Reverberate

Dinner conversation.

Translation, “I don’t think about my life being finite.”

Learn to say nothing.

Is this the common denominator?

The battlefield

"The battlefield is a perfect backdrop, but the subject is the war within, the struggle for self-mastery that every human being must wage if he or she is to emerge from life victorious."

"emerge from" . . . phrasing is odd . . . and perhaps implies something, given the full context, I would very much disagree with. . . but perhaps not . . . on the surface I am there.

Pondering

"Were the fire a fire
Only when it burns
How could you light this fire?"

"If your mind is not clouded with unnecessary things,
No season is too much for you."

"Chance is a word void of sense
Nothing can exist without a cause"

"I know well enough
Cherry blossoms will
Return to dust, but I
Find it hard to leave
The trees in full bloom."

"Walk with me . . . "

And I did.

Through a cold rain.

A long silent walk,

that said more than any words could.

"Walk with me . . . ."

Freddie's reminder

Freddie reminded me...or actually he began to recite:

"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it.

Impossible is not a fact, it’s an opinion.

Impossible is not a declaration.

It’s a dare.

Impossible is potential.

Impossible is temporary.

IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING."

תשובה

I was supposed to say, "You don't have to be strong with me."

Why didn't I own that?

I continue to walk her writing. The returning to the same place each new day. As if every morning someone said, "Return to the beginning. Live all the horrors again." It's not the idea of teshuva (תשובה, returning), but something far different.

In our conversations she would say, "I need to learn to forgive and I just can't."

What does it mean to hold as a primary, "I just can't"?

I was supposed to know better, do better, be better . . . "I expect you to know better..." And when it counted most, that "I expect you to know better..." was a lesson I had not learnt. To know the unstated need and to do.

I told myself, "I can't."

...stubborn rationalizations. so absolutely right...and so so ridiculously stupid.

I was supposed to say, "I'm strong enough for both of us. Me, you and your favorite kitty are taking a one way road trip to California."

That's all she wanted.

. . . I am left with the concept of teshuva. And it's the mirror that I am seeking forgiveness from.

"Why are you this way?"

It's a strange question.

Even if you could explain who and what you are, would it answer the question?

Each experience building, forming, shaping...making us who we are.

My response is simple and a let down for most.

"I am this way because of the choices I have made."

For 99% there is the immediate rebuttal, "Yeah, but what exactly. And what about your childhood...and what about...and what about...."

Silence.

Merging

I remember visiting her a couple of years ago.

A knock on the door. A pounding eventually. A calling out. Calling out for 20 minutes. Leaving a note.

I returned the next day. Two notes on the door. Again the calling out. Again the pounding on the door. And then the fear. A sense of ... something is not right.

I broke into the house. Through a window. And the small trickles of blood as I entered.

No one downstairs. The house the same. No change. No progress.

Upstairs.

And as I approached, the voice, "Suzy?".

And my heart sank. The anger. The questions. Wondering to myself, "Will I always have to find a way in?"

I remember the position. How she was lying there. Pale, lifeless and the thought, "She is waiting to die."

And this memory merged with the summer events.

The same position. Different location. But the same. Only this time lifeless.

Boys

Vegas

Who comes back from Vegas with no stories?

This scenario either makes you suspect or boring.

And 'boring' just isn't interesting.

ESPN

Freddy found himself on ESPN in the 2010 rankings. Seeing his name there was a little different from seeing his name on Hoop Scoop or various other write-ups...in a sense a wake-up call that this is very real for a lot of people so make it real for yourself. "...projected to go D1." My hope is that he will remind himself everyday that his responsibility is look in the mirror and be real with that image before him...am I working towards my dream that everyone is telling me is a very probably reality if I work for it.

Steve is in Vegas...returns today...gadget-speak on the way. But he has this wonderful way about him after the conferences. The food, the women, the gadgets...adult Disneyland. Looking forward to hearing all the stories.

Jefferson made it back to school. Said San Diego to Tuscon was avery long drive...longer still because his few hours spent in SD turned into many hours (and based on the background noise it was probably a bar of somekind), but it sounded like it was well worth it. I'm glad he made it safely there.

Had dinner with an old friend last evening in from NY. Everyone is turning that corner; the "I am ok as I am." It's good to see the peace.

$1.00

BK value meal
McDonald's value meal
Taco Bell value meal

Cost of a call from Seattle to San Francisco.

Payphones like a great number of other things that have been deferred due to their taxing nature offer a great deal of value...Sustenance for the mind. The conversation four phones down, "...yeah, I went to the jail and they told me he had a no visitors list. I don't know. I came all the way from Alaska...guess we'll sleep here and try again tomorrow....probation officer doesn't understand either--he called me. We're gonna talk tomorrow."

