Boldly Going: A Confession And Apology

It's no secret that I have always loved science-fiction. From the Chronicles to Lord of the Rings to The Space Trilogy to Star Trek to Star Wars, I have always been intrigued by forays into a realm or world or universe like and un-like our own. However, I'm discerning in my taste for sci-fi fantasy. I'm particular. Snobbish even. I don't do campy. I don't do unrealistic, if that's even possible as a prerequisite for science fiction. It's as difficult for me to explain my taste in science fiction as it is my enjoyment of science fiction.

There is an element to good science fiction, to the Asimov's out there. It consists of the same stuff of a good western movie. It entails part imagination, part familiarity, part possibility, part impossibility, part morality. It should inspire or stir or intrigue a part of us so that we can sense a bond with a story or character even though our worlds have nothing in common. A sensibility about it that allows for the individual in us to see ourselves in this world making the same decisions and mistakes even though we can't begin to imagine ourselves in a world like theirs. Good science fiction should insist upon and instill a hope in humanity.

One reason for the difficulty in ascertaining my enjoyment of it is because I don't think it's taken as a serious genre; not recognized in literature or in film. It's often stereotyped by the "nerds" and with good reason. I am not deluded in this sense -- I don't go dressing up to conventions for example. Of course, the stereotypes associated with the genre belie any credence to it and keep the enthusiasts in the closet for fear of being grouped in with the groupies. Star Trek: TNG is philosophical? Yeah, whatever. But it is. From Mills, to Kant to Plato to Sartre it's there and obvious. Also obvious: pointy ears and phasers and funny shaped beings. And for that reason you probably don't believe me.

Another confession/apology is due. To Eric: I'm sorry I made fun of you back in college when we first met and you were reading that fantasy novel series. Though it was probably campy, I shouldn't have mocked you for reading it! However, it's not like you've read another one since, so...

All this said, I've recently stumbled across a book I feel I should read (to be explained in a later post): Dune. So I'm reading it. And we'll see. Next will be the series my Dad's said I should read for forever: Foundations.

Anyway, I'd like to be able to hash out my sentiment a little better for this genre so feel free interject some thoughts into this post.

Standing Still While Moving Through Texas (Again!)

It's no secret I heart Texas. No secret it is, outside of Massachusetts and Maine, my favorite state in the Union. While my devotion to this state I have now visited only twice is a je nais c'est qua of sentiment, one of those beliefs best felt rather than examined, indulge me for another moment to wax sentimental on my latest experience.

I hyberbolically (and jokingly!) surmised that when Americans fight in wars, they fight for places like Texas. That they do not fight for states like Iowa or Idaho or Ohio or even Delaware -- although it is the nation's first state -- not for the beaches of Malibu or the rain and clouds of Washington state. No. They fight for Texas.

She stretches out for miles like a grandfather reclined on a decaying porch in the sunset. She is old and dusty. Rough, scratchy and faded. Such scenes lead one to believe in experience, that Texas is then an experienced state free of mistakes. Yet she is not. Texas is not the veteran, not the wise sage whom we seek for solace and answers. Texas has the feel of never quite being able to get comfortable, remaining on edge. A place most human. Most imperfect. Most the compilation of all that goes into living every day for a lifetime. And the more she stretches to relax, the more she inclines to be reclined-- like the grandfather on the porch -- the more she creaks at the joints with a deep pain welded by a story or a decision or a mistake or joy from long ago.

It is here that I am most quiet. Most relaxed. Most uncluttered. Like a little boy listening at his grandfathers knees with one ear pressed to his story and the other pressed to the evidence in his knees. My mind stretches as far as the horizon. Through the plain and colorless oceans of fields. Over the hiccups of hills. The watering holes and windmills. Past the animals, who in their youth even seem older than time. There are fences but no one and no thing is fenced in. Natural beauty seems to be the one thing lacking, the one thing that keeps it from competing with the Maines, Wyomings and West Virginias, there is beauty here. Much, much beauty.

To each and everything thing in Texas there is ascribed some story. It is the song that reminds me of Texas: Not Dark Yet by Bob Dylan. I listened to it yesterday as the plane left Dallas. Dylan writes about how "...behind every beautiful thing/there's been some kind of pain." Not to vault Dylan higher than he ought, but we can posit from this that pain leads to beauty.

