Hillary, Hermione, and Us

When I was in fourth grade, I loved playing Around the World. This was the game we played, usually on Fridays, in which one student stood behind another's desk, the two students shouted out the answer to a math problem--delivered by the terrific Mrs. Groff--and the victor moved to the next student's desk, trying to make it all the way around the room's large rectangle of desks--"around the world." I was very good at this game, and often enjoyed the spoils of victory, which I'm pretty sure were Gummi Bears. But there was another student, an African-American girl named Michelle, who was even better. She was blazingly fast and, as much as I liked winning, I loved watching her play. She inspired us.

In sixth grade, I tied for second place in the 50-yard dash. My equal was my friend Sajy, and the boy who came in first was a year older than us. The true champ, however, revealed on Field Day, was a long-legged girl named Robin--and she smoked all of us. Watching her run, we were astounded: Who could do a 6.7? She could!

I went to a public school, and as often as not the best and brightest were girls. As I grew older and moved through school, however, I began noticing that some of the girls in my cohort began to disappear. No longer were they in the "gifted and talented" group, the "top section," the Advanced Placement classes. It wasn't until years later that I would learn of research showing how girls are at great risk of "dumbing down," starting somewhere in the fifth grade--about the time kids start showing an interest in fledgling romances and "boy-girl" parties.

These memories come back to me now because one of our best and brightest has lost the US Presidential election. Hillary Clinton has come up short, and I grieve.

I grieve for the country, I grieve for Hillary, and I grieve for my wife. I grieve for the little girl she was, once upon a time.

My wife, Jenifer, recently shared her experience in a Facebook post. She was responding to the sentiment, now widely expressed, that grieving is "soft," and that we are called upon to "get to work," or, by some, to get over it. Jenifer writes:

"You know the character Hermione Granger? You know, she's the smartest and most talented witch. She's always the most prepared. She's really passionate about learning. And she's really, for the most part, passed over. I grew up a Hermione Granger. Often, even when I was objectively or subjectively the best possible person for an award, a job, a promotion--I was looked over, passed over, or often even told to do the work of the other person. I have, throughout my life, been seen and treated as a half-person based on my sex (cisgender female). . . .

"For me, at a deep, largely unconscious and emotional level, Clinton became the avatar and champion of me. She is a living embodiment of every time I've been overlooked, every time I've been pushed down or pushed aside or treated poorly. Because like me, she just gets back up and gets to work. . . .

"And yes, I'm grieving. Not because Clinton lost an election. But because her losing the election was related to every time I have lost, and in particular, lost to someone who was truly *unworthy* of winning."

When I met Jenifer, it didn't take me to long to figure out that she was a Hermione Granger (even if I wouldn't discover that character for a few years). She was my equal. And yet, unlike me, she had experienced a school system, a community, a society that again and again denied her the recognition, status, achievement that were her due--because she was female.

Grieving is a natural, healthy response to profound loss. And Jenifer, and I, and all of us, have a experienced a profound loss.

To be clear, we are not grieving a political event. We are grieving the loss of what this election signifies, something far more significant: the loss of an idea about ourselves, our nation, that we are decent, moral people. The fact that people we love and respect have chosen complicity with hate speech and the language of fascism.

We are grieving the loss of identity.

Women are hardly the only ones hurt. The patriarchy--which sounds so old-fashioned now--also wounds men, gravely. The old mode forbids them from grieving. From expressing vulnerability. So many men today don't know how. As the poet Robert Bly puts it, they don't know how to shudder. We have a nation of strong women. We need men who can shudder.

There's a lot of talk these days about how the "angry white men" of America haven't been acknowledged by Washington. And it's true. These angry white men haven't been seen. But the crime is not solely the politicians'. These are men who haven't undergone the ritual of initiation. They have never, as youths, been seen by elder men, never been blessed for the golden promise of their power, and so do not understand vulnerability or the subtle demands of intimacy.

A man unseen walks in shadow and sees all others in shadow, and seeks to bring them into the orbit of his darkness.

When I see my son, Hawk, age 8, I marvel as his self-possession, confidence, emotional intelligence. They inspire awe in me. He knows who he is and understands that he is allowed, simply, to be there. He knows that his peers--from New Zealand, Fiji, Greece, Georgia, the UK--deserve the same. And he is beginning to discover his privilege.

