Tell A Story in 100 Words or Less, Part 4

The thin whistle came at the end of every breath. A deep inhale, usually interrupted two or three times as he breathed in, holding the air in his lungs. Then the exhale — halting, pausing — and the tiny whistling sound.

Hundreds, if not thousands of times a day I heard this as my grandfather and my father struggled for breath, the whistle becoming overwhelmed eventually by the sound of the machines.

Breathing is something you take for granted. And then one day — no day in particular, just a day — you stop. And it’s over.

The Reality of Perspective

Not too long ago, I bumped into Jim Moore, the musical director for “Ragtime,” while Ben was in a ballet class.

“Did you realize what we were getting you into?” he asked.

We laughed for a moment — fleeting moments are all you seem to get when one show ends and the search for another begins — and soon parted ways.

This is one of theatre’s little oddities that no one prepares a parent for — watching your child have extremely intense, fulfilling relationships with people whose talents far outnumber yours, then seeing those relationships evaporate or be forever altered within moments or days. The boomerang of emotions your child feels is sometimes more dramatic than what you see on stage.

Fortunately, as we’ve learned, the theatre community in general is small and close knit. Chances are, if you go from show to show, you’ll always meet someone with a connection to someone you know. And, if you’re lucky enough, you’ll work with people you like (and who you hope feel the same about you) more than once.

Ben has been extremely fortunate to work with a variety of interesting, creative people over the past four-plus years he has been doing this. When each show has ended, he has mourned its loss, and wondered if he would ever see those people again. We try to reassure him, and let him know that he will, just in a different context.

••••••

Perspective is a funny thing, and in many ways, it’s only gained by the passage of time. Little things — fragments of memory — that seemed insignificant in the moment take on greater resonance with perspective. Things that once seemed huge shrink and drift away when new memories or experiences are added.

As parents, this is something we try to teach our kids, that perspective and context do matter. It’s hard for kids — and in some cases, adults — to understand that a break up, or a show closing, or a high school sporting event that didn’t end well is not the end of the world. It’s even tougher to comprehend that something you cared so passionately about is but a memory.

That last sentence applies to parents, too. When you see your child immersed and psyched about an activity, no matter what it is, the end and subsequent transition always is a bit of a shock to the system. You’ve juggled and scrambled and rescheduled to successfully achieve the impossible, and then it’s done and over in a flash. Yes, inevitably we are relieved to get our lives back — until the next thing comes along, that is — but we often miss it, too.

Ben’s run in “Billy Elliot” — he marked 10 months in the show last week — has been a fascinating experience for a number of reasons. And even though it is a long-running show with no chance of closing any time soon, it has presented a number of challenges on the transition front. Ben has seen a number of kids — castmates and peers — leave as their voices change and contracts end.

The reality of the business — that nothing is ever permanent — regularly hits home.

Almost two years ago, I had no way of realizing the impact that “Ragtime” would have on the lives of everyone in our family. The show’s abrupt end caught all of us off guard, and it took a while to bounce back. It was such a close-knit group of people, which is something I’m reminded of every time we see someone from the show on the street.

I can see now, far more clearly, why people try to work with the same folks over and over. The ability to collaborate and create is made far easier when you have people you know who are just as passionate as you about a particular project. Ben is extremely fortunate to have known so many kind people who have that ongoing passion.

Two years ago, taking that leap into the unknown — a leap of faith without a bungee cord attached — was exciting, thrilling, exhausting and scary as hell for everyone in our family. And it remains just as exciting, thrilling, and yes, exhausting and scary today.

No matter what happens next, it’s been one heckuva ride.

The Writer’s Pea

Do you remember the story of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Princess and the Pea, immortalized in the musical “Once Upon a Mattress”? The evil queen — a staple of fairy tales — gives Winnifred a test to see if she’s sensitive enough to marry the prince. The test: Will placing a pea under a stack of mattresses prevent Winnifred from falling asleep?

Of course, we all know how it works in fairy tales. Winnifred — the feisty, unrefined heroine (fairy tale staple #2) — becomes a raging insomniac, all because of a stupid vegetable. And in the end, the evil queen is proven wrong (fairy tale staple #3 in this scenario). 

I thought of this story — sadly I can identify with the raging insomniac part — when I tried to come up with a reason for explaining why I have not been writing in this space for the past month or so.

It’s not like I haven’t had ideas. Most of this blog is writing about our family, and there’s no shortage of material there. And even though our schedules have been jammed, it’s not like I haven’t had a few sleepless nights to work on things.

But every time I’ve started, I’ve stopped for some reason, so my desktop is cluttered with a series of half-formed ideas for essays that are still marinating in my brain. This explanation is my way of trying to get back in the groove — “The Father’s New Groove,” now that’s an idea for a fairy tale.

