What’s Left

What’s left is a turkey leg
Attached to its bony carcass
On a dirty dish-piled counter 
Wondering whether it ends up
In soup stock or the trash can
It overhears laughter 
Some frothy debate 
A fight breaking out
New people broken in
Children running
Children crying 
Drunken singing
Zingers flying
Kisses stolen
Bodies swollen
Someone smokes outside
Games are played inside
And the turkey leg longs
To be a part of the throng
But it knows it won’t be
As its time is numbered
Maybe lasting till morning 
While largely ignored until 
The deep sighs of woeful
Cleaning have begun
But that’s hours away
And it really wants to stay
While the humans beyond 
Are purposefully loud 
Loving and painfully aware
Of limitations and aspirations
Until they all drift slowly away 
What’s left is a turkey leg
Grateful for the memories 
They forever become

–KWG

Grateful For Being Human

 "...one day I feel I'm on top of the world
And the next it's falling in on me
I can get back on
I can get back on..."

–Rush, Far Cry

Sometimes I wish I was an algorithm. One that would quickly learn from its mistakes, adapt, and improve, all without monsoon emotional swings. Without attaching conspiratorial outcomes to change. Without second-guessing its decisions. Without feeling buried under the weight of circumstance. Without feeling momentarily hopeless because things break. 

But I'm not an artificially intelligent "it". I'm a sometimes intelligent human being whose synapses fire, and misfire, as regularly as the sun and moon rise. One day I feel I'm on top of the world and the next it's falling in on me. 

Everybody can feel that way, I know. But when it's you in that moment, especially when it's falling in on you, you feel like you're the only one in the world, the one you were once on top of. This complicates things being a parent of older kids, teen daughters who are more self-aware than there were as kids. They struggle even more because their brains and bodies are developing rapidly and their synaptic firing is like a rollercoaster ride the dives from the upper atmosphere to the center of the earth, then back again. 

And when things are fairly smooth for us the parents, it's easier to help them with the relationship struggles. their study struggles, their body development struggles (especially being females), and all the other things we remember from our own teen worlds. 

When things aren't very smooth, we still have to figure out how to deal and adapt ourselves in order to help them. We're supposed to be the adults in the room, and when things are seemingly rapid-fire change and circumstance, it can be a momentarily overwhelming ordeal just dealing with the ordinary and things that break. 

Our daughter Bryce's bike broke (which was my wife Amy's), which is a bummer because she's the only one willing to ride her bike to school at least once per week, which helps us with the transportation. It was under warranty and we got most of the money back for it, but now have to find a new bike that will definitely be more expensive. 

We had new flooring put in last year that included our staircase. But the very top one started to break and my wife Amy slipped and fell straight down the second one breaking it. She was bruised and sore but thankfully okay otherwise. That's when I checked the other stairs and noticed a few more were loose. That overwhelmed me as a safety problem for our family, although I know we'll get it all fixed.

Even with my default "no" setting, Amy and I were going to attempt to fix our trailer hitch connection on our SUV, and while we got a better understanding of how things work and connect on our car, with discovered that the main brake lights didn't work. The upper third brake light still worked and all the other lights worked, but not the main brake lights. We had no idea how long they'd been out, and immediately we ruled out the fuses and then narrowed it down to the light bulbs and the brake lock switch. But since the latter was above our pay grade, I was banking on the fact it was the bulbs. It was. Thank goodness.

All of these things – our daughter's bike breaking, the stairs breaking under Amy's poor butt, our car's brake lights breaking – combined with the fact that the work year's been tough and now my business has merged with another company (ultimately a great thing) – and all my synaptic misfiring commenced. "One day I feel I'm on top of the world and the next it's falling in on me. I can get back on, I can get back on."

And I do get back on. In the end, I really don't wish I was an algorithm. I wouldn't trade my ability to feel emotions and experience all that life brings for being artificially intelligent in a million years. No, this Thanksgiving, I'm grateful for being human – a fallible human who can feel buried under the weight of transitory circumstances. I'm grateful for a loving wife and partner, and two amazing daughters. I'm grateful for all my family and friends, my current employees and my new colleagues. I'm grateful for our health and our home. I'm grateful for my community, my state, my country, my world (no matter where it's burning). I'm even grateful that things break (sometimes). 

I'm also grateful for empathy, and this Thanksgiving, blessings to those living in war zones, in poverty, on the streets, with mental illness, with physical illness, with anything that compromises health and safety.

A Well-Being Worth Practicing

I want to be a grateful tree
unending love
for all who pass
to stop and smile
and then after awhile
embrace their grace within

–A Grateful Tree

Sunset by Beatrice

Even though we weren't together, we're still grateful. This was the first time in seven years we didn't go to my sister's house for Thanksgiving due to COVID-19. That tradition started after our parents passed away. We knew going into this holiday year that the pandemic reality would preempt our gathering. Instead, we fixed our own Thanksgiving meal and were grateful from afar.

This played out throughout America, with families choosing to not gather, and yet, there were many others who did choose to travel and gather. No judgment, just choices we all made. According to the latest numbers, nearly 50 people are dying each hour and the rate of infection is probably closer to 8 times higher. 

