Proactively Alleviating Violence in America

Hello Representative Holt,

The social media channel is being lit up with condolences, outrage, and expressions of deep sadness over the shootings in Connecticut yesterday.  But people are lost as to where to put their anger and misery.  Some people are blaming guns, others are more specific in blaming assault weapons, others are blaming poor mental health services, violence on television and in film and video games, poor parenting, etc., etc., etc.

As a leader, can you suggest what we can be collectively doing to get our heads and hearts around solving the problem of violence in this country?  Can you spark a task force, or committee, or some kind of special project fueled by people who are passionate about changing the way America deals with these issues?  Can we get out ahead of the problems, identify the multiple causes that lead to these horrific acts, and find ways to address them? 

Isn't there some kind of computer modeling we can do to demonstrate that, for example, that not dealing with a disturbed child properly in school can have x# of consequences, but by investing in Option A, B, or C, we reduce the likelihood of a violent act by that child by 90%?  Couldn't this modeling be applied to the other factors, and perhaps we can create a visual representation that will help people see that we need to take the consequences of inaction more seriously?

We just seem to be stuck in reactive mode in our society, but with technology, education, tools and proactivity, perhaps we can get people to invest in changing our approach to the problems that beset us.

I'm like the other people who are so angry, disgusted, and struggling to find a solution.  I'm wondering if as an elected leader there is some initiative that you can start or tag onto that can build a groundswell for change.  And of course if you can, I am there to assist as I know thousands of others would be too.


Veronica Fielding

Black Friday Eve

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday.  It was the one holiday that had no agenda other than getting together with family and close friends and sharing.  Literally remembering to be thankful for what we have.

So it’s with true and deep sadness that I reflect on my favorite holiday being corrupted by commercialism.  They got to Halloween, the Easter Bunny, and of course Santa, and now they’ve gotten to Thanksgiving too, henceforth known as Black Friday Eve.

My daughter is a student at NYU Tisch and was causally speaking with a student from the Netherlands on her way to the train on Wednesday to come home for Thanksgiving. This is how their conversation went:

Him:  “So you’re going home for Thanksgiving.  Where do you go for Black Friday?”

Her:  “We don’t go out on Black Friday.  You couldn’t pay me to go near a mall on Black Friday.”

Him:  “Really?  I can’t wait!  The pushing, the shoving, the grabbing at bargains.  It looks so exciting! This will be my first one, I can’t wait!”

Her:  “Umm, that’s not what we’re celebrating.  Thanksgiving is about giving thanks for what we have, not planning to get what we don’t have yet.”

Him, with a pitying look:  “You have to get out there on Friday!  Thanksgiving is for the old, Black Friday is for the young.  Happy Black Friday!”

And with a nod to Kurt Vonnegut…and so it goes.

It seems that I’m becoming aware of this phenomenon of Thanksgiving Eve at about the same time as the rest of the masses.  This story from CNN chronicles the rise of Black Friday:  http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/18/opinion/greene-black-friday/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

I saw another short news story that said this Black Friday broke all kinds of records.

My sister, my anecdotal direct connection to mainstream America, was out there in the mix, but she didn’t get up uber early, she just headed to the big boxes around 11 a.m. and reported back that yes, the lines were crazy long, yes there were great deals, yes, the deals weren’t as great as the stores touted, e.g., “They say I saved $300.  I know that’s not right.  The stuff should have cost about $250.  And I spent $180.  So I saved $70.  Which is still great.  And here’s all the stuff I got,” and like a child rattling off to another what Santa left under the tree, she detailed all the buys she got.  She ended with, “It was fun.  I had fun!”  I love my sister’s joie de vivre.

So I will continue to host Thanksgiving at my home each year, no matter how big or how small the gathering.  And I will continue to quietly be thankful for all the good things my life has brought me and I will continue to wish the best for mankind.  I will be hopeful on Black Friday Eve, despite the frenzied preparation all around me for National Shopping Day, the celebration of grabby madness and over the top commercialism gone wild.

