Category: Uncategorized

Kelly, Casey, Prince and Me

‘I think I’m starting to have feelings for Casey.’

It’s a pretty devastating thing to hear. Not to mention somewhat emasculating. She’s with me, after all. I mean, I didn’t pursue her. The fact that we were dating was a result of her stating we were dating and me nodding in aggreement.

‘What does that mean?’

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Yeah, I wasn’t ready…

It was a sincere question. Straightforward as well. I had a sense that something bad was happening but I honestly didn’t understand the phrasing. That said, I knew enough to feel queasy and a little nervous asking. I’d hear and speak both parts of this conversation and variations on it for years to come, but this time, this was the first. She was trying to be nice and I was trying to be cool. I was on my Schwinn Predator, which was a pretty badass set of wheels for an almost 11 year old so I was able to retain a certain amount of pride, even while being dumped without knowing it.

We only dated for the summer. It was 1984 and as a 10 year old I was pretty much free to do anything I could with a bike and a full day of sunlight to mess around in. Kelly was almost 14 I’d guess, at least 13. She was going to be in eighth grade in the fall and I was entering fifth. Needless to say this was a coup that my friends my own age, well my one friend, marvelled at. I was confused by it. I seemed to get some sort of credit for engineering something and I accepted the accolades, but I knew I was a fraud. I certainly enjoyed the make out sessions we’d have in garages and alleyways. The garage was the shed that sat behind my house where we shared floor space with bikes and yard tools and needed a flashlight to see and the alley was the alley behind the Main Street shops that ran between King St and the police station behind the Studio theater. It was as urban an environment as my little town had to offer and I loved being there. It was dangerous and cool.

We were the kids that ran back there that summer. We had claim to the place because Kelly’s mom owned Hairport, though I’m not sure it had that name yet, which had a back door out to the alley. We’d ocassionally go upstairs to the apartment they lived in and watch TV. But mostly we’d all be outside, trying to inhale cigarettes and trying to get into more and more trouble without getting caught.

My older brother was dating her older sister and by the end of the summer there was even flirtations between my younger sister and her younger brother. I think they even joined one of the epic games of truth or dare that were excuses to kiss, with tongue, for longer and longer stretches, always timed by whoever was around. That’s what dating was and it was awesome and terrifying and sad and joyous. Not a bad harbinger, actually.

There I sat, one foot on the pedal, the other on the ground in as cool a pose as a ten year old can take, with no idea why she took me down to this end of the alley to talk. I thought it was cool that she was discovering feelings. I could see why Casey might feel something for her. She was pretty and a good kisser as far as I could tell, though I had nothing to compare her too. I guessed she was telling me that I should keep an eye on Casey, not that I’d know what to look for or what to do if I saw something.

When she started walking back to the group of kids huddled around the steps at the back of the shop she probably thought I wasn’t going to follow. I say that now, at the time I thought I was doing what I was supposed to. When I pulled up and took my place in the loose ring of town kids who were cool she still hadn’t seen me and was leaning on Casey’s handlebars. It felt like a betrayal, but maybe I was being a little kid about it.

‘Hey Joey. How’s it going?’ Casey asked.

Kelly snapped her head around and looked confused. It took her a minute and I am so thankful to her for not speaking out loud what she must have been thinking, but eventually she must have put it together that I didn’t get what happened. That was okay. She may have said something or may not have, but whatever she did she was nice about it. She must have realized that I was 10. I sure as hell realized that Casey was 15. At least. He sat on his bike like a man. Both feet on the ground, knees bent and arms free. To fold. Cool and imposing.

Before long everything was back to normal and it was just a group of kids hanging out, drinking pop and eating candy. Surely someone had some loose cigarettes and someone knew where there were some beers hidden on the towpath, but looking back it was all so innocent. Boys would drift around popping wheelies and trying tricks. The girls were listening for their favorite songs and singing along as long as they could resist laughing and falling into each other. My wheelies were tight so I was good. But it was coming together. I was seeing what had happened. What was happening.

‘Oh my god. Have you heard this yet?’ Kelly said, not to anyone in particular.

‘No.’ I said.

‘It’s Prince. There’s a whole movie that goes with the album.’

‘The 1999 guy?’ I asked.

‘Yes. This is amazing.’ She said as the song was rewound and played again from the start.. Dearly Beloved…

‘I don’t really like it. To electronic.’ I said. I was trying to be cool. Boys in my town, we listened to WCMF. Classic rock. This was that poppy PXY stuff. It seemed unmanly to like it and I was just learning the script and was eager to throw around my wisdom, however newly discovered.

‘I don’t know man. There’s some tracks on here that will make you sit down and think Some that can make you emotional. I don’t think you’re giving it a full shot.’ Said Casey.

