The Chalk

Eleven-TEEN (rough draft)

2011-12-06T16:05:00.000-08:00

“Daddy! I’m Eleven-TEEN”, my youngest twin said with the incredulous and perfectly executed eye-roll of a seasoned adolescent. I can’t recall what we were arguing about. It doesn’t really matter anyway. Facts are inconsequential relative to the greater truth of “I’m right and YOU are wrong”. I am playing the role of YOU this evening. In fairness, the role belongs to my wife. I am merely the understudy. Tweedle B has been affirming her status as a teenager these days, drawn to all things adolescent and salacious. It hasn’t been all that bad. She and I have been having some interesting conversations lately, that is…..when I can get her to talk. With Twin B I have to employ stealth parenting.

Last night we had a good one, here is the gist:

We were stargazing and snuggled up. For some reason we got on the subject of ancient Greece and I began to tell the story of Icarus. She decided that Icarus flew too close to the sun out of “Pride and Arrogance”. She arrived at this conclusion after speculating that Icarus was about her age, Eleven-TEEN. In her opinion, boys her age are inherently arrogant and way too proud of themselves. With great effort I resisted the urge to point out the pinch of arrogance and pride the whole "I'm right YOU are wrong" sensibility requires. Instead, we started talking about “pride” in both it’s positive and negative aspects. Finally, and stealthily, I asked her what she was proud of.
“My difference!”, she replied without a trace of hesitation.

I found this curious, given that she is an identical twin. As an identical twin myself, I know first hand how hard it is to hold on to a sense of identity independent of your clone. As a very young child I had to grasp at straws to find a defining characteristic. It mostly came out in statements like, "I’m the one with the BLUE sneakers, not the RED ones", or more importantly "I like Batman, he likes Superman". We never did agree upon who got to be John and who got to be Paul when we played air guitar in synch with Sgt. Pepper’s. It was a forgone conclusion that Butchy, our Lhasa Apso, got to be Ringo. He had the eyes for the part and was, in all likelihood,the better drummer.

Twin B feels proud of her “difference” and I suspect Twin A might be a little resentful of it. The twins simultaneously feel compelled to differentiate from each other and feel rejected by the distinction that creates. I don’t envy their journey into adulthood, but I do empathize with their experience. My twin and I, unknowingly, struggled with the very same issue. I wish I could remember how we made some peace with it; how we moved from competitors to a relationship of mutual respect? The simple fact is, Glenn is among the best men I know, and anyone saying otherwise is itching for a fight.

Birds of a feather (Re-write)

2011-08-17T17:29:00.000-07:00

When I was a student at the School of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York I made frequent visits to the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge. The place was fascinating and had all the elements of a true wilderness experience while still being close enough to “Doug’s Fish Fry and Cheap Beer” to satisfy my sensitive college palate. For me, it was the eagles that made Montezuma such a special place. There was a nest on the refuge that was shared by two males and one female, along with their offspring that had not yet fledged. Gene Houcut, the District Manager in charge of Montezuma claimed that it was the single most successful nest in the state, and I have no reason to doubt it. I always saw fledging when I was there. However, the fecundity of this breeding group was not what made these birds special. Up until then, it was largely believed that eagles were monogamous and mated for life. These birds had quite a different idea. On this nest everyone mounted everyone. It was not unusual to see the female mount both males, nor was it unusual to see the males sharing an intimate moment together. Leave it to me to find the sexual deviants of the species.

I was thinking about these birds as the young man sitting next to me on my flight to visit Grandma Jane began to unwind his life story. He introduced himself with a name that I know his Mama didn’t give him. Suffice it to say that my first impressions were that either this young man was compensating for his shortness of stature or he had an uncommon attachment to his favorite comic book hero. His adopted name was punctuated by matching tattoos, like name tags. I always like nametags, it makes things so much easier the morning after. But I digress…..

During the five-hour flight I grew quickly to admire this unique man. For now, let’s call him Spidey. Spidey, like my birds, danced to a different beat. His stage name(s), are alternatively Mystique and Wolverine. His characters are adversaries who don’t realize they in habit the same body. One dances as a woman and the other dances as a man. He intermingles break dancing and hip-hop with the erotic forms of dance involving poles. Spidey arrived at these characters after some tough times, including a bad injury. While his stage life and his drag life were interesting, what I found most compelling about Spidey was how multifaceted he was. His nine-year-old son was playing quietly in the seat next to him and Spidey seemed to have an easy caring way with him. His son was an adorable and intelligent kid, clearly deeply loved. Apparently he spent a few weeks with his Dad every summer, before returning to his mom and stepfather. The two had just finished a trip to visit a quickly fading father/grandfather. Spidey was raised in a sleepy town deep inside the blue-line of the Adirondack State Park. As a younger man he made his living as a professional skateboarder and snow boarder prior to coming out as a drag racer. I’m not sure what he meant by drag racing, but I’m pretty sure it involved pole dancing in women’s clothing rather than cars. He mentioned something about RuPaul’s drag race, and I just can’t picture that seven-foot tall goddess behind the wheel of a racecar.

The thing I found beautiful about Spidey was that he is not someone to be defined. He is openly bi-sexual, he is both masculine and feminine without being androgynous. He challenges the norms without being a rebel. He seems to refuse to play the “queen”, but genuinely inhabits Mystique’s character as a real woman. In his own brave way he is redefining what a drag queen is just by existing. Perhaps, my eagles are a bit like Spidey. I’m pretty sure no one explained to the Montezuma Eagles that Bald Eagles are suppose to be monogamous for life AND they certainly don’t mount same gendered birds or have multiple partners. They changed our ideas about what being an eagle is by simply existing.

Now comes the really interesting question; how will Spidey’s offspring and the Montezuma fledglings turn out? I can’t wait to find out.

[i]

[ii]

[iii]

[i] My apologies to Spidey if I misunderstood or misrepresented him in anyway. This post was the result of my impressions of a chance meeting on a 5-hour plane ride. In telling the story, I am sure there are inevitable inaccuracies.

[ii] I make absolutely no apologies to the Eagles at Montezuma Wildlife Refuge, all statements regarding them are accurate.

[iii] At Spidey’s request, I have removed the original post entitled “Birds of a Feather” With respect to this request, I have changed names and removed places that might identify him. I hope I have conveyed the spirit of the original piece without compromising his request for more anonymity. This is a story about paradigm shifts and power of being an individual.

Welcome to my Free Fa…….THWUMP!!!

2011-06-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

In November of 2010 I began The Chalk with a post entitled "Welcome to my Free Fall". I had just submitted a letter of resignation, effective June 2011, to my long-time employer and given myself seven months to “create a new livelihood and find a new direction.”

It’s June 2011, so I thought I should update all three of my readers on what is happening career-wise. You can decide for yourself if there was an authentic change. I’m not entirely sure.

I rescinded my resignation in late December at the urging of the Director of Human Resources. He was kind and appreciated my intentions for giving the administration so much time to prepare for my departure. I truly wanted to leave on the best of terms. Tom, the head of HR, was protective of me and asked me to hold off on the resigning until I actually had a job (DUH!!!). It was fortunate, because there was not much out there worth quitting for. Instead, my public school system made some big concessions towards making my program better and my life easier. Next year we are positioned to be a very strong program. The truth is, things had to get pretty bad before the administration saw the need to change. Without going into too many details, suffice it to say it was a very tough year at work, punctuated by a dangerously low student-to-staff ratio. Next year will be much better. The concessions that were made are thoughtful. I just wish things didn’t have to hit rock bottom before meaningful changes took place.

As I looked for work this year, I stumbled upon an opportunity to become a certified Motorcycle Safety Foundation Rider Coach, i.e. a nationally certified riding instructor. Sponsored by Training Wheels, I went through a real meat grinder of the MSF training in early March. I started teaching in April and now spend most of my weekends on the motorcycle range. I can’t believe people actually pay me to ride motorcycles!

I’m set up for one of the best summers of my life. I’ll spend my summer teaching drums at a local arts camp on Monday’s and Wednesday’s and coaching riders on the weekends. The rest of the time, it’s just me and my son (and possibly Blue).

So I did not have a wholesale change, nor did I stay stagnant in an untenable position. I’m somewhere in between.

I’m going back to run my program for another year, but if someone asked me what I do for a living I also mention that I teach and ride motorcycles.

I’m still searching. In the meantime, I hope that the personal cost of doing what needs to be done for my students is not too high. I don’t think it’s too dramatic to acknowledge that the effort and commitment it takes to be successful with students who have severe emotional disabilities takes its’ toll on caregivers. I’m not a religious man, but….. Lord, give me strength!!

I think I landed from my free fall. Unfortunately I landed on a cliff jutting out over the abyss. Still looking for a parachute in the right color.

Heat

2011-06-08T09:55:00.000-07:00

Hero turned villain

Was winning worth the price?

Will the ring become a burden?

Man-child

I think you are brave

to play your game

To play YOUR game

Again, at what cost?

*My third graders were writing poems and one of my students asked me to write him a poem about the HEAT. This is what I gave him.

