MoMa'ney, Mo' Problems

Thursday, June 11, 2015 | 0 Comment(s)

When I was in high school, my family and I took a trip to Chicago to visit my paternal grandmother. As younger kids we often took trips to the Midwest to see my father's relatives, but as my brother and I got older the frequency of these trips fell off. I was still too young to understand the politics of families of origin, so I just assumed the downtick in travel was random.

It had been a good five years since I had been to the Windy City, and as a 16-year-old, a plethora of new family friendly activities were available. Having visited the Museum of Science and Industry on our last visit, I cast my vote for the Museum of Contemporary Art. My choice had less to do with an affinity for modern art and more to do with a firm distaste for old portraits of America's White forefathers.

As you might imagine, my Mom and Dad had a parentgasm at the sound of their child asking after modern art. During these celebrations they never paused to remember that they had already banned anything "fun" like going to the movies or an arcade.

"You can do that at home," they'd reply.

"But you don't let me!" I'd snap back defiantly.

To my displeasure, the topic was no longer open for discussion.

On Loss

Wednesday, November 19, 2014 | 0 Comment(s)

I lose so many things.

Two years ago I found the perfect winter jacket. It was quilted without being bulky and incredibly well insulated. I wore that coat both as my "get around town" everyday jacket, as well as my waterproof option for snow frolicking. Best coat I'd had since high school.

The following winter, as my wife and I searched through the gigantic Tupperware bins that hold our winter clothes, the coat was nowhere to be found. We figured it must be somewhere around the house, in the attic or basement most likely. But with our recent move it became official, the blue winter jacket that, for a brief period fulfilled my every core-warming desire, was gone.

My first nose wasn't as bulbous as the current version, granted this one is Version 4.0. I lost my first nose at 7 years old when a teammate threw his baseball bat after swatting a grown ball off a coach's underhanded pitch. The more solid contact came after the batter released his aluminum club, and it came frisbeeing toward me before being stopped by the bridge of my nose.

The Elves Always Rang During Dinner

Thursday, September 18, 2014 | 0 Comment(s)

When I was a kid my dad spoke Elvish on the phone all the time.

I didn't know it was Elvish back then, I was little. But the coded messages he dictated into the receiver certainly weren't English, and by the time I read The Hobbit in middle school I became fairly certain that it was Elvish he was speaking.

That helped me understand why he'd get up from the middle of a family dinner, traditionally a punishable no-no, to go chat in tongues upstairs in his bedroom. The Elf people were a highborn race and not to be kept waiting. I figured my father must be a very important human to consult with a race known for their legendary hesitancy to interact with the sons and daughters of Men.

"Get me the human father on the line"

The Shortest Summer of All

Tuesday, August 12, 2014 | 1 Comment(s)

When I was a kid I rode the sun in order to lasso the moon. The dandelions were fireworks and building blocks and fabric for clothing. A moth was a dream I once had and we flew and flew and flew. Its wings like cotton sheets, billowing my slumber and plastering my screen door like wallpaper.

At seven I learned that reptile skin all looks the same, but it can feel very different, and that the bottom of the pond squishes through toes like cocoa through a sieve. I was constantly moving upward, my soles only briefly making contact with low hanging branches as I used them to springboard toward my higher destination.

My skinny extremities would float like a water-bug, barely breaking the surface tension as my mind grew weightless wings that carried my body away on the prevailing wind. I knew all the plants by color and size, and if I never heard of a rhododendron I would still love my purple puff-balls just as much. Maybe more.

Seven o'clock cartoons were on too late in the morning. I was up 30 minutes earlier to make sure my parents didn't miss them. The afternoon existed, and it was outdoors with the balls and the trees and the friendships. Dusk only served to mourn the loss of play. I always ran out of day before I ran out of adventure. Every time.

One out of a Hundred

Monday, March 3, 2014 | 0 Comment(s)

I made a math error.

That is not an easy thing for me to admit. I mean, I have a Ph.D. with a concentration in Statistical Analysis. I can construct both structural equation models as well as hierarchical linear models (both skills that have been coming up less and less in my day to day.) Somehow, I still got the numbers all wrong.

No. Not taxes. I'm not that ahead of the game.

1 in 3 people will develop a form of cancer during their lifetime.
1 out of 5000 people will die of electrocution.
And the odds of dying from eating the 'poisonous if prepared incorrectly" Japanese delicacy of Fugu (a blowfish) is 1 in 3 million.

It should go without saying that this is a woefully incomplete list of potentially untimely debilitations or demises. Stay with me.

For a long time, whenever confronted with these 'X out of X' statistics, I would always picture a big auditorium filled with all the kids I remember from my high school, and then, as the tragic consequence is revealed, one of those unsuspecting classmates, usually this kid, fall lifeless against the unforgiving gymnasium floor. And that was that. The odds were ever in my favor.

And the way I internalized this litany of iterative drawings of lots to decide whether or not a horrible hardship would befall me in my lifetime, was to believe that I had a 99 in a 100 chance of everything being a-ok. That's 99% I figured. That ain't bad.

But there were more than just math errors in this philosophy. My first mistake was believing that everything will be a-ok for anyone. And I'm not trying to sound grim, though I realize it comes off that way. What I'm failing to parse out is best illustrated as the difference between the all or nothing outcomes of a poisonous blowfish infecting your stomach, and the fallacy of a life without horrible hardship.

