When I lined up at the start of the USATF National Club Championships in December, I was a bit of an underdog. I was running my first XC race in more than 30 years, and it was against what I had been told was the most competitive masters’ field of any race all year. I was about to be crushed.
But that wasn’t the point. I was there to compete. To see what it was like to toe the line with the best of my generation. I did my preparation as best I could in my busy life and reasoned once I got to that starting line, Que Sera Sera. What will be will be.
So it wasn’t unlike the underdog runners in McFarland USA: Championship Run, the Disney movie which is being released on DVD this week. The stakes for them were much higher, and the work they put into their race was well beyond my modest training. But perhaps the real runners that the story was based on, felt something like I felt at that moment when I began to look around at the better-trained, better-outfitted, more-experienced guys who bolted off the line as the gun went off, “Do I really belong here?”
We all start as a team, but each must face the course alone.
In the movie, the underdog of underdogs, the chubby but charismatic Danny Diaz wins over the hearts of the audience with his persistence in the face of his physical challenges. He was never going to be the fastest runner, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t part of the team.
For me that day, I was even Dannier than Danny Diaz. Not only was I carrying extra weight, but also extra years, and extra doubts. I was pretty sure I was going to finish much closer to the final finisher than the first– and as the field pulled away from me at the start, my doubts became reality. There was no catching those guys. I was slow. And to make matters worse, I was not in a Disney movie.
You’ll have to rent or buy McFarland USA: Championship Run to see how Danny rises to his challenges and you’ll have to see the September 2015 issue of Runners World to see how I met mine.
I, too, was an outsider to the world of cross country. But after my race at Club Nats, I felt like I had earned my place.
But this is no spoiler– by starting that race, by doing that preparation, by committing to that pursuit, Danny and I were already winning. The future is not ours to see– but the present is ours to savor. What will be, will be. And today’s race is all we have.
My friends at Runners World came up with this list of 12 Great Running Movies earlier this year, but it didn’t include McFarland USA, which was released days after the list was posted. It’s a shame, because the movie, being released on DVD this week, belongs on the list.
The movie takes us through the back story of a cross country team forged from the immigrant families of San Joaquin Valley, CA. As far as I know, it’s the one and only theatrical release that delves into the dynamics of a high school cross country squad, where individual achievement is harnessed like sled dogs to pull the team to ultimate victory.
When I walked out of the theater in February on opening weekend, I was with my two daughters– one a teenage athlete and the other a third-grader with her entire sporting life in front of her. I was thrilled that they could both share the theater experience with me– it’s the only movie we’ve seen together all year.
The best beach running scene since Rocky and Apollo Creed
I was especially proud to share with them a running story, because I had recently completed my first cross country race in more than 30 years, and was writing about my experience for an article that is scheduled to appear in Runners World September 2015 issue.
What my daughters and I saw on screen was a good old fashioned Disney fairy tale, with the redeeming quality of being based on a real story, the rebirth and rise of the McFarland High School cross country team.
My teenager got to see the film’s version of a high school that was much different than her own. Her high school sits on a lush, shady, sprawling gem of a campus full of well-appointed brick structures and a massive new athletic center. McFarland High sits across the street from a prison. She regularly gets new team gear from the school, the McFarland moms have to throw a tamale sale to get them uniforms and running shoes.
My little one got a glimpse of all that too, at a time when she is still forming her understanding of how to succeed in life. A few months later, when I was playfully running in front of her after picking her up from school, she pulled up next to me. “I’m Danny Diaz!,” she shouted. We hadn’t spoken about the movie at all after the night we saw it, but that lasting image of an underdog coming from way back had stuck with her. I also hope she remembered that Danny, his brothers, and friends became better runners through hard work and with the love and loyalty of their family.
My kids face, and I for that matter, will have to keep facing unique challenges of our own in our lives. Be they the ordinary disappointments of tests gone poorly, or jobs not secured or more imposing obstacles like injustice and intolerance for the choices we make or the people we become.
I was grateful that McFarland USA was able to show us how this group of boys, fueled by the passion of their coach, were able to overcome so many difficult obstacles to reach their own goals.
