Last week, my beautiful wife suggested we enjoy the gorgeous Los Angeles weather and go on an adventure. She had read about something called The Giving Tree (inspired by Shel Silverstein’s brilliant book) nearby, so we fueled up and headed out.
Los Angeles never ceases to amaze, with its ghetto-to-mansion-back-to-ghetto-within-a-few-blocks layout, spray tans and hidden gems. This one is five minutes from where I live, smack dab in the middle of Hollywood—I had no idea.
On the way up we found a mother and daughter looking at some directions on a piece of paper.
“Giving Tree?” I said.
“Yeah” replied the mother.
So we joined them in their quest for the magical tree, which we reached after a [grueling] eight-minute hike.
Give it your thoughts and prayers or anything laying heavy on your heart. Then twirl…
Approaching the base of the tree, the mother mutters something to the effect of “I’m worried about money” then closes her eyes, ceremoniously sending her worries to the benevolent tree.
Then she turns to her little girl, “What are you worried about, sweetie?”
She had to think for quite some time, as she wasn’t a skilled worrier like us adults. After maybe a minute of contemplation, she turned to her mother and said:
“I’m worried about the dinosaurs coming and attacking us.”
The delivery was so innocent and sincere—as only a child can be. It was so cute we could hardly contain ourselves.
It was interesting to note that: a) she really wasn’t worried about anything at all in the first place. It was only prodding from jaded adults that brought the subject of worry up at all. b) when she did think about it, it wasn’t “what’s for lunch?” or even “when’s daddy coming back?” [citation needed]—it was EPIC. It was the apocalyptic return of the dinosaurs.
We sent our wishes treeward, twirled and headed back down the hill, in fear of going from zero-to-too-much-nature-in-one-day and spontaneously combusting.
It was a good day. (And I hope that tree can handle her no-dino policy.)
Posted: March 21st, 2010
Categories: blog
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Comments: 8 Comments.
Now that the podcast is underway and steadily gaining momentum, it seemed like a good a time as any to begin featuring video episodes now and again.
We’ve been wanting to do this for some time, we just couldn’t figure out how to deal with the bandwidth issues that video can present. Well the “how” appeared in the form of a YouTube channel with visual prompts that are based on YouTube’s Video Response feature. We’ll then rip ‘em and cut ‘em up (a la the audio version).
One hurdle that we’ve already experienced with the podcast is that writers, for the most part, are writers because that’s how they communicate. In other words—they don’t like to talk. I’m surprised we’ve received as many entries as we have already.
Doing a visual version of oneword is going to introduce a similar challenge, so please forward the link to your friends (we all have at least one of those spotlight-loving friend, right?).
I know, I know—this is hard to read while spinning in your grave.
First of all, no one really knows anything about you—whether you were just one person, or series of martyrs—it’s a mystery to us all. I Wikipedia’d you and and everything.
I just wanted to write a quick note to thank you for letting us exploit your name. As you are aware, we use it to sell lingerie, diamonds and candy. We use it to sell reservations at fancy (or not so much) restaurants. We use your name to sell love—one day a year.
(Don’t get me wrong, I love lingerie and chocolate—I’m wearing both at the time of this writing.)
It’s such a great name: Valentine. It just rolls off the tongue. Couldn’t it be Valentine’s Life? Couldn’t we just make each other cute little cards all the time? Couldn’t we just have a romantic evening on a Thursday or Tuesday?
It is a little sad that your day, as beautiful as it is, serves more to let us off the hook for the other 364 days of the year.
If this Valentine’s Life deal pulls through, we could still celebrate February 14th with an UnValentine’s Day, in which our day jobs and TV can be our priorities.
When I was five, I remember standing in front of the refrigerator repeating the word “bitch” over and over in a sing-songy sort of way. My mom couldn’t really be mad—it was cute. She just let me go on for a minute, then gently advised that I find another song to sing.
I didn’t know what “bitch” meant—or where I even heard it—I guess I just liked the way it sounded.
Not long ago, I was driving and had just checked my bank statement and noticed there was an overdraft fee.
“F*ck! Those motherf*ckers!…”
As I continued in my eloquence, I looked in the rearview and noticed my sweet dog, Violetta, cringing in the back seat, apparently assuming that my anti-banking tirade was directed towards her.
“No, sweetheart, I’m not mad at you.” (as if she understands me.)
My initial thought was that it was the tonality of my voice—not the word itself—that effected her. So Tessa and I experimented with saying the F word in various happy tones, including the beloved “doggy voice.” Still she cowered at the word every time. (Though a little less sans the angry emotion.)
This reminded me of Dr. Emoto’s work with water crystals. He demonstrates the power of words before and after chanting (or even simply writing) various phrases on water bottles. He then freezes them and photographs the subsequent crystals. It really makes one give a second thought to the power of words and projection.
Perhaps I was drawn to the word “bitch” way back when because I knew that it was “wrong,” and it appealed to my rebellious nature. I knew it was wrong because, just like Violetta, I was innocent then—and I believe that the more innocent we are, the more perceptive we are to the true nature and energy of things.
I’ve written different variations of this article at least four times over the last ten years. (With luck, I won’t lose this one, too.)
For those who may be confused, I offer a quick note on dashes.
