The Weir Dudes

My three sons have long called themselves by that name; they've made movies that are available on YouTube, and last night, they worked together to try and solve some crossword puzzles. That is what this shot captures.

As you could probably guess, I am impossibly proud of these three young men, aged 17, 30 and 15, all so tall and beautiful and brilliant, and kind, sweet and loving, each in his own way.

Of course, as their father, I also worry about each of them, and their vulnerabilities, which I can only too clearly see.

One way or another, I've been sort of like each of them in certain details, yet never anywhere near anyone of them in their total loveliness.

But I will say this, as the purported Super Weir Dude, though none of them have yet given me that title (hint, boys) -- I do think I could probably still (for a while yet) beat any of you at word games, should you care to give me a run...

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Whispers of a Dying Year

It's easy to see that this year, like all others before it, is determined to come to end, quite quickly now. I don't want to characterize it one way or another, as good or bad.

It was complicated.

Another year like it simply cannot follow. Some things must change. Two years ago this time, I would never have predicted what 2010 would bring. I will never consider 2010 to have been a good year, for it was a disastrous year.

As years go, I despise its memory. As a year, it betrayed my trust and left me talking to myself.

Given all that, 2011 represented a holding pattern -- a year of standing still. Others would not agree and would say I moved ahead resolutely, accomplishing much. For my family, it was a year we can collectively be proud of.

But for me, another year best forgotten, more or less. What might suit others, for perfectly good reasons, doesn't cut it for me, or for what I expect of myself.

There was some good writing that emerged from these fingers tapping this keyboard -- I'll allow that much.

But nothing great or memorable. Nothing likely to last in any meaningful way. That I made our limited resources stretch to cover the essentials is fine, I suppose, but I expect more of myself, really.

Of course the economy sucks. We are in the midst of historical readjustments. Our expectations for the future cannot match those of our past.

They can't. The future can never be what the past was, let alone what we imagine we remember it to be.

The very nature of memory is romantic. Story-tellers are romantics; I used to be at once a story-teller and thus also a romantic.

Unless prompted, I rarely tell stories any longer. I'm no longer convinced anyone wants to hear them, outside of my closest family members.

With them I still joke and recall the past, both the ancient past and the more recent romantic versions of our collective family history.

As the paternal keeper of our past, and the elder, I have a certain responsibility to them to get the stories straight if they often were crooked in nature, or at least I think they may have been crooked in real-time.

Life never proceeds in a straight line. Here I am, long after everyone else around me is asleep, pecking out letters and words -- why? Is it that I sense how time evaporates and takes all meaning with it, like echoes from a tunnel when you exit, blinking into the bright sun of everyone else's reality.

There are those who would be surprised that they still play starring roles in our family stories. They would conclude, logically, that they would by now have been written out of what we share with one another, but a family like ours -- a family of writers -- doesn't work that way.

Just because you die or split or try to become a stranger doesn't mean that we don't remember you, that we don't know you, that we do not know how to fit you into our shattered mirror of reality as we have known it, from all sides now.

Families like this one don't work that way.

I may be the elder and the keeper of the story but that doesn't mean my stories hold the most weight. No, every other member of this family has her or his own version, and if you listen carefully enough, you'll pick up on that music.

You can come. You can go. But you can't stop the family music.

What's that? I thought I heard an echo of someone, of something. Ah. It's easy to see that this post, like all others before it, is determined to come to end, quite quickly now.

Cousins Rock Out

Holiday Gathering

Early Morning Walking

Dropping the car off for service and walking back home through the Mission, past the workday city waking up, with coffee the fuel of choice among my fellow pedestrians. For days, workers have been trying to fix various leaks in my flat; by last night the main culprit, a leaking water heater, was gone, replaced by a new model.

Three other kitchen sink-related leaks were fixed by installing new equipment as well.

The banalities of daily life.

The mechanic called with a revised estimate upward. Out for another walk, to the supermarket, with the kids still sleeping in, when he called back yet again, this time with worse news.

The bill now climbed over $1,000, putting a serious crimp into my holiday plans.

Back out for another walk, with my daughter, to the discount store, where I bought her a winter coat.

Soon after, walking again, now with the boys, to get Mexican food for lunch.

Finally, in late afternoon, when the car was ready, we packed and headed out of town, eastward, to join up with the rest of the family for the holidays.

***

Worrying but hoping for the best for my brother-in-law, who underwent surgery in Ann Arbor. Concerned for the strain on my sister as well.

***

Along the freeway, part of the flood of cars headed east, we cut through the Delta in the dark. Adele came on the radio as we neared Sacramento.