A few weeks ago our youngest Bryce didn't feel well. We were worried, so my wife Amy called the doctor, who then said we should get Bryce tested for coronavirus. We had been practicing safety protocols ourselves and with our friend pod (wearing masks, social distancing, etc.), but then we ran a haunted garden with our pod, where more people than we thought came to walk through it. Plus, earlier that same day on Halloween, we went to the Beach Boardwalk, which I'm sure was grateful to be open, as was the families with kids who came, all masked up, even if it was only the food vendors giving away candy to the kids. 

Thankfully Bryce was negative. We were grateful. 

But, we would've been grateful even if she was positive, despite all the things we would've had to do after the fact, including getting sick ourselves. Because that's what we practice every day: gratitude. It was a long time coming for me; I had a hard time with happy even after Amy and I were together. 

For years now, especially after we had our daughters, we've been practicing mindfulness and gratitude. And for the past two years we've had, and continue to have, weekly family meetings where we share our compliments, appreciation, things we notice about each other, and what we're grateful for. Plus, every night at dinner we share what we're grateful for. It's our way of saying grace. 

Amy and I know that practicing gratitude can help improve health and emotional and spiritual well-being. We try to live that way every day. That was reinforced to us when we recently listened to a Hidden Brain podcast about the power of gratitude. Towards the end of the podcast, the psychologist who was being interviewed quote famed sociologist Georg Simmel.

"Gratitude is the moral memory of mankind."

And womenkind, of course. Without gratitude, as well as kindness and empathy, we are lost. We all have the capacity to overcome any kind of adversity and to thrive, even when we feel like we can't. It's up to the adults in the room to be mindful of this and teach our children in kind to be kind and to be grateful, because practicing gratitude often encourages others to do the same. That's a well-being worth practicing.

Other "Days of Coronavirus" posts:

A Grateful Tree

It's This Moment That Matters

The Bank of Mom and Dad

Something to Celebrate

The Haunted Garden

Mapping the Way

Mask Up First For Your Families

All Because of One Day on the Beach

Awash in Love and Hope

The Building Blocks of Healthy Lives

The Part Where All Lives Matter

The Clarity Bridge for Homelessness

Stars to Shine

Loving Community Wide Shots Abound

A Foundation Worth Saving

This Hit-And-Run Thunderstorm

Help Prevent the Back-to-School Bullying

Memories Now and to Come

Especially Our Kids

This Old "No" Guy Jedi

Choose Eyes of Love

The Morning Work

We Shared Blue Genes

Agree to Disintegration

The Teacher Parade

All These Things Can Lead To Grace

Our Freedom Is Always Welcome

A Well of Strength

This Bad History

No Shirts, No Shoes, No Problem

The Iceberg Underneath

The Healing Hope We Can Give

Donate Your Date Nights and Help Feed Families

About All The Things

Dad, Our Family's Computer Guy

The Newest Normal

Where Our Troubles Are All The Same

This Is The Life

When There's Nowhere to Go

Jenny, Jenny, Who Can I Turn To 

A Grateful Tree

 

I want to be a grateful tree

with branches high

that reach skyward

like all arms wide to

welcome the sun and moon 

and heavens above

I want to be a grateful tree

with roots so deep

that reach downward 

like arterial thrive

to feed its heart and soul

and heavens below

I want to be a grateful tree

a home to all

that fly and crawl

and scurry and pounce

in a welcome safe-haven

where no one is without

I want to be a grateful tree

unending love

for all who pass

to stop and smile

and then after awhile

embrace their grace within

--Kevin Grossman, #BhivePower

Like Pinches of Empathic Cinnamon

She touched Angel Cakes and cried out. She had tried not to touch her by pulling her sleeve down over her hand, but her hand slipped out as she grabbed the elf named Angel Cakes from a shelf to move her to a chair.

"Oh no!"

Beatrice froze after she said it.

"What's wrong?" asked Bryce.

"I touched Angel Cakes!"

"Are you sure you did?"

"Yes, I'm sure. Dad, I need cinnamon!"

"Why?" I said.

Now, at this point I was in the middle of something semi-important on my computer and not really paying attention.

"Because I touched Angel Cakes. She'll lose her magical powers if I don't sprinkle cinnamon around her!"

Again Bryce tried to make her feel better. "Are you sure you touched her? Maybe you didn't."

"I did, Bryce! I did!"

"Beatrice, look up where the other spices are for the cinnamon," I said.

She looked. "Dad, I don't see it. We have to hurry!"

"Bea, the elf will be okay, just keep looking."

Of course, Mom had to be the one to come downstairs and find the cinnamon, which was actually in a place neither of us would've looked, which I realized afterwards was where we always kept it and I should've known. But again, I was doing something semi-important on my computer (making a new Christmas music playlist actually -- hey, that's important).

We had just gotten back from Thanksgiving at my sister's house and the shelf elves had appeared again in our house, coming out of elven hibernation at the North Pole since last Christmas. According to shelf-elf lore, or our daughters' version of the lore, you can't touch the red shelf elves with your hands or they'll lose their magical power. The others you can touch with bare hands, just not the red ones. Which is why you have to sprinkle cinnamon around the red elves, so they can get their magical powers back. The cinnamon is like a super-vitamin. After a little research, though, I didn't tell the girls that they must also write an apology letter to Santa Claus if they touch one of the elves. It's stressful and creepy enough that the elves move around every night with all our shelf-elfing shenanigans. No need to stress out the girls about being in hot water with Santa.

