HEREAFTER

Tonight, Kathleen and I saw "Hereafter," the new film by Clint Eastwood. There are too many levels on which this film grabbed me to enumerate, but at its core this film is about making and maintaining connections. As I write this, I am listening to the soundtrack composed by Clint Eastwood, which I purchased as soon as I got home. That is the true measure of a film- that one longs to experience its message again and again and that this is achievable by listening to its score.

While "Hereafter" does focus, naturally, on the hereafter, the film also resolutely reminds us of the power of connections in the here and now. There are 3 principal characters. Matt Damon plays a young man in San Francisco named George who had a near-death experience that left him with psychic powers. While his entrepreneurial brother views this as a gift, George views this as a curse that drives people who come close to him away. Another main character is Marie, a young French television journalist from Paris, who has a near-death experience during a tsunami in Southeast Asia. Her life and her perspective are turned upside down by the glimpse of the hereafter that she had during this event. Finally, a young English boy named Marcus loses someone he loves dearly, and Marcus longs for a chance to speak with this lost soul again.

The film was powerful to me simply because of the depth of humanity that these three characters exuded. I was reminded of past relationships and friendships and just how much it is possible for one to feel and yearn for others. I was reminded that despite how impersonal and mind-numbing life can seem, it is also beautiful...if only we will take the time to look around.

I was reminded of this last week while on a run through the neighborhood. I am someone who looks straight ahead or at my GPS watch for my splits when I run, and I have been known to miss many a beautiful sight. However, during this recent run, I gazed skyward, and my glance was met with the most beautiful clouds I have ever seen. No, they were not lined with silver. Rather, they seemed to be framed in gold due to the way the sun struck them. A picture from the backyard post-run is shown below.



As I watched "Hereafter" and these characters, especially young Marcus, I felt a yearning to see and be with my own children and my own parents. Shown below are Cate and Nicholas in the Halloween costumes they wore to a party we attended before we went to see this movie. Cate went as a koala bear, and Nicholas went as "my daddy."





This movie also made me long for my friends. I am a lucky man to have too many friends to list, but you know who you are.

I know that one day I will have to say goodbye to you all. While, I am still not sure whether I believe in a hereafter where we will all be re-united, I do know that it is within my power to tell you now how much you mean to me. So if you are reading this, please know one thing- at the darkest times, at the lowest points (and there were many), you all reminded me why life was still worth living. That is a truth that I may take with me to the hereafter but it is also a truth that does remind me, on a daily basis, to live in the present.

Life is a gift, but we are given it... until further notice.

THE AMERICAN

Amid all the polarization in this country and fear of the other, there is also reason to believe that we may move past the vitriol one day and perhaps become a nation that looks and feels like a Benneton ad. I was reminded of this after a conversation with Mr. Nicholas.

Earlier this week, he had a play date with a classmate whose family is of Danish descent. The little boy's nanny picked up Nicholas and the little boy from school and took them to the little boy's home. After Nicholas got home, I was curious about whether the nanny was an au pair from Denmark, so I asked Nicholas if the nanny was American. He gave me a confused look and asked, "What is an American?"

This question made me think about myself. I am of Indian decent and was born in Canada. I immigrated to this country at the age of 11 and became an American citizen at the age of 30. However, for as long as I have been here, I have thought of myself as American. Whatever that means.

I am glad to see that to Nicholas the concept of being something- Indian, mixed race, or American- is quite foreign. Here's to Generation N(icholas)!

CHOICES

I come from the school of thought that goes something like this: My way or the highway. That is how much of my medical training was set up, and I have to say that it was a pretty damn good way to train because their way was almost always the right way.

This brings me to parenthood, in which the trainees (aka my kids) are not quite so willing to follow one's lead. To say that Cate has her own ideas about what she wants to do and when she wants to listen is, well, an understatement. Thus, even I have resorted to giving Cate options on almost every matter. I am told that this gives children (and people in general) a positive feeling about picking one of the two options you have given them.

Sometimes, however, mistakes still get made. When I try to counsel Cate, I ask her, "Was that a good choice or a bad choice?" Normally when she has made a poor decision, Cate says, "Bad choice." However, sometimes when she has made a particularly fun choice that may not have been the best choice, she responds to the same question with the answer, "Happy choice!"



In these situations, when I look at that beautiful smile on her face, her point of view comes across loud and clear.

WAITING FOR SUPERMAN

Kathleen and I recently saw the documentary "Waiting for Superman." While the critics have been divided on the merits of this film, we found it to be incredibly riveting. This film shines a light on the American public educational crisis, and it highlights the failures of many schools to adequately teach and inspire children and their parents alike. However, the film does offer solutions and places most of the emphasis on those who champion high standards and teacher accountability.

While there are a few highlight reels with the original Superman from the old TV series, the real heroes in this film are the educational reformers. They include Mr. Geoffrey Canada. Indeed, the title of the documentary is taken from Mr. Canada's own experience as a child growing up in New York City waiting for Superman to come to solve his neighborhood's problems. However, at an early age, his mom informs him that Superman is not coming and that the problems of his neighborhood have no easy solution.

