It’s Fathers Day

It’s just another day created by the Hallmark folks, but I find myself thinking about my father. His spirit is captured in this scene from Esperanza Farm I wrote years ago:

It’s Cuba, around 1963. A father’s small business has just been nationalized by the government. He’s going home to tell his wife. His son is with him.

Dad handed me a brown paper bag with two ham sandwiches inside. He had bought them from someone that had stopped by earlier in the day. We walked outside where the rain had been waiting for us. The mist rising was a splashing welcome to our faces.

I watched as my father locked the door, pushing it twice to make sure it was locked, the way he always did. Dad then turned the sign on the string to the side that read ‘closed’. He looked for a few seconds at the door and then he turned to me. He took the bag with the sandwiches from me and said: “I leave with more than I came.” He smiled at me, but I could tell that he was ‘this’ close to crying.

I waited for him to take the first step into the rain-covered street. The intensity of the rainstorm was increasing. Vapor was rising from the broken asphalt. The rain drops sounded like little whips against the concrete sidewalk.

Asking me to follow him, my father ran into the downpour, without looking back. I smiled and followed him. But before he got to the other side of the street, Dad slipped and fell.

I saw him go head first into the wet pavement.

I stopped, not knowing what to do, unsure of how to help him.

He had slid hard, falling on his elbows and knees, but, like a good outfielder making a diving catch, Dad had held on to the sandwiches.

He got up just as quickly and turning to look at me, he smiled with his whole face. He then started running again towards home, laughing as he ran, looking back often to see if I was keeping pace.

His laughter was piercing the gray clouds.

May you spend the day with your Dad, laughing under the rain. If he’s gone, may his memories brighten your day.

Thanks, Pipo.

You’re Hired!

Author’s Note: This article was first published in January, 2011, when I became convinced that what I had for the previous 6 months was indeed a job. I’m still there, happy, productive and grateful. I repost it today in honor of the improving job numbers from this past Friday.

I didn’t hear those wonderful words when I finally left the ranks of the over-qualified, under-employed and over-the-hill corps. What I experienced was a more gradual invite.

“Call me in the morning, I may have a project for you,” or “Next week I’ll have a few hours putting together a bid. If we get the job, then I’ll have more hours for sure.” Those occasional hours became pretty consistent part-time work which then evolved into full time employment.

I probably would not have discovered the immense gratitude I feel for my current job, had it not been for the twenty-seven month trek through the unemployment desert. I consider myself a good, reliable, very qualified candidate but in all of that time I had one — as in a single — interview. As weeks turned to months without an income, I had to let go of the life insurance, the leased car, the dinners out, the health insurance. The payments to the utility company, the credit cards and the mortgage company became less and less frequent. Basic necessities were sometimes paid for because of the generosity of friends and family. There were consequences to my inability to pay our own way that threatened my sanity, shredded my credit rating and obliterated my self-esteem.

Two things saved my ass during the darkest of days: First, the ability to live in the moment, or a day at a time — a neat little trick I learned in AA — and my four year-old sons’ smile. It was never easy and at times I felt quite desperate and disheartened but when I looked around and saw the devastation that the economic crisis had brought to so many, I refused to complain. I found it petty and self-absorbed.

The persistent, optimistic side of me was convinced that better days were on the queue. Good friends were reminding me of this whenever I forgot.

A decent job is important because it allows me to provide for my family’s — and my own — needs; it lets me live up to my responsibilities and fulfill my obligations; it allows me to work with others and to be creatively engaged with society. More than anything, it connects me with the rest of humanity by reminding me of what traits I share with God. Genesis speaks of a working, creative deity that worked for six full days before taking a break. I believe, now more that ever, that we should all have the opportunity to follow God’s good example.

If you have a job, congratulations! If you’re looking for one, may you hear the words at the top of this post real soon. In the meantime, do not despair. Better days are on the queue. Ask your friends to remind you of this.