Even after that semi-traumatic shelf elf event, what I'm the most happy about are two things. The first is the fact that my family loves the holidays and we're all in with decorating and the festive and loving sentiments of the seasons. Even Bryce who fights it a little here and there when she'd rather be playing Minecraft, Roblox or watching silly YouTube videos. And I even broke our decorating tradition this year by hanging lights outside before Thanksgiving. Mercy me. That nearly caused a rift in the space-time continuum, but then we sealed the deal, or unsealed the universe, by listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving in addition to decorating early. Also, Beatrice just calls out to Alexa, "Alexa, play classic Christmas music!" Right on, Bea. In my defense, however, we're having a string of winter storms now, which we need, and I wouldn't have been able to decorate outside right after Thanksgiving like we usually do. They both also helped pick out gifts for a family experiencing domestic violence that we're again adopting this year.

The second thing I'm most happy about is the fact that our girls long to be with extended family and friends, to share continuous friendship, love and gratitude without selfish agenda or emotional baggage. Well, sometimes there's a selfish agenda when gift-getting is involved, but hey, they are still kids. However, they don't have the purposeful and painful distancing that comes with time and experience, when relationships can and do go awry and forgiveness is conditional. And although we are those adults with those experiences, we continue to foster positive growth and compassion for all, to be aware of our own feelings and their fluid context, as well as those of others, and encourage our girls to do the same. Our daughters remind us to look at extended family and friends and see wonderful human beings, people doing their personal best or trying to (including us), even if we don't always see eye to eye (and we sure as hell don't always see eye to eye), and every day our hearts and souls are a little fuller with them in our lives.

Even if it's only in little dashes year after year, like pinches of empathic cinnamon to keep our magical powers intact.

Even the Road Well-Traveled

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

--Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

That's when we decided to head to the hills on Black Friday. The big mountains actually -- the Sierra Nevada. It had been over 10 years since I'd been to Sequoia National Park, up above where I grew up in Visalia, California. Back then the Mama (what I lovingly call my wife) and I had driven up past Hospital Rock to Moro Rock and then hiked the harrowing two miles around the huge dome-shaped granite to the top.

So, what to do on Black Friday? Going to the movies the day after Thanksgiving was scrapped by our family, and the Mama didn't want us sitting around on our duffs all day, and I didn’t want to be hanging around in stores or malls (although we did make our annual post crazy-crush morning Walmart run -- no judging, please), so my idea this instead was to go to Grant Grove and the General Grant tree, named the "Nation's Christmas Tree" in the 1920s by President Calvin Coolidge. It’s also honored as a living national shrine in memory of Americans lost during wars by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. I hadn't been there for decades, the last time my sister and I going with our grandparents. At that time they lived in the very small mountain community of Dunlap, just west of Kings Canyon National Park where Grant Grove is located.

We had gone to my sister's house for Thanksgiving again, but the day after she had to work on Black Friday, so it was just going to be the four of us. I mapped the way to the mountains on the computer and then my phone; there were two ways to get there, one a little faster than the other.

"We should go the faster way, Sweetie," the Mama said. "It's still going to be almost an hour and a half to get there."

I shook my head. "No, I want to go the way I know. It won't take that much longer."

The Mama shifted uncomfortably in her seat and looked out her window. I knew she wanted to go the shorter way; she always wants to go the shorter way.

"Okay," she said.

"Do we have enough gas?" I asked, now not sure about the drive. "There aren't any gas stations in the parks."

"The gauge says we've got enough miles left in the tank. Let's go for it."

"Right on, Mama."

“Are we there yet?” the girls asked.

Thirty minutes later we inched along the long line of cars to enter the park. Obviously, we weren't the only ones with the idea to head to the hills.

Our first stop was at Hospital Rock, a place I had been too many times over the years. But I was itching to get to the General Grant tree. I wanted to see the Nation’s Christmas tree. I had to see it. Be in its historic and emotive presence with my family by my side. But not in the snow. Because we’re not snow people. (Thankfully it was a balmy 65 degrees.) And then take a picture of it. Share the love on Instagram and Facebook. I felt like Clark Griswold on an obsessive mission to see America’s Merry friggin’ Christmas tree, and I wanted to get there now.

“Let’s hurry up, girls. Daddy wants to go see America’s Christmas tree.”

“No, we’re going to make stops along the way if we’re going this way,” the Mama said. “Especially now that the girls can get their Junior Ranger badges.”

“But I want to see America’s Christmas tree.”

“Yes, we get it, Sweetie. Do they even decorate the tree?”

I thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think so. Although it’s really pretty in the snow. Which we’ll never see, because we don’t do the snow.”

“Right. So, relax.”

Sigh.

“We’ll get there,” the Mama added.

“Yep, it’ll be a fun family adventure,” I said.

And as long as we get to that friggin’ tree, I thought.

Onward and upward we went – into Giant Forest, the smells of the high sierra coming in through the open windows, then past Moro Rock (the girls and I weren’t up for the heights of the hike), the General Sherman tree, Lodgepole, and finally a late lunch at the Wusachi Lodge. The thing you forget when you don’t drive in the mountains a lot is that it takes a lot longer to go from point A to point B – and the winding road can take its toll, which is why the Mama always has to drive on winding roads because she gets carsick. The girls must have her genes on that one because they were getting a little carsick, so the Mama emptied two plastic shops for vomiting just in case during one of our stops.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen and we made it to lunch. By that time the girls had finished their Junior Ranger workbooks, but we had to get to the Kings Canyon Visitor Center at Grant Grove Village by 4:00 PM for them to get their badges, and it was already after 3:00.

