Tag: writing

In Defense of Failure

I owe a lot to my near perpetual failure. I mean a whole lot.

I learned to fail early. I tell everyone, eventually and probably repeatedly that I failed kindergarten. Now I know that in the context of school that means a specific thing. In my case it meant something slightly different. I cried. I cried all day. I cried every day all day. I cried terribly and persistently and if it’s like anything else I’ve ever done, I did so loudly.

Sure, I was slightly young as I was born in November and started my first year of kindergarten (a phrase that is just utterly delightful to me, my first year of Kindergarten) as a 4 year old. I clearly wasn’t ready. I went to a Catholic school those early years and I remember sitting with a nun in the big office in the southwest corner of the first floor of the school with a lollipop to end my day at least one of those days. In my memory my mom picked me up there and had a few moments chat with the nun outside the door before we left to walk home. Maybe I was in school for a week, maybe a month, maybe 3 months. I suspect I was home by Christmas, but it was 1978 and I was four or five so I don’t really know. What I do know is this early failure set me forth on a career of academic failure that lasted into my 30’s.

That’s not entirely true. To be sure, I was an academic failure throughout my formal education. That said, in my 30’s, based on my work performance and a career that was well under way I was accepted into the Masters of Social Work Program at Hunter College. I attended the orientation in the auditorium and was relatively excited to start the program. Until day one. I was miserable preparing to go, resistant to leave my apartment in time and upon arrival to the school saw a sign on the door that read ‘Class cancelled today. See you next week.’ That was enough for me. I walked out, never returned and abandoned EVER seeking to further my formal education ever again.

Back to the failure at hand. That first exposure to kindergarten soured me on the whole endeavor. Those early years in Catholic school were the worst and that was a sustained reality. I faked sick as much as possible to avoid being there. I was what kids today would call ‘bullied’, though at that time I don’t know that ‘bullying’ was all that bad. I think adults pretty much concurred that dealing with bullies was a good learning experience. Like so much so that there were very special episodes of sitcoms reinforcing the belief.

I remember telling my grandfather when he asked about all the punches I kept taking in school that I was taught to turn the other cheek. Well I had him on that one. Or so I thought. He just took it in, confirmed that it was a good lesson from my mom and from Jesus, but that sometimes a man has to punch back and it wouldn’t be the worst thing if I did. Well, I did not like that idea. So for 5 years of Catholic school, six if you count my failed year of Kindergarten (technically I dropped out) I learned to really take a punch.

I failed everything going forward. In my school, and this is amazing to me to say from this angle in 2024, but you had to FAIL THREE CLASSES to be academically ineligible for sports, so I failed 2 consistently, I’d pick them out ahead of time, and made sure to really skim by a third class. I may have actually missed a semester of basketball at one point, but never when on Varsity. I was pretty good so coaches would go to bat for me.

Ah, basketball. I miss being so young and spry and able to move so fluidly. Make no mistake, on the local level, in my town, in my schools, I was legit very good. I was obsessed and remember specifically talking to a guidance counselor in 7th or 8th grade and telling them my only objective was to play in the NBA. That was my career plan. Here’s where it gets a little unbelievable. They responded by saying it was not something they’d ever said to anyone else, but in my case it seemed like a reasonable path to pursue. Again, I was really good really young.

I lived and breathed the game. I devoured the basketball digests that arrived at my door. I spent 6-8 hours a day (this is if anything an under estimation for the years I was 12-16 years old) playing, shooting, looking for runs around town to jump in on or in my wonderful case, lying about my age to get a day pass to the college open gyms where I was a bit of a legend as I ran all but the best players on the college team out of the gym on the daily out of season. I know it doesn’t sound possible, but it was a div 3 school and I was much younger and fitter back then.

My NBA dreams lasted well into high school. Beyond my own assessment and that of my middle school guidance counselor, I think a lot of people thought I really had a chance. But like almost every other dreamer of such dreams I hit a brick wall beyond which I couldn’t see myself ever getting to. I saw it before my classmates or kids I played with did, but it was clear. I got inklings when trying out for the regional AAU team. I made the team, but I saw the guys who were moderately successful college players who had what I never would. They were taller, faster, stronger and by amounts I couldn’t fully make up for with hard work and dedication.

So I lingered. I lost the love. The last great accomplishment was making the Empire State Games team as a rising senior. It was a wonderful capstone to a project I’d undertaken with an open heart and with both feet in the water for most of a decade and I’m proud of it to this day. I played with College greats and NBA players and I knew before anyone else around me that it was stopping here. And mostly it did. But before it stopped completely, before I hung ’em up, it did one very important thing for me. It got me into college. Which was good since I had no idea if I’d graduate high school until the last minute.

I was in. I made it to college. I even made the basketball team and immediately failed off after one trimester. Yep. Basketball ran on fumes after that and a couple more things happened, but I was mostly an also ran who occasionally was asked to dress for a trip and even got to travel for the first time our school ever qualified for the NCAA tourney. It was fun, but that’s all it was at that point.

College was more failure, but I was getting more efficient at it. I learned that I could take a night class to satisfy my requirements. I could attend with adults much older than me (and a few likeminded regular students) and completely a class while only having to attend once a week instead of 2-3 times during the week. That’s right, I could skip a whole weeks worth of classes in one go! Okay, that may be sarcastic, but it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen quite a bit.

I failed introduction to computers (that was a real and required course for all graduates of Elmira at that time, the early 90’s) what I have to assume is a still record 7 times. Yep. I failed Intro to Computers 7 full times. When I walked across the stage after 5 full years of college (yup, took five years to fake graduate) I received a nice, purple degree holder with a piece of paper inside that had the words ‘summer completer’ typed inside. The whole family came to see the pageantry of my fake graduation. I wouldn’t graduate for 4 more years, until I made the trek once a week from my home 2 hours away to complete intro to computers on my 8th try. And it was touch and go even that time. After a ton of failure I got my degree in human services in just under (6 months under) a decade.

In one of those night classes though, in the place where I would least suspect to find a thing I wasn’t looking for, I took the first steps on the path that leads directly to where I sit now, 30 years down the road. The Executive Director of the local ARC came in to speak about the history of the ARC movement and how he worked to make society more integrated and open opportunities for people with disabilities. A fellow student, someone I frankly had a fairly low opinion of spoke up in class and asked if the ARC were in any way related to AHRC of NYC. It was. She described how she had worked the previous summer at a sleep away camp for AHRC of NYC and what it was like to do that work. I asked her about it after class and next thing I know I’m getting a call in a dorm room to interview for a summer camp counselor position. I took the job and never looked back.

