Judgement: the Rotten Fruit

    Life is an adventure. It’s rigorous, exciting, interesting and prolific. It’s also solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short (Hobbes, Leviathan). I believe there’s truth in every dream and every nightmare. The one act that changes the trajectory of it all though, starts with how we choose to perceive. And how we choose to perceive life, is based on judgment.

   Maybe we all have a little bit of fairy tales and Santa Claus. But chances are there comes a moment when we at least pause our living like everything is a miracle.
   We “grow up” and start thinking that we are living in some harsh, objective, dismissive reality, but are we? One of the most incredible phrases I ever heard someone say about another was that “everywhere they go, there they are!” Faulty narratives, ethical relativism, ethnocentrism, blind privilege, diplomatic sovereignty and even quantum uncertainty aside, as a species we’ve basically been growing recently only all too aware of what we’re not really aware of. We’re likely on this platform of life for one real purpose and one real purpose only: to connect, regardless of what’s real. If you can really internalize and remember this, you won’t ever lose sight of what’s important. 
   But maybe you don’t buy into that yet. Maybe you're hurt and not really ready yet to connect. Maybe connecting drains you. Maybe you believe we are all here to learn. To that one asks - to learn what? What if you’re stupid? Maybe we are all here to love. - To love what? What happens when you aren’t loved? Who has this whole story right? What is right?
 
