Category: Uncategorized

I was asked to write my son a letter that would comfort him in the event of an emergency.

Not a simple assigment. I write all day but I struggled to find the right combination of words that would give him comfort should we not be there for a reason.

What do you tell your son from afar in dire times? How well do I know him and how do I express comfort when another person reads it?

In the end I wrote from the heart. Told him that we’d do the best we could to reach him as quickly as we could. To continue to sing his silly songs and listen to his teacher.

And also…..to remember his Jedi training.

Change is happening.

The normalcy that we’ve built over the last few years has started to shift and will eventually morph into something different.

That’s the ebb and flow of all relationships that stand the test of time.

Our challenge is to continue to trust one another and say the things that feel real. To recollect the simple charms of youth and take pride in the ways we’ve made each other grow.

We have done it before, we are doing it now and in time…we’ll do it again.

In the blink of an eye you went from being a bundle of joy to a curious tyke.

Slowly, I’ve been pouring into you my limited wisdom, my songs and my hopes for you. Every day I’ve come home to share in your latest discovery. To hear your stories and to excitedly gasps with delight at your take on the world you get to experience.

Then today you took your first step out of an accomplishment and you’re running toward the next this fall.

I could cry! I can laugh! I can hold you in my arms for a few.

Congratulations to my little man. Your daddy loves you so very much.

Found in my old Journal.

We headed out to our old spot yesterday. A tiny bit of sand in Malibu that is open to the public.

We used to go there in college because it was free parking and we were starving students. Interestingly enough it’s still there.

Returning to it was a fun experience. Now our squids get to enjoy the waters like we used to.

It’s also interesting to see that other couples now call this place their own like we used to do.

People hate Michael Jackson.

But at a time, his music was the only one that I was privy too.

The morning started like any other. The skies over East Los Angeles were overcast but the day would eventually turn hot and insufferable.  At the moment though, I felt relaxed and jaunt listening to the tunes of MJ’s Dangerous album on my hard earned Walkman.

It was at the corner of Hammel and Gage Avenue that the altercation happened.

He was a young man about my age but experienced beyond my years I think. He wore a crisp white shirt, a cleanly shaved bald head and a taught laundered pair of khaki pants one size too big.

At the intersection he stood. Confident and wearing a killer look that I interpreted as meaning business.

I took it seriously.

He hastily asked to empty my pockets. In shame and knowing that it wasn’t much I showed the the paltry allowance I had earned for bus fair. He did not care. $7.00 was enough and I gave it to him as I looked as what I considered to be a gun but was obviously his hand pointing at me under his clothes.

As items felt out of my pockets he laughed!

A pencil? A skinny wallet filled with school ids and lunch tickets?

Finally there was my Walkman. The one that had taken me months to earn. The one for which I had saved every penny, dollar and dime my parents had given me.

And now this bald headed ruffian wanted it.

I was scared and I gave it to him.

I wanted to live and I didn’t want to take the chance that there was a real gun under his shirt. People had died in my neighborhood for much less..

He looked at it and smiled and then took the CD out?

“Michael Jackson?, what kind of stupid music is that?” he said and chucked the delicate disk on the floor.

Then he ran out onto the streets.

My ego was hurt! He had stolen from me. He had laughed at my music.

He took my safety net away.

For as long as I can care to remember I have worried about my appearance.

In younger days it was my thin legs.

In high school it was my big nose.

In college it was my lack of muscle.

In my early years of marriage is was my weight.

In my early thirties is is my receding hair line.

What I will focus in my later years is a mystery but it will be something.

It’s tough not being one of the “pretty people.”