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Archives for July 2010
The Blogger I Want To Be
(originally published here)
The Blogger I Want To Be. I like the sound of that, kind of reminds me of the old standby essay that teachers made us write: What I did on my Summer Vacation.
I like it because I love summer. It is my favorite time of years. I love going to the beach and camping trips. I love leaving town and doing a little globe trotting. Summer reminds me of hot dogs and barbecues, summer loves (ok, all you Danny Zuko and Sandy wannabees you can stop humming ‘Summer Nights.’) and just endless possibilities.
Endless possibilities, that is what the beginning of every summer felt like to me. Who knew how many cool adventures lay ahead of me. I never did, but I always looked forward to them.
The Blogger I Want To Be knows how to tell a good yarn. He can take those endless Summer nights and compose a tale that is too compelling to skim. He can come up with tremendous insight into the human psyche and what our roles are in the world.
The Blogger I Want To Be can write about politics and history. He is erudite, refined and witty and he does it all without coming off as being stuffy. People seek him out because it feels good to be near and to share in his community. He is not arrogant nor pretentious although his detractors wish that he were.
The Blogger I Want To Be is not just a myth or even a mister. The Blogger I Want To Be is a goal that I set for myself. I don’t know if I will ever be that guy. In part because I am very much human and subject to all of the failings and frailties of humanity.
But without The Blogger I Want To Be as a goal I am not sure if this blog would worth visiting. Goals are important. They help to keep us motivated so that we always try to do our best. Why work if you are going to give a subpar performance. If you are going to do it you might as well do it well.
I’d write more but I hear the roar of the ocean in the background and I desperately need to feel some sand between my toes. I think that I am going to go commune with the sea for a while. I’ll catch up with you all later.
Your Perception of Me Is Not My Reality
“I am here to remove your illusions of grandeur. You have false hopes and unrealistic expectations. My job is to bring you back to reality.” Those were the words of one of my teachers in high school. It is not an exact quote but it is close enough- “illusions of grandeur” was one of his favorite terms.
It was tenth grade and we were taking a course that was supposed to help prepare us for the future. I don’t remember the exact name of it, but it involved taking the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). It was a test that supposedly could help identify what you were good at so that you could focus your attention upon whatever that was: truck driver, scientist, doctor, misfit etc.
Twenty-six years later I don’t remember what my results were. Can’t tell you whether they were promising or disappointing. I suppose that means that they were neither stellar nor disappointing. I have to admit that I am somewhat surprised that there is nothing more to this memory- I am famous for remembering all sorts of useless trivia.
Perhaps it can be attributed to ego. I was irritated by Dr. What’shisface and his assertion that most of us had unrealistic expectations. I thought that it was shameful for a teacher to try and throw cold water on our dreams.
All these years later I understand it differently. Many of our dreams were not founded in reality and some were certainly outside of our grasp, but not all. I am not a professional athlete- that didn’t happen. And that girl Stacey that I spent hours staring at never did go out with me, but then again I never asked her.
But that is neither here nor there.
I suppose that some people would disagree with me. They’d see the actions of this instructor as a kindess. Why push kids into trying for something that they can never get. I don’t. I disagree. I am a dreamer. I spend a lot of hours living in a different world. I wander through worlds where I have abilities that I don’t have now. In some I can fly and in others I am that singer/songwriter I have always dreamt of being.
But I also spend a lot of time in touch with reality. Hours and hours are spent in tune with what is happening here and now. And mixed in with or through it all is time that is devoted to trying to make the dreams I have today into the realities of my tomorrow.
That teacher wasn’t the only one to say things that I disagreed with. His comment wasn’t directed at anyone person but all of us. Frankly I was more irritated by the English teacher who refused to write a recommendation for AP English. She told me that my writing wasn’t strong enough to merit being in the class. I thought that it was a personal attack and told her that she was wrong.
And she was.
If you ask my children they will tell you that I speak with them about perception. We talk about impressions and how they impact how others treat us. They know that I am relentless in teaching them to make decisions about others based upon actions. It is the only way to truly know who a person is.
But the contradiction of life is that sometimes you never get the chance to show others who you are because their perception prevents that experience from taking place.
