for mom, dad, and Lydia
as t --> infinity.
the audible creek from our old wooden kitchen floor lulled slow and steady as i swayed back and forth with my dad holding me tight and dancing. i harked back to the countless times my dad and i danced, remembering when i was waist high and standing on his toes and we'd slowly rotate. that was about 15 years and two feet ago. rotating now from our makeshift dance floor, the viewpoint yields an empty refrigerator, once flooding with photos, and a cold, blank wooden door, once plastered with childhood artwork.
my mom always says that Binghamton gave us roots and that moving onto New Jersey and New York City gave us wings. preserving consistency with the metaphor, i asked my mom how she felt about branching out from these roots, which have been home for my entire life and longer. she said that she feels as though we've gotten all of the home out of this house.
my parents did the snowbird gimmick for a while and flew to Florida to escape the harsh Binghamton winter cold and gray skies. this was particularly awesome for me because the Yankees spring training happens to be in said state. i remember my dad and i unsuccessfully trying to dodge Florida traffic late after i landed at the Tampa airport. we finally arrived at their Lakeland apartment, and my mom's mission was to organize our endless pile of photographs scattered about the floor. it was then that my mom first made mention of not staying in Binghamton too much longer, and i told her home was wherever she and my dad were.
the house has been on the market for about a year. apparently the economy and housing market aren't so great or something. coincidentally it was about a year ago that 124 Rosedale made its home-to-house transformation. we've been ready, and my parents have been up for an adventure, intending to sublet in New York City, our now collective wings, until the end of the year, and once again escape to Florida for the winter.
selling the house has taught me a lot. it taught me that HGTV is all you really need to sell a house. it taught me that when a baseball obsession starts inside the heart of a blonde thirdgrader adorned in navy blue pinstripes, it grows into a collection 14 t-shirts, (after already seceding at least nine to bedbugs) and over 30 issues of Yankee magazine. it taught me that sifting through your childhood still instills the feeling that your older sister is SO cool. it taught me that three women can collect a LOT of unnecessary crap. it taught me that my dad had longish hair once?! it taught me that horseback riding results in some gorgeous pictures. it taught me that swim team had too many ribbons, and every other sport has too many trophies. it taught me that the lens of a camera takes a very different picture than when viewed through the lens of an adult eye. it reminded me that Mrs. Juriewicz was such a good teacher i didn't hate math. it reminded me that my dad always pitched or coached my softball league. always. it proved further that the sensitivity of my mother's heart outweighs her body, and that my family clung to my dad's amazing strength in hard times for a reason, and that i will forever feed off of it. it showed me even more that my parent's marriage has lasted over 32 years because it's an example of marriage in it's purest form.
growth was the best lesson. personal growth is frequently evaluated by the wise, but considering the growth of a unit is underestimated. a significant marker for my family is coming up on Saturday, and our house closes on Monday. i've been thinking about where we were as a group even less than five years ago. right now, my family has the blessing of coasting. we all wake up and go to bed with smiles on our faces. what happens during the day has been good news or status quo. what was once navigating tricky traumas and waves of pain has faded to smooth sailing through calm waters and tranquil seas. the other side of pain has proven worth it. it's hard to believe that there is light as the end of the tunnel when you can't see it, or it's arresting you in blinding pain. but it's there. adolescence forces your relationships to grow because you are growing into yourself. with self-discovery comes the definition of relationships outside of yourself, especially with those who you see you every day and love you anyway.
when you are around 5 your parents are your all knowing guide and ultimate source of sustainability. when you are around 15 your parents are wrong, or they are right but suck because they aren't right in the way that you are right. when you are around 25, your parents go from being mommy and daddy to mom and dad, still serving as a compass for direction but with the filter of adulthood. it's fun to see your parents grow. i don't know if my parents would fulfill the freedom that they have. i don't know if they'd have the courage or desire for a trial run in Manhattan five years ago. i don't know if they would throw caution to the wind, assuredly a well thought out, carefully plotted throw, but a throw none the less. i don't know if they'd eat through the rhythm of life the way that they are. seeing your parents grow is a fantastically fun realization; we don't always give them enough credit for this. they are your parents. the are supposed to be completely developed and infallible; that's why their mistakes hit with a crucial punch and land with disbelief. my parents have done something amazing. my parents have planted "home" inside of us as individuals, but also created a thread of continuity that runs through all of us.
