Noah is an autistic boy and this night, he was with his mom and dad at Adam Camp, a camp for children with autism, to help Noah learn how to interact with others and his environment.


A little while later it was time for the party to end. I thought this might be a potential problem for Noah as I was sure that he would not want to go. When I told them it was time to go they gave each other a quick hug and then she ran off to find her dad who was in a field down below walking with her little brother.

"What a great night Noah!" I said to him proudly while grabbing his hand.

"Mmm." He said. I could tell his mind was racing. I could tell this because when he is over thinking something he chews on his bottom lip.

"What was her name?"

"Shauna. She is my best friend," Noah responded. Those words felt really nice in my ears. I have never heard him so excited about someone else.

"What did she say to get you to throw your stick in the water when you met her?" I pressed.

"She told me not to be chicken." He smiled.

"How old is she?" I asked as we started walking toward the car.

"Dad," Noah said as let go of my hand. "I have to do something."

And with that he turned around and ran down toward the field were little Shauna was. I am semi-proud of myself because my normal overprotective reaction to this would be to tell him to wait for me. I did not tell him to stop. I just watched…and I knew what he was going to do.

She was standing next to her mom and dad and when she saw Noah she left them to run to him. I saw him say something to her in her ear. She smiled at him, and then I saw something I will never forget.

He gave her a kiss.

Sorry Little Mermaid, Spiderman, or Friends there has never been a kiss more romantic then this! It is frozen in my mind from here on out….

Once his time stopping first kiss ended he turned around and came sprinting back toward me. Shauna turned to her parents and ran excitedly into their arms. I caught the smiles on the faces of the parents…they were just as proud for her as I was for Noah. This was not pride because I think eight year olds should be 'smooching,' it was pride because Noah had allowed himself to feel something.

When he came back to me I gave him a bear hug. I asked him if he had asked her for permission to kiss her. Noah said "I told her I was going to kiss her…and that I was not a chicken." He was smiling from ear to ear and breathing heavily now.

I asked him one last question. I asked him "Why did you kiss her?"

"Because dad. I always want to remember her." He looked at me square in the eyes as he said this with complete seriousness.

With that response the needless part of me that worries for him was smashed into pieces. One way or another he is going to be just fine. He will find a way out of this maze…and when he does the world better look out.

I won’t be chicken either anymore Noah. I will not parent out of fear anymore. I am glad you found your Winnie.

He is going to have a life filled with wonder and joy. He may have lost some early battles…but he is destined to win the war. How do I know? Because he is the wisest person in the world right now:

Why do we kiss?

We kiss to remember the person we are kissing.

What a perfect night…and how peaceful I feel.

-John Roedel for Foundation for a Better Life.

a boy broke my heart last thurday. a little boy.

it was at the airport. there were so many people there. especially japanese. there was a bunch of college boys. i think they were flying home to tokyo and they'd just ended an exchange programme here. i was overwelmed by their presence because there were so many of them there. they seemed to exude some kind of superstar aura. i wanted to walk up to one of them to ask to have a picture taken. Alas, i was too shy.

i had just had a cup of hot milo with my mom and dad and my sis and my grandma, after seeing my brother off. it was about 10 plus. there were still alot of people at the departure hall. people of different sorts. i like watching people.

then i saw him.

he was two feet tall. he came around the pillar and hid behind it, on my side, so you couldn't see him from the departure hall.

he was crying. he placed his forehead to the face of the pillar and whimpered. i couldn't hear what he was saying. . his face was in his hands and he was crying. his grandma came over and said something to him. i watched him as he went on crying...

then after a few moments, he ran in front of the pillar and towards the glass panels of the departure hall. as he ran, he cried, "Papa!" his mom picked him up. she was there already and perched him on her knees. it ached my heart to see him cry like that.

"Papa!..." his hands to the class and in that childish longing for his dad. that was my last image of him.

he broke my heart, i wanted to cry.

i want a hug.

i saw a man and his dad, sitting at the front of their house that day. i like these father and son moments. i wonder what they were talking about...


i haven't had a talk like this with my dad for over a year. the day i got married to my wife, my life took a different turn. not to mean anything bad, i love my wife very much. the responsibilities of married life came to me quicker than i expected. i got a promotion too, which was good and bad. i was alot busier and i didn't have the time to have proper dinners at night. i missed my wife alot during the week and we'd decide to take some time on our own during the weekends. it was only after awhile that i realised i haven't gone over to my parent's house for quite some time. my mom calls me a few times a week to check up on me and chat with my wife. i hardly talked to dad. my dad was not exactly the chatty person and it was not his habit to make phonecalls. but i sure miss sitting down with him after dinners, talking to him about everything under the setting sun. i used to do that when i was still living with my parents. my dad was quiet, but he was wise in his own way. he talked to me about life, about his childhood, about my mom and my brothers and sisters. the chances of having after dinner conversations with dad became less frequent when i started working. but i knew my dad understood.

