As the saying goes, this is the season for giving. Yet for some, including myself, the giving is often focussed on just a few days.
For the rest of the month of December, we’re running around frantically trying to wrap things up – not just the presents we’ve purchased but various end-of-year projects – both work and personal – that have piled up the previous months.…
Last week, my entire family sat down to dinner on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights. On Wednesday my wife and I went out for dinner for a date night, just the two of us, after friends had to cancel due to illness.
Since starting a family, dinners together have been a priority. As they get older, with more after school activities and a natural desire to hang out with friends, family dinners can happen a little less regularly.…
It is estimated that over 275 million copies of the board game Monopoly have been sold, making it the best selling board game of all time. Approximately one billion people have said to have played the game at one point in their lives.
I’m guessing that only a small fraction know that this game, a tribute to capitalism, was originally envisioned as a game to promote communal values and fairness.…
This week has been marked by delays. Delays by their very nature can be maddening and disheartening – particularly when we feel as if we have no control over them and the action that is being delayed is timely.
I took the first notification “Your flight is delayed” in stride as it was only 25 minutes and a modest flight delay is predictable. By the seventh “Your flight is delayed email” we had entered the land of the surreal.…
The Oscar nominated short documentary “How Do You Measure a Year?” is a film based entirely on a ritual. Each year, filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt asks his daughter to sit in the same spot on their couch and answer the same set of questions. The ritual begins on Ella’s second birthday and extends to her 18th. After not watching any of the footage during those seventeen years, Rosenblatt edits these sessions down to a crisp and moving twenty-nine minute time machine.…
Twice within twenty four hours, I heard stories referencing the idea of a young child’s experience walking down the street.
The first was during a conversation between the record producer Rick Rubin and podcast host Krista Tippett. They remarked about how wonderful – in the literal sense of the word – a child’s walk down the street is compared to ours. They have no concept of time and hence aren’t in any rush.…
A boy tags along with his stepbrother to a casting session.
To his surprise, he is selected to do background work as an extra on a children’s show.
An assistant director sees something in the boy and begins giving him acting books as he’s never acted before. Later he offers tips on how to stand out from the crowd.
Eventually the boy becomes a regular on other children’s shows, gets a few small movies, is cast in a small but memorable part of a Quentin Tarantino movie, does some theater in Los Angeles before begin chosen to act opposite Denzel Washington in a Broadway production of The Iceman Cometh.…
You’ve probably never heard of Hody Childress. He was a stranger to me as well until I recently read of his passing and his incredible legacy of anonymous kindness.
Thirteen years ago, Hody asked his pharmacist a simple question, “Do you ever have anyone come in who can’t afford their medication?” The pharmacist replied, “All the time.” Hody responded by pulling out a folded hundred dollar bill and telling the pharmacist that the next time that happens, “Use this.”…
What a difference a week makes.
In my last note, I wrote of the many reasons for celebration in my home.
This week not so much.
My youngest daughter, encouraged by two call backs, did not get the role she was hoping for in her 5th grade play.
My middle daughter who won her first wrestling match last week, this week fractured her collarbone and is now out for the rest of the season.…
I’ve read countless memoirs and interviewed dozens of people about their journey but none have been as honest, conflicted and raw as Acceptance by Emi Nietfeld. Her story is marked with countless issues and circumstances that she has had to overcome and her book looks to reconcile them in the context of a culture that likes these stories told in a very particular way.
Her experience in crafting her college essay is particularly telling.…
My best friend left me a voicemail message recently. He mentioned a book he had been reading, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. It suggested that we shouldn’t take any action that’s not aligned with acceptance, enjoyment or enthusiasm.
In reflecting on those three feelings, it got me thinking, “What am I enthusiastic about?”
Enthusiasm is defined as an intense and eager enjoyment or interest. Its origin is from the Greek word, enthousiazein meaning to ‘be inspired or possessed by a god.’…
Much has been made about the extraordinary amount of attention and coverage given to the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. On one hand, she was probably the most famous person on the planet. On the other, some would say she had, at best, a symbolic role in the world and at worst what she symbolized was colonialism.