“We don’t have much time,” I said, knowing it would be close.

“It’s all right,” the Mama said. “If we make it, we make it. If not, then the girls will be fine. Completing the workbooks was fun enough for them and everything they saw.”

“Yep, a fun family adventure.”

“Exactly. We would have never done this otherwise.”

I winked. “I know, I haven’t been this way for decades. Not since my grandparents took my sister and me. And I get to see America’s Christmas tree!”

And then we were there with miles and miles to spare – making it in time to get the girls’ Junior Ranger badges and traverse our final loop hike to the General Grant tree, right as the sun was going down behind the mountains to fall into the sea where we live.

“Worth every minute,” I said.

“Yes, it was,” the Mama said.

“Did you have fun girls?”

“Yes,” they each answered, and then continued keeping each other company in the backseat.

As we drove back down into the foggy, smoggy Central Valley at sunset, I realized yet again what I’ve known for years: that even the road well-traveled, whether in our distant past or today's now, can make all the difference in this crazy-crush world. It's a matter of perspective, of seeing things again for the first time and with fresh nuance. These magical new experiences then imprint one after the other upon our cyclical consciousness. Many become lyrical and melodic, powerful memories that transcend time and stream on-demand like our favorite songs, anytime we want them, and anytime we need them.

As we drove deeper into the Great Valley dusk, my family holiday memories played all at once.

To Brave the Hope

The blue tag swirled down the streetlight pole like a sloppy signature, which was exactly what it was. I hadn't noticed it before and had no idea how long it had been there. Knowing me and my sometimes marginal peripheral awareness, it could've been there for weeks, even though the streetlight was directly in front of our house.

The Mama (what I lovingly call my wife) was delivering a Kidpower workshop that morning and our daughters and me had just finished a packed morning of soccer and the grocery store.

After unloading the groceries, I filled a bucket with soap and water and a new scrubbing sponge intent on cleaning up the graffiti. Before I went outside with the bucket, I told my daughters what I was going to do.

"Girls, I'm going to clean off the poll out front, okay?"

"Why?" Beatrice asked.

"Because someone painted on it when they shouldn't have. It's called graffiti and I want to clean it up."

"Okay," Beatrice said. Bryce was too engrossed in her iPad to comment.

"That's very helpful of you, Dad," Bea added.

I smiled. "Why, thank you, Bea."

"You're welcome."

It was a glorious day outside, a warm fall day bathed in cerulean blue sky. Heavenly even, like a day from the Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep comedy Defending Your Life, where everyday was 72 degrees, there were all-you-can-eat buffets where you'd never gain weight, bowling alleys, comedy clubs and more. When in fact, this was purgatory in the movie, the weigh station to heaven and hell.

I conjured the silly 1991 rom-com because the world had become more violently absurd than ever. A bizzaro pre-apocalyptic world where the super heroes aren't so super anymore, much less heroes. A disrespectful world where others deface and tag in the name of marking property that'll never be theirs. A wag-the-dog world teetering on the edge of civil wars where fake news is real and real news is fake. A world full of splintered agendas and raging biases where our leaders compromise principles and laws and bastardized religion for partisan short-term gains. A world where the worst inside all of us is celebrated because an angry few feel they've been legitimately oppressed as others had truly been for hundreds of years. And a world where violence against women and sexual assault are compartmentalized, rationalized and diminished in the face of overwhelming bittersweet awareness.

All this swirled inside me while I scrubbed the blue tag off the pole. Except that it wasn't coming off. At all. I even scraped at it with a putty knife and nothing. I started sweating and decided to try window cleaner on it. Still nothing. We didn't have anything else stronger, so I stood helpless starting at the pole. A neighbor drove by and then stopped in front of our driveway.

She asked what was going on and I explained the graffiti and that I couldn't get it off. She said they had some stronger "goo off" stuff back at the house and that I could use it. A few minutes after she drove away, another two neighbors were walking back from the nearby farmer's market. They too had some stronger "goo off" stuff and went to retrieve it.

Once I applied the stuff with steel wool the blue tag came right off. Like magic. After that I helped our neighbor remove more graffiti from a one-way sign on our street.

When the Mama got home from her workshop, I told her about the blue tag I found and that I cleaned it off.

"Thank you, Sweetie," she said.

"I only just noticed it this morning. How long had it been there on the pole?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"For at least I week. I was going to tell you about it."

A week, I thought. It could've been months for all I knew.

Sigh.

I know there will be more graffiti tags on streetlight poles and one-way signs. And I know we'll always be able to clean them off. But it's gotten harder to take the high road beyond the graffiti when the low road is so riddled with trolls and power predators these days.

When I shared that sentiment online a few days before the blue tag cleaning, a friend of mine answered:

Stay positive Kevin, people love that about you.

I smiled as I thought about it. I am positive most of the time. I am hopeful most of the time. But I'm even more thankful for the fact that there are many of us who are willing to take the high road, to remain positive, to make a difference regardless of our differences by taking action for the better however incremental or big, to ultimately prevent further social injustice and the literal moral unmooring of America.

