Playing to the Back Row

I'm a creative person, but I don't flex those muscles on a daily basis. I do enough to keep me satiated, and frankly, my life is too complicated and busy to frequently feel the driving desire to be some sort of artiste.

For the past six months, I've been relatively creative in the workplace, as we've been building a new website for the past five months. It's been professionally satisfying, and this week led up to the public debut of our new URL. The CEO asked that we plan an event at our quarterly all-company meeting in its honor, and we ended up deciding on a "behind the scenes" farce video of the making of the new site.

Somehow, I found myself offering to write the script, knowing that too many cooks in the kitchen would lead to paralysis, and we had less than a week. A 7 page script was churned out that day, followed by rallying the entire team for two-days of shooting between meetings. Everyone felt silly and there was some initial skepticism, but people started to loosen up, and once the footage hit iMovie, I hit my stride.

If I would've considered other avenues in Hollywood beyond writing, I would've been an editor. I have a nice sense of rhythm, and screenwriting is its own form of editing. I used to cut on film, and though I spent a number of seasons in reality TV show editing rooms giving instructions and feedback, I was always in the producer's chair behind the editor and not behind the controls, clicking the buttons. My actual digital editing was limited to a few clip packages I threw together for awards shows over the years. But I certainly don't know the (better) technology like Avid to any real degree, and when it came to the user-friendly, for the masses iMovie, I didn't even know how to trim a shot four days ago.

Needless to say, iMovie is very user friendly, even with its somewhat limited toolbox, and it perfectly suited my needs. What was intended to be short, single shot scenes became multi-angle, cutaway-rich, audio-varied little vignettes. Not all of the scenes are good, but they generally click and shimmy, delivering the laugh lines I intended, and numerous ones that I didn't. Part of the fun became editing around the amateur actors. Not that I'm any kind of a pro, but storytelling was at one time my job, whereas none of these people wanted to be behind a camera.

By the end of the week, showing rough cuts to the team was garnering big laughs, excitement, and buy in for the final scenes. So I worked even harder on it. I put in a minimum of 2o-25 hours of editing for a seven minute piece, and the big debut was at an all-company meeting of 250+ people. And... it played. There was consistent energy in the room, chuckles and titters, and a number of scenes that got all-out belly laughs. The CEO loved it, and wanted it on YouTube, even though it playfully tweaks the execs rather than glamorizes them.

A creative itch was scratched, and I had an actual audience. An audience that liked and appreciated it. It was a good moment. One of those Mozart Moments.

This isn't to say that I'm spending my time dying to be endlessly creative, writing scripts, all that kind of stuff... but it was nice for a few days.

And, most importantly, the new site is pretty damn cool.

What kind of parent do you want to be?

I was sitting at the pool, having a rare moment of quiet and solitude. Reading a book about marketing on a Sunday afternoon after a short, relaxing swim.

Two thirty-something guys in wife-beaters with jellyroll bellies stroll up to the pool with a pudgy 6 year old. The boy stares into the deep end of the pool when Mr. Pork-Pie Hat and picks him up from behind and just tosses him into the 8-foot-deep end of the pool. The boy is clearly in the early stages of learning to swim, and struggles to keep his head above water, gulping down glassfuls. Porker #2 casually jumps into the pool, grabs the flailing boy and drags him to the side, where the boy grabs onto the ladder for dear life. Sobs and water spitting out of his mouth.

Mr. Pork-Pie says, "You wanna hang out with the big boys, you gotta swim in the deep end!"

"I don't want to be in the deep part. I'm not ready!" The boy stands there, sobbing, as Pork-Pie takes a picture to "send to your momma", talking about how he's going to turn the kid into a real man. The boy slinks over to the hot tub, as Pork-Pie emails the picture. "That's where the little girls hang out. You a little sissy girl?". The boy doesn't respond, as Pork-Pie takes a swig of his Coors Light.

And so I sit there, considering the divide between developing confidence in our children and getting them ready for the world. Looking at this little boy, fear in his eyes, and not meeting the eyes of these two men, what is he being prepared for in life? He's being taught that uncertainty and trepidation is akin to femininity and worthlessness, and that he shouldn't trust his instincts. This strikes me as the kind of behavior that turns boys aggressive, seeking to compensate for their own fears that they aren't meant to acknowledge.