So, that 4 years between fake graduating and graduating was maybe the most fortuitous failure of them all, my failed engagement. It’s a long story and a not so interesting one. It’s filled with youthful confusion and striving as well as delusion and insecurity. In any case, thank god I failed at that one. I don’t suppose I’m the only one who failed at relationships until they found the right one so I won’t ponder on it, but suffice it to say, I suspect everyone came away from that a winner. She was a lovely person and I was a lost and potentially lovely person. Thankfully we each have found the right person and, while I can only fully speak for myself, I suspect she would agree, this failure while painful was necessary.

I am a reader. I suspect it’s a large part of what has made me successful in a lot of ways. I fell in love with books at an early age and never really let go of them. I was resistant to school or even work reading, but let me loose in a bookstore or library and I’ll find a stack of books I’ll get through no matter how long it might take me. I loved novels. My first hero in the literary world was John Irving, celebrated novelist of such wonderful stories as The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meaney, The Cider House Rules, The Hotel New Hampshire… I have to stop there. I could go on and write endlessly about each. Especially Owen Meaney.

My love of novels lead me to want to be a writer. I idolized these people. I couldn’t believe all these worlds that so enraptured me as I read about them, all these characters and situations all came from a single mind was mind blowing. Mind expanding. I wanted to try. I wanted to see if I could create a world like I had fallen into so many times. I wanted to tell a story that had my thoughts and creations at its root. I wanted so badly to be a novelist.

I wrote. A lot at times, less at others, but for 3o plus years now I have been writing. I still dream of being that next great novelist. A lot of novelists don’t strike a nerve with audiences until well into their 40’s and even 50’s. I still feed this dream and while I haven’t written much in the last 4 years or so, I still dream about it. I have started reading a lot more this last 5 years of so since getting glasses. I had no idea how much the fading images had effected my reading, but as soon as I addressed the issue I was back in the books.

But here’s the thing. Despite all the writing I’ve done and despite generally feeling great about the audiences that have read and mostly liked my writing, I have failed, utterly, to write that novel that takes me out of worrying about making a living. Failed to write that script that gets into a bidding war amongst the great Hollywood Studios that makes my next deal the one I can retire from the other world and dedicate my life to stories and capturing the praise of those critics I read every week in the NYT Review of Books. Nope. In fact I’ve spent far more money on writing and developing passable pieces then I have received. I am a writer, and that was a hill to climb and I’m proud to have done it, but I’m not the writer I set out to be.

Nor am I the student I could have been. Nor the basketball player I thought I’d be. Nor the partner I tried to be so long ago. Nope. I failed to finish where I intended in each of these. But I wouldn’t change a thing.

Because the success that my life is, and there’s almost no argument against my life being a success, is largely due to the connections I made in all my failed endeavors, the lessons I learned in never quite getting to where I aimed and in the roads I couldn’t have seen that I wandered down in pursuit of things I would never find.

Failure is fuel at times, driving us to keep looking. Failure is a guide at times, gently turning us toward where we should be looking. Failure is many things, but it is rarely alone. It brings a lot with it and we shouldn’t be afraid to follow it down paths we didn’t know existed when we started out. I followed failure where it lead and like that path less traveled in that long ago New England wood, it has made all the difference.

Christmas Break

The author reflects on the past year, emphasizing personal growth and accomplishments. They acknowledge the challenges of parenthood, career development, and maintaining sobriety. The family’s well-being and the author’s writing aspirations are also highlighted. Overall, the narrative presents a heartfelt journey of self-improvement, gratitude, and optimism for the future.

Like a lot of other folks I tend to spend some time during that final week of the year assessing. Perhaps its silly, but based on the posts of my co-conspirators, er, rather the friends I’ve grown up with or made along the way, I’m not the only one who uses this break in the schedule to contemplate the past year and by extension, where I am on this adventure.

It makes sense. I’m anything if not a meaning making machine, moving through life and attempting to make it mean something is really my life’s work in the broadest sense of that term. And what better time of year to sit and contemplate where I am, where I’ve been and what lays ahead.

That said, I wish there was some balance to this week in midsummer. A week when the world slows to a crawl, where everyone, by default, is expected to be unavailable as they congregate with their families and eat, drink and be merry. Concentrating all of our year in review thoughts to the shortest days of sunlight around the most emotionally charged time of the year, the holidays, may not be the perfect set up. That said, its probably healthy to imbue some bleakness into the assessment in order to account for the unavoidable bleakness that consciousness compels upon us beings whose sole unifying reality is death. That bleak enough?

Lets Occam’s Razor this task first. White/Black. Yes/No. Pass/Fail. The 30,000 foot assessment is easy sitting here at fifty, a bit more than half way through the ride. Pass. Don’t dismiss this victory too quickly. It wasn’t always certain that I’d land squarely on this side of the dividing line. At least it wasn’t always so clear to me. In fact there were years there, possibly decades when this outcome didn’t feel so easily attained. But as I sit here with a happy family, a wonderful partner and wife and a good deal of the adventure still left to discover, I’m relieved to say that I’m pretty good at this point. Could of course get hit by a bus (literally OR metaphorically) at anytime and I keep that front of mind, but from where I sit I’m fairly comfortable and excited for what is yet to come.

Now, let’s put some more fine points on the line and determine where I am and what I can bank.

I’ve become a better dad in time. Started out kinda rough. I always loved and cared for the kids, but those early days I didn’t really come through for my wife. I wasn’t horrendous and it wasn’t anything other than typical failings, but I’ve gotten better and I hope it’s helpful. Where I really failed was caring for myself. I still struggle to do it, but I’m determined.

I’m about 3 years back into exercising with some regularity. One thing that is for sure is that my body is not what it used to be. In fact, just on stats it’s about 30% more than it used to be. And no, I’m not saying I’m 8’1″. No, I’m afraid all my added size is concentrated in the middle as I grow horizontally. I had no idea that all those years spent playing basketball in my youth were wasted as my natural body type would be that of a wrestler or a large appliance mover.