the YES network over hyped the concept of the "Core Four" this post season, noting the four Yankees that have weathered the ups and downs of Yankee years since 1996, including five world series victories. they completely sweep the fact that andy pettitte left under the rug--ah, the benefits of having your own network. my sister would joke that the Core Four were like the cool kids' lunch table and that they were reading Eat. Pray. Love. in the Core Four book club. now, we refer to ourselves as the Core Four, though our core is a little more solid than contract negotiations and aging careers. every family starts as wide-eyed rookies--life is a new role as children or parents. hopefully, if you grow enough together, you get to enjoy the championships, and can manage when the best pitcher in post season history blows a save. in the bottom of the 9th. in game 7. of the WORLD SERIES. life can be hard.
the inside of my parents wedding rings read "as time goes to infinity." this has been tried, tested, and is true.
i'm just glad we have more staying power the Core Four South Paw.
-k.
Showing posts with label new york yankees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new york yankees. Show all posts
Friday, September 17
Friday, August 27
change in the face of fear or the fear of change?
i've reached a blogging milestone! 100 posts! if i wrote one post a year that would be a century of posts! if you paid me a penny per post, well sir/ma'am, i'd have a dollar. thanks for reading guys.
i wanted to be suzyn waldman.
that's not true. i wanted to replace suzyn waldman. i still want to replace her, just not necessarily with me anymore.
i've loved baseball for as long as i can remember. with the Mets opening their AA facility in my hometown in 1992, i quickly took a liking to the Yankees. but i took an even greater liking to clearing the dinner table ten minutes before a game and making it there by first pitch on my dad's arm. when other girls in sixth grade cliques were drooling over Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic and practicing the "Bye, Bye, Bye" dance in the Saint James Middle School parking lot during recess, i was content as an awkward outsider with less popular friends, plastering my binders with photos of diving stops by Tino Martinez and salivating over David Cone's ability to make Major League hitters look like they were swinging at wiffleballs instead of cowhide.
i remember my responsible parents sending me to bed when the Yankees would play on the West coast. games typically had a 10:05 p.m. first pitch and were often on school nights at the beginning and end of the the 162 game (plus if you are lucky) journey. my arguments were quickly dismissed in summer, too, because apparently it's unreasonable for a 10-year-old girl to stay up past 1 a.m. for a regular season baseball game. it's where my mom and dad practiced their parental inflection in the phrase "asked and answered, Kate Elizabeth." you're welcome for the opportunity, parents. so i'd wait until i heard the pitter patter of my parents footsteps fleeting down our creaky stairs. i'd then turn the dial of my radio alarm clock (before we had cell phones with alarms, or cell phones at all) to "The Team: 1430 AM." my heart would race with anticipation of whether we would face Hudson, Mulder, or Zito, the "big three" of the Oakland A's rotation, or which Seattle Mariner Graeme Llyod would unnecessarily run in from the bullpen to fight.(yes, by the way, i use the collective "we" when referring to "my" sports teams...my dad has asked me on multiple occasions when i signed a contract). my jitters were quickly soothed by Michael Kay's description of the Yankees "midnight blue caps" or the melodic lull of John Sterling's voice, no matter how bombastic his phrasing.
it was then i decided i wanted to be a sports announcer. i craved the radio waves that buzzed with intimacy. and i really liked drowning out Buck and McCarver's t.v. announcing with the radio broadcast, too. that's still true.
but Michael Kay and John Sterling were there for me even when my middle school friends were cruel, or when the guy i had a crush on liked someone else, or when it wasn't cool for my sister to hang out with me anymore, or when those mindbogglingly painful and complicated life events hit you and you need an escape. that's still true, too.
i crafted Michael Kay a letter of admiration, telling him i want to be in the booth someday, too. i didn't expect a response; my sentiments were not unique. thousands of wide-eyed baseball enthusiasts would vie for Michael Kay's spot. but he responded with a letter three times as long and exponentially more meaningful to a preteen dreamer. i even quoted him in my Grandfather's eulogy, a much more weighted experience than any baseball game i could ever call.
this was all i ever wanted. and it all changed.
i went to college and i fell in love. with music. i've always loved music, but for the first time i delved far beyond the hits of the radio. i discovered Ari Hest and Bryan Fenkart and Anna Nalick and Charlotte Martin and even rediscovered radio artists for their worth rather than their hits, like John Mayer far beyond "Your Body is a Wonderland" and Ben Folds light years past "Brick." for the first time, i cheated on baseball, though i had my musical theater flirtations in the past. suddenly everything i had wanted wasn't what i wanted anymore. at 18 i entered a charming Seton Hall campus wanting to announce baseball. at 21, i left my South Orange apartment hoping to satisfy my hunger for Public Relations better than the Seton Hall cafeteria had fed me years before. as John Sterling always says (and says and says) "you can't predict baseball." also you can't predict life, or even ourselves. and we're us!
