Identity

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10-Year Challenge, Blogging, Buddhism, Coaching, Community, Confidence, Faith, Family, Fitness, German language, Gratitude, Growing up gay, Idealism, Identity, Living in Hawaii, Marathon training and running, Middle Age, Poetry, Teaching, Teenagers, Tess Gallagher

Dear Readers,

I have to admit: I gave in to the latest fad for 2019: The 10-Year Challenge!

For me — not that I was trying to raise the stakes — it was actually The 15-Year Challenge as that amount of time rushed past between the guy on the left running hard and fierce, and the far more mellow dude on the right pleasantly exhausted after a 20-mile training run.

I know, this could also be called The How Well (or Not So Well) Have I Aged Challenge!

My identity as a runner has been a constant for nearly 20 years. It’s nicely intertwined with my identity as a tennis player for 40 years, as a poet for even longer, as a practitioner of the German language most of his life to honor his maternal grandfather, as an openly gay man around the time I took up distance running seriously, and as a believer all his life of fate linked to faith.

I encouraged my students in German class and in my poetry workshop this week to enjoy discovering their identities, to redefine themselves if needed at different times in their lives, but to try to hold true to their identities as long-term commitments, to my mind, are usually beneficial as long as they can be translated into kind, creative contributions to communities that make the world better, be they running groups, gatherings of poets and artists, linguists who promote appreciation of different cultures, tennis players who can bring the sport as instructors to young people to give them confidence and joy.

Boy, is this getting a little serious!

I also have urged my students to have fun (and be safe) in exploring who they are and who they might become.

I was all of 17 when I applied to be accepted into classes and a workshop taught by Tess Gallagher when I went to college. I was a bit too serious when I studied creative writing with this remarkable poet. At that age and in that era, it’s certainly no surprise I was insecure and terrified of being a gay man. Tess and some my classmates urged to me to be less formal, to relax, to square my shoulders and be more confident, to try to have a little fun in finding my identity as a poet and as a person.

It took me decades of living in different countries and parts of the United States before I landed in Hawaii, the proud husband of a linguist and father of a stunning young girl who loves poetry in German and English!

I’m so grateful to Tess, my family, and many friends and teachers for all their patience and wisdom, for how kind they were to take notice of the Ugly Duckling I believed myself to be who has now run 24 marathons, published poetry, taught, played way too many tennis matches and — most important of all — learned to enjoy life.

While the runner on the right shown in the picture at the beginning of this post is a lot slower than the younger version of himself, I’m also a lot happier and more comfortable with who I’ve become.

 

 

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Reciting Poetry

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Blogging, Education, Endurance, Faith, Family, Fate, Gay marriage, German language, Living in Hawaii, Middle Age, Parenting, Philanthropy, Poetry, Writing

My busiest time of year, and it will remain so until early January, was made a bit more complicated when our daughter unexpectedly needed to accompany her fathers to their workplace for most of this week.

The reasons why are the subject of another post, but fortunately our daughter’s dads both work in the same high school where our colleagues didn’t question why our eight-year-old kid was joining students much older.

I probably had an easier time than my husband. Alone in my lovely office with my lovely daughter, I enjoyed her company.

My husband, who is not an administrator, and as a teacher does not have his own classroom, was stretched a bit more than I as he balanced the vicissitudes of parenting and his paid job simultaneously.

To be fair, our daughter was a great sport.

Our school in Hawaii promotes fluid learning and flexibility — hence, the many open spaces, movable walls, and, for teachers, no rooms they can call their own.

So what does this have to do with poetry?

When I applied for my job, as I have with all my jobs working in small, private schools, I asked to be a teacher or a coach for a few hours a week so I can also get to know students and their families and not just be the office guy. It allows me to step outside my organized little world into a classroom or playing field with all its rewards and challenges.

In my current position that I’ve held for nearly five years, my boss has let me teach German and poetry, two subjects that have been near and dear to me for my entire life.

My daughter was with me during the poetry workshop yesterday at the end of a long week where students and adults alike were tired.

