Tag: Life

  • ODDS and ENDS: Surprised I’m Here, Gotta Have Goals, and Sports

    (Nothin’ to do, nowhere to go…)

    I’m forty-seven years old. Not ashamed of my age, and other than a slight pot belly, I think I look rather good for my age. But for the life of me, when I was a kid, like nine years old, I never imagined that I would be this old. Well, sometimes I thought I’d be really old, like eighty, walking with a cane, shuffling around, being all grandpa like. No, when I was a kid, I thought I’d be in my twenties, and then, nothing. Thirty seemed like it was so far away, let alone forty. That some how, it couldn’t be possible that I would live that long. Not that I had some death wish, or believed I was doomed. No, it was more a matter of time. It’s time, the time it would take to become old seemed insurmountable. There just was no way that I could become that old… When I think about me at nine year old, I think he would be surprised that I am still here. And so bald…

    But the thing that makes getting older tolerable, is having a goal. Something to work towards, or look forward to. My Grandma Groff used to say that all the time when she would come and visit. That and it helps to have some spending money. But the goal thing, having something to accomplish, that has made a big difference if the last year for me. Not that it’s completely gone, but I don’t have that feeling of flounder much any more. That I’m just passing through my life, instead of being active in it.

    Growing up, we were a sports family, and then there was me; the un-athletic kid. I mean I tried. I tried my hand at baseball and basketball up through junior high. I really did love playing baseball, but I wasn’t athletically gifted; Batting ninth and right field were my lot. I took tennis lessons in high school, as my dad believed that we should do something physical, and not be a total loaf. I was pretty good at tennis, but I didn’t have the killer instinct for me to actually be competitive. After high school, I stopped playing any sort of sport. And then I had a daughter, who now is very into soccer. Which is cool, because I really like watching it. In my kid’s mind, watching soccer must mean that I know how to play soccer, right? I had written a week or so ago about helping the kid get ready for the soccer club try out. I enjoyed that, mainly because I was spending time with my daughter, but it was good being out and active. I also see in her mind’s eye that she is starting to think I am an athletic type of person. I enjoy this admiration I am receiving from her, but I know that in a year of two, it’s going to dawn on her how awkward and uncoordinated I really am.

  • ODDS and ENDS: She Called Me Old, Clothes Matter, and a Draw

    (Way down around Vicksburg…)

    I live in Harlem, and I love my neighborhood. I especially love my block. I have been here nearly twenty years, and we are all friendly and pleasant to each other. So, this morning, as I was crossing a busy intersection near my apartment, a person drove their car right through the crosswalk while me and a bunch of other people were crossing. Like I said, we are a friendly pleasant group of people around here, that is until someone does something stupid, like try to run us over. So, as this idiot was driving away, we all yelled at him, maybe gave some hand gestures, I don’t know, there were a lot of people. One of the people, an elderly woman who was moving slow, but was quick to disgust with that driver, turned to me and said, “Can you believe that person. Driving like that. No respect for us old people, like you and me.” And I said, “I know, what an asshole, and did you say I was old, because I’m just in my mid-forties.”

    I am going to say this about Kamala Harris, and her address to the DNC last night; She had the right clothes on. This is not some sexist statement about clothing and women, and being an object. No, this has everything to do with dressing for the job. She wants to be President, and she looked like The President. Out of everything that happened last night, and I do think she gave a great speech which set the correct tone for the final push of her campaign, I am aware that clothing is the last thought on anyone’s mind. But as she finished her address, she looked like the boss out there. She exuded that she could lead, and was ready. Whomever picked out that suit; good call.

    Tottenham drew its first match on Monday. So, they’re still undefeated going into week two.

  • Road Trip Thoughts, Part Two (Unedited)

    When I woke up Saturday morning, the first thing I did was text the wife to see how she was doing. She was happy to report that the medication had started to take effect, and she was feeling much better. Maybe she could have made the trip, but out of caution, I knew we had made the right call to have her stay home.