It was over. If Kelly never fully put it together that I was just 10, I sure did. Right then. At least I had the smarts not to argue the point. I stuck around for a bit longer, surely. I didn’t want the world to see me slink away. But time and the topic at hand moved on, some kids had gotten enough together to get a couple of the huge slice’s at Papa Joe’s and I decided to head back to my house to shoot some hoops.

Hey, it’s too loud. You wanna get outta here?

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*This post was originally posted in March of 2015. I’m reposting it now as today is the 9th anniversary of the day I met my wife… *

I met my wife at an Irish pub. More so we met up at an Irish pub. It was a Sunday night in 2007. Sunday night because she had been on enough of these dates to know it was best to have a good reason (work in the morning) to dip early, and Irish Pub, well, because they’re always fairly full. Even on Sunday nights. Which worked for me since I knew it didn’t take a whole dinner to know whether or not you were interested and if you weren’t, and usually you weren’t, you saved a good chunk of change by not committing to dinner too early as this was New York. Besides, at the very least I had someone to drink with for a couple hours.

Before she reached me I knew I was interested. After confirming our identities the first memorable thing I said to her, the first full sentiment, was ‘Hey, it’s too loud. You wanna get outta here?’ There was a charming Irish band playing on bar stools against the wall all of 8 feet or so from the bar. They were good I think. Who knows, only heard them for a few waiting moments while sipping a Guinness. It was a good precursor to how we would hang out for those first few years. The golden years. The years when we were in the spotlight and our relationship took center stage.

She was smiling ear to ear by the time she’d worked her way across the pub to me and she agreed it was too loud. I downed the pint, not the whole thing, I didn’t want to scare her, and we wandered. In the rain. We huddled, giggling nervously and flirting furiously, wandering the Upper East Side. She would insist it was Yorkville, as the ‘upper east side’ sounded way too fancy for a girl from the country, but no one else in any of the places we went would have known what Yorkville was. She will disagree with this when she reads it. To her I say, write a blog and then you can win the debate! Anyway, What we found and where we became a couple was the Mad River Grille.

We took up residence in the to two stools at the street end of the bar and quickly went about socially lubricating. Probably got down two pints a piece in a half hour or so, just to calm the excitement and remove some nerves. This worked splendidly. We talked about our families and our friends and our histories and our jobs and our funny dates we’d been on and about how much we loved the city because we were both upstaters. We talked about our dreams and our plans our joys and how much fun we were having. It was so great that the ‘Sunday night at 8 date’ as I came to understand it, had turned into the ‘wee hours of Monday date’. Which came to be the, ‘Hey guys, you wanna shot?’ from the bartender date. The ‘If you guys wanna stay and drink some more that’s cool, but I kinda want to join you so do you mind if I lock up. You guys are welcome to stay as long as you like.’ date. Which turned into a ‘meet your neighbors while falling in love and no one believing we’d just met kind of date.’ But like all dates, this one too had to end.

Or did it.

‘I have a ton of sick days.’  I said.

I was taking the temperature and she was thinking. Had I known this girl and her work ethic I’d have known just by the pause how much of a good impression I was making. But I didn’t really know her that way yet. So, you know, nothing ventured…

‘Could you take tomorrow off? Would you wanna hang out in the city tomorrow.’ I asked.

She did! We did. We walked the whole city, a thing we would do a lot. We saw a movie that we are both still INCREDIBLY happy was our first… ‘Blades of Glory’. Yep. Will Ferrell and Napoleon Dynamite in a figure skating comedy! Needless to say, as far as first dates were going, and despite this being the second day and meeting up for a second time, this time at a Barnes and Noble, we were nailing it. This was the best date of our lives, and it would last for years to come. And when it changed it changed for something even better. Our Family.

So here we are. We live in a beautiful little town we love in New Jersey. We have our beautiful little house and our amazing little kids. And it’s great. But it’s also a lot to do and not a lot of time left for us. So from time to time when my mind drifts back to those two stools at the street end of the bar, and I think about the bubbles that flowed that night both between us and through us I get a little wistful. The work in this time of our lives is never ending. We have two toddler boys and they are more, frankly then we can handle at times. The noise and the clutter are just part of the job description. But in this wholly beautiful place there are still times when across a room cluttered and crowded with our very full and happy lives I look at her and more than anything in the world I want to catch her eye, get that smile and that look of excitement and walk right to her and lean in and say…

‘Hey, it’s too loud. You wanna get outta here?”

Street end of the bar...
Street end of the bar…

Living Vicariously Through My Kids

When I was four years old I went to kindergarten. It didn’t work out all that well. From that point on I kind of hated school. 

My first official act after registering for school was dropping out. I was, I am, a kindergarten dropout. 

