My Son's Diction Lines

Bridging the Great Divide

Inanities

Noob - Slang for the slang newbie, meaning: clueless.
(Further slangified to Nub, just to keep me qualifying.)


Try-harding - video-game speak for trying hard. Putting one's heart and soul into something. Usually intoned with awe, as when someone is holed up in a building lobby, ambushed by enemy forces and he's giving them all he's got. Superseded in nobility only by...


Martyrdom - video-game speak for running out of the building lobby into the enemy ambush, and letting them give you all they've got...so your friends can escape.

Fail! - Exclaimed in response to an unsuccessful attempt of any kind. Used to express frustration or glee, depending on the situation. 

I'm bored! - This can happen without warning at any time.There's no explaining it.


Profanities
 
"My G*d, I'm Lagging!" - Son is experiencing slow Internet connection due to mother's blogging or father's Internet bill-paying. Parents are encouraged to wrap up their activities promptly and clear the lanes of the superhighway. 

"My teacher is so sexist!"... "The girls get to do whatever they want!"
- Son says the word 'sexist' and pauses to take my temperature. Delivers the next sentence, if necessary - so he can turn this into a vocabulary lesson.

Tight mad - Pissed off


Banalities 

Mad hot - Cool. 
However, when I say it, I get the look. 
Apparently, this expression has been passé since the release of the documentary 'Mad Hot Ballroom'.


Subtleties

GOML - Get on my level.  
This acronym is usually transmitted to an outmatched opponent during a video game, and means simply - you're a loser.

Peculiarities 

No-No Square - Off-limits area of one's anatomy.
(Sometimes delivered with a gesture delineating said territory.)




Profundities:

"When you have correction tape, you make more mistakes."

True Grit

During Oscar season, I try to watch as many nominated movies as possible. Or rather, I try to watch as few movies as possible after analyzing the nominations and the reviews. Last year I managed to watch nine of the ten movies nominated for Best Picture, missing only 'A Serious Man'.  Last night I watched True Grit, which looks to be one of this year's nominees. The reviews had been mixed, and there was a lot of dialogue at the start. I must have dozed off, awaking in time to see the heroine Mattie get bitten by a rattlesnake while suspended upside down against the sloping wall of a dry shaft. What followed was the most gripping movie sequence I've seen in a long time.

Not the criss-cross cutting of the wound site and the sucking out of the venom, not the shooting at the rattlesnakes in the dark, not the hauling her out of the shaft. None of that.

It was the ride to save her life. Rooster Cogburn pulls her up onto the back of his horse and they both ride through the blinding desert sun into the velvet starry evening, into her sweat and delirium, through the horse's laboring and collapse, through her screams at the horse's death which Rooster delivers with a gunshot - and finally, with her in his arms - running, then stumbling, he out of breath and she barely breathing, collapsing in a heap some distance from a house, the occupants of which he alerts with a single shot in the air. 

This year's Oscar nominations will be announced on January 25th.

Equanimity, anyone?

Since I've been working more with the idea (and actual practice) of living in the moment and releasing attachments where possible, it's become clear that all people, events and things do not lend themselves equally well to this exercise. That's no surprise really, but what is interesting is the new spin this has put on my perception of time. Generally, before something is 'in the past' for me, there must have been some sort of internal resolution which allows my great friend indifference to arise. Once indifference arises, release is not far behind. In the meantime, that thing, person, issue or event is quite present for me.


So, the clock and calendar alone don't do the trick. They just let me measure how long the past is sticking for any particular burning issue. Example: "I've been stinging over this betrayal for the last 6 months..."
That's not all that time does - it also presents me with abundant opportunities to start over, though I can't always avail myself of them. I'm learning that the key to keeping the carpet of time moving forward is to not turn it into a treadmill. And the key to not creating mental and emotional treadmills is - well, if I knew that...


Take shopping for instance. I like to shop. Less so now, but generally, I like shopping for clothing, shoes, handbags. Over the years (of necessity) I've developed a strategy or two for leaving merchandise on the shelf.


Strategy 1: Buy it!
The theory is, the item will get 'old' (hopefully in a day or two), I won't want it and I'll return it.  But in practice - once those tags stay on, even though its in my closet, I still relate to it like a purchase not yet made. I look at it and walk away still 'undecided' until the next thing I know, the 30-day return window has expired and I'm left (literally)  holding the bag. To counter the fiscal irresponsibility of Strategy 1, there is...


