46. Aptitude

How to Be a Person -- The Newsletter for Wednesday, November 27th 2024

Love, like a sense of humour, is now claimed by everyone even though love, like a sense of humour, is rather more rare than not and to most of us poor muddlers unbearable at full strength. — Gore Vidal

Today, 14 is only going to the classes he likes. It’s his version of a mental health day. So he’s going to design class and Science. Then he’s coming home at lunch and he’s skipping swimming, French and English. Over breakfast I was doing my version of an "It Gets Better” live performance for him because it honestly does. In fits and starts. It went like this for me: I can’t remember elementary school really. I think it was fun but there were also bullies. Shout out to Wu Lee (who was also a friend of mine. Confusing — but then I was annoying. I can remember that.) Then it was high school and there were girlfriends. There were bullies there too (shout out to Chris Prentice. Hated you.)

He’s a lot bigger now.

In high school I didn’t know about improv yet. And I really hadn’t admitted I wanted to be an actor. I did spend a lot of time playing basketball. I was terrible at it and I’m not sure I really liked it all that much. At university I began to realize how much I hadn’t actually had a good time in high school. University was so much fun. Doing the thing you love every day is such a great feeling.

Finally when I was around 28 a fog lifted. I was doing comedy and I had friends and I was making money. Not much. It was 1999. We were making theatre on Commercial Drive. I was living in a house that was as much mould as it was lathe and plaster.

It took me decades but my life was gradually becoming my own. For instance: as soon as I graduated from university I wrote a screenplay because I no longer had to write essays for someone else. In 2000 I quit my job washing boats on Granville Island for $9 an hour. Between teaching improv and performing it I was earning $700 a month. My rent in the House of Mould was $425. It wasn’t a spectacular launch but I was an independent man.

I want to spring my kids from school but I don’t know what else they would do. Home schooling is not an improvement. No one wants me as their high school math teacher. I hate that I have to send my sweet, nerdy teen off to a place he’s not excited about. Life is so short and yet we spend so much time doing stuff that doesn’t fill us with joy. Like last week when I spent an entire morning rectifying $8 000 worth of erroneous charges on my credit card. Or the days and days I spent getting my kid a new passport in part because of a glitch in Passport Canada’s software (It’s ready, Mr. Bryden but we just can’t release it until the software says we can and right now the software isn’t working). Surely red tape isn’t supposed to stop a kid from seeing his cousins in Santa Monica.

The greatest joy in this world is doing what you love with people you love. It’s in the doing and it’s in the friends you make. Today, 14 is going to come home and eat his lunch with me and then he’s going to work on editing film or photos or animating something for his design program. Then tonight two friends are coming over for a sleepover and they’ll play some video games and some D&D and eat pancakes for dinner. And hopefully that’s enough of an antidote to the life society makes you live.

The natural state of things is a shit sandwich. It’s our job to carve out space for beauty, for art, for joy, friends, love.

Where does Ding-dong McButterFace find joy and beauty at the Passport Office? How does 14 do it when his dad is operating on old intel and is of little help? Clearly the person that got hold of my credit card number is an expert at it.

I think we try. We just keep on trying. We try, try, try. When you’re making art there is no no failure, there are just adjustments along the way until we find the thing that stands up and says I am for you.

And then you hold on with everything you’ve got.

Life is shorter than you think.

Skip math.

Come home and be with me.

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