  The relationship I have with the educational system is fraught with complicated emotional reactions met with juvenile responses from a cocky autodidact lacking confidence in his abilities. Added to that is the shame and embarrassment I carried with me from my early inability to adapt. I’d say I’m a bright guy. Meanwhile I failed as much as I could all throughout. I made it through my sophomore year without notebooks or a pen in 1990. I did just enough to make sure my 3rd ‘F’ was a ‘D’ so I could keep playing basketball. I’d stroll in around 11:55 so I could play or practice that day. The rule, and I can’t believe this was true, was that you couldn’t participate if you failed 3 courses in the same grading period. You could play or practice any day you showed up by noon. The day lasted until 2. I was given a lot of leeway and I availed myself of it.

Anyway, this isn’t about that. Not entirely, at least. A lot of people are accused of living vicariously through their kids. When you think of these people the image that comes to mind is the dad that pushes his kid to achieve at sports, hoping that all the wins and accomplishments his kid has will make up for all that he fell short of accomplishing. Or of the pushy stage mom signing her daughter up for pageants and auditions. In both stereotypical cases these are vainglorious attempt to fill a hole in their hearts that was either congenital or acquired. Either way it’s not the kids problem. Well, more to the point it absolutely is the kids problem, but it’s not their issue. Not at first at least. 

These folks deserve some judgement. The self-awareness they lack is having potentially serious and harmful outcomes on their kids. We all get this. Even those of us engaged in such unhealthy endeavors when we recognize it in others. 

What I didn’t understand until I had kids, however was that these folks also deserve sympathy. They deserve love and respect like everyone does. Their issue isn’t a lack of love but in most cases its just a matter of faulty calibration. Because all of us, to some degree, are living and reliving our lives through our kids. Hopefully there’s a point where we engage in the struggle and learn to let go of the false sense of control that parenthood so fills us with and we are freed to see our kids as fully realized individuals that are of us for sure, but separate from us in the end. 

   

 As I watch my kids grow up far too fast for their own good, I know that the fears I have for them come from somewhere specific. They come from me and my life story. They come from all the feelings and failings that have made me who and what I am. To try to divorce myself from those experiences and those feelings would be impossible, not to mention imprudent. To forcibly guide them to confront my issues, thatn would be the line for me. That is what I hope to avoid.

What I hope to do is to inform their lives through mine. I hope to send my smiling boy off to kindergarten and have him return excited about being there. There’s every reason to think he will do so. He’s had a different life than the one I did already. I had spent every day of my life home with my mom when I went to school that first time and burst into tears and didn’t stop for months. My son has had two parents that needed to work to put a roof over his head. He has been out and social and listening to teachers and getting in lines for as long as he’s been able. Yet still, my heart is heavy thinking about him in school.

This is just Kindergarten. It clearly failed me as much as I failed it. What about all the anger I carried for so long? What about the self destructive behaviors that fed and fostered my latent depressive and destructive nature as I got older? What of all those relationships I was so determined to undermine be they romantic or platonic in a foolish effort to be invulnerable? What about the constant battles I had with weight and food and alcohol? What about those years I was too afraid to even conceive of them, of me being their father and how close I came to letting that fear rule my life? The same fear that kept me from doing this, writing and being honest about who I am and what I think and how I feel? 
I have endless hope and belief in my kids. They’ve given those things to me through their love and belief. I have true faith in them. I believe they are special. You would to if you knew them. But they are fragile too and I know they come from me and some of my stuff will inevitably be theirs too. I’m determined to stay out of the way of all the life they need, but it’s too much to ask to not bring my own experiences to the table as I try to beat back the demons on the path. Some of them will go around me and they will have to slay them on their own. But some of them I’ve seen before and I hope this second time around, with my knowledge and their strength, the fight won’t take nearly as long. 

My Own Private Fountain of Youth

  I don’t know when it happened, I’m not entirely sure how it happened for that matter, but somewhere along the way my body started to respond to such common things as sleeping or sitting in ways it used to respond to 10-12 hours of playing basketball. On concrete. In boat shoes. 

That’s a lie. The boat shoes part. I usually wore sneakers. The ‘boat shoes’ addendum, well, it was to express how badly my body now responds to, for lack of a better term, living a mild life. This confusion on my bodies part has come to pass while I’m in my early forties. Surely some of the issue is the barbaric battery I committed against my joints as a younger man when I truly would spend hours destroying my body for future use playing basketball on concrete. I prefer, however, to blame my kids. I give them so much, surely they can give me this. Ah, my two precious little excuses are blamed for so much of what it is that I find myself seeking a reason for. 

I also like to think, if it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be trying to squeeze more meaning out of my life at odd hours and fueling this, well, hobby I guess it is until I get a decent paycheck, with tortilla chips and full frying pan breakfasts in the wee hours of the morning before settling in for a few hours rest. I could be doing all this with a fresh mind, midday if it wren’t for them. The ‘being in my forties’ thing is the reason these behaviors have led me to look like I presently do. Sagging, over big, jowly and grey. These are not complaints. I’m a man and I can pull off ‘distinguished’ if I suck in my gut. The hair helps. For the first time this past week I was forced to pick a color for my hair, a single color, the one most dominant. White. My answer is white. I’m not one to panic over aging and it’s evidentiary expressions. That said, it was a swallow hard moment. 

