Because I Said So.

Malachi is GOING to Europe next summer.  He's discouraged, but I'm not.  He may not like me very much for the next few months, but he'll thank me later in life, Lord willing.

If you want things, you have to work for them.  You have to sacrifice.  You have to take chances.  There are risks; risk of failure, risk of disappointment, risk of distraction.  Risk can paralyze you with fear or galvanize you into action.  It's up to you.  I've been known to start things with a big fanfare, and then get discouraged, distracted, disoriented.  Not this time.  Today is January 31.  This is the last day Malachi gets to lollygag.  He doesn't get to fail.  He doesn't get to quit.  He doesn't have to like me.  I am not Malachi's friend.  I'm his mother, and I am not letting him flake off on his commitment.  I haven't flaked off on mine.  You see fewer posts because it's not about me anymore.  I've done what I needed to do to prove I'm in it for the long haul.  90 days of blogging once a week or more without fail.  For the first 30 days I blogged every day.  It was easy, because I had plenty of angst to be shed.  I stuck my toe into the SEO pool and found it to my liking. I'm going back, so get out your sunblock.  A sizzling-hot day is about to dawn on you all.
But Malachi.

This blog has plenty of readers and no followers, but I'm not giving up on it.  I'm going to keep building it up.  I know it's going to help me get my son to Europe.  I haven't got much time, but I've got plenty of faith.  I've got to teach my son to keep the faith.  He needs to put in the work, so he can understand how to reach a goal that seems beyond his capability.  He's ready to let himself down, and ready to be angry with me for not permitting him to do it, but again, I am not this boy's friend. If I were his friend, I might tease him about wanting to go abroad.  If I were his friend, I might undermine his confidence every chance I got.  If I were his friend, I might tell him that he shouldn't be expecting his mom to raise that kind of money for a trip when so much other stuff is called for.  It's a good thing I am not his friend.  He would never accomplish anything with me reassuring him that mediocrity and the status quo are all he should hope for.

Malachi is a fine son and a strong person.  Our Lily got into a bad scrap and was bleeding profusely from the healed wound you see there.  Malachi is the one who kept her from bleeding to death at 10 pm on a Thursday night, and she hasn't forgotten it.  Nor have I.  He kept calm and packed the wound with cobwebs to stop the bleeding.  It worked.  He then bound her up with black electrical tape, which Miss Lillers removed herself three days later.  Nice work.  Now why doesn't this kid have more faith in himself?  I ran around and collected spiderwebs from behind the washer in the laundry room, but he calmly washed the puncture, packed and bound it.  Blood was everywhere.  His brother was caterwauling. I wasn't so good, either.  Malachi took charge and saved his friend's life.  Now, like Erica Jong, I've got to teach him how to save his own.

Something is going to break.  Opportunity will come.  Faith is not just for church.  It's for standing firm.  Not just against ideological bullies, but for standing up to your circumstances and changing them from sheer force of will.  Will begins with a transformation of mind and heart.  It is a refusal to accept defeat, rejection, and ridicule and continue to go hard for you goals.  Will looks beyond circumstances; past situations, through intrigues, and  across shifting tides of favor and locks on to its desire.  My desire is to show my kid that his dreams are worth having, and I will not be denied.

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog.
#FriendsofMalachiMaxwellGlass

ATTENTION DEFICIT

Malachi was able to get sound out of a sax the first time he picked one up.  I told him how remarkable that was.  He wasn't with us the day we went to the music store.  He got to hang out with his friends, but I saw a wistful expression cross his features for a second as he looked at my pictures of all the gleaming instruments.  That the place is not thronged with a Scarborough Fair of people making music at all hours is a mystery to me.  I wanted to run around like a six-year-old and tootle and honk on everything!  I wanted to hear someone play!  Musicians are withholders.  You gotta pay to hear em play, and who can blame them?

There is not enough music for our children anymore.  No one is teaching them how to use these precious instruments.  Music lessons were of no importance in my branch of the family.  At all.  So I was completely and hopelessly cut off from them.  I don't want the same thing to befall my children.  Shoot, I haven't given up on me.  I don't like that picture of me I posted, but my goofy, joyful expression tells me I'd better dare to look dumb some more.  We've forgotten that our kids want to learn to make music.  We're not investing their limited, finite resources of time and attention into music, art, dance, poetry, the humanities, at anywhere near the rate we ought  to be.  Not everyone will wind up on a production crew for Ang Lee, or Peter Jackson.  We cain't all be on Glee.  But kids need music.  To learn with.  To live with.  To grow and develop with.  They can be emotionally stunted without it.  A plugged outlet.  I know how that feels.