Texas, that old grandfather with the sore joints in the sunset, is a beautiful state. Texas is a state that has lived and endured a lifetime. And as you drive through, it may look like you're moving merely around difficult overpasses and off-ramps, but you are trekking across the aged plains of Texas, and you are only standing still.

And time is running away.

On The Trip To Miami

It was our first vacation in 6 years - since the honeymoon to Seattle (minus the overnight baby-moon to northern Ohio). By this I mean the first instance where the Mrs. and I got away. No visiting friends, no visiting family (though did enjoy a rather delightful evening with my sister-in-law), no objectives other than to get away. Well, for me anyway. The Mrs. had to go to work conferences for three days. Oh, and the airline lost our luggage, refused to reimburse us and gave us no timeline for when the luggage would arrive (we spent the first 5+ hrs of the trip looking for places to shop and shopping for clothes and essentials). Call it a vacation then.

But here's the thing about Miami, about the city on the ocean that keeps everything that embodies the ocean away. There are beaches and small streets and massive amounts of sun and breezes. Yet there is no distinctive ocean smell. No quiet serenity of the then ironic crashing of waves. No, Miami is a place wrapped up in itself, not in the place and location it inhabits. Concerned about being the location everyone gets away to then a place to get away to. Thus, a place, by the end, you're not unhappy to leave. We were not unhappy to leave. The time was delightful, relaxing and a welcome respite. But Miami left us restive.

Perhaps it is the type of people we are. People who prefer Seattle to Miami. People who prefer the smell of the ocean to the faint whispers of an ocean odor amongst the collusion of a city on the beach that keeps such things at bay. Yes, Miami, with it's beachfront estates, sunshine and ocean breezes colludes against those of us who only hope to enjoy such things as simple and peaceful as the smell of the ocean and the glow of the sun.

On A Year: March 12, 2007 - March 12, 2008

Remember this day. It was one year ago. Some 365 days ago. 52 weeks precisely. Countless hours. Untold-about minutes. Time has certainly elapsed. And there just is no way to simply put, to easily say, summarily describe how relentlessly blessed and wonderful life has become.

Scrolling through pictures and videos and memories has been a marvelous delight. Remember when he first smiled. Remember when he first laughed. Remember his first Opening Day. Remember when he rolled over onto his stomach. Remember when he rolled over onto his back. Remember when he started to croll. Remember when he started to crawl. Remember when he first said Momma and Dadda. Remember his first tantrum. Remember his first haircut, bath, outfit, giggle, chuckle. Remember when he broke his leg. Remember when he first danced. Remember his first steps. Remember how his eyes light up something magical and happy at just about every moment.

To measure this time, as we are doing today with baseball cupcakes and caterpillar cakes, with wagons and gloves, to measure it is an immense task; like nothing else. Comparable to no other thing. It's grandness, it's largeness, lies in not recalling when a first happened, or when he did a certain thing, like when he laughed insatiably because he was being tickled. It lies not in remembering the events of the past year. The true realization of the strength and power of today's celebration is remembering a time when this was not so. Isaac has so filled our lives with an indescribable essence that it has overflowed from moment to moment, seeped into the past and flows just as endlessly into the future.

This year has composed moments we can measure and capture and quantify. It has consisted of the one thing beyond measure: Our love that has grown larger than the days, larger than the weeks and months, larger than the mere year that has gone by.

Happy Birthday Isaac.

How I love you.

On Kmart Winters

For the most part, snow and winter and cold here in Columbus resembles Kmart more than anything. Dingy, dark, messy and unclean. Inconsistent. Sure, there's an occasional good buy or deal, like there is an occasional snowfall of four or five inches. But it's rare, and it's still only four or five inches. Winter in Columbus can never make up its mind. Never sure what it wants to be. So we meander through a couple inches of snow here, ice here and then 60+ temperatures there.

For a Bostonian, it's depressing. Gone are the epic snowstorms that dump 12-18 inches in one night. Gone are the true and complete blizzards that trap you in your home. Gone are the purest whites and sharpest colds of a Boston winter morning.