I think about Zach's fear of swimming, and the little baby steps he makes in this regard, and how he'll climb to the top of a mountain if you let him. He'll run up to a total stranger running an outdoor theater to ask what the name of the next play is. He is aware of his limitations, and deeply cognizant of what he can do. Maybe I wish he could do it all - or would do it all - tapping into that seemingly limitless power the boy has. But I also have to remind myself that he's figuring it all out, and shoving him into the deep end isn't going to make him ready for the world any faster.

I feel that I generally respect this, and am aware of these subtleties, and it's distressing to watching parenting that seems wholly unconcerned with such "sissy" matters.

The Rock Wall

It's not often that a parent feels like they've really got it nailed. That they said the right thing, did the right thing... all those things that are important to create a next generation that's more evolved, more competent than we feel. 

Not that I feel like a fuck up as a parent. On the contrary, I think I'm doing a decent enough job, but it's so easy to hold the mistakes you make against yourself. The times you lose your temper, that you don't put enough effort into storytime, that you express just a little more dissatisfaction than is necessary. These moments add up, and part of parenting is grappling with the question: is it adding up more for your child... or for you?

I'd like to think it's the latter, but you don't know. Because, if it is the latter, maybe moments like today won't make the impact on Z that they had on me.

We had an evening at the park. Me, Z and L. It gives me no end of pleasure just how much Z wants to spend time with L, although there's no question, that brings up certain concerns as well. How much attraction is too much? How much intimacy? What should that relationship be like? As it plays out, it's absolutely wonderful, but I just want to be cognizant that both of them - all of us - are treading in previously uncharted waters (for us, at least). 

Z was climbing a rock wall. Not the typical park rock wall for kids, with its plastic hand and foot-holds, blazing like neon signs for where to step. Rather, this newly designed park (ironically, it's always been known to Z as "New Park") installed a faux-rock climbing wall. With gritty hand-holds and grooves, which really force children to figure things out on their own. 

Z failed to figure it out the first time, getting halfway up before calling plaintively to be helped down. A while later, he climbed to the top, but then realized that was quite a predicament - the pride of accomplishment was replaced by the fear of the unknown. Dad needed to scale his way to the top and one-arm Z down to another father. Crisis averted.

But, Z being Z, the first thing he did was climb right back up. This time, when he got to the top, I warned him not to crab-walk to the same place he got stuck last time. So he didn't. He made it halfway down the other side of the wall, my pride surging, until I needed to lift him off the remaining section. 

But, Z being Z, he wasn't done. Another trip to the top, and this time the allure of the crab-walk was too much for him to resist, even though I specifically told him this would end badly, and that I wasn't going to rescue him. I muttered to L that I knew where this was going, and I wasn't sure what the parenting response should be.

He did it anyway. And, predictably, he got caught exactly where I said he would. His eyes welled with tears, and he asked me to get him down. I told Z that this is exactly what I warned him of, and I couldn't help him. He looked right at me and said, "But you're a hero". If that isn't a moment that both swells and crushes your parenting instincts, I don't know what is. 

So I told him that I couldn't help him. He got himself into this mess, and he had to figure out how to get himself out of it. I helped point out areas that would be easier for him to cope with. He carefully - and oh-so-dangerously - shifted his body weight around, and skittered down an edge that he could easily fall off, but which led him to a slightly lower outpost... only 8 feet high, rather than 10. It was one of those scary parent moments, but one that I knew I couldn't rescue him from (unless things got legitimately dangerous for him), because all I'd be doing is proving that he can call on me for anything... even when he is the one who screwed up. Instead, I was trying to teach him that when you screw up (even in such a self-consciously belligerent way as he had just proven), it's often all on you to figure out how to solve the problem. 

And he did. He made it to the 8 foot outcropping, and... Z being Z, jumped off into the sand.  A perfect landing, incidentally. When he landed, he was clearly proud of himself, but I quickly got down on one knee and said, "Z, tell me... who was the real hero?. He beamed, and said, "I was", and ran off, excited just to be a kid.

The moment probably passed for him, unremarkable and forgotten. For me, it might be a moment that I'll treasure for the rest of my life.