I'm thankful for my wife who inspires me daily to brave the hope and put it in action, and my daughters as well who fuel my hope for the future. And I'm thankful for family and friends who inspire the same, that there is light and love and so many more of us willing to embody them both.

Right on and amen. Bring on that high road, please. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

On the Field in Front of Me

Photo courtesy of Paul Turner

I couldn't believe it; we'd been scouted. Just minutes before our game, during warm up, one of my player's parents approached me to relay that information.

"Guess what."

"What?"

"One of the hyper-competitive parents from the other team scouted us last week."

"Are you serious?"

"Yep. Supposedly they're undefeated and they wanted to find out who our strongest players are."

"Wow. We're in a recreational league. What the heck? They scouted us?"

"I know, right? Well, we haven't lost one yet either, so let's give them a run for their money, coach."

Let's give them a run for their money. As I called out our starting players to take the field, I realized I wasn't that surprised. I never would've scouted another team prior to playing them, not at this level, but I've always been pretty competitive myself. Every week we played I kept the running score of our games on my clipboard, and every week we chalked one up in the win column, except for one tie and no losses. That was something I was very proud of, but tried to temper during each game so as not to get the girls to caught up in the gut-wrenching angst of pure unadulterated competition -- some of them would there in a few years anyway. So, except for posting in our team website after the games for the parents benefit, I kept my coaching cool.

The game started and immediately we were schooled. Their team had crisper passing, better dribbling, tighter shooting and a stronger defense. Obviously they were drilled over and over again on these soccer fundamentals, and they obviously played a starter roster and only subbed in when needed. They quickly went up 2 goals to none well before the first half was done.

And that gut-wrenching competitive angst blew up inside me. I kept it contained, thankfully, but I second guessed my entire approach to coaching this scrappy yet talented U10 recreational soccer team. Yes, we drilled the basics during practice, and we scrimmaged together every single week. And yet, my focus has been teamwork and having fun, fun, fun no matter what level their girls are at. That's why everyone got a chance to play every game and rotated positions throughout the season. I subbed the girls in constantly through each half, sometimes because the forwards needed a break, but also to ensure everybody played as much as possible. There are 12 girls on the team and only eight players can play at any given time.

Momentum is a malleable thing, however. At some point late in the first half, we took it in our hands -- and our feet -- and made it our own.

Something changed on the field. Something I'd seen already occasionally during the season but only now recognized it for what it really was: pure, unadulterated teamwork. The girls settled down and it was like their individual identities were blotted out. They dribbled, passed, shot and defended like the other team, except more effortlessly, as if each girl were connected to the other, elementals on fire that scorched the earth beneath their tireless feet.

And they were having a blast doing it all.

Once inside the second half, the score became 2-1, and then 2-2. The entire second half we dominated the field and kept the ball dangerously near our opponents goal over and over and over again. The other team was getting tired. We were just getting started.

Blink. Another score! 2-3! We took the lead with only minutes left!

Wait, what? Offsides? Noooooooooo!!!

No. No. No. No. No. Crap! Keep it together, Coach. Mercy me.

Minutes later the referees blew their whistles and the game was over. It might as well been the end of every underdog sports movie I'd ever seen in my lifetime. In that moment everything I had intended to instill in my team had come to be on the field in front of me. And it gave me hope in an ever-changing world, a world going darker by the day. It gave me hope that our children may someday help this crazy friggin' world figure out how to play like a true team and celebrate together all the fragile freedoms we've fought so hard to secure and keep, that now seem to be slipping away.

Yes, I really did get all that from this game and I know what I'll be thankful for this Thanksgiving. Thank you, girls. You are the future looking bright.

A New Reason to Give Thanks

"And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there..." —The Star-Spangled Banner

The first boom came at 5:28 am. Then a second boom. Followed by a third. I put my laptop to the side and sat up, torn to move in two directions at once: go to the living room window to see what I could see, or go to our phone and call 911.

Being an early bird I had already been up since 5:00 am tinkering away on my MacBook. A fourth boom and I grabbed my phone and went to the window. I could hear the girls talking upstairs; obviously the booms woke them. A fifth boom and then I saw it: the spectacular flower of an exploding firework. Then multiple booms with more reds and whites and blues and a myriad of other colors. 

I aimed the camera to try and capture a firework mid-flower, instead of calling the police, but the booms stopped. I waited, the girls came downstairs (which was around the time they wake up anyway), and the fireworks stopped. 

These weren't just a box of illegal jumbo fireworks bought in Nevada or Mexico. No, these were pretty cool fireworks. Disneyland pretty. The stadium-quality variety. Shot off at 5:28 in the morning for over five minutes down the street in the vacant lot where the local weekly farmer's market is held.

Disruptive? Yes. Annoying? Yes. Pretty? Yes. Dangerous? Maybe, but since they exploded over a vacant lot, probably not. Illegal? Well, yes, considering that fireworks of any kind are illegal in Santa Cruz County. 

The Mama got up shortly after the girls did ask asked what the booms were. I told her and the first thing she said was, "Did they girls get to see them?"

