Spring is hard.

I'm not sure why it is, but I have a hard time in spring. New beginnings, but I associate it with endings, too. My dad passed away in the spring about 12 years ago, after a long hard battle with cancer. I just found out that my aunt, one of my dad's sisters, has just passed away as well, almost on the same day that he did. She was the last one who knew any of the history of their family.

Family is hard. Most of us love our families in one way or another, but isn't it odd how you also get a ton of your major life lessons to be learned and dealt with from your family?

My dad had some tough issues to deal with from his family. He was considered a gifted child artistically; his teachers had him put into a special art program in school when he was quite little. He was the spoiled favorite, from what his older sister told me many years later, his mother's favorite and a darling boy to her. He was probably also dyslexic, judging from his writing and spelling, but such things weren't diagnosed back then.

When he was around seven his mother was taken away suddenly, and in the course of a single day he and his sisters had to pack a small suitcase each, were taken away from home and they never saw her again. They were told at the time that she had died, though it was later found not to be true; her husband and her brothers had her committed to a mental institution for many years and she was subjected to electroshock treatments and eventually a lobotomy. There was never a clear picture of why this was done to her; there may indeed have been some mental illness, but there were family rumors of a plot between her brothers and her husband to get her share of family money. She apparently recovered enough many years later to be released and she remarried a good man, from what my aunt said. My dad only learned of this years later after she had died and he was told by his older sisters.

After his mom disappeared, he and his sisters lived with their father and his new wife, who already had a daughter, her own favorite. Sonny Jim, as he was called, was no longer the favorite and he had a rough time at home; his step-mom was abusive and his father was a cold, distant man who punished by beating. He told me many years later of being chained in the garage for a week like a dog, being told that if he was going to act like dog he would be treated like one. His father resorted to 'farming him out', sending him to a farm during the summers to work, with a fee being paid to his father for him. Being sent off to work on a farm for the summer wasn't uncommon back then, but his descriptions and stories of what it was like would be considered abusive child labor these days.

Sonny Jim was probably around 11 or 12 here,
about the age of my guys now.

I received some old family photos through my sister and my mom recently. There have never been many pictures of my dad, especially not of him when he was younger, so it was a surprise to discover a few early photos of him and a few small transcribed letters from his family, talking about him.

On leave, visiting the family. This was taken in 1944,
so he was about 19 years old.

One of the letters talked about how he had re-upped in the Navy, despairing that he would ever figure out what he was going to do with his life. He looks pretty cocky and self-assured in these early pictures.

He ended up getting court martialed at one point for killing a man when he was a Chief Petty Officer, though he wouldn't talk about it. I do know he received an Honorable Discharge from the Navy, since I saw the papers in his effects after he died. This picture from the deck of the ship he served on was also in his papers, and is also in the archives of the Smithsonian:

From the deck of the USS Kitkun Bay. That is a Japanese aircraft going down.

I posted this picture a while back over in my Flickr site, and it's been the magnet for a lot of comments from others who also had relatives who served on the Kitkun Bay. It's been oddly touching to have this side of my dad's life verified and talked about, since he never talked about his service much when we were kids. He told me bits, many years later, about a kamikaze attack on their ship and how he saw his best friend burned alive in front of him. He ended up going overboard during an attack with several other men, and told me about using his pants for a float. He was the only one rescued, over 24 hours later. He was sent to a VA hospital with severe pneumonia and had a rib and part of his lung removed, with a scar that ran most of the way around his ribcage, and that was the end of his naval service.

1948, soon after he was discharged from the Navy. He was 23.

There was a lost year after that, with no record that I have found of what he did or where he went.

He resurfaced and went to art school, studied ceramics and other things. I have his most prized art book from that time, and it's become one of my most prized books as well.

He met my mom sometime after art school. He was restless, though, and left Kansas City for California and wrote long letters to her. Writing long rambling letters and stories was a life-long habit of his; he often wrote to his sisters and much later, to me, with his idiosyncratic spellings and acidic observations about people. His letters to my mom were convincing enough to persuade her to fly out to join him in California. They got married and started a family, moved around a lot and stayed consistently poor. He didn't hold down jobs for long, getting fed up with pompous fools and bored with following rules and restrictions. His impatience and refusal to settle down caused turmoil not only in his career but with his marriage and my parents had a long and troubled relationship. My mom ended up doing a lot of compromising and making do and working at whatever she could to make ends meet while he went from one job to another with long periods in between.

In the Mojave Desert, with the new car. Around 1966, I think.

We moved a lot when I was a kid. He worked sporadically; my mom was the steady one. He never smiled much and he was very rarely happy. We knew he would never go see fireworks and he would disappear suddenly if a car backfired nearby. We knew him as a dad easy to anger, rarely pleased, frequently critical. I used to dream about running away. Oddly enough, though, I never really doubted that he cared about us; I think he cared intensely and wanted us to do well for ourselves, have better lives than he'd managed for himself.

Around 1976. He was about 51,
though he felt much older to me.

 It's odd to miss someone so cantankerous and grouchy. He was critical of my drawings, even while he encouraged us to draw and work on our crafts and the things we enjoyed. He told me not to become an artist like him, to go into science. He told me to be happy and get well educated; have a decent career. I rebelled and went into art anyway, determined to prove him wrong. Before he died he told me that I was a better artist than he'd ever been, and he was glad to see me making my living as an artist. I think he'd be pleased to see me now with my boys. I suspect the notion of having grandsons at all would give him pause, since he never completely accepted the notion that he had kids himself. I know the boys would drive him crazy with their noise and nonstop talking, but I suspect he'd be proud of them, too, and maybe a bit touched to see that he had smart, kind grandsons. It's hard to know, since he died the year before they were born.