Cynically, I could see why the movie was released on Oscars weekend– it is not the kind of movie that gets nominated for awards. But it did get generally good reviews, and hit a respectable $44 million at the box office, on a production budget of $17 million, according to The Numbers. It’s sure to be a welcome Friday night family movie this weekend– and an inspiring Redbox rental this fall when high school and college cross country season commences.
But when I walked out of that theater I had no desire to be cynical. The running scenes were beautiful, the drama suitably constructed, the characters portrayed deeply enough for us to care, the story real enough to matter and the ending satisfying enough for my little one and I to remember and relive months later.
Yet the best part of the movie for me, they may not remember at all. It was the epilogue, just before the credit role, where we get a look at the men those boys became, as they ran down a sun-scorched California road. They each had their own ending– and presumably some more happy than others. But seeing them still running, and realizing they looked a little like me running along the pavement to whatever lay ahead, gave me chills.
If you are a runner, you will appreciate the portrayal of the way the distance running can test a person’s soul and drive. If you are not, you will still be moved by the film’s simple, inspiring and accessible story for all ages.
I’ll resist the temptation of calling McFarland USA the Hoosiers of cross country, because that basketball movie is at another level of artistic and emotional vitality. But it holds the same power to open eyes to the beauty of a sport I love, the payoff of hard work, and the indomitable human spirit possessed by even the young and marginalized among us.
Perhaps it’s nothing more than the rituals of life that propel us and give us the will to keep going.
The mechanics of ‘now I do this’ and ‘then I will do that’ determine what actually gets done. It certainly is true when crisis or depression hit as we are reduced to our most basic patterns. It is also what breaks down in those cases of high anxiety and which leaves us trapped in a suspended state of animation, when we can’t even resume those rituals and carry on.
Rituals are at the core of high performance preparation—a plan, a to do list and set of goals to accomplish, to reach for. It may not seem so lofty when the goal is ‘now I put on my underwear’ and ‘now I floss’ but rituals are the ladder we’ve built our existence upon– and linking them to bigger tasks can move us surreptitiously toward achievements that have been out of our grasp.
When you’ve been at your best, what rituals were you practicing?
Is a regularly scheduled track workout a ritual? Is it a ritual that my mom put the coffee into the coffee pot before she goes to bed rather than in the am before she’s about to pour the water into the machine? I think it’s probably something deeper about who are at this time in our lives– and what we want to be propelled toward.
What I see with my parents now is it literally is that ritual is what keeps them going. It’s what was missing for my mom when my dad was first in the nursing home. “Now what do I do?,” she would say. You could see she was drifting, with nothing to replace the tasks and organizational needs that were in place when they were both home—the home of everyone of their 65 years of marriage—the home where they spent about 358 days of each of those 65 years. The rituals became more than habits, they became instinctual survival techniques. Is it a ritual that a robin go out looking for worms each day? Call it what you want—it’s what keeps them alive.
Rituals are not permanent like habits or addictions can be- but they are lasting. They don’t define us entirely but they do put a cover on our book and show the world what we spend our time doing. Yet we also have our internal rituals, that the world does not see yet what perhaps are even more defining who we are every day. Where we keep our anxiety—how we hold our stress—where our minds go when we are sad, shaken, in doubt, fearful.
The paradoxical cup of coffee– the omega and alpha of creativity.
Yet there is a paradox. The rituals that sustain us can also appear to be traps of boredom and lifeless, mindless exchanges that sap life of its newness. For isn’t creativity the antithesis of ritual? Yes but. Yes but some of us need to first be bored to create. Some of us need the calming waters of ritual to clear our minds to build, to recharge for change. The repetitive ritual is the steady, flat foundation on which we build. That foundation is where the rituals end and the creativity starts that set the course for how we assault the world. A cup of coffee on the couch before the day starts may be the last act of boredom as well as the first act of creative expression that day offers.
What are the rituals that you, intentionally or not, work your way through during your day? Do they support what you want to accomplish today? Do they also lead you toward the larger endeavors that you aspire to? Can you attach to them something tiny and easy that can slowly build into a better version of you?