A Valentine’s Day Like No Other

Author’s note: This was first published 2/14/10. It is still my reality, that of millions of Cubans and others around the world who’ve suffered the same fate as I throughout our imperfect history.

Image via Wikipedia

Forty one years ago today I became an exile.

I left Cuba on a day like today as a fourteen-year-old with my seventeen-year-old sister, traveling through Spain to get to the promised land: Southern California. This is where our cousins — the ones that sent for us — had settled. An American friend of theirs from church had donated the money to pay for my airfare. My cousins had paid for my sister’s.

In Spain we stayed with friends that were making the same trip but who were ahead of us by a couple of months. My parents were to join us later in Los Angeles, if everything worked out. It was not until years later that I was able to comprehend how big an if that had been.

Continue reading →

Walking Celeste in Sub-Zero Weather

We have a real winter going on in the Northeast. This is the coldest one of the five that my dog Celeste and I have shared. I’m reminded of that whenever we head out to take care of “business”.

Celeste and I met the year I turned fifty. Becoming parents to a dog was something that we didn’t plan for –unlike my son, who followed her about a year and a-half later into our household — it was something that I was going to do when I could afford a couple of acres for the pooch to roam. We live in an 1895 Victorian townhouse and our yard doesn’t even fit a decent size Chevrolet. Besides, the house was already occupied by two cats I had adopted when my wife and I moved in together.

But I saw a photo of Celeste, a rescued pup in an all-cat Connecticut shelter, and I could not resist. Continue reading →

A Stroll Up Memory Road: Fireflies in the Garden

As an adult, I lived in three different houses on one block of Mountain Road. Four, if you count the apartment I shared with my second wife. I now live about a half a mile from there. Most days, particularly in the warmer months, my walking route takes me around these former residences. My emotional relationship to these places vary from the insignificant to the life altering, but because I see them so often, these connections tend to stay in the back of the memory bank. They’ve become part of the background scenery.

These are some of them: my daughter was born on one of these addresses; I lived across the street when I graduated from college; my family had a small garment business in an industrial building — now converted to condos — at the beginning of the street; I faced a “dark night of the soul” at another one of the residences at the end of the Road and lived to see the morning light. That was two and a half decades ago. I also see the house where I last saw my father alive, in a cold day in February, thirty years ago. This house, overlooking the Island of Manhattan and the Hudson River, is vacant. It waits, along with a few of the neighboring properties, a rebirth by redevelopment into high-end housing units. Continue reading →

Please, STOP texting me!

That’s what I’ve texted the folks from a certain party planning outfit that’s been sending unsolicited announcements my way. Every time they’ve had the urge to let me know — via text to my cell — about one of their terrific, not to be missed, shindigs, somewhere in one of the five Boroughs of NYC, I’ve send them back a polite request to cease and desist.

That’s actually not entirely true . I haven’t always been polite. At first, I ignored the announcements, but soon they began to get on my nerves. I pleaded that I was neither a partier nor a drinker and that even if I was, I would never go to one of theirs. I threaten to block them, but then found out that my carrier would charge me $4.95 per month, per number in need of blocking. Apparently spammers have a right to, well, spam. I am not that annoyed.

They continued to ignore my pleadings. I continued to curse them under my breath. Then, yesterday I remembered the National Dot Not Call Registry.

So far, it’s working.

Do You Tell Your Child: “This Is Going to Hurt”?

Editor’s Note: This was first published July 11th of last year. We had another doctor’s visit this week. Vaccines this time. Four shots. Same feelings.

Today was blood work day. Routine, thank God. I had moved up the appointment a full week to wait for the return of our favorite doctor at the pediatric practice. He also had the steadier hand and the most luck when searching for a tiny two and a half year-old vein.

When I’d take my older daughter to the doctor — two and a half decades ago — I got into the habit of telling her ahead of time the nature of the procedure and, most importantly, wether it was going to hurt or not. I just felt I owed it to her.

