Three Years and Five Days

Another poem written a few years back. I think many of us struggle with sibling rivalry.  Important to note that this is clearly all my own perception and my own feelings. I have worked on myself a lot over the past few years. Katey and I often talk about our similarities and differences and love each other dearly, not to say sibling rivalry didn't exist. 

For all of the parents out there, how do you deal with this? My parents had nothing but love and support for me, yet I felt this way as a child. What can I do when I have children to ensure this isn't a cycle??

Three Years and Five Days

Same man, same woman, three years and five days later

Same family, same clothes--in the beginning

Same school system, same town under the same sky

Eyes towards the heavens gazing at the stars

Nature versus nurture…the answer becomes clearer.

Night

 A few years back, I wrote some poems, I may use this blog as a way to share some of them. I have never shared them before, so please, be gentle.... This first poem is trying to capture the fear and difficulty I have always had with the dark, night and trying to sleep. 

I am sometimes still unsure how I survived those scary, sleepless nights.  The amount of fear I had as a child makes me sad. It makes me wish I could hug my 8 year old self. While things are a bit better, to this day, I struggle with the night

Night

the sun sets behind the clouds

looking up at the sky i smile

morphing as i walk up my stairs to bed

slowly…….

Rootstrikers

Part of me hates that I find myself writing a blog while on vacation, but I guess it goes to show that I find this to be important enough to brain dump as quickly as possible. Not only am I on vacation, but this is my last night here in Hampton Beach, NH.

I have alluded to Lawrence Lessig in previous blogs. For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Lessig, I highly suggest you look him up. An Intellectual Property lawyer and professor, by trade, turned into a political activist I highly admire. I was lucky enough to see him speak at All Souls last year and have been a witness to the adorableness of watching Greg look up to him for years.

Mr. Lessig is most recently known for his stance on money in politics. More specifically, for his arguments for the need to get money 100% out of politics, and elections more specifically. There are numerous lectures on-line  you can watch to learn more about Mr. Lessig, his stance and his Rootstriker mentality http://www.rootstrikers.org.

Basically the thought is that until you find the root of any problem and are able to strike down the problem at its root cause, it will continue to be a problem. I feel like there are so many major issues in the world we are all afraid or unwilling to discuss. We don't take the time to think about what the root cause of any problem is, so we try and attack the peripheral issues, never ever solving the root issue.  Mr. Lessig (and I) believe that with all of the corruption in politics, the low levels of confidence in congress, the stalemate that Washington has currently perfected, the lackluster amount of those who vote in elections (after so many fought and died for the right to vote), the root problem to all of this in money in elections and money in politics. People feel like their vote doesn't matter and won't make a difference because they know that in the end, big money usually wins.

What 5 year olds teach me

A more appropriate title for this blog is probably, what kids teach me, but I figured I would narrow it down a bit more, as kids can be a bit harder to define.

I feel like I spent my entire childhood wishing away the wonderful moments. I couldn't wait until I could go on dates, I couldn't wait until I could drive a car,  I couldn't wait until I lived on my own, I couldn't wait until I had no curfew, could drink, could vote, could go to college, could get married and could have kids. From the time I was about 10 years old, I feel like I spent my entire childhood waiting for the next big moment. The next big event. I was always living for that next moment.

I look back on those years wishing I had fully enjoyed and embraced my ability to live in the moment and just be a kid. Sure, other than excitedly awaiting my birthday and Christmas each year, I think I did a pretty good job living in the moment when I was under 10. Kid enough to not yet realize the things I was supposed to feel like I was missing out on. I often feel very grateful that I was the oldest child in my immediate family, at least I didn't have an older sibling making me wish I would grow up even faster, even more so than I already was. Don't get me wrong, I had plenty of friends with older siblings that gave me glimpses of the life I had to look forward to, when I was in middle school (that infamous 8th grade dinner dance), when I was in high school and all of the parties (ha ha that never happened), sports and proms and then when I was in college.

Umbrellas

I truly look forward to this post, in large part because it is meant to be a very lighthearted one. My recent blog posts have been very real and raw. I have opened myself up in new ways and it has all been a bit scary and a bit freeing, all at the same time. As the title shows you, this isn't a deep post. We shall see how this all goes as I try to type with an ice pack on my wounded robo-cop type hand.

There are so many wonderful things about NYC, many of which I have already addressed in past posts. There is one aspect of NYC living that I am not sure many realize. Growing up in a small town, we would drive pretty much everywhere, aside from walking or running around the loop and on the field, court or diamond. If we needed to pick something up at CVS, we would drive, if we wanted to get groceries, we would drive. I am sure I owned an umbrella in high school and college, but I don't particularly remember owning one. I always knew I never had to walk further than the distance from the car door to the front door of wherever I was headed. I never needed to really worry about the weather, except for the excitement that would come along with possible snow days and those freezing field hockey and softball games that would occur in the rain and cold.

Break-through

This blog initially came to me while I was walking home one evening. As I was strolling along listening to the classic "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town", I am sure, I noticed a plant that was growing through the side walk. I am sure we have all see these little victories of nature. Roots pushing up sidewalks, trees growing around rocks to reach towards that life-sustaining sun and in my case, a little plant that had broken its way through the sidewalk. It had a will to live, for sure.

It really made me start to think about how amazing and powerful nature can be. Areas that are devastated by natural and human disasters, from tornadoes, earthquakes, floods and fires to heck, nuclear meltdowns.  Each of these present their own challenges and take a toll on human life, emotions and our willingness to have hope. Most recently we have even been suffering from lack of mother nature, the droughts across this country are crippling and devastating and we will all certainly be feeling the pain at the grocery store this fall when food prices rise.