Hindsight is 20/80

I have this horrible habit of blurring the reality of my past experiences with my perception of how they occurred. I suppose it’s the story-teller in me; I embellish the juicy details, I elongate time when it benefits my need for suspense, and I’ll convienently forget the presence of certain individuals or add those who I wish were part of the plot. My stretching of the truth, my palpable examples that change over time… they slowly take place over months and years. Let’s take the story of when I met Tony Danza on my 10th birthday. There are a slew of events I accurately recall.

I remember Barbara Cahn, my frenemy Michael’s mother, coming up to us and saying that Tony Danza was at the batting cages. I remember eating cheese pizza (I didn’t eat pepperoni until my early teens when someone dared me at a Chuck-E-Cheese with the hefty reward of one gold token). I remember there being friends from school and the JCC present but beside from Michael’s mom, I can’t name specific people (I’m not even sure if Michael was there).

Yet when I tell this story, I mention that Barbara Cahn brought me to Tony Danza and told him that it was my birthday. He asked me how old I was turning and when I said “ten,” he replied with a typically male and wonderfully brief “happy birthday, kid.” If I had to make a bet, I would wager money that this actually happened; yet I have my doubts. I’ve been saying this part of the story for so long that I can’t remember if I made it up once and kept to those lines for consistency until the point that I believed it actually happened. Or maybe Tony Danza said something and I’ve just gotten a few lines misquoted along the way.

It seems I am living proof of truthiness. I create my own reality based on what I think my life has been. My imagination has always gotten me into trouble and it’s hard to tell where the facts end and make believe begins.

But despite my inaccuracy with small details and my need for life to be like a plot from a coming-of-age novel, I find this to be one of my favorite qualities about myself. Everything in my life happens for a reason and daily disasters become a source for symbolism. I see myself as a character in my own life, watching from a third-person perspective. Because of this, I often let life happen to me rather than the other way around. But by no means am I a push-over; I just see myself as a bystander reading the story of my existence. I don’t get too upset over unfortunate events because I know the plot will eventually take a turn for the better. I know love will come when it’s meant to arrive and it will be magical.

I have created a world where fact meets fiction and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

Art Lessons with Poppy

I wish I had known my grandfather when he wasn’t insane.

The majority of my memories are sad and pathetic. I remember my grandpa as a man who always complained about his health. He taught me the word hypochondriac before I began studying for my SATs. He was balding, had a huge gut and barely knew how to take care of himself.

He was scared of anything and everything. The first time my brother and I ever experienced a thunderstorm was in 1989 in Los Angeles. My parents left to go food shopping at Vons and the storm came while the old man was watching us. We were frightened because it was the first time we heard thunder, but my grandpa’s intense screaming only made it worse. He had us huddled in a corner of a room, waiting for the storm to pass. Fortunately, my parents knew this would happen so they immediately left the supermarket and saved us from his anxiety.

My grandpa followed us almost everywhere we moved. We briefly lived with him in New York City for two years before we headed to Los Angeles. My grandpa moved out shortly and stayed in the same house as us for years until my father neared a mental breakdown and forced him to get an apartment. When we moved to Delaware in 1994, my grandpa moved out a year or so later.

We were afraid to ask him how he was doing because it always leaded into a diatribe about incompetent doctors, medicines not working, and problems that only he knew about and physicians seemed to ignore.

But I do have a few fond memories. When I was 5 years old, Poppy (as he made us call him) insisted on giving me art lessons. He taught me how to draw shapes. He instructed on how a face should be illustrated and how shading can make something seem real. When I got older, he bought me watercolors and let me paint on paper plates and the old printer paper that had the edges with circles that you had to rip off. I didn’t care much for it at the time, but I really wish I had paid more attention. I have a love for art now and I wish my interest would have been sparked earlier. Maybe I could have pursued it as a career.

The man’s story is intriguing. A blond haired, blue eyed Jew who grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina (clearly, I got none of his genes); he wasn’t the tallest of men, but he had a way with words. He married a young Jewish lady from New York City and moved up north. He came from a family of gamblers. His father had owned one of the only liquor stores in North Carolina immediately after the 18th Amendment was appealed in 1933. His family became instantly rich, but gambled it all away. My grandfather received these genes, unfortunately, and gambled his savings away at casinos, lottos, races and games. He was a risk-taking man but always ended up on the sad side of defeat. The world was against him, he’d say. Maybe he was right.

I wish I would have known him when he was younger and was a Drum Major for Duke. He never went to college, but somehow weaseled himself into marching with the Duke band. He was always proud of my musical talent and probably wish I had taken it seriously. Sometimes I wish I had taken it seriously too.

So maybe I’m giving the old man a bad rap. He had some good points… but they were muddled by crazy. When I look back on our relationship together before he passed away in 2001, the highlights were those art lessons. We sat at a table in our backyard in Los Angeles. He’d bring the materials, I would just copy whatever he did. I’m sure my drawings were a disgrace to the lead company that created the pencils, but he made me feel like I was on the right track to being the next Picasso. He kept saying how much potential I had and that I should really practice more. “If you practice,” he’d say, “no one can stop you.”

Twenty years later, I’m practicing again. I’ve taken up drawing and painting and I can get lost for hours and days when I have a brush in my hand and acrylics in reach. It’s one of the only things I can do for extended periods of time without getting bored or restless.