Like most of us, she wore many hats – albeit one of hers was literally a heavy crown.…
My children have always loved back-to-school shopping. There is something about the idea of having a list of school supplies and wandering through a stationary store checking off boxes that brings them a strange combination of excitement and satisfaction.
As a writer I can identify with the love of pencils, paper and such.
So there we were scuffling through Staples searching for the perfect sized post it notes or a pencil case that was both stylish (one picked out a furry cat – rather kitschy) and functional (dividers or pockets seem key.)…
Recently, my wife and I took our daughter to see Dear Evan Hansen. I had seen the musical before with my oldest daughter, watched the movie and listened to the soundtrack hundreds of times with my family who love the music.
Seeing it again live was to restore its power in my mind – power that was diluted by the repeated listening and sing-a-longs on car rides.…
When I was young, I spent most of my time with friends. As a latchkey kid, I was told to get outside in the morning and wouldn’t return until dinner or after – depending on whether my mom was working that night. As I got older, I hung out with friends after school, after practice or after work – whatever would get me out of my trailer home.…
Last week while walking my dog, I noticed what I thought was one of those awesome free standing “Lending Library” kiosks.
However as I approached, I saw that this one did not include a single book. Rather, it was filled with canned goods and other non-perishable food items. The sign at the top read, “Take What You Need.”
The presence of such a structure was both a sign of our difficult economic times and a refreshing public display of community kindness.…
Marcel Proust once wrote, “The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is…”
He is writing about the role artists play in society in a chapter perhaps appropriately named, The Prisoner.…
Last year, I was honored to deliver the commencement address at my alma mater, Penn State. It was held in Beaver Stadium, where over 100,000 fans stream in each Saturday during football season.
The students graduating that day would go out into an uncertain world. A pandemic still wore on, the country and specifically their state was deeply divided.
Yet they were graduating with a college degree and into a strong job market.…
I knew what I wanted to write about on Tuesday. I am still not sure what I have to say.
Speechless and helpless are two natural reactions when the same thing happens over and over again and you are at a loss for what to do about it.
If you read the number 19, you know exactly what I’m talking about. But let us not forget the two – teachers who died in the line of fire.…
It was an especially hectic weekend. On top of the standard travel soccer chaos, there was also a band/chorus concert and tech week for one of my daughter’s theater groups. All of this was compounded by the fact that my wife was away on a well-deserved, but ill-timed, girls’ weekend. I was flying solo.
We had managed the first three days quite well, due in large part to some good planning and even better temperament from my three daughters. A…
Over the last week, I attended concerts for two of my children. Both are in band, one is also in chorus. In an auditorium packed with proud parents, I doubt that I was alone in marveling at how these 12 and 14 year olds had become such accomplished musicians. They had surpassed my own musicality years ago.
Similarly as I watch all three of my children on the soccer pitch, I must acknowledge that they shortly will become more skilled at their sports than I ever was at mine.…
I coach all three of my daughters’ travel soccer teams. Between practices and games, I will spend almost twenty hours a week on a soccer field. This doesn’t include traveling to and from games or any of the administrative headaches that come with the gig.
It can be very stressful getting kids ready, out the door and on time. Each team has had their share of growing pains.…
What or who do you believe in?
Beliefs can be a tricky thing. We all have them, in fact hold them dearly. Yet seldom do we explicitly state or share them. More often, beneath the surface, they inform, influence or dictate many of our actions.
Beliefs, according to the Oxford dictionary, can be defined in two ways:
One is “an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.”…
In her 2018 memoir, Educated, Tara Westover, shared her incredible life story. She told of being raised by survivalist parents who did not permit her to go to school or see a doctor. In spite of it all and the accompanying trauma, she went on to go to Brigham Young University (her first class there was her first experience in a classroom) and then on to Oxford University and ultimately becoming a bestselling author.…
Rules for a Knight by Ethan Hawke is a charming and wisdom filled slim book. It is written as a letter that one of his ancestors left his children before heading off to a battle from which he was unsure to return. He shares twenty values that his children should live by – if they wish to be a noble knight like himself. Within each there is a brief fable that illustrates the value in practice.…