The best way I can describe it is that I’ve had the “writer’s pea.” I hope that I’ve managed to now remove it successfully, and that, having relaxed and done something productive, that we can now return to our semi-regularly scheduled programming.

Back soon, I promise. Thanks for indulging me.

Why I Like What I Like: Photography

In addition to my family, there are several things I love. My hit-and-miss fascination with reading was mentioned in a recent posting, and, obviously, I like to write and tell stories.

Music, computers, and photography are passions as well. And each overlaps and intersects with the others at different times. In my case, technology has been the uniter, because computers help to merge and indulge my likes and make the mechanical more cerebral. 

I’ve always felt inept and useless when it comes to handyman work — it doesn’t come naturally and serves as the source of much frustration. For example, I didn’t enjoy writing until I could type, in part because I spent too much time focusing on the mechanics to compensate for my lack of hand-eye coordination. Keyboarding  — mercifully one high school semester of "A, S, D, F, J, K, L, semi. Rinse. Repeat"  — ultimately is the class I took the most from after graduation.

In the analog, pre-digital days, photography was a source of fascination and a reminder that my lack of mechanical skills would be the bane of my existence.

Working for small newspapers made taking pictures a necessity, and I enjoyed shooting people with the Pentax camera that was a graduation present. But understanding how to get my camera to do what I wanted so I could capture what I saw was more frustrating than fascinating, especially in the days when post-production was spent inhaling chemicals in a pitch dark room.

That has been eliminated thanks to the digital explosion, and enhanced by a chance to pay tribute to my dad and an opportunity to explore that I never thought I'd have.

My dad was a visual artist who could paint, sculpt, or draw anything that came to mind. I can't draw a stick figure, but I've always had his eye for composition, just not the creativity (or sadly, the fine motor skills) to create something out of nothing.

When we came to New York, I thought of my dad often as I was drawn to the visual explosion that is the city. Dad never visited New York, but in so many ways, the stuff I see walking around serves as a constant reminder of his interests, insights, and influence on my life. Also, when in New York, I spend most of my time on foot as opposed to in a car, so I see things differently when I’m there.

On a beautiful spring day last March, I took out my camera, started taking random pictures of the things I saw, and found I have a knack for it. Thanks to Facebook (and now Flickr), I have outlets to show my hobby to the world (or at least several hundred of my closest "friends"). And my hobby has taken me in new directions as well.

Photography has allowed me to make connections I never would have imagined, and several folks from far-flung places have said they too picked up a camera after seeing my random noodlings. I've even started going out on photo shoots with other weekend warriors, many of whom I've learned from and whose talents are greater than mine.

Recently, I've gotten a number of questions on Facebook about my camera, photography, etc. I don't pretend to have any answers, but here is what I know.

• In terms of cameras, I have a Canon 60D, which is on the lowest rung of the pro-level. Yes, you can get great shots with many of the point and shoots that are out there, and the iPhone's camera is really nice (not so with an iPod Touch).
• That said, a good digital SLR gives you flexibility (faster shutter, no delay, broader range, more settings, different feel in your hand). I desperately want to upgrade my camera body -- like any addiction, photography can be an insidious beast -- but am being patient now for the sake of my finances (and my marriage).
• Lenses matter, too, and they are where you start to spend the bucks. Each gives you different abilities/opportunities (sharp foreground/background blur, panoramic view, zoomed in view) and, depending on how much you're willing to spend to make your photos pop, greater clarity.

Think of it this way: Some people play golf and spend $100 every two weeks for greens fees and equipment. I spend my money on cameras and lenses instead, but just every six months to a year instead of every weekend.

It's all a matter of what you want to do, and how much time you're willing to invest. The beauty of digital is that if you don't like it, you can delete it, and it doesn't cost anything. So go out and start taking pictures. Don't be afraid to bend down or look around, and take the same shot from three different angles. Keep the one you like and delete the others.

If you try it, you might find that you like it, and you can start making those connections, too.

The Adjustment Bureau

For weeks now, I’ve seen ads for “The Adjustment Bureau,” the new movie about someone who tries to take back control of his life despite dark and perhaps sinister forces that are trying to stop him. Given everything our oldest daughter is going through in dealing with the sinister combination of puberty and bipolar disorder, the movie’s title aptly describes much of the last 10 days.

Now 14, Kate has struggled to maintain any emotional equilibrium since the start of her eighth-grade year. Middle school is hard enough as is, but especially for girls riding the hormonal rollercoaster, and things have been steadily on a downward spiral since November.

The level of pharmacopeia — multiple medications addressing multiple issues — was not touching the problem. Adding lithium — aka the “gold standard” drug for treating bipolar — didn’t help. Kate’s generally upbeat nature was being overwhelmed by pressured speech, tears, anger, sadness, and rage.