What is

2011-06-03T05:03:00.000-07:00

The other day I had an unpleasant close call on my motorcycle. I ride a very tame Honda Rebel. It’s the laughing stock of the Rider Coaches I teach with, all of whom drive machines the dwarf my 1986 250cc Rebel. The chain was pretty loose and it came off the rear tire. I was going fairly slow and had no trouble quickly pressing the clutch and taking the power away from the back tire so it did not freeze up and send me flying. It did not feel like such a big deal at the time, but it was.

Before heading to Greater Boston Motor Sports (a.k.a the only motorcycle mechanic around) I joked with my wife that I might accidentally buy a new motorcycle. She did not say “ Are you F***************** crazy!! No way can we afford this”, which I immediately interpreted as, “love of my life, you should do this! In fact I insist!”

When I brought the bike into the shop and my mechanic heard what happened he went green. “Corey you must have very good reflexes”. No, I thought, I just got lucky. He knew I was a Rider Coach and invited me test drive any bike in the shop. It was like having free range in a museum. I tried a lot of bikes. I wasn’t surprised that I fell in love. I was surprised that I fell for a 2010 Shadow Phantom 750 with beautiful leather saddlebags. I fell deeply in love. I never have felt so in tune with a bike. It felt like it was part of me.

One little problem. I did not/do not have $7000. What I did have, or at least thought I had (cue foreboding music) was my Grandfather’s 18K Gold Patek Phillippe watch. My brothers inherited Rolexes, and I got the Patek Phillippe. Whenever I had need of money over the last ten years since Grandpa’s death I have struggled with the idea of selling it. Instead I have treated it like a sacred relic, sitting unused but cherished in my underwear drawer[1]. But this was different. I had come to a hard decision, I was going to sell it. It was meant to bring joy to the owner. I think Grandpa would like this use. For those of you who know about these things, a true Patek Phillippe could easily cover the cost of this bike.

I put $100 down on the bike and spent the next week researching how to sell the watch. Here is what I found out. The watch was an imitation worth about $200. Heart-broken but not defeated I am still going to find a way to buy the Phantom (which I can write off as a legitimate expense now that I drive motorcycles for a living).

The funny thing is, I think my wife must have seen this coming. The night before I walked into the bike shop sheread a passage from Pemo Chodron to me that helped me deal with just such a situation. In brief, Chodron says that we become overly attached to a story line and we fail to see what is truly in font of us. Better to be fully aware of this moment and the truth of this moment, than become attached to a narrative of what should be. My narrative was that I had this safety net that I could sell if need be. After I went through the very real disappointment of learning the truth, I had to smile and say to myself, wow you bought that story hook, line, and sinker! So now you have to deal with what is.

[1] You would be amazed how many men keep their most beloved and valuable possessions next to their threadbare Fruit-of-the-Loom’s.

[2]The Phantom, sans the beautiful leather saddlebags that are on my future bike.

2011-05-25T07:13:00.001-07:00

:-p

TEXT MESSAGE:

COREY: Wise old daddy I am

BLUE: You’re cheating

COREY: I promised not to SAAAAAY anything :-p

She rolled her eyes at me. What does it say about a 40 something year old man when his teenage daughter has to say, with hand on her hips, eyes facing heaven, “Daddy, grow up!”

Fact checking time: She didn’t actually say that, but Blue can think VERY LOUDLY.

I think it says that I’m doing something right. At least I hope it does, because I’m not going to suddenly transform into a fully-fledged, humorless grown up anytime soon. Fully-fledged, yes. Grown-up: not so much… only momentary episodes of adultness and only under extreme duress. Unfortunately DURESS lives down the block from me.

Funny, I used to walk out to say hello whenever I saw DURESS walking down the street. I still do that on a bad day. However, these days I have learned to wave hello from the other side of the street without engaging it. DURESS will knock on my door soon enough, without me inviting it inside for coffee.

I digress. I was thinking about how as an adult, I’m at my best when I am childish. Blue, on the other hand, believes she is at her best when she is most mature. Perhaps we are both right. Most assuredly we are both wrong. Go figure.

Blue’s Rebuttal

No rebuttal, although your last sentence has me curious now...

Dad’s Reply:

Being both right and wrong is my nod to how complex the world is. It’s a false dichotomy, right and wrong. We can’t really separate our best selves from our worst, we carry our whole selves with us wherever we go.

It Ain't Me

2011-05-08T05:28:00.000-07:00

I see a lot of angry ranting people in my line of work. I try not to rant too much. It never really turns out well for me. I still do it, of course, but at least I’m slowing down. The other day a student of mine was trying to tell me about a rant he witnessed at recess.

ME: “Can you tell me what he said?”

KC: “No Mr. Steinman, I’m not aloud to say those words”

ME: “It’s okay if you are reporting it to me calmly, I just want to make sure I know what we are dealing with. I don’t want to over-react”

KC: “Well you know when you are stuck in traffic and you’re Dad is getting really mad. He said THOSE kind of words”

Got it. It sent me back to a rant I had while I was still working in a residential program, circa 1996:

I was fairly new to teaching and had the kind of fire in the belly that makes rookies simultaneously endearing and annoying. I was getting pretty self-righteous about something, which now escapes my memory. My boss, Larry, patiently listened to me for a full ten minutes. Larry was a giant twig of a man, with eyebrows that didn’t so much arch but pointed upwards towards spiky hair. Everything about him was sharp. His long goatee exactly mirrored the chevron of his eyebrows. His smile can only be described as wicked.

Smiling, he put his arm around my shoulder to signal that I was done talking and said something that has become a sort of mantra to me.[1]

Larry: “Corey........... you’re not that important”

ME: “Gee, Larry, I’m touched. Ummm what the f***?”

Larry: “I’m not that important either”

ME: “So what is the important thing here?”

Larry: “The thing that's important to remember is …… What Is Important” pause.......waiting for me to get it…..

ME: sledge hammer makes cotact…….”and it ain’t ME”

Larry: “Nope…….it ain’t me neither”

It’s hard to hold on to this mind-set, but I’m there right now. It’s my wife’s smile that completely fills me up. I love her voice and wish she was here to talk too. It’s the way the twins are petting a reluctant Sam-the-Cat. It’s the way the sun is landing on the Dogwood blossoms. It ain’t me.

Later today, something is going to tug on my ego. Someone is going to cut me off while merging on to 128 or say something unkind. I’ll want to rant. All the good stuff will disappear if I start cursing. Please let me hear Larry’s voice again before I get a head of steam going-

“Hey Corey, you’re not that important”

[1] At least on a good day. On bad days, I forget the lesson learned and keep ranting, lunatic style until someone slaps me upside the head.

Old Men and Basketball

2011-04-28T10:10:00.001-07:00

There comes a time in every ball players life when we should gracefully leave the court and take up a game that does not involve grinding our knees into pulp. We don’t of course, but we should. Instead we find new ways to become effective on the court, by which I mean we cheat.

It starts off innocent enough, a little shuffle and lean while setting a pick, a few extra steps on the way to the hoop. But then it gets ugly. Let’s just call it, for sake of argument, DG ugly.

DG ugly means camping out in the paint for hours beyond the three-second rule without even pretending to move your feet. DG ugly means calling a foul on every single shot you take regardless if anyone is near you. DG ugly means criticizing every move your teammates make while standing still on a fast break. Let’s just avoid the entire subject of elbowing your opponents in the post.

When I was in my thirties I swore that I would never become one of those guys. But last night with the game well in hand, one point away from the walk off shot I crossed over to the dark side. It could have been a foul, the kid didn’t argue the call, but I knew it was cheap. I was chasing down a loose ball, and got one hand on it, when out of nowhere this twenty something flew by me and stole the ball. True, he took half my arm with him and he reached in, but I never would have called it ten years ago. I just would have shrugged and said to myself “self, protect the ball next time”. I called the foul and then hit the walk off shot next time down the court…………it was not a proud moment. So what’s the moral of this tale? Cheaters prosper? Of course they do. In fact, it’s part of the game. No one even raised an eyebrow! ARRGGGGG!!!!!

It is not too much of a leap to say that basketball mirrors life. I’m reminded of a moment I shared with the lunch lady in my old school. Cathy is a big-hearted Eastern European woman with a very thick accent. One day I came into the kitchen and said, “Hey Cathy, I’m stealing an apple”.

“Corey, you know vat happens vhen you steal?”

“Yeah, I get stuff for free”

Sigh…..why is being bad so rewarding?

The Scarlet "J"

2011-04-19T12:50:00.000-07:00

In February of 2008, the New England Patriots lost to the New York Giants in the final moments of Super Bowl XLII. The loss solidified my place in the family as “THE JINX”. [1] Whenever I make a sports prediction the universe has an equal and opposite reaction. I swore, after being teased relentlessly, that I would keep my mouth shut. But my family still insists celebrating my faults. I kept my mouth shut since that humiliating day[2]. That is, until last Monday when the Celtics played the New York Knickerbockers in game one of their 2011 playoff series. While the aging Celtics were generally outplayed by a rapidly improving Knickerbockers, Ray Allen drained a three point shot in the final seconds of the game to put Boston ahead. I posted one innocent word on my Facebook status; “RAAAYYYY!!!!!”.