It is not nice, it is not fair and it is not reasonable- but it is reality. And through the years it is going to be a recurring topic in some manner or another.
The one thing that I can tell the kids that has always worked for me is the reminder that “Your Perception of Me Is Not My Reality.” You can have your ideas, your thoughts and your beliefs about who you think I am. But those thoughts, beliefs and ideas don’t have to limit or define who I am.
The Long And Winding Road Part Two
Here is part 2 of this story.
When we arrived at the high school we were all sent into the gym along with the other campers, counselors, staff and families. It was a tense situation and there were a lot of tears, cries and whispers.
I remember trying to process what was happening. Back at camp we had all waited on the baseball field and watched as a series of buses pulled in and were loaded up with people.
The youngest campers were only nine and they were among the first to be sent out. We made a point of waving and smiling at them so that they would feel better as we felt an obligation to be good role models.
Bus after bus was filled and then there no more buses, yet we remained. We were told to stand up and we began the first of what would be many marches that summer. We headed up the road out of camp and were loaded into US Forestry trucks. As we left camp I looked out the back window of the truck and watched the flames roll down the hill and wondered what would happen to camp and if my trip to Israel was over before it started as my passport and clothing were all left there.
I can’t quite remember any more if I slept at all that night, but I do remember that early in the morning they got all of us together, the entire machane and told us that we going to daven shacharit.
Initially I was angry and a bit dumbfounded by this as it seemed to be particularly cruel. Why would we be asked to do this. Were they stupid. It just seemed ridiculous to me.
It was during the Shemoneh Esreh that I suddenly realized that I wasn’t just saying the words, that I was trying to participate again. The realization caught me off guard and like any good teenager I immediately ceased participating and tried to pretend that nothing had happened.
There are a lot of other stories about the fire and the things that happened during that time, but they are not relevant to this story, perhaps I’ll share them at a different time. What I can tell you now is that later that day we were able to go back to camp to get our stuff and later that evening we left the high school and spent the night in a hotel by LAX.
The next morning our parents hugged us goodbye at the airport and wished us a safe journey. Some hours later we landed in New York and switched planes, tired, but exhilirated.
As I walked to the very back of that TWA jet I remember being in awe as it was my first time on a 747, not to mention the first time I had been on a plane in 15.5 years. I can remember wondering if maybe, just maybe I was wrong about a few things in my life.
But the introspective thought was pushed aside as I realized that there were literally hundreds of other teens from the other camps on this flight. I was far too excited to do more than gawk at some of the girls and conspire with the boys to impress them with tales of our amazing escape from the fire.
It was a long flight from New York to Tel Aviv and I remember so many other things besides trying to meet girls. One of the primary memories is of realizing that I was a part of a huge community, maybe not as large as some others, but so much larger than I had ever realized.
It felt like every few hours there was a buzz among the passengers as the men tried to gather a minyan. I especially remember noticing that it wasn’t a problem, there wasn’t any lack of volunteers.
It helped to build upon the sense of community that I had been feeling, but in a different way. I grew up being involved in Jewish life, but whenever it was that I stopped believing in G-d I had also lost some of my faith in the community.
That is, I knew that we all shared something in common, but it really didn’t have any meaning to me. Now, the meaning was returning to me. Now I was starting to feel as if I was a part of something special again. On that plane ride I really began to feel like I was coming home again.
My Best Writing
Don’t ask me to provide you with examples of my best writing because I can’t do it. It is not unlike asking me to tell you which one of my children is my favorite. I love them equally, differently and fiercely. The contradiction in that last sentence is intentional. Or maybe it is not.
Can you love equally, differently and fiercely. If you are a person who considers themselves to be logical, rational and methodical that last statement will drive you crazy. You can’t quality, quantify or dignify it with the sort of black and white answer that you might like.
There are no mathematical formulas to rely upon. Science cannot provide you a formula or rationale that you can hang your hat on. You’d be better off asking Bootsie, Cocoa, Smokey and Lizzie to explain it and even then I don’t think that you’d be able follow the answer. Or would it be callous to say that a dog can’t understand a pussy.
