Life Review

I read a phrase in a book about grief after my dad died: "Life Review." It struck a chord with me. The book argued that it is always ongoing, not merely at a time of death. As someone who has always felt that and been reviewing my life, it struck home. But as someone visited by too many deaths of people close to me this year, it has brought me back to that activity or brought a new urgency to that activity. I have been scanning in old photos and mulling over old relationships. (If I ever wronged you, accept this: "I was wrong, and I apologize." That's the only thing that I wish my parents were able to say and mean. [The Mountain Goats devote a song to people who say they're sorry for things "they can't and won't feel sorry for."])

One of my siblings chided me for saying that I had processed the deaths of my parents in my thirties on my own. A therapist of mine told me that my parents were going to die and I had to make peace with that even if I could not make peace with who they were (and were going to stay). Essentially, you cannot expect people to change or to join you in making peace in your relationship with them.

Last weekend, I spoke with a friend I hadn't seen in ages, whose mother is terminally ill, and the friend said her mother would occasionally make comments apologizing for past wrongs or trying to make peace with people. "That's what everyone hopes for," I told my friend. "But it doesn't always happen; you got the Hallmark movie."

I got together with that friend because I was doing Life Review and trying to get back in touch with long-lost friends. The people inn your life will not always be there. And their exit will be sudden, no matter when it happens.

"Life Review" … Sounds like the title of a magazine … or a blog …

The life unquestioned is not worth living – Socrates (But the life unlived is not worth questioning – Anonymous)

I always think I am going to get back into the rhythm of posting on my blog, when in fact, real life gets in the way of me posting consistently on it. And if I were consistently posting, I wouldn't be living.

Why This Yank Hates Soccer (Football)

I'm an American, and I dislike soccer. But not for the usual reasons Yanks cite. What gets my hackles up is the role of the referees and goes back to the sport's origins. Soccer began as a rich boys' game in England. The early matches were held at public schools (the equivalent of private schools in the U.S.--even in this, we are opposites). The early referees were teachers at these wealthy schools, and the "rules" of the game evolved largely as a way for a teacher to reward or punish a boy, depending on the teacher's inclinations. The rules are a thinly disguised way to empower the teachers (sorry, referees), who were destined to less power and money than their charges, the sons of Wealth. I know of no other sport in which the referees can so determine the outcome of a game (unless of course the NBA actually enforced its rules, but that's a different essay). The reason soccer gets my goat is that it remains a game to empower a ruling class (teachers/referees), and not the huddled masses (players), and that, my friend, is anti-American.

Look at FIFA's rules, and you'll see that little has changed. Fouls are based on wording of whether a player does something like trip "or attempts to" (in the judgment of the ref). Also forbidden are "jumps at an opponent … charges an opponent … pushes and … tackles." Again if the player is charging the ball and not the opponent, the ref can nonetheless call a foul. It's all his judgment.

More telling is the small print. Other players that teachers (sorry, refs) can lord over (sorry, call a foul on) are those who: play "in a dangerous manner," "impede" an opponent, or (most damning of all) "commit any other offence, not previously mentioned in Law 12, for which play is stopped to caution or send off a player" — meaning if you, the ref, stop play, it's automatically an offense. You can invent them!

Needless to say this all goes very against the grain of the Yanks who threw off the idea of an aristocracy or anyone who could lord over anyone else.