My father and brothers responded by writing me long letters about how happy they were that I was rooting for the Celtics. Once again they dusted off the old Corey Jinx and wrapped it around me like a straight jacket. Stupidly, I responded. I took the bait and wrote back.

I think if I sat down with my father and four brothers and said “hey enough with the Jinx”, they would say it was all in fun. They would, rightly so, point out what an insufferably big mouth I had and that I was practically begging for their ridicule. Point well taken, even if it was not actually made.

So what’s the big deal? The big deal is that when they play the Jinx card, they are putting a spotlight on a fault that I have been working pretty hard on. I know they don’t see it that way, I’m not sure I was fully aware of it until this week. You see, I have been trying to cultivate a more keen sense of humility, which in part means keeping my mouth shut on things I really don’t know much about. This is harder work than you might imagine. My oral cavity is a foot magnet.[3] Still, I’m working on it. So when I say something that I think of as pretty innocent like “RAAAYYYY!!!!!” and the reply I get is, “hey Corey remember all the times you said really stupid things about sports”, I find myself way back at the starting line of that journey. Part of me wants to lash out and say, “yeah, I remember that- thanks for the reminder, I appreciate it. Hey, while we are in the neighborhood, shall we go visit some of the moments you wish you could take back?”

I took the bait and responded. Dumb, dumb, dumb…….. It’s like taking that old soup of sports angst that you were about to throw away and putting it on the front burner. I set the table by saying anything regarding sports. I wish it weren’t so. I wish I could acknowledge Ray’s achievement without inviting the Jinx Card. He is a class act. Now for the remainder of the NBA playoffs, win or lose, I will wear the scarlet J.

[1] I suppose it bears repeating that I support New England teams while my father and brothers support teams from New York.

[2] @Adam: just for the record, I think three years of silence is a huge achievement. I sincerely invite you to match that benchmark..........starting last Monday.

[3] I suppose it could be worse, but there is only so far I am willing to go with an orifice analogy.

“Stories are data with a soul” – Brene Brown

2011-04-11T15:35:00.001-07:00

Recently I watched a YouTube snippet of Dr. Brene Brown speaking at a TED Conference[1]. She said a few things that resonated with me, besides how cool her name is. If you don’t know her, she is a researcher and a story-teller who studies issues like vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame.

I’ll cut right to the chase, Brown says that you can’t selectively numb. When you numb yourself or repress an emotion, it impacts the whole system. I’m pretty sure she is right about this, which is a shame. Why can’t I just be open-hearted and loving without also being angry and cantankerous? It would be so much easier just to live in a bubble of the good stuff. But the truth is, I find people who have banished negative feelings and just float along in a fluffy cloud of happy really annoying. Particularly if it is an evangelical-religious or new age cloud of fluffy-happy.

No, life is messy. Very, very messy and you have to get your hands dirty to live it fully. So here is my dilemma; I am like many men; socialized to repress anger, shame, and fear. Stuffing these emotions into an over-full cerebral closet has become a reflex. Like blinking, something makes me angry it gets buried before I even have a chance to see if it is a real threat. How does one begin to turn off that switch? It’s like a fist that has been clenched so long that the muscle memory of how to relax is gone. I’m not saying that I am an emotional cripple, far from it. But as I get deeper into the work of being in the real world, I am aware of this huge internal vault of repressed emotions. Right now I do not have the key, nor am I willing to use a sledge hammer hard enough to penetrate much further than the Celtics last losing streak. I have to admit, back-to-back losses last month against the Clippers and Philadelphia cut deep.

I hope you all forgive me for the posts that are likely to follow. I’m going mining for deep down emotions. It’s slow going and I’ve got a hard head to crack.

[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

Well worth the twenty minutes if you are interested in watching the whole thing.

Because He Can

2011-03-22T16:36:00.000-07:00

You know the old joke; “why does a dog lick……………..?”

It’s more than just that he can. I’m sure there are humans out there who have achieved the necessary flexibility, but you just don’t see them casually reaching down to satisfy themselves while the rest of the household is trying to have a family meal.

Dogs might be on to something.

As far as I can tell, Conventional Dog Wisdom goes something like this:

- Uninhibited equals Happy Dog (see: scrotum licking, garbage eating, squirrel chasing, sniffing)

- Inhibited equals Sad Dog (see: tail between the legs, it wasn’t me really, the cat made me do it)

I’m not advocating that we all become so uninhibited that we are free enough to put our hands down our pants before passing the rolls across the dinner table. I have a close relative who does this and I can assure you that it is not a pretty sight. We have to consider our impact upon others and measure our behavior in terms of that impact. Never the less, I think letting your inner DAWG out might not be such a bad idea.

I say this with a nagging thought in mind. I spend a lot of time apologizing for the way I am built, tail between my legs. The world tends to beat down the dog, when all he is doing is being what nature has made him. AND there is so much potential to be a “bad” dog if you spend your entire day in a room with flowery wallpaper, paisley upholstered couches, and an Oriental Rug just begging to be marked. How would I, and my figurative dog, feel if we where to reside in a more natural habitat? Would we even recognize it?

No wonder the dog finds solace in his ability to lick.

Ruby Slippers

2011-03-11T15:19:00.000-08:00

When I first started blogging I used an analogy of a free fall to describe my journey into a new career or at least a new stage in my career. I’m still there.

I’ve made some progress. Tomorrow I start training to become a certified motorcycle instructor. It won’t pay the bills, but it will help. And of course, I’ve been writing a bit. Nothing spectacular, but at least the writing has been consistent. The things that have not made it into The Chalk have been really dogmatic. There is a lot of Dogma in my notebook and it is difficult to edit all of it out. You see, I have a strong inclination towards arrogance. I’m working on that and being dogmatic doesn’t really help things out.

With that said, I can’t help sharing an idea that has resonated with me for the last couple of weeks.

It came from my wife. We have started going to a yoga class together. As we drive to class she often reads quotes from Pema Chodron, just to get us into the spirit of things. The last one she read talked about how we all have this kind of internal jewel, which I interpreted as an innate goodness, that doesn’t ever lose it’s luster or brilliance. Our defense mechanisms, our shame, and our life experiences hide it, but it’s still there underneath those layers of yuck- undiminished. As I write this, that statement sounds very earthly crunchy. Just tap your heels three times and you will be a luminous creature. Maybe not, but it is a comfort to me to imagine that if I can do the hard work of becoming vulnerable and open-hearted than I might tap into my better self. It’s not a leap of imagination to say that when I am reacting to things from a defensive posture, I am surely not at my best. For the moment, I’m going to try and make that leap of faith that people have an innate goodness. It’s folly, I know, but the alternative is that humanity has no internal potential for compassion. That kind of thinking certainly makes me want to reach for my ruby slippers.

Does this question make my ass look big?

2011-03-05T06:45:00.000-08:00

I’m writing this with the sincere hope that my mother never reads this. She doesn’t know it, but she is a Jewish mother. Maybe not the kind you see in sitcoms, but underneath the Santa Fe, new age, sunset watching, pot smoking, sakki drinking, hippy skin lies the heart of a Jewish mother from Merrick, Long Island.

Last week she crashed my party with Grandma Jane. When she heard I was heading out to Arizona to visit the family matriarch, she bought tickets and said she would try to coordinate her arrival with mine so we could share a cab. “You don’t mind waiting an hour or two for your mother- why spend money on two taxis” (do you see any question marks in those quotes?).[1] Once she arrived, she asked me if she had intruded upon my weekend with Grandma. If you ever hear a Jewish person say “OY”, now you know from whence it came.

“Mom, I’m a nice Jewish boy from New York, there is only one answer to that question: of course not, you’re my mother, and Grandma is you’re mother. The doors to our family should always be wide open to each other”

I knew once I said the word “mother” what was coming next. It amounted to ‘was I a good mother?’. It comes up almost every time I see her, especially if she is feeling blue. We were in the car, going on an obligatory shopping trip in search of that nice shirt she saw in a Gap add. For the first time in ages I did not want to follow the script.

“Mom, you’re asking what my wife calls “do these make my ass look fat” questions. There is no right answer. Say yes, and your calling her fat. Say no, and you are not being honest. It’s just not fair to put anyone in that position. I’m not going there any more”

Pause…….

“You really like shopping with me, though, right?”

“Mom, does this question make my ass look big?” [2]

[1] Just for the record, she arrived a day after me, and I was able to spend almost twenty-four hours with Grandma Jane (see my last post Jane’s Choice). In fairness to Mig, these are not direct quotes- I am taking liberties here to make a point (and making footnotes to cover my ass in case she learns how to use a computer).

[2] In fairness to me, this is a direct quote.

