cdawson

Stealing Leopards

2012-02-10T14:00:00.004-05:00

“Hey, Patricia. Do you think the Taj Mahal has a bathroom?” I asked dubiously.

I was traveling with my friend Patricia through India on our way to Nepal. We had a month off from our teaching jobs in Hodeidah, Yemen Arab Republic, and we were celebrating Ramadan by getting out of Yemen and going to a place that had two big things going for it. The first was easy and legal access to alcohol. The second was the Himalayas.
We had landed in what was then called Bombay and got on a train and headed to Agra. Along the way I bought and consumed food and drinks from street vendors, which was maybe not such a smart thing to do. Hence my sudden, dire need of a bathroom at the Taj Mahal.

I will spare you the details. The end result was a rapid loss of fifteen pounds, severe dehydration, auditory hallucinations, and a terribly weakened state of being. A doctor in Agra prescribed Limodal, which stops ALL intestinal activity for a set period of time. I took the medicine and then took the 24-hour train and bus trip to Kathmandu. We found a guest house, the medicine wore off, and I re-descended into dysentery hell.
Kathmandu was supposed to be a quick stop on our way to a trek up in the mountains, but I was in no shape to leave our room, let alone the city. I told Patricia that she should at least enjoy the mountains, so she did. While she was hiking in the Himalayas, I was slowly recuperating from a severe bout of amoebic dysentery. I got a map and found my way to the United States Embassy, where the doctor agreed to see me because I was a Peace Corps Volunteer.
While waiting for the results of a few tests I was told to feel free to hang out in the Peace Corps Library on the grounds of the Embassy complex. So I did. Its collection of books was impressive in both number and variety. And it turns out those books would be more important to me than I could have predicted.
Being a volunteer at the time, I didn’t really get a salary. The money I had saved for the trip was budgeted pretty tightly and that budget hinged on me spending most of my time in Nepal OUT of the capital and instead up in the mountains where a person could eat for pennies a day and sleep in a tent for free. Kathmandu was not an expensive city, but I was living close to the bone and I certainly had not budgeted for three weeks in a guesthouse.
After one week it became clear to me that my money was not going to last unless I took drastic measures. I went to the Peace Corps Office in town and some volunteers told me I could use their small apartment while they were away, free of charge. I moved to a diet of yogurt and fruit supplemented by an occasional grilled cheese sandwich with garlic. And still the money just got tighter. I had one week and $3.00 left. It did not look good for me.
I decided to take a long walk, see parts of Kathmandu I had not yet seen, and think about my situation. As I walked I noticed something that had been bubbling just below the surface of my awareness: Kathmandu is full of used bookstores. Travelers come to Kathmandu with books, read them, and then realize they do not want the extra weight in their backpacks as they head out on a trek at 10,000+ feet. So they sell them to used bookstores. Then, when their treks are done, they come back to the capital and they need a book or two while waiting for their planes, so they go to the used bookstores.
Each store had some version of this sign in its window:

I let the idea percolate in my brain for one hungry day and then I acted. It is not something I am proud of—(or maybe it is. Why else would I be writing about it twenty years later?) The details are not pretty. I emptied a backpack, walked to the Peace Corps library, made sure I was alone, scanned the shelves for books with multiple copies, and then started loading the backpack. I only took books if there were three or more copies—and this somehow made it okay to me. I noticed when I got to the “M” section of the non-fiction books that there were more than a dozen copies of a book called The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen. I had never read the book, but I sure was happy so many other people had.
I quickly looked around, grabbed nine copies, stuffed them in my bag, and walked straight to a used bookstore, where I got enough money to feed myself for a few more days. I held on to one of those copies of Matthiessen’s book and I read it in a park in central Kathmandu with the snow-topped peaks of the Himalayas looming in the distance over the top of a beautiful Buddhist temple. The book was incredible.

So, maybe it is an exaggeration to say that Peter Matthiessen saved my life, but he did give me food for several days when I otherwise would have gone hungry. And he came to represent for me my own ability to survive in any situation. I don’t often tell the story of stealing books in order to feed myself, but I do think about that time once in a while when I am facing a tough situation. I gained a lot of confidence in my ability to adapt to changes, to stay calm, and to do what needs to be done.

To Pee or Not To Pee?

2012-01-15T21:13:00.002-05:00

“It is absolutely inconsistent with American values, with the standards of behavior that we expect from our military personnel.” US Secraetary of State Hillary Clinton

“This act by American soldiers is simply inhuman and condemnable in the strongest possible terms.” Afghan President Hamid Karzai

“No religion in the world will allow someone to do this…” Taliban Spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi

By now you probably know what could unite Hillary Clinton, Hamid Karzai, and Qari Yousuf Ahmadi. Several US Marines urinated on some dead Taliban fighters in Helmand Province in Afghanistan. Someone on the scene filmed the actions of these soldiers. Someone then posted the video online, thus ensuring it will live forever. As evidenced by the quotations above, reaction around the world has been swift and near-unanimous condemnation of the actions of these young American soldiers.

People are shocked and horrified.

I have to be honest—I am shocked and horrified, too. But my shock and horror are of a different flavor than most. A soldier peeing on a dead enemy fighter is immature. Another soldier filming soldiers peeing on dead enemy fighters is perverse. Posting the video where anyone could see soldiers peeing on dead enemy fighters is ill-considered.

But I would argue that none of these actions is “inhuman.” In fact, it is ONLY humans who do this sort of thing. We always have and probably always will. Read the ancient Greeks. What did Achilles do when he killed Hector? He tied him up to a chariot and dragged his corpse around for all to see. Have you read or seen Black Hawk Down? What did the Iraqis do to the bodies of the contractors they caught in Fallujah back near the beginning of President Bush’s invasion of Iraq? For as long as there have been wars, there have been men (mostly) treating the bodies of the enemy in ways that are disrespectful.

In fact, it seems unfair to expect otherwise. Take a young soldier, train him to kill, immerse him in a situation that breeds hate and contempt, order him to kill, and then expect him to treat the hated enemy’s body with respect? That is asking a lot.

What amazes me about the behavior of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is that the great majority of these young men and women DO rise to the occasion and DO treat the bodies of dead enemies with respect. It is a real testament to their training and their character that incidents like this are few and far between. I am in no way excusing what those Marines did in Helmand—it was stupid and will have repercussions far beyond Afghanistan.

The shock and horror I have been feeling the past few days have been rooted in the fact that humans are still solving problems between groups the same way we did 5000 years ago. And instead of using our prodigious intellects to think our way around war, we have been making up rules for the “civilized” prosecution of our wars. Government officials, citizens, soldiers, and Taliban spokesmen are all upset that some dead fighters were peed on by some live soldiers, but no one seems upset by the fact that the live soldiers shot and killed the dead ones to begin with. Which is worse: that some living American soldiers urinated on some dead Taliban fighters, or that some Americans and some Afghanis who don’t even know each other are trying to kill each other?

As I said, I am not trying to minimize the stupidity and callousness of what those Marines did in Helmand. But I do wish Hillary Clinton, Hamid Karzai, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, John McCain, and all the others who were so shocked and horrified by the actions of those Marines would step back and take a moment to think about which is worse: Killing someone or peeing on his corpse? These Marines certainly deserve some blame, but our species’ continued reliance on warfare to “solve” problems is the real culprit here, not a 23-year old grunt.

Running With Myself

2011-11-13T18:36:00.004-05:00

Last Sunday I ran the RaceVermont Fall Half Marathon in Shelburne, Vermont. It was a beautiful morning for a long run—cold and crisp and clear. I don’t live in Shelburne. In fact, I live 275 miles away in New Haven, Connecticut. But I am trying to run a half marathon in all 50 states. Before last Sunday I had run in 8 of the 50. As I knock them off my list, I have to go slightly farther from home to find states I have not yet run in. That is why I was in Vermont on a weekend when there were closer races to be run.

This was a small race—limited to 600 people—and the course was really interesting. It followed roads and trails and it took us near the shores of Lake Champlain. There were a couple of medium hills and lots of pretty scenery. Some of the races I have run lately have been huge, with thousands of runners, so this felt intimate. We didn’t have chips to time us and there were no clocks on the route to let us know our pace.

I never wear a watch or any sort of Garmin—I have a Luddite view of running gear—so in this particular race I had no idea of my pace as I ran. I could have asked another runner, but a few miles into the race I decided I would rather run without knowing my time. I never run against the other runners, but I often run against the clock. This time I decided to simply run against myself.

At mile 6 the course started on a long downhill that ended at mile 8 and then turned around and went back up that same long downhill stretch, only at this point it was now a long UPHILL stretch. When I got to the turnaround point I felt strong. I knew I still had about five miles left, but I also knew there was a big hill staring down at me. I decided to push myself up that hill at the edge of my ability. The guy I had been running next to for a half mile said something like, “You gonna put the fast shoes on now?” I looked over my shoulder, said “Yeah, I think I will,” and chugged up the hill.

It went well and when I got to mile 10 the course left the road and turned into the woods. The organizers had decided not to put any mile markers on the stretch of course that ran through the woods; not only did I not know my pace, I also had only a rough idea of how much race was left. Again, I decided to run against myself and my own desire to turn it down a notch and catch my breath. I told my body to find its edge and keep it there—sort of like setting the cruise control on the highway.

(Me, looking pained at Mile 12.5)

It turned out that the trail stayed in the woods for two-and-a-half miles and by the time it emerged we were on the road only a half-mile from the finish line. Even here there was a point at which my mind wanted to coast a bit but my body overrode and pushed on, right at its edge. I finished in one hour, forty-two minutes, and fifty-six seconds for a pace of 7:51 per mile. It was my fastest half marathon ever.

Today I realized that in fact I wasn’t running against myself at all in Vermont. In fact, I was running WITH myself and that is what made all the difference. There was no clock, no mile markers for me to obsess over, and no goal other than to stay at my edge. And the company was good.

Braids

2011-11-12T18:32:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I worry. More than I let on, even. Am I a good enough teacher? Where will we live next year? Will we have enough to retire on when we are ready? When will my parents die? Will their decline be traumatic? Will my daughter be spared some of the more painful parts of growing up? Will my marriage last? What will I do next?

During the day, it is easy enough to simply put these worries aside. At night it is harder. There are fewer distractions and the dark seems to be where these worries like to lurk anyway.

So, a few nights ago I woke up at 3 in the morning and my fears kicked in full-force right away. They were relentless and drove me out of the bed and down into the living room—into the light. I won’t say what they were because they were what they always are—irrational, exaggerated, and destructive. But that particular night the light did not drive them away.

I tried to write them away, but that didn’t work either. The only thing that really chased them off was the rising of the sun and the start of another regular work day. I find these worries have a strange aversion to daily routine—once I boil the water to make the coffee, turn on the morning news on NPR, and get started on Isabel’s lunch, routine replaces worry and another day begins.

That particular day was a Wednesday and on Wednesday the school where I teach has a School Meeting. I take my students up to the fourth floor of our converted factory building and we sit on the carpet, along with our Meeting Buddies---the kindergarten and first grade students. All of the other students of the school are there too, as are the staff, administrators, and many parents. We sing songs, recognize birthdays, hear announcements, and share with the school community details about what we are doing in our classes. It is a tradition I love.

As the meeting began we were singing a song about a river. It is a song I have come to really like, in spite of itself. The chorus goes like this: “River, take me along in your sunshine, sing me your song, ever moving and winding and free, you rolling old river, you changing old river, let’s you and me river run down to the sea.” It embodies the worst excesses of many folk songs about rivers, and when I hear 120 kids singing it full-throatedly, it moves me.

So, on that morning of hard-to-kill worries I was sitting on the floor, surrounded by happy kids, singing a song about a river when I noticed the hair of the second-grader in front of me. It was in two tight braids that were remarkably well done. I stared at those braids and started to think about the person who sat for a long time and patiently, lovingly brushed out this girl’s hair. Whoever it was that wove those braids spent a lot of time and effort doing something for this girl that she could not do for herself. Those braids spoke of patience and unselfishness and intimacy and love. By the time the song was over and I turned away from those braids, my worries had beaten a hasty retreat and I moved into my day ready for whatever it was going to bring. Just took a simple reminder.

My Poor, Poor Dog

2011-10-05T05:22:00.005-04:00

My dog Ginger has this orange and blue ball that she LOVES to chase and retrieve. Or I should say “had.” Let me start over:

My dog Ginger HAD this orange and blue ball that she loved to chase and retrieve. Two days ago we were at Edgerton Park and I was throwing grounders and line drives designed to speed by her head. (She seems to get most into the game when I can get the ball to pass within inches of her open mouth—or maybe that is just something I do to keep the game interesting to me?) Anyway, two days ago I was using our Chuckit! Ball thrower with Ginger and our other little dog, Lotti, when disaster struck.

Another thing Ginger likes is when I throw the ball high up into the air. She often loses sight of the ball, but over time she has developed an outfielder’s instinct for where the ball should come down. She does the instantaneous calculations ballplayers do and, based on the speed of my arm, the angle of the ball thrower at point of release, the wind speed and direction and the million other factors that determine trajectory, Ginger is able to position herself very near the spot this orange and blue ball will come down and begin its bouncy trip into her mouth.

Monday afternoon we were in the upper field at Edgerton when I let rip a high, arcing throw designed to take the ball over a 70 foot white pine and down on the other side. Ginger was already on the far side of the tree and she saw me launch the ball. Lotti was halfway between me and Ginger and she also saw the throw and, being a puppy and new to ball throwers, she had a rudimentary sense of where the ball might come down. THAT it would come down she had no doubt. Neither did I and neither did Ginger.

Yet, the ball did NOT come down. I had not put quite enough muscle into the throw and the ball entered the top branches of the tree and somehow stuck there. It was simply, silently, and tragically swallowed up by the tree. The three of us must have looked pretty comical with our heads back at 50-degree angles and our mouths agape. I knew what happened right away and Lotti had no idea at all. But poor Ginger. As a five-year old with LOTS of ball experience, she knows a thing or two about gravity. She also knows about object permanence. Mostly, Ginger knows that what goes up MUST come down.

It was clear from Ginger’s reaction that her faith in the laws of physics was shaken that day. She sat staring up at that tree for a long time. Then she started walking around the field, sniffing for the ball as if maybe it HAD come down but she had just missed hearing or seeing it. Every once in a while she would stop and look up with the oddest expression on her face. When it was time to leave the park she kept looking back over her shoulder with the same quizzical expression.

She has not been the same since that afternoon. She has always been a confident dog, moving through the world with grace and ease. Now, there is a hesitancy, a seeming loss of faith in the order of the universe. Because one day, her favorite ball went up into the air and IT NEVER CAME DOWN.

It Must Be The Shoes

2011-09-26T18:22:00.002-04:00

Hard to believe that seven short days ago we were at Hampton Beach up in New Hampshire, having just run almost 200 miles in under 26 hours. It feels like a long time ago and a world away already. I have delayed writing about the experience so far, not because it was bad—in fact the opposite is true. It was once again a great experience. Reach the Beach is everything I love—short, demanding, intense and then over.

But all week I have felt like there was nothing worth saying in writing. Then it struck me today that I do indeed have something to say about my experience at Reach the Beach this year. The captain of The Rosie Ruiz Fan Club, (my wife Erica), assigned me a tougher draw than she has in any of the past years. This time I had three legs totaling just over 19 miles. Two of the legs had big hills smack in the middle. And when it was all over I had run my 19 miles in under 8 minutes per mile. While not speedy in absolute terms, this is fast for me. In fact, if you go strictly by time it is my single fastest long run ever.

The reason Erica had enough confidence to give me some hard legs was that my training had gone very well all spring and summer. I ran a half marathon in New York City in March and another in Philly in May and both went well. After Philadelphia I had some toe troubles and needed to switch over to Vibram’s five-finger barefoot running shoes. I was a bit nervous about making the switch, but I needn’t have been. I watched several people start too fast with too many miles in these shoes and I did not want to end up hurt. So, I took it very slowly and built up my miles gradually. By the end of the summer I was able to do a 14-mile run in the five-fingers without any negative repercussions.

Looking back, my toe injury was pretty serendipitous. I didn’t even know it at the time, but I think I was getting a bit bored with running. I did the same 4-mile route from my home 3 times a week. My long Sunday runs were all along the same ugly New Haven route. By changing over to new shoes and having to refocus on how each run—even each mile—was making my body feel, my running became interesting again.

So, my 19 Reach the Beach miles were all run in those same Vibram five-finger running shoes—which are, by now, needing a good wash and dry. Or maybe replacement.

I have a couple of half marathons coming up in the next two months (Shelburne, VT and Rehoboth Beach , DE) and I think running in the Vibrams will help keep my interest going a while longer. I hope so—I am trying to run a half marathon in all 50 states and these will be just states number 9 and number 10.

Anyway, the infusion of interest and enjoyment given to me by my switch to Vibram’s has got me wondering if maybe some other small change might make the rest of my life feel more exciting again. Wouldn’t that be great? Maybe a new pair of jeans and my job will be thrilling again. Or a haircut and my marriage will be like new.

Or maybe I’ll just take to wearing my Vibrams all the time—they have already proven their worth and effectiveness. Don’t mind that smell---small price to pay for making everything seem new again.

After Reaching the Beach

2011-09-19T19:53:00.004-04:00

When I got out of bed this morning and tried to walk down the stairs to the kitchen to get some coffee started, it was clear that something was dreadfully wrong with my calves. I had our embarrassingly small dog cradled in one arm and my laptop in the other and that first step nearly sent me all the way down. I hadn’t quite run a marathon the day before, but I had run 19 miles in a long distance relay called Reach the Beach. Two of the three legs I ran had some big hills and I ran in my Vibram five-finger running shoes, so my calves were feeling like someone was sticking ice picks into them with each step.

I made it to the kitchen, dog and computer intact, and started making the coffee with an enormous smile on my face. This year was my 4th Reach the Beach and every year it proves itself to be the best-organized race there is. There were 36 legs covering 192 miles from Cannon Mountain in northern New Hampshire to Hampton Beach in the southeast corner of the state. Somehow, over 400 teams with anywhere from 6 to 12 runners each cover the entire distance day and night with no major mess-ups, injuries, or meltdowns. The volunteers who staff the many transition areas are unfailingly pleasant and helpful—some are even downright joyful. I am not exaggerating when I say that Reach the Beach restores my faith in humanity each year.

The team I run with is called The Rosie Ruiz Fan Club and its membership varies year to year. This year we had 6 newcomers and 6 repeat offenders. Altogether, we covered the miles in 25 hours, 26 minutes, and 56 seconds for a pace of 7:57 per mile. More importantly, everyone felt great about the run and, in the warm glow of the post-race celebration, we all agreed it had been an amazing experience.

I just wanted to say thank you to the organizers, volunteers, and all the other runners who make this race better than Christmas for me each year.

Anger and Compassion

2011-09-13T06:00:00.000-04:00

I have always been afraid of other people’s anger. I have some theories about why this is so, but at the age of 45 I have finally come to see that the reasons for my fear are, ultimately, unimportant. Whatever their roots, my fears are proving to be a real hindrance and the real task for me is to figure out how to have a different reaction when confronted with someone else’s anger—especially if it is aimed at me.

Even more basic, I have also been afraid of my own anger. So much so, that I hardly ever let myself feel it. I have always prided myself on being in control, and anger makes me feel out of control. Once I realized this about myself I decided to play with the idea of allowing myself to get mad and see what happened.

I will spare you all the navel-gazing details, but the results of my experiment have been pretty astounding. I have found that allowing myself to wade into my anger and really feel it—to live in it for a while without trying to talk myself out of it or simply cram it down out of sight—actually leads me to a place of greater compassion. Trying to skip the whole process and get straight back to “normal” was what I did for many years and it turned out to be not-so-effective.

When I refused to even admit to myself that I was angry, I was not very likely to know what I was mad about. Often, the trigger for my anger is some word or action that is really just the final straw—the underlying cause is often not obvious. When I let myself feel the anger and live in it a bit I can now sometimes get to what is really there. Usually, it is something pretty basic, like feeling unheard, misunderstood, or undervalued.

Allowing myself to get to the root cause of why I am pissed off has had some great side-benefits. It has let me generate some self-compassion rather than judging myself harshly for even feeling anger to start with. It has also helped me take the next step and feel real compassion for whoever has triggered the anger in me. It has helped me remember that we are all out in the world doing the best we can to get by. Working through what I am feeling—simply letting myself feel it without judging it—lets me feel real compassion and real forgiveness. For myself and for other people.

And it is not the smug pseudo-compassion I felt when I believed I was better than people because I did not get angry. It feels realer and better. So, I never would have guessed it, but letting myself feel angry for a while actually leads to some pretty good results. Who’d a thunk it?

Team Rosie Rides Again

2011-08-31T06:09:00.003-04:00

September starts tomorrow. For me that can mean only one thing: Reach the Beach is just two weeks away!

Five years ago a friend and colleague of my wife sent her a link to a 200-mile relay race run through the mountains and hills of New Hampshire and ending at the Atlantic Ocean in Hampton Beach. He sent it to say, “Boy, wouldn’t THIS be crazy to do one day!” Erica being Erica, she signed up for the race that day and assembled a team, which included Matt—the friend who had sent the link to start with. I did not run that first year on the team that became known as The Rosie Ruiz Fan Club. But I was at the finish line with my daughter and saw just how much fun the runners had.

It was the sort of experience that is right up my alley: short, intense, and then over. I have some real issues with long-term commitments to slogging through something when it gets hard. But give me a finite, challenging group task that demands my all and then lets me leave with no expectation of further emotional connection or commitment, and I am all over it. So I have been a proud member of the Rosie Ruiz Fan Club the past three years and this race has become the central event of my year. It has taken the place in my mental calendar that Christmas used to hold when I was a child.

If you are curious, here are some posts about past Reach the Beaches:

2008

2009

2010

Now that I have run the race three times I have a fairly good idea of what to expect. The course changes just a little year to year and the make-up of the team varies, too. But the basics are the same: start at Cannon Mountain and run until you get to the ocean. There will be one big difference for me this year. Due to a big toe issue, I switched over to Vibram’s Barefoot Running shoes back in May. I had watched other runners make the transition too quickly, so I was methodical and careful about it. But just last weekend I did a 14-mile training run in my five-fingers and it went great. I am ready and can’t wait.

When it is over I will post a report to tell how it went.

(Warning—if you scroll down past these words there is an objectively gross picture of my big toe showing the stubby, warped nail that is growing in to replace the one that popped off back in May. You have been warned.)

