Month: March 2023

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Word Out

The final count: 423 words in a row.

I stared at the screen for a few seconds in disbelief. Nothing lasts forever, of course. But my year-plus run of beating Wordle had started to feel pretty close.  The game’s six steps had always been enough to solve the five-letter word of the day, even if it was sometimes by the skin of my teeth.

But not this time.

“Current streak: 0.”

The word on the screen was CREDO, as in a core statement of belief. The word from my mouth … um, may not have had five letters in it.

The worst part? I’d done it to myself. My guesses had uncovered all five letters of the answer, but I’d read too quickly to notice and only used four.The information was there. The brain was not.

And if that sounds way too familiar, I’m not surprised.

Sherlock Holmes used to warn about the dangers of reasoning from incomplete data. But in this information-soaked age, the more common problem is likely to be the reverse: complete data, incomplete reasoning. We get tired. Or distracted. Or even overwhelmed as we try to handle “everything, everywhere, all at once,” which these days is not just a movie, it’s a way of life.

Whatever the reason, it creates a brain wreck. Sometimes it’s just annoying, like spotting an error in an email you sent just give minutes ago. Other times, it’s bigger – maybe even on the level of national news. (“BREAKING: GOVERNMENT FAILED TO ACT ON WARNINGS.”)

But in a weird way, it’s also hopeful. It means learning is possible.

If you visit here regularly, you may know that I’m also a tabletop roleplayer who runs Dungeons & Dragons games for his nephews. (If you didn’t know that, yes, I’m even geekier than you realized.) I bring it up because a lot of modern games now include the concept of “failing forward.” In a roleplaying game, it means that a failure should always advance the story in some way, even while making things harder.

In real life, it’s an even simpler concept: that a failure you can learn from is not a total failure. It’s the beginning of a future success.

It hurts. No question. It’s frustrating beyond belief. And even when you know what needs to improve, it’s often not easy. It often means retraining habits,  pushing beyond old expectations, even asking for help. Learning’s not a comfortable thing.

But it’s a possible thing. It can be done. And that’s what matters.

The story can move forward.

And despite what the world tells you, it doesn’t have to move forward at a rush. Take the time you need. Examine the situation. Learn the pieces you have and be ready to look for new ways they might fit.

It doesn’t guarantee a win. But it keeps you in the game. And with enough struggle and awareness and growth, it can eventually spell something pretty G-R-E-A-T.

At least, that’s my credo.

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Up on the Roof

Parts of my childhood forever echo with the voice of Chaim Topol. 

If the name doesn’t ring a bell with you, look up a friend who’s into great musicals. Ask them who this Topol guy is. And then prepare to be listening for a long, long time. 

“You mean you’ve never seen ‘Fiddler on the Roof’??” 

Many actors have inhabited “Fiddler’s”: lead role of Tevye, the Russian Jew whose traditional world is beginning to pull apart. Many of them have been fantastic. But if you saw the movie, if you owned the soundtrack album like my parents did (or played it a zillion times like I did), then Topol is almost certainly the Tevye that lives in your mind and heart. A measured pace. A wry humor. An unmistakable voice. 

And now, like so many other greats, what we have left are the memories. 

It’s easy to get pigeonholed in television and film. Adam West became Batman to such an extent that he spent much of his remaining career playing Adam West. Leonard Nimoy wound up writing a book “I Am Not Spock” … and then later a sequel that embraced the inevitable, “I Am Spock.” 

Topol lived in an unusual variation of that world. He got to spend a career doing many other things, some of them light years away from his small-town milkman. (Literally, in the case of his role in “Flash Gordon.”) But he always came back to Tevye, a role he played on stage again and again. By the time he made his last bow in 2009, he estimated he’d played the role over 3,500 times and still loved it. 

An unusual case indeed. But then, “Fiddler” is a very unusual show. 

Spoiler alert for the newcomers- it’s not a happy-ending musical, except in the broadest sense. At its heart, it’s a story about the struggle between identity and change, in times when “the way it’s always been done” has to find ways to adapt. Tevye’s own daughters make choices that force him to reexamine who he is and what’s important to him time and again. And after all the choices and heartbreak, a change that’s bigger than anyone ends up shattering the community, erasing the village that’s endured so much for so long and forcing its former inhabitants to start again in a hundred different places.

