Clarity

   I have an issue with this.  

   When I was a young teacher, my administrator’s critique more than once was my clarity. They wanted me to put things like “teaching points” on the board at the beginnings of lessons. They wanted this so that they, and students could better know where I was going and judge me on how fast and efficiently I got there.

   I have to admit, much of my issue with this criticism had to do with the way I liked my lessons to unfold. 

   Fellow teachers know, you’re never teaching one thing. We teach with our lessons, yes. We also teach with our management, our character, our attention. We are differentiating for every individual and much of that has to do with that individual. I can do a dance for the ADHDers, I can fold in the complexities for my gifted to descry. I can redirect to emotional stability my bullies while supporting my bullied. And I can teach some societal point dreamed up by the latest Bill Gates for its utility.

   That’s teaching.  

   You can teach only what you grasp 95% of.  

   So here’s why this matters here:

   If you're reading this you likely know me. That alone is your investment. Maybe we’re friends, or family. Maybe we’re coworkers or ex-coworkers.  Maybe we’ve never even met in person, but this place is my workspace. If I ask you here it’s to share. The pool of readers is rapidly decreasing in this world, so good on you if you’re here and trying. Hopefully, I’m able to give you back something of value.

   But let me be clear, I’m not aiming for clarity. If you aren’t sure where I’m going with this, know in the very least this now, you are not alone. I don’t either!

   I’m obsessed with weirdly particular nuances. I’m inundated by the consequences of my own choices.  I’m also probably the happiest person I know. And I’m literally laughing out loud right exactly right now.

   I started this blog 16 years ago when my kid called me “Daddy” and it struck me funny. Now it’s just a place I’ve grown comfortable playing in. I spent almost a lifetime pissed off over the burden of having to wear a bra. I started off lost, vulnerable, and slow. And now I’m an NYCer without the patience for 3 seconds of anything I’m not 100% invested in. I viscerally “get” the touch and go.

   Thing is, I’ve read many of the primary sources used in eastern and western philosophy. I know the Bible. I’ve jumped out of planes and I’ve swam in the open ocean surrounded by wild sharks. I’ve come for Adrienne Rich’s wreck and not the story of the wreck. But I’m not here to teach what I know nobody really knows. I like the questioning. I welcome the uncertainty. I know that’s where all good begins.

   My point is that this has become a roller coaster. I grab from here a publish other places, or just post in here anything I feel like polishing but not leaving in a journal. I’d love comments but recognize that not everyone wants to leave one or can figure out how (fyi if you have advice on that a comment on how to comment is more than welcome!) but don’t expect a teaching point here. Right now, I’m on vacation.

Ghosts in the Attic

   It’s very difficult to talk about death. We are all in different places of our trajectory of dealing with its stark reality. On one hand, there’s often much to process. On the other, it can be a slippery slope into the past - which in a very real sense - doesn't even exist. 

   This back and forth between melancholy and anxiety or past and future feels like being rocked in a cradle by the universe. We can add to the momentum until we make ourselves dizzy, or we can relax, let go and just dream.

   My wife’s family has been grappling with some reconnections, complicated evolutions, and delicate boundaries lately. It’s not often easy for me to know my place. But it’s summer so Amy and I, while still busy, have more time and energy than we’ve had in a while.

   - At least, that’s what I thought when she put up such little resistance to my father-in-law’s request to visit yesterday. It’s not that they don’t visit often, but her willingness to commit was unusual. And I’m in summer mode finally and all about putting up as little resistance as possible to life.

   I have been asking if there really is life after death. It hasn’t been a deep inquiry, just a ‘what’s next in the agenda’ kind of thing. See if you can follow what happened.