I think I will be in the minority, but so what else is new?

So Close and Yet So Far

Well, as I suspected, things did not go well after my Raspberries and Frankenstorm post on Sunday, October 28.  That was the day before the “biggest storm in 100 years.”

However, keep this in mind as you read this:  on the day there was sun again, there was one, lone, bright, ripe raspberry in the very middle of the raspberry patch.  It was gleaming, just begging to be picked.  In the middle of the patch means you cannot get to it, because raspberry vines are covered in thorns.  Okay, do you have that visual?  Let’s proceed.

So on Sunday after my post we discovered that the hot water heater was leaking.  We have a PSE&G “Worry Free” contract, so they came out within hours, as promised, to check it out.  I had said to Marc beforehand that no matter what they said, don’t let them turn off the hot water heater—I would rather deal with a leak or minor flood in that section of the basement than no hot water for days.  The tech said the hot water heater could break and water could go all over.  He shut off the heater and left.  Then Marc told me it was off. 

And so it began.

Because of the impending storm, none of the plumbers in the Worry Free system would come out to replace the hot water heater, but one promised to call after the emergency to make an appointment to come out right away.  Heavy sigh.  No showers Monday morning. (Thankfully I had done laundry all weekend, so at least we had clean clothes.)

Monday, October 29 we were taking the storm seriously and preparing for the hit that was to come sometime Monday evening.  I had convinced Rachel to stay here and not go back to the city on Sunday, so it was the 4 of us at the house:  Marc, Rachel, Wil, and me. My entire company worked from their homes to stay safe.  All day Monday there was unbelievable wind.  Trees wer bending 45 degrees or more, stuff was flying everywhere; I could not fathom how most of the leaves were still on the trees.  I had a surprisingly productive day and was ready to call it quits at 6:00 when I made dinner for everyone. 

It was right around that time that the real rain came.  And the wind that we thought was bad…it got worse.  A lot worse.  I don’t think I’ve experienced that kind of wind except once when I was a small child and lived closer to the shore and there was a hurricane.  Not sure what year.  I was very small.  I just still have an image in my mind of the world gone black and white and grey, with pine trees bending over unspeakably.  Lightning, thunder, and being told to get away from the windows.  So this was familiar in a prehistoric memory kind of way. 

Then a little before 9:00 the power went out.  It had been flickering most of the evening but kept righting itself.  This time, the ship went down.  I said aloud, “Well, that is real and it’s going to be off for a long time.”  Just didn’t know how long long was going to be.  Well, let me tell you about long.

I insisted the kids sleep on the couches in the family room rather than in their beds upstairs as a precaution against breaking glass.  Marc and I slept in our room on the ground floor as usual.  The cat was happy for the kids’ company and slept between them on the floor.

The worst of the storm was over by the time we woke up on Tuesday morning, and foolishly I thought “it” was over.  Marc went out to reconnoiter as he likes to say, and came back with dismal news.  Trees were down everywhere, he’d never seen anything like it.  So many roads were closed, it was almost impossible to get around.  There were hardly any traffic lights working, even on the major roads.  And there was no power at the office.  In fact, there didn’t seem to be power anywhere.

With no power and no hot water, Wil went to his dad’s house.  Rachel decided to hang out here. She started hearing how badly hit Manhattan was, and after the talk of parties turned to talk of dismay at no power and no water pressure, she seemed glad to be with us and not in the city.

I worked to get Internet connection on my devices, but it was tough.  Everyone at DBE worked remotely using their smart phones to connect to the Internet.  We had no email because our ISP that hosts our website had no power after his generator died.  No website meant no domain level email.  We created temporary Gmail accounts and alerted our clients to use those or texts to reach us—as predicted, texts worked better than phone calls.  Phone calls didn’t go through, texts went through slowly, eventually, or after you resent them several times.

With no hot water, we heated water on the stove (lit the burners with matches) and then cooled it with cold water to wash ourselves.  I became the family shampooer.  I didn’t mind.  It was kind of nice washing their hair over the kitchen sink in the morning light.  It felt spiritual and primitive, a necessary rite. 

