The boss is keeping me company while I write these words upon this page and consider if there is more guidance I can give to my kids.
Probably nothing more that I can do or say because there are things that happen in life that you can’t understand or appreciate until they happen to you.
Sometimes you are on your own and that is just the way it is, but it doesn’t stop me from taking another crack at trying to change some things that some say can’t be.
Learned long ago that sometimes people say things are impossible because they fear hard work and or are willing to let inertia beat them into submission.
Walked out of my home office and found my son waiting for me. He told me about a phone call from his sister and then I heard him roar.
Watched him get progressively louder and angrier because he was angry about what she had said.
Not with her, but at some people he felt had mistreated her and so I listened for a moment.
Felt my own anger rise a bit but it was mixed with pride because my kids look out for each other and that is priceless.
Tools Of The Trade
Spent more time on Ancestry, MyHeritage, Jewish Gen and a half dozen other spots researching family in multiple languages.
It appears that my Great-Great Grandfather Meir Wilner may have come over on the same ship as my great grandparents. That intrigues me.
Family legend says he came for a visit and caught my Zaide eating treif (non-Kosher) food and decided America wasn’t the place for Jews.
Would love to know the full story because it had to be better for us here than in Europe but I don’t think I’ll get the truth of that tale. Those that could speak to it are gone.
Still I dug through more online resources and tried to improve my skills with the tools of the trade so that I can get deeper. Even found more stuff that suggests we might be related to the Vilna Gaon which would be pretty damn cool but not of particular interest to most.
Thought some more about the tools of the trade as they apply to writers and my professional life.
Still believe that part of a writer’s kit is to have multiple life experiences that are a mix of the mundane and the extraordinary.
Add the importance of being able to feel deeply and then include being able to describe that in a way that others can relate to.
Someone asked me for an example and I said “imagine someone said you are the love of their life and they have never felt more deeply for you than anyone else.
Now imagine they told you they had to go away and that maybe one day there would be a chance, but one day was probably never.”
They said that was something that had been written about a million times and I said there was a reason for it.
And then they asked me if I knew anything about it.
I simply smiled and said they could find some wrinkles and wear but those scars can’t be seen but sometimes they can still be felt.
When they asked a follow up question I told them about the time someone asked me if I had my concealed weapon permit.
“You don’t live in a California anymore. You must have figured out the benefits of being able to protect yourself right?”
“I always knew about it.”
“So what did you do about it?”
“No need to worry, I am good.”
“What is your preference, what do you carry?”
“I am good.”
“That is not an answer.”
“Isn’t that the point. You don’t know if I am or not and err on the side of caution.”
One day people will realize that I am unlikely to share more information than I think they need or deserve and that badgering me won’t work….one day.
It’s All Narishkeit
The longer I live and the more experiences I have the more I recognize that life is filled with the mishegoss and the narishkeit of the meshugehnehs around us.
That’s not particularly profound or insightful nor is it a new insight but it is an understanding of life that I am actively trying to pass on to the kids.
It helps make the screwy moments and the screwballs more tolerable.
There have been quite a few of those for a while now and some people have told me they despair of things ever improving.
You can’t dissuade them from their perspective and most of the time I don’t try but there are moments.
Moments where I engage because I can’t let them fill me with poison and there is no way to easily disengage.
Thought about all of this and more while the kids told me about what was going on.
Some people and some environments are toxic and the faster we get out the better off we are.
It is a crazy and chaotic time in some ways but we’ll look back upon some of this as having been particularly good for us.
That feels like a strange thing to say given all that has happened and is happening, but there is some truth to it.
I haven’t told them we at the cusp of some big life changing moments because there is no good purpose served in that.
It feels a bit like we are in the lead car of a roller coaster that is being drawn up a tall hill.
For the moment there is the clickety-clack of the cars on the track and murmurs of passengers preparing themselves before we get sent down hill at light speed to hit a dozen loops.
Life, it is a hell of a ride.
