Erev Fathers' Day

In this morning's Times there's a reminiscence of a guy whose father never gave him a compliment. i was almost that guy. My father gave me two compliments. one was when i gave a remembrance of my sweet uncle bill at his funeral. i don't remember the other one, but it was some piece of public speaking.
in the last year of his life, i asked my dad about that strange lack of praise for one's own kid. he said that in his generation, they were taught that praise wasn't appropriate between parents and kids. it did something deleterious although he couldn't remember what it was.
on fathers' day, i'll be in new york visiting my daughter. my smart, funny, happy daughter and her husband. but i'll also be visiting my father who is in my every memory of the city.
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once upon a time, i was a husband and apparently once upon a time, i was a wife.

judith would have these bursts in public. sometimes she was just loud and inappropriate, other times she was cruel. it took a while, but i gradually formed a way of telling her-first by talking about the incident afterwards, later by giving her what she came to call the 'quelling glance'. she blamed me for the glance, i blamed her that we couldn't talk about it.
(btw, that object at the bottom is an ice cream pop from a company called Good Humor)

the woman i'm in love with gave me a transcript of a long, crazy inappropriate letter that her mother had written. reading it, i feel connected to the woman i'm in love with right now.
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here's  a picture i called 'the happiest man in the world'

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here's one from when i was the happiest man in the world
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my favorite relationship book has a magnificent essay on p 331. i think you should read it. yes, you.
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some of the feedback i've been getting about listening quietly has been very challenging. i have a visceral urge to make sure i'm heard correctly. it rests just below my sternum and jumps up and out in a flash.
in the course of restructuring that, i think i would do well to em-body some solidity in my center.  i learn better with physical cues anyway. experiment #1 will be with tai chi. so i made a call to john chen. stay tuned.
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