Whatever gifts my son has received from me, whatever are of his own makeup and destiny, I know that many come from Jenifer, who feels similarly "entitled". Entitled to be there, to occupy physical space, to participate in equal footing in public discourse, to belong--in short, to matter.

I have friends who are not so lucky. Friends, who, because of the color of their skin, are more likely to be "extrajudicially executed" by public servants. Friends who, because of their gender or sexuality, are more likely to take their own lives, because they are not permitted to be there.

I grieve for them, too.

The day after the election, I stole away from the office for a moment. There was no place to go that was private, it was pouring outside, so I went up a back stairwell, between office floors, until I could go no further. Beyond the locked door was the roof of the building. I went as far as I could go, and I wept.

Whatever Hillary's shortcomings (that is say, her humanity), she has had to walk the impossible path expected of women, which is to be immaculate. But we have no need of perfect women. We need women who hold themselves, and are held by others, to be whole people. Women of ambition, intelligence, and doggedness honored for what they contribute to the world. Is it too much to hope that, adult by adult, teacher by teacher, mentor by mentor, friend by friend, we can nurture these gifts in our youth, girls and boys alike? That we ourselves might be the avatars and champions of those who need us most?

Once and Future

Something odd and wondrous is happening. Something "wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey," as a certain Doctor might put it. Recently, I shared with Hawk the Disney version of The Sword in the Stone. Naturally, he loved it, as it involves Knights and Wizards and Beasts. And only a couple of days ago, in his school library, Hawk spotted a golden-covered copy of T.H. White's The Once and Future King, pointing out that it matched the one on my shelf. Next to it were no less than five copies of The Sword in the Stone, which, I explained to Hawk, was the first part of the larger book. "Can we check it out?" he asked. I told him we could, but first we'd have to work through all the other library books we had at home!

I was in eighth grade when my friend Travis showed up with his golden-covered copy of The Once and Future King. I had already consumed The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Prydain and the Dune Chronicles, and feared there was little left in the world worth reading. But here was something with promise.

Once I got into screenwriting, I thought The Once and Future King would make a great epic film or mini-series (no offense to the Camelot musical and film), and it ranked high on my list of dream adaptations to write someday. And now it's back in a new version. As fortune would have it, my friend Brian Sibley has written a six-part dramatization for BBC Radio 4 that airs beginning this Sunday, November 9.

Not so very long ago, in Wellington, my friend Jack (Lord of the Rings tour guide extraordinaire) called me up. His voice was urgent (not that unusual), but also excited (again, typical): our mutual friend, the writer and broadcaster Brian Sibley, was in town. He was staying in the Museum Hotel, and we were to join him for dinner at the hotel's Hippopotamus Restaurant & Bar. I didn't yet own a car, so I quickly cabbed over to the Te Aro district and bounded into the restaurant.

At Hippopotamus Bar & Grill (l-r): Jack, Brian, Ryan.

Brian was in Wellington conducting research and interviews for his (compulsively readable) three-part Official Movie Guide of The Hobbit Trilogy. As locals, Jack and I were keen to supply our intelligence and, of course, glean whatever production secrets Brian might be able to share with two crazy Tolkien fans.

We had a splendid time. Brian proved a true gentleman, sweet and generous, and a gifted conversationalist. Indeed, Jack and I soaked up many tales from Brian's work in radio and film (go check out his entertaining blog). He's one of those warm people who can put you at ease with seemingly no effort at all; it's no wonder he's corresponded with and met a great many of his personal heroes. As we parted, we took some photos together.

I'm not sure what all this synchronicity means, Brian's adaptation and Hawk's excitement and the final Hobbit film and connections made in wonderful Wellington. But as I was preparing this blog, I checked the date on the photos. Exactly three years ago today.

Olórin He Was in the West

Or rather the South, I suppose. No matter. The Hobbit is nigh, and Hawk is ready. He's not alone.

The city is amped for the film's world premiere. Banners of its characters -- Bilbo, Gandalf, Thorin, Gollum, Elrond, Galadriel -- wave from the lampposts. Shadowy silhouettes of the Grey Wizard, the 13 dwarves, and their unlikely companion show up in shop windows; their color likenesses appear on Air New Zealand planes. An oversized stamp featuring Bilbo blankets the side of the New Zealand Post building.

