Happy Birthday Jessicca!

Letter to my Daughter
Sunday, 9 February

Happy Birthday Jessicca…

You’re twenty years old today.  The years ahead for you will be revolutionary in scope.  They will be so different from the days of my time.  On the whole I think your future will be much for the better.  In any case, you are bound for an adventure.

It’s extraordinary how rapidly the human family is changing with time.  We have the opportunity to be in touch with, and to be influenced by, far more people than ever before.  Smart phones linked to the internet keep us virtually in touch with everyone we’d care to know at most any time.  We are constantly being updated with the status of all our friends and acquaintances.  This has become a daily routine in many people’s lives. 

The news of the world is available to us almost the instant it is reported.  Nearly every product that isn’t quickly perishable is available to us online, complete with consumer rating and price comparisons, if we care to know.  Highly defined images of every variety are presented to us from flat screens large enough to dominate a wall.  Combined with inexpensive surround-sound audio systems we have the theater experience within our own home.   Viewing a movie requires only accessing a menu to choose from a long list of past and present features that are instantly provided by a commercial database accessed, once again, through the internet. 

Software that reads handwriting, understands the spoken word and is able to translate one language into another is constantly improving.  Interconnected computer systems handle much of our daily lives, whether we are out and about, in our homes or traveling by car.  Products iconic to our lives just a few years ago are becoming rapidly obsolete and nearly forgotten.  Cameras are going the way of the typewriter.  Why have libraries of music on hand when you can precisely program your own musical preferences from a playlist offered by a service somewhere in the clouds?  The printed word found on book-bound paper is a cumbersome means of storing information.  Why lug around a file cabinet when all its contents are easily stored on a disk that fits in your pocket?  Why settle for a phone that merely allows you to talk to another person when it can also be your personal assistant that comes to your aid several times during the course of the day?  Want a good lasagna meal out – ask the phone.  It tells you what Italian restaurants are in the area, how to get there, what their customers think of them and what you can expect to pay once it’s time to move on to the next item on the agenda.

You’re young so most everything here is a familiar part of your daily life.  You’ve come to rely on all these features without giving them much of a thought.  Older people see these developments as new and dramatic – possibly even confusing and threatening.  The fact is this explosion in technological change has just begun for all of us.  It’s a fast building snowball on a steep downhill slope.  New technologies accelerate research and development into other new technologies and propel their production with new, more efficient means.  Once we changed product models year to year.  Now we are taking the product’s very concept and refashioning it, comparable to a compressed version of the growth of television.  First it was tubes and rooftop antennas then came transistors and cable boxes, followed by the VCR, then DVD, then Blu-Ray, programmable DVRs, 200 channels, Netflix, YouTube and Hulu.  That’s good but it isn’t good enough.  We’re just warming up – on everything you can think of.

The intent is for a future of continuing improved benefits.  It would be hard to argue otherwise.  But there will also be new challenges for each of us and even possible danger.  We are letting a powerful genie out of the bottle, a genie whose potential for mischief is only vaguely appreciated.  Who controls the genie?  How do we control those who control the genie?  Computers have given us the means to open up anyone’s personal life for all to see.  They enable criminals to pick our pockets, pilfering our funds like mice in sneakers tiptoeing about the attic.  Our own identities can be hijacked without our even knowing until the day comes when we have to plead that all the gang of me running about are all counterfeit.  I’m the real me.  Honest.

Unmanned and undetected drones of ever-increasing ability will not only become more widespread among the globe’s militaries but are also viewed as a natural extension of our own government’s law-enforcement.  And it’s not just government that’s interested in keeping tabs on us but commercial businesses, as well.  Because so much of what we do requires our own path on the internet, it isn’t difficult for our actions to be tracked, dissected and scrutinized to figure out how we operate and what buttons need to be pushed to get us to do what others want us to do. 