   How difficult is it for us all to trust each other. How basic is this search for truth. Whether this is a result of willful misdirection, ineptitude, or inadequacy - it doesn’t matter. We are all guilty victims, and we all need to get over it. We should have learned to be careful though, as searching for what’s right will almost always deteriorate into control by design. 
   Control is an illusion.   
   None of us are omnificent. We all stem from a singular perspective which must by definition be inherently incomplete and therefore fundamentally flawed. Even when we feel 100% certain that we are 100% correct, we really just can’t be. Man has been trying for several ages.  Perhaps it’s time to face the truth.
   I believe the feminist philosophers have had a refreshing and insightful take on how to proceed. 
   But before we get to that, let’s uncover as much as we can from all that’s behind it all. I think it all stems from and goes back to judgment. 
   Somewhere along the line, I’ve learned that I’m always wrong when I judge.
   And no, I’m not suffering with a lack of self esteem, nor am I too stupid to realize we all judge almost all the time. I’m saying that judgment is so deeply, inherently flawed and ubiquitous at its core that I daresay it's the snake quietly winding itself around the neck of any sleeping victim.
   There have been many thinkers contributing their judgment on judgment. The stacks of these thoughts trail back hundreds of years.  Aristotle saw judgment as a part of practical wisdom. He considered good judgment an intellectual virtue enabling reason based off what is good, beneficial, right despite fluctuations in situations - for human flourishing. Do we trust Aristotle’s, judgment on judgement?
   Kant valued duty, universally ethical imperatives, and rules. Clearly Kant had control issues, and it doesn't take much before we are sacrificing our children to a random ax murderer as opposed to lying to him about how they're hidden in safety away in a closet. Why? To not lie? Kant clearly can’t have this right. Staunch loyalty to any particular duty might make for fun fiction, but it’s narrow, blind and immature at its core. No one is any one thing.
   There’s utilitarianism, which values the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. Seems logical, right - even if it feels cold, easy, and impersonal. Carol Gilligan’s Care Ethics which lays the framework to put judgement in a more contextually relevant space before assigning the “right.”
   But we also cannot value utility above all because of the paradoxes. We intuitively know that a mother who would sacrifice her own child even for five strangers would be considered not just a terrible mother but just out of alignment with any kind of moral ground, and not just from the perspective of the child being sacrificed but humanity as a whole would judge her. Nobody would even want to be around a person who they know would sacrifice them for total strangers. Therefore, if you are that kind of person, you're demonstrating an unsustainable personality trait, and that alone could never be universal, or sustainable, or amenable, or dutiful. This logic circulates basically like a tornado into destruction because it justifies immoral actions.
   And backing up all way to Aristotle's views leaves many thinkers have questioning anthropocentric views that prioritize staunch universal rigidity or even privilege human flourishing. Perspectives like deep ecology or ecocentrism argue that all living beings or ecosystems have intrinsic value, and shouldn't be judged solely by how well they serve human needs or growth.
   One thinker in particular put this vulnerability to the test.  
   Daniel Quinn illuminates the structural problems with the Us-Them dichotomy running through all of these paradigms and mirrors our most fundamental issue.  He does this by creating a fictional philosophical discourse between a man and a gorilla. When seen through this carefully constructed lens, Quinn highlights the absurdity of myopic adherence to unsustainable disregard for laws of population growth. He illuminates a likely reason for the story of Caine and Abel as pastoral communities saw the trajectory of the agricultural revolution, and tried to warn tge Semites against it. But this oral mythology didn’t work to dissuade the Protestant work ethic as they’ve always believed that their way is the right way. They-we believe that we have dominion over the land based on two truths: we can and we want to. As we “evolved” from what he calls Leaver Culture to Taker Culture, we did this first by breaking away as judgers, wrongfully assuming both omniscience and freewill as apriori; claiming logic to be universal or categorically imperative - toxically male, flawed attempt at domination and ultimately doomed paradigm.
   See god is a necessity by design. What else could be infinite, omnipotent, and omnipresent, and omnivorous? Giving way and space for others simply because you know you don’t know all can be a beautiful state of being. From there, life can be a beautiful utopia. Fear is natural, but grace is wise. We’ve spent centuries now in pursuit of ease and pleasure, comfort and everlasting life. But there’s a price. We see it. We know it now even if we didn’t always.  It’s dumb in the face obvious that this cannot last.
   Think knowledge is power? Try ignorance is bliss! Trust me, it’s an easier argument. 
   Feminist philosophers, like those in Care Ethics or pluralistic philosophy, argue that traditional logic often prioritizes detachment and universal rules, which they see as reflecting a specific, historically male perspective. They propose redefining logic to integrate context, relationships, and empathy as valid and essential components of reasoning.
   Instead of vain attempts to impart power over our situation, try doing your best to habitually infuse it.
   First try remembering that empowering yourself and others can only stem from your own happiness. We see this happen naturally when we begin to notice the moments that we happen to be ok. There are moments when we’re not thinking about much. Even if it seems less and less these moments can happen and furthermore, they can happen by design. When you are deeply “ok” it’s easier to infuse power to someone who is not. And if you’re not, value yourself first enough to fix that. Stop. Meditate. Pray. Ask for help. Most importantly - stop! Stop acting when you are angry, fearful, sad, even casually uninvested won’t likely lead anywhere good.  
   Reflect now for a moment and compare the decisions you made while you were happy, to the decisions you made in moments of negativity or frustration. There’s a big difference in most outcomes, right? Try making it a kind of rule to always be coming from a good place before you act.  Do this for a while. I don’t ask you to comprehend this rationality. Empirical knowledge is the only way I’ve learned to learn. And I teach! Do it for a while, and just test to see if it works out. Soon, you’ll feel that place that you are coming from to act your best ultimately, is the real you.
   
   …And if you truly deeply think about this even once, you’ll soon see that you can apply this thought to your every moment. You can emerge with something so simple, so beautiful, but so powerful that you’ll never forget and never live in quite the same way again.
   Look behind things. It’s hard to just believe any religion, or affiliation, or even person because when you really start to see how inherently flawed any one perspective is. Judgement was the inherently flawed fruit. We are none of us equipped, able, or sustainably apt to judge. So stop. Try loving instead. 