Why did the runner cross the road?
To get to the grass.
That’s what I found when I took up training for my first cross country meet in 35 years. I signed up for the USATF Club National Championships, held at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA in December. I’m writing about the training and the race for an upcoming article in Runners World.
But before I could write, I had to run. That means dialing back some of my time on the pavement and shifting my miles to dirt, gravel and any uneven surface I could find. And most of all, I had to get on the grass.
What we see is a reflection of us.
Picture that in your mind for a moment: The Grass. What do you see?
For what that word summons in your mind tells us acres about you.
Was it a sprawling suburban lawn, with leaves of grass supercharged and densely maintained by fertilizer-juiced soil and sharpened by the blades of a riding mower? Or the naturally sprouting tall riparian buffer along a rolling stream?
The curbed patch of play area in a busy urban park? A field for cattle to graze? A golf course? Massive ornamentals?
A safe place to play soccer. A dangerous place to land a plane.
Just more freaking work that I have to do in my yard. A source of hay fever. A knoll in Dallas. Easter basket detritus. Dandelions. Medical marijuana.
For me as I run, grass means relief and restoration. Relief from the harsh demands of running on roads– and restoration of the strength and complex mechanics of my feet and legs.
Yet for a few runners I spoke with, it means something else– the fear of injury. Running off road comes with its risks, but so do the repetitions of running on the road. Luckily for me, the grass-covered dirt not only hasn’t exposed me to injury (yet, knock on moss-covered log), it is helping me build my immunity to injury by making my body adjust to its contours.
The more I think about it, and talk about my training on grass with other, the more the truth of this thread became clear.
Even something as common as grass– or perhaps even because of its ubiquity, can divide people into different camps. Not intentionally (grass doesn’t have an opinion on this matter), just by how we can take the same word and put it in much different places in our minds.
Is it even grass at all?
Those multiple meanings is what we see in the news and in our communities and our friends and loved ones– two of us can see the exact same thing, the same person, and yet see two completely versions of them. It’s tempting to believe our view is right, but is it? Or is it just different? Can there be only one view that is correct? Or is the right answer merely the one that agrees with our preconceived notion.
We can be so emotionally attached to our version of grass (or race, or gun ownership, or wealth distribution or how a kid should behave in a restaurant, or how a woman should dress, you name it) that we dig our heels in and find it unnecessary to understand another’s point of view. We seek our own truth in the kind of media (and people) we surround ourselves with.
I’m as guilty as anyone, and I can see this bias come out in how I look at the grass. Are you like me? Does It makes you wonder– “What else do I see this way?”.
No. I’m not high on cocaine, as the Grateful Dead song lyric might suggest to readers of a certain age. I crave a different kind of buzz, to my readers of the Lorde era. The train I’m riding high on is that other train– The Training Train.
I’ve chosen my next running challenge and am absolutely loving the way it feels to feel that burn again.
You see, after I completed my most recent running endeavor, running The Fifth Avenue Mile in 2012 in my much celebrated Mulligan Mile (and repeating the feat, if not the time, a year later at the same race) I did not do what I always advise my running friends to do: sign up for the next race. The next challenge. The next reason for getting yourself to higher ground.
There may be trouble ahead, there’s definitely been troubles behind. But the notion of meeting another running challenge has just crossed my mind.
I wasn’t just sitting around, mind you. I was taking care of some life-altering family dynamics, buying a house, slowly turning it into a home, planning and taking a couple unspeakably beautiful trips with loved ones, writing (half) a book, bailing out a flooded basement, inventing the universally ignored Compost Bucket Challenge, among too many other items to list. Here’s what I wasn’t doing: training.
When I’m not driving The Training Train, runs happen when and if it is convenient. Cross-training in the gym happens hardly at all. Eating continues unabated, with predictable results. A heavier and slower writer-runner sits in front of you today. But one who has just signed up for his next challenge: The USA Track and Field National Club Championships in Bethlehem, PA on December 13, 2014.
