And if you ever turn around....You'll see me

The other day I watched the movie Adam on HBO. It's a beautifully told story of a young man with Aspergers Syndrome and a budding romance he has as he begins to strike out onto the world on his own. Hugh Dancy's performance as Adam is spot on.

Without tieing things up in a neat little Hollywood bow, Adam shows what happens when there is understanding, compassion and an open heart toward people who see and experience the world differently. It also faces the reality of such things with bittersweet honesty, especially in that way that depending too much on someone holds you back, yet that dependence can be the launching point for something greater for you both.

The movie has stuck with me for the last several days. Haunted me really. If you've read any of my previous blogs on Aspergers you'll immediately assume that I think much about my daughter when thinking about this movie, and you would be right. But there is much in the character of Adam that reminds me of myself in a lot of ways. I think I'll save that for another blog though.

I've been thinking much of my daughter who is now 20 and not long away from striking out on her own. The song that comes at the end of the film is one of very beautiful and simple words of encouragement and the kind of words I wish I had gotten in my youth. The kind of words I want to tell my daughter now and holds in her head and heart in the moments before, during and after she walks on stage in a year and a half to take that diploma after 4 years of struggle, growth, frustration and triumph.

This is for my beautiful 20 year old daughter who is becoming an articulate and wise young woman even as she hangs on to many of the trappings of childhood, as many of us do at that age before learning to let go and walk on.

Can't Go Back Now

Written and Performed by the weepies

Yesterday, when you were young,
Everything you needed done was done for you.
Now you do it on your own
But you find you're all alone,
What can you do?

You and me walk on
Cause you can't go back now.

You know there will be days when you're so tired that you can't take another step,
The night will have no stars and you'll think you've gone as far as you will ever get

But you and me walk on
Cause you can't go back now
And yeah, yeah, go where you want to go
Be what you want to be,
If you ever turn around, you'll see me.

I can't really say why everybody wishes they were somewhere else
But in the end, the only steps that matter are the ones you take all by yourself

And you and me walk on
Yeah you and me walk on
Cause you can't go back now
Walk on, walk on, walk on
You can't go back now

You asked...I tried to answer. Writer's Block at least temporarily averted....

So I stole this idea from one of my twitter/blogger friends because I have hated every writing idea that's come into my blogging head for the last week. I even had someone suggest expanding on a Twitter Story I told a few days ago...and oh boy was my inner critic running overtime.

Thus I begged my TwitterFollowers to help me out, ask me questions so I could blog the answers, so that I am doing SOMEthing.

Thank you all. I tried to Favorite every question so I had them handy, but the function seems to have not worked well. So I'm doing my best to get them all. I won't be as funny as "Daddy" but here goes....

@WhyIsDaddyCryin if given the opportunity how would you choose to publicly humiliate balloon boy's dad for being such a fucking douche?

My first question and oddly parallel to the TwitStory expansion that I abandoned, although that involved Rush Limbaugh as the balloon and Glenn Becky as the boy who crawled up his ass only to float around the United States. Anyway.....

This question leads to my question, How do you shame the unshameable? This guy got vomited on twice on national television, completely exposed by a 6 year old and had his awful reality TV show proposal aired to everyone. None of it seems to phase this guy. He just wants the recognition.

He is in fact, Rush Limbaugh. He will say and do anything to get noticed. If he's a Democrat, I guess I'd just call him Rush Jr. every time I referred to him, while he was in the room. If he's a Republican I guess I'd call him Chairman Mao since that's their latest fetish.

@lesleehorner asked this of both “DaddyCryin” and me” What's 1 thing you are passionate about, and lose all track of time while doing? And the answer can't be sex.

Killjoy.

Well, I mentioned recently that I enjoy doing character roleplay on certain venues. A way of getting my creative writing juices going. I very easily lose track of time doing that, the way other friends of mine do it playing World of Warcraft (which I refuse to play, A-because there's a monthly fee and B-because I KNOW no one will ever see me again if I do).

When an idea hits me, or the hint of one, I get really excited and I've made myself almost late for work on more than one occasion.

