tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363582362024-03-13T04:24:37.877-07:00Life In Rest And MotionArthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.comBlogger129125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-84167266851589637412022-10-31T11:31:00.001-07:002022-10-31T11:31:10.708-07:00There and Back Again<p>Because of the Rings of Power, we listened to the Hobbit audiobook. I am fortunate that my sons are in that brief moment of wonder when they can speak their dreams, and hobgoblins are real and not part of Emerson’s foolish consistency. My sons love the silly details of the story, the dwarves washing dishes, and the songs of Trolls about how to best season a hobbit. </p><p>It was great to head back to the original text since the Industry now makes shows deep on footnotes. Marvel, Star Wars, and Game of Thrones have run out of their major characters and plots and are left with what feels like stray parts written on napkins.</p><p>We need more songs.</p><p>What is also great about the Hobbit is that the main character is a reluctant fifty-year-old with unused skills. This isn’t the X-Men with mutant teenagers nor Harry Potter with self absorb tweens. Rather this is about a guy who worries about the buttons on his coat or whether it is tea time. </p><p>Our fifties can still be times of adventure, even if it feels like the buttons are tighter.</p><p>The difference is that we have already made it through the prologue. We have the wisdom of stories past, and while the demons ahead are new, the courage we face them with is tested.</p><p>After the Hobbit, David wants to read the Fellowship of the Ring himself. He is half the size of the ideal reader, and I tried to explain to him that one does not simply wander into Tolkien. But this is the journey he wants to start, the burden he wants to carry.</p><p>There is a long road ahead of him before he gets to his fifties. He will make his own songs. </p>Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-35004852739395703942022-09-22T12:22:00.006-07:002022-09-22T12:22:44.652-07:00Metamorphosis<p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">The World Cup is imminent, and the planet dreams. Without the certainty of actual results, the imagination can hope that this is the year that balls bounce off of the post the right way, that the crosses are clean, that goaltenders are walls, and that refs can see Argentine handballs. Hope is alive.</span></p><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br />Once these men were boys and they must have dreamed as well. Certainly, they wouldn’t be here without all the work, the sprained ankles, the play in the rain, the camps, and the coaches; but they also needed the belief that it could happen, that they could wear the jersey. And more than likely their families dreamt that too.<br /><br />My oldest son refused soccer, and so it was up to my David to try. He is an awkward child, the kind that is a little too much into Stephen King. He tips over when he runs, yet he runs slower than everybody else. He has a distinct lack of awareness that leads to wrong shoes on the wrong feet and shirts worn backwards.<br /><br />I still had hopes for soccer, because the beauty of the sport is that it is a great place to hide. Soccer is the sport of the subjunctive, where things almost happen. You are almost on sides, you almost make the right pass. At the highest level, teams spend most of their time almost scoring until it seems, one accidentally does.<br /><br />Unlike baseball where you can’t escape the batters box or the mound, or basketball where you actually have to catch and dribble, in soccer you can survive by just pretending that you are well-intentioned. Run around, be kind to your opponents, and tell jokes on the sidelines is a great way to go through life. On good days you might get orange slices.<br /><br />David’s team was fine with him out there, which is the luxury of being particularly good. The school has an athletic narrative to it. At last year's graduation, speech after speech talked about their victories over Town School, a place equally obsessed. It isn’t that I think they shouldn’t celebrate their victories, life is short enough that you should celebrate every one you can. It is that I hoped that graduation would have higher themes like social justice, or surviving a pandemic. But the truth is that pandemics feel random and there is less nobility in making it through than in the world of sports where winners are deserving of hard work even if they don’t want to admit to the chance of bouncing balls.<br /><br />David’s team was well beyond luck. It was a shock for me to see this group that when I previously watch them they were either hitting themselves with sticks or rummaging through Pokemon cards, turned into a German machine. They were suddenly taller and blonder than their opponents. The baby fat was gone, and they had lean muscles of gazelles or cheetahs depending upon the position. They crushed the first team so badly they had to take a couple of boys off the pitch, and with David out there it was if they were three down. Still they scored. They were faster and could see angles that the other kids couldn’t.<br /><br />David sees a different kind of angle. As part of his speech therapy, he gets homework, and occasionally I test him on other subjects. Right now he is crushing fractions which is something his older brother hasn’t even started. In reading his decoding skills are also above grade level. He completely decoded the word “metamorphosis” on his own. He is a Messi around phonemes, except there aren't the crowds to cheer him on as he breaks through the tricky “ph” digraph in the middle of the word. One cheers reading silently as if it were tennis or golf.<br /><br />Perhaps I should try them because he hated soccer. After a mound of occupational therapy, he is starting to get the awareness of which shoe goes on which foot, but he is also gaining awareness that he just isn’t that good at soccer. He knows he is different.<br /><br />A question for fathers is how much of Pinocchio's Geppetto should they be. How much should they try to carve to make their boy ordinary? With speech and OT, I was definitely pushing and soccer seemed like the next step toward sanding off some of the weird bits. He just needs to kick the ball, and so I pleaded:<br /><br />Kick the ball, and there are pizza parties or ice cream after games.<br /><br />Kick the ball, and your classmates will think you are part of their team.<br /><br />Kick the ball, and girls will find you much more attractive in High School.<br /><br />Kick the ball, and during interviews, you can share how they kicked the ball as well.<br /><br />Kick the ball, and be healthy.<br /><br />Kick the ball, and grow stronger.<br /><br />Kick the ball.<br /><br />He still refused, and then became disruptive during practices. He had to make jokes, because if soccer mattered then he didn’t.<br /><br />So we stopped.<br /><br />The dreams of the World Cup had become of him just being on the pitch. Then that, too, faded.<br /><br />Our children aren’t made of wood. David is wonderful in his messy brilliance. He dreams of kingdoms of werewolf spiders, and planets of multiple copies of David running around. He dreams of kings that die and Palaces of Crystal. (Which I should have pointed out is a soccer team). He makes up his own math problems and writes his own books. He braved sleep-away camp and summer of headgear. He is mostly successful in climbing trees, and after we teach him about ropes and harnesses that should improve.<br /><br />He will find his group, and if he is like his father then perhaps he will play Dungeons and Dragons with them. He will listen to music that I won’t understand.<br /><br />Because children aren’t the only ones that need to grow. I certainly need to learn from him and change. If only there was a word for that…<br /><br />-Arthur</div>Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-17673916089595452082022-08-29T19:01:00.005-07:002022-09-22T19:21:23.124-07:00Clouds<p>When we left to drive to the San Francisco airport to head up to Four Winds Westward Ho, it was still dark. David had become nervous; the reality that the camp was going from website videos to actual tents was seeking in. My wife and I were frightened. David is a bright kid with a dark sense of humor, but his taking care of himself skills are not well honed.</p><p>Once aloft, above the bay, it was dawn. The clouds were so low that the tops of radio towers and mountains rose out of them. It was as if there were a forested archipelago floating in a pink sea. Our house was somewhere underneath, fading behind, and the warnings of life vests under seats or putting on your own mask before someone else ignored them.</p><p>I think of Four Winds like that moment. That David will remember the wonderful peaks and not so much the challenges underneath.</p><p>I know that it takes much to pull off these pink clouds. From large things like buses breaking down to small ones like the number of bandaids he came back with, there is no way the week was perfectly smooth. You do incredible work. Thank you.</p><p>I know that when David returns, he will be more self-sufficient; the number of clean underwear that came back made us realize that he needs to learn a daily rotation.</p><p>He will know more about the lyrics of the songs and the rigging of boats.</p><p>But it won’t be as magical as the first. He was memorized by the hypnotist and thrilled that he made soap and lip balm. I just hoped he used the latter.</p><p>I also hope his newly founded independence will last into the school year, though I want to apologize that airport security wasn’t the best place to practice them.</p><p>You do wonders.</p><p>I wanted to wish you the best as you prepare for the 95 anniversary. I can only imagine the generations coming back and talking about their peaks, their moments when they were so young, their parents equally nervous, and their time by the sea. </p><p>I hope David joins them for the centennial and laughs about how he didn’t realize that pillows went into pillowcases.</p><p>Memory clouds. The future remains a dawn aloft.</p><div><br /></div>Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-85205531462888955162022-07-31T09:47:00.004-07:002022-09-30T11:33:15.844-07:00Long hot summer. Not a drop of rain…<p>Our summer house in Woods Hole is old in every sense - the warped wooden floor, the uncomfortable mattresses, the district lack of many electric outlets. Perhaps this is on purpose because it forces you outside to take advantage of the wooden porch, the rolling lawn with perfect trees for climbing or hammocks, and the small beach next to a stone pier with sea life both rich and interesting enough that three different scientific research organizations a quarter of a mile away study it.</p><p>Or perhaps my family has been historically cheap. </p><p>For a hundred and fifty years, we have clung to the place. One generation after another has stayed there. A lifetime is going from making sea castles on the beach to sitting in the large green Adirondack chairs and watching your grandchildren playing capture the flag where you did with a cocktail in your hand. </p><p>A hundred and fifty years is a long time. Our time next to the small cool cove predates the iPhone, penicillin, and the forward pass. Abraham Lincoln had uttered the phrase "the mystic chords of memory" only a few years earlier than our arrival. </p><p>And like any place for that long a time, not all of the memories are pleasant. There are, of course, minor accidents - a big wheel driven into a rose bush, the slip and slide taken from soft grass to the tennis court. </p><p>But there are the larger ones. My grandfather had a heart attack in the kitchen when he was carrying in groceries, and that was it. The summer before, he was lifting rowboats out of the water, and now a bag with perhaps Eggo waffles, hamburger meat, and orange juice was too much. </p><p>The nearby episcopal church has a few of our tombstones. And the portraits of the departed are strung through the house. They are placed up high on the wall and look down upon us. Each generation is less impressed with the next. </p><p>We were ending our three-week stay, and it hadn't rained. The effect is like being a lobster - each day slightly more dehydrated than the last, each night another lump in the mattress - that you are being broiled unaware. Nostalgia is memory mixed with humidity.