Tag: priority

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Delay of Game

Hold the phone. Stop the presses. Check the stars for once-in-a-century alignment because the universe has gone weird.

It’s October. And Missy’s birthday actually fell on … Missy’s birthday.

No, I haven’t been drinking cold medicine for fun, though the dazed look on my face sure might look like it. That’s what happens when you get ambushed by reality.

You see, this practically never happens in the Rochat household. Or at least, at a frequency reserved for Halley’s Comet, Cubs World Series championships, and smash hit rap musicals on Broadway.

We are the masters of “birthday observed.”

It’s not from spaciness or a lack of care. Missy’s birthday in particular is a major highlight of the year for both Heather and myself. Usually, it means that our developmentally disabled ward gets to hit her favorite bowling alley for an afternoon of pins, pizza, and presents while every available relative in the area cheers her on. That pretty much lifts her into second heaven right there. (Subsequent layers of heaven are unlockable by the presence of dancing, Legos, art opportunities, Harry Potter, and/or live music, especially if the Face Vocal Band is involved.)

But “Missy’s birthday” and “Missy’s Birthday, Observed” have been as much as three weeks apart sometimes. It’s not just a matter of “Oh, this is the closest weekend” – sometimes it’s fighting like mad to keep it in October at all.

There’s the minefield of other birthdays in the family. The wild card of Heather’s health. The challenge of finding a day when even five of us can be in the room at the same time. Heck, one year Missy’s birthday fell in the middle of a major bowling tournament, when there was hardly an alley to … well, spare. (rimshot)

And it’s not just Missy. Between luck and logistics, my February birthday has often gone well into March, or our July anniversary into the back-to-school sales. It’s not the precision of a rifle shot at a defined target, but the run of a World War II bombing raid that lets off all its ordinance in the expectation that something will get hit.

And these days, I suspect that we have a lot of company.

Life happens. And these days, for most of us, life happens at high speed as every moment bombards us with more demands for our attention. Whether it’s the job, the latest crisis, or an electronic environment that sends out more alerts and distress signals than the starship Enterprise, we are deluged.

Is it any wonder that our full worlds collide, bounce, and hold each other off so often?

That makes it more important than ever to step back sometimes, to make some times protected and special. I know, that’s easier to say than do. (Believe me, I know!) But I’m going to say something that may sound heretical.

This isn’t a battle against the calendar.

It doesn’t matter when you make that time. Only that you make it.

The calendar doesn’t care. The clock doesn’t care. They’re tools, and they’re even useful tools. But caring belongs to people.

If a person knows they’re loved and cared for, you can celebrate them any day of the year. After all, in a way, you’re already celebrating them every day of the year.

If you know that this is the moment when you can regain a bit of peace and balance, it doesn’t matter if the sun is high or the stars are shining. It matters that you’re aware, that you know what you need, and that you value finding it.

The world may be chaos. The choices may be limited. But the time you choose will always be the right time – because you cared enough to choose it.

And if that choice lets you cheer on a broadly smiling Missy at a bowling alley, so much the better.

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Mountains and Molehills

When I was a kid, my folks once got into an argument over whether or not peanuts were a fruit. It was silly. It was inconsequential. And it was hard to stop once it got started.

On our first Christmas together, Heather discovered my family had always done stockings last, after presents. I discovered that her family did them wrong … er, I mean, first. The resulting “holy war” has had more than its share of laughter but never entirely died down, either.

And somewhere in Alaska, a mountain got a new federal name this week. You might just have heard about it.

I’m not sure how many of the people on social media have actually been to Denali, the peak that many of us learned in grade school as Mount McKinley. But when President Obama announced that the feds would recognize the name Alaska had been using officially since 1975 – well, the Internet reacted with the passion usually reserved for a minor Kardashian sister or the cancellation of “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

Mind you, the mountain itself doesn’t especially care what it’s called. (Imagine THOSE headlines!) That’s left to us and in particular to:

1) The people and leaders of Ohio, who argue that President McKinley was an important man whose reputation and legacy should be remembered, even if you’ve never actually given him two thoughts since your freshman year in college.

2) The people and leaders of Alaska, who argue that “Um, it’s our mountain, dudes.”

An alien watching from orbit would probably decide we were all nuts. (Mind you, he’d probably reach the same conclusion after watching a typical football game.) Not necessarily for endorsing one side or the other, but for putting so much energy into it.

But that’s what happens. The less significant a debate is, the more importance it actually assumes.

A professor, Wallace Stanley Sayre, once observed that academic politics were so intense “because the stakes are so small.” But it’s not just academia. At any level, a small scope can engender big feelings. A county government might spend minutes discussing a multi-million bond issue … or hours on a $2,500 budget item. A family that navigates the big issues with ease can spend all day on … well, presents and peanuts.

Why do we this to ourselves? I suspect it’s partly survival, partly relief.

There are a lot of big, complicated issues out there. We get drowned in them every day, issues of war and terrorism, politics and civil rights, straining economies and questioning minds. It’s a lot to take in, and we’re never really given a quiet space in which to do it.

“Every man whose business it is to think knows that he must for part of the day create about himself a pool of silence,” Walter Lippmann once wrote. “But in that helter-skelter which we flatter by the name of civilization, the citizen performs the perilous business of government under the worst possible conditions.”

In that situation, a trivial issue can seem heaven-sent. Simple in scope, easy to understand, no challenge at all to form an opinion on. And because it’s so easy, we can’t see how anyone could possibly reach a different conclusion.

But of course, they do. And it’s off to the races!

Fundamentally, those sorts of debates are more or less harmless. They may even be a good way to vent for a while. But they take time. They can generate hard feelings if they go on too long. And sometimes they even seduce us into thinking all issues should be this easy – that any major subject of debate can be quickly simplified into memes, quotes and a cute animation.

That’s when it’s time to step back. To breathe. To take some time and gain some perspective.

Because I promise, the mountain doesn’t care.

Energy and passion are good things. We just need to figure out where to aim them, and how to weld them to some kind of understanding.

Because the last thing we want to do is peak too soon.