The Flying Leap

       

               I’d hit another grounder to the left side of the infield. It was probably going to be an out, I knew. But I was 12 years old and I wanted a hit, so I clenched my teeth and ran as fast as I could toward first base. As I neared first base, my cleats pounding the dirt, I saw the first baseman reaching for the throw. I was about a stride and a half short of the bag, so if I wanted to beat the throw I was going to have to make this stride longer than normal.

                I leapt in the air like a clumsy gazelle, and landed just short of first base as the throw landed softly in the first baseman’s mitt. I was still in hustle mode, though, and recognized that I hadn’t yet touched the base. So as I lifted my right foot, just centimeters in front of the base, I tried to graze the bag with the toe of my cleat.

As I did so, I did more than graze the base; I tripped myself. Before I knew it, I was flying headfirst toward right field. I landed in the dirt and chalk behind first base, and closed my eyes as a cloud of dust surrounded me.

                My parents, brother and mother’s parents attended nearly every game I played. At this game, my mom, brother and grandparents were sitting in the stands right along the first-base line. After my self-tripping belly-flop, there was silence for a moment. And then, I heard it: My family erupted in laughter, much louder than anyone else in the stands or dugouts. I turned my head, and they were standing up, pointing at me, covering their mouths, crying tears of laughter. I think I recall hearing the word “stupid” at least once. I know I heard my grandfather’s contagious laugh, which had a rhythmic wheeze to it.

  

              We all play different roles in families, and sometimes those roles are unhealthy reactions to family dynamics and personal struggles. Other times, those roles are simply a natural part of who we are, and they serve to solidify our familial bonds somehow. In my childhood, I was an athletic kid who also had a knack for being clumsy in dramatic, hilarious fashion.

                There was the time in Wildwood, N.J., when I was on crutches with a broken leg and walked into a restaurant with my parents. I leaned against a curtain, expecting there to be a wall on the other side of it. There was no wall, and I fell to the ground like Danny Kaye doing his best slapstick routine. A waitress rushed over to me, and I smiled at her. “I’m just dropping in,” I said.

                There was the time outside Hershey, Pa., when I had just finished a bumper-boat ride with my brother. I got up to step off the boat, and missed the deck. Next thing I knew, I was underwater, looking up at the inner tubes of these boats, no openings in sight. The attendant pushed the boats aside, reached in and pulled me out before I could panic. I stood there, straightening my glasses, reeking of gasoline, with water dripping off my clothes. My brother, then 8 years old, had already watched too many commercials. He raised my hand and said, “Warren for Pennzoil!”

                The stories go on – the day I tried to teach myself the harmonica and passed out from hyperventilation; the afternoon I was throwing myself fly balls on the front lawn and found myself waking up flat on my back, having missed a ball that briefly knocked me out; the day I was climbing our flagpole and fell, only to find myself hanging in mid-air by the hood of my jacket; and the multiple times I found my Cub Scout self bandaged after trying to learn how to use a pocket knife. It’s no wonder my grandfather nicknamed me “Charlie Brown.”

                When I tell these stories to my daughters, they laugh just as hard every time, and they love to hear them again. It’s almost as if they were there, they know the details so well. My parents and brother seem to enjoy the stories just as much as ever, too. I know there’s something to that. In my adulthood so far, I’ve been a pretty intense, earnest man, who has a tendency to take himself too seriously. As I move into my mid-40s, I’m striving for the joy of the moment more than the stress of perfectionism and to-do lists. Self-deprecating stories seem like a good start.

                I eventually got up from the dirt beyond first base, and kept playing that game. My team probably lost – we lost most of the games that year – and I probably begged my mom for a soda and knish from the refreshment stand afterward. But those are just guesses – I honestly don’t remember anything else from that game except my flying leap. There really isn’t anything else that matters as much. It’s funny how the sound of your family laughing at you in public can feel so much like love. 

A Homemade Mess

It’s been quite a stretch. The Christmas and New Year holidays were followed quickly by the punishing onslaught of snow and freezing temperatures. Then, just as March revealed a possible light at the end of the wintry tunnel, our household fell into illness mode, from the sinus infections that struck us all to the mysterious ailment that slammed my wife, landing her in bed for 10 days. As we turned the corner into April, everyone finally started feeling a bit better. Now, as our Spring Break begins, there’s the task of catching up on all the work that needs to be completed, from grading papers to drafting lesson plans to completing free-lance writing assignments.