Crazy Making

Allysson pointed me towards this article in Salon about how people who work in creative fields get treated. It's long, but an interesting and revealing read. And as she said, it's somewhat depressing, at least for those of us who try (or even just dream of trying) to make a living in fields regarded as 'artistic'. The article points out:  "The Bureau of Labor Statistics confirm that creative industries have been some of the hardest hit during the Bush years and the Great Recession. ... A working artist is seen neither as the salt of the earth by the left, nor as a “job creator” by the right — but as a kind of self-indulgent parasite by both sides. Why the disconnect? ... Essentially, these are working-class people – a lot of them have second jobs. They’re highly trained – dancers, singers, actors – and they don’t make a lot of money. They make tremendous sacrifices for their work. They’re people who should have our respect, the same as a farmer. We don’t want a society without them.” That's not to say farmers or anybody else don't deserve respect, but that artists do also.

 That article goes hand in hand with this little number, found through Hazel: "We'll sign the picture with your name!" which applies to creatives of all sorts. Go ahead; I'll wait. :)

Then there's this one, from Talis, about how the London Olympics plans to not pay the pro musicians playing for the Olympics. They've spent a ton of money for corporate sponsorships and the costs are mounting up, so where do they find a place to cut costs? The musicians. Of course. Like the musicians don't need or deserve to be paid for working, they should be glad to get the exposure. Right.

My dad used to tell me that I shouldn't become an artist because artists don't get paid, and even when they do it's not much. I (of course) rebelled, and told him something along the lines of, "Oh yeah? Just watch me." It's only taken me 30-odd years to realize that if my kids ask me about becoming an artist, I'm tempted to say just about the same thing that he told me. Now I'd say, 'Become whatever you want, kiddo, but you need to be realistic about the economic realities too. You have to be able to eat and pay your bills. And working for the exposure, for free, won't pay the bills.' The little video above with the talking critters says it well: "Getting credit and exposure isn't compensation. If I create an image, credit is my right, not something that you grant me."

Damn straight.

I do a lot of work for free, for various groups and causes I believe in. The problem is that my time is limited and so is my energy. And there's always the money issue looming over me; I need to bring in money even if I am not the main breadwinner these days. The gaming industry is extremely volatile and as Paul's job history proves there's never a certainty that he will keep the job he has. My main job right now is an energy and time consuming one of raising two little boys who deserve a fair chance at a good life. That leaves very little time and energy to do work as an artist or to do any 'building' work that will take me towards a place in the future doing work I like, that's fulfilling or advances my own goals.

Part of my problem these days is figuring out what my goals are, what road I want to travel down, rather than being pulled blindly along where ever someone else with a strong vision wants to go, with me along as the hired (but frequently unpaid) talented wrist. It feels too much lately like I'm being pushed and pulled about by promises of money or exposure or good causes and I haven't taken the time to stop and look around and figure out where the hell I am and where I want to go. So I'm going to be pulling back from some things and trying to schedule in some time for myself to figure out what's what and which road to go down.

And I'll be taking time out to enjoy the boys, too, because they're growing up a little too fast for my taste.

Gymnastics and Reno

Crazy busy, and my brain wants to noodle around and mess around and do almost anything but what is needed for the deadlines. So, well, a wee break to satisfy the hamsters, I guess.

We were in Reno last weekend for Casey's big USA Gymnastics Region 1 final competition. He's a level 6, the highest he can go at his age, and he made the Northern California All Star team a few weeks ago, so he was given a special uniform and competed with the other boys who made the All Star Team. He saw his Demaray's teammates during the meet since they were at least in the same competition, but he was on different events at different times than they were. He said it felt strange, but he also felt like he had to do a good job because he was representing his team.

So Region 1 includes Northern California, Southern California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii. This region is the most populated and the most competitive in the nation, apparently. At least that's what everyone tells me. And since I know very little about all the politics and stuff around all of it I tend to accept it at face value. Casey being on the Northern CA All Star Team meant that he was on one of the teams competing for trophies; only the various state all star teams were considered for team awards at this big Regional meet.

The actual meet was huge; running smoothly over 5 days with Levels 5 through 10 and various age ranges for each level. Casey's level 6 compatriots were only a small portion of the overall number of kids competing.

Part of the idea of these meets and the USA Gymnastics Association is to help kids have positive experiences with gymnastics competition. A benefit as well is that they help develop the athletes who go on in the sport to compete in things like the Olympics. The boys who do really well academically as well as in the competitions and stay in it up through high school can get recruited for 'full ride' scholarships to places like Stanford and UC Berkeley, though college funding for the sport is in serious jeopardy. The UC Berkeley team is fighting to keep their funding, and the rest of the universities are following very closely on what happens with the Berkeley case.

The kids who try gymnastics, like it and continue with it, and then join a competitive team have to learn discipline and they work really hard all year round, even during the off season.

For a bit of background, Casey and Riley both started doing gymnastics at a beginner class when they were in 1st grade; they learned basic tumbling and started on the basics for the gymnastics skills that are needed and form the basis for all of the more complex moves. That expanded for a few years for both of them.

They were both good at it, though Casey had the clear advantage over Riley of having a very strong, compact build while Riley is taller, rangy and lacks the sort of upper body strength Casey has. Riley eventually wanted to drop out and go into track and cross country as well as basketball instead, and Casey made it clear all along that he wanted to continue steadily on with gymnastics. Casey now goes to gymnastics 5 days a week, 3 hours per day, every week, more during the summer. A day off is very unusual. If Casey were to drop out for an extended period, like a year, he would not be able to get back to the level he is at now; the conditioning for flexibility and the strength required to be good at this are things that they work at always, constantly.