Strategy 2: Visit the item at the store.
I tried this a few times. I would fall in love with something, but leave without purchasing it. Over the course of the next few days or weeks, I'd go back to see the item in the store. I wanted to see
a) if it was still there
b) if it went on sale
c) if I still wanted it (i.e, if it had grown 'old' in the interim), failing that -
d) if I could detect a fatal flaw in it, and ultimately -
e) if I could leave it again


I think I was trying to achieve a certain indifference. Bottom line, I wanted to get tired of the item, become indifferent to it, and move on. Sometimes it would work, but sometimes I would become more attached to the item through these encounters.


Of course, there is Strategy 3: Don't go shopping.
This works 100% of the time... if I didn't want to go shopping in the first place!


Strategy 4: Buy it, take it home, use it, get tired of it... on the inside.
We know this is what happens in actual life. I could call this 'seeing the end from the beginning'. It's a great mental exercise, but I'm not always able to get to step 4. Sometimes I go off message and get stuck in a loop between steps 1 & 2. Loop, of course, is just another word for treadmill - and often I just buy the darned thing so I can get off it!


Once in a great while, I would enter a store, browse and leave with no more angst than if I'd just walked through a park. I started to notice that if I was feeling good and generally satisfied with my humanity (flaws included), I could walk away from most things most of the time. Really walk away. Meaning, I don't go sit in the car and call up its beautiful texture and color (treadmill!).
The truth is, when I enter any arena feeling a deficit of any sort, I'm shopping. Don't shop when you're hungry is good advice that extrapolates well into almost any circumstance. It just means - try to be as balanced as possible when putting yourself in a situation where you'll have to make a decision.
I also find it helpful to call up another pith admonition: See the glass as half full rather than half empty. If I work this right, I can ascribe abundance to many conditions by executive decision. By advancing acceptance, which I'll call an 'enriched indifference', this attitude also keeps time moving forward, and me (mercifully unstuck) along with it.

Snow Day

Today I shoveled snow. Lots of it. The New York City Department of Sanitation, not wanting a failing grade for their handling of this storm, mounted a blitz that was bound to put a wry smile on the face of every snow-shagged New Yorker. The snow had barely fallen last night (not even an inch), when the plows passed on my street - twice! As the night wore on, we would hear them enough times to lose count... and interest.

This morning, the snow was light and powdery and so brilliantly white that it gave me pause. I shoveled the sidewalk, the front steps, along the side of the house and made a path through the backyard to the basement steps. When I was done, I was dripping wet under several layers of clothing, but it felt so good that after a rest I went back outside and shoveled my neighbors sidewalk and driveway as well. This is my eighty year old neighbor on the right. I shoveled and she salted - it was almost like gardening: one person turning the earth and the other seeding it. It was good to get the job done, but I couldn't get over just how good it was to sweat! And to kick off everything and relax afterward...
To that end, here's a snow poem.

Snow Day

by Billy Collins

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,   

its white flag waving over everything,

the landscape vanished,

not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,   

and beyond these windows

the government buildings smothered,

schools and libraries buried, the post office lost   

under the noiseless drift,

the paths of trains softly blocked,

the world fallen under this falling.

In a while, I will put on some boots

and step out like someone walking in water,   

and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,   

and I will shake a laden branch

sending a cold shower down on us both.

But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,   

a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.   

I will make a pot of tea

and listen to the plastic radio on the counter,   

as glad as anyone to hear the news

that the Kiddie Corner School is closed,   

the Ding-Dong School, closed.

the All Aboard Children’s School, closed,   

the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed,

along with—some will be delighted to hear—

the Toadstool School, the Little School,

Little Sparrows Nursery School,

Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School   

the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed,

and—clap your hands—the Peanuts Play School.

So this is where the children hide all day,

These are the nests where they letter and draw,   

where they put on their bright miniature jackets,   

all darting and climbing and sliding,

all but the few girls whispering by the fence.

And now I am listening hard

in the grandiose silence of the snow,

trying to hear what those three girls are plotting,   

what riot is afoot,

which small queen is about to be brought down.

Also, check out Billy Collins on the You Tube Video Bar -  see the animated poem 'Forgetfulness'...and don't miss the delightful video of the 3 year old reciting 'Litany'!
(Pause the music play list first)

A good place to start

St. Blase

My son is preparing for the Sacrament of Confirmation - having already received the Sacraments of Baptism, First Holy Communion, and periodic doses of Confession. He doesn't get why he should be confirmed. 
"Question." he alerts me, "Is this only so that I can have a Catholic marriage?" "Father So-And-So says that we can't be married in church if we are not confirmed." How irrelevant that prize must seem to him at this point.