Tomorrow perhaps 100,000 or more fans, denizens or wayfarers, will jam the streets outside the Embassy Theatre for the red carpet event and a glimpse of some of the film's stars. We'll be among them.

Over the weekend we visited the Hobbit Artisan Market set up in Waitangi Park. We also visited the Weta Cave, where we picked up a hat for our little Wizard. He's too young yet for the film itself, but it's been a real privilege to witness the proceedings through his eyes. We read the book earlier in the year ("Why does Gollum have only six teeth?"), after visiting the set of Hobbiton in Matamata. He's met a number of the cast and crew, including co-writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, for whom he recited Bilbo's "My dear Frodo" and the dwarves' song from the teaser trailer. And he's followed Peter's online production diaries. He understands that films are made, and that people make them. I'm okay with that.

Our journey to Wellington, to New Zealand, wasn't entirely unexpected. Certainly, no one knocked on our door and whisked us away in search of ancient gold. But the energy surrounding these films, the national pride, the community, and a young boy's excitement -- all of these are a most welcome surprise. It's a great time to be here.

High Summer

The boy is growing. The man watches the boy climb the dusty trail, one step at a time, and wonders if once upon a time he too climbed such a hill, his father climbing up behind him.

The man remembers a snowy field, being pulled on a sled by his father. The weight and firmness of the steel runners cutting through the whiteness. They were far from home, it seemed, in a vast and silent world. He had no idea, the man is sure, of one day pulling sleds or hiking hills.

The boy and his father reach the summit. The grassy path is matted and brown now, the green of the wet winter burned out by the summer heat.

The boy and his father have some food at this spot at the edge of the world. They take in the nourishment of this place. Perhaps they are both growing stronger.

The man is unsettled by the transposition of father and son, boy and man. He wants to linger a bit. But the boy takes his hand and leads him down the trail again.

Somehow It's November

and there are flyers to fly and
bookings to book and
names to remember and the
house needs tidying and buses need riding
and markets need marketing
and the holidays are coming
(with in-laws visiting)
and there is work to be done
and
meetings to call
and bone broth to brew
and stories to tell
and fears to face
and courage to find
a woman to love
a boy to hold
and many, many
miles
to run

But

I look at the boy's face
while he sleeps and
hear the waves pounding on the shore
just outside our little white house and
the windows rattle in the sea wind like
something from a distant age
I once knew and
I remember myself and know that when
I am right here and nowhere else
really right here
I am already
home.

Three!

Here's a tired old joke: one moment your son is being born and dropping into your expectant hands, the next he's offering you a bowl of Noodle Chewbacca soup.

HAWK: I will cook it and you will eat it!
RYAN: I'll get sick!
HAWK: YES!

It goes by crazy fast. And also crazy good.

I'll steal a line from one of Hawk's good friends, the man with the yellow hat: "I'm proud of you. Today, the whole world is proud of you." Happy Birthday, Hawk.

A Good Day

New Digs 2.0

One way to draw a woman's ire, if you're interested in that kind of thing, is to move house and then, when asked if you have doubts about the move, to answer honestly that you do. This approach is particularly effective - and I'm speaking philosophically here - if your woman has been the principal architect of such a move, has supported the "direction" you provided, followed the project brief, as it were, to the letter.

In this way we rather suddenly found ourselves living in a beach cottage in the neighborhood of Seatoun, on Worser Bay, on the peninsula of Miramar, Wellington, New Zealand, the World. And if any doubts were expressed and any ire drawn, they were resolved after only a couple days; for living in a beach cottage on the water and across from mountains is pretty damn awesome.

It's not like things weren't already pretty spiffy. The routines, the ways and means, we had them all down to a science. A seven-minute walk to work, another five to the harbor. A Victorian house tucked away in a lush park. A split schedule where Jenifer and I each worked half a day in the office, half a day in the field with Hawk.

A great big abundant life.

