If you want to buy, I'm your chap!

Unless you are a poetry lover, you’ve likely never heard of a chapbook.

Almanacs, history, myths, stories and folk songs were all preserved in small, crudely made chapbooks.

Those familiar with the term probably have romanticized visions of a duty-bound, literate few from the middle ages peddling their rag paper wares from village to village.

The peddlers weren’t just hucksters. They were disseminating information. They were bettering the lives of people, and not just the upper crust who could afford to have book collections of their own, but also the common man.

In an era when paper was expensive, chapbooks were sold for a penny or ha’penny. They were cheap and they were necessary.

“These old Chap books [sic], sold by the Chapmen, have given us most of our old nursery rhymes, English ballads, folklore and old legends," states the article “Chapbooks and the Nursery Rhyme.” at rhymes.org.uk.

"If you want to buy, I'm your chap,” the chapmen would yell as they went from door-to-door.
Also referred to as "merriments," they were pocket-sized and cheap.

“The Nursery Rhyme began to be printed in England as early as 1570! Chapbooks were also popular with people who could not read as they contained pictures," writes rhymes.org.uk. “The content and material of the Chapbooks expanded in the 1700s to include children's stories like Robinson Crusoe and various versions of Perrault’s Fairy Tales.”

The popularity of chapbooks dwindled in the nineteenth century in the face of competition from newspapers.

Chapbooks are still preserving culture. They are still on the side of the underdog. In today's world, the paupers are the poets and poetry lovers (both in reality and for the sake of this analogy).

Low-cost, low-production chapbooks are one of the few avenues available to the art with the lowest returns—poetry.

Because they are cheap, publishers are more willing to take a chance and produce a book that isn't expected to sell in high quantities.

Readers of this column probably know where I am heading with this. One of my favorite pastimes is writing poetry. And yes, a chapbook of my poems was recently published.
It's called "Twitter Poems and Other Small Gems." It was published by a poetry blog—World Class Poetry Blog—and that seems apropos.

Bloggers work in the true spirit of the chapbook, using the Web as the new rag paper. The book, by the way, is available free at genemyers.com.

Shake whatever your momma gave ya!

What image does bellydancing bring to mind? I used to picture the old Hollywood stereotype of a woman in a veil and skirt entertaining a Sultan in his palace.

My wife, Sarah, loves to bellydance. Through her, I’ve gained a modern day understanding of the craft. Picture women from every background gathered to support each other. Everyone gets cheered on as bellies of all shapes and sizes jiggle about the room.

But what Sarah really loves is the chance to cut the rug like a whirling dervish.

The urge to let loose is something we all can relate to. I remember dancing with my grandparents when they came for Christmas and summer days spent in my cousin’s cool basement just plain going nuts to the J. Geils Band.

Dancing can be silly or serious, just for fun, or an elaborate ritual. Why is dance so important? Egyptian art shows that people have been boogying in one form or another for a long time.

It seems like we take to it naturally when we are young. What kid can resist the opportunity to shake their groove thing? Even though coordination may not come naturally to some of us, the urge to interact with the rhythms around us seems innate.

Life is full of rhythm. Whether it’s the body processes inside (hearts beating, veins pulsing) or the parade of busy things going on around us, there is always a beat and a counter beat.

The syncopation created when one rhythm is added on top of another creates music much the same way that a cell added to another cell makes for a more interesting organism.

My 2-year-old son loves to dance. As we bop him around the living room to Disney Channel videos, you can see the sheer delight in his face. Belly laughs abound as we spin him round and round.

As I got older, self-consciousness escorted me to the dark edges of the dance floor. But when I see the joy that my family gets from it, I think maybe it’s time again for me to join in with wild abandon. Who cares if I move like Bill Cosby in search of a Jell-O Pudding Pop?

Small talk can mean a lot to a little guy

At bedtime, my friends Chris and Melissa do something with their daughter, Sophie, that they call "chitchat." Their idea of chitchat is quality time with an educational twist. They started it when Sophie was a baby. Just before bed, they spent a few minutes talking.

It started simply with things like sounds and letters. As Sophie matured, topics grew in complexity.

They considered numbers. They picked random places on a globe and learned about them together.

Sometimes they used reference books. Sometimes they used the Internet to augment their discussions. (If they were talking about hawks, they would listen to audio and watch video of hawks in action.)

The key, Melissa said, is to keep it to a few minutes. Also, they stick to non-fiction topics.

I am amazed every time I see Sophie. She celebrated her fifth birthday last month. The theme that Sophie picked for her party was "birds of prey."

When I asked her what birds of prey are she replied with casual, conversational ease: "owls and hawks." She is an intelligent kid who can hold a conversation with adults.

My wife and I have a similar ritual with our 2-year-old son, Owen. Each night before bed we read two stories, talk about what he did that day and also what he will be doing the next day.

Then we wind things down with a song or one more story, which is actually a guided meditation that helps put him to sleep.

Unlike Chris and Melissa, our bedtime stories are usually fiction. Thomas the Tank Engine and Dora the Explorer are among his favorites.

While the stories are important, I've noticed another variation taking place in our version of chitchat. These days, the conversations have become more useful to Owen than the stories.

It is during our talks that we are able to put the day's events into perspective for him. This way of processing is so important to Owen that he even requests it during the conversations that I call guided meditations.

He still enjoys picturing himself driving trains while falling asleep, but now he requests that the new people in his life ride on his imaginary train too.

As we talk about the things he did and the people he saw, we put special emphasis on concepts that were new to him and summarize how we think he felt about these things.

We know this routine has helped him with language. He is already starting to use full sentences. He is even starting to grasp trickier concepts like personal pronouns.

But more importantly, I hope it will help him process his feelings and make some sense out of the world.

Choosing to flood my child with joy

You are standing on a train platform. It’s late, and foggy. No one is around. It’s just you and your child at your side.

You hear footsteps at the other end of the platform. They approach steadily.

You crane your neck, squint your eyes as the adrenalin starts pumping. You scan your surroundings as the flight or fight reflexes kick in.

Your child is also anxious and scanning for clues. But it’s not the approaching stranger that’s making them nervous. It’s you.

As adults we take our cues from our surroundings. Our young children however get their information from our faces.

Dr. Stephen Briers uses the example above to open the chapter on mirror neurons in his book, "How Your Child Thinks."

"When presented with an ambiguous or unfamiliar situation, the first place most infants look for further information is in the faces of their caregivers," writes Briers.

While children don’t have life experience to help them assess their surroundings, they master reading faces very early on.

Mirror neurons take reading your face to yet another, deeper level.

These special neurons are what allow us to learn from others by simply watching. Some experts believe that not only do we learn how to jump by watching someone else jump, we also experience the thrill of jumping from watching someone jump.

This is something that I need to keep in mind when I’m tired and grumpy. Inevitably, my 2 year old is following close behind watching everything I do.

Lose my keys in a huff, in a hurry, and he is there. Throw something because I feel like I am going to snap, he is there.

"When we frown at our children, they feel the chill of displeasure; when we smile and laugh, we flood them with the sunlight of their own capacity for joy," writes Briers.

How do we know mirror neurons really do have these effects on our kids? All I have to do is consider the way my son's laughter makes me feel.

When he plays chase, he runs around shrieking and smiling until he drops. By the time he hits the floor, I'm also exhausted. I feel like I could collapse in a fit of happiness. I certainly lighten up from watching him.

Why not return the favor? He doesn't know the world of bills, contracts, narrow windows of opportunity and disappointment. Toddlers don't fill with fear at the sound of a stranger's footsteps on a train platform.

To them, the world is not a harsh place. What they know about emotions, they get from watching Mommy and Daddy's faces.

How life has changed at the Shore

NNS Photo

As my wife Sarah and I walked down the pier I realized there are three phases to life at the Shore: couples, parents with little kids and teenagers trying to get away from their parents.

When Sarah and I came to the Jenks pier (as Jerseyans call it) as a couple, we’d drive down in my Jeep with the top off, park near a restaurant and sit on the beach ordering drinks like the Funky Monkey until the night’s entertainment started, which was usually a cover band that made good use of horns and a reggae beat. All we needed were our hats and shades.

This year was our first summer with Owen, our 15-month old son. We drove to the Shore in the four door SUV that replaced the Wrangler before Owen was born.

Instead of drinks on the beach, we packed juice and snacks. We also had to pack diapers, wipes, toys, extra clothing, and a tent to be built in the sand so that my half Nordic baby wouldn’t burn.

The main attraction of a band was replaced by the aquarium where Owen ran from tank to tank pointing to sea lions and sharks yelling, “Wawa! Wawa!”

