“As you wish was all he ever said to her.
“That day, she was amazed to discover that when he was saying, ‘As you wish,’ what he meant was, ‘I love you.’”
The perfect choice for weekend chore work in service of one’s Buttercup.
I find that wearing this liberates me from having to say much, which thereby lessens my odds of saying something dumb, and/or something that will get on Buttercup’s nerves.
Spill a little mustard on your shirt for Franktuary, which sunsetted its brick and mortar a few years back, but still operates a food truck here and there I hear.
Reverently prepared hot dogs.
Peter and I used to pilgrimage to their Lawrenceville location for boys day out Saturday lunches.
And like the great philosophers of antiquity, we’d spend the purgatory between our ordering and our munching engaging in spirited, hangry debates over the universe’s cosmic questions.
Does ketchup belong on a hot dog?
Answer: as you will consistently find across both your meat-eating eastern and western religions, the creator intended ketchup for hamburgers, mustard for hot dogs.
Are Franktuary’s fresh cut fries with garlic aioli better than Shorty’s fries with gravy?
Answer: What, in life, is truly objective? Just as Plato and Kant tussled with that hot potato across centuries … Peter and I staged “The Great Potato Debate” across many a table over the years. He was unequivocally Team Frankturary. Me? I was polytheistic on the matter. For the ultimate answer … ask God next time you see her.
Without irony, I believe that you can test the mettle of a good cathedral by the questions and conversations it engenders.
Once, while Peter and I were debating metaphysics, Heidegger, and the nature of being — by which I mean whether honey mustard was a salad dressing (Peter) or a condiment (me) — a father and young son, both dressed in Pirates jerseys, sat down at a booth across from us.
No sooner had they taken their seats when the son, maybe eight or nine, asked his Dad, “Who’s your favorite baseball player of all time?”
Which settled the question of God’s existence for me once and for all.
In dogs we trust.
I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so seen.
I love this shirt so much.
I imagine the person who designed it going on to an amazingly successful full life — Nobel-Prize-winning scientist or somesuch — and still knows in their heart that this shirt will always be their greatest accomplishment.
It clicks on so many levels.
For starters, the juxtaposition of the Tuscan Raider’s Gaffi Stick for the boom box? Stop it. Wearing Lloyd’s coat? Get the f*ck out of here. Goddamn landspeeder replacing young John Cusack’s 1976 Chevy Malibu? Punch me in the face already.
Full disclosure I’m on V2 for this shirt.
Wore the first till it completely faded, which Lloyd’s love for Diane will never do.
My only regret? That I only have one torso.
Will I get a third version?
I don’t know, but I know that I don’t know.
Couple weeks ago we’re in the kitchen when Karry asks me about a charge on our credit card that looked suspicious.
Read aloud the name of a company she didn’t recognize.
“No, that’s me,” I said.
Was kinda’ hoping that would end her curiosity.
Had the opposite effect … like most of my good intentions.
“What did you buy?” she asked.
“It’s … a surprise.”
As an aside … that’s pretty good for me as far as comebacks under pressure go.
But it was late October. She knows I’m not that proactive with my holiday shopping.
“What did you buy?” she repeated.
“A t-shirt,” I confessed.
She: You bought a $35 t-shirt?
While it might seem like a yes or no question, the answer … was nuanced.
Me: No, I bought a $28 t-shirt.
She: (silence)
Me: Seven bucks for shipping.
Karry tends not to put on her cheaters to appreciate nuance.
For context, I love t-shirts.
My family prefers the word ‘addiction.’
It’s my only one.
Yep, T-shirts and postcards.
And, um, books.
T-shirts are among the reasons I don’t get tattoos.
I’m too easily seduced.
I fall in love too frequently … and fleetingly.
I mean, just when you see a design of a badass skull made up of tiny cats ($28 + $7 shipping), your feed serves up a silhouette of a man’s arm coming into frame to fist-bump a similarly silhouetted cat who looks like one of the cats who live in your house (Viktor).
The family staged an intervention a few years ago.
Unbeknownst to me, they harvested a bunch of t-shirts from my closet and had them made into a blanket … like parents do when their kids leave for college.
They were sneaky. Did it under the guise of my birthday and presented it as a ‘gift,’ … which forced me to suppress my immediate reaction, which was along the lines of, “You did … what ???!!!”
