Remembering

The day in photos: grandkids and uncles. I have a regular schedule now caring for the two little ones. Sophia, not yet two, trusts me and is able to spend hours away from her mother without complaint.

Besides chalk-drawing and a trip to the park, there was plenty of indoor time, building, drawing, playing with model cars, the train, reading, eating, and a good deal of jumping.

Luca, who is four, has become adept at searching all through my cluttered apartment, locating new (old) toys, lost memories, reminders of times when things were different here.

Some of what he unearths is disconcerting, reminding me how quite recently my life was so much different than it is now.

I quickly dispose of some things, place others out of reach, and encourage him to play with the rest.

There are so many notes, bags, pieces, fragments from many lives lived here: parts of two marriages, three girlfriends, six kids and more recently of all five grandchildren.

Through it all, the only constant is me, the old, old man, feeling ever older day by day.

Memories are fine if you don't have to be shocked by their clarity. Memories are fine except when you know the other custodian of a mutual memory no longer knows, cares, or even, most shockingly, chooses not to remember at all.

Such is the uneven cruelty of how we all move on, each at our own speed.

But I, I remember everything.

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Rainy Day Rambling

As I walked around downtown San Francisco today, the skies opened and a downpour ensued. It occurred to me that the writer in me loves the rain but I normally prefer to write about the sun. Or maybe that is just in my imagination.

For years, I spent so many years walking along beaches and rivers, watching the waves and the currents, the birds and the crabs, the fish, so many fish, and mammals, occasionally glimpsing seals, sharks, even whales, often seeing Rainbow trout, panfish, large edible trophy fish, you name it.

Also seeing people, fishermen, collectors, joggers, hikers, old people, young people, children, people with dogs, people riding horses.

Solitary people, couples, families, groups. Some with their clothes on and some with them off. Some you wish wouldn't be and some you wish would.

People smoking, drinking, doing drugs. Others, healthier habits like surfing, swimming, body surfing, or just floating languidly in the shallows.

I've been to beaches in Tahiti, Australia, Malaysia, India, Costa Rica, Mexico, Canada, all over Europe and along both coasts of the U.S.

Occasionally, I've seen an eagle far overhead along a river. I've seen people ride canoes and rafts and air mattresses down rivers. I've done these things myself, and capsized on occasion.

The sound of water is energizing to me, except when it leaks, drip by drip, through the roof or ceiling of where I am staying. On the other hand, staying overnight in the mountains of Indonesia, in the equivalent of a treehouse, is a memory I treasure. Raindrops falling nearby but not catching me.

It's a rainy day in winter here. I'm home now, warm and dry. And all I can write about or dream of is the sun. I have not been to a beach or a river in years. Making such visits alone no longer appeals to me.

Who knows. Maybe this year I'll start it up once again. Or maybe I'll just write about it, recalling the past with more vividness than any future hope could achieve. The future is hazy, like a cloud that engulfs me.

The past? I remember the past, better than anyone who lived through it with me. Especially under the sun. Of that, and only that, I am certain.

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Monday, Monday

I am taking care of my grandchildren more frequently these days, now that paid work has slowed to a trickle. If money were no issue, this is probably what I would choose to do much more than I have been able to do in the past. That and stay attentive, day to day, to my teens and their lives.

What the generation once removed from their parents has to offer to our young ones is something that some social scientists believe is almost completely responsible for human progress. Until recently, none of us lived long enough to be relevant.

Now we do.

But if it is true, that what we have to offer matters, what exactly do we have to offer?

For my grandchildren, it is my penchant for collecting things, so far. My collections of pennies, stones, seaglass, photos, books that seem to most attract them. Perhaps in future years, if I am here, it could start to be my stories and writings.

I don't know.

Truly, I am clueless. When I look in the mirror I see only an old man, whose dreams have much more often been dashed to bits than realized. I am not bitter, so I hope that does not sound bitter. But life has not exactly measured up to what, even a few years ago, I'd hoped it might.

That's just me. And this is about them, the young ones.

In his speech today, President Obama talked about global climate change. That will affect my kids and their kids far more than any of the other political issues now so controversial in Washington, D.C.

Well done, sir. Now please do something about it.

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Plus and Minus

One problem with blogging publicly, which I've once again started to do lately, is you open yourself to hackers and spammers and all kinds of grief. Lately, someone or someones have so compromised my Google accounts that I had to change my password just to get access to my own content! Just to read my email!

Here is the typical comment that has been lodged against this blog is recent days, dozens of times:

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Meanwhile, no real person chooses to comment here, which leads me to suspect no one actually reads what I write anymore.

So I ask you, what motivation would I possibly have to keep blogging when hackers are attacking me in this manner?

This has always been mostly a private journal, shared with family and friends and people I trust. A number of professional associates read it, I know, which is fine, because I trust they know from working with me that I'm doing this on all of our behalf, just trying to find common points of the human experience.

But as I now feel under assault from outsiders, I don't know whether I can be comfortable continuing with this method of sharing feelings and experiences. If the attacks continue, and Google can't shut them down, this blog will soon become history.

***

Before that happens, allow me to tell you about my day. It was 39 degrees when I picked up my youngest son at 6:50 to drive him and his carpool mates to Lowell. The city is one kind of environment at that time.