When night fell, instead of bars, we all turned our attention to the pier’s choo-choo train and carousel where we took pictures of Owen smiling in amazement.

As it got later, teens and young couples flooded the boardwalk making navigation with a stroller difficult. Listening to myself grump about the hoodlums who had clearly been drinking it hit me—something had changed!

I was no longer the teenager heading into the T-shirt shops. I wasn’t even one of the young couples anymore. Trips to the Shore from now on would be centered around family fun, like showing Owen the ocean and watching him try new things like frozen yogurt and funnel cake.

I don’t mind the change. In fact, I am anxiously plowing ahead full-speed, looking forward to future summers when I’ll get to see him running along the water’s edge, flying kites. Maybe we’ll play miniature golf…Only one thought makes me pause: I’ll know I am in the next phase when he starts ditching me for his friends.

He’ll hurry through dinner as the sun goes down; put on cooler clothes and head to the pier where he and his buddies will laugh at the adults who grump along pushing strollers through the crowd.

I know they say that there’s nothing new under the sun. But still it shocks me to see how things change.

Originally published 08/27/2008 in Suburban Trends and other North Jersey Media Group newspapers

Ladies and gentlemen, the 'Old Mac Donald' Blues!

I have many harmonicas. There’s a pile of harps that I play and a pile of keepsakes – harmonicas signed by famous blues harp players, like John Sebastian and Charlie Musselwhite.

Whenever my 2 year-old son, Owen, runs into my office, the shelf full of harmonicas is the first place he heads. Maybe they were initially appealing because they were a collection.

Once he found out that the multi-colored plastic cases opened--and each one contained a shiny metal object--the appeal increased. By the time he discovered that the shiny objects made music, there was no stopping him.

Whenever I left my office door open, the little guy with a huge smile would make a mad dash for the harmonica shelf.

"Daddy, open this one," he'd say handing me a red case. "Open this one," he'd say pushing a blue one into my lap.

Big ones, little ones, plastic and metal, he'd grab as many as he could and plop himself down in the middle of the room with the harps scattered around him.

I bought him his own. But the plastic rubber orange harmonica with large holes made for someone his age had an unfortunate characteristic—it was hard to play. Even I had trouble getting sound to come out of it. Instead of letting him get discouraged by the toy, I let him play mine.

I got used to him honking the harmonicas behind me while I clicked away on the computer. He’d blow into the holes and listen. Flip it over and try again.

Eventually, he learned that he could make music in a number of ways: blowing into the holes, sucking air through the holes; he learned that moving up and down the harmonica would change the pitch. I was proud of my blues harp buddy.

Last week, I was sitting and playing harmonica with him and I noticed yet another milestone. He started to sing and play at the same time.

He breathed into the harp and then I heard a quiet voice. I couldn’t make out the words until he repeated them after his next riff: “With a moo moo here…”

He added another riff…

“And a moo moo there!”

He was singing his own blues adaptation of “Old Mac Donald!”

What a moment! I was so proud of him playing harmonica and trying to sing for one of the first times in his life.

The most common comment that I get from readers goes something like this: “Thank you for last week’s column. It reminded me of the love that I have for my child and made me appreciate them again, now that they are teenagers.”

I have to admit that as a newbie father of a boy who is only 2, the level of frustration parents can hit by the time their kids are teenagers is foreign to me. But I do remember being a teenager. I hope Owen is easier on me than I was on my parents.

When that time does come, when I feel like hitting the roof, I hope that I remember this moment--Owen and I jamming the "Old Mac Donald" blues.

I am betting that it will probably be a touchstone that I return to. I can’t imagine the road ahead of us. Was it moments like these that got moms and dads throughout time through the rough spots?

What makes apple pie so American?

Growing up, I celebrated many holidays in a log cabin. My Uncle Bob built it by hand. It was the perfect setting for Thanksgiving dinners, Memorial Day barbecues, etc. And the perfect dessert was the homemade apple pie that Aunt Joan placed upon her red and white checkered tablecloth.

What could be more American than that?

And yet, apple pie isn't American.

According to the "Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America," the pies enjoyed in America were first popular in England. They were a staple for the colonists because piecrusts used less flour than bread and did not require a complicated brick oven for baking.

The pies allowed settlers to stretch meager provisions. However, idyllic images of pies on windowsills wouldn't be quite accurate. These were pies for harder times. Heavy crusts made of rough flour mixed with suet tasted more utilitarian than heavenly.

Against the popular notion of the pies being a symbol of America, Alice Ross from journalofantiques.com points out that they were popular in the motherland first.

"The crust (wheat flour and lard) was intrinsically English, as were the apples, butter, and even bread crumb thickeners. And the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg came from the far-flung British Empire to enrich the affluent British pantry. Indeed, the pie form itself was an English specialty, and unrivaled in other European cuisine," Ross writes on her Web site.

As the new land's orchards matured, fruit pies' popularity increased. Primitive pies sometimes had cream and egg custard mixtures and used reconstituted dried apples. But eventually the pies that filled tins and redware plates evolved into the shape of the pies found on my Aunt Joan's table: rounded crusts, rolled and crimped.

That is, before Uncle Bob and Aunt Joan sold the cabin and moved to Florida. And so goes the flow of people. Just like this great country, the apple pie, at its core, is really a story of migration.

According to Ross, most apple varieties originated in the Middle East. The fruit was then introduced to Europe by the conquering Roman legions. The apple's first appearance in New Jersey is estimated to be around 1632, according to the "Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink," and John Chapman, AKA Johnny Appleseed, took it from there.

Where does happiness come from?

http://bit.ly/HbThB According to Eric Weiner's "The Geography of Bliss," 70 % of our happiness comes from our relations with others.

Ode to Daddybloggers -- That's Why I'm Here!

From "Ode to Daddybloggers"

I'm really not one to buy into these pseudo-holidays that try make people feel that a bouquet of flowers and a trip to the spa are an adequate way to thank mothers for everything that they do or make us think that dads need yet another day to relax, watch sports, and enjoy what being a "dad" means in this culture.

It's no secret that I'd love to die and come back as a dad.

Whether it's the happy screeches and clingy love that he gets when he walks in the door, or the praise he gets for being the lone dad with all three kids at the pool, there's something about being a dad that's obviously missing from my experience as a mom.

At least beyond the twig and berries.

I don't deny that it can be tough out there for a dad, particularly those, like many, that are forced to choose between work and family. At least women have started a commentary about the challenges of working and maintaining a family presence; I just don't see it happening as much with dads.

The breadth of dad lit has just started expanding, but the level of analysis on the experience of fatherhood seems to just be scratching the surface....

For the rest of Kristen Chase's blog entry visit: motherhooduncensored.net

Splashing & laughing vs. litter & yelling

Last week, I wrote about almost coming unhinged by plans to mellow out and take a vacation.

It was after I got back though that I started to see the light.

I don't mean that figuratively. I am referring to the light on the lake near my home. I pass the lake everyday, at least twice a day. On the way to work, on the way home and on the way to most stores, I pass it.

It’s a beautiful lake. If you’re going to take a landmark for granted, it’s a nice one to have.

Sometimes when I drive by, I’ll see service vans, buses and kids’ bikes parked facing it.

Sometimes, I am smart enough not to pass it by.

One day last week, I pulled up to it and parked to wait for my wife and son who were 15 minutes behind me. I thought of my Chicago trip.

Last week’s column detailed the harried details of the trip that I tried to call a vacation.

I was so consumed with the preparations the vacation ended with me wondering, "Did I relax enough? Was I rejuvenated?"

I was still asking myself these questions as I sat parked in front of the lake. I watched the busyness in front of me. Kids were running back and forth to the water--the water splashing. The kids' parents were barely moving in their chairs.

My thoughts slowed down to about the speed of lazy toes in the sand. I felt myself relax a bit.

I backed off of the visual details in front of me. As a way of tamping down my thoughts, I tried to turn the scene into a two-dimensional work of art.

Instead of seeing people--my neighbors--reading books, sipping drinks and watching kids, my mind glossed over them, let them slip into the landscape. In other words, I zoned out.

As the picture in front of me flattened out, I felt myself relaxing a little more. The light quietly dancing on the ripples in the water caught my attention.

Instead of seeing the ice cream sandwich wrappers, beach towels and sunblock strewn across the hot sand, I saw sunbeams in cool water. Instead of parents yelling at their children to stay close, I heard the kids laughing.

Sometimes my wife requests vacations where we do nothing, just sit somewhere with drinks. I argue that I don’t see the point. I always think that sounds like a waste of time.

