In a world of musical possibilities, I play the bass. I have never been the singer or the guitar player. Indeed, my first instrument was the sousaphone. Why? They needed someone to play it.
My musical skill has been to fill holes. I have mostly done that through bass playing and tuba playing. Tuba since grade 5. Bass since grade 7. That’s over 40 years of music in my life. There were times when it was little more than strumming some chords in a given month so it’s not an unending streak of practicing but that is beside the point.

Studying music in college, I did a lot of different things. I played keyboard bass in a recording session. I played recorder christmas carols, sang in choirs, played gong in a wind ensemble, bongso/timbales/conga in a jazz group, and sang backing tracks. None of it was my thing. I was always doing it for someone elses thing.

This probably is not that uncommon a story, but along the way there is usually a bit more doing your own thing or leading.

I think it has something to do with being part of a big family and one that wasn’t always the most healthy dynamic. I’m not here to play the victim or throw anyone under the bus. Not today. But I think being thrust into roles of responsibility early shaped my skill set or maybe that’s just who I am all around.

I will say that being adaptable has allowed me to go to a lot of places and experience a lot of things. That part is good. It has also foreclosed certain other possibilities. I’m not the best at identifying what I want. What would make me happy. I don’t mean this in some kind of grand sense of world peace. I mean it in a more pragmatic sense of what to do with my vacation time, how do I unplug and recharge.

I envy people and feel a deep connection to people when they have some consuming goal. My sister is training for the Boston Marathon and apart from the typical avuncular feelings of familial pride that I have for my baby sis, I feel a bit like I’m caught in her wake and being pulled along by an unseen force. I’m not even very near to her and I feel it. Weird, right?

On some level, this line of reasoning is leading to a broader conclusion and it is simply this: Hey kids, it’s okay to not have any idea what you want. It is by no means terrible. And, it is not that unusual. My kids, nieces and nephews are all entering that part of life where they will make grand decisions about “the future.” It can be overwhelming. I would say, do your best, and keep moving along. If you ride in someone’s wake for a bit that’s okay too. You might never stop doing that.

Growing up, my father was tough on us when it came to grades. At least, I think he was tough on all of us kids. I know he was tough on me. I hated report card time because even though I did well in school, it was not going to be a time of praise or encouragement. It was going to be a time of judgment and reprobation. Even something like a B- or A- could be turned into a “Why is this a minus?”
My mother was a little different but seemed to mostly defer to my father on the subject of report cards. None of this caused me to run to my room and cry. Indeed, I remember nothing more than accepting this with no tangible emotion, and a personal, quiet dread.
I had no great expectations as to what it should be like. But I can also say that the conversation did not motivate me. There was never a point where I said, “I’ll show him. I’ll get an A in everything.”
In hindsight, that report card experience caused me some grief. However, I don’t think my father ever gives a thought. I think he approached the grade discussion as he thought he should and that was the end of it.
It did shape how I would approach grades with my kids. My hope was to never discuss their grades with them.  By doing this, I could completely diminish the idea of the grade’s importance to the parent. I could avoid the appearance of judging the kids. This didn’t work out the way I’d hoped.
My daughter graduated with one A minus in her life. The rest were A’s. Her A minus came in 2nd year college level French in her senior year. She had the highest grade in the small class of overachievers, but the teacher would not use a curve. Nathalie’s grade was, for the first time, something other than 4.00. That was her senior year, and she first perceived it as a blot on her perfect record. I’m serious. Her grades were literally nearly perfect.
Any discussion I had with Nathalie about her grades was on this theme. Please, get a B. Pursuing perfection can only lead to disturbance. Give yourself a break in a class. Your grades are not as important as your happiness.
According to Nathalie, happiness was good grades so how does that work? I am aware of the the dangers of perfectionism. But my counsel on this fell on deaf ears.
Marc does not appear to care about his grades. And while this fit my “not caring” model, it eventually created other problems. Marc did not seem to understand that failing a class would lead to summer school. And that failing a lot would lead to failure to graduate. And honestly, it pissed me off.
Marc isn’t a troublemaker. He received grades like D – “joy to have in class.” This also did not fit my model. I think Marc would say that we give him grief about his grades. We never wanted to give him any grief. We have more or less stopped doing that now, his junior year. I do remember having more than one conversation where I said, “the curriculum isn’t designed to fail anyone. This ain’t college. The teachers are not trying to weed you out. You only get an F because you don’t give a shit, at all. That’s disrespectful to everyone: the other students in the class, anyone who prepared the class material, the teacher who prepares the lessons, and the tax payers who pay for your school. All you have to do to pass is Show UP – as in make a minimal effort to pay attention and do some work.  So start showing up or we keep having this conversation.”
We never had a better answer. And his grades have improved but seemingly disconnected from anything we have done. That’s okay. We didn’t get tutors so that he would get better grades. We got him tutors because he seems to need it. We just want to help him. It’s nothing more complicated than that.
My point is that we have two kids and two different school-related approaches. And neither one of them fit my hoped-for model. Neither one was the expected problem. I have no idea what they will walk away from school with. I have no idea what they will tell their kids. “Your grandfather was a complete dick to me when it came to report cards. “ In reality, I hardly even look at the report cards. I intentionally would rather that be a non-event because, I actually don’t care. The one consistent thing in both cases is that high grades don’t equate to happiness. In Marc’s case, his miscalculation and ours, was that F grades do lead to unhappiness. The summer school thing is not pleasant for anyone. But I did not see that coming; really? an F?
At least one aspect of school and grades is consistent with my parent’s model. And I think the reason for that point of view might be the same. At the end of my required schooling, my parents let me figure out the next stage on my own. They didn’t suggest anything when it came to college. And maybe it was an unintended consequence but the result was ownership. I owned my experience. I was free to mess it up. I was free to make it what I wanted. That was a good result. Whether I was going to be happy or not, it was on me.
Certainly, when I said I wanted to be a musician, they could have said, “yeah, that’s not a good idea.” But they never did. Lots of other people told me tales of starving musicians. Many, including my own music teachers, were less encouraging. It’s not like I said, I’m going to try to be a lawyer or a doctor. I really want to help people. My parents were genuinely happy for me that I chose to study music and made that happen. They could not really tell me how to prepare for my audition or any thing else practical.
My parents could not call on their experience to give me advice. Neither went to college. Both had siblings who did so the thought of college wasn’t a new or foreign idea. But my parents were more practical in this sphere. He’ll figure it out or he won’t. Occasionally this made me insecure because I could not lean on them for guidance. Eventually, that is what happens when you grow up. New things are challenges by nature. Really, they didn’t care how it turned out because their love for me was not based on my success or failure. That’s not how they value people. To some extent, that’s how I approach it. That’s the only principle that I have to lean on. It’s not like I understand either of my kid’s approach to school.