Life your Life like it’s a Bonus Level

   Well, I survived the worst day of the year this week. School’s back and I must have been asked a hundred times how was my summer. But as happy as I felt waking up a little slower, and resting a bit more often, I feel like my response was never satisfying when asked. When my colleagues asked, they seemed more focused in discussing who had the most unique travel. When my boss asked I felt I was supposed to have done more to progress my teaching career. We didn’t really travel because we are saving for some big things coming up, and I didn’t really write or study because Amy worked summer school and there were family matters to look after and tend to. My oldest son is headed into his last year of high school. There were essays to compose, projects to complete, portfolios to create, and occasionally, there was downtime to cherish. It’s important at least once year to disconnect from the hustle and bustle of the world - all the noise of adults in the news and the traffic and the kids with their videos and games…

    My son and I played a video game together called Split Fiction. He thought I’d be interested because the two main characters are women writers who answer an ad and enter a machine that creates a virtual reality from their stories. Something goes wrong and they end up trapped inside the machine by some crazy capitalist who you learn is trying to steal their ideas. 

   It’s a fairly intuitive game that requires you do crazy tricks like leap onto the tip top of poles like you’re a parkour expert or swing on the vines of a magic tree. It’s designed in such a way that it’s not so hard even though there are shoot outs and bosses and puzzles. The story unfolds so that the women begin to reveal some complex backstory and characterization as they progress by working together. And it rarely repeats. It was a good play. It took some time to finish, but it was a great way for us to connect as we’re both creative types who stress about winning in an effort to merely not let the other down. We joked about the nature of the relationship between the women, and marveled as the different stories revealed similar themes and worlds kept increasing in complexity. We laughed out loud together for real whenever game play sped up and we each began accomplishing tremendous feats on instinct. At one point we got to ride these dragons that we’d found and been protecting. We’d found ways to feed them. They grew and eventually I could fly mine and he could punch and climb things with his. It really was a bit of a thrill. We just finished it the other day and afterwards, we were able to go back and do a couple of the most fun runs again. We switched characters a little bit - me punching and climbing and him and flying and spitting. We realized we were best suited for the roles we’d picked originally. The whole thing was a wonderful share, but the best part was going back and reliving our favorite runs. It’s still a bit intense. You have to demonstrate all those skills you learned, but your goals change and your perspective is different. This round, you can appreciate knowing it was a great part - a bonus level.

   I really didn’t connect at all with news this summer. Everyone seems worried about war, the economy, climate change, AI… I’ve been pondering my life’s purpose and whether we manifest reality or not. I’ve found a kind of resilience in just focusing on my own desires and the happiness of my family.

   Most of my life I’ve already spent worrying about the future. I mean I really didn’t think we were gonna make it here. I’m still surprised I made it through the 80s. My childhood was peppered with anxiety and depression over early losses and what I deemed inevitable nuclear war. College only furthered my understanding of the precarious nature in humanity’s rise despite a lack of arcane vision. And yet we’ve somehow survived through not one, but two terms of Trump having the football, a global pandemic, and a proxy war with Russia as well as escalation in the Middle East.

   I’m just in such a different space in my life. It feels like a different universe. There’s quite a bit of increasing scientific affirmation for Everett‘s Multi World Theory. Reality is looking more and more subjective. But even as the world feels more and more like it’s in fast forward, I feel better equipped to handle even the worst days of the year with ease. This is all starting to feel like a bonus level.

   There’s something so awesome about that though! Living life like you’re in a bonus level feeling like it all matters, but also kind of doesn’t, bouncing around obstacles focused more on a love of that buoyancy, the beauty of a challenge and the wish to serve and share. We get a few moments in school this week to talk with colleagues. I was discussing a library I wanted to create with one and we were naming the books we’ve read that our students could and should also access. We ended up discussing The Alchemist which I deem one of the greatest books of all time - but my colleague hated. She was frustrated when she realized the protagonist went through all these journeys and just kind of ended up back where he started. She expressed such authentic frustration at this that I had to laugh. 

   She didn’t share my metaphorical love of a bonus level experience. I have an aunt I’m in a similar long term conversation with over the ending of the TV series, Lost. We’d both watched and loved the series as it had unfolded and I guess we’d expected to get all the answers to all the mysteries it had initiated, but most were basically left on our laps. She found that frustrating and I found it preserved the dynamic. It just seems like life is and will always be what we make of it. I mean, that’s the reality under all the questions that push us forward and out in all kinds of different directions. They are as different as they are similar and you can push forward into all the circles or get lost in all the eddies but in the end, we really are where we started. For all our rationalizations and justifications, all the learning we acquire, and all the judgments we make, it’s really about our own happiness. It’s really about how buoyant we are we when we bounced in and out of those challenges we set for ourselves. It’s about how happy we make the people around us and whether we brought the best of us, and whether or not we truly appreciated them. I had a great summer. Where did I go? What did I learn? What did do? I beat a video game with my oldest son, and I loved every single minute of it.

