Each Wednesday, I commute into the city to teach. It affords me the rare opportunity to relax, read, listen and think. As I travel by train for forty minutes and then walk the thirty blocks from Grand Central to Union Square, I often listen to podcasts, some that make me laugh and others that make me wonder. You could even occasionally catch me singing along to a tune on Spotify.…
Two weeks ago I watched a grown man cry and it was extraordinary. They were neither tears of sadness or joy. I suspect they were tears born out of a deep humility, appreciation for others and a calling to serve.
The man was Colin Powell and the event, which was one of his last public appearances before dying last week, was for the school named in his honor; The Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership. …
I’m rushing to write this before I embark on six hours of travel soccer on a Sunday. This is after six hours of practice on Saturday. The joys of coaching all three of my daughters’ soccer teams.
This is on top of an email inbox that has gotten out of control, a calendar suddenly packed with appointments and a to do list that is seemingly endless.…
I have kept a file of all the rejection letters I’ve ever received. Two novels, dozens of short stories, even several poems all rejected by one agent, publisher or publication or another. In my emails, there are probably thousands of other examples of my ideas or proposals being turned down. Of course, there are also those instances where I never even received a reply. This says nothing of the slew of personal rejections that have amassed between my socially awkward high school years until I met and married my lovely wife.…
As Independence Day approached, I decided to google the root word “depends.” The origin of “depends” goes back to the Latin terms “de” meaning down and “pendere” meaning “hang.” Hence the dual and often conflicting definition of both “needing or requiring support” (e.g. “I depend on you”) and “undecided or open to influence” (e.g.“It depends”)
Many Americans have a strong aversion to the idea of dependency or even its softer cousin, “interdependency.” …
If you see the movie version of “In the Heights” based on the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical, you are likely to be wowed by the lavish dance numbers, moved by the stories of dreams and swept up by the fantastic music. Yet for me it was the poignancy of a collection of artifacts that show up in the film’s penultimate scene that will linger long after the images and tunes leave my head.…
Last week, I finished Broken Horses, Brandi Carlile’s new memoir. While reading it, I struggled to understand the reasoning behind the title.
Literally it is a reference to the horses Carlile has had throughout her life. They are broken in the sense that they are insufficient in the qualities we typically value in a horse.
Upon further reflection, the entire book seems as if it is a triumph of broken-ness. While…
Several months ago, I was listening to Marc Maron interview Glenn Close for his podcast. It was fascinating on many levels — for example, who knew that the actress was raised in a religious cult?
One story, in particular, has stuck with me. As a young address, Close was an understudy looking to make her Broadway debut. One particular Saturday, the director, Hal Prince, told her that he was thinking of letting the leading lady go and was going to make his decision after the matinee. …
When I was young, I would often wait until the precise moment when my sister had a mouthful of cereal before unleashing something silly or ridiculous. My only goal was to create sufficient laughter to cause the milk in her mouth to shoot out of her nose. I was remarkably successful.
Growing up, I would often take any proverbial stage in an effort to make others laugh. …
I’ve been thinking about food a lot lately.
On Monday of last week, an essay series that I worked on with Fast Company and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation launched with this piece from Saru Jayaraman looking at the future of work for restaurant workers. In it, she asks us to imagine a future where “diners don’t just ask about where produce comes from but how well workers are paid.”…
Last week, during winter break for my children, our family drove into New York City, for no other reason than to take our dog for a walk. While it was his inaugural stroll through the city streets, it was an opportunity for me to revisit old haunts and places that I called home for fifteen years.
My memory is not what it used to be. Presumably it’s preoccupied by short term demands for my attention that usually arrive these days via email, zoom calls and, more importantly from my children and family.…
If you rode the school bus when you were a child, do you remember who you sat next to? Can you see the faces of the other kids on that bus? Do you know or maybe wonder where any of them are today?
In his book Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, Pulitzer prize winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof talks about his number 6 bus in Yamhill, Oregon.…
If you rode the school bus when you were a child, do you remember who you sat next to? Can you see the faces of the other kids on that bus? Do you know or maybe wonder where any of them are today?