It’s a race I have no business being in, especially in this condition. But I’ve already started training with simple foolhardy optimism and newbie spirit. Now I can start to believe that perhaps, in the 8 1/2 weeks until then, I will get in shape enough to not be the last finisher that day. And maybe even score points for my team, Lehigh Valley Road Runners.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Even if I do finish last then and there, that won’t diminish what I feel right here and now. Having something to shoot for, having something kind of a big deal to shoot for, is already making a difference in my life.
My friends and I we’ve cracked the code. We count our blessings as we train, on the way to the party. And everyone who knows runners knows that we’re fine with this.
For example, I have more sweaty clothes than I have hampers, racks and hooks to hang them on. I now am forced to plan each day more precisely to fit in a run and/or gym workout. Taking on a challenge like this, that is clearly over my head, gives me the excuse (and the nerve) I need to reach out to members of the runners community for knowledge and wisdom. And now, on this glorious fall weekend amid autumn’s fierce colors, I can have the joy of running with purpose in the Runners World Half and Festival races that start just across the river from my new house. Races that I would have otherwise walked outside to watch, rather than line up to run.
I hope to see some of you out in my backyard race this weekend. I’ll be the slow guy with the Large body in the Medium shirt I fit into quite nicely two years ago. The Medium shirt I vowed to never outgrow and optimistically (foolishly?) ordered again for this year’s race.
Not to worry. Now that I’m back on board The Train, I’ll get there.
So it’s my turn to take the ALS Bucket Challenge, thanks to Nelson Peña.
Such a great cause and a fun way to face a terrible disease. It got me thinking of another great cause to fight for. It’s a one that can reverse disease and secure health and wealth for future generations. And it’s a delicious way to live. Best of all, it’s a battle that can be won one bucket at a time. One compost bucket that is.
To my friends at Rodale Institute, The Seed Farm, Organic Gardening, Joshua Scott Onysko, Organic Valley Farms, Mike McGrath, George DeVault, Seventh Generation, Cascadian Farms, John Grogan and Jenny Vogt , Food & Water Watch, Stonyfield Farms, Pat Corpora, Maya Rodale, Tony Haile, Bob’s Red Mill, Amy’s Kitchen, Mark Kintzel, Buy Fresh Buy Local, Nature’s Best, Earth’s Best, Whole Foods and the countless others I’m forgetting, to ANYONE WHO SUPPORTS ORGANIC growing, it’s your turn to spread the word about organic– One Bucket at a Time.
I vowed never to run another marathon. Too hard on the body, too much training. I found better ways to stay happy and healthy, with competitive mile races (see The Mulligan Mile).
This week, Boston Marathon stories are mesmerizing me and I’m rethinking that position because, for reasons great and small, marathons matter.
Here’s why.
1. Bananas When I ran my first NYC marathon in 1991, the primary performance-enhancing drug I consumed was bananas. They helped me train and miraculously appeared in the Bronx only miles from the finish line when I still wasn’t sure I was going to make it. It was my first real nutrition lesson. You do what you eat.
What we consume (food, habits, media, possessions, you name it) will either help us to our goals or prevent us from achieving them. In our everyday lives, we aren’t pushed to the extremes that marathoner is, so it’s easy to just get by and coast with foods and habits that are good enough. But for (the vast majority of) marathoners being good enough isn’t good enough—the body just won’t tolerate it. Living on that line, with such a tight connection between habits and outcomes, can be difficult. But the discipline of that joyful intention is critical to living a full and healthy life.
2. Somebody Wins, But I’m Not Sure Who As a race, it matters that there is a winner—but it matters even more that hardly anyone other than the running geeks care, remember or even know who it is. Unlike any other sporting event, the marathon is too big to bestow all the accolades on the two runners who win the overall race. Celebrity isn’t hogged by a few, it’s spread thin among many. It’s earned and rightfully claimed by each runner that coasts or staggers by. That’s who I cheer for—and those are the people who bring cheer to all who watch their work.
3. We Heal as the Marathoner Suffers Maybe it’s a coincidence that I’m writing this on Good Friday. And I’m sure it’s sacrilegious to even allude to the comparison. But can any of us deny that we are looking forward to some kind of vicarious redemption on Monday when this year’s Boston Marathon is run. We want that day to be a beautiful, healing, national celebration of perseverance, resolve and community. We want it for the lost, the survivors and frankly, for us. Those 36,000 runners and the countless volunteers will do the work, but all of us will heal.