i remember when i decided to make the jump from "everything i once wanted" to "what i want now." my internal friction as a girl on the fringe of her twenty-somethings was upsettingly cliche. i was abandoning my most genuine desire for an unknown variable, which is kind how us twenty-somethings define our lives. i have many sources that can tell you i was never good at finding "x," and they'd be right. how do you resolve that what you've always wanted isn't what you want anymore? i thought maybe i was just running away from what i want because it was on the edge of becoming very real. i didn't know if my change was driven by this fear, or if i feared the change itself. everyone had said announcing was a remarkable fit for me. the jump to PR was by no means a giant leap, but it seems like a far stride when you weren't planning any steps in the first place. then it occurred to me that what i always wanted remains, it just has a different face than i intended. i didn't know that i wanted this, but it's DNA was floating around with a different form.
determining whether i was changing what i want because i was scared of how real it was becoming or whether i was taking a risk to go after what i never knew i wanted was a mountainous task because both peaks are familiar. both routes are very human. if we outgrow the verbatim interpretation of what we laid out, it is easy to pack up shop and say you were never the shop-type entrepreneur in the first place. we replace it with something that "feels kind of good" and leaves us "content," or at least half full. usually when we refer to something as half full, we view that as optimistic. but when we are pouring out a glass that was once bubbling and overflowing, we are probably running away from this delicious beverage, and quite possibly contemplating this exact same scenario hiding behind a beer glass. this all seems to be an overly developed definition of settling out fear. i've always had a hard time letting my head hit the pillow when i thought i was settling. i'm more than okay with that.
when we dive into the unknown to try and swim to the depths of a greater happiness, we are taking a risk. we are usually driven by guts. instinct. motivation. the pit in our stomach that grows undeniable. that "i just know" feeling. often times you sound like a lunatic to everyone else in your life because you just can't explain it. but also, you don't sound that crazy, because everyone has been borderline intuition. it's not necessarily that calling that priests and nuns lecture about, but you are convinced it is built into your bones. i'm usually a proponent of the go for it! methodology because i'd rather fail then wonder.
my sister said that the force behind one of her biggest life decisions was "the meeting point between desperation and clarity." though this may appear dramatic or appear like it fits in limited contexts, it has an underlying applicable common thread that i think is universal. if we want it bad enough, or on some level are desperate, we can't always see clearly because we are so overwhelmed by this desire. when we have all the clarity we need, we can lose our passion in the throws of clearheaded logic. it is the meeting point between these to where we take the plunge.
change ain't just a campaign slogan.
-k.
----------------
Now playing: City And Colour - Waiting
via FoxyTunes
i wanted to be suzyn waldman.
that's not true. i wanted to replace suzyn waldman. i still want to replace her, just not necessarily with me anymore.
i've loved baseball for as long as i can remember. with the Mets opening their AA facility in my hometown in 1992, i quickly took a liking to the Yankees. but i took an even greater liking to clearing the dinner table ten minutes before a game and making it there by first pitch on my dad's arm. when other girls in sixth grade cliques were drooling over Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic and practicing the "Bye, Bye, Bye" dance in the Saint James Middle School parking lot during recess, i was content as an awkward outsider with less popular friends, plastering my binders with photos of diving stops by Tino Martinez and salivating over David Cone's ability to make Major League hitters look like they were swinging at wiffleballs instead of cowhide.
i remember my responsible parents sending me to bed when the Yankees would play on the West coast. games typically had a 10:05 p.m. first pitch and were often on school nights at the beginning and end of the the 162 game (plus if you are lucky) journey. my arguments were quickly dismissed in summer, too, because apparently it's unreasonable for a 10-year-old girl to stay up past 1 a.m. for a regular season baseball game. it's where my mom and dad practiced their parental inflection in the phrase "asked and answered, Kate Elizabeth." you're welcome for the opportunity, parents. so i'd wait until i heard the pitter patter of my parents footsteps fleeting down our creaky stairs. i'd then turn the dial of my radio alarm clock (before we had cell phones with alarms, or cell phones at all) to "The Team: 1430 AM." my heart would race with anticipation of whether we would face Hudson, Mulder, or Zito, the "big three" of the Oakland A's rotation, or which Seattle Mariner Graeme Llyod would unnecessarily run in from the bullpen to fight.(yes, by the way, i use the collective "we" when referring to "my" sports teams...my dad has asked me on multiple occasions when i signed a contract). my jitters were quickly soothed by Michael Kay's description of the Yankees "midnight blue caps" or the melodic lull of John Sterling's voice, no matter how bombastic his phrasing.