But in the end, its when I'm acting or directing. I could do it forever...never take a break except to eat and even then I just want to keep going. Never tired of it, always want more. There really isn't anything that makes me more happy.

Except perhaps for sex with someone awesome. (heh heh, got it in there anyway)

@GratefulKim What cereal could you eat everyday?

I'm honored that you took time away from your devoted stalking of @WhyIsDaddyCryin' to ask me that.

It's a two parter.

Non Sugar Cereal. Cheerios. I fucking love Cheerios. Especially with a banana sliced on top. That rocks. Even better when eaten outdoors

Sugar: Lucky Charms, because they're magically delicious, of course. Interestingly, Lucky Charms is essentially Cheerios, covered in sugar and with marshmallows. MMMMMMMMMMMMM. I'm all in touch with my inner Homer Simpson now.

@kitterztoo asked me what color I would be if I were a color...something like that. I can't find it because Twitter's Favorites function doesn't function. Fortunately my memory is a bit better.

Unfortunately I have no fucking clue. When my daughter was born, in the first couple of minutes, she was this amazing deep shade of purple. I mean like, dipped in grape juice for days purple. It was stunning. STUNNING. Not blotchy, not ugly. Breathtakingly beautiful. I wished it would stay that way because it really was that awesome. Shortly after that she got all splotchy like newborns do, then settled in. Ah well.

I guess I'd like to be that color. I think it would be cool, also....mad sexy.

Now if you're asking about my personality? I really don't know. I probably would go between red and blue..which might explain the purple thing.

@MajorBedHead wants to know one place I would go to for a month, as in a vacation. Once again Twitter lost this post entirely even though I added it to favorites. Twitter is really starting to piss me the fuck off, though my memory is pleasing me.

There are a few places I want to spend a month in. For the last few years though, the number one place is Scotland.
I lurve single malt whiskey. Lurve isn't even right because it's inadequate. But drinking it makes me all kinds of happy. A really good single malt has complexity and smoothness that makes life worth living even in the worst moments.

The plan is I start either at the southern most tip or the northern most tip and work my way up or down, back and forth, visiting every.single.distillery there is in that country. I would buy 2 bottles from each, whether I liked it or not, and send them home, in addition to whatever I sampled on the spot. I would journal the entire trip as a separate blog from this and then turn it into a book.

Eventually someone would fall in love with the whole story and make a movie out of it. They'd call it John and something really catch that would be a pun on my name and whiskey....or something.

@LiberalViewer1 What do you do for a living, my friend?

To pay the bills I do document work for a bank. Most of these are done in Power Point as pitches to invest in certain areas. But it often involves charts and tables in Excel and Word too. I'm actually not allowed to talk a whole lot about it. A Co-worker got fired for mentioning where he worked when he called a local newspaper to report a major event he'd just witnessed outside an office window. Seriously, it's that crazy.

I have on occasion, tweeted the view from said windows. Very stunning.

I'd rather be acting (see above).

@wil_m alright, when was the first moment you actually felt like a father?

This is a really good one and I had to spend a lot of time thinking about it. Oddly enough, the answer is the moment I first held my daughter.

So there she was, already fading into blotchy from being that purple grape juice purple. My (ex)wife had been in labor for close to 36 hours so when my daughter was born, her body went into a kind of shock. Shaking uncontrollably. So once they were finished doing all those awful things they do to babies when they first pop out, the couldn't hand her to her mother, so they put me on a stool and gave the screaming baby to me.

I was grinning as I felt this little life in my arms...crying and crying from the harsh bright light, the poking and the prodding. I gently shushed her and then said “It's okay Sarah. Daddy's here. It's me, daddy...everything is ok”.

Immediately her tears stopped and she scrunched her face and seemed to look in my direction...she was quiet and I could feel her relax. This of of course was when I started crying. It had been a very very long labor (a story I will tell some other time). I had nearly fainted from lack of food because I was too worried about my then wife and also was certain that the moment I went anywhere to eat, that would be when my daughter would finally decide to come out. So the emotions were deep and palpable.