Before

2011-08-27T13:18:00.003-04:00

I am an utter weather geek. I fully admit it. In fact, I was following Hurricane Irene back when she was just a no-name tropical depression. (Sure, she’s good now—but those first few days she was amazing—so raw and fresh.) Now everyone knows about her and, honestly, I don’t think she’s as good as she was back before the websites and live blogs and hourly updates. (It’s a lot like REM back in “83.)

Anyway, I had our dogs in East Rock Park yesterday morning. It was beautifully clear and warm—no evidence of a storm in sight. And yet just knowing that she was out there, gyrating in the warm Atlantic east of Georgia, changed everything about the way I saw the park. I didn’t just see majestic oaks spaced pleasingly around a large open area off of Livingston Street. Instead, everything I looked at became a “BEFORE” picture in my mind.

In fact, knowing Irene was on her destructive way changed the way I saw not just the park, but the world. Everything took its place in relation to some future event. I think humans are the only species capable of this sort of psycho-intellectual time travel. We can project ourselves both forward and back and imagine the present as past or future. Pretty amazing.

So, here I sit in our dining room, waiting for Irene, in an extended moment that is one long “before.”

Being the episodic melancholic that I am, it’s got me thinking of analogues. And of course my mind goes right away to the one big thing that is always out there for humans, somewhere out in the ocean, gathering strength, bearing down inevitably on each of us. I know a hurricane is coming and I fill bottles of water, bring the furniture inside, close all the windows, make sure we have flashlights and batteries. I prepare.

More generally, I know that I am going to die, yet I put off the preparations. I don’t make the important changes or have the essential conversations. The moment in the park yesterday reminded me that, really, all our moments are “before” moments if we choose to give them their full due.

Tea Party Hippies

2011-08-17T09:01:00.008-04:00

When I was a young child in the late 1960s and early 1970s there was a small subset of Americans who liked to dress in a way that was out of the ordinary and carry signs questioning government policies and urging others to do the same. These people were known as hippies and if there was one underlying idea behind the movement, it was Freedom. Hippies wanted to be free to ignore societal restrictions on dress and relationships. They professed a deep respect for individual rights.

Forty years later, the pendulum has now completed its swing from far left, through the center, and way out to the far right. And now that it has, you can see oddly dressed Americans carrying signs questioning government policies and urging others to do the same. These people are known as Tea Partiers and if there is one underlying idea behind their movement, it is Freedom. Tea Partiers want to be free of an over-reaching government. They profess a deep respect for individual rights.

I was having one of those pointless Facebook chat arguments with one of my brothers the other day when I finally made the connection between the hippies and the tea partiers. They have far more in common than members of either group would probably care to admit. Both will be the iconic representations of their historical moments in future history textbooks. Both represent a crystallization of a strong feeling gripping a significant subset of Americans. And both, in the end, try to raise selfishness to the level of national policy.

The hippies wanted people to be able to live as they wished, as long as their actions did no harm to anyone else. The tea partiers have the same wish. How those unfettered lives would look as led by tea partiers is no doubt very different from the looks of the unfettered lives led by hippies, but in the end both do more harm than good to society as a whole. Both advocate societally unsustainable versions of freedom.

Both groups have done the country a service by driving the national debate in a direction it probably needed to go. The hippies helped yank Americans out the of numbing conformity of the Eisenhower Era and the tea partiers are helping to pull Americans toward fiscal responsibility. Both movements have some positive effects on the country, but the tenets of neither group would make a good way to run a country.

For a society to function well it NEEDS stable structures and institutions. It needs police and an army and laws. There is a solid societal foundation provided by stable, loving families and other structures hippies questioned the need for. For a society to function well it also needs to support it weakest and poorest members. The government needs to ensure the welfare of everyone—especially those least able to ensure their own welfare. One way the government does this is through taxation. Taxes are the cost of a stable society. And a progressive tax system is the basis of an advanced society.

Thinking about the hippies and the tea partiers has helped clarify my thoughts on the American political spectrum. It has become clear to me that our politics gets played out in a fairly narrow band in the middle. We are most certainly a centrist nation. When Barack Obama is called a socialist and George Bush is seen as a fascist, it is clear that we don’t like to stray too far from the middle. These swings out to the farthest reaches of our American Pendulum’s arc make for turbulent times and good pictures. They even lead to some necessary adjustments in our laws and the ways we live; but, because of the Constitution and our underlying commitment to being a nation of laws rather than a nation of emotions, things never quite fall apart. It may feel like they have sometimes, but in reality we have been a remarkably stable democracy.

What Do You Want To Do When You Grow Up?

2011-08-15T14:17:00.003-04:00

Someone once asked Salman Rushdie about writers and just what makes them different from everyone else. His simple answer was that “writers finish their books.” So annoying. So freakin’ glib. And so true. Mostly what makes writers different is that they write.

I have always harbored the wish to be a writer. I have imagined myself publishing novels and doing book tours and being adored by a steadily-growing legion of fans who find my books smart and funny and touching and just so damn REAL.

Only one thing slowing me down: I haven’t written any books. I have had some good ideas and started some stories—even had one short story published--but when push comes to shove, I don’t write. I play Scrabble online, I check all the stories on the Huffington Post, I look up the weather, I check on our checking account, I scratch out a 1000-word blog post once in a while. But I don’t write. Not really.

I will turn 46 in a few months and it is time to write or get off the pot. I am realizing I need to change something about my approach to this whole writing thing. It is tempting to believe that this is simply a structural/organizational problem; maybe something like an office space cleared out and designed to be an excellent place for writing will make a difference. Or maybe setting my alarm and dedicating 60 minutes at the start of each day to simply writing will kick start my career. Realistically, I know that neither of these tinkerings will change a thing.

The only thing that will change anything is for me to write. Every day. Even when there is something interesting in the news. Even when there is a hurricane to track. Even when I want to watch the next episode of Friday Night Lights. Even when I am tired. Even when I don’t want to. I am going to take my lead from social psychologist Daryl Bem and his self-perception theory. Bem theorized that one way we develop our attitudes is by observing our own behavior and then concluding what attitudes must underlie them. Maybe the same is true of writing. Maybe if I sit and write every day I will observe my own behavior and conclude that, since I am writing every day, I am a writer. In the end, isn’t this the same thing Salman Rushdie said?

So, it seems there is no easy way around it. If I want to be a writer who is adored by a steadily-growing legion of fans who find my books smart and funny and touching and just so damn REAL, then I need to actually write the books. Shit.

Marriage Rules

2011-08-14T16:27:00.003-04:00

A co-worker recently got married. Before she did, she asked for some advice from some of her already-married colleagues. And although I have been married 15 years, I still didn’t feel qualified to say anything to her. To me, marriages are like children—when you really dig down into the nitty-gritty, they are all unique. What may seem to the outside world to be the perfect marriage might be a train-wreck behind closed doors. What seems like a bad pairing might be perfect for the people in it. Marriages simply cannot be judged by anyone but the people in them.

So I couldn’t really give my co-worker much in the way of anything useful. After all, she wasn’t marrying me or my spouse, so what insight could I possibly have for her? But after some thought I did come up with one piece of advice I shared, and that was to always assume the best of your spouse. Doing this can prevent fights, lead to kindness, and build in some empathy that hard times and short tempers can erode away. Assuming the best instead of the worst can change the whole tone of an interaction.

For example, rather than assuming that I have not fixed the falling tiles of the dining room ceiling because I am lazy and don’t care how the room looks, Erica can assume that I simply don’t know what I am doing and would fix those tiles in a second if I had the faintest clue about how. And instead of assuming that Erica is a slob who doesn’t care that her suitcases have remained half-unpacked in the middle of the hallway for a week since her last conference, I should assume that her year on the road has gotten old and she just can’t even think about unpacking, because that leads to thoughts of the next trip away next week.

Doing the mental and emotional work it can take to stop and step out of our skin and into our partner’s skin can really make a huge difference in the long term. I didn’t tell my co-worker any of this. All I did was give her one sentence: Always assume the best.

To that advice I would now add a second piece: forget the past.

I teach American history to sixth graders and when they ask me why we have to know about the Articles of Confederation or the Monroe Doctrine, I tell them that knowing what has happened can help us avoid making the same mistakes earlier generations have made. At some point each year I write on the board, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

I believe there comes a point in every long-term relationship where the opposite holds true: “those who remember the past are doomed to replay it.”

After 15 years of marriage Erica and I have built up huge databases of wrongs perpetrated by the other—both petty and major. How could it be otherwise? So, when something happens to activate this database it is far too easy to come up with example after example of how and why the other is at fault. Rather than being about an isolated incident, a thoughtless word or action, or even a major screw-up, the ensuing discussion can easily slide into long-held grievances and accusations and universal statements like “Oh yeah? Well you never…”

Lately, I am finding it far more productive and helpful to our marriage to treat each case in its particulars and to refrain from those all-encompassing statements neither one of us can take back once they are said.

So, if my co-worker were to ask me now if I have any advice for newlyweds I would have three things to say:

1) assume the best until proven otherwise,

2) forget the past,

and 3) learn how to fight in the least damaging way possible.

Marriage is hard enough as it is. Life seems to conspire against long-term relationships, so why not decide to be each other’s ally? Why not decide to give each other the benefit of the doubt? Why not see the best in each other, even when the other can’t see it in himself? Why inflict unnecessary damage when the world and its vicissitudes will inflict enough damage of its own to bring down even strong relationships?

I am thankful Erica and I are discovering these rules together, even if in the end, they don’t really apply to anybody but us. I am sure I will never tell my co-worker any of this—that is not the sort of relationship we have. And besides, she has been married two months now and has started discovering her own rules.

Karim Karim

2011-07-28T07:35:00.009-04:00

“Track 2. Let’s go. RUN!!!”

So, we ran. And we made it onto the train as the doors closed. It had been a long day in Venice and we just wanted to get back to our hotel in Treviso—16 miles away by train and bus. We had used one of the self-service kiosks and purchased our tickets just moments before, tore them out of the tray, and scrambled through the crowds at Santa Lucia Station, elbowing our way onto the train to Treviso.

Only, it turned out to be the train to Verona, instead. Thankfully, we realized we were on the wrong train just a few stops into the trip and got off as soon as we could. And found ourselves alone on a Sunday evening at the Dolo train station. There were no travelers and no employees at the locked station. Just three tired and frustrated Americans.

The immediate vicinity of the station in Dolo did not have much happening on that particular Sunday night, so Isabel and I walked off toward an open shop a block away. We were going to try to call a taxi or get whatever information we could about the next train back to where we started. On our way we passed two men standing outside their car parked on the roadside. We asked them if they spoke English, assuming they were Italian. They did not, but as we walked away I heard one say something to the other in Arabic.

I stopped in my tracks and asked them, “tatakelum Arabi?” They said yes and then called their friend, Karim, over. Using a mixture of English and Arabic, I explained to Karim that we were stuck and needed a taxi or some help finding our way back to Treviso. Karim took care of a few loose ends with his friends, made a quick phone call, and then gave us his complete focus and attention.

He spent almost an hour with us, first helping us call a taxi dispatcher to find out it would cost the ridiculous sum of 50 euros to get a cab from Dolo to Treviso, and then helping us sort through the train schedule to ascertain that a train would be coming through Dolo in an hour and it would take us back to where we needed to be.

As we settled in to wait for the train Karim started asking questions—“What is your name?” “What is your wife’s name?” “Your daughter?” “How old is your wife?” “Where are you from?” “Where do you live?” “What is your phone number?” “Where is your hotel?” He wrote his number for us and said we must call him if we needed anything. He left before the train came and took us away. But not before both Erica and I started to feel a little bit nervous—just a little bit suspicious about Karim from Morocco. He seemed maybe just a bit too helpful.

That all happened Sunday night. A day and a half later—Tuesday afternoon—we were in Padua, having taken a train from Treviso so that we could spend our last day in Italy roaming agenda-less around an interesting town. After a bit of clothes shopping we followed our feet to Bar Fuji for some sushi. It was on Via Roma, a pedestrian street with umbrella-ed tables set where the cars used to drive, and it came highly rated by our guidebook. We took a table and sat back to wait for our food.

And just then Isabel saw Karim walking by. She and Erica recognized him and called out and Karim came over to join us at our table. We were all a bit surprised to see Karim again. And again, a bit suspicious. We talked as we waited for our food. Karim told us he is a plasterer who has worked all over the Arab world and Italy. He has a wife and two daughters of his own in Morocco. His family lives near Marrakesh and he wrote their phone number and told us we could stay with them any time we were in Morocco. He told us about his cat falling asleep on his wife and purring like an engine.

I am not sure exactly what he said or when he said it, but at some point in our 30-minute conversation with Karim at lunch that day it became clear to both me and Erica that our suspicions about his motives were entirely off-base.

We managed to talk for a while in a mix of English, Italian, and Arabic and became convinced that Karim was simply a generous man who had been trying to help some travelers in need far from home. Once we parted ways, Erica and I had a chance to talk about our reactions to Karim and our earlier lack of trust. Was it because we were lost and far from home and feeling vulnerable? Was it because he was so insistent? Was it because he was Moroccan?

Mostly, I think it was because we just didn’t have enough information. If an Italian man or a British man or an American man had been just as helpful and insistent, I would have been just as suspicious of his motives. Sad to say, but true. Most people simply don’t go so far out of their way to help strangers without any gain for themselves. We assumed Karim was like most people we have met. But he wasn’t.

I don’t feel like I owe Karim an apology—that’s not what this is about. Actually, it was not clear to me at all why I was even writing about this encounter until just now. I am writing and posting this small story about Karim to share a bit of good news. There are people in the world who are generous and kind and helpful. It can be hard to know who they are and I am very happy Erica and I had a second chance with Karim so we could see him for who he is.

When I lived in Yemen I learned an Arabic phrase, “Allah karim.” It means “God is generous” and it was used to comment on the quirky nature of the Universe and its penchant for sometimes providing just what a person needs. It is fitting that the man who reminded me that not all people are driven purely by self-interest is named Karim.

Jet Lag Medicine

2011-07-22T01:43:00.001-04:00

I have been away from home a lot this month. I was in Montana for 10 days and I am spending a week in Italy right now. Being gone so long, especially with so many time zones in between for a person to get used to, can be hard. Personally, I try to get on the local clock immediately. When I land I commit to not going to sleep until it is dark wherever I am. I make myself not think about what time it is in Connecticut, because that only reminds my body of what time it thinks it is.

I also try to spend as much time outside as I can to let my eyes, brain, and body receive all the clues the sun and its angle give as to time of day.

Even with these measures, jet lag can still hit hard, leaving me tired, grouchy, and “off” a bit.

This is where I find running comes in handy. I have been a runner since 2002, when Erica and I decided we were going to run a marathon. We made the decision in the winter and by October we each actually made it 26.2 miles through the Wineglass Marathon in Corning, NY. Running that marathon was, for me, like going from zero to 120 MPH in 6 seconds flat. (Okay, maybe not 120. After all, it did take me four and a half hours to finish.)

I went from not running at all to running way, way too much. In fact, I almost killed my running habit in its infancy. I took a month off after that race and then started back again, slowly. A few years later I had to take another long break because of some herniated disks in my lower back. Now I am much smarter about my running. Mostly because I listen to my body much better than I used to.

I have settled nicely into a rhythm where I run three times a week—generally Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Each of these runs is four miles. Then I run again on Sunday, anywhere from 6 to 14 miles. These long Sunday runs are the anchor for my week and they keep me feeling grounded and regular. They also keep me within striking distance of being able to run a half marathon whenever I find a good one that fits my goal of running one in every state. So far, I have run half marathons in 8 states and I am signed up for 2 more this year—Vermont and Delaware.

When I travel, often all of this regularity gets thrown out the window. But I make sure my running shoes get thrown in suitcase and as soon as I can, I put them on and try to keep to my pattern.

In Venice the past few days it was hard. In fact, I didn’t run there. The streets are narrow and full of people and I just didn’t make it happen. Now we are 18 miles from Venice in a town called Treviso and yesterday I finally made it out for a run. As soon as I did I could feel my body saying “YES! THIS is what we needed.” There is a familiarity to the process of getting dressed for a run, heading outside, picking a direction and then starting. Moving through the world that way is as natural and comforting a thing as I can do when I am far from home and way off schedule. It settles me right away. Running is medicine and meditation and magic and I love that I can do it anywhere.

Today my daughter and I are getting on a train to go back to Venice and see a few things we didn’t get to see earlier in the week. But tomorrow—tomorrow starts with a run.

A Spoonful of Gelato

2011-07-19T12:59:00.003-04:00

When I was about ten, my parents put all of us in a station wagon and drove to Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. The drive was long, the weather was hot, and I was bored silly. To be honest, if I were to go there now I would probably find it somewhat less boring then I did then, but not much so. Which is why I have all sorts of sympathy for my daughter, Isabel, as we tromp through the narrow alleys of Venice this week.

The buildings and canals here are fascinating to me because of the stories behind them. Isabel doesn’t have a lot of time or interest to care about the stories, so the things themselves are just things. The mere fact that people would put in the time and endless effort and resources it takes to maintain their city and their lives here in the middle of a lagoon makes me want to look at what they have and learn its history.

Isabel does not really care so much.

What she DOES care about is gelato. In fact, she cares deeply about gelato. So, my strategy to help the many hours of walking around the narrow alleys of Venice in the hot sun with no real sense of where we are and how to get where we are headed go down a little less bitterly is to provide daily infusions of gelato.

We just got here two days ago, so we are all still on a Connecticut time and a little bit jet-lagged. It is late afternoon now and I think Erica has fallen asleep. Looks like it just might be time to quietly head out the door and grab today’s fix.

Montana Time Travel

2011-07-13T16:27:00.003-04:00

During a flight from Billings, Montana to Minneapolis, Minnesota today I traveled about 850 miles and about 36 years (round trip). We were in Montana this week to visit family and friends and to spend time at a cabin up the Stillwater River in South-Central Montana. The trip was great, as you can see from some of our pictures posted here.

It was clear as we left Billings at one in the afternoon and I had a window seat. We took off west—into the wind—and then made a wide arcing turn to the north and then came around 90 more degrees to begin our flight east to Minneapolis. Looking down, it didn’t take long before I identified the Yellowstone River and I-90. I absolutely LOVE looking out the window on flights—it hits the same sweet spot in me that looking through an atlas does when I am on the ground. I play a game with myself and try to identify every city and obvious natural feature we fly over.

Because it was clear today and because I have spent a lot of time in the stretch of country between Laurel and Lame Deer, Montana, I was able to pinpoint our location as we passed over Pryor Creek, the Bighorn River, Hardin, the Little Bighorn River, Crow Agency, and the Little Big Horn Battlefield, all of which were laid out below me like on an atlas with a scale of one-to-one.

The plane followed Highway 212 as it took off east from the Little Big Horn Battlefield and pretty soon we were directly over Busby, Montana and it was 1993 in my head. Eighteen years ago I spent a month living in the basketball gym of the Busby High School as the teenagers in the program I was running built a playground on some public land in the small town. Busby is the westernmost town on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation and it is a stiflingly poor place. The kids there did what they could to entertain themselves, but there was no playground for them use.

The program I worked for, Visions International, linked with Northern Cheyenne Children’s Services, the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Council, and several other local groups to secure use of a plot of land and the rights to build a playground on it. The labor was supplied by 16 teenage volunteers, who were led by me and 4 other staffers. My time in Busby came after three summer programs doing similar work in another Northern Cheyenne town, called Birney.

Today, when I looked down at Busby I could actually SEE the playground we had made all those years ago. It was still there. It looked as if the fence had been scavenged for firewood long ago, but the swing set, slide, and merry-go-round were still there.

Less than five minutes later my eyes followed a particular road south out of Lame Deer until the road intersected with the Tongue River, clearly visible from 30,000 feet. That is where Birney is. Birney is a town with no stores or shops of any kind, no post office, no gas station, and no school. There are about 20 families that live in Birney and even the other Northern Cheyenne who live on the sparsely populated reservation think of it as a backwater. We were too high for me to actually see the playground and powwow arbor we built in Birney, but I didn’t need to. By then, my mind was replaying a particular memory that still has the power to make me smile whenever I allow myself to really inhabit it.

I spent several summers in Indian Birney, sleeping either on the floor of an old doublewide trailer or in the desanctified nave of an old Catholic Church. During my second summer in Birney, the group of teens I was with helped build a traditional powwow arbor on an unused patch of land just off the main drag. As we built it, I knew that my kids were getting an experience few of their peers back East would be able to understand.

They got to go up into the pine forests on the rocky hillsides of the reservation and help choose which trees to fell for use as support posts for the double ring of the arbor. Then they helped strip the branches, dig the post holes, plant the posts, tamp the dirt, tack chicken wire overhead, and lay the pine boughs across the top for shade. It was backbreaking labor and my sixteen wealthy teenagers from the East Coast could not get enough of it. One of my favorite pictures from that summer is of a sixteen year-old girl from the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She is holding a worn and dirty work glove in her teeth, examining the bloody blisters on her hand, and smiling from ear to ear.

It rained a lot that summer, forcing us to delay and cancel many workdays. As the final day of our program approached, we began to seriously think the arbor would not be finished in time for us to participate in the first powwow held in Birney in many years. Our penultimate day on the reservation was a fifteen-hour work marathon that left us all simultaneously exhausted and exhilarated. As the last of the long lingering twilight drained from the sky to the west, we got it done. The arbor was complete.

Some of the tribal members who were working with us had spread the word that there would be a powwow in Indian Birney the next day.

Saturday morning dawned grey, cold, and wet and a feeling of depressed anti-climax settled over us all as we began to pack and get ready for the following day’s drive to the airport in Sheridan, Wyoming and the ensuing flights to points East. We all kept one eye to the sky, but the sky just kept raining on our arbor.

My friend Mike, who lived in Birney, just kept telling me and the kids not to worry. He said the sky would clear, the sun would shine, and the powwow would happen. As morning turned past twelve and into afternoon, the rain kept falling steady as a drum on the church roof. The atmosphere grew more and more disappointed inside as kids played Hearts, took pictures, and copied down each other’s phone numbers for when they got home.

At three o’clock the rain stopped falling. By three-fifteen the clouds were breaking up. And by four we were practically dancing as we set up tables, brewed coffee, and changed into our fancy clothes for the powwow. By five o’clock more than one hundred cars had arrived and there were hundreds of Cheyenne tribal members there to christen the new Birney Powwow Arbor. Elders showed up and thanked my kids in the Cheyenne language, people brought out tons of food from their trunks likes clowns from a circus car. When the buffet tables were all set, we had enough food to feed everyone twice.

