In The Morning, I Rise

What are mornings like for you?  Are you an early riser or someone who sleeps til noon?  Do you sleep like a log or toss and turn all night?  For me, no matter what my sleep was like the night before, I’m up early and ready to go.  This habit is not new - I remember getting up early Sunday mornings when I was very young and everyone in the house was still asleep.  I walked out onto Meryl Lane, a dead-end street in Great Neck, and saw no one!  It’s 6 am, and there I am, a 7-year-old kid waiting for everyone to wake up and play.

There I was, alone in the middle of the street.  A warm June morning with haze just hanging in the air and the songs of birds that filling the air.  My best friend, David Shafman, lived across the street.  I wanted him to be awake so we could have a catch, we both loved baseball!  I had seen a TV show where the kid threw rocks at the person’s window to wake the person up.  I grabbed up a few small rocks and positioned myself under his second story house.  My first rock was way too light and went nowhere.  My next one was marble sized and fit in my hand perfectly.  I threw it and it sailed in through the two-inch opening at the top of the window.  The other throws failed to hit the window and wake David up.  I went home.  It turned out that I broke a lamp in David’s room, and it wasn’t noticed for days.  I never told anyone that it was me!

Mornings have always been spiritual to me.  In college, I would stay up after going out so that I could walk to the end of the inlet in Southampton and see the sun rise.  The mornings renewed me, no matter how sad I was from the night before.  I would feel hope and possibilities and the excitement to pursue them.  After college I got out of the habit, and my sleep suffered.  I taught tennis and the schedule was crazy! Late nights, early mornings, no real schedule, just the hustle to teach lessons anytime.  My favorite lessons were the early morning lessons at people’s homes.  On these mornings I gave my best lessons and had the most fun teaching.

Mornings changed after I got married.  Jobs, responsibilities, and the newness of marriage made mornings not so fun.  My enthusiasm was replaced with fatigue and my wife was worse, she hated early mornings!  We ate different things for breakfast, we needed to be a work at different times, and we both had no real experience with building a nest.  Life was both wonderful and chaotic and our sleep suffered.   It wasn’t until after our first child was born that my wife and I figured out the whole marriage/parent thing.  It was in the nick of time for big changes, both of us had gained weight and felt sluggish. 

First thing that we changed was our diet.  Then we added as much exercise as our schedule allowed.  Then after 10 years of marriage, I returned to a rhythm of my youth and I started getting up early.  I forgot the feeling of being alone as the world slept.  The purity of the morning before the pollution of the day.  A perfect start to a perfect day.  The present surely is the greatest gift we are given, and the morning is the opening of that gift and a fulfillment of that promise.  My sleep became deeper and more restful, and my health improved. 

Five years later, we had purchased and moved into my wife’s childhood home.  A short distance away was Cedar Creek Park: it had tennis courts, handball courts, and a beautiful variety of recreational areas and it was just a great park.  One early morning, I found myself holding my tennis racket and felt a longing to play.  I had quit tennis after hurting my shoulder and getting it repaired 8 years before.  I had additional hard feelings about my father, a former tennis great and I didn’t want to play if I sucked!  I found myself at the wall with a can of balls and my tennis rackets.  It was a warm summer morning and I started hitting against the wall.  I had a spiritual awaking there and fell in love with tennis like when I was young.  My shoulder was pain free and I started hitting ground strokes that made the wall move.  Both my forehand and backhand were hit extremely hard and incredibly consistent.  My tennis had improved somehow, and that morning was my spiritual awaking.  

I’m older now, but I still wake up around 6 am every morning. I still feel excitement for the day and have a sense of possibility.  I always feel like today is going to be a great day and I must somehow be ready for it.  The birds that are up seem to welcome me and they seem to know what so few of us silly humans don’t: the early bird gets the worm.  For me, the early bird gets their choice of tennis court!  We RISE together but use the bathroom at different times!

The Incredible Mystery of Parenting

What did you learn from your parents?  Did you pick up a hobby or two from family members?  My parents had very different hobbies and did them in a different way. 

My mother was a skier.  As a young adult, she would teach skiing on European ski tours.  She was a very good skier and as a family we went on ski trips to both the Northeast and out West.  My father wasn’t a very good skier and had problems with his hips, so the act of skiing was not comfortable, but he did it to keep my mother happy.

My father was a golfer.  He attended the University of Miami on a full athletic scholarship for tennis.  His team won national championships in three out of the four years he played.  There, he picked up golf.  The folks around Miami enjoyed playing with the college phenom and this allowed my father a chance to play a great deal of golf.  It would be a practice he would keep up until his death at 88.  My mother did not play golf, but she would go to the range and hit balls along side my dad. 