It's really amazing to see these little guys do these impossible things, as well as follow all the restrictions and structure required of them. It's a far distance from complaining about doing chores and homework. I have taken a fair amount of flak from other people, especially other parents, who would never subject their kids to such strenuous and demanding routines, or put them through such hard competition and judging. I have been warned by people worried for his health about putting his body through all of the things the sport requires, warned that he will grow up distorted in mind and body from the constant strain and disipline. And I have learned to listen politely, nod and let them gently know that Casey himself is the one who wants to do this so badly; he loves it, he craves it and he knows he always has the choice of stopping in this sport whenever he wants or needs to. So far he's been very clear and he wants to keep going, getting better, being as good at it as he can be. He understands that he has to do well academically in order to continue, so he keeps his grades up and gets on the honor roll every semester. He's one of those kids who wants to compete, wants to do well, and we end up watching him with some bemusement. Where did he come from? Where will it all lead him?

It's very competitive, make no mistake about that. Kids of every ability level have to learn to deal with the pressure of being judged by tough professional judges as well as realizing they aren't always the best in the crowd, and if they're very lucky, like Casey, they learn to measure their accomplishments not only against other boys who are really exceptionally good, but against their own abilities.

Sounds like a load of bunk, I know, but Casey came away from this competition really happy. He didn't come in first in anything; he came in third on rings and 11th on high bar, 11th all around. At the local and state meets he went to with his team throughout the season, he was getting used to getting a medal in almost every event, used to placing in the top three on most everything. Not here. And yet he was really happy with how he did, because he beat his own personal all around record score. I was really pretty impressed with his attitude. Though getting a couple of medals as well as his own trophy when his All Star Team won third place probably helped his mood too. ;)

 

So the next day after the big Regional meet, we drove home from Reno, through Donner Pass, and stopped and played in the snow for a while. The boys loved it. And life was good.

And we got home that evening just in time for Casey to make it to gymnastics practice.

Zeitgeist

We went to see the Hunger Games movie last night. This was mainly because Riley has been devouring the books and desperately wanted to see the movie, and it has been getting favorable reviews. So we all went and bought a few snacks for unreasonably high prices (the overall total to take 2 adults and 2 kids to a movie and get a few movie snacks is shocking these days). The theater was full even though it was a Sunday evening.

Normally I doubt I'd bother to write up a post about a popular movie. Lately I haven't bothered to write about much of anything, to be honest. I have been stuck in a funk for a couple of weeks, partly because I seem to have developed Metatarsalgia in the ball of my left foot, which is also the leg that has a big metal plate along the length of the tibia due to a bad break a few years back. Add my usual amount of tibia pain to the ball of the foot pain and it's keeping me from taking Yoda Bob Dog for our usual walks and it depresses me. Anyway.

I have not read the books at this point, I have only the movie and Riley's reports to form my impressions, so whatever I say can safely be taken with a grain of salt. But what an interesting cultural reaction to a really dark concept. The people shown in the Districts look straight out of 1930's dirt-poor coal miner communities, while the rich in the city are futuristic and obviously don't have to do hard menial labor; they can afford to devote most of their time to decorating themselves. The contrast has been drawn very broadly.

There are very few characters in the entire movie who are sympathetic, actually; most of them seem set up for cardboard symbolism rather than as believable developed characters. Which I'll admit irritates me; I don't like being hit over the head with the Message, however one cares to interpret the overbearing message of the movie. And it seems that different factions in American society find ways to interpret the Message for their own groups; though it's not a perfect fit it could certainly be read as a commentary on the 1% vs. 99% Occupy wealth distribution idea, and I hear that the conservatives are interpreting this movie in their own way as a condemnation of the excesses of liberal values as well. Whichever way one looks at it its painted with a very broad brush. Polarization comes to mind. It's really not a feel-good story with a satisfying happy ending, and of course the books aren't either. It's interesting since usually movie goers really want happy endings; they can handle harrowing subjects in some cases but usually those types of movies only do well if they're well made, important historical subjects and offer some light at the end of the tunnel. This particular movie doesn't offer that.

So what is the appeal; why are people so willing to go see it? This movie is doing well in the box office and getting good reviews. It's very surprising considering the really dark content; kids killing kids, poor kids being offered up as a poor underclass sacrificial punishment/payment to a rich upper class that governs with iron control. There is no real ending; though our protagonists manage to survive, there is no hint of an overall bettering of the societal ills, though the movie leaves plenty of room open for sequels. There is no satisfying blowing up of the Death Star at the end. Honestly it surprises me; if this had come out when I was a teen it would have bombed, I'm pretty certain. The societal timing of this story is everything, really. It's not like the concept of the story is really new or that different, it's more that it somehow fits in with the zeitgeist of the times right now.

So what is the flavor of the times now that this sort of story appeals so much to the younger crowd? They identify with it; they feel in tune with it. It's alien to me. Riley seems quite comfortable with the notion of a large, underprivileged, underdog class. My guys are growing up with a deep feeling that our society is not fair, that a select few have all the power and all the control. This Hunger Games story feels familiar to them, like an extreme extension of the way things are. It's a weird notion for me to grasp. It's not like the notion of working class vs. upper crust is new, after all; that's always been around. But it may be a relatively new notion that most of us as Americans are just always going to struggle, be working stiffs who can barely make ends meet. That whole notion of the American dream, the self-made man, if you work hard enough you can better yourself, is eroding away. My guys do not seem to be absorbing that idea the way that my generation did. We grew up with the clear idea that if we applied ourselves and worked hard that we could do better than our parents did, raise ourselves up. My boys see us struggling to keep jobs, struggling to pay the bills no matter how smart we are or how hard we work. I don't think this is because Paul and I are whiners, blaming everyone but ourselves. We have just fallen into harder times where most everyone is struggling and with things like the Occupy movement they are seeing that the basic structure that we live with is unfair to the majority of people. They are growing up more quickly and much more cynical than we were.