Jane's Choice

2011-03-02T08:41:00.000-08:00

Last week I was in Scottsdale, Arizona, visiting my Grandmother. I still had something of a fire in the belly about the nature of resiliency, so I asked her about times in her life when she was faced with a crisis that she thought that she would not overcome. Mind you, this is a woman born in 1916. She has been THERE and chances are, she has done THAT. Without hesitation she recalled her early years of marriage. Her daughter had just turned two and her husband was gravely ill.

“I was told that Herb would not survive the year. Facing that, I made a decision to have another baby. I don’t think it was resilient, stupid maybe, because I had no idea how it would turn out. I believed Herb was going to die within six months. The decision was made on my own.”

Against all odds, Herb lived a long life, and their son is beloved. Jane thinks of it as the best decision of her life. She might not call it courageous, but it certainly looks like courage from where I am standing. It was something that she knew she had to do. No job, one young child, one dying husband, and Jane decides to have another baby. It seems uncharacteristic of this measured and deliberate woman that in her most trying moments she leaned on her emotional intuition. I’m not entirely sure she felt that it was even a choice. It was something she had to do to keep herself whole.

I’m on the cusp of that kind of moment in my own life. One that feels annihilating. My life as a teacher is coming to an abrupt end. But something is missing. Where did Jane find such clarity and sense of purpose? I don’t know about you, but when I try to pin down just what it is that would make me whole again I come up empty.

Jane’s resilient, almost defiant, act of self-preservation had an element of “calling” to it. Where does that come from? There was a piece of the impossible in Jane’s decision.

Resilience is a mystery to me, although I think I have some resources to call upon. One thing I can take away from Jane’s choice is that you don’t achieve the impossible by thinking about it. Courage, resilience, inspiration, these are unencumbered by the thought process.

Back-off Qwerty!

2011-02-23T05:14:00.000-08:00

I am writing this to the child who is, at this very moment leaning over my shoulder watching me write. How do you explain to this little appendage that writing is not a spectator sport? It is dam near impossible to think with someone breathing on you. Well at least she is not correcting my ……..Okay, now she is my self-appointed editor. Great.

Please, some one rescue me from this child! I do not want to be the personal entertainment system now. My morning duties are done. I have prepared a serviceable breakfast, although soooommeone says that the bagels I cooked, FROM SCRATCH my mind you, are somewhat tasteless and she prefers Bruggers Bagels to home-cooked. The kitchen is clean (mostly), the laundry will not need to be put in the dryer for another 50 minutes.

“This would not have happened if you didn’t take away the cable”, says the intruder- still in her pajamas.

“It’s a nightgown Daaaady, Hurumph”

I know, but “pajamas” is more fun to say than “nightgown”.

“Well than at least say PJ’s”

"PJ'S"

“Better”

You know how certain people take up all the oxygen in the room? Now, CERTAIN people are taking up all the virtual oxygen as well.

Sigh: I give up. Here is a video of the twin now knows as Qwerty in this blog (she gave herself the name because my wife does not want her to use her real name on the internet. Now I have to call her Qwerty everywhere. Also, don’t call Qwerty “cute” unless you are itching for a fight! She has decided that she it NOT CUTE!)

De-prioritized at this time.

2011-02-20T05:50:00.000-08:00

resilient |riˈzilyənt|

adjective:

• able to recoil or spring back into shape after bending, stretching, or being compressed.

• (of a person or animal) able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions.

I have come up with a big idea. It may not be original, but I think it may become my life’s work.

Lightning struck last week as the School Council discussed our new School Improvement Plan.

Excerpt from the recent School Improvement Plan:

2.4

Identify resiliency skills (such as ability to handle disappointment, stress, change, etc.) in order to develop and incorporate teaching strategies related to building resiliency in students

De-prioritized at this time.

It took me a second for this to sink in. Our school and schools in general do not teach kids to deal with adversity. In the same week that our community was once again devastated by the loss of a high school student, whom tragically took his own life, we “de-prioritized” our aspirations to teach kids how to cope with adversity.

Think about how essential resilience is to learning and living. If you had to choose only one set of skills to teach, wouldn’t “resiliency skills (such as ability to handle disappointment, stress, change, etc.)….” make the top two or three on your list?

Now think about this:

We largely ignore this skill set, we do not have curriculum or pedagogy that addresses these skills directly in public schools.

Schools are not alone. Well meaning parents do not allow their children to be exposed to adversity. If I had to prescribe a single set of skills that could improve our learning, our health, our community, and even our nation, it would include a thoughtful approach to building our capacity for becoming resilient.

There are a few models out there that touch on these skills, such as Outward Bound and similar experiential learning schools. However, there is nothing that reaches into early childhood and primary grades that can meaningfully be applied to a public school curriculum.

Imagine building a curriculum and a culture around Resilient Learners.

We can do this, we can teach children to strive, and to understand that a great deal of success is predicated upon how well you cope with adversity.

The evolution of this idea I think warrants a separate blog. One dedicated to Teaching and Parenting rather than stories dear to my heart. In truth, I wish I could spend the next year researching and developing this idea in order to bring it back into the school system. I don’t have those kind of resources. Blogging maybe a good start.

I’d love feedback on this one- plus a catchy new title for a teaching Blog

Next up: What our Heroes know about Resiliency.

Quintessential Blue

2011-02-17T09:08:00.000-08:00

There are a few Blue stories that get repeated often in my house when we feel the need to explain our oldest to the uninitiated.

1), Whose the Boss?

We were living in a tiny apartment near Central Square in Cambridge shortly after Doc was born. Blue was a precocious two and a half year old and really not much bigger than a peanut. I had just put Doc down for his nap when the doorbell rang. I answered the door to find a man trying to deliver a king sized mattress to our upstairs neighbor. Our neighbor was not home, but I offered to give him a hand up to the second floor platform. As we wrestled the mattress up the stairwell, the man started trying to sell me a mattress. Turns out, he owned the stored. I tried to put him off, but he was very persistent. Finally I said, “Look I really have to talk to the Boss about this.”

Enter Blue into the hallway, naked of course.

“Daddy, whose the Boss?”

“Well, honey, Mommy is the Boss.”

She thought about this for a moment, then put her hands on her hips defiantly.

“I thought I was the Boss!”

2). Just Because

Shortly after that incident, we were visiting my older brother in Maine. It must have been July, because the Black Flies were swarming around us. Blue wanted to stay out in the yard and I was trying to get her inside without donating any more blood to the invertebrate population. She stood on the picnic table, naked of course, hands on her hips with a well reasoned argument at the ready:

“Daddy, just because you’re older than me it doesn’t make you SMARTER than me!”

“Honey, no one would ever mistake me for being smarter than you. But…….I am bigger and stronger than you!!”

Exit one Daddy, with screaming naked child over his shoulders.

BLUE's Rebuttal:

I will keep it brief - It's all true. I am the boss.

And also, at two years old (and three, and four, and five, and six) being naked was just about the best thing ever.

Black and Blue

2011-02-12T14:40:00.000-08:00

I have made a promise to my oldest daughter that if she gets mentioned in The Chalk, I will give her either the opportunity to bowdlerize any portion of the blog she considers “not going to happen” or better yet she can insert a rebuttal at the end of the offending post.

I will call my oldest daughter Blue here. Not the most original name given her electric blue hair, but well earned. With the notable exception of her blue hair, she is the kind of person I want to be like when I grow up.

You know how children will inevitably challenge your sensibilities and discover the hang-ups that you didn’t even know you had. Just when you think you are sooo cool and laid back, your kids will bring home a trans-gendered homeless best friend with multiple personalities all of whom are in need of detox and a place to stay for a couple of days. Maybe you’re not quite as cool as you thought. But I digress. Blue managed to challenge my sensibilities in a much more subtle way a few years ago.

Blue was going through her RENT stage and wanted to dress-up as Angel for Halloween. I love Angel! He/She is a Hispanic drag-queen living and dancing her way through the East Village of the 1980’s, living with A.I.D.S. Angel is the moral and rhythmic center of her eccentric community, saving Collins from a street gang and nursing him back to health. They of course fall in love, it’s still a Broadway musical (actually it’s based upon La Boheme).

Now picture Blue; she’s got the zebra tights and found the sexy red “Santa” jacket[1]/miniskirt with black vinyl boots. Now I’m still cool with all of this! Barely, but I’m hanging on by a thread. Then she comes up to me and says we need to go out and by a short black wig. Let me say that again. A black wig. A BLACK WIG for my BLUE HAIRED DAUGHTER!!!!

It’s funny what sends you over the edge. My train of thought ran right off the tracks, into a brick wall, through that brick wall and into three more brick walls before I could find the brakes. I just could not wrap my head around the absurdity of buying a wig the same color of one’s natural hair. It’s like buying ice instead of using an ice tray. My wife helpfully rolled her eyes at me, which I interpreted as “your coolness has definitely left the building old man”. So with my delusions of laid-backness successfully shattered, I forked over the cash and went looking for the plaid Lazy-Boy recliner that I’m sure miraculously appears in front of his television set when a man reaches a certain age.

