Forgiveness

Here's a quote that I want to share. I hope you like it at least half as much as I do.

"Forgiveness is the fragrance

that the violet sheds

on the heel that has crushed it."

- Mark Twain

This quote really sticks with me. It's a short and simple sentence, but it's enough to fill my mind. It's a really concentrated message with a poignant image. I don't think I've ever read any description of forgiveness, no matter how many words the author uses, that captures the essence of what it means as good as these fifteen simple words. I think this is one of Mr. Clemens' masterpieces.

Reflections on the Ocean

I was walking on the beach tonight in a mood as dark as the sky.

I was in a fit. I was angry, and was daring the waves that were rolling in around my feet to push me farther into my tirade. I was venting my words of frustration into the wind when I suddenly noticed a strange orange glow just above the horizon over the ocean.

I stopped and stared.

The sun had already set behind me in the west, but here it was, as if a fire were burning miles out at sea. What was going on? Could it be a ship - a tanker - afire on the water? What kind of disaster was taking place?

I kept watching. The glow got brighter.

Slowly, a shape began to appear. An arc, a crescent, grew out of the glow. It started to look like another sun rising from behind a cloud, chasing the one that had set in the west just an hour before.

But it wasn't the sun, and it wasn't a fire. It was the moon. An angry, orange, fiery moon, burning its way out of the mists and clouds over the Atlantic.

The moon. The same moon that I had seen the night before as a bright orb high over the water, casting a silver light that extended from the distant surface of the ocean all the way to the beach. The light from that moon had been reflected brilliantly from the crests of the waves that were pushing towards the beach.

It was the same moon that I had seen years before over the same ocean, in the middle of the night, from the deck of ship hundreds of miles out at sea.

The same moon, over the same ocean, that had been seen by countless sailors over the centuries.

Slowly, as the moon rose higher, the orange glow faded to the calmer, cooler silver of the night before. My mood softened. My anger faded like the mists that had fallen away from the face of the rising moon. What had seemed so sharply frustrating only minutes before now melted away into insignificance like my footprints in the surf-washed sand.

Unconditional Love...and Frustration

I didn’t know what unconditional love was until my kids came along. I've never for a moment wished I didn't have either of them. I even get teary-eyed sometimes watching my son getting a Cub Scout award or when my daughter smiles and waves at me from up on the dance stage. Being their father has given me more purpose and a sense of wholeness than I've ever had before.

But that hasn’t stopped them from testing to see just how unconditional that love is. Surely I’m not the only parent that has discovered that the intensity of love for their children is matched only by the degree of frustration that sometimes comes along with raising them.

I know that a lot of it is just their going through a developmental phase. I know that they’re really not better or worse than any other typical kid. It’s just hard to keep that in mind when their behavior defies rational explanation.

My beautiful little four-year-old daughter can go from wildly happy to terminally grumpy on a dime. We’ve have some truly frustrating moments when she’s venting her anger at a perceived mistreatment. Just tonight, in fact, she really pitched a huge fit about something that seems irrational. Sometimes she makes me crazy. And she’s not even close to being a teenager yet.

My son, as good as he is, has given us opportunities to get frustrated, too. For instance, there have been many times we’d have to deal with him coming home an emotional mess after spending some quality time with friends. My wife and I would be getting him ready for bed and he’d be crying and blubbering inconsolably.

We’d hug him and pat his back and do our best to try to calm him down. When we’d ask him why he was so upset, he’d tell us something like “I just had so much fun…I miss [insert friend’s name here] so much!” This would be followed by more uncontrollable sobbing.

Of course, this really made us feel like chopped liver. Was coming back home really so terrible? Were we, as parents, incapable of providing him with enjoyment in his life? Was he afraid that he’d never ever have any fun again, ever?

My wife and I started calling this phenomenon “post-ecstatic stress disorder” (a condition resulting from having too much fun) just so we could laugh at the situation.

*******

Well, a little while ago, my daughter tiptoed into the room and walked up to me. She smiled at me like an angel, gave me a hug and told me how much she loves me. Everything seems to be right with her world again. These are the moments I live for.

No, I've never for a moment wished I didn't have either of my kids. I just hope I can keep remembering how much I love them through all of the ups and downs coming up.

Growing Up

I'm getting old. I just went to a high school reunion a couple of weeks ago. No, it wasn’t my 10th. That one is ancient history. It wasn’t even the 20th. No, this reunion was to “celebrate” the 25th anniversary of my high school graduation. Twenty-five years. No way.

I’m beginning to realize that getting older is one of those things that just sneaks up on you. I’ve been so busy with the different phases of my life and trying to keep up with everything that it seems like, all of a sudden, I’ve looked around and found I’m in some sort of a pre-AARP middle age “gray area” (pun intended). I know there’s billions of people that have already traveled this road and many more coming up behind, but it’s still new to me and I’m not exactly sure what to make of it yet.

