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Life and the High Jump

This is me waiting – watching – anticipating.

I am waiting for my son.
I am watching him prepare.
I am anticipating his jump.

The anguished expression is born from knowing he can make the jump – and knowing he might just as easily miss it – so really, it’s an expression born of not knowing – Not knowing in that brief span of time – as he begins his measured approach – increases his speed towards the bar – right up to that instant when he explodes off the ground – whether he is going to succeed or fail.

For the high jump, the task at hand is literally directly in front of you – you cannot rely on teammates to pick up the slack if you are having an off day – it is just you and that bar.

For the parent that is waiting, watching, and anticipating – the time feels especially compressed and pressurized. If there were a lump of coal in my stomach, by the time it takes my son to complete a single jump, I would have a well-formed diamond in my upper intestine.

In the grand scheme of things – when viewed against a world where kids my son’s age are blowing themselves up, or fighting for their country, or struggling to just get through a day – these moments border on absolute meaninglessness – but for those few seconds leading up to his jump – there is nothing more important in my world than my son getting over that bar. Nothing else matters – all activity around me gets blurred out and is pushed to the periphery. I exalt in his victories and suffer in his losses.

For my son’s first and final year of indoor track – these moments of anguished anticipation were almost always followed by elation – but there were a handful of times – including yesterday’s state meet – where the anguished anticipation was followed by an almost overwhelming disappointment and sadness – and you Jacob Reilly, handled every victory with humility and every defeat with grace – I could not be prouder.

You still have challenges in your high school jumping career – regionals and nationals just around the corner – and then your final season of outdoor track and field – and maybe even a collegiate career. And though you will surely learn a lot more about technique, conditioning, and training, it seems to me that you’ve already learned the most important lesson of sport.

Dad

Dear Mr. President

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Dear President Obama:

Over the last several weeks I’ve tried to remain above the political fray with regard to the crisis in Syria.

I could care less about the back-and-forth commentary from pundits regarding the red line comment, or whether or not the decision to go to congress was a good move or a bad move politically.

I am writing as a father of two boys ages 15 and 17, as a proud citizen of the United States, and a staunch supporter of you and your administration.

Why your supporters are hesitant to agree with you that America must act

Let’s face it, after the debacle of the Iraq war, Americans are skeptics when it comes to intelligence reports as evidence for why America must act. The terribly misguided decision to go into Iraq, the fact that the citizens of this country were persuaded with bogus and fabricated evidence to invade that country, and to see that country today – still being torn apart by sectarian violence – created a huge trust deficit and a feeling that regardless of our intentions in Syria, the outcome will not be in our best interest.

When even the most visceral of evidence fails to sway opinion, there is an underlying problem

Yesterday CNN posted horrific video accounts of the chemical attack on Syrian citizens. As I watched people (many of them children) writhing, twitching, frothing from the mouth, the CNN commentator said over and over again that although experts have said the video clearly shows a chemical attack occurred, there is nothing in the video itself that indicates the Assad regime perpetrated the attack.

Before supporting US intervention in a Syrian Civil war, most Americans would need incontrovertible evidence as to which side launched the chemical attack. According to news reports, such evidence is being presented behind closed doors to members of Congress – but the case against the regime (with regard to the chemical attack) has not been made to the citizens of this country. Perhaps you Mr. President will make the case when you address the country on Tuesday night.

Another issue that makes even your most ardent supporters hesitate to back a strike against Syria is the nature of the players involved in this conflict. Ideally such distinctions should not matter when children are being gassed in their sleep – but when we also see numerous video accounts of rebel forces brutally executing regime supporters and soldiers, we cannot help but question the humanity (or rather the lack of it) on both sides of this fight. I understand that America wants to protect the innocent and most vulnerable, but can we do so while not at the same time helping the more extremist elements of the rebel forces?

Regardless of how much the regime and rebel forces hate one another – I cannot help but think they both hate America more. And I have to think that when Assad falls (as all despots do) the forces that rise up in his place will not be friends or allies of this country (regardless of what we decide to do in response to the chemical attacks).

It’s not only about the purpose as you state it, but also how others will interpret our actions

You and Secretary Kerry have been vocal that a strike against the regime is not about taking sides in the ongoing conflict – That any action we take is for the express purpose of punishing the regime and degrading their capability to launch another chemical attack.