My kids participated in giveaways, grass dances, and circle dances set to traditional drumming circles pounding out the heartbeat of a culture determined to survive. Everything stopped at one point and my kids were asked to line up in the center of the arbor. Each of them was then presented with a beautiful hand-beaded gift from the tribe as a way to say “thank you” for all their hard work.

So today, as we flew on east into South Dakota the sky clouded up and I came back into the present, glad as could be to have gotten a window seat.

Sounds of the Season

2011-06-14T12:32:00.006-04:00

NPR has a new feature on their All Things Considered evening news show. They have asked listeners to submit short essays on the sounds that will forever say "Summer" to them. It is called Sounds of the Season and I thought I'd take a crack at it. I couldn't decide among three aural memories that fairly scream "summer" to me. The first is the sound of blueclaw crabs steaming in a big white enamel pot on the stove. The second is the sound of crushed clamshells and gravel under the wheels of our old wood-paneled station wagon as we pulled into the driveway at my grandparents' beach house. And the third is the one I settled on--the sound of baseball cards flapping against bike spokes as I pedaled around the suburban streets of Wilmington, Delaware. Here it is:

In 1972 I turned seven years old and Richard Nixon won re-election in a landslide. More important than either of these milestones, I got my first two-wheel bike as a present from my parents. It was bright orange with a golden-speckled green banana seat and it ROCKED. I lived in suburban Wilmington, Delaware and my brothers and I had free run of the entire neighborhood on our bikes. We had aunts and uncles and cousins in all directions and no matter where we went, someone had an eye out for us.

I loved that bike. And to make it even more special I used to attach baseball cards to the front and rear forks using clothes pins. As the wheels spun, the baseball cards would click against each spoke. I think the intent was to sound like a motorcycle, but I can’t say for sure. What I can say is the faster I pedaled, the faster the clicking. My goal was to go so fast the clicking sounded like one continuous noise.

That year was momentous to me for another reason. It was the year I finally got tired of what I saw as my family’s mindless loyalty to the professional sports teams of Philadelphia. I had my dad write down the rivals of Philadelphia’s four major sports teams—the Phillies, Sixers, Flyers, and Eagles---and I immediately adopted the four teams he wrote down as my favorites. 37 years later, I still root for the NY Rangers, Boston Celtics, Washington Redskins, and Los Angeles Dodgers.

Today, baseball cards seem to have become solely something people collect as an investment. So a sound that I will forever associate with summer is one I just about never hear anymore. The soundtrack to my summer memories from those idyllic suburban Delaware summer days has the click-click-click of Wayne Twitchell on my front wheel and Denny Doyle on the back, each being slowly mutilated as I put on the miles.

Balancing the Budget

2011-05-29T14:14:00.005-04:00

When a friend of mine was in college she spent a year abroad in Plymouth, England. While there she discovered the ATMs would honor her requests for withdrawals, even if her account did not have enough money in it to cover the withdrawals. Within a few days of making such an unwarranted withdrawal, she would get an official letter from the bank saying, in effect, “Please stop asking us for money you do not have.”

Being a cash-strapped college student, my friend would honor the bank’s request---until she needed money. She would then go to the nearest ATM, ask for money she did not have, and receive exactly the amount she asked for. Again, the letter would come a few days later asking her to PLEASE STOP asking them to give her money she did not have.

This image of a bank playing the victim because they kept giving my friend money whenever she asked for it has been on my mind a lot lately.

The United States is currently in debt to the tune of over $14 trillion. Over 40% of this debt is owed to United States citizens and institutions who have bought government bonds as an investment. Another 18% is owed to the Social Security Trust Fund. China holds roughly 10% of this debt and if they demanded payment for all the bonds they hold all at once, our government and economy would come crashing down. (But then, so would their economy, since without American consumers to buy their products the Chinese economy would go belly-up.)

The reason I am reminded of my friend and those poor British bankers is that America’s debt is not something that has happened behind our backs. Each budget presented to Congress by the President has been approved by both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Many of these budgets have had huge deficits built right in. And yet Congress has approved them anyway. This has happened under Democratic and Republicans Presidents and under Democratic and Republican Congresses. The biggest single-year deficits since World War II have occurred under Barack Obama, George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan.

The reasons for any particular year’s deficit are hard to counter. There is always a compelling reason to spend more—wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a global economic crisis---yet, in the end, the procession of reasons for spending more than the government takes in have left us generations-worth of debt.

In this scenario, it is not Congress who are playing the part of those English bankers who could not say no to my friend with her cute American accent and beautiful blue eyes. No. It is us—you and me. The American taxpayers. Year after year we return more than 90% of the Congressional incumbents, in spite of our growing deficits and debt. Congress, in effect, comes to us and says, “We spent all the money and now we want you to give us the chance to do it all again.” And, oddly enough, we say “Okay—here’s the charge card—go for it.”

President Obama put together a bipartisan commission to come up with recommendations for tackling the problem of the National Debt. Their final recommendations were contentious—even among the commission members. But they also lay out a path to fiscal responsibility and a slow balancing of the books. The recommendations were contentious because they involved financial pain for lots of people—lots of VOTERS. You and me. And it seems that we are judged unwilling to vote for legislators who will ask us to sacrifice. From the rise of the Tea Party and the calls from many states to limit the collective bargaining rights of public unions, it seems as if Americans are waking up to precarious state of our national finances.

Personally, I am glad Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has put a budget plan out there. I strongly disagree with his mechanisms for getting spending under control, (tax cuts for the wealthy, in fact, deepen deficits and "voucherizing" Medicare would be a disaster), but he has laid out one vision for trying to get spending under control. I hope the Democrats will formulate a plan of their own soon. And I especially hope President Obama will talk to Americans over the next five years about how to tame out appetites for Federal spending. It has got to start with him and the Republicans showing a willingness to compromise.

OF COURSE we will need to make painful spending cuts Democrats will be opposed to. We will also need to raise some taxes and Republicans will be opposed to this. This is the very definition of a compromise: A solution with which both sides are equally unhappy. In order to get to this point of compromise we need to send a clear message to our representatives in the House and Senate. We need to tell them that we want to get spending under control. We need to do what those bankers in England couldn’t—we need to say no when asked for money we don’t have.

President Obama has shown himself willing to compromise and I have hope that members of his own party and Republicans as well will join him in making hard cuts and painful compromises to get deficits and the debt under control. Instead of a strongly worded plea for Congress and the President to stop asking for money they don’t have, we need to send a stronger kind of message. We need to vote people out of office if they are unwilling to negotiate balanced budgets in good faith and with a commitment to spreading the pain to everyone.

Barack Obama = Atticus Finch

2011-05-23T09:23:00.003-04:00

My class of sixth graders has been reading Harper Lee’s classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird this month. Today, I am showing them the movie version. I just now saw the scene where Atticus leaves work, comes home, and kills a rabid dog with one shot. It struck me forcefully in that moment how much Barack Obama is like Atticus Finch. Osama bin Laden was his rabid dog—his chance to show the hard edge that exists under all the beliefs about the importance of taking someone else’s perspective. And when he had to, he pulled the trigger.

Let the Great World Spin

2011-05-21T15:48:00.002-04:00

Words exist to communicate. They carry an idea from one brain to another. Sometimes they are not very good at their job. For example, sometimes we are left guessing just exactly what someone meant when they said, “We all know what the problem is here.”

But other times words are incredibly efficient—for example, when someone yells “Fire!” and everyone runs out of the building. In this particular instance, that one word carries a lot of information. It manages to say, “To all of you who can hear me right now, there is a fire in this structure. It is a dangerous thing. If you can hear me you should get out of this structure as quickly as you can. You should also tell others of this danger.” As a ratio of meaning to words, “Fire!” packs quite a wallop.

On the train on the way to Philadelphia today I finished reading Colum McCann’s kick-in-the-stomach collection of interconnected short stories called Let the Great World Spin. It got me thinking about words and their efficiency. Edgar Allen Poe had a theory about short stories. He believed that a short story should be about one precise feeling or effect and every word in the story should contribute to that effect. Even the most lyrical and beautiful of sentences should be cut if it got in the way of the feeling the author hoped to create in the reader’s soul.

Somehow, in his 349-page collection of eleven stories centered on the true-life walk of Philippe Petit from one of the World Trade Center towers to the other on an August morning in 1974, Colum McCann manages the literary equivalent of yelling “Fire!” Taken as a whole, the stories of the twelve characters in Let the Great World Spin manage to convey the full range of what it means to be a thinking, feeling human in the world. This book is miraculous.
It is one of the most efficient books I have ever read. The meaning-to-word ratio is huge. Some of my favorite sentences are below:

“No shame in saying that I felt a loneliness drifting through me. Funny how it was, everyone perched in their own little world, with the deep need to talk, each person with their own tale, beginning in some strange middle point, then trying so hard to tell it all, to have it all make sense, logical and final.”

“I guess this is what marriage is, or was, or could be. You drop the mask. You allow the fatigue in. You lean across and kiss the years because they’re the things that matter.”

“She likes the people with the endurance to tolerate the drudge, the ones who know that pain is a requirement, not a curse.”

“The only thing worth grieving over, she said, was that sometimes there was more beauty in this life than the world could bear.”

And sometimes more pain. And somehow Colum McCann has taken both—as well as everything in between—and put it to just the right words to say it all. And more.

“The world spins. We stumble on. It is enough.”

The Perils and Pleasures of Being High

2011-05-16T20:27:00.002-04:00

My life is lived mostly at ground level, in two dimensions. I look up sometimes, but I hardly ever consider the spaces much above my head as part of the immediate physical world I inhabit.

This weekend my world expanded to three dimensions for a little while as I was running up the highest point in New Haven. It is called East Rock and it is a 350-foot high basalt formation that, even if I am generous, cannot be said to “loom” over the city. It more-accurately “glances over the shoulder” of New Haven. There is a road that leads to the top and I like to run up this road most Sundays.

This past Sunday I was near the top of East Rock, running along the road that skirts the edges of a cliff in some places and offers a good view of the Mill River valley below. The drop from the road down to the valley floor is at least 300 feet. As I neared the edge, two turkey vultures blasted up into view mere feet ahead of me, riding an updraft from below and startling the poop out of me. It looked to me like someone had yanked an invisible string and pulled these birds up from the valley floor and high into the air in front of me.

I stopped and watched them for a while as they continued to rise without even a flap of their wings. Vultures are not known for their good looks, but these two birds were the epitome of grace as they made the tiniest of adjustments to their outermost wing feathers to affect changes in their drift and glide. Watching these birds reminded me of the third dimension I walk around in all the time. My wife skydives for fun, so she looks at the air above us differently than I do. She certainly sees it as another medium, like water, that humans locomote through. I just about never think of it that way, but watching those vultures made it clear to me that there is a third dimension—life is not just length and width. There is also depth.

As they soared out and away across the valley and toward West Rock I lost sight of them and continued my run.

And as I did it came to me that most of my relationships are also lived in those same two dimensions. There is a length and a width to them, but the depth is something I hardly ever recognize or explore. The times when this third dimension comes most reliably into focus are when I or someone close to me says something honest. Often the truth catches me by surprise and all in a moment reminds me of just how surface-y and full of shit most of my moments are by contrast.

Being honest and saying what is really there not only makes that third dimension in my relationships “pop” into focus, it also provides lift to reach some pretty amazing places if I am willing to stay in them. Choosing to love someone is a brave decision that loses much of its power if, over time, that love is lived out in two dimensions instead of three.

The Pelicans of San Diego

2011-04-24T19:56:00.003-04:00

We were in San Diego this week, staying in a 12-story condo right on the beach. Our tiny balcony looked out over the Pacific Ocean and we all spent a good amount of time standing in the open sliding-glass doorway, just looking. A steady wind came in off the ocean, carrying the sound of the surf up and into our room.

Often, long lines of pelicans flew by—some lines headed north, others south. They were in check-mark formations sometimes as long as 30 birds. In short order, they became my favorite part of the trip. A few of the birds were so close to the balcony that I could have touched them. None of the birds ever made a sound. Most hardly even flapped their wings, though sometimes a wave of wing-flapping would make its way down the line as each bird in its turn passed through a disturbance in the air and reacted just like the bird ahead of it did. Whenever this happened I was reminded of doing “the wave” at Thursday night’s Padres-Phillies game.

From ground level the pelicans were just as fascinating to watch. One afternoon Isabel and I were walking along the shoreline path. Due to the perfect arrangement of sun, building, and birds, we saw the shadows of a long line of pelicans zooming down the face of our building—temporary peregrines. The birds were doing their low-energy glide up above while their shadows were averting disaster, pulling out of their dives at the last possible second and skimming miraculously over the ground, the cars, even us.

Garden Angel

2011-04-23T14:48:00.000-04:00

Each March it happens. I’ll be sitting at the dining room table, lost in my own frivolity, and I’ll look up to see her staring at the dirt in front of my house. She wears a headscarf loosely framing her lined face. Like a robin or some other migratory bird, she disappears all winter. When the ice on the sidewalks retreats, she advances. My first glimpse of her is always a bit of a shock and a relief; she could be anywhere from 65 to 85 and I never fully trust she’ll make it through the winter.

Yet, I look up and there she is, blessing my garden—filling the dirt with good wishes and secret memories and love.

Compassion

2011-04-13T14:34:00.000-04:00

“Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.” I said these words thousands of times in my life. They were part of the mass when I was a child going to Catholic school and attending church services every Sunday for 20 years. And though I no longer go to church, the residue left behind by these words still clings.

For me, growing up Catholic meant having an over-developed conscience that would never shut up. This certainly didn’t mean I never did anything wrong. Instead, it meant I felt guilty no matter what I did. I was simply unable to cut myself any slack and therefore always felt inadequate and guilty.

During college, and immediately after while I was in the Peace Corps in Yemen, I drifted quickly away from the Church—from all faith, actually. Nowadays I am a confirmed atheist.

And yet still it clings—that infernal guilt.

I have been thinking a lot about compassion lately; what it is, where it comes from, how it makes itself known. The most obvious prod for pondering compassion was a conversation I had while driving to New York last weekend. I mentioned that I was having a hard time feeling much patience for a particular someone in my life. A friend in the car opined that patience is really another word for compassion and that before I could feel much compassion for anyone else I would need to feel more for myself.

Her words landed hard and have set me on a week-long contemplation of just what this would mean. I have been trying to get at the difference between pity, empathy, and compassion. Also, I have been trying to decide if I agree that you need compassion for yourself BEFORE you can really feel it for others. It makes sense in a “yeah-everyone-says-that-so-it-must-be-true” sort of way, but I want to know if it is really true. And, if so, why?

One of the things that drives me nuts about so many New Age, self-help, love-yourself programs is their focus on the individual. The upside of my Catholic upbringing is a strong sense of the need to be useful to the world. Many self-help gurus tend to stop with learning to love yourself. There is often far too much belly-button gazing and not enough focus on how that self you learn to love can and should be out in the world adding to the overall store of good.

So I don't want compassion for myself to be a codeword for allowing and excusing any behavior I choose. It has to be more, and different. I still don’t know the answers to any of my questions about compassion, but I am getting a strong sense that whatever I come to might reject the “I am not worthy” line that started this piece and replace it with something very much like this from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

My Dog Will Never Learn to Use the Toilet

2011-04-01T17:13:00.002-04:00

Many Saturday mornings I take my dog, Ginger, for a walk around the block. I do this so she doesn’t shit in my house. Ideally, she would learn how to use the toilet and then just flush her nasty dog crap away. Though I realize this is pretty unlikely, given the nature of dogs. I can always hope that someday she, (and all dogs), will learn the beauty of indoor plumbing, thus negating the need for our Saturday morning walks. But until that day, I will put on my shoes, possibly a jacket, grab a bag, and walk Ginger around the block so she can do what nature pretty well demands of her.

When we take these walks, nine times out of ten we encounter people on the sidewalks outside of the Planned Parenthood clinic on Whitney Avenue. Many times I simply nod and say “good morning” as I pass them. Sometimes we’ll chat about Ginger. But there are times when I just can’t control myself and I engage in conversation about abortion. I never enjoy these conversations. In fact, they often leave me feeling wired and shaken and angry. But I am an optimist. Also, I like to think of myself as open-minded and willing to listen to people whose views differ from mine. And for these reasons I sometimes stop and ask one of the protesters the following question:

“Do you want to lower the number of abortions?”

I start with this question because I like to look for common ground. I want to find the place that will start the conversation from an area of agreement rather than from opposite sides of a seemingly-unbridgeable chasm. I figure that people standing on the sidewalk outside a Planned Parenthood, holding pictures of burnt and dismembered babies, might agree with me right away that reducing the number of abortions performed in this country would be a good thing.

Surprisingly, some of the protesters refuse to answer the question. Or they respond with a non-answer. My sense is they fear a trap in my question. But there really is no trap. It is as straightforward a question as there can be. Do you want to lower the number of abortions? It can take quite a few repetitions of the question sometimes before the man or woman will agree with me that they would like to lower the number of abortions. To a person they add, almost immediately, “to zero” to their answer.

Having established the common ground, I then ask them how they feel about contraception. Because if the goal is to have fewer abortions, then stopping unwanted pregnancies would really help put a dent in the number of babies killed before they are born, right? In fact, wouldn’t a place like Planned Parenthood do even more toward reducing the number of abortions if they could just give out free, safe, and effective birth control to everyone who wanted it?

With this, the protesters and I are no longer on common ground. They just about always talk about God at this point and how He gave us free will and we are choosing to get pregnant and then choosing to end the lives of His creations and how contraception is a sin. They do not want abortion to be an option, but they also do not want contraception to be an option. To me this is entirely illogical. To them, it makes total sense.

When we get to this part of the conversation I can just about feel their tectonic plate and mine sprinting apart from each other as fast as their little tectonic legs will carry them. No more common ground. Instead we are looking across a chasm. A HUGE chasm. From their side, these people see a man willing to interfere with God’s plan for life. From my side, I see people willing to make the perfect the enemy of the good.

At this point I usually take my dog and walk away. Next time, though, I’ll have a new example to try out on the protesters. I’ll let them know why I am walking my dog around the block---so she doesn’t shit in my house. Because wish as I might, Ginger will never learn how to use a toilet. And if I simply refuse to walk her, I’ll end up with a mess to clean. The same thing happens if you just wish people would stop having sex for any purpose other than procreation. It simply will not happen, pray as you will. God, (or evolution), has given humans a remarkably strong urge to have sex. Wishing it away will not work. So can’t the protesters recognize this reality, put down their signs, and help spread the word about preventing pregnancy through abstinence and contraception? There might be far fewer messes to clean up if they did.

My Metaphorical Weekend

2011-03-26T10:30:00.003-04:00

It may be true that people end up choosing hobbies that match their personal sense of the metaphorical. Or maybe we have evolved with brains that are wired to make connections and create metaphors out of whatever we find ourselves doing. In this case, I am not sure which is the cart and which is the horse. But I do know that last weekend I spent both mornings doing things I love. And while doing these things I love, several obvious connections to my life became clear to me.

I spent a few hours Saturday morning preparing our garden. It is still just a little too early to plant much of anything, but before the planting comes the cleanup after a long, snowy winter. We have a tiny patch of grass in front of our house and in the middle of the patch of grass is a roughly-8-foot diameter circle of dirt. Last year three transplanted chrysanthemums were given the run of the place and they went crazy.

Erica and I, as well as many of the passersby who comment on our garden, were impressed by just how prolific these plants were by the end of October. Yet, in spite of their size and overwhelming “florality,” we had independently decided those plants needed to come out this year. So I got the shovel and performed a brutal full-root removal of the three. Once they were gone, the raggedy nature of our little dirt circle became fully clear. The grass was growing over the logs I had used as a border and, in some places, the logs themselves had decomposed and crumbled to dirt as I tried to reposition them.

Without the mum corpses to distract, the patch of ground looked like an unintentional dead spot instead of a garden. I raked out all of the dead leaves, sticks, log bits, and root clumps and put them in a yard waste bag. I took out whatever was left of the border logs and put them in the yard waste bags, too. Yet still the round patch of dirt just looked, well…dirty.

So I went to the backyard storage bin and got out the shovel. I returned with purpose to that dirty circle and planted the tip of the spade right at the border and stepped down on the back edge, pushing the blade all the way in. I then lifted the shovel out, tilted the dirt into the circle, and moved over one shovel-width. In this manner I made my way around the entire patch, creating a neater circle, defining the edge between garden and not-garden much more clearly.

Something about both the violence of the action and the sharpness of the boundary made me feel great.

The following morning I was in Central Park at 7:00. The huge full moon was just going down and bright Vernal Equinox sun was just coming up. There were 10,000 other runners and we were making our way into the starting corrals for the New York City Half Marathon. It was 37 degrees and sparkling clear.

I had been training only moderately hard due to the heavy snows this winter and my very busy January and February. I had no doubts about my ability to finish the race, but I wasn’t sure if I would be able to average less than nine minutes per mile, which was what I wanted to do. The key for me when running a race is to start out slowly. There are often so many people and such a flood of adrenaline that I allow myself to get swept away and I start out far too fast. In New York on Sunday I made myself do the first two miles at a ten-minutes-per-mile pace.

After Mile 2, I did the head-to-toe body check and found that I felt good. My legs were strong, my heart was still beating slowly, my lungs felt fresh, and my brain was in a good place. So I clicked up the pace just one notch and decided to check in again after Mile 5. At the Mile 5 timing clock I saw that I had run Miles 3, 4, and 5 in about 8 minutes and 40 seconds each. And still I felt great. I knew I had three more miles to go in Central Park and then the course would take me down Seventh Avenue to Times Square, over to the Westside Highway, and then down along the Hudson to the finish line near Chambers Street.

When I exited Central Park onto Seventh Avenue a smile spread across my face from ear to ear. It was almost 9 o’clock in the morning and the sun was up high enough to have warmed the air a little. The road was closed to traffic, but the sidewalks were open to spectators and there were thousands of people waving and cheering. Times Square was visible a mile down the road and something about the whole set-up made me giddy. In that moment I felt happier than I have in a long, long time. I felt strong and free and exactly where I wanted to be, doing exactly what I wanted and needed to be doing.

I decided to just forget about the clock and run the last four miles as fast as my body would take me. The course took me west on 42nd Street downhill to the Hudson River, where we turned south on the Westside Highway. The good feeling continued so I kept pushing and before I knew it I was at the finish down by Battery Park in a final pace of 8:13 per mile. The final two miles were both well under eight minutes.

By starting slow and paying attention to how I felt, I had a great race.

I may have gravitated to gardening and running because they present obvious ways for me to think about my life. Or maybe, simply by being human, I use mental free time to find connections between whatever I happen to be doing and my life. Either way, last weekend was literally and metaphorically great.