            All of which leaves very little time to address the house in which I live. So as I work at home this weekend with my wife and girls away for the weekend with family, I push the laptop away for a second and glance around me. And I must admit, what I see is not pretty. It’s something we’ve all witnessed at one time or another. It’s just, well, it’s what you’d call a mess. A mess that, in its own way, chronicles the four punishing months that have ensued since we were singing Christmas carols and decking those halls back in December.

            I begin in our sunroom, which seems to be inviting all seasons as it sits between our kitchen and backyard. I see the softball-sized, red-and-green Christmas balls that were used on our front lawn (for what, I’m still not sure), and the extension cord that lit our evergreen in the backyard for the holidays. It took two months for the snow to uncover that cord before we could retrieve it in March, and it might take another two before the cord goes back in the basement tool closet. Next to that cord, I see leftover lawn and leaf bags, unused bottles of liquid bubbles, metal marshmallow roasters, a pair of winter gloves, and softball equipment. On the table out there is an Easter egg-dyeing kit, and beneath that table is a gingerbread village kit, and beside the gingerbread village is something called a “Flower Pot Cupcake Baking Kit.”

            Things have to get better in the other rooms; it can’t be that bad all around. And it’s true, the rest of our house is more liveable. But wow, how things accumulate. In the kitchen, our daughters’ January birthday napkins sit beside our younger daughter’s first-communion certificate from March. In the living room, a stack of birthday cards (also from January) lie beneath the winter-themed travel tissue packets, which themselves lie beneath the never-to-be-used-Target-impulse-purchase Easter lights.

In our study, which doubles as the girls’ playroom, a three-month-old “Super Size Crystals” experiment sits on yet another hutch, while a magnetic bulletin board holds pieces of paper that read “St. Patrick’s Day” and “Sale! Come Now,” followed by a reminder to those playing a long-forgotten game of make-believe store that “Whoever is the first to spend 6 dollars or more will get the mystery item!”

            I think we’ve all won that promotion, girls, as this house is nothing if not a harbor for mystery items. A jar full of mushy green goo (more “Super Size Crystals,” perhaps?) A new doorknob, to replace the one I had to break down when my older daughter accidentally locked herself in her bedroom a few months ago. A pair of ice skates beside a pair of shorts beside a hand-cranked flashlight beside a magnifying glass beside a CD copy of A Charlie Brown Christmas.

It is just too much. At the landing beneath the stairs to my daughters’ upstairs bedrooms, a pink pig Pillow Pet sits beside a board game titled “Pop the Pig.” It’s a fitting pair for this time of year, when families like mine feel like we’ve been living in pigsties for just too long.

I guess that’s why they call it “Spring Cleaning.” I’ll get to it one of these days.

Creativity's Fate

                Earlier this month, Laura Pappano wrote a story for The New York Times about the increase in creative studies programs at colleges and universities. With the workforce demanding more ingenuity from workers, colleges are teaching students how to think more creatively and seek out resourceful solutions to the problems of an ever-changing world.

            It’s rather stunning, as an educator, to see an article like this. For most of my teaching career, the focus of our national education dialogue has been on standardized testing – on ensuring that no child is left behind in mastering the essential skills. I’ve seen many teachers work very hard at ensuring that those skills are met. I’ve also watched teachers find wonderful ways to teach those skills while also incorporating creativity into their lesson plans. But still, it’s confounding to hear so much talk for so long about mastering the skills, and then hear calls for a shift of sorts.

            Of course, our strongest thinkers offer a balance of critical and creative thinking. They plan ahead, then figure out how to improvise. They analyze the reading or solve the equation, while also imagining new ways to see the text or the equation. To use a baseball analogy, they strive to be the Derek Jeters of the world. The New York Yankees shortstop, who prepares for his final season in 2014, has always worked hard to master the fundamentals. But, at the same time, Jeter has always known when to create – his flip toss in the 2001 Division Series against the Oakland A’s standing as perhaps the best improvisational play in the history of baseball.

            Most educators would suggest that we strive for that balance. But they might also warn us to be careful that we don’t push the concrete so hard that the creativity seems undervalued. It’s a lesson demonstrated beautifully in The LEGO Movie, the latest children’s film to feature a powerful message for kids and adults alike. Without spoiling the plot, let’s just say that the film’s final half-hour makes a very strong case against stifling the creativity of our children. As the film winds to an end, we are reminded of those moments in our early years when we sat with LEGOs or Star Wars figures or Barbie dolls or erector sets, and the world was ours to shape.