A few years have passed since then. Now, when Blue wants to go incognito, she can dawn her Angel wig and her shades and walk anonymously through Harvard Square. In fact her wig collection has grown quite a bit since that first costume.

Blue’s Rebuttal:

First of all, it is a BROWN wig right now. And a very classy wig at that. It is my firm belief that everyone should try wearing a wig around at least once in their life. It is a very good experience to have. Especially if it is a brown wig that you order from China, wait three weeks to get, and receive a cheerful card when said wig arrives, thanking you for your purchase in broken English complete with cutesy internet smiley faces (ex: ^-^ ).

Second of all, I also believe that challenging one's parent's sensibilities is not only a crucial part of being an adolescent, but that having your child challenge your sensibilities is a crucial part of being a parent. In one beautiful stroke, it allows the child to feel super cool and "bad", while also letting grandparents have the satisfaction of all those years of "I can't wait until your kids do _____ to you" to be fulfilled. It is a growing experience!

... for the parent that is.

[1] It was only later that I found out that my wife had actually made the jacket-miniskirt; TRAITOR!

Ooops, did I say that out loud?

2011-02-05T12:25:00.000-08:00

Last week I did a workshop for a well-known school, which I will not divulge the name of. It went well. Afterwards, the staff and I shared lunch with the director of the school. My topic was how to work with students who have emotional and behavior based disabilities, so naturally the lunchroom conversation turned towards treatment of mental health issues. Unfortunately it took a sharp left and turned towards drugs everyone had tried[1]. It seemed like everyone at the table under the age of thirty had been diagnosed with something at some point in their lives. They all started to tell their stories and compare the experiences of different psycho-tropic prescription drugs.

My eyes met the director’s mid-way through a long story about what side effects Luvox had upon one of his newer teachers. The director's clean-cut face was a mixture of embarrassment and confusion. I would bet very good money that he was wondering how he was going to refine his screening process in the future. You know that cringe moment when all but the speaker knows that he has crossed the line? Poor kid! The young teacher speaking about Luvox had become an instant cautionary tale- note too self, remember that even if you are not working, your boss is still your boss. Remember too that you can’t unsay a thing spoken. I did cut the kid off and divert the conversation with a funny and sincere observation. I said that this conversation was remarkably contemporary. When I was a kid, people were talking about recreational drugs!

The truth is that younger people grew up with a very different perspective on mental health issues than I did. It was hardly a mainstream conversation when I was a kid. Shrinks were still blaming everything on our mothers back in the early 1980's. I walked away from the conversation with a very odd sensation. There was a generation gap operating during the post workshop lunch AND I WAS ON THE WRONG END OF THAT CHASM!!!!! I've never felt that before.

[1] Yours truly had the sense to keep his mouth shut, mostly.

ArtJessa.Blogspot.com

2011-01-31T16:55:00.000-08:00

I have had writer’s block lately. Well, that is not entirely true……I’ve written a ton of vindictive and critical stuff about my….well someone that I have known for a very long time. However, on the counsel of my brilliant and pragmatic wife I have refrained from sending it or posting it publicly. There were some really great lines in my rant too! I will just have to outlive everyone in order to see them in print.

I did try to stray from the theme of what an idiot that person who I was venting about but won’t name publicly because I’m just not that kind of person, but you know who you are and what you did and how STUPID IT WAS!!!!! Sorry…where was I. Oh yeah, when I strayed from my ranting I ended up being preachy and philosophical. Not the worst crimes, but not the kind of story-teller I want to be.

So while I’m trying to figure out the next story that needs telling I’m going to shamelessly promote one of my talented and wonderful nieces. Please check out her artwork at artjessa.blogspot.com

Enjoy!!!!!!

Asking for the water

2011-01-26T16:26:00.000-08:00

My wife and I were talking about my post, “Never get between a woman and her Crazy”. I thought it was one of my better posts. She did not. She summed up her critique by telling the story of an actor and a writer making a sit-com. During the run through the actor killed the audience when he asked for some water. However, during shooting the audience did not respond to the same line.

“What happened?” asked the actor.

“During rehearsal”, the writer began, “you asked for the water, but during shooting you asked for the laugh.”

When my wife read the post, she thought I was asking for the laugh. She has a point. For the last couple of days I have been trying to write humorous and entertaining posts, and failing miserably. Sometimes I try too hard. I was never one of those people who could keep up with the funny going around the dinner table. It almost always ended badly, by which I mean the creation of a cringe moment that tends to haunt me if my mind should accidentally drift towards my childhood.

So why do I continue to go for the funny? Maybe it’s the approval junkie in me. That last post had some truth to it. Part of my own personal “Crazy” is a need for some external validation. Sometimes I can transcend that impulse and accept myself as is (with the notable exception of my recent weight gain). But……on a bad day, I go right for seeking approval. It’s part of my DNA, I’m just built that way.

There is hope for someone like me. I am increasingly aware of when the approval seeking rears it’s ugly head. When I am lucky enough to be conscious of it, I can remind myself that I don’t have to impress anyone. I can let it go, on a good day. On a bad day……not so much.

My point is that being mindful of your motivations is very hard work. Asking for water only when you are thirsty is hard work. I think what my wife was saying, is that my best posts have to do with sharing something of myself rather than seeking the approval of laughter. Which is not to say that I will banish the funny. I just need to let it happen more effortlessly. The human condition is funny enough on it’s own, it doesn’t need my help.

Fear of Flying

2011-01-20T15:56:00.001-08:00

No, I am not talking about Erica Jong’s iconic book, but “Fear of Turbulence” makes a lousy title and “Fear of crashing into the Earth after a 37,000 foot free fall” is too long. I actually haven’t reached cruising altitude yet, so the panic in my voice, figuratively speaking, is genuine and raw. I am hoping that the Bonine Raspberry Flavored Chewable Meclinzine, which “works four hours longer” kicks in soon. Four hours longer than what, I’m not sure? It doesn’t really matter how long it lasts, because it arrived late and I was fully conscious for take off. So I am scared, pissed, and unfortunately conscious. I am weighing the cost of a Scotch induced coma vs. the inevitable migraine I get if I have more than one drink. I think the only thing keeping me from ordering a drink is that it is a 6:00 a.m. flight and the passenger two seats away from me has the distinct look of a social worker fresh out of school. I really don’t want amateur counseling right now (that’s my job!). The truth is, if I talked about the genesis of my fear the young woman two rows down thumbing through the DSM-V (the social workers bible) might just start pouring us both a few shots if Glenn Fidditch.

I was flying out of Naples, Florida about 16 years ago, on my way back to New York. We had barely gotten over the Everglades when the plane dropped vertically for about three seconds. My head hit the ceiling, hard. Even the stewardess screamed. To this day I don’t know what happened because the pilot never came on to explain things or acknowledge that we had just plummeted out of the sky. After the sudden loss of altitude, we hit some hard air and somehow started moving forward rather than downward. Ten minutes after the fall we flew into clouds that seemed to stay with this all the way to LaGaurdia. It was rough going all the way back to New York, big shifts in every direction as we flew through industrial strength turbulence. I think the worst part of it was the limbo of flying threw clouds, with no frame of reference. I’m not sure when I decided I was going to die, but I think it was somewhere over Georgia. In my mind I started saying good-bye. I heard other people crying around me. As I was mentally saying good-bye to the people I loved, my mind wondered to my cat. My mind fastened on to her. She was purring to me and, in cat talk, telling me that it was all okay. That death was not the end. Lady, my cat, could be very convincing when she wanted to be, even in my fear induced fantasies. I found that when I thought of her, I became calm.

When we landed at LaGaurdia the young woman who had been sitting behind me said a very tearful and sincere “thank you” to me. I wasn’t quite sure what she was talking about, it took me a few minutes to put it all together. I had been sitting on an aisle seat and at some point during the flight she had gripped my bicep. She held my arm the entire flight. Back in the early 1990’s it was fashionable among urban Afro-Americans women to wear very ornate fake fingernails. The young woman who sat behind me had drawn blood with her gold leaf and fake diamond studded nails. I never felt a thing, I was deep in my own fear. I hadn’t even realized she had gripped my arm until she let go as the plane pulled up to the gate. It took more than a week for the bruises on my right arm to fade.

Spoon full of Crazy, an Occupational Hazard

2011-01-16T05:05:00.001-08:00

There is no good way to gage just how sane you are. Our internal logic always makes sense to us. You need to ask someone else to be your yardstick if you really want an honest answer[1]. Still, going a little nuts is an occupational hazard if you work in the mental health industry for any significant length of time. The truth is crazy is contagious.

Hang out at the Chicken Bone Saloon in Framingham on any given week night and you will see the seeds of crazy being planted. It’s where the staff of a certain well-known residential program goes to wash off the crazy with beer, whiskey, and blues after work. It is impossible to wash off all the crazy, even with top-shelf whiskey (which none of them can afford because they work in a residential program). Eavesdrop on a few of their conversations. This won’t be difficult as they all have learned to speak with voices that carry into the most reluctant ears. Chances are, if they just got off work, they have not drunk their voices back to normal yet. You’ll hear something like this:

Veteran 1: “Did you see JP go off after lunch today?”