My career is, knock on wood, moving right along. About 10 years ago we made a decision as a family for me to start making moves in my career with the conscious goal of getting to a place where we could get closer to financially secure. This would seem to be a natural goal of all workers I would assume, but I didn’t really make the effort prior to that. I mean, I was viable and as such I was secure, but like many new parents the world started to look very different when I started seeing it through a (thankfully) healthy new babies eyes. Having made decisions with that new imperative these past 10 years or so, we appear to be on track to retire somewhat close to the normal timeline. That said, there were some bumps on that road. I can tell you, it SUCKS being fired with young ones. That said, in hindsight it was the best thing for me and for our future.

I’m not drinking. I never thought I would be able to say that. I was quite committed to the task. Been a little over 2 years and I’m so happy I didn’t stay drunk the whole time. It was somehow depleting from every other aspect of my life while fueling and feeding my anger and annoyance. Drinking is stupid. If you can, you should stop. I still drink two beers a night, though non-alcoholic. I like to ensure I keep my calories up to stay warm in winter;)

I’m reading again. Not as much since I took on a new job in August. But I made my first Goodreads reading goal and thankfully reached it by midyear. It was only 25 books, but I should note, this would always have been a miss for me in every year of my life. I don’t know how people manage to live and hit some of the numbers I hear people spewing in their end of year book summaries. I am a HUGE advocate of reading, but when someone says they read 150 books this year I just worry about them. Maybe they’re fine, but maybe it’s a cry for help, no?

For the record, and in no particular order, these are my favorites of the year. Small Gods by Terry Pratchett, Shades of Glory by Lawrence Hogan, A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib, Kindred by Octavia Butler, Beartown by Fredrik Backman, Babel by R.F. Kuang, House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune and The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman.

My kids are doing great and I likely won’t be writing about them in much detail anymore. At least for the time being. Honestly, when they were little what I wrote was universal and connective. Felt that way to me at least. I was writing for my tribe of fellow parents with little ones struggling to navigate the transition they throw us into that we could never have been prepared for. It was cathartic for me and largely inobtrusive for them. While I may still write tangentially about them as I talk about me, I no longer feel their lives are so intertwined with mine that I have the right to put out their lives as my own. Perhaps I was wrong to do it as long as I did. I really don’t know. What I do know is that it would be entirely wrong to share their stories now as all I have are my access to their story. My point of view on their story. But their story’s are theirs completely now and it would be intrusive and honestly destructive for me to commandeer those stories for my tales. So be it.

What I can say about the kids is they are growing up. We are heading into the teen years and they are playing their roles exactly as they should. My wife continues to have an amazing bond and provides for the emotional support I can’t always tap inside me. They, all of them, are the best thing that has or will ever happen to me. I’m so proud to be their dad and her husband. We are sometimes stumbling and often soaring. We continue to learn how to be there for each other. I love them all with all my heart.

I published a short story since last I wrote here. I did it right this time and hired a copyeditor and am really proud of the how it turned out. It’s a lovely love story of sorts, a cozy tale of sorts, a melancholic tale with some laughs and more, but I can’t say what more it is without giving away a critical reveal toward the end. It’s called ‘It all Started Down at the Stewarts’ and it I’m really proud of it. I think it’s really good. Takes about an hour to read or listen to (my brother is a professional audiobook narrator and incredibly talented) on audible. If you read it and like it a positive review would really be appreciated. Telling friends you think might like it is also incredibly helpful.

I’d like to get back into the writing game. I miss it. This is the second post I’ve written this past two weeks, but I suspect this will be the first to be published. Perhaps it will be the only one. That said, I saw Neil Gaiman talking about his process for writing novels and he said he has taken to writing longhand in notebooks for his first draft. This lets him avoid interruptions that our tech has gotten way to efficient at providing and also lets him type out the second draft which really helps in the ‘re-writing’ part of the second draft. That resonated with me so I have the notebook and pens ready. Haven’t started yet, but I am optimistic.

What else is there to say. I guess that’s a wrap on 2023 and a good read on how it looks from 50 with a couple of kids and a family. Happy New Year. I would love to hear how your annual review went in your home.

I’m Sad Today and That’s Fine

joshua-earle-557-unsplashI’m sad. I wasn’t this morning. I won’t be soon enough. I’m sad right now.

I can’t tell you how much being able to recognize that and acknowledge it has changed my life.

When I was younger I would process a change of mood perhaps as often as once a day. Back then I might not even notice the presence of my feelings for a few hours after waking. That was true whether happy or sad or angry or whatever. I say whatever because I’m sure there are more than 3 moods. In general though it was one of these. For a long time there were just two since ‘sad’ would morph immediately into angry. I don’t know why. I guess it had something to do with a limited emotional palate and an abundance of youthful testosterone.

I once heard a person who had been abused talk about their decision to forgive the abuser that took so much from them. Initially I didn’t understand how they could ever truly forgive them. I thought perhaps they were still reeling from the abuse and reacting out of fear. But in their explanation I learned about what they were really doing when they chose to forgive. How it was actually an act of self preservation. 

‘Forgiving my abuser was very hard. I didn’t do it for a long time. Instead I held on to that anger and felt like it was my armor. I somehow thought that carrying and caring for my anger, keeping it alive, was what kept me safe. But it didn’t. He didn’t abuse me again. He didn’t have to. Carrying around that much anger and bile did all the damage he couldn’t do. In time I had to forgive him to let go. Think of it like this, anger is a poison pill. For me, holding on to my anger was like swallowing poison in hopes that it would make someone else die. But of course it doesn’t work that way. The poison was in me. It was killing me.’

The second I heard that my whole perspective shifted. 

I have not had to confront abuse, thankfully, but I could see myself holding on to anger. Compiling resentments and scorn and holding them close in order to keep them fed. In the years I’ve spent thinking about this piece of wisdom I’ve come to relish the opportunities I have to recognize and identify my feelings. My anger was my poison pill. Still is. 

It may sound silly, but to me feelings were an outside force somehow. That was how I perceived them and I’d guess I’m not the only man who has felt this way. My feelings felt like a threat to my stability, best denied or ignored. At least the negative ones. But that’s not how it works. I can’t deny my feelings away and the more I may try to do so the more I am at their service, providing them only enough oxygen to live but never enough to recover and heal. In that kind of cycle joy feels more like a liability and I treated it that way.