</p><p>I knew it was important that Louise got a break of a few days away. The universal opinion of in-laws is that the place is half mad. There is a wide world of vacations; why have a Sisyphus summer? She was back from Nantucket, and we had one last set of cousins to entertain. Our boys were exhausted, too, having taken classes from bird watching to archery (and thankfully not at the same time). </p><p>I was on a phone call, and my jaw and my ear started to hurt. Minor aches are part of the scenery. With so many details, like both my sons and my father wanting me to troubleshoot their iPads, I wasn't really in a time where I could be sick. </p><p>The disease thought otherwise. </p><p>Summer tightened. </p><p>That night I could hardly sleep with the pain. </p><p>It was uncomfortable enough that I thought a dentist could give just a little something for the airplane the next day. The jaw was tight enough that he couldn't x-ray. A year-round resident, he gave what most do to tourists - well wishes and thanks for staying on the cape. The only thing missing was the t-shirt. </p><p>I started having a hard time swallowing. And then it was speaking. </p><p>My father called his great friend, Dr. Schindler, who said I needed medical treatment immediately. So Louise and I went off to get it. </p><p>The medical system in America operates at two speeds fast and slow. Neither is much fun. There is a dullness of the waiting in a room where Wheel of Fortune is being close captioned, and two car salesmen talk about their quotas. Children do get seen first, and if during the triage process they hear the words "sore throat," you will wait a long time. </p><p>Fast medicine is fear. When I was finally admitted to a room, a twenty-ish man bounced in and said, "I am Matt, and I am a doctor" (in a few years, when the heavy eyes of E.R. work arrive, he won't need the second part). He immediately got someone very senior, who immediately sent me to cat scan, and the results were back. Quick. Quick Quick. </p><p>The toggle between slow and fast is the difference between "sore throat" and "the swelling hasn't yet blocked his airway." Hope that you get to stick to slow. </p><p>Fast medicine is the skill of avoiding downside scenarios. Not being able to breathe is one of those. Fast medicine is machines that beep and sirens that flash. Flood the system with some combination of antibiotics, steroids, and morphine since the two days when the lab results come back to find out what it might be are the two days you don't have. </p><p>Fast medicine, to quote the movie "Jaws," is knowing when you need a bigger boat. The hospital I was at didn't have an E.N.T. in case of intubation, so I needed to be transferred to the bigger one at Hyannis. Speilberg's mythical shark was filmed only a few miles away. </p><p>I arrived by ambulance in the middle of the night, and we waited gradually letting things creep back to slow. It took a few days of streaming Apple T.V., drinking from an iv, and sampling a rainbow of pills at the I.C.U. </p><p>My extended family waited back at the summer house. And in between games of pickleball they speculated what I had ( maybe a wisdom tooth, Ludwig's something) with the same insight that they have when picking teams for the women's World Cup soccer pool or the lawn Olympics they play against each other. My mom and her sister looked after my boys. Life at the house still had a cool breeze.</p><p>There still isn't a clear diagnosis. Soft tissue infection is what is written. There is a whole round of tests ahead, and I will, for now, enjoy the leisurely pace of waiting rooms while trying to guess answers to Wheel of Fortune. </p><p>I am grateful that my portrait is not up on the house just yet. That while my ancestors had much better facial hair, that I got the antibiotics. That my wife was my champion. That my boys are at a magical age where every tree can seem like a fortress, every cousin a hero. That not every conversation is about Star Wars. And mostly that those who look up to you matter way more than those that look down. </p><p>When they are older, the boys will feel the pull to return to the place. Their children could play at the shore. The flickers of the past holding to their feet, like the dried summer grass of a month without rain.</p>Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-80596285021577529442022-04-29T09:50:00.002-07:002022-07-31T09:52:18.926-07:00Chapel Note<p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I went by the front of Grace, and there on the door was the word David. I first thought that this must have been for Mr. Forbes, and how remarkable he must have been to have founded such a place, but when I looked at the rest of the names on the door, I realized that it was a happy coincidence just like how the street in front of the western entrance shares a name with the current head.</span></p><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">But since my own David believes that world is full of magic, I like to believe that there is some purpose where the stern of the school has Forbes in its wake, and the bow (or nave) points towards Jones. That we were given long ago a strong tiller to point us forward and also a horizon to achieve.</div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br class="" /></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I know that Kate, among others, are working towards a portrait of a graduate as a way of orienting the school. For me, at the center is this duality of progress and tradition. The school is like its latest addition, the learning commons, a modern touch that promotes the best of an older architecture. It reminded me of the glass pyramid in front the Louvre or for that matter putting a bridge across a golden gate, where if done well we could put new context while keeping immortal beauty.</div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br class="" /></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I know that there is talk about whether you need to raise pointy kids or well rounded, and perhaps by the time Edward is in eighth grade there will be other polygons to aspire to. But what I hope the school keeps is the wonderful, Episcopal values that Burns talked about at chapel today. Honoring those behind the scenes and raising up a life of charitable service is a much needed philosophy in a world that has so many sharp edges.</div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br class="" /></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">The truth is that there are going to be so many different kinds of Cathedral graduates. </div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br class="" /></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Some are going to be financially successful. Some aren’t.</div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br class="" /></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Some will make varsity as a sophomore. Some will try to get out exercise by taking theatre.</div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br class="" /></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Some will paint. More than most places, some will sing.</div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br class="" /></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">But what I hope is that boys realize is that while the world is so much bigger than them, that they give back to make it a better place. That they were given a wonderful past and that they owe others a wonderful future.</div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br class="" /></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Thanks so much for a great chapel this morning.</div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br class="" /></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Keep pointing us towards that horizon.</div>Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-71383412742943759972020-04-20T09:54:00.001-07:002022-07-31T09:57:20.003-07:00The Pandemic Begins<p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">With my boys at 5 and 6 I am spending quite a bit of time with them these days. The youngest, David, has declared his new favorite superhero is called Naked Flash, and he runs around in the nude all day long while abandoning the sensible pajamas everyone else in the world is wearing. Naked Flash has a secret identity, called James and loves the movie, Cats. Naked Flash has no interest in learning the letters of the alphabet or shapes. Naked Flash seems to immune to most bribes except cookies, which I have explained might not help him be the kind of naked that people think is heroic. Naked Flash is thinking about adding the power of invisibility.</span></p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Naked Flash is very much do for a haircut, but Naked Flash’s mom is very worried about my skills with a new set of clippers even though I have watched two YouTube videos on the subject.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">It has gotten to the point where she accidentally tried to schedule a zoom meeting with me since we were on different floors. Naked Flash was not invited to the meeting, and we have tried to explain to him that really Naked Fash should not show up in any of our zoom meetings. In particular Cathedral now has zoom chapel services, and even though he is as god intended him to be that there is only so much showing that should accompany</span> <span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">telling.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Naked Flash’s brother, Edward, has decided to spend the time working on his evil genius skills. His role model is either Lex Luther or Braianc and during our nightly reads is very disapponted that Superman always seems to win. The best I can do is to explain to him that if you want to grow up to be an evil genius you really have to study. Evil underachievers can never build secret volcano hideouts nor are they rays going be deadly but just kind of annoying like when Naked Flash decides to sing Mr. Mistoffelees instead of going to bed.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">So my personal Lex Luthor has taken to his kindergarten studies and is actively working on math, mindfulness, and sight words. The school has been fantastic in how it has been able to rally over tough times. Today the last word Edward was given after “tug” was “chug”, which perhaps is hitting the parent community a bit much these days.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I do hope all are managing the closures well and that there is the occasional bit of magic in all of the madness.</span>Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-44864843468740101432019-11-22T11:01:00.001-08:002019-11-22T11:01:06.707-08:00Sometimes<p>Our son, David, said that yesterday was his happiest day ever because he went to two different schools. In the morning at preschool he mashed potatoes for his preschool’s Thanksgiving feast that happens today, and in the afternoon he went for his screening at the Cathedral school.</p>
<p>Those screenings haven’t historically gone well for our family. Our oldest has a deep spidey sense that he was being examined and when he left he was quiet for most of the morning. As for mine, I cried when Mark Gamble slammed my fingers and, as legend has it, never recovered. During the screenings the parents wait the same way that fathers did years ago for childbirths and make whatever nervous conversations they can about happier places like summer camps and spas. Meanwhile their kids are being asked to stand on one leg, which I am convinced is a better measure of sobriety than whether a boy will be able to handle 8th grade algebra. It is a long hour and a half.</p>
<p>But David, much like San Francisco weather, has only two states - happy or tired. He thought his time at Cathedral was fantastic and loved the legos and the carpet time. After we took the bus home he wanted to play Cathedral in the living room. In particular he wanted to play what he called “Mr. Burns and Mr. Wilkes” where Mr. Burns was in charge of everything and then would have to battle Mr. Wilkes. Perhaps departing from his experience, Mr. Burns had fire power and Mr. Wilkes had earth power and I wished I asked him what Mrs. Jeurgens could do. Whatever David’s version of the school lacked in accuracy, I do believe it had a keen Irish social satire sense of the red team vs. the gold.</p>
<p>This morning he woke up and wanted to go back to Cathedral since it has the best legos in the world. We tried to explain that he has a Thanksgiving feast to go to with all his friends. That he has much to be thankful for and the mash potatoes were going to be delicious.</p>
<p>He still insisted about going to Cathedral.</p>
<p>Finally his brother stepped in to soothe him. He told David, “Cathedral isn’t always great. Sometimes you have to learn things."</p>Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-29425158612590620232019-10-29T15:09:00.001-07:002019-10-29T15:09:54.044-07:00Darkness<p>The name David means beloved, and what I learned over the past few weeks is how twisted this love can be. I was a juror on a trial whose story involves a mother who took her son back in after he hit her in the head, a father who was so afraid of his son that he slept with a gun under his pillow yet still drove his son back to the house instead of the cops because he loves his wife, and a son, David, who believed that all meat is human meat and might have tried to bite his mother only to go on to darker things.</p>