We first became acquainted with Seatoun during our first visit to New Zealand. Our tour guide Jack drove our party through the seaside suburb to show us the grounds where Orlando and the Hobbits had trained for The Lord of the Rings. Over the past year, as we contemplated which neighborhood to settle in, Seatoun kept coming back to us. Okay, mostly to me, as such a move would require a wholesale lifestyle change and put us about as far away as possible from the Steiner school we were investigating for our son. But Jenifer plugged away on Trade Me, scouring the listings for houses here, there, and everywhere; and ones we really liked popped up time and again in Seatoun; and we suddenly started making lots of new friends who lived in Seatoun. Eventually Jenifer's logic centers had no choice but to acknowledge the fundamental correctness of my intuition. (Boy, I'm gonna get it.)

Our place is small but cozy and full of what the Danes call hygge, that warm feeling of contentment and well-being that comes from sitting by a warm fire at the end of a long day out of doors. This time around we have a mud room ("the airlock"), a wee back yard, and even a greenhouse, which Hawk already refers to as "the playroom" and which will soon feature a sandbox. The house faces northeast, which means more sunlight. The key feature, though, is the view. Our windows look out on wind-carved rocks (crawling with hermit crabs the size of peppercorns), brilliant green water, the endless passing of ferries and frigates, and an active, welcoming community: walkers, dogs, triathletes, the odd blue penguin. Everyone here seems to keep their curtains open most of the time, and you often can't help but look in (or out) because of the view.

Where Te Aro was wooded, dark, dense, Seatoun is open, bright, airy. As a new friend observed, our move quite literally affords us a broader perspective. Our walking world is now circumscribed not by office buildings and bus lanes but by Scorching Bay to the North and Dorset Point to the South. At the latter Hawk and I now routinely "go an an adventure," a nature hike along the rocky shore that wraps around to Breaker Bay or up the Pass of Branda through the "poky" pine trees of the Beacon Hill Reserve. From here you see the flat blue line of Cook Strait, which separates the North and South Islands. Massive shipping vessels crest what looks like the edge of the world. Here if feels like we are at the edge of the world.

This is our neighborhood now. This is where Hawk will grow up, where he will clamber through the bush with his goblins-in-arms, where he will mount spy missions on unsuspecting hikers and investigate long-abandoned military bunkers and sit in the tall grass of the old Maori pa and listen to the wind.

Shortly after we moved I had occasion to walk by the old place. Passing through the park beneath it, I suddenly felt very clear: our energy had moved on. I had grieved the place, our ways and means, the morning after our move. Now, I smiled in gratitude for our entry into a new world. Our old house protected us, held us during a year that was at times very difficult: one way to make enemies, if you're interested in that kind of thing, is to take over an existing business. Fortunately, it's also a way to make friends.

No, the move was necessary, and if any doubts arose, they did so only because, as is ever the case with leaps in the dark, we are called to make them before we think we are ready. Or maybe that's just how it is with grownups. As Hawk would yell every time before sprinting down the path to our old house: "Two, three, go!"

Darth Vader and the Boy

When it comes to Star Wars, I've been very careful about what I've told my son. As a general and admittedly somewhat loose rule, Jenifer and I have tried to limit his media exposure. No need to dunk his head in a bath of high-energy imagery just yet, so the theory goes. For the most part we stick to books, and for all of us the evening ritual of lighting the fire fairy and reading stories is one of the high points of the day.

So when I opened the package from America that contained our Christmas gifts and I pulled out a hefty hardcover, J.W. Rinzler's The Making of The Empire Strikes Back, Hawk immediately and irrevocably saw both my unrestrained excitement and the power of one of the world's great iconic characters: Darth Vader.

Hawk gasped and covered his face. "Who's that guy?" he asked, peeking.

I told him he was Darth Vader and demonstrated his idiosyncratic breathing technique, and that was all he needed to produce his assessment: "Darth Vader is pretty scary, because he's pretty scary." Luke was named, appropriately, the Boy.

For days Hawk would tell the story of Darth Vader and the Boy, and soon we were recreating the climactic duel on Bespin in sidewalk chalk on the path outside our house. I was charged with the task of drawing the Boy, but the rollerskates are all Hawk.

Around the same time we came across the Volkswagen commercial, "The Force," and I just had to share it with my young apprentice. The pint-sized Sith Lord soon came to be known as Funny Darth Vader, and sure enough Hawk incorporated this version into his own mythology.