    I cleaned up and went down to the lobby for my complementary free breakfast. To my surprise, at 8am, the lobby was packed, and not to be rude, packed with retirees. There must have been some gathering happening that weekend because a good number of the men all had the same t-shirt on, though there weren’t any words identifying what organization they belonged to.

    Seeing these older people, I wondered what type of retired guy I will be like. Having witnessed my grandfather and father’s retirements, what I observed is that they weren’t very social. They had hobbies and read all the time, but neither of them belonged to some “group” that did things. They were solitary men, and as I thought about it, that seemed correct for me as well. But maybe I would travel. Go from one budget hotel to another; seeing America in a very comfortable and affordable way. Staying right off the highway, and not venturing into town.

    I checked out, and fueled up the car. I sat in the parking lot and called the wife. She confirmed that she was feeling better, and we were both excited about having the kid back. We didn’t talk for too long; the wife still needed to rest, and I was excited to pick up the kid.

    I was only an hour and a half from the camp, and the drive was a peaceful, leisurely one that took me up into the Appalachian Mountains. I was anxious to see my daughter, yet there was this feeling that kept creeping over me – a feeling that I wasn’t living up to some standard that I had in my head of the type of father I need to be. It was failure. I felt like I have been failing as a dad, not giving my daughter what she needs to be a strong woman in this world. I have no idea where this thought was coming from, why at that moment of driving to pick her up that I felt that I wasn’t doing my job as a dad.

    Too much time alone with my thoughts can be dangerous. Honestly, I couldn’t remember when the last time I had almost two days alone to myself. Without someone to talk to, I descended into my thoughts, and I’m not very kind to myself. I have been working on that; being kinder to myself. Telling myself that these negative thoughts aren’t very helpful. I will be kinder to myself, and not so critical. Not that I do that, but I have been thinking about making this change.

    The camp is off a little single lane road. There was a check point where I had to show my ID, verifying that I was the kid’s father. But I was fifteen minutes early, so they had me pull into a small parking lot to wait my turn. Now, this was the worst part – so close to getting the kid. I was ready for her to be dirty, and smell bad because it was an outdoor camp, and she was free to be dirty and smelly, and have the best time as possible. I was sure her hair would be wild and tangled, and she would be taller, and tan, and happier and more confident than she’s been in a long time. I was getting excited about how great of a time she had had.

    Then we were given the all clear, and it was time for us parents to get our kids. What that really meant was that we all got our cars to line up and slowly drive into camp. And the excitement kept building in me.

    And this was another moment in my life where I was taken aback by my emotions. I thought I knew what I would feel, but what I felt was stronger and more sweeping than I knew I had in me. I was going to burst – bust in tears, laughter, scream – something was going to give way. I was barely holding on, only slightly in control of my emotions. The last time I felt like this was when I found out about my mother’s cancer diagnosis – and I was angry, and depressed, forlorn, and hopeless – and at any whim, I was overcome and I wasn’t able to control myself. And I just felt, and it came pouring out of me, just a river (a flood) of emotions and feeling – a raw live wire. At least this time, sitting in my car, waiting my turn to get my daughter, it was joy happiness and love that were bursting to come out.

    See, you’re not supposed to get out of your car when you get your kid from this camp. Pick up there is like an assembly line, which makes sense. They greet you at the first stop, then you get your kids trunk at the next stop, and the final stop is that you kid jumps into your car, and then you are on your way. Hence why you stay in your car.

    When I got to the “get you kid” stop, I hopped out of my car, and was quickly yelled at by the councilors to get back in. Oops. The kid jumped into the car and asked, “Where’s the dog?” I didn’t get a “Hi, Dad” or nothing. She didn’t even ask for her mother. So, the dog was the big winner. Anyway, I enplaned to the kid that mom was sick, and I left the dog with her. The kid said I could have still brought the dog.

    I drove out of camp, but first I pulled back into the waiting parking lot. I got out of the car, and told the kid to do the same, because I was hugging my daughter, damn it! I was going to hug the stinky, wild haired, mosquito bitten, summer tanned kid that I love more than love itself. I just wanted to hug her. “I missed you,” I said to her, with a catch in my throat.