<p>David is also my son’s name, and during the month I was vaulted between the two worlds of fatherhood and jurist. My David dances to Whitney Houston while the defendant David early one morning took out a pocket knife, locked the door and chased his father to the bedroom. His father managed to shut the glass door on David's arm and was able to pry the knife out David’s hand which enraged David so much that he began kneeing the door. The door shattered to the floor, and the father and son were left facing each other. David went to grab his father’s head with one hand landing on the ear and the other near the eye. The one on the ear managed to tear the top enough that it required three deep stitches, and the one on the eye started to put pressure on it. The father, thinking that his son was surely trying to kill him, stabbed his son in the abdomen a couple of times. The son backed off and went outside to be found by a postman. The father wiped the blade and put his gun on top of a shelf. The postman and the father called 911, and multiple units arrived. Some officers had body cameras, and we were able to see one set of footage that showed a frightened dad and an unapologetic son.</p>
<p>The trial seemed hyper real. We had photos of knifes, kitchens, and shattered glass. We had the recording of calls and witnesses being interviewed. We had testimony from doctors, cops, and the postman. It was a narrative that pushed me towards insomnia, and then shock when I realized that I knew the dad from when I worked in his building. What distance I had wanted from the two worlds of one of safety of my family and one of the craziness of the city was gone. I spent the weeks of the trial dropping my oldest off at the top of Nob Hill in a beautiful cathedral and then walking to the court house by descending through the Tenderloin with its vile smells of humans gone unattended. The trip felt less like a route than a metaphor of how our noblest intentions and darkest impulses all share addresses on the same street. It is a small city.</p>
<p>Eventually both sides gave their final arguments, and the bailiff took us back to the jury room for the twelve of us to parse what we had learned. It didn’t go as I expected.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">* * *</p>
<p>On the ride to the hospital after the incident, David talked to an officer. He told her much of the above, that he attacked and chased his father with a knife and that he wanted to kill him. The officer took notes on index cards, and when she reached the end of her shift seven hours later wrote a report. It was her second day out of the academy, and she said she remembered it vividly.</p>
<p>Several of my fellow jurists doubted her. They complained that it had been seven full hours. They wish they had an actual recording instead of notes so they could know exactly what David had said. They doubted police in general. One at the start of the trial looked at David with his thick glasses and slouched shoulders and thought David could be guilty of no crime and that it was all self defense since his father had a knife at one point.</p>
<p>The father was also recorded telling his version that mostly matched David's while he was in the hospital. Some jurists doubted him since he gave his account after he had stabbed his own son.</p>
<p>Reasonable doubt wasn’t just being applied to the question of guilt, but also to the evidence. We see so much on the web these days that it has been the guardrails of what we believe is true. The standard of what used to be reporting, when people used to take notes and then write it up later no longer works when you can tweet or post immediately. The past used to be 50 years ago, now it is measured in days if not hours.</p>
<p>The idea of Trial by Jury came from the Age of Reason. Central to philosophy of the time was the belief that educated citizens could weigh information without the need of kings. The people can decide, and while there were certainly moments when this was a bad idea (see the guillotine or Jim Crow) there were times in its better moments that it worked well.</p>
<p>That age is over, and what I learned is that it hasn’t been replaced the Age of Information as much as the Age of Doubt. With so much information now flowing to us, we are forced to become experts at filtering. We need doubt just to get through an inbox.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">* * *</p>
<p>The better arguments from jurors came from that David is crazy. He is likely schizophrenic and certainly delusional. He talked about aliens and the grays. He said with no evidence that his Dad was trying to rape him and was holding him against his will. His defense was that the world was even darker still. One jurist commented on how the homeless in San Francisco say all kinds of crazy things and are harmless. I didn’t do a good job of explaining to him that there are different kinds of crazy that I learned from my own family when I was a child and watched my cousin go up and down on his own street of sanity.</p>
<p>David isn’t homeless just as my cousin wasn’t. But my cousin when left unmedicated is a violent schizophrenic. My cousin threw rocks at us as kids, killed birds in our backyard, and stabbed another cousin's dolls on one particular Christmas. He could also be just fine. When I last saw my him he was heavily medicated and in a home. He isn’t David and David isn’t him, but I am left with three beliefs that you can get medical help for schizophrenia, that just because you have schizophrenia doesn’t mean you can’t be violent, and that it is brutal on families.</p>
<p>I did my best to try to bring logic if not process into the room. We had multicolor post-it notes, portable white boards, and voting stickers. We built timelines and matrices. We had the court report read back the transcript of David’s confession. We found faults with the judges instructions and asked questions about self defense. We listened to each other and talked in turn. But I know that these tools and methods used for design discussions can go wrong and have the empty stock options to show for it. </p>
<p>The only guilting charge was for brandishing a weapon. Everyone felt that the knife was real even if the police accidentally threw it out before the trial. Every other charge was either thought to be less extreme or was spilt with only a handful joining me on the guilty side. It is likely that there won’t be a retrial.</p>
<p>The weekend after the trial brought back blackouts to the Bay Area and smoke to our lungs. The north is burning with 5% containment and our electric company is so unsure of their work that they have cut the power to thousands. We are a region that prides ourselves in being enlightened. Where we seemed to be headed is only towards uncertainty and darkness.</p>
Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-33615115604983004282019-10-29T12:28:00.001-07:002019-10-29T12:36:27.676-07:00Fireball<p>It was the summer of Fireball, a Pitbull song that Edward wanted to listen to over and over again. The camp counselors played it as they drove their vans across the city until it became stuck inside of all of us like the fog.</p>
<p>It was the summer when my father tried to grill on our trip to Cape Cod that he didn’t realize that over the winter the squirrels had chewed through the propane gas line. The whole structure erupted in flames. He tried to smother it with a towel, but that only trapped the gas underneath. When he lifted the towel, the flames bursted out. I quickly got a hose which doused the flames. Only the grill and the grass were singed. My father didn’t grill again.</p>
<p>It was the trip to the cape when David jumped to the fire pole at the Falmouth playground. This summer he has pushed his limits whether it be traversing rocks or climbing into forts. He was not undefeated - there was a stumble down a hill and a splinter in a foot - but the only way to climb is to learn to reach.</p>
<p>It was the time that Edward and my mom first played tennis and Crazy Eights. Edward once gave her a two minute monologue on why cooked carrots are better raw. They tossed seaweed that had washed up on the shore back into the sea and laughed on the porch afterwards while still hearing the sounds from the harbor.</p>
<p>It was the battle of the upstairs television. My sons wanted to watch PBS cartoons; my father wanted CNN. Ultimately we got a small set in the garage for the boys.</p>
<p>But the news couldn’t help but seep in.</p>
<p>There is no good way to explain El Paso to a five year old. There is no way to explain the rage. No way to tell a kid it won’t happen again. No way to talk about death at that scale.</p>
<p>It was the summer I saw the plaque remembering my cousin Claxton behind the altar at St Dominic’s church. He was a born a few months before me, and for the first years of our childhood was always more advanced than me - both brighter and more athletic. It was no wonder that he started elementary school at Cathedral.</p>
<p>It was just over twenty years ago he lost his life to heroin.</p>
<p>We have this notion of the innocence of summer, that the only dangers are sunburns and stings, that there might be a place where things are safe.</p>
<p>When Edward tried the Cathedral uniform on for the first time, it reminded me when I saw it on Claxton. There is the formalness to it - a tie makes anyone look older and responsible. It projects a possible future. But in the end, how things wear down is unknown.</p>
<p>It is the last little bit of summer before Edward heads into kinder camp on Monday, and he will learn how to make s’mores, how to play on a roof, and how tor raise his hand. In a few weeks he starts the actual school and gets a team to help as he tries to learn by reaching. The hope is that he can grasp and climb. That he stays protected from the fire.</p>Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-55184649144676736072019-04-01T14:59:00.001-07:002019-10-29T12:38:19.943-07:00Upon a Hill<p>We will do our best to earn this.</p>
<p>An acceptance from a school is less of an achievement than a promise. What is going to matter is not the ink on the diploma, but the sweat it takes to get it.</p>
<p>I know that we are rather fortunate. That even though we had a great group of friends pulling as hard as they could, that we had to catch a couple of breaks to get in. Sometimes, but not very often, you get lucky. We will not take for granted that we made it, because there will be times ahead when the luck breaks the other way.</p>
<p>There are going to be challenges with our boys since, like all, if they arrived at a school fully formed they would not need to go to it. We will dig deep.</p>
<p>Elementary school was a challenge for me.</p>
<p>It is strange to look back at your youth, and see it not through the eyes of a child but the ones of a father. I realize now that because elementary school was such a challenge for me that how much my father had to try to help my school. He gave his all into my education at a time when other dads were more interested in the sidelines. An education is a journey shared, and we will do our best to do the heavy lifting. </p>
<p>There is a book that talks about the languages of love. It is about couples, but what I have learned through this process is about the language of love from fathers to sons. This language has fewer words than some, but comes with broader shoulders and higher hopes. I thought the best way to honor my father was to name our first born son after him, but what I realize now is that the best way is to teach my own son that language.</p>
<p>We will do our best to earn this.</p>
<p>After I graduated from elementary school, I had to repeat a grade and was sent to a boarding school in Western Massachusetts. The school was an athletic one (which is really not the direction I needed to go), and it even had its own ski slope. The fall term was about soccer season, and everyone was sorted. The varsity got to practice at the top of the hill near the dorms, the jv was at the middle, and the intermediate team was at the bottom. I was once again placed on the intermediate team, which came as no surprise.</p>
<p>The thing is I really love hot water, and the only way that I was going to get a hot shower was to run up the hill and try to beat the much better athletes, the jv and the varsity, to the dorms. Sometimes when you are sent to the bottom of the hill it means that you are just going to have to run twice as strong. For me it was not just the start of learning how to run, but the beginning of learning how to strive. And while it took a high school for me finally to get my act together, during that brisk New England autumn I still showered rather well.</p>
<p>We have been given a great gift of a school upon a hill. It is a beautiful place with the great resources of wonderful teachers, phenomenal music, a stem lab, a garden, and so much more. I know that we need to hustle to take advantage of the wonders of Cathedral. My sons will have what is for them their own warm water, and they will learn to run hills to get it.</p>
<p>So begins our journey.</p>Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-457878713620518232019-03-18T16:06:00.001-07:002019-04-01T15:00:08.218-07:00Wheels Keep on TurningOur youngest rode a bike on Sunday. His first journey went straight into a fence. The next was into a bench. Eventually he learned to turn and brake if for no other reason than the lack of bandaids.