4. The Nameless Are Named The best advice I got on running my first marathon was to write my name on my shirt, so that people could call me by name when I went by. It was such a good idea that now it’s done officially on the racing bib, and the effect is the same: an unsinkable buoyancy provided by that three seconds of personal connection between two people who are there for each other in that one present moment. It’s much different than joining a chorus of cheers for a team—it’s personal, it’s fleeting and it’s a reminder that each person matters to someone, even if only for that one moment you share together.
I suggest we now go further—let’s have spectators wear name tags so that the grateful marathoners can thank them by name. Let the official campaign begin.
5. I Can Earn (or Buy) My Way In There are two ways in to the Boston Marathon—qualifying with a fast time in another marathon or raising a sufficient amount of money for a sponsoring charity. In either case, the registration fees are pretty steep. Think about that. Can you imagine if they put that rule in the NFL next year? “Ok, men. You aren’t getting paid, but we will let you play for the Patriots if you go out and raise $10,000 for Children’s Hospital”.
The marathon goes beyond amateurism for all the but the elite of the elite runners. It isn’t like other major professional sports that generate jobs but basically suck ticket money out of the breadwinners of a city and funnel it to owners and millionaires who have made a career out of sports entertainment. Instead, a well run urban race pumps millions into charities through people who pay for the privilege of participating and provides an incredible human spectacle of hope and honor to the throngs that gather to freely watch the event.
6. The Best Stories Are Unseen For those of us who will show up on Monday or watch on television, we will see an incredible display that will last a few hours. It’ll be great and we’ll be all high fives and fist bumps with a healthy dose of goosebumps. But please, let’s not kid ourselves.
The real stories about that marathon will be told quietly in the kitchens and car rides and restaurant booths one-on-one between runners, spectators and all those who are interested in knowing what it was all really about. The race is really run on all those dark mornings and bone-chilling evenings of training that took place when we were asleep or complaining about how cold it was when we walked to our cars. We will see the tip, but the iceberg of achievement and sacrifice and ascendant spirit happens in small, unseen moments that are only known by the runners themselves. That’s why they’ve already won when they line up in Hopkington– and why it matters to be even a tiny part of it. Why it won’t be the same without each and every one of those hidden stories.
So, marathon. I’m not saying we are getting back together. But I will be watching on Monday. Call me.
I cooked dinner for my parents on a recent trip home. They are older now and don’t get out much– and have stopped cooking for themselves after many years of preparing the most delicious Italian food imaginable.
Cooking for them is both rewarding and daunting. When I visit, it’s an occasion. It’s listed on their calendar weeks in advance and confirmed daily when I call. They are glad to see me and like when I can take care of them. But let’s face it, of the three Cinquino’s in the room, I’m the least accomplished cook, by about 50 ovenlight years.
I serve them dinner, a Pork Tenderloin with baked carrots and baked potatoes and salad. Nothing elaborate, but as I put the prepared roast before them I convince myself it came out pretty well. I wait for their restaurant review– and as they speak, I learn a little about them and lot about myself.
What you see through the window…
My dad is gushing– he is complimenting me again and again- four, five, six times. His voice assures me how good the meal is. How grateful he is that I am there to cook it. How surprised he is that I am such a good chef. I eat up his approval even faster than I gulp down my portion of the meal.
My mom eats more slowly and takes her time commenting on the food. I wait anxiously as she cuts her food into small pieces. She seems to have come to a conclusion after several methodical bites. Then I hear what I take as her verdict. “I miss my own cooking,” is all she says.
I am crushed like a can of Contadina. Crushed as only a mom’s critique can crush one. I feel myself getting a little mad at her for being so impolite. I then turn ever more judgmental, sure that her negative attitude is keeping her from being happier and content with her life. I think the thoughts that I think she should be thinking instead. This progression is rapid. In less than 10 seconds, I go from happy to serve them to upset to totally dismissive of what she has to say and blaming her for how I feel. Of course I don’t say a word, just steam a little.
