In a different life I knew a girl I sometimes called Jericho because of the walls she sometimes would erect.
“You do know I am named for a man who is famous for tearing down walls and for stopping the sun.”
I remember how that made her snort and she said she thought I was named for my Great-Grandfather Julius and Cousin Jack.
That made me snort and I expressed my gratitude for her actually listening to me. That led to a Fifty Shades of Grey moment which is more detail than any of you want or need.
Anyhoo…
You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know
We’re almost two years into a situation that started before I moved back to Texas and there have been multiple moments I have reminded myself you don’t know what you don’t know.
Sometimes it is because I require the repetition for my own sanity and sometimes it is because I am trying to convince a teenage boy that the 31 years I have on him are meaningful in ways he might not fully appreciate.
Cuz he is like so many other teens in that he sometimes feel enormous pressure to know more about the future he wants to have.
So I remind him that my life barely resembles what I thought it would look like and that is not a bad thing.
I try to help him hear the words and understand that dear old dad would do some things differently if he could and that I haven’t been locked into one way of living.
We’re not slaves or indentured servants.
It is easy to feel otherwise and to forget but reality is very different and I never let myself forget that.
Call it the benefit of having had life punch me in the mouth multiple times and the unwillingness to just lie down and take it.
We all have to walk the road.
Would A Queen Wear A Shmata?
Sometimes I think about giving up Facebook because at times it can be a cesspool of stupidity.
Two different situations made me think of it again.
Situation 1: A man complained about a particular comment I made and suggested I somehow had made others lose their civility and consequently had prevented them from discussing a particular topic.
I only wish I had the sort of influence he speaks of. I didn’t force anyone to respond to anything I said or do anything of note to shift the conversation.
In fact his reactions and responses to my comment were the prevailing reason why he wasn’t engaged in the discussion he wanted to be a part of. All he had to do was ignore my remark and move on.
But he didn’t and blamed me for his lack of control. Very Trump like.
Situation 2: People are outraged about the verdict in the Steinle case in California. I understand because from the outside it seems incredible that the jury could go as they did.
But having sat upon a few juries I know from experience that things are different from the inside for a variety of reasons such as the instruction from the judge as to how to what is permissible to discuss and what isn’t.
I mentioned in one conversation that things might not be as simple as they seem and three people went off on me.
It didn’t matter that I said I was disappointed in the verdict, they just went nuts and well…sometimes I’ll jump in the mud with you.
So as we are going back and forth I ask one of them if a queen would wear a shmata and they tell me it is stupid, because they are certain queens don’t wear such things.
I told them I thought their response was narrow minded and ignored personal perception.
What you might look at as being high class and formal might seem to someone else as being just an old shmata.
Does a billionaire look at a $1000 dollars the same way the average person does?
I doubt it.
Roll With It
I came damn close to popping it back into place myself but couldn’t make it happen. Thought about asking for helping getting to the doc and said screw it because I don’t like asking for help unless the need is dire.
Almost a year later and that finger isn’t quite right, most of the time it does what it is supposed to do but sometimes it just doesn’t quite get there.
I made a mental note to ask the doc about it whenever I go for my next physical. Funny thing is I don’t want to do because I don’t want to get a list of things to change, work on or do differently.
Why is that funny?
Because if you said that to me I would tell you to suck it up and go. Better to know what you are dealing with.
Ultimately I’ll get there but it is not top of the list because there are others I have to take care of first.
Other situations that require my focus and it has taken significant am0unts of energy for me to manage them.
I think we’re making progress but I am not certain. I am just going off of a gut feeling because sometimes that is all you really have.
As much as you want to say “just ask” and you’ll get an answer you can’t always be certain you are going to get the unvarnished truth.
Sometimes you hear what they think you want to hear and sometimes you hear what they think they should say and not what they really feel.
I suppose this is why it is good to be the guy that can tear down walls and stop the sun because that provides you with patience, tenacity and the knowledge you can complete projects.
****
“Dad, are you pretending to play the piano?”
I nod my head and smile.
“We don’t have a piano, you look a little weird.”
I just smile at her because so much of what I does looks weird to thirteen-year-old girls. “Just roll with it.”
She doesn’t know why I am visualizing it or how I think about how good it would be to be able to write and play music.
All she knows is she walked into a room and found her father being goofy. She doesn’t know I went in there because it was quiet and because there is music playing inside me and I am just trying to figure out how to move it from heart to head to the world.