She was trusting me and I wanted to be honest. It never lessened the pain but it help build up communication and trust. She’s almost thirty and she knows I don’t lie to her no matter how painful or difficult the subject.

While we waited for Dr. K to come into the examining room, I held my son. I noticed my anxiety level rising. The protective instinct is well developed in most adults and certainly all parents I’ve known. I get into rationalization mode: The blood tests and the immunization shots and the administration of shitty-tasting meds are part of a parent’s duties and responsibilities. It’s part of the protective code we inherited as parents.

So as I’m holding this trusting, sweet and innocent little person I’ve been entrusted with, I hold his hand and on the top, I give a light pinch and I tell him:

“When Dr. K. comes in, he’s going to give you a pinch right here — harder than this, of course — to do a test we need to do. I’m hoping he gets it on the first try. I don’t think you understand me, but I need to tell you. It’s going to hurt and you’re probably going to cry. I am sorry, but we have to do this to make sure you’re healthy.”

There’s a blank stare. I then add:

“After we leave here, we’re going to the playground!”

This he understands. He smiles when I kiss him on the forehead.

When the doctor comes in, he stops smiling. I sense little red flags are going up in his head.

The worst part is holding my son down while the procedure is taking place. I feel like a traitor. While I kiss his tears, I imagine him thinking: “Yeah, you tell me the truth but how come you don’t help me out. I thought you were here to protect me!” My guess is most parents go through this agony, some more often than others. And some with more serious procedures than a blood test.

I don’t breathe until I see blood flowing into the syringe. This time it took three tries. Dr. K. feels just awful about it.

As he’s leaving, my son waves at him and gives him a very emphatic: “BYE!”

I am relieved that we won’t have to do this again for another year. We pray for, and expect, good results. The misery and the joy of parenting.

One of the most amazing qualities I’ve noticed in my son is his ability to live in — and fully experience — each moment. When we run into the playground, I hoist him into the baby swing. I give him a few pushes and he’s flying through the air. It’s clear that no one, in the whole history of the world, has ever enjoyed swinging more than my son.

He’s not thinking about the visit to the doctor anymore. It will take me a little while to recover.

Finding a Character

(Also posted at Kickstarter as a project update)

Most of the people I write about in ESPERANZA FARM are composites of people I’ve met at some point in my life. A few are completely made up to fit a particular story-telling need while others are closer to their real life persona.

Reinaldo, a next door neighbor and confidant of the young protagonist, fits the latter group:

Reinaldo Garsa, who had lived in the United States for many years, was saying that an attack by the United States on Cuba could come any minute. People believed him when he said that the plane that flew low above the fields earlier that afternoon was an American spy plane. Reinaldo should have known, they said, because he had fought as a Sergeant in the American Army during the Korean War.

“Reinaldo” was my real-life neighbor. I remember the content of our frequent conversations, his very strong opinions about the Cuban government and other matters. I could also recall his descriptions of New York from the time in the forties and fifties when he made the city his home. His love of baseball is still fresh in my memory. But because I had not seen him in approximately forty years, his physical features were lost to me. It’s odd how one can remember almost all about a person from one’s past, except their face. That was until very recently, when I discovered the photo that accompanies this update.

Suddenly, “Reinaldo” came back to life and I realized, at the same time, where his love of baseball probably came from: he managed one of the baseball teams that traveled my province, Pinar del Rio, delighting Sunday fans. This was a detail I did not know about the character or about the person.

I’m considering slipping that detail — about him being a manager — into the final revision of the manuscript. It would add depth and context to the character. I also know it would please the person I knew.

“Reinaldo” is the man on the far right. Looking at the photograph, I concluded that he came to the ballpark straight from work. He was in such a hurry to get to the game that he didn’t have time to change. “Let’s get this damn ceremonial first pitch over,” I can imagine him thinking, “let’s play ball.”