    “I love you, dad” She said back. And then added, “Are we on a father/daughter adventure?”

    “Yes, we are.” My heart exploded a little, for I was in this moment. Keenly aware that this was a memory, an experience, I was creating; one that I would think back on, hold on to, remind myself of when life gets hard. A new core memory for me.

  • Short Story Review: “Beyond Imagining” by Lore Segal

    (The short story “Beyond Imagining” by Lore Segal appeared in the June 10th, 2024 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Illustration by Bénédicte Muller

    A few years before my mother passed away, we got into a conversation about getting older. She was around 70 years old at this time, and happily enjoying her life in retirement, as well as being the matriarch of our family, but she especially enjoyed being a grandmother. “Is it all what you hoped it would be?” I asked her, to which she responded, “When I got married (at 19) I never thought I would live past forty. This is all new to me.” My mother could be dry, but at the time, I wasn’t sure what to make of her answer. Since her passing, and my own aging, I have come to understand that you can’t get excited for something you aren’t able to imagine.

    Lore Segal’s “Beyond Imagining” posed this thought early in the first section, when the character Bridget, speaking about death states, “I think that the reason I think I won’t mind being dead is that I can’t imagine it, and I don’t think we know how to believe what we aren’t able to imagine.” This idea, this through line, plays role in the four sections of this story, which follow a circle of elderly women friends in New York, as they handle, deal, and accept their current lives.

    I know that the above description is, maybe, an unfair simplification of this piece. The story exudes a wonderful melancholy as it lets us experience the world of these women. But it also has a very delicate touch, showing the importance and power of their friendships, how these relationships at this point in their lives sustains them, and gives them strength to deal with issues and discoveries they did not anticipate. Though this piece is not very long, the characters intertwin in each other’s sections, and I found this structure added a depth of authenticity to the friendships.

    When I finished reading this story, I wanted to hug these ladies. I wanted to hold their hand, like a doting son would, and listen to them talk. But the emotional power of this story is that these are the conversations these friends have when it is only them around. These aren’t salacious or confessionary conversations, but conversations friends have when the sharing of experience is the intimacy. It’s the conversation between friends that can make what one can’t imagine, into something that can be believed.

  • We Come from Farmers

    Up until the 1920’s, both sides of my family – mother and father – were made up of farmers. Especially on my mother’s side; they had been farmers in North America since about 1660 up in Canada. My dad’s side had pretty much been substance farmers since Rome tried to cross the Rhine, but on the whole, substance farmers from Northern Illinois. Point being; farming is what my family did until they started working in factories, and then all became middle class.

    So, for a century now, people in my family have been removed from working the land. And honestly, it shows, as there really isn’t anybody in my family who can grow anything. Our luck at growing plants, gardens, or shrubberies is quite awful. We can’t make anything green grow, unless we pay someone to help us.

    Several times in the City, the wife and I have tried our hand at growing something in a flowerbox or planter on our fire escape. And sadly, nothing has lived. We did get some seeds from a lemon as part of a class project for the kid, and we managed to grow into a small lemon tree. But the lack of green thumb kicked in, and the lemon tree died last fall.

    And did I mention that we are also very lazy people…

    See, we left the lemon tree pot on the fire escape all Fall, Winter, and this Spring. We meant to get rid of it, but it functioned as a sort of plant cemetery; reminding us of our loss, and warning us if we ever got ambitious enough again.

    And then something started growing out of that pot. First we thought that the lemon tree had sprung back to life. Not sure if that is even a thing, but we thought it for a while. Then the sprouting plant began to take on the form of a recognizable weed. Not weed, but a weed – Prickly Lettuce. The thing is about a foot and a half tall, and we haven’t touched it. We are just letting it do its thing.

    I am aware that it is a weed, and I am also aware that if I touch this plant, it will be the beginning of its end. But we have something growing in a pot that is meant to grow things… so… we’re going to let this thing go, and see what happens. This will be our Summer Growing Project.