When she could not stop twitching a few nights ago, we had to take her to the emergency room.  After consulting with doctors the next morning, we knew that something more had to be done, both with her meds and to help guide her out of an increasingly dense wilderness.

We had entered our own personal adjustment bureau.

••••••

According to the Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation (CABF), the past decade has seen a 40-fold increase in the diagnosis of children with bipolar, even though it remains far below the rate for adults. A National Institute of Mental Health study notes that at least 65 percent of adults with bipolar felt that it started in childhood or adolescence.

For as long as I can remember, Kate has confronted the various — and multiple — stresses in her life in one of two ways: Curling up in a fetal ball and crying, or screaming at the top of her lungs. Sometimes, when you’re lucky, you get both in a span of just a few minutes.

Medication has helped mask those emotions, but over time, as she has gotten older and moved into her teen years, Kate is no longer comfortable with the mask — on or off.

That leaves us with a mix of hope and dread.  As her parents, we hope and pray that she is doing better, that something — in this case hospitalization — will help her to be better. Dread comes from experience, because we know that when she is positive that the other shoe is just waiting to drop.

It’s interesting, because in our marriage, I’m almost always the one who takes the “glass is half full” view. Consider it Paul McCartney’s “getting better all the time” combined with an occasional “can’t get much worse” from John Lennon.

And remember, neither was as good solo as they were together.

With Kate, Jill usually takes the optimist role. My view is that we should not question why, but determine how best to deal with a 48-card deck that is missing several essential cards right now. This focus on analysis and solutions helps me to understand our daughter, but doesn’t work that well at times in the moment when things are fired up.

Jill is more patient and better able to relate to her than I am. She frets and continues to search for solutions. For the longest time, she had difficulty accepting the fact that this is a long-term illness with no short-term resolution for our daughter’s condition, that she won’t be “normal” (whatever that is).

In her view, this shouldn’t happen to a child.

She’s right about that, no question. But it has.

••••••

Every time a new drug was introduced, or the dosage increased, Kate always seemed to get a small bump. The family breathed a sigh of relief, only to learn that it was just temporary. As she entered adolescence, then puberty, then middle school, even the effects of the pharmaceutical bumps lessened.

For the last several months, nothing has worked.

We have been very honest with Kate about her situation, and have tried to explain what it is to her in positive — yet truthful — terms. Our family’s firm belief is that treating a brain disorder is no different than treating, say, diabetes (both have a biological basis). Mental illness should be discussed in the same matter-of-fact way that we discuss any long-term, physical disorder.

The difference, however, is that treating bipolar, ADHD, and other types of these disorders is a crapshoot. What works for five people with the same diagnosis won’t work for numbers six through 10 because each person’s brain chemistry is unique. Since, according to CABF, the adult brain is not fully formed until age 25, treatment becomes even more of a shot in the dark with children and adolescents.

Research also shows that girls tend to linger longer on the depressed side of the bipolar pool. Most bipolar medications on the market are more effective for mania than depression, which can make treatment difficult. Hospitalization or a stay in a residential facility often is the only effective way.

We love our daughter, would do anything for her, and have tried everything to help. But “It” has refused to leave Kate — and by extension her family — alone. Progressively, we have become worried about her increasingly fragile mental state, and the anger that lies underneath. Physical and emotional safety, hers and ours, is an ongoing concern.

••••••

Bipolar is an octopus, metaphorically speaking. It is not self-contained; if anything, it demands to always be the center of attention. You can tiptoe around a mood disorder all you want, but it still will strike out, often for the most miniscule things at the most inopportune times. Think of it this way: ’Roid rage has nothing on an ill, pissed off 14-year-old girl in a very dark place.

This makes for a difficult family dynamic under the best of circumstances. And the past year and a half has been trying, as we juggle careers, teenagers, and commuting back and forth from Virginia to New York.

Kate knows her internal spin cycle has been out of control. She no longer thinks her psychiatrist is effective and wants someone different. We’ve known her current mix of meds wasn’t working; in fact, her new doctor said her ADHD could have been misdiagnosed. After the twitching/convulsive episode last week, she begged us for help, saying she knows something is wrong.

That’s what we’ve been dealing with for the past 10 days, and we’re hoping that we’ve got her medication sorted out — for now. Still, through individual and family counseling, other issues must be addressed as she works to find that elusive emotional equilibrium.

In general, girls tend to internalize their emotions. Kate has suppressed hers for so long that the only way they know how to come out is in a rage. She has to be able to identify when she is upset or unhappy and learn how to deal with it. She has to learn how to be accountable for her actions — in school and at home.

The problem is that she speaks in general terms, too general really, if she wants help. The art of in-depth debate and conversation, something that brings me great joy in this life, escapes her because she has no patience for it. And her coping mechanisms are so deep, so embedded, that it will take a very long time for her to find new ones.