Now I see the point.

It's a way of letting things even out without you. Taking time to do nothing allows you to disengage, like turning the details of life into scenery. You can extract yourself--even if it's only for a little bit.

Killing myself to have a relaxing vacation

Vacation was on the horizon. I worked myself silly writing and editing so that I could take a week off. I typed away until my fingers went numb.

But I didn't mind. I had high hopes for this vacation. I was heading to Chicago to see a friend get married and I was looking forward to showing my wife around the Windy City.

I had a lot of fun on previous trips: the Chicago Blues Festival, deep dish pizza, the impressive "L" (an elevated train that rides above the streets), the House of Blues, the Navy Pier...

The typing started to wear me out, so I added another agenda item to the week. I banned myself from typing. I type when I am at work and I type in my spare time for fun.

Besides this column, I write music articles, have five blogs and I run a literary magazine. My favorite pastime is writing poetry. And did I mention the daily tweeting on Twitter?

My hands needed a break. On top of all of that I had one more goal for the week. It was the most important one. I wanted to make a point of spending time with my wife.

My parents were going to watch our son. That made the trip a rare opportunity for my wife and me to focus on each other for a change. So that is what I had in mind for Chicago.

With all of that squared away, I was going to be light and breezy for the week—not the overdriven perfectionist that usually huffs around my house wearing my clothes. I was going to prove that I could be freewheeling.

However, the only way that I was going to be able to mellow out was if I had a clean house to come back to. So, there was a cleaning frenzy.

By the time the house, cars and yard were all in shipshape and all of my last minute tasks were checked off, I was running to make the plane.

That's OK, I thought. For the rest of vacation, I'll be taking it easy.

Of course, that would be after we found a rental car, stopped at a local store for more supplies and unpacked.

The whirlwind would surely calm down once we successfully juggled time to meet up with my wife's friends and mine. Next thing I knew, the wheels of our return flight were hitting the ground in Newark.

Did I miss something? We had a great time—went to the blues festival and had great pizza. I showed my wife the “L” from below but the Pier would have to wait until next time. The wedding was fantastic. The dance music at the reception seemed to match the pace at which I was vibrating.

Did I feel refreshed? I wondered as I headed back to work. I didn't have time to dig too deeply for the answer though. The first week back at work would be like the week leading up to vacation—I'd have to be moving at a breakneck pace.

For more of The Joy of Life, visit thejoyoflifeblog.com.

The joy that can come from following your heart

Columnist Tracy Beckerman writes about her life as a mom and wife with self-deprecating humor. Before she turned her wit loose upon herself, she was a TV producer and writer. The career switch has worked out well for Beckerman. Her self-syndicated column, "Lost in Suburbia," which started in her local paper, is now read by millions and was compiled into her first book, “Rebel Without a Minivan.”

But more important than all of that--she's happy. Beckerman is an example worth noting for anyone who is wondering how to start again in this economy, anyone who is looking to follow their heart and start fresh.

GM: Your initial career was in television. How did you wind up being a columnist?

TB: After my son was born, I decided to leave the TV biz and become a stay-at-home mom. It seemed like a much better use of my college degree in television production than actually working in the television industry. Needless to say, I really loved the time I spent with the kids, but after five years I started to feel that I needed to supplement my brain with something more challenging than learning Elmo songs and making PB & J sandwiches.

GM: How did you come up with the concept for "Lost in Suburbia?"

TB: One day something funny happened to my son in his kindergarten class and I sat down and wrote about it. A humor column was born. On a whim, I sent it to our local paper and they ran it. Then something else funny happened with the kids and I wrote about it. The paper ran that one too. I soon realized that my life in suburbia was a veritable buffet of funny material.

GM: What happened in your son's class?

TB: It was more sweet than funny. It was Valentine's Day and I was worried that he wouldn't get any valentines from the kids in his class and he would be traumatized and withdraw from society and live out his years a bitter, lonely man all because he didn't receive a Spider-Man card stamped with "you're nice" on it. He ended up with 18 Spider-Man cards and I felt stupid for obsessing about the love life of a 5-year-old.

GM: Is there someone you are modeling your career after?

TB: I don't have a modeling career. I'm a writer.

GM: Are you sure? Most writers don't have their picture in the paper. Minimally, you'd have to admit that being a columnist is somewhat glamorous...Isn't it?

TB: Certainly, it's fun to be recognized. But it takes a little effort on my part. Even though my picture is next to my column, they don't usually recognize me. So then I say, "I'm Tracy Beckerman." They shake their heads. "Tracy Beckerman who writes the 'Lost in Suburbia' column in the newspaper." Still Nothing. "You know, that column in your local paper that you get every week and sometimes read?" "Ohhhh right," they say. "That's you?"

GM: What is it that you're striving for? Ideally, what do you hope your readers take away from the column?

TB: I think what makes my column work is that my topics are things everyone who has a family can relate to: Being the only one in the house who seems to know how to change a roll of toilet paper; dealing with your children's Halloween costume meltdowns; trying to figure out how to lose the "baby weight" you put on in pregnancy before your kids go off to college...These are things we all contend with; things that drive us crazy. If I can find the humor in it, and by doing so, I can help someone else laugh at what they're going through too, than my column is a success.

How many ways to say 'NO!' are there?

Now that my son Owen is 2,  the baby has been replaced by a confident little man who has his own preferences.

One of his favorite things to do at this moment is to say “No!”

It doesn’t matter what the question is, “No!” is the most appropriate answer.

“Owen, would you close the drawer?”

“Want to sit with Daddy?”

“Did you have a good day, Owen?”

“Do you want to color?”

Of course this sometimes presents a problem for him. What if the answer isn’t “No?” What if he does want to color?

The answer is still “no,” but he has a “tell” as they say in poker. His face changes. His eyes widen as he worries about the outcome. Then he hesitates before giving his standard answer. This is the only way he lets on that the answer actually is in fact, “yes.”

I thought teaching him a fun way to say “yes” would do the trick.

“Owen,” I said with my thumbs-up ala Fonzie style, “this means ‘yes,’ and this means ‘no,’” turning my thumbs upside down.

He started to smile.

“No!” he said laughing while attempting to put his thumbs down.

He saw the beauty in what I offered him—another way to say, “no.”

He ignored the thumbs-up. Hmmm…

“OK, Owen, try this…Shaking your head up and down means ‘yes’ and shaking it from side to side means ‘no.’”

He illustrated he understood with a nod from side to side.

For help, I turned to the Web.

A number of parents consoled each other and offered what help they could in the article "Parents say: Getting past No!" on a BabyCenter Medical Advisory Board site.

"When your toddler falls in love with the word "no," it can feel like you've run straight into a brick wall,” it starts.

“We like the idea of giving choices within boundaries. For example, with our 22 month old, Noah, if he says he is hungry, I might say ‘Okay, lets have a piece of fruit. Would you like a banana or grapes?’ That way he is making the choice, and the choice is a healthy one,” wrote Adrienne.

Respond with humor advises Jan from Minnesota.

“My 2 1/2-year-old won't always cooperate — no surprise! For instance, I'll ask him to sit down to eat and he'll say "No!" and laugh, and start dancing around instead. That used to make me mad (okay, it still does), but I try to laugh back and say something like, ‘What's going on there, Legs? You tell Bottom to sit right in that chair!’ That makes him laugh and breaks his defiant mood,” she writes.

Lisa from Washington also uses lightheartedness to prevent a head-on battle.

I try to deal with stubbornness by making the task seem more fun. Going potty before leaving the house can be an endless battle in our home, so now we ‘fly’ our 2 1/2-year-old son to the bathroom. By the time we get there, he is laughing and having so much fun he is willing to go potty,” she writes.

Of course, there is the old standby, reverse psychology.

“When I have heard one ‘no’ too many from my 2 1/2-year-old son, reverse psychology always seems to work. I just say, ‘Oh, okay then, I'll do it by myself.’ He always chimes right in with that fierce independence and says, ‘No, I will do it by my big self!’” offers Barbre from New Jersey.

One other tip that I thought would be useful came from Arizona native, Carey.

"Our daughter Dayna is 2 years old and wants to do everything herself. When I ask her to do something, like get out of her car seat after I've unbuckled her, I give her some time to do it herself (a few seconds). Then if she's not moving quickly enough, I tell her it's now her turn, but if she doesn't do it, then it'll be my turn.”

All of these tactics  have conflict avoidance in mind.

Familyeducation.com agrees that this is paramount and brings up another important point.

Being able to say “no” is important to toddlers.

