My Son’s Face

My son is home from college. His freshman year cut short by this pandemic. He’s still taking classes, online, from is room. But that’s not what this is about.

I came upstairs the other day and he said ‘what do you think?” 

“About what?’

“About my face?!” Incredulous.

Blank stare....

“OMG I shaved!”

Oh.

I’m sorry, did you have facial hair?

“I LOOK SO DIFFERENT”

But when I look at him I don’t see the man in front of me. 

There are layers upon layers of memories through which he filters.

His infant disgust, his toddler frustration, his boyish delight .... all of those faces are still there.

Most people can’t see them but I can.

I wonder what he really looks like.

Election Year

Have you ever had a conversation with someone and come out of it realizing that neither of you understood what the other was saying? Even when speaking the "same" language our messages can be misinterpreted because words are like shells we've created around objects and feelings. They are fragile. We speak our own truths which are absorbed, shuffled and reorganized by the person to whom we talk. Once words leave the safety of our mouths, (head, heart) they become the property of those who have heard them. And they, dear speaker, can do anything they'd like with the colloquy offered. Everyone has an agenda and they will hear what is needed to fill it.

Words: they mean nothing.

Tiny Pebbles

"There's practically no water coming out of this faucet" my friend said, waiting for his glass to fill. It was true, I agreed, and it had gotten worse over the past few weeks.

"No wonder, check out all the gravel stuck in your filter." The faucet looked stunted from where he'd unscrewed the tip and I examined the part he took off - a metal casing enclosing a plastic nub full of tiny pebbles. We discarded them and screwed the faucet back together. The water flowed. His glass filled quickly.

It's been two days and my life has dramatically improved. Replenishing the dog bowl takes 4 seconds instead of 30. My dishwasher works again (it's the kind that wheels over to the sink and has a hose that manually screws into the faucet.) My glass fills quickly.

I was reveling in this small victory (while doing the dishes) and it occurred to me how much this relatively small fix had quietly helped elevate my mood. I took a moment to notice the water's rush over my hands, how quickly the suds moved from pot to drain, the consistent heat and pressure ... Perfection in a faucet.

Much of what I take for granted is perfect: a drawer that slides easily, a door that doesn't squeak, the sound of my car motor starting up. It's time to start appreciating these seemingly inconsequential moments and things because together they are the fuel that drive my day and give me strength to tackle the pebbles and stones that can sometimes block the path. 

It's the Abstract that Hurts

I've had a string of rotten stuff happen. I keep pulling myself up from feeling sorry for myself by focusing on people in situations much worse than mine - like the 33 miners in Chile. I mean, if they can survive a month under the ground, who am I to complain about a few days of crap?

I don't really have a right to complain about the gardener hired by my landlady who called me a bitch at 8am on a Saturday morning. Or the client who insulted me personally and professionally while "excusing me" from duties on a project for which he wasn't paying. Or how about the colleague who, while attempting to sniff out my business plan, swooped in from behind and stole the job.

More abstractly I could complain about how the gardener, calling me a bitch at my own home, enunciated  the fact that there is no man living here (because if there were, he wouldn't have dared speak to me that way.) Or how the self righteous insults of the non-paying client had me questioning my professional capability at the same moment my "colleague" pulled out a knife and stabbed me in the back.

Or I could bemoan a lack of romance - real or imagined. The actuality I can live without - I've got more than a decade of practice. But the abstract romance keeps the pilot on. When it gets extinguished it becomes a hell of a lot more difficult to fire up. And the cooling is piercingly quiet.

But hey, the kids are healthy. The bills are paid. I'm going to see my favorite band perform tonight. (Never mind that I couldn't find a date and am going alone)

I'm not complaining.

A Reletive Lepton

Quick background: I came to Berkeley in 1990 to earn an MA in Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union. During my first week of classes I met a man, "T" who continues to be a close friend. Over the years we've studied together, encouraged each other's work, celebrated accomplishments.... He was at my wedding, heard Joe's first breath, supported me (without alienating EX) during the separation and divorce... my children have grown up with him. He's family.

Last night T and I went to dinner (as we often do) and I made a snide remark about the existence of God. "You don't believe in God?" he asked? My answer - "no" - had never flowed so effortlessly from my lips. It surprised us both.

We quickly fell into a familiar and friendly academic discourse about life, death, the "soul" and God. "Humans," he began, "are made up of all these little tiny molecules... we're just one giant mass of living organisms.... So, what if we are really just one tiny little molecule of a larger being. Just like we can be broken down to protons and neutrons, quarks and leptons, suppose we are that tiny of a reality.... Along with everyone else in the whole universe - itself only a molecule - we are one reletive lepton of God."

I kinda loved it. And like a child, I imagined a "god" of huge proportions - a giant - in which we are all swimming, floating, moving towards something blurry and abstract. Granted, we - collectively - may be only a cell in the digestive track, our existence is (still) necessary for its survival.

And *BAM*
We come back to that again.
God can't exist without us.

The answer is still no.

A Place Callled "Expectations"

The first time I read The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster I was about eight. My parents had friends with teenage daughters that we visited often. I found the book in their room, made myself at home and opened it up. Honestly, all the backward words confused me, but I liked the idea of a land beyond the tollbooth... and the fact that Milo (the main character) was able to drive.

Like so many other great children's books (The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, etc) The Phantom Tollbooth can be read on several different levels. When I picked it up last week I was planning on gifting it to Joe (DS), but then I took a peek and was immediately sucked in.

The hook? Upon embarking on his journey, Milo bumps into a little man - the Whether Man - who points the way to "Expectations." What? "Why, Expectations is the place you must always go to before you get to where you're going. Of course, some people never go beyond Expectations..."

I can't stop pondering his words. They roll around in my brain. What are my expectations for this little life of mine? And if I haven't defined my expectations, is it possible to move forward? Does expectation fuel the drive? What happens when expectations don't measure up? Or fall flat all together?

Now, reverse that: what if where get to exceeds Expectations. The roast is tender and delicious, the date went well, the raise was earned. Does it make you happier? By lowering expectations are we creating opportunities for success?

Reverse that (again): high expectations may result in defeat but do they push you beyond where you would have gone with lower expectations?

Confused?
Me too.

But I think the Whether Man is saying that the expectations we impose on ourselves can drive (quite literally, in Milo's case) us forward and perhaps take us to lands we never knew existed. The words have convinced me to raise mine - expect the universe - see how far I get. Watch me fly beyond Expectations.