So today for some reason I started to feel sad. I recognized it, I acknowledged it, I’m feeling it and soon I’ll be moving on.

Sometimes emotional maturity is as simple as that. As simple as recognizing that which is evident and allowing space and time to do their work so I am not controlled by that which I struggle against and try to wrestle into submission.

Instead I just say I am sad today and I am thankful that I recognized it. Being sad now does not mean I’ll be sad tomorrow and it doesn’t mean I won’t be. It just means I’m sad. It’s a feeling and feelings change. Sometimes I’ll discover there was a reason I felt that way and other times I’ll discover there was no reason other than being human. 

The Sport of Writing

‘I mean, c’mon. It’s his focus. I mean look at him. He’s really flowing you can tell. it’s in his posture. Some people say body language doesn’t mean anything, it’s all hokum. But fuck that. He’s on fire. I can’t wait to see what comes out of this.’ Flip Barton pronounced.

Burt Hartley, arms folded let it fly past. Who’s to say, really. Without anything else to go on he could be right. And there was no denying the motion. That was fact. It might all be gobbledygook, but it was certainly coming out pretty quick and fairly steady. Still, he wouldn’t concede. For all that the talking heads credited to ‘process’ there was not real direct line you could spot in the moment, especially watching on TV. In a crowded bar no less. 

‘I don’t know man. Maybe.’, said Burt with the air of an arbiter entitled to an opinion on the matter. ‘I mean there’s no denying the pace. That said, pace is not correlated with quality. Some guys have both, but it’s a fools game to presume causation. More often it’s correlation. That said, I’m more struck by the focus. He seems oblivious to his own context. A passenger on a journey of his own making. If nothing else, he’s certainly lost in it.’

  They’d been arguing the point for years. Simple analysis versus informed interpretation. More often than not the odds favored Burt. He was the one with some context after all. His novels weren’t trendy, though they had an audience. Not a consistent one, but a big enough one to be sure. Besides, his two short story collections had won awards and were nearly perfectly scored on the aggregating sites. 

‘A passenger on a journey of his own making? Really.’ Flip wasn’t one to let that kind of puffed up nonsense just float. 

But before Burt could even turn his head to try to save face the air left the room. The noise had stopped and the afternoon crowd here for the Scriptships were stunned. 

‘Well, that’s a first.’ Flip said, eyes locked on the screen over the bar.

Liston Maize was frozen at his keyboard. 

‘Listen to Parnell. If anything I think his pace is picking up.’, said Burt. ‘I mean, shit. That’s focus. Show him.’ 

‘Are you kidding me. Maize has never edited in a first draft before. Is he reading or deleting? Jesus. What a disaster.’, said Flip.

After a few minutes the ambient noise of the day drinking revelers who had hoped to see a truly competetive match succumbed to the simple pleasures of day drinking with like minded friends as the network scrambled to make the analysis of a match already decided compelling. 

Back in the booth Flip and Burt continued the dance they had been dancing for years.

‘Truth is there’s been signs.’, argued Burt.

Flip laughed. ‘You’re going to try the ‘called it’ maneuver on Liston Maize melting down in the Pen Ultimate. Honestly man, come on.’ 

Burt chuckled. ‘No, but that’s fair. I’m just saying, he hasn’t been ‘Liston Maize’ in years. I’m not saying I saw this coming, but come on, we can’t be that surprised. I mean, he’s out of shape, he’s drinking again and did you see how early he went to the glasses. He’s like late 80’s Kareem or mid 80’s Stevie Wonder. His best days have been behind him for a while is all I’m saying.’

Flip had long since given up their fantasies of writing competitively. Or rather they had put them away in their drawers and on their desktops. Still, it was a national pastime to imagine yourself on that stage. 

‘I just wish they’d move it from Oxford. The south is rich with writers but putting it there permanently dismisses the New England School. And even the suggestion that it is insulting to the Yanks is laughable when you consider the western traditions. Sure they ain’t as long, but Hollywood was recruiting early and that sweep spread the word out west. What about the cowboy poets.’

They both smiled. The long days journey had them now squarely in the midst of the night. Boozy and bored they knew that when the ‘Cowboy poets’ were argued for they’d reached the end of their evening. 

It was like that every year. Not the extraordinary and disappointing fall of a great like Maize. No, this competition, this historic day for watching creative intellects perform was a part of the fabric. No amount of stories about PED’s and drug fueled creative binges was ever going to stop the masses from indulging in the sport of it all, the pageantry. And surely, for Flip and Burt a night like this would fuel weeks of midnight toiling, play acting like the masters. It would fuel months of hope as they worked to create anything that might give them a moment in the sun. A moment that would never happen for the tens of millions who dreamed. But the dream was the prize. The work was enough. And until next year, well, they’d have a lot to talk about. 

The Husky Dads Million Dollar Idea

I’ve never been truly thin. Not even as a kid, when I reasonably could have been considered ‘lanky’. Whatever wireyness I might have possessed was due almost entirely to my reaching my height sooner than most of the kids I grew up around. I’m 6’2″ if you go by the tale of the tape next to my headshot in the program. 6’1″ easily if you go by actual measured height and I got a legit 5’11” of that height by the time I was in 7th grade or so. But even then I knew not to go shirtless too regularly. I was kinda fat-skinny. 

In the years since then I’ve become just plain old husky. I’d be burly if I could pull it off, but doughy tugs pretty firmly at me. I’m 43 now so I’m not sure I’ll ever dip down below 200 lbs ever again. I’m okay with that as long as I’m able to stick around for as long as my kids really need me. But let’s just say the metabolism ain’t where it could be. Or rather, I’m 43, from what I hear it’s exactly where it should be.

This cake was magical. Been chasing that dragon ever since..

If you are not yet of an age, let me tell you this central and universal bit of misfortune that comes with age; You can gain significant weight in one lost weekend and you can’t lose that weight without a month or more of committment, discipline and sorrow. At least I’m told you can. You certainly can’t lose it with a months worth of backsliding committment and little to know will power and endless taking it easy on yourself and having that extra cookie. That much I can say for certain. That path is one I’m testing. Been doing it twenty years now and while I’m not yet fully ready to share my data, I’ll let you know that I’m starting to notice some pretty predictable patterns. I mean, it’s like the least groundbreaking science you’ll ever see. To that end I’m taking it easy on my overstressed joints in hopes of making them last a tad longer. Cross your fingers for me!