Wil’s dad came to pick him up because it was his day with Wil and he had power at his house.  Rachel decided to stay here.  We took a ride around in the afternoon to reconnoiter again.  Things looked bad.  Marc said they were no improvements from earlier.  We saw not 1 PSE&G truck.  Rachel was doing well during the day, but as night approached and the thought of another night with no creature comforts encroached, she was open to being driven to her dad’s house.  She seemed to feel bad about leaving, but of course it was better to be warm, showered, and Internet-connected than not, not, and not. It took us almost an hour to get there with all the downed trees and detours, coming back the way we had gone there included a few additional detours we hadn’t expected.  By the time we got back to the house, we just went to bed and hoped there would be light and heat by morning.  Wrong.

Wednesday was spent trying to get an Internet connection and to stay warm.  The temperature was dropping.  We lit the fireplace and left it on all day.  Our neighbors generously allowed us to keep recharging our devices because they had a generator at their house.  Made a note to research generators, the new “must have” item for climate change survivors. 

Honestly, the day was a blur.  I prioritized my work down to the most essential things to keep the time on the Internet to a minimum because the connection was so slow, unreliable, and aggravating.  Wil showed up unexpectedly—he was taking someone’s shift.  He said he was staying the night and I was trying to imagine what that was going to be like—where would he sleep that he would be warm.  When 5:00 rolled around, I declared the work day done and had a shot of bourbon.  We were going to go to dinner but I didn’t want to put on makeup and I didn’t want to risk Wil coming back to an empty house if we were delayed.  We ate prepared food from McCaffreys on the couch in front of the fireplace and chatted. 

When Wil came home, we talked for a while and then I insisted he sleep in front of the fire on the couch instead of upstairs.  He agreed.

In the middle of the night, the carbon monoxide monitors started going off.  The first one went off at midnight.  Two hours later, the other one went off.  I was now convinced the monitors were trying to tell us something. The fireplace!  Of course, it must be the fireplace.  Try Googling carbon monoxide monitors at 2:30 a.m. and you’ll see that they are set off by gases from an assortment of things, including faulty furnaces.  Fireplace =furnace to my bedraggled mind.  Of course!  That’s why the day was such a blur!  I was being poisoned! 

So we shut off the fireplace and told Wil he’d be fine and that there was low risk of becoming a popsicle.  Then the other monitor went off at 4:00 a.m.  Marc decided to read the manual.  I fell asleep, exhausted beyond imagining.  Maybe I was being gassed to death, but I was too tired to care.  Marc discovered that the monitors are meant to run on electricity,; the batteries won’t last more than 20 hours.  He pulled the batteries on both monitors and went to bed.  That seems logical.  And I was surprised to not wake up dead.

In the morning the temperature was easily less than 50 degrees.  Even if I could see the temperature app on my iPhone, I didn’t want to know.  Marc was going to work at Deepa’s and I was going to work at Bethany’s.  Marc reconnoitered like the dove leaving the ark but came back with no olive branch.  He learned that a client had power and decided to work there since he needed to meet with them anyway.  Bethany wasn’t feeling well, so I went to Deepa’s.  It was very nice there.  Warm people, warm home.  They kept trying to feed me all day—Deepa worries that I don’t take care of myself.  They don’t understand that I don’t like to eat during the day, and kept bringing me fruits and crackers with peanut butter, almond milk, and some salty water beverage that Deepa insisted I drink when I stood up too fast after sitting for 4 hours straight at the computer.  (I had no idea when I’d have broadband Internet again and wanted to make good use of every second before I headed out at 5:30, grateful for their hospitality.)

I got back to the house before Marc but after a series of unexpected detours due to closed intersections.  I saw my first line for gasoline and felt panicked.  Lines anywhere make me nervous, even if they’re for something nice, like cheap theater tickets.  I always sense agitation on the part of the people in the line and am fearful of an eruption of tempers.  I don’t like crowds in general—when they line up, it only makes them a little less scary.