My two oldest grandsons, aged 4 and 3, came running out of the front door as we pulled up. "Grandpa!" they yelled, with their arms spread wide, running down the sidewalk in greeting.

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Images From Another Day

If you can catch it, the season's spirit has the capacity to warm your lonely soul. But beware, there are dark spirits lurking around the holidays, as well.

This particular holiday season, I've found myself choosing happiness at every juncture. It's not that I think of happiness as a choice; our emotional states are much too vulnerable to environmental factors, naturally, for our own wishes to prove paramount.

But when and wherever I can, I'm choosing to see the joyous over the darkness.

I'm not sure why it is like this this year for me. Something must be going on. Maybe time is catching up with me, as it has a way of doing, and on some level I've come to appreciate that the opportunity to close out another year with my family, seeing their smiles, is as great a gift as there is.

That, and the knowledge that there are a finite number of such gifts, for time itself is limited.

Concretely, our activities are much like everyone else's. My kids and I watch romantic movies on TV; my youngest and I shop and wrap presents together. We imagine the happy faces of the smaller children when they find out what the imaginary gods have brought them.

We also have to eat. So she and I, while her older brother-coach was practicing futsol in the Richmond, visited Clement Street. We found a small coffee house; she ordered a bagel and I ordered edamame.

We visited the locally legendary Green Apple Books.

We fought traffic to park our car. We walked, crossing Geary Avenue four times.

The sky was blue, the church steeples outlined above us. To many, those are the symbols of the gods.

We went into a Chinese market. Many of the best hereabouts lie along Clement. She held her nose against the smell of fish. We searched for a certain Chinese soda she favors but they didn't have it; she bought some sour candy instead.

The lady at the cash register smiled and spoke perfect English. To the woman in front of us, who was Asian, she said "Thank you," and that's also what she said to us.

My daughter smiled as we exited the store, finally exhaling and breathing fresh air again. "I can't stand that fish smell," she told me.

"Maybe when fish forms such a big portion of your diet, you don't mind the smell," I suggested. "Maybe it smells good to you."

She raised one eyebrow at me, a skill she inherited genetically from her father, from me.

Now I like fish a lot, but I also hated the way that market smelled today.

***

The basketball court where her brother's futsol team practices is in a Lutheran Church facility, which also apparently operates a "day school."

We got back there, her and I, in time to watch the last four or five fast-paced scrimmages. Her brother was on the "yellow" team, wearing number 8. Kinda funny about the two of them, coach and player, they've always only been either #8 or #16, multiples.

He did it again, today. He wowed us. After over a month and a half off, with no soccer or practice whatsoever, he was dominant out there, on the small court, guarding his team's net and setting up their offensive thrusts.

When I got there, another Dad whispered, "The red team is killing everyone else."

If true that ended when we arrived. The yellows beat the reds, then the greens, then the reds, then the greens again, in a series of fast-paced 5-minute scrimmages. The cumulative score was something like 15-5.

What was striking was the way every time save one another player smashed into her coach, he being the last line of defense before a goal, he won the battle. Several times, the attackers ended up on the floor; whether or not that happened he ended up in control of the ball and jump-started his team's offense.

There was no way to count how many assists he had but he did score one goal during this flurry of action.

Afterwards, he said he felt good and glad that he's been continuing his weight-lifting and workouts multiple times daily. Since lately he has been expressing reservations about how important soccer may be to his choice of colleges, I've also been scaling back my own expectations.

But today, watching him perform, I had to ask myself why he shouldn't continue to shoot to be a star?

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Congratulations to Our Defender!

For the second straight year, Aidan Weir has been named to the all-city team here in San Francisco, this time as an honorable mention.

He had a great season, not only on defense, but also scoring two goals and racking up multiple assists.

The way these honors are awarded in San Francisco has a lot to do with which four of the thirteen teams make the playoffs, and in the end, Aidan's team, Balboa, finished with the fifth-best record, and so did not get a playoff slot.

But his play individually was probably twice as good as last year, when his team made the championship game.

Such is the nature of things, I suppose. I've known this news for weeks, but frankly have been so underwhelmed by the way the system works I could not bear to post about it.

But tonight, I finally want to celebrate my son's fantastic season, and his award, even if it may be far less than he truly deserves. And much more, his love of the game. He doesn't play for certificates or medals; he plays because he loves the game of soccer. Not only does he love to play it, he loves to coach it.

So while, in the end, recognition for talented athletes like him is nice, you'd have to there in person to see how he plays the game to understand what really matters to him.

I, of course, was there, and I know what I saw. He's a gamer.

Congratulations, Aidan!

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