It’s Tomplicated
I read this morning that Tommy Smothers died. We all remember him and his brother Dickie from their Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour variety TV show during the 1960’s, but I have now learned so much more about him from his obituary. I met Tommy Smothers once on some random airplane ride where he got seated in the window seat next to my aisle seat. Luckily, it was a first class seat, so I did not discomfort him too much. We had a great and very human conversation, not at all like talking distantly to a celebrity, but just like talking to any other ordinary person one might meet along the way. I just had to ask him once if his mother really loved Dickie most, and that was the one I’ve he stayed in character and gave me a wry smile and said that she did indeed.
The obituary I read was written by an older Times reporter who apparently had gotten to know Tommy back in the day and was particularly close to his ex-wife. It seems that Tommy was not the idiot son that he liked to portray in his comedy skits. He was a top-flight musician (acoustic guitar) who played with and was great friends with John Lennon. He was also quite an intelligent man who was quite the oenophile who not only knew everything there was to know about wine, but even ran his own very successful and well-regarded winery in Sonoma. It seems that he was quite the complex man to his family and they are the ones who coined the expression when some interpersonal relationship or another got all twisted up, that it had become a Tomplicated situation. I like that term and have decided to adopt it for my own use.
I have just finished a visit for five days from my son Thomas and his still-newlywed bride, Jenna. Besides being with us for Christmas with the whole Fan-damily, they spent a relaxing several days with us just going in the hot tub, handing out on the deck, playing Yahtzee and visiting all of the local restaurants we could muster. It was a wonderful and lulling few days that they seemed to need from their otherwise busy lives as young professionals and we certainly needed as old retirees trying to overdo it during the holidays. The most Tomplicated thing that went on during their stay was our vicarious experience of dealing with Tom’s Brousin (half brother, half cousin) Will and his wife Ashley’s household assault. It seems that someone with a deep grudge broke into their small Pacific Beach home while they and their guests were sleeping and stole coats and boots (not iPhones and wallets), left the doors open to the elements and slashed car tires. The shock and awe of such a home invasion was made all the worse by the same sort of assault occurring the next night with someone urinating on their door and throwing one of their own boots through a window. There are many things in this world to be fearful about, but few are more disconcerting than such a random and personal act of violence. There does not seem to be any explanation of what happened, what provoked it or whether it will continue. Obvious precautions including a note on the door to apologize for whatever transgression provoked the violence, Ring cameras, flood lights, and even a friend with a Rottweiler to stand guard have been put into place. The real point is that such an act undermines one’s sense of security to the core and cannot be undone or solved. It is a reminder to us all about the thin line in which all of our lives hang in the balance. It is Tomplicated, but not very reassuring.
Yesterday, after a nice brunch of mochachinos, cinnamon buns and egg-bites at Mike & Melisa’s, we spared with a changing flight departure schedule and finally took Tom and Jenna for a Mexican dinner at Old Town, since that is near that airport and could accommodate one way or the other any last minute adjustments to their departure time. We took Buddy with us (he is a very accommodative dining companion that does not know how to or why to beg for people food, so he just naps in Kim’s lap) and had a nice fondido, carnitas and fajita dinner. It was funny that this request for a nice Mexican meal came from Jenna since we had chosen so many restaurants during the week, but none of them were Mexican. We here in San Diego tend to take Mexican food for granted, but non-residents like Jenna take it as a treat not to be missed. Sometimes staying unTomplicated is the best answer.
Thomas is my third child and from a different mother than my older two children, Roger and Carolyn. I think it is fair to suggest that children from a second marriage always complicate life just a bit. There is the relationship with the siblings to consider, which in our case I am pleased to report is excellent. There is the ongoing issue of how the holidays will function with the more than normal array of family obligations to consider. And in Thomas’ case there is his marriage to Jenna, a wonderful partner and best friend for him, but of a different faith (Jewish), which while being very similar in upbringing, does have some different cultural roots. We, as an extended family, have taken that all into stride with ease just as if it were the difference between his urban upbringing and her suburban youth. These barriers really are easy to overcome if you have an openness of attitude and allow love to be the prevailing sentiment rather than intolerance or homogeneity. We are a very modern family in all the sense of the word and are happy to be that way.
Unfortunately, the world does not seem to have as easy a time with differences as our family does. In fact, the situation in Gaza right now is a perfect case in point. It is bad enough that innocent people are being hurt on both sides every day by the aggressive back and forth between Israel and Hamas. But the angst has now effectively spread beyond the actual battlefield in Palestine and the bad and strong feelings have migrated into every corner of the world and indeed into many families, including our own. I am not sure what it is about this age-old struggle that has energized so many, but it has.
It’s strange that even in the Western community of Christians, there is a galvanizing effect with some siding with the Jewish community of Israel and others with the Islamic community of Palestine. If you had to pick two religious groups that are most often put-upon in modern society, it would be Jews and Muslims. And this conflict does not neatly separate into religious camps or even neat political segments as we define them to the right and left. Republicans and Democrats support Israel. The American Jewish community is most often characterized as progressive and part of the liberal elite. And yet the most progressive parts of the political and cultural spectrum are tending to side with the Palestinians in this conflict. It is all very confusing, just like the Middle East has been for many centuries.
The current iteration of confusion began seventy-five years ago after the epic genocidal attempts of the Nazis to exterminate the Jews of the world. They came far too close to succeeding, decimating 36% (6 million) of the sect, so much so that the global Jewish population is still not back to its pre-Holocaust levels. That tragedy afforded the Jewish community the global support to form the state of Israel and to do so in a manner that is at best controversial as to the rights of the Palestinian people who previously controlled the area…at least for a period of time. The fundamental problem with the Holy Lands is that they are holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, each with their own version of the history, heritage and truth as to birthright for the place. Now that my son, born and baptized as a Catholic, is wed to a Jewish woman, and by cultural convention will have children that can claim Judaism as their rightful heritage, I now have a very personal stake in this issue and it ceases to be a hypothetical or curious historical one. We, in this family, pride ourselves as liberals and we might even lean toward the progressive. We feel for the oppressed and that means we feel for the plight of Jews and Arabs alike, at least in abstraction. So, all I will say about the state of the family’s feelings and play is that it is all very Tomplicated.