If there are a hundred ways to leave your lover, there are trillions of additional ways for the heavy hand of heart-wrenching hardship to befall you. What is missing from original equation is the simple truth that life is difficult . . . hard even. It is naive to suppose, therefore, that life will somehow never be challenging for you. Though, when the inevitable crashing wave of life does burst through the unprepared domicile of a person who really thought themselves that special, the receding wake of those typhoons always seem the most spectacular (e.g. "Justin Bieber" and the self-destruction already in progress).

This isn't a cry for help. While it can be a slog-fest at times, life is simultaneously the closest thing to a miracle that you can in our universe. Some people worry that in admitting, god forbid out loud, that they find life to be a struggle; that feeling that notion is somehow akin to being weak or taking existence for granted. To the contrary, it is often in turning to face life head on that we run headlong into the oncoming resistance. Taken to the extreme, there are some individuals (hi, I'm Matt, have we met?) who fear death with a panicked vigor as an (in)direct result of their lust and enjoyment for life.

I mean if Jay-Z's got 99 problems, and he's sitting on a talented self-sufficient wife, healthy baby, huge rap career, and partial ownership of an NBA basketball team, how are any of us supposed to somehow get through the gauntlet of life without even a raindrop.

OK. Back on topic. Back to my bad math. 1 out of 100: Avoiding the fatal bullets of terminal disease and vending-machine related fatalities. Let's head back to my gymnasium full of high school classmates to illustrate the mistake I was making.

So, if you'll recall, when we last left our auditorium/basketball court, I had just pulled the lottery ticket for liver failure, and Mike is still lying on the ground. He almost looks cute, a bundle of legs and arms. But the stick in the metaphoric mud, is that lung cancer goes next, and that's gonna be 8 more people, and Mike's already gone. You hear coughs scattered around the gym, followed by *thumps*. Heart disease. Thump. Breast Cancer. Thump. Mauled by a tiger while on safari . . . No thump!!! Car accidents. Thump. Crap.

And now I'm looking around the room and it's no longer crowded by the faces of people I kinda knew. Now, because it's my dreamscape analogy we're inside of. Now, I recognize all the faces still standing as those of friends of mine. People I liked and loved. And yet the list of maladies is still only 3/4th completed. And I don't want to keep reading the list anymore. And life doesn't care what I want.

Because the numbers don't lie, but I made what turns out to be a major math error.

Dear Clark

Monday, December 9, 2013 | 4 Comment(s)

Dear Clark,

I don't have one specific memory of your father. This is partially because our time spent over Martin Luther King weekends in DC were awash with such torrents of laughter, picking one guffaw from the bunch doesn't do justice to the magic of those weekends. Yes, I saw your father dressed up as a French maid. And yes, it was a very confusing moment for me, because when your father put his mind to it, he could be a gorgeous looking woman. Stunning really.

What I do remember about Scotty, over and above everything else, was his open-mouthed smile. When you father laughed, it could not be contained inside his body. Every little chuckle moved him thoroughly enough to cause his head to fly back, allowing safe passage for the musicality of his forthcoming laughter. And he laughed. He laughed so much. With everyone.

Clark, I want you to know that your father was special. Not only because he is your father who saw you as his moon and stars (your mother is his sun, btw), but because of how he chose to live. Your father saw the potential for both greatness and great fun inside everyone he met. And he went after it. Instead of poking and prodding in the darkness, looking for the soft and broken pieces inside us all, you father cheered and supported whatever nugget of pride he could pan from his soon to be new friend's emotional river. Before you knew it, the two of you would be upstairs together, sorting through theatrical presentations of second-hand clothes, dreamscapes of ultimate frisbee on bicycles, and laughter-mobiles hung with hugs and cuddling. Your father was special because in a world filled with darkness and hate, he needed sunglasses to keep all the positivity he perceived from burning his eyes.

Clark, Scotty cut a path through this life armed only with his openness to joy. Where others find comfort in the cul-de-sac of what they already know, your father raced forward on the idea that there might be something so unbelievably beautiful and new and previously undiscovered just over in the next town; so we better get a move on cause there isnt time to wait. It was inspiring to watch. His unmistakable lust for life influenced others, myself included. Watching the ease with which your father negotiated the commonplace anxieties that I so often allow to ruin my otherwise perfectly good days, made me rethink the immense power of positivity. I worry less because I knew your dad. I can't think of a higher compliment.

Clark. A lot of people are going to tell you your dad was goofy. And he was. What I want you to know is that goofy is one of those words we use to describe people who have unburdened themselves of unreasonable expectations. Someone who is not merely content, but ecstatically enthusiastic at the prospect of having today, no matter what that reality may be. Clark, your father was thankful every day I knew him, just for the opportunity to be there, with you or me or whomever -- for that moment in time.

Clark. When I heard your father passed away, it was a profoundly sad moment. There were, and still are, a good deal of tears to be shed. I'm sure you're seeing this a lot at the moment. From me, I want you to know that I am not sad for your father. I am so endlessly proud of him. He lived a life electric. He projected every atom of that existence outward, and in doing so gained the love of the universe.

Clark, your dad was a superhero. No cape, no X-ray vision, but an unparalleled ability to love. And while my tears attempt to form both the flowing river and the raft on which you could spend endless summers floating serenely with your father, I take some measure of solace knowing that he gave you his greatest gift of all. Cause when I see you in those pictures, smile so wide your mouth just has to open, I know that Scotty poured all of that ultra-condensed super-powered love into you big guy. He gave you the smile he knew the world still needs.