Creativity bubbling like steam in a pot with a tight-fitting lid.  Your kid is wilding out and you don't know why.  Maybe he needs to paint.  He could have a frustrated tap routine bothering his brain.  Might need to sculpt or carve something, and never even know it. 

What if your child would love to create in wrought iron? How would you know?  I remember the Polish ironworkers in Riverhead.  Some of those men could craft the most delicate forms in iron--fence finials, balustrades, porch railings, and a special form of ironwork whose intricate patterns indicated to fellow Poles where they would be welcomed and understood.  Sometimes interlocking circles, always three birds in flight, articulated within confining bars, somehow.  I remember suddenly coming to grips with this visual symbol on a street full of Poles, (on my way to Pulaski Street Elementary) and how two or three of the eldest women turned, startled, to gape at me.  I had been looking at the intricate form of the low iron railing in front of an old Polish doctor's office, Dr. Bryzcynzski, I believe.  I looked at that awesome collection of consonants every day on my way to school, and the funny little ironwork rail, just above ankle high, that outlined his little slab of pavement near the corner of Ostrander and Roanoake. I had seen the elderly ones lining up to get into his office, and their bright head kerchiefs stood out in the new morning air as I approached.  It was springtime, and the snap in the air was just pleasant enough to remind them of home.  All of them.  As as happened to me since before I knew it did not happen to other people, I was overcome by a sense of limitless ocean, and the birds suddenly appearing on the horizon, indicating land, America, in fact. Beautiful  Land at the end of a long and arduous journey.  Many of the ironworkers, barkeeps, beer-truck drivers, grocers, and cobblers in my hometown were Polish Jews.  Some were Greek Jews.  Some of them were Italian and German Jews.  Even then, I took it all in through the eyes of a writer--with an eye toward memory, place, time, and recall.  I cannot tell you what I had for breakfast last Tuesday, but I do know that Polish craftsmen also make fine chocolates and exquisite violins. And pastry. And cold cuts!

I went to first grade with a delightful little girl whose first and only words to me in flawless American English were: "I've come too far ever to be an outcast again.  I come here and find out I look completely American.  I can never look back.  I will always value your friendship.  I will always know you are my friend.  But this will be our only conversation!"  And it was.  I'm still her friend, too.  This was in spring; 1969 or '70.  She'd arrived from Poland the previous fall not speaking a single word of English.  I'm a Q, and she was an S, so she was seated in the row across from me.  I watched her enormous china blue eyes on that first day, taking in the big warm, room, me, the other kids, Mrs. Leahy, the teacher, me again...I am terrified, she thought. I wish someone would take my hand. So I did. It was ice cold, so I held it until it warmed up, and then just dropped it.  She decided not to faint, and that it was all going to be ok.  A Brit's riff on Paul Revere brought beautiful Anna Stremsky to mind again, with her bright, blonde, Dresden-doll curls and rosy cheeks--how close she came to missing freedom altogether.

Creativity will have its expression.  It will impose itself upon you and  make you see it.   It seethes like lava under a restless volcano, in places closer than we'd care to admit.  It will usurp the goodwill of others to get its point across.  We would be unwise to ignore this.  I like good grafitti.  I sure wish I knew where the tagger Search was right now.  Search tagged throughout Raleigh, Apex, and Chapel Hill through most of the 90s.  "The Search is ON" rolled by on countless rail cars on their way through my back yard in Cary, North Carolina.  I wonder if there's still a tag hidden somewhere.  Let me know if you find it.  On the other hand, this LI chick is aware of disaffected youth and the mayhem they can cause.  Creativity and Destruction are siblings.  One is always alongside the other.  At any given moment, one or the other is dominant in a situation.  I choose blogging as a form of creativity.  I thereby intend to destroy poverty, inertia, and lack of ambition in my worldview and circumstances.  It's happening.  Sometimes I put a foot wrong, but I'mma keep trekkin' forward.
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog.

#FriendsofMalachiMaxwellGlass

Easier Said Than Done

We all know the definition of insanity: "Doing the same thing in the same way and expecting a different outcome."  Les Brown always says, "If we knew better, we would do better!"  Well, I've no idea how to get my kid to Europe on a shoestring, so I have got to build a bridge from what I do know outward.  I've got to stand on what I know, and reach out toward the unknown.  It's scary.  Malachi is too afraid even to attempt it.  We've tried this before.  He remembers what happened.  I remember him dropping to his knees when he found out he would not be going on an educational retreat because I had not raised the money, and the scholarship application had closed.  Educational marketing is such that I was forced to do a fundraiser in order to be eligible for the scholarship.  The scholarship closed unexpectedly a day or so after I'd raised $300 to send them.  I had to tell Malachi.  I did not know it would break his heart.  Seven years later, his apathy tells me it's STILL broken.  He won't even try.