There are no magic wands. That’s for sure.

••••••

Jill and I genuinely believe Kate wants — desperately — to be positive about life. But a fake positive has the effect of a false negative; no one wins. We have to work together to identify ways for her to have positive interactions with her family, a lesson that she can hopefully translate into friendships with her peers.

At times, I provoke the situation with Kate, in part because I know that the only way she will stop pressing me — for food, for money, for stuff — is to make the emotional valve go off. That is not healthy parenting; I need to do better.

I can’t imagine what it is like to be in her skin and to feel so uncomfortable all the time. I can’t imagine what it is like to feel like you can’t be alone, or that you must be doing something — anything — at all moments of the day.

The counseling sessions we’ve had this week were about unmasking the real Kate. So far, they have not been terribly successful, although the medication adjustment has helped. What has emerged, however, is how important her ongoing treatment is. Chiseling away at something that is so engrained — taking apart to put back together — will take time.

How long that will be, no one knows. I just hope we can all stay on the right path.

Father and Son, Vol. 2

I can call my life a number of things. Boring is not one of them.

On nights like this, I wish my dad were here for a number of reasons, although I’m fortunate to feel his presence. Actually, after a period in which he temporarily slipped back into memory’s recesses, he’s been popping up a lot lately. (Spirits have a way of doing that, but as far as ghosts are concerned, fortunately my father’s lean toward the Casper side.)

The relationship I have with my sons, in many ways, mirrors the one I had with my father. With Nicholas, it’s by the periods of absenteeism, caused in my dad’s case by illness and in mine by divorce. (See “Fathers and Sons, Vol. 1.”) No matter where I was, however, I knew I was loved; I hope Nicholas feels the same.

My relationship with Ben is different, in part because of proximity. The simple fact that we spend as much time as we do together, often one on one, makes it different. The fact that he has spent much of the last 19 months in New York both simplifies and complicates the parent-child relationship.

At the same time, among my four kids, Ben’s personality, interests and wit are closest to my father’s.

Here are some recent quotes from my youngest teen:

• "I like snow, but when it doesn't give you a snow day, it's useless."

• "Friday always comes at the right time, just when I'm starting to hate school. By Monday, it's normal again, and I go back to school."

“La Cage Aux Folles,” the Broadway revival playing on 48^th Street, occasionally will hold after-show karaoke in a nearby pub. One night, walking to the apartment, we passed a 6-ft-2 inch man in high heels, full makeup, dress and wig, smoking a cigarette. I asked Ben if the man was heading to karaoke. Without batting an eye, my teen said, "Well, if he's not, then he got all dressed up for nothing."

Those are the types of things my dad would say…

••••••

“They call me the Wanderer / Yeah, the Wanderer / I roam around, around, around.”

My father loved that song, and I’m sure wore the grooves off the 45 he had. If his life had been a reality show, the 1961 single by Dion and the Belmonts would have been a good candidate for the theme.

Dad enjoyed having time to drift. He could spend hours in a bookstore, or a junkyard, searching for parts to some old Cadillac he was trying to fix up. He enjoyed going to flea markets — the all-in-one version of a neighborhood yard sale — on weekends.

If he had a goal, or a purpose, he was extremely focused and would see it through until the end no matter the time of day or night. At multiple points during my childhood, he would wake me in the middle of the night — nocturnal is another characteristic shared by the three generations — to help him with an art project or to see an old movie on television that he would break down in detail.

No goal? No dice…

Ben is the same way. Like any kid — and like his father, much to Jill’s chagrin — he can procrastinate with the best. Spark his interest in something, however, and he masters it — quickly.

Example #1: The boy had no desire to get out of diapers. At age 3, we insisted and put him in pull-ups. After the first day, he asked if he could change to “big boy underwear” and pronounced that he was ready to use the bathroom on his own. The reason: He didn’t like pull-ups because they “bunched up,” and if he had to wear those, he might as well wear underwear. He never had another accident.

Example #2: At age 4, he wanted to ride a bike. After a couple of hours on training wheels, he came inside and asked why his bike had to have four wheels when the older kids’ only had two. We explained that he needed time to get his bearings and balance. He said he was fine — and he was, riding on two wheels that day.

Example #3: Ben did not enjoy singing until “Ragtime” two years ago. Thanks to his mom’s gene pool, he had a nice enough voice, but was not interested in training until he realized that singing was essential if he wanted to make it in musical theatre (and stay, yes, gainfully employed).  So he learned the song for the audition, passed, and hasn’t stopped singing since.

Now we get a Broadway concert every time he takes a shower.

••••••

Things come naturally to him, but Ben possesses a work ethic unlike any child I’ve known. Not many teens can do eight shows a week, plus four hours of rehearsal and full-time school, and complain as little as he does.