   Yesterday during the visit with my in-laws my father-in-law seemed brighter than usual; brave, and talkative. He - and I cannot stress this enough - very unusually started sharing some recent memories about is son, my brother-in-law’s, passing. That was when my mother-in-law told me about a dream she’d had of her estranged sister.  Apparently, she saw her sister standing with her husband in front of their old home welcoming my mother-in-law in. She described meeting her sister’s eyes in a way they hadn’t in years and how vivid the dream had seemed. It suddenly washed over me what it was time to do. I had been sitting on news of her sisters’ passing that I hadn’t time to figure out how to properly deliver. It has been years since they spoke, since they lost touch, and since my mother-in-law had started getting the inclination to go find both her sisters. The last time they had discussed this I’d begun looking into where they were and had found that they’d all passed away seemingly just after quarantine. Was this her sister’s way of reminding me and assuring me this would be a good time to let my mother-in-law know? I wasn’t sure, and was reluctant for a number of reasons, but, when the moment seemed light and right, I did. My mother-in-law took the news gently and seemed accepting of the message (which I believe has to do with how clear things look from that side). In the end, I’m glad it happened the way it did. Even with all the complication, it felt miraculously easy and carried so many other assurances with even if just for the fact that it all felt so meant to be.

   Last night, I had this dream. I was a child in a house I knew to be mine, but I sensed something in the attic. I was assured it was my imagination.
   Then I was older. I heard the noises again in the attic - there was a familiarity. I’d explored more of it and it seemed similar to a house my wife and I used to rent. My mother-in-law was there gazing up at the attic with a smile. I found a door to a hallway that seemed like an apartment we used to rent and it lead outside to a house I lived in as a teen (I was really undulating around my life!) I suddenly saw the people in the attic. They stood, but looked pale and dead. A man, a woman and a younger female child. I asked if they were dead and was told they weren’t, they’d just forgotten to breathe.
   I told them to. They did, and came crashing into my room above my bed where I still was with my mother-in-law, but there was no mess. I was my own age, not scared and almost amused when they all got up and gently left.

   Kinda fitting right?

   Guess I got my answer.

Honest pet peeves, coincidences of infinitesimal probabilities, and a GPS for this universe.

 Pet peeves.  We all have them.  Some people hate when walkers or drivers are proceeding slowly or stopping in front of them. Some people get visibly infuriated if you accidentally bound in somewhere others are coming out of like a subway car or an elevator.  Some people leave dishes in the sink to “soak.” Some people don’t like exposed feet.

   I have a few.  And they’re coming to my attention and they don’t seem healthy.  I am not honestly recording my best self here.  I am however, honestly recording.  Having made some difficult decisions lately to refocus my own energy and honor my own time and space more attentively, I can feel things flowing even more than usual.  And that right now feels right, and fun, so as my youngest would say, “trus.”

   But like when someone repeats… I mean look, I’m a teacher.  Repetition is everything to a teacher. I get it.  I live it.  And maybe that’s part of it.  What peeves me about it is when I got it, and I know you know I got it.  Because repetition is important in teaching, but it can also be a kind of filler.  It’s like clearing your throat to give yourself time to think while gripping the mic with both hands.

   We use repetition in teaching to reinforce, comfort, support, ease… to give each other space to get comfortable.  It’s the settling in before the real push of rigor and challenge.  I used to have a problem with this (I still do!)  My administrators would sometimes criticize my clarity and ask for teaching points to be spelled out.  But I like newness.  I like surprise.  I actually long a little for spontaneity.  Life has enough repetition to my mind.  Still, I have learned that not everyone is always paying attention (indeed hardly anyone in any given moment really is!) and repetition is necessary to call back, remind, lay foundations, and realistically manage expectations.

   My oldest has autism.  Earlier today we leaned a little on this to navigate a little bit of that.  Actually feels a little meant to be all things considered.  I was driving home from work today when I thought of an old friend.  It is with real gratitude that can convey the speed with which this thought lent itself to a phone call, which connected us within minutes - more than just our voices!   My friend happened to be about a minute behind me on the very highway I was taking home.  This is despite the 3-4 hours or 150 miles regularly between us, and 5 months or so since we’d even last spoken.  He and his family were coincidentally traveling down to see his parents who happened to live on the other side of Long Island from me.  But he and I hadn’t even met on Long Island.  We met up near the Canadian border decades ago at school.  We’d stayed in touch, yes, thanks to modern technology.  But I had never even yet met his 6 year old daughter!