The bike still has training wheels, and in a few days he will go back to occupational therapy to work on jumps and landings, balance and coordination. He moves ever so cautiously through the world and tells me each day, as I leave for work, about the dangers of the outside. Around the pool during holidays he clung to the side and made sure never to wander in even though the water came up to his chest. For him to get on a bike and to start to pedal without consequences is to visit a foreign planet.
It might have been his older brother's excellence with a bike that got him to ride. Perhaps it was his grandmother's kind words, or that the bike was new and blue, or maybe just simply that it was a sunny day and he finally felt old enough to move.
We all pedal in life at different rates, reach milestones at different times. Getting there usually takes a few crashes along the way.
I learned to write after college from the sports pages of the San Francisco Chronicle. They had the style of conveying the facts with the slightest of winks, that you had to tell the truth, but always make sure that you leave in the parts that amuse you. It was a style I could mimic, a structure I could use. I reached writing late and perhaps not well, but like my son on the bike I am glad I reached it at all.
A couple of nights ago, I sat across from a father whose son has dysgraphia which is what kept me from writing, and when I heard his tales of frustration, of being able to know far more than you can say, of salvation with computers and caring teachers, and of the hurt when trying to get out the words; it brought back such memories of a youth struggled.
I could also relate to the father since I am now one too. And this means giving the push on your son's back to get him started on a bike with the knowledge that there is a pretty good chance he will hit a fence. But there are no bandaids for fathers. There are just occasional sunny days that you need to cherish when your kid starts turning the wheel.Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-42311036765878546642019-03-06T20:13:00.001-08:002019-04-01T15:00:28.688-07:00Folklore<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>We arrived a little early for the Discovery Museum's Class, and as my son and I have done this wet winter, we waited in the rain. At five, he is at the point where our adventures together are more interesting whether they are trips to Oakland’s Fairyland or to the Cow Palace for the Reptile Expo. Going to the Discovery Museum to take a class in building Leprechaun traps was a bit like both.</p>
<p>There was a bin of trap supplies - tape, straws, nets, cardboard, and popsicle sticks - from which he grabbed a fistful of parts. The other parents, mostly dads, were eagerly arranging things for their kids, but I very much wanted the trap to be my son's, and so in the end we were left was a pile of scraps hung together by tape. The only way it was going to trap a leprechaun was to confuse it. The trap looked sad, in a Charlie Brown design kind of way, and we took it over to the testing table to see if it would work on small, wind-up robots.</p>
<p>The robots, lacking higher intellect and an Irish disposition, completely ignored the trap and scurried of to another kid's trap that at least was sticky. My son didn’t mind and his project now waits on top of our mantle fully ready to be deployed in a couple of weeks.</p>
<p>Of course, the other thing we are trying to catch in a couple of weeks is a spot in a kindergarten, which at this time seems almost more mythical than an Irish Fairy. The hunt is one of recommendations and reviews, interviews and information sessions, and tours and teachers to the point where it seems less of a trial of intellect but a journey of endurance.</p>
<p>To complete it, we used words as our tape and popsicle sticks.</p>
<p>Anyone trying to get into these schools uses what they can, and if your child is wonderfully presentable you go with that. But if perhaps your child is a bit normal then you have a great deal of explaining to do.</p>
<p>My wife and I became an editor/writer team, and we searched for adjectives like “cerebral" while trying to figure out how to say “does not like talking to strangers” without using terms like “aloof.”</p>
<p>We wrote to friends a lifetime ago, and met nice people everywhere we visited.</p>
<p>We said “wonderful" a great deal and sprinkled “thank you” like the winter rain.</p>
<p>Our son also started to write. While his classmates wrote about peanut butter and unicorns, he finished his first book on Kryptonite that was dedicated to his younger brother and whose back cover had a bar code he drew. He is starting to formulate his own epic journey, and I hope which ever galaxy he visits, super hero he thwarts, or Sith Lord he trains that he, too, sprinkles in the “thank you” along the way.</p>
<p>For even if you manage to catch a leprechaun, you still need to charm it. Words are your best bet unless you have a unicorn or perhaps a peanut butter sandwich.</p>
<p>Sometime soon the rain must go away and so will our little adventures of preschool. The larger beasts of kindergarten are yet to come. I hope we have tales of dragons.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-60186048081744127172019-01-31T13:21:00.001-08:002019-04-01T15:00:42.982-07:00Kindergarten TornadoMy eldest son wanted to make pancakes.<br />
<br />
Later that morning was yet another elementary school tour for him, and his emotions tend to come from his stomach as opposed to his heart. Your child has but a brief moment to show brilliance at these places, that somehow during the time between when he and his fellow candidates march in a Choo Choo Train line to meet with a team of experts and afterwards when he rushes back to you that his letters will be straighter, ears will hear better, and smile will stretch wider than the normal boy he usually is. It is the moment when he goes behind the curtain to see the wizard who checks on his brains, heart, and courage while you wait with a bunch of other parents who are also pretending not to be stressed while wishing that they were home.<br />
<br />
Getting into kindergarten is a long, yellow brick road. There was no way he was going to do it on an empty stomach.<br />
<br />
He almost climbed completely into the fridge to get the milk and butter, and had to get a chair to reach the shelf that had the bisquick. The one parenting concession he agreed to was that my wife was in charge of the stove, but we were a little distressed about how easily he turned it on. He went slowly with the pouring, the mixing, and the flipping.<br />
<br />
We rushed the rest of the morning. When we put him in a booster seat for the drive he complained about having food all over his pants. A quick change later, it was clear that he was more thoughtful than I was who can barely cook and badly dresses.<br />
<br />
So many years ago I toured that same school and had left it crying. A boy had slammed my fingers, and that was it. I didn’t get into the place; nine years gone with a set of tears. Life is a series of auditions, but only occasionally call backs.<br />
<br />
My son was the caboose of the interview train and one of the first to rush back. We went to a park, and he never said a word about what happened behind the curtain.<br />
<br />
The next few weeks we will wait in a fog of uncertainty. There are the moments when my kid can be truly insightful and the others when he can be painful (especially to his younger brother). Which version of my son was there I don’t know.
What is certain is that he is learning how to the handle the world. We have no idea where he will wind up, but he will be cracking eggs and sweetening his life with just a touch of syrup.
Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-80933844042015524452018-12-15T08:26:00.001-08:002019-04-01T15:01:13.500-07:00On Ice<p>Perpetually on the preschool birthday circuit with its symphonies of screams and sugar our family went together to the ice rink to celebrate a girl turning five. The family was generous to let David come since these things are run off head counts and wrist bands. He was happier to be at the ice rink than his older brother who only wanted to run around with a purple balloon sword.</p>
<p>David wanted to go on the ice and waited patiently while I went to get our boots.</p>
<p>We had chided him in the past for being, what we thought, was lazy and stubborn. He didn’t want to go up and down stairs as much as his brother, insisted that we carry stuff for him, and refused to ride at bike camp to the point that his counselor admired his determination. But to focus on the symptoms was to miss the cause. It wasn’t that he was lazy as much as doing these activities are harder for him than his brother. We recently learned that his gross motor skills are more like mine and aren’t as developed as much as his peers. Granted like everyone he will have to be able to motivate for his needs (like cleaning up), as much as for his wants, like drawing super heroes, in which he possesses an unmatched determination.</p>
<p>David wanted to go on the ice, and I didn’t want to show how excited I was to join him.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>We are at the twilight of our eldest going to preschool, and our minds are focused on what happens next. </p>
<p>We have visited six different elementary schools, each of which feels like a different asteroid about to hit our world and permanently change it. There have been moments of beauty like when we saw kids singing in a church, moments of worry like when our tour leader wasn’t really sure where the fifth grade was going to be the following year, but mostly moments of anxious parents trying to smile and be as positive as they can while they, too, were trying to figure out their own incoming asteroid. </p>
<p>The elementary school admission process had made me a bad conversationalist; I grew only to have one topic to talk about. It is hard to not just become completely focused on the size of the craters are coming, but also to feel that you have to share your own crazy hypothesis with everyone else.</p>
<p>I wonder what the dinosaurs did when they saw the streaks in the sky.</p>
<p>And to be caught up in all of this is to miss the wonders of the now. A week ago Edward drew me a picture with the word “Daddy” on it. He tells jokes. He loves adventure camp, building symmetric towers, and making up stories with his mom on the couch. He has the beginnings of his own narrative. No need to rush the next chapter.</p>
<p>He can also have a major meltdown if he needs food at 5:40 and can antagonize his brother out of boredom, but these are smaller moments of the day than the rest which is good.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>David wanted to go on the ice, and I gave my wife our camera in case I might stumble and fall. I have spent the autumn being an assistant teacher for the first time and it has been uneven. The teaching part has been fine with times that I did make things clearer and only a few when I didn’t. But the classroom has its own desperation that in some ways is the opposite of my fellow preschool parents.</p>
<p>These kids are teetering. They are the ones who didn’t get into the good public schools and are stuck with the teachers who didn’t either. Our main teacher is French, and while I do love the culture, in that country either you are someone who passes things, or you are discarded. It is a county that brought public shaming in the form of a guillotine. She shames kids more than I would, listing out on the board the ones who need help, getting angry at the ones who didn’t answer the questions correctly, and refusing to accept that a kid not having a computer at home is a good enough excuse to do his programming assignment.</p>
<p>For these are the children that don’t have computers at home. One of them had his glasses broken and had to spend a month squinting since he couldn’t afford another pair. One wears the same track sweat shirt every day, which I initially thought was great and am now worried that might be the only one he has.</p>
<p>Half the class dropped after the first month.</p>
<p>The school wasn’t my first choice either, but it was one of the few left with not enough volunteers and no one wanted to claim me.</p>
<p>I feel a bit bonded with these kids even though I don’t just have one computer at home, but three.</p>
<p>Still there are the differences. For instance, there isn’t any gunfire in my world.</p>
<p>On my second day teaching a kid fired a gun at school. He was a freshman, two years away from even able to drive, and launched a bullet into the place perhaps because he only wanted to show off. The cops came, the reporters came, and the social workers came. And then after a week they all left.</p>
<p>What I learned is that all shots are heard around the world. It is hard to think about functions and variables when you are wondering what is in a kid’s back pack. One of the other TA quit, and my wife suggested I do the same. With two small kids I understood the calculus, and if it happens again, I won’t come back.</p>
<p>But until then I made a promise that I would do my best for these kids, that someone needs to help them debug things, someone has to make sure that they can stand upright when things get slippery.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>David and I made on to the ice. Unlike other parents I gripped his hand. I didn’t want his first time circling the rink to be a failure. I want him to think it is okay to go and try something even if you aren’t really skilled at it.<br />At school he is learning how to have friends however fleeting. The newness of friendship makes it okay if it is only for a few moments playing with blocks or being a fireman. At three there is little sense of permanence, but much more sense of play. </p>
<p>He can be such a happy kid and is learning how to be silly with others.</p>
<p>He, too, grasped my hand tightly as we did our two loops around the rink. Each of his steps was made with quiet concentration. I have no idea if he enjoyed the skating as much as the proximity. I did my best to hold him aloft, to prevent him from crashing too soon, and to take in a small moment in a noisy birthday.</p>
<p>Soon things will change, and I will have to learn to be okay at letting go.</p>Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-30049937272539009622018-06-14T11:49:00.001-07:002018-06-14T11:49:17.891-07:00Force the Net<p style="font-size: 14px;">The saddest I ever was after a birthday was when I got a tennis racket. My mom and I went to the tennis shop and since I wasn’t that great of a player my mom and I decided on the middle of the line racket, another sensible choice in a childhood of practicality. It was one of the first of the larger head rackets with an extra wide sweet spot for my troublesome aim. I thought it was great until the next day my cousin’s mom went to the same store and bought an even better racket.</p>
<p style="font-size: 14px;">I was devastated to the point my mom got my aunt to apologize to me. Over the years my family talks about that racket as a code for not getting what others have, of being slighted with someone with more money.</p>
<p style="font-size: 14px;">I thought about the racket over the years as well, but what I realized is what I should have thought about was my aunt. Her son, tall and agile, was a great athlete and she was just trying to get him the best for him to reach his potential. He once again would crush me in tennis matches; my lifetime winning percentage in that sport is about the same as a chair.</p>
<p style="font-size: 14px;">Still my mom would cheer me after points with phrases like “great effort” when my shots became close to coming in. For her tennis was the great social opportunity, and she was determined that I have a good backhand despite how many lessons it would take. Ultimately through no fault of the racket, she let me go on to a sport like running and my younger brother would be the one with the wonderful game and brilliant social life.</p>
<p style="font-size: 14px;">I thought about the racket again this week, when another dad sent me a picture of his son in a brand new Star Wars costume. The son is my eldest boy's best friend, and the two of them had been discussing the force, and Darth Vader for weeks on end. Mine has a sticker book with a legend and he determined to know every nook and cranny of the world as if he was a 40 year old on the internet. He asks me about who built the Death Star and is disappointed that most of the engineers don’t have names.</p>
<p style="font-size: 14px;">And so there it was a photo of his best friend in a Kylo Ren mask shown to my son. It was his personal tennis racket. My son now had a true want.</p>
<p style="font-size: 14px;">With my years of tennis training, I did something then that I was so unsuccessful as I was in the sport. I rallied. I decided that instead of buying a bigger Darth Vader costume, that my son I would work to build with what we have. My wife quickly came up with the idea of using a paper bag for the mask, I did my best to draw the outline of the helmet, and my son colored it in. He was so proud of the mask that he tried to scare his brother the new two days.</p>
<p style="font-size: 14px;">What I realized what I sometimes have to teach is the importance of working with a need. That my sons needs to know if you want to have something you need to go out and get it. My years of being bad at tennis filled me with a need to be good at some sport, which gave me the drive to run. The best private schools aren’t great at teaching hunger if they are working so hard to be nut free.</p>
<p style="font-size: 14px;">The masks we give our children shape them, protect them, and ultimately change them. </p>
<p style="font-size: 14px;">I thought about sending the photo of my son in his paper bag mask back to the other Dad. And then I realized that is something my aunt would have done. No need to cause a racket.</p>Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-87069957611431928032018-05-15T17:05:00.000-07:002018-06-13T17:06:17.914-07:00Alt Delete<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
I hit my reset button, the ctrl alt delete of where I was going. To me “alt delete” means that through dieting I am deleting the alt parts of myself preferably around the waist. The control part is hard.</div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
<br class="" /></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
I switched out the carbs of my diet, lowered the sugar, and gave up on alcohol and caffeine.</div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
<br class="" /></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
My body has spent the better part of a week telling me this is a horrible, horrible idea.</div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
<br class="" /></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
I don’t have as much hunger as the complete lack of energy save for trying to twist off the top of an Advil bottle to deal with the headaches.</div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
<br class="" /></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
I didn’t realize how much I had become carbs and quick energy. To be a new parent is to be in a world of burst speed - dashes around dropped bottles and chases around bath time. It is jolts in the morning when you didn’t sleep because the little thing next to you was trashing, and drinks at night to ignore the crying from upstairs.</div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
<br class="" /></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
I had been on a march of ever expansion since the birth of my eldest. I got in habit of taking him to coffee shops and ordering croissants when he was a new born. That is one of the many things that needs to change.</div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
<br class="" /></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
He lost his first tooth this week, a sort of one time weight loss of his own. But when he got the dollar the next day he held it up as if it were an olympic medal. A trip to the dentist determined that more dollars where headed to him soon.</div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
<br class="" /></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
We live our lives like our teeth - they start as baby, eventually the wisdom comes, and then we spend the rest of the time making sure that they don’t drop out. Maintenance becomes the new goal.</div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
<br class="" /></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
Turning 50 soon means that I am on the health clock. Overweight creates all kinds of health issues and I think the next phase isn’t as much about burst energy as it is making sure that all is healthy and well.</div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