I’m looking for a way to blame my kids for all of this, but the truth is they keep me young. Like SUPER young. Toddler young. When I’m not contemplating and addressing the various pains of middle age, both physical and emotional, I am filling the spaces with such important and exciting knowledge as this; Peg + Cat has a new movie (hour long episode) premiering on PBS a week from Momday. I know this and look forward to it. Meanwhile I haven’t seen a single nominated movie in the past 6 years. Not one. Not a single second of one.  I hate awards shows, but still, it would have been nice to recognize say one single artist on the commercials for the grammy’s. Seriously, my musical demographic might best be described as ‘nostalgia act.’  There’s no denying that I’ve aged out of whatever ‘demo’ it was I was in when marketers found me relevant. Well, most marketers. There are new companies seeking my attention these days. If there are commercials on a program I’m watching alone, 9 of 10 will be for such things as medications to address what I have to assume is my impending erectile dysfunction or my inability to remain free from incontinence or car companies trying to inspire in me a midlife crisis.  As for the car commercials, jokes on them…. I could NEVER afford a new car! So there!

All of my life these days is me getting more and more accustomed to the the knowledge that I won’t live forever. A fact that is both highlighted and ameliorated (and possibly accelerated, come to think of it) by having toddlers in my forties. I’m evidently not the age that nature intended for me to be when engaged in this task. Woudln’t trade it for anything ever, but your body don’t lie, and while I know certain parts of having little kids is painful for everyone, one rule of life that you should learn now if you don’t already know is that everything hurts more as you get older. Thankfully you get tougher at roughly the same rate, but it still hurts. 

I’ve lost a certain visceral feeling I had when I was young. I could jump off things, high things, and land gracefully. I could run. I never had great wind, but put me on a court and I could go all day. You could always rest on defense, right! I was downright artistic too. I could positively dance with a basketball. I’m not talking about anything in context, I’m saying subjectively, internally, it was joyous. I was good enough to get close to truly great players, several pros, and each and every time I was made more aware that their fate wasn’t mine. It didn’t matter. It’s a joyous thing to fully exert, to know you won’t get hurt, to play and play and play and never think of tomorrow. To eat 50 chicken wings and then go out and play for hours right after. From this angle, even without the ‘joy’ considered, it all seems fairly miraculous. 

My kids are starting to show this type of ability and it’s a sight to see. I try, I work out several times a week. I do cardio and weights. But the body doesn’t respond like it used to. Like it feels like it still should. I’ll keep at it as I need to live a good long time now that I have kids I need to be around forever for, but I’ll never be that graceful young man again. 

Thankfully, I’ve found one way in which I still can be that nimble, clever, energetic self I lost along the way. I’ve found it in an endeavour that is only helped by my advancing years and compiled experience and ever expanding, though still quite nascent wisdom. That magical fountain of youth for me it turns out is writing. An endeavor in which this classic sitter’s body that I’ve developed over the years doesn’t in any way restrict me from excelling at. 

While sitting at the keyboard all the experiences that I can recall from as far back as I can remember, incorporating my own life and the lives of all those I’ve known, only help to make me more able, more artful and better at what I’m doing. It’s been a delight to find that there are consistently 50-150 people that will be interested in reading what I have to say and if it’s good a fair amount of them will tell me they enjoyed it. On several ocassions people have even reached out to me to thank me for what I’ve written for any number of reasons. It’s great to have found this thing that I had to get all the way here to truly be able to access. In life the pile of things we can no longer do eventually overtakes and passes the pile of things we can do. It’s inevitable. I’m watching the opposite exchange occur for my kids as they emerge and become ever more able. I’m over that hill as it were returning my abilities to the pile for others to pick up. So to have found a thing I couldn’t have done before and to pull it over to the pile of things I can do now, well, it’s like I’ve discovered a tiny little fountain of youth. I’m pretty happy about that. 

Developing Dad is on The Good Men Project Today

  I’m so excited to have an article running on The Good Men Project today!

It’s about masculinity, emotional development and me. Head on ove and take a look! 

Missives From My Captivity: Notes From The Toddler In The Back Seat

I woke from my nightmare shrieking, terrified. I was harnessed, strapped to the most unsuitably uncomfortable plastic monstrosity one can imagine. It was suffocatingly hot. Had I not wiped the tears from my eyes and been able to properly assess my situation I’d have bet any man a fair few shekels that I was a son of the south and this was the steam that one only finds in the deepest of Faulkner’s novels. But the world that whipped past my view through the windows of my carriage were clearly the cold grey of the north. This suits my druthers for political and humanitarian reasons but I’d be fairly called a liar if I didn’t concede that even then, even dripping from inside a puffy coat that could serve a Sherpa with more than enough warmth to assist a white man to the top of the highest mountain, that I am without question more suited to gentler climes than those that greet me on this day.