   The coincidence of my thinking of him, honoring that intuitive hit, minutes before his passing so geographically close was felt by so many more people than just us for so many other reasons.  I’d literally been texting another friend minutes before expressing a longing for a real coincidence to share.  I mean I like coincidences, and I have begun to really feel an ease through life managing gratitude with transparency, expecting coincidences feels a but new.  But burdens and stresses seemed to release as a result of this one story.  We actually all joined for dinner this evening almost out of respect for just how coincidental this was.  Now my friend believes that it’s arrogant to believe some god or the universe cares whether we met or where we eat dinner, and perhaps he’s right.  And my kids always think I’m hippy dippy… But there’s a truth and a process that really mattered here.  I think it is a GPS.

   So my kid - the one with autism - had this day uniquely free.  It’s been months for him of daily school toils, test preps, Tae Kwon Doh events, proms and Bat Mitzvahs.  He’s had responsibilities to attend to every single day throughout this last term of his junior year.  It has been a lot but he’s handled it all. Emerging with his nearly perfect GPA, honors and art shows, most never even see his real struggles and triumphs.

   However, he’s a grounded, funny, but routine oriented kid so that when I mentioned this story and my friend and brought up a possible spontaneous dinner plan - I could see my son was rattled.  I tried to head it off by suggesting a place nearby that he likes.  I gave him the “out” even though he knew I wanted him to come and meet my friend and his family.  I helped him manage his anxieties and conveyed my expectations.  We discussed all of this on the way to the restaurant beforehand.  

   What followed was a beautiful dinner, a lively conversation, a solid positive memory, and a tasty meal shared with new connections.  Practiced honesty, honored intuition, a coincidence that felt like a conversation with divinity, and happy, boisterously shared evening.  We all have pet peeves when we think we want to be somewhere we haven’t gotten to yet.  Or when we’re made to feel discomfort. But what if we embrace exactly where we are exactly while we’re here as riddled as we are with imperfections as we all always are at any given moment?  What might we find and who might this afford us opportunities to share ourselves with?

   In other words…

   …another pet peeve.  Some of my best people lean on this one and its power over me likely drives my insanity, but when someone drops this little phrase it pings my ADHD like a doozy.  I start spiraling with this cyclical internal dialogue that goes something like ‘in other words?  Did I ask for other words?  Were you not satisfied with the first words you chose?  When someone uses this I feel they are again gripping the mic which… I guess is exactly what I’m doing here.

   So, here I am looking for space to speak, to exist, to express.  Maybe to hope that someday someone will listen, (or at least read) this blog.  I could do this in a journal but the Net offers just a little more transparency somehow.  I explain this away on the basis that I was orphaned, like every Disney story worth its weight and indeed Disney himself.  But I know this because people write books and movies about Disney.  Nobody’s writing about me but me!  LOL

   But what if the reason I’m not interested in other words is telling.  What if I really need to assess my investment in the first words?  Or what if you do?  Maybe I ought to stop looking in this direction habitually and turn to see if there are other things to let in?  There are lots of changes I’ve made recently and I’ve noticed others around me making daily.  There are stresses I’ve felt responsible to attend to, but maybe thats just the old illusion of control?  Maybe I really need to put my money where my mouth is, and trus that whatever I care about but let go of, will be ok.

   But anything worth preserving should grow from honesty - for better or worse.  It should weave from the personal and stretch to the universal.  We are, after all, universally struggling with imperfection, and perceived separateness. If there is a God, we might be a part of Them or if we are gods then we might remember why, but in the end it’s connection that redeems us all.  And that connection requires fallibility, vulnerability, forgiveness and support.  It requires all these things, over and over.  In other words, look, live, laugh, love, trus.  Then rinse.  Then learn.  