But the response to my voice ...that made me feel very dad like.

The second time was not for awhile after that. To explain would mean going into one of the major things that was wrong with my marriage. That's a whole nother blog story. Just that for a long time my ex got proprietary about our daughter and essentially shut me out. Something that years later she finally copped to and apologized for. I didn't exactly handle all of that like an adult myself.

It was while visiting my mother and stepfather at their then house in Long Island. A nice long weekend of just my daughter and me and she got to really learn to come to me with things. I think she was 4 or so at the time. She came to me in the kitchen to help her with something. And while I was helping she asked a bunch of questions, which I answered. There was a lot of humorous back and forth. After she ran back to do whatever it was she was doing on her own I felt my back straighten up and I was suddenly breathing really clearly, like after a good yoga class. I wish I could remember what we were saying. But I do remember the feeling.

If I missed anyone, its Twitter's fault. Hope you all enjoyed it. If so, I might do it again. Thanks again to @WhyIsDaddyCryin.

Peace.

Moving On Up and Out and Beyond

A few months after my ex wife and I were married (over 20 years ago) I reached a point where I knew we had to move. We had lived together in a decently sized one bedroom apartment on west 57th Street in Manhattan. It had been her place for several years. As I said it was decently sized and centrally located, but it had no kitchen to speak of. This was fine enough, I had figured out ways to adapt to the size. But the place got no sunlight at all due to the construction of a high rise luxury building that not only blocked the view of Central Park, but blocked even the ability to know the weather in any way shape or form. And it afforded a fantastic view for the construction workers to ogle my bride as suited them.

The apartment also had some pretty bad memories for her, though we had managed to exorcise them to a small degree. But now I had reached my breaking point. I came home from work and looked at the darkness and just couldn't take it anymore. So we started looking. Eventually we ended up in Queens. A larger apartment for less money and sunlight all day long. I was excited. My wife was less than thrilled. She hated moving, and still does, more on that in a minute.

I viewed that apartment as a new start to a new marriage and a new life. In fact, it contained the seeds to the disintegration of that marriage and a wayward life that I am still working through. The apartment had other problems, bad wiring, careless landlords, crappy heating...I was so in love with all the light that I forgot to ask the important questions and so utterly certain of our future, I unwittingly muscled my wife into the place.

When the marriage ended only 3 years later, our daughter was two. I moved out of the apartment that I still rather liked despite its issues. My ex wife stayed in the apartment that she never learned to like at all. But she remained, so utterly fearful and dreadful of moving again.

Fast Forward to today. My ex and her fiancee have moved into a new apartment, fully as of yesterday. Two days ago I spent my last moments in the old apartment, picking up a kitchen table that my stepfather had built and a few odds and ends. It was strange to see the place almost empty, almost as empty as it was when I first started to paint the entire place almost entirely on my own to ease the transition for my then wife. The bookcases I had built were gone, leaving a wall I hadn't seen since Bush Sr. was president.

I hadn't lived in that place for 17 years but I was there all the time nonetheless for time with my daughter. Also early on there were many nights over several years of vain attempts to reconcile the marriage. And then after a time, a friendship between my ex and I. The place had seen a lot of change. It is the only place my daughter has ever lived (and believe me she is not at all happy about this move taking place. She has had her goodbye but has not been part of the process since she's at school now).

I didn't have a lot of time to say goodbye, but I took a few moments. It was in those moments that I remembered all that that apartment had symbolized to me at first, what it came to symbolize later. I thought of the young husband and father, hopeful, arrogant, certain.

I stood there a still young though not terribly young ex husband and father. Not particularly hopeful, less arrogant and a lot less certain about anything.

I was and am glad to see the place go though and I am happy for my ex wife,who has used the move well to purge a great many things and start a new life for herself.