You stress that American soldier’s will not set foot on Syrian soil. The argument – that this strike does not constitute a war in the traditional sense – may work on some Americans, but I doubt this distinction makes a difference to Syria and their allies. I suspect that when missiles are raining down on Syria, they will clearly see this as an act of war and I assume they will act accordingly. Are we prepared to deal with this? Are we prepared to show restraint when Syria, or Iran launch counterattacks? Can you promise that America will not get drawn into a deeper conflict when these counterattacks occur? How can anyone make such a promise when we do not know what Syria’s reaction will be?

Right now I would not support a strike against Syria. And although initially I thought the resolution would be passed by congress, I no longer think this is the case. If the resolution does not pass, I hope you do not take it upon yourself to launch these attacks.

Also, I am not convinced that having all of this play out through congressional hearings and debates is a sign of weakness – quite the opposite; I think it shows the strength of our democratic system of government.

If we have incontrovertible evidence that Assad was responsible for the attack, let’s build the case against him, present the evidence to the world court and charge him with war crimes. I think this approach, though restrained in comparison to a cruise missile attack, demonstrates a different kind of strength that would garner international support.

We are a war-weary nation, and let’s face it, the nations of the world are weary of us. I truly believe our standing in the world would rise if we hold off on attacking Syria while perusing aggressively the legal case against Assad.

While pursuing the legal case against Assad, the eyes of the world would be on this despot – and if he dares to use chemical weapons during this time, I believe the international community would not be so hesitant to punish him.

Dogs and Grief

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We’re a dog family.

I had dogs growing up as a kid. My wife and I got our first dog soon after buying our first house. His name was Wayne, but we changed it to Kane because who names their dog WAYNE?

Your first dog is the dog by which all others are measured, and Kane set the bar high. We adopted him from the Potter League for Animals in Middletown, RI, where Meg and I worked before we started dating.

Kane was about a year old when we adopted him as a full-grown shepherd mix. I remember approaching him in his cage – he crouched slightly and turned his head quickly towards my hand as I tried to clip the leash to his collar. He intended to inform, not injure – a way of stating we’re not acquainted well enough for you to approach so casually. His eyes said, “I’ve seen others leave on a leash and never come back.”

Kane’s reaction would have been a deal-breaker for some people – an excuse to walk away or visit the friendly Beagle-mix two cages down. But I was not willing to give up so easily. So, I backed up slowly and sat down at the opposite corner of the cage. Kane and I regarded one another like potential enemies who might one day become best friends – a future to be determined in the next few minutes.

I maintained an un-threatening posture, relaxed, head down, making eye contact only occasionally. Kane seemed skeptical but open to negotiation. Finally, after several minutes of détente, I patted my hand gently on the cold concrete floor, gesturing for Kane to make the journey across the cell. He wagged his tail slowly, still unsure what to make of me. Then, Kane stood, lowered his head somewhat submissively, and approached slow and steady.

When he sat, he regarded me in a friendly manner, dissipated skepticism replaced with a cautious trust.

This time when I went to put the leash on, Kane lowered his head and gently leaned in – and that was it. The deal was sealed. I knew that instant that Kane would be coming home with me.

Of all the dogs we have had, Kane was the most loyal. We would let him out the front door, and he would sit or lie down on the steps – if he ever wanted to run off, he never let on. So for about 2 years, it was just Meg, Me, and Kane. We took him to Colt state park for long walks and many high school baseball fields to play fetch – he bonded quickly and totally with us.

Even though he was our first, Kane knew (instinctively, it seemed) that when baby number one arrived, he would be relegated to a lower rung on the ladder. He accepted his demotion gracefully – if such a thing is possible for a dog.

He was a constant companion to Jake and Liam growing up. When our boys ventured across the street, Kane would always tag along, trotting slowly behind them, setting up watch on a corner of the neighbor’s lot – he would never intrude on the kickball or whiffle ball or basketball or football or Pokémon card trading activities. Instead, he would stay close and observe – with an air of guardianship and responsibility.