A Random Happy Memory

2011-03-14T12:44:00.002-04:00

Memory is a notorious liar. I cannot vouch for the factual accuracy of what you are about to read. But I can assure you that it is 100% true, emotionally.

During college my friend Adam used to a have a big party at his house in North Jersey every summer. These parties were always a lot of fun and our group of friends would come from wherever we were spending our summers to be there for the blowout. It was a given that none of us would drive home after the party. We would crash where we fell and get up and have a big ole breakfast in the morning before spiraling away again back to summer jobs and internships.

The party Adam hosted in Ledgewood the summer of 1986 was different. Actually, the party itself was no different from the other years’ parties. It was what we did the day after the party that made it different and makes me remember it fondly even 25 years later.

There were four or five of us still at Adam’s at noon and we were having such a good time with each other we were reluctant to get into our cars and go our separate ways. Someone said, “Let’s go see the Mets,” and that was all it took. We piled into one car and got on I-80 heading east.

As we neared Shea we heard on the radio that the game was sold out—it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon and Dwight Gooden was starting for the Mets. The game was NBC’s Game of the Week and had a national tv audience. Gooden was 21 years old and already had 50 major league wins. He was an amazing athlete in his prime and everyone wanted to see him. Instead of turning around we kept on, thinking maybe we could get tickets from a scalper.

It became clear at the stadium that this scalper plan was not going to happen. The tickets were way out of our price range. So we tried one last strategy. We approached a stadium employee near the elevators that led to the executive offices at Shea. We asked him to call upstairs to our friend Dave’s dad, Mr. O’Shaughnessy. It took one phone call and five minutes and Mr. O’Shaughnessy came out of the elevator with tickets in his hand.

We were ecstatic. Biggest game of the year so far and we were going to see it! We asked an usher where to go to get to our seats and to our utter amazement and delight he took us to a section immediately behind homeplate at field level. These were the best seats in the house. From where we sat we could look into Dwight Gooden’s eyes as he stared in for the signal from catcher Gary Carter. I can’t remember who won that game against the Reds. But I do remember it was a sunny summer day and there was not one thing wrong with the world for several hours.

I don’t know which of us had the idea to go to the Mets’ game instead of heading home, but I do know that Mr. O’Shaughnessy’s generosity is why I still remember that day 25 years ago. He didn’t have to do what he did for us that day. It would have been easy to pretend he wasn’t in or to tell us there were no tickets, even for him. But he didn’t. He probably does not remember that day, which is fine. There is no real reason for it to stand out. But it gave me enormous pleasure when it happened. And it continues to make me smile each time I have thought about it in the 25 years since.

Thanks, Mr. O’Shaughnessy.

So...What Do You Want To Talk About?

2011-03-09T20:39:00.002-05:00

My wife and a couple of her professor-friends wanted to know if they are socially awkward. I started to respond in generalities, discussing the great number of academics I have met the past 15 years. This, they interrupted, was not what they were asking. They wanted to know if THEY themselves are socially awkward. I gave them the best answer I could, considering that I truly enjoy their company. But I then retreated back to the safety of generalities.

During the course of the conversation I said that one of the things I have noticed about many social scientists is their inability to talk about much other than their own field. My wife and her friends agreed this is true, but they did not see it as a problem, since their own field is objectively the most interesting possible topic anyone could raise. They were mostly serious.

This led me to formulate a theory on the fly, but here it is five days later and it still seems true to me. My theory is this: People who choose academia as a career and end up in research positions get to that point because they LOVE thinking about certain topics. Their job is to ponder the things they like to think about anyway.
Most other people end up in jobs for other reasons.

I am a teacher. I didn’t end up in teaching because I love to think about and talk about teaching. I ended up in teaching because I love to teach. The thinking and talking about teaching only happen when I am with other teachers—and even then the topic gets pretty boring pretty fast.

Most people have jobs so that they can get a paycheck and live a life away from work. If they are lucky, they enjoy what they do for their paychecks. But the real enjoyment of life for most people comes away from work.

Academics are different from most people. They get enjoyment outside of work by thinking and talking about the things they think and talk about AT work. And they don’t always understand that other people might not share their fascination with whatever their chosen field is. The most socially adept academics do one of two things: they realize they need to broaden the list of topics they are willing to discuss, or they find a way to make their own field sound truly interesting to non-academics.

So, I am curious. Is my theory true?
Take a minute and respond to this post by answering a couple of questions in the comment box below.

1) What is your job?
2) Are most (>75%) of your friends employed in your field?
3) Are most of your out-of-work conversations about your job?
4) Do you LOVE your work?
5) Is work mostly something you do because you need money?

Cheer Up Sleepy Jean

2011-02-25T12:47:00.007-05:00

A few days ago I took Isabel and her friend down to New York to spend the day shopping at Macy’s and The Gap in midtown. Between purchases we took the subway up to Central Park and had lunch at the newly-refurbished Plaza.

The trip to New York on the train is one Isabel and I have made many times since we moved here from Ithaca. These daytrips have, in a way, become a means of measuring the changes in my daughter over time. When we first moved to New Haven, the stop at the Plaza would have been the main reason for taking MetroNorth down there. Isabel was a HUGE fan of Eloise and she believed that we might actually run into Eloise if we went and had tea at the Plaza.

Now that she is 11, going to the Plaza was an exercise in nostalgia. She led her friend into the lobby with the air of an old woman visiting her old grade school. After lunch we stopped by the new, (and horrifying), Eloise store and Isabel read through some of the sweet letters written to Eloise by some of her young fans and posted on the walls. She shook her head with an “awwww, isn’t that just so cute?” look on her face.

We had spent the time before lunch at the flagship Macy’s store on West 34th Street. I let the girls lead the way and they decided where to spend time and how long to stay in each section. I was particularly happy when one of the women working in the jewelry section took an interest in Isabel and her friend and gave them 20 minutes of time and non-condescending attention. I hung back and watched the girls positively glow while being treated with respect and seriousness by this wonderful lady.

From Macy’s we crossed the street to The Gap, where the girls again had carte blanche to spend as much time as they wanted browsing and trying on clothes. While they were shopping I stood off to the side, enjoying the feel-good music The Gap pumps in. At one point the first few notes of The Monkees’ “Daydream Believer” came on and I couldn’t help but smile.

This song is one it is impossible to dislike and as it played I noticed something strange. First, I found myself singing along out loud, which is something I DO NOT do in public. Second, I noticed every other adult in the store was doing the same thing I was. A woman walked by and as we made eye contact we were both singing along to the chorus—“Cheer up sleepy Jean, oh what can it mean to a daydream believer and a homecoming queen?” It felt like we were in a musical or in an episode of GLEE. Not one of us seemed even remotely self-conscious. We were all simply sharing a moment at The Gap. Weird.

After The Gap, we needed lunch, so we went to The Plaza.

From the Plaza we got back on the subway and went to Times Square, where we entered the M and M Store. We spent an hour there and it turned out to be a really fun hour. By the time we were ready to head back to Grand Central to get on the train back to New Haven the girls had each spent $100.00 and were as pleased as could be by their haul. They had changed into some of their purchases while at the Gap and they had on matching grey sweatpants and frilled camouflage shirts with M and M necklaces and earrings.

On the train back they were happy---far too happy for me to taint with any kind of anti-consumerist rant. I refuse to wear anything with a prominent label on it. It seems to me like companies should pay me for being a walking billboard for them rather than the other way around. Isabel knows I feel this way, but she also knows how much she likes to shop. When I was tempted to point out to her and her friend just what else they could have done with their hard-saved $100.00 I had to stop myself and remember that this particular trip was for them to be happy.

So, they have their clothes and their pictures from the photo booth at the M and M store and I have my Sleepy Jean moment and we all have good memories of the trip. All in all, a great day.

First Amendment Solutions

2011-02-14T14:27:00.003-05:00

I watched last week as the events in Tahrir Square in Cairo played out dramatically and in real time on satellite television. I felt jubilation as I checked online last Friday at lunchtime and saw that Hosni Mubarak had agreed to step down as leader of Egypt. Part of my jubilation came from the fact that the protestors did not turn to violence in their efforts to convince Mr. Mubarak that his time as leader was up. They simply showed up in larger and larger numbers and refused to go. The sheer force of their wanting made it happen without resorting to force.

Somewhat lost in the celebration of this wildly improbable victory of the unarmed and peaceful protestors in Egypt over their kleptocratic longtime tyrant is the connection to the last month’s huge news story: the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and many others in Arizona.

Here in the United States many in the NRA and the Tea Party and Modern Patriots movements are dissatisfied with the current government. They claim President Obama is a fascist, a nazi, a dictator, a tyrant, and unqualified to be President. They say he wants to take the guns of law-abiding citizens. They say he must go. Some even carry signs talking of “Second Amendment remedies” and of the “blood of tyrants” watering the “tree of liberty.”

I think it is important to point out that it wasn’t a “Second Amendment solution” that brought down the Mubarak regime. It was, in fact, a First Amendment solution. The people of Egypt assembled peaceably to use their freedom of speech to ask the government for a redress of grievances. When told to go home, they refused. In fact, they asked louder. When beaten by supporters of Mubarak and other assembled thugs, they responded with free speech, not with any sort of Second Amendment retort. They asked even louder and more insistently for a redress of their grievances.

And in the end it was speech, not guns, that brought Mubarak down. I hope those on the right who use their free speech to spout crazy talk about President Obama’s tyranny can look at the situation in Egypt and see what a real tyrant looks like and how real patriots respond.

Ditching the Prevent Defense

2011-01-20T07:00:00.002-05:00

Lately, I have been a little bored with my life. Not in the “chuck it all, have an affair, buy a sports car” kind of way. And certainly not in the “murder someone, use his body to fake my own death, burn down the house to char the body beyond identification, move to the Andes of Peru, learn Quechua, and make a new start” kind of way.

More in the “everything is going alright, my job is good, my marriage ain’t perfect but it’s okay” kind of way. It’s the kind of boredom that feels like a low-level cold. You know the kind where nothing’s really wrong, but nothing’s really great, either. There’s no fever, no aches or pains—just an occasional cough and a feeling that I maybe don’t have as much energy as I used to.

In the past, if this feeling persisted I would just move. This feeling is what led me to join the Peace Corps in 1987. It’s what led me to move to Maine in 1991. And it’s why I moved to Montana in 1993.

After that particular move, life became fairly eventful for a long period of years. I met my wife and got married in 1996. We moved across the country and I started a new career as a classroom teacher in 1997. In 2000 we had a child. In 2003 we moved again to a new state and started new jobs. Life, and its changes, just kept coming.

And now, here it is almost eight years later and I haven’t had any huge changes in quite a while. I like my job. I teach at a progressive school with great kids and a ton of freedom. I like my daughter a lot. She is an amazing kid who surprises me all the time with her humor and her insights. I like my wife. She makes me laugh and keeps me on my toes. And she wants the best for me.

But in spite of all this adequateness, I feel like I have stopped growing. I fear I have stopped changing—maybe, in fact, BECAUSE of all this adequateness. There has not been any one thing that has been terrible, so therefore there hasn’t been any big motivation for me, (with my tendency to avoid changes), to shake anything up too much.

It feels like I am a football team with a small lead early in the third quarter. I have slipped into a prevent defense rather than sticking with the strategy that has gotten me the lead. My motivation has shifted slowly—almost imperceptibly—away from winning the game and toward not losing the game. It’s a small shift, but one that in the end changes everything. Instead of going at life, I am sitting back and reacting as life comes at me. Instead of seeking out new and challenging experiences, I am consolidating my gains and letting life happen around me.

I have I heard it said that “there are no boring things, just boring people.” And I am realizing that, for many reasons—(including, but not limited to, the fear of job burn-out, the fear of losing a good partner, and the fear of being BORING)—I need to make some changes. You know, that’s not really right. I mostly need to get back to my original self before I took on all these responsibilities and “shoulds” and stopped simply living. So, this winter has become the season for me to face this boredom head-on and let my team just play the game that got them the lead to start with.

Been Too Long

2011-01-17T22:18:00.002-05:00

I have not posted anything to this blog for months and now it is starting to feel like a “thing.” It is starting to feel like nothing is worth posting—like who the hell cares what I have to say anyway? I don’t want this sort of relationship with writing, so I am just going to take a picture or two and throw this up, just to say I have posted something. You know?

Isabel chose new colors for her bedroom recently and when I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she said, “I want you to make me a blanket for my new room.” So, we went to the craft store, picked out some yarn, and settled on a pattern.

Here is the first 20% of the blanket, which I project will take six more weeks to finish. When I finish I’ll post a picture of the final product.

Update: Here is how the blanket now looks, on Saturday, February 26.

GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLL!

2010-10-28T16:46:00.003-04:00

Every Fall since 2004 I have taken my class for an overnight trip to Camp Hazen in Chester, CT. In spite of the demands this trip places on my time, my noise tolerance, and my sleep needs, I look forward to it every year. There are generally somewhere around 15 students—all of them eleven or twelve years old—and two adult chaperones. The kids look forward to the trip for months.

And why wouldn’t they? They get to have a giant sleepover with friends they have known well for seven years—more than half their lives. Also, the excellent staff of this YMCA camp leads my kids through some fun and challenging group-building activities, plays new and entertaining games, and belays as my kids attempt to scale a 50-foot wooden tower with all sorts of interesting and challenging elements.

I look forward to the trip each year for reasons that are somewhat different from the reasons my kids like going. I get to spend some time with my students where I am not the only adult responsible for them, I get to spend two days in a beautiful autumn setting by a lake with many trails through the woods, there is a full-time supply of coffee, and I get to see my kids in a setting that shuffles their well-established social deck in a way that gives some kids who don’t usually stand out a chance to shine.

I just returned from this year’s trip and I am happy to say it was just as good as it always is. My students did amazingly well. They treated each other with respect, they were committed to working their way through challenges together, they pushed themselves to go past their points of comfort on the climbing tower, and they had a lot of fun. When we got back to school after the trip the kids all spiraled away with their parents, dazed, tired, satisfied, and happy.

As I drove away yesterday I had a special reason to feel that this was my best trip yet to Camp Hazen. And in the end it wasn’t the kids that pushed this one over the top to make it the best. Of course, they were a big part of my happiness over the trip. As I said, they treated each other well and worked hard to stretch themselves, and these things always make me happy. But what really made this particular trip stand out for me was the final attainment of a private goal I have had for seven years.

I don’t know how common this is, but have you ever had a goal that to the outside observer looks entirely stupid, but to you means something for reasons probably opaque even to you? This has been the case with me for seven years now. I’ll just explain, since no amount of contextualizing will make this goal sound anything other than pointless. For seven years I have been trying to kick a football through a rectangular opening 30 feet up a wooden climbing wall at Camp Hazen. As with any good pointless goal, there are ground rules that have developed over the many years of trying:

I must use a football,

I cannot punt the football,

I must use my heel to make a small indentation in the grass and then stand the football up on its end and kick it from that position,

Someone else must be there to witness it,

I must let other people try if they ask, and

I must NOT let on how important it has become to me.

So, after approximately 40 attempts on my first day at Camp Hazen this week, I put the ball through the opening. It was a football, kicked cleanly from the tee I had made with my heel, and witnessed by a student. The only thing is, before I kicked it through I let on to this particular student how important this stinkin’ goal had become to me. He didn’t question this at all—he just watched, collected errant tries, and cheered me on. He seemed more excited when it finally went through than I did. Though I will admit to jumping up and down with my fists in the air once or twice, maybe…

We had an hour to kill after lunch and before we drove back to school, so I went down to the soccer field with some of the students. The boy who witnessed my kick sidled over and said, “Think you can get a ball to go from inside this soccer goal all the way to the other goal?” Without even considering the question I said, “Of course.” Thus began the next quest, but this time everyone knew what I was up to when I collected a tennis racket, baseball bat, soccer ball, tennis ball, and football and started kicking and throwing and swinging away.

My Life As A Movie

2010-10-16T22:53:00.005-04:00

I am in Atlantic City for a quick overnight trip. I am staying at the Showboat Casino Hotel and when I wake up in the morning I will have a cup of coffee from the Starbucks in the lobby, walk a mile to Boardwalk Hall, and then run 13.1 miles as fast as my body will let me.

Tonight I was out on the Boardwalk, walking from my “free” pre-race dinner at Bally’s back to my room when I heard the first few notes of a song I knew well from my freshman year of high school in 1979. It was Donna Summer’s song “Bad Girls” and because I was in a hurry to get back to the hotel my steps matched exactly the quick disco beat that propelled the song to number one on the charts all those years ago. The music was coming from speakers arrayed along the façade of a long block of tattoo studios, massage parlors, funnel cake purveyors, and knickknack emporia.

As I walked to the beat, I suddenly had the feeling that I was in a movie. It was a long tracking shot taken from Boardwalk-level and the camera followed me as I pounded down the wooden walkway past all the storefronts, weaving my way around all the other people out on the Boardwalk on a chilly fall night. In the movie it was obvious I was different from all the other people out on the boards. There was my pace to set me apart, but also the glint in my eye, the snazzy brown felt fedora on my head, my purple Converse high tops, and the unblinking focus of the camera itself.

I allowed myself to live in the feeling of being in a movie for a few moments and then came back to my senses and started to think about just what sort of a movie my life would make, anyway. The scene I was just in felt like something from one of the Ocean’s Eleven films. But even just a few seconds’ thought was enough to make me laugh at that idea. Lately, my life is certainly NOT a cleverly plotted, quickly paced caper film. In fact, the more I thought about my life as a movie, the more alone and depressed I felt. A movie of my life lately would be whatever the opposite of an action movie is…an inaction movie? An anti-thriller?

This hasn’t always been the case. When I was 17 I gave myself a birthday present. It was a jump out of an airplane and it was how I celebrated my 18th birthday. When I was 21 I joined the Peace Corps and moved to Yemen, where I learned Arabic, lived in my own apartment, taught in a Yemeni school, and hitchhiked all over the country. When I was 23 I took a two-month road trip all over America, visiting 22 states and driving over 10,000 miles. When I was 28 I moved to Billings, Montana on a whim because I got tired of driving and found a job and an apartment there my first day in town. At the time, everything I owned fit in my 1970 Plymouth Valiant named “Fuad”. When I was 30 I met Erica and within a few months we knew we would be married. After our wedding we took a six-week honeymoon in Portugal without any real plan about where we would go and what we would do.

Now, I am soon to be 45 years old and I have not done much of anything lately that I would call adventurous. I know I am still that same person who was so willing to put himself in new places and try new things, but an outside observer, (or say, a cameraman following me down the Boardwalk), would have precious little evidence of that adventurous spirit in me. Erica is starting to wonder if maybe it was all just an elaborate case of false advertising.

Which brings me back around to why I am in Atlantic City tonight. Last fall I started to get inklings of this dissatisfaction with myself and my unwillingness to put myself out in the world. I decided to set myself a huge challenge. I decided to run a half marathon in each of the 50 United States. If I finish the Atlantic City Half Marathon tomorrow morning, that will make 6 states under my belt.

Back in August I went to Montreal and spent a week doing only what strangers said I should do with my time there. It turned out to be a great week. While there I literally felt ten years younger. And now that I think about it, I am certain that feeling of being younger was a direct result of getting back in touch with that part of me that craves new places, new challenges, and new experiences.

So, as I run my 13.1 miles tomorrow I am going to spend a lot of that time playing with ideas, thinking of challenges, and trying to tap into the spirit of playing at life that I used to have all the time.

I also want to invite you to send me ideas and suggest new situations and challenges that might allow the adventurous me to wake up and come out and play again. Maybe we can turn my life from “Remains of the Day” to something a little more exciting and worth watching.

Thank You, Fred Phelps, or Why I Belong To the ACLU

2010-10-11T20:36:00.004-04:00

Fred Phelps and the members of his Westboro Baptist Church are repugnant human beings. Their “theology” seems to consist of one tenet: God hates homosexuals. The Reverend Phelps and his followers first came to my attention when they picketed at the funeral of Matthew Shepherd—the Wyoming man murdered for being gay. The signs they carry, the things they say, heck, even their web address, are repulsive.

The last few years they have gained notoriety by picketing near the funerals of United States servicemen and servicewomen who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the brutal theological world Phelps and his fellow troglodytes inhabit, God is killing American soldiers because He is mad about our societal shift toward greater acceptance of homosexuality. Their presence near these military funerals has garnered lots of media coverage and inflicted immeasurable emotional harm on the families, friends, and mourners at these ceremonies.

Some states have begun to pass legislation establishing protester-free buffer zones around military funerals. Based on the actions of Phelps and his followers, President George W. Bush signed the Respect For America’s Fallen Heroes Act in 2006. The act establishes restrictions on the time and place for demonstrations at Military burial places.

The father of one serviceman whose funeral was picketed by the Phelps menagerie was so incensed by the desecration of his son’s memory that he sued Fred Phelps in Maryland State Court for invasion of privacy and emotional harm. The father, Albert Snyder, was awarded $5 million in damages as a result of the Maryland trial. An appeals court set aside the $5 million damages award and Mr. Snyder’s appeal of the Maryland Appeals Court decision is now being heard by the United States Supreme Court. The nine justices will have to find the proper balance between a family’s right to privacy and our Constitution’s guarantee of free speech.

Another case in the news this week has dovetailed nicely with the Phelps case. Attorney Danny Lampley of Lafayette County in Mississippi was jailed temporarily for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance in the courtroom of Judge Talmadge Littlejohn. Judge Littlejohn’s orders are printed below:

“IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED, that Danny Lampley,
Attorney at Law, is in criminal contempt of court for his failure to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance as ordered by the undersigned Chancellor and is hereby ordered to be incarcerated in the Lee County jail.

IT IS FURTHER ORDED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED, that Danny Lampley shall purge himself of said criminal contempt by complying with the order of this Court by standing and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in open court.”

Most Americans would agree that the things Fred Phelps and his supporters say are godawful. A large majority of Americans would probably also agree that saying the Pledge of Allegiance is the opposite of godawful. When taken together these cases explain why I am a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU defends the Constitution of the United States. We are not a nation of individuals or political parties or lobbyist groups or churches. We are a nation of laws. And in order for our laws to work they have to protect our freedom.

Even the freedoms to say stupid-ass shit like the Phelpsians and the freedom to remain silent as others recite the Pledge of Allegiance. If the freedom of speech protected by the first amendment to the United States Constitution is to mean anything at all, it must include the right to say things that are stupid, hurtful, and wrong. If a Pledge of Allegiance is to ever mean anything, it CANNOT be compulsory.