I grew up with the Vietnam body counts on the news at night. I had friends with older brothers or dads who served and were lost in Vietnam. There were still nuclear drills at school, where that special alarm would go off and you were supposed to 'duck and cover' under your desk. Like that would help, really. But as kids we were presented with external fears that probably unified us as a country, certainly as American kids. We pledged allegiance to the flag and our country, we were taught the ideas at school that we could be proud of how people wanted to come to our country because we were free, we were brave and we welcomed people who were different and gave everyone equal opportunities. It may not have been perfect or always true but we felt that at least we were working towards it, that it was the right thing to do. My boys are not growing up with those ideas, though we make our own efforts to give them good values and a sense of right and wrong and what's good and fair.

We transferred them to a public school in a richer neighborhood because it offers a science and math magnet program; if they went to their home school in our neighborhood they would not be getting taught science at all. We cannot afford private school. They will not not be able to go to the best colleges because university fees are so expensive and only the wealthier kids can afford to go. Scholarships are a possibility but those have become scarcer and the competition is fierce. College in this country is much more expensive than it was when I went, and it wasn't exactly fair then either. It's gotten worse.

It's just a fact that kids from wealthier families are given more opportunities for a better life. And my boys are soaking all of this in almost subconsciously. We're solidly middle class, and they know we could be much worse off, but they've also had to do without when money has been especially tight. And I think they have a good feel for how precarious our financial situation is. I think they're lucky, happy kids overall, but the zeitgeist of what they are absorbing in school and from the world around them is frightening.

They do not see this country as a good place, the land of the free, not the way we did as kids. They think of other countries as being better places, fairer places, more caring places. They see other countries as places for better opportunities, and this country as a place with very serious problems that they feel powerless to fix. They feel invisible and unwanted in this country. And they may well be right, though it really hurts my own deeply American heart to think that.

I'm not sure what the solution is aside from our own parental efforts to give them love and make sure they know that we value them and think they can do great things. It feels like an uphill battle to overcome the damaging massages they're getting from everywhere outside, that's for sure. All those kids that are going to see The Hunger Games are identifying with the kids being sacrificed. And what does that say?

affirming and insulting all in the same day

So I have awesome friends. I have dear friends who live far away and whom I miss terribly, and some whom I've known for many years who are close family. And I have developed friends who live here, nearby, where I can see them regularly, and it's a very good thing because they affirm me as a person.

That sounds so new-agey, I know. Friends, good friends, real friends; we talk and listen to each other and hear between the words what is and isn't said. We care for one another, we try to support each other. Yesterday was a day where some of my friends made a special effort to affirm me, to tell me their own perceptions of what kind of person I was, after I tried (embarrassingly badly) to give some of my own perceptions of who I was.

I am really bad at describing myself in front of other people, it turns out. I uncomfortably gabbled a few phrases like 'I'm pretty creative', or 'I need more patience' or 'I wish I were thinner but I'm too lazy to work hard at it' sort of stuff. Pathetic, really. The fact that this was with women I trusted and respect only made my own self-criticism worse, probably; it meant that my vicious inner critic felt safe enough to emerge and say some of those horrible critical things out loud. Not pretty. But get this: my friends came right back and told me all sorts of wonderful things about me that they perceive about me, and I found myself profoundly moved and touched by their love and support.

They said good, solid, positive things that were all true, and I realized even as it was going on that I was having trouble taking in what they were saying and retaining it all; my brain wanted to set those complimentary things aside as not being a part of me. Obviously it's hard for me to hear positive things about myself. That may seem odd; surely we all want to be told nice things about ourselves, but it makes me uncomfortable and my tendency, always, is to try to brush compliments away in embarrassment.

And yet. To wave away a genuine, caring, positive comment about how someone thinks of you, to treat it as wrong or meaningless is actually really insulting the other person, saying their careful words and perceptions are silly or worthless. And I really value these women's views and opinions, so I need to think seriously about what they said and absorb their thoughts and take it all to heart, I think. That ugly specter of damaged self esteem is something I fight against every day. It cloaks itself in supposed humility and 'not giving myself airs', but really, it just becomes self damaging. And it's long past time to get past it and embrace myself and my own strengths and gifts.

Then.
Yesterday afternoon Casey came home and told me about this kid at school who sits next to him. I know this kid; I know most of the kids in the boys' classes because it's a small school and they've been there since kindergarten. And this kid is a problem for my guys and has been ever since he got held back in second grade. Big, bullying, but then when he gets caught or called on it he turns the story around and becomes the helpless victim who has been mercilessly bullied by the smaller, younger kid, made fun of because he was held back or whatnot.

So this kid sits next to Casey. Yesterday he grabbed Casey's crayons, taunted Casey to get them from him and broke them. He threatened Casey with the old 'what are you gonna do?' thing. Casey 'tazed' him (which is an attempt to poke somebody right in the nerve bundle in the side). After which the other kid said Casey had attacked him and retaliated by taking out a broken, sharp ruler and jabbing and stabbing at Casey on the arm, chest and leg. And then told Casey his mom was 'f***ing fat' (which Casey really didn't want to tell me). Casey retorted that so was his, whereupon the other kid took scissors and threatened to cut up his jacket unless he 'took it back'. Casey caved and 'took it back'. And then the other kid took a permanent marker and proceeded to mark up Casey's favorite shirt all over the chest and arms while kicking his legs. Casey doesn't lie about things, and he's so not a troublemaker in class or on the playground.