I came into a room where teenagers were slouched over tables looking at their phones. I greeted them in German! They knew I would remind them to put their phones away. They knew I would ask if any of them since the beginning of the week had found a new poem they wanted to share. I knew they were coasting a bit toward the promised land called the weekend.

Since many of the students are new to poetry, I changed the subject a bit, asking them how they managed difficult or unexpected stretches in their days or routines, how they might overcome a bit of anxiety if they faced a tough homework assignment, test, or presentation.

I offered a solution: find a great poem and memorize it a few lines at a time so that it becomes a friend for life during difficult or enjoyable times, like unexpectedly having your child accompany you to work most of the day!

The students gave me a look that said, “Show us, don’t just tell us.” So I did. I plucked from my memory a passage from Die Brücke am Tay, a ballad by Theodor Fontane. Although the last time I recited it was five years ago, it came back instantly. I stood in front of teenagers and my daughter and repeated it aloud, slowly, in German.

The students, who include a German exchange student, stayed a little longer than needed in the workshop. For a few extra minutes, they kept their phones in their backpacks. A few even smiled as they left the room.

Later that evening, my daughter sat down and wrote a poem.

Teaching Moments: My Husband

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Being Gay, Blogging, Faith, Family, Gay marriage, Gay parenting, German language, Gratitude, Iceland, Living in Hawaii, Marathon training and running, Middle Age, Quakerism

This is an imperfect post because I can never express adequately enough how grateful I am to my husband.

On his 45th birthday, I will try.

For taking a chance with a guy a bit older, my face showing traces of many hours baking in the sun playing tennis and training for yet another marathon; who wanted a white picket fence and a family; who dreamt of Hawaii and Iceland; who loves the German language and who has never succeeded at learning his husband’s specialty: Celtic languages and cultures; who is not his intellectual equal yet not for one second has been made to feel inadequate.

Most important: the best father I have ever known who still finds time and energy and patience to make me feel like I’m relevant to him.

Thank you for teaching me endurance, humor, humility, resilience, tenacity.

You and our daughter have been my best teachers ever.

Teaching Moments – Part 4: Red Threads that Run Through Life

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Austria, Blogging, Fate, Fulbright Program, German Heritage, German language, Gratitude, Growing up gay, Japanese Culture, Living in Hawaii, Marathon training and running, Parenting, Poetry, Teaching

One of my favorite expressions in German is “Es zieht sich wie ein roter Faden durch das Leben” or “It’s a central theme of life” although the literal word-for-word translation is “It pulls like a red thread through life.”

Substitute possessive pronouns like “sein” or “ihr” or “mein” and you have his or her or my life. And then you have the groovy color element, Red, which is also the name of my all-time favorite movie (and referenced in my blog post a week ago on Valentine’s Day).

My work Tuesday here in a high school in Honolulu began with a poetry workshop. I’m actually an administrator, but my boss, the Head of School, has allowed me to teach two subjects near and dear to my heart: German and poetry that have been constant friends most of my life.

For that matter, so have tennis, distance running, being gay, the bassoon, and Hawaii and Iceland. I’ve had a few ups and downs with all these friends, but we’re pretty loyal to each other.

Never did I imagine I would some day end up in Honolulu, married to a man, and the proud co-parent of a seven-year-old daughter.

But here we are.

So this morning, after a holiday weekend, I expected my students to be tired and not ready to discuss the assignment I gave them last week: write a poem imagining an alternate history in your life — either a part of your history you have already lived or that which is ahead of you.

I had shared with them some of my own history: wanting to be a writer for Sports Illustrated, earning a degree in journalism, applying for all kinds of writing and editing positions, but then working instead at a small law office for an attorney for the German Consulate.

I told them how that led to receiving a Fulbright teaching assistantship, then staying in Austria and working for the Japanese Consulate during which time I saved all my vacation and flew around the world with one of the stops being Hawaii, how I never forgot what I considered to be the most beautiful place on earth, how one bitter cold day many years later in Iowa, I received a call offering me this job at a school in Honolulu where I am now a fundraiser and teach students poetry.

Guess what?

My students and I wrote poems this holiday weekend with a What If theme! They came ready to go!

After I ask their permission later this week, I will share the poems.

