Robbed

I am 5. I don't know much about how my parents make our little world go around, but I can tell that they like it when he is on TV. We stop doing other things and gather together to watch him. He says things that make no sense, but they seem to love it. They laugh. I notice.

I am 6. That same man from the show I love is playing Popeye in a movie. We go to see it together. He is kind to strangers, he stands up for people who have been wronged, and he has a difficult relationship with his Dad. He sings and dances, and everything turns out ok.

I am 9. I have a tape player that I listen to every night as I am falling asleep. It's never music, only stand up. A Night at the Met gets flipped two, three times a night. I listen fiercely, desperate to envision what I am hearing. Trying to comprehend the energy and stamina it takes to release that much, that fast, that perfectly. The laughter is a roar, and it's at an opera house. This feels amazing.

I am 13. Vietnam is one of the hardest things for me to process and understand. I am fearful of it and confused as to how we could have allowed it to happen. He makes a movie that holds my hand, and helps me to understand what it was like. Helps me see that people tried. 

I am 15. Things are hard and my faith in adults is shaken. I can't connect to literature, and I can't connect to school. He shows me that there is value in the connection you make yourself. To art, and to each other. He helps me reassess my values, and find some pride in my view of the world.

I am 17. I am worried about how to become an adult. He shows me that it's ok if a part of you never does. He teaches me how to hang on to the wonder of youth. I realize that what I was, I am, and always will be, no matter what else I also become.

I am 22. He has been more of a Shepard for people younger than I for the last several years, but I still smile when I see or hear him. In one of his most beautiful roles, he teaches me that love is love, and family is family, no matter what. I vow not to forget those lessons ever again.

I am 23. In 2 hours, he teaches me everything I need to know about how to be a man.

I am 38. He appears, out of nowhere, in a role that no other person on the planet could have ever played. His acting in it reminds me of the simple greatness of Abbey Road. A true master deftly practicing his craft. I think on how glad I am to have grown up along with his gifts.

He's had many many other lessons for many many other people. Movies and shows that others connected we more, or needed more. And there were times when he was far too much for me. But there was always something special about him. His smile and his laugh seemed to have it all over us. Part of me is simply hollow at the manner and timing of his loss.

I work near the Public Gardens in Boston, and I often take lunch there. Today I had to get somewhere, but decided to head in to the park to sit for a spell. I can never remember which bench his iconic scene with young Matt Damon was, but I always think of it when I am there. The park holds a lot of real memories for me, and I spend time with most of them when I visit, but that one has sneaked in to the cannon. The real memories all involve friends of mine from various stages of life. Maybe that's why he was able to elbow his way in. He has always been around. Like many friends, sometimes we were close, and sometimes we were distant, but I managed to learn something from him.

Now, I'm 40. Depression is something I have struggled with, and helped others with. I know people who have felt shame, or embarrassment about asking for help with it. If you are one of those people please remember that this man, this man who was known the world over for sharing the joys and depths of the human experience with us all, he was unable to beat depression alone. Get help. Stay here. We need you.   

Time to Reflect

Last night, for a brief moment, I travelled right through time. This particular kind of time travel was very specific, and quite real. Every few years, it seems, a movie or TV show will come along and slightly redefine time travel. They'll add a rule, or treat time travel consequences a bit differently than before. This was nothing like all that, though. Last night I looked at my wife's digital alarm clock display, staring not at the numbers represented, but the glowing LED bars themselves, and I was instantly transported back to a younger version of myself, staring at a similar display many years ago.

These days, I can hardly think of a decent stretch of hours that I am not keenly aware of what time it is. Occasionally I can get lost in my work for a couple of hours, but mostly I know how much time I have before this meeting, or that appointment. I know how much time there is before the store closes, or until I need to start on dinner if we want to eat at a halfway decent hour. Even my sleep is steeped in a measure of awareness. Ever since college, I've had the ability to wake up at a predesignated time simply by thinking about it as I go to sleep. I rarely go without the safety net of an alarm, but if push came to shove, I'd rarely be late.

Of course, like all of us, there was a blissful time in my life where I couldn't even read a digital clock, much less a traditional one. More is to the point, I didn't care to. I had no need to worry about time. My parents and other relatives or sitters handled all that for me. They told me where to be and when like some real time acting gig. They even costumed me. I didn't bother to tell time and it didn't bother me a bit.

Somehow, eventually, I had gotten it in my head that what I needed most was a clock radio. The one I had in mind was a pretty serious machine in my estimation. Dual alarms, sleep timer, wood finish, red LED display, AM/FM radio. I believe it was a Panasonic, and I am willing to bet that quite a few of you, dear readers, can picture the exact one I coveted (and eventually got) just from reading that passage. Suddenly, with this new machine present, my room was a place where things happened at certain times. I had alarms, which would serve to ensure that I was ready to go wherever I was supposed to be taken the next day. I was on a schedule, and it felt great. I remember feeling especially close to the machine at night, when I would employ the sleep timer to its fullest, sometime resetting it just before it shut off after 60 minutes. Staring at those red numbers, listening to talk radio or music, I felt warmth and connection. A primitive version of what we all do all day now with our phones and pads.

I hadn't thought of that feeling in years and years but last night, as I glanced across the bed to see what time it was like I do most nights, it all came rushing back. There I was once again not caring what numbers were being shown to me, but being entranced by the glow of the display. Amazed to think that what now requires blogs, news feeds, and videos was once accomplished by a simple set of three or four digits and a DJ in the middle of the night.

I'm the last person to advocate for any sort of rollback on general technology dependence. I love the iPad I am writing this on and the phone I will post it from. I love Garmins and Sirius radio and iBeacons and EZPasses. The number of things in my life I can do through my phone is exactly what I dreamed of as a little boy. But the lesson that time taught me last night is the same lesson I got from spending time abroad earlier this summer. While we were in Spain, my wife and I were constantly looking up. Robbed of our non-stop cell service and the wealth or resources that come with it, we made plans in the comfort of the hotel wifi and then simply ventured out. Sometimes the plans worked, and other times changes were made by us or forced on us. Either way, it didn't matter.

The point is this: this stuff is wonderful. It's full of wonder. I saw a quote from Ray Kurzweil recently that really stretched my head. He said that a kid with a smartphone in his hand today has access to more information than the President of the United States did just 20 years ago. The effect that fact will have on the planet is hard to measure, or even to conceive of. I don't know how it will impact us, but I know that the impact will be less rich if facts like that are taken for granted. If we can't look back through the years and remember where we came from, we could easily lose track of who we are. If we lose our sense of wonder, it'll happen in no time.