Times have changed, and we can talk all we want about the needs of our high-tech world. But we also have a long history in our country of honoring and valuing the innovators. In my classroom, I keep some old Apple publicity posters featuring famous artists and leaders, with that simple slogan “Think Different” next to the photos of Jim Henson, Pablo Picasso, Amelia Earhart, and others. Whether we’re parents, educators, filmmakers, or shortstops, we all share the responsibility to nurture the creativity in our kids. It’s a no-brainer.

February 1989: The New Girl

                She was in the back seat and I was in the passenger’s seat. We were sitting in a sedan, driving from the Staten Island Ferry terminal to my church in the Willowbrook section of Staten Island. I hadn’t really known this girl before the day began, but I knew her now. She was, in fact, all I could think about as our chaperone’s car cruised along Crystal Avenue and the radio station played Debbie Gibson’s latest song.

                It’s funny how the smallest of decisions can change a life or two. My church’s youth group was taking a February field trip to the Statue of Liberty and South Street Seaport. My brother and I, along with several other teens, were among those taking the trip on this Sunday. One of my fellow 12^th-graders, a girl named Erica, had asked a school friend of hers if she wanted to go along. The friend had said yes, and she joined us in the crowd of teens traveling by cars and ferryboats to our destination.

This new girl chatted with me during the Circle Line ferry ride to Liberty Island, where our conversation was interrupted by a then-immature younger brother of mine, who was playing a game of “punch your brother in the crotch.” Somehow, the girl and I were able to ignore this painful distraction, and before long our voices and eyes became more flirtatious. By the time we were walking up the stairs of Lady Liberty, the new girl was massaging my shoulder. On the ferry back to Manhattan, she was snuggling up against me for warmth amid the chill of New York Harbor. At South Street Seaport, we ate pizza together, and I realized that my 18-year-old hormones were fully engaged.

So, on the walk back to South Ferry, we drifted to the back of the line and, when the moment was right, we stopped and let the others walk ahead. I knew little more than her name, the sing-song melody of her voice, her strawberry blonde hair and the high cheekbones that framed her face. But after turning toward the new girl, I now knew the taste of her lips. It was clear that this might lead somewhere.

In that car ride back, Debbie Gibson was singing her monster hit of the moment, “Lost in Your Eyes.” The new girl told me later that as she listened to that song, she thought about my brown eyes and the song felt right, in a mix-tape kind of way. When the girl told me later that she had a boyfriend, I said I wasn’t going to get in the middle of that, but to keep me posted. Two days later – on Valentine’s Day, no less – the girl broke up with her boyfriend. The next day, I asked her out. She said yes.

It’s a sweet and corny little high school romance story, and many of us have something like it. The difference here, I guess, is where this went afterward. While most of my peers waited to find their life partners much later, this girl and I couldn’t shake each other. In fact, we’ve been together ever since. Her name is Amy, and we’ve been married for 18 years. Tomorrow, it will be 25 years since I first asked her out.

Growing up together was not always easy, and I wouldn’t suggest this path for my daughters. But I guess we’re living proof that when it feels right, and the girl you see beneath the glitter of the Brooklyn Bridge looks like everything you’ve ever wanted, you might want to kiss her then and there. You never know where it might take you. The Debbie Gibson song is nostalgia now, but the girl is still new to me in all the right ways, every day.

Cinematic Soul

                Last night, my wife and I sat with our daughters to watch the Super Bowl together. We savored Amy’s chicken chili, laughed at Stephen Colbert’s pistachio commercials, and admired the Seahawks’ championship defense. But to be honest, Amy and I were thinking about something else on Sunday; we were mourning the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman.

            For more than 20 years, we’ve been astounded, time and time again, by Hoffman’s acting. Whenever you thought you’d seen the depths of human emotion plumbed as far as possible, another Hoffman film would surface, and you’d find him exploring the human soul even further. His obituaries do a fine job of listing the films, but picking your favorite Hoffman movie moment is about as difficult as choosing your favorite novel or dessert. Even my 12-year-old daughter, who recently saw Hoffman in Catching Fire, had become a fan.

            In my 12^th-grade English classes, we recently watched Hoffman in his Oscar-winning portrayal of Truman Capote, after we’d finished reading In Cold Blood. We used the film Capote to close out a unit on how true nonfiction really is, and whatever students thought of the movie or Capote’s book, they had nothing but praise for this actor who had managed to re-create the mannerisms and moods of a man who had died more than 20 years before the film’s release.