once i moved out of the house with Dina, who was my fiance then, lots of things changed. i made an effort to go over once a week, but my dad and i hardly talked. my mom fussed alot about me and Dina. she did most of the talking through the night. my dad just sat and listen, smiling at me once in a while.

today is my dad's birthday. the whole family came. my mom cleaned the house and cooked his favourite dishes. my brothers and sisters came, some with kids, some without. each of us bringing him a present. he was beaming. its been a year since we've had a huge gathering like this.

after dinner and opening of the presents, dad took his mug and headed for the garden. the rest of the family talked and watched tv. mom was fussing around again. i walked behind dad, i wonder if he heard me coming. he sat down on the ledge at the drive way. coming from behind i planted myself next to him.

"Happy Birthday, Dad."

He smiled, "look at the sunset ahead, always makes my day."

"But the day is ending already..."

"Exactly."


Maybe...(:

Shmily

My grandparents were married for over half a century, and played their own special game from the time they had met each other. The goal of their game was to write the word "shmily" in a surprise place for the other to find. They took turns leaving "shmily" around the house, and as soon as one of them discovered it, it was their turn to hide it once more.

They dragged "shmily" with their fingers through the sugar and flour containers to await whoever was preparing the next meal.

They smeared it in the dew on the windows overlooking the patio where my grandma always fed us warm, homemade pudding with blue food coloring.

"Shmily" was written in the steam left on the mirror after a hot shower, where it would reappear bath after bath. At one point, my grandmother even unrolled an entire roll of toilet paper to leave "shmily" on the very last sheet.

There was no end to the places "shmily" would pop up. Little notes with "shmily" scribbled hurriedly were found on dashboards and car seats, or taped to steering wheels.

The notes were stuffed inside shoes and left under pillows. "Shmily" was written in the dust upon the mantel and traced in the ashes of the fireplace. This mysterious word was as much a part of my grandparents' house as the furniture.

It took me a long time before I was able to fully appreciate my grandparents' game. Skepticism has kept me from believing in true love, one that is pure and enduring.

However, I never doubted my grandparents' relationship. They had love down pat. It was more than their flirtatious little games; it was a way of life. Their relationship was based on a devotion and passionate affection, which not everyone is lucky enough to experience.

Grandma and Grandpa held hands every chance they could. They stole kisses as they bumped into each other in their tiny kitchen. They finished each other's sentences and shared the daily crossword puzzle and word jumble. My grandma whispered to me about how cute my grandpa was, how handsome and old he had grown to be. She claimed that she really knew "how to pick 'em." Before every meal they bowed their heads and gave thanks, marveling at their blessings: a wonderful family, good fortune, and each other. But there was a dark cloud in my grandparents' life: my grandmother had breast cancer.

The disease had first appeared ten years earlier. As always, Grandpa was with her every step of the way. He comforted her in their yellow room, painted that way so that she could always be surrounded by sunshine, even when she was too sick to go outside.

Now the cancer was again attacking her body. With the help of a cane and my grandfather's steady hand, they went to church every morning. But my grandmother grew steadily weaker until, finally, she could not leave the house anymore.

For a while, Grandpa would go to church alone, praying to God to watch over his wife. Then one day, what we all dreaded finally happened. Grandma was gone.

"Shmily." It was scrawled in yellow on the pink ribbons of my grandmother's funeral bouquet. As the crowd thinned and the last mourners turned to leave, my aunts, uncles, cousins and other family members came forward and gathered around Grandma one last time. Grandpa stepped up to my grandmother's casket and, taking a shaky breath, he began to sing to her.

Through his tears and grief, the song came, a deep and throaty lullaby. Shaking with my own sorrow, I will never forget that moment. For I knew that, although I couldn't begin to fathom the depth of their love, I had been privileged to witness its unmatched beauty.

S-h-m-i-l-y = See How Much I Love You.

http://www.forbetterlife.com/

i saw spiderman yesterday.

he was running around the porch in front of his house, blowing bubbles. his maid was talking to him, though i couldn't hear what she was saying. he was slightly taller than a meter, but he was saving the world already. his own little world, at least. his mom would have been so proud of him in his suit.

well, that's my little hero.

I'll just let jason update my blog. if you ever have the time, read this.

Jason Mraz06.20.2006
I'm a real boy!