If he cares about something, he is a perfectionist. After having only a limited interest in ballet, he has a goal and practices it constantly. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve had to ask him to stop doing pirouettes and fouettes in our apartment in the middle of the night.

Two years ago, Ben started making short films, editing them and posting them to YouTube. Self taught, he has built up more than 11,000 subscriptions on his bentwins10097 channel. If you ask which he loves more — dancing, singing, or acting — he finds it tough to give you an answer.

Like my dad, he’s a visual learner. And like his father and grandfather, he’s a huge movie fan. Recently he rewatched “Slumdog Millionaire” to compare the visual and music cues to director Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours.”

He’s very much a teen, interested in his Xbox 360 and his iPod Touch and learning the often-tangled ropes on relationships with girls. He still gets nervous when he’s facing a test in school or about to go on in a new role.

And yet, he’s still our little boy, not afraid to give me a hug in public, not ashamed to be seen talking to his dad or other adults.

The best part of this entire experience is when friends and relatives see him in New York. Quickly, they discover the things we already know, that no matter how crazy and nontraditional things are, he has not become someone else. He is still “just Ben.”

And that, folks, is anything but boring.

No Stereotypes Here

Several weeks ago, on a late Saturday afternoon, my 13-year-old son and I walked into a store on 50th Street in midtown Manhattan to buy him a pair of shoes.

Ballet shoes. White canvas ballet shoes.

And then Ben went home to play Call of Duty: Black Ops during his dinner break, practicing his turns in second in the small living room while waiting for the game to load. An hour later, I took him back to work.

That wasn’t the first time I realized that this not the stereotypical father/son relationship. It wasn’t even the first time that day.

Nothing about the relationship with my youngest child — by a minute, his twin notes — is stereotypical, or even typical if you try to put it in conventional terms. Of course, few things are typical about Ben.

Born small for a boy at just 5 pounds and 10 ounces, he’s still small in stature — less than 5 feet and only 83 pounds. But it doesn’t bother him. In fact, small is a good thing given the short career span of child actors, especially one who loves the stage.

This afternoon, Ben will be wearing a dress on a Broadway stage, making his debut as Michael in “Billy Elliot.” Two months ago, he uttered the word “orgasm” on national television. And a couple of weeks ago, he went to a movie with a girl, then told me about it, and asked if he had handled things correctly.

See what I mean by atypical?

Read a book? Seriously?

I promise that I’ll read another book, and I’m pretty sure it will be sometime this year.  But beyond that, I give you no guarantees.

It’s not that I don’t have interesting things to read. Sitting on my shelves now are the recent Jonathan Franzen novel, the Keith Richards autobiography, a biography of Mickey Mantle, and the last two Jonathan Tropper novels I need to read before I’m all caught up with his oeuvre. And there is “The Girl with the…” series that is just there, waiting.

And right now, my response is, “Eh…”

I’ve always been a reader. My mom loves to tell the story of how she brought her 4½-year-old son to read to her first-graders, so books and I date back a few years. But right now, I couldn’t finish a picture book for pleasure if I tried.

This happens. I go through stretches with my nose buried in a book — sometimes more than one at a time — and then I just stop. Like that.

I still read, of course, given that I’m an editor for a living. And I love browsing bookstores — that loud sigh you heard came from me when Borders filed for bankruptcy last week. But lately I haven’t felt like doing that, either.

The same applies to writing for pleasure. This blog has been a wonderful outlet for more than a year, but it — like reading — comes in fits and starts. Five entries in five days, and then nothing for a month. It's not like I'm lacking things to write about — hell, I collect ideas like some people collect dolls (obviously I’ve seen too much “Hoarders” recently). I jot down a few notes and then…

Well, it just depends on where my brain is at the time.

The advantage to having a number of creative interests — writing, photography, music, reading, theatre — is that I can stop in on occasion and not get bored. I hope you’ll stick with me, because I’ll be back soon.

Unless I pick up a good book, that is.

Name in the Middle

I was born a third, left the hospital a middle, and have felt like an outsider for much of my life since.

Seventeen days after the Baby Boom era officially ended, I was christened John Glenn Cook III. Named after my father and grandfather, I was driven home from the hospital to the strains of Lyndon Baines Johnson’s inauguration ceremony on an AM radio.

Little did I know then, at three days old, that LBJ’s long, drawn out drawl (along with a couple of his social policies) would be one of the things that would help my parents veer permanently toward the Republican camp. For the longest time, I could not reconcile how my father could have John F. Kennedy’s speeches on album and yet claim to be a Republican.

Of course, I also didn’t realize that being a Democrat in Texas did not mean you were liberal in any way, shape, or form. But I digress…

My parents, married just nine months and 21 days when I was born, were fresh out of college and starting their careers. For my dad’s parents, my birth represented a number of positives — first grandchild, a namesake, and, most important, another reason my father would not go to Vietnam.