How will all this affect you?  What about our relationships with others?  Is there a point when our ability to access always new and varied people becomes something that feels like a consumer searching for a better product?  What about that age-old institution of marriage?  How does it fit into our highly mobile, restless society in search of opportunity?  How long will we adhere to the love, marriage, baby-carriage life-long rule of thumb?  Does the image of a family raised under one roof become a nostalgic Hallmark Card theme – replaced by the more complicated dynamics of an extended family of multiple spouses under vastly separate roofs?  If that’s what we want, yes.  We are no longer shackled by rigid marriage contracts.  The human heart is freed.  Amen.

The increasing role technology plays in our lives provides us with evermore opportunity to improve ourselves, while at the same time, we can become intoxicated with technology-bred new freedoms without ever noticing the risks involved.  Let’s celebrate our individual liberty while recognizing that every freedom has a price tag.  We always give up something to gain something else.  How bad do we want it?  There are no free lunches whether its money or matters of the heart.

I’m letting a bit of my humbug leak out, aren’t I – and on your birthday.  Shameful!

Be positive.  Favor your natural optimism.  You’re young and beautiful.  Have a wonderful 20^th!

Love,

          Dad

Thanksgiving Dinner

Hoosier

“Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.  Amen.”

“That’s it?”

“Ssh.  Uncle Ted would you like some asparagus spears?”

“No.  I think I’d like some cinnamon toast.”

“I don’t think we have cinnamon toast.  Helen, cinnamon toast?”

“No.  Uncle Ted there’s no cinnamon toast.”

“Why not?”

“The hot rolls with butter are very good.  Why not try one of these?”

“I always have cinnamon toast for breakfast.”

“This is Thanksgiving, dear.”

“Thanksgiving?  I’ll take some candied yams.  You put cinnamon on them?”

“Sure we can, Uncle Ted.  Rob would you get the cinnamon from the spice tray in the cabinet?”

“Right.  Which cabinet?”

“Left of the sink.  Has everyone had the green beans?”

“They’re delightful.”

“Yes, very good.”

“Bobby, have some green beans.”

“I don’t like them.”

“Give them a try.  These are special holiday green beans.”
“I don’t want to.”

“Helen, let’s not start a fuss.”

“Who’s starting a fuss.  Is there any harm in Bobby having a couple of green beans on his plate?”

“He won’t eat them.”

“Alright he won’t eat them.  Here’s two green beans.  You can just look at them if you want.”

“They’re touching my potatoes.”

“Don’t make me cross, Bobby.”

“Helen, I’d like to enjoy my meal.”

“Just get the cinnamon, Rob.”

“I want honey.”

“You don’t want cinnamon, Uncle Ted?”

“I like honey on my yams.”

“Is he having a stroke?”

“For God’s sake, Rob – shut up.  He’s not having a stroke.  You’re OK aren’t you Ted?”

“Honey.”

“Rob, honey?”

“I've got cinnamon.”

“Uncle Ted wants honey.”

“How am I supposed to know where that is?”
“It’s in the same cabinet, Rob, with the cinnamon.”

“You sure he doesn't want cinnamon?”

“You’re being difficult.”

“I’d like cinnamon toast.”

“Tomorrow Uncle Ted.  You can have cinnamon toast tomorrow for breakfast.”

“When’s that?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Here’s the cinnamon.  I’d like to sit down now.”

“Can I sprinkle the cinnamon on your yams, Uncle Ted?”

“Tomorrow for breakfast.  Where’s  my honey?”

“Tell him to get it himself.”

“Rob!”

“Helen – I’d like to start eating before my food becomes tomorrow’s leftovers.”

“Rob I don’t appreciate your tone.”

“Alright, God dammit.  I’ll get the damn honey.  Jesus!”

“Bobby, leave the room.”

“I’m not done eating yet.”

“Bobby, go in the other room.  The adults want to talk.”

“Why?”

“Bobby!  Do as your mother says.”

“No, Uncle Ted.  You can stay.”

“I’m going to watch TV.”

“You sure?  You’re dinner will get cold.”

“Helen, all our dinners are getting cold.  What do you want to say?”

“Forget it.  Bobby sit down and eat your dinner.   You too Uncle Ted.  You’re spoiling everything Rob.”

“That’s right.  Blame it on me.  I just want to enjoy my meal, that’s all.”