Some (most) of the shirts were still in regular rotation … including one of my all-time favorites: the orange GI Joe “Man of Action (With Lifelike Hair)” number that I found in a comic book store in Houston, Texas many years ago.
Joe’s head on the t-shirt had the same life-like hair as the action figure doll I had in the 70’s.
Glorious.
Over the years many wide-eyed smiles and fist-bumps from kindred spirits, most (all) middle-aged men, most (all) of whom proceeded to lose their sh*t when I pointed out that Joe’s coiffe was, in fact, life-like.
Since the thoughtful-birthday-gift-slash-intrusive-intervention (still stings), we’ve operated under an uneasy detente.
For any new t-shirt I bring into the collection, I must remove one from my closet.
So I felt cornered when Karry called me out in the kitchen on my latest acquisition.
“It’ll be my last one of the year,” I blurted.
She: Yeah, right.
Me: No, seriously, last one of the year.
She: (silence)
Me: It’s only, like, two months. I can make it.
She: (silence)
While acknowledging that historical precedent would suggest, shall we say, an uphill climb, I pointed out that a little encouragement would, you know, go a long way.
She: You’ll never make it.
__
Couple weeks later, I’m downstairs when I hear yelling from the laundry room.
“Wait, did you get another t-shirt?”
While it seems like a yes or no question, the answer was … nuanced.
At the storytelling thing in the city I went to the night before, Jacob the producer gave me the t-shirt I won a couple months ago. They were out at the time.
I hadn’t bought it, so therefore had not violated the embargo.
I assured her that my t-shirt fast was still holding strong.
Then she did the thing she does sometimes … where she held her gaze a couple extra seconds without saying a word … letting me know she’ll be keeping an eye on me … until midnight strikes on Dec. 31.
Which I received as, you know, encouragement.
Recognizing that I still have about four weeks to go in my fast — which, let’s be honest here, will be brutal for the holiday algorithms ramping up to tempt me at every turn — I thought it’d be healthy to channel my energies away from my feeds and towards counting my blessings, by which I mean the treasures hanging in my closet.
Which history suggests are only ever a stealthy intervention away from being permanently removed from circulation.
So I’m here today to officially launch the TWELVE DAYS OF T-SHIRTS … a celebratory ‘greatest hits’ retrospective befitting, you know, a man of action with life-like hair.
The ones that bring me joy.
The ones that keep me in Cozy Mode as I clumsily navigate the world around me.
The ones that I impulse bought in spasms of poor decision-making somewhere between my second and third Moscow Mules.
Each one with its own story to tell.
Full disclosure: knowing that the odds of my following through to 12 are only marginally better than my resisting t-shirt temptation for the next four weeks … I will be receiving any and all feedback (including silence) as encouragement.
Tomorrow: #1 Tuscan Serenade
Apologies in advance.
Went for a walk over lunch the other day in the industrial park near our office.
Note to self — take more walks over lunch.
Figured I’d go 15 minutes out and double-back.
I followed the concrete sidewalk as far as the giant fenced cell tower behind one of the Mitsubishi buildings.
In the 20 years I’ve worked here, I’ve never gone farther than the big tower.
Was about to turn around … just as a person happened to be coming the other way, earbuds in.
“Excuse me,” I said.
Asked him where the rest of the trail goes.
“If you keep going straight through the woods, it comes to a park.”
Said he believed there might be a left and a right, too, but he’d never done those.
His response made me curious enough to break my routine and keep going.
Two minutes later I found myself under a fairy-tale-worthy canopy of trees … when I happened upon this.
The plastic bag’s what got me to stop.
And smile autonomically.
I can’t remember if I actually said, “Awww,” or … just felt it.
My heart immediately filled thinking of the tender deliberateness of whoever thought to take the photo.
And get it printed so small … at the perfect size to invite a closer look.
Then framed.
And come back … to give the world passing by … a reason to stop … and autonomically smile.
I wondered at what point the thoughtfulness occurred to put it in a plastic bag … to give it a chance against the elements.
Wondered if they brought the pup when they placed it.
Wondered if they said anything.
I wondered if they knew how much it might mean to a stranger out for a walk over lunch … to be reminded that such gentle souls exist in this world.
I just stood there for a few minutes … and danced with a million questions I will never know the answer to.
If the photographer knew Kyle.