My grandfather (John Sr.) was an assistant postmaster in Longview, Texas, and was terrified that his son (John Jr.) would be forced to fight in a conflict that many people did not understand. When my dad’s number came up in an upcoming draft notice, he quickly drafted a plan for my parents to get married, noting a deferral that was granted to males who had recently wed.

So my parents got hitched on a Friday, moved my dad’s stuff 250 miles south over the weekend, and my mom went to work teaching school the following Monday. A few short months later, I came along, not knowing at the time that I already had been part of the first great compromise of my parents’ nascent marriage.

It goes something like this: I could be named after my father and grandfather, under the condition that my name really wasn’t John, but Glenn. Except for dooming me to a life of filling out forms with a name that I didn’t go by, and facing a lifetime of questions about being named after the astronaut, the moniker on my birth certificate has had little impact on my life.

Or so I thought.

Life with ‘The Situation’

“Well, we’re back in our situation again,” my aunt said.

It was Christmas Day — her 72nd birthday — and she had spent it eating alone at an IHOP in Central Texas. Her husband of 42 years was in a psychiatric hospital, and sadly, this was not the first time.

I can count on my hands the number of times I have spoken to my aunt — my father’s older sister — since my grandmother died in the late 1980s. It was around that time that my uncle and I nearly came to blows over the handling of my grandmother’s illness, and at that point I pointedly walked away from two people who had a long-term influence on my childhood.

A bit of background is necessary: My father became ill when I was 8, and for major portions of my childhood, I spent summers and school breaks in Longview, the East Texas town where my parents were raised. My aunt and uncle lived 10 to 15 miles from my dad’s parents, and I spent much of my time going back and forth between the two houses.

Reflecting on that time, memories flash by like 15-second commercials from childhood, with yellowed and sepia tones. I remember sitting in a boat belonging to my aunt and uncle, hands on the steering wheel and making sputtering sounds with my lips as I imagined being in a high speed chase. I remember fending off the dirt dobbers, the flying bugs that nested in the homes they built in the ceiling corners of their carport. I can see my grandfather working in the huge garden he set up in their backyard, his skin leathered and tan in the years before he became tethered to oxygen. I remember the Dallas Cowboys games and my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary celebration at their house, my grandfather dying then.

And I remember the confrontation.

••••••

As I write this, my uncle is in a different hospital. His physical “situation” — my aunt’s word to describe his state at any given time — is not good. He has blood clots in his leg and in his lungs that are life threatening. And then there is the mental illness, about which my aunt is reasonably matter of fact.

“He gets on these kicks,” she said on Christmas Day. “He gets revved up and he starts having fears and hallucinations. He gets paranoid. He can’t slow down. He can’t sleep. He’s all agitated and revved up, and then he starts being belligerent. I had to take him over there because I couldn’t have handled him when he is like this.

“So,” she said with the voice of someone who has been through this countless times, “we’ll get his meds straightened out and then everything will be OK for a while, or at least until he has another one of his episodes.”

My uncle was formally diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2000, but he had shown signs of erratic behavior for at least two decades prior. Anxiety could make him extremely demanding and overbearing. At one point, he took a two to three week leave of absence from his job “due to nerves.” He retired in the mid 1980s, even though he was only in his 40s. No one knew, or spoke of, the exact reason why.

“We were so dumb. I didn’t even have a clue what they were talking about,” my aunt said. “As he got older, it got worse, and when he turned 60 it completely got a hold on him.”

••••••

I abhor violence. I don’t like TV shows or movies that glorify or wallow in it. However, I do understand primal instinct. The two fights I got into at school growing up were with people who said cruel (and not well thought out) things about my parents.

And no one, absolutely no one, could say anything about my grandmother or cast a vote to prolong her suffering. End-of-life decisions are extremely personal, and when my uncle — during an extremely stressful point in time just days before her death — tried to take control and made a number of statements about what my grandmother “had to do” and what we “had to do” for her, I started to snap.

And just as quickly, I walked away. Self preservation demanded that I not stay involved with someone who put me in a primal state.

I kept in touch with my aunt and uncle through my parents, who served as intermediaries. We exchanged Christmas cards. Occasionally, and usually at my parents’ behest, I would call to check on them.

This year, after my mom told me about my uncle’s latest meltdown and that my aunt had to eat alone on her birthday because he refused to see her, I decided to reach out and call her at home. After all, it was Christmas, and I had a confession to make.

••••••

The conversation lasted 90 minutes. I asked questions and took notes, writing down parallels between some of my uncle’s episodes and those of my daughter, who also is bipolar. Their situations are different, in part because of age and gender, and in part due to the fact that no mental illness/disorder results in the same experiences.