At around 12, Kane began suffering from congestive heart failure. I remember driving him to Ocean State Veterinary Clinic several times that year, where a vet would work a needle into Kane’s chest to draw fluid from his lungs. It was miraculous how well he responded – before falling ill again. The vet informed us the procedure would eventually stop working because scar tissue forms sand prevents them from being able to draw fluid.

Futility and the inevitable snuggled up to one another. We knew we were running out of time with Kane. We knew we would have to put him down.

When that time came, I was 42, old enough to have experienced some loss in life – loved ones, a parent, relatives, friends, and colleagues.

The longer you stick around, the better acquainted you get with death. Each time death pays a visit to someone you know, you gain perspective, begrudgingly accepting that death is part of the equation.

I’ve never felt more bereft with grief than when we had to put Kane down. A profound grief that wrecked me – left me in a heap for weeks.

We’ve had to part with two other dogs since Kane – and the grief was no less – not one scintilla. The begrudging acceptance that death is part of the equation didn’t soften the blow.

It was still like being hit in the heart with a hammer.

So why does the family dog’s death hurt so much? What about our relationships with our dogs make their death so poignantly and consistently painful?

I think it has to do with the dynamics – the one-sidedness of the relationship. This is not to say that we don’t love our dogs – we do – but they love us more (or at least that’s what registers in our brains), and they love us “regardless” – regardless of our faults, foibles, and frailties.

Over that 10 to 12-year span, we experience (over and over and over again) unconditional love and non-judgmental friendship, which (let’s face it) is so unlike the relationships we have with the people in our lives (even the ones we love the most – especially the ones we love the most).

Our experiences (the good, bad, and indifferent) are processed and stored as memories. Our brain never sleeps, so all this processing and storing is happening 24 7. This means that every time we’re greeted by our dog, tail wagging, eyes smiling, regardless of how shitty our day was or whether we ignored him — all those “I’m so happy to see you” moments are stored in memory.

And when it comes time to put our dogs down, the packaging containing every one of those experiences unravels, the memories spill out, and we’re forced to face the loss of the one relationship in our lives that seemed pure to us.

How could this not wreck you?

Son pierced, dad OK, mom a little concerned

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The first request was for a small pair of sterling silver studs. After my wife and I discussed it, she took him to Providence Place mall – he picked out a pair that had a brushed metal look. They pierced the lobe and put them in.

Done.

Honestly, they were so small they were barely noticeable.

Three weeks later, on a Saturday afternoon came the second request. It went something like this:

“Dad, can I get a new pair of earrings?”

“What’s wrong with the ones that you have?

“Nothing. I just want another pair.”

OK, I guess. Nothing too drastic, OK?

“Thanks, Dad. Can I borrow a few bucks?”

And then off he went – this time on his own – to a small smoke shop on Broadway.

About an hour later, he walked through the door, sporting a pair of silver hoops and a pleased look on his face. Still understated but definitely more noticeable than the silver studs.

At the time of this writing, there have been no requests for additional piercings, but I can say with a high degree of confidence that he wants more. I know this because he spoke so spiritedly about the ear-wear and one design specifically. I listened as Jake described an elaborate gauge earring that burrowed through the soft tissue of the lobe, hugged the back of the ear, shiny, scaly, and serpentine-like before punching its way through the cartilage of the upper ear. “It was pretty cool” – “Ah-ha,” I said, one eye on him, the other over his shoulder where I saw his mom, lips pursed, head shaking sharp and short left to right.

The earring thing is a relatively new development with our 17-year-old. Until recently, the only time the subject of earrings came up was in hushed tones around the kitchen table about what to get mom for mother’s day or her birthday or for Christmas. I remember the proud smiles he and his younger brother would share when mom opened her lovely froggy or dragonfly or starfish earrings.

Those were simpler times when earrings were just jewelry. Now I’m forced to think about earrings through the dark and edgy prism of teenage self-discovery.

I’m not too worried about this latest development, to be perfectly truthful. I see it as a relatively common and benign step towards self-expression – It’s all good, in my view.

My wife, on the other hand, is a little more hesitant. She worries about the potential snowball effect – might ear piercing be a gateway to nipple rings and a torso of tattoos? Might we wake up one morning to a Dennis Rodman situation across our kitchen table? Although I doubt this will happen, we have an obligation to our son to put some healthy boundaries in place – mainly because teenagers can’t see life beyond the front door.