“Kids this age are driven by the need to make their own decisions, to be autonomous, and to control their world, and the way they express these needs is through the word no,” the site states.

From the toddler’s perspective, living in a world where the chairs, tables, and sinks are too tall, drawers are too heavy and the stairs are too steep can be frustrating, the site reminds.

The word “no” can be a relief to little ones.

Giving Owen choices, letting him do things for himself and letting him participate in chores and important household  tasks (like getting the mail) will go a long way to reducing his frustration and empowering him.

After all, a sense of empowerment is what the word “no” is all about.

Lastly, familyeducation.com reminds readers not to expect their children to always be nice, “and don't take her 'no' personally. Your child is not defiant, angry, or negative—she's a toddler saying no.’”

I wonder if there are any other ways I can teach Owen to say no?

The 'Big Red Spaceship Car' that caused a time rift

Over the past week, I feel like I've aged 10 years. When my wife and I went out looking for a new car, I was thinking of the sporty Subaru WRX, or maybe the bold Toyota FJ Cruiser.

We came home with a Dodge Caravan: 17 inch wheels, inferno red, nine speakers, I was ready to roll.

And what was our first road trip? Turtleback Zoo!

As we cruised down the road I wondered why my office mates gave me such a hard time when I tried to show it off.

"I remember those days," one groaned.

"I just got free myself," said another. "I couldn't wait to get out of that thing."

"But it's got the sports suspension," I countered.

That gave everyone a good laugh.

Luckily, my wife and I suffer from the same delusion and we were totally happy with our purchase.

"Put on Dan Zanes," said my son.

Dan Zanes, good idea, I thought to myself as I hit play and started the folk music sing-along.

How could anyone not think this minivan was cool?

"Comfy back there?" I asked as the minivan that my son named "Big Red Spaceship Car" floated along. This was certainly a new phase in my life.

The time shift caused by purchasing a minivan was not unlike the effect caused in the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" when the scene jumps from young boy George Bailey to a fully grown Bailey in a fedora.

Viewers first meet him as an adult holding a suitcase. This scene perfectly illustrates why I love my minivan.

Just like the jumbo suitcase that wide-eyed George Bailey intended to buy, the minivan represents possibilities.

Family trips to Colorado to see Owen's grandparents, Florida to see my cousin...the same cousin I teased for buying a minivan not so long ago!

My mind switched to thinking of him. We always had fun camping together as kids.

I should take the family camping with the minivan I thought as I took off my fedora and put it on the passenger seat.

Yes, I was wearing a fedora, and yes, I was driving in the right lane.

I do feel older in my new minivan, but maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Listing 10 things that make me happy

Last week, I wrote about the thrill of negotiating and how much I was looking forward to car shopping. Of course that was followed by a week of car shopping. While showrooms are like toy stores to me and cars are the ultimate toys, there is also the dark side.

Writing last week's column through rose-colored glasses, I must admit that I forgot about the stare-downs, the deadlines, the ambiguity of option packages.

Memorial Day weekend car shopping got tense.

To regroup I tried a trick found in Barbara Ann Kipfer's book, "Field Guide to Happiness," which features many quick fixes for whenever your happy meter is running low.

The first exercise suggested in the book is listing 10 things that make you happy. A simple idea, and after a weekend of finagling, simple's exactly what I needed.

1) A job in journalism that seems pretty secure: Everyone knows that many papers are sinking fast. Luckily, the paper where I am the features editor -- Suburban Trends -- is in the black. So, I get to continue to do what I love while a lot of my colleagues are having a much harder time.

2) Time alone with my 2-year-old son Owen: Mommy had to work on Saturday last weekend. That meant that Daddy (me) and Owen had an entire day of guy fun, which included playing with cars, playing piano (we have a red plastic toddler piano next to our Yamaha) and mopping. (I am a bit of a neat-freak and I'm happy to report that so is my boy!)

3) Barbeque at my parents to start the summer: I love going to my parents' house. It always feels like a holiday to me. Dad at the grill means summertime.

4) Test driving cars--is there a guy out there who doesn't think test driving cars is fun?

5) Seeing Owen at his neighbor Thunder's house: Thunder is the dog next-door. Owen is eternally curious about the gray terrier he hears through his bedroom window. If he doesn't hear Thunder barking, he runs over to his window and stands on his tippy-toes, "Thunder sleeping? Thunder eating? Maybe Thunder inside?" he'll ask with a shrug. Up close, Thunder's a little scary to Owen. But being perched between Mommy and Daddy at a picnic table at "Thunder's house" was an adventure.

6) Sitting at a neighbor's for yet another barbeque: you can never have too many barbecues on Memorial Day weekend.

7) The opening of the near-by lake

8) The mysterious flowers my wife planted that deer pass up and have neighbors scratching their heads: there are many, many deer in my town and my wife has managed to plant these tall purple flowers that remain in tact while other gardens get chewed down.

9) The three day weekend

10) Hearing Owen suffer a kiss attack from my wife in his room as I type in my office: If Owen stands in "the kissing corner" in his room, it means one thing -- a "kiss attack." I know it sounds corny, but oh how it makes him cackle!

Kipfer suggests making your list soothing and paying attention to moments of awareness -- things that are a little deeper than finding money on the sidewalk.

Throughout much of Memorial Day weekend, what really made me smile was how much my son loves me. While car shopping he wore a slouch hat because I wear slouch hats.

Sometimes, he gives my wife and my mom a hard time making them squirm as he picks at his food when they want nothing more than to see him fill his belly with a substantial meal.

But if I make a turkey and cheese sandwich for myself and make an extra one and put it on a plate next to mine and sit him in a "big boy chair" -- he'll eat the whole thing. No muss, no fuss.

I'm not sure who enjoys that more, him or me...

The guilty pleasure of morbid curiosity

The Moai are a collection of statues that cover the beaches of Easter Island — big stone faces scattered across barren land.

Researchers posit that around 9000 B.C., Polynesian mariners discovered the
isolated island and settled it.

They made their homes under its palm trees. At first there were only a few dozen settlers. They thrived in an island paradise where the palm trees reached 60 feet into the air.

The settlers used wood from the giant trees to construct homes and boats. They successfully fished in the island’s waters, and society boomed.

To thank their gods for their prosperity they made large idols, the Moai. The largest statues weighed 86 tons and were 33 feet tall, according to Wikipedia.

They fashioned ropes and ramps from the palm trees that allowed them to handle the large offerings, which archeologists think were carved to resemble ancestors who were revered as gods.

The population was advanced for its time, and with each generation, its numbers grew. By the year 1500 B.C., there were 15,000 islanders. But the island couldn’t support a population that size. Resources were depleting, so they splintered into factions and fought for what was left.

Then the story got even spookier. From the clues left behind, historians surmise that even in the face of a catastrophe, the natives weren’t able to change their ways.

They raced to the end of their days, speeding their own extinction. The more resources dwindled, the more they fought.

Each tribe built more and more monoliths to stand guard over them as they fought. When they ran out of tree bark to make ramps to carry the statues, they let them stand in the quarries where they were carved.

According to Time magazine, there are 877 statues on the island today in various states of completion. But the islanders’ pleas to the heavens went unheard. Deforestation wreaked havoc on their soil. They ran out of wood to build fires and boats.

By the time the island was rediscovered by the Dutch in 1772, there were about 2,000 people left. They were cannibals living in caves with no memory of the great civilization responsible for the statues around them.

There are some fantastic theories on what happened to the people of Easter Island, like their technical skills were so advanced, they must have been an alien race who abandoned the island to go back to their home world.

But the exotic story of Easter Island doesn’t need sci-fi embellishments. The reality paints a heart-stopping picture that grabs our attention. And people learn best when emotion is involved.

Picturing the island’s exotic stone faces against the night sky sets our neurons on rapid fire, and the car crash of a once prosperous civilization is laid out so we can learn vicariously.

Morbid curiosity may seem like a guilty pleasure, but that’s how we learn what happens when we don’t play by the rules. Rubbernecking allows us to see the results when mistakes are made.

Do people ask for miracles these days?

"When was the last time you asked for a miracle?" I asked friends and family a couple of weeks ago.

I was curious how they'd respond.

Putting religious interpretations of miracles aside as well as scientific, historical or cultural vantage points, I was more curious about people's expectations.

What does modern man, scratch that, post-post-modern man expect from his world? Past the age of reason, past the enlightenment, have we become disenchanted thanks to our focus on facts?

In general, I think the answer is yes. To me, it seems that beyond the half-hearted attempt of Santa Claus, we have painted ourselves into a corner.

What corner? The idea that anything could happen to me in this great big, mysterious world is what excited me as a child.