Veteran 2: “No, was it the Granny Nurses again?”

Veteran 1: “Yup, she ended up biting three people then she took a swan dive off the table, aiming for the silverware tray.”

Veteran 2: “ All because of the Granny Nurses? What did they do to piss her off this time?”

Veteran 1: “I think they missed her birthday again, all she could talk about was ‘How those old b**ches couldn’t get anything right’”

Veteran 2: “Well when you have a birthday every two weeks….”

Newby: “Umm, who are the Granny Nurses?”

Veteran 2: (laughing) “We are all Granny Nurses”

Newby: “Huh?”

Veteran 1: “Look, JP has a bunch of old ladies living in her head she calls the Granny Nurses, if she starts twirling her hair and rocking back and forth, take cover- she’s fighting with the Granny Nurses.”

Veteran 2: “That’s when we all become Granny Nurses”

Veteran 1: “The only person who can calm her down when she is mad at the Granny Nurses is the ‘Biggest Fattest Granny Nurse Ever’, BUT…… she but doesn’t work until ‘tomorrow’ ”

Newby: (after doing the mental math and coming up one fat lady short on the staff roster) “I’ll get the next round”

You just can’t spend 40-60 hours a week cleaning up after the Granny Nurses without a stronger astringent than whiskey. By far, the best medicine for insanity is a spoon full of Crazy. No, they are NOT the same thing. After the novelty of drinking wears off, meaning last call at the Chicken Bone, someone inevitably will say, “anyone in the mood for a swim?” Framingham is blessed with a reservoir that is dissected by a train-bridge. If you happen to be driving along Route 9, at say 2:15 a.m., look across the water and you will see the silhouette of naked bodies balanced precariously along the train tracks about 8 feet above the water. They will, allegedly[2], be jumping into the water at the mid-point of said bridge. Okay, that doesn’t sound soooo crazy, but remember most of these kids are rookies. Eventually jumping naked off a bridge into ice-cold water gets boring. That’s when crazy takes a road trip into the foothills of insanity. At this point you are going to need to seek out that reliable person who is your yardstick and ask them for an honest appraisal. Of course, you already know the answer because you had to ask.

If the person you are asking works with you………have a nice trip, we will see you both when you get back.

[1] I’m not sure any of us really want the honest answer, if you do- you’re crazy

[2] Allegedly, because it is not strictly speaking “legal” to do this.

He Started It

2011-01-08T07:01:00.000-08:00

There are some things one never outgrows. For my brothers and me that thing is adolescence. This was fully on display during our New Year’s Day Skype-call between me and my twin [1]. I don’t know who started it (well technically if Mom asks, it was totally his fault-he started it honest), but somehow we ended up comparing bellies. He was making the general point that he has more of a six-pack than I do, even though there are less than two pounds difference between us. Granted his weight is dedicated to muscle, where my weight is more of the blubbery kind. So there we are in front of the cameras with our shirts pulled up arguing about this. He is winning the argument, so I call for reinforcements:

“Hey, J. come here a second!”

Enter my thirteen year old son, who is now traumatized by the sight of identical middle aged men sucking in their stomachs trying to talk without letting their guts spill over their jeans.

“Oh my God, you’re an ape!”

“Yeah, yeah, just tell us who has got the better abs”

“Please, please tell me I’m never going to be that hairy!!!”

"J. just tell Uncle Glenn that your Dad is cut like a rock!"

(full disclosure time, I held out five fingers off camera, indicating how much money such a declaration might earn him [2])

"MOOOOM , the're doing it again!"

There is a reason that my son can’t be bribed. It all started about eight years ago while I was wrestling with J, who was about five years old at the time. Please note that as I tell this story it is very clear WHO STARTED IT (that would be Glenn, in case you miss the subtle nuances of this tale). Uncle Glenn called just as I was doing my best Andre the Giant attacks Super Speed Boy [3] routine. I put my son in a scissor lock so I could talk to my brother. After I explain the situation to Glenn, he asks if he could talk to J. for a second. I hand the phone down to my knee-caps. J. starts to giggle and eagerly agrees with his soon to be favorite Uncle. He hands the phone back to me. I get as far as “Wh” before J. hits me in the groin. Rolling over in agony I could hear in one ear my son triumphantly shouting, “I win, I win, it worked!” The other ear, pressed to the phone, heard a resounding belly laugh from my brother. Thus started an alliance, against me, that can withstand the temptations of a five dollar bribe.

Hey, D., I know you are only five, but if you can read this ask your Dad if you can call Uncle Corey. I have a really fun job for you.

[1] For those of you unfamiliar with Skype, it’s a free video conferencing tool.

[2] As long as we are being that honest, I should disclose that I am about 30 lbs. past a six-pack.
[3] Five year old boys generally stink at making up cool wrestling names.

Rumi and Husam

2011-01-06T19:56:00.000-08:00

I just read something about Rumi, the 13^th century Persian poet and Sufi mystic, and his friend Husam[1]. The story goes that Rumi pulled a piece of paper from his turban and read the first lines of the Mathnawi, which he had written that morning to Husam.

“There must be more”, said Husam.

“If you will write for me, I will continue”, replied Rumi.

Twelve years later Husam had scribed six volumes containing over fifty-one thousand verses of poetry. Husam recalls that, “He [Rumi] never took a pen in his hand while composing the Mathnawi.” I can’t help but wonder at the remarkable sense of humility Husam had achieved. I’m not sure how much Husam is ever mentioned in discussions of the great poet, but I have to wonder if there would have been a Rumi without a Husam? Husam replied to Rumi, “From this moment, I am your servant” after hearing the promise of more poetry to come.

I’d like know Husam a little bit better. Was it love? It had to be. My 21^st century brain wants to know if it was romantic love, but my second thoughts dismiss the question as irrelevant. Did Husam have an intuition that there was twelve years of brilliance hiding in Rumi’s head? Did he recognize his own contribution to the creative process? Without a witness, without a scribe, I don’t believe Rumi could have produced the body of work that he did. His words would have been the proverbial tree falling in the woods. Husam reminds me of how different people draw out different aspects of us. What was it about this seemingly humble man that liberated the master to delve so deep into thought? Did Husam care for Rumi, feed him, cook, and clean , and serve?

I think the Husam’s of this world go uncelebrated, and perhaps they prefer it that way. They are, after all, a modest and humble group. But, they make the world work. They make room for the genius to happen. They make the container that can hold the creation, which would otherwise spill onto the floor and be lost. I have no doubt that the world would be a better place if there were more Husams in it and less aspiring Rumis.

[1] The Longing: Poetry, Teachings, Stories, and Letters of Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks and John Moyne

Mig’s Dream

2011-01-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

A few days after Herb's death, Mig dreamt about her father. She was sitting on the beach in front of her home in St. Criox when she saw the old man walking towards her. He was surrounded by dogs. This was not all that unusual. Herb was always a man who preferred the company of dogs over most people. He was a man who carried dog treats in his pockets, just in case.

It was no surprise that he would gather a crowd of Carribean beach mutts as he walked. Even in a dream, dogs meant the world to Grandpa Herb.

“Dad, Mom’s going to kill you when she sees all of these dogs”

Then Mig remembered, her father was gone. She looked closer at the dogs and began to recognize them.

“Dad, what’s going on?”

“They all came back to me. Each and everyone. Every dog I ever owned.” He paused, tossing a treat to the closest open mouth. Laughing he said to Mig,

“I’m going to keep walking, I’ll see you later.”

He walked away in the middle of the pack, cigar smoke trailing behind him.

-----------------------

Grandpa and I never really understood each other. Not the way my other brothers knew the man. While he held court in his little sitting room, smoking cigars and watching golf with my brothers, I was in the kitchen listening to Grandma talk politics and learning how to drink strong coffee.

But dogs…..he and I always had a way with dogs. We understood that part of each other, the part that could speak dog. It was our wordless bond. Some people have Bar Mitzvahs. My rite of passage into adulthood was when Gramps asked me to take care of Jo-Jo, an ornery mutt with the body of an over-fed Corgy and the face of a mustached Terrier. It was the highest compliment he ever gave me.

The dream is likely an invention, but I’ll keep it. It is how I choose to remember Gramps.

Never get between a woman and her crazy

2010-12-30T12:00:00.000-08:00

“You’re doing it again!”

“What?”

“You’re getting between a woman and her crazy”

My wife and I just finished reading Men are Stupid, Women are Crazy, by Howard J. Morris and Jenny Lee. While I didn’t love the book, pieces of it have seeped into our daily conversation. Especially their prudent advice, “Never get between a woman and her crazy.” It has taken the edge off a lot of very stupid arguments when she reminds me that this is just her crazy talking. At which point I back slowly out of the room and let her and her crazy go a couple of rounds with each other.