“Well I certainly hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving because you've ruined it for me and everyone else.”

“That’s it.  I’m going in the other room.  Maybe I’ll watch TV.”

“Great!  So what am I supposed to do?  I’ll eat looking at your plate and your empty chair.  That’s really special.  Welcome to the holiday season with the Wilsons.  Some family we are.  We’re eating the Thanksgiving meal I spent all morning cooking while you watch your dumb football.  You’re a real peach, you know that?  I love that you’re such an admirable role model for Bobby.  I hope he doesn't become the same selfish jerk you turned out to be.  Rob?”

“Go to hell.”
- Slam! -

“Is he coming back?”

“Yes, Uncle Ted.  Of course.  Have some turkey.  You like the white meat, don’t you?”

Good Morning Justin...

Letter to my Son
Sunday, 6 October

I've lost a step with age

Good Morning Justin…

When you’re young falling in love truly is as easy as falling off a log.  With experience and age, though, romantic love may involve all the scrutiny a loan application gets from the bank.  Sex is no longer the compelling lighthouse beacon that once drew me forward through the fog years of my youth.  I was a firefly chasing dancing lights in the night.  Too often that magic moment under the stars was all about the rule of biology and reason be damned.  That’s not love, though, is it?  No.  I’m comparing the crisp tart of an apple with the sweet juice of an orange.  Let me start again. 

Love could be as illusionary as standing amidst a bevy of reflections in a room of funhouse mirrors.  What’s real?  Sure, there was always the question of whether someone really loved me.  The more important question for me, though, was whether I truly loved the one I was going through all that trouble to chase.  Let’s give myself the benefit of the doubt and believe it’s true when I say, “I love you.”  Great, I’m not a jerk – yet.  Now here’s where the relationship goes dicey.  I’m head over heels in love with this wonderful woman and we’ll assume she feels the same for me.  This is real heaven.  I’m better than the man I ever thought I could be.  I think thoughts and have feelings I never thought I could express.  I amaze myself at the kindness I feel and how considerate I am for the person I love.  And it’s all so effortless.  This whole marvelous attitude even spills over to my feelings for people I don’t even know.  I smile and say, “Good Morning!” to the checkout lady even though I have been in line for twenty minutes.  I’m in love and the world’s beautiful.  This is all so amazing.  So what’s the problem?

Romance is like a drug high.  You eventually have to come down.  It’s as certain as gravity on earth.  We wouldn’t benefit from the civilization we have if we were all spending each and every day as though it was our honeymoon.  Life returns to normal and so does the one you love.  Most people hope and expect their most significant relationship in life is forever.  But if it isn’t we endure a hard fall, followed by a shattering break.  Then we spend the next couple of years picking up the pieces.  Woe is me.

We’re talking a marathon if the whole thing works.  It’s not like romance at the movies.  Boy gets girl.  Boy loses girl.  Boy gets girl in a crescendo finish.  They embrace in a swooning kiss.  The End.  You come out of the movie, hand in hand with the one you love.  The two of you get in the car, nudge out of the parking space, and drive home.  The two of you buy groceries.  Together you repair the house.  You pay bills as a team and adjust the budget.  You disagree and argue from time to time.  You’re together for breakfast and dinner day after day, through all the seasons, through all the years, and the many trials and all the tests to the relationship from outside interests.  There are surprises that are sometimes heart-warming or are, at times, heart-rending.  It’s all in the life of a marriage or, at least, a relationship that feels like a marriage.

I don’t know about you but I can’t sustain my best behavior for more than a couple of hours, at most.  Give me a week and I’ll show you my best impersonation of dull and rude.   Of course, we can always hop in bed and stir the coals when the daily grind doesn’t feel fresh and spritely.  I’ll even think to brush my teeth first.  Yeah, it’s OK.  But I have to admit I ran out of fireworks quite a while back.  I’m a creature of habit.  Was it good for you?  Great, now let’s turn on the TV and get out the crackers and cheese.

Chuckles was depressed because he didn’t like the way his ears flopped over and there was nothing he could do about it.  He starred at his reflection again.  He could clearly see that both ears bent near the middle and then drooped over onto themselves.  It wasn’t normal. 

