A Father’s Pride and Joy

A rondeau poem inspired by my daughter’s early decision acceptance yesterday into the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University — the nachas tears continue to flow from many eyes

One of my favorite pictures of Sofia and me

Earth angel arrived like a cannon shot Daddy’s bare skin hands caught without a thought Remember moment as if yesterday Abundance of fond memories of your play Taking on the world like a dreadnought

Perhaps heaven exploring astronaut Or time traveling argonaut The world is yours from which to seize the day A father’s pride and joy

As you venture out onto this pale blue dot Please don’t fear as there’s nothing you cannot Allow yourself mistakes in life’s ballet Pursue contentment you’ll enjoy your stay Trust your gut my love without second thoughts A father’s pride and joy

The Term Nachas Explained to the Majority of Readers

“Nachas is a Yiddish word meaning that you are happy and proud, especially of someone’s accomplishments.”

“Nachas is the joy you feel over the achievements of someone close to you, because you’re so connected with that person, that it’s as if the accomplishment is yours. It’s often translated as pride, but it’s much more personal — an individual pleasure derived from someone else’s success.”

Explanation of Rondeau Form

My daughter likes to learn and understand.

The rhyme scheme of the 15 line form is AABBA AABR AABBAR, where R stands for the use of the title of the poem as a non-rhyming refrain. As I wrote last night in a comment to my dear friend Lori (Ravyne Hawke), from whom I learned the form just a few days ago from her poetry prompt:

I like this rondeau format. I like how the refrain breaks up the rhyme pattern and creates a sort of a pregnant pause in the piece — pregnant pause is my favorite literary term.

Some of My Thoughts Behind the Poem

Earth angel arrived like a cannon shot Daddy’s bare skin hands caught without a thought

Liz and I had a very emotionally intelligent obstetrician. We each assumed I would be in the delivery room but not part of the action, until in the room after a few minutes of pushing attended to by him and the nurse, he said, “Ok Greg, take a leg” and I went in without hesitation. Had he told us of his intent beforehand, Liz may have said “I don’t want him seeing that!” and I may have had to defer.

Active labor was long and even after the episiotomy, the doctor said he might have to take her in for a cesarean. When he later said he was giving up on the normal delivery, Liz said “no f’ing way” and gave one last push that only a desperate mother could muster and Sofia shot out flying through the air and my ungloved hands caught her from hitting the floor.

Abundance of fond memories of your play Taking on the world like a dreadnought

Sofia challenges herself and rises to every occasion. “Play” is a double entendre. On the one hand, she is a fiercely competitive tennis player and has a wickedly strong forehand. It also refers to my beliefs in reincarnation and that each lifetime follows improvisational scripts written by each of us in conjunction and negotiation with our fellow travelers, each such script subject to God’s signoff (if it pleases you to do so, see my Life Is School for the Soul).

As you venture out onto this pale blue dot

That evokes Carl Sagan’s words, with emphasis added.

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

As for dealing more kindly with each other, as David Brooks has written and I quote in my Can We Please All Find the Space Within Which to Breathe the Same Air and Agree Not to Agree, Suggestions on how to save the American experiment of a republic based upon a representative democracy by, of and for the people:

Moderation is not an ideology; it is a way of being. It stands for humility of the head and ardor in the heart. When you listen to your neighbor, you see how many perspectives there are and you’re intellectually humble in the face of that pluralism. When you listen to your neighbor, you see that deep down we’re the same and you hunger to deepen that connection.

Allow yourself mistakes in life’s ballet … Trust your gut my love without second thoughts

The following excerpt is from an email I sent Sofia (then 17) and her brother Alex (then 15) in October 2020, and I published here in January:

Learning only happens from making mistakes. A parent can discuss lessons it has learned in the hope that the child will recognize that it is in a situation like the parent described and not make a mistake, but learning cannot happen without making mistakes.

So the first lesson from me: do not worry about perfection. Do your best, but don’t let the pursuit of perfection paralyze you; be ok with making mistakes if you do not repeat the same mistake over and over and over again. You will, many times. Eventually, awareness will set in you’ll see yourself heading towards the same mistake, and then you’ll do something differently, large or small, and you will avoid the mistake.