"Come here, Dad! I made Darth Vader! I will show you. You'll like it." See for yourself.

It's Not Tomorrow Anymore

And that's putting it mildly. I have to give Hawk credit here. It's his line, and his response to my explanation that tomorrow (meaning, at that point in time, New Year's Day) our South Island holiday would come to an end and we would fly home to Wellington. Not today. This was a colossal disappointment, because here we were in the most! amazing! place! ever!—the Christchurch airport, in point of fact—and Aunt Edna was going to be riding the airplane home (to San Francisco); whereas we had the unfortunate destiny of heading back to the parking lot and our rental car, to return for our flight tomorrow.

"No, Dad. It's not tomorrow anymore."

I explained that our fate was actually a double-plus–good fortune, as seeing Edna off meant two trips to the airport instead of just one.

But Hawk wasn't having it. He wanted to ride the airplane, and he wanted to ride it now.

You have to understand that this kid loves to travel. He loves airplanes, he loves helicopters, he loves "hot balloons." He hasn't yet directly experienced the latter two modes of transport, but he has plans. Indeed, it's no small thing to visit Frank Kitts Park, a playground by the Wellington waterfront, precisely because it's situated directly across from the HELiPRO touring company.

Whenever a helicopter takes off or "lands down," whatever Hawk is up to—clambering up a sliding board, using the swivel-mounted telescope as a dragon-slaying slingshot (after his friend Hiccup), or simply gallivanting—comes to an immediate end. For a moment, he stands transfixed, fully possessed by the sheer awesomeness of this flying machine; and, then, senses returning, he triumphantly names the object of his adoration—"Helicopter! (which to the untrained ear sounds like "hoe-coptah!")—and enjoins his playground cohorts to feel the excitement, the power and the glory that is happening just over there. If they look up at all, it is only for a few seconds. No matter. Hawk returns his attention to the event at hand, all the while his fingers moving as if, at that very moment, those microscopic dendritic connections are forming and he is piloting the craft himself, virtually. I swear, I fully expect him to turn to me at some point in the not-too-distant future and say: "I know kung fu."

Hawk also loves cars, which made our tour of the South Island (as they say here) easy done. Two-to-four-hour stints in the back of the car? In the car seat? No problem! Dad, on the other hand, sitting in the front of the car, in the driver's seat, on the right-hand side of the vehicle, on the left-hand side of the road, had to contend with wholly new versions of physics and instinct. But these parameters apparently would have been no trouble for Hawk, who on more than one occasion scrambled into the driver's seat of the parked car and directed me to the car seat, as (he informed us) he was now in possession of a driver's license!

I can't fault him for trying. His innate sense of speed, his love of zooming!, his passions—all point to his ability to be effortlessly in the moment at all times. I suspect it's his sheer presence that explains why our sense of time here in New Zealand is so altered (we've already been here a year?), and why at the end of the day, during storytime, Hawk is not the only one approaching sleep. I never understood how or why childrearing was so often described as exhausting. It's the presence demanded of us. The focus. The high alert. We have no choice, no course, but to learn swiftly that the usual patterns may not apply, that flipping a familiar control may activate not the turn signal but the windshield wipers, and that, if we are not doggedly mindful, we risk driving headlong into a large tour bus, or worse. Nope, it's not tomorrow anymore. It's better.

Still At It

Hi. I haven't forgotten you. The next installment of What I Did and How I Felt About It is . . . on the way. There's no shortage of grist for the mill, nor of Nietzschean life-affirming stressors, some of which may yet prove fit for online consumption. Or not.

Still, goodness abounds. It's hardly a bad thing to eat breakfast in your lounge (Kiwi for "living room") and catch, through the bare wintered limbs of the trees outside the window, and under the pink glow of sunrise, a glimpse of golden waters. Harbor view!

See you soon.

At Last . . . a Doot-doo!

Through no special effort of our own, Hawk has expressed a decided interest in all the typical male activities: music (especially rock 'n' roll), sports (especially basketball), and girls (especially redheads). But foremost on his mind the past several months, the thing that trumps all other pursuits or objects of awesomeness, is that amazing chariot of freedom, the bicycle. Or, as Hawk puts it, the doot-doo. ("Vroom vroom!")