When I did finally get home, the house was cold.  Bone chilling cold.  I wrapped myself in a blanket and wandered through the house.  It felt sad and forlorn and that’s not good karma for a house.  Marc came home and we headed right out for dinner at KC Prime, a local steakhouse that has an identity crisis.  On the way there, we saw 30, maybe more, utility trucks just sitting silently in the mall parking lot.  Just.  Sitting.  There.

KC Prime was warm and our reservation got us a table right away.  The food is consistently good and the drinks are awesome—that’s where I discovered my favorite cocktail, the sidecar.  The servers are always attentive but not unctuous.  You can show up there wearing sweat pants if you want to—I’ve seen people do it—and that’s okay too. 

Joe Queenan has this very funny piece in his book Red Lobster, White Trash, and the Blue Lagoon.  He writes about how the people who regularly eat at Red Lobster think it’s upscale and they dress up in their leisure-suit best for it, and then look down their noses at the people who “just don’t get it.”  I’ve turned into that person at KC Prime.  Not that I’m rude about it, but to me, it’s where we go after work so we’re usually wearing our business-casual best.  We’ve had a hard day and we want a nice cocktail in an upscale but relaxed environment, close to home.   So it’s funny when people show up in shorts or sweats because, well, hey, “they” just don’t get it.  J

Our waiter Thursday night was friendly and smart.  He didn’t need to be told that we were two of the barely washed masses who were there for a meal.  He paced everything beautifully so that a dinner we typically have in 90 minutes-- if that--lasted well over 2 hours.  I blessed him the way one best blesses waiters—with a sincere verbal thank you and a tip that relayed the same message in the coin of the realm. 

Back to the house.  Icy cold now.  My brother and sister both had power and offered for us to stay with them.  We can’t go until Saturday, after Wil takes his SATs that morning.  We make plans to go to Barnegat on Saturday to spend the night.  Marc found us a hotel room for Sunday and Monday night.  Tuesday we’d already made plans to stay with friends after the election.  But how long would this all go on?  My friends Carol and Mark texted—they had a hotel room and had offered us to stay with them.  We thanked them and didn’t want to intrude.  But we would take them up on the offer of a hot shower the next morning at 8:00.

But first we had to get through Thursday night. Marc brought Rachel’s twin mattress down to the family room and we repositioned the couches to be opposite each other, perpendicular to the fireplace.  The mattress went in the middle.  After a few rounds of “Do you want the mattress or the long couch?” I flopped on the mattress and ended the game.  I was exhausted when I managed to get through to my sister on the cell—4 bars!!!—and we talked until the call failed and we texted our good nights.  

The cat slept on the edge of the mattress right next to my head all night and as cats do, he considered me the intruder and was annoyed every time I moved around, which I do a lot when I sleep.  It was so cold!  All I kept thinking through this whole ordeal was, “What are people with little kids doing?”  I really felt bad for them.  I fell asleep thinking about the stilled trucks in the cold outside and the stilled children in the cold inside.

It had to be in the 40s when we woke up and got ourselves dressed to head over to the Westin and our showers.  On the way there, we saw that the traffic lights near the office were working.  After our showers (thank you Carol and Mark!) we swung back to the office instead of to our client’s office in Pennsylvania where we were going to work. 

Delight! Sheer delight.  The office had power and wi-fi!  We worked there all day.  We offered our space to others who needed power.  We planned to sleep there if there was no power at the house, but Wil texted at 4:00 that yes, power was back at the house!

I texted Carol but she said they were still out of power, so I offered for them to have dinner with us but they had plans for that night and would come Saturday instead.  We offered them to stay with us until they got power, and they said they would. 

I cleaned the house up, went shopping, arranged for the cleaning lady who usually comes on Thursday morning to come on Sunday.  Bought thank you gifts for our neighbors of the generator, Dave and Donna, and met Donna for the first time.  Their generator was still running; they didn’t realize power was restored.  They thanked me.  And I thanked them again.  Lots of thanking back and forth.  We’re going to have them over for dinner soon.  I like them a lot.

