Having an adventurous daughter means you end up in some exotic places

 

One day several weeks ago, Elissa sent me the text above.

The minute I read it, I knew my fate was sealed. There was no way I was saying no to an invitation to visit Brazil.

Thus, next month, Elissa, Terry, Jack and I are hopping on a plane and heading south for five days in Rio de Janeiro.

It would never have occurred to me to travel to Brazil. I simply wouldn't have thought of it on my own.

But Elissa thought of it because she is a traveler (and travel planner) par excellence. One time she went to Sweden by herself and attended a Kendrick Lamar concert in Stockholm.

Again, by herself. Who does that?

Elissa and her boyfriend Mark will have just returned from Scotland by the time we take this Brazil trip, so Mark opted to sit this one out. I don't blame him. International travel, while always a thrill, is also exhausting.

You may recall that my last overseas trip was to Paris to attend the 2024 Olympics. I came home with a head full of memories and a body full of COVID.

You take the good with the bad, I guess.

One of the great things about Rio for American travelers is that the time difference is negligible. The city is just one hour ahead of Cleveland this time of year, which is great.

On the other hand, getting there is going to be a bit arduous. We take an afternoon flight down to Houston, stay there a few hours, then board another plane for an overnight flight to our destination.

I don't sleep particularly well on planes when I'm not in business class, so I'm expecting that first full day in Brazil to be a tiring one.

Still, it's Brazil, and who knows whether we'll ever have the chance to get back? So off we go.

We have somewhat of a personal connection to the country in that we hosted two Brazilian students in our home for a week back in 2012. Paula and Luiz were wonderful young people, and we still occasionally connect with them on Facebook.

(Click here to read a 13-year-old blog post about that experience.)

I'm looking forward to meeting new Brazilian people on this next adventure. They are, as a rule, outgoing, generous and very hug-oriented people.

I just wish we could get to them without the whole overnight flying thing.

The 40-year-old niece and the 50-year-old nephew

Here's a video from 1988 in which 18-year-old me writes my 3-year-old niece Jessica's name on a piece of paper for her. And she delivers a harsh critique of my work.

Last month my niece Jessica turned 40. Tomorrow my nephew Mark turns 50.

These are wonderful milestones worth celebrating, but they're also strange to me.

For one thing, when I think of a "niece" or "nephew," I think of a child. Having a nephew hit the half-century mark, and a niece who isn't too terribly far off, tends to knock one for a bit of a loop.

Also, it means it was 10 years ago tomorrow I wrote this post, calling Mark "The 40-Year-Old Nephew." I've always liked that one.

I remember relatively little about Mark's birth in the spring of 1975, to the point that it's funny to consider there was a part of life when he wasn't around. He has just always been there, whether it's coming with me to live performances of the 80s musical acts we both love, sharing texts with word-for-word bits from our favorite stand-up comedians, or just getting together for family holidays and spending most of our time laughing.

As for Jessica, I do remember when she was born in the spring of 1985. I was a freshman in high school and, while still mostly clueless, at least old enough to understand what was going on. She would quickly become my honorary younger sister. When she was little, I would take her around in my yellow Chevy Chevette on field trips ranging from Gold Circle to Geauga Lake. (80'S ALERT! 80'S ALERT!)

Mark is a good father of two and now a good half-centenarian. Jessica is a good mother of two and now a good...almost-half centenarian?

Whatever you want to call them, I welcome them both to the Society of Middle-Aged Parents. We old fogeys are happy to have you.

I miss the feeling of flying around the track

High school track and field season is underway here in Ohio. My dad always said he didn't mind watching my cold October football games nearly as much as he minded watching my cold (and usually windy) early-April track meets.

Having had a few of my own kids run track, I understand where he was coming from. And while I don't miss freezing in the stands, I do miss being a sprinter and long jumper like I was in the mid- to late 1980s.

I was the only guy I knew who played football to stay in shape for track season and not the other way around.

Like any sport, track had its good days and bad days. But looking back, the good days were so good that I've blotted the bad ones from my mind. My track memories consist mostly of sunny dual meets and long Saturday invitationals that offered up far more wins than losses for my teammates and me.

What I miss most is the feeling. The feeling of being at the peak of your athletic ability. The feeling of hitting the long jump board just right and flying 20-plus feet into the sand pit. The feeling of attacking the curve in the 200 meters and blowing by the competition.

There's really nothing else like it.

I stayed in touch with the track world after high school first as a newspaper sports writer then later as a track parent and now as a public address announcer for track meets. I watch these young kids speeding up and down the straightaway and I want them to know how fleeting these moments are. I want them to appreciate every race, win or lose.

I want them to understand it all goes away much more quickly than you think it will.

It's not that I abandoned running the minute they handed me my diploma. But for many years starting in my mid-20s, running no longer meant sprinting, but rather long, slow distance races. I can't remember the last time I full out sprinted, though I'm guessing it was sometime in the early 90s.

Nowadays if I tried going all out in a sprint, my hamstrings would probably explode in a gooey mess all over the track.

But there was a time when I and the kids with whom I competed could move. Like, really move.

If they could figure out a way to bottle that feeling, I would buy several cases. As it is, though, I have only my old guy memories of races long completed and medals fairly won.

And maybe, given the ways things work in this life, that's enough.

You're not fooling me into false hope, April

 

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

T.S. Eliot, "The Wasteland"

We have entered the month of April, which you know.

What you may not know is that April's only purpose in this world (at least for those of us living in decidedly temperate climates) is to trick us into thinking spring has arrived.

Sure, technically, spring has arrived on the calendar, but no self-respecting Northeast Ohioan really believes that.

I'm writing this post on February 24. I have no idea what the weather will be like on April 2, and it almost doesn't matter. Even if it's sunny and warm, it won't last. It will be 70 degrees one day and 35 the next.

That is far worse than a week of mid-January temperatures in the mid-teens. At least in January you know what you're getting and don't expect anything better.

But in April? The crocuses and other signs of emerging life make you think everything is going to be OK very soon. And it is going to be OK.

Just not now. Not this month.

You have to wait for May for "OK." In the meantime, winter's long death rattles continue for the next few weeks. You think you see the finish line, and suddenly it moves 100 yards farther away.

You have hope, then April blithely crushes the part of you that believes summer is right around the corner.

We're not finished yet. Not by a long shot.

It was the character Red from "The Shawshank Redemption" who said it best: "Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane."

Indeed it can, Red, indeed it can.