            The thing I found most fascinating about Hoffman as an actor was his ability to bring dignity and accuracy to his roles, whatever they were: a music critic, a political hack, a spiritual leader, a boarding-school student, even a shy, gay boom operator. I’m no film critic, so I’ll be careful not to try and act like one here. But when I think of all the Hoffman movies I’ve seen, perhaps no role impressed me as much as his portrayal of a home-care nurse in Magnolia. In that film, Hoffman’s character, Phil, does little more than listen to the stories of a dying man, his trophy wife and estranged son. But as these characters share their pain with Phil, he feels their struggles deeply, even to the point of weeping. Hoffman’s character shows us that being present and compassionate is in many ways the essence of life.

            My brother, who is a film critic, saw Hoffman at the Sundance Film Festival last month. He, like many others who live in New York City, had also seen Hoffman many times in Greenwich Village with his family, just living an ordinary life. Of course, addiction often does not announce itself on the ski slopes of Utah or the streets of Manhattan. It’s often a solitary and dismal experience, one to which Hoffman succumbed yesterday. There’s no way to gauge the loss to this 46-year-old man’s family and friends, let alone to movie fans like Amy and me – it’s just deeply sad in every way.

            As a parent, Hoffman brought his family down to Cape May Point, just a few miles from my parents’ home. When I’d go out for jogs in that area, I’d keep an eye out for a blond-haired, bespectacled man, likely wearing a wrinkled T-shirt and shorts. If I had seen Hoffman taking out the garbage or helping his kids ride their bikes, I know I would have just nodded the same way I did for anyone else I passed on the roads there. That, I figured, was the ultimate respect I could have given to an actor who had achieved much fame and fortune, but who had never tried to present himself as anything more than the rest of us.

            I never saw Hoffman in Cape May. I’ll be back down there in a few months, and I’ll go out for more jogs. This time, I won’t be looking for my favorite actor. But when I’m passing through Cape May Point, I’ll think of Phil the nurse, or Scotty the boom operator, or Capote. The greatest gift an artist or craftsman gives us is a body of work that lives longer than he does. Hoffman has done this with astounding success, and his films serve to remind us of all that he offered in his brief time here, while also connecting us with the complex emotions we feel, hide, express and share.

When the Innocent Are Guilty

When we watch our children dance through the early years of their lives, we often view them as tiny pieces of perfection. It’s tempting to see them as harmless blank slates, kids who love their parents and want nothing more than a hug and some ice cream.

But what happens when they take a step beyond the naïve innocence, and make a real mistake? What happens when they do some real damage? To be more specific, what happens when your nine-year-old plays too rough with her guinea pig and seriously injures her own pet?

So far, our younger daughter has wanted little more from life than a good book, some music, a family to love and a blanket to hold. She’s been “an easy kid,” as they sometimes say. But she’s just nine, so we know we’ve got unseen challenges ahead. On a recent day, one such challenge revealed itself. With a new friend over for a playdate, Chelsea was showing off her beloved guinea pig, a mostly white-furred animal named Marshmallow. For some reason, Chelsea decided to drop Marshmallow on her bed, letting the animal bounce off the mattress. On the second or third drop, the guinea pig didn’t bounce up, but instead crumpled down and rolled over.

Chelsea saw this, and immediately put her guinea pig back in the cage. She told us that her pet had been hurt, but it took some time before she gave us the full story. Her fear of getting into trouble superseded the need to give her parents vital information. Once we figured it all out, we saw a guinea pig that was dragging both back legs behind her, unable to walk normally. My wife cleaned the animal up, and made sure she ate some hay and drank some water. Chelsea, now fully realizing what she had done, cried herself to sleep.

The first thing my wife and I decided was that there was no need for additional punishment on our part; the girl’s pet was suffering, and that provided more than enough consequences for Chelsea. But we did see a need for some real conversation, about how and why this had happened, how Chelsea could prevent it in the future, and why we need to tell the truth when we’ve made a mistake, even if it does bring with it some feelings of guilt. As we talked this through, my wife and I shared with Chelsea some mistakes we had made at her age, to make sure she knew that her parents were not speaking from on high. She listened, nodded, and talked with us, aware of how much we respected her decision to tell us the truth.

It’s been a few days now, and Marshmallow is slowly using those back legs more and more. They don’t appear to be broken, and we’re hoping she is on the mend. It’s going to be tough if the guinea pig doesn’t recover, as that will haunt Chelsea for some time. The knots are there in our daughter’s stomach, and we can’t make them all go away right now. What’s done is done.