People who have jobs or children are up and about; everyone else remains safely resting. Mainly, as I crawled around Bernal hill, I encountered other carpool parents.

We all have a similar style. We drive cautiously, given our cargo, we honk lightly when we arrive at the next kid's address, not wishing to disturb neighbors, and we all are glancing nervously at our clocks as we gauge whether we are going to be able to deliver them to school on time or not.

During the day, as the temperature climbed 19 degrees or so, I pursued my usual routine, writing, interviewing entrepreneurs, and then, in the afternoon, picking up my daughter from school and driving her to her mother's house.

There I met my 18-year-old son and had a lovely conversation about his future. He is really becoming quite thoughtful about college and his options. And, given his new interest in economics, he is able to engage in a discussion about the difference about borrowing and saving, about interest paid and interest earned.

I told him the entire difference in my life, to date, is my interpretation of that key variable -- saving vs. spending.

Interest earned vs. interest paid.

In essence that is the dilemma facing our culture. We spoke about that too.

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Random Moments

For his driving lesson yesterday I had my 18-year-old drive his little brother and me around town for a while, up this hill and down that, along this busy street and that very quiet one.

"You see some strange random things in the parts of town that are deserted," commented my 16-year-old from the back seat. "For example that guy over there who appears to be polishing that light pole. I wonder what that's about."

We stopped at a junk food outlet for the first time in months. "Our family doesn't eat a lot of junk food," he noted. "So it's not really an obesity problem for us."

(He is a bit over six feet tall and weighs just 148 pounds.)

"No, not in our case," I agreed. "I think it's mainly a problem when you eat it every day."

"For us it's more like a treat," he commented.

It's been frightfully cold here lately for a city not built to handle temperatures in the 30s and 40s. Our old drafty buildings often have no central heating, so everyone's wrapped up in sweaters and hats and such.

Futsal season is underway and though my son does not have a team, my daughter does. the problem is she and her teammates started playing before any practices could be scheduled and they don't yet understand the inside game.

Grimmacing through yesterday's contest up on Potrero Hill, which her team lost 3-20, I told the other parents, "They are playing soccer not futsal. But they are two different games. They'll learn..."

Today it was time to help my high school senior apply for financial aid for college -- never an easy nor enviable task. The website, though improved, is difficult to navigate in several ways, and I had to fill out and delete two complete applications before finally successfully (I think) submitting one.

Certainly he qualifies for substantial financial aid on a need basis. We'll see how that turns out...

Random moments from a parent's life.

Self-Portrait of an Artist

So today we retrieved her portfolio from the school. Back at the house one of her art teachers visited and reviewed her submissions. She reiterated to my young artist that she has real talent. As I looked over the pieces, what jumped out at me were her three self-portraits, two of which are reproduced imperfectly here.

What popped were the expressions, captured in her eyes and lips.

When you know someone, as I do my youngest child, her moods and the depth of her feelings become familiar over time as much as her tastes in style or her preferences for foods.

The emotional journey every child is on intensifies in their teens.  It is rarely easy to be fourteen, for example.

As her teacher encouraged her to reapply for the second round of auditions, I saw her expression harden. Like the girl in the drawings, she is skeptical, and sometimes older than her years.

She has long since figured out that life is not always fair, that talent and merit go unrewarded more often than not, and that people, whatever they may say, do not always come through when you most need them to.

She knows that friends can disappear, and that dreams can be crushed.

She's a also a tough, competitive athlete who knows how to persevere. Today, a new plan started to take form, as discussed by her teacher, my daughter, and me.

Should she choose to not pursue the arts high school, she could instead continue her passion to draw and paint on her own, with her teacher, outside of any structured curriculum.

That might be a better path for the girl in the picture. The one who does not suffer fools gladly, who notices and remembers everything.

The one who sometimes forgives but never forgets.

The one who sees things and people as they are -- even, at such a tender age -- herself.

Art Or Not?

If you are going to try and pursue a life as any kind of artist, including as a writer, you're going to face lots of rejection, disappointment, and moments of self-doubt. Ultimately, even if you achieve success, you may end up in deep difficulty, without the means to support yourself or your family, and without more practical skills valued by the marketplace.

That is the brutal reality, both in this society and most others. What is tricky, for parents, is how to handle your children's dreams to be writers and artists, particularly when you've been able to ascertain that they truly do have talent.

My youngest was rejected by the School of the Arts, San Francisco's highly competitive public high school, for the first round of auditions just before Christmas. It fell to me to tell her this bad news long-distance, by phone, as she was traveling with her mother.

I know it was a crushing rejection for a 14-year-old who had spent the past year carefully preparing her portfolio of 12 pieces.

Since then, she has not been willing to talk about it.

The school offers a second round of auditions in March, if she wants to pursue that route toward a possible future acceptance.

What complicates her decision is the knowledge that this is partly about gender. SOTA, as a public school, has historically had a gender imbalance -- many more girls than boys. Thus the boys who apply have a better chance at a first round audition than the girls.

Thus most girls apparently are rejected the first time around, as a technique meant to sort out who is really committed and who is not.

But that is a lot for a 14-year-old to digest as she decides on a most difficult decision. In a larger sense, however, it is a perfectly accurate microcosm of what she will face should she decide to continue traveling along what Robert Frost labeled the path "less traveled."

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