In his book Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, Pulitzer prize winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof talks about his number 6 bus in Yamhill, Oregon.…
What is the purpose of the fourth line of a short story?
According to author George Saunders, it’s quite simple. “Give the reader enough of a jolt to go on to line five.”
His new book, Swimming in a Pond in the Rain, is explicitly a course on writing and reading short stories. Implicitly it also serves as a metaphor for how we write our own lives.…
Consider the parable of the two fish swimming in the ocean. As one swims by the other it pauses to ask, “How’s the water?” The other replies, “What the hell is water?”
It is an admonition for us to stop and look at our surroundings. To not go about our days unconscious of the world in which we live.
In the daily deluge of information and activity, it is easy to miss what is right in front of us.…
On any given day, approximately 800,000 people in the United States will celebrate their birthday. When we are young, we sit with a birthday cake before us, surrounded by friends and families and we make a wish to blow out the lit candles marking our years.
In any given year, many of these wishes bear some semblance to one another despite the diversity of the wish makers. …
While walking my dog in the woods nearby, I stopped to marvel at a giant fallen oak. Uprooted from the ground, it was hard to surmise what had toppled this mammoth tree. I was full of wonder at the extensive roots laid bare for all to examine the many connections severed. Feelings of both loss and hope filled me as I was reminded that soon that tree would decompose with its nutrients revitalizing the soil that it would soon become part of.…
I’m not sure I’ve ever felt as blessed as I did this Thanksgiving. It was a day of almost complete harmony among my wife and I and our three daughters.
Our day began with a simple exercise of writing down the many people and things we were grateful for this year, in spite of all that has engulfed our nation and impaired our daily lives.
Under different circumstances, this request could have been met with eye rolls and pleas to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade.…
Daddy, 2020 sucks.” It is this year of sickness, sacrifice, sadness, sucktitude and overall political jackassery, my youngest daughter succinctly summed up what has become all too obvious.
Thanksgiving will soon join the long list of traditions, celebrations, holidays, and rituals that must be adjusted to conform to our new “less than” reality.
Perhaps, though, Thanksgiving is uniquely suited to be “more than” during these times.…
To support someone or something can mean many things. The definition can be either to provide material assistance – often in the form of financial help – or “to bear the weight of something or hold up.”
The former is clearly a lighter lift. We can make a phone call, donate a few dollars, provide a reference etc. The latter is literally a heavier commitment .
If I asked you how many people, causes or organizations you support according to the first definition, it might be a pretty expansive list.…
Which word do you use more often, “We” or “I”?
David Brooks’ column “How to Actually Make America Great Again” reflects on the new book by Robert Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett called The Upswing. It chronicles America’s swing from solidarity (we) to individualism (I) over the last fifty years.
As one point of evidence, the authors cite that the use of the word “I” in American books has doubled between 1965 and 2008.…
There are so many things about life that are beyond my current understanding. Chief amongst these are the experiences of people whose backgrounds are different from my own.
I do not understand what it feels like to be the victim of an injustice or to perpetrate it.
I do not understand what it is like to be discriminated against daily, to patrol the streets, to fight in a war, to live in fear for myself or my family.…
My two favorite parts of “It’s a Wonderful Life” are both born out of crisis.
The first comes as there is a run on the Bailey Building and Loan, the small community bank led by the movie’s protagonist, George Bailey. Fearing insolvency the customers descend on the bank with the hope of withdrawing all of their money out of fear caused by the stock market crash.…
The speed of everyday life can make the strings that connect us invisible to the naked eye. When life grinds to a halt those same strings might as well be thickly knotted ropes.
Recently, we have seen these connections first in ways that frighten us. A virus can spread across continents, oceans, and states, while making the rest of the world stand still. The economic reverberations ring out from Wall Street but come crashing down on every storefront on Main Street. …
Contagion is the second most popular movie on Netflix this year as people turn to this 2011 thriller for some combination of information and escapism. I watched this movie when it first came out and remember it as absolutely terrifying. But not for the reason you might think.
Yes, the physical effects of the virus that spreads rapidly across the globe are devastating and graphic (it is portrayed as exponentially more lethal and dangerous than the coronavirus.)…