Family maybe?
Kyle’s dog?
They go for walks here?
Or maybe it was a stranger who just noticed the bench and thought Kyle’s memory might want some company.
Considering the possibility that there might be such people in the world was enough for me.
Faith, hope and love … all wrapped up in a tiny plastic bag left loose on a bench.
I wished on the spot for it to remain there forever.
Though I knew it was just as likely that it might be gone by my next walk.
I’ll let you know.
Just in case … I wanted to wrap it all up … to protect it from the elements … and leave it here for you to stumble upon and smile … and wonder while the world passes.
Met my friend Jeff after work Friday at the Allegheny Elks on the North Side.
For their legendary fish fry.
Got there a few minutes before he did, so took my place — reverently — at the end of the long line already hugging the side of the building.
While waiting for Jeff to arrive, I took in the majesty of the people standing in front of me, Friday shining under a perfectly Pittsburgh grey sky, the kind that’s never far from rain.
Curly haired babies, old bald heads and everything in between, seasoned with splashes of black and gold even though all our teams pretty much suck.
It’s the rarest kinds of lines.
The kind you actually don’t mind waiting in.
Perfect for catching up with good friends at the end of a long week.
Imbued with the purest of expectations, for a payoff that’s as close to a sure thing this broken world offers.
The kind of line that, even if it was longer, you’d be OK with it.
At least I would.
Jeff joined me after just a few minutes, our big, multi-second hug officially christening my weekend.
We fell into catching up …
“Happy Anniversary!”
“Mary says hello …”
“Going to see …”
“Food was uh-mazing …”
You know, the important stuff.
Didn’t care how long it took us to gain entrance, but when we did ….
The warmth and aromas greeted us like a gentle kiss on the forehead.
Perfectly preserved as if by pickling, the interior of any Elks Club worth its salt.
The vestibule adorned with framed photos going back to black and white decades of past Exalted Rulers and their fellow leaders. An old stand-up sign with white magnetic letters highlighting the current crop, including the name of the lodge’s organist.
I bet she throws down.
The hand-written menu presenting you with the most important choices you will make this Friday. No possibility of a wrong answer. Neighbor in line said they even have a friend who swears by the stewed tomatoes. I take her word, knowing I’ll never find out as long as mac and cheese, french fries and cole slaw are headlining.
The line inside is also perfectly timed … to allow proper deliberation over your two sides and which of the holy (lower case ’t’) trinity gets voted off stage.
It’s cash only.
Perfectly priced platters that, regardless of the domination you break, leave you with some singles to choose an individually wrapped, $1 each home made chocolate chip cookie (or two … or three) from the basket in front of the ladies settling you up.
Even that’s so much better than automatically factoring a cookie into the price.
There will never not be magic to putting your hand in the cookie jar.
After paying you leave with your number to forage for a seat.
We found a couple at the bar.
Cue angel chorus.
Glorious wide oval, three bartenders persistently bantering and pouring like jazz musicians having a good night, one of ‘em wearing a Chico’s Bail Bonds t-shirt that hi-fived our childhoods.
Just like waiting in line, waiting for our food was pure gift, zero inconvenience.
From our seats at the bar, we had an open site line to the Allegheny Elks’ house band — members of the Pittsburgh Banjo Club. Accompanied by a bass player and a trumpet player, they strummed old-timey songs as joyfully as you can imagine.
For me, I equate seeing the Pittsburgh Banjo Club at the Allegheny Elks during Lent akin to seeing Sinatra at the Sands with Count Basie on New Year’s Eve.
Took me back to when I was six or seven years old, sitting next to my sister Missy on the black piano bench in the living room while she played old songs from a thick songbook. We’d sing the corniest songs — poorly, but with gusto — together as she played.
Waiting for our fish sandwiches, I swear I knew the words to just about every tune the PBC was laying down (“Hello, my baby, hello my honey, ” … “I”m lookin’ over, a four-leaf clover,” … “By the light … of the sil-ver-ee moon ….”).
Um, polkas included …. zing, boom, tararrel.
I only wished Missy was there to sing along with me.
Being the next-to-last Friday before Easter, the place was poppin’ … so it took a long time for the food to come … not that we noticed or even cared.
Gave us time to secure enough provisions to line the bar in front of us with tiny filled cups of Heinz, tartar, malt vinegar, along with packets of hot sauce …
… and clink glasses of cold beer straight from the tap.