Then, I take a deep breathe. What did she really say? And what didn’t she say? And what did I hear?
…depends on which direction you are looking.
What she said was that she missed her own cooking– and yet what I heard was that my cooking wasn’t good enough. She didn’t say that I wasn’t good enough, but that’s what I heard.
I grab the knife and cut me up another slab of pig, and something dawns on me. Why am I reacting like this? Why am I demonizing her response? She was just remembering a time gone by– and all those magnificent recipes and meals she had created over the years. She realizes there will never be anything like her own home cooking– and that is gone forever.
I sit and look at her across the table. It’s now clear to me that it’s not her, but me. I’m the one being ungrateful, not her.
She is being honest, vulnerable and straight with me. I was fuming over a perceived slight. I had made it all about me. I had wanted to snap at her and tell her that I’m done trying to please her. I felt I had to “share my truth” with her and tell her how badly I feel when she says that– how she made me feel so inadequate. But the truth is, “my truth” is just a myth. A reaction based on my own programming. Nothing true about it, really. Other than it’s true that I made myself feel unloved and put that on her.
As I chew, I start to feel a different truth. A truth that I am loved and do love. And when I look at my mom, I see her– and everything between us, quite differently. I see that she is pleased with me for trying. I also see, on an unrelated note, that ultimately there was no substitute for the kind of meal only she could create. No substitute for that time in her life. In our family’s life.
A time when cooking meant the family was gathered. When dishes were links to the grand past of our immigrant heroes who came to America and founded this branch of our family vine. A time when cooking was both a responsibility (for my mom) and a joy (for my dad). A time when vegetables were grown in the backyard, peeled on the back step and cooked before they knew what hit them. A time when her kids needed her to cook dinner, not the other way around.
She misses that.
As this awareness hits me, my steam evaporates. I’m once again glad to be there, part of their lives in any way I can. It is not about me or my cooking, it is about us as a family.
What finally gets you to act on a long held intention? Is there something specific that finally pushes you over the edge? From asleep to awake, from sedentary to active, from a body at rest to a body in motion?
For me, the answer is simply getting out of my own way. When “it” happens, it is because I’ve removed whatever is obstructing me, so that I can do what I am called to do with ease.
Remove the obstruction, and the result is life.
A teacher shared with me two examples of this.
When we remove whatever blocks our eyes, the result is vision. Be it darkness, a Bob Costas-style eye infection, or a steel pillar at Fenway Park– get rid of the obstruction, and we see without even trying.
The same with our relationships with others. When we remove what is blocking our hearts, the result is effortless love. It’s what we do. It’s who we are.
Yesterday, snowbound without talking in person with anyone all day, all the likely suspects were removed. I couldn’t go for a run. I couldn’t go to the gym. I couldn’t get swept up in errands. I couldn’t blame my procrastination on anyone else, other than possibly Mark Zuckerberg. I wasn’t too busy. My head wasn’t spinning from too much to do. I didn’t have a dozen phone calls to make. My appointments were cancelled. My kids were taken care of. The snow did not get shoveled.
No obstructions. The result? My first blog post in about 6 weeks, even though it’s been sitting near the top of my to do list for about 5 1/2 weeks. To many the snow WAS the obstruction– keeping you from your trips and responsibilities. For me, the thick blanket of snow removed my obstructions and let my soul do what it does effortlessly, create.
What’s obstructing you these days? What is keeping you from you? You probably know what it is, even if you can’t quite say it out loud. Perhaps it’s a perception you have about someone, something from your past you can’t let go of, an anxious feeling about something to come. Maybe it’s a physical or emotional limitation, a boundary that you have learned to live within, rather than try to remove.
Removing it may be difficult, but often it’s actually quite easy. For me it was as easy as watching snow fall. And not nearly as much of a problem as carrying around all that intention that has been pounding on my soul, trying to get out.
If this blog were a musical, this is where I would break out into song. So some bad poetry will have to do, instead.
Remove the obstruction
from the eye and it sees;
from the heart and it loves;
from the soul and it creates;
from the river and it runs;
from you and it’s you.
