then go back and compare what you wrote to the original source. Unless you had the story memorized (which is a different exercise), there should be some telltale evidence of your writing voice in there.
Pay attention to where and how you departed from the original, details you changed, additions you made. All of these are hints as to how your brain is wired for story telling.
It's a process not unlike that of investigative reporting, where we take special note of changes in routine, for example, to infer when our subject has changed her/his normal behavior. It's all in the pattern.
The best storytellers like solving mysteries of all sorts -- crimes, anonymous writings, math problems, and mysteries of the heart. There's a tension hanging over every story: How will it end?
-30-
You take it on the run baby
If that's the way you want it baby
Then I don't want you a-round
I don't believe it
Not for a minute
You're under the gun so you take it on the run
--Reo Speedwagon
A year ago Wednesday I saw my girlfriend off to her adventures in Biloxi. She was supposed to stay two months. Instead she stayed three, then spent just a little over two months back here before putting her possessions in storage, and drove back down the lonely highways stretching from here to the Gulf Coast. I guess she's a Mississippian now; maybe she's even developed an accent.
She's one who thinks that she never changes, that's she's always the same. And there is some consistency in her nature, that's true. But I saw massive changes in her during the two years I knew her.
There's remarkably little press coming out of the Gulf Coast these days. The national media is obsessed with the recent elections and the nation's other disaster -- the war in Iraq, so there's little interest in how our southeastern brothers and sisters are faring in their struggle to recover from the twin killer sisters -- Katrina and Rita.
Thousands of Americans do care, though, and they're the ones, like my friend, who have moved into the area on a semi-permanent basis. As far as I know, she still sleeps on her air mattress in her tiny room, with polka dot curtains in the loft of the church on Pass Road. But there's probably a whole lot of stuff I don't know about her life now.
***
I met a whole slew of young writers Saturday, some Asian American, all of whom are interested in trying to develop their long-form narrative writing style. While specific rules can and are put out there in various settings (classrooms, newsrooms, magazine offices) about what constitutes a narrative and how to construct one, it really boils down to this: Your story telling style.
Everyone has a unique story telling voice. Even if ten people read the same story out loud, it would be perceived differently depending on which words they emphasized and which rhythms inherent in the language they enhanced. This is more obvious in songs as in Pat Boone's covers of Elvis Pressley songs, etc.
It's all in the interpretation. One exercise a writer can follow is to rewrite (from memory) some ancient story. Then go back and compare what you wrote to the original source. Unless you had the story memorized (which is a different exercise), there should be some telltale evidence of your writing voice in there.
Pay attention to where and how you departed from the original, details you changed, additions you made. All of these are hints as to how your brain is wired for story telling.
It's a process not unlike that of investigative reporting, where we take special note of changes in routine, for example, to infer when our subject has changed her/his normal behavior. It's all in the pattern.
The best storytellers like solving mysteries of all sorts -- crimes, anonymous writings, math problems, and mysteries of the heart. There's a tension hanging over every story: How will it end?
-30-
You take it on the run baby
If that's the way you want it baby
Then I don't want you a-round
I don't believe it
Not for a minute
You're under the gun so you take it on the run
--Reo Speedwagon
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Men & Women: What I am done with
You know, of course that there is this construct, from sociologists more than from psychologists, called "rescue."
The idea is that you do more than your share in a relationship -- that you give more than you get, and then you start resenting this imbalance, and then in the worst stage, you start persecuting the other.
It's become abundantly clear to me that my entire history of relating to women is that I've played the rescue role.
No longer! I'm done with it. Unless we can truly find the emotional equality of the great checkbook in the sky, where pure emotional withdrawals and deposits are truly equal...forget getting involved with me.
I've "saved" too many women. But I don't want anyone to "save" me. All I seek is equality.
Hint: please be good at math!
The idea is that you do more than your share in a relationship -- that you give more than you get, and then you start resenting this imbalance, and then in the worst stage, you start persecuting the other.
It's become abundantly clear to me that my entire history of relating to women is that I've played the rescue role.
No longer! I'm done with it. Unless we can truly find the emotional equality of the great checkbook in the sky, where pure emotional withdrawals and deposits are truly equal...forget getting involved with me.
I've "saved" too many women. But I don't want anyone to "save" me. All I seek is equality.
Hint: please be good at math!
Letters to young poets*
Every time you write something, you die a little bit.
Write as though your life depends on it.
Don't write what you don't know.
Scrupulously research everything you write.
Attribute ideas, quotes, even concepts to the person who originated them.
Read great writing every chance you get.
Join the conversation between writers.
Believe in yourself; work on developing confidence.
Don't mix up voice with style.
Don't overwrite, especially at first.
Choose words that are crisp and precise.
Write every day.
Rewrite, edit, rewrite, edit.
During pre-writing, cultivate that state where every leaf stands out clearly on the trees, you can sense every crack in the sidewalk, and the sounds of birds align with your brainwaves: Suddenly you can become hyper-observant.
The hardest thing about writing is getting going.
The second hardest thing is keeping going.
That isn't writer's block; you're just not ready to start yet.
Cultivate habits that create the pre-writing state described above. Coffee may help.
To be continued…
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* indebtedness: Rielke
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