Tuesdays with Melissa Etheridge

   I rounded 50… recently. Yep, no getting around it. Definitely not gonna be anymore quite as long as it’s been. Getting older doesn’t feel as bad as I used to think it would however. And I believe it’s because I have figured a few things out over the years.  

Going it Alone

   It was a random Tuesday night when this really came together for me. I’d done something I’d never even thought to do in my life. I went to a concert, alone.

   I’m not sure what I was even thinking when I bought the ticket and my inclination as the day arrived was to blow it off. I mean - it was a Tuesday! Going alone would have sounded sad to my younger self. Thing is, I suddenly love my younger self so much now - bless her little naive heart! But if you ever get the opportunity, I have to urge you - this is a bucket list must! Just go - follow your heart. Find that perfect musician, smoke whatever you want and order whatever you feel like. Talk, dance, sing, scream, and do it with total abandon! Do it on a work night, or Sunday or whatever day you get - but go! It’s worth making random days amazing! You're worth it. Tuesdays are 1/7th of your life!

   Now let me tell you about this journey.

Melissa Etheridge, ME

   I’ve never met her (not for a lack of trying!) but I can still remember the first time I even discussed her decades ago. I was at a sad little hole-in-the-wall bar off Queens Boulevard called Reflections. I was just a 21 year old baby dyke on a date who had taken me to a movie. We saw - get this - “Schindler’s List.” That’s right. It was 1995 and I’d just endured 3 hours and 15 minutes of pure horror over the the most intimate depiction of the Holocaust I’ll (hopefully) ever experience, and I endured it all gripping my seat and shaking like a leaf. I sat trembling over every move the only real lesbian I’d ever met made. She worked at the Deli around my corner. She’d picked me up and drove 85 miles an hour from Franny Lew to QB via the GCP. I remember whooshing under the overpasses at that point just praying we’d live! l’d been out only maybe 2 years - aware I was gay only 5. I was desperately in a secret love affair with my best friend at the time so this was nothing more than a kind of rebound or initiation but such was life in the early 90s.  

   “Come to My Window” was playing on some lonely jukebox in the corner as my date went to the bathroom. I was suddenly accompanied by a young and beautiful crew cut blond much closer to my age than my date. 

   She and I began talking about love and God and deviance (all light topics of convo easily penetrated amongst our people) when I think I mentioned how I loved the song.  

   “Melissa Etheridge is just a screaming dyke” she mused.

     This spun me because Melissa Etheridge was just about the only publicly out woman I knew of. “Really?  You don’t find her relatable?” I think I said.

   I don’t remember how she answered, just that my date returned, and this girl my age quickly fell away. That bar was a downer so we left and hit a club I would later frequent called Hatfields, where the music was loud and fast and the bathroom should have charged by the hour. Half the time I spent in there I was terrified the cops would suddenly raid us (I think my impressions were permeated by news I’d seen on TV as a baby in the 70s!) 

   This began my long, long mental relationship with the complexities of Melissa Etheridge, and my own social location.

    A friend told me around this time that I would not likely even remember my 20s. Boy was he wrong. I remember every thrill. I still feel every anguish. I muse over the rushes of excitement and appreciate the relief of occasional euphoria. And I can punctuate so many moments with Melissa Etheridge songs alone.

Not So Silent Legacy 

   He was a bit of a dick (that friend) but he was the “outest” of all my friends, so he and I went to my first Melissa Etheridge concert. It was the outdoor Jones Beach theater off Field 5 and it was the first time in my life I was surrounded by my people. It was - lol - on a Tuesday. June 27th, 1995 rain or shine! I wasn’t prepared for what it would feel like but home was pretty close and I kinda remember wishing that was where I’d left him! 

