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A Gift From the Universe to Change the World

coffee shop

My son, Marcus, and I have had many writing sessions and meetings with collaborators at our neighborhood coffee shop, particularly while we were working on his first book for children and the accompanying animated short. We also wrote the speech we gave at the United Nations building there earlier this year. Today I write solo and the notebook to my right has the lyric, “The universe is resting in my arms” (from Nina Gordan’s song “Tonight”) written and

The Storyteller and the Truth – Part One

 

I remember emotional points, touch the bruises, and swim in the revelation. However, I have a terrible time trying to remember dates. At what age did I learn to ride a bike? When was my first road trip? Even important moments, like when did my son take his first steps? When did he begin using complete sentences? Or when did he start, really start, to tell me the stories that play through his imagination? Marcus just turned 27 and I think I’ve been saying “for over ten years” for three, maybe four, years.

I could dig back into the notebooks.

When it Comes to my Son with Down Syndrome, I’m Not an Optimist

“We can still come back and win. It’ll only take 2 touchdowns and a field goal,” I said to my grandfather during one of the many brutal football bowl games of my childhood.

“No. They won’t.” He sat with his arms crossed, defeat accepted, but he still watched the game to the end.

“You’re a pessimist.” I moved to the floor in front of the TV.

“I’m a realist,” he said.

A Pessimist, an Optimist, a Realist

“A realist,” he explained to me, “doesn’t think the worst will happen every

2019-07-07T19:22:54-05:00Categories: Grown Ups & Downs|Tags: , , , |6 Comments

Marcus the Musical and the Dreamer

One of the things I love about my son is his ambition. His dream of creating and starring in his own Broadway Musical is never daunted. Last time we went to the theatre to see a Broadway Across America production he stood in front of an empty poster frame and gave me the thumbs up. “This,” he told me, “Is for Marcus the Musical.” He believes in himself and this dream.

The fact that he can’t read a script doesn’t concern him, he's preparing his own. The burdens of official training in the areas of playwriting, acting, stagecraft, and so on…not an issue.

I would never, ever, tell him he won’t, or worse can’t, reach this dream. His passion is clear and he spends both waking and sleeping moments working toward this.

Another 23 year old without training and facing the uphill, dare I say impossible, mountain of learning and struggle, would likely give up. In fact, most young people are talked out of their dreams and move on because they “know better.”

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