Life doesn’t come with a GPS and if it did mine would constantly say “recalculating.” Some people take the high road and some people take the low road. Me? I don’t take a road, I just follow my nose through thick and thin.
During the good times I deem it part of my roguish nature and tell those who ask that I am 500 pounds of 5-year-old boy. During the bad times I attribute it to my disdain for authority and desire to march to the beat of my own drummer.
Did I mention that my drummer is always off beat.
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A man called me a nazi because I disagreed with his views on the world and worked hard to try to make me feel badly about myself.
I snorted, shook my head and told him I wasn’t worried about someone who can’t tie his velcro shoes let alone articulate a coherent fact based argument.
Jerusalem is burning I thought to myself and I moved onto other thoughts and ideas.
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Spent some time talking with my daughter about various Yiddish phrases and expressions because I realized I wasn’t sure how much she really understood or was familiar with.
She didn’t grow up with grandparents who spoke Yiddish or spend time at Farmers Market in West Hollywood or other places where it was common to hear it spoken.
It is not impossible to find places now where you can hear the mamaloshen but the accents I heard growing up are different.
When I was a kid it was a mix of European accents and Yiddish spoken with American accents. Many of the latter were the second generation Americans, but first generation born here.
Got me thinking again about the journey my family took and how some of my roots in the states go back about 140 years.
Others came later and others moved within Europe or went to Israel many generations ago. Got me thinking about the twists and turns life takes us upon and how you can’t always plan for what is to come.
Who We Were Meets Who We Are
Can’t decide if I am to write alongside The Man’s Too Strong, At The End Of The Day/בסוף היום or Tunnel Of Love.
I hear the echoes of ’85 and walk down corridors of memory that intersect with connecting with people who knew me as I once was and reconnected later to see who I am now.
Lie down upon the bench, let anger wash over me because I decided on a whim to add more iron to the bar than I have in decades.
As the bar comes down and I determine I am in complete control anger vanishes and satisfaction replaces it. One rep turns into two and three and four are accompanied by the sound of bionics.
Bar rests upon up the metal holders and I sit up, a little gassed but happy. It was a moment in which vanity and sanity collided, but the result makes me smile.
I have worked hard to restore some of what had been lost. Can’t turn back the clock but I can slow it down.
Can’t fix much of what I am frustrated and or concerned about but inside the gym I can compete with myself. I have control over that much and sometimes that is enough.
Dad’s Not Superman Anymore
The Moody Blues are singing I Know You’re Out There Somewhere and the video fits my mood and my thoughts.
The kids and I have been talking about all that is going on and I have been sharing my thoughts and ideas.
I can see them process what I say, see them accept some of it, disagree with others and I smile. I know they don’t see me as superman anymore.
They are old enough to see I am just a regular man. Old enough to have seen some of the usual changes of aging.
OId enough to tease me sometimes when they see things that used to be easy get a little bit harder. I smile and tell them to rage against the dawn, promise age is a number and that with some effort we can beat back Father Time.
I tell them to remember the importance of community, to love hard and to keep their good friends close. I tell them to remember the truth of “this too shall pass” and that sometimes the best way to get to the other side is stop looking into the sun and just keep walking forward.
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