All of this happened in the classroom, while their teacher was on the other side of the room correcting tests, and he didn't see what was happening. It happened in stifled whispers and furtive movements. Casey did not raise his hand to try to tell his teacher, and he had decided not to tell on the other kid. He likes and trusts his teacher, but in his past experience, everyone always believes this kid when he turns the story around and whichever kid was actually the victim of the bullying would be the one to get blamed and get in trouble. This kid is very good at lying and persuading adults that he is the injured party, and very good at getting other kids in trouble. Bullying is taken very seriously in their school (which is a good thing), but it can result in the wrong kid getting in trouble, and getting a referral or even expelled. The kids (at least the good kids) take it pretty seriously. So Casey gave in to this kid, and said nothing until he got in the car and then he told me. And then we talked about it with Paul. At the very least I wanted his teacher made aware of what's going on and I needed this kid moved away from Casey. Man, when Casey first told me, I was so angry that this kid keeps getting away with stuff like this and that something like this happened to one of my kids, that honestly, all reason just flew out the window... for a good long while. Mama Tiger would have ripped that kid apart if he'd been around right then.

Well, the upshot is that we had a conference with Casey's teacher, and we all listened carefully while Casey told us what had happened, reassured him several times that he wasn't in trouble. His teacher made sure to tell Casey several times that he could absolutely come to him if anything like this happens again, and that what had happened to him was horrible. He will call the other mom and talk to her; this isn't the first time he's had to deal with her. He is aware of how she is and the tendency to excuse and explain away transgressions. The other kid will be moved away from Casey and there will be consequences, though we're not sure what yet. Casey has been assured that if there are any threats or retaliation that he's to come directly to his teacher, and his teacher will be watching carefully.

Bullying is such a complex and insidious thing. I know this kid and I know he isn't all bad, but he's had run-ins with Riley and Casey before. His mother is part of the problem; I've met her a few times and she doesn't really know me or Paul at all but her kid repeats things he claims his mom said about myself and my kids that are just wildly unfair. Apple, tree; short distance, I guess. His mom must be so proud. Maybe if I were able to be more kind I'd try to say 'well I'm sure she has a tough time and there are all sorts of things she has to deal with' but honestly, right now I just feel like, 'well, we all have tough things to deal with, that doesn't excuse it.'

Lots of people have tough lives. It doesn't ever mean you have permission to treat other people badly, like the right wing Republicans are treating women and gays and anyone who stands up to them. Maybe if someone had stood up to those grown-up, powerful bullies when they were kids in grade school they might be different people, though I wonder. Are some people just bad apples? Does it really depend on what tree we come from? Some people overcome bad upbringings, certainly. Can bad apples be saved?

Life is good

Walking out at Niles

Crazy busy lately with life. It looks like Paul will have not just one, but two job offers this week. Nothing written in stone yet but it all looks hopeful and very promising. Fingers crossed!

Casey is in the midst of the competitive gymnastics season and has meets most weekends. He's already qualified with his all around scores to go to the State Championships and it would be very surprising if he didn't make it to the Western Regionals as well. Those are being held in Reno this year, so we've gone ahead and booked a room and are planning to go.

Casey with a team trophy

Riley finishes up basketball season this week with his school team (they're currently tied for first place) and his spring track season is ramping up. Riley gets to try high jump this year and he's all excited about that. The boys are not only getting good grades and doing well in school but they're good at their sports. It's a happy-making thing, even though it feels a bit odd at times to have two kids who are good at most everything they decide to try. I'm sure there will be difficulties in the future for them (and me) to deal with, but for now they're doing well and it constantly amazes me. I know I didn't have such confidence when I was their age, so it's great to feel like they are more assured and capable than I was. They do have to work at things, of course, not everything is easy for them, but they seem to have enough inner strength to move on through the disappointing failures and keep going to get better at things. I'm not even sure where they picked that skill up but I'm really glad they seem to have at least the kernels of it inside.

Casey on rings at Stanford

How do we learn those skills of picking ourselves up and trying again, getting good at something and being unafraid? It can be so hard sometimes to pick up and keep going, maybe especially so as we get older and more cynical. These little guys, they still believe they can do anything, and their future is wide open. Myself, I find my thinking about my own future much more narrow in focus, more restricted by outside demands- like making sure these guys get what they need to turn out well in the world. 

Figuring out what they need to turn out well is harder to know, of course, aside from the basic essentials. But what is essential? Food, shelter? Love, support? Teaching them to break a big scary project down into smaller bite-sized pieces? It's really not just a matter of telling them they're great all the time, certainly, which seems to be popular in child raising circles right now. If you tell them that everything they do is great, how will they know when it's time to try again and do a better job of it? Not to mention the possibility that they could turn into smug little gits who think their farts are golden. Blech. I admit I am one of the parents who believes in a solid grounding in reality, as in, sometimes it's good for you to fall flat on your face in the mud. Then maybe just play in the mud for awhile. And then pick yourself up and try again.

Anyway. I need some encouragement myself to get up and try again. I have ideas but I haven't been following through on them lately, and if I'm really honest with myself, I'm often afraid of failing and don't even start, and I tell myself that I'm too tired, I don't have enough time, I'm too busy with everybody else's needs, there's no point because then what will I do with it all? 