By the time the food arrived, I was quoting Kurt Vonnegut quoting Fats Waller.
“Somebody shoot me while I’m happy.”
For the fish sandwich, they put the empty big bun on top of the ridiculously wide fish, leaving it for you to assemble.
That’s a glorious bit of experience design right there, giving the audience the satisfaction of placing the final piece of the puzzle.
You have about twice as much fish as surface area on the bun, which is, of course, somehow, the perfect proportions.
Though you are hungry, though you’ve waited a long time in line and sitting at the bar … you take your sweet time.
You savor.
You chat between bites.
You go back for more malt vinegar.
You smile maybe your week’s widest grin when the bartender asks you if you’re ok if he uses the same glass when you switch over to Yuengling for your second beer.
Your smile gets wider when he says, “I knew you were a good people,” when you answer Yes.
You ask the female bartender if anyone ever orders the grilled fish, and she testifies that, yes, people do, and yes it’s quite good, and really, she’s not BS-ing, and to validate her testimony, mentions that she’s sleeping with the grill guy.
You bless their unborn children.
You let yourself fall back in love with the world for a moment when the lady waiting for her pitcher next to you comments that, at first, she mistook your clear plastic cup of malt vinegar — stacked three high on top of its empties — for Jack Daniels … thinking I was already three shots deep and not even halfway through my sandwich.
You politely correct her while confessing, “But, I like the way you think.”
And by the time you’re calling it, with just a couple bites left on the plate, you’re already re-thinking some of the major decisions you’ve recently made in your life.
“Next time, I think I’m going mac and cheese for both of my sides,” said Jeff, as the universe joined me in silently nodding in agreement.
You peel yourself off your stools, taking a last deep glorious inhale and a good look around before you backwash out the bar, through the dining area and vestibule, and back out outside to the long sidewalk …
… where the grey sky has gone dark, and the temperature has dipped a few more degrees to remind you that you are alive on the North Side on a Friday night …
… and a multi-second hug goodbye later — the satisfying last piece in a perfect puzzle — that you were in good company.
Did a couple brave things Tuesday night.
For starters I drove through the snow into the city. Roads were awful. Slid into a bank trying to make the left onto Maiden Street.
Traffic on the interstate slowed to a sloppy crawl just before Canonsburg. Google told me I should peel off the exit, so I listened.
Called home to let Karry know my circumstances.
Candidly, part of me was hoping she’d tell me to just come back home.
Give me an excuse not to go through with the second brave thing.
“You should stay on the interstate. It’s gonna be better than the side roads.”
She is so much better than Google.
It was the wisest counsel … from the person who’s been pointing in the right direction for 30 years and counting.
So I got myself turned around. Limped back onto I-79.
Kept going.
Sent a text letting ‘em know I was on my way, but was gonna be 15 or so minutes late.
“That’s OK. You’re on last!”
__
On a whim the week before I submitted something for Story Club Pittsburgh’s monthly live gathering.
Something about the theme — Turning Point — caught my eye. Made me think of something I’d written but never shared before.
The following day Kelly their (awesome) producer emailed me back, “The Spotlight slot’s yours if you want it.”
Eesh.
After I said yes Kelly informed me that the stories had to be under seven minutes.
Over the next few days, violent editing ensued.
By the time I’d gotten in my car Tuesday to drive into the city, I still hadn’t quite limbo’d my story under the bar.
Crawling along the interstate afforded me some extra practice time in the car. Must’ve run through it a half dozen times trying to find places where I could chop a few more seconds … without having to rush it.
And praying I’d remember my edits.
Seven minutes seemed like both forever and not nearly enough time.
As I drove I reminded myself I was last, so I’d have some time once I got there if I needed it.
Arrived while the emcee was still on stage and before the first storyteller.
Other than the spotlight slot at the end, the proceedings are open mic. Anyone who wants to tell a story drops their name in a hat — from which they pick seven names to go on stage.
As I grabbed a chair, the voice inside me said I owed the brave humans on stage my full attention … the same gift I would soon be asking from them.
The greatest gift in the world as far as I’m concerned.
They made it an easy gift to give.