So this post weekend was the worst kind I’ve come across over my many era’s. While it was thoroughly enjoyable in all other ways, this weekend was a disaster for my ever diminishing hopes of ever getting back into that suit I wore on the wedding day. A day I should note happened in my mid thirties when I was significantly past my playing weight. And don’t get me started on ever fitting in that speedo I’ve yet to buy that I’ve always imagined I’d use to embarrass my kids at beaches over the summers of their youth. Though that’s perhaps more of a committment issue for me. I mean, I really have to go for that bit for it to work, but I’m just not there yet, guys. Please don’t pressure me.

Cookie. Nap. Cookie. Nap. This is my cycle. Has been since they were little..

This past weekend was a quick trip to the grandparents. Well my kids grandparents. My inlaws. They are the nicest, kindest people on earth. So nice that they, well, she, makes ALL of the things I’ve ever complimented and told her I loved. Have you ever had pumpkin pie ice cream? Not pumpkin pie with ice cream, though I will note this here for future reference, but rather pumpkin pie flavored ice cream. I have. I hadn’t when I woke up last Friday. Now I’ve had an easy half gallon. Super easy. Like so easy. 

I remember hearing for decades now that you can get serious control over your diet by writing down everything your eat. It’s supposed to keep you from overindulging I guess. Maybe spur some healthy, light self loathing. After loosening my fat cargo’s I thought, maybe I have to do it. So I took a sheet of paper and wrote. Chicken salad sandwich, 1 2  3 bowls of pumpkin pie ice cream, chocolate chip coo- and I stopped. Right in the middle. Damn that was one fine homemade chocolate chipper she gave me, I thought. There have to be more. No one bakes one cookie, I thought some more. And like that I was off. Sure enough. Full tin. Right there, out in the open. Where I could grab a half a cookie anytime. There, maybe six halves, whenever I walked by. Damn, damn, damn. Writing didn’t work. Don’t worry, there were rich buttery scones to get me through breakfast. 

Anyway, it occurred to me this past weekend that Perhaps I’m missing a real opportunity here. Maybe there are other men, men like me, men of what we like to call a certain age. Men who pause a beat too long when someone says to us from behind a counter, ‘Sir, I said we have a chip reader’. I love chips. I just learned how to make them from scratch. Well I mean, it’s pretty basic, but I digress. My million dollar idea is simple. It will take some marketing to convince my customers, but I’ll be the first and most enthusiastic of adopters. Without further ado…

It’s well past time that men like myself should have a good, high quality, fashionable, High waisted, control top, boxer briefs to wear in the wake of these lost weekends. This market is real

Who’s with me!

The Letter, The List and My Greatest Fear

Mansfield, Pa. I was there for the week for basketball camp. I don’t know how it became a thing in our town, hundreds of miles away, but for anyone serious about basketball, at least any of us between 10 and 14, you went to Mansfield for a week of basketball camp. I was the most serious about it and I was there. I was about 12 and it was great.

It was a great time for a 12 year old who was obsessed. I was the kid who had a basketball in my hand every minute. I was the kid in Western New York, where it can snow in 8 or 9 different months a year, who would shovel the court to play in January. Or October, if need be. I was the kid who played a level up always. I was obsessed and good as far as anyone could tell. This was the first big year away at camp and the first time I shined outside my own town. I was good against the good kids my age from other towns. I could run with the good kids older then me. It was a buzz.

My dad picked me up and my memory is that he told me we had to get going fast. Mom wasn’t home and we had to get moving.

‘Where’s mom?’ I asked.

‘She had to go to see Grammy.’ He said.

‘When?’

‘She’s there now.’

A lot of things happened in our house without advanced warning. There were six or seven kids at that time, including a toddler, so it’s possible these plans were always in the works and I was just never informed. Still, weird for her to travel alone, but to be honest, she’d gone to Israel on her own while 8 months pregnant with the little one so who’s to say if it was weird that she went on short notice to see her parents.

‘Why?’ I asked.

Here’s where my memory fails me. I don’t know if I asked that. Maybe I didn’t, though I can’t imagine it wouldn’t have come up. Maybe we were driving a friend of mine home or something and he couldn’t tell me. Whatever was said I didn’t know ‘why’ she was gone until I read it in a letter. Might have been in the car right when I was packed up and we were ready to go. I have a memory of it being a letter I read when I got it on the kitchen table when we got all the way home. In hindsight I can imagine a dad wanting to keep it from a kid as long as possible.

What is true is that I found out in a letter. My dad probably wrote it. Might have been mom, but I can’t imagine. It was one of them. My grandfather was dead and he’d killed himself. It was a suicide letter by proxy.

I haven’t been writing much lately. I have to start again. I’m nervous about losing writing. I fear it’s like basketball. I’m old and unable and all those years of pounding my knees on pavement have not left me very able with a hoop and a ball anymore. I can shoot, I’ll always be able to shoot, but the rest is rusty and the will and ability to fix that are gone.

I’ve been sharing the writing I’ve done in the past in different ways recently. It’s been good to reach some new people and find some new life in old stories about times gone by. It’s been interesting to mine my own work, produced largely without reflection. Or rather, to reflect on what I was compelled to write over time.

I recently shared a piece that was written as if it were a letter to my sons. It was a letter outlining the fact that what I want for them is to feel loved and to love. I want the person they love to love them and to inspire laughter and curiosity and energy and compassion and passion and all the things that love alone can fulfill, but I don’t care if the person they love is a man or a woman. I will very much care about who that person is, I just won’t care about that.

It’s in line with a lot of my work, really. Often I’m sending a message out through time and space hoping they will see it and know they were loved. Know that I’m aware of the things I got wrong. Sorry for the parts I’ll fail at. I want them to know that I was a failure. That I was a drunken mess for years. That I had false starts and self doubt and self loathing. That I was depressed. That I hated school. That I didn’t know what I was doing when they came along and all I wanted to do was do right by them. That love so amazing as the love they and their mom have brought to my life is worth slogging through painful times for. That even the hope of it is enough.

I remember having a conversation with my sister a number of years back where I told her that I have always kept a list in my head of who it is I think is most at risk of killing themselves. It’s not some list of sad celebrities or self destructive artists of one sort or another. It was a list of family and friends. Mostly family. A list I at times put myself on. A chronicle of my real time assessments of presumed depressive states that were potential life changing suicides. I did it subconsciously and without noticing I was doing it for years. It sounds like bullshit to me, but it was true. I was truly unaware of this constant drone in my psyche.

