Willie Stargell

Something came in late today that portends major problems--for my client and, in its own way, for me.

As soon as I got home, I realized that I couldn't stay. And so, I turned around and came back again. I called, later, to check on Maia and Kristina, to say goodnight to Maia, and to ask Kristina to call me later on.

When I start a case, there's always a moment of exhilaration: there is a chaos of people, and events, and law before me, and it's up to me to impress my mind upon those things and turn them into some kind of structure. The exhiilaration is the awareness that I have in that moment that I am about to take a creative role in time, that without the plunge into the world that I am about to make, the things that will happen would never have happened. It is a Shiva moment.

This is different.

I know for a certainty that there is pain ahead, for my client and for me. There is no chance of a painless ending to this. But I must walk into the fray, regardless, and make of it what I can.

In the 1979 World Series, with his team behind the Orioles 3 games to 1 and losing the 5th game 1 to nothing, Willie Stargell homered in the 6th inning with a man on base. The Pirates did not trail again in that game. And in the end, they won the series, 4 games to 3.

No one had given them a chance.

Willie Stargell had won that series, and everyone knew it. Of his performance, he said, "Sometimes you have to be a man."

It wasn't in him to be sexist. He was saying that when you are called upon to act, you have to answer the call.

How simple and natural a thing: to answer the call. It is what life is about. And yet how difficult. How easy it would be to give up.

John, Monday, May 23, 2011

Fake Dad

Today, after we picked her up, Maia said that one of Maia's friends at school had called me her "fake Dad."



Maia and this girl have been competitive for some time. My guess is that it probably has to do with the fact that I'm a lawyer, and Maia has broadcast that fact. Maia knows that we have more than most people and that I make more than most people.



What the girl had said clearly bothered Maia. Me, too.



"I didn't talk about her Dad," she complained.



Later, I tried to explain how bragging makes people react.

"I wasn't bragging," she protested. So I let it drop.



I had to come back to work tonight--a hearing to prepare for.

Before I left, Maia hugged me and said, "You're my real Dad."

I hugged her back and thanked her for that.

Not sure where this is going yet. We'll see.

The pics are of us on a hike last Saturday. I've been kept away by work from Maia and Kristina and had wanted to spend some time with them, and Cocoa, too. When I had gotten ready to leave that morning, Cocoa had alerted and given me an expectant look, hoping that she would be going, too. But I couldn't take her to work.

I went home early from work on Saturday, and we spent the afternoon hiking on a trail at the top of the mountain we live on.

Cocoa loves that trail. She flies up and down it at full gallop, and there are always things to track--wild chickens, pigs, mongoose, other dogs.

It is a pretty place, and we all had fun. Cocoa rode shotgun on the way home.



John, Tuesday, May 17, 2011