This past weekend we finally scored Hawk one of his very own, the elusive Wishbone Bike. We'd seen them at all the parks, where he would abscond with the unattended vehicles of other children. We learned that they are "balance bikes" that grow with the child, so that the initial trike can be reconfigured to a two-wheeler, and then finally, when the main bar is reversed, a taller version. An environmentally friendly bike that would last Hawk until he was five or six? I was sold.

Getting one wasn't so easy. A recent newspaper article had extolled their virtues and ensured that the current lot at Burkes Cycles, the only local dealer, was sold out when we arrived for our first attempt at a purchase over a month ago. And that lot was apparently the last to be produced in a house in nearby Lyall Bay, which meant that we had to wait until the new plant in China was up to speed--disappointing on a couple of levels.

The wait was worth it. Hawk with his new doot-doo and bright dinosaur helmet, well, it was like Christmas in June. He's been wearing his helmet all day since he got the bike and has been very reluctant to go to bed each night. He's even woken up in the middle of the night to tell us, "Doot-do, ride." Proud kid, proud parents. Doesn't get much better than this.

(Re: the video. Your volume controls are fine; for some reason there's no sound with the video function on my digital camera. Flip HD is on the way!)

Words By Hawk

airplane     again     Amma, Baba, Mimi, Opa (his grandparents)     apple     baby     ball     balloon     banana     bear   beef     beep     bird     bite     blocks     blue     book     bowl     box     bug     bus     button     bye     calculator     chew     Dad     Derek     dog     dry     dude     ear     eye     fish     fire     five     fly     four     gifted     girl     guy     hat     hello     here     hi     horse     hot tea!     I know     I love you     Jack     juice     knee     leaf     man     me     Mom     moo     more     mouth     my      no     nose     oh     one     orange     ouch     owl     pee     peek     pen     plate     ride     seat     shhh     shoes     sky     sky-ball (i.e., the moon)     slide     snaps     snow     sock     spider     stairs     star     teeth     three     throw     top     touch     two     uh-oh     up     watch     water     what?     whee!     whoa     wow     wrap     yes     yup

Hawk-in-the-Box

Further West Than We Thought

When you step over the borderline of the "known" into the land of the "unknown," you take a risk. But this borderline is so unendingly fruitful, we just say "Okay." We take the risk. — Werner Sobek, architect and engineer

My last week at work I took a back way to the office. There are vast tracts of farmland and woods here, a district impossible according to previous experience and landmarks. The road winds between dell and vale, through hunting grounds and an old graveyard, and I wish I’d known these paths years before, but catch myself, grateful I know them now.


The sun glitters through trees, through the grey and silent world, dumb with frost, and the road finally opens to the back streets of Phoenixville. The bridge at Gay Street has been rebuilt, and it takes me across the Schuylkill to the wide, low skyline. Everything familiar has changed and been reborn in our time here. The old steel city itself, and more recently familiar, everyday haunts: my gym, which closed without notice; my company, which has relocated to a new building. We have sold our house and live in a back room of our friends’ house in Spring City. Everywhere I go, walking through a restaurant, driving through fields, the words rise up in me like a prayer: We are moving to New Zealand.


It is not lost on me that our new quarters are situated on the corner of Wall Street and Park Road, the convergence of material and creative abundance. It’s a fitting wink to the work Jenifer and I have done this past year, to our aspirations and willingness to identify and seek opportunity. I can safely say we had no idea New Zealand would change our lives.


During our first trip three years ago, we quickly fell in love with New Zealand and its people, making lifelong friends and discovering a pioneering culture that offered seemingly unlimited opportunity in our respective fields. Afterwards I came home and (according to reports of dubious origin) stomped around the house muttering, “I want to live in Wellington.” That was a start, setting an intention, but really no way to manifest a new reality. We didn’t know how to make this leap, what mechanisms were needed to click us out of one life and into another.


I made another push towards Los Angeles. But searching for work you don't really want has a way of wearing on you. Hawk's arrival the next year changed everything. His presence, his needs, his potential and my awareness of my role in fostering it led to a serious contemplation of Where I Was and Where I Was Going. After Hawk's name came to us (there is no other way to put it), we learned that, apart from its being derived from the Old Norse word for the bird, as well as a first name, it comes from an ancient Indo-European root that means "to seize." This was wonderfully appropriate for him as well as an ongoing lesson.  