…

The important thing that I can impart to you now is to learn to look within. You already know every answer you need in life. Be patient, sit with decisions until they not only seem right but feel right. Trust your gut. There is a difference between doubts in your head and feelings in your gut. There is a difference between being nervous in your gut and something really not feeling right in your gut. You will need to discern for yourself how to discern those differences; everybody is different. I can help you when you are trying to tell the difference if you come to me for help. I can guide you but the ultimate decision would have to be yours. It’s fine to make mistakes. I just hope you recognize mistakes way earlier than I have.

Pursue contentment you’ll enjoy your stay

I do not believe in the pursuit of happiness. Happiness and sadness (not to be confused with depression) are fleeting emotions that ebb and flow. Contentment is the state of being to which people should aspire. As I have written many times:

I seek contentment, which is not settling but a hopefully high-altitude baseline, coming from within and connection to without. It doesn’t stem from the acquisition of attachments but awareness of connection to the world and the universe as a living, breathing, and heart-beating organism and from alignment of mind and soul and discerning my why — my drive — from discovering who I am at my core.

Concluding with More about Sofia and Related Thoughts of Self-Reflection

A little over a year ago I wrote in one of my streams of consciousness essays for which I had a penchant at the time:

Last evening I experienced my proudest moment in my 17 years, 3 months and 12 days as a father.

My daughter elected to continue her Jewish education, which unless she continues even further, culminates with a “confirmation” service. My daughter’s confirmation class’ service-by-zoom with pre-recorded portions was last night. I am not remotely religious. I only identify as a jew ethnically. I have not proselytized my spirituality nor nonconformist nature to my kids, mostly only answering questions when asked and writing [the email I cited above].

A key part of the service was the kids’ affirmations of their commitment to Judaism. Ninety percent basically said that they commit to uphold Jewish values — yada yada.

My Sofia said:

“I affirm my commitment to explore and grow my jewish identity through my own eyes.”

As Harry Chapin wrote in a song in which the son grew up to be a lousy dad just like his dad, I proudly repurpose the lyrics and beam: “My girl is just like me!” In fact, as I told her several months ago, she is so much more than me:

I want you too know you are everything and more than a father could hope for — in many ways you are a much better version of me — the way you are in school is what I look back and wish I had been — super smart BUT with the drive to study and be your best.

Her fearless light shall shine even brighter than mine.

That segues well into what I wrote to a dear friend on Medium last night:

My daughter got accepted early decision into Northwestern. Yay and phew. She’s a pressure cooker and I would not have wanted her to have to go through another 4 months of this. I was the opposite pressure-wise when I was a kid. And she also works hard to get the most out of her intelligence whereas I did the bare minimum. Anyway, I’m digressing. I had applied to Brown early decision back in 1984. We lived in Providence and my prep school fed a lot of kids into Brown. I had the best grades and highest SATs of the applicants yet I got deferred (no legacy, no sports, and Jewish — Brown definitely had a quota in that regard even then). My father wisely made me apply to Michigan then as a safety (my other apps were U Penn and Stanford). Michigan called me a few weeks later, as I picked up the phone I had thought to schedule an interview, but no they called to accept me and offer me a spot in their honors college. I arrogantly told my parents I would take a year off if I didn’t get into Brown, Stanford or Penn. Oh what I put my mother through for the next 4 months of worry. I ended up at Penn, the last of the envelopes to arrive.

Sorry for all that mom.

Looking back, the honors program at UM might have been a great place for me, if I were the person then that I am now, which I was not. How ironic is it that I chose to major in biology, in part because I did not want to write papers!!

Thank you, Rob (my ex’s father) for the text that inspired the subtitle of this poem (“It’s Great news that Sofia was accepted early decision at the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University!! I am going out of my mind with pride and joy!!!!!), and for the additional shot of DNA that has helped Sofia surpass my IQ.

Closing with a song, as I do lately — this one because Sofia and I both love it.

In Rama I create, with soul-energy surging through my body, inspiring me and breathing wind into my sails,

Marcus (Gregory Maidman)