Month: June 2019

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Step by Step

To the outside world, our 85-pound English Lab is Big Blake – a powerful and adorable eating machine from whom no unattended snack is safe.

Then thunderstorms and fireworks hit. And he becomes Big Shake.

The other night, it happened again. Thunder shook the air. Lightning filled the sky. And a quivering Blake curled up tightly on his favorite flowered couch, doing his best imitation of a lap dog.

It’s a familiar routine. And by now, it has a familiar approach. Stay nearby, both to reassure him he’s not alone and to make sure that he doesn’t do anything impulsive. (Blake is big and lovable, but not all that bright and more than a little clumsy.) Gradually get him comfortable and relaxed. And when he’s finally interested in food again, slowly lure him back up to the bedroom, one potato chip at a time.

What doesn’t work is a frontal assault. If Blake plants himself somewhere, there he is. There is too much Blake to be pushed, lifted, or led on a leash if he doesn’t want to go.

It takes patience. Quiet persistence. And more than a little cunning.

And this time of year, that should sound familiar.

***

If you’ve studied any history, you probably know that the American Revolution is a bit of an odd duck. Sure, it has its great names, inspiring legends, and painting-worthy moments, some of which actually happened.

But how on earth did a war get won by people who spent so much time losing?

Look down the roster of battles and campaigns. Aside from a few notable clashes like Breed’s/Bunker Hill and some pinprick raids like Trenton and Princeton, our Independence Day heroes spent a lot of time getting chased all over the countryside. If you wanted a title that summed up the military history of the Continental Army, “Defeat and Retreat” would just about do it.

It’s not dramatic. It’s not Hollywood. And even at the time, it wasn’t the sort of thing that inspired recruitment.

All it was, was smart.

You don’t run head-first into a buzz saw. You don’t stand in front of a Mack truck and say “Try me.” And you don’t go repeatedly toe-to-toe with the greatest army in the world and expect to have anything left but vapor and a couple of stray belt buckles.

You survive. You outlast. You exhaust.

Not surrendering. Not quitting. But not expecting to do it all in one dramatic moment, either.

That’s hard.

Washington was an expert at it – and hated it, an aggressive general by nature. Nathanael Greene was the master, leading the British a merry dance all over the South, and then handing off to Lafayette to do the same, so that Cornwallis could be led into the Yorktown trap. But the greatest players of incremental victory may have been the colonies themselves, who had spent decades learning how to do without Britain before  it was finally put to the test in war.

Slow steps may be frustrating. But they make the big victories possible.

That’s still worth remembering.

There is a lot of evil to fight in the world, a lot of problems to fix. They can’t be ignored, nor should they. But a headlong charge with no preparation often does nothing, and sometimes makes matters worse.

And so … you prepare the ground. You build. You patiently engage in a thousand small ways, erode the rock, undermine the cliff.

And if you do it right, even the big dogs can’t stop you.

Especially if you’ve got a bag of potato chips close to hand.

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Shooting for the Moon

Fifty years ago today, the surface of the Moon was still quiet.

The Eagle had not yet landed. The world was not yet watching the arrival of three men in hope and wonder and anxiety. Mankind’s first words on an alien surface had not yet been spoken – and screwed up ever so slightly. (Sorry, Neil.)

So much had been planned. So much had been prepared. But nothing was certain. Astronauts had been lost before. It could happen again.

Anything could be in the future. Wonder. Disaster. Chaos.

Anything at all.

***

This column was born from a slight mental glitch.

I am a space geek going way back. And so, like all the other fans of the final frontier, I’ve been excited about the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s landing on the moon. By any standard, the date of July 20, 1969 deserves to stand out in human history.

Which is why I have no excuse for momentarily remembering it as June 20 when I started to plan my column.

All right, I’m laughing, too.  Brain cells do amazing things – such as the first President Bush declaring September 7 as the “day of infamy” or President Obama momentarily gifting the U.S. with 57 states – so at the very least, I’m in illustrious company.

But the more I thought about it, the more the idea intrigued me. And not just because I was up against a deadline again.

Consider, for a moment, the world of 1969.

A lot had been happening in this country. And unless you were a New York Mets fan, most of it didn’t feel like champagne and roses. John Lennon may have been singing “Give Peace a Chance,” but for the first half of the year, the headlines didn’t seem to hold much of it. War in Vietnam. Protests. Riots. Even a major oil spill and a spring training boycott.

Sure, preparation for the moon mission was there, too. But unless you were part of the not-so-small army laying the groundwork, it was probably one more item among many, and not an especially loud one. Not yet.

Not with about a month left to go.

Not with crisis so loud and the future not yet known.

