Snap Out of It!
My son-in-law, John, just sent a Facebook post asking for lines that fans can easily identify with a favorite movie. My favorite movie (determined long ago as such) is Moonstruck. It stars Cher, Nicholas Cage, Danny Aiello, Vincent Gardenia, Olivia Dukakis, and a host of great character actors. My favorite line from the movie (and there are so many noteworthy lines from which to choose) is when Cher slaps Nicholas Cage after they have had sex and Cage is waxing romantic about wanting to marry her despite her being engaged to his older brother. She tells his to “Snap out of it!” The best part of this movie, along with the Italian music backdrop, are the various monologues and dialogues by all the characters, pondering many of life’s greatest mysteries. Why is the moon so big? Why do men chase women? Why did I lose my hand? Why do I have bad luck with marriage? Why do dogs howl at the moon? They are non-stop from start to finish and are what makes this movie so whimsical and intelligently uplifting, along with its salute a la familia.
Today is the last day of our weeklong trip to New York City. We’ve spent a day celebrating son Thomas’ engagement to the lovely Jenna by going to Milford, Connecticut to be with Jenna’s family. We spent Tuesday driving back and forth to Lewes, Delaware to spend the day with son Roger and his wife Valene in their new sweet home town. Wednesday, Kim and I babysat the grandkids with Kim playing mail with the girls while Carolyn and I planned our improvements to their backyard. Thursday, while Kim went for visits and grooming into Manhattan, I went with Carolyn to Home Depot on Staten Island to load the car from front to back with our chosen rubber pavers (200 of them) and installation paraphernalia. Friday became installation day for me and Carolyn. When I am at home I am refining my back yard, so why shouldn’t I spend my time in Brooklyn helping Carolyn refine her backyard for the pleasure of her family? We probably cut and laid 175 pavers, finishing off about 95% of the paver work between our morning and afternoon sessions. Friday night was a family dinner in Brooklyn and Saturday morning at the Botanic Garden and lunch was more of the same. A la familia.
We cancelled our motorcycle trip to Spain and Portugal due to the COVID Delta situation. We chose to keep our New York flight and extended that stay to spend a week with the kids, and that’s what we’ve done. No matter what anyone says to me about our decision to cancel the Spain trip (a decision with which almost everyone agrees), I will always feel that it was a good decision, if for no other reason, because we got to spend a full week with the kids. I’ve been an absentee father for most of thirty-two years and I don’t want to be absent any more than I have to be.
Actually, I have a running debate with my kids about how much cat should be in the cradle as they build out their lives. In general, I was raised by a mother who believed in breeding independence in her children, especially me as a male child without the benefit of a father in my life. Once I reached adulthood, my mother may have visited regularly (several times per year), but her input into the directions of my life was intentionally minimal. She wanted me to do what she had done, formulate my own life plan. So, I am always careful not to burden my children with my desire to interject myself into their plans or life. I want to be whatever the opposite of a helicopter mom is. I made life decisions that forced me to live apart from my kids (but not too far apart) when they needed me most as children. I was extremely diligent to remain actively in their lives at every chance my divorce decrees and their mothers would allow. I was also highly deferential to their mothers’ wishes at every step since I recognized and respected their primary parenting roles. But, nonetheless, I was adamant at making them aware that I was always only a phone call away at any time and for any purpose. But that was a fix, and no more than a fix. I wish I could have been by their sides at every moment of their young lives, but some combination of primordial obligation to go out and kill the wildebeest and my personal hunter wanderlust left me to be the best absentee father I could be. I now want to be the best damn non-invasive, but ever-present absentee father I can be.
On our last day here in New York City, we spent some time arranging our next two visits to New York over the next six months. That involves Kim coordinating schedules and travel plans with the kids. Between now and December, when or next trip is planned, we have at least Thomas and Jenna coming for a few day visit. Otherwise, we will do what we all must these days, rely on FaceTime and Zoom. While I have a few vestigial friends who might be in NYC at any given time, life these days is such that more and more people are finding ways to live and/or work outside of the City. That means that a visit to NYC is 90+% about seeing the kids with the remaining 10% about a lunch or dinner here and there and perhaps, increasingly as things open up post-COVID (so far, very slowly), a show or event here or there.
Our lives are far more governed by this Pandemic than any of us could have ever imagined. Before it began, we had no clue that something external, and certainly not something biological, could govern our lives this way. When it began early last year and we were forced to postpone trips and events, it was an inconvenience we thought would have finite impact measured in months, not years. As we have run into the vaccination hurdles and seen the soft underbelly of our divided political nation as well as the nationalistic protectionism all around the world, we have grooved ourselves to expect this to continue to one degree or another for an indefinite time. I don’t know just yet whether we collectively feel we will be permanently on our biological and medical guard such that gathering events become less and less popular and common and travel becomes a need-to-go thing versus the fly-off-on-a-whim life we used to lead. Prioritization is slowly becoming a necessary part of our thinking and it is a filter that everyone applies very specifically to suit their needs and circumstances.
Our nephew Will is scheduled to give a wedding celebration in a month or so. This has already gone through one year of postponement. He and Ashley have now formally married at City Hall and are awaiting their planned celebration for friends and family. But there is controversy. Some in the family believe the celebration is ill-advised or at least ill-timed…again. So, Will is calling all attendees to explain the physical event and the conformity or breaches to social distancing and vaccination protocol. He is giving all attendees an honest opportunity to assess their feelings about attending under the circumstances, which include everything from their own vulnerability to the protocols to the global and local state of the Pandemic and its infectiousness. This is a degree of reflection and honest interaction that will become more common.
I thought for sure that by now we would have snapped out of COVID caution mode, but not so. I would gauge our status as equally to more conservative than ever. As much as we all want to and are ready to snap out of it, we are forced to use that old punchline…not so fast, Abernathy.