it was then i decided i wanted to be a sports announcer. i craved the radio waves that buzzed with intimacy. and i really liked drowning out Buck and McCarver's t.v. announcing with the radio broadcast, too. that's still true.
but Michael Kay and John Sterling were there for me even when my middle school friends were cruel, or when the guy i had a crush on liked someone else, or when it wasn't cool for my sister to hang out with me anymore, or when those mindbogglingly painful and complicated life events hit you and you need an escape. that's still true, too.
i crafted Michael Kay a letter of admiration, telling him i want to be in the booth someday, too. i didn't expect a response; my sentiments were not unique. thousands of wide-eyed baseball enthusiasts would vie for Michael Kay's spot. but he responded with a letter three times as long and exponentially more meaningful to a preteen dreamer. i even quoted him in my Grandfather's eulogy, a much more weighted experience than any baseball game i could ever call.
this was all i ever wanted. and it all changed.
i went to college and i fell in love. with music. i've always loved music, but for the first time i delved far beyond the hits of the radio. i discovered Ari Hest and Bryan Fenkart and Anna Nalick and Charlotte Martin and even rediscovered radio artists for their worth rather than their hits, like John Mayer far beyond "Your Body is a Wonderland" and Ben Folds light years past "Brick." for the first time, i cheated on baseball, though i had my musical theater flirtations in the past. suddenly everything i had wanted wasn't what i wanted anymore. at 18 i entered a charming Seton Hall campus wanting to announce baseball. at 21, i left my South Orange apartment hoping to satisfy my hunger for Public Relations better than the Seton Hall cafeteria had fed me years before. as John Sterling always says (and says and says) "you can't predict baseball." also you can't predict life, or even ourselves. and we're us!
i remember when i decided to make the jump from "everything i once wanted" to "what i want now." my internal friction as a girl on the fringe of her twenty-somethings was upsettingly cliche. i was abandoning my most genuine desire for an unknown variable, which is kind how us twenty-somethings define our lives. i have many sources that can tell you i was never good at finding "x," and they'd be right. how do you resolve that what you've always wanted isn't what you want anymore? i thought maybe i was just running away from what i want because it was on the edge of becoming very real. i didn't know if my change was driven by this fear, or if i feared the change itself. everyone had said announcing was a remarkable fit for me. the jump to PR was by no means a giant leap, but it seems like a far stride when you weren't planning any steps in the first place. then it occurred to me that what i always wanted remains, it just has a different face than i intended. i didn't know that i wanted this, but it's DNA was floating around with a different form.
determining whether i was changing what i want because i was scared of how real it was becoming or whether i was taking a risk to go after what i never knew i wanted was a mountainous task because both peaks are familiar. both routes are very human. if we outgrow the verbatim interpretation of what we laid out, it is easy to pack up shop and say you were never the shop-type entrepreneur in the first place. we replace it with something that "feels kind of good" and leaves us "content," or at least half full. usually when we refer to something as half full, we view that as optimistic. but when we are pouring out a glass that was once bubbling and overflowing, we are probably running away from this delicious beverage, and quite possibly contemplating this exact same scenario hiding behind a beer glass. this all seems to be an overly developed definition of settling out fear. i've always had a hard time letting my head hit the pillow when i thought i was settling. i'm more than okay with that.
when we dive into the unknown to try and swim to the depths of a greater happiness, we are taking a risk. we are usually driven by guts. instinct. motivation. the pit in our stomach that grows undeniable. that "i just know" feeling. often times you sound like a lunatic to everyone else in your life because you just can't explain it. but also, you don't sound that crazy, because everyone has been borderline intuition. it's not necessarily that calling that priests and nuns lecture about, but you are convinced it is built into your bones. i'm usually a proponent of the go for it! methodology because i'd rather fail then wonder.
my sister said that the force behind one of her biggest life decisions was "the meeting point between desperation and clarity." though this may appear dramatic or appear like it fits in limited contexts, it has an underlying applicable common thread that i think is universal. if we want it bad enough, or on some level are desperate, we can't always see clearly because we are so overwhelmed by this desire. when we have all the clarity we need, we can lose our passion in the throws of clearheaded logic. it is the meeting point between these to where we take the plunge.
change ain't just a campaign slogan.
-k.
----------------
Now playing: City And Colour - Waiting
via FoxyTunes
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