The first person shared a brave and beautiful story about a person they stayed in a relationship way too long with, and what their hopeful but misplaced optimism had taught them. An older gentleman spoke about losing a best friend in high school and how he’s tried to live for both of them since. Another person relayed an amazing daisy chain of grace and kindness from law enforcement that allowed him to essentially walk on water all the way from New Jersey to Pittsburgh. There was a story about a rat in an apartment and another about a snake on a trail. And a lawyer told a tale of tracking down a client who met him not with a handshake, but a shotgun pointed at his chest.
Before I knew it, the emcee was calling my name.
By which point a good 90 minutes had passed since I’d taken my seat.
Since I’d last thought about my story.
I’d been picked as a Spotlight Storyteller once before, about a year ago. But I got sick and couldn’t be there in person. Made arrangements to share virtually from home. Had my notes on a second screen just in case, which made it easy.
This time, it was just me.
No notes.
The lights made it hard to see the faces of the people in the audience.
As I started in from memory, my mouth felt dry.
Was about a minute in … when I felt my words sliding to the tip of my tongue.
Got a little over halfway through.
And lost my way.
In the spotlight.
Alone on stage.
In front of a pretty full house.
With the clock ticking.
Stuck.
But then …
… something amazing happened.
A few people in the audience started snapping.
A couple clapped encouragement.
And a wonderful soul in the front row … one of the few faces I could see in the lights … repeated the last couple of lines I had said back to me.
A roomful of humans that was already offering me their greatest gift, did their best to point me in the right direction.
Took me a moment, but I got myself turned around.
Limped back on the interstate.
Kept going.
Crawled the rest of the way.
Until I made it.
__
On my drive back home, I thought of Patti Smith, and the time she forgot the words to “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” while performing in front of the King of Sweden and the royal family at Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm.
And how beautifully and humanly she wrote of her experience. Of the kindness shown her afterwards by some of the Nobel scientists in attendance, who shared their appreciation for her very public struggle. “I wish I would have done better, I said. No, no, they replied, none of us wish that. For us, your performance seemed a metaphor for our own struggles,” she wrote so movingly in The New Yorker.
It occurred to me that, had I spent those 90 minutes before I stepped on to the stage going over my story, I would likely have avoided my embarrassment and delivered a better performance for the audience I was there to serve.
But that would have come at the expense of giving my full attention to all the other wonderful storytellers that came before me.
It would have required withholding my most valuable gift in the world.
So I refuse to regret my choice.
I accept my stumbling as a fair price to pay … for the gift of bearing witness to their stories.
Maybe even a bargain.
Because had I not stumbled, I would not have experienced an audience of strangers reaching out to steady me.
And the traveler writing these words would be much the poorer for that.
I could have been perfect.
I would much rather be human.
I was driving back from Philly on Monday after dropping Emma off at school. Was a couple hours in when I hit the stretch of turnkpike that cuts through the mountains. Where it’s nothin’ but up and down big hills and forest on either side … for miles and miles.
I’m ok driving as long as I can see ‘civilization’ on either side of me (i.e. houses, farms, buildings, roads, etc.). But when it’s just me and the hills and forest … it effs me up sometimes. For real. Like panic attack stuff.
Reminds of a nightmare I had as a kid … where I was in a car hurtling down this large mountain straightaway, darkness on either side. And as I’m descending I can see this big hill in front of me that climbs steeper and steeper and steeper until it’s pitching 90 degrees straight into the air before it just … ends. In the nightmare I remember knowing I didn’t have enough speed to climb the hill, and no way to stop. I knew I was only gonna get so far and then just … drop. I woke up right before free falling. I can still picture the dream to this day.
On Monday when I hit that three-lane mountain stretch on the turnkpike, 18-wheelers whizzing past me on both sides, I felt myself starting to unravel. My mind began racing, my heart started pounding, and before I knew it, my hands were sweating on the wheel. I recognized the feeling. Years ago while driving home through the mountains at night, I got so overwhelmed I had to pull over and have Peter drive the rest of the way.
On Monday, though, I had no co-pilot.
I kick the air conditioning on full blast. Pull into the far right line and try and draft behind the slower-moving semis. Turn on the radio to try and keep myself together … anything I can think of to try and stave off a full-blown panic attack.
My bluetooth catches a playlist from my phone.
“Learning to Fly,” by Tom Petty kicks on.
As my eyes scan the information on the screen, I say automatically …
“Save me, Tom Petty.”