And I will get back to my cliffhangers for Teaching Moments posts and tie the red threads together.

I told my students I was proud of them and excited to have shared Tuesday morning with them.

And this was all before 9 a.m!

Teaching Moments – Part 3

Tags

Austria, Blogging, Faith, Fate, Friendship, Fulbright Program, German Heritage, German language, Gratitude, Growing up gay, Japanese Culture, Living in Hawaii, Teaching, The '80s

Hi Readers,

After a Valentine’s Day interlude, I’m resuming the cliffhanger. I realized that these Teaching Moments posts are pretty autobiographical. I hope they are inspiring because when I look at my past, I wonder how I had so much courage when many people told me “You’ll never do this” or “You’ll never have this.”

My message: believe in yourself, follow and hold true to your own path in spite of the naysayers and the stones and stumbles and even loneliness along the way.

Where I left off: I was living in New York City, barely in my 20s, and a candidate for a Fulbright Scholarship, improbable for a small town kid growing up gay in the ’70s and ’80s who wasn’t considered the best in his class.

Even though it was a long time ago, I still remember how it all happened. When I was invited during the Fulbright application process to continue with next steps, I took an early morning train from New York City for a day trip to my college in upstate New York and approached a few professors for letters of recommendation. I was surprised they remembered me, and I will be forever grateful for their taking time out during spring break to write the letters. I noted in my previous post the interview with the very kind Germans from the Goethe-Institut in New York City, including a woman who had visited my alma mater while I was a student and remembered me.

To this day, I still wonder how they did. I was academically a pretty good student, but not the best. Even when I took German in high school, the misguided teacher had a habit of classifying students out loud — to the students and their parents! In today’s world, she probably would have received a reprimand or worse for doing so. Suffice it to say, she did not place me in the top tier. I’ll never forget her mocking my accent in front of the other students. Embarrassed, I told her my German was influenced by my grandfather. She asked the other students not to imitate it as my grandfather came from a farmer’s family.

I think teaching moments like that have made me determined to be as open-minded and non-judgmental as possible when I teach, coach, or encourage young people. I probably favor the underdog! And I sure hope my daughter, very bright, and born with an extra chromosome, will be lucky (as she often but not always has been so far) to be guided by teachers who celebrate her strengths and magic qualities of which she has plenty.

But back to my cliffhanger: I received a Fulbright teaching assistantship to work and study in Austria. When I opened the letter in the small German law office in New York City, I called my mother who was teaching in a small high school, one of the rare times I ever interrupted her at work. She forgave me! I didn’t have close friends in New York at the time, so I celebrated on my own by walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, something I always wanted to do.

In the next few weeks, I planned for my move to Europe. I wanted to make sure I had a month to travel before I began teaching and studying because I always wanted to see Wimbledon and Scandinavia. I was all of 21 years old, and by no means wealthy, but I had no fear. I remember thinking at the time, “Do this now so that I don’t wake up one day when I’m older wishing I had.”

One of my teaching placements was in a monastic school south of Vienna.

To be continued … !

 

Teaching Moments – Part 2

Tags

Blogging, Faith, Fate, Fulbright Program, German Heritage, German language, Growing up gay, New York City, Teaching, The '80s, Writing

The end of my last post was a cliffhanger.

I was surprised by the very kind responses from readers of my blog. I don’t consider my life to be that exciting!

But I’ll continue where I left off on Wednesday: I was barely in my 20s, had spent a year in New York City working for an attorney for the German Consulate, had modeled a bit to see what it was like, had written for a weekly newspaper, and attended Business German classes at New York University.

My full-time job was in a very small law office. I was by decades the youngest person there. But part of my work was finding and translating documents in German at the New York City Municipal Archives and New York Public Library, glorious quiet places filled with books and history. My modeling, weekly newspaper assignments, and courses at NYU helped me through the jungle of New York City — and the loneliness.

I was a very young man in the ’80s, and although I would not admit it to myself at the time, I was (and still am) gay. Truth be told, the decade was probably the worst to come out of the closet. The AIDS epidemic was reaching new heights every day. Articles in New York City newspapers back then were filled with accounts of young men covered in lesions, dying excruciating deaths, and shunned by their families, even friends and doctors. I was terrified which in retrospect might have saved my life.