My ACLU renewal form came in the mail last week and I set it aside on the kitchen table. And then I read news coverage of the Phelps case and the Lampley case and I filled out the check and mailed it right in. I sleep better knowing there are lawyers out there protecting the Constitution from us flawed humans. We are a country of laws and sometimes we need to be reminded that the Constitution is blind, deaf, and insensitive to the thoughts being expressed (or withheld), but acutely attuned to each citizen’s right to say (or not) those thoughts.

Reach the Beach 2010--I Learned a Lot

2010-09-26T17:48:00.008-04:00

Exactly one week ago I was at Cannon Mountain Ski Area in the White Mountains of Northern New Hampshire, sitting through a safety briefing in preparation for my third running of the Reach the Beach long distance relay. I am a member of the team called the Rosie Ruiz Fan Club and Reach the Beach has become a major touchstone in my year. I love this race so much that I find myself looking forward to the next race from almost the moment the current year’s race ends.

Reach the Beach is one of those things that might sound like torture to an outsider, but is instead exquisitely pleasurable pain to the participants. It has many of the ingredients cult leaders use to brainwash followers: close quarters, physical challenges, lack of sleep, a brutal schedule, abnegation of self, and gallons and gallons of Gatorade.

In the past, I have been the seventh runner on our team of twelve. This means I have run the seventh, nineteenth, and thirty-first legs of the thirty-six-leg relay. Due to last minute changes this year I became runner number twelve, which means I was to run the twelfth, twenty-fourth, and thirty-sixth legs. I was going to be the runner who actually reached the beach, as the last 100 yards of the race cross the sands of Hampton Beach State Park. In spite of having run the race twice before and having a good sense of what to expect, this was the first year I have ever doubted my own ability to actually reach the beach.

To understand why, I should go back to Thursday night before we began the race. We stayed in a hotel in Lincoln, New Hampshire and I spent much of the night awake and suffering from a painful earache and sore throat. Once the sky lightened and day broke, I felt a little better, but I was already worried about what would happen if I got sick during the race. I tried not to worry my teammates or myself too much, so I kept a positive attitude and decided to hang out in the hotel parking lot, surreptitiously placing small magnets on the vans of other Reach The Beach teams.

Our captain, (and my wife), Erica had ordered hundreds of magnets that said “You’ve been ridden by Rosie Ruiz.” It was great fun to tag other teams’ vans with this little magnetic grafitto. As it turned out, several other teams had the same idea this year. One team, called The A-Team, had small magnets printed up with the image of Mr. T and the words “You been tagged, sucka.” By the time the whole team was up and we were having breakfast, it was clear to me that something was pretty wrong. My throat hurt like hell when I swallowed and I had what felt like a fever.

The rules of Reach the Beach are strict about what a team must do if a runner has to drop out. Rather than explain the process here, suffice it to say that everyone ends up with far more miles than they signed up for AND the legs they run are sometimes drastically different than what they are mentally prepared for. What I decided to do was take some Ibuprofin, find some throat lozenges, and buy an ear warmer. That, and wait to say anything to anyone until after my first leg was over.

Our first runner—a new member of The Rosie Ruiz Fan Club named Liz—started at Cannon Mountain at 2:00 in the afternoon. I knew that I would not be running my first leg until all the other runners on the team had done theirs—that gave me seven or eight hours to prepare. We got a late lunch, played Frisbee in a parking lot, and then started our legs when the baton got to us around 5:30. Being last to go of the six runners in my van, I didn’t start running until around 11:00 pm. So, tired, sick, anxious about the rest of the race, and worried about letting my teammates down, I set off alone down a dark stretch of trail through the pine woods of White Lake State Park. I wanted to go slow enough to have something left for my next leg, thinking I could at least finish two of my three—leaving my teammates in a small lurch rather than a giant one.

At this point in the race, teams are spread out pretty wide so there were only about five other runners in my 3.87-mile stretch of road. I kept what felt like a slow and steady pace and soon enough saw the flashing lights of the transition area up ahead and saw Liz waiting under the spotlights for the handoff. I gave her the wristband that acts as a baton and asked Erica for my time. She told me 29 minutes. I set off on a coughing jag that lasted long enough for me to do some mental math and came up with a pace of 7:30 per mile. Which is faster than I ever run.

Generally after a run it is a good idea to cool down by walking around a bit. But the rule for Reach the Beach is “Forget the cool down, get in the van.” So, I got in the van, coughed up half a lung, choked down a bottle of Gatorade, and settled in as we drove to a hotel 40 miles up the road. We had reserved two rooms to shower and nap for two hours before driving to our next rendezvous with our teammates from the other van. I took as hot a shower as I could stand, popped three more Ibuprofins, and crawled into bed, where I fell asleep wondering how on earth I was ever going to run my next two legs when I my right eardrum felt like it had been pierced by a rusty pin and my throat hurt so much I could hardly swallow.

The alarm went off what felt like two minutes later and we got up, got dressed, and got back in the van. I knew something was seriously wrong with me when I didn’t even want coffee. We drove to the next meeting point and our first runner, Christian, got out and headed to the hand-off zone. Our other van’s final runner, Damian, came up the hill and out of the darkness, handed the wristband to Christian, and disappeared into his van, off to get his own two-hours of sleep.

During this series of legs the runners in my van had some of their hardest work. Joe had a 9+ mile section with a 5-mile climb. Rodrigo ran an 8-mile leg with a short, steep climb that would kill a lesser man. Agata finished her leg looking strong and pumped up, (her tough leg had already happened her first time out.) Erica ran through a sore foot and managed a fast time for her leg, as well. As my turn approached I got out the course map book and took a final look at the elevation profile for my coming 6.87-mile leg. It was relatively flat with one 100-foot climb just before the end. The people in my van asked what sort of support I would need, and I asked them to drive ahead to mile 4.5 and wait for me with a bottle of Gatorade. That is exactly what they did and when I stopped for a moment to take a drink and hand Erica my long sleeve shirt, I knew that all I had left was 2.4 miles. Sure, there was that hill between me and the end of my leg, but 2.4 miles was something I could do even if I had a fever, you know?

Turned out the hill was not so bad. And because I had held a little bit in reserve in order to make it up a much bigger hill than I actually found, I was able to finish my second leg at a good clip. I came into Bear Brook State Park after 56 minutes of running and handed the bracelet to Liz, who took off for her final leg looking strong. I stood alone for a minute before my teammates came to me and in that minute I could tell that I had a fever. Shit. What was I going to do about my last leg? The second one passed at an 8:09-per-mile pace, which was still faster than I had wanted to go.

What I decided to do was stretch out on one of the van seats and try to sleep. Joe drove the van through some of the heaviest traffic those smalltown backroads of New Hampshire have ever seen and I managed to get a 45-minute nap. We stopped at a breakfast joint and got some food and coffee and used a VERY clean bathroom before piling back in and heading to the next hand-off point. All through the race the six runners in our other van ran faster than we expected them to and this time was no exception. Alex, Weldon, Liz, Tom, Tammy, and Damian were in the midst of their final legs and they were pushing hard to be done.

At some point in this transition from their van to ours I decided that I could hold it together long enough to run one more 4.09-mile leg. I knew it would be a long, hard, trudge, but I didn’t know it would turn out to be one of the hardest things I had ever done in my life.

To make it through, I broke the leg into many small chunks and then just tried to get through each chunk without stopping. At first it was something like, “Just make it to the next intersection up ahead in the distance.” With one mile left, when the course was running along the Hampton Beach Boardwalk, I was going from bench to bench, focusing two hundred feet at a time. As the course left the boardwalk and entered the sand I was down to just trying to make it from step to step. The people who lay out the course must have a masochistic streak in them to force runners across the sand after 208 miles and little sleep, yet this is what they do every year. When I hit the sand I muttered a foul word with every step.

When I crossed under the banner with the rest of Team Rosie escorting me in, it was all I could do to not collapse on the sand and break into sobs. It is certainly what my body wanted me to do. I had spent 40 hours keeping my shit together and my executive function was 99% depleted. There was no super ego and precious little ego left and my id had a fever and wanted to be home in bed. Yet I knew we still had a few hours at the beach to grab some food, take a dip, and celebrate a little before going back to our regular lives in Ithaca and Lowell and Boston and New Haven and Texas. Then there was the three-hour drive back to New Haven.

I managed to hold it together for a few more hours until Rodrigo, Joe, Erica, and I got into the van and started the drive back. I took a seat in the back and lay down curled up inside a sleeping bag. The other three were up front and they were talking and listening to music. Once I was sure they couldn’t hear me over the sounds of the van wheels and the music and their conversation, I gave up control and just let myself drop down into how utterly crappy I felt. It came out as tears and sobs and foul words and lasted a good while. When it was over and my swamp was temporarily drained I sat up and we pulled over to get a few vats of coffee from one of the several thousand Dunkin Donuts in Massachusetts.

The fever hit in earnest that night on the way home and lasted for six days, forcing me to miss several days of work. The doctor said it was the flu and laughed in my face when I told him about the onset of symptoms and how I had run 14 miles at an 8:21 pace AFTER realizing I was sick.

Erica and I have a euphemism for when an experience totally and absolutely sucks; we say, “I learned a lot.” In the particular case of Reach the Beach 2010, I can truly say that I learned a lot. As I say that, I am being only partially euphemistic. The camaraderie, challenge, and real joy of running Reach the Beach are as much a part of it as the pain, suffering and depletion. In fact, I imagine that if you ask me in a few months how the race was, I am pretty sure I will tell you it was great. And, honestly, it was.

I ran more than 14 miles at a fast pace (for me), met some great new people, helped set a team record by finishing in 26 ½ hours for a team pace of 7:35 per mile, and learned a lot about my own capacity for toughing out a hard situation. I held it together until I didn’t have to, and in a twisted way, that felt good. I learned a lot.

Link to more pictures on Picasa:

click here

Olive Kitteridge

2010-08-12T13:25:00.003-04:00

I woke up this morning and packed up all of my stuff in preparation for leaving Montreal to go and spend a night camping in the Adirondacks of Northern New York State. Before I left I went to a breakfast place around the corner from my hotel. It has the corny name Eggspectations, but it also has big windows, great light, friendly staff, and great food.

I sat down, ordered some pancakes and yogurt with strawberries, sipped on my coffee with cream and dove into the last chapter of Elizabeth Strout’s book Olive Kitteridge. The chapters of her book are not really chapters in the traditional sense. Instead, each chapter is a separate short story set in or near the fictional town of Crosby, Maine. Olive Kitteridge is the thread that ties the stories together. She is a prickly, no-nonsense woman who in some way not quite clear to me earns our empathy instead of our judgment, in spite of her off-putting bluntness and blindness to her own cruelties.

“River”, the final story of the collection, is what I was reading this morning when I knew I had to change my plan for today. In the last story Olive, old and alone and unable to understand why her son wants so little to do with her, comes in fits and starts to a new friendship and new insights about what it is to be human.

Of course, there really ARE no new insights about what it is to be human…just new people to see the same old things.

But when the narrator said:

“What young people didn’t know, she thought, lying down beside this man, his hand on her shoulder, her arm; oh what young people did not know. They did not know that lumpy, aged, and wrinkled bodies were as needy as their own young, firm ones, that love was not to be tossed away carelessly, as if it were a tart on a platter with others that got passed around again. No, if love was available, one chose it, or didn’t choose it. And if her platter had been full with the goodness of Henry and she had found it burdensome, had flicked it off crumbs at a time, it was because she had not known what one should know: that day after day was unconsciously squandered.

“And so, if this man next to her now was not a man she would have chosen before this time, what did it matter? He most likely wouldn’t have chosen her either. But here they were, and Olive pictured two slices of Swiss cheese pressed together, such holes they brought to this union—what pieces life took out of you.

“Her eyes were closed, and throughout her tired self swept waves of gratitude—and regret. She pictured a sunny room, the sun-washed wall, the bayberry outside. It baffled her, the world. She did not want to leave it yet.”

It hit me like a hammer to the stomach and made tears well up and out right there in Eggspectations. (I certainly hadn’t eggspected that when I opened the book.) Olive’s realization about love, set in the context of my own week away from Erica and Isabel, made me see that I don’t want or need to be alone in the woods today and tonight. I need to be around people. For all of our rough edges and annoyingness, we are the best we have. And if I can’t be with Erica and Isabel today, at least I can be around other people and try to connect the best I can. The best we all can.

I don’t want to squander this day, consciously or unconsciously. So I am going to be out in the city, walking where my feet take me, talking with anyone willing, and looking forward to being home tomorrow with the people I love best.

Montreal--Day Three

2010-08-12T11:04:00.006-04:00

Day three in Montreal once again involved covering lots of ground. I started the day with a four-mile run from my hotel down to the riverfront and along the water to some canal gates. It is nowhere near as humid here as it has been in New Haven, but it still gets hot by mid-day, so I got my run in before the day really got going. Montreal has impressed me with its infrastructure for walkers, runners, and bikers. The city has far more space to work with than Manhattan does, so the municipal government has had an easier time incorporating room for bike path and sidewalks. There is a clear commitment to making cars optional. The subway system is extensive and you can buy an unlimited-rides one-day pass for $7.00. This pass also works on the bus system. I parked the Volvo in the garage when I got here and haven’t needed it once.

After my run I got on the green line Metro and went out to the Olympic Park, which was built for the 1976 Summer Olympic Games. Much of the complex certainly LOOKS like it was built in the 1970s—it has a retro-futuristic feel to it with lots of curved concrete forms and shapes somehow reminiscent of UFOs. I paid the $15 and went up the Olympic Tower in the funicular. (By the way, if you have never said the word “funicular” out loud, you should.) I absolutely love being way up high and looking out at the lay of things. When I have a window seat on an airplane I spend most of the flight looking down at the world, trying to recognize highways and towns and rivers and geographic features. I have done the same thing here in Montreal, only without the airplane.

I climbed the Clock Tower at the Port, Mount Royal, and now the Olympic Tower. Each time the skies were clear and I was rewarded with some excellent views.

After the Olympic Tower I got back on the train and went in search of the best poutine in Montreal. People I asked told me to go a restaurant called La Banquise, so I did. I had the traditional poutine, pictured below, and a “Detroit hot dog,” which turns out to be a chili dog, sort of. The poutine was good, but I must say that I am partial to the poutine Jason makes at Caseus in New Haven. His is less beefy and the cheese is better.

Once I was done with lunch I decided to walk the two miles back to my hotel. On the way I found a barbershop that was just re-opening after a lunch break. The woman turning the sign from “Fermee” to “Ouvert” smiled at me and that was enough to get me in her chair, explaining my plan for the week. I told her to do whatever she wanted to my hair and she went to town. Of course, even the most skilled artist is limited by the quality of her materials, so in the end, my haircut looks like it always does to me. But it was fun to give up all sense of control. And after four days without any of the daily human touch I get living with Isabel and Erica, it felt good to have someone focus her attention and touch on me, even if it was just a haircut when all was said and done. Is that pathetic?

Late afternoon I went to the Vitrine—the one-stop place to go to find out about any-and-all cultural events going on in Montreal. The woman behind the counter was very patient and friendly. She was the same person who directed me to the production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in one of the large city parks the night before. She told me about a concert at a local cabaret and I took her suggestion. And I was glad I did. It was a small, dark bar and the singer and her band were hanging out with all their friends before the show, drinking and having a great time. When she got up to sing she blew me away. The band was great, too. Her name is Marie Christine Depestre and she has an album coming out soon.

All in all, a GREAT day in Montreal.

Montreal, Day 2

2010-08-11T07:01:00.010-04:00

Exactly one year ago this week we were in another part of Canada. Isabel spent a week at a camp, recreating life in the 1840s, and Erica and I spent the week tooling along the coast of New Brunswick, watching whales, hiking, camping, and enjoying a great week together. It was one of those times when, even in the moment, I was aware that something good was going on. During that week, something clicked for me--something useful and important about relaxing. I was able to really just be in the moment for much of the week and when we left I took a rock with me. It fit nicely in my palm and in my pocket and most days I still carry it with me to remind me to take a breath and slow down and just NOT freak out so much. I have that rock with me right now and I noticed yesterday that it is much smoother and shinier than when I found it.

I had a busy and excellent day yesterday here in Montreal. I didn't go for a run, but I must've walked ten miles as I went wherever the strangers I asked told me to go. The pictures below show some of where I went and what I did.

A typical cobblestone street in the Old City of Montreal

Statue of Notre Dame de Bon Secours, overlooking the entrance to the harbor and providing "good help" to those who need it

This clock tower was built a hundred years ago at the entrance to the harbor. I climbed its 192 steps and was rewarded with a great 360-degree view of the city, the river, and the surrounding lands.

Montreal is actually a big island in the Saint Lawrence River. At the heart of the island in Mount Royal, a 764-foot high hill that is a city park. I climbed the hill yesterday and the views of the city were worth the walk.

There are many small, green parks sprinkled throughout the city. I sat and read in one yesterday that has a statue of King Edward. This is certainly no way to treat a monarch.

Montreal--Day One

2010-08-09T21:14:00.006-04:00

Day One in Montreal is drawing to a tired close. I got here around 3:30 after an easy trip through the border. I don’t have our GPS unit with me, so navigating into and then through Montreal was tricky. (How quickly the technology has changed our way of getting around.) I was glad to have gotten a map before I got here so I had a fairly good sense of where I needed to go and how to get there. I found a funky old hotel with amazing rates right in the heart of everything. It is the Abri du Voyageur and it costs only $70.00 per night because the street in front is ripped up and closed to car traffic and they are having trouble getting people to stay here.

I spent a few hours just walking around town, getting the lay of the land, and enjoying being out of the car. Montreal reminds me of the bastard child that might be the product of a fling between Boston and New York, if that child somehow came out European.

The guy at the front desk speaks English as well (or as poorly) as I speak French, but I was able to get his suggestion for a good dinner place. The waiter there gave me his favorite beer (brewed on the premises) and his favorite dish and both were excellent. The woman at the Tourism Office gave me a plan for tomorrow morning and I am all set. So far, so good.

Below are some pictures from the trip here today. The first is one I call “Garden Thong” and I think it speaks for itself.

The picture below is my hotel room. It is spacious and has a good air conditioner and, best of all, it is cheap. And did I mention it doesn't cost much?

This is my first real view of Montreal from the bridge on the Interstate. It was doing 65 MPH, so it's not the best photo in the world...

This is the border station monument, welcoming me to Quebec.

And this is a weather vane on top of a rest area in the Adirondacks. It was pointing me in the right direction.

Marriage Sabbatical

2010-08-09T08:04:00.002-04:00

Yesterday my wife and I made the 80-mile drive up I-91 to a college in Massachusetts, where we dropped our daughter at a week-long gymnastics camp. As we drove away from the college dormitory where Isabel will be staying we both felt lonely, but only some of that loneliness was attributable to the absence of our girl. Another big chunk of it, for me anyway, was a sort of premonitory loneliness. I was sitting in the car with Erica, listening to her read from our current out-loud book and sharing an intimate conversation, yet I was already missing her.

Back in early June Erica and I started to wonder just what we should do with a week to ourselves. It is often hard to find more than just a day or two with Isabel safely and happily in someone else’s care and we wanted to take full advantage of the week. As we were wondering, we were also spending some time talking about our marriage and what was working and what was not. Something in the “Not Working” category was the quality of our daily conversations. One of the ways we came up with for bringing some interest back to our conversations was to spend time doing interesting things apart from each other. This idea led to the proposal that we spend Isabel’s camp week as a “marriage sabbatical” week.

As soon as Erica said the words, we both felt an excitement at the prospect of a week to go someplace interesting and do something fun or challenging or new. It was like finding a whole bunch of money and getting to spend it on whatever we wanted. We set some quick ground rules to the week and both started trying to figure out where to go and what to do. The ground rules were these:

1) stay in the country in case anything happens to Isabel and we need to get to her fast,

2) don’t spend a lot of money,

3) don’t tell each other much about what we are doing so that we can share our stories when we get back together.

I made a long list of possibilities for the week and was having a very hard time settling on one destination. At the same time, I started talking with friends about the idea of a “marriage sabbatical” and getting their ideas about where to go and what to do. At some point in the process I stumbled upon the guiding idea for my week. I decided to let fate and other people decide for me where I would go and what I would do. I took suggestions and tabulated them and then I asked people to vote. The winning destination was Montreal, Quebec.

So right now I am sitting in a hotel room in Lee, Massachusetts, on my way north. At each step of the trip this week I am going to engage strangers in conversation and ask them what I should do. As I get near Montreal I will ask people where I should stay and then I will take their suggestions. I will ask someone where to go for breakfast tomorrow morning and then do as they say. I will ask my waiter or waitress what they would do if they had a day free in Montreal and then I will do what they come up with. This plan will force me to talk to lots of strangers, (which is no easy task for an introvert like me), and allow me to experience many new things I would probably otherwise not have done. I am looking at the week as an experiment and I am excited about it.

It was funny to get the reactions of our friends when Erica and I told them about our marriage sabbatical. Many people had the wrong impression right away and assumed we were both going to go fool around with other people. (Projection?) That is most certainly NOT what this week is about. Rather, it is a chance to get out in the world and do things and meet people and have experiences that we can then bring back to each other as a way to make ourselves more interesting and more complete. Nobody can be EVERYTHING for someone else and this week is a way to remind ourselves of the importance of being separate so that when we come together, there are still things to discover and learn from each other.

Some of what I experience will be posted here, but not so much as to have nothing left to tell Erica about when I get home. If you have ever been to Montreal and have something you think I should do, respond to this post or send me and e-mail and let me know. I’ll do it.

Right now, I am going to take a run before I get in the car and drive 250 miles north. I wonder what the best four-mile running route is? Think I’ll go ask at the desk and see where they send me…

How Pleasure Works

2010-08-08T22:12:00.002-04:00

I have just finished reading a wonderful book by Yale psychologist Paul Bloom. It is called How Pleasure Works but perhaps it should have been called The Varieties of Pleasurable Experience. In his book, Professor Bloom catalogues the many ways humans get pleasure, ranging from the basic, (food, sex), to the sublime, (music, art), to the shocking, (cannibalism, memorabilia collecting).

While discussing examples from history, literature, current events, news reports, and laboratory and real-world psychology studies, Bloom makes accessible the theories of many insightful researchers who have spent years studying aspects of the common but complex set of emotions we call pleasure.

Activities as wide-ranging as playing sado-masochistic sex games, collecting and looking at paintings, riding vomit-inducing roller coasters, killing, cooking, and eating a volunteer “victim”, and reading books about pleasure are discussed and examined in order to lay out an overarching theory of pleasure.