   Then repeat.

 

Ah Les Femmes… Faith, and Forgiveness

   It’s amazing what you find when you Google yourself.

 https://lesfemmes-thetruth.blogspot.com/2017/03/lesbian-ali-polizzis-daddyphobia.html?m=1

   This lady years ago basically lifted my entire first article (without linking it “for obvious reasons”) and proceeded to hurl insult after injury at me using nothing but my own words poorly paraphrased and her angry “Christian” worldview to justify the effort. This was a real issue at the time because it was just as Big Donny was bouldering onto the global scene. She even reposted my kids claiming she was on their “side” like some imaginary war had been declared. I had to plead behind the scenes explaining that even if she meant no harm, she couldn’t attest that none of her readers wouldn’t. In the end, she did agree to pull the kids out but to this day her vitriol over me and my entire life will remain even after we all close our eyes for the last time. Hate doesn’t die on the Internet.

   A lot has happened since this ridiculousness ensued. Besides the toddler president and his archaic narrow minded nonsense, the progress I was elated to write about in our early family life is only now beginning to peek back over the horizon again. But there are changes. My students care nothing about gender or sexuality. My kids grew up to be fine young men. And while it’s true that looking back on what at the time felt serious and dangerous is now almost amusing - (she put this much time into me over a 3 second clip of a flirtation in Beauty and the Beast? And I, equally naive, thought defending that clip might help lift the world.  SMH.)  - it’s very sad that there is so little evidence of any thoughtful evolution.

   But maybe that isn’t so.  

   We haven’t changed our positions but I do see merit in the possibility that her dichotomies exist in some universe and that there her efforts to smoke Satan out stem from some gentle seed of genuine love deep down in her heart. And I guess there I’m a real threat to her with my unapologetic needling of her friend’s homophobia. Most MAGAs seem to be realizing the way they were used and I’m honest-to-God so grateful that we’re all still here.  Well, most of us anyway. 

   But the magazine I wrote that article for is near destroyed.  Saboteurs manipulated their way in and destroyed all the subscriptions. Women no longer have autonomy and we’re all holding the global economy on a precarious wing and a prayer.

   In the mean time, the stakes have never been so dumb-in-the-face obvious. All the ostrich-like distractions of the world I grew up marveling at are now exposed. We will either fix shit or die. It’s faith or fear now. If it isn’t sustainable, it ought to go.

   Only forgiveness is sustainable.  

   Only the meek get to inherit the Earth because that’s the only way to make room. Only the minimalist will be able to carry their burden. And only the energized will be able to keep up enough momentum. There’s no more room or patience left for un-evolved control issues. Jesus rocks but these “followers” can’t hear him.  They also can’t hear me when I hurl labels like “homophobia” at them. I wasn’t wrong. She was homophobic. They both were (and maybe still are) scared of something different. I know because I was too. I was scared of being different in this heterosexually dominant world.  But I’ve come to love that difference, and that really is the difference.

   I’m posting this today because I need to own that. It’s my name I googled. It was my share. It takes courage to open yourself for criticism, and I love that piece. Nothing ever written is loved and understood by all and if she couldn’t sense the sarcasm behind the use of my term “Daddyphobic” well then, ya can’t win them all.  Except if you’re genuinely loving and laughing, I guess you can.

Judgement

   It’s weird but even if a god doesn’t exist, we still need one. And I’m fully prepared to explain why. I know and love lots of god fearing folks, and lots of ethical atheists. This has nothing to do with either, but I do believe it could save us all.

   I’d like to address what lies at the core of almost every problem I can think of: The problem underneath all of it is our tendency toward judgement.