I may not always be the best listener, but your message will eventually sink in. Despite his anxiety and fears and conspiracy theories, I am grateful that he took the time to give me those lessons. They were brief and often erratic and I mostly didn’t understand why I was the one who had do them instead of swimming, swinging or salivating in front of the tv. But now I get it. And I can’t wait until I get the chance to teach someone else how to draw crooked noses and ungodly large foreheads.

America: Chapter 7

This morning I gave fifty cents to a homeless woman outside Starbucks. I apologized to her for not having more, explaining it was the only change in my pocket. Although it was a strange experience since I rarely give money to homeless people, what was more striking was that I apologized for not being able to help out more. I woke up this morning in such a good mood (as if a layer of dark, wet fog from the Outer Richmond had finally gone back to sea) and felt like I was truly connected to other people. To the homeless woman on the street, to the person who brews my cup of coffee, to my cube-mates who know little about my life and to people across the country and throughout the world. I feel like I am suddenly united with these complete strangers because of Obama’s election. For it was this election that will go down as the zaniest, strangest and most diverse one we’ve ever had. And it is this victory that begins a new chapter, not only for our country’s short history, but in the way the world will work.

Although Michelle Obama may not be able to say it, I will: last night was the first time I was truly proud to be an American.

After I did my internship in England in the summer of 2005, I came back with an even more cynical approach to this country. I had never related to this flag-waving, God-loving Americans who made me think for the past 8 years that I was un-American for not being like them. Traveling throughout Europe intensified my hatred for the Bush administration, as well as American culture and policy. Why can’t we drink at 18? Why do we make such a big deal about nudity and not violence? Why can’t we let anyone marry who wants to? Why are these countries over hear so much more relaxed? I vowed to return to Europe, hopefully to call it my home.

But last night something changed. I sat in a room with 15 people watching the election results. It was the perfect picture of diversity: black, white, Jewish, Filipino, Asian, Indian, Iranian, Mexican, straight, gay and other descriptors were all present. We were a college magazine’s wet dream. What 30 years ago would have seemed like an anomaly, yesterday felt like the norm. We were representative of what our country will soon be. We cheered each time Obama made a state turn blue (with an especially loud cheer for Ohio) and booed when states went red. Then during one of Anderson Cooper and CNN’s overly-dramatic projections, they announced that Barack Obama would win the presidency. Everyone in the room screamed. We screamed with happiness and elation and we screamed with relief. We screamed for the intense dedication we’ve had for the election process over the past two years and that it was at long last complete. We screamed because for once in our lives, we related to a candidate, not because he told us that he was “just like you,” but because his history, actions and values spoke louder than words. We screamed for our friends, our family, and our ancestors who came and died before us, never thinking they could succeed due to the color of their skin. We screamed for a new beginning.

After the outburst, we paid attention to the screen. Immediate shots of Grant Park in Chicago showed the crowd going wild, and people with tears streaming down their faces. Everyone in the room got silent. We were either crying, holding back our tears, or sitting there in utter disbelief. It was starting to sink in. We’re really going to have a black president. A BLACK PRESIDENT. Someone even opened the window and yelled “we have a black president!!!”

50 years ago, Obama would have had to take a separate bus to work, and now he’s the leader of the most powerful nation in the world. Obama won against the most unlikely odds and in many ways, I am very grateful to George W. Bush. If this had been any average election, I fear Obama would have been seen as silly and idealistic. But Bush destroyed our country so much in the past eight years, that many people were able to look past race and judge Obama on the content of his character. Similar to that saying that goes “if I was stuck in a house that was on fire, I wouldn’t care who rescued me,” the country is in such a state of ruin that Obama’s race became subsidiary. Are people still racist? Yes. Did race still come across many people’s minds as they stood in that booth on voting day? Of course it did. But the message of hope and change are more powerful when you feel like you’re at the bottom of the ladder.

We watched scene after scene of places around the country erupting in emotion. People dancing and screaming outside the White House, members of churches in the South thanking God for this miracle, and CNN correspondents crying as they explain that they can now tell their children they can one day be President of our country.

One of the greatest and most powerful glass ceilings has been broken. Shattered, actually. Especially since it was done with a larger margin of votes than Bush was able to achieve in his past two elections. And did Obama discuss this margin of victory as a mandate from the people of our country to carry out his agenda, like Bush did in 2004? No. Because Obama has humility. And his speech was inspiring. And it made me want to be a better person and help my country return to its former state of glory. His words resonated with me during his speech, and once again when I read it online at home. He’s the antithesis of George Bush. He cares for all people and believes government exists to do the things that average people cannot. He accepts diversity. He understands that he is not just President for the Democrats, but for those who didn’t vote for him as well.

And which part of his speech got the loudest cheers from us? When he thanked his best friend of 16 years and the next first lady of the United States of America. Michelle Obama is the trifecta of brilliance, class and beauty and we will be lucky to have her as our first black First Lady.

People around the world are saying that this moment in time has re-awakened the world to America as a place where anything can truly happen if you work hard enough. We were founded on this principle and we have finally walked the talk. Although this is a moment to be treasured by African-American community, this is not just their victory; this is a celebration for anyone who finds themselves different. There’s no coincidence that Obama’s largest support came from African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Jews and women. What do you see in common? Everyone who has never thought they could be President. Obama symbolizes anyone who sees themselves as not fitting into the white, Christian male dominated society we were founded on and somehow, hundreds of years later, are desperately trying to cling to.

I never in a million years thought I would be one of those t-shirt bearing, sign waving followers who reiterated the campaign motto to anyone who would listen. But here I am, feeling like the world is getting a second chance at hope and that people can once again believe in their own potential, saying yes we can.