One of the recurring points I’ve made over the years was the startling and profound understanding of mortality that I had when I saw my kids the seconds after they were born. It’s more pronounced after the first, sure but that isn’t to say it wasn’t there with the second. It’s a bell that can’t be unrung, but it can certainly be rung again.

It was a rolling realization but the fact is that it was inevitable, being me, that sooner than later the fear of the worst thing I could ever imagine would occur to me. What if some day, too far out to imagine, but not so far out I can avoid ever thinking about, one of my kids, in a moment of pain and suffering and confusion and hopelessness and depression killed himself. It’s the worst thought I can imagine. It’s vomit inducing to say. It’s my biggest fear and I’ve never acknowledged it until now.

Because I got that letter. The one that I had no idea would ripple into the future not in weeks or months or even years, but in generations. In families that weren’t even imagined yet. In the darkest corners of my imagination and in the lists I’d construct mindlessly for hopes that somehow the preparation would perhaps soften a blow I couldn’t possibly see coming.

I’m not capable of having an objective view of my life. By definition it’s impossible, but at times my subjective experience of it can lead to insights that perhaps obvious to others are still profound for me. So saying that it would appear my grandfather killing himself may have effected me and my point of view may sound obvious to you, it wasn’t to me. It wasn’t at all.

I felt bad after reading the letter. I felt hurt even. There was no ‘good’ way to tell me and at a time when communication at a distance was not like it is today I understand why I’d learn about it this way. But it felt like I was left a few days behind. I came back to everyone being in the third or fourth day. I came back to a process that I was left out of. It wasn’t like it was anyone’s fault. I’m really only putting it together right here. At the time I just felt out of synch with the world. I didn’t know what else to do then keep doing what I did. I probably went and shot hoops. It’s literally how I spent an easy 50% of my waking hours at that time.

What I didn’t do was cry. I felt terrible about that. I wanted to so badly, but it just didn’t happen at that time. I didn’t really shed a tear. Maybe I would have had I been there for the group horror, but I wasn’t and I was a twelve year old boy. Emotions are hard always, but they’re a more confounding sort of hard, a less tethered kind at that age. It was 30 years later, when a young man I only knew through others and only enough to say hello to killed himself that I finally wrote about him, and my grandfather and read it to my mother that I really bawled about it.

The tears were not just sad tears. The tears I’ve shed for this event are sorrow filled to be sure, but they are rage informed as well. Confusion and fear are in tears for a suicide as well. There’s empathy and judgement and all of it just comes out. It doesn’t get processed or fixed with a good cry. That’s the thing about suicide. It doesn’t, as far as I can tell it can’t get resolved.

I write because I write. I have only this single keyhole through which to see the world and from where I’m looking the threat of finding out the worst news imaginable is possible because I’ve found it out before. And I’ve watched others find out what it all means, over time, others more directly related and I can’t ever lose the fear of it. So I write. I write about as many of the feelings and failings I can muster the courage or the perspective to find in my story. I write to the worries I have that can keep me up, about what if they don’t know how much I love them. What if they are disconnected at a time when I can’t reach them and they think an awful thought and I can’t hug them and hold them and assure them they are loved. What if they are afraid of me or think I will judge them harshly and I add weight to the burdens I can’t know that they will someday carry. And I write.

I write because it brings me joy and relief and understanding and it can fill me with pride and drive me to dig deeper. In doing so I’ve come to understand that I don’t always see all the forces compelling creation. I don’t always understand why the topics come to the surface. When they do I can ignore them or indulge and some I’ve indulged should likely have been ignored and many I’ve ignored should probably have been explored. The process of creating over time though is starting to reveal reason’s to me and one of them is I don’t want to ever catch myself ever thinking I’ve ever failed to do everything in my power to keep these two names, these two magical and wonderful human beings as far away as possible from my tragic lists. Lists I can’t sop making.

Finding My Center

What is passing for ‘what I know’ today is that it’s pretty easy for small, practically imperceptible doubts that reside in the far reaches of my memory and dark corners of my conscience, upon finding one another, to amplify their small voices to such a degree that they can drown out all that confidence and self assuredness I’ve been gathering over the years. Doubt gathers in the dark and waits. It plans and attacks under the cover of propulsion, hidden by my aloof optimism and neverending schedule. But it can pounce.

There’s nothing in particular to note. Nothing I’ll signify here, and what my specific doubts are misses the point. Which for me is that more than anything I’m so grateful to my kids because they center me like nothing else. Like I guess my parents did when I was 5. In a way that is so massive and consequential in my life it’s a very good thing that they don’t have any clue that they carry this weight for me. They carry in them the ability for me to continue, never folding and never quitting. They are inspiration and reward. They are the end all and be all for me in a way no other people on earth could ever be. When they go to therapy to deal with the issues I’ll surely give them it will be something I hope they will be  able to take into consideration, how direly important they were and are and will always be to me. 

Really, I get a ton wrong. I yell like an angry, over the line drill seargent and immediately return to calm and measured. It’s effective and terrifying and surely I’m doing it wrong. Like the thousand other things I’m doing wrong. But they forgive and love me and let me stay here, in the middle of their universe. They give me everything by simply orbiting me. I won’t always be the sun and when it fades it will be my watching them venture off orbit that will center and sooth me. I don’t think I deserve it frankly, but it will happen that way and I’m forever greateful for it. 

I don’t know that I’ll be writing about them so much going forward. They are after all growing up  and the last thing I’d want is to hurt them in some inadvertent way. I’m not saying it won’t happen, but I’m likely to continue to shift the focus more to me and the forever becoming part of fatherhood that keeps me growing and moving forward. Still, I’ll be watching them and loving them every stop of the way. Worry is just starting to creep in. That’s a lie. Anyone who’s read my work knows I’m a worrier. But the fears of things that are unknown are becoming more serious. Why shouldn’t they be more serious. After all, the older they get the more tools they have. I will continue to write about my love for them. 