   The thing is - I was self conscious. What I couldn’t quite recognize at that time was the mixture of misogyny within my self consciousness, or the oppression of a patriarchy that ostracized my experience like a dome but that I couldn’t have begun to name at that time. It was all women and regardless we spent a lot of time talking about how that made him feel. But my mind was elsewhere. Melissa does this song “Silent Legacy” where she challenges the authority of the gods I’d been grown under and at the moment of the song’s climactic defiance - the skies opened up! 15,000 lesbians wearing white “Yes I Am” concert tees were suddenly drenched and consequently were being corralled together under the nosebleed tunnels to hide from lightning - I was weak in the knees on only a little out of fear from the heavens. When the storm cleared Melissa came back and did a song I’d heard before but never really listened to. Her performance called the artistry to attention though. She repeated the refrain over and over until I felt lulled into a trance and it became my inner mantra. Later, it became our mantra and the song my wife and I call our own - “All the way to Heaven” is Heaven...

   It was only a couple years later my wife and I were “discovered” making out in the back of her little red Mustang convertible about a half a block between my house and good old Deli Bizz - our cars parked next to each other that night each missing a headlight.

Thwarted Plans, Messy Life, More Concerts

   That concert was so memorable Etheridge herself even mused about it more than a decade later at concerts I saw her at in the Westbury Music Fair and at the Paramount. Smaller venues, and older crowds lead to a different kind of self consciousness but we were able to score 2nd row tickets at Westbury when my wife got to actually touch Melissa’s hand, and it wasn’t long before we were front and center with standing room only at the Paramount!

   The thing about Melissa Etheridge for me is the consistent evolution. For all her “screaming lesbian” vibe [insert eye roll here] ME was the first out celebrity I knew. Her revelation came at the height of my self discovery (and raging homophobia.) I can see my life through her words and I can feel my heart pound to her beats. It’s as scary as it is redeeming! I began listening to her at my lowest moments when I needed to know there were others like me in the world. As time went on and the world around me became more and more comfortable with love, her songs became anthems. ME concerts ignited a special place in my heart and projected a world I could hold my head high in. I began to go for all kinds of reasons. My wife and I took my stepmother and mother-in-law just after we got engaged to another Jones Beach show one year.  We thought it might be a creative way to share our community with them as they struggled to understand what an “engagement” for us meant (this was before marriage equality). We took our oldest for his first concert in Albany when he was barely a year old, (a selfish new parent lesson as we spent most of that one in the back soothing him). But that’s how you make God laugh right?  Make a plan? When she beat Cancer she pulled a friend of ours (who also beat Cancer) up on stage to celebrate and we all cheered sharing that hope. I remember watching her youtubes during quarantine, and my heart broke every time she suffered. Her divorce… her lost son. Facing the world head on, processing it all publicly, and then singing a kind of truth I only hear from her is a magic she gifts my world with.  

Uncovered Abandon

   Last summer I drove with a friend up to Bethel to see her play with the Indigo Girls, but I had to leave early as ride my felt the drive home would be long. We even got to see her on Broadway. It was and still is heartwarming to me that my stepmother came to love and respect our lives so much that she scraped together the money to give us that beautiful gift for our actual anniversary - maybe three months before she died. We went, but again had to leave a little early to tend to something that came up with our kids. Life never goes exactly according to our plans does it?  Still, it’s life. And it’s beautiful to really live life.  

You gotta love Tuesdays

    When I saw Melissa was coming to play back at the Paramount only a few towns over, I decided to just Uber myself and go. So what if it was some random Tuesday night? I didn’t even bother to ask if anybody else I knew wanted to go or was going. I’ve seen her so many times and in so many different arenas - even Staten Island one year - my wife was cool with watching the kids this time so I was free to just go and stay as long as I wanted.

   I left about 7:30 and got dropped off right in front. I saw lots of familiar faces, but I didn’t even have to speak to anyone. I was even able to smoke a bit - not responsibilities, or even legal worries.