I know I’ve been getting there. I’ve been teaching college-aged students for 11 years now, and there’s been a steady change in age-related milestones for me. First was realizing that I had students that were born the year I graduated high school. At that point, I realized that I was old enough to be their father. But I sure wasn’t used to thinking of myself as being someone who could have a grown child.

I’ve also found out that I’m now a member of a different demographic. An older demographic. No longer the group that wears cool clothes or watches MTV. Now it's the group that is trying to look younger. I’ve noticed ads for things like wrinkle-creams, with women saying something like “I’m 43 years old and I still look wonderful”, implying that it’s a challenge to look good at 43.

I guess it's true. Anyone older than me probably says that I'm still a kid and "just wait 'til you get to be my age", but I really am part of an older generation. A generation that's old enough to have grandkids and college tuition to pay - for our kids. It’s gotten to the point that many of the adult students I teach were born after I graduated high school. And started college. And went into the Navy. It's gotten to the point where some of my students have parents younger than me. What’s next?

I don’t relish the indignities that go along with being middle-aged, like male-pattern baldness, arthritis and other physical irritations, but I guess that’s just part of the price to pay for the privilege of getting to live a long life. Unlike some of my classmates that have already departed this world and the kids dying in car wrecks here and car bombs overseas, I’m one of the lucky ones that gets to live long enough to moan and complain.

Getting older comes with plenty of aches and pains (both literal and figurative), but it sure beats the alternative.

And I’m still smiling.

The Odd Behavior of Boys

I spent the first part of this week at Cub Scout resident camp with my son and over a hundred other boys and leaders. It was a lot fun and a great experience for the boys. But in the process, I had time to watch how the boys behaved. I got a chance to see once again that our kids really aren't that different from each other. They ALL do the same things that drive parents and leaders nuts.

Here's three of the typical things that boys do at camp. Their attraction to all things dangerous is mystifying. They seem oblivious to the risk of pain and disfigurement. Sometimes I'm amazed that so many boys actually survive to adulthood. [NOTE: I'm sure I did many of the same things. ]

• The thing for sticks. Boys seem to have a mystifying attraction to sticks. Once they have one in hand, they have to do something with it. When they're holding that stick, they seem to be mentally transported to another place and time, oblivious to people and objects that may be within range. They swing it or twirl it like a samurai or use it to poke something dangerous like a snake or a wasp. But the overwhelming favorite thing to do with a stick is to find someone else with a stick and clack them together like Jedi knights in duels with the dark side. Oddly enough, this particular camp feeds this attraction by selling 4-foot long wooden "walking sticks" that are inevitably used to create havoc throughout camp.
• Running in dangerous places. The compulsion to run is magnified in direct proportion to the hazard level of the environment they're in. Boys love to run on the wet concrete around a pool and on rocky ground or right next to someone carrying hot coffee. Their running in risky places seems to cause a Pavlovian response in leaders to scream "WALK!!!" in a futile attempt to keep one of them from falling and hurting themselves.
• Playing with critters. No form of creature gets by unmolested. It doesn't matter if it's a bug, bird, lizard, snake or squirrel. Anything that crawls, creeps or slithers is fair game. Whenver you see two or more boys huddled over a spot on the ground, you can be sure there's some form of critter in danger of being picked up, poked, or put into a cup or jar to be carried around and smuggled home if possible.

There are lots of other odd behaviors that boys exhibit when they're growing up. I've got to believe that there's a purpose to it all. I used to do the same things when I was growing up. It must have been nice to be so carefree and unconcerned about the risks and dangers all around me.

But now, as a concerned parent, I tend to see the bad things that can happen and get annoyed with having to constantly rein-in their youthful exuberance and the risk that goes along with it. Sometimes I have to remind myself of all of the crazy-stupid things that we did when we were growing up. Maybe these boys will be able to beat the odds like we did and survive to adulthood.

The Story Behind the Name

The name of this blog may sound strange to some but will have specific meaning to others. The title applies to one part of my life that, even though was a relatively short time in relation to my age, was a very formative part of who I am today.

"Bubblehead" is slang for a submarine sailor. One source says it refers to the bends that may result from decompression after returning from the depths of the ocean. I served for a time aboard a nuclear-powered submarine, often spending extended periods of time submerged with the rest of the crew, living inside the machine, isolated from sunlight, fresh air and contact with the outside world. Deep under water, there is neither day nor night. Just the repetition of waking up, standing watch, working on quals, doing maintenance, and sleeping so you can get up and do it again. The experiences I gained on board that boat gave me confidence in my abilities to problem-solve and work through difficult and demanding situations. I found out how hard I could work and that I could adapt to living in conditions that most people would never experience.

Even though I served aboard the sub for only a couple of years, I'll always carry with me the confidence in myself that I never really had until that time. I live far from the ocean and the boat, but they vivid in my memories and are never far from my thoughts.