I don’t want my son setting off metal detectors at the airport or having to explain to an angry and hard-of-hearing beachcomber why his MineLab Excalibur II keeps beeping whenever he approaches Jake’s blanket.

So, a few guidelines:

A face should always have fewer safety pins than a cloth diaper. Better yet, no safety pins are allowed.
For every piercing under consideration, your child must ask himself whether or not the same piercing would look OK on mom or dad. If the answer is no, he should not proceed – Jake, you won’t be a teenager forever.
Always consider how your face will look when you remove the piercings – if you envision a crater-filled landscape created courtesy of a madman with a hole puncher and staple gun – then think about scaling back a bit.

I suppose that’s it for now, Jake.

Please keep these guidelines in mind next time you venture out. By the way, I like the hoops – they suit you.

🙂

Triple Jumps and parenting bumps

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I took a nice long walk last night.

It was cool outside, a noticeable contrast from earlier in the day, when the weather was summer-like, hot and humid; one of those days when you actually feel the weight of the heat pressing down on you.

I spent most of my day at Brown Stadium in Providence, trying (unsuccessfully) to escape the sun while watching my oldest boy compete in the RI track and field state championships.

He had high hopes going into yesterday’s event, but ended up not performing to his own high standards.

He jumped 40 feet in the triple jump, just one half inch short of making the finals. He leaned back just as he landed on his final attempt, instinctively putting his hand down, which is where the scorer is required to mark the jump.

After the meet I could see the disappointment in his eyes – I could feel it in my heart; a weighty and palpable sorrow.

I told him how proud I was of him and that he had a lot of good things to build on for next year. And though no truer words have ever been spoken, the actual act of speaking them felt somewhat forced, as if the words themselves had been shoved out of my mouth by a reflex for parental decorum. And no sooner had the final syllable left my lips did I find myself wondering what effect, if any, a father’s words have on his 17 year old son – no matter how pure and heartfelt the sentiment.

At 17 my son is clearly working through his own shit. I can see it on a daily basis. And my second go-around at 17 (I will call it P17 for Parent of a 17 year old) has been almost as challenging as my first go-around (when I was actually being 17).

As a P17 there is an almost constant “contents-under pressure” need to impart wisdom – like I am itching to step up to the plate, to be the rudder, the sail and the beacon of light all at the same time.

The P17 phase of parenting is kind of like the Olympics – it’s the triple sow cow moment with all the high stakes (your child’s future) hanging in the balance. Sure it’s stressful, but you feel pretty confident that you can nail it. You feel more than ready to dispense advice that will shed the light, ease the burdens, clear the paths and lighten the load.

But here’s the rub. That 17 year old, the one you think stands to gain the most from your knowledge, experience and wisdom, that person who you love so much it hurts, seems (quite recently so) to barely be able to stomach the sight or sound of you. And if ever a moment existed where we actually feel “deflation” as a human emotion, it is when we as parents come to realize this.

Sharing a kind thought or dispensing advice to someone who does not even want to hear the sound of your voice is emotionally draining. I suspect this is why that moment after the track meet felt so forced and unnatural. My son hardly ever rebuffs me in a disrespectful manner (he is too good a kid to do this); – it’s more like he is tolerating me.

The parenting paradigm shifts at 17.

In general, with regard to experience, we rely on what has worked for us in the past to formulate strategies for the present. Like everything else, memories of our parenting successes are stored and hardwired in our brains.

We have memories of spoon-feeding advice to our 5 year old or our 10 year old child, and them gobbling it up, to generally positive results. So this is what we continue to do – we continue to advise our 17 year old as if he were still that 5 year old child (because our brain is telling us this is what worked in the past).

To assume this will yield the same positive results is to assume that your 17 year old son’s brain has not evolved – that it remains in the “accept input and act on input” mode. But this is not the case at all, because that brain in your seventeen year olds skull is no longer just accepting input and applying it. Nope, that brain is trying to work a lot of shit out on its own. In fact that 17 year old brain is busy mapping its own morality, using as input not only all that you have fed it, but an un-ending amount of experiences from a world that more often than not, appears unjust and uncaring. That brain is trying to reconcile a lot of inconsistencies. A lot of them.