I've been tryna help myself and this kid a long time, and I'll never stop.

His non-involvement is hard on me.  I feel like I'm plugging away on his future without any input from him.  I vacillate between wanting to chuck the entire endeavor and stage-managing this whole thing without him.  He's got some awesome music on my hard drive.  I've been asking him for permission to shop it so he can pay his OWN daggone way!  He has slow-walked me since OCTOBER.  If he went to school one day and could not take a step for the throngs of people complementing him on his most recent beats, he would think I've done him wrong.  Even if it turned out for the best.  I know him.  This is what I mean by the convenience of stuck-ness.  That boy knows I respect him and his intellectual property so much that I won't administer it without his permission, even for his own good.  What he doesn't seem to comprehend is that I know what I'm doing.  No pedophile or perpetrator or poseur wants to take ME on. Not anymore, anyway.  I can destroy your credibility by means of a single hashtag, and I have done it.  No more posting black women bound with ball gags on my kid's profile for YOU, Dr. Cyanide.  I know the Godfather.

It's time to order a passport.  I'd have done it by now, but as you see, I'm panhandling this thing on my own.  Another few weeks and I won't be able to get it done in time.  I don't want to fail Malachi, even as he is busy failing himself.  He has insulated himself from reality.  If he doesn't do anything, there's no disappointment to be felt.  If I don't pull this off, he can tell himself it was never meant to be.  I've been listening here on The Plus.  I cannot allow my son to embrace this pattern of avoidance!  It will ruin his life.

I don't give up.  I don't back down.  I try to learn from Disappointment and Defeat.  One thing those two will never willingly teach you is how to WIN.  You have to FIGHT to wrest that knowledge from those two old instructors.  Their class is free, and you can enroll on a minute-to-minute basis.

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog.
#FriendsofMalachiMaxwellGlass

Happy New Year! My Life's a MESS.

Jack Frost is looking toward the future, as always.

I didn't make any New Year's resolutions, so I don't feel bad about that.  I feel bad because everything's so messy!  I have been diligently building social presence online.  It is amazing how quickly an internet connection can eat up your day!  I looked around after the holidays and asked myself how I got so far behind whilst struggling so hard to get ahead.  Like I tell my workaholic man-friend:

"YOU ARE ONLY ONE PERSON.  YOU CANNOT DO MORE.  YOU MUST DO BETTER."

I can't do any more than I'm already doing!  I've gotta find a way to do better.  A New Year is always a good time to evaluate relationships.  None of my relationships are helping me keep my house in order.

Folk will be very shocked or hurt when the means to walk away finally fall into place.  I won't be able to hear them say "ungrateful."  I'll be too far away.  If your situation is not all it should be, it's daunting how people expect you to accept whatever they toss your way, whether it's their closet castoffs or the overflow from their flea market addiction.  "I thought you might need this," means one thing when that thing is a $100 bill.  It's something else entirely when it turns out to be one more thing I've got no real use for.  If I so much as hesitate, trouble ensues.  I'm supposed to be a willing repository for whatever people don't want to think about or deal with, in exchange for whatever assistance they ever gave me.  I don't have any right to say, "I don't need it.  I don't want it.  I can't use it.  Please don't bring me anything else without checking first."  Oh, really?  I'll just hang on to this $100 I was planning to give you.  Might add to your clutter.  That is being held hostage to your conditional love, and I'm saturated.

I need some clarity.  I need some reframing.  I need to clean my emotional filter.

I had the pleasure of attending +Les Dossey 's inaugural "Getting Unstuck" HOA, and I am now one of his biggest fans. He discusses some of the darkest places people can inhabit, and still walk and talk.  Many of us come online and act like there are no problems in the background, and many more doan wanna HEAR about any problem you have, so this offering and his earlier one with +Christine DeGraff were like a lifeline to me.  I didn't know how to name what was bothering me before now.  No one wants to be perceived as ungrateful.  Most of us don't want to actually BE ungrateful, either.  I get that epithet thrown at me a lot, mostly by people who have a vested interest in me never getting unstuck.  Who might that be?  Any person in my life for whom my predictable actions and reactions have created convenience they'd rather not relinquish.  This includes my kids, who will be amid the first to suffer flashburns of Shock and Awe when their maid gets a JOB.  I asked the Good Lord to send me back to the drawing board years ago, after I'd made the biggest mess of my life, and he did. I wanted to give my children a childhood; if I couldn't give them a dad, I wasn't gonna be checked out working all the time, either.  I decided that I would retire in reverse.  How would I know when my retirement was concluded?  I prayed to know.  "When it's clear they're taking you for granted," was the response that was laid down in my meditative state. THAT DAY IS HERE.
When my professional goals take precedence in my priority stream, maybe they'll get a clue, and stop making me point to each bit of trash I would like them to pick up. Stop filling an empty sink with dishes one plate, glass and cup at a time. Stop messing around online instead of trying to figure out how to get to Europe this summer.  Stop taking mom's sacrifices as their due.