   First off, we have to judge. I get that. We have a plethora of input we must sift through and decipher as important or not. We cannot pay attention to everything we sense. We must judge just to survive.
   But, beyond what’s necessary, we all keep judging. And that is the core of a myriad of problematic complexities that once seen, can’t be unseen.  
   If you are a monotheist, then judgement is not your place. Your god is your judge. That one is plain and simple. You can interpret for yourself the right or wrong of whatever you do in accordance with how you deem your god might judge you. And you can assign your own value to who or what gets input on those decisions. But you can’t argue that your personal judgment is ever valid. You surrender that to the divine just by knowing that there is one. Maybe you’re a Christian and you believe homosexuality is sinful. You can share that belief if you want. But if you harass, or bully, restrict or condemn another over it - you are wrong. It’s very plain and very simple. God is their judge, not you.  If you persist, you haven’t learned. You’re building a house of cards in a hurricane. This isn’t my judgment. It’s yours. 

   Fret not. It’s ok. We love the sinner not the sin. But you are no longer surrendering to God in faith.  You’re just judging. You are sinning. You are wrong.

  
   Maybe you’re Hindu and hold that abortion is aviation of ahimsa (non violence). The same point remains valid. You, by your own admission, are not God. She must be the deciding factor of whether that fetus gets to become a baby or not, and you violating her in order to act on your judgement is wrong. Maybe you are motivated by altruism. You want to save the baby. Anyone can see that’s a problem. But it’s plainly obvious that proceeding wrongly is no viable solution. 

   Because in secular life, it’s the same. Even if it is because you’re a judge or leader of some sort and decisions are made as a result of your professional judgment in particular, you still base those judgements on stacks of other people or precedents. A politician has an obligation to their supporters and constituents. Every role has an implied responsibility. A teacher has an obligation to a curriculum. Even a businessperson has a goal to produce a profit. The judging role implicitly permeates the judgment. That’s why, it’s not entirely yours. You agree to judge on behalf of your duty. But it’s not just your judgment you are should be using. You can, and will be wrong. 

   Decades ago Daniel Quinn wrote book called Ishmael. It’s about a man talking to a gorilla. In it, the gorilla beautifully describes how humanity has gone astray, and it started with the very technology we attribute to our evolution: agriculture. When we farm, we essentially decide that this piece of land is ours, and we declare a kind of “war” on anything other than what will serve us. We kill for the sake of our plans for the future. We judge what lives and what dies. In this way, we play god.
   Here’s the really interesting part: any population increases to consume its food source. And while this is debated, it’s still fundamentally true. The other side of this is that land is finite. It will run out. As much as the population might seem intelligent, it’s another level of intelligence to see that there is a difference between real laws and what we tend to call laws. Our general laws are basically agreements, or social contracts. Anyone can kill anyone else. This proves nothing. If I don’t kill you in your sleep, you agree not to kill me. If either one of us breaks this agreement, consequences are invoked.  
   But a real law cannot be broken for example the law of gravity, or aerodynamics. This population/food relationship is real law.  

   And we broke it.

   So maybe you see where I’m going with this (and if you wisely read Daniel Quinn, you know it’s not just me). We ought not judge. We simply cannot know everything. Therefore, we will be wrong.  

   What if we started there?

   What if you live your life simply not judging? I mean judge whether or not you want to eat that berry, or where that suit. But stop judging others. Or at least if you find that you are, recognize that you are, and stop. Forgive yourself for being rash and then let go, live and let live. Speak only qualified statements. Then listen. Pretend you’re having a conversation with a god, and watch how fast life will lift. The quicker we simply get out of our own ways, the faster we might take off.  

   We stifle each other with our stories and selective sympathies. It takes time to convey our experiences and essences. As humans our only asset is our connections and ability to manipulate our environment, but it takes lifetimes to learn even what little we do, and we get so mixed up in such trifle treasures. I believe it’s time to talk about how we can all proceed, sustainably, and contractually recognize that we all know only one thing, and that is the fact that we cannot know. Feel that. Let it wash over you and take your sadness for any past and worry for any future with it. Breathe in deeply and exhale all judgement out. 

   Now open your eyes. 

Apocalypse No!