Sometimes I find myself practicing what to say to my 17 year old son – rehearsing and choosing my words carefully – in hopes that this will increase the likelihood of him at least contemplating my words. It’s like all of a sudden my son’s brain has morphed into the star wars defense system and my words are missiles to be shot down. I am not sure when this parent child relationship turned into the cold war – but I remain hopeful that all the effort we as parents put in early-on also get stored into memory. And none of this will deter me from dispensing advice.

Sorry Jake, that’s how I roll. 🙂

Silly you

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Not sure what to write about today.

I haven’t yet flipped on the television to see what transpired while I slept.

I think I can pretty much count on 3 or 4 car bombings, general unrest in the Middle East and continuing coverage of the three young women kidnapped and abused over a 10 year period. That story has legs for at least another 3 or 4 weeks and has a salivating “angry-eyed” Nancy Grace chomping at the bit.

I did go through this morning’s newspaper, its pages still damp and cool from a late-night-early morning rain. But there’s nothing in there that I hadn’t already heard about the day before. It makes me realize how near-to-death print media is – and with that I imagine a newspaper in a hospital bed, over-bloated with advertisements and lacking crucial topical news nutrients; it’s editors, reporters, photographers, paper boys, print press operators and any other blue or white-collar worker associated with the lifeblood of the newspaper standing around the bed – heads bowed, hands clasped, listening to the foreboding blips of “relevance monitoring” devices, waiting for the inevitable and wondering whether they are properly trained, prepared or skilled enough to work in the world of virtual newspapers and electronic ink.

For so many people advances in technology have outpaced the speed by which they themselves are able to change. There is little doubt that the people standing around the dying newspaper saw the writing on the wall years ago, but were unable, unwilling, or just plain overwhelmed and frozen in fear at the prospect of having to change.

The world moves so damn fast.

You spend a sizeable chunk of your life learning a skill or a trade and then advances in technology combined with changes the global socioeconomic circumstances you and your skills are suddenly deemed unmarketable. Now what? Well you have to “skill-up” to be competitive in this new world. Forget the fact that you are 50 years old, set in your ways, and not too many years ago thought you had “made it” – you thought you had gotten over the hump – metaphorically speaking – but now when you look up you see this BIG ASS HILL, with marker flags waving in the wind, on them are words like Retrain, Retool, Back to school, New economy! and you are like “FUCK!!!!!!” (and more than a little bit tired) and then you say to your fatter, less motivated, less healthy, and more emotionally tired than you have ever been self “I have to go up this hill?”

Silly you.

Yes you do.

Reggie Lewis, AAU, and the Sultans of Swing

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I was driving home from Boston with my younger son today. We had spent the previous day in Roxbury MA at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center for and AAU basketball tournament. We had his iPod plugged in and jacked up. My son was almost fully reclined in the passenger seat, the window rolled up and the sun warming his face; he was teetering between wakefulness and sleep when the Sultans of Swing came on.

I was never a huge Dire Straits fan growing up – I mean, I liked them well enough, but I didn’t love them; but in my opinion that song comes as close to a perfect song as musically possible. Everything about it seems perfect to me – and I am not sure why. Whenever I hear it, I am transported back in time; and I do not mean in a general sense. I mean I am transported to a very specific memory of me driving my car, turning right from Union Street on to East Main road in Portsmouth RI, on a bright sunny day listening and marveling at how good a song that was. That was in 1979, 34 years ago – and the memory remains crystal clear for some reason. When I hear that song, I remember the warmth I felt from the sun that day; I remember greenness of the trees against the blueness of the sky as vividly as if I were experiencing them in the present.

Truth, Human Nature and the Internet

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Everyone wants to be right.

We humans yearn for validation. Bestowed our moral compass by our parents, teachers, religion, origin of birth, and ultimately our experiences, we move through life; sewing affiliations with those that share our viewpoint, accept our opinions, and smile back at us assuredly.

We live comfortably unchallenged and quite purposefully so. We get our news from either Fox or MSNBC and we surf internet sites that mirror our viewpoints. We drink from a river of information filtered specifically to our tastes and preferences. We rarely stray from our comfort zone.