Our daughter feels a little less innocent today than she did a week ago. But when that happens, perhaps the best way to grow from this is to communicate about it. Chelsea has decided to write a story, about a girl who is learning how to tell the truth more. She’s mapping out her story web and her characters, and she’s been sharing the outline with her parents. We’ve praised her every step, telling her it sounds like a great story.

 I can only hope that when she finishes this story, Chelsea will have the chance to read it to a sprightly white guinea pig, who will be motoring around her cage in a state of healing. 

Frozen in Time

              Considering the fact that I have watched, played and written about sports throughout my life, you’d think I might feel more regret over the reality that I have no sons. But for the past 12 years, I’ve honestly found it fascinating to be a father to daughters. My two girls have brought me on an eye-opening cultural journey that has covered Elmo and Dora, Disney princess dresses, American Girl dolls, pretend-school lessons, pet guinea pigs, and performances of Wicked both on Broadway and in our living room. Katie and Chelsea are not really interested in sitting down to watch a ballgame with me, but they have brought a world of new experiences to my life.

                Lately, their activity has focused on some songs from a movie soundtrack. It is, of course, the soundtrack to Disney’s Frozen – the album that stands behind only Bruce Springsteen’s new record among the best-selling LPs in the nation. For the past month, children and their parents have waltzed out of movie theaters singing the songs from Disney’s latest animated feature, then quickly downloaded the album from iTunes upon their return home. The songs, which sound more Broadway-ready than the typical multiplex fare, are bolstered by the voice of Idina Menzel, the actress who originated the role of Elphaba in Wicked and Maureen in Rent. Menzel’s rendition of the song Let it Go from Frozen is one of the Oscar nominees for Best Original Song.

                In our home, the girls have been blasting the Frozen songs from our little Bose speakers and lip-synching their way through the whole show. In the car, even with no music on, they’ll practice certain lines together. They’ve seen the movie twice, and are clamoring for thirds. When our youngest turned nine three weeks ago, she asked for a cake in the shape of the film’s snowman character.

                Now I’m no cheerleader of Disney’s traditional portrayal of young female characters. The funny thing about this movie, though, is that even though all of the typical princess set pieces are there – the castle, the gowns, the big eyelashes, the handsome love interest – this film is ultimately about none of those things. It’s about two sisters, and their overriding love for each other. It’s about how far you’ll go to protect and save the best friend you have in the world. In our house, that’s a story worth some attention.

                As my girls sing along to the film’s song Do You Want to Build a Snowman?, we hear the story of a younger sister who is being pushed away by her older sister, and can’t understand the reason for it: “We used to be best buddies / And now we're not / I wish you would tell me why.” The younger sister asks once more for some play time, but after being told to go away, she hangs her head and sings, “Okay, bye.” As I hear my girls singing this together, I recognize that we’re getting close to the time when this exact scenario will play out in our home. Katie is 12, and she’s spending more and more time in her room trying on makeup, watching YouTube videos and, yes, texting. At nine, Chelsea is more interested in playing with her older sister than in spending time alone in her room. More often than not, Katie still plays with Chelsea. But those moments of rejection are nearing, like the gathering of dusk before night falls.

                When it comes to music, I find it incredibly annoying to hear the same song over and over. But as my girls sing the Frozen tunes together countless times – and, to be honest, they’ve got a third singer in their group in the form of my wife – I can’t help but feel some relief amid the repetition. Because it seems that Katie and Chelsea have found something that transcends age differences and hormonal swings. They share a love for music and performance, and that love may connect them when other things do not. My brother and I are three years apart, just like my girls are. As kids, we had our stretch of time when I needed my space from him. But we always had our sports, be it a Yankees game on the TV or a 1-on-1 basketball game in the backyard. Even when we shared few words, there was still plenty of communication in the form of a last-second jumper on the patio, or a Dave Winfield home run on the basement TV.

                My brother turns 40 in two weeks; I just turned 43. We talk about a lot of things now, as adult siblings do. But we still have a soft spot for the sports stuff. Years from now, I can see Katie and Chelsea spending an afternoon together, perhaps at one of their apartments, or maybe out shopping. There comes a point when they turn on some music. For fun, they click on the Frozen album. They smile, and start singing. Together. 

               We only have each other / It's just you and me / What are we gonna do? / Do you wanna build a snowman?