I’m smart enough not to air out any of my wife’s crazy in public. But….I might just be stupid enough to publicly take a look at my own crazy for your entertainment. The problem with my crazy, and perhaps male crazy in general, is that I can’t see my own crazy unless I’m right in it. My wife, on the other hand, can see her crazy quite clearly. She has even seemed to make friends with it and invites it over for a drink now and then. She is the master of her crazy. Me……..not so much.

In retrospect, I should have understood that men are blind to their own crazy for a perfectly good reason; we can’t handle our Crazy. Call it brave, call it stupid, I call it brave and stupid, but I asked my wife if she could tell me a little bit about my own “Crazy”.

Here it is in order of magnitude:

Crazy #1. I’m an approval junkie.

“What’s so bad about that?”

“Well”, she said as she put on the kid gloves, “when someone asks you to pick them up at the New London Ferry, which is a four hour round trip, and your back is hurting, you take a bunch of Advil and spend the rest of the week crawling on all fours.”

“But…”

“and even if you get the approval you wanted, you resent needing it and it’s never really is enough, the approval lift you get for even the most outrageous acts of service you do has a shelf life of about twenty minutes!”

“Umm, where did your kid gloves go?”

“Honey, those WERE MY KID GLOVES!”

Crazy #2 The Clean Crazy

“Okay, I get it. What else?”

“I’m not sure where it comes from but every three months or so you notice the place is a mess and you go crazy”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean Industrial Strength Crazy”

“But……”

“It doesn’t really bother us, we just let you vent and have a good laugh at you afterwords, except for Tweedle One- it really gets too her”

“Ouch”

“The funny thing is, you don’t do it all the time. Most of the time you are as bad as the kids about leaving your stuff lying around…..but once every three months or so things go Boom and you need to yell and clean. I should probably piss you off more often, I’d have a pretty clean house”

“You know what….let’s skip number 3”

“Oh, but the next one is so cute, you know when you…….”

You can't know sky

2010-12-28T07:23:00.000-08:00

“If you’re not from the prairie you don’t know sky,

You can’t know the sky.”- David Bouchard[1]

It’s hard work knowing what you don’t know. Harder still, knowing what you can’t know. Let’s face it, most of the human experience falls into the category of things you can’t know. If you are a man reading this, just imagine trying to talk intelligently about the experience of childbirth. You don’t have to take too many steps down that road to see that you are lost. Humbling business, isn’t it? Perhaps there is something beautiful there as well. That’s why I fell so hard for David Bouchard’s Poem, “If You’re Not From the Prairie”[2]. It reminded me of what I do not and cannot know. When I’m aware of my assumption of knowing, I can remind myself to ask and listen. Life is easier when you ask and listen[3].

So many of my “cringe” moments are all about the assumption of knowing. When I was younger I just could not see what I didn’t know. One thing I really did not know is what information other people held (at least until I learned to ask). I was so eager to show people what I knew, without much consideration of whom I was talking to. As a young man, I spent a lot of time either telling people things that they already knew quite well or telling them things that they knew where just plain old wrong. Cringe! I wish I could say that I have transcended my youthful arrogance……ummmmm, not so much. I still have to work very hard at curbing that impulse.

I should have more to say about this, it seems like it should lead into something more profound than, “Hey, Corey, shut up and listen for a change”, but that about sums it up. Again, it’s hard work- my people are talkers.

[1] A line from the poem “If you’re not from the prairie”.

[2] I could not find a link to the text alone, but here is a saccharine flavored rendition set to music. I hate it, but turn the sound off and just read the text: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMC6BA8RRIg

[3] Of course now I feel like a hypocrite, blogging is the antithesis of what I’m talking about!

Mr. Ponce’s Story

2010-12-20T19:37:00.001-08:00

Ponce arrived in New York City in 1954 speaking no English other than baseball jargon. To this day he can still name the Yankee’s line up from that year; baseball was his religion. In his mid-seventies, Ponce still looks like a ball player cut from the same cloth as Big Pappi. In the late 1950’s Ponce was playing on a traveling team based outside of Charlotte. The pitcher was a young man who had followed him from Cuba. The two of them roomed in the home of a retired schoolteacher. Ms. Finley was a force of nature. She was the daughter of sharecroppers and the only literate person in her family. She was on a mission to stamp out illiteracy one baseball player at a time. The price for living in her home, beyond a nominal rent, was that you had to learn to speak, read, and write English to her satisfaction. It’s amazing how quickly two young men can learn a language under the threat of eviction. This threat was even more poignant given their new found affection for Southern cuisine. In Ponce’s own words, “Hmmmm, Corey. I tell you (dramatic pause), that woman could COOK!”. Ponce learned English to Ms. Finley’s satisfaction.

Understanding English in the deep South may have been a doubled edged sword. It was always clear that whites were insulting them, but taunts in an unfamiliar language are easy too ignore. As their English improved Ponce and the pitcher became increasingly aware of what the white men were saying. One day outside of Atlanta Ponce's fear turned to anger as he silenced a man who followed him into a bar spitting hate. It was just one punch. In less than twenty minutes the two ballplayers were running for their lives. The mob had formed, and as Ponce described it, it was a well-rehearsed play. This was not the first time young men had run for their lives in this part of the world. His memory of the chase is hazy. He remembers running. He remembers his friend pulling him into the woods. He remembers the long hot wait until nearly dawn. The pitcher had saved Ponce’s life. The next day, the pitcher left. “America”, he said, “is no place for a black man”.

Ponce moved back to New York and later to Boston. He runs a community center and teaches kids to play baseball. On May 3, 1999, Mr. Ponce turned on the television to watch the Baltimore Orioles play the Cuban All-Stars in an exhibition game. Some time during the sixth inning one of the Cuban pitching coaches noticed the television camera on him. He held out a handmade sign that read “Lazaro Ponce is my friend”. The Baltimore Orioles lost the game 12-6

_________________________________________________

Ponce, Thank you for all of your stories!!!!!!!

Heroes

2010-12-19T04:42:00.000-08:00

Last week I set up a six-foot tall basketball net for two of my third graders. Six feet seems to be that magical height between a “real” dunk and a pretend dunk when you are 48 inches tall. It’s funny, without any prompting, every time I have set up this hoop in the last nine years, the first thing my students do before trying to dunk is figure out who they want to “be” (this was a much simpler decision when Michael Jordan was playing).

This is serious business and there is a lot of heat in these discussions[1][2]. Eventually my students settle on characters that seem to best fit their own temperaments and for a brief moment in time they transform into the tattooed aerial artist that reside in the NBA.

Choosing someone to emulate is a very natural piece of being a child. They do it intrinsically in their play. In my classroom I have tried to build upon this and shape it into a life skill. We spend a lot of time thinking about how to chose role models in a unit I call “Heroes”. As is so often the case, what we teach children is a powerful analog for what we, as adults, should keep practicing. We are never too old to learn from the masters (even if the masters are eight years old). So this week I have given myself an assignment; look around, listen carefully, see if there are people out there that I might want to emulate. Turns out heroes are everywhere - even snoring softly next to you as you toss and turn and agonize about the future and the impending financial doom that lurks around the next billing cycle.

[1] This year, with so many great Celtics to chose from, it rarely comes to blows, but I do feel sorry for those kids in New York fighting over the one ray of light in an otherwise dismal line up.

[1] Did I mention that I am a Celtics fan, living in Cambridge, MA and that the rest of my family are New Yorkers :-p

Nicknames

2010-12-15T05:03:00.000-08:00

I love nicknames. More specifically I love the genesis of nicknames. Over the years I have collected a number of them, some earned, others…..not so much. For example, one day it occurred to my brother, who is three minutes older than I am, that people generally try to have one child at a time. He followed this train of thought all the way to a new nickname for me, “The Accident”.

For reasons too painful to elaborate upon I am rightfully known as the “jinx” by a certain cohort of Giants fans. I remain in exile from all post-season events and have actually taken a vow of silence on all issues relating to professional football, baseball, and their affiliates.

I have received more endearing names from the children in my life. In my best friend’s home I am known as “Corduroy”. When his son was about three, he confused my name with his favorite bear and it stuck. I’m thinking of legally changing my name to Corduroy.

Many years ago I worked in a residential school with a fascinating student. He was an extremely violent teenager who also happened to be deaf. His psychologist described him as feral. He was able to learn sign language and use a picture exchange book to communicate. One day, in my broken sign language, I asked him if he new what my name was. I had been working closely with him for a few years at that point. He looked at me thoughtfully and signed “popcorn”. Maybe he was just hungry, but the name followed me until I left that agency.

I remember giving names to people when I was a child. Michael and David Hamberger were respectively known as “Big Soup” and “Little Soup”, because you couldn’t call someone a hamburger- that’s just stupid. Besides, “Soup” was already taken by Jason Campbell. My older brothers somehow earned the names “Bubba” and “Baby Bubba”, but I have no idea how that evolved. It must have been quite a story because very few eight year olds could wear a name like “Bubba” and have it fit.

