Those Autumn Leaves

His front yard was covered with leaves. Doubtless trying to achieve some sense of order, he was raking the leaves onto the sidewalk. The sidewalk was also covered with leaves. Not just covered. The leaves were perhaps a foot high on the sidewalk and in his yard. It was hard to imagine where they'd all come from. There just didn't seem to be that many bare branched trees around.
While he raked he sang a song of contentment and joy. As I approached, our eyes met. I stopped walking. He stopped raking. His smile was infectious. I smiled back.
"You know you want to jump in them," he said.
He wasn't asking me. He was telling me. I was caught.
"Maybe not jump in them," I managed to reply. "Maybe just walk through them."
He gestured for me to proceed.
"But halfway through if you feel like jumping, please don't hesitate."
Halfway through I did feel like jumping. I also felt like scattering them all over the yard and the sidewalk and the street. I felt like grabbing handfuls and throwing them into the air and standing perfectly still while they rained down on my head.
I neither jumped nor threw. I did, however, listen very carefully to sounds of raked leaves crunching under my feet.
On the other side of my leaf crossing, I turned to look at the man.
"You could have done a whole lot more," he said.
"There's always more we could have done."
"I suppose so," he said and returned to raking and to his quiet song of contentment.
Two complete strangers spent a few minutes on a Sunday afternoon enjoying the simplest of life's pleasures.

Earthquake Drill

People of Southern California need to be reminded of the possibility of the big one hitting any day according to, I believe, the Department of Homeland Security. To this end, I believe the Department of Homeland Security enlisted approximately 5 million people to participate in an earthquake drill which is scheduled for Thursday, November 13, 2008. The Department of Homeland Security, Police Departments, Fire Departments, and various businesses, etc. will be some of the participants. The drill instruction will comprise of the "Drop...Cover...Hold On" theory. This is the largest quake prep drill ever. If you would like to take part in the drill, you need to sign up at "shakeout.org" and follow the instructions.

My Crossing Guard

Most weekdays, I walk from my home to the subway at the junction of Flatbush and Nostrand Avenues in Brooklyn. My walk takes me past four schools within two blocks: P.S. 152, P.S. 315, Midwood High School, and Brooklyn College. The high school and college students can look after themselves, presumably, but at the busy corner of Bedford Avenue and Glenwood Road, a crossing guard helps the elementary school children. One morning I was crossing Glenwood as the driver of an SUV was trying to nose his way into traffic, seemingly without regard to the pedestrian--me--in his path. When I got safely across the street to the crossing guard's corner, I stood waiting for the light to cross Bedford. She came over to me. "I saw you watching that guy. I was, too. I see everything at this corner." I try to vary my walking route somewhat, but I always make sure I cross Glenwood and Bedford at her corner. It's nice to know that you don't have to be a child to have someone watching out for you when you cross a busy street.

Always Learning

My mother-in-law has been a widow for five years and is one of the toughest broads I know.  Left on a doorstep of a convent 87 years ago, she was adopted by a couple that preferred a boy but settled for a girl.  She held her own on the farm in Iowa and married a soldier after only three dates.  He was absent for much of those early years either fighting in a war or building a business.  She quietly made it all work while raising four boys.  It's what women did.

The other day Tom picked up his mother's absentee ballot.  He knew his mother best but he just wasn't sure.  he wanted to believe that she voted for Obama but he didn't know and it bugged him. And so, he peeked.  It turns out for 61 years worth of elections my sweet mother-in-law would smile and nod in agreement with her conservative husband.  Then, she would quietly and confidently cast her ballot and cancel his vote with hers.   

