Bearing Witness

Bearing Witness

Tonight my niece’s husband and two children came over for dinner. We haven’t seen them all year thanks to concerns about their kids’ and our COVID vulnerability (their kids have CF and we have old age). It all came off without any hitches and their daughter Mila was able to test out our new Moonstruck Madness games area. She pretty much played all the available games; mini-golf, bocce, disc golf, horseshoes and cornhole. The only one where I discovered a flaw in the plan was the main event of mini-golf, where the decided downhill slant of the surface makes the holes extra challenging. This is not news and it really was anticipated, but living is slightly different from suspecting it. No matter, the hidden snakes and all the obstacles were a big hit all around, as were the fancy golf balls and colorful putters, discs, bean bags, bocce balls and horseshoes. It was fun to see Mila running from game to game with enthusiasm. It was exactly the reaction I was hoping for.

It was also a good gathering because I have rarely see these relatives except at larger gatherings like last Christmas when we have about twenty or so friends and relatives all vying for disjointed attention with one another. I usually get a moment of two to connect with them, but this evening we got to talk far more in depth than we perhaps ever have before. And there is so much to meaningfully discuss these days. There is nothing trite or trivial these days on the agenda. It’s all about staying healthy, staying or getting close to loved ones, educating our children and finding meaningful and productive work. I think if you had to delineate the most meaningful things in life, there’s a good chance the primary colors of life are those four things. So, talking about such important things with one another makes for an enriching evening.

I learned about how the combination of CF and COVID has transpired to put their daughter Mila’s socialization and education on hold, which, as difficult as that decision might be, is the right choice in the long run. The prioritization of those four important things must always begin with personal safety and health. The Chinese understood that thousands of years ago and built it into its proverbs. The rest of the world knew the same thing instinctively. Meanwhile, Mila’s mother is doing her job non-stop as a clinical psychologist and administrator. Not quite a first responder activity, but pretty damn near the front lines with all the psychological burden being inflicted on the world in these times. Dad is also going to work each day with only a little less constraint. His is a commercial job, but there is no dishonor in that, as they say, someone has to pay the bills. As for baby Reece, well, at fourteen months, he has the toughest job of all, trying to figure out things like how to walk and how to tell everyone what he wants from moment to moment.

One of the most interesting discussions I had with Dad was about what I’ve been up to in 2020. It’s always interesting to be forced to reprise your life on the spur of the moment and see what you come up with. In this instance I explained the vestigial nature of my CEO job, the teaching work which is even more a rerun of both ten years of prior teaching and seven years of NY Wheel experiences which form the case of the curriculum. I found myself talking about my expert witness work with great enthusiasm. I was asked about the substance of the specific cases I have been involved with this year (there are three going on four cases, each one more different from the next and all very interesting).

I have always accepted and acknowledged my storytelling capabilities and how they find their way into almost everything I do. As a CEO its called the vision of the firm and the narrative of the projections. As a teacher, my storytelling is my primary tool for getting across the basic principles I feel cannot be learned from a book and can only be found in the practicum. So, as you might imagine, I can turn three or four case studies in litigation into great tales of business drama and the human condition. It actually doesn’t require too much imagination or hyperbole to make these cases interesting. Litigation is always about human emotions from what I can see. One case is about pride and greed, another is about … pride and greed, and the third has been about….more pride and greed. I’m just guessing here, but I’m betting that the next case will also about pride and greed. And of course, that is why you need a storyteller to recount these stories in the same way that every song is about love, soaring, unrequited or unconditional. It is the job of the storyteller and the singer to give the audience the opportunity to see the differences in the texture of the situations.

It was great to be able to articulate these feelings to someone as a way of validating how worthwhile the expert witness experience has been for me this year. I’m not sure I knew that I needed a transitional vocation and I certainly didn’t realize that I would so thoroughly enjoy the linkage to my forty-five years of professional activity. Tonight I got to hear from someone I respect that he found it fascinating that I always seem to come up with something interesting to do with my time and effort and that I always seem to find a way to make the telling of it even more interesting. That may be the best and most meaningful compliment I could ever ask for. As a professional I have taken well to bearing witness. As a storyteller, it is what I have always wanted to do and done by my very nature.