I realized last week that I am the father in a not so affectionate family. In a way, that surprised me. I don’t know what triggered this realization. It could have been pictures I saw on Facebook or a family walking down the street.
I’m not unhappy about this. Well, maybe a little. I just find it unexpected. Certainly, I am not exceptionally affectionate person but I come from a family with a healthy amount of affection, with essentially no inhibitions about it. Amy’s family is more reserved in this area in a fairly stereotypically WASP way. Amy, herself, is affectionate – at least enough for me.
And, I think we were affectionate with our kids when they were little. Now that time has gone. They are both teenagers and that brings with it a kind of distance. I personally remember saying to myself “no more kissing Dad goodnight. He really doesn’t care if I do it or not.” I don’t know how he felt about it or whether he even noticed. With other younger siblings around it might have been even hard to notice. But I found the whole thing awkward. Maybe it’s a kind of normal individuation but I don’t remember it feeling normal.
On the other hand, my mother was overtly affectionate. She was, for me, embarrassingly demanding about that. She was explicit, saying you should never be embarrassed to be kissed or kiss your mom. While this might be a good message to send, it not the easy message to receive as a teenager. Kissing Mom goodnight was another perilous activity. My mom, perhaps because I am the eldest, wanted to know when I had made it home safely. But there were times, plenty of times, when I didn’t want her to know that I made it home at all. I certainly didn’t want to bring any attention to myself.
I don’t know if I got into more trouble than other brothers and sisters or less. For my mom, in my late teens, I was a handful. The complication of my parents eroding marriage did not help matters. I look back and see that my mother was reaching out for contact. I can’t be sure of course but this was missing from her marriage. My recollection of my parents affection for each other was always complicated. I don’t remember their being at ease with each other. And certainly in my adulthood, there was open antipathy toward each other. Maybe that was what I was sensing. My mother was looking for her needs to be met and I was an adult male. She did not have this in balance. And when someone needs affection, affection gets layered with complexity–even simple, innocent affection.
Cancer brought a change to my parents. The simplicity of touch was once again discovered. Chemotherapy makes holding hands more meaningful than you might ever imagine. I wasn’t in town much during my mom’s treatments, living 3,000 miles away. But when I was there, all she wanted was someone to sit with her, make conversation, deep or not, hold hands. When I saw my parents together during that time, there was peace, acceptance and blitheness.
Since my mom died, in 1999, Dad has been different. And it’s been a welcome change.
I find myself having fairly casual expectation of affection now. With my French friend, I kiss him on the cheeks. I find it normal now. Though, at the golf course, I got a little bit self-conscious about it. I know that it is everyone else’s problem, not mine, what they think about. That part, my mother was right about. With women I know, I like to kiss them. I normally kiss my sisters too. That all seems rather mundane and requires little thought. I hug my dad and kiss him now if I’m in the mood or feeling it, like when I leave home again after a visit. With men, I’m a hand-shaker or bro hug guy. I have no problem with all of it but I like making the connection.
The hug is my bugaboo. Those generally seem awkward. Seriously, two kisses on the check are less awkward than full body contact or these weird light pats on the back. I’m from a big family. You hug someone, you mean it or don’t bother. When you mean it, like when you console somebody, you want to envelope them or be enveloped. Don’t you? Or, in a bona fide, full expression of happiness, the same thing. You ever see hockey players hug each other after a goal? They mean that shit.
I vowed that I would not make my kids feel awkward about affection. Right now, I have no idea what they feel about it. I notice its absence. I am not overreacting to that but I guess I am reacting to it. I think that I would love some of the lightness that was there to return again. Maybe I just have to wait a bit.

We’ve generally avoided the political on the blog and I consider this non-political anyway.
President Obama. For everyone with a “funny” last name like Langlois,  Decicco, Garcia, Kulik Songdahl, Hu, Kusakabe, NGuyen, Saif, or Abolrous. For everyone who has looked at the paintings of the presidents past, Washington, Jefferson, Reagan, Carter, and Bush to name a few. Forty-three in total.
For anyone who is part of a visible and even less visible minority in the US, who has never had a president that wasn’t a white protestant, who felt underrepresented in the American political experience, this is a sea change.
Note: Kennedy was president from January 20, 1961 to November 22, 1963. That’s it. That’s the only exception.