Thursday, October 8, 2009

Let's try again - a little humour - humanity in the law and getting to know each other.

I got no response the first time so let's try again. I will give you a little more of me, let's see if you have something to give back.

I have never written a blog before. So, this is really an attempt to figure out what this new interactive form of communication is all about. I have read other blogs and they usually seem to have a specific topic and discuss different aspects of that topic. I suppose I could do something like that but for me it seems too stiff and defeats the point of the medium. This is not a newspaper article although I know it will be very informative at times once I get going. This is not an essay - that's been done, and keeps being done in other venues. This is something between a chat room (never been to one but I imagine it to be extremely interactive kind of like a busy sauna where people actually talk to each other instead of avoiding eye contact and any other kind of contact unless you are watching one of those movies with tough older corporate moguls who use the sauna for a power talk and big decision making) and a thought-piece, sometimes an article, with many authors.

I am one of those people who think that writing should involve the writer, in this case, many writers. For instance, I am a big fan ofP.J. Coetzee in Diary of a bad year or Slow Man... He is someone who does that better sometimes than I could have conceived of it in my fantasies. At the very least, I could invoke the post modern somewhat forced habit of establishing subject position. But like Coetzee, I think this is a bit passe. We really must move on and into the very real fusion of self in writing and law which is more "integrative," or "integrationist." Perhaps it will lead to more "integrity" in my writing, in my thought, in the way I practice law? If there is anything mildly appealing in form or substance here, and you are persuaded to ever return to further partake of my ramblings in this blog, and become remotely close to a regular, you will see me often come back to this theme of "integration."

Today, I want to tell you that the idea of writing a blog came to me from a movie my daughter and I went to see recently, Julie/julia. [For the blogger in that movie, blogging changed her life in almost every way. She became truer to herself every single day as she wrote and also better and more expanded as a person than she was the day before. What a goal!] In any case, my daughter and I were suppose to be accompanied by my son as well, but he was otherwise occupied. All three of us were very excited about the prospect of this film but the origin of this excitement did not occur to me until this minute.

When my children were fairly young, say 6 and 8 or in that range, I would impersonate Julia Child for them from her TV show as if I was actually on TV making a souffle or some recipe of hers. I did it because I thought she was funny, but I exaggerated her every action so as to elicit from my children the reaction that I knew would give me great pleasure and the incentive to keep going. My kids didn't just think I was funny. They were rolling on the floor, pangs of breathy screams emitting from their mouths that refused to close, as another make believe souffle plummeted and had to be trashed with the exclamation, oops! "Well you know we all make mistakes and you musn't be too hard on yourself," I would end.

I am not sure my kids ever saw the actual Julia Child TV show. We didn't have a TV while they were growing up. But then again, they would have been hungry for this curious appliance in any hotel room we may have visited on vacation. So there is a chance they did. Given the running Julia routine I had perfected with them, interest in the film was only logical. There may have been other incidental benefits too. My son, a senior at College now makes the best truffles from scratch this side of Belgium (I kid you not), and my daughter is an unabashed comedienne. I guess Julia had quite a profound impact on us.

It should not be surprising that as I become an empty nester, I am choosing to hold onto some special memories and weave out my takeaway from the movie that paid homage to her and her legacy. All good stories, and perhaps arguments too, have the thread of care, understanding, and even compelled curiosity that sews the hem of their beginning and end and sometimes the many pockets of memory in between without which continued enjoyment of their making would be lost. As I look back at that special time with my children, I am reminded that it would not have come back to me in this moment unless I was at a good place now. I love to write and this blog will give me a forum to grow my penmanship and thinking in the bright light of your glare.

What more could I ask? To speak of the law, and maybe its purposes. For instance, are we as lawyers coming close to answering the call of service the law demands of those privileged to serve? Is there any humour in service? "You've got to serve somebody," croons/rasps Bob Dylan. The work on the Madoff case makes me think a lot about service. I see so many people, not just myself give of themselves to help the devastated. Of course everyone wants recognition and compensation, but they also just want to help create a better way forward.

There will be so much to talk about with you, serious, funny, imaginative and fantastic. The law is capable of all this and more because it is an extension of human interaction, community, and all manifestations of the human mind, heart, body, and soul. And the point to this story... in case the story needs another point, is that the law starts with you! Hopefully an integrated you!

I am going to stop there for today. I was intentionally short yesterday and intentionally long today to see if giving you a little food for thought may start a conversation.

Jump in anytime.

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