Back to the house.  Wil was supposed to go out with friends but plans fell through.  He was stuck with us, poor kid.  Friday night is pizza night.  Yeaaa. 

“What’s on TV?”

What?!?  Comcast is out.  No TV, no Internet.  The DVR worked but nothing else.  We assumed we would have lost everything on the DVR as happened with other outages but there must have been a quantum leap with technology when we weren’t looking because all our recordings are still there.  Sweet.  We watch Jon Stewart’s Night of Too Many Stars and laugh our butts off.

Bedtime 11:00.  I didn’t sleep well, have no idea why other than maybe too much coffee during the day.  Gotta work on that.

Up at 4:00 a.m., can’t sleep any longer.  I didn’t try to go back to bed because I had to drive Wil to take the SAT in Princeton.  At 5:30, Wil came downstairs and said the SAT was postponed according to the email he got.  Made Wil French toast and chatted a bit.  I was convinced he would stay with me because there’s no Internet so no video games.  Ha!  How foolish of me!  He said he was cold and invited me to go upstairs with him.  I said, “What are you going to do up there if there are no games?” 

“Well,” he said, “I’m going to sit, or lay down.”

“Really?” I asked.  “You can do that right here where I am.” 

“Well, I’m probably going to get warm and stay in my bed,” he said.

“Oh, so you’re going to, what do they call it, sleep?” I asked.

He smiled and headed up stairs.

And so he’s upstairs, sleeping I think. 

I’m training the cat to be more doglike than he already is, and finishing this blog post.  I’ll upload it via hotspot if I can get one going.

The hot water repair guys are here.  They forget you can hear everything they say, they’re just below me in the basement.  I am enjoying their conversation.  Work banter.

I’m picking Rachel up from her dad’s house at 3:00.  Carol, Mark and their boys are coming over at 6:30.  I think I’m making chicken stew.  Ali and Marc will be here.  It will be nice to all be together.  Am I asking too much to have hot water and Internet by then? 

Honestly, as long as there’s Internet at the office on Monday, and heat here and there, I will be thankful.  Because you know what really sucks?  Five days after the storm, half of my neighbors still don’t have power.   This isn’t a remote location.  It’s New Jersey--the most densely populated state in the country. 

So after all of this, I’m wondering about that raspberry out in the patch outside the kitchen window.  Is it a sign of hope, or is it taunting me?  So close and yet so far….

Raspberries and Frankenstorm

There were a few raspberries left on the vines outside in the little corner between the kitchen and laundry room windows.  As I was bringing in the plants from the back deck, I realized most of them were dead or dying, which shouldn’t have surprised me because it’s October 28 in New Jersey.  I was bringing them into the garage because “Frankenstorm” is coming.  Every update shows it moving 10-14 mph up the east coast and at this point it’s projected to hit NJ tomorrow night. 

The storm is actually 3 storms:  Hurricane Sandy coming up the coast, a cold front pushing snow and rain from the west, and a blast of cold air from Canada coming down and east.  So, NJ is right in the path of all 3.  To make matters worse, the vast majority of the time there is a low-pressure system over Iceland that tends to draw hurricanes away from the east coast, but as bad luck would have it, this is one of the .2% (point 2 percent!) times that it’s a high pressure system pushing the hurricane towards us.  Not bad enough?  Well, there are still leaves on the trees, so when the snow and rain weigh the branches down, they will pull down the power lines under them. 

I have lived in New Jersey all but the first 2 years of my life, and I’ve never been without power for more than a few hours.  That is, until Hurricane Irene last August when we were out of power for 4+ days.  Some areas had it worse—10-14 days without power.  The only good thing about that was that it wasn’t hot and humid those days so being without air conditioning was bearable, though being without hot water for showers really sucked.

This time, we get cold air too. 