Ironically she feels as muscled into the move as she felt 22 years ago, and I've ended up being an ear when she has wanted to strangle her fiancee. It feels funny to be the ex-husband helping the ex-wife to work through it all so that the relationship she is in won't go the course that ours did. I kind of like it. The fiancee isn't thrilled about it, since understandably he doesn't want his wife bitching about him to her ex husband. I get that. But my ex told me something she said to him when they were going over her feelings about the move and the process and he kept saying “I'm not John” when she pointed out the many similar ways that I had done. Then complained that she was talking to me about it. Her response was “If I had had a friend like John when I was married to John, I'd probably still be married to John. So stop worrying about it”

I don't know that there's a lot of truth in what she said. Hindsight has shown me that my ex and I were probably not suited for marriage to each other. But it was a damned fine compliment.

The picture at the top is the old Queens apartment building. The top floor to the right are what had been at one time the Master Bedroom and later my daughter's room. This is the last picture taken of the place by me. I imagine only a strange twist of fate will lead to anymore.

Anyway, another marker in life, another milestone passed. When I visit my daughter or my ex for whatever reason, I will no longer have a history there. That's a good thing. I'm trying to purge too. Hell, sometimes I think about selling everything and living out of a trailer, not unlike Derek Shepherd's on Gray's Anatomy. (I wanted to put a picture of that trailer right here. But it doesn't seem to exist anywhere on the internet.)

Since my own move a few months ago I've been shedding and continue to shed. Shed Shed Shed. Its all about moving on, even if we have no idea what or where we are moving to. Figuratively at least.

Reasons to be Grateful, Part 2

Continuing what I hope will be a tradition that TooMuchPerfection inspired, what is usually a list of several things will this week be one thing, cause it is pretty major:

This week, I learned that my daughter made the Dean's List at the end of her Freshman year. (By the way, the picture I use for this blog is the view from her campus). This year started off really rocky and I know I have talked about her Asperger's Syndrome before. She nearly failed out of school altogether with a scary first semester. But like every other time she's fallen, she bounces back up stronger than ever. I'm really proud of her.

To be sure, her mother, her stepfather and I all stepped up too and got more involved, but in the end, once you're in college, its all up to you. And she pulled it off.

So this week, the thing I am grateful for is a daughter that proves herself again and again. Who is smart, funny, geeky and though not without her challenges (what child isn't) a blessing.

Plus her hugs are awesome!


I love you, Scooper.

Daughter's ASPerations Part II (Or, Why My Daughter Is A Hero)

After that incident Sarah seemed to slow down. Her passion for reading (book was her first word even before mommy) ebbed, though it didn't entirely disapear, her responses were slower and she began to develop immediate echolalia as she got a bit older. The poor thing would respond to us by repeating what we had just said to her, like "come here Sarah" and then that was it.

In our ignorance, her mother and I thought she was being willful, that being a normal trait in both our families, but it kept up...and my poor daughter would continue to repeat our commands to come here (or whatever it was at the moment) with increasing tears. She knew that a response was in order, but what that response was supposed to be, she could not fathom. Oh the scenes this sometimes produced.

When she was about 2 we enrolled her into the nursery school where my ex wife worked. Right about this time was when my then wife was becoming my ex wife. I'd get phone calls from her saying that something was wrong, our daughter was not doing well in her class as far as she was observing and suspected that she was autistic. I didn't take this very seriously. For one, my ex wife had a tendency to be read about a disorder and then think she had it and she had just recently been reading up on autism. So I poo pooed it. Her boss did as well. But after awhile the two women who were my daughter's teachers began to suspect that my ex was right.

One afternoon I came in early to pick my daughter up for some lunch and as I watched through the window I saw that while the other kids were playing with eachother or toys, my daughter was standing half an inch from the small mirror, staring as if studying something. Her expression was blank and yet had a determined air about it. When I saw this, I knew that my prejudice against my ex-wife's observation was proving a disservice to our child.

A short time later we had her evaluated and she was indeed diagnosed as autistic. We were guided to seek a formal evaluation in New York so that we could enroll her into a therapeutic program for the following year. NYC is good this way in that it is required by law to provide services through the public school system to children with disabilities. And while over the years we were involved with some serious political wrangling from time to time, my daughter's progress would not have been as good as its been. Though as I continue you will see that so much of it is her own work.

(To be continued further....)