That excitement translated into dreams and those dreams nourished a desire to be the first one out the door everyday. Every plane that hung from the sky, every car that whizzed by populated my world with possibilities.

Outside of the realm of religion, the purpose of miracles has a lot to do with our expectations. Does it sound over the top if I say that I expect my life to be miraculous?

Out of the dozen or so people that I surveyed, only three had given any thought to asking for a miracle as an adult. What do we lose in our rational preference for proof?

If you don't ask, you don't get, as the saying goes.

Years ago, in my previous career, a co-worker who was more successful at what he did than I was, walked me through an intriguing exercise. It went something like this:

"Picture yourself down the road, years from now," he said. "Let's say you're 30. How much money do you want to be making by then?"

I replied, "$30,000."

"OK, now that you have that in your head," he said, "you'll figure it out."

I thought it was an absurdly brief and arbitrary exercise. I picked that number to be my future salary because it sounded like a lot of money at the time. As it turned out, the goal wasn't a hard one to achieve.

My friend's method worked. It sounded like a shot in the dark to me at the time. How would I go from making $24,000 to $30,000 in just a few years, especially since I found my way into that company as a temp?

The path forward was unknown to me. Without the aid of facts, it was a leap. But it was a leap that I believed was possible. And what if I chose to be a realist?

The odds that a temp, who knew nothing about the field in which he landed, would be able to almost double his salary in such a short time seemed low. (I actually overshot my goal by a lot!)

A realest might have assessed himself at the bottom of the totem-pole and thought lower expectations would be prudent.

"If it is something you can receive by asking is it a miracle?" my mother-in-law, Ann asked.

That is the key point here. Many times, what you believe determines the outcome.

"Are hoping and asking the same?" Ann continued. "Is a miracle bigger than a hope?"

Are people's hopes big enough these days?

My dad once offered advice that would fit well here.

"There are many reasons why you can't do things in life, but if you can think of one reason why you can, go for it," he said.

Shooting down the possibility of miracles in your life takes away that reason. This is the corner we should avoid painting ourselves into.

When was the last time you asked for a miracle? Is there one that you wish were possible?

For more of The Joy of Life, visit genemyers.com.

The joy of playing the blues

Harmonica player Charlie Musselwhite was born in Mississippi, went to high school in Memphis and started his blues career in Chicago. He’s played with Little Walter, John Lee Hooker and Sonny Boy Williamson – to name a few.

If it has to do with the blues, Musselwhite has been there and done it with the people who started it.

At 65, he is going strong. He still loves to play and finds inspiration everywhere he goes.

Gene: What got you interested in playing harmonica?

Charlie: They were always around. Harmonicas are kind of a common toy for kids. I liked the sound. It sounds so real. It sounds like a voice. Playing the blues on harmonica is like singing without words.

Gene: What is the hardest part of playing harmonica?

Charlie: There are things about the harmonica that are very different than other instruments. It's the only instrument that you can't see what you are doing. You also can't see what anybody else is doing on it either. It's also the only instrument that you breathe in and out of. Since you can't see what you are doing, you have to have a mental image of what you are playing. You can't watch your fingers.

Gene: Did you have a teacher?

Charlie: Since you can't really see anything it's hard to have a teacher. You can talk about it with somebody. And you can listen, be influenced, and soak it up by osmosis. In that sense I had many teachers, especially in Memphis. I knew Will Shade in Memphis. He was a harmonica player. I learned some stuff from him.

Gene: I've tried to play harmonica. I can play single notes and I understand how the instrument's structured, but I can't bend notes. Any tips?

Charlie: One way to think about it is this: When you are talking, you use your tongue to form vowels. With the harmonica, if you think of pronouncing "OY," like in bOY, if you are drawing on a note [sucking in] and you act like you are pronouncing OY with your tongue at the same time, you will notice that the sound changes. That is the beginning of bending. Just keep concentrating on that and you will learn how to bend [notes].

Gene: Do you play a $20 Marine Band [harmonica] now?

Charlie: What I like is the Seydel. That is the oldest harmonica company that there is. It's older than Hohner. Out of the box, it's the best harmonica that you can buy. It's handmade in Germany. All of the Hohners are mass-produced in China now. [Hohner harmonicas used to be handmade in Germany as well.] These are still made the old-fashioned way.

Gene: What advantages do harmonica players have over other musicians?

Charlie: You can carry it in your pocket!

Gene: Do you have any favorite harmonica solos?

Charlie: I like the solo that Big Walter played on "Walking by Myself" by Jimmy Rogers. I like the solo that Will Shade played on "Kansas City Blues.”

Gene: Are you still learning new tricks on the harmonica?

Charlie: It's endless. I'm still learning. The more I learn the more I see there is to learn. The smarter I get, the dumber I feel (laughs).

Gene: What inspires you?

Charlie: Life (laughs). Blues is about life. There is a lot of inspiration all around if you are tuned into it. Let it speak to you.

Gene: How do you let it speak to you?

Charlie: By staying alive. Keep your mind open and stay active.

Gene: You've played with a lot of great musicians over the years, from Gus Cannon to Tom Waits, are there moments in your career that stand out as favorites for you?

Charlie: There are so many: Sitting in with Muddy Waters or playing Radio City Music Hall with Tom Waits and playing the Harp Battle with Mark Hummel and Kim Wilson, that's a lot of fun!

He saw another mountain...He saw another mountain...

Sometimes, when my fantastically happy 2-year-old son Owen bounces into the room to share an amazing fact like how much he is enjoying the vanilla yogurt that is in his mouth, it feels like a bittersweet moment.

Why can’t I get that kind of simple, pure happiness back? Then I add to my woes by judging myself too harshly and declaring that I've been jaded.

Long gone are the days when a happy-go-lucky me turned every corner with a smile on my face. Then I worry that the same fate awaits Owen one day.

But was my childhood really my halcyon days? This psychological slight of hand tricks me every time.

Happiness researcher Gretchen Rubin writes about the myth of happiness.

“We often imagine that we’ll be happy as soon as we get a job/make partner/get tenure/get married/get that promotion/have a baby/move. (But) usually by the time you’ve arrived at your destination, you’re expecting to reach it, so it has already been incorporated into your happiness. You quickly become adjusted to the new state of affairs," she writes on her blog, The Happiness Project.

That is the main difference in the way Owen experiences vanilla yogurt versus the way I experience vanilla yogurt. I am used to the experience, so used to vanilla that I can't help but wish for swirls of fruit or chunks of candy to be mixed in. Instead of appreciating the hint of cool sweetness hitting my tongue, I am thinking this needs to be whipped or garnished.

But that is only the half of it. What about what we commonly call looking through rose colored glasses? Am I remembering things accurately when I am thinking back on the good old days?

The things that frustrate toddlers my son's age are nothing to sneeze at, like not being able to communicate things that he wants to do or things that he wants to say. While the taste of vanilla yogurt can send him spinning like a Sufi into the living room, without Mommy or Daddy, he couldn't get the yogurt out of the fridge or his spoon out of the drawer.

By the time I mastered taking care of myself and created my own identity--let's say I was somewhere in the pre-teen years--I had other concerns, like zits or big ears. In hindsight, I think back to all of the fun I had playing ball in the street or hanging out on summer days. But of course by that point I spent much of my time listening to my Walkman in the back seat of my parents' car wondering when I would have total control over my own life.

"Arriving at one goal usually reveals a new goal. There’s another hill to climb," continues Rubin. "In fact, working toward a goal can be a more powerful source of happiness than hitting it – which can sometimes be a letdown. It’s important, therefore, to look for happiness in the present, in the atmosphere of growth afforded by making gradual progress toward a goal."

These days, my life is my own. While the balancing act of paying the bills and taking care of the family can sometimes be a burden, it's one that my wife and I get to share.

The process of selling our townhouse and buying a bigger home that our family can grow into was hard, but it was progress. As my parents get ready for retirement and look forward to downsizing--possibly to a townhouse--I think back to a song they taught me to sing during long car rides.

"The bear went over the mountain. The bear went over the mountain. The bear went over the mountain, and what do you think he saw? He saw another mountain. He saw another mountain. He saw another mountain...And what do you think he did?"

How the little things add up

Let me introduce you to Claire and Glenn. They walk together in the morning through my neighborhood. They are well dressed, probably retired, and they seem happy because they are usually smiling.

The only other thing that I know about them is that they are social. I know this because they introduced themselves in the local ShopRite.

Glenn approached me and introduced Claire and then I called my wife, Sarah, into the mix.