Why is it we have premium cable and yet there is never anything on.  Why is that, Honey?  Oh, your feet are cold.  Stop that!  Alright you’re going to get it.  And I mean in the worst sort of way.

By the way, how’s things with you?

Love,

          Dad

Good Morning Jessicca...

Letter to My Daughter
Sunday, 13 January

American Gothic - Grant Wood

Here’s a thought before I get to Jessicca’s letter:  we don’t make love complicated.  We don’t have to.  How many books, songs and movies explore this topic?  Human love is so nuanced, surprising, joyous and absolutely terrible.  The reason we muster to solve our daily challenges is often replaced with foolishness, delusion and deceit when matters of passionate love confront us on our otherwise carefully plotted sane path.

Do I wish for a world limited to the hushed librarian tones of persuasion when resolving relational disquiet?  Hardly.  My God, there are times in a couple’s life that requires adamant passion, the vivid conviction of one’s heart.  This in no way implies violence unless we take into account the bed having been brought crashing down by the now exhausted couple somewhere near the break of dawn.  Yeah, love can be like that. 

Adam and Eve - Masolino da Panicale

Good Morning Jessicca…

We all know of evolution and how various environmental factors influence the development of biology over time.  We can follow the course of this action from the fossils we unearth.  It’s about the variability of genetics exhibited within individuals of a particular species population and which ones are more likely to reproduce, insuring their characteristics are represented in succeeding generations.  

8 1/2 - Federico Fellini

The fundamental thing about us humans is that we increasingly control our environment and we've greatly improved the likelihood of survival of nearly all individuals.  So what factors most contribute to our own genetic design?  Let me offer you the intriguing possibility that sex appeal has become a significant determinant in our own evolutionary development.  Sounds crazy, doesn't it?  I must be joking.  Think about it, though.  Many vertebrate animals mate based on the appeal of an individual of the opposite sex.  You see evidence of this in ritual mating behavior, such as the display of colors or acts of dominance.  

Henry and June - Anais Nin

People are complex.  We usually make decisions that lead to having children on factors in addition to appearance and charm.  Desire is a very strong incentive but alone it makes for only a brief encounter.  People commit to long term relationships having considered characteristics such as trust, stability, respect and earning potential.  Eye appeal leads to an introduction, conversation – a personality assessment that may continue with an extended period of  ‘getting to know’ each other.  When lightening strikes a committed relationship between the two becomes understood.  In this manner women contribute their influence to future characteristic of men and men do likewise with women.  Each sex helps determine the nature of the other.  It’s nothing new.  It’s part of the history of men and women.  But the impact of gender appeal on our genetic make up has increased as other evolutionary pressures on us diminish.  For instance, we no longer fear being fed upon by predators.  Mental shrewdness supplants brute strength as a demonstrated key to success in a technological society.  The appeal based on sexual desire may change little over time but societal considerations evolve with changing circumstance and they do have significant effect in choosing a partner to raise a family.  

End of the Affair - Graham Greene

Is this about love?  I don’t know.  It’s complicated.  There are so many aspects to love – love of family, love of children… romantic love.  They aren’t the same.  They make differing demands of us.  Romantic loves leads to love of one’s own children.  What about endurance?  Love of a child tends to last a lifetime.  Romance is often fleeting, especially with the pressures of raising a family.  

Eyes Wide Shut - Stanley Kubrick

The love between partners changes in nature.  It may remain equally intense but the excitement of desire ebbs with familiarity.  The love shared by two adults in a relationship can not be taken for granted.  It is not reliable.  You can’t leave your spouse in a pumpkin shell.  The human heart is too easily stolen.  

Scenes from a Marriage - Ingmar Bergman

Then, too, human nature doesn’t conveniently fit into societal expectations, social needs.  Human sexuality is not simple, never has been.  Society’s tolerance of an individual’s personal disposition soon leads to the discover that people diverge widely from the proscribed norm.  We’re not a population of squares and circles, after all.  Chances are there are few true squares and circles anywhere, even among those that wish it otherwise.  The genie is out of the bottle and suppressing the nature of the human heart is out of fashion.  What it all means is that new freedoms present new challenges to one’s personal happiness.  At some point we are overwhelmed by complexity.  A life of simple squares and circles may seem a blessing.  We give up something to gain something else. 