It’s powerful. Heartwrenching. And oh, so familiar.

Old expectations turned upside down? A world that looks less and less familiar every day? Families trying to adapt to each other, either strengthening or shattering in the attempt? All of it resonates pretty strongly these days, and these last few years especially. As the internet joke goes, it’s a time when “normal” is just a dryer setting.

But if our change-filled world resonates with Tevye’s mythical village of Anatevka, maybe some of the lessons do as well.

Tevye’s best choices are always the ones that take someone in instead of shut them out. The one time he closes the door on someone asking for acceptance, it tears his family apart. And when he finds a way to re-open that door just a crack, it adds the smallest bit of hope even as his world is scattered to the winds.

Maybe that’s what kept Topol coming back to the story. It certainly keeps drawing me. And if enough of us can reach out with love to each other, even while we’re still trying to figure out who we are and where we belong … maybe that can be enough.

“I do what I can,” Topol once said of the children’s charity work he did in his later life, “otherwise it is a waste of fame.”

Do what you can. With what you have. With all the love you have in you. There are worse ways to spend a life.

And if you can make a little time in it to watch “Fiddler” as well, so much the better.

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Dis-pursed

Reality has been shaken.

OK, I know that’s nothing new. After all, we’re still grappling with an ever-shifting pandemic. UFOs and artificially intelligent chatbots have made this year’s headlines look like a science fiction blockbuster. And the Broncos haven’t been to the playoffs since 2015. But this is big.

Missy’s purse has left the storyline.

A sign of the apocalypse, indeed.

You may be new here. If so, suffice to say that for our disabled ward Missy – my age physically, but much younger inside – a Big Red Purse has been her constant companion since before Heather and I were married. It’s a pairing on the level of Han Solo and Chewbacca, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, or even Taylor Swift and breakup songs. That serious.

But the world shifted on its axis a couple of months ago when a weekend cleanup uncovered an ancient treasure – a forgotten bottle of pop beads, a little larger than a football. We dusted it off and passed it over, figuring the rediscovery would fill a quiet afternoon.

Click.

That Bottle O’ Beads™ has become Missy’s new sidekick. At any given moment, her hands are likely to be busily screwing the lid on or off (or at least attempting to) and then quietly assembling and breaking down a new string of beads. Her need to fidget and her love of arts and crafts seems to have found its natural crossroads.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

It has its advantages. The old purses attracted material like a black hole – stuffed animals, small books, acres of Kleenex and the proverbial Partridge in a Pear Tree – eventually reaching a level of density that weighed down her shoulder and wore out the strap. (Any rumors that we occasionally helped the strap along will be officially denied at the next press conference.) Missy’s new friend is a lot lighter, even if it does sometimes need an Official Sherpa to carry it up and down the stairs for her while she holds on to the bannisters.

For a while, I kept looking for The Purse Returned to make a reappearance, chosen from among the many in her closet. Missy’s habits tend to set themselves pretty firmly, after all.  But this seems to be a lasting shift. For now, anyway.

A contradiction? Not really. All “lasting” things have a way of being temporary, depending on where you set the scale.

But it always shakes us a little, doesn’t it? Maybe even more than a little.  

Sometimes it’s just an annoyance, like a style that shifted or a tech that moved on.  (“I have a cabinet full of VHS tapes, what do you mean I can’t find a VCR anymore?”) Other times, it touches us a little more deeply. New discoveries, for better or worse, about a friend we thought we knew. Changes in work, in life or in the world that force us to redefine who we are. We grapple with unexpected concepts, including one that should be no surprise at all: that “normal” is just what we’re used to. And that’s a very, very fragile thing indeed.

That doesn’t mean we can’t try to preserve the things worth keeping. But it does mean we can’t set our feet in concrete. However appealing consistency may sound (and I’m right there with you), we have to be ready to adapt. Kids grow up. Worlds change. And yes, even purses come and go.

Funny thing about pop beads. There’s always a new way to assemble them. No matter what pieces happen to come to your hand.

Maybe Missy’s on to something.

I’ll just have to see what pops up next.