Questions arose. About the conditions of my life, what I really want for myself, the life I want to give my son. David Byrne's shrill voice sang in my head, asking: What am I still doing in this house? Why am I still doing this corporate work? And: Why don't I wear autumn colors more often?


At the same time Jenifer, less given to brooding, was searching and finding answers of her own. Last winter (in the northern hemisphere), she discovered a holistic health practice for sale in Wellington. It met every criteria she had established for the kind of business she wanted to run, and in May we returned for a scouting trip. It turned out to be exactly right.


The next six months were jam-packed with a seemingly endless stream of tasks. Filing our application with Immigration New Zealand, which meant writing a business plan and accumulating sufficient evidence as to our Good Character and general Suitability. Preparing our house for market. Selling it. 


An odd thing happened during all this. I started getting good at it. Meaning, there was so much to do in any given week (on top of raising a small child and visiting with two sets of grandparents most weekends) precious little time was left for worrying about how I was going to finish everything. Paying bills, running errands, keeping up with the house--all the things Normal People do--now seemed within my everyday capacity. I got less practiced at procrastination. Maybe taking on the opportunity before us was my way of taking responsibility for my life. Maybe I was growing up.


I don't think moving to New Zealand is required for this. For us, however, it's what we needed to integrate our individual and shared dreams, to spend more time together, to live in a harbor city, to create a way of living that's in step with who we'd become while living in and outgrowing a small condo in a small town in Pennsylvania.


As I've shared the news of our plans, responses have been mixed. Some regard us with supportive excitement, others as if we are sailing into the West, to the shores of Valinor. (And perhaps we are, though I promise we’re going by plane.) The most common question is what my family thinks. Our move will be hard on them, no doubt, but I trust that through the distance we will grow closer.


There are many things I will miss. Perhaps most of all will be the sweetness of this time, these last days in the world we've inherited, when we didn't yet know the shape our dreams would take.

Season's Greetings from Santa and Hawk

The Conductor

Life is full. Very full. Which is good, very good. Rest assured, dear Readers, that in due time the fullness and the goodness shall be processed and expressed in these pages.

Meanwhile, as they say, Hawk is growing by leaps and bounds and has recently accomplished such feats of derring-do as walking on a balance beam and bouldering (sideways) at a rock-climbing gym (where the minimum age is four, but if Mom’s glance goes elsewhere for a moment you do what you gotta do.) His main preoccupation these days, however, is music. In fact, ever since he was a tiny little guy, Hawk has been crazy about music of almost any kind.

As soon as he hears a tune on the car stereo, the TV, wherever, his index fingers point like little batons, his hands wave to the rhythm as if conducting the whole affair, and his face lights up in a big grin that says, “Hey! It’s music!”

Hawk and I will jam while Jenifer is away somewhere on a secret yoga mission. These sessions may include the African goatskin drum or wooden xylophone he got for his birthday, the shamanic gourd-rattle, or the “jingle box” fashioned out of jingle bells and a container that once held Trader Joe’s chocolate.

Lately he’ll start conducting at the TV and DVD player, our source of CD magic, and this is my signal to put in some Dylan or U2. His other current favorite is mariachi, which he went mad for when a documentary featuring female mariachi players was on TV. In fact, whenever the interview “interrupted” the music, he grew quite angry, indeed. Usually, though, he greets the end of each song with clapping.

It’s too early to tell if he’ll be the next Gustavo Dudamel, but for now he has the requisite wild hair and self-possessed bravado, and (most important) is having a blast.

Cowabunga, Dudes!

“Dude,” said Hawk. Which is appropriate, I suppose, given his Ninja-Turtley nature when sporting his new quilted vest. That and the surfing theme of “our” yoga studio, ocean earth wind fire, which not only landed in the Top Five of Fox 29’s recent Best of the Philly HOT LIST but is also soon celebrating its 2nd Anniversary Cowabunga Bash Week.

All next week, October 12–18, all kinds of fun events are taking place, beginning with Monday evening’s special class at the John James Audubon Center. For a schedule, go here. It’s hard to believe the studio’s already two and Hawk’s already one. Everyone’s growing up! Dude!

Hawk Is One

Joy of Mud