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - Edward Albee

We are complicated, mentally and emotionally.  We just want to simply love and be loved.  You have your entire life in front of you and you undoubtedly anticipate the future with relish.  I’m dragging a heavy chain of years and I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed.  I see challenge.  You see opportunity.  That’s why my stay here isn't open ended.  At some point the brain fills up with experience and you just plain run out of thinking room to decide on what next to do.  

Persona - Ingmar Bergman

As long as people cherish Valentine’s Day I suppose we’re safe.

Love,

         Dad

In Sickness and Health

Letter to Jessicca

Sunday, 10 June

I was doing a bit of grocery shopping late Saturday when I ran across a woman I hadn’t seen in at least a couple of months.  She was carrying a snack tray of cheeses, pepperoni slices and the like and all the things you’d need to share a weekend movie at home with your three kids, two small boys and a preteen girl.  It was the beginning of a rare full two weeks being home and she and the kids had some catching up to do.  Her youngest was starting kindergarten in the fall and he resented her being gone most of the time.  Her other son was close to his dad and kept his opinions to himself.  While she was away she missed a band concert that was a very important milestone in her daughter’s life.  It’s a crazy time for all of them right now what with Dad getting his own apartment during the spring and, of course, all the tense back and forth that goes with a long time couple trying to disentangle a relationship that has unraveled to the point of hiring lawyers and filling out legal documents.   You hope to remain civil for the sake of everyone but the trauma felt is right up there with the death of a loved one. 

Recently I heard it said that love is easy but living together is difficult.  Love is mostly fantasy while the effort at holding a relationship together is real work.  I think that’s true to a point but it would be misleading to assume commitment alone can make for a successful pairing.  The anthropologist Margaret Mead believed life too long and humans too complicated to reasonably expect most marriages to last a lifetime.  There’s plenty of evidence to support that view but, for me, her opinion only enriches the value of the rare couple that remains intimate and mutually engaged through the course of their lives.  Love alone does not conquer all.  The obstacles that must be overcome are many, diverse and, sometimes, totally unexpected.  The give and take required of individuals to keep a relationship on the tracks will include incidents of bruised feelings and ego deflation.  Any one decision has the potential to drastically change the nature of the relationship.  Let me provide for you the dilemma faced by another couple I know.  Both the man and the woman had very successful, lucrative careers.  After many years the husband’s firm decided to relocate many miles away in another state.  It was decided Dad would give up his job rather than uprooting the family from a place and circumstance they loved.  Mom continued to grow professionally and prosper financially but the husband’s field was very specialized and career opportunities for him in the area were nearly nonexistent.  His various efforts at restarting a career were disappointing and the resulting imbalance in the relationship helped to create an insurmountable barrier that led the two one-time lovers to eventually call it quits.

I admit my view of romantic love between two adults is mostly based on biology and the intense attraction experienced at the time of falling in love has little to do with civilized human reason.  How can anyone expect to make sound judgment decisions while under the intoxicating influence of being in love?  How often is it that people choose as a lifetime mate someone hopelessly unsuitable for them because to do otherwise is like swimming against a very powerful current?  We truly are swept off our feet.  Even when that special someone seems thoroughly compatible it can prove to be illusionary to think it will always last.  People have a remarkable ability to grow and change with the circumstances of time.  Two people starting life together thoroughly in love may find themselves growing in different directions and in ways that, horror of horrors, they one day discover they are strangers living under the same roof.  Nature has a way of making folly of our best intentions.  I am not arguing against marriage or other less formal human relationships.  What I suggest, though, is that when happiness dissolves into bitterness and the resulting hurt leads us to lash out at the crimes perpetrated by our partner, we resist our urge to feed anger and hate.  Life makes fools of us all.  We don’t conquer it.  We abide.  We learn.  We live another day.