Amongst my greatest fears, and this likely says far more about me than it could possibly say about them, is that they will grow up and wonder if I loved them. If I thought of each one of them as individuals and was enamored and enthralled with them in the way that I should be. So I’ll tell them, in awkward and uncomfortable moments. I’ll relish the squirming of their tightly wound teen psyche’s recoiling from the embarrassing dad laying the ‘I love you’s’ on thick and frequently. At drop offs and pick ups and in front of friends. I’ll put it here so they’ll know I thought it before they ever knew it was a thing they’d wonder. But I’ll refrain from sharing them too much with the world. It is called Developing Dad, after all. It’s clearly a place where I should be sharing too much of me with the world. 

I wonder sometimes whether the dark visions that are making their way into my brain are a result of my aging. Am I’m simply going down the path I’ve so long been highlighting in my mind of old men who have become blind to the light, unable to train their focus away from the subtle dying of the light in order to see the abundance of good so clearly evident in the world. Am i simply a stereotype, a grumpy old man who sees a world growing ever more harsh and unforgiving. A world that doesn’t properly value love, empathy, responsibility or decency. A world devolving. It’s a world that’s easy to see these days, be it because I’m aging and falling in the trap I’ve so long focused on avoiding or because of a world that isn’t living up to the promises I thought it had made. Regardless, when I see my kids, when I’m with them or thinking of them I’m instantly back. Purpose returns. Love returns. Undeniable, unavoidable empathy and faith. It’s all in them. And to think, they think I’m the one they need. They couldn’t have it more wrong. 

Feeling the Love

Basketball player. That was the first dream.
More than anything I wanted to be a professional basketball player. I wanted it so badly that I played every day. All day. Not always easy for a kid from a top 5 snowiest city. Fine, I lived 20 mins from that city. Still, I spent a good many a days shoveling the playground courts across the street. braving wind and rain. Lighting up the court while running down car batteries.
I didn’t become a pro. That’s for sure. People who’ve met me as an adult might find it hard to imagine. I’m not really carrying a basketball players body these days.
I got pretty good. Real good. Good enough to make teams with guys who would make the pros. Good enough to run on the highest level court at any open gym. Not great, but pretty good.
By the time I got close enough to greats to know I wasn’t going to make it I got disappointed. Inertia kept me going. Inertia and the energy of youth and a deep love of the game. But I burned myself out. I was the kid that dribbled a mile or two to school and back, shot until my mom would make me come in as the sound of the ball on the concrete surely was keeping up the neighbors. I didn’t go pro, not even close, but I got a ton out of trying. I travelled, accomplished a good deal and even got in to college.
I was a failing student. Not a bad one, a failing one. You had to get 3 F’s to fail off the team in high school, so I’d carried two and came close with the rest. I’ve never liked school. But I’m very thankful I went to college.
I liked night classes. They tended to be populated by grown people, moms and dads going back to school or people looking to change careers, looking for a new direction. For me the appeal was that instead of 3 one hour classes a week there was 1 three hour class per week. I used to joke, ‘I can skip the whole week at once. Just think how much more efficient that is.’
In one of those classes I heard from the Executive Director of the local ARC who described what it was like to try to make a difference by helping others. It sounded great. I liked the idea of toiling for good. I liked the idea of waging a war on behalf of those that had been unfairly treated. I was in Human Services to that point because it was an easy course of study. That night would change that. I didn’t become a better student, but at least I was in the right place.
A senior girl who I knew in passing described an experience working at a summer camp. This camp was for adults, many of whom were ‘graduates’ of the Willowbrook state school. If you don’t know what that is (I didn’t) look it up.
Anyway, she described her experience, working morning to night in cabins and in pools and in music and arts and crafts classes, with adults with disabilities. Physical and developmental. Well, it sounded awesome.Truth be told, she struck me as the type of person that couldn’t do something so selfless. I was wrong, obviously. Both that she couldn’t and that it was selfless. Not at all selfless. It may be the place I’ve given the most of myself, but it’s also where Ive taken the most.
Over the eight years I worked there, starting a career in the field, I learned a thing or two about perseverance. Working with individuals who struggle day to day, but thrive through grit, determination and practiced indifference to the naysaying of others, I learned that it starts with trying. And trying starts with saying what you want.
As silly as it was to me to even think it, I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write and get paid for it. I wanted to be a writer.
Turns out its not as easy as saying you want to. Unfortunately, you have to actually try. You have to try and fail a lot. Becoming a writer has made me learn that if a writer tells you, no, you don’t want to read this stuff I wrote, you should believe them. That’s how mine was for a long time. Now you STILL may not want to read my work, but at least it’s passable.
There’s truth to people who say all you need to do to be a writer is write. It’s true. But you can pass that hurdle and still not ‘feel’ like a writer. Until you feel like a writer you’ll never describe yourself as one.
I felt like a writer after I shared my work on a fateful winter morning on Medium and shared it with my facebook friends. I literally hit share and sprinted away from my computer and out for lunch. When I returned there were 20 or so amazing notes of encouragement. So many people who read it and liked it enough to tell me. It was unbelievable.
The next amazing feeling was being paid. I sold a piece to Mamalode. It was the sweetest and most impactful $20 I will ever earn. Someone not related to me, someone who didn’t even know me, bought my words. Breaking a big market, a Scary Mommy was amazing and a few bucks more. Being selected as a spotlight blogger for a dad blogger conference, well, I had no idea how big it was until I was there. I honestly didn’t know. It was great.
This past week it’s come full circle. I’ve written a book and I feel like a writer. Not in the way I imagined I would, I’m not retiring from the day job any time soon. I self published. It was not some bidding war. In fact, if you totaled the dollars I’ve earned and the dollars I’ve spent in pursuing my dream of being a writer you’d find a fairly decent sized number under the ‘break even’ line.
Something different started happening this past week. All these people I grew up with, in one place or another, at home or at camp or somewhere those places took me, they started buying my book and posting pictures of themselves with the book or of the book posed and lighted or in their hands. And they are saying the loveliest things. They are helping me, showing off my book and helping me sell it to people who don’t know me. Not sure anyone who doesn’t know me has bought one yet and I don’t care. I’d love if they did, but it’s not the point.
Book.SelfiesThese book shots and paperback selfies, they are amazingly touching. I can’t begin to describe to you how much they all mean to me. In a very real sense they are a literal dream come true. They are kindness and generosity and love I can feel. I’m moved beyond words and grateful to no end.
I never feel like thank you is enough. I start vomiting exclamation points. I start thanking so earnestly it might sound insincere, it might even read that way to me, but it couldn’t be more honest. I’m so very thankful.
If you are on my friend list it may seem silly that 10 or 12 people are doing this, it may start to seem silly, laughable or even annoying. I don’t care. I will love these pictures every day for the rest of my life. They are the product of so many kind and charitable souls celebrating a friend who is trying. To my eyes these pictures will ALWAYS be beautiful.
Thank you.