This weekend, the city endured its worst storm ever, which ranks like 15th all-time on my list. On Friday night, in the modicum of over-reaction, weathermen were calling it the Blizzard of '08 (complete with the snazzy graphics). There were seven inches on the ground. Now it snowed another seven over night and then three or four throughout the course of Saturday. Not exactly a blizzard (though according to the National Weather people, it fits the definition of a blizzard -- one that mysteriously doesn't take into account snow-fall rate. It's made of the same intelligence as people who put a stake in a baseball player's average while overlooking entirely OBP, SLG, OPS). Growing up we called this a lot of snow.

Sarcasm aside. It was a formidable storm. It dropped a lot of snow. And it was cold and windy and shoveling was not fun. But being out in it was the greatest of joys. Building a snow fort only to realize I forgot how to build them and then remembering how to build one. Letting Isaac crawl and sit and climb over the walls and around the fort and into the fresh snow. Jumping off the front porch into the powder and cold. Much can be said about the havoc these storms bring. How the cities and businesses shut down out of fear. Perhaps, when these moments are recalled and enjoyed, we can posit that cities and businesses shut down out of joy and fun because it is snowing. Because it has snowed. Perhaps.

For whatever this storm was, in perspective historically for the city and in my own experience, it was a true snowstorm. It was beyond the Kmart I had grown accustomed too and took me back into the familiar street corner stores of my youth (you know, like the one at the beginning of School Ties that was actually shot at the store down the street from my church). One defined not by snowfall totals or wind speeds or levels of emergency, but by snowballs and snow angels and snow forts and snow. Fresh, white and powdery.

And you can't put a price on that.

A Larger World: Isaac's Foray Into The Backyard

He was used to small places. Accustomed and familiar with the intimate settings of his world. For his part, he was only required to explore the outer reaches of the first floors of the homes he visited. Behind the couches and rocking chairs and cautious looks into the shadows of the underneaths of dressers and beds. It would be a grand occasion when he could climb a flight of stairs or kick and scream happily in shallow waters of white porcelain or blue cement, or gaze quietly into the passing trees through a moving window. But even those occasions were small in stature, never far from an outstretched hand of someone whom he infinitely trusts.

When his world did get larger, he did not get smaller. He did not shrink and cower into the familiar. Instead, he basked in its immenseness, swam in the seemingly infinite depths that were swirling around him in cool yellows of a setting sun and gray and white columns of clouds passing over his head. He would not move forward, out into the sea. But he would not retreat. Call that holding one's ground or a lack of bravery. Call it what you will. And call his name, see if he'll set forth on his feet and hands and chase out into the wide tenets of air and light and grass and mud and towards voices of those whom he infinitely trusts.

The world becoming larger is not an easy event to comprehend. To categorize and classify and assess for any of us. That's not even accounting for the equally daunting task of realizing one's place in this world. And for a child, for one who possess innocence and a sweet laughter, even he saw the need to examine, to not have it go unexamined. A truly admirable and envious and difficult task. One that takes no account for innocence or laughter, but requires them properly. There was no one greater to the task in that moment.

Sitting there in the yard, the grass and light around him, he made some judgements, comprehended some of the matters swirling about: That the world just got infinitely bigger. And that, even though he wasn't ready to leap out and crawl and walk and frolic, he could appreciate those of us who try, like me, his dad. With his open and bright blue eyes, heaven-ward, and a simple smile and hair gently tossed by the breeze, he admired those of us who try to make the world not seem so big and not seem so unfamiliar. He humored my attempts to encourage him and inspire him forward by showing him all the things I thought he could do in this larger place. But he had his own take, emitted surprisingly as he looked about and around: laughter at random, unprovoked intervals.

I think he thought this big world awesome.

Name Dropping: A Visit That Just Happened

As Ohio is the center of the universe today, you can understand why all of the Networks are in town. Seeing as how I work for the CBS one, we've been inundated over the past few days with network people. Moments ago, I shook Katie Couric's hand. Exchanged names -- as if I didn't know who she was. And a simple little banter with the Evening News host. She's quite pleasant in person. Very nice. Did I mention before that, seeing her walk down the hall while looking over my computer, we made eye contact and exchanged smiles and a wave as she walked by -- inches from my computer. Did I mention that? Because it just happened.

Though I did play a subtle joke on her. Realizing she was coming today, it struck me that underneath my sweater, I was wearing a Boston Red Sox shirt. She used to date the owner of the Sox. So I proudly displayed it and a picture of Isaac in Red Sox garb on the computer behind me during our meet-cute.