There are two basic dashes—the em dash and the en dash:
em dash (—) its name derived from its length being equivalent to a lowercase “m”
The em dash is used as a hard pause—or break in thought, or for parenthetic emphasis.
Examples:
“When I was eight years of age, I saw Star Wars eight times within a one month period—mom wasn’t thrilled.”
“There are many people who don’t care about—or even know about—what’s going on with your latest novel. ”
It is often thought of as the Replacement Punctuation Mark Of Choice for the semicolon—though, in some instances, they may be used in tandem when multiple pauses are needed, but aren’t parenthetic.
Example:
“It was hard to imagine feeling so alone in a city of millions—so alone that each heartbeat seemed to echo through the streets; beating her name in Morse Code.”
Note: The Chicago Manual of Style does not employ spaces around dashes, which I prefer, it feels more “typeset” to me. Others like to leave a space on either side — like so. Either way is acceptable.
Shorctuts: Mac: option-shift-hyphen PC: alt-0151 HTML: — iPhone: hold down the hyphen and it will pop up
en dash (–) its name derived from its length being equivalent to a lowercase “n”
Application of the en dash is simple—it means “through.”
Examples: “2009–2010”
“Mon–Thurs”
“pp. 58–69”
Mac: option-hyphen PC: alt-0150 HTML: – iPhone: unavailable (unless you turn the Japanese Keyboard enabled)
After reading this, one should never have to employ two hyphens as a dash ever again. (Or, worse—a single one.) Nothing drains the professionalism from your writing faster than bad punctuation and grammar.
This is not a service I recall having seen advertised. Still, I felt compelled to assume the position yesterday at my brother-in-law’s memorial service.
There are obvious reasons why no one would want their picture taken at a funeral:
it’s something they’d rather forget
their makeup is running and they look like a train wreck
taking pictures is disruptive
People were, generally, having a good time, reminiscing, laughing and truly celebrating the life of their friend/loved one. And I was intentionally trying to get candid shots—shots that really captured the experience, while remaining as unobtrusive as possible.
What I found fascinating was that, when people did notice I was taking a picture of them, they would go from smiling and enjoying themselves to trying to look sad. Now, part of this could be that some random guy was taking their picture, but I got the impression that they didn’t like the idea of looking like they were having fun during such a solemn event, like it would somehow have been disrespectful to the deceased.
I can’t speak for the deceased, but I could presume that he would want nothing more than to see people having a great time celebrating his life—I know I would.
I had created a memorial Fan Page on Facebook for him, and was posting the pictures as I took them. It is amazing to see people come out of the woodwork to leave their stories, condolences and memories. And a few people had commented on how nice it was to have these pictures, as they were unable to attend. It’s the most useful Facebook has been all year.
Walking to the car, my wife and I were discussing how sad it was that we couldn’t get together and appreciate each other and recognize each others’ impact on our lives while we’re still alive. How many artists, musicians, poets and writers die penniless, only to achieve tremendous post-humous success? I guess humans need a huge slap in the face to notice pretty much anything.
I’m no exception. Walking around the service, observing all the people that loved this man, looking at the photos, videos, excerpts from his writings posted on the walls, I was reminded how I had neglected to read something he had sent months before—just tossed it aside. If I could find it, I’d read it now. Do I even deserve to?—now that it’s “legacy”?
During my last conversation with him, he had been talking about writing his life story. My wife and I were thinking “booooring.” After his sudden passing last week, I joked, “Great. Does this mean I have to tell his boring story now?”
After seeing all of these people whose lives he had touched over the years, I realized that his story was interesting. It’s just that, from what I could tell, no one acknowledged it until after he was gone.
It makes sense that death would bring us together. Other than birth, death is our only recognized experiential common denominator. Perhaps there are more. Perhaps it’s worth looking a little deeper into the lives of those around you. Perhaps it’s worth looking a little deeper into your own story, maybe even sharing—just a little bit of it—now.
To be a part of oneword’s podcast, just call (323) 963-4417 or click thebutton below, enter your number, and you’ll hear instructions on what to do.
The podcast will be updated weekly. We’ll let you know via Twitter and Facebook when we update the word.
These will be used in a sort of “word montage’, the full entries will not be published, so it’s okay if you mess up. We’re just looking for one or two good lines. So just let it flow.
Note: the word here will not coincide with the word on oneword.com.
I’m sitting in the ICU at Northridge Medical Center. Everything’s okay with me. My brother-in-law—not so much.
Long story short, he has pancreatitis, and it’s suddenly become life-threatening.
He could literally die any second now, and I’m watching this absurd family drama playing out. And from my third-party perspective, it’s interesting to hear people arguing about whom he would and wouldn’t want here, when really it’s who they want or don’t want—selfishness disguised as as selflessness.
One would think that someone on their potential deathbed would be an absolver of petty drama. (And all drama is petty.)
As I sit here amongst wailing spouses and relatives of others whose future is uncertain (or way more certain, depending on how you look at it), I can’t help but notice that the sore throat that seemed so in my face and annoying this morning is now a distant background hum. The work deadline I was rushing to make an hour ago doesn’t matter. And I’m happy to be here. Happy to have the health and beauty that is truly rampant in my life.