I Don’t Have the Words

I don’t know that I will ever be able to fully articulate how I love my kids. Were it a quantifiable thing I’d give you a number. As it is I don’t think any sophisticated adult has ever improved on the simple claim made by all of us lucky enough to have been loved as a child who have spread our arms wide and said, ‘I love you this much!’

img_4923Charlie is the sweetest boy and he will stop us to make sure we are listening, in the middle of getting ready for bed or when we are cooking or whenever, to tell us, ‘I love you. You’re the best daddy.’ or, ‘Mommy, I love you more than anything ever!’

‘Oh, Charlie.’ I gasp, ‘I love you so much, you are the most wonderful boy.’

I wish words were more evolved. I wish our minds, our full creativity could describe what flows through you as a parent. All of it is extreme. The frustrations, the joys the exhaustion‘s and elation‘s. The simple act of falling for your child, for me an act that happened in an instant, opens a vein you didn’t know you had. It pours from you in every way you can imagine.

I didn’t appreciate the love I was given as a child, not fully at least, until I discovered it from the other side. Until I looked intently at my own kid and marveled and recoiled and felt the bond between us so deeply that it seemed I could reach out and hold it.

img_5026Teddy is my little man and I can’t get over his curiosity. He’s trying all the time that his brother is around to compete, a thing that looks different in a younger brother than an older one. His focus primarily is on his big brother but his quiet moments are the ones that steal my heart. He can smile when your head shares a pillow with his and he wants to tell you about all the things he is thinking. About his ideas and plans, about how much he loves mommy and Charlie and me. He builds big and little bridges to you and everyone one at a time. It’s magic.

On the other side of this newfound entity of love for my kids is an equally newfound fear. One that could only exist in relation to my fondness for these boys. I’m terribly afraid of random tragedy now. While they have opened me up, have cracked the shell around my heart, they have also made me a vigilant hawk. See, I’m now and forevermore aware that there is something infinitely more tragic that can happen than there ever was prior to now.

The first week it paralyzed us to a degree. We had no idea that there was something so awful as the fears of a parent before they hit us. People can’t wait to tell you about the lack of sleep and the magic of babies. They don’t tell you that the most tragic of ends now comes to reside in your resting imagination.

I never so feared my own death before knowing that it would effect my own kids. It never occurred to me to think of it. Now if Karen so much as has a cold I’m worried, only for a moment at a time, but I worry there’s something bigger hidden in her cough. If I’m making dinner and she’s picking up the kids and they are a few minutes late my brain arrives, in an instant, at a place where I can imagine all three of them, struggling in an overturned car, or thrown from the car, scared and alone in their final moments. I know. IT’S AWFUL!!

But as quick as it comes it disappears and I’m back to worrying about whether or not I should use the last of the celery as it’s Charlie’s go to and whether or not T will eat the string beans or should I not bother to make them.

I don’t know what the word would be to describe these things, these rushes between otherworldly levels of joy and dread and monotony, but there should be a word. It seems to be a universal feeling and across the board it seems unknowable until the instant you fall for that kid and unshakable from that point forward.

What Writing Does and Doesn’t Do For Me

Writing. I write to express myself. Sometimes it brings a smile of recognition to those that have known me or shared a portion of the same paths I’ve traveled. Other times in sparks interest of a sort that is more intriguing. Revealing of a self I may never have thought to share or may even have been hugely  invested in hiding. For me writing sublimates rage, actualizes vulnerability and exposes fear. It’s lessened the load considerably.

Sometimes I write merely to impress. To give myself and hopefully some others a few laughs. I like the feeling of making people laugh. I like the feeling of people thinking I’m funny even more. I like them telling me I made them laugh and that I’m funny most. I’m as easily wooed by flattery as anyone. Moreso than many, I’m sure. External validations are sweeter than the internal ones. Not as long lasting, but at least theres a button to push. Can’t always find it, but at least I know its there, waiting to be pressed.

It’s amongst my healthiest coping tools, writing. It’s creative and productive and a tool for reflection that has served me well. I fear the times when I’m uninspired and don’t write for a few weeks. I spent twenty years scrawling incoherent ramblings of rage and confusion into manic and crazy looking notebooks and journals wanting desperately to be a ‘writer’ only to learn it took others reading to make me one.

After that I learned that a facility for words merely means you meet the minimum requirements. What became apparent quickly to me was that I had to start getting naked. I had to start writing down the truths of me and not just the flattering ones. I wrote about rage and failings and experiences I buried deep. I shared my scariest moments and my more vulnerable ones. I have not fully cleaned out the closet as yet, but I’ve made space so when I look in I can make some sense of what’s left in there. I can see it all. I don’t just crumble under the sheer mass of emotional detritus. It’s been a very healing and healthy exercise. One I’m proud of.

If you are one of the few that has read a good deal of my work you’re aware of this. To one degree or another you’ve seen the praise seeking showoff, the vulnerable human and the emotional rager. I’ve kind of put it all out there. What’s not so present is the view you might have of me if you were actually looking at me with your own eyes. Every day.

Writing. It’s the best tool I’ve had to cope. With the pressure of being a dad and a husband. The pressure of working in a field where we are caring for people and their loved ones. Having what feels like a lot of responsibility on me a lot of the time due to both those things. Not to mention the inherrent guilt I seem to have been born with. I can’t remember a time when it wasn’t there. It’s the best tool. But it’s not the only tool. Just the best.

The others I won’t get into. I won’t lay them at your feet and wait for some unearned praise, though that needy part desperately wants to. He wants to share all he does from midnight to three, wants to watch the little numbers crawl up. He wants your manipulated respect and even the tender feelings you have and share for a person being truthful about the lesser parts. But they would only validate me and make me more prone to continuing the other things. The ones I won’t share. Not with you or anyone. The parts I don’t want to let go of. That meet me in the middle of the night and stay primary no matter how much I squeeze in to distract me.

Writing is my best tool for coping. I just wish it was enough.