Turning Red On Right

There I was stopped at a red light preparing to make a right turn. It's a busy intersection, the one with the red light. To my left, preparing to go through the intersection when our light turned green, was one of those big and pointless trucks. You know the ones. The tires themselves are about twice the height of most professional basketball players. Getting into the cabs of those things requires a step ladder or an elevator. The only way I could have possibly seen the traffic entering and crossing the intersection on their green light would have been to get out of my Jeep and look under the behemoth to my left.
So naturally the person in the car behind me -- also waiting to make a right turn -- began honking at me so incessantly that the behemoth human looked down at me -- literally -- shrugged his shoulders and laughed. While delightful, that nonverbal communication in no way informed me as to whether or not I could safely make a right turn on my red light.
I decided to wait out the light despite the incessant honking coming from the car behind me. Our light did turn green and I made my right turn. That wasn't good enough, apparently, for the honker who pulled up beside me. I refused to make eye contact despite the continued honking. Then the driver pulled in back of me and continued honking. I began to worry that I had become one of those around the campfire horror story characters. Perhaps there was a dark stranger hovering behind me wielding a knife or a chainsaw or water balloons. Maybe the honking driver was only trying to save my life. I changed lanes just to see what would happen. The honker changed lanes, too. This was getting pretty stupid. When the honker again pulled into the lane beside me, I made eye contact just to bring the drama to a close. I got the requisite finger and the wordless curse. I blew the driver a kiss and mouthed the words, "I love you, too." Apparently that was too much to bear and the driver gunned the engine onto a freeway ramp. Luckily it was a ramp for entering and not exiting. I certainly wished the driver no ill will just better manners.
I guess everything worked out okay. The driver only blasted me with words and fingers. There were no other weapons involved.
Woody Allen once observed that California's only cultural accomplishment was the ability to make a right turn on a red light.
Apparently that ability is no longer much of an accomplishment.

Got The Post Election Blues?

This presidential election seemed to go on forever. We rode the democratic roller coaster with Obama and Clinton. We watched John McCain carry his own suitcases when his campaign ran out of money. We marveled at the stamina of the three major candidates. We gasped in horror as the Republican Vice Presidential nominee was announced. We monitored so many polls we lost track of their meaning. We felt we personally knew the cable news and political commentary anchors. We felt energized. We felt drained. We bit our fingernails. We resubscribed to magazines and newspapers for information out of date by press time. We searched the Internet and googled and yahoo-ed constantly.
And now it's over. Our man won. Our initiative failed to fail but that's another story and another birth of a civil rights movement.
So here we are. Exhausted with time and energy on our hands. There are no more polls to monitor, no more campaign sound bites to analyze. Why do we feel so tired and sad and drained? Why do we stare at computer or television screens as though they had only moments before arrived from another dimension? Why do we feel so sad despite having gained so much?
Why?
Because it's over.
Anytime we focus and sustain energy and attention and passion and creativity for an extended period of time, we feel a post project, post birth, post election, post creation let down. With enough severity and time, those feelings could become actual depression.
Best way to combat them?
Get passionately involved again.
Care enough about something to, say, sit down in the intersections of Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards along with several hundred other people and watch the traffic at rush hour stop.
Care enough about something to, say, pick up a sign in protest of injustice.
Or, if it's too soon for any of that, get some exercise. Or laugh. Both activities initiate the release of serotonin which make us feel a whole lot better.
And know that what you're feeling is natural and okay. These post election blues are the price we pay for the passion we felt.

Lech Lecha

Saying good-by to my second son to leave home was easier than I thought.  I felt many things... relief, gratitude, joy and a touch of sadness.  It was far less dramatic yet similar to the feelings I had only a year ago when when the older one left for a dream job 3000 miles away.  A trained chef at twenty, this child needed to leave home.  That was clear.  His script was written in his hometown and so we gave him a gentle (yet firm) push to go for himself, to himself, to find himself.  Leaving one place for another is never easy.   But it seems that there is more fear than I remember when I left my parents home all those years ago.  The excitement tempered with a bad economy and fierce competition for a job with decent benefits.  Yes, he left.  And, if things don't work out he'll be back.   We'll dust him off, give him time to regroup and send him out again.