“It’s the strangest mess,” my aunt said. “Everyone has so many different forms of this.”

She went on to describe how and what happened when my uncle’s “situation” became worse, how she has been on a decade long series of cycles that start with emerging paranoia and isolation, followed by anger and depression, then hospitalization and renewal.

“I don’t know what causes this, but I know that when he becomes anxious about everything, he can’t do anything about it,” she said. “For a while, he just knows that he can do something better than everyone else, and he will drive that point into the ground if he has to, just to get his way.”

What I appreciated most was my aunt’s candor — a trait I had not realized she shares with my grandmother. And what emerged in the conversation was her great strength in the face of mental illness. Why didn’t she leave him?

“He’s a very kind man when he’s not all caught up in this, and it’s not something he can help,” she said, referring to his “crazy episodes” as blackouts. “When you get to know him, you know he’s not like the person he is when he’s in one of those states. I’ve just learned that the meds only hold him for so long, which means when they don’t work that he’s going to have to go to the hospital and stay for a while.”

I told her about my conscious withdrawal from them, explained my reasons for staying away, and said how guilty I felt. “I do understand,” she said. “This is not an easy thing to deal with — for anybody.”

Our relationship felt renewed by the end of our talk. She expressed her concern for Kate and — here’s that word again — our “situation.”

“Fortunately, things are different now,” she said. “It used to be that people who went to a psychiatrist had a bad reputation, but now we know that they’re getting treatment for something they can’t help. It’s not something we expect to have in a child, or in a spouse, but they can’t help it. They just can’t.

“You can help them, though, and others, too, by being open about all this,” she said, not knowing how much she had helped me — on her birthday.

Tell a Story in 100 Words or Less, Part 3

Sixteen years ago, the day after turning 30, I took the first huge risk of my life. I stood next to the front porch on a chilly afternoon and poured out my heart, knowing that in one sense I was destroying the person I had become and reclaiming the person I wanted to be at the same time. For the first time, life’s gray was erased – black pushed to one side, white to the other. In its place was a feeling I knew I’d never replicate, even though the grays of life would return. About this, however, nothing is gray.

The Perils of Creativity

Creativity is elusive, tantalizing, edifying, agonizing, or — with apologies to my English teachers for ending a sentence with a preposition — some combination thereof. Throughout my life, I’ve gone through phases in which I’m extremely productive, and others in which I feel like a barking seal.

The past two to three weeks have felt more like the latter than the former.

January typically is a low-key time. The days are cold and short, the streets are deserted, and my muse usually is in hibernation mode until after my birthday in the middle of the month. Considering the four birthdays and two major holidays that occur in the 30- to 35-day period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I guess that comes as no surprise.

But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

I have four primary hobbies — writing, photography, reading, and listening to music. The first two qualify as active, while the third and fourth vascillate between active and passive. When they work together in groups or in tandem, I am at my best, but recently they haven’t been working at all, even in isolation.

After reading six books in six weeks, I’ve had trouble finishing a long-form magazine article. As for taking pictures, I’ve spent most of my time going through the more than 5,000 I took in 2010 — most of them in an 11-month period. (Last January wasn’t too hot either…)

After writing a variety of blog entries in November and December — so much to process in so little time — this is the first of 2011. I have started and stopped several other essays during this period — another source of frustration — that ended up as part of the Fragments series.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve compensated by engaging in two other enjoyable, though extremely passive pastimes — watching football and going to movies. Fortunately, between the NFL playoffs and the Oscar contenders moving into wide release, January is the month for both.

Slowly, I can feel the muse is getting restless again. On a single train ride from New York to Virginia, I managed to complete two long-overdue entries that I hope you will enjoy in the coming days.

My brain is filling up with things to process, and rather than feeling saturated or spent, I’m starting to feel like I can deliver on them again. My desire to get outside and be creative is back.

In other words, look out, folks…

The Pet Peeves of Editing

The recent “Fragments” post served to reinforce what I’ve known for some time — editing makes writing (and reading) a lot less fun sometimes.

As an editor, I constantly work to prune and shave words so stories read more clearly and succinctly. As a reader, I find myself editing already published work, and if the writer’s style (or lack thereof) bogs me down, I often don’t have the patience to finish the piece.

As a writer, my innate ADD makes staying on task a challenge, and as a result, I’ve been known to go off on tangents (aka this blog). “Fragments” was an attempt to find some closure for the postings that I start and abandon.

Earlier this year, I was asked to present at an Association Media and Publishing session on “The Art and Mechanics of Editing” with a colleague (Erin Pressley) who also is in this line of work. I actually enjoy presenting, although the prep work can be tedious at times.

The best part of this session came in developing a top 10 list of editing pet peeves. Take a look at the ones below and see if you can guess the ones that are mine. And the next time you decide to write something, reference them and see if you are making the same mistakes that we often deal with in our line of work.