I’m thankful that Rachel decided to stay here rather than going back to the city.  She was stressing over a meeting with an advisor that’s supposed to be on Tuesday, but I tried to help her see that the advisor might not be able to make it into the city either that day.  When they cancelled classes for Monday, I think she started to realize that it could be pretty bad.

Regarding Rachel, I’m not worried about the power being out per se, but more about the potential for rioting and looting that tends to go hand in hand with power outages in the city.  Glad that she’ll be here with us.  I think she’s not too thrilled because I’m getting on her nerves, but frankly, I would get on my nerves if I were her so I’m trying hard not to do the things I do that make us both anxious, like over planning and over anticipating.

So, we’ll have something with fresh raspberries tonight and I’ll keep praying that the hurricane swings out to sea where it will just bother the fish.

But I have a feeling that’s not how this is going to play out.

Stay tuned.

Rough Morning, Rough Afternoon. What’s Next?

When my daughter was 11, I read a great book about parenting teens, especially teenage girls, called Get Out of My Life, but First Could You Drive Me & Cheryl to the Mall: A Parent's Guide to the New Teenager, by Anthony Wolf.  It promised that through all the hormone rages (hers and mine) that she would come back and it delivered on that promise.  My daughter is now a junior at NYU Tisch, studying screenwriting.  And for all the drama that led up to this, in fits and starts, sometimes long weeks of chaos, sometimes just hours of unbearable tension, it’s good now.  Consistently good.  Not without the expected level of disagreements, but really, really great.

And so now I find myself hoping that all the advice given to me by my friends with boys holds true.  That the battles I was told to expect at 17, and then again at 19, the ones that are apparently just ramping up now, pass and that my relationship with my son circles back to be really, really great.  Because right now, several months into 17, after his first girlfriend and first breakup, after getting his license and tasting freedom, after landing and loving his part-time job after school, after all that, all of which went relatively smoothly, we have arrived at “this.”

“This” is him snapping at me.  “This” is me snapping back.  “This” is him sharing that he realizes he could have tried harder in school and that now he “gets it.” That he desperately (my word, not his) wants to get into Rutgers for computer science.  That he is going to do everything that he can to get in—full departmental tours, taking the SATs two more times(!!!), studying like crazy, changing his course to include more math.  Getting a math tutor for the year.  And he’s doing all of this. 

Yet this morning, I awoke at 8:35 realizing there wasn’t enough movement in the house.  I went upstairs and found him doing level design work (a hobby left over from when he wanted to do computer game design) at his PC.  He was supposed to be getting ready to go to a test prep class.  He said he didn’t feel good.  I said, “Okay, so you’ll be calling out sick from work?”  “No, no one can take my place,” he said.  “Well, no one can take your place on test day, so I suggest you get to the test prep center.”  

“No,” was his response.  Flat out, level, no emotion, no hesitation.  “No.”

And equally without hesitation or forethought, I whipped out, “Well, then I’m disappointed in you.”  I drew the power card way, way early.  Not a calculated move but not the wrong one, either, at least, not as far as the day has revealed so far.

“Get out of my room,” he barked. 

I looked at him with as much blasé as I could muster.

“I’m getting dressed to go.  Get out.”

Out I went.

He came downstairs.  He kissed me, I kissed him, and he headed off.  On his way out the door, I told him I was proud of him.  I am.  I always am, even when I say the words, "I'm disappointed."

Sidebar:  the whole reason I’m even bothering to write this is that his behavior is soooo not like him.  My son is, without exception, the most easy-going person I know.  But for the last 2 weeks, this one-word-answering creature that is living with me looks like my son but doesn’t really seem to be him at all.  Is this temporary?  I think so, I want to know so.  But how long will this last, and, more importantly, what am I supposed to be doing about it? 

Is railing against it and causing a tension against which he fights part of the required dynamic?  Am I supposed to ignore it and roll with it?  Based on my history as a verbal abuse survivor, that is not going to fly.  Do I try to reason with him?  How do you reason with someone who looks at you like you’re crazy for even bothering to try to talk with him about “what’s wrong” when he has just told you there is nothing wrong?