   I meandered in and up to the Skybar. No longer is the whole Paramount standing room only. I found my way to my section (the standing view basically on top of the entire theater.) I was about as far from Melissa as humanly possible in that venue but I  was happy to be there and not the least bit tethered or self conscious. I ordered myself a drink from the beer/wine bar and started talking with a lady next to me. I wasn’t worried about what she thought, or what anybody around me thought, or anything. Melissa came on and I began to smile and sway and dance. It was so easy to just relax. After a few songs, I asked Pam, the fellow teacher from Middle Island, to watch my jacket and hold my spot while I went to the bathroom. 

   On my journey I discovered a bar that served mixed drinks and was able to take in 2-3 songs alone from the middle balcony while I waited. I had a clear view over the floor seats locked to Melissa‘s eyes that whole time.  

   One thing led to another so that about halfway through the show I found myself inching along the side bar on the floor through the crowd. It’s amazing being only responsible for yourself. People move, things happen, and I could just glide freely through the bodies. After a little bit, some of those people started actually leaving early. Thankful I didn’t have to, I was able to slip into their places. I was about 3/4 up to the stage along the side bar when I wound up in front of this fairly rowdy guy. I’m always a little suspicious of the straight guys I see in a Melissa Etheridge crowd, especially if they’re alone, but at this point it was pretty crowded so I had to endure his yelling and dancing right behind me stoically in an effort to not lose ground. Before I knew it a woman near me met my eyes and seemed to notice my discomfort. She motioned me to move in front of her. Another did the same as it suddenly felt like a collective effort to usher me away from that guy. The next thing I know I was touching the stage! It was pure bliss to be that close. I was right under Melissa Etheridge! Ecstatic, uninhibited and very aware of how this moment would become part of my collective ME experience. I swayed with abandon and sang even though I’d lost my voice. I screamed my appreciation in celebration of all those relatable fears, true loves, spiritual journeys and inspiring thoughts that so sharply matched my own.

Pride.

   Melissa Etheridge for me captures a lifetime of first kisses and secret betrayals, true loves and spiritual crusades. My whole life from skydives to kids could be belted beautifully with just a raspy raw voice and an acoustic, but that dash of courage and gratitude ignites both the heart of my youth and the wisdom of my years. One of the first things she said when she emerged at the Paramount was that we should all first forget that it was Tuesday. But I love that it was a Tuesday. How many Tuesdays come and go and are forgotten? It was a Tuesday that Summer evening at Jones Beach - a moment I’ll never forget. If Melissa Etheridge can transform two of my Tuesdays into lifelong memories, that in itself is art. Music can be magic. Magic can be life! But life - starts with honesty, but only on the other side of self consciousness. I don’t care how old we get - in fact I now look forward to getting even older! I have another ticket bought for next month and even though I’m a teacher and it’ll be the end of my summer - I look forward to it. Especially, because it’s on another Tuesday!

UPDATE!!! 

SHE TOUCHED MY HAND!!!

Summer Bugs

    I was feeling grateful for the crickets. There had been a delay within the pest control company getting the message that I did not want them spraying for crickets. I like crickets. They are the pest of choice for me and a welcome replacement for us all to the roaches of the city. The pest control company insincerely apologized before mansplaining a rationale about how rats eat crickets. I nodded and told them that I only wanted them to monitor the rat traps and no, I wasn’t interested in their termite inspections either, thank you.  

   I used to hate the sound of Cicadas because it meant the summer was ending. But I’ve learned in my old age that there is a season for everything, and each season needs to be savored.  

   The days slip away almost as fast as the years now as time with my boys amounts to a shared video game or TV series in between summer Taekwondo lessons, camp, theater and art. We used to camp or at least build fires for S’mores in the backyard. Now, we flick a switch for a gas flame on the deck or just make them inside, in a microwave.

   It was one of those last lazy summer afternoons.  He came out to lounge in the pool with me because I’d just read the first draft of his college essay and felt we needed to discuss it. But he’d been napping and I knew he had come solely because I’d beckoned him. He hadn’t really wanted to swim in this 5 foot tall above ground pool for years now. 