Maybe they'll finally deliver that Message to Garcia!  He's been waiting a long time.

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog.

Life of Pie

Malachi is quite the baker.  He can whip up the most decadent brownies you ever tasted.  His analytic mind enjoys taking on a new recipe.  He likes to add his own unique touch, too.  Sometimes I help him, and his efforts turn out pretty well.  Other times I leave him alone, and the results are stellar.  This taught me something.  As much as I want to help my son by sharing what I know, we all invariably receive a better outcome when I leave him alone to let his creativity do its job.  The worst thing that happens is that he asks for my help next time, if his efforts don't turn out to his liking.  It's a process, one in which we get to bond and I get to teach him independence and life- skills, all at the same time.

If you are a girl, you are not allowed to be a messy cook.  If you are a boy, you can leave a mess to rival Chernobyl, and be lauded as a hero.  This engenders some gender hate in me that it ought not.  Consequently, sometimes Malachi does not discern my approbation and approval of his hard work in the midst of all my yelling about the state of our rachet kitchen.  Nothing he does or fails to do will make it better, really.  I just try to keep him aware of the need to clean up behind himself and keep our problems down to the minimum.  To him it just sounds like nagging.

I'm not one of those 'joy of cooking' types.  I gain my pleasure from watching people enjoy the food I've prepared.  This is a nice way of saying that I'm a moody cook.  Depending upon my emotional state, the same ingredients can get you a sumptuous meal or slop pigs would reject outright.  There's a lesson in this

too.  If I could approach meal preparation and life preparation with a little less emotion, my life would be much more manageable.  I could recognize the flashes of intuition that serve me so well without all the background noise that makes them hard to pinpoint.

Allowing Malachi to assemble this here instead of in the kitchen was a major capitulation for me.

What I learn from letting Malachi do his own thing in the kitchen is hard to quantify.  I let him learn on his own.  That's good.  I think he knows that real men feed themselves.  That's good.  What's not as good is recognizing my need to teach him "my way" of doing things.  Even though I know he needs to develop his own mode of living, it took me a long time to learn to do as well as I do with what I have.  I want to teach him all I know about surviving, so it will become the foundation of a life that thrives.  He can't learn how to do more than survive unless I do, too.  He may possess the requisite personality and acumen to achieve a life of abundance on his own, but it'll be a lot easier on him if his mom can marshal her talents into something lucrative, and soon.

Malachi and his brother are going to come of age in The New Millennium.  The world is already a much different place than it used to be.  The way he earns a living for his family may be in a manner I or his grandparents could never imagine.  My sons need to be prepared for this.  Many people in my circumstances have their heads deeeep in the sand about this.  They are not preparing their children to compete in a world they don't understand.  They've given up and are just trying to sustain the quality of life they have always known. Some are letting them wade in deep over their heads, into technology; into adult themes; and into the uncharted territory of the Wild, Wild Web.  Others are like me, a crossing guard with a dinky sign, trying to usher the little ones across a six-lane freeway.   Malachi got on the Information Autobahn at the age of eleven in a Lamborghini, with no license.  Hadn't even learned to DRIVE.  I threatened to freestyle on F**book, and disaster was averted.  I think he has a future blogging for the brands he loves.

Even I will facetiously refer to this as "brand whoring." It's a shocking depiction, but its veracity is undeniable.  Maybe I should stop characterizing it this way.  All I know is that Mali's friends emulate him.  The affluent ones are more socially flexible than before.  The ones on his financial plateau go out for soccer for the first time in their lives, and make a smashing success of it.  Malachi just smiles when I ask him if Tyheim ever had an interest in soccer before they met.  "I don't know, mom.  If I remember, I'll ask him."  READ: "I don't need to know he tried something new because I was doing it first, and neither do you."  So I learned that there's a special kind of humility that natural athletes can have and share.  I also learned that my son has admirable qualities that arise and originate with him alone.  It's up to me to help him translate these qualities into a bright future.  I love being a mom.  It forces me far above and beyond what I might ever accomplish for myself.

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog.

#FriendsofMalachiMaxwellGlass