 Anyway, he comes back from the test center at about noon.  He starts making lunch.  I say, “Rachel (she came home for the first time since school started in August) and I thought we could all eat together.”  He sighs and pauses.  I start to make the lunch of leftovers from the diner dinner we had last night.  They argue needlessly over both wanting some of the pasta.  We sit down at the dining room table.  They start mocking me, a new game they’ve decided on for the weekend.  It’s the mom-is-not-with-it show.  It’s the 4^th time in a row.  I ask them to stop.  They don’t.  I get up to leave, saying I’ll eat when they’re done.  They ask me to come back.  I do.  He takes his plate to leave the table.  I say, “And now you’re leaving.”  He says, “I’m just taking away my [expletive] plate.”  I snap. I toss a few expletives at him about his attitude, doing a fine job of modeling exactly what I’m complaining about.  [Good move Niki, good move.]

Off he goes.  Rachel and I make light conversation.  She cleans up.  I go to put more medicine in my ear (ear infection, oh more joy).  She goes off to shower.  He’s still upstairs by himself.

Just now, 45 minutes after all the leaving and expletives, he wanders downstairs, sees me in my chair, and walks out the front door.  He comes back a minute later, hovers at the door to the room I’m in. 

“Are we still fighting?” I ask.

“ I don’t know,” is his response.

We exchange a few calm sentences.  I say I’m not trying to upset him but that he’s not been himself for 2 weeks.  He seems to consider this but has no reply.  I don’t push for one because it’s clear he can’t articulate what’s bugging him even if he did know, which I don’t think he does.

But I know what’s bugging him, at least in part, because I’m feeling it’s polar opposite.  He wants to go.  He wants to be done with high school.  He wants to be on with his life and he doesn’t want to wade through the next 7 months and then 2 more.  Seven months of being a young man but technically being a kid until he turns 18 in April.  Two more months after that of playing by a set of rules that no longer seem to apply.  High school, high school, high school.   A life dictated by high school rules when you’re really ready to get out there and be a man.

And your mother, whom you genuinely love, is the in-your-face symbol of everything that’s holding you back.

Twenty-five or so years ago, way before I even thought of having children, one of my friends told me that you should never rush even a single day of your children’s lives, never wish them to the next phase, because the day they become grown-ups comes way too fast.  So once I became a mom, no matter what Rachel and/or Wil were doing at any given time, I took her advice; I worked to find a good thing in whatever pain we were navigating at the time.  No matter what, I never wished a day away or tried to rush the moments that make up the years.

So Wil, I’m sorry that I can’t join you in wishing away the next 9 months.  I didn’t do it for the 9 months you were growing inside of me, and I can’t do it in the 9 months you’re going to be using to push yourself out into the world and off to college.  I'll do my best to help you however I can, but I can't wish the time away because I'm trying so very hard to make the time slow down.  I know you'll be off to college in the blink of an eye.  And seeing you go will make me so proud and so sad in very equal measures.

All my love, Mom

P.S.  He circled back to share some “mods” for Cry of Fear, a video game.  The storm has passed, at least for now.

Satisfying Sunday

Today I finished the granny square afghan I started crocheting for Wil back when he was 7.  He’s 17.  It could have been finished a lot sooner, no doubt.  I think there were even a few years in there where I didn’t touch it at all. 

This spring, I moved this work-in-long-progress from the master bedroom closet to the spot next to my seat in the family room, and seeing the squares reminded me that I had a project pending.  My strategy was to keep my hands and mind busy so I wouldn’t fret over work or play video games while the rest of the family was watching TV (I’m not very good at just sitting and watching TV, I tend to read or play simple games on my iPhone and just listen to the TV—so comedies are usually on at night so I don’t keep asking, “What did I miss?” “What did she do?” for the visual inputs.)  And now that I think about it, Wil doesn’t really “watch” TV either.  We sit in the same room doing projects, reading, sharing, on our computers or phones while the TV creates a background connection for us, voyagers in our own virtual worlds.  The TV is the life line that still connects us.