Bloom argues compellingly that much of what we experience as pleasure is rooted in the human belief in essentialism. It is a widely-studied and documented tendency in humans to attribute an almost magical power to some people and objects. We see it with small children and their favorite blankets, with athletes and their lucky talismans, with keepsakes and souvenirs from special places we have visited, and with our willingness to pay huge sums for objects once used by celebrities.

Just try replacing a child’s security blanket with one that is slightly different. Brad Pitt’s sweat-stained undershirt would sell for much more than mine would on eBay. Two visually identical paintings are worth vastly different sums of money if one is done by Vermeer and the other is an exact copy by someone else. Much of what we experience as pleasure comes not from the object or experience itself, but from some hard-to-define quality we attribute to someone or something connected to the object or experience.

Bloom’s book gave me much to think about while on vacation in Montana last week. I had a lot of free time to read because we were staying at Erica’s grandfather’s cabin and there is no Internet access at the cabin. Reading his book engaged my mind, entertained me, and gave me things to talk about with friends and family. I liked the book a lot. And, as I said, the reason I was able to finish the book in just a few days was the lack of Internet access.

But now that I am home, (and once again able to access the Internet any time, day or night, in any room and even on the front porch), I am pondering an aspect of pleasure Paul Bloom did not address in his otherwise excellent book. Specifically, I am wondering why it is that I am awful at accurately predicting how much, (or how little), pleasure I will get from spending time on my computer?

When I step back and watch myself, I am forced to conclude that I MUST get a lot of pleasure from spending time on the Internet. After all, I spend hours a day checking the weather in Billings, MT, looking at my checking account balance, reading news of politics and gossip on the Huffington Post website, seeing how many people have visited my blog, catching up with all of my friends on Facebook, reading the newspaper, and following my unfettered curiosity as it crashes haphazardly through the limitless trivia and marginalia available on the Internet.

I must like it, right? After all, time is the single most precious commodity humans have. Our hours are numbered and the total is unknown to us. And for me to spend so many of my hours on the Internet clearly means I must derive immense pleasure from my time there, right?

And yet…why, when I finally hit the “Sleep” command and step away from the laptop, why do I feel like shit? It is not pleasure I get from my time online. In fact, it is the opposite. Spending a chunk of time on the computer usually makes me feel slightly manic, somewhat angry, and mostly depressed. Tell me something Paul Bloom, why do I consistently choose to do something that gives me the opposite of pleasure?

Love the Way You Lie

2010-07-23T10:10:00.004-04:00

My daughter has recently graduated from riding in the back seat of the car to sitting up front in the “shotgun” seat. As a result, I have gotten a crash course in the state of pop music in 2010. Before the move, our car radio rarely strayed from the far left end of the dial where our two public radio stations reside. Now the tuner makes regular forays all the way to the other end and I know far more about Jason Derulo and Ke$ha than I frankly care to know.

Isabel is ten and it was right around ten that I started to develop my own musical tastes, so I am trying to be as open-minded as possible about what we listen to. My parents somehow made it through ad naseum playings of entire albums by Styx and Foreigner so I figure the least I can do is bite my tongue as Isabel goes from station to station looking for Usher’s OMG one more time.

However, just last week a song that entered our car made me seriously consider my laissez-faire approach to Isabel’s musical exploration. It was Eminem’s duet with Rihanna called “Love the Way You Lie.” The song is a passionate first person look at a dysfunctional relationship and it ends with a threat of murder. It includes an infectious chorus sung by Rihanna in a sweetly angelic voice. Problem is, the words of the chorus excuse horrific male behavior, lies, and threats of violence with the refrain, “Just gonna stand there and watch me burn, but that’s alright because I like the way it hurts. Just gonna stand there and watch me cry, but that’s alright because I love the way you lie, I love the way you lie.”

I am no prude when it comes to lyrics. I cannot put my iTunes on shuffle when I am at work or when Isabel has friends over for fear of the “wrong” songs coming up while other people’s children are in my care. I am not especially protective about what Isabel sees, hears, or reads. Nor do I have a problem with Eminem—I find his brash, insulting, violent, and misogynistic singing persona interesting, insightful, and often very clever.

But at the same time I want my daughter to grow up to be a strong, self-assured, independent woman who will not sublimate her feelings and needs to those of an asshole. This song has presented me with a real parenting challenge. It is so catchy and so compelling a song that it is sure to be everywhere all summer long. I certainly can’t ban it from Isabel’s ears. Nor do I really want to.

What I have decided to do is to let it play every time it comes on, even to sing along full-throatedly as we tool down Whitney Avenue. And then, sometimes when the song ends, to have a conversation with Isabel about the lyrics and why I find them so horrifying. I do not want to be one of those humorless liberals who takes all the play out of life with political correctness, but I just cannot let his lyrics stand unchallenged. When I look to my right and Isabel is singing along with Rihanna’s excuse of atrocious male behavior, I want her to know that Rihanna herself was the victim of a violent man and that there is no excuse for violence in a loving relationship. Eminem is a masterful provocateur and instead of censoring him from our car I want to thank him for writing such a catchy conversation starter.

On the other hand, when Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok” comes on, I simply exercise full parental control and change the station within the first four notes.

This Year's (Illegal) Garden

2010-07-09T07:54:00.010-04:00

Here are some pictures of our front garden. It has been an excellent year for our tomatoes, the sunflowers are 8-feet tall, the beans are hugely prolific, and the basil is feeding my pesto addiction quite nicely. The zinnias, black-eyed-susans, and mums are doing what they always do. A friend watered things for us during the heat wave while we were in Montana, (thank you, Sarah), and now we are gearing up to eat a pound of green beans per person per day for the duration.

Swingball

2010-07-02T10:19:00.005-04:00

Keeping in the spirit of simplicity that ended my last post, Isabel and I have invented a new game. To play you need a ball and a swing. (We call the game Swingball, for obvious reasons.)

When we come to visit the relatives in Laurel, Montana there is the danger that Isabel will wake up early and watch way too much tv. It is a constant parental struggle to get her outside and active—partly because she wants so badly to vegetate and partly because we want so badly to vegetate while on vacation here.

When we are at Grandpa Andy’s cabin or visiting the “cousins” in Bozeman, there is no such struggle. There is no tv at the cabin, and in Bozeman there are too many kids and too much fun to be had to waste time staring at a screen, watching other people pretend to do stuff.

But here in Laurel life can quickly settle into a bad pattern of staying up late in front of a movie and then waking up early, (since we are often still on Connecticut time), and turning on the television to kill a few hours before everyone else is up and about.

This morning at 7:30 Isabel and I went over to the park just around the corner from Grandpa Andy’s. We brought a shiny red soccer ball with us but had no real plan. We both just knew that in the direction of the tv lie sloth and self-loathing.

Isabel started swinging and I started to throw the ball at her feet as they climbed on the upswing. Sometimes things connected just right and the ball went flying over my head and over the fence surrounding the playground. We quickly devised rules and a system of points to be awarded for each player based on goals and saves.

Here is what we came up with, though you should feel free to modify it based on your particular setting and skill levels.

The goal is roughly 30 feet wide. The goalkeeper stands 25 feet from the swinger, with the goal behind the keeper. The keeper throws the ball at the swinger’s feet as the swinger begins to come forward—you may need to practice the timing of your throws.

If the swinger connects and the ball goes forward it is the keeper’s job to make the save. If the ball is stopped on the ground by the goalie, the goalie is awarded one point. If the ball passes the goalie on the ground, the swinger gets a point.

If the ball passes the goalie in the air at a height between the goalkeeper’s feet and head, the kicker gets two points. If the goalie stops the ball in the air between his/her feet and head, the keeper gets two points.

If the ball goes over the goalie’s head without being caught, it is three points for the swinger. If the goalie manages to block or catch a ball over head level, it is three points for the goalkeeper.

You play until someone has 20 points. Then you switch roles and start over.

That is all there is to it. We are off to play another round and take some pictures.

The best food--EVER

2010-06-30T13:13:00.003-04:00

Isabel asked me a little while ago: “What is the best food you have ever eaten?” The timing of her question was perfect, as it was about 92 degrees and the air was so thick you could sip it up with a straw.

Without hesitation my mind zipped through 22 years and thousands of miles back to a stretch of Red Sea coast just south of al Hodeidah in Yemen. It was spring, which in that part of the world meant high temperatures and high humidity. My friends Tim and Nick planned a three-day backpacking trip along the coast and they invited me to join them. Being a sucker for a dumb idea, I agreed.

There was nothing along the coast where we hiked except for two or three small fishing villages inhabited by Yemenis who turned out to be fairly suspicious of our motives for sleeping in the hot sand. I can’t say I blame them for being suspicious. Here were three “Amrikis” walking along a stretch of coast that never saw a tourist, taking pictures, speaking Arabic, and sleeping just outside the village at a time when the daily high temperatures were close to 110 degrees.

We were dreadfully underprepared for the conditions and on the first day I came as close to heat stroke as a person can get without actually succumbing. In the early afternoon we stopped in the meager shade of a few palm tress—some standing, some fallen—and had a nap. Though calling it a nap implies some sort of agency on my part. Really what happened was I took off my pack and the next thing I knew it was late afternoon, there was sand stuck to my face, and my muscles were all cramping up pretty bad. I had passed out next to the fallen palm where I had sat to get my pack off.

We had assumed we could get water—though now that I think about it I really don’t know what we were thinking. When we all got up that afternoon we scouted for the wells we had heard were present on that part of the coast. Eventually we found a pit in the sand with some stagnant water full of mosquito larvae twitching around in the heat. Even they seemed really uncomfortable. This was the well.

And, even though we were fairly dumb, we did understand that we needed water or things could get a lot worse. So, we used a tee shirt to strain water into our bottles. We managed to keep most of the visible wildlife out of our water containers and hiked on to a spot where we could sleep.

Yemen is not too far north of the equator and the sun sets fairly early there year-round. And even though we had probably burned several thousand calories hiking in the heat of the day, none of us felt hungry. We built a small fire from driftwood and bought a couple of fish from the fisherman next door. We tried to roast the fish on sticks with little success. We went to sleep by eight o’clock that night with semi-raw fish and who knows what all-else sloshing around in our guts.

The sand holds on to the heat of the sun far better than the air does, so that night was terribly uncomfortable. It was like trying to sleep on one of those heating pads people plug in and adhere to lizard enclosures to provide the cold-blooded creatures steady warm temperatures. The problem is, I am not cold-blooded and it is hard to sleep when you are being slow-roasted. Eventually exhaustion won and I fell asleep.

Hunger woke me at 4 am, and I laid still for a while, hoping it would just go away and let me draft back to sleep. It didn’t go away and when I opened my eyes I was rewarded with a sight I will not forget. The Southern Cross was there in the dark night sky, hanging out over my head like it had been hoping to get my attention, to catch my eye—just to say “hey.”

I was by then awake enough to have to actually do something about my hunger, so I reached into my backpack and grabbed some Turkish soldiers’ bread called kudam. I ripped off a chunk of the dense bread and crammed it in my mouth. And within a few seconds I spit it back out and my mouth felt like it was on fire.

Turns out some painful biting ants had crawled into bag and gotten into the bread and were not pleased with my efforts to reclaim the bread. I fell asleep full of resentment and more than a little hungry. When dawn came I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

The second day was better, in the same way that the second day of radiation therapy is probably better—not because anything is really improved but because the parameters of the pain have been set and you know what to expect a little bit better.

We hiked a few miles and set up camp late in the afternoon. Nick thought there might be a small town a mile or two inland and set out walking. I joined him. And he was right. In the village we bought some bottled water, had a bowl of bean stew at a shack, and then discovered the best food I have ever eaten. It was at a non-descript little market stall with a portable generator. The man who ran the stall had a big cooler full of homemade popsicles. We each bought one and ate it at brainfreeze pace. We then each bought another and ate those as we walked back to camp to tell Tim what we had found.

I made the roundtrip one more time with Tim and ate two more of the popsicles. They were made of Vimto and nothing has ever tasted better to me, before or since. After fortifying ourselves with popsicles we hitched a ride back to my apartment in Hodeidah, where Tim and Nick showered and caught the next bus out of the coastal plain and up into the mountains, where they lived in 7,000+ foot altitude of the capital, Sana’a.

So, I told Isabel about the backpacking trip and the near-heat stroke and seeing the Southern Cross and the ants biting my tongue and then the miraculous taste of the Vimto pops. And now, at least for a couple of days, I will remember that sometimes the simplest things really are the best.

Dora the Exploiter

2010-06-27T16:19:00.006-04:00

“How about this one? It’s only got 12 grams of sugar.”

“Yeah, but look at the serving size. It says this little box has TWELVE servings. If you ate the whole box that’d be 144 grams of sugar.”

“But I won’t eat the whole box.”

“Over the next two days you would. Right?”

“Probably.”

“Put it back.”

When I shop with my daughter we have a series of conversations, all very much like this one, throughout the store. All the way from Produce to Frozen and on to the checkout line we debate the merits of food item after food item. Most fail to pass parental muster.

It is getting downright annoying to Isabel. And frankly, it is getting annoying to me, too. Why is there high fructose corn syrup, added sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oil, or some combination of this terrible triumvirate in just about everything that looks good to Isabel?

A newly published study by Yale University doctoral student Christina Roberto of the Rudd Center might just explain some of Isabel’s preferences. For years companies have sought to link their products with celebrity spokespersons the buying public feels good about. They hope the good feeling will rub off on their product and sales will go up.

The strategy must work, because corporations continue to compete for the endorsements of major stars like Landon Donovan, Drew Brees, and Tiger Woods. Of course, sometimes the brand risks the taint of scandal if the endorser happens to get caught doing something the public finds distasteful. It becomes a little awkward when your cereal-box model is a serial adulterer.

Companies that make food designed to be eaten by kids don’t have to worry about the whiff of scandal if they choose animated beings as their spokescharacters. Dora the Explorer is unlikely to be caught in a three-way with Diego and Boots. So, as long as there are new three-, four, and five-year olds discovering Dora, Dora will be an effective endorser.

Roberto’s research asked kids to compare the taste of identical food served from non-identical bags. One bag was clear, the other had a cartoon character sticker on it. And, as chance would predict, about half the kids said the food in the stickered bag tasted better. But much more significant was the percentage of kids who said they would rather eat a snack from the stickered package. According to a report on CNN, “between 50 percent and 55 percent of the children said that the food with the sticker on it tasted better than the same food in the plain package. (The percentage varied with each food.) And between 73 percent and 85 percent selected the food in the character packaging as the one they'd prefer to eat as a snack.”

Roberto’s research seems to indicate that children can be easily manipulated into preferring one snack over another simply because of the packaging. This is not surprising news—we have all been children. We have all been duped by bright and shiny packages.

When I am at the store with Isabel and she pleads for a particular brand of yogurt or fruit roll or cereal, the package is often the main attractor to her—though she might deny this, (none of us wants to admit being manipulable.) But the plain fact is we are subject to manipulation and advertisers know this. And children are the most susceptible of all.

In recognition of this fact, Norway, Sweden, and Quebec Province have banned all advertising during children’s television programming. Over 30 other countries set limits on advertising during children’s shows. Some of the laws on the books specifically ban marketing using cartoon characters.

An analogous situation exists in medicine, where prescription drug makers have been advertising their drugs directly to consumers, who then do the adult version of crying and screaming and whining and wheedling to their doctors to get specific prescription drugs. Sales of heavily advertised drugs go up. And doctors are being put in the same position as parents who know what is best for their child but can’t always fend off the most persistent requests.

My response to studies like this shows me that I am certainly a liberal who believes the power of the government should be exercised in the public interest. Corporations are going under the heads of the parents and advertising directly to kids, who then whine and cry and scream and wheedle and do their own manipulating of their parents in the grocery store. And CERTAINLY it is the parents’ job to just say “no.” The government cannot take the place of parents. But just as certainly, parents and government can work as partners to improve the health of the nation’s kids.

Before Isabel and I go shopping again I will talk with her about Christina Roberto’s research and try to manipulate her. I want her to feel used by advertisers and resentful about it. If that doesn’t work, I’ll just go to Plan B, which is to shop only when Isabel is at gymnastics practice.

The National

2010-06-20T10:19:00.004-04:00

I have had the great good fortune to see a group called The National three times in the past 14 months and I want to share them with anyone who might stumble across this blog. There is a good, quick review of the band and its history on Wikipedia, so I will not give you all that stuff here. All I want to say here is that The National are the first group to have caught my attention in the way REM did in 1984 since…REM did in 1984. They are smart, insightful, melodic, soulful, and LOUD.

I saw The National last night at the Albright Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo and they blew me away. My wife and I were right up front and the proximity allowed us to see what we could only intuit from our earlier shows: the band has a lot of fun onstage and really seem to get along well and understand each other. Our clothes were vibrating in the blast from the woofers and still every word of their impressionistic lyrics was clear.

The other times we saw them were at the House of Blues next to Fenway Park in Boston. Both shows were amazing and I was a little nervous about how their often dark and atmospheric music would translate to an outdoor, blue sky, bright sun kind-of-day. Their first song showed me I was crazy to have any trepidation at all. I’d say they blew the roof off, but there was no roof.

Here are a couple of pictures:

And here is a live (in the studio) version of their song called Runaway

Trying Something New

2010-05-03T18:14:00.002-04:00

“If I knew back when we met what I know now about you and about marriage, I never would have married you.”

“You know what? I wouldn’t have, either.”

“Weird to think about that, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is. I gotta go to sleep now. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“G’night.”

“Night.”

This is not a verbatim transcript of the end of a conversation I had in bed with my wife recently, but it is pretty darn close. And it tells me just how far my views of marriage have traveled in the almost-14 years since my wife and I exchanged vows.
At the time we first got married, I hadn’t ever really even thought about what a marriage was. I just assumed that the enormous momentum provided by the explosive power of falling in love was enough to propel us along a trajectory leading to happy dotage in side-by-side His and Her rocking chairs. A sort-of Relationship Big Bang. (More truthfully, I probably hadn’t even given the idea as much thought as that last sentence implies.)

The intervening years have shown that it would be hard for me to have been any wronger than I was about marriage.

For starters, I have come to see that no matter how hard I try, I just never will be Everything for my partner. My naïve view of marriage held that once you commit, you pretty much agree to forego anything you can’t get from your spouse. This seemingly romantic and idealistic misperception has turned out, in reality, to be a slow-acting poison that has done some real harm to my relationship with my wife.

Over time it has become clear to us both that we aren’t each other’s Everything. Sadly for me, it has become clearer-er that I am I not able to be her Everything even more than she is not able to be my Everything.

The mechanism behind this state of affairs is one we have been long aware of in other realms of our lives together. An illustration so you’ll know what I am talking about: If the room is too cold, I will put on a sweater; Erica will tromp downstairs and turn up the heat. Another illustration: If our neighbors are being noisy while we try to sleep, I will close the window or put a pillow over my head; Erica will talk to the neighbors and get them to be quiet. A third illustration: If our yard has no fence, I will take our dog, Ginger, for a walk every time she needs to pee; Erica will call a carpenter and have him build a fence.

I change myself and my expectations to fit the situation; Erica changes the situation. In the end and after much thought about these two ways of being, I have concluded that really and truly neither approach can be deemed superior. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes, changing yourself really is the best way to deal with dissatisfaction. Other times, changing the situation is far preferable.

Applying our individual problem-solving approaches to our relationship has been a real struggle for us. Both of us have been dissatisfied by several aspects of our marriage and we have come together with the best of intentions over and over again to try to work things out. Yet, inevitably, we find ourselves going over the same well-trodden ground every few months. Erica will say that she needs more. I will respond by trying to give more of what she needs. Over time, we both realize that what I am giving is not what she needs. She identifies the problem and tries to change the situation. I acknowledge the problem and try to change myself.

I will tell Erica that I need more. She will listen and acknowledge my needs and try to get me to have deeper and more satisfying friendships and relationships with other people so that maybe I can get what I need from them. What she suggests is that I build myself a life independent of her and invite other people and activities and interests in to give me what I want from life. All I really want is for her to adopt my approach and change herself to give me more.

But it doesn’t work. So we find ourselves several years older and no closer to a satisfactory solution to our problems.

When we are NOT focused on our dissatisfactions, we have a pretty great marriage. We love each other more deeply then we did 14 years ago. We respect each other more than we did 14 years ago—and that is no small accomplishment. We give each other something valuable. I give Erica a place that is home. She makes me want to stretch myself and grow. We are allies and cheerleaders for each other. At the end of the day, we both want to come home to each other, and that is more telling than any other detail.

So just last night, Erica came up with what seems to be a real solution to our perpetual dissatisfactions. It is a solution that both of us, with our diametrically opposed approaches to problem-solving, can live with. Erica proposes that we simply decide to be happy with the marriage that we have and forget all the ways in which we wish it were different. She can stop trying to make it different and getting frustrated when not a lot changes. I can stop trying so hard to be more like I think she wants me to be (and failing) and just be who I am.

What this means for us and what comes next are unclear. But even in the moment as she said, “What if we just stop trying so hard to change our marriage and appreciate it for what it is?” I felt a wave of relief wash over me. I don’t know what our marriage will look like, but the prospect of ending all of my trying so hard and failing so often is enough to make the experiment well worth it.

Like It Or Not

2010-04-30T19:17:00.003-04:00

The right wing blogosphere was apoplectic a few weeks ago after President Obama said at the nuclear security summit he hosted in Washington, D.C., "It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure."

The reactions of the 2008 Republican ticket to President Obama’s comments were interesting. Both Sarah Palin and John McCain spoke out about President Obama’s statement and, not surprisingly, both misinterpreted what President Obama meant. Sarah Palin’s misinterpretation was the more benign of the two, (she being the member of the ticket dangling her very expensive shoes at the high end of the intellectual seesaw). Governor Palin said, "I would hope that our leaders in Washington, D.C., understand we like to be a dominant superpower. I don't understand a world view where we have to question whether we like it or not that America is powerful."

Soon-to-be-Ex-Senator McCain’s misinterpretation also demonstrated a lack of understanding of what the President was saying, as well as showing McCain’s belief in the myth of American Exceptionalism. "That's one of the more incredible statements I've ever heard a president of the United States make in modern times," McCain, a Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war, told Fox News. "We are the dominant superpower, and we're the greatest force for good in the history of this country (sic), and I thank God every day that we are a dominant superpower."

I don’t have a direct line to the Oval Office, but when I stopped to think about what President Obama said, it became clear that he was saying, “We are a dominant military superpower and because of this, for better or for worse, we are automatically involved in any conflict anywhere in the world.” His statement was a description of reality, not a regret of American power. For better or for worse, we have to have an opinion. For better or for worse, we have to take sides. For better or for worse, these conflicts often cost American lives and treasure.