So in addition to my growing fascination with my heritage — an aunt had recently reestablished contact with the part of the family in Bavaria that had stayed behind in the “Old World,” and wanting to keep my promise to my grandfather to become truly fluent in German — I was also scared out of my wits about being gay.

I was ready to flee New York City and immerse myself in the German world. I applied for all kinds of jobs and graduate school programs. Then, to my shock, I received a Fulbright Scholarship.

I’m not brilliant like my husband, who received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate from Harvard. But I can have a fearless streak. When I was interviewed by the kind people from the Goethe-Institut, New York, I was relaxed and told them about learning everything I could about my grandfather’s family, how I savored hearing that he and his 15 siblings and their parents would say their prayers in German in their farmhouse in a remote hamlet in the mountains of Pennsylvania, how much I enjoyed the Business German classes at NYU and how I loved to read Rainer Maria Rilke in German.

About a month later, I received a letter from the Fulbright Commission stating that while many applicants wishing to be in German-speaking country would be in Germany, some teaching assistantships were available in Austria. Would I be interested?

Guess what my answer was?! It involves a monastery.

To be continued … !

 

Teaching Moments – Part 1

Tags

Blogging, Fate, Fulbright Program, German Heritage, German language, Teaching, Writing

I’m an administrator at a small private school in Hawaii.

How’s that for an exciting lead?!

I wanted to be a writer for Sports Illustrated. After I graduated early from college and one of the best journalism schools in the country, I applied for many editing and writing positions. While working in a doughnut shop, I also saw a tiny ad in The New York Times for an assistant for an attorney for the German Consulate. I was intrigued.

I had squeezed four years of college into three. One of my regrets was not being able to  enjoy the classes as much as I hoped nor take fun electives because I wanted to save money and graduate early, with honors if possible.

I had chosen Magazine Writing and Creative Writing to be my duel major. I took German literature courses, but felt I had a bit of a home-court advantage — and a bit of my grandfather’s Bavarian-Pennsylvania intonation. When a professor asked me if I would consider being a German major,  I said, “Oh no, German is Grandad’s language. I want to be a journalist.”

So when I saw the Times ad, I thought, “Boy, I could improve my written German working for an attorney and enjoy what amounts to a fourth year of college while I am in the work world.”

Long story short: I was offered the job. For a small-town boy, living in New York City was exciting and terrifying. I worked for the attorney and as a freelance journalist and model. I also attended Business German classes at New York University.

After a year, I knew I wanted to live in German-speaking Europe. I applied for graduate schools everywhere in Germany, called friends of friends of friends living in Germany to see if they needed an assistant in their business or to be a handyman for anything.

Then the shock of my life happened: I received a Fulbright Scholarship.

To be continued … !

 

Sharing Cultures

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Blogging, Childraising, Early Education, Friendship, Fulbright Program, German Heritage, German language, Gratitude, Living in Hawaii, Presidential election, Trisomy 21

Yesterday morning at this time I was working with my seven-year-old daughter on her homework assignment for Tuesday: sharing with her classmates and teacher a piece of her culture. The options provided for second graders were fun: a song, for example, clothing, a game.

We chose a book Ellen has loved for years: Kennst du das? Mein buntes Bilderwörterbuch or Do You Know This? My Picture Dictionary.

In the next few days Ellen will practice telling why the book is important to her family and culture. She will present verbally to her classmates the reason she came up with on her own: “So that we continue our heritage and language.”

My daughter has been raised in two languages since she was born: German and English. She is now learning Hawaiian and a bit of Japanese. Her other father, a Harvard-educated linguist, feeds her Basque and Cornish words for fun. We keep it light in our home when we use languages other than English either in speaking, playing games, singing or reading.

For me, German has always been part of my life even though I lived only about six years in German-speaking countries. When I did, friends from those countries who knew I that I had grown up in the United States would either say I was an “honorary European” or that I was American. I would gently correct them and state that I was German-American, even Bavarian-American.