Just beyond the elder and infamous Old Town square in Prague, the ancient one with modern refurbishments, the one that welcomes travelers from around the globe to ready their cameras for the frescos and finely painted exteriors, the same plaza they come to, to visit the astrological clock as it inches toward the solstice, a place to enjoy a beer and relax on the cobblestones with friends and foes of the teams of the World Cup being shown live nightly on a giant projection screen, behind the church towers where Disney sought inspiration for the magic kingdom, and I myself searched for something to take away, on a partially worn out road, where Tynska meets Tynska at a crossroads of at least 5 passageways, lies quiet but for a few humorous chuckles echoing on wood and stone, a carpenter's studio at Tynska 7.

Inside the arched threshold of double doors, a determined little man scratches away at various pieces of wood, carving and sculpting tiny pins, joints and miscellaneous parts for a project lying freshly lathed and unbathed in saw dust and coiled scraps of pine and balsa before him on a tatty knee high workbench. He alternates standing and sitting as he works, viewing his art from all sides, mostly from a bird's eye, and is careful as he cuts and crafts and inserts certain delicate pieces into the larger wooden block. With every adjustment to every nook and cranny he lets out a mumbling sigh of approval. His stained and splattered workshop apron tells tales of many long hours in the studio. He wears wire thin spectacles over a mask of sweat. His long aging brown hair frames his unshaven determination with the flowing grace of a renaissance man. In pictures that adorn his studio, you enter his profession of renovations, giving old Baroque statues and engravings a facelift. In one photo he’s seen on a scaffold at a ceiling, carefully recreating a colorful adornment over somewhere special. He is Michelangelo.

Back in his studio he works quickly, instinctively, and yet somehow rather cautiously, carefully, as his curious inventions take on a life of their own, needing nourishing and a nod to remind himself that his passionate and hard work is indeed art. His paintings of fantasy and portraiture seen through a web of twine and string crossing this way and that throughout his shop portray him to be more like Leonardo Da Vinci than the former. But anyone who walks in and witnesses any of this first hand knows exactly who he is. He is Pavel Charapov, father of Pinocchio, a real life Gipetto.

I met Pavel Charapov yesterday on "Charlie Bridge" he calls it, referring to the Charles Bridge with a sinister smile and thick accent well known in Prague. It was a Sunday and the tourist crowds were marching along on the typical parade route, which meant Pavel was out with his miniature painting Pinocchio, a pushcart designed like a stage. Inside, onstage is a marionette Pinocchio puppet painting away in his little puppet studio, with real brush and paint, painting an actual painting on a puppet sized canvas and easel, painting whatever Pavel instructs, imagines or wishes. Prague is a Mecca for marionettes. Every store sells them and a million more seem to make them. There's even Marionette theatre on the grand scale, Don Giovanni, an opera, and it lasts about two hours. So it’s no surprise that people will easily pass off Pavel as just another puppeteer without realizing the true genius of his work. I was only one who stopped and gave more than the recommended donation before I snapped a Polaroid. Another gentleman tried to take a quick pic and Pavel pulled the curtain on poor Pinocchio, literally. With one quick draw of a string the show is over and the red drape kindly suggests, one photo = one euro. I had a laugh and left the show loving my prized Polaroid of Pinocchio painting the profile of a deadpanning clown in a hat. Feeling somewhat vain a bit later in the day I began to think that that painting was I.

Upon my return to the bridge a few hours later, I found Pavel still sitting in the shady wings of the handmade stage watching Pinocchio work diligently on a new painting. I interrupted the show and asked what had become of the painting from earlier, pointing to the Polaroid that revealed it in its early stages. Pavel seemed intrigued by my intrigue and happily shuffled through a dozen or more works by Pinocchio before he came upon the profile of the sad clown walking alone on the bridge. That's the one. That's me I said to myself. "Like you," he said. I was sold. Either he was telling me that his painting likes me, or he was connecting with me on a much deeper level. He autographed the watercolor and invited me to his studio putting the address on the bottom of the work. We looked at the map together, drawing an x over a small section in a maze of sorts. He applied with a pleasing promise that I would like what I saw, that his studio is very small, but has big things. "Ten I open. All day. You come see… There is big Pinnochio."

Pavel Charapov holds the record for creating the World's Largest Painting Pinocchio. This is a marionette he spent 7 straight months designing, crafting and constructing. Pinocchio stands well over 6 feet tall and has about 50 moving and working parts including fingers, eyes, jaw, and of course a nose that grows. Every detail but for a few metal hooks used to hang pulleys and large bundles of string, is made of wood hand carved by Pavel.