President Obama was expressing the truth that being powerful brings with it responsibility. Sarah Palin’s response gives evidence of her inability to see the nuances of life as a superpower. She thinks, “power: good” and that is as far as she takes it. John McCain takes it several steps further. He believes America is the best country in the world and God has had some role in making this true. Therefore, it is our right and duty to exercise our power in pursuit of our goals. This sort of belief in American Exceptionalism had its fullest recent expression in the foreign policy of George Bush. He believed the American version of freedom was the best thing in the world and therefore all countries should have it, too—even if it we had to force it on them.

This belief--that America is God’s instrument for all that is right and good and holy—can, from a slightly different perspective, be seen as arrogant self-interest. Barack Obama is able to walk in the shoes of the people of the other nations of the world. His perspective is not as narrow as that of George Bush, John McCain, and Sarah Palin. Because of this, his mind can hold onto the idea that with power comes responsibility and headaches sometimes.

John McCain seems to think that if America takes an action, that action is automatically good because we are “the greatest force for good” in the world. Barack Obama understands that there is more to it than that. He takes American power seriously and wants to exercise it in a way that makes the world a better place, but he understands that God and exceptionalism have nothing to do with it.

John Calvin preached the “doctrine of election” hundreds of years ago. It stated, in part, that God shows whom he has favored through the accumulation of wealth and power. Those who believe in American Exceptionalism have taken this idea and applied it to countries. To them, America’s wealth and power are obvious signs that we are God’s elect among nations. To me, our wealth and power are an historical accident based on our geographic isolation and surplus of natural resources.

It is simply an extraordinary claim that God has chosen the United States to be His instrument of foreign policy on Earth. I do not believe in God. And the God I do not believe in doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the economic dynamism and military might of various countries. The God I don’t believe in wants people and nations to exercise their power with reluctance, humility, and the utmost deliberation and care.

So, yes, Barack Obama had it just right. Like it or not, one way or another we get pulled into conflicts. I am not happy about this, but I find it far preferable to launching wars of choice in the mistaken belief that we are right simply because we are the United States.

Show Us Your Papers

2010-04-23T21:12:00.004-04:00

Arizona’s Governor today signed a law requiring, among other things, that “local police officers question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal immigrants.”

Right away this forces the question, “Just what would make a person suspect another person of being an illegal immigrant?” I am not a trained law enforcement officer, but even if I were, I doubt I would have special training in how to recognize an illegal immigrant.

Though apparently, such training does exist. Just ask California Republican Representative Brian Bilbray. He says, “trained professionals" can identify undocumented workers just by looking at their clothes. "They will look at the kind of dress you wear, there is different type of attire, there is different type of -- right down to the shoes, right down to the clothes.”

In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews Representative Bilbray went on to add in his Palinesque syntax, “It's mostly behavior, just as the law enforcement people here in Washington, D.C. does it based on certain criminal activity," he told Matthews. "There is behavior things that professionals are trained in across the board, and this group shouldn't be exempt from those observations as much as anybody else."

On Bill O’Reilly’s Fox program, Senator John McCain added his two cents. He claimed that illegal immigrants will be recognizable to law enforcement officers by their behavior behind the wheel. McCain said, “It's the drive-by that -- the drivers of cars with illegals in it that are intentionally causing accidents on the freeway.”

So, to catch the illegals, Arizona State Troopers need to look for people dressed in a “different type” of attire and driving in such a way as to cause accidents on purpose. No racial profiling required. Which is good, because Governor Brewer said she “would not tolerate” racial profiling as her troopers identify possible illegal immigrants and ask them for their papers.

Do you carry your passport around with you all the time in the course of your everyday movements around your hometown? Given Governor Brewer’s ridiculous assertion that this law will be enforced without resort to racial profiling, this is exactly what many of the citizens of Arizona may feel forced to do.

Will middle-aged white skinned women driving 2009 Cadillacs be pulled over and asked for their papers? Will 75-year old Caucasian golfers pulling out of the country club be asked to show proof of citizenship? Or is it the dark skinned, black haired second generation Mexican-American driving an older pick-up truck with one headlight out who will be pulled over and asked for his papers? If all are equally likely to be identified as illegal immigrants, then they should all be worried.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe people wishing to come to America should follow all the proper steps. I also believe that people caught here illegally should be subject to all applicable laws. What I don’t believe is that charging Arizona police with the mission of deciding in a race-blind way just who might be here illegally is at all possible.

Of course it is the dark-skinned Latino who will asked for his papers at a rate 10 times greater than Caucasians will be asked for theirs. And yes, some illegals will be caught and deported. But how many Americans will also be “caught”, forced to prove citizenship, and then sent on their way? We have a Constitution that protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures and surely this law will be challenged and, in a fair world, found unconstitutional.

Why not take President Bush’s advice and reform our immigration laws? President Obama is pushing Congress to address the issue of illegal immigration on the national level and this misguided Arizona law makes the need for real reform even more pressing.

In the meantime, all you people in Arizona better straighten up, dress better, and drive a little more carefully if you don’t want the police asking you for your papers.

Things that make you say...

2010-03-24T21:40:00.007-04:00

I stayed up late last Sunday to watch the health care reform “debate” in the United States House of Representatives as it streamed over my computer. I was on single-father duty and my daughter had finally fallen asleep, leaving me alone with my thoughts and my MacBook. At first, I watched in my daughter’s room, sitting on the floor, earbuds firmly planted in each ear, as she fell asleep. But as speaker after speaker came to the microphone to bring up a point of order, parliamentary inquiry, or argument for or against the pending bill, I found myself getting more and more angry.

I am not one with an explosive temper, but I soon found myself muttering foul words under my breath and flashing the bird at the computer screen. I grew worried that I was going to wake my daughter with a string of curses she usually only hears when we watch football at our friend Joe’s house, so I got up off the floor and walked down to the living room—away from my blissfully ignorant girl asleep in her bed.

Once I got to the couch, the earbuds came out and I my sense of propriety all but disappeared. The screen on my computer is now a little blistered by the venom spewing from my mouth.

The year-long debate over health care made it all too obvious that the Republicans have lost their way. In retrospect, it has become clear that one of the two major parties that make our laws and control our national priorities (through government spending) cares far more about politics than about the national good.

During the eight years of the George W. Bush Presidency, exactly ZERO health care reform proposals came from the White House. The Medicare Prescription Drug Plan did pass in 2003, but many of the Republicans protesting the “backroom deals” that put today’s health care reform bill together seem to forget how that particular plan passed just seven short years ago.*

Once Barack Obama came to office and started to seriously push health care reform, it was stunning how quickly so many Republicans suddenly experienced a dual change of heart—they became deficit hawks and they began to care about making changes to our health care system. Where were they for years as a Republican President and Republican Congresses ran up enormous debts? Where were they for years as our health care system bled our nation dry AND left us with the 37th ranked system in the world and tens of millions of uninsured? Once Barack Obama came to town they sure did find religion FAST.

The most telling statements in the health care reform saga come like bookends from Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Back in July Jim DeMint said the Republican goal should be to stop Barack Obama on health care. He said, “If we are able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo.” His goal was to fight the agenda of a Democratic President, not to correct any of the many flaws on the current delivery of health insurance and care to citizens of the United States. He was saying, “Let’s not give an inch—let’s say ‘no’ to whatever he proposes.” It wasn’t about what is best for America but instead about what is worst for Barack Obama.

Senator DeMint certainly did not have the best interests of the people at heart. He was thinking about what was best for the Republican Party’s electoral interests.

Newt Gingrich, made it even more clear when he said of the Democrats in an interview with the Washington Post: "They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years" with the enactment of civil rights legislation in the 1960s. To Gingrich it isn’t about making the system better—it is about who’s up and who’s down, who accrues advantage and who loses seats. When John McCain was running for President in 2008 his slogan was “Country First.” The Republicans have pissed me off so much in this health care debate, (and in their reaction to Barack Obama’s Presidency in general), because it is clear that their unspoken motto and guiding principal has become “F*** the Country--Party First.”

It is now clear to me why I was so mad and so full of vinegar and foul language as I watched Republican after Republican come to the microphone and spread their lies about the bill. They have sunk to the self-destructive depths of the kindergartener at the party who would rather pop the balloon he wants than share it with anyone.

Vice President Joe Biden was right when a live mic caught him whispering to Barack Obama as he was about to sign the health care bill into law, “This is a f****** big deal.” Yes, Joe. Indeed it is. The Republicans have gone all in in their efforts to bring down Barack Obama and they have failed. Their obstructionism and self-centeredness have been made clear to all and that is enough to make even a kind-hearted liberal like me say f***. Only, I am not saying it AT the Republicans in Congress who are so stuck on NO.

As I tell my students when we study grammar and parts of speech, you can’t really tell what part of speech a particular word is until you see how it is used. It can be an adjective, (as in the case of Joe Biden’s f-bomb), or a verb, (as in the case of Dick Cheney on the Senate floor a few years ago), or it can be an exclamation, as in the current case.

When I see what Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and the most of the Congressional Democrats have done, I can only exclaim “f***!”, shake my head, and thank the Lord John McCain lost back in November of 2008.

(*That particular bill came to a vote at three in the morning. The bill was losing 219-215 when Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert began to take Republican members off the floor to try to get them to change their votes. The House Republican leadership decided to break their own rules and hold the vote open for hours as they tried to arm-twist a few, mind-changes. Representative Nick Smith, a Republican from Michigan, said he was offered campaign funds for his son’s election effort in exchange for his “yea” vote. He later changed his story, but not his vote. At almost six in the morning, the bill finally passed 220-215.)

Yes We Did!

2010-03-21T22:03:00.008-04:00

Health Care Reform passed!!

I never thought I would see it in my lifetime, but gosh darn it if Obama and Pelosi didn’t get ‘er done.

Sometimes, good things happen.

A Violent Lurch to the Right

2010-03-05T14:37:00.008-05:00

Just under a year ago the Department of Homeland Security sent a 9-page document to police and sheriff’s departments throughout the United States. The document was titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment." The document warned that, among the many threats facing the United States, homegrown terrorism at the hands of both organized and “lone wolf” actors was a growing concern.

The report catalogued the many similarities to the 1990s and its rise in homegrown right-wing extremism. To the economic downturn, threats from other countries and foreign terrorist groups, and perceived threats to freedom from our own government, current times add the election of our first African American President.

Michelle Malkin, John Boehner, Rush Limbaugh, and Michael Savage all criticized the report as attacking veterans and the right wing in general. They often claimed the Obama DHS was being used to attack the right—conveniently forgetting that the Obama DHS had released a report three months before this one warning about left-wing extremists. Another thing they all ignore is the fact that both reports were initiated by the Bush Administration and largely prepared under HIS DHS.

The furor in the rightwing blogosphere about the April report told me that the people who were offended and complaining had either 1) not understood what they were reading, or 2) intentionally misread the report so as to have an excuse to take offense. It is not a long document. If you read it, it becomes instantly clear that the DHS analysts were not saying ALL right-wingers are capable of violence and need to be watched. They were saying an extreme fringe exists and the last time conditions were such as they are today, people died in shootings and bombings perpetrated by anti-government extremists from the right.

The reason I am writing about these nearly-year-old reports is one of them has turned out to be prescient. There has in fact been an increase in domestic terrorism perpetrated by citizens of the United States. And the perpetrators have indeed been of the right-wing variety. I will mention the killing of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas and the murder by a white supremacist of a security guard at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. as two examples. The articles linked to here and here list many more instances.

I am not writing to say that right-wingers are more prone to violence than left-wingers. Clearly, those on the fringe of any movement are out there because of their willingness to engage in behaviors others deem out-of-bounds. What I am saying is that those in the mainstream of the Republican Party are playing a very dangerous game when they stoke mistrust and hatred of government in general, (and Barack Obama in particular), in a cynical attempt to pick up the votes of the disaffected angry citizens on the right. It is easy to lob metaphorical grenades at Government. It is much harder to actually govern. The Republican leadership has made it clear that they are much more interested in throwing bombs than in being partners in running the country.

Once that genie of hatred is released, it can’t be put back in the bottle. People like Michelle Bachmann, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin are flirting with forces out of their control. When people take seriously their message that the government is the enemy and that true Americans will arm themselves and take matters into their own hands, it is only far too clear that more violence will come of this. (Sarah Palin, especially, should be aware of the danger in pallin' around with extremists.)

There is an old joke that Republicans claim government is the problem and then every once in a while they get elected just to prove it. Well, I am hoping the Republican Party will find its soul after this mid-term election and realize before much more blood is spilled that extremism isn’t where the answers lie. Government is not the problem right now—the real problem is the Republicans’ refusal to share in the responsibility of governance. Compromise, competence, and commitment to actual governance will put this country back on track far sooner and with far less agony than a violent lurch to the right.

An Open Letter to Kentucky *

2010-03-01T20:01:00.006-05:00

-

Dear Kentucky,

Jim Bunning was a good, and sometimes excellent, pitcher back in the day. He threw a couple of no-hitters, (one in each league), and tossed a perfect game on Fathers’ Day in 1964. When the Tigers brought him to the Bigs in 1955 they said he had “an excellent curve ball, a confusing delivery, and a sneaky fast ball.” He was elected into the Hall of Fame by the Veteran’s Committee in 1996.

I remember Jim Bunning from my days in Delaware. My father was a big Phillies fan and I heard for years about Bunning’s Fathers’ Day perfect game. It meant a lot to my dad because he had just become a father for the first time three days before Bunning’s feat and he posited some sort of connection between Bunning and the birth of my older brother, Jerry.
I wish Jim Bunning lived in my mind as a childhood memory that could make my dad smile.

Sadly, life went on for Mr. Bunning and shortly after retiring from professional baseball he went back to Kentucky and parlayed his fame into a career in politics. His career in politics has taken him to the United States Senate, where he has done…nothing. Time magazine has called him one of America’s “Five Worst Senators.” He skipped 21 floor votes in December 2009 alone, including the Senate’s Christmas Eve vote on Health Care reform. (Just as a point of reference, the 92-year old, sickly Senator from West Virginia, Robert Byrd, missed fewer votes that month.)

In his 2004 bid for re-election to the Senate Bunning’s behavior was erratic and led the National Republican Party to withdraw support for a run in 2010. Bill Clinton once described Jim Bunning as “so mean-spirited that he repulsed even his fellow know-nothings.”

Ticking off the people whose support he needs seems to be a pattern for Senator Bunning. According to Clay Dalrymple, Phillies catcher through the 1960s, Bunning would routinely shake off catchers' pitch signs that he knew to be signaled into the game from the dugout by Manager Gene Mauch. As you might surmise, this did not sit well with the manager.

Now, without the support of his own party and having already decided not to run for re-election in 2010, Jim Bunning has nothing to lose. Apparently, he has decided to just let it all hang out and be who he really is. Against his party leadership’s wishes, Bunning has decided to block a bill that would extend eligibility for enhanced unemployment benefits and subsidized health insurance for laid-off workers by 30 days. He is also holding up a stop-gap 30 day extension for several other expiring laws, including funding for highway projects that employed 2000 people until Monday, improved Medicare reimbursement rates (known as "doc fix"), flood insurance, and licensing that allows satellite TV providers to carry local channels in rural areas where they are unavailable with an antenna.

I know that you, the people of Kentucky, have chosen Jim Bunning to be one of your two Senators and part of me believes that you deserve the representative you choose, but now that we are all stuck dealing with the tantrums and venom of this bitter old man I can’t help but wish he had gotten into the broadcast booth or the coach’s box instead of the Senate. Do you think maybe you can talk him down and find something to keep Senator Bunning off the floor while the rest of the Senators try to take care of business? We would all appreciate that.

Oh, and Kentucky, please try a little harder next time. Thanks

Sincerely,

The Rest of Us

*Much of the information in this letter was obtained from the “Jim Bunning” entry on Wikipedia.

Words I Love To Say Out Loud

2010-02-26T20:40:00.002-05:00

I am sitting at my daughter's Friday night gymnastics class, thinking about words. For no reason at all, here is a list of 78 words I really enjoy saying out loud. Do me a favor? As you read the list, say them aloud. Then add a comment with a word or two that YOU like to say.

Abergavenny

Aberystwyth

Avoirdupois

Behoove

Blagojevich

Boisterous

Cotillion

Chitzen Itza

Clump

Defenestrate

Doofus

Drabble

Elephantine

Erg

Exigencies

Fallacious (just ‘cause it sounds dirty)

Glutinous

Grandiose

Grunt

Hoi poloi

Hornswaggled

Hue

Ibb

Injudicious

Iteration

Jacobin

Japonica

Jiggle

Kipper

Kinesthetic

Klaxon

Lachrymiform

Libidinous

Lipid

Macrophage

Massapequa

Moile

Nascent

Niggling

Noisome

Oast

Oblation

Oracular

Penumbral

Phylogenetic

Plebiscite

Quark

Quartz

Quotidian

Ralph

Regulus

Rhomboid

Sacerdotal

Schenectady

Sibilant

Tachometer

Talus

Titular

Umbrage

Urdu

Uvula

Valparaiso

Vitiate

Void

Whelp

Whinging

Wizened

Xebec

Xenophobe

Xylem

Ya-hoo (must be spoken with a long A sound)

Yaw

Yurt

Zaftig

Zuppa

Zygosis

Leaving Las Vegas

2010-02-01T19:45:00.004-05:00

Q. How are the movie Avatar and the city of Las Vegas the same?

A. Both make me feel like crap.

Don’t get me wrong—as a movie, I thought Avatar was excellent. The underlying story is an old one about an underequipped, overpowered people taking on and defeating a much larger, much stronger enemy. It was Rocky and the Maccabees and the USA Olympic hockey team from 1980 all rolled into one. James Cameron took a tried-and-true winner of a story line and spent $500 million to make it visually stunning as well. The film worked for me on every level. It was gripping—as I watched it the world went away, replaced by a distant moon of a distant planet and a struggle for the very soul of the world. It chewed me up and spit me out a few hours later with tears in my eyes…

…And an unsettled feeling I couldn’t quite make sense of.

And now, two weeks later, here is that feeling again. It hit me in the first few hours in Vegas. We landed at midnight and took a taxi to the hotel, driving down the Strip that was lit up like daylight and crawling with thousands of people on a Thursday night.

The next morning I took my daughter, Isabel, out into the town. We were at the Riviera, on the north end of Las Vegas Boulevard, and we got on the bus and went to Mandalay Bay, a few miles to the south. We then went to the aquarium and walked through several of the newer and larger casino complexes. The scope of the places was amazing. Many of the newest casino resorts in Las Vegas cost over $1 billion to create. Many of the buildings are spectacular—or at least aspire to spectacular-ness. The scale of things is just enormous. The buildings are huge, the appointments are luxurious, the shows are awesome. It is a city of superlatives.

And yet, as I left on an early morning flight yesterday, I had the same empty, guilty feeling I had after watching Avatar. I think I know what is at the root of this reaction. Both the city of Las Vegas and the movie Avatar have been “built” using vast amounts of resources. And the money laid out for them was spent, in the end, for one purpose: to make money by entertaining me. These edifices were constructed to give me a few hours or a few days of entertainment. And that knowledge makes me feel like crap. Ten percent of adult Americans who want work can’t find it. A hundred and fifty thousand Haitians died in the earthquake and now more are dying due to lack of medical care. Millions die every year because they can’t get clean water to drink.

I am not so naïve to think that life and the world are a zero-sum game, with every dollar spent making (or watching) a movie or building (or gambling in) a casino translating into a dollar taken away from the needy of the world. I know it is far more complex than that. But it is my brain that knows this fact.

My heart, on the other hand, is simple and my heart is dumb and it feels sad and guilty and dirty and wrong for enjoying things like Avatar and Las Vegas.

Ali Abdullah Saleh

2010-01-07T23:55:00.007-05:00

Have you ever heard of Ali Abdullah Saleh? If not, I imagine you will within the next few months. Mr. Saleh has the bad misfortune to be the President of Yemen and I would bet even money that he will be the target of an assassination attempt before the summer sun hits Sana’a. Mr. Saleh finds himself stuck between the wishes of the United States and the ire of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. He has some company in his cramped little space—Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan has been in there for a while now.

Ali Abdullah Saleh was also the President of Yemen back in 1987, when I first got there as a Peace Corps volunteer fresh out of college. At the time, Yemen was divided into North Yemen and South Yemen, which was a client state of the Soviet Union. Since then, President Saleh has negotiated the reunification of the two Yemens and held onto power in spite of a secessionist movement in the south and tribal unrest (propped up by Saudi Arabia) in the north. He has proven himself to be an able politician.

Yet I say again, I have strong doubts Ali Abdullah Saleh will be alive come August.

I bring this up not to get my prognostication out in public, but rather in service of a larger point. When I lived in Yemen from 1987 to 1989, almost every person I met there, from the taxi drivers in the capital to the store clerk in Hodeidah to the dirt-poor farmer in the mountaintop villages, was able to identify George Herbert Walker Bush as President of the United States. Yet, none of my close friends or family members back in the United States had any idea where Yemen even was, let alone who their President might be.

The imbalance of power struck me powerfully, even then as a 21-year old who knew next-to-nothing about the world. The uneducated 35-year old farmer who had never left his mountain HAD to know who George Bush was because decisions made by George Bush affected that farmer directly. My mom did not have to know who Ali Abdullah Saleh was because decisions made in Sana’a by President Saleh did not seem to have any effect on her.

Yet, it turns out some of his decisions DID have an effect on my mom--as well as on every other American. And now we do what it seems we have to do each time there is a crisis in a new hot spot—we as a nation have to scramble to make sense of a seemingly-impenetrable situation in a place we know next-to-nothing about. When will we learn?

Slip Slidin' Away

2009-12-08T06:47:00.003-05:00

“I know a man,

He came from my hometown.

He wore his passion for his woman like a thorny crown…”

Not the words to any lullaby you were raised with, are they? Me either. But for at least five years now this song has unfailingly gotten my daughter to fall asleep when nothing else would work.

My wife complains about how unfair it is that I can basically fall asleep whenever I want to. We will be talking in bed and at some point I will get tired enough and I will say, “I am going to sleep now.” And I do. Usually within two minutes of deciding to do so. She, on the other hand, needs to read a book or work on logic problems before she is able to set her day behind her and fall asleep.