The tradition has continued into the next generation. We call my oldest daughter “Squirt” and my son “Doc”. The twins are respectively “Thing 1” and “Thing 2”. All well-earned names.

I think my favorite name is the one my oldest daughter has given me, “Oh Poppa”. The “Oh” has somehow become part of it, as in “Oh Poppa, why are you being so silly”. “Oh Poppa” has such an affectionate ring to it. It makes me feel like a bear whose porridge is to hot and bed is too soft.

Don’t be a Fish

2010-12-11T06:00:00.000-08:00

It’s good advice on a lot of levels. Fish stories have been popping up everywhere I turn these days. Rather, “don’t be a fish” stories. Not that any of us aspire to be fish.

Until a few weeks ago, I wasn’t really worried too much about how much I might emulate a fish. Then two stories came to me within days of each other.

#1 Swimming in Circles

Micheal Meade tells an old but poignant story in his workshop “The Soul of Change” about a woman who buys a goldfish. After a few weeks she notices that the fish bowl needs to be cleaned. She does not own another bowl so she fills her bathtub with clean water to keep her new pet happy while she washes the small fish-bowl. She puts the goldfish in the tub and goes off to wash the bowl. When she comes back she notices something extraordinary. The goldfish continues to swim in circles the same size as the bowl despite the new possibilities the large tub offers.

#2 Don’t be a fish

A few days before I heard Swimming in Circles I taught a lesson that I had developed for a 3^rd grade classroom. Note to self; never under estimate the wisdom of 3^rd graders!

How to begin? Let’s start with Stop,Think and Act. Our school has a prescription when it comes to dealing with conflicts that children get into. It’s a three-step procedure for when someone cuts you in line or calls you a name (NOT APPLICABLE to insults involving Mamas). Imagine “stop-drop-and roll” for dealing with the Cooties[1]. We coach kids to STOP-THINK-and ACT. I started the lesson with a discussion about the “THINK” part.

What does it mean to think? What are you supposed to do when “THINKING”? 3^rd graders are a very literal group, so you have to explain these kinds of things. We decided that “THINKING” is the stuff you say to yourself, an internal dialogue that we called “self-talk”. We began to make up and practice some things to say to ourselves that might help during those moments of inevitable discord. We posted index cards with sayings and drawings of “self-talk” on the front board. Most were very practical, if not original. Then there was C’s card. I read it aloud to the class: “Don’t be a stupid fish”. I love this kid, he is completely sincere in everything he does.

ME- This sounds interesting, could you tell us more about your self-talk?

C- Well, my big brother is always teasing me. He never stops!!! I get sooooo mad at him. Then I get in trouble because I lose my temper. My mom says I’m just taking the bait…

ME- I see, don’t be a fish means don’t take the bait.

C- Don’t be a STUPID fish, it’s okay to be a smart fish, they don’t take the bait.

There you have it. The very best career advice I have received this month:

1. Stop swimming in circles

2. Don’t take the bait

In short “Don’t be a STUPID fish”.

[1] The Cooties have mutated into the “Cheese Touch” and has gone viral in our school thanks to Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

For Grandma

2010-12-07T18:38:00.000-08:00

My niece made the mistake of friending[1] me on Facebook. It’s a funny story. About two years ago I tried to friend her, but she told me that she had a strict policy of not friending relatives. I respected that until I received a friend request from a distant relative whom I had never met in person. After confirming this middle aged Jewish man living somewhere in Florida was actually a cousin, I checked who was on his friend list before accepting his invitation. Sure enough, there was my sixteen-year-old niece. Hmmmm……..So that’s what time it is! I gave her a good ribbing, but let it go.

Fortunately a year later she tried to friend me, to which of course I answered that I have a strict policy of not accepting friendship invitations from self-absorbed teenage nieces. Okay, I wasn’t that mean but I did consider reporting her as a stalker. It was payback time after all. But accepting her friendship was the gift that kept on giving. She keeps on posting teen-angsty comments, practically begging for snarky comments. Take yesterday for example:

Niece’s Status: “There is a thing, formless yet complete”

My comment: “Yeah I think I drank a 5th of that last night - it was yummy”

I’m faced with a dilemma, she posted the following status today: “Treat everything you perceive as a dream”.

Must……not…….make………fun………of………niece……….ARRGGGGGG

Please, I’m open to suggestions.

[1] I don’t know when this became a bona fide verb, but it is so I’m using it. For you grammatical purest (yes Dad that means you) considered yourself “poned”.

Selling Yellow Snow

2010-12-04T06:00:00.000-08:00

My father and I used to have a phrase that let each other know that our bullshit detectors were working quite well, thank you very much. Actually, it was his phrase and, like all challenging children, I used his words against him at every opportunity. For a few short years choruses of “Steinman, you’re selling yellow snow” signaled to both of us that one of us had started to believe our own press releases. I’m not sure who was more dogmatic, but there was certainly a lot of yellow snow selling cheap on both sides of the hydrant.

It turns out that we were not the only ones in the business.

Today I tried to find out if there were others like me blogging their way through a manufactured crisis. I thought a quick internet search would lead me to my tribe. How hard could it be to find a bunch of disillusioned 40 somethings self-indulgent enough to bare their souls in public?

I typed “Life after teaching Blogs” into my search engine and came up with 20 odd come-ons for at home businesses. The gist of this seemed to be that one could get rich by convincing others that they could get rich by convincing others……. Yellow snow, with a side of desperation. At least I wasn’t redirected to a porn site.

After slogging through the swamp of get rich schemes, I arrived at the ghetto of irritatingly peppy life-coaches. I’m sure these well-intentioned folks have helped some people, but I couldn’t stomach the fluff and what felt like frivolous and artificial encouragements. I came across marketing schemes that struck me as over zealous such as “Wish Craft” and the more seductive “Passion Catalyst”[1]. I’m not making this up- this is a real training package to get your career going, although I don’t recommend typing this into your search engine while your wife and three daughters are in the room.

Can anyone out there point to a good resource, with practical information on what options teachers have beyond the classroom?

[1] With apologies to Barbara Sher and Curt Rosengren, whom I’m sure are wonderful and creative people- who have undoubtedly helped their clientele.

Following your Bliss

2010-12-01T16:03:00.000-08:00

“What do you want to do?”

Besides the sense of doom I get when I think about our finances, nothing feels more suffocating than this question. I don’t have an answer. I have escape fantasies. Most men with a pulse do. But deep down, there is nothing that is calling my name. The phrase “follow your bliss” keeps creeping up into well meaning conversations and it’s starting to piss me off. It is beginning to sound a little too much like “happily ever after” for my taste.

Still, I am an optimist. So for a moment I want to believe that there is a job out there that is aligned with both my talents and idiosyncrasies. How do I find out what that is? Every time I take a personality test that promises to find what color my parachute is - the result is always the same: have you ever considered a career in teaching?

I’m not entirely giving up on teaching. I was a good teacher once. Teaching used to be such a soulful job for me. But… I don’t like what I have become as a teacher. Over the last few years I became the school disciplinarian. It’s a role that I was unfortunately good at. It used to mean working through some tough emotions with kids or helping them gain perspective on difficult situations. But something has shifted in my community. Discipline has turned into a public stoning- good teachers want to see rules enforced and consequences dished out without the nuanced responses that seemed to characterize our staff in the past. All for the sake of clarity and consistency. I’m not knocking clarity and consistency. I just think that they live awfully close to expediency and righteousness.

The catch is, I might be the worst offender.

Why “The Chalk”

2010-11-29T06:00:00.000-08:00

The Chalk is a nod to my favorite author, Terry Pratchet. The Chalk is a little corner of Discworld were sheep graze and a young witch named Tiffany Aching comes of age. A great deal of common sense and wisdom resides in those fictional hills. Tiffany has what Terry Pratchet calls second thoughts, and even third thoughts. That is to say, she thinks about the way she is thinking, and, on a good day, thinks about the way she thinks about thinking. This freight train of thought sometimes leads her to the conclusion that the best solution to her problems is whacking them with a cast iron frying pan. More often than not, however, she finds a way to insert a little bit of compassion and common sense into her tiny world.

I hope “The Chalk”, the one that you are reading right now, evolves into a place where I can insert a little common sense and compassion into my tiny world. It’s where I’m going to place my second and third thoughts about the cliff that I just jumped off. It might end with a resounding (and squishy) thud as June comes around and I find myself still chasing my tail. I hope it doesn’t.

Welcome to my Free Fall

2010-11-28T07:15:00.000-08:00

I just read that when astronauts in low orbit experience zero gravity, they are not so much floating as free falling[1]. The trick is to miss the Earth on your way down.

Two weeks ago I wrote a letter of resignation effective at the end of June. For the last fifteen years I have been teaching emotionally disabled students. Twelve of those years I have been running a small program in a suburb of Boston. It’s time for me to leave.

I don’t have a plan, I don’t have financial resources, I have four children, and have been living with my wife for twenty-one years. I have until the end of June, seven months, to create a new livelihood and find a new direction.

Welcome to my free fall.

[1] Mary Roach, Packing for Mars