Dinner conversation in San Fran, "...after NYU...summer house in Puget Sound...7 poisonous spiders--never going there, and the snakes...the plane was so nice, he didn't want to get off...amazing, you can now walk around the cabin and it's ok...5 million in that portfolio...yes the Caymans...." And the waiter..."opulence"...his word on the wine, very tall and uhm, trying to be mellow but just not his way. A while back I visited friends in Cinci...John had a caniption because the waiter was far too casual--wanting to be a part of the conversation, "waiters should just take your order, fill your glass, intuit your needs and be invisible"...reeks of...my father always instructed, "Genuinely ask about their life and family and you will absolutely get the best service you have ever had." And he was right, and we had extraordinary service multiple times a week.

Simple, easy, drop the pretensions. Whether a buck or $100 appreciate the value...just be...and engage in conversation that lends laughter and peace.

Provocation

"First of all you have to say there is provocation, and the guilty one is the one who does the provoking. The response is to always punish the reaction, but if I react, something has happened... There is provocation, demanding a crushing response."

"humanitas: not humanitarianism, but rather the higher, uniquely "human" faculties of the mind and character..."

"Neurons that fire together wire together." (and some times cause mass explosions?)

"...'Disciple Generation'...There is a tyranny over the hearts and minds of this generation...It is time for our own secular Great Awakening...."

"Pride and self-regard colored judgment, and no one truly saw what he was looking at, because no one dared look closely. . . . But what of the foxes that desired blindly and wildly, and so were folled? Should not they too learn a moral from such a story?"

Smiling

I woke up to the alarm light flashing...about an hour beyond what I originally planned.

My first thought was of you dancing--I can't remember to what song, but that you and denise looked wonderful out there.

Mr. Squiggily Wiggily -- it was wonderful to watch you so light, so in the moment -- a celebration of one's own.

xo,
z

SeaTac

Last trip...ice on the wings...delayed two hours.

This trip..two hour delay in Oakland...an additional 1.5hrs waiting for my bag. Unbelievable site...hundreds of people waiting for their bags...bags lined up the walls, between the carousels...bags everywhere. It's a fallacy that the black bags look alike...they don't, it's subtle but I think we know the scars our bags have.

"Seattle is the worst around this time of year."
"Fly United."
"Alaska...I can't even go there."

hehe...it's life in all it's pleasantries...the lesson...as always...is...patience.

"Howard Roark laughed..."

My son Jefferson is downstairs reading...he rarely reads.

Yet, one of my best memories of Jefferson before we became a family was his sitting on the stairs outside reading a book on Babe Ruth when he was 9. Steve and I looked at Jefferson reading and smiled. Jefferson looked up, his hand holding his chin and smiled back. {Side note about the Babe Ruth book: he would write a book report a year and up through his freshman year of high school, the book report was always on the same Babe Ruth book. As parents this flustered us...now it's a 'classic' Jefferson story.}

"Howard Roark laughed...."

Steve came running through the door, "Jefferson is downstairs reading. Guess what he is reading?" Huge grin on his face.

My first guess was the first published work by Barak Obama. Amin was asking to borrow it during xmas dinner while we sort of roamed through the book shelves...mostly in front the book case with African American related books of which he pulled one volume after another off the shelf settling on a Shelby Steele as Barak was elsewhere...it turned up a number of days later only to be lingering from the commons to the kitchen to the stairs back to the kitchen.

Barak seemed a logical and good choice for Jefferson...another person who has learnt to balance two worlds--where is home--who am I--I am neither this nor that...but both. Jefferson would enjoy Barak's voice. Agree with some of it, perhaps all of it or maybe just a sentence here or there that speaks to his own experience of growing up in white America but still seen with all of the sterotypes associated with African Americans. Maybe Jefferson will read this as well...but not tonight.

Steve said, "No, go wilder than Barak" (Barak is not a wild but logical choice--'wild' is applicable to Jefferson in the act of reading.) And I said, "A Rand book." Steve bright eyed--so much hope, "The Fountainhead."

We just sort of stared at one another. I said, "Someone at school has gotten to him." Steve said, "I don't know." And we both smiled because it doesn't matter.

We have a lot of Ayn Rand...a lot. Numerous copies of the same book to hand to those who seem as if the words would sink in or want a different perspective or just enjoy a good read. Jefferson and Freddie have made fun of us for years, "Who has a library in their house? And why does our library have like enough copies of books where our entire neighborhood could check out the book and we'd still have a copy?" Atlas Shrugged is in this class and a number of other Rand books.

Whatever the reason he chose The Fountainhead, this particular book--there are few coincidences with Jefferson, we're glad he has reached out his arm to remove it from the shelf. Hopefully he finds his way to the end of it and takes up Atlas Shrugged next. If not...in time it will come.

"Howard Roark laughed...."