<br class="" /></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
I want to be the best for my sons and so I had to reset myself. The agony of headaches is nothing compared to the despair of heartaches of not being with them.</div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
<br class="" /></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 18px;">
So I will do my best in a world of salads and water, push on as I can against a rebelling body, and watch things change even if it is one tooth at a time.</div>
Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-57422396124383667882018-04-30T16:57:00.000-07:002018-06-13T17:06:37.770-07:00Airborne MigrationsThe trip was meant for my mother in law. It went beyond being her 70th birthday to something that motivated her for nearly a year. It was a chance for her to return home, back to the county she came from, to acknowledge those that shared her journey, and for a brief time to get all of her brothers and sisters back together again for a laugh and a pint. It was referred to as “the wedding” since it would be that kind of a gathering with the purpose of celebrating life’s transitions.<br />
But like most weddings, you hardly get to spend time with the bride. My only long conversation with her was when we traveled from the hotel to the airbnb and she refused to believe that google maps had a better understanding of directions than she did. In the end it turns out that she wasn’t Luke Skywalker with the Death Star and perhaps could use a guidance system. She was equally unafraid to give me other guidance about all things Irish as we walked, and such is the relationship between sons and mother in-laws.<br />
I did my best to listen.<br />
For me the trip was more about seeing if we could take two small kids abroad. In particular, it was about David who had never gone out of the country. He was named for his Irish grandfather, and has the same thick hair and curved eyebrows as my mother in law. It was just under forty years since there was a David from the family in Ireland, half of my mother in law’s life.<br />
David lives in a world of super heroes that I am allowed to occasionally visit. What is labeled as five minute super hero stories from a book that is well worn often become 20 minute discussions about who is on each page. He wears as much batman clothes as he can, though I do my best to limit him to only 2-3 pieces at a time. When he got upset, I started to draw super heroes for him to calm him.<br />
The drop-offs at school became David surrounded by five of his friends watching me make sure that Aquaman had an orange shirt and green pants. Accuracy is a very important part of his world of heroes and villains, and so we spent a year making sure that I drew Superman just so (always with a cape) or Batman with a utility belt. It was a pattern of convenience since a drop-off is like defusing a bomb attached not with with a red or green wire, but with an umbilical chord. It worked and we kept going even in Ireland.<br />
We pretended that the Dublin Castle is where Bruce Wayne lived - even though as David’s brother, Edward, pointed out it wasn’t a real castle anymore just a museum. We learned about Brian Boru and Bram Stoker, of the heroes and monsters real and imaginary. We fled the leprechaun museum shortly after the multimedia presentation on Newgrange became too spooky. We built lego ninjas and robots in the hotel. We wandered through a country rich in legends and storytellers, a kingdom of faeries and selkies where the taste of salmon could bring the knowledge of the world, and the entire time David wore his Batman raincoat complete with two pointy ears on the top of the hood worn ever upwards even indoors.<br />
Mythologies can flow both directions across an ocean.<br />
I thought about migrations when we went to Herbert Park, a gem of a park only a few blocks from where David’s grandfather grew up.<br />
On one side of the park is a modern playground with the same safe slides, scoopers, and child screams as in America. On the other is a duck pond surrounded by blooming trees that looks like something Monet would draw, elegant in its silence except for the occasional quack.<br />
I wondered if these birds were descended from the same ones that were here when David’s grandfather was a young boy. Or do these birds migrate from all over only briefly stopping in Dublin. Are some brought over and released? Where do the birds fly?<br />
Ireland, itself, is experiencing its own immigration. None of the workers in the hotel nor the baby sitters for the nights out with the cousins were born in Ireland. The cab drivers complained about the influx of foreign nationals. The aunt who sat next to me during dinner, seemed to have in interest in Donald Trump. Things flow both ways across the ocean.<br />
My mother in law’s father had a stroke much too young. It meant that for each child there was less money, and the distance they traveled from their home in Navan to where they settled, correlates to birth order. The first went to the states, the next London, and so on. The birthday party was a reverse migration; the youngest traveled the least to make it to Trim, but when they all arrived back with the same bushy brown hair, that David also shares, it was quite clear that though they lived in different ponds that they were all of the same feather.<br />
There is no such geography on my father in law side. The pattern is more of doctors and writers; red heads and brunettes.<br />
The writers came in handy for all of the toasts.<br />
The doctors came in handy since the other thing airborne we brought with us was sickness. Everyone except me had ear issues. My wife in particular was off balance enough where I had to go to the pharmacy to pick up medicine only to find that half the store was spray on tans and pregnancy tests. I assume that one leads to another. Our eldest, Edward, was the one who needed the most help since when we arrived at Trim his temperature shot up to 104.5. His fever caused him to scream desperately at night. It was the banshee voice of true horror, and my wife did her best to make him drink ice water to cool him down.<br />
I am still frighten of whatever shook him in the middle of the night and was glad that the fever changed as quickly as the Irish weather.<br />
The week before we left, David changed our drop off routine. He drew a villain for me. It was the Riddler complete with green pants and purple question marks. The face had the eyes in the right place, and there was the slightest of smiles.<br />
My wife told me he had been drawing people all day long and that he was well beyond what was age appropriate. Representational Drawing is supposed to come in much later. There was one article that said that at 3 some kids will be able to draw for 15 minutes at a time, and I wondered about David’s ability to be at the art table for a hour or two.<br />
There is a danger of over extrapolating your child’s abilities. A kick of a soccer ball, doesn’t mean a world cup invitation.<br />
But at the same time, I felt something that I couldn’t help - pride.<br />
When I dropped him off at school the day after our long flight home, he asked me to draw him an Irish Ninja.<br />
I don’t know what he will remember from the trip, but I would like to think that he remembers it as a place of legends and family myths. That he dreams of things that fly whether they are birds, aer lingus airplanes, or Superman. That he looks at all of his great aunts as part of his own tribe. That he felt this was a country worthy of Bruce Wayne.<br />
I asked his brother what was his favorite part of the trip.<br />
He said without hesitation “Burger King”<br />
Sometimes you don’t migrate that far away from home.Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-34711524902957928612016-12-15T21:20:00.000-08:002017-01-18T21:21:30.150-08:00Circular Journey<br />
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
Our first parent teacher conference was a surprise to me. The teacher had mark our eldest son’s report card with such a consistent score of “average” that it almost felt that the entire thing could have been done over Netflix’s and chardonnay, and when we went to see her the news was much the same. I learned that if you wanted someone to say that your child is brilliant in every way take them to a grandmother; schools are often there to say what isn’t going well.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
“He has no real interest in music or art,” she said, which stung a bit. Our youngest loves music especially if it is off the sound track from Zootopia, but our eldest hadn’t sung at home any of the songs he was being shown at school. </div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
Until one day, he started singing Moonshadow by Cat Stevens. It was only the slightest semblance of a melody, but it was music. I put the song on our home stereo, and slowly we learned the lyrics together. Our youngest also chimed in, and of the handful of words he has two of them are “moon” and “shadow”.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
And so we entered into our autumn singing a song about decapitation.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
Sometimes it takes a while to get somewhere.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
Next week I am returning to the place that I started - 2### Clay Street, San Francisco CA 94115. It is where I came home from the hospital 48 years ago. My parents moved out of the place when I was just a little bit older than David is now. I have no memory of living there, and I know that our memories of Steiner Street will fade from our boys. The stickers of monkeys and elephants that we put up for them will be pealed before the new tenant arrives. The carpet where they first crawled and later walked isn’t coming with us to clay street. We are leaving the swaddles and swings that soothed them.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
The new place has a tiny back yard, and there will be tricycle races and easter egg hunts there. The boys’ room is going to have balloon wallpaper, and the carpets in the new place will get stained just as much as the carpets in the old.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
The distance between the two houses is four blocks so the places we eat and shop will be the same. The distance I will have traveled in my life is five feet from the infant’s room to the master bedroom, which I know isn’t very far.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
But it has been a circular journey.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
One night at the Clay Street house 47 years ago, my parents woke me to watch Neil Armstrong climb down a ladder. Waking an infant is something you are never supposed to do - far better that they can sleep so you can get yours.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
It was time to see a man who had travelled farther than any man ever has, a time to watch humanity’s desire to explore the world, a time for parents and a child to share a moment of wonder. My parents still remember the large cardboard box I played with afterwards which I pretended was a rocket. Some houses aren’t forgotten.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
And so I am going to return to the place from my distant past, a place where I watched someone walk amongst the shadows of the moon. I am still learning the melody of being a father and a husband, but the lyrics of life sometimes has a familiar refrain.</div>
Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-15633034835212369442015-08-28T13:40:00.002-07:002015-08-28T13:40:55.945-07:00E & E<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
It is my son, Edward’s, birthday tomorrow and no longer will my wife and I be able to tell to the random playground parents that we have two under two. The speed of our family creation was a badge given for bravery (and a touch of foolishness).</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
Instead the birthday marks the transition towards toddler. The age is not referred to as the terrific twos. His disposition is changing from one of needs, such as food and sleep, to one of wants like doors being open or iPads to be held. This past week he has developed a new great want - Elmo.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
When I greet him in the morning his first word is Elmo, which has taken over his vocabulary like ‘Aloha’ in Hawaiian. After I clean his diaper, he says ‘Elmo’. After I give him the milk he says once again ‘Elmo’</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
He has a small Elmo doll but prefers the world of Elmo literature. If I am to blame for his constant running around, I like to think that his mom gave him his love of books.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
In one tale, there are little flaps to be lifted so you can help Elmo find his blanket. In another the flaps are for numbers, letters, shapes, and colors. My son checks each page several times.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