***

We’re good at focusing on crisis. It’s one of the things that’s helped us survive as a species. But when we have the ability to be aware of crisis across the country – heck, around the world – it gets overwhelming. Too many alarms, all of them screaming “NOW!”

It’s easy to drown. Easier to surrender.

And easiest of all to forget that even at our worst, we’re still capable of our best.

It doesn’t just happen, any more than winning lottery tickets just happen to show up in our mail box. It takes work and hope and maybe even a little craziness. Just enough crazy to decide that what we do can matter, that a little light can be kindled in the smoke.

That we can do something that matters.

Apollo 11 was the culmination of seven years of effort (and built on what had come before). Right down to the end, nothing was certain. President Nixon had a speech in his pocket in case of fatal disaster. The Eagle overshot the intended landing site, forcing Armstrong to guide the craft to safety and touch down with 23 seconds of fuel left. So much could have happened.

But what did happen captured the eyes of the world.

“Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed.”

What are we a month away from now, maybe?

What future could we be building among the chaos of today if we refuse to quit? To stop hoping?

I don’t know. But I’m looking forward to it.

Especially if it includes one more column finished on deadline for this space case.

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Staying Awake

The last song had been played. The last story had been read. The sheets were turned back, the favorite purse at hand. Bedtime, right?

“NO.”

“Missy, we talked about this. It’s getting late.”

“NO.”

“Look, it’s softball season. Athletes need their rest, right?”

“NO.”

“Sweetie, you at least need to stay in the bedroom, OK?”

I know some of you right now are nodding at this, like members of a club who have just heard the secret knock. Yes, that periodic ritual of parenthood and guardianship, the Bedtime Battle, was well under way. Like many wars, the tactics had become familiar and the ground well-studied, even if the motive for the conflict had been long forgotten.

“Look, we can leave part of the door open, all right? Is it ok if I close half of it tonight?”

Reluctant nod.

Since Missy’s disability makes it hard for her to communicate, it can take a while to pick through the possible causes when this happens. Sometimes it might be a nightmare. Sometimes it’s just a little soreness from the day’s activity, with some ibuprofen working wonders. Sometimes, all you can do is chalk it up to a disturbance in the Force and do the best you can.

This time, a late-night grocery trip might have been to blame – a time when Missy had woken up while I was still out. It would explain the worry when I started to get out of sight of her door, anyway.

Sigh.

You know, sleeping on a hallway floor can get kind of comfortable after a while?

***

There are a lot of “dad duties” that never make it on the official list.

We all know the stereotypes, right? Good at fixing things. Handy at yard work. Grill master. Voice of discipline when necessary. Ready and enable to initiate others into the mysteries of professional sports fandom.

It’s been shown in sitcoms, plastered on Father’s Day cards, wedged into the back of our minds. And, yeah, some folks do fit the classic resume. (As a kid, I believed – with some justice – that my Dad could fix anything.)

But many of us don’t. And the funny thing is, those aren’t even the core competencies.

It’s not about being manly. It’s about being there.

It’s the shared struggle over math homework at 10 p.m. (Thanks, Dad.)

It’s the off-key middle school choir concerts attended, or the grade-school baseball games where bat and ball have only a passing acquaintance with each other.

It’s the times when you sit on the phone for two minutes waiting for the other caller to say “Hello?”

It’s time together wherever it has to be found – a story, a movie, a puzzle, a game. It’s taking temperatures, and holding hands. And yeah, sometimes it’s outright arguments and struggles to understand.

But if you’re there, however you can be … if you care, and can share it … if you’re awake to the needs and responsibilities involved …  then you’re doing it right, even if you can’t tell a monkey wrench from Curious George.

Thing is, these aren’t just dad duties. They’re mom duties, or cousin duties, or guardian duties, or whoever has the ability to step into that space and be the person that’s needed. Whoever has found themselves in that wonderful and terrifying role of “parent,” even if they don’t share a single strand of DNA.

If you’re there – if you care – if you’re building and not breaking, helping and not harming – then you’re doing it right. And bless you for it.

Take a breath. Rest easy.

And if you’re resting on the hall carpet,  the right pillow makes a world of difference.

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Someone Like Him

Nicholas Lee would be delightfully embarrassed to find himself mentioned in my column.

A long-time friend and a fellow Longmont Theatre Company actor, Nicholas was also a regular reader of these weekly words. He always had a compliment and often a thoughtful comment or two on what I’d written, while his quiet smile radiated brilliantly over his Uncle Sam beard.

And yes, unfortunately,  the past tense is appropriate. Nicholas passed away on Thursday.

The thing is, like many actors, Nicholas was something of a quiet soul. Having an entire column to himself would likely bring on a blush, a shake of the head, and a self-deprecating chuckle about being hard up for material.

One hates to embarrass a friend. So I’m going to write about someone like him, instead.