I told her no, that they didn't get to see them. The booms woke them, though. But after we were all up and sunrise yawned and stretched her lavender hands skyward, I reflected and gave thanks with a silent reverent prayer that I had my family with me, safe and sound and healthy, with sustenance and shelter, fairly secure in a seaside community at the South end of the greater Bay Area in the Golden State of one of the greatest nations ever to be created and sustained in the history of the world. A nation of immigrants wanting a better life for themselves, the "huddled masses," to have the freedoms they didn't have in their homelands, whether driven out because of religious and/or political persecution, disease, famine and/or especially war. 

Granted, it was at the expense of those who had already lived her for thousands of years, but that's a story for another time, and not one to be told in any form fully sanitized to validate America's Thanksgiving folklore. 

No, I was just thankful in the moment as I try to do daily reflecting on who I am and what I have, taking little for granted when I'm mindfully present. 

But then the sentiment of a family member interrupted my prayer with an important question, one she posted the day before when referencing a video about the harsh reality of Syrian refugees clamoring for safety in Greece (or insert your Western country of choice here). It was right after my weekly beach run, the one where I share a picture of the remaining natural bridge at Natural Bridges State Park and some creative and cutesy phrase. Of course it was "This week on God Bless everyone beach run."

She had posted:

Imagine this is your family, fleeing for your lives, trying to provide your children with a safe and decent childhood. 

My response was: Amen. But most of us don't want to imagine, so we don't.

Wherever you fall on the ideological and political spectrum, and whatever you believe we should be doing or not doing to address this latest global crisis, most of you will go through your lives unscathed, just as hopefully many of your children and children's children will as well, but as I wrote last week, together the aggregate power of your safety plans may just change the world.

Maybe. But with the rockets' red glare from this morning, to those from this afternoon when my daddy time with the girls turned into a battle of #BhivePower wills (that I lost), the only proof I need is that my home and family are still here with me, and I with them. 

Plus the proof that we still live in the land of the free and the home of the brave. The brave who shouldn't fear but be aware, who shouldn't blame but be responsible, who shouldn't resent but be empathic, who shouldn't hate but still be wary and vigilant to protect country, community and family. The brave who, if they can truly provide their children with a safe and decent childhood, should do just that. 

And maybe, just maybe, we'll give ourselves a new reason to give thanks by helping those fighting for their lives abroad because of war and terrorism, and those fighting for their lives at home because of economic hardship and prolonged hunger.

Happy Thanksgiving America. We know you can do this.

Grateful For It All Either Way

“…even my wonder, even my fear, only amount to a couple of tears. There is a rhythm, it's near and it's far — it flows through the heart of us…” --Duncan Sheik 

We fixate so much on the crazy and what's broken that we nearly all but negate the good and what works, of how far we've actually come.

I'm reminded of this everyday with my loving, pragmagical wife who keeps our family propelled in a healthy direction, and me grounded in the good, since I tend to drift from hopeful romanticism to flippant defensive posturing in times of stress.

I'm reminded of this everyday with our caring, smart, uniquely (head)strong, and beautiful little girls who keep me hopeful of a potentially utopian future they'll help create, and who keep the Pop hopping popping.

These words may not console those who struggle daily with any and all the miserable facets of tragic human fallibility, but I'm thankful we all have the capacity to elevate the haggard human spirit when we really need it, and even when we think we don't.

And of late, some of us really need it. I'm grateful for it all either way.

Godspeed and Happy Thanksgiving.

Thankful for My Muses and Christmastime Magic

This is why I'm thankful: my angelic muses carry with them a special kind of perpetual Christmastime magic. The kind that casts imperfections into unique heartmeld spells of empowered adaption and inspiration. The kind that lights the world around me like triple suns rising one after the other, helping me make life-lesson connections I never would've seen before. The kind that guide me to be a better father, a better husband, a better man.

Muse Bryce has a fire in her belly that dwarfs even the Mama Muse's daily motivation. Her first year of preschool has gone well so far, even with her aggressive edge of reactive smacking, something we're working on. We're also still dealing with her exotropia -- a vision problem where one eye migrates outward and binocular vision can be difficult. This includes putting an eye patch on her right eye for one hour per day, since her left eye is the problem child. Hopefully early next year we'll find out it's helped, but this doesn't seem to slow her down; her belly fire only burns brighter, a dissonant dragon of do.

Muse Beatrice has a wonderful shy sensibility and sensitivity to those around her. Even with her processing delays, which she continues to work on and overcome, her intellect and grasp of concepts greater than her current age at normal development speeds is exciting -- especially since kindergarten is starting next year. In fact, her storytelling ability is more creative and rich than ever had at her age, and I was certainly an imaginative introvert as a child. She also has an eye for flexible patterns and design, something conveyed in her storytelling, as if she's working through problems unseen even by us. And of course, there's her Daddy love of Christmas, one that warms my heart and soul, us both longing for the holiday.

The Mama Muse has always been my primary sun burning bright who's prescient flares caress my surface daily, reminding me that no matter how harsh and cold things can get, it's the warming reaction of sunrise that makes all the difference. I've known that for 16 years since the day we met that one special day at the beach, the same date when we married six years later (this year being the diamond 10 celebration). Plus, falling in love again and again doesn't hurt.