I had only been screaming for seconds, perhaps as much as a minute, in pain and discomfort before my captor, the barbarian, my father, reached back and gave me a drink to cool down and restore some small amount of what I’d sweated away in my stupor. I must let the old man off the hook for some of this. I’m merely a child of 3 years at this stage and I’m incapable of recalling a time when I wasn’t thrown into a soothing and restful state once a drive has begun in earnest. I enjoy this view of the world moving so steadily past me at such high speeds and the hum from the motor in my ears and on my body have a positively narcotic effect on me that I’m hard pressed to resist. I rarely do. I was not drugged or harmed in any real way beyond the sores that have occasioned my body after my full weight has pressed my delicate skin against the hard plastic that is barely disguised by what my captors seem to think is a quite playful, bovine pattern on long ago matted, formerly  plush fabric. In the end these are not a good reason for concern as I’m 3 and have miraculous capacity to recover and heal. Sincerely. Any bruising resulting from my journey’s in this chair will disappear by nightfall once I’m at my destination and allowed to remove myself from this seat. Seriously. I’m to understand this won’t last forever, but one could literally watch me heal in a sitting if they were so inclined.

The barbarian removed all such things that might bring me joy and placed them on the floor beneath me to taunt me. So I have chosen to get his attention the only way I am still able to. I have fashioned my drinking cup into a weapon. A projectile to be exact. I shall only be able to use it once so I’m hopeful it will be understood that I had no choice. My rambunctious rebellions are his fault. He had left me no alternative.

Direct hit.

I daresay I shall use the technique again considering how very effective it was in getting his attention.

Once done I asked, nee insisted he retrieve my books and assorted nick-knacks and colorful do-dads from the floor beneath me. If he wished not to do these things he shouldn’t have put them just beyond my reach and restricted my free movement so thoughtlessly. I guess from the color of his face and the boisterousness of his exclamations while completing the task of gathering my things that he won’t be so thoughtless in the future.

Now placated and able to wiggle I am relieved and able to find some comfort by shifting my weight in order to start brand new sores on some other part of my body. As a captive I’m being treated fairly. I’ll never tell the savage and give him the satisfaction, but I know that he has won this battle. I fight on through diffidence and surprise attack whenever I see the opening. For example, I ask for things, everything in my sight. One at a time. He fetches them for me. He is smart and long ago ceded this territory for hope that his seeming benevolence will placate me. To keep this dynamic I am on a strict policy of being satisfied with something given me every third time. The other two times he gives me what I ask for I scream and cry and kick and generally behave as if he has done me some unspeakable harm. Truly inconsolable. This is to last no less than two minutes. I know. It’s nothing, but I’ve come to find me screaming for  for as little as two minutes appears to be a form of torture to him.

Finally I turn and once again become lost in the world of the free that flies past my window, close enough to touch but far enough to stay just beyond my reach. This seat becoming my own Folsom. I contemplate my cruel fate and begin my ablutions when out of nowhere the heathen speaks.

‘Get your finger out of your nose.’

The gall! He knows what forced air heating does to my sinuses and knows that in my current state of imprisonment I have no ability to retrieve my neti pot and address the issue in a civilized fashion.

Besides, he’s a habitual nose-miner himself. What? Does he think I won’t notice. I think I even saw him eat one once.

Farewell fellow travelers and if you see me and I am liberated, please have pity on my jailers. They mean well.

 

My Thank You List Has Gotten Too Long

I’m sitting in the Grand Ballroom at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. I’m at an empty table sitting amongst 25 or so other empty tables as the familiar hum of this Dad 2.0 Summit remains strong even on this it’s last day. The conversations I’m not eavesdropping on but I can’t avoid hearing them. They are dads talking to other dads about being dads. The topics run the gamut from the funny foibles we’ve all experienced, to the money challenges to conversations about writing about your family and all the glories and pitfalls that can entail. There are men learning that they aren’t alone in the specific challenges they may face around diseases that have effected their families and challenges that feel slightly more manageable now that they know someone who understands. There’s a LOT of dad humor and no one here that finds it anything but funny. From the hall there’s the din of conversations with sponsors teaching about products and dads learning and building relationships with brands to try to create mutually beneficial relationships.

The formal learning has been exceptional. The challenges facing parents these days may or may not be any greater than they’ve always been. But what’s undeniable is that many of the challenges are new. A simple example is social media. My kids are only 5 and 3 and I’m already scared of all that it can do to hurt them. Of all people I should be able to see it’s benefits as I’ve truly found my voice in that space. But nope, I’m a dad and since the day that my kid was born I’ve adopted a new personality trait, I’m a worrier. So be it. 

