Back, to the Future

If you are reading this, then God bless you, as Mitch Hedberg wouldn't say. I have been absent from the blog world for a while now, because I have been moving in the real world, from Dallas to San Antonio. This was the 10th move in my life of 25 years, and the fourth move in my married life of five years. Growing up as the son of a minister, I became accustomed to life on the move. We never lived anywhere more than six years, which I guess is a long time relative to a 25-year life span, but still... it was as though I always knew no place was permanent. The only certainty was change, so becoming attached to any one place was both difficult and far too easy. While resisting the natural inclination to put down roots, I found my "branches" clinging for dear life to each new home, new school, new church, new friends, even the new insignificant places, like the nearest movie theater or favorite restaurant. I became so attached to the places we lived that moving became a sort of liturgical experience. I imbued each event of every day leading up to a move with a reverence and solemnity, as though performing some mystical rite of passage from the old to the new. It was The Last Time to Drive Down That Road, or The Final Holiday In This House. I know it had as much to do with my ritualistic nature as it did with the frequency of the moves, but it became my way of letting go and accepting the tide of change that accompanies a move.
Despite these well-ingrained tendencies, I found this most recent move to be much easier than those past. I think it was because the decision to move to Dallas two and a half years ago was mine (made with my wife, of course) for the first time. We made the decision based on what seemed right at the time, and together with God's help we made it happen. So perhaps the decision to move on was more easily made the second time. or maybe it was just in the power to chose that I found a peace about having to leave something behind.
The strange part about this move, however, was the fact that I was moving back to somewhere I had lived before. I went to college in San Antonio, and lived off-campus the last two years, so it was the first place I really lived after leaving my parents' home. When we moved to Dallas I was near my parents again, but it wasn't really a homecoming, because they had moved there right before I left for college. so Dallas was a place I knew only as somewhere that I visited my parents. but coming back to San Antonio was strange, because I had trained myself to let it go. Every time I moved with my parents, I spent much of my time in our new place longing for the one we'd left behind, wishing I could go back and re-live all the memories. Sometimes I would do just that on a visit, but I always knew - or had to learn - that that part of my life was in "the past". Now, I find myself driving all the same streets and frequenting the same places I did when I was in college, and not just to visit, but as a resident... and I don't know how to process it. It's as though the last two and half years were just a really long vacation, complete with its share of bad weather (i.e., struggles), but in all, an invigorating sabbatical at the spiritual oasis of our cathedral and my family's home.
I know we were in Dallas for important reasons, reasons that are not invalidated by our descision to move back here. but it's strange to finally be able to have what I always thought I wanted - another chance to live in a place I loved - when my situation has changed so completely. I started a family in Dallas. My wife and I fully embraced the new wholeness of our faith in the Orthodox Church. I finally shed the limitations of an occupation that I didn't believe myself capable of outgrowing. It's like a weird Dickensian deja-viewmaster; the scenes are familiar, but the action is always unfolding. How amazing to consider that God exists in this state omnisciently, unbound by time and distance, eternally present unto ages of ages...
I didn't intend this post to be so "heavy", but then I also didn't intend to still be writing it at 1 a.m. Thanks for plowing through, and thanks to those who prayed us through our transition. God grant us the grace to make the most of every opportunity, like the provision of sleeping kids and a fast computer.

too cute not to post

This child's Reading Rainbow is mostly red

As I've mentioned before, I have a two-year old who isn't talking yet, except to say "no" and "oh no". My wife and I feel partially responsible for this, thinking maybe we didn't read to him enough when he was an infant. They say it doesn't matter what you read, as long as the child hears the sounds and cadence of the words. Now we have a four-month old, and we're trying not to make the same mistake with her. To that end, I thought it would be a great idea to read to her from the book I'm currently into, Finn Mac Cool by Irish author Morgan Llywelyn, about the legendary Celtic warrior of the title. Ms. Llywelyn's poetic command of the English languange has made her my favorite author, so I thought, who better to introduce my daughter to the wonderous beauty of our native tongue? Proud of myself for making this Baby Einstein connection, I sat her on my lap yesterday and began to read aloud from where I'd last left off:

"In battle skills he was not superior, nor even equal, to Finn, who hacked through his knees with an angled blow of his sword, then thrust Fiachaid's spear through the man's throat and left him dying, pinned to the earth he'd tried to win."