And then there's the Nonna Muse, my mother-in-law, the Mama's mom, who lives with us and is a blessing to the girls. And then there are the other  muses I celebrate -- my sister, my sister-in-law, my niece, my Aunt Karen and Aunt Margene, and the much missed spirt of my own mother, whom I lost this time last year. And then there's the countless other female family and friends from then to now who I've learned much from. (Gentlemen, I'm still digging your influence, no worries.)

I'm blessed to have so much inspirational light from girl power and am thankful for muses and everyday Christmastime magic that feel like the warm sand from one day at the beach.

Us men need mucho more musing. Amen.

Give Your Fuzzy A Present

"Fuzzy is very sad. Fuzzy needs to open a present."

And there it is. Through all the loss and drama my family has experienced during the past few months, leave it to Beatrice to keep it real for Daddy. Both Beatrice and Bryce don't really understand what happened with my Poppa, their grandpa and my Pop, when he died, but Bea realizes he's gone. We've handled it with explanation-light for Bea, although Bryce is still really too young to get it.

They also don't understand my mom's chronic illness and continual health problems, their Nana. They don't know how stressful it was to get Nana from my sister's to us right after I returned from Europe, and then me driving her back home to Oregon so she could reset in her health system while her doctors facilitated some stability. Although with my mom these days it's more like a defective light bulb that constantly flickers off and on, sometimes shiny brightly with radiance, and sometimes going completely dark.

But the girls did feel the stress of their daddy, and that's something I'm going to have to be more sensitive to as they get older and more aware of every nuance to life's pops, buzzes and brain stops.

Any comfort for the chronically ill is always welcomed, and getting mom set up with her iPad and FaceTime so she can see the B-hive any time she wants was critical. I have to continually explain to her how to use the program, but she'll get there. That time to be around any friends and family now is healing, if sadly brief and fleeting. The reality of my dad being gone has all but flattened her to the far side of the universe with a gravity unmatched from the darkest heart of a collapsed star. She's alone in her house now. However, we are working on moving her down to us as soon as feasibly possible.

Fuzzy is Beatrice's little swatch of pink, silky and "fuzzy" Winnie the Pooh comfort that her Auntie Jill made, the Mama's sister. It's her soul food comfort in the form of a blankie; Bryce has her own bigger yellow blankie. Each of us has our own "blankie" of sorts,  some literal or figurative vessel that carries us away and soothes us with a gift of calming joy.

Be thankful for your own well moments of body and spirit, and be sensitive to those loved ones whose very fragility reduces them to motes alighting inside an empty house at dusk. Give them the gift of love and hugs this holiday season; give your fuzzy a present.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Puddles, Phantoms and Peanuts

They wouldn't touch any of it. Not the turkey, the stuffing, the carrot casserole, the scalloped corn, the mashed potatoes or gravy. None of it.

Except Nonna's amazingly yummy pumpkin desert. Of course. It's desert.

It wasn't surprising that Beatrice wouldn't eat the Thanksgiving food; she's quite the picky eater these 3-year-old days. But Bryce, who usually eats a little bit of almost everything wouldn't touch any of it either (although the day after she did eat two bites of turkey).


Nope, they were more interested in splashing in the rain puddles earlier in the day. A puddle is like the fun black holes of kid world -- no child escapes its gravity. Oh it's wetness, which is a bummer when you don't bring clothes for your kids to change into after they're wet.


All afternoon while the girls napped, the turkey that this daddy proudly prepped roasted in the oven while Nonna made some side dishes and then I added a couple at the end. The delicious smells of our cooking and the many phantom family meals of Thanksgivings past mingled together in the warm air, causing a mild tryptophan-laced melancholia.

What was, that will never be again, to what is now, that becomes tomorrow, that will never be again.

Hey, there were a lot of phantoms in the air.

Then, while the Mama, Nonna and I sat playing Scrabble, we dug into our Thankful Box. Inspired by another daddy blogger last year, we started own box that gets filled with "what we're thankful for" notes throughout the year to then be read on the following Thanksgiving.

That perked me up; I'm so thankful for the lovely B-hive!

But they still wouldn't touch any of our Thanksgiving meal. Only watermelon, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and pumpkin desert.

We might as well have served toast, popcorn, pretzel sticks and jelly beans.

Queue the music.

The "thankful" box tradition (My family is my why)

Last Thanksgiving another daddy blogger I read, Mocha Dad, talked about his family's "thankful" box tradition.

Throughout the year he and his wife and kids write notes about something they're thankful about and put it in the box. Then at Thanksgiving, they read them to one another.

Such a lovely tradition that Mama and I decided to co-opt for our family as well. We picked out a box, cut out a bunch of images and words that had special meaning for us and covered the box with them.

Of course, our girls are too little to start writing their own thankful notes yet, but in the next few years Beatrice will followed by her little sister Bryce.

We've started reading them earlier this week and it's like listening to favorite songs that represent contextual moments of time.

It reminds us of why we live and love as family. Even under everyday fun and duress, like this week's things I'm thankful for:

• Sharing family colds, snot and tissue gardens.
• Family "workout" walks along the water (pushing the girls in the double stroller, otherwise knows as the "Lil' Limo".
• Ant traps and Windex that kill the rain-driven, food-crazed ants.
• Children's Tylenol that is stickier than maple syrup or tar. And gets everywhere. Except inside the child's mouth.
• Swinging crying babies to sleep like sweaty irregular pendulums of doom.
  