Which was a line … from a song that Jesse Lowry wrote when we were in a band together in the mid-1990’s.
A song that I had not thought of — let alone heard — in, I dunno, 25 years.
And, autonomically … I start singing …
“Save me Tom Petty … you got me goin’ home in spite of the weather … make it all better, as you show me who you are.”
Under attack by evil forces, my mind reached for the best weapon it could find.
That song.
I sang it without a conscious thought. My mind just put it on my tongue.
Twenty-five words, from 25 years ago, that could not have been more precisely suited to my present situation.
A tourniquet to staunch my bleeding.
And when my conscious self registered not just the lyric, but its substance, I yelled, “Fuck yes!” … as if I had just seen the goddamn calvary coming over the hill.
“Save me, Tom Petty …”
I sang it as a prayer.
My hands strangling the wheel, I found the first verse.
“Take me I’m ready. You had me rollin’ when my roller was broken. Take me home steady … as you show me who you are.”
Hugging the far right lane, crawling up and down hills, pumping my breaks on the descent so I could claim some measure of control over my spiraling situation, I was rollin’ with a busted roller. Just trying to make it home.
In immediate supplication to whatever higher power might be taking calls on the afternoon shift.
I quickly shut off the radio.
The chorus …
“Sing all the songs my minstrels taught you … bang on the door, I’ll let you in ….”
Took the song’s advice. Sang and banged with whatever I had in my tank.
“ … make it all better.”
Over … and … over … everything I could remember of it … as an incantation.
“How about a kiss for the poor man? Can’t you hear the sympathy in his beg?”
Yes.
“I must admit my love is strong … locked in this chest and woven with a tear.”
Over … and over … and over … and over … and over ….
Jesse was so prolific in his songwriting in our band days. When it came to lyrics, he was like a wind chime (as I heard Tom Wolfe once described). As if he was just channeling what the universe was giving him. I don’t think he intended the lyrics to ‘mean’ anything other than (perfectly) communing with the music he wrote.
In the moment, though, they meant everything I needed them to mean …. were both my sword and shield.
I don’t even remember the song’s name. I do remember I loved playing it. I think we all did. It started with a simple groove, funky and understated. Began quiet. We knew where it wanted to go, though. The chorus hit like a punch in the face. After which we brought it back down to a barely contained simmer on the second verse. And in the end for no good reason the song broke into a 7/8-5/8 crescendoing instrumental riff until the battle was won.
When he wrote that song 25 years ago, he had no idea that he’d written a gift for his drummer’s future self.
The universe did, though. And you won’t convince me otherwise.
To be opened at exactly 2:12 p.m. in the afternoon on Monday, November 27, 2023.
Music, you know?
I crawled and crawled (banged and banged) until I finally saw signs for the next rest stop and pulled my sorry ass over. Eased myself into an empty spot. Bowed my head on the wheel before exiting my car.
Went inside, splashed some water on my face. Grabbed a Cherry Coke and some Aleve. Sat down in a chair with my back to the window to shield me from all those 18-wheelers speeding past.
Was in no great hurry to get back in the car.
But knew I had no choice.
Let the winter air register on my face as I backwashed through the parking lot. Deep breathed as I turned the key. Found a break between the whizzing semis and limped back on the turnkpike. As I hugged the far right lane I found that nothing had changed.
It was all there waiting for me.
The hills. The forest. The wave I couldn’t control, licking its lips. Over a hundred miles left to go.
I sang a couple more choruses, but my mind knew that the elixer wasn’t going to last me the rest of the way. But then a sign came into view … next exit two miles. I neither knew nor cared where it headed. I’d figure it out. The off-ramp received me like a warm blanket. Houses here and there. Buildings. Precious few 18-wheelers. Civilization. I knew I’d be fine.
I let Tom Petty — and the “you” who had showed me who it was — know that I could take it from here.
Ended up taking bunch of back roads the long way home the last 120 miles … in 7/8 and 5/8 time, so to speak.
Got up the next morning and sent the most heartfelt capitol “T” Thank You I’d written in a long time.
To let Jesse know that a song he’d written 25 years ago had pretty much saved me. For real.
And that both his drummer and Tom Petty had listened well.
The Sunday morning lines at airport security weren’t too bad, I remember thinking.
