Family Artists

Most people, when they think of my 18-year-old, probably focus on his soccer career, three times all-city and the main center back on his club team. Or, his writing skill, with a city-wide poetry award, and essays that can bring tears to the readers' eyes.

But his main fixations, I would say, are music and art. His love of tattoo art (he has three tattoos now, at least one of which he designed himself), and music "of all genres" -- as he says -- is palpable and well beyond the ordinary passions I usually see in kids his age.

The above piece is something he's proud of. He produces things like this while doodling in school. I think it helps him somehow concentrate (he has a learning condition that is still being checked and rechecked and verified.)

One person who saw it offered to buy it on the spot but he wouldn't part with it.

Although I've known he draws for a while, this is the first piece he has shared with me in a long time. I'll have to ask him what, if any, meaning it imparts for him.

***

As I returned from a meeting this morning with a 23-year-old Harvard dropout who is co-founder of a hot startup, I noticed my car had a flat tire. A nail.

Later, after it was repaired, I drove my youngest to a photo studio where she framed several of her drawings and paintings. So today's theme was "family art."

Still later, soccer came back into the flow as I drove her and a teammate out to the Polo Fields for practice. Their spring season starts this weekend.

***

Rain clouds are forming from the west. That means my 16-year-old will be happy tonight. I may be in a melancholy mood (too many hours dealing with airlines that make it impossible to redeem your "miles" and too many hours working on the damn Fafsa.)

Too many hours on bureaucratic BS and not enough thinking about music, art, writing and sports. At least baseball season has started!

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One Day's Story

The older I get, the more I realize that life is made up of not much more than little moments, even though when we tell our stories, we often seem to focus on the big moments. Today's little moments included taking a different route to my youngest son's school after his carpool ride fell through.

We got there on time!

A little success.

Later, my youngest daughter and I walked to a sports store and bought her a new pair of soccer shoes. A little big moment, since her shoe size is now 10.5 (women's) she has topped out of options. "I hope my feet don't keep growing, Daddy," she said to me.

Baseball season started today. After a night of rain, the sun took over. Everything little and even trivial except on another level, as big as it ever gets in this life.

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Final Spring Concert

The transitions continue...

My lovely youngest child sings in her school's concert in the Herbst Theater. After 13 years, this was the last one for our family...

Happy Birthday Granddaughter!

The Last Science Fair

I'm starting to realize that the theme of this blog is "transitions," and once I open it up to the public again, hopefully that will resonate with many people.

Transitions, large and small. It's hard in the moment to appreciate them; we tend to deny they are occurring or become over-emotional, in ways that may seem silly to anyone not living through that moment with you.

It's all just life, after all.

Today was my last middle school science fair, as a parent. That may not seem like such a big deal, and in fact it is not.

But, in context, I was visiting the school to see my youngest child's "invention." And two days ago she found out she has been assigned by the City to a high school she did not want to attend, where no one she know attends, and has until very recently, in the words of her brothers, been considered a "ghetto" school.

Ugh.

Problem is, in this city, if you lack resources, you don't have many options once the bureaucrats decide where your child is to go.

Maybe there will be an upside, I hope. Maybe this will turn out to be okay.

But for now, all I can do is view my daughter's science invention, which turns out to be a better (or at least a more beautiful) cat scratcher.

Julia loves cats. She loves art.

Of course, she designed an artistic cat scratcher. Here are some photos:

Spring Correction

Though not technically the first day of spring, it felt like it here today, as the sun warmed up our yards, plum blossoms dropped, and the leaves opened n the trees. Birds, bees, butterflies were suddenly everywhere.

A song was in the air; spring's song.

Part of that music is baseball, as the Giants' season is barely two weeks away. My youngest son can't wait; he and I watched a recap of last year's magical arc. Could they win a third world series in four years?

Unlikely, but they've got almost all of their players back fro last year's team.

Tomorrow we should find out where my youngest daughter will attend high school.

Tonight the boys are here for the night, watching their TV series "The Walking Dead." I'll drive them to school in the morning before heading to a business lunch in San Jose. Their lunches are packed and ready to go.

The lunches I send with my kids are a family joke -- I almost always put in way too much food of many different types. When I try to figure out why, I think back to my own childhood, and my parents' stories of the Depression, and how they didn't always have enough to eat.

We were raised to eat everything on our plate, and leave nothing to waste. I'm not sure how this translates into my over-stuffing of the kids' lunches or even if it does.

Much of life seems random but every now again a bit of clarity emerges. Recently, in conversations with various friends, I've taken some decisions about how I'm going to proceed with my working life. It's a change of direction, one i will document somewhat here.

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Decision Weekend

This is the time when kids around here are supposed to find out which colleges or high schools they have gotten into. My high school senior got bad news -- he was not accepted at his first choice for college.

My youngest child got no news -- the local school system is so inept it did not get the notices out in the mail early enough yesterday for them to be delivered today by the U.S. postal system. So she has no idea yet where she will be attending high school in the fall.

By the time you are my age, the pending transitions seem momentous, even though you know that way back there, at their ages, these decisions by society seem far, far greater than they actually are.

I'm quite certain my kids will thrive at whatever school they move on to. My job as their parent is to reassure them that this will be true -- or that if it proves to be untrue, we will do something about that.

Did I mention that I am retiring next month. Yes, I have reached "full retirement age," as defined by the Social Security Administration.

Once I "retire," I intend to get back to work, of course. There will never be a retirement for the likes of me.

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