Yesterday morning the keynote address was given by the novelist, children’s book author, comic book writer and all around raconteur, Brad Meltzer. I’ve strangely become a fan of his work through the podcast tour he did a few months back ahead of his most recent release. He is a genuinely thoughtful person and someone that really seems to get it. He understands that this is all a gift, all of it. His talk was on ‘Legacy’. He spoke about ways in which we will be remembered. His point, at least what I gleaned from it, was that we are how we treat people and how we treat people is how we will be remembered. It’s a message I agree with intuitively, but it’s always helpful when someone puts words to such a thing. One message he emphasized was that it’s critically important that we thank the people that have made a difference in our lives. Well, I have quite a few people that deserve a ton of thanks from me. I’m lucky, blessed, whatever you want to call it, to have had so many people that have made a truly amazing impact on my life who I’ve probably never fully thanked. I’d like to make a tiny dent in that list today. I won’t be listing the biggies, Mom and Dad, siblings and relatives, my amazing wife and my kids. I thank those folks all the time and will continue to. But sitting here it occurs to me that there are particular folks that I Have to thank who’ve played a role in my being here, confident about writing and sharing my life. People who’ve really built me up, had faith in me and pushed me to challenge myself. It’s a small list and there are so many who will be left out, but I have to start somewhere….

Sharon. Sharon was the camp director at Harriman Lodge, the summer camp for adults with disabilities that is amongst my favorite places on earth where I worked happily and ceaselessly for my entire 20’s. Sharon gave me chances and saw something in me that I suspected was there, but never knew. She identified me personally in my first year and told me she thought I had what it took to run a place like Harriman (a dream I haven’t YET realized but at this stage it’s largely been due to circumstance, and the fact that the current director is AMAZING!) Thank you, Sharon. Thank you for giving me true responsibility. Thank you for giving me the space to fail and to learn from it. Thank ou for believing in me. 

Briton, et al. Briton is a writer and a dad. When I first started writing about parenthood and my experiences I was pretty happy having my stuff read by friends and complimented from time to time. I was scratching at surfaces and feeling like I was getting somewhere. But Briton decided he had faith in me and thought I could do more, better work and he was right. Eventually, and he may only be learning this now, I started feeling competitive with him. With his work. He’s brilliant and his highs are things I still strive for and am inspired by. Beyond this, he literally built my support network of fellow writers and editors. While the original landing spot for these relationships has fallen apart, the core group of my writing friends who I can rely on for everything still exists and remains strong. You’ll know who these folks are as they will all, in some way, support this piece when it goes public. They are all exceptional writers and you should read them. Thank you, Briton. You are quite the generous scribe and you have been a beacon for me and so many others on the journey. 

My friends from home, all my homes. All of you. I see you on Facebook and I am overwhelmed by the constant and unceasing support. Every single time you write an encouraging commment you are adding years to my creative life. I couldn’t be luckier to have the Brockport, Elmira and Camp friends that I’ve had. Thank you all. 

I’ve been resistant to being active in the ‘Dad Blogger’ community. I’ve been completely turned around by my experience these last couple of days. To have the opportunity to read some words, to be vulnerable and supported, to laugh and to cry and think, I’m incredibly lucky. Thank you Dad 2.0 Summit. 

5 Things I Learned in Becoming a Dad

I’m married to a wonderful woman and I have two happy, healthy boys, one 5 and one 3. I had plenty of time to learn plenty of things about life before diving in to this whole ‘family man’ lifestyle. In fact I’d worked for nearly two decades in the ‘caring’ professions and had managed behavior and cared for children that required more support than mine do. You could argue that I was as prepared for fatherhood as one can be. In addition to all of this I am lucky enough to be the son to two genuinely amazing parents and I grew up in the middle of a gigantic family. Like smack dab in the middle. Life has always included room for everyone at the table for me.

All of this gave me a leg up I suppose. But that leg up made me merely, ‘completely unprepared‘ as opposed to say the dad I would have been at 22 who would have been ‘utterly and completely unprepared and destined to fail.‘ I appreciate the advantage I had. Still there are some things that you learn when you become a dad. Here’s a short list of some of the more important and impactful ways I’ve changed and things I’ve learned.