Even though I made the rookie mistake of choosing the line with the young family strapped to the gills. Mom with a backpack on her back, baby strapped to her front. Dad, backpacks both front and back, diaper bag slung on his shoulder, pushing a young son in a stroller. Too early for coffee, I was pretty much on autopilot. I checked the time on my phone. Should still be good to get to my gate.
On the other side of the security line, as they all recombobulated, the Dad turned to the young son and handed him back a toy. Not their first rodeo, I remember thinking.
Made my way to the tram that takes you to the terminal. If the tram’s not already ready and waiting, I walk all the way to the front car, so I can be among the first ones off and hit the escalators, rather than swim with the masses. Despite being weighed down with so much cargo, the young family was a couple steps ahead of me.
Professionals, I thought.
When the tram arrives and the doors open, the son bolts from the stroller as if shot from a cannon. Dad calls after him once he gets the empty stroller into the car, “Over here!” At this the son, maybe three, stops and turns, and, suddenly magnetized, beelines to the bench at the front of the car. Hops up, legs and all, right in front of the big window that stares down the length of the track.
Glues his eyes as if he’s in a spaceship looking back at earth.
Even my uncaffeinated system cannot suppress a smile.
Couple seconds after the door closes …“Are we moving?” the boy asks rhetorically, as his body registers the rumble of the tram awakening to begin its straight line down the track.
And then, over the rumble .…
“Choo-choo …. choo-choo.”
Slowly at first as the tram picks up speed.
The boy’s voice isn’t “Too Early on a Sunday Morning” loud. And he’s not in “Hey Look At Me, Not the Baby,” mode.
He’s … conducting.
Chanting in his soft, room temperature voice, putting the perfect pause between the double-Choos.
Carrying the weight of their world, Mom sits down on the bench next to him. Smiles the smile of a mother watching her baby boy watch the world go zooming by. Dad, hands-free from the stroller, takes out his phone to grab a video of what I assume is his son’s first ‘train’ ride.
The whole scene unfolds in front of me like a flower from parched earth.
Two Sunday morning addled and saddled parents wanting to slow this train down and live in this moment forever.
And for a few luminous seconds, we all forget.
The weights on our backs.
Where we might be going next.
We’re just grateful passengers on his train.
In my enchantment my eyes dip down and notice something. The boy’s holding his left arm slightly behind him … resting his hand atop his toy … the one his father returned to him after security. I only now make out what it is …
… a shiny red train engine.
Of course it is.
And the thing is … he’s not squeezing it … not holding it tight at all. Just gently touching the top.
“Choo-choo.”
He’s the professional of the group …
… conducting in every sense of the word. … his entire being channeling pure, unadulterated imagining energy from his favorite toy … through the real-world vibrations of this magic vessel … through his eyes watching the world get bigger and closer right in front of him.
A conduit of Wonder.
A minute ago I was thinking about the closest bathroom to my gate … and now I’m beating back a lump in my throat and welling eyes.
Until the train begins slowing, slowing, and easing us to a stop. And the spell is broken by the boo hiss of the doors opening way too soon for whatever comes next.
Forcing us to gather ourselves.
Mom grabs the pole to help her to her feet.
Dad puts his phone away.
The boy climbs back in the stroller.
I wipe an eye with the back of my hand.
And my autopilot kicks back in. I leave the family in my wake, quick walk so I can be first on the escalator. After which I hit the Rite Aid for my ritual snacks and water, bracing for a day of connecting flights taking me across the country for a long week being away from home.
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Our routines, and the world at large, wage a war of attrition against our noticing.
Against our capacity to encounter things we’ve done before and still see them with, or sometimes through, fresh eyes … and lose ourselves in the moment.
Even the in-between moments.
Especially the in-between moments.
A boy in front of the big window, one hand resting gently on his favorite toy.
A Mom and Dad, backpacks, baby and all, hearing the universe’s whispering reminder that they’re on the most glorious ride of their lives.
An uncaffeinated, soggy eyed traveler reaching out for something just to steady his Sunday morning.
Choo-choo.
There is a profound difference between being childish and childlike.
Being childlike is a state of being awake to the magic that exists all around us … and realizing there is no such thing as an in-between moment.
“Are we moving?” he asked.
We are moved.
Early evening last Saturday, Peter and I are heading out for a bite to eat (he twisted my arm for Benihana, forgetting that it is self-twisting on the subject).
