Month: June 2014

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Favorite Mistake

“Did you know when you go it’s the perfect ending to the bad day I’ve gotten used to spending? When you go all I know is you’re my favorite mistake.” -Sheryl Crow

deletebuttonI’ve made enough mistakes in my life to choke a horse. If you could lay them end to end they would be longer than a reclining Statue of Liberty. Sometimes I made so many mistakes in a row that I honestly couldn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, I would get so frustrated from making so many mistakes that I would be careless and make more mistakes. Some of my mistakes have been huge ones, and others have been relatively inconsequential, but every single one of them has been preventable. In fact, that’s in the very definition of the word…

mistake: an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc.

I particularly like that part about insufficient knowledge because it doesn’t mean that smart people don’t make mistakes. Even smart people are smart in certain areas and not so much in others. For example, Albert Einstein, pretty smart… in theories and mathematical equations. Put him on the street in Harlem and see how many mistakes he makes. See what kind of trouble he gets into because he doesn’t understand the lingo, the nature of the streets.

Some of my mistakes have fit into this paradigm very nicely and neatly, like the time I got on the wrong subway in Boston. I know the subway like the back of my hand, but the subway I’m familiar with is the Philly one, and Boston’s is just different enough, and the area just different enough, that I got lost for a good hour before finding my stop. Another time I made the mistake of asking a woman when she was due, and… she wasn’t pregnant. I call it foot-in-mouth disease, but that’s another mistake I created because I didn’t know. Continue reading “Favorite Mistake”

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A Glance

Such strong words A hazarded glance Rife with meaning Denigration implied An easy mark Tilted off-center Straightened for show Like binding ties In a fitful dance Perfect expectation Of lost days Spent in shadow Where we stumble Where we fall In jilted lines That spread wide Then collapse In misunderstanding That loving hate Like liquid … Continue reading A Glance

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Those Beautiful Smiles

I have two children, and some days are a bit tricky… logistically. Today is one of those days.

At 8:50 I headed off to my oldest daughter’s school to find the parking lot completely full of vehicles. It hit me that perhaps on Flag Day I should have gotten there about 15 minutes earlier, but hindsight is 20/20. Instead of complaining, though, I simply parked in a non-spot and hoped no one hit me while driving through the parking lot. Once I got inside and saw the sign that said Morning Program would be in the gym, I finally got why the parking lot was full.

Flag Day is apparently a big deal here. I hadn’t thought about that when Alexa told me she was so excited about being a part of Morning Program on Flag Day. I saw it with my own eyes, though, when I walked through the pouring rain into the gym and saw the hordes of people sitting on the bleachers and in four rows of seats set up for the occasion. Then Alexa came in with her class, waving the tiny American flag, and I was so proud. In her other hand, like the Statue of Liberty, she carried a folder that said “Weather” on it.

From the front of the gym, she craned her neck to see me, and I stood and waved at her. It’s always incredible to see that smile, and to know that it’s for me. But then, after she focused on the program that was just starting, my eyes flicked over to the clock. I didn’t want to check it, but the time was already 9:15 and I had a sinking feeling the size of the program would overwhelm the time I had left to give. I was lucky, though, because at 9:20 Alexa stood up and gave the weather report, and she did a beautiful job of it, too. Then she introduced me to the group, one of my favorite parts of coming to Morning Program.

But then it was 9:30 and I had to go. I caught her attention, pointed at the clock and waved goodbye. Her part of the program was over, and I was lucky to have witnessed it, but as I got up to go and said excuse me on my way out, I encountered some looks of derision from other parents who were staying until the end, which by all accounts was probably not until 10:00. By 10, though, I had somewhere else I had to be because I don’t have one daughter. I have two.

So I dashed through the rain again to my car, which luckily hadn’t been hit, and took off for my youngest daughter’s school 30 minutes in the other direction, hoping I made it there in time for the special Father’s Day pancake breakfast they had arranged. I kept checking the clock on my dashboard, hoping the rain wouldn’t slow me down too much, and as I pulled into her school’s parking lot I saw I had two minutes to spare. I wasn’t late. I had made it to both important events in a very small span of time, and I smiled. Continue reading “Those Beautiful Smiles”

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Checked Out: Week 22

I just picked up the next book in the Jack Reacher series, but I still have to reminisce for a second about the one before it. Without Fail was a great book, and a fast read, even though it was about a million pages long. Those are the types of books I like, when I’m … Continue reading Checked Out: Week 22

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Why Mom Can’t Be Dad (and why that’s okay)

dad_8tzp“Now ain’t nobody tell us it was fair. No love from my daddy ’cause the coward wasn’t there. He passed away and I didn’t cry, ’cause my anger wouldn’t let me feel for a stranger.” -2Pac, Dear Mama

Mothers are the singularly most amazing human beings on the planet. They give more of themselves than it seems possible to give,and then they give some more. So often a mother’s job is never done, because to her it is so much more than merely a job. It’s a calling. When her child screams out in the night, a mother’s ears are tuned to pick up on it and respond, even before she herself is awake. A mother seems like she’s in all places at the same time because she often has to be in order to take care of her myriad responsibilities.

A mother doesn’t complain, though, not even when she isn’t appreciated, because she knows complaining doesn’t get things done, and she has no time for excuses. But one thing a mother can never do is be a father, and that’s okay.

For the most part, I grew up in a single-parent home. My father was never around, but even when he was his mind was elsewhere. I had probably five, maybe six, solid, concrete moments with him when I was younger when he made a positive impression on me, but I have a plethora of those type of memories featuring my mother. I just saw her this weekend, and it’s amazing to me how fresh those memories still are, and how we continue to make those memories no matter how old I get. The bond between a mother and her children should be an enduring one, and it often is, but can it make up for the absence of a father?

I hear so many people extoll the virtues of single mothers by saying, “She was both a mother and a father to me.” But that can’t be true, can it? Expecting a mother to be a father is like asking an Irish man to be Chinese. That’s because we need different things from each parent, and while many of us make it through childhood just fine without a father, it doesn’t lessen the yearning for one, or fill the hole caused by his absence. Continue reading “Why Mom Can’t Be Dad (and why that’s okay)”