   And so we did discuss it, but the conversation waned. I felt uneasy and so I encouraged him on to the inflatable pizza which was the pool recreational float of choice. It kept you out of the water and therefore warm and almost dry on these late afternoons that were cooler than we’d grown accustomed to.

   He brought up feeling hopeful. We discussed quantum immortality. That lead to more theories regarding Mandela Effects, some art we shared a love of, some sci fi, psychology, theology, current events, politics… We talked about the possibility that we’re all really dead, and this is some kind of afterlife.  We decided that if reality is a simulation, we’d both be oddly ok with that.  The things I can discuss with him I cannot easily discuss the same way with any other, as he’s grown under my best effort and at the peak of my best guidance. 

   Soon, however, we drifted into a peaceful quiet. I marveled at my own euphoria in his presence that I felt mix with this nostalgic freedom to actually close my eyes, content with a connection to his every position adjustment that I could feel as we wobbled softly amidst this finite surface. The Cicadas sounded different than they used to though. They sounded either far off, or more like crickets. I honestly couldn’t tell which.

Love that shirt

    A little while ago at work I on a break sitting with a coworker as a friend just watching as students walked toward us for phone surrender. We are not generally petty people but one student in particular came in with this shirt that was so ridiculously objectifying that it triggered both our feminist sensibilities. It had sparkly hand prints on each breast. It was sad that a shirt like this was ever even made but even worse on this day that it was worn by a student with developmental issues. My friend and I don’t usually criticize apparel but this fashion crime was too egregious. Neither of us could stop ourselves from literally discussing openly (but jot too loudly) even though we were at work how awful this shirt looked as this student walked toward us, and I admit this wasn’t our finest professional moment, but what happened next really struck me and has inspired this today:

   “Love the shirt” my friend said.  

   My friend, who I knew had said this as an unconscious reflex, took a moment (once the kid passed by) found my glare and realized the irony. It was one thing to share how hideous we both thought the shirt was (and the fact that no one had stopped this child from wearing it to school!) but another to actually compliment to offense.

   Later that same day, I was on a shared phone call with my wife when she said something about a mutual acquaintance in a similar fashion, and then proceeded to compliment that person on the exact thing she’d critiqued moments before with me.  These two incidents back to back got me thinking: how often do people do this?

   I’ve mentioned here how illogical I find judgement in general be. That being said, I’m aware both of how hypocritical it is of me to even judge judging, and how easy it is to forget how generally wrong most judgment is. But adding a compliment to the top of one’s condemnation is something of a new curtain I felt I was peeking behind.

   But this has really become something of a problem for me. I make it a point to compliment. If there’s something that stands out about a person, some notable impression, I push a little more than most to express that whenever possible. It’s kind of a compulsion. I genuinely believe it’s a duty to relay a message like that and I will shoulder the possible critique or social fallout that might ensue from the practice. It’s important, I believe, to our evolution to build each other up at any opportunity.

   But am I naive I’m now wondering? Do others compliment just out of hand? Is this one of those social mores I missed growing up? (I’ve been told that my upbringing was lacking etiquette before.) Is this part of the reason why so many thwart compliments generally? Because I’d always thought that people did that due to a lack of self esteem. Could it be that they do it both due to a lack of self esteem and an awareness that compliments are really insults in disguise?

   This internal inquiry has really affected me. I mean I occasionally dabble in real life social exchanges. I compliment and have been complimented. I joke with my family as we live day to day exchanging authentic compliments while sustaining the occasional genuine jab. It’s part of our private support system. But now, I find myself suspicious of many outside compliments.  

   Don't get me wrong, I still love me a good compliment. And even if some are social reflexes or products of a slow moving positivity fad, that doesn’t discredit all.

   But I feel genuinely curious, how can we know? Does it just become a product of who we really trust? Could my suspicion negate the gravity I allot to compliments from strangers or new acquaintances? Could I inadvertently be passing along a faulty compass to my children? Am I passing the buck of a lacking etiquette? 

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.