Now we are all a bit more entangled in each other's lives. The smiles on the street are wider. The waves are grander, and of course, the names must be remembered (my ulterior motive for writing this column).

But the interactions are not disingenuous or as slight as they may seem from my tongue in cheek introduction - quite the opposite.

The smiling couple makes the street seem homier when I see them. Their existence at the edge of my world expands the borders of my life.

Much like the lights of my neighbors' porches when they come on in a row at dusk, they add up. It makes me feel like I am part of something.

At the end of the day there is a line of people letting their loved ones know that they are home and waiting for them when the work is over. The lights say that neighbors are welcome to stop by, or at the very least, they are not saying, "Don't bother me."

Simple things, like leaving a light on or waving hello, are important because they are communal.

Technological revolutions, like the massive, free Web encyclopedia "Wikipedia," (written by volunteers) show that given the chance, through technology or otherwise, people care. They want to connect and they are willing to go out of their way to do so.

For all I know, Glenn and Claire could have pages on MySpace, but in a simpler and more direct way, they reached out and improved my community, just by saying, "Hello."

Oh no! Not another way to instant message!

"I was up too late last night," I thought to myself last Sunday morning. I overslept. Sleep deprivation seemed to be playing tricks on my mind.

It felt like I was wearing an invisible space helmet, and too much oxygen was being pumped in.
"Man was I aching," my internal dialogue continued.

At this point you're probably guessing that I had a hangover. Maybe you'd be half-right. But partying was not the problem.

It was my carpel tunnel that was throbbing. You see, I was actually "tweet" deprived. Twitter—the online messaging tool—was to blame for my lack of sleep.

It had been hours since I sat at my computer. While the rest of my house was fast asleep, I sat wide-eyed reading tweets (as Twitter messages are called).

What was New York Times columnist David Pogue's favorite book as a kid? Who was rocker Colin Meloy of The Decemberists jamming with at 3 a.m.?

What a time-suck! And what was the point of it all? Was it just more chatter? A popularity contest? (Just like MySpace, Facebook and blogs, Twitter makes a big deal out of how many people are following your posts.)

As someone who writes for work and writes for fun—someone with four blogs already—did I really need to jump into this too?

And then it hit me...Maybe I could use Twitter to share one line poems! That sounded like fun. With a smirk on my face and a tingling in my carpel tunnel, I clicked out my first tweet: "As a musician, Einstein couldn’t keep time very well."

"Aha!" I shouted to myself in the dark while my son snored in his adjacent room. No longer would I crack that twitter was for twits! I saw the light and once again, I was on board with the latest technological fad.

Next thing I knew I was looking up old friends, searching for interesting celebrities that twitter and signing up for New York Times news blasts.

By the time I finished setting up my cell phone to receive tweets, I knew there was no turning back.

But I don't blame myself or feel any guilt. It's not my fault that (at least for the moment) there is so much to love.

It's downright noble that there's so much fervor built upon words. Throw in the democratization that this DIY tool makes possible and who wouldn't be hooked?

Why do I care what Poque's favorite childhood book was? ("The White Mountains" by John Christopher.) I don't know. But I do feel more connected to one of my favorite columnists when I read his tweets.

The great potential of Twitter is that we have once again invented another way of interacting with each other.

Will it be used in that regard, or just as a marketing tool? To me, that is going to make all the difference. For now, Twitter is connecting a lot of people.

It's one more example of technology breaking down barriers and putting us all on a level playing field.

WE'RE NUMBER TWO! WE'RE NUMBER TWO!

I am not trying to write the best blog entry that I can write this time. I am shooting for the second best entry that I can write. And what is wrong with that?

Why aren't fans in stadiums waving over sized foam fingers shouting "We're number two?"

Wasn't Commander Riker's role really Number Two? Why did he and Captain Picard have to pretend otherwise?

While Pepsi sells less soda than Coke, the company still has a greater market share than Shasta.

For now, America is the sole superpower in the world. But we would do well to remember that we got here by being scrappy underdogs.

Those in the pole position have to worry about others catching up. Meanwhile, the second place driver has his eye on the prize. He feels his heart race each time he stomps on the gas. At each opportunity he sees he tightens his grip on the steering wheel and calculates his next move.

The thrill of being on the heels of the leader isn't the only advantage to being the beta. The number-two guy gets to define himself against the alpha.

He gets to learn by watching the mistakes of the one in front. And of course, a brighter spotlight shines on those mistakes.

For anyone at the top, the only way left is down. When will the glory days be over? Who will be the first to take him down a peg? And this will all seem very unfair after the fall when the hero is left wondering what he did wrong. All he really did was become number two.

When life gets too serious

My wife and I huddled together on the couch to watch Paul McCartney on TV. When the credits started rolling, I almost walked away. But out of the corner of my eye, I caught a 64-year-old McCartney skipping down the road into the sunset.

Seeing him skip was the best part of the show. It brought to mind my favorite word: chearth.

A friend, Phil, made up the word years ago, along with its adjective form: chearthy.

The concoction popped into existence when Phil combined the words “cheer” and “earth.”

We seemed to need the word during our teenage years and into our early 20s – the formative years when we were starting to spread our wings, starting to step in to the world of adults.

As we looked around we liked that we could do more things: drive, go to clubs and bars. We were anxious to race full-speed ahead. Only one thing made us pause.

Why were adults always so serious, so rigid? Their voices seemed fraught with concern. They looked bogged down as responsibilities furrowed their brows.

This seemed like death to us. How were we to prevent the hand-me-down clichés about the tough world from coming out of our mouths? How would we stop our shoulders from rounding as the weight of the world set in?

Our answer was chearth. We created the concept to remind us where we came from, a land of surprise and wonder for anyone who hasn’t been jaded.

Wasn’t just hanging out with a friend in your own backyard enough fun when you were younger? At dusk, you could run after lightning bugs. And when you were 17, wasn’t driving around with the stereo on enough fun?

It seemed like this take on life was worth keeping so we developed exercises for staying chearthy, like skipping. (It’s impossible for an adult not to be chearthy while skipping.)

Exercises might vary from person to person, but the point is to do something silly, something that would have entertained you as a kid, but makes the self-conscious adult in you cringe just a little bit.

The blue train to sleepy town

My wife, Sarah, and I have a few tricks up our sleeves to make the idea of going to bed appealing to our son, Owen. We brush our teeth together, read and sometimes sing.

The process usually does the trick of winding him down. But 2-year-olds are not so good at dealing with transitions. When Owen needs a little more help calming down, we use guided meditation.

It was my wife's idea. I have to admit that when she first tried it, I thought her touchy-feely Boulder, Colorado roots were finally seeping through.

But Oh how it works! Guided meditation can take a stubborn toddler from, "No! No! No!" to "ZZZzzzz..."

With a skeptical stance I stood by his crib, watching Sarah in action.

She turned on his crib toy. It projected a cycling movie of birds, bees, bears, stars and puffy white clouds onto his ceiling while classical music and lullabies wafted softly into the air.

"Owen drives the train up the hill and as he looks out the window he sees birds flying in the sky," she started.

Owen grabbed his sippy cup to settle in for the story. He approved of the beginning.

"The train heads into a tunnel," she continued.

"Other train!" Owen pitched in.

She followed her cue.

"In the dark tunnel, Owen sees another train," she said. "So he turns on his light as the other train goes by. 'Choo choo!' says the other train as they all wave."

"Puppies!" demanded Owen.

"When the train comes out of the tunnel, Owen sees puppies playing in the field...There is a brown puppy and a white puppy..."

Owen's eyes start to close as his mommy listed the different kinds of puppies that he saw as he looked out of the train window.

He curled up in that way that only toddlers find comfortable--with his butt up in the air and his face mushed into his mattress.

It worked so well that I decided to give it a shot the next night. I started by asking him what color train he wanted to drive that night.

"Blue," he said.

I kept my voice calm so that the story had a soothing feel to it. I tried to one-up his mommy by adding other guided meditation tricks that I learned about in psych classes in college.

Besides being Owen's favorite color to say, (I think he likes the sound of the word and it's easier for him to say than red) blue had another advantage. It's a calming color.

So Owen drove the blue train over the blue bridge that stood over the blue water (water is also a calming image used in meditation) as he waved to blue birds in the blue sky that night as daddy embraced his new-agey side.

Since then, I've done some research and learned that guided meditation is a common practice to help sooth children at bedtime.

Essentially, it's just telling them a story that they can picture themselves in. It helps them forget that they are trying to go to sleep.

"The Everything Guide to Raising a Two-Year-Old" by Brian Orr and Donna Raskin advises to make the scene "as evocative yet as soothing as possible," and "Use as many descriptive words as you can."