Today was really interesting on several fronts.  First, that I finally finished the afghan.  I have been picturing Wil taking it to college with him since he was 7.  Then I started to panic that he’s going off to college in a year and the afghan wasn’t done.  There’s a lot of love built into that thing.  He said he can picture it being in his family for generations.  Truthfully, it’s hideous looking.  Okay so for the 3^rd time, I started it 10 years ago.  So right away you know there are dye lot issues.  But what issues!  I must have thought I knew what color the squares were at some point when I went to Michael’s to buy more yarn, but apparently my “eye was off.”  Then there was never a plan for the size of it, so what would have fit him nicely as a twin blanket when I started out would never cover him at 5’7” and growing.  Plus, of course, I’m thinking now that it will cover at least a queen size bed and 2 people….

So besides the variations of colors where the color should be consistent, there are other consistency issues—tightly crocheted in some places, loose in others.  Overall I think I did a good job functionally, but, well, here it is on his bed, and there are lots of squares doubled over in the back—it’s 8x7, and each square is 10 rows with a row of trim.  It’s very heavy.  That’s another thing.  So many shades of “white.’  His significant other, wife, whatever , will want to hide it but hey, it will keep them warm.

But before I finished crocheting this afternoon, this morning I heard from Wil’s ex-girlfriend.  Sadly, they broke up about 2-3 weeks ago.  She was his first love, they were together for almost 2 years, but then her family moved away and the strain was, I think, too much for the relationship.  Great kids, tough relationship.  I miss her but support my son’s decision.  So anyway, she had texted when they broke up that it would be too painful to stay connected with Rachel and me, so I respected her wishes and didn’t reach out, though I’ve checked in on her Facebook page to see how she’s doing.  Then Friday she texted with Rachel, and I told Rach to let her know I would love to hear from her and was just keeping my distance to respect her wishes.  Today we texted back and forth and it was genuinely nice to hear from her.  She’s a great person.  Very talented musically, funny, sweet.  I never heard her sing before, but she shared an audio file of her singing a song she’d written for Wil and her voice was perfection.  She literally sounds like an angel, assuming that my idea of an angel’s voice is accurate.  I won’t be surprised if she does something professionally with those amazing musical talents—she just needs to realize that she has a gift.  So often people who are artistically gifted are also their own worse critics…I hope she discovers herself soon so others can too.

And while she and I were texting, I had another pleasant surprise of the reconnection kind.  One of my very favorite friends from my college days resurfaced on Facebook and connected with me.  His name is Rob and we were very close during my junior and senior years at Rider.  He was smart and funny, charming, a genuine pleasure to be around.  We lost touch with each other over the years, and strangely, I was looking for him and other people I knew in my early-mid twenties, found a few of them but not him.  Then, today, presto, there he is.  I hope we can reconnect in person—he lives in California and I’m going to be speaking at a conference there in a few weeks.  Would be great to see him again and to catch up on the 20 years that have flown by…

And on reflecting about the past, present and future:  I got a new computer at work on Thursday and a good part of Friday was spent getting it configured.  Today when it was slow getting going, I got impatient, though part of me thought it just might be “learning” some things in order to move quicker as it gets up to speed.  But I realized something about myself today.  While I was the kid that was always nice to the new kids at school, and while I have infinite patience young children and mentally challenged people, I have no patience whatsoever with my new technology devices. 

I always expect technology to be perfect right out of the box.  Is that because I’m a notoriously impatient person (it’s actually documented on my kindergarten report card), or is it because technology pretends to be perfect and then I’m disappointed that it’s not?  When we get to the point where we have robots doing our chores for us, will they be perfect or have imperfections, and how much imperfection will we allow?  Maybe you will be nicer to them…I will no doubt be rolling my eyes when they wash the reds with the towels and everything turns pink.

Well, it was a very nice day.  The sunset was even pretty too. It was a very nice day by any comparison.