My wife and I are a bit worried about traveling some place where we didn’t have a handy Elmo. Her idea was to buy several like the way we bought three shirts for my wedding in case I sweated too much.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
I started to look at videos and audiobooks for my son, but I prefer the red headed monster silent.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
I know that a year from now he will have new wants, and I think about how much he has changed in the last. A year ago to the day was the first time he started to walk in a way that resembled rugby players after a night at the Tonga Room. He doesn’t stumble as much any more.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
Halfway through the year, his brother arrived whom he greeted with tears. He now hugs him every morning and brings him bottles or toys to make him happy. I asked Edward if he wanted to give David the Elmo doll, and Edward replied with his other favorite word ‘mine.’</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
I think that turning two means that you have so many more flaps in life to look under, so many words and letters to learn, and so many more pages to turn. There are monsters in the world, but some can turn out to be friendly. That streets can be busy, but are safe if we hold hands.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
I know that there are green eyed monsters of brotherhood, and for that matter this year will have tantrums with epic choruses. And I hope we weather these well by counting to ten with numbers we have learned from the streets of Sesame.</div>
Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-17591836694868036292015-08-14T11:31:00.000-07:002015-08-28T11:32:19.799-07:00Life Aquatic<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
My eldest son, Edward, said his first swear word yesterday. He was, of course, mimicking his father who in a moment of frustration over a spilt mocha on a changing table launched the explicative. In my defense, during the week I take care of the kids during the 6’s of a.m. and p.m. - the twilight between sleep and exhaustion. The mocha is my fuel, my milk drink as opposed to his.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
To my son, who has so few words, perhaps the swear could have meant the same thing as “boom” or “uh-oh”. Life with two small children is a series of liquids and spills and there is the never ending clean up of wipes and towels. It has become part of our routine enough that Edward will sometimes grab a towel if he spills something. His favorite person for a while was the trash man.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
We have a life aquatic with our heads out of the water barely enough. Parenting is the process of riding the tides of toddler attentions - the fast shifts of the currents of desires.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
Edward for the most part has been living well. He has a collection of aunts and grandparents whom I refer to as the mutual admiration society. He has gotten used to having a younger brother in the same sort of way of getting used to eating using a spoon. It isn’t always, and when it doesn’t work out it gets a little messy. But the intention is there.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
To get him out of the house away from the newly steam cleaned carpets and couches, he goes to a bevy of activities. He has soccer tots on Mondays, where he insists on stacking cones as opposed to running around them. He goes to Jameroo and Music Together, which are meant to cultivate his artistic side, but wind up being places where he runs around the peace circle screaming. Someday he will do exercise in sports classes and art in art classes, but for right now he explores things impulsively.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
On Thursday mornings he goes to swim classes at the JCC. We got our first report card a couple of weeks ago - never too early to start measuring kids in San Francisco. He had top marks in enthusiasm and confidence, but did not fare so well when it came to the section of skills. It looks like it will be a career of venture capitalism.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
Not all of the kids in the class are unafraid of the water. Some luckier parents have children with a better sense of danger. There was one girl, Olivia, who would cry the entire class. I would get the updates on Thursday dinners about how everyone was doing. In my mind Olivia was of Russian descent with large eyebrows, and a power set of lungs. She is, in fact, Chinese and didn’t scream as loudly as my imagination. More of a whimper.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
I kept asking about swim class over dinners. Did we think the instructor named “Blaze” lived in the Haight or were the rents to high there? Was Edward kicking on his back? Did he put his head underwater? Does Blaze have good earplugs?</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
The updates kept coming, and one day I got the major news. Olivia had stopped crying during class. Edward had held her hand and made her feel safe in the water. I like to think that with his hand held he could not splash as much either, and that the two of them could start to learn about the aquatic life with a sense of calm.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
I then learned that at the next class they had started to kiss. We spent a few weeks of Thursday dinners speculating about the two. About how he would think of his summer romance with his few words of “up” and “down”. Would he grow up to be an olympic swimmer, because he had found true love in a sea of chlorine.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
And then yesterday it was broken to me softly. Olivia had spent the entire class with Sebastian who was both blonder and younger than my son. Edward was very troubled that she would not hold his hand anymore and could not understand why she would kiss Sebastian instead of him.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
When he came home from class, he took a longer than usual nap. That evening he didn’t pick on his brother except for a few times of pulling his hair.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
I was, of course, devastated by the news. How could she I wondered. Was my son just a stepping stone for the shallow end of the pool? You have such little time to give your children the advice they need to handle the world. You won’t be there for all of the heartbreaks. I can only hope that Edward reached down into his small list of words, and after going past things like “apple” and “blue” would come to say what his father told him. </div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
Shit.</div>
Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-16566353991002370792014-10-13T11:37:00.002-07:002014-10-13T11:37:45.847-07:00Wear To Now<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was in line at the supermarket and at the counter was Marie Claire magazine with the headline 20 beauty hacks. While normally I would be upset about how badly the word hack is being used - 20 beauty hacks is something a serial killer would do - I was more amazed by how much technology has wandered into lifestyle. The world’s runways are lit by cell phones.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-f06bc81c-0acc-8e4f-07f6-1e8565759d3e" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is going to get more intrusive. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two of the biggest tech companies, Apple and Google, over the last year or so have announced their plans for wearable computing. While normally there is convergence in the tech world, this time each has their own idea about how to chain you to their ecosystem.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Google’s is to extend the computer screen to your permanent vision by making the wearable be eyeglasses. Their ideal is the movie Terminator in which given a situation a list of options can appear. The eye glass will know where you are and what you need. The price is that Google gets to know everything about you.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple’s is to wrap a pager around your wrist as a watch. Their ideal is Babylon 5 in which everyone communicates by tapping their hand. The watch will monitor your health and ring your friends. The price is that it is going to be expensive.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The differences mirror their approach to mobile apps. Google has built out Android to mimic the flow of webpages being downloaded from the server. Central to its navigation is the back button which is similar to the back button on a web browser. Google wants you to surf ideas. They want you to wander.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple wants you to live locally. There isn’t a back button or any distracting widget, there is only the app you are currently in, and they want to make those as powerful as desktop applications. They have added rich database support to locally store your information and deep libraries that take advantage of the phones sensors. Apple’s truth is the bird in the hand, not the cloud. They tend to mess up when they go to the server and the launches of Maps, MobileMe, and Ping were all problematic.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The question for wearables is what do you want to see when.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I do like Apple’s philosophy of self inspection more than Google’s world awareness since I would rather have less intrusion than more. But there those times, say a job interview, where getting the answers you need immediately would be useful. At some level using Google Glass to assist driving would be great, but there is also the danger of paying more attention to an incoming text than a pedestrian. Perhaps Google will figure out the right balance of when to update, but this will take time.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My main issue with watches in general is that I break them all the time; their faces are patchworks of scratches. I go through watches at a far faster rate than glasses. When I purchase a $30 Casio, that doesn’t matter as much, but with these things coming in at over $400 the effect will be brutal</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But to be able to signal my wife it is time to leave a party or that I love her could be great. Still we already have our silent language of nods.</span></div>
<br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am aware that I am too old for their target audience just as I was too old for text messaging, and that was a decade ago. But I do feel someday soon I will get announcement on a wearable device about a company’s upcoming hackathon. All I will be thinking is that they really meant the word overtime. </span>Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-41205544766844757362014-09-15T12:55:00.004-07:002014-10-13T11:35:16.229-07:00The Waves<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
My son went to the Pacific for the first time near Stinson Beach. He can’t really walk without support, but grasping my fingers he charged right into the sea. He has no notion of swimming or for that matter basic safety. He wanted to dart into the waves, to go into the unknown.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
I am job hunting again, a process similar to speed dating but without the intimacy. There is a habit of some shops to try to stump the candidate. They ask about a technical api or some arcane part of language that can be answered, usually, in four minutes in a web search and it is as if their main hiring requirement is to make sure that their programmers will work when the internet goes down. The truth is that when the network goes away everybody goes out for coffee, so the fear is a little misguided.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
You can always find something that somebody doesn’t know, and as such that isn’t the mark of a good interviewer. What is more impressive is trying to find out what it is like when someone is over their heads, when they rushed their ocean and the waves were bigger than they were - how do we handle struggle.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
I flail most of the time. I want to pretend that I could be calm, that I would handle the crisis with an even demeanor, but the truth is that when things get hard, there is mostly panic. I want to pretend that there isn’t fear, but that is as silly as pretending that the ocean doesn’t exist.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
I can sometimes ground myself in my memory - that I have some sense as I tumble about which way is up. I remind myself that I have survived other job hunts and other bad jobs. I remember to breathe.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
This time is different. Someone else’s tiny hand holds mine. These days I don’t need a life preserver for myself as much as a raft for my family.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