To many of those folks, this seemed incomprehensible. If you grow up in the United States, you love McDonald’s (I actually do have occasional cravings for McDonald’s fries), baseball, American football, violence, and only speak an English many Europeans, as best as they try not to, look down their noses at. You care only about being an American, have no interest in other cultures or languages.

Right?

Well, no, actually for many of us!

In my vast family with our German surnames, we pretty much know our family roots from centuries ago — where and how they lived, whom they married, when they came to the “New World.” Many of us grew up with the German language or at least German words that became kind of a family dialect on my mother’s side. A few of us are bilingual.

When my husband and I visited our daughter’s pediatrician when we were living in Germany, she asked what language we spoke to Ellen. Ben said English. Sheepishly, I said, “Well, I prefer to speak German to her.”

“Of course,” Ellen’s pediatrician replied, “That’s your mother tongue.”

Well, that was enough for me to keep my vow going that I had made to my maternal grandfather: that I would always keep the language going in our family.

So when my daughter said to me yesterday that she speaks and reads German because that way our family’s heritage stays alive, a shiver went down my spine in a good way.

She gets it. She lives in a city where you can walk down the street and hear four different languages at any time of day, is part of a faith community that traces its origins to Japan, learns Hawaiian culture, language and dance on Saturdays, and then unwinds at home by reading German!

This is all balm for my soul after reading news articles about a president ensconced in his golf club for the weekend in New Jersey firing off vicious tweets to the mayor of Puerto Rico’s largest city, a woman of non-white heritage, who has been working nonstop to deal with a hurricane that has devastated her island. The reason for his cowardly, disgraceful attacks on her? She had the nerve to question him and his lack of leadership, of understanding.

I want my daughter to continue to embrace other cultures, traditions, languages, to appreciate that if you do, you can go anywhere in this amazing world and find community. How lucky we are to be in a part of the world where that is valued deeply. How lucky we are that our last president grew up in Hawaii. How lucky we would be if only our current president could open his mind and heart just a little.

What Ifs

Tags

Blogging, Faith, Family, Fate, Friendship, Fulbright Program, German language, Gratitude, Growing up gay

Dear Readers,

One of my best friends has been grappling with a major life decision. It would involve a move to another continent, and for her a new culture, language and lifestyle for a new job. She would be leaving behind a great deal for a fresh start in the late summer or early autumn of her life.

I tried to be a good listener during our phone call yesterday and offer a helpful perspective.

I told her about my living in New York City for a year, where she is now, and my dreams of living in Europe in a German-speaking country. At the time, I was 21 years old, still a fresh graduate from college with a degree from a respected journalism school. I was working a full-time job for an estate attorney for the German Consulate, a part-time job for a weekly newspaper in Brooklyn, and attending evening Business German classes at New York University.

I was a young man from a modest socioeconomic background who had led a very sheltered life as a member of a vast German-American family with no gay role models save for a much older second cousin whom my father and one of his brothers mocked openly. (They later told me I was too sensitive when I objected to their portrayal of this mystery relative I had never met. They also, with great concern, asked my mother if I were trying to pass on a secret message that I might be gay.)

I knew I liked being a man, so any image of a drag queen made me retreat deeper into the closet. I was terrified of AIDS. I knew I wanted to be respected by my family, so I breathed great sighs of relief every time I won a national poetry award, a match on my college tennis team after which I would call my parents, and, after one year of living in New York City, received a Fulbright scholarship, to this day still a great shock! I also tried to act straight, which must have been pretty funny to all who knew in their hearts that I wasn’t. I explored a lot of New York the one year I lived there because I didn’t drive and walked everywhere. One day, passing through Grand Central Terminal on my way to work, a gentleman asked if I had ever tried modeling. He gave me a card.

I was horrified and curious at the same time. To make a long story short, I eventually was featured in one national ad for sweaters along with a dozen other young men. They wanted us to represent countries from around the world, and they gave me a haircut to make me look like I might have come from Holland or Germany.

I left the modeling world pretty quickly. I knew I couldn’t hold a candle to the stunning acquaintances I made who were auditioning for the same part-time gigs I was. I was also scared out of my wits.