  1. I control so little in life – As men we are perpetually rewarded for acting upon the world. For being determined and decisive and for behaving as such. Having a kid will teach you that this quality is much more useful when used sparingly. 
  2. What Love Is – I love my wife as much as a man can. It’s with my whole person and it’s amazing. But the feeling you have when you hold that little baby needs a different word. Instantly life before that moment becomes irrelevant and as you hold this little baby you realize that you have a purpose. You have a reason to be here, a profound reason that is an elegantly simple one. So much of what was important before is not even on your radar anymore. If it is it’s because it serves a bigger purpose than it ever did before. An example for me would be the gym. I’m back into it now after the baby years made me, ahem, large again. Now when I’m working out it’s not about vanity, ability or attractiveness. It’s about being healthy longer so I can see as much of this show as I can.
  3. How to Fight, Apologize and Forgive – Fighting. It’s our territory. We have a running tally in our heads of our fights and it’s a huge part of our identity. I for one am not much of a fist fighter, but I’ve been lawyering people to death since I was a kid. I had like a 896-0 record going until we became parents. Seriously, I was amazing. Quite improbably most men have a similar record prior to parenthood. This is what happens when you leave us to keep our own records. For a short time after the kid arrives I kept  fighting like I always had. Take no prisoners, win at all costs and end the relationship if it preserves your perfect record. Good men quickly learn this is not sustainable if we hope to be around these people for any length of time. Turns out winning isn’t everything. We still take our victories when we know we are right. We just figure it out quicker when we aren’t or even might not be and we value a return to peace and love over all out war. It’s hard as early on there’s a lot to agree and disagree on. Learn to disagree productively. At the very least learn to disagree in a way that minimizes any long term destruction.
  4. Moms are HOT – They were literally invisible before. Now without ever noticing when it happened you hardly see anything but the moms. This is biological, I’m telling you, once you notice how hot moms are you can’t stop. My wife was a stunner when I met her. It’s true. But she’s never ever looked better than she does today. She thinks it’s just me being nice. Its not. She’s super hot and I’ve never been more attracted to her.
  5. How Precious and Short Life is – Perhaps this is a temperamental thing and not everyone experiences it like I did. Maybe it’s just an older dad thing, doing the math and worrying now that there’s a good reason to not die. Whatever it is I became truly aware of my mortality the second I saw my son the first time. The giant clock that ticks over us all made itself known to me. I know there’s an alarm set on that clock just for me. It sucks. If there’s anything in life that I want to see through to its end it’s the lives of my kids. But that’s not how it works. It’s probably for the best as I wouldn’t be able to survive seeing the end of their stories. I’m invested in making it as long as I can, but I can’t ever stop being aware that all of this is so magical and to be appreciated in the moment because it won’t last forever.

The learning curve is steep for all parents. Moms have to start sooner and as a result men sometimes make big mistakes early. Have some patience. Good men don’t know anything about being good dad’s until they are given the chance to learn from experience. 

Life, Death, Me and Kevin Smith

Kevin Smith is many things. Many of which might make it hard for someone to see his humanity. He’s a famous person, which seems to be enough of a reason for many to dismiss someone as a thinking, breathing, feeling person with 99.9% in common with the rest of us. He’s an artist as well, producing art and putting it in the world, another reason for people to feel not only dismissive of one’s humanity but entitled to say cruel things about something that a person clearly has put out as an extension of at least a part of themself. He’s also a vulgarian, a trait many of us find endearing but one that alienates many, I’m sure.

Whatever else he is he is also human. And tonight, while I was doing the dishes and listening to him eulogize his dear friend and colleague, Alan Rickman, I found myself crying. Tears falling and breath heaving in fits and starts as I listened to someone processing publicly, generously, their feelings of loss, their sadness and perhaps something so universal and personal as mortality.

Much of what I write about here is parenthood. I find it to be an experience that provides, amongst so many profound and beautiful and human things, a bridge to connectedness. I’m not a dogmatic believer and I’m not one prone to much magical thinking. What I am, like Mr. Smith, like you and like my kids and yours, is human.

One of the things I’ve learned with age is that humanity is capable of inspiring wonderment and awe. It can summon it’s natural state of curious sentience and without intending to draw out an emotional response from me, one that can take my breath away and instill emotion in me that can circle and swirl throughout my being and bring tears that I have no control over. I know that we are merely actors on a tiny stage in a giant universe and too often we can overestimate our capacity to know what meaning there is. What is not lost on us is love and death. The rest we get wrong a lot. But love and death, well, they amount to meaning to me. Meaning I can’t and don’t want to analyze or understand fully. Meaning that I want to live in and die amongst.

It’s strange to be in my 40’s with such young kids. I didn’t plan it this way, at least not from the start. But now that I’m here I’m privy to so much of life. Every day I revel in the world my children are discovering. Worlds full of what I’d mistakenly come to think of as ordinary and mundane before they retrained me. They are able to reintroduce me to the world and are able to reignite within me the spark of curiosity, the fire of creativity. They move me to joy and deliver an endless bounty of love to my life in between testing me by walking me to frustration and even occasionally nudging me toward rage. At the same time it’s a time of life when I can’t help but notice mortality. It’s creeping in at the edges of my life and it’s a present reality in the day to day lives of so many people I care about. I have visions of my parents at my own kids graduations and weddings and even holding their great grandkids someday. I can even imagine them at my funeral, one where I’m being interred at a ripe old age having died of too much life. I can imagine myself dying. That seems natural to me. But even in my minds eye I see my parents there looking down lovingly on me, happy to have known me, sad I won’t be around anymore. It’s crazy, but it’s true. Because I live in denial and fear, the knowledge, like so many of the rest of us do, those of us still able to hug our parents and tell them that we love them, that a day will come when my world will die and it will be at once the most natural and human experience one can imagine and it will also be the most devastatingly painful reality I can conceive of while still being able to live.