I think I may need to break down my ideas into smaller bite-sized chunks so I can face them. Or maybe I just need a good smack upside the head, and somebody telling me to go ahead, it's okay, just get up and try it again.

Real people and balls on the moon

Wallace and Gromit on the moon. Never got the ball back. Picture from Aardman Animation.

It feels like we went and kicked all of our balls into the air. On the moon. And they haven't come back down yet; we're kind of standing around looking up and waiting around for them to come back down. No new jobs yet. No new money yet. Everything feels like a held breath. Or a ball kicked on the moon.

Casey wrote a paper for school this week about Alan Shepard, the second man into space, the one who hit golf balls on the moon during the Apollo 14 lunar mission. He smuggled some golf balls and the head of a nine-iron up to the moon, then attached the driver to the end of the handle of the tool they used to collect rocks and things on the moon. He managed to hit 2 balls, but he had to do it one handed and awkwardly because of the bulky space suit.

"Miles and miles and miles..." Picture from the NASA archives.

Wonder if they ever figured out where the golf balls ended up? Some people got incensed (and still do) at the utter frivolity of hitting golf balls on the moon when it cost so much to send men to the moon. But here all these years later, what is it that people remember about that lunar mission, or Alan Shepard? Test pilots today still use what's called 'the Shepard's prayer' when they're about to go out: "Dear lord, don't let me &*$! up." Well, maybe they know a little more if they watched the movie 'The Right Stuff'. Casey hasn't seen it yet, but now he wants to see it because of his research about Alan Shepard. Why is he interested in finding out more? Because Alan Shepard had a sense of humor. That comes through in even the driest accounts about the man, and that made him human and interesting and fun to this not-quite 11 year old kid who's never cared a whole lot about space travel.

Casey had to write an essay last week about a person he'd like to meet, and he wrote about Abraham Lincoln. He had to research him a bit to be able to talk about him; he already knew the usual historical facts that everyone knows, like Lincoln was the 12th President, he freed the slaves, he was a great man, all those little factoids that the kids get fed at school in small easily remembered bites. But as Casey researched deeper this time, he found out other things that made the man more human, more approachable. I have a number of books about Lincoln since I've always admired him, and so we looked through the books and talked about things that happened to Lincoln and what his life was like. Somehow talking together while looking at photographs made it all much more real to Casey, like looking at family pictures while your mom tells you stories about your relatives. He discovered that Lincoln had crazy unruly hair, much like himself; that Lincoln was reputed to be shy, but managed to overcome it. I told him stories of what I'd read and what things had touched me, in a sort of an oral and visual storytelling approach, and that led Casey into learning more about him.

A younger Lincoln, before he became President

He had 4 sons with his wife Mary Todd Lincoln. 2 of them died young, the third after Lincoln himself had died; only one of the four sons lived into adulthood. Willie died while they were in the White House during the Civil War. He most likely died because the water in the White House was seriously polluted and he became sick with what was probably dysentery. Mary Todd must have had some serious mental illnesses; she had serious problems even when she was young but her mental problems became completely debilitating after losing her sons and her husband. Lincoln himself probably suffered from depression but in light of all that he went through with his family and the war it might have been more surprising if he hadn't been depressed. He apparently loved folk music, and especially liked humorous songs, though he was roundly criticized by the press for listening to funny songs on a few occasions while the war was on. Apparently public figures are not supposed to have a sense of humor or do anything light-hearted, if media reactions to Alan Shepard's golf balls and Lincoln's goofy sense of humor are anything to go by.

Those little glimpses into a sense of humor, the family lives of those men, was what Casey found most fascinating. He pondered over the notion that even very famous people, no matter what time period they lived in, liked funny little things, that they had tragic things happen in their families that they could not control. He wondered about what he would say to them if he could have had a conversation with them, and what they might say to him. He wondered if Mr. Lincoln might have felt sad looking at him because he'd be reminded of his son Willy, who died when he was 11 and looks a bit like Casey in the photos that exist. He pondered that they seemed like regular people, and if these men had done amazing things, then maybe anybody could go and do amazing things and become famous. I'm not sure if it was a new notion, that ordinary real folks are the ones who go on and become famous, but I think the idea hit deep this time. And just today, Casey brought home his essay on Lincoln with an 'A' on it. Somehow I suspect that the conversational tone of his paper made it more fun and interesting for his teacher to read, too.

So we are going on, looking up and wondering when the balls will fall back to the ground, but meanwhile we're going on about the business of school and basketball games and gymnastics meets and other stuff. And we are really glad that we're not leading a fractured country in the middle of a bloody civil war, living in a big white house with polluted water that causes a terrible, tragic loss. Rest in peace, Mr. Lincoln, and thank you for trying your best to lead the country through a terrible time, being a good man and living your values as best you could under unthinkable conditions.

Luck and those damned Puritans

Solstice candles.

After Holidays. That weird sort of Twilight Zone period before you really resign yourself to knuckling back down to the everyday crazy routine again, while hanging on by the fingernails to that holiday let-it-go sort of mentality. I'm clinging to that with a headache the size of Minnesota and an impending feeling of Doom looming over my head because of all of the Big Things we need to face. Ring in a new year full of hope and joy. I do believe in a positive attitude, I do, I do...

I've been hard to live with lately. The fact that everyone has been spending Quality Holiday Time together, together, together probably doesn't help, since normally I need and like having some time alone just to myself. I get cranky and bitchy when I am crammed in together with people for too long at a stretch. And the fact that my body has been ailing hasn't helped either. It all makes me cranky.