That reminds me that I still need to write a song for someone. I once promised to do some sort of Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow and John Denver mashup. Boy meets girl named Annie to sing a song about Country Roads during a weekend in New England. Ah, somewhere down the road I might see about such thing. Just ask Tommy and he’ll tell you that they don’t makem like that anymore.
Sometimes these posts are used to empty the shelves inside that dusty, musty and rusty cobwebbed filled place I call my mind. Yes, I have a mind and I am not afraid to use it. Of course that suggests that sometimes I do choose to do so, use it that is. But more often than not I prefer to let it lie where it is.
I don’t really know what last line refers to, I had intended for it to be different but it didn’t work out. Damn, how often I have faced that. How many freaking times have I tried something and found out that it didn’t work. Of course more times than not I have found that I can “repurpose” whatever it was and use it in a different way.
That is a lesson I pass along to the kids. When it doesn’t work and perseverance can’t make it work for you than try looking at things a different way. Stand on your head, do a somersault, eat a ketchup sandwich, just be different. Or should I qualify it and say that you should just find a different place to stare at the problem. Change the angle of attack, adjust your perspective and you find that solutions present themselves. Sometimes it is a solution to a different problem than the one you were working on.
Maybe I shouldn’t call this my best writing. Maybe I should call this my favorite writing. It is seven minutes of just typing out thoughts and ideas. Got a bunch that need to be turned into a proper post. Stay tuned ‘cuz you are going to want to read those.
She Is My Girl
“She’s a butterfly, pretty as the crimson sky
Nothing’s ever gonna bring her down
And everywhere she goes
Everybody knows she’s so glad to be alive
She’s a butterfly
Like the purest light in a darkened world
So much hope inside such a lovely girl
You should see her fly, it’s almost magical
It makes you wanna cry, she’s so beautiful”
She’s A Butterfly– Martina McBride
The dark haired beauty turns six tomorrow and like so many other parents I find myself asking the ridiculous question of how did it happen. How could she possibly be six. It hardly seems possible that my baby has already finished a year of school. But it is possible and it has happened.
She who was born just days after her grandfather’s triple bypass came into the world and immediately stole my heart. I was in the room when she was born and watched her emerge. Studied her features trying to tell if I would have another son or the first daughter.
Watched as a nurse cleaned her up and introduced myself. In a quiet voice I told her that she was my girl and promised to do all in my power to raise and take care of her. Stared in amazement as she grabbed my finger, just moments out of the womb, laughing to myself as I thought “she is already trying to take control.”
But I was right, she was and I was ok with it. Still am. This girl with the dark eyes, freckles and a smile that lights up a room proved that love at first sight exists.
The girl who I waltz around the room with has vision and ideas of what she wants. She knows her mind and works hard to get whatever it is she wants. She is clearly a mix of her mother and I but has more than a few of my personality traits.
She is kind, caring and relentless. Her older brother is her biggest hero which sometimes annoys him to no end for whatever he does is what she wants to do. He hasn’t quite realized what a compliment this is or how well she understands him. He may be her biggest hero but that doesn’t stop her from pressing his buttons. No one knows how to piss him off faster than she does.
This little girl of mine, she loves babies, music and laughter and is often in search of one or all three. This little girl of mine is well aware of how I feel about her and is not afraid to try to manipulate me. If she wants something she is not above crawling onto my lap to hug and kiss me. She’ll offer to rub my shoulders and then midway through ask for whatever it is she wants.
I haven’t told her yet that I know exactly what she is doing. Can’t give away all of my secrets- she is much smarter than I am and it won’t be long before I really have to work hard to stay ahead of her. This little girl of mine scrunches her nose at me when I say no and asks if I am really sure. She does her best to suggest that maybe it would be smart to reconsider.
It makes me smile and it makes me laugh to see her try. I appreciate her effort and her ingenuity but what kind of father would I be if I gave her everything. There are benefits to having to work for what you have. One day when she is older I am going to tell her what life was really like when she was born.
I’ll share how hard and how frightening that time was. I’ll talk about how many challenges there were and how very thankful I was when she joined us. I’ll tell her how her presence made such a positive impact and remind her for the 1 millionth time that she is loved by her family.
Happy birthday girly, I am so very proud of you.