Sure, liberals and conservatives cross enemy lines occasionally. Every-now-and-then we liberals turn to Fox news or listen to Rush Limbaugh or Glen Beck – but let’s be honest, we do so mainly to validate what we already believe, that Rush is an asshole and that Beck is a deranged mental case. I suspect that conservatives engage in similar excursions, switching from Fox News to give a listen to comrade Chris Mathews, while muttering under their breath what a Communist-Marxist-Pinko-Douche bag he is.

I used to think that free-flowing access to information would somehow lead to less polarization in society; that availability and factualness were cousins in a sense (pretty naive I know). In reality, unrestricted access to information has made us more polarized, more firmly ensconced in ideology, and (it seems to me) less willing to investigate even the possibility that we might be wrong – about anything.

It seems to me that people are more interested in having their feelings validated than searching for substantive truths that might lead them onto unfamiliar shores. And make no mistake, those who create and deliver the content take full advantage of this. Today when faced with information that is contrary to what we hold true, we have a penchant to disregard it, seeking shelter in pools of information that allow us to continue to believe what we believe, and deflect that uncomfortable feeling of cognitive dissonance.

In a way, truth has become a cottage industry – and we are all the worse for it.

You

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Reflective expression

Distant as a galaxy

You bend upward like a drunken sunflower

Like a broken saint

Unhinged and uninhabitable

Your to-dos laid out in front of you

Like a stone path through an open field

Of dusted daisies, fireflies

And dancing grass blankets

You drift across the floor

Like a ghost with a plan

Diligent, determined, and oblivious to the living

You go about

In and out of rooms

Where memories blend and fade

Into hutches, drapes, and hardwood floors

Loose Pile of Rubber Bands

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I am exhausted. Inside my skull there is a frazzled mix of broken synapses and buzzing noises.

I want 3 weeks of nothing. I want 3 weeks to clear my head and empty my brain – to decompress and decelerate to a normal pace, if at all possible. I want to disconnect from everything and everyone so that I can rediscover who the fuck I am – I am totally and undeniably lost. I am over connected to everything but myself.

What happens next is anyone’s guess. I need a radical shift, to jump paradigms, to poke my head through the streaming protoplasm of some parallel universe, to stick out my neck and look left, and right, and then left again and decide whether to pull the rest of myself out of the only world I have ever known and into this new place.

I need to rage against myself (screw the machine) I need to lead a coup d’état on my mind, body, and soul, to rise up and throw out the new me and retrieve the old me, to restore myself to power in a bloodless revolution. How did I get so twisted and discombobulated? It’s like someone blindfolded me, spun me around and placed me in the center of a crater on the dark side moon and said, “OK. . . READY? . . . GO!”

Inside my head, pressed up against the inside of my skull is a mess of wires, tangled and thick with no beginning or end. Basically, it’s a fucking mess in here. Like a tightly wound ball of rubber bands on steroids. I wonder what would happened if I picked at it, pulled on it just a little, would it suddenly heave, expand, and unravel all at once? What if it did? Then what?

I see myself staring inquisitively at this freshly unraveled mass of rubber bands, wondering why there was nothing at its core. What was I expecting, something pure and pulsating and glowing? But there is nothing now but a loose pile of rubber bands – Maybe the ball of rubber bands was the core? Could it be that THAT THE BALL OF RUBBER BANDS WAS THE CORE?? If I had thought this possible, I never would have curiously tugged and picked at it – I would have just walked away from it. But now I have a loose pile of rubber bands. I thought I had synapse issues before the unraveling. Now it will surely be worse – whose idea was this? NOTHING AT THE CORE? Rubber bands with no purpose, with nothing to rally around, nothing to hold them together – now what? Should I roll them up again? Should I reform this pile of rubber bands back into a ball or should I just let them lie loosely all over the place? If I choose to reconstitute this loose pile of rubber bands, will things be any different?

I am standing in the middle of a white room staring at this pile of loose rubber bands, my arms dangling uselessly by my side like clapboards, my mouth agape, my eyes wide shut, screaming at the top of my lungs and from the bottom of my heart in total silence.