I got really mad at Paul a few days back in the midst of an argument about time and money and energy and too much commitment and worry. I ended up totally losing it and I burst into angry frustrated tears (I hate when I do that) and told him he was so freakin' (okay, really, I said fucking) lucky and he didn't even get it. But what it really came down to was more 'You unappreciative bastard, your dad is still alive and you don't even know how lucky you are to still have him around, and you just take for granted that he's always going to be around to loan us money.' I think I spluttered something even less coherent at poor bewildered Paul (less coherent being an understatement) and I stormed out of the house to run away, go to the bank and deposit unexpected and wondrous Christmas gift money, spend a chunk of that money to fill up the tank on the van and roar around ineffectually in my frustrated rage at our stupid circumstances. Yeah, so there's some unresolved stuff there about good dads and money and loans and privilege and all that, I admit it. Why is family stuff is so painfully tied to money?

I've never really believed in luck, except maybe in a sort of 'luck favors the prepared' sort of way. I do believe that some people start out with better prospects than others, due to being born into better economic circumstances. And bad things just happen sometimes to people, like getting cancer. It just happens, it doesn't matter if you have lived a good life or bad or whether you deserve it or not. Nobody deserves cancer, or any number of other horrible diseases. Nobody deserves that bad luck, even if they threw their luck down the drain by smoking for thirty years.

Money luck, though, that's harder. Financial comfort just plain gives people better opportunities. If you're born into a family with money, you get better chances, better options, better health care, at least in this country. You get to go to better schools, better colleges, get a chance at a better-paying kind of job and a more comfortable life. They say money can't buy happiness. Which is bullshit, when you think about it. You can have a miserable life even if you're rich, sure, but odds are you're going to spend less time worrying about how to keep your house and feed your kids if you have money. Money sure as hell can buy chances for greater enjoyment and less stress and worry and despair. People who say that stupid line about money and happiness aren't the ones who can't feed their kids, or can't afford to get that medical procedure that might save their life or their child's life. Money does matter and while it isn't everything, it has a huge impact.

Puritan Work Ethic I was raised with: It's totally up to you to be sensible and careful, act in a responsible manner, and get a decent paying job. Pay your bills, pay your debts to society and pay the taxes you owe for the privilege of living in this society. The clear assumption is that if you just knuckle down and follow the rules and do everything you're supposed to do, you and yours will Do All Right. Pursuit of happiness comes dead last in that equation. If you were raised, like I was, with that Puritan Work Ethic, you were taught that we are masters of our own destinies, we must be self-reliant, we have the power to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, be self-made men (it's a whole other kettle of fish if you are female, but that's another entire rant). If we can't or don't succeed it's because we haven't applied ourselves and tried hard enough, been diligent and hard-working enough. If you fail to thrive, fail to make enough money, fail to raise splendid children, fail to have a fabulous career, then the fault is entirely yours, nobody else's. You are the only one to blame, you are at fault, you have Failed.

That Puritan work-ethic, what a merciless judge and jury. So much Guilt and Shame.

We all make choices as we move through our lives, and those choices about what career to work at, spend or save, what we choose to spend our hard-earned money on, how we choose to spend precious time; all those things don't feel like they fit into the 'luck' category so much. I chose to become an artist, which as my dad took many pains to tell me, would be a hard road to follow, not a good stable way to make a living. Paul chose to go into what he loved, making games. Not a safe career choice as it's always been a very volatile industry. We chose our pathways knowing it might be difficult to make decent money, but we decided to follow our hearts. 'You made your bed now sleep in it' has been ringing in my ears for decades now. So what's the point in whining about our financial circumstances now? It isn't like we didn't know the risks, after all.

"Follow your bliss and the money will follow". Heh. That usually works better if you have a stable financial platform to stand on while reaching for your dream. And it really helps to combine that with one or more other elements:
- a stable income from other sources
- a supportive partner who is whole-heartedly behind you and has a solid head for financial matters
- a solid and unrelenting drive and energy to work like crazy all the time combined with a single-minded determination to succeed in this one area
- the ability to say no to others' demands on your time, energy and  financial resources, especially extended family
- no kids

I realize that is a rather bass-ackwards, negative approach to the whole 'success in a creative field' idea. The positive flip-side I usually tell people who want to be successful as an artist is that there are three things you need:
- You have to be really good at your art
- You have to meet your deadlines
- You have to be easy to work with.
If you have even two of those three you will do all right.

The thing that isn't really covered in there, though, is that you must have confidence and the ability to sell yourself. If you lack the ability to sell yourself, it doesn't matter how wonderful your work is; your work won't even be out there available for people to see. You have to believe in yourself to sell your abilities to others. You have to want to get it out there, and you have to work damned hard to get it out there. If you lack that want or the drive to sell what you make, you fail.

And that is where I am right now.  How do you balance happiness and love with that need to pay the bills? What if you're tired and you just want to relax and sleep with the cat?

Gumption

Show some gumption, my dad used to say. Just go do it. Just keep at it, he told me, though he wasn't always so good at that last part himself.

I have been feeling a distinct lack of gumption lately. Just getting out of bed in the morning takes a lot of effort, though it's easier to drive myself once I manage to remember all the stuff I need to get done during the day to take care of the boys, fulfill obligations and keep things running. I suppose it's a sign of depression, though I don't think it's really serious. I just lack the gumption to get on with things.