• Getting one girl to sleep while the other one won't.
• The hi-fidelity sound of dueling girl cry-shrieks. Infinitum.
• Watching Elmo's World. Infinitum.
• Developing the career/business rebound after a disappointing 4th quarter.
• Promising ourselves that this year everybody gets at least a wing and a prayer for Christmas. And a family Christmas photo card.
• Our wonderful babysitter who allows us to get out for pre-Turkday Day beer, nachos and Harry Potter.
• Dear friends who are having us over for Thanksgiving today. We're bringing ham and pies and little girlie cries.

In fact, what I've come to find out is that no matter what we've written and added to the box throughout the year (or experienced this short holiday week), it's the why of giving thanks, rather than the act itself, that emboldens our hearts and minds to love and grow.

My family is my why.

Happy Thanksgiving.

For fear of phantom fathers past

2:00 a.m. Saturday morning, November 28.

I woke up hot and sweaty and freaked out.

Freaked out because I night-daydream time traveled again, imagining when I'll be 61 and Beatrice will be a senior in high school, hoping I'll be physically healthy, that me and Mama will be financially sound, and that all my mental faculties will be intact.

Like Alice in Wonderland outgrowing a room, my mind pushed beyond its skull and filled our bedroom with palatable distress, thick as goo with a sickly fluorescent green glow.

Mama was in Bea's room tending to baby's teething pain. Amy's amazing. I think she wears a cape and can bend steel.

I laid in bed drenched in my own paralytic ectoplasmic fear.

Fear of whether or not I'll be here when Bea's older. Fear of whether or not I'll be a good father in the long run.

It's how I felt most of the first 12 years of my life - full of fear. Shitty fathers and abuse and neglect netted nothing in the realm of positive male role models.

I modeled some of the bad stuff for years – my 20’s were a wasteland, my early 30’s were the transformation – until I finally took ownership of myself and my actions and the results of those actions. That was phase 1. Meeting Amy was part of that.

Phase 2 was when we had Beatrice. It’s a whole different ballgame now and my personal mission is to help other men and fathers be personally responsible and elevate their behavior to self-respect, respect of others and non-violent reactions to life and loved ones.

Still doesn't stop me from freaking out. We may even have a second child. I embrace it. Still doesn't stop me from freaking out.

When I woke up like I did the other night, for fear of phantom fathers past, I was very scared.

Thank God there are millions of men breaking the cycles of violence and neglect in their families. My friend Laurie talked about this very subject this morning in her Punk Rock HR blog.

My Post-T-Day angst is normal I know. 'Tis the season for trials and tribulations that culminate in a slingshot New Year's flight into the future. Time travel is a bitch.

But I'm ready. I've never been more ready. I'm the dad I never had, and now Bea has me.

Mocha Dad shared his families' thankful box story last week and I'm making one for our family. That way we can add notes sharing why we're thankful and read them every Thanksgiving. How appropriate is it that I'm using the box that Bea's bee mobile came in. Love it!

My first entry: I'm thankful for being a good daddy.

Snapdragons and Psychic Wars: They happen. We're human. We're humbled. Hopefully.

You see me now a veteran of a thousand psychic wars
My energy's spent at last
And my armor is destroyed
I have used up all my weapons and I'm helpless and bereaved
Wounds are all I'm made of
Did I hear you say that this is victory?
--Blue Oyster Cult

I've been talking so much about personal responsibility and better parenting and mindful presence and owning your actions and reactions that I neglect to mention how snapdragons can lead to psychic wars.

We all need to nip them in the bud before they take over like weeds, no matter how harmless they seem.

What a buzz-kill for pre-T-day (Thanksgiving), but I'm grateful for awareness and acknowledgement of the dreaded snapdragons - the grumps. You know what I mean. They happen. We're human. We're humbled.

Hopefully.

How appropriate for the holidays don't you think? Especially now when we're doing more with less and the 24/7/365 world swallows us whole every day. It's a friggin' stressful time. We need a break without breaking.

Last Saturday night we went out to eat at our favorite Mexican place. I had to parallel park in the lot, which usually isn't a problem for me, but this time there was a big cement base around the light post we parked under.

That I didn't account for and I scraped the door.

Amy said, "I think I dinged the door."

I looked, cringed and closed my eyes. "Nope, that would be my shitty parking job."

Gotta watch that language around the baby, but too late. Not a scratch on the car to date and now there were two long and thin white gashes on the car door.

Not a big deal in the grander scheme, but I was bummin' grumpily during dinner. Tried to cover and mostly did except for a few snapdragons. Then as we were pulling out of the parking lot and I waited for the right traffic gap, the baby cranky herself ready to go home, Amy laid a few snapdragons on me.

If you don't acknowledge them and yank them from the ground, which we've learned to do, they will choke your love and relationships, leaving them in withered, blood-dried stalks.

Snapdragons can pop up anywhere at anytime. Fields of uncheck snapdragons lead to anger and resentment, and ultimately psychic warfare and its physical manifestation - violence and abuse.

And horribly mixed metaphors - my speciality. *sigh*

You get it, though. I am grateful for my loving wife who helped me learn to be direct and deal with the snapdragons as soon as they break ground. That is what we'll do our damndest to instill in Beatrice as well.

Happy Thanksgiving Kids. Enjoy the passion and elevate.