Pre-Father's Day Dream

Last weekend I flew down to San Diego and got to visit both my sons Alex and Zac and Sally's daughter, Hannah. Zac drove down from Santa Barbara to join us. My role as Dad with adult kids is still new to me, though the twin boys are now 26 and have been making their own way for several years. I'm not exactly clear on how they see me now, what they need from me now, what advice or worries to voice, what confidences to share. But what remains crystal clear, is the pure pleasure of looking at them. I can still feel a sense of miracle at their being at all and my visceral connection to their lives, and theirs to mine. yummmm.......

We played doubles tennis with one of Alex's apartment-mates, Sean. At this point, my main goal is to make a few good hits and most importantly, not to keel over, or spoil all the fun with a heart attack. It worked out pretty well, though there was a rebellious muscle in my neck, determined to spoil my illusion of being a 20-something too. Within a half hour after we stopped playing I couldn't turn my head right or left and had to turn my whole body to speak to someone throughout the Padres game we went to see with Hannah and Heather. I was all of 56 years old for that event.

The first night I stayed at Alex's apartment and he stayed at his girlfriend Heather's. He gave me his bed and Zac slept on a pad on the floor next to the bed. Before waking up the next morning, I had a long, convoluted dream that I've mostly forgotten. But there was a scene in the middle of it where my Mom showed up. She's been dead almost 30 years now and I almost never get an appearance from her in my dreams. It must have been triggered by how connected and happy I felt with Zac and Alex close by.

When we woke up I told Zac that I had a rare "Rochelle sighting" in my dreams and that I remember asking her to come to my backyard and see the flowers I'd planted that were all blossoming. Then the dream evaporated - as they do - in the welcoming breeze of the new day.

It wasn't until last night that the dream came back and grabbed my attention. While I'm no dream-specialist, it is clear to me that I wanted to show Rochelle her grandsons Zac and Alex who are in full blossom at age 26.

birthday gift story

My dad turns 80 this April and last weekend I watched a videotaped interview I did with him ten years ago. My brothers want me to make a video for his birthday party. The party will be part of a full weekend which, of course, includes a Sabbath in an Orthodox setting. Family gatherings that fall on Jewish holidays, or even Sabbath, always cause me a lot of anxiety and apprehension - especially when Sally and my sons are coming too.

But the tape draws me in completely. I never watched it before. He talks about starting out in business with only a religious Jewish high school education, borrowing money to buy a kosher butcher shop in a little town he'd probably never been to - Peoria, Il, after working in the Chicago stockyards for three years. Marrying my mom as teen agers; paying $37 per month for a basement apartment as newlyweds; discovering that he could sell ad specialties with only catalogs in hand and starting "SelMor Advertising"; finding investors and buying a couple of machines to print ads on giveaway plastic items; ("The Graduate" with its immortal line about "plastics" had a special meaning for me.) Somehow, it's easy to see my dad as a young man braving a largely unknown world - just a few layers beneath the wrinkles and white hair of this later version. Stories pass by so quickly in retrospect, like the pages of a thick novel blown over to the final chapter outside in a sudden breeze.

It touches me deeply to hear of his early years. The story of a young man wanting to make a life....wanting "to become a man" as he says in the tape. A story so universal and far removed from our father-son dynamics.

Stories became nearly impossible to exchange across the chasm between my secular life and his orthodox life, a gulf that widened over 35 years as we traveled different trajectories. But this early chapter from an age- as young as my sons are now- is a time-warped-sort-of-bridge.

Tomorrow, I turn 55, and the connected, compassionate feelings that Ab's "young man stories" have imparted feel like a wonderful birthday gift one day early......or 35 years late depending which way the breeze is blowing.

Father's Day Love

On Saturday morning I went out onto the deck and a guy (pictured above) was sitting there in disguise. It was an uncomfortable moment as I bent down and looked at him because I knew it must be some friend that I wasn't able to recognize. When he pulled off his Groucho Marx glasses, nose, and mustache a few seconds later, I was simultaneously mortified that I hadn't instantly known him and dizzy with pleasure that it was my son Alex who had come up from San Diego. It was the furthest thing from my mind that I'd see either of the twins this year. I last saw Alex in December when we went in our unusual family constellation to Mexico - a vacation that was also his and Zac's college graduation present.

Alex has been hard to reach in recent years, his time consumed by the pleasures and routines of his extremely social lifestyle - the many friends, the always sweet and pretty girlfriend-of-the-year, the daily weightlifting, the restaurant work, and until last July - his schoolwork. When I call on the phone, he is always enroute to something or other and has to get off quickly. But he also has the knack of immediately charming his mother or me as soon as we're together with his happy, loving attention.

He definitely made this one of my favorite Father's Days ever. We went on two big hikes, ate great, and went to a zydeco concert at a nearby little nightclub.

The surprise visit was arranged by his mother, Deborah. We ended our marriage over twenty years ago, but found our way into a glorious friendship fueled by mutual admiration for the other's co-parenting skills. We always lived within a couple of miles of each other - sometimes closer - and the boys alternated whose house they went to after school/daycare every other day. (This week Deborah and I are going out to celebrate 30 years of friendship.)

The first day's hike included Alex, me, and Deborah at Hidden Villa where Alex and Zac went to a two week day camp numerous summers. Alex talked about his new job for a fast growing company that rents and sets up huge draping for conventions and concerts. He has quickly risen to a manager position that will begin in a month. He joked about his commitment challenges when it comes to girlfriends and wondered if he's ever really fallen in love. The three of us each took a stab at defining love. Alex's definition was about finding someone who does wonderful things for you. Deborah and I both spoke about how it is just as much about what you want to do for and with your partner – the ways you want to discover them on deeper and deeper levels, care for them, and build a history together. We both acknowleged that for every day that you are fully in touch with those vibrant feelings, there are many when you are just going through motions.

What I forgot to acknowlege was what was right in front of my face, perhaps obscured by its very pervasiveness or because it was camouflaged by the equivalent of a Groucho Marx nose and glasses - but there I was spilling over with more love than I could ever contain with every step along the creek and under the sun as we climbed the formidable hill together.