THE PAGE TURNS

July 12, 2017

Pilgrimage through Chicago

Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
— Carl Sandburg, Chicago

20170710_124921 Sandburg also called Chicago the City of Big Shoulders. We climbed into those arms and clambered onto those shoulders this past week to take a look round at the marvelous views, sample the tastes of comfort and home, and walk among the canyons of glass and brick.

For me, this was a tour with two hats — three if you count the actual purpose of the visit, an excellent writer’s conference run by the good folks at GCLS. (I returned with a suitcase full of editing tips and bursting with new Facebook friends, cheers, all!) I went both as tourist and former Chicago resident. I went to school at the University of Chicago, as my bio notes. Like everything else with Chicago, it was a time of cognitive dissonance. I hated the experience; yet, it was highly necessary and garnered me more money and better jobs throughout my career. I appreciated the city’s architecture and art, but I loathed the weather and the B-School atmosphere. I reveled in the local food but gained 25 of the 100 pounds that I would later battle to lose and gain, over and over. As we toured the city, enjoying every nuance and cranny until we were repeatedly exhausted, I was resurrecting buried memories and trying to give the town a proper send-off in contrast to the grab-diploma-and-get-out-of-town that was my June 1985.

So this is a “travel” post, and I do recommend visiting Chicago if you have not done so. But it was also a pilgrimage for me. I did find pleasure in the echoes of my youth (or yout’ as Joe Pesci says in My Cousin Vinny). I also found that even the most unpleasant memories are now funny rather than painful. Mostly, I found a lot of feelings of home. Continue reading “Pilgrimage through Chicago”

July 4, 2017January 20, 2018

Bridge to Nature: Glaciers, Slime Molds, and Slugs

After two weeks of posting sentimental, smoke-from-the-ears thought-provoking stuff, I thought it was time to throw off the maudlin. Let’s talk about slugs and slime molds.

Quick! What do glaciers, slime molds, and slugs have in common? Quite a lot. In fact, this could be a great parlor game.

The most obvious common bond is that they’re all slow. And yet, they don’t stop moving. Unrelenting, you might say. They’re also a way of Mother Nature making us feel humble. Think you’re all that? Virginia Woolf once said the rock you kick will outlast Shakespeare. Glaciers, slime molds, and slugs will all outlast Shakespeare.

Another common bond is that you can find them all in Alaska, which is where we were touring last week. Alaska is a unique place with large areas of wilderness yet to be discovered as you venture through forests and ocean inlets. It also, therefore, contains many things whose way of existence seems completely alien. You can’t help thinking, how does evolution favor THAT? But the more you learn, the more you realize nature has many ways of propagating itself that we can only guess at. Continue reading “Bridge to Nature: Glaciers, Slime Molds, and Slugs”

June 21, 2017

The Man Who is My Son

2017-06-20 21.39.15

When my son was a baby, we used to joke that he folds up for compact storage. Even when he was six or ten, and would sit on the couch hugging his knees, we would say: See, he still folds up. Now at 6’2” and at 21 years old, I can hardly remember him – I play back the film reel loop of his life over and over but I can no longer imagine him – small.

I also called him my Favorite Son, and at around five, he finally realized, Hey! I’m your only son.

So, what? I would say. You’re still my favorite son.

The child becomes the adult
We were in San Diego over the weekend for Commencement, an interesting word for it. On the face of it, the university graduation ceremony is a celebration of ending, of four years of grueling intellectual, sometimes physical work. But it is a beginning of a phase of adulthood. As my Favorite Son has taken this effort so much in his own way, we are here to celebrate with him and to see what he has become.

I have already seen the adult pop out. Last time when he was home for Christmas, he rinsed his dishes AND put them in the dishwasher without any prompting. He bought Christmas presents for each of us and explained the thinking process behind them.

Continue reading “The Man Who is My Son”