Does everyone have the potential to be happy?

Bart likes to wear black. He thinks of himself as a rebel. He has always been an outsider and that is just fine with him because in his own words, the world is a messed up place.

People are too closed-minded, he says, and their interactions are superficial. So Bart took no part in school plays, sought out and stuck with his nonconformist buddies in college and still refuses to sell out by working for the man today.

It's hard to check in with my friend Bart, his name only for the sake of this post, because he can't afford a cell phone and his myriad of odd jobs (needed to make ends meet) put him on what seems like an antisocial schedule.

Is Bart an example of the Nietzsche Ubermensch - resisting the opiates of the masses, like "American Idol," and moving to the beat of his own drummer? Or is Bart kidding himself?

By Bart's own admission, life is an uphill battle that rarely makes him happy. But it's bill collectors that gnaw at him, not suckers in the daily grind. It's failed relationships that hold him down, not a backward thinking populous that fails to see the value of going against the grain.

In truth, he just seems to be getting in his own way. Don't we all have friends like that? They just never seem able to get traction, no matter how many hours we spend on the telephone trying to solve their problems. We wonder why they just won't wake up as we try to listen to their dysfunctional stories in one ear while catching "American Idol" in the other.

There may actually be a reason.

Psychologist Jack Mayer studies how emotions influence personality. According to Mayer, biology and social interaction can shape a personality. This much we know, but studies over the last 10 years indicate that once the personality is molded, a person is limited to experiencing only a finite range of emotions. Mental health professionals call these ranges "set points."

"We are a bit like Weeble-Wobble dolls," said Carol Kauffman a psychologist and Harvard Medical School professor. "We tend to go back to our usual happiness set point after negative or positive life events."

So, Bart may always want to wear black. But according to Mayer, all hope isn't lost. Psychoactive drugs, exercise, and diet can help a person break past biological limits on happiness and "cheerier friends" can help counteract negative surroundings.

Specifically, Mayer offers the following advice to Bart.

"The world is a marvelously complex place," said Mayer. "As it turns out, some mental models are more constructive than others... I think that searching for a constructive model of the world is a worthwhile pursuit in life."

Although he acknowledges that Bart may not agree.

Getting enough sleep? No alarm clock needed....

During sleep, hormones are secreted that regulate blood pressure, encourage growth and stimulate cellular repair, according to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF).

While we are in dreamland, various maintenance routines are running. Neurons that misfired during the day are rebooted and memories are consolidated. Kind of like defragging our internal hard drives, sleep helps us run optimally through our days.

Not getting enough sleep leads to poor decision-making and poor health. According to the NSF, many of us are in this boat. Its 2002 poll found that 80 percent of Americans are not getting enough sleep, making us irritable, bad drivers who are prematurely aging.

So how do we know if we are getting enough sleep? The NSF says that people who get enough sleep should be able to awaken naturally - without an alarm clock!

Time travel--a perk for humans!

It's Easter 2000. I am in Manhattan at an Episcopal church. The priest is using way too much incense and I fear it's going to instigate a sneezing fit as I crinkle my nose.

But I'm happy because I am with Sarah, the woman who will end up being my wife. She doesn't know it yet, but there is a big stuffed bunny waiting for her in my Jeep.

Now it's 1975 and the Bay City Rollers' hit "Saturday Night," sounds amazing to me as it plays on the AM radio in the family's station wagon. Mom turns around in amazement as 3-year-old me chants the chorus, "S.A.T.U.R.D.A.Y. ...NIGHT!"

Scene change: 1987, I am laughing hysterically as my friend Tom practices dancing with a girl behind a barn where we're blasting "(I've had) The Time of My Life" on a boom box.

"We are a race of time travelers, unfettered by chronology and capable of visiting the future or revisiting the past whenever we wish," writes Daniel Gilbert and Randy Buckner in their Time magazine article, "Time Travel in the Brain."

The article asserts that this ability is unique to humans putting us ahead of the pack, evolutionarily speaking.

On the practical side, this ability allowed us to sit safely in our caves and replay the day's adventures over and over, learning something new each time we replayed an event in our heads.

Our brains also allow us to travel into the future. The knowledge accrued thus far makes it possible for us to run through situations that haven't happened yet and make predictions about the outcomes.

At 23 months old, my son doesn't have a huge pool of knowledge to draw from. But as I watch him make his first friends, I am reminded of another aspect of time travel - it's fun!

Thinking back on family drives, one of the things I enjoyed most was turning on my Walkman and tuning out - diving into my own head.

I logged a lot of hours daydreaming about being a rock star or meeting girls as the sun poured through my parents' car windows. While I never became a member of the Bay City Rollers or met Tiffany, I still had a lot of fun!

Quick! What do you want out of life?

As spring gets underway, new projects abound! To keep track of everything I wrote a life list. A life list can mean different things to different people. It can be a simple list of tasks or it can be a things-to-do-before-you-die list.

In my mind, the list was also an icebreaker sparking meaningful conversations and illuminating the hopes and dreams of friends and family. But that's not how they saw it.

One night, at dinner with a friend, I beamed as I showed him my life list on my PDA. I awaited anxiously to see if he would in-turn construct a list of his own right there in front of me at the Hibachi restaurant while the chef made a flaming volcano of onions shoot fire to the ceiling.

Unfortunately, he did not. Not that he wasn't game, but he said he needed some time to think about it. I understood, or at least I was preoccupied with my hot sake.

On vacation, sitting with my cousin eating space ice cream (a dehydrated treat that looks suspiciously like a block of sugar) outside of the Men In Black ride at Universal Studios in Orlando, I proudly presented my list.

After reading that I would like to own another Jeep in my lifetime, my cousin said he would have to consult his wife before coming up with his own list.

Once again, the life list didn't seem to be a key to anyone's soul. Bonding with my cousin would have to be done over a day of motion sickness-inducing rides and junk food - I highly advise against this combination!

But, as you can see, a pattern emerged, and it continued with other friends and relatives. I was disappointed. How come my scheme to get to know the people in my life better wasn't working?

"It's not always easy to decide what you want," my wife said.

This didn't make sense to me. Stating desires and needs seemed simple. To illustrate that point, I asked our dog if he wanted water. He danced around the kitchen on his hind legs eager with anticipation as I topped off his bowl. My wife didn't buy it.

"People want to want the right things," she said.

It's an interesting point. I wasn't asking people a simple question like would they like a drink. How we spend our time on earth is one of the deepest, most difficult issues we have to tackle. Being in my loved ones' faces waiting for them to present their plans in writing probably made it harder.

But I still hope they give these lists a shot in private moments. To paraphrase Henry David Thoreau, you only hit what you aim for.

Googling "life list" brings up the name John Goddard. He is the subject of many motivational Web sites. Goddard wrote a list while he was a teenager.

Sixty years later, he completed 109 of his 127 goals. He learned to fly a plane, swam in Lake Superior and drove a submarine, but he didn't climb Mount Everest. He visited the Great Wall of China, built his own telescope and read the Bible cover to cover. But, to date, he still hasn't owned a chimpanzee.

My list is nowhere near as ambitious. Although who hasn't dreamt of owning a
chimpanzee? My list still gives me joy though, even just looking at it!

Somehow dreams, like singing in a band with my wife, seem more tangible now that they are written down.

Why do collectors get the fever?

The joys of 
being a fan and collecting have been on my mind ever since I saw "Fever 
Pitch." In the movie Jimmy Fallon plays Ben, a Boston Red Sox 
fan. His home was stocked with memorabilia, from the time he got up in the 
morning to when he got ready for bed, all he saw was red.



But what did Drew Barrymore's character, Lindsey, get for her troubles 
besides a beau who was always busy during baseball season? She found a
passionate man who knew how to love life.

Experts agree that passion is typically the common denominator amongst 
collectors.

 However, Canadian Psychiatrist and author of "First Aid to Mental Illness" Dr.
 Michael G. Rayel doesn't think that there's a certain personality type for
 collectors.

Rayel said collecting is an individual's choice based on their 
passions.

 Some, he says, like 
music fans collecting CDs, may collect so they always have access to the 
music that makes them happy.

Sometimes, collections serve as trophies
 pointing the way to people's interests. But Rayel did offer one 
generalization.



"We all want something to represent ourselves," Rayel said.



Susan Neri-Friedwald, a behavior modification specialist and founder of the
 New Behavior Institute in Manhattan, says that surrounding ourselves with 
things creates a sense of security.

She added that we identify with the
 objects we collect and they strengthen our sense of self.



