What Matters Most
The Korean-language edition of my mother's 1960 debut The Thinking Book was what finally did me in. I sat on the floor with various foreign versions of her books heaped all around me and stared at it for a count of five, then looked up at Karen and announced “I need a break.” Like so many others, when the pandemic hit in March 2020, we said “Hey! We’ve been meaning to clean out the closets!” We even watched a couple of Marie Kondo videos before returning to shows that actually did “spark joy.” And then life happened and we couldn’t...
Read MoreBonus Time
Tirah the tabby, the last cat standing from the trio we enjoyed for 15 years, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in August 2020. At the time, the doctors gave her six to 12 months. Sixteen months later, I just fed her breakfast to quiet her demands. With her two contemporaries gone before her, one at age 19 and the other at 15, one just before her diagnosis and one not long after, Tirah is now queen of the household and loving it. She was the least assertive member of the three-cat household she lived in for most of her life,...
Read More‘The Remembering’ is Here
The Remembering: Reflections on Love, Art, Faith, Heroes, Grief and Baseball—on sale now—grew out of a conversation that began right here. So the first thing to say again today, is thanks. As regular readers know, that conversation about relationships and values and grief and art, and the feedback loop it created, started me down a path that culminates today. (If you’re interested in learning more about that path and writing process, you can do that here, here, and here.) As for why you might want to read this book, it’s pretty simple: if you’re curious about the human condition, this...
Read MoreThe Book I Was Meant to Write
“This isn’t the book I meant to write… but apparently it’s the book I was meant to write.” That was the one fresh line I had solidly in mind when I sat down over the summer to rewrite the introduction to The Remembering: Reflections on Love, Art, Faith, Heroes, Grief and Baseball (coming Dec. 6). It came to mind because it’s the truth. The first draft of The Remembering opened with an introduction that you may never see. It focused mostly on the writer’s journey—a worthy topic, but let’s face it, one that can come off as a bit precious...
Read MoreHybrid Vigor and Other Matters
My mother used the term “hybrid vigor” more than once over the years in a context that would be considered cringeworthy today. That said, her intentions were good, and her point was scientifically valid—combining two things with different characteristics can produce powerful and sometimes unexpected results. It’s a thought that came back to me again when considering The Remembering: Reflections on Love Art, Faith, Heroes, Grief and Baseball, coming December 6. As outlined last time, my initial inspiration was to collect the essays published on this blog in recent years in book form, pulling in other first-person essays I’ve written...
Read MoreYou Did This (Thanks)
Seriously: you did this. And I’m so glad you did. You did it by making it clear that I haven’t in fact been shouting into the hurricane for the past four years, that the essays published in this space over that period of time were reaching and resonating with an audience of faithful readers. Beginning in January 2018, in the span of 20 months, I lost my mother, my father, and my job of more than a decade. The day after I collected the last family mementos from my father’s house, the world shut down in a once-a-century pandemic. It...
Read MoreThe Most Important Work
Two years ago, the Monday after a job I had loved for more than a decade disappeared on me, I posted a photo of Karen and me at home with our grandchildren Nathan and Emma. The caption read: “First day at new temp job. Seem to be getting along okay with co-workers.” A former colleague left this comment on the post: “Glass half full: they are so lucky to get to spend time with their grandfather. My grandfather had a huge positive impact on the person I became. No more important work!” July 2019 One thing about living through times...
Read MoreThe Remembering
I don’t remember when it was that I began to spend so much time remembering. This is in part because memory is cumulative and I’ve somehow managed to accumulate—no, that can’t possibly be right—58 years’ worth of experiences, moments and sensory impressions, all neatly logged and stored away in the old hippocampus*. That’s a lot of memories, with more joining them every day. What struck me recently is just how present and powerful the act of remembering has become in my daily life these past few years. Every morning I do a set of stretching exercises that a physical therapist...
Read MoreAbsent Friends
It might be the most 2020 sentiment of all: I miss my friend. Lucca always felt like an old soul, even when his body was young. Maybe it was the eyes, big yellow saucers on his remarkably expressive face. As a fluffy black kitten he chewed everything in sight and raced around on paws so big he would trip over them, leading to the first of many nicknames: “Puppy” (Pup, Mister Pup). He earned them all by being the friendliest “people cat” I’ve ever known; when the doorbell rang our other two cats would find a bed to hide under...
Read MoreFind Your Way Back
The black and white image has an iconic quality to it. The father leans in, embracing his adult son with both arms, turning slightly away from the camera to plant a kiss on his son’s cheek. The son looks directly into the camera, weary eyes full of vulnerability, as a hint of a smile touches the corner of his mouth, a suggestion of the comfort he’s receiving. Because of who the father and son are—Hunter Biden and his father Joe—one apparently desperate Republican operative recently tweeted the photo, asking “Does this look like an appropriate father/son interaction to you?” I...
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