Because of his own life experiences and his work as a teacher who battled the establishment, Mr. Canada was inspired to found the Harlem Children's Zone, a 97-block area in New York City in one of the poorest and toughest neighborhoods in the nation. In this zone Mr. Canada has built charter schools, public schools that receive taxpayer funds but that are not bound by teachers' union rules and other potential obstacles to achieving educational excellence. Despite the location and due to his "crib to college" approach, many of Mr. Canada's students defy the odds and go on to college.

Another person featured in the film is the former Washington, D.C. Public School Superintendent Michelle Rhee. Ms. Rhee was brought into office with a reformer's spirit, and she had one simple goal: to make D.C. public schools better. She did not let anything stand in her way, including the D.C. schools' bureaucracy and the teachers' unions. One of the saddest parts of the film is when Ms. Rhee offers the teachers and their unions a chance to have merit-based bonuses and the opportunity to earn over $100,000 per year. This would be in exchange for giving up tenure, or the right to have a job no matter how well one teaches. The unions, sadly, do not even let this come up for a vote. The mayor of D.C., Adrian Fenty, who was a big supporter of Ms. Rhee, just lost his re-election bid last month. Shortly thereafter, Ms. Rhee was forced out, too. Another "win" for those adults who think that bad is good enough for our kids.

However, the real stars of this film and, sadly, the real losers in this film are many of the children who are featured. The director follows 5 of them who live in places ranging from Los Angeles, New York City, Washington D.C., and the San Francisco suburbs. In all cases, their local public schools are failing. One option for all of them is, you guessed it, high-performing charter schools in the area, including Mr. Canada's Promise Academy in New York City. Every single family is eager to go to one of these schools not only because their neighborhood school options are poor and because these charters are free but also because their is hope in these schools: hope for college and hope for a better future than what these kids' parents have. Alas, these kids are not the only ones with such dreams. Hence, in every school, acceptance is left to a lottery.

I will not spoil the ending for you, but it is clear that in the greatest nation on Earth, some 56 years after the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, we still have a public educational system of separate but unequal. There are many reasons for this, but chief among them are the lack of a true interest by adults to guarantee that every child in America has the best teacher and the best environment in which to learn. This is the feeling that I was left with last year when I visited public (and several private) schools in Portland, including our own neighborhood public school in an affluent part of town.

At the end of "Waiting for Superman," I could not help reflect on how lucky we are to have the means to send Nicholas to the Arbor School. Superman has not visited there. Rather, Arbor is great simply because everyone there believes that a child's education comes before anything else (period).

Before Arbor, I used to think that you could love your school, but now I know that a school can also love you back! Knowing that many kids and their families, who are just as deserving as us, are still waiting for that brought a tear to my eyes as we left the theatre that night...

HI, I'M CATE!

It is hard to believe that it has been 2 years since our little Cate was born. She came to us one week late and without drama (thank God) on October 14, 2008. A lot has happened in her lifetime. We saw the United States elect its first biracial President. We saw the world financial markets (along with her and her brother's 529 plans) tank. We saw partisanship like our country has never seen and the emergence of the more racist, radical wing of the Republican party.

However, we have also seen a lot of joyous things. After about 6 months of "colic," Cate began to sleep better. At 9 months, she began to walk. At about 18 months, she began to communicate effectively with words, and there has been no stopping her since. She is someone who clearly had a lot on her mind that she could not convey to us early on, and it has been a pleasure watching her express herself.

She is running circles around the other kids at school, and Cate is probably the most empathetic (she holds the hands of the smaller kids at her school and offers them her muslin blanket aka "muz" when they are sad), intelligent (she already knows how to count and knows her ABCc), and coordinated (she can kick a soccer ball amazingly well with both feet) child I have ever met. And, as you can see from the pictures below, she is a cutie and has an amazing sense of style!





Lately, she has been offering her hand to people, and, when they take it, she says, "I'm Cate!" An example is shown below. So sweet!



As I have watched her grow, I have felt a stronger attachment to Cate. I want to keep her safe, but I also want her to dream big and to reach for the stars. I always said that if I have a girl, I hope she is someone like Mia Hamm- gifted, down-to-earth, and kind- unlike many women with whom I interacted while growing up.

While I do not know whom Cate will be when she grows up, I know she is already a wonderful child. I look forward to watching her become the amazing adult I know she will become.

Here's to Cate!

THE STATE WE'RE IN

Today at school, Nicholas was assigned the task of selecting a book to share with his class that our whole family loves to read. While Kathleen, Nicholas, and I love the book "The Scrambled States of America," we were not sure whether Cate loved this book. Therefore, we decided to read it tonight. The book is about the fifty states deciding to switch places so that they may see a different part of the country. Two of the states, Nevada and Mississippi, meet and fall in love. I will not spoil the ending.

Wait, you people are not going to read "The Scrambled States of America."

At the end, the states say goodbye to each other and go back to their spots. Some states are more upset than others, and Nevada says to Mississippi, "I'll never love another." I think we can safely say that Cate liked the book, although love might be too strong a word.

After we finished reading this book, Nicholas looked me in the eye with a straight face and said, "I love my school so much. I'll never love something better than it." Arbor it is, and "Scrambled States" it is!