My parents were determined to share their hobbies with me, and I got very good at both skiing and golf at a young age.  For decades, I would visit with my parents by playing golf or traveling with them to go skiing.  I still remember the last time I skied and played golf with my parents.  Unfortunately, both are expensive and I just couldn’t afford to keep doing either.  Art turned out to be the way my mother and I connected.  Tennis was the way I connected with my father, even though it would become a point of conflict after my father stopped playing.

All that time and effort my parents put into influencing me and trying to guide me towards a full life.  The results must have been a great mystery to them.  I did something so different than what they put effort into.  My career as a tennis instructor was looked down at by my father. He didn’t want me to become a cripple like him, so he constantly tried to get me to change careers.  My mother did everything possible to stop me from publishing a comic I both wrote and illustrated.

My parents are gone now, and now I’m the parent.  I was determined not to force my hobbies on my family, but the universe doesn’t work like that and any parent will explain the incredible mystery that is parenting.  Words are meaningless sometimes and there are days where every action yields a negative reaction.  You can spend weeks managing a discipline issue, and all of a sudden, without any input from you, things change for the better.  Children are youth-fueled chaos machines!  Children are also life’s greatest gift and a source of unbelievable love and happiness.

I spent years as a tennis pro and have an incredible love of tennis, but my family, not so much!  I tried to share skiing with my wife and that idea flopped like a “Led Zeppelin.” My family loves games, and they all copy my gamer’s nature.  I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons for more than 30 years, but it was always something I did with other people.  I did run games for my sons when they were older, but they have no interest in any more.

But… My older son now runs D&D games and he has copied many of my best Dungeon Master traits, without being taught.  My younger son loves card and video games, something we did when he was very young.  My younger son also loves music, something that is ever-present in my home.  How is it that all my efforts and guidance never has its intended consequences?  Not bad outcomes, but gratifying and surprising.  My wife loves things now I never imagined she would ever love, like Kung Fu movies or tennis.  The futility of effort!

It turns out it’s more important to be “who you are” rather than what you say.  My family works so hard to be like me, how did I get this lucky?  The idea of “being” a good person seems more important than acting like a good person.  It seems very clear that it is our actions and examples that others learn from and all the cajoling means nothing.  Americans find the idea that being a good human being is lost in media bombardment and an educational system that has been taken over by big business.  As a father, I must understand that the “act of parenting” is not parenting, but being a good human. And that is all the guidance most individuals need.

Smoking Pot with your Parents/Kids!

My friend Jordon gets high with his parents.  His mother makes him pot cookies, asks questions about smoking gear, and basically gives him enough material to have a comedy routine based on it.  I laughed when Jordon talked about hanging out with his Dad, getting stoned, and buying jeans.  All I could think of that it was such a wonderful thing that this family was so close, and cannabis was part of all their lives.  Knowing that this kind of situation can be real and beneficial, I wondered what kind of advice I could give parents and kids about this new NORML!

I have never known anyone to overdose on pot.  Cannabis is not physically addictive; maybe psychologically, but not the horrible addicting effects of opioids.  I think that cigarettes and most prescription medications are more dangerous than cannabis.  The side effects of many medications, alcohol, and cigarettes can kill you.  That is just not going to happen to you from smoking a joint or enjoying bong hits!  The cannabis and hemp plants have been some of the most beneficial crops to humans for thousands of years.  It’s time to adjust the way we deal with this issue with our family.

Be honest! Parents and kids need to be honest about their enthusiasm for cannabis.  It is important to be kind as you discuss your opinions, make sure that you do not judge, but to share how you feel and why.  Try not to “shock” others with your prowess on consuming or smoking tons of pot.  Instead, talk about how cannabis makes you feel and how your enjoyment is not based on peer pressure or trying to be cool.  Unfortunately, some people don’t like pot and live with the fact that there still remains fear from bad drugs. 

For me, cannabis fits into my personal philosophy, enjoy life in moderation.  I can’t hide that I have a slight cough from doing bong hits for over 35 years, but thankfully in doesn’t impact my health that much.  I’m physically fit, in fact, more fit than I was 20 years ago.  I would explain that smoking cannabis has actually helped my health.  It has taught me that there is an alternative to traditional medicine and that it is more important what you put in you.  Smoking before I work-out has enhanced my experience playing tennis and doing yoga and allows me to be in the moment.  I have never enjoyed these activities more in my life!

Do I smoke pot with my kids?  I’m not ready yet.  My wife doesn’t smoke, and I feel self-conscious when she watches me get high.  Maybe when the social stigma is less around here: Long Island is not the most liberal place.  In fact, it’s the opposite.  The average local is close-minded and poorly educated.  When I travel to nearby Brooklyn, it’s like going to another country, a place where folks are friendly and open-minded. I’m waiting for the day when pot is no big deal, and the idea of getting high with your kids is as common as sharing a beer.