Someone like Nicholas would be a gentleman and a gentle man, quietly courteous and welcoming to just about anyone in his path. He’d talk to long-established directors and developmentally disabled audience members with the same respect, warmth, and interest.

Someone like him would cultivate a few eccentricities, such as a decades-old Van Dyke beard and an elocution so carefully measured that it sounded English – the sort of touches that make the world a more colorful and interesting place. But he’d also be able to set them aside at need, such as by shaving every last hair on his head, beard and all, just because a friend wanted him to play a real-life figure known for being spear bald.

And someone would like him, by the way, would be the first to laugh at the resulting reflection in the mirror.

Someone like him would fit comfortably into a hundred different roles in the world you shared – say, a clumsy King Pellinore of Camelot, or a veteran British actor gone to seed, or a sharp-tongued and pushy agent – but would have so many more facets that you only got to glimpse briefly. Like fluency in Russian. Or a church choir he was especially proud of. Or the years and years of teaching that helped shape a delightful personality, firm but understanding, disciplined but sly.

We all know a “someone like him,” I think. The details may differ, but the overall picture is the same. The person who never forced themselves into the spotlight, but became part of the emotional undergirding of the entire group. The one who sometimes made you laugh and sometimes made you think, but who mostly made things work.

And when they’re suddenly not there, you feel it. Something has slipped. A piece of the puzzle has been lost, a line of the drawing is out of place.

You go on. You need to. After all, they’d be horrified to think that they were holding things up. But it isn’t the same.

Though if you’re lucky, they’ve passed on enough of themselves to keep some of that strength present, even in their absence.

They’re wonderful people, all of the someones. We need them. We need to appreciate them while they’re here. To enjoy them while we can. To learn from them while we’re able.

Because all too soon, we’ll be missing them when they’re gone.

Just like my friend Nicholas Lee. Whom, you will note,  I carefully did not write about today.

And who, wherever he is,  is probably laughing out loud at this reflection as well.

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Living on the Edge

There are quiet people in this world. Shy, retiring, afraid to let you know what they feel.

And then there’s Missy.

As in the Missy that charges the edge of the stage at a Face Vocal Band concert, witnessing the whole show a shoelace away from the singers.

Or the Missy whose face lights up at the sight of a dog (“Doggie!”), a small child (“Baby!”), or a friendly-looking face in the downtown (“Hi, you!”). Who shouts back at passing motorcycles for being too loud, and then cranks the car stereo to 35 when she thinks no one’s looking.

She’s my age by the calendar.  But she’s miles younger when it comes to enthusiasm and sincerity. For Missy, life is something to be embraced – maybe literally in the case of Face, from whom she collects hugs and hellos after every show.

It’s fun to watch. And a little intimidating to match.

You see, I am one of the quiet people by nature.

OK, you can stop laughing.

Yes, I’m also an actor, a former reporter, a PR guy, and a columnist who shares pieces of his life on a regular basis. This is not necessarily a contradiction. While all of those are social, they’re also situations where the conversation usually has rules. An actor has a script. A reporter has questions, a PR guy a specific field to expound on. A columnist has space to think and a copious supply of caffeine.

Granted, all of these allow for some level of improvisation, or demand it, even, at times. But that foundation is always there, a safe outlet.

When you’re a quiet kid, you learn those outlets early.

In grade school, I sometimes hid behind library bookcases to avoid talking to people. In junior high, I was regularly dodging bullies. High school was a lot better, but there was always the awareness of being a little out of the mainstream – the jokes we’d tell each other about being “theatre geeks,” “choir nerds” or heaven help us, one of those weirdos who liked roleplaying.

It’s a different world now than it was, then. The geeks conquered the cultural universe. Now, things like The Lord of the Rings or Marvel superheroes aren’t nerdy obsessions, they’re coffeepot conversations. The niche has become the mainstream.

But habits don’t change quickly. Inner natures even less so. I think a lot of us – whatever our backgrounds, whatever our interests – still weigh situations carefully. To see if it’s acceptable, or even safe, to show what we feel. To keep that careful distance from the edge, lest we fall.

And to marvel, just a little bit, at those willing to dance there without fear.

That is Missy.

And it’s why we make such a curious team.

The sitcoms would love it – the near-silent extrovert paired with the social introvert. (Even more so when you add my wife Heather, an introvert by nature who loves steering both of us to new experiences and situations.) And, as with any good sitcom, everyone learns a lot from each other by the end of the episode.

A little more listening and restraint on one side. A little more fearlessness and willingness to let go, on the other. A world to explore for both.

If we fall, we fall together. But I’m a lot less worried about falling than I used to be.

It’s a great way to face the world. Or even to be whirled toward Face.

It’s certainly music to our ears.