So Paul got laid off the Monday before this past Monday, along with everyone else at the company he was working for. And they are actively trying to get new funding (they're a start-up with some successes, but a still a start-up working off of investment capital). It's also the computer games business, which to be honest, I have very little faith in after all these years of working off and on in such a volatile industry. We're in hard times now, and games are a luxury item for most people. So everyone was laid off after working most of a month without pay. And the layoffs were back-dated about a month "so that everyone could apply for unemployment that much sooner". Though to be honest I wonder about that back-dating part- how convenient if they don't manage to get the funding; surely they wouldn't be required by law to pay the back wages owed since everyone's layoff was back dated to the period when they were still being paid and the non-paid period conveniently falls into the after-layoff period according to the books? I am a cynical woman. Paul remains determinedly, cheerily optimistic and believes in the good intentions of everyone involved, while I have mentally already written them off as bad juju and concluded that those wages owed will never be paid. Cynical. Jaded. Kind of depressed about the whole thing.

Anyway. My various small money-making ventures are not near enough to pay our way, so both of us will be searching for work that can hopefully feed our little family and pay the mortgage and the electricity and all the other bills. And hopefully still pay for Casey's gymnastics, though that's pricey. We managed to keep his gymnastics going the last time when Paul was laid off, and that lasted almost a year. We had just managed to pull ourselves out of debt from the last time.

It's odd, the reactions I get to the whole gymnastics idea. It's a luxury thing, people say. He should quit for the good of the family finances. He should quit for a while at least. He should suck it up and sacrifice for the good of the family. Some people have just been opposed to it from the beginning, warning me about Casey working too hard and getting his body distorted by the intense workouts and so forth, as well as the amazing, immense, wasted expense of paying for a sport that most people have to quit when they are still young. They see no value in the whole endeavor at all. And I've never had good answers for those kinds of statements. They've already made up their minds and trying to convince them otherwise seems like wasted effort, really. We fell into it all by chance, without realizing how important it would become to Casey, and his abilities and enthusiasm took us all by surprise. So I usually just tell the critics that Casey loves doing it and he's really, really good at it and we'd like to give him the chance to take it as far as he wants to and we can afford. That's usually a good enough answer.

The real truth is that he's seriously committed to it, but he is usually really committed to whatever he decides he wants to be good at. He could have taken on a lot of other sports and been exceptional. He has a drive to excel and doesn't handle failure well, though I guess he'll eventually have to learn to face it just like the rest of us. With gymnastics, the bald financial fact is that we will never have the kind of money required for him to take it as far as he can; gymnastics is a sport for wealthier people. He's going to end up being limited by our inability to pay for wider-ranging meets, better coaches and all of that. There will be no Olympics for Casey even if he is good enough. Maybe it's made easier by the fact that he probably won't be good enough, honestly; we're not willing to distort his childhood to the extent that would be required for him to get that good and go that far even if we could afford it. But as he progresses further and keeps improving with no plateau in sight, it's harder to see any clear delineating line of 'enough is enough'. Money will end up being the limiting factor.

We were watching an episode of Star Trek: Next Generation the other night and poor nerdy Barkley was having to face his fears of the transporter and do something that was really scary for him. And Casey just quietly said "I have to do that all the time with gymnastics; I have to learn to do lots of things that are really scary." And of course he's right; a lot of those moves are scary just to watch, let alone perform. He's had to face and overcome his own fears so many times he feels like he can try most anything, I think. Oddly enough it makes him kinder to other people when they admit they're afraid of something, and he can reach out and be gently encouraging. (Unless it's his brother and then he just gets impatient; if he can do it, his twin should be equally able, at least to his thinking.)

Casey had his first meet of the season last Sunday. It was a special meet put on by the judges and they made special efforts to talk to the boys individually and give them feedback on their routines so they could still improve before the start of the formally judged meets. And Casey did exceptionally well.

Casey got intense, excruciatingly painful stomach/intestinal cramps halfway through the meet, but he kept trying, kept going right up to the last routine, high bar, which he scratched out of at the end because holding some of those positions was just too painful. But he persevered through most of it, determined to do a good job. And he did. He showed real gumption.

The thing that I keep coming back to with Casey and his gymnastics is the sheer amount of work and consistent commitment required to get good at it, in addition to any physical gifts one might bring to it. It takes a lot of determined work day after day, and Casey doesn't falter or complain about it. I wish I could feel that way about most any aspect of my life right now. It's been a long time since I've felt that level of commitment to much of anything except trying to do right by the boys. And that is a hazy thing to figure out at best, that 'do right by' part.

So here I am, looking at our scary financial situation and wondering at my own lack of gumption. All I want to do is hide, honestly, though that's not an option. I wish I could see a clear path that was the obvious right choice and the best thing to do here. I have faced some of the big stuff: death of loved ones, surgeries, cancer. Most of them you simply don't have a choice but to go forward and through, though you're scared shitless.The obvious answer in this current situation is: "go out and get yourself a god-damned job". Though that's made tougher by having been out of the regular work force for the last 10 years, and the mass outsourcing of artists overseas, and my lack of training in current technology, and my various health issues and kids' needs and so forth. I want to be able to work at home so I can be with the boys and be a decent parent to them. I'm an artist and artists are not valued in this society, nor are moms and especially older women. It all combines to make me feel worthless, unwanted, a waste of resources. Of course it sounds silly and melodramatic to say things like that out loud, doesn't it? Excuses, perhaps, all of them, but everything combines to paralyze me in this amorphous fog.

I know we'll get through this; we've gone through worse. I just wish I could dump this resigned, defeated feeling of "Really? Again? So soon?"

Gonna get up the gumption to go get the dishes washed. It's a start, at least.

Somebody yell out my name, would you, just so I can work my way through the fog towards the sound of your voice?