Leaving the neighborhood we make the left onto Park Avenue. Where I catch a glimpse of a young lady in exercise attire walking along the left side of the road.
I register the sight of her just as she does the most remarkable thing … she shoots her left fist up and punches straight into the air.
And I see a smile break wide across her face.
Catching her in a moment of some spontaneous affirmation.
I don’t know if she’s watching something on her phone, or listening to something in her earbuds, or just alone with her thoughts … but my heart immediately fills at the sight.
To be more scientifically precise, her heart fills mine.
Because I recognize the act. I know that exact feeling.
Sometimes when I’m taking my (very) slow laps over at the track (which sits directly across the street from where she was walking, on the back side of the high school), my mind also often goes for a jog, wandering and wondering. And sometimes (not always, just sometimes) it encounters a spark. A thought. A connection. Sometimes an idea.
Or sometimes if I’m listening to music while huffing around the track, a song kicks in that, even if I’ve heard it dozens of times before, I hear it differently … or, maybe I’m just in a different space when I hear it, and it resonates with where my head or heart happen to be, and turns its skeleton key in some lock, and opens up a new door.
It’s the most magical thing when it happens. I think it only happens when I’m moving because the security guards in my brain are having to focus on keeping the machine in motion, which allows my thoughts to roam unsupervised on their playgrounds.
But when these moments happen to strike, I can’t help but shoot my left arm in the air in acknowledgement, in recognition. It’s like an autonomic response.
And a smile will invariably break across my face. Often, I’ll affirm the feeling with an audible, “Yes!”
A spontaneous amen to the heavens. In grateful receipt of whatever form or shape the gift takes.
The feeling comes outta nowhere. The ‘arm shoot’ … I do it without thinking. Immediately after I’ll remember where I’m at and look around to take inventory of anyone else around me whose attention may have been drawn by the freak who seems to be running a race in his head that he just won. I can’t imagine what others might think.
All I know is what I thought when I saw that young lady on the side of the road. I found myself wondering what it was that made her say her Amen. That brought her such spontaneous joy on a late Saturday afternoon. Had I not had two hands on the wheel, I would’ve proly shot my arm up and out the window in solidarity, in gratitude for her letting me know that I’m not the only one who does such things … and maybe to let her know that she’s not the only one, either.
I have a playlist that I consider my sorta’ “In Case of Emergency or Existential Crisis, Break Glass” Playlist — which in practical terms is also known as “Pete’s Everyday Playlist” (ahem) — in which an encore entry is Morgan Harper Williams’ Storyteller (if you are not familiar, MHN is an “autistic artist” [her term]/author/creator/advocate and just an absolute light in this world). The song always reminds me of so many good things, of Grace … of all the things that have accounted for my being here. Always of Mom and Dad, too.
It never fails to fill (or re-fill) my cup. And invariably, by the time me and Morgan make it to the line, “So this is me telling this story over and over again,” one of us has our fist in the air … and also some glorious fucking tears, and is unapologetic on both accounts, even (or, more precisely, especially) when one of us is taking our Sunday evening laps around the track.
Full disclosure: if anyone caught me in the act at that moment and called me on it, I’d gladly pause (I usually need a break at that point in my jog, anyway [ha]), and would tell ‘em all about it. About Morgan. About Dad. And Mom, too. How they and a whole bunch of Grace “brought the pieces together, and made me their storyteller,” just like Morgan says.
In our pressing against the world around us, sometimes the most capital “C” Cup-filling thing is just to stumble upon or bear witness to something or someone that reminds us that we’re not the only ones, that we’re not (totally) crazy, and that joy is always a lot closer than we think.
It can take so many forms … a kind thought from the universe that we allow into our heads, a song that’s always been there, but catches us like a dog whistle if we tune our ears to just the right frequency, or just a random encounter with a total stranger that we may never meet … say, a young lady out for a walk on a Saturday afternoon.
Reminding us to keep our doors cracked open a bit, our eyes and ears wide, our antennae up, so that we can know it when we see it, so we can call it by its name, and, if we are so moved, to raise our fists to the heavens and say yes to it.
So to the young lady out for her Saturday early evening walk, I just wanted to say thank you … from a fellow traveler.
Amen, sister.
Letters for Maggie 