My son has a giggly laugh when he gets excited. He has my mouth and my wife’s eyes which crinkle with joy. He loves the ocean. He loves bananas, blueberries, yogurt and chicken. He loves his grandmothers though he has no idea what the word “grandmother” means. He loves chewing on a plastic bath toy. He loves chewing on paper.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
We will go back to the ocean soon. We will take lessons on how to swim. I will try to teach him not to put sand in his mouth. He will teach me to giggle at the waves.</div>
Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-58932085020303872962014-02-03T08:04:00.000-08:002014-02-06T06:27:42.211-08:00Seeking Stability<span style="letter-spacing: 0.00pt;">I played a game with Carter’s daughter where you alternated placing metal sticks that hooked together ever outwards into space. As the rounds progressed the structure grew. Any piece that fell while you were placing had to go back into your pile. Winners were determined by who got rid of their pieces first.<br /><br />I think we split the games for most of my stay.<br /><br />I don’t know if a 45 year old should feel proud of beating a 10 year old, but she was the kind of competitor that wanted you to play your best. She has the geometric intuition that I had at her age, the kind that senses how things tilt less by math than by feel. My insights have started to fade, but only a little.<br /><br />With each move we could make the structure more or less stable depending on whether we used the sticks as cross beams or counter balances. Chloe, the daughter, loved order and symmetry. She played for aesthetics. Thinking that the mess had an equal chance on falling on either of us, I played for chaos.<br /><br />I think Chloe would have always played for order - she seemed to be constantly organizing her older siblings - but I think she needed order even more now. Her father, my best friend from high school, was having problems with his treatment for stage four lung cancer.<br /><br />While there are no good versions of the disease, his particular kind has a receptor that can be attacked. There are a series of drugs that are coming out that fight the disease back. But the effectiveness of any one drug seems to last for a little more than a year. He has to keep switching the drugs and hope the treatment he is on will last until the next drug becomes available for humans. He is ticking through drug number 2.<br /><br />The side effects are getting to him. The cancer has metathised to his brain and, for lack of a better analogy, has started messing with the software. He has dizzy spells and cotton mouth. The day before I arrived he collapsed and during the ride to the hospital he felt paralyzed. After a few hours resting in the ER, he felt fine. No one has an idea what happened and he is being tested next week by five different doctors.<br /><br />He seemed fine the first day. I worried that he was trying to hard to be with me. He asked me to come a couple of weeks earlier when things were a little darker - the word “soon” that he left on my voicemail had a certain kind of italics - but the Carter of day one was almost energetic.<br /><br />He asked during the call that we not talk about cancer, and so I did my best to bring up the teetering of my own world - the instability of software startups and the challenges of taking care of a newborn. Our personal cross beams are our wives, but sometimes the pile of things to worry about in your forties can seem so much larger than what you worried at 10.<br /><br />We talked about Obama Care, the Tea Party, and supply side taxation. We discussed Kobe Bryant, Barry Bonds, the Lakers, and the Niners. We traded TV show suggestions - (mine was Episodes; his was Almost Human). We chatted about parenting which segued into sending kids to public or private schools. I told bad puns. We wandered back into being the sophomores we were when we first met, the kind where philosophy on capital systems or favorite bands was meant to be an endurance test. We stayed up late for west coast time.<br /><br />The next day he needed a bit more space, and I played a few games with his wife and children. His eldest son is now an atheist who plays a ton of video games. We chatted a bit about the game Civilization, but I could sense his disappointment when I went for cultural victories instead of scientific. His middle daughter was shy and spent most of the time in her room. That left Chloe and our on going battles of order versus instability.<br /><br />I decided that this game needed new rules. She was a little surprised that you could just make them up. She pointed to the side of the box that had them listed with diagrams of how the yellows could go a certain way that was much different than the reds.<br /><br />I told her that we could try adding a rule for one round and if that didn’t work out remove it. At first she was horrified; the only thing worse than adding rules was removing them. She then allowed it on a trial basis. <br /><br />The next round she added a rule of her own.<br /><br />Just before leaving Carter and his wife joined us, and Chloe explained our vast system of challenges and double rolls. That round I came in last and I was quite okay losing, because to me it meant knowing that perhaps however small we could change the rules towards something that was not going to collapse as easy if only for a February afternoon.<br /></span>Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-15982542059845865352013-10-14T09:05:00.000-07:002013-10-14T10:47:53.235-07:00The Physics of Time and Gravity.<p style="text-align: left">Days have become probabilistic. At any hour I could be asleep or awake. Three o’clock in the morning and four thirty in the afternoon have bled together separated only by electricity. Time has been broken into three hour chunks which starts with feeding and ends with a diaper change. These repeat again, again, again, and again.</p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">My wife and I have our pacifiers - not just the rubbery ones we stick in our son’s mouth. I need to code and o go to Boulange for a mocha every morning. Warm milk and iOS 7 api’s sooths me. I miss work or more of the abstraction of it. I miss the concept of sticking with something for more than thirty minutes, I miss building and designing, and I miss collaborating on a white board.</p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">My wife misses being a manager. Sometimes she would try it out on me. Then she decided to hire one of her former workers to help organize things in the back of closets and papers deep in boxes.</p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">We both think each other is crazy. We bicker more about things small and vast. We fret over how much time a shower should take. We worried if our son is gaining weight. We try to be as supportive as we can, and it isn’t nearly enough. Our baby cries, my wife cries, and I bluster. These repeat again, again, and again.</p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">We learn about the outside world through cracks. Everybody used to be worried about the Syrian Government now they are worried about our own. I used to think Walter White broke bad because of lung cancer, and now I wonder if it was because he had an infant on the way.</p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">My wife and I did escape yesterday to see the movie Gravity. It stars George Clooney and Sandra Bullock as two astronauts floating above the earth. In my dreams it stars ourselves, or certainly better looking versions of ourselves. We are tethered together aloft. Every ninety minutes the world crashes and we improvise with small jokes and physic problems.</p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">The thing about the movie is that as desperate as it gets (and we lose our breath the same way that Sandra does) around the corners it is beautiful. You watch the sun come up over the earth’s horizon. You see the storm clouds of the day and light ganglions at night. Everything floats as if it is swimming with the stars.</p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">A few weeks in, I am not sure if parenting is meant to be enjoyed only at the edges. I love my son’s smile, his vast repertoire of breathing noises, and how happy he gets when he reaches out to hit a blue monkey doll. I loved taking him to a coffee shop to meet his grandfather. I love his farts. </p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">There are moments of beauty in between the disasters. His crying has broken my wife and I on consecutive nights. It isn’t the size of the shriek, but the endurance of it. Our previous goto methods of swalddling and singing mostly middle period Beatles songs aren’t working as well, and we keep trying to come up with new ideas if not to distract him then at least ourselves from the fact only thing up at the hour besides us are raccoons. We share the black circles around our eyes.</p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">Soon the infant orbit will end, and the toddler one with start, followed by the terrible twos. The rules will keep changing. We will try our best to stick together, tethered aloft above it all.</p>Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36358236.post-90094256553164995822013-08-28T10:25:00.000-07:002013-08-28T11:20:44.278-07:00The boy in the bubble<p style="text-align: left">I wanted to believe in a bubble. It wasn’t the financial or technical bubble for I have seen those both burst, but rather a personal protective bubble. I wanted to believe that you couldn’t be let go of your job four weeks before your kid arrives, that there is some bend in the universe that would protect you, and that a company that talks about being a family would understand the need when you were starting your own. </p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">I was wrong.</p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">Silicon Valley might be developing the newest society in the world, but is steals from one of the oldest. There is a culture of cannibalism; the place eats its old and infirmed. Innovation requires speed. Every technology will ultimately be replaced so the faster you can build a new one the more life you can give it at the start. And in order to be fast you need to cut those who can’t keep up, those who go with their wife to the doctor to discuss a c-section, those that want a few weeks off for paternity.</p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">My kid arrives tomorrow. </p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">I want a bubble around us to protect us from the scary world. I want our own healthy air, our own blankets for naps, our own quiet place.</p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">The short weeks since I parted with the company have been spent power nesting. We have skateboard tape on our stairs, stickers on our walls, and cushy surfaces everywhere for changing or sleeping. We made a will and made sure the brakes of the car are up to date. We have read books and attended classes. We have slept in and exercised. We wait.</p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">The job loss stings, but I am very lucky. My father built a bubble around me. We live in one of his houses and I get insurance through him. The c section will be paid for. I will get a chance to help my wife, to be the errand guy, to be the co changer, to feel my kid rest on me, and to spend a little moment outside the river of tech.</p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">I keep getting asked whether I am ready to be a dad, and I don’t think there is a good answer. I know I have no concept of what it takes, and I also know that people in my position haven’t had a clue for millions of years and at least some of them came out okay. I know that I will make a ton of mistakes and that I can’t protect or provide everything. There isn’t a bubble.</p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">What I do have is time. Perhaps not full power parenting time - I am going to need to keep slivers for my sanity and certainly nights away when I can date my wife. I want to spend time so that I get to know who my son is and will be. That I can figure out what makes him laugh, to find out what makes him passionate, and to help him as best I can. At times we will disagree, he will push my limits, or I will be harsher that I should be. It is highly likely a decade and a half from now he will think I am incredibly lame (and a good chance that he thinks that of my humor by the time he turns 4). But I hope later he will recognize the love and hope I want to pour into him.</p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">I know I appreciate how much I received, how much I was helped. There isn’t enough I can do to honor my dad., but the best I can do is to name my son after the man who has meant the most to me.</p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">These are the days of miracle and wonder.</p><br /><p style="text-align: left">And don't cry baby, don't cry.</p><br /><br /><p style="text-align: left">-Arthur</p><br /><br /><br /><br />Arthur Connerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07134259737339144031noreply@blogger.com0