You.
Once the obstruction is gone, you have nothing to fight against and nothing to hold you back. Happy St. Valentine’s Day to all the obstructed hearts out there.
There was something different about the Santa Claus at Rodale Institute in Maxatawny, PA this weekend. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why I enjoyed watching Organic Santa with the kids, until about the fifth time I saw this exact scene repeat itself.
There was something different about Organic Santa. And it wasn’t just the funky glasses and off-kilter belt.
“Helloooo! I’m so glad you made it!! I’ve been waiting for you,” called Organic Santa as the next child approached.
The child would do one of two things. Smile broadly and rush to climb up onto the antique sleigh, or, more commonly, stare in a mesmerized, suspended state of animation that could produce no spoken words as their accompanying adult half-dragged them up the step.
“It’s so good to see you. Thanks for waiting to see me.”
More silence. Eyes locked in disbelief and fear.
“Let’s have our picture taken. My elf Amanda has a camera there. Say cookies. And carrots. Don’t forget the carrots for the reindeer! Oh I like carrots too. Do you like carrots? Ho Ho HO. Wonderful!”
“So what’s Christmas like at your house?” he said turning from the camera’s lens to look the child in the eye and lowering his voice. Do you put up a tree?”
At this point, the child would generally snap of the SantaStupor, and share her little Christmas scene with Santa about what her tree was like, what kind of cookies they baked and sometimes added a few questions about the reindeer. (They stay at the airport when he’s in town, FYI). No one mentioned going out for a run with their parents, but no matter.
“Do you have a message for Santa?”
This is where the beautiful, magical scene of innocence started to break down. This is where the shouting would inevitably begin. “TELL SANTA WHAT YOU WANT FOR CHRISTMAS” I’d hear from the child’s parents. “TELL HIM! TELL HIM OR HE MIGHT NOT BRING YOU ANYTHING.”
Now, I’m a parent and I understand why this takes place. The shyness of the moment can soon give way to sadness about not communicating with Santa once the fear wears off on the ride home. As if that was her one and only chance to speak directly to the great man who holds so much mystical power in her life. No parents wants their kid to carry around that disappointment. Or worse, have to come back and see him again to give him the list. So yeah, spit it out and let’s get going to the grocery store.
But to see the same scene, over and over again, made me a little sad. It was as if the child was already getting exactly what she wanted for Christmas– a treasured moment with Santa. And the hyperspeed commercial volume of the crazy season overpowered that simple, unfiltered joy with a recitation of a mundane list of items that must be acquired as some kind of measure of the season’s ultimate success or failure.
That’s when I realized what set Organic Santa apart from the other Santas I have seen over the years. He followed “The Santa Santa Rule” from David Sedaris’s fantastical, brilliant “Santaland Diaries. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=161Fyi6fid0
In his incredible tale that forever put Sedaris on the literary map, the most realistic and humane Santa at Macy’s is renown not for his trademark beard, suit or anything he says– but for what he doesn’t. He would never ask what the child wanted for Christmas. Never ever. He would just talk with the child and see what was on her mind. In kind of an odd, ironic way, it is exactly what this Catholic boy thinks I’d want to do if I ever met that other person who is at the center of the Christmas story. Not ask for stuff. But to talk. To understand. To just be together. What more could a true believer really want?
For those parents who couldn’t badger their kids into reciting their memorized lists, this Organic Santa left them with the same assurance that I want when a moment overwhelms me.
“Tell you what. If you think of other messages you have for me before Christmas, you have someone help you write it down and give it to this person right here (pointing to the child’s presumed parent). She knows how to get it to me.”
Organic Santa checked his list twice, and by the looks of it, this family already has all they really want for Christmas, each other.
So from Organic Santa to you, that’s my holiday wish to one and all.
Enjoy the moments of the holiday season as they appear to you, not for what you think they may lead to. And if you want something to be known, just write it down and send it out. It really could happen.
The truth is that it’s worked for me. You’re reading this aren’t you? Then a little one of my dreams has come true.
Now it’s your turn. What message is it time for you to share?
Taking Mulligans 