I closed the book. She looked up at me, a little more wide-eyed than usual.
"Maybe we should just play pat-a-cake."

Noises Off!

How do you know when you are watching the funniest movie of all time? When you laugh so hard you almost throw up. This had never happened to me before last night, watching - for the second time - the movie Noises Off!. It was nothing I ate, it was not stomach flu, it was the movie. My wife actually handed me a bucket.
Originally written as a play, the movie follows a group of inept stage actors trying to perform a Broadway-bound play. The play is a farce, all double entendres and sight gags, and their production of it is a screwball comedy of errors; everyone's clueless and hapless. So the play-within-the-movie is hilarious by itself, but every time they foul it up, it gets dangerously funny. gastrointestinal-disturbingly funny.
Like a play, the movie is structured in three "acts". Act one takes place the night before the play opens, at their final dress rehearsal. They can barely get through it, stopping every two minutes for a prop malfunction or an actor's dysfunction. Yet despite these constant setbacks, this ends up being the most cohesive performance of the play that we see. We catch up with the company a few months later for the second act, in the middle of their off-Broadway run. This time we see the play from behind the scenes, literally, as the actors make their frantic entrances, exits, quick changes and prop switches. Only by now, the personal "drama" among the cast members has them at each others' throats, and they end up sabotaging each others' performances. The act has almost no dialogue other than what's overheard onstage, so it's a side-splitting 15 minutes of physical comedy. And finally, we see the play again a few weeks later, when everything has fallen apart. Lines are forgotten, entire scenes ad-libbed, at least two of the actors are completely drunk, and by the time they call "curtain", everyone is at their wit's end--including everyone watching the movie.
I don't know who originated the roles in the stage version, but the movie cast is superlative. Michael Caine plays the harried director to perfect comic effect, devolving from frustrated to infuriated to manic. The incomparable Carol Burnett portrays the leading lady - of the play and the movie - and reminds us why we'll always love Miss Hannigan. As the classic bumbler, the late John Ritter displays indubitably that he is the founder and Headmaster Emeritus of the school of comedy from which Mike Myers and Jim Carrey have graduated with honors. And speaking of late-greats, Christopher Reeve showcases his often overlooked comedy skills as the dashing but dim-witted matinee idol type. Throw in Denholm Elliot (best known as Indiana Jones' sidekick Dr. Marcus Brody) and Mark Lynn Baker (best known as Balki's Cousin Larry on Perfect Strangers) and you have one heck of an ensemble. Even Nicolette Sheridan - very pre-Desperate Housewives - holds her own as the airhead blonde, who ends up being the only one to keep it together when it all falls apart.
Bottom line (no pun intended): this is a can't-miss comedy, even for those without personal experience in "the thea-tah". And if you like it, check out these other modern screwball comedy classics: "What's Up, Doc?" (by the same director, Peter Bogdanovich), Clue, and The Money Pit. Just remember to eat light beforehand.

Where the wild things are

My four-month old daughter has developed a new talent: screaming like a banshee. It starts as a cute little murmur, quickly rolls into a full-throated howl, and crescendos in a piercing shriek of operatic lung capacity. seriously, she can go a good 15 seconds without taking a breath. My wife has started calling her Tara, short for pterodactyl. No students of paleontology we, but if they make a Land Before Time part CCLXVIII, she could be the voice of Petrie's descendants. Now try to imagine the sound I just described backed by the ambient noise of a pack of hyenas, and that's our apartment when the two-year old is awake. He can't talk, and when he isn't laughing like a maniac, he's babbling like one--all while scampering around like one of the lemurs in Madagascar. These two aural effects combine to create a cacophony of chaos that composes the soundtrack of my life... okay I'm exaggerating. actually it usually only lasts about 10 minutes, until I put the banshee in a bouncy chair or give the lemur a lollipop. But if you ever call our house and it sounds like we have the Nature Channel turned up way too loud, just be thankful you don't live where the wild things are.

Ella at 75% volume