"Why are you in the process of being confirmed?" I pause, not having even a semi-vehement answer for him. "We are Catholic, therefore you are Catholic..." I start rather weakly, wishing I could conjure Topol's Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof to sing: "TRADITION, TRADITION!"


Children are baptized into the church usually between 3-6 months of age. At age seven, they are invited into the community with their first breaking of bread - First Holy Communion. At age twelve, they are asked to confirm the choices which their parents made for them at Baptism. This is the last the church will see of many young adults until it's time for them to get married, hence Father So-And-So's admonition.


I have received the sacraments as well, but much of what I would consider my vital spiritual growth has taken place outside of the Catholic Church. During one such period I was a student of 'A Course in Miracles'. That teaching can be described as 'spiritual psychotherapy', and was received by a psychologist named Helen Schucman. Its mysterious origin aside, it is a brilliant and powerful thought system which notably re-interprets the concept of sin.
I then explored yoga with a Taoist bent for another 6 or so years. This practice attempts to unify body, mind, spirit through the study of energy principles. I experienced a great sense of well-being with this training as long as I didn't become too goal-oriented. In between these was my exploration of Buddhist teachings through the books of Pema Chodron, Shunryu Suzuki and Chogyam Trungpa. I've come to think of these forays as essential springboards over specific hurdles, and segments of a larger arc of travel.

 My son has chosen Saint Blase (St. Blaise, St. Blaize) as his patron saint, and will also carry his name. St. Blase lived in what is now Turkey. He was martyred in 316, his flesh ripped from his body with a fleece comb, which is like a mini rake. Talk about a thousand ways to die - Saint Lawrence was roasted alive on a gridiron during Valerian's persecution, and is said to have remarked "This side is done, turn me over and have a bite." (He's the patron saint of butchers...and comedians).
Very little else is known about Blase except that he was a physician before he became a priest. He is known as the patron saint of the throat because, as the story goes, he healed a child of a throat ailment. In some versions of the story, it's a fishbone which he removes by miraculous means.  He is also the patron saint of wool spinners because of the fleece comb incident. 


I don't think it's time to tell my son about the challenges of belief, the imperfection of all man-made institutions, and the likely need to learn of things outside his 'birth faith'. He is going to church to gain a foundation, a framework for exploration; to learn the habits of prayer and reflection; to listen and to question. I think it is a good place to start.

Subtraction, for a change

Happy New Year. The most welcome sight in New York City for 2011 is...the pavement!

The streets of New York are finally plowed for the most part, although a trip to Brooklyn yesterday was less than reassuring. It's been a bit surreal, the clean-up response to this blizzard of 2010. So silent, so outrageously hypo-existent, and though the worst most of us experienced was some irritation at being snowed in and house-bound, we are learning of the tragedies which resulted from, or were compounded by the paralysis of the New York City Department of Sanitation.

For the past few days the warmer temperature has helped the melt along. Soon we will have no snow left

and the anger and frustration will seem a little misplaced for those of us who suffered no lasting consequences.

But for those who lost babies and elderly family members because help couldn't get to them, had car accidents, slipped, fell, broke a bone - how odd, how outrageous it will be to have the snow gone.

Today I saw a snippet of a CNN interview of Michael J. Fox by Dr.Sanjay Gupta. Every time I see Michael J. Fox, which isn't very often, I am struck by how long he has struggled with Parkinson's, but more so by the way he inhabits the disease, which he describes as 'the gift that keeps on taking'. The less he's left with, the more he's determined to make of it. After watching the segment, I went to the kitchen and boxed up one of the two sets of dishes that I use. It seemed like the thing to do.

This past year is surely one whose dust I shall gladly shake from my feet. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, but using my (very) newly adopted policy of "done task, don't dwell", I've been trying to throw things over my shoulder with a pinch more fastidiousness than Lot's wife (who just had to look back, and was turned into a pillar of salt for her trouble).

It is refreshing and liberating to simply keep moving forward no matter what happens. It might not actually be possible at every moment - but there's something to be said for making the effort. The metaphysical among us would argue that if you don't think of something, it doesn't exist for you, but what about that darned snow which soon won't exist, but which many people will remember in large part because of the losses it inflicted? Letting go can involve a double negative, or two.

Photo: Me, not skiing - Calicoon, N.Y.