The Surprises That Await Us All

The truth is, when I open up this field and begin to tap in words, I normally have little idea where I am going, or what story I really want to share.

But tonight, I know exactly where this is going.

The day began like any Thursday, with me waking up very early, brewing coffee, and preparing to drive my youngest son and his carpool-mates out to Lowell High School, considered the best public high school in this area.

By many estimations, the best west of the Mississippi River.

But I don't know about that, because who gets to decide?

Anyway, the four very smart kids in my car as we navigated our way through a very thick fog debated this year's disappointing political races, all the negativity and the apparent lack of awareness all politicians of any ideological stripe project that most of us simply do not care about theories or all that crap.

We just would appreciate a government that helped make our lives better, or got itself out of our way! For a bunch of teenagers, I'd say they were pretty damn clear about that.

For the sake of brevity, I'll avoid my many professional engagements from this daily journal entry, and get back to the parenting theme.

Working with my youngest daughter this afternoon on preparing for her math test tomorrow required all of my patience, always a commodity in limited supply, in the best of times.

Wat irks me is how easily she becomes discouraged, throws her head down on the desk, and seemingly gives up on our mutual quest to find a way that makes sense to her to solve the problems at hand.

She just has no confidence in her own ability to solve mathematical problems. Is this my fault? Her fault? Our society's fault? Her teacher's fault? Something as basic as the unintuitive numerical sequences enforced by our language compared to the super-intuitive versions available via Chinese?

I do not know that answer and I cannot calculate it.

In the meantime, my 17-year-old son, the athlete, and never one to describe himself as an academically-oriented person stole the day.

Just as he was rolling up his sleeves to show his tattoo, and adjust his earring, and go to the gym to continue his vigorous weight-lifting regime, and just as I was about to frame his latest all-city soccer certificate, news flashed across the local Internet site that he had been selected as one of two kids from his school for a city-wide arts award.

What?

It turns out that, on his mother's urging, he submitted a poem several months ago to a competition.

As it also turns out, he is to be recognized at an event on the night of my next birthday.

"No way," he told his Mom, about attending that ceremony here in San Francisco, "I want to celebrate Dad's birthday that night." I didn't know at the time exactly what was going on, immersed as I was with my daughter in her math.

But when I got home and checked my email, I figured out the magnitude of his honor, and so texted him to say that the best thing I could ever imagine on my birthday would be to accompany my son when he is honored as a poet.

A soccer-playing poet! How many of those do we have among us? The title of his poem is "Imagine." I've not read it, obviously, but with his permission, I will reprint it here when I do...

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