Sadly, my daughter takes after her mother when it comes to falling asleep. The nightly process much more closely resembles some form of hand-to-hand combat between “awake” and “asleep” than an easy letting go for my poor girl. She has not yet read Dylan Thomas’s poetry, but it would not surprise me if his words strike a chord with her when she discovers him:

“Do not go gentle into that good night…”

I know Thomas’s words were about more than sleep. And as I sing Paul Simon’s words to “Slip Slidin’ Away” lately, they more often than not bring me to silent tears. I chose the song originally because I knew the words and it fit my limited range. I also liked the layer of meaning that using the song as a lullaby imparted to the lyrics. I truly wanted Isabel to slip slide off to sleep.

But now that she is almost ten and starting to develop more teenager-y tastes, I know that she is not always going to want me to lie down next to her and sing her a song to help her get to sleep. It is only a matter of time before she plugs in her earbuds and lets the Apple Corporation lull her to sleep. My time as her lullaby-singer is slip slidin’ away, too. Hell, she doesn’t know it yet, but SHE is slip slidin’ away from me—just like she is supposed to, I guess.

And on especially maudlin nights, as I finish up the last fading away lines of the song, I allow myself to look at the facts of the situation: Not only is Isabel sliding out of her childhood and away from me, but I am doing a little bit of slip slidin’ myself.

“Believe we’re gliding down the highway when in fact we’re slip slidin’ away…”

(Listen to the song.)

Wreckers of New Haven

2009-11-20T12:23:00.004-05:00

The speed and efficiency with which the police and wreckers of New Haven move cars out of the way of the street sweepers is sometimes astounding. It has got to be the single most efficient operation in the city. I sometimes see ten or twelve tow trucks staging up over on James Street by Criscuolo Park. They are always accompanied by at least two New Haven Police Department cars and they move out with all the choreography and energy of a well-planned military operation.

I have witnessed the same precision and speed in the East Rock neighborhood, where I have seen ten cars ticketed and towed in under 30 minutes. It is truly impressive.

While I like clean streets and see the need for litter and leaves to be cleared away so storm drains can remain clear, I do have a major issue with the way the City of New Haven handles these towing operations. Others in New Haven have already reported on the woefully-inadequate posting of signs the day before these out-of-season street sweepings happen. I have often wondered how the companies that do the towing get the contracts (and thus, the spoils).

But neither the lack of notice nor the opportunity for corruption bothers me as much as the blatant and dangerous disregard for traffic laws shown by both the police and the wrecker convoys. I have not had my video camera handy when I have witnessed speeding through neighborhoods and running of stop signs, but I will be prepared next time and I will lodge formal complaints with the city and the state.

Until I catch these police-sanctioned and –led convoys on tape, doing 45 mph on the streets of East Rock, blowing through stop signs, I would like to know if anyone else has witnessed similar happenings. If so, please leave a comment here letting me know. Maybe we can affect some change somehow. I hope it will not take a bad car accident or a killed pedestrian to call attention to this problem.

The recent revelation that the officer involved in this June’s fatal crash in Milford was driving 94 mph and probably racing has made clear the potential serious repercussions of police sanctioned law-breaking. I want clean streets, but not at the cost of serious injury or death.

Going Half Hog

2009-11-09T22:41:00.002-05:00

I went up to Portsmouth, New Hampshire last weekend for a half marathon. It was part of a commitment I made to myself last year that I would run a half marathon every three months until I die. (If you’re going to do something, you might as well go whole hog, right?) Since the promise, I have run the Missoula (MT) Half Marathon twice, the Monson (MA) Memorial Half Marathon, the LOCO Half at the Hamptons (NH), and Boston’s Run to Remember Half Marathon.

Sunday was a beautiful day, so as I waited for the race to start I sat outside stretching in the grass behind Portsmouth High School. After a while I noticed an older woman standing not so far away and, because talking to strangers does not come naturally to me, I made myself walk over and start a conversation with her. Her name was Nancy and she was running the Seacoast Half Marathon as the final leg in her goal to race a half marathon in each of the fifty United States.

We talked for twenty minutes and her story impressed the heck out of me. She didn’t once talk about her times or her pace. For her it was all about being in the race. My conversation with Nancy ended when we got the “ten minutes ‘til start” announcement. We wished each other luck and shortly after, I lost sight of Nancy. Based on the fire and zest for life she showed during our conversation, I am sure she finished and made good on her goal.

While I was running through Portsmouth, my wife, Erica, was jumping out of a perfectly good airplane three times. These jumps were part of a commitment she has made to get licensed to jump on her own anywhere, anytime. (Talk about whole hog.)

After the race, during the 200-mile drive home, I got to thinking about Nancy and about Erica and about going whole hog. And I made up my mind right there on the spot—right where I-95 gets onto I-495 up in the northeast corner of Massachusetts—that I am going to do the same as Nancy. I am going to run a half marathon in all 50 states. I can’t yet put a timeframe on the deal, but I am going to do it.

I have five states down already, if you include the full marathon I ran in Corning, New York in 2002. If you don’t count the Wineglass Marathon, then I have four states down and 46 to go. [I guess this is one of the many technical decisions I will have to make along the way. Nancy was explaining that several of her halfs went through more than one state. She had to decide if those races counted as one state or more. (She decided to count those multi-state races as only one state.)]

Well, what the heck? Here goes nothing. I hereby commit to running a half marathon in every state in the union before I die. So help me, God. I think I will call it going “half hog.” I will keep you posted.

Where The Wild Things Are

2009-10-24T14:22:00.003-04:00

The heroine of the book I am currently reading out loud to my nine year-old daughter finds herself in an enormous outdoor arena with 23 other teenagers. She is part of a televised fight to the death, with the sole survivor winning food for his or her province for a year. It is a brutal story set in a brutal world. And my daughter can’t get enough. (Hunger Games)

The book I have just finished reading to my class of sixth graders features global flooding, the near-extinction of humanity, and a fight to survive against overwhelming odds. Many sympathetic characters die horrible deaths. It is certainly NOT the feel-good book of the year. And my students loved it. (Exodus)

The current debate about Spike Jonze’s film adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s 1963 classic Where The Wild Things Are has got me thinking about kids and just what is appropriate for them. Online message boards and stories on CNN and Yahoo News feature quotes from many parents who are shocked and horrified by the tantrums, tears, destruction, and just-plain emotional messiness of the film. Their reactions boil down to one complaint: This is NOT a kids’ movie.

I have no memory of any specific books I read before the age of twelve. The first book I can clearly remember reading is Richard Wright’s Native Son. It begins with a desperately poor family cowering in their apartment as the oldest son tries to kill a rat with a frying pan. This one scene opened my eyes, my brain, and my heart to books. It was harsh. It was violent. And it was real. Much more real and much more vital than any book I had read before Native Son.

Before reading Richard Wright’s novel I could not have told you what most books were lacking because I didn’t know. After those first 20 pages, it was immediately clear what was lacking in those other books: complexity.

The world is certainly not a simple place. And humans are certainly not simple creatures. We are a complex jumble of contradictory thoughts, wants, and emotions, and these competing forces can leave us roiling. Children are not exempt from the complexity that comes with having such large brains and such complicated and obscure motivations. Books and movies that reflect some of the messy truth of being human talk to me much more directly than books and movies that ignore or deny this truth.

And I am happy to find out that the same is true of my daughter. The books we read together now interest me as much as they interest her. Of course, there are some caveats. Children are different. They are individuals. Some children are deeply affected by images of cruelty, violence, cold-heartedness, and anger and the parents of these children need to exercise the “G” part of the PG movie rating. As parents, we know our own children far better than any movie- or video game- rating board.

I hope the release of, (and accompanying debate about), Where the Wild Things Are, motivates parents to take a more active role in guiding their children to books, movies, tv shows, and video games that are right for their kids. I will not be showing my daughter Pulp Fiction, (or even episodes of The Office), but if she wants to read a challenging work like To Kill a Mockingbird or Of Mice and Men, I will be right there with her, helping her make sense of some of the harder, darker elements.

In a recent interview with Newsweek magazine, Maurice Sendak, Spike Jonze, and writer Dave Eggers talked about the idea that some things are too scary for kids:

What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?  Sendak: I would tell them to go to hell. That's a question I will not tolerate.

Because kids can handle it?  Sendak: If they can't handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it's not a question that can be answered.

Jonze: Dave, you want to field that one?

Eggers: The part about kids wetting their pants? Should kids wear diapers when they go to the movies? I think adults should wear diapers going to it, too. I think everyone should be prepared for any eventuality.

Sendak: I think you're right. This concentration on kids being scared, as though we as adults can't be scared. Of course we're scared. I'm scared of watching a TV show about vampires. I can't fall asleep. It never stops. We're grown-ups; we know better, but we're afraid.

Why is that important in art?  Sendak: Because it's truth…

And with our guidance, kids can handle the truth.

What is a Team?

2009-10-05T21:21:00.003-04:00

I went to a friend’s house yesterday to watch the Baltimore Ravens play the New England Patriots. My friend “Joe” is a rabid Ravens fan and his reactions to the action on the screen certainly made the game that much more enjoyable for me. In the end, the Ravens lost when one of their receivers, Mark Clayton, dropped a pass he should have caught at the eight-yard line with 30 seconds left in the game. “Joe”, though not inconsolable, was somewhat distraught.

Another friend asked him why he is so committed to his Ravens and “Joe” owned up to the fact that it was simply a matter of geography. He happened to be born in the city where the Ravens play. When pressed even just a little he will readily admit that proximity is not a rational reason to support a professional sports team.

I chose my favorite sports teams differently. Way back in the early-mid 1970s I made a short list on a piece of paper. The list consisted of four professional sports teams, all of them from Philadelphia.

Phillies

Eagles

76ers

Flyers

I asked my dad to name the rivals of the four teams on the list. He told me the following:

Los Angeles Dodgers

Washington Redskins

Boston Celtics

New York Rangers

That very day I adopted the four rivals as my new favorite teams. And, 35 years later, three of the four are still my favorite teams. (I have since stopped following professional hockey due to its over-resemblance to professional wrestling.) When pressed even just a little I will readily admit that opposition to my family is also not a rational way to pick my favorite sports teams.

I have lately been thinking about just what a sports team is. The Dodgers, Redskins, and Celtics I like today are not the same Dodgers, Redskins, and Celtics I rooted for in 1977. They have different owners, different coaches, and different players. The only things the same are the names and Dodger stadium. Yet, something of the teams I chose to like all those years ago is still there, somewhere, still keeping my loyalty. What is it? What is a sports team?

What brought these thoughts on is a discussion I had with my wife, Erica, last week. For the past three years Erica has captained a long-distance relay team called the Rosie Ruiz Fan Club. The team was originally four people running the New Jersey Marathon as a team in May of 2007. In its latest incarnation, it was twelve people running the 207-mile Reach the Beach long distance relay in New Hampshire. In any given year the membership has little overlap with the year before. Still, the Rosie Ruiz Fan Club is a team. Even when it lies dormant for eight or nine or even ten months between races, the spirit of Rosie lives.

My experience this year running for Rosie in New Hampshire has helped focus my answer to this “what is a team?” question. It is not an answer I am fully satisfied with yet, but I am working on it.

Here is what I got so far: A team is a living feeling rooted in history, traditions, personal experiences, and commitment. The Celtics, Dodgers, and Redskins have long, storied histories reaching back much farther than my memory. I stepped into the story of each of these teams when I decided to follow them. I earned my stripes as a fan of these teams when Larry Bird left and John Riggins retired and Steve Garvey stopped playing. My teams all got bad for a while. In some cases, very bad. Yet, they are still my teams. I didn’t pick new teams to follow; I suffered though with the old ones.

New teams don’t have the history, traditions, and allegiances of established franchises. New teams create them over time, game by game and season by season. The Ravens are an interesting case in point to consider when asking this question, what is a team? The Ravens moved to Baltimore from Cleveland. Yet the owner who relocated his team was forced by the NFL to leave his team’s history and nickname behind to be used by an expansion team in 1999.

Many of the very same personnel who comprised the Cleveland Browns in 1995 were the Baltimore Ravens in 1996, yet somehow they were not the same team. The intangibles of history, traditions, memories, and allegiances were all left behind in Cleveland, to be assumed by an expansion team a few years later. So, did the Cleveland Browns exist in the four-year period when there was no group of men playing under the mantle of the Browns? To the fans of the Browns the answer is an obvious yes.

It is an odd thing people do, choosing to give their hearts to a thing that is so hard to define. Yet many of us do it willingly. (Of course, many of us do it at an age when we are too young to really know what we are getting ourselves into.) Still, I would bet a million dollars that if I were to ask “Joe” seconds after Mark Clayton dropped that pass yesterday on the eight-yard line if he ever once thought about dropping the Ravens and following another team he would laugh in my face. The Ravens are his team. Whatever that means.

Finding Change

2009-09-28T13:26:00.001-04:00

There is a screwtop plastic jar in my kitchen. It is slowly filling with crusty pennies and sticky nickels and dirty dimes. An occasional quarter makes it in, but that is rare. The jar itself is something I bought near Faneuil Hall in Boston when I had my class there for a sleepover trip a couple of years ago. I am not allowed to take such a trip without bringing something home for my daughter, and this jar was her present from that particular trip.

The jar is the size and shape of the mason jars people use for canning, but this jar has a twist. The lid has a slot for coins and a digital display screen that shows a running total of how much money is inside. Right now the total reads $8.24.

The reason many of the coins in the jar are dirty is they are all coins we have found out in the world. Many were on the ground near parking meters, some were under vending machines, and a few were on the floor of the supermarket near the CoinStar machine. They have all been found since June 18, 2009. That was the day I walked by a few pennies on the ground and then wondered exactly how much money I was leaving laying around in a year. I vowed to pick up every coin I would ordinarily have passed by for a full year and add them up.

I told Erica and Isabel about my plan and enlisted their help. I also made what now appears to be a foolish bet with Erica. In those early, overly-optimistic days I thought we might be able to collect as much as $50.00 in a year. She thought fifty dollars was a wildly high guess. We bet a backrub. If I had slowed down even just a little I could have done the math and realized that a total of fifty dollars would require an average daily find of fifteen cents. It has been about one hundred days and we are averaging only 8.2 cents a day.

So, it looks like I will owe my lovely wife a backrub come next June. But in the meantime and much to my surprise this exercise is teaching me something valuable. And it doesn’t really have anything to do with coins.

Finding all this lost change requires focused attention on the world around me and a willingness to change course in response to what I observe. I am finding these very same skills really valuable to my teaching. This year is going well in my classroom and, (even though it may sound ridiculous), I partially attribute this success to my newfound hobby of coin collecting. In order to find change, I have to remind myself to look—to pay attention. Often I just walk without anything in mind but the destination. But now that I am looking for change, I have to remember to actually look for change. I have to exercise mental discipline.

The same is true in my daily classroom interactions with my students. In other years I have been so focused on the destination—the skill to be learned, the project to be completed, the work to be done—that I have blown right through some ripe opportunities to connect with my kids. Once I started shifting my focus from the horizon to my more immediate environment, I found a lot more coins. And once I lowered my gaze from the goal and focused more on the immediate messages my students were sending with their questions and their body language, the more I have felt able to really give them what they are needing.

I am giving more of myself to each interaction with my students and the payoff has been enormous. I am noticing more and learning more about them. I imagine they are feeling more seen, more recognized, and better cared for. There is a feeling in the room that hasn’t always been here in the past.

Don’t get me wrong—I have never been an uncaring, strictly-business sort of teacher. I like where I teach partly because of the administrative and parental expectation that I get to know my students well. What has made this year different is that I have gotten to know my students well AND I have realized that every interaction is a chance to get to know them even better. Every interaction every day is a chance to find something new about my students. I am no longer, (at least so far this year), leaving money on the ground. Once I began to see the value in those small moments, those minor revelations, and those tentative questions from my students it became clear to me just how immensely valuable all those pennies and nickels and dimes are in building real and authentic relationships with my kids. And that is worth far more than fifty dollars.

Reach the Beach 2009

2009-09-21T11:54:00.003-04:00

I stood on the roadside, breathing steam into the starry night of Laconia, New Hampshire. I was peering down the road, back the way we had just driven, looking for Tammy. Runner after runner came up the hill, red lights blinking, headlights bobbing—more, or less--depending on the runner’s form and efficiency of stride. They all looked equally like Tammy in the dark. The headlights of the oncoming support vans were blinding, making it all the harder to spot my teammate.

As runner after runner plodded or trudged or jogged or sprinted up the hill, a teammate would pop out of the crowd and take the team wristband, slapping it on his or her own arm and heading further down the road, further into the night. But still no Tammy.

I had met Tammy only 30 hours earlier at an Appleby’s in Lowell, Massachusetts and now here I was, wanting to see her more than any other human being on Earth. Funny, what life does. Just that morning she had been moving to loud club music as our team registered, and I kept expecting to see that same vibrant woman come dancing out of the darkness and into the transition zone with a big smile on her face.

Which is why I didn’t recognize her for a moment, even when she stood five feet away yelling, “Where’s my runner?” The woman calling in the floodlit roadside transition area was wrapped in some sort of white blanket or something. She was sweating and looking somewhat disoriented. It was then that I saw our team number, 269, on the woman’s bib and realized this was Tammy standing right in front of me, eyes swiveling with increasing panic as she searched the crowd for me.

“Here I am—I’m here,” I said as I squeezed out of the crowd and became myself to Tammy. Right away her face cleared and she smiled and she was that same dancing-on-the-grass girl I had seen back in the morning on Cannon Mountain at the start of this craziness. She handed me the wristband, I slapped it on, adjusted my head lamp, and trotted on up the road, in the same direction Tammy had been heading.

“This craziness” is officially known as Reach the Beach 2009. It is a team relay race that starts in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and ends 207 miles later in the sands of Hampton Beach, on the Atlantic Ocean. The race has been run every year since 1999 and each year there are more teams running through the night and through the state. There were more than 400 teams this year, including our team, the Rosie Ruiz Fan Club.

Team Rosie has now run the race three times and we are building a small but dedicated fan base who mostly appreciate the humor of our name. Rosie Ruiz is the woman who won the Boston Marathon a few years back by cheating and taking the subway for some of her miles. We have adopted her likeness and name, if not her ethos.

So, there I was at 2:30 a.m. running along the shoulder of Route 106 South, heading for Belmont High School, 4.3 miles away. My running shorts and shirt were already damp from my previous leg, (a 7.2 mile, moderately hard run just before sunset the previous day), and I was shivering. My vanmates and I had just woken up from our only sleep of the race—a two hour nap in an anonymous hotel room in Laconia—and my mind felt as addled as Tammy had looked at the end of her leg just moments before. I really did not know how I was going to get through the next few miles of my life.

So I did he only thing I could do while I tried to figure it out—I ran. The cold air quickly went from adversary to friend and my muscles, already warmed up from my earlier run, settled me into a smooth, fluid stride without me having to even think about it. It was a clear night and there were far more stars than I usually see in New Haven, Connecticut, where I live in my regular life. But if I looked up at them too long I strayed off the shoulder or onto the road—neither of which is a good thing to do. So I focused on the shoulder just ahead.

My headlamp threw a blue-white circle of light onto the tar in front of me and that well-lit circle quickly became my world. It mesmerized me and so I chased it. I wanted nothing more than to step into that circle, but as I followed, it receded. I sped up a little, but so did the circle. My legs and my breathing settled into a pace that felt good. I was pushing myself, trying to give what I had without wasting myself for my final 6.8 mile leg still to come that afternoon. By the end of the first mile I was in the best rhythm of my running life.

The feeling of moving smoothly through a three-dimensional space that suddenly seemed alive and filled with darkness and cold and life inflated me. I felt bigger. The layers of commentators that live in my head and my heart all shut up for a few miles and left me in peace and in that peace my body did what it wanted to do.

And what it wanted to do was to run. So I went after that little circle of light until the end of my leg, which seemed to come far too soon. I truly believe I could have gone on for hours. When Tammy called me out of that crowd 32 minutes earlier she somehow worked some magic. When I stepped out onto the road to answer that question, “Where’s my runner?”, I feel like I stepped fully into who I am. I am not the fastest runner on the team, nor will I ever be. But when it is right—and it most certainly was right in New Hampshire this weekend—running fills me up and quiets me and makes me feel what it is to be fully in the moment in my own skin, doing what I need to be doing.

As a postscript for those who care about the details: The Rosie Ruiz Fan Club ran 207 miles in 27 hours and 32 minutes--an average of 7 minutes 57 seconds per mile. We came in 25th out of 127 teams in our division. My average time per mile over my 19.2 miles of the race was exactly the same as the team's.

Too Much Information

2009-09-15T06:46:00.004-04:00

My daughter recently brought home a Leopard gecko from the pet store. (She named it “Cow.”) To be honest, I didn’t really care one way or the other about this new addition to our household. It didn’t seem like Cow’s presence would change my life in any appreciable way.

But now, ten days later, I find myself with an embarrassing problem.

You see, Leopard geckos are carnivores and they do best when fed live crickets. The crickets are easy enough to get from the local pet store. The problem is this: it is really fun watching Cow chase down, catch, and munch on these poor little hoppers. I spend far too much time squatting down by the ten-gallon tank, shaking out a couple of crickets, and then enjoying the show.

I didn’t really want to know this about myself.

Reach the Beach, 2009

2009-09-11T19:38:00.000-04:00

Two years ago this week I drove up to Hampton Beach, New Hampshire with my daughter so we could watch Erica and her eleven teammates finish their 200 mile Reach the Beach Relay Race. I was not on the team because I had not been running much, due to two herniated discs in my lower back. I was happy for them as they crossed the line as a group, but inside I felt entirely lame and left out. I vowed in the van on the way home the next morning that I would work myself into the best shape of my life and then I would be in the race the next year, not clapping from the sidelines.

Last September, I was indeed a member of the Rosie Ruiz F an Club relay team as my teammate Aisling Colon crossed the finish line, bringing our team in in 28 hours, 23 minutes, and some odd seconds. This was an hour faster than the year before, when the team ran an average 8 minutes and 33 seconds per mile for over 200 miles.

It felt really good to be part of such a demanding undertaking—no sleep, no showers, no stopping for food—and it was so much fun that it ensured I would once again run the race this year.

In the interim, I have decided I need to run a half marathon every three months in order to fight time’s and gravity’s ravages. So, as this year’s Reach the Beach approaches, I am probably now in much better shape than I was for last year’s race. And I am growing more and more excited day by day. I just now finished a slow four-mile run as my daughter Isabel practiced her balance beam routine and her backflips and as I ran down the Farmington Canal trail for the hundredth time in the past year it struck me that one week from right NOW I will be running my first leg of the relay.

It feels good to be excited about something. It reminds me of the value of trying hard things with other people. I will let you now how it goes when we get back next Sunday.

Rosie Ruiz Fan Club 2008