I cried tonight listening to someone share what it means to be human. When I was younger I couldn’t cry. Now I can and I do. If I’m really moved it’s like a fit of uproarious laughter. I can’t control it. I can stop thinking about the funny thing, but eventually I have to think of it again, and when I do, the tears and gut busting roars of laughter come right back and they won’t go until they are done, regardless of my schedule. It’s kind of wonderful. Likewise, feeling the pain, or sorrow, or whatever emotion it is that emanates from others when they are hurting also arrives and departs on it’s own schedule. This empathy is meaning to me. It’s a style of connecting and it’s redemptively human. It’s why we grieve communally. It’s how we express respect. It’s how we honor each other. It’s how we share humanity.  It’s empathy and it’s what keeps us together and unites us in the end. We all can empathize with loss. We all will succumb to mortality and if we are all lucky we will all know love in many forms.

Kevin Smith lost a friend last month. A dear friend and each and everyone of us knows what that means. It is what makes us special. It’s what makes our lives have meaning.

I am so very sorry for your loss, Mr. Smith. I hope that in time you will be able to tell the stories of your friend and feel at least an ounce of comfort in feeling his presence again and having a laugh with him, or even a cry, from time to time.

Unburdened

I’ve always been hypersensitive. Which isn’t something I’ve always been comfortable acknowledging.

When I was growing up it was a real issue for me. It’s still a thing that can be hard for me. But as I get older, especially after having kids, it’s practically unavoidable. When I was young everything I felt was turned into the only emotions testosterone could amplify. Rage, Joy, Jealousy, Sadness or Frustration.

Having feelings, being filled with emotion was terrible. The loss of control was awful. It felt vulnerable. It felt dangerous and I chose instead to express my feelings, at least the joy, jealousy and sadness ones through stoic denial of them. Which conveniently turned them all to rage and frustration. The two emotions I felt comfortable showing the world. Somehow those two feelings felt invulnerable.

But sadness was there at times. Sadness is still hard. It tends to come out as rage, but I can at least recognize it now. Jealousy is mostly gone. Sometimes I might feel a touch of envy but it’s mostly for made up stuff like money. Sometimes I read something brilliant and wish I’d thought of it, but I don’t know if that’s jealousy.

The world instills in boys the misconception that painful  feelings are the opposite of strength. They aren’t. The fact that I couldn’t kill them completely, those vulnerable, painful feelings is because they were important. They were protecting a part of me that couldn’t be fully removed. No matter how hard I might have tried. The part of me that is ultimately my greatest strength.

The only feelings that can own me are those I hide. The ones I keep to myself. The ones that I’m afraid of people seeing. 

I would never have believed that I’d ever have been comfortable sharing so much of my concerns and so many of my worries with the world. So many of my shortcomings, failings and feelings. I was invested in them staying hidden. I’d made them shameful by keeping them hidden. I’d made such simple and beautiful things as feelings and need and frailties and worries my undoing by being so afraid of them that I loaded them into my bones and my body and my bags and anything I could carry and then dragged them with me wherever I went. When they inevitably became too heavy and I’d become weary I’d crumble, drop it all in private, curse my weakness and then add that weakness to the pile that I’d once again pick up, pack on and carry around. It was untenable.

I don’t imagine that I would have carried this burden forever. I imagine that some event would eventually have shown me the light and taught me that I needed to unburden myself. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been an event. Perhaps it would have been the slow learning of a lifetime of pain that would have taught me my lessons and prodded me and encouraged me to finally let it go by putting it down, laying it out and sharing my load with anyone who’d care to see and take stock of it with me. I imagine I’d have gotten there some way or other had I not gotten there as I did. But thankfully I didn’t have to wait for either of these things.

What let me know it was okay to be my entire person in front of the entire world was becoming a father. I have two sons who will grow up in a world that is prone to teaching it’s young men that ‘manhood’ means being more powerful than feelings of frailty and weakness. It’s an unfortunate tradition and residual instinct of a time less enlightened than one I hope we get to some day soon. But until we do I need to be the proof that having feelings and being sensitive to them, all of them, rage and compassion and needing and passion and frustration and sadness and guilt and all of them, is a strength. It’s in fact how you grow strong. Having feelings, expressing them, then putting them down is the only way to move on. It’s my duty and my pleasure to show them this, to be the proof of this valuable nugget of earned wisdom.

More so than that even, it’s my pleasure to show them gratitude for teaching me this lesson. For making my life so much more harmonious with the life that has been coursing through me that I could never fully come to grips with and feel comfortable in before meeting them and learning how to be brave and strong because of the love I have for them.

Thank you guys. You opened life to me. You made me strong enough to live it fully and honestly. You’ve made all of it, the joy and pain, pure bliss.