What if I became real friends with some of these guys? Then I would be gay, right? Then I would get AIDS, right? Then I would die young, right? And my family would be humiliated, right?

To make another long story short, I moved to Austria, lived in a monastery, taught in two schools, studied translating at the University of Vienna, and wrote poetry. The wonderful Fulbright administrators in Vienna approved my scholarship for a second year. I left the monastery, worked at an embassy, tried to date women, and played a lot of tennis with many straight men. I was terrified a few might realize I was actually gay even though I had not yet accepted that fact. After some years, I returned to the United States. I married a woman. I wanted children.

Oh boy.

My convoluted message to my dear friend yesterday was “Take chances. You may never know if they will come your way again. You don’t want to wake up 20 years from now and think, ‘What if?'”

And that lead me to thinking.

What if I had not moved to Austria but had dated men in the ’80s in New York City? Would I still be alive? What if I had stayed in the monastery in Austria? What if I had never married a woman I loved? What if I had never taken a chance a few years ago in the summer of my career and had not persuaded my family to move to Hawaii. What if I had not persuaded my husband to try parenthood?

I have no amazing answers. All I can write is that I feel fortunate that life has turned out to be a marathon and that I try to savor every mile even when I’m exhausted! I try not to overthink the miles before and after. Sometimes I just decide to run them.

So, to my dear friend in New York, whatever decision you make, keep the faith and know I and many others will be rooting for you!

 

 

The Glass is Half Ful…bright

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Blogging, Community, Early Education, Education, Faith, Fate, Fulbright Program, German Heritage, German language, International community, Languages, Mainstreaming, Marathon training and running, Presidential election, Trisomy 21, Wimbledon

Now that I’m posting only two days a week rather than five — after meeting my goal of writing every day but weekends and holidays for a solid year — the topics about which I could write seem to be overabundant!

Here we are, for example, in the thick of Wimbledon. Do I offer thoughts about the surprises of the tournament that lasts two weeks and is the one time of year when I try to rearrange my life around tennis?

Should I share insights about how my husband and I are preparing our daughter for second grade — for most parents probably not a huge deal, but somewhat uncharted territory for a precocious child who is holding her own with other kids her age but who nonetheless was born with an extra chromosome. Is there more my husband and I should be doing? Is there less?

Perhaps some advice for my followers about wisdom I’ve gained training for my 19th marathon that is less than two weeks away?

Or do I reflect on the astonishing turn of events with the new occupants of the White House?

I’ll pick the latter but for this post only as it relates to a subject near and dear to my heart.

As it desperately tries to make itself credible in any possible way, the Trump administration has again made a proposal that defies logic: a 47% cut to the Fulbright program as one of many painful reductions to a State Department that is every day rapidly losing talent, purpose and meaning.

The program was launched by Sen. William J. Fulbright right after World War II to encourage global study, understanding, and constructive engagement with the world’s community of nations.

I think many of us are trying to figure out if Donald Trump is a nationalist, isolationist, or just breathtakingly shortsighted. I wish he knew some basic facts about Fulbright.

Over seven decades, some 370,000 people from 165 countries — Americans studying overseas, and men and women from other countries attending universities in the United States — have received Fulbrights. They include Nobel and Pulitzer prizewinners and former heads of state.

In the current budget year, 8,000 scholars from the United States have been funded by $235 million from the State Department to study abroad. The Trump administration hopes that amount will shrink to $125 million, much less than universities, governments of other nations, businesses and donors offer to maintain the Fulbright program.

I was once a young man who dreamed of studying and living in a German-speaking country to embrace my heritage and language of my forefathers and foremothers. To my great shock, I received a Fulbright to study in Austria for two years. I stayed for a few after that to work in an embassy. I still have poems from that time that I wrote in English, German, and French. Receiving the Fulbright changed my life. It made me strive to be a citizen of the world and inspired me to make a career of helping young people achieve their dreams through education.

There are thousands of former Fulbrights who have a more important voice than I, but I want to add my words to their efforts to lobby for full funding of the program, perhaps for even an increase, so the world has a better chance to advance.