#10: Passive voice  — Just plain boring, lacks action. Why was the road crossed by the chicken?

#9: Which vs. that — “That” introduces essential clauses while “which” introduces nonessential clauses. Gems that sparkle often elicit forgiveness. Diamonds, which are expensive, often elicit forgiveness.

#8: Who vs. that — “Who” refers to people. “That” refers to groups or things. Sally is the girl who rescued the bird. Jim is on the team that won first place.

#7: Misplaced modifiers — You modify something you didn't intend to modify. Wrong: I almost failed every grammar class I took. Right: I failed almost every grammar class I took.

#6: “–ing” Words — Unnecessary in many cases. Will be going — “Will go.” Should be doing — “Should do.” Have been driving — “Have driven.” Or better yet: “Are driving” (as in, me crazy)

#5: Absence of a nut graph — Do you have time for long and pointless? We don’t. A nut graph sets the scene for the reader and helps to telegraph where the rest of the story is going.

 

#4: Widespread use of “that” — Not to be “which-y” about it, but we could do with less of that.

#3: Stakeholders — Why do our bosses, sources, and even writers try to label some of our most important constituents as mini-Renfields? Doing so is often the lazy way out.

#2: Acronym-soup — Don’t think of us as SOBs for bringing this up, but we have an incredible reliance on institutional short-hand that often can clutter the story we are trying to tell. If you have to use acronyms, use them judiciously.

#1: And finally… My Pinkie Just Can’t Stop Hitting The Shift Key Because Everything We Write Is So Important That We Just Have To Capitalize It.


What are yours?

Fragments, Part III

Paraphrasing from a recent Facebook post: As an editor, you learn that some pieces are labors of love. Others feel like the writer was going through labor ... and left it for you to deliver.

••••••

I always tell my children: “Don’t tempt karma.” The minute you feel like everything is going great is the same moment fate’s shoe gets ready to drop and step on your head. This week’s example: Just when I started feeling good about the holiday season, the garbage disposal breaks, the plumber comes five hours late, and the replacement is defective — all because I bragged that my daughters got along at the mall a few hours earlier…

••••••

Most of us move through life in relative anonymity. Remember when it used to be that the only public recognition most people received was is in the police blotter (too bad) or the obituaries (too late)? Now, with the rise of social networking and the connections you make through Facebook, Twitter, et al, anonymity is fighting with print to become the “new vinyl.”

••••••

Recently in North Carolina, I rediscovered something that folks there have turned into an art form. Drivers pull out in front of you without hesitation, tires screeching. They travel about 30 feet and signal to turn left. Drives me up a tree (so far only figuratively).

••••••

Despite being a writer and editor for a full 3/5ths of my life, I do believe that print eventually will go the way of the vinyl record. School textbooks already are obsolete thanks to technology and our ability to instantly access information. And the Internet goes a long way toward satisfying our need for instant gratification, which in turn feeds into people having less and less patience to wait for what’s on the printed page. Why should they, when you can have it fed to you through headphones?

••••••

That said, I believe print still has a place because, like the vinyl record, paper provides a rich, full-bodied experience that you can’t get by tapping on a computer screen. Although, after getting one for Christmas, I must say the iPad comes close…

Fragments, Part II

I became a reporter because it combined three things I enjoy: talking to people, learning what makes them tick, and turning their stories into something for posterity (or, in the pre-Internet era, at least the bottom of someone’s bird cage). I became an editor to make a living wage, or something resembling that.

•••••••

Technology has replaced the automobile — and to an extent, the college textbook — as the most expensive disposable in our lives. Remember when it was said that you lost 30 to 50 percent of a new car’s value the moment you drove it off the lot? The same goes for every new device you buy. The moment you pull it out of the box, something newer and better is replacing it on the store shelves.

••••••

With four children having birthdays in the month of December, you could say God’s master plan was for me to emulate Him. Or, you could also say that He just has a wicked sense of humor.

•••••••

Another car/technology analogy: I’ve gotten five to seven years out of the last two desktops we’ve had in our house. By the time each was replaced, the reason was because they each had more than 200,000 miles on them, parts could be found only in junkyards, and the only way you could get them to run was if you slapped the top with your right hand on alternate Tuesdays.

••••••

Ben’s life in New York is, for the most part, confined to a 20-block radius from 34th to 54th Street between 7th and 8th Avenue. Rarely a day goes by in which he doesn’t bump into someone he knows. I never thought I would say this, but there are times when Midtown feels like a small town, albeit with a huge amusement park in the middle.

••••••

Another December observation: Between the birthdays and Christmas, I have to wonder what fates I tempted to have 11/12ths of the family’s annual expenses come during a single 2½ week timeframe. (I exaggerate on the expenses part, but only slightly.)