Coming Up For Air

As my wife and I await the chance to be first time parents through the adoption process, I'm watching people parent. Strangers observed in that role for a few minutes by someone not yet on Team Parent usually look like virtuosos. I'll scribble down something they did well, apparently effortlessly, and pledge to do the same. Real life afforded a different kind of opportunity to this amateur sociologist recently. Longitudinal study proved more instructive than flashes of sentimentalized, and maybe jealous, insight. I got to see the same "subjects" twice in a month's time as they navigated parenting and emerging adolescence. The catalyst in these encounters is 14, and brilliant. She absorbs the patterns of life through voracious reading and, perhaps, measures real experience against a tightly edited narrative. Dissonance ensues. Dissonance produces anxiety. This anxiety could produce a wild variety of responses in those around and responsible for her. Twice I've...

I thought a test finally found my tribe. The developers of the DISC pegged how people interact and sorted us into sixteen distinctive categories. Described as orderly, systematic, tactful, and highly diplomatic, I felt known. Told that I dislike sudden changes and prefer a protected secure environment free from antagonism that usually describes my self-contained work, I felt ready to, in my grandmother's memorable phrase, declare my rarity. I was also ready, unlike my ever adaptable grandmother, to declare my rights. I had evidence to support my grievance with the vicissitudes of the world. One coworker who has shared my low-drama approach to our jobs for years provided good company in this new classification. But there were more. About half the room full of college enrollment professionals tended to have the same strengths and preferences, including my immediate supervisor. Who would be left to protect my prerogatives, to stand in the gap for my specialness? I should have known t...

Maybe it's the M*A*S*H reruns that have become my nightcap to tame the thoughts of the day. Maybe it's the confirmation of my theory that white noise from about the age of 10 is particularly effective in this role as a subtle, individualized adult tranquilizer. Maybe, just maybe, it's the fact that M*A*S*H was interrupted in one commercial break by an offer to help the viewer go more often, and one to go less often. I'm reminded that I'm getting older. I'm reaching… a certain age. Ever helpful, the cultural window that is television also offers perspective on what to do with the perspective that comes with one's advancing years. The patriarch on Downton Abbey , as I wind up my experience with the show, has also reached… a certain age. Through most of the 12 years that the show covers in its six seasons, Lord Grantham has steadily upheld his primary duty to honor that which has been passed down to by maintaining his family's station in society. Perha...

Reality TV like Long Lost Family tends to obscure the truly dramatic with melodramatic manipulation. A dry-eyed recollection that the featured guest's adoptive mother didn't notice when her charge fell out of the car doesn't require any overwrought music to rivet the attention. Her recollection that her mother figure frequently had to be awakened by a call from childcare providers to remind her that her adopted daughter had not been picked up yet is not made weightier by long pauses inserted by provocative editing. My wife's accompaniment to this televised version of real-life drama was equally powerful, and subdued. With perfect pitch, she joined the matter-of-fact confession on the television with, "One of my most frequent prayers is that I will bond with the child we adopt." She couldn't have said more, or more powerfully, if the Divine Scriptwriter had decided on this as the point at which to end one part of a two-part cliffhanger. Jennifer isn't ...

"You know," muses Annie Prouix, "one of the tragedies of real life is that there is no background music." Dramatic piano accompaniment like that would set the tempo in silent movies was all that was missing in the scene real life presented Wednesday night. April, who heads the children's ministry at my church, was introducing this summer's intern to the congregants among whom she would be ministering for the summer. As April went about her gracious business, a little lady of about five approached from behind her, latched to the back of her knees, and went along for the ride. The intern's T-shirt provided the caption for the nickelodeon narrative. It read, "Love needs no translation." Any explanation is inelegant. However, since most of us are no longer as fluent in the language of love as this little lady was, I'll try, in brief. Love like hers is offered without fear of rejection. Love like hers diligently, eagerly seeks and va...

As summer approaches, there is much to look forward to. There is also a little to temporarily miss in the calendar's turning. Our church's Wednesday night supper runs with the school year . This means that, for a few months, we will miss out on the serendipitous and instructive mixing and remixing that this gathering provides. Sometimes the same faces can present new lessons. In January, my wife and I approached a table to sit with a father and son we did not know. The son, about 10, responded to the approach of my wheelchair by moving a chair out of my way. His dad complimented him out loud on this gracious gesture. He beamed. Fresh from this specific affirmation, the boy responded instantly when his father asked him to move something on the table out of my wife's way. Adult to adult, I went about my usual combination of introduction, interview, and maybe interrogation in order to find out all I could about what the father did for a living. His son tuned in even more in...

Television convention suggests playing cards may be more durable than I thought. The English upper classes of Downton Abbey are trying to hold on to nineteenth century formality, but the writers' introduction of a game of poker lightens the mood. Much of the world with which the ad hoc command of the 4077 on M*A*S*H is familiar may have been left stateside when they were shipped to Korea, but poker offers a reminder of home, and an environment where a corporal without a high school diploma can outsmart a captain with an M.D. When writers want to convey camaraderie extending into the rarefied environment of The West Wing , the playing cards come out along with the trivia questions. Even after centuries of hypothetical progress in pragmatism in the Star Trek universe, the senior officers in Star Trek: The Next Generation find that cards provide a safe space. Insight into the value of a usually serious community at play is much older than the television which borrows its conventions...