"We might collect things that remind us of our childhood, connecting us to
 the feelings of safety we had then," she said. "We might collect things that 
reflect who we wish to be and it makes us feel more powerful and more connected to those images."



So collected objects are manifestations of our inner hopes...?

Dodge poetry: a dream that was too good to be true?

When I found out that the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation withdrew funding for the next Dodge Poetry Festival, it felt like the wind was knocked out of me. To cope, I headed for my laptop.

In an effort to show people what the festival offered I started a series of columns that featured interviews with poets showcased in past festivals.

Even though the bi-annual poetry bash that was organized by Jim Haba went off without a hitch for more than 20 years, in the off-years I waited with bated breath for the next one. The Dodge Poetry Festival always seemed too good to be true.

Thousands and thousands of poetry lovers convened in one place--a place that wasn't too far from my home. Top poets from around the world gathered to read their poems to fans, and to each other.

I was in heaven every time. To paraphrase Robert Frost, why is it that nothing gold can stay? I'm not the only one who was left gasping for air after hearing that the next festival was cancelled.

Poet Jane Hirshfield was featured at the Dodge Poetry Festival three times over the years and was scheduled to appear in 2010.

"I was devastated when I heard it had been canceled," she wrote in a recent e-mail to me. "It just seemed terrible that the body of knowledge and excitement that go into this festival could be lost--for American poetry, a huge blow. I myself attribute what I think has been a large resurgence in interest in poetry in more recent years to the Bill Moyers public television specials about the Dodge [Festival]."

Hirshfield was born in New York City in 1953. She was in the first graduating class at Princeton University to include women. She went on to study at the San Francisco Zen Center. Her many books include "After," "Given Sugar, Given Salt" and "The Lives of the Heart."

The following is from an interview that I conducted with her in 2006. The first topic we discussed was the three-year period Hirshfield spent in a Zen monastery where she was instructed to do nothing but practice Zen. This meant poetry would have to leave her life for a while. But the hiatus only created a deeper connection to poetry within her.

Gene: How did that [break from writing poems] affect you?

Jane: My feeling at the time was that I would never be much of a poet if I didn't learn a great deal more about how to be a human being... It's very difficult to say how anything affects you... But I think that it affected everything because so much of Zen practice is about learning to pay attention to not only the inner world, but also the outer world... Learning to give your full attention is at the very heart of Zen practice and also, it is at the very heart of poetry.

Gene: In your book of essays, "Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry," you wrote that "any good artist's work is to find the right balance between independence born of willing solitude and the ability to speak for others." Who is it that you mean to speak for?

Jane: I don't make any presumptions about that. Basically, whenever I am writing, I am always working out something, which I need to understand more fully or experience in a more multidimensional way... You don't write poems because you have an answer. You write poems because life has presented you with a question and the poem is the only way to address that question. So I suppose the others that I speak for are anybody who is made the same way that I am.

Gene: In your poem "Mathematics" you ask, "Does the poem enlarge the world, or only your idea of the world?" Would you expand on that?

Jane: That was an actual question, which was asked of me in a question and answer session... It struck me as one of the most interesting things that anybody has ever said to me. So it became the seed of this poem in which I answer how can you tell them apart... Is there a knowable world besides the world we know? How could you separate that within our consciousness? I could say yes or no to either. I could say yes of course a poem enlarges the world. But then somebody could say which world? It's truly metaphysical.

Gene: Where does your desire to write come from?

Jane: I was born as one of those people always hungering to live more deeply. This is also why I read other people's poems. This is not just about my own writing. It's about what poetry can do for any of us.

Gene: Which is?

Jane: Magnify and clarify our existence and allow us to travel through an expanded world.

For those of us who hungered to "live more deeply," who searched for clarity, it does seem like the Dodge Poetry Festival was too good to be true. We may have to wait with bated breath for much longer for the poetry to return this time.

Contact Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation:
163 Madison Avenue
Post Office Box 1239
Morristown, NJ 07962-1239
Phone (973) 540-8442
Fax (973) 540-1211

info@grdodge.org

Bringing poetry to the masses: a talk with Billy Collins

The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation has pulled back funding that was allocated for the 2010 Dodge Poetry Festival. Metaphorically speaking, that leaves the roughly 20,000 poetry fans who endured four rainy, fall days to attend last year's festival out in the cold.

To illustrate what we would be missing if this one of a kind cultural event disappears from the landscape, I am writing a series of columns featuring interviews with some of the legendary writers that have stood on the festival's stages.

Billy Collins is one of the best selling poets in the country. In 2001, Collins' skill was recognized big time when he was named U.S. Poet Laureate. Collins and The Dodge Poetry Festival share a common goal: to bring poetry into the lives of more people. To that end, Collins put together two anthologies of poems that he hoped would catch the ears of high school students: "Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry" and "180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day." I talked with Collins about these books and the thrill he gets from writing.

Myers: Is there a poem of yours that seemed to come to you out of left field, that's different than most of your work?

Collins: I think a lot of them come out of left field in that you never can see them coming. The inspiration for a poem usually takes me by surprise. When you are asked to trace back your thinking and reverse the process, sometimes it's very hard to say what got a poem started. Other times it's very clear, like a quotation or a statue you saw.

Myers: Now that you've said statue, I am thinking of your book, “The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems.” [The poem is called “Statues in the Park.”]

Collins: It was a specific conversation I had with someone. We were walking in a park... I forget who the statue was, but it was a man on a horse and the person I was with asked me if I knew about what one hoof up or two hoofs up meant. [According to the poem, a statue of a horse rearing up on its hind legs signifies that the man on its back died in battle. If only one leg is raised, the man died elsewhere from his wounds.] I had never heard that. But I recognized right away [that would make material for a poem], because it had to do with death. It had to do with something common, like statues or parks, and it had a kind of code to it that was interesting... I right away leapt on that as having possibilities for a poem. And I think after you've been writing for a while, you get better at recognizing what little thought is worth developing and what one is just worth leaving behind.

Myers: How did you get better at recognizing the makings of a good poem?

Collins: I think just practice, trial and error, and spending too much time on poems that weren't going anywhere, trying to force poems into being. Through that frustration you realize that you can't completely force a poem into being. It has to sprout or grow on its own. You just nudge it along.

Myers: With poems that are very specifically laid out, do you plan those in advance or is it all just a ride that you don't expect?

Collins: It's kind of a combination. I don't think too far ahead. I certainly don't determine the tone. I might have a subject matter, say with that “Statues in the Park,” I knew that the subject of the poem was going to be statues in the park. It might have drifted away from that at some point. But I never know where a turn is going to take place. Turns or shifts are very necessary in my poems because the beginnings of my poems are uninteresting. Sometimes I know, here is the subject, statues in the park. But I never know the resolution. And I would say that 90 percent of the thrill of writing is moving toward an unknown destination which you are actually going to create. The poem is kind of a pathway to its ending. It's the only way to access its own ending, and that progress through the poem to the ending is the most compelling part of writing for me.

Myers: Why are the beginnings of your poems uninteresting?

Collins: I tend to start simply. I don't want to assume anything on the reader's part. So, I start with something that everybody knows or a simple declaration, like I am standing here at the window with a cup of tea. You could look at that two ways: I am luring the reader in by giving the reader something easy to identify with, or I'm expressing a kind of etiquette - I don't want to get ahead of the reader. I want to keep the reader in my company. If you look at the first three or four lines of many of my poems, they are pretty flat and ordinary. The hope is that having started with something simple and common, that gives the poem potential for improvement (laughs) so that it can get a little more challenging and move into more mysterious areas as it goes along.

Myers: Like the eye chart analogy that you used in the introduction to “180 More Extraordinary Poems for Every Day?” [Collins said that a poem designed to grant easy access to the reader is set up like an eye doctor's chart with the large "E" at the top standing for more easily discernible lines and concepts that get harder to see as the poem progresses to the bottom.]

Collins: That is exactly it. The first few lines are the big "E" at the top of the chart. I want everyone to see the big letter and then we can proceed. Then at some point we will reach, what in the eye chart would be called illegibility. In the poem, it would be called mysteriousness. This is where the poem has moved into where poetry belongs, which is the area of the ineffable.

Myers: Writing a news story, I would be scared that if I started with a "flat" lead (beginning) the reader wouldn't go further.

Collins: I think that readers of poetry are often delighted to encounter a poem that begins without mystifying them. So many poems challenge the reader in the first few lines. If a poem begins in difficulty, I don't see how it can change its coloration. I suppose all of my poems have the same pattern—that you begin with something rather flat. But the attempt is to put the reader in a multidimensional area in the end.