   More and more I keep hearing people resigned that "the world is ending" from Lady Gaga's portion of the Superbowl halftime show, to the increasingly absurd dichotomies in the United States' politics, to the doomsayers regarding nuclear proliferation, climate change, and AI. I'm no one to talk honestly because I've been internally obsessed with impending apocalypse for almost as long as I can remember. At 51, I see now the wisdom in blurring my focus, living in the moment, and trusting only in how much I don't know. But we really do manifest what we focus on, and it's obviously time to change direction.

   We need to focus on the sustainable.

   When I was a kid, I bought a book of Nostradamus' Prophesies. It included the original French which I studied in school so it was a kind of practice to really delve into these, but it also had the English translations so I could check my work. I remember the dread I felt as I read how the "city of hollow mountains" would "plunge" into a "cauldron." This was years before the World Trade Center sunk.

   I was obsessed with the notion that I would witness an inescapable impending ubiquitous disaster. I spent hours in those and other pages like those. I traded the depression of my youth for the anxiety of my adult life and rarely landed in a moment except when I taught something useful to a student or wrote something touching to another soul. The only thing to ever even slightly assuage my fears was my Granny telling me a story:

   She said that she remembered when she was a little girl, that she and her mother were walking in Times Square and one of those men with the signs and the bells was ringing and loudly proclaiming that the end was near. My Granny, then a little girl tugged on her mother's skirt and said "Mommy, do you think that's true? Is the end of the world coming? 

 

   Granny, youngest in her family, told me that her mom's face sunk darkly.  She glanced at that man, stopped, and leaned down on her knees for a moment. That's when Granny's mom, my great grandmother,  thought about it and slowly shook her head and admitting that it was possible. It sometimes seemed inevitable and one could never know for sure. Perhaps the end of the world was coming. "But you know something?" she said, "I just don't think so."

   "Why?" my nervous little Granny asked as doubt betrayed her entire countenance.  

   "Because as much as it could be, that we never know..."my great grandmother said over 100 years ago, "Men have been yelling and ringing bells like that ...since I was your age."

   I now have 2 beautiful teenage boys, and a niece, almost 22, struggling to find places in this world.  A mic drop moment like that rarely lands with any of them, (They'd never read this) so I try to keep my own spirits up and do as best I can to tend to theirs.  I teach literacy to middle and high school kids from low income neighborhoods in the South Bronx.  I'm an Xer possibly about to escape by the skin of my teeth from a tier 6 death sentence only 2 years late from a life's work as a public school teacher, despite starting as a public high school drop out.  And I'm 28 years into a love union that was literally illegal when we first met.  

   I've seen the world embrace love and hope, and I've seen the world endure danger and trepidation.  It's true that the only thing that doesn't change is change.  But when I say we must manifest a different direction, I mean more than that fact that we cause our circumstances as consequences.  And I mean more than we create our own reality.  I mean it's time to know this is all everything and all of us.  

   Every child we dismiss as a shame, - unloved, accidental, or expendable; every meal we consume some tortured animal; even every microbe we exterminate with poisons to protect the crops we clear for our exploding population - unsustainable.  It's easy to sink into a boiling cauldron of despair, or freeze from excessive escape fueled by rampant anxiety.  What can one do and how much do we hate the ones who don't love, and... But, we could also just stop.

   I've seen that too.  We've all seen the world stop spinning the same metaphorical discs on sticks.  There was a time when streets were quiet, until uniformingly rauctous with applause for the few we relied on and commended for bravery that killed no one.  Perhaps the men with the footballs won't blow up the world if they have any reason for hope.  Perhaps we can impart that to each other in ways that are just as genuine, eclectic and plentiful.  Perhaps, if we just hang on a little longer, explore our own hearts, and beliefs with openness and honesty, we'll communicate pure intentions and complete, sustainable designs for a future.  

   If we do that, perhaps that will be the wisdom we pass to the next species we empower, and they will convey to their youngest dependents the notion that it could indeed all end, but it might not.  And that would be a nice story.