Pavel seemed delighted right away by my entering his studio. There isn't much room to walk so he rarely gets visitors who step more than a few inches inside the shop. The colossal Pinocchio takes up most of the space but there are other great toy inventions scattered about that he excitedly showed me once he cleared off a seat for me, a chair he no doubt had crafted himself.

There was a weight lifting puppet who bends over, grips the miniature wooden weight and then brings it to his chest and up over his head, dropping it at Pavel's command. Then he demonstrated or activated the puppet that shoots a basketball, a warrior that fires an arrow from a bow, and a variety of other wood carved clinkers and instruments for merriment. As Pavel dances with delight from toy to toy, he laughs to himself and at the silly little people he has created that he shares his time with. His thick Czech accent mumbles something affectionate to each toy as if each one were one of his children. Pavel and I used a combination of broken English, Spanish, hand language and facial expressions to communicate about the various works, the logic he applies to the human form, and about the importance of inspiration. Above each of the Pinocchios, Pavel has carefully designed a muse to hang above the easels that symbolizes the angel of inspiration. Of this you could tell he was most proud and I took it to be the true reason we were introduced and the significance of the invite to this special place.

I sat quietly in the corner of Pavel's studio for almost two hours writing these words and others on paper scraps from my notebook, describing my feelings about the day and this somewhat spiritual occasion. Pavel went back to working on a robust little airplane that will be able to fly to the ceiling and release a parachuting Pinocchio. This clever new marionette-in-progress showcases his vision and talent being properly grounded which enables his imagination to keep reaching new heights. I take in as much of the space as I can through every sense, smelling the freshly cut wood and stains of paint, feeling the strings and weight of the limbs of the puppets, the smooth finishes on each, the tastes of smoke and salt in the damp and darkened studio, the scene of Byzantine lavishness of the chaotic and complex abode, and sounds of a genius hard at work on an ordinary mid Monday in June.

Before I depart I take a couple of pre-paid Polaroids of the studio, including one with the artist. "I have present," he says and begins to dig in a corner after touching my shoulder as a sign to wait. This was the first time anyone had purposefully touched me in a number of Days. The physical reaction was one that startled me, feeling like real love, with truth and compassion caught in the palm. I believed at that moment he passed on to me a special energy, a new power. I breathed new life and steadied myself with eyes closed as I stood up with a light head and waited anxiously for my gift. It was if I could feel the magic in his hands, the same that brings his toys to life and joy to children of all ages who pass through Tynska Street and happen upon Pavel Charapov and his miracles. Pavel rose from a debris of papers and revealed a painting of a bright red horse, which he presented to me with a loving smile, a Pinocchio original. I've been blessed.

I am excited now about my own studio still being designed and constructed back home in San Diego and I long for the day I run my workshop with the same zest and imagination, combining enthusiasm with respect for the work, applying a certain esoteric devotion, paying close attention to detail using an educated brand of determination alongside a naïve cause of childlike curiosity, and never ever forgetting the importance of my muse and guardian angels. Pavel Charapov and the studio at Tynska 7 is my muse for now, and I will return home with his mumbles, chuckles and sighs of appreciation stuffed into my growing suitcase of a heart, with a new found inspiration and an overall understanding of life as a work of art.

I met Paval funny enough on Father's Day, which seems rather appropriate for those of us who try to live by way of the truth. This goes out to all the Pinocchios of the world trying to keep our noses clean. And to all the Gipettos, thanks for being such patient and providing Dads as we journey from toys to boys and eventually become Dads ourselves.

the other day

as i was coming down from the escalator

i saw a boy

a little boy, in the big arms of his dad. it seemed as though he was in the safest place in the whole wide world. his dad was smiling, so was he.

dad was dark-skinned, had unkempt hair and was clad in a blue shirt. the little one, in a floral shirt, so fair and so small. in an instant, one would think that they were a mismatched pair.

then,

the little one, oblivious to the people around him, gave the man

a kiss on the suntanned cheek.

at that moment, the man glowed and gave a little smile.

at that moment, i knew he felt Love. so did i.

and he was the happiest dad in the whole wide world.

I think Conservation is the practice of being aware of our resources and acting calmly, considerately, and naturally in accordance with divinity. The idea of actually stopping the global crisis or reversing the effects seem redundant and exhausting and is why most people ignore the situations altogether. What we want to do with conservation is similar to taking a beautiful snapshot of our green earth and presenting it to our future generations. By being the photographer and viewing the world as it is now and doing our part to dress up and beautify the image, we are paying attention to the creative power of our true self. And when we explore our true self, that’s when we realize we are truly alive.

This same experience occurs when we view the world with our headphones on and make little films silently without the rest of the world knowing.

06.02.2006
Jason Mraz