I can relate to needing both.

Thanks again for all the support everyone. Especially to AB, who put this piece up with so much encouragement.

http://tiny.cc/adt3a

INTERVIEWER

You’re just back from ten months in Rome. Why were you there?

WOLFF

I had no immediate reason for going. It wasn’t to do research. I speak some Italian, but living in a country where I can’t be completely aware of what people are saying around me puts this sort of bubble around the head, in which, for a time, not indefinitely, I find I’m able to work with more than the usual concentration and joy. I like not having a car, living in the center of a city where you can walk everywhere. All the errands that seem to consume one’s life become very few, and you find yourself with great stretches of time for reading, wandering, and yes, working. It was a good place to live for ten months, and I was dying to come home at the end of it. I finished the book I was writing and began to wonder why I was there, and when I begin to wonder why I’m somewhere, I know it’s time to come home, because I actually like being surrounded by my own language and knowing what’s going on around me. But it’s good for a while to be dropped through the bottom, to be a little helpless, to have to scramble to make do, because as you get older, you do less and less of that, and it’s good for you, it takes the rust off.

INTERVIEWER

So living abroad is in some way inspirational?

WOLFF

Not in the sense that I’ll necessarily write about the place I’m in—we spent a year in both Berlin and Mexico and I still haven’t set anything there. But just the breaking out, the newness of things, the having to struggle a bit, all that is bracing.

Tell you what, though, even though I never really got over the homesickness, and I ended up moving back to America, I’m a better, stronger person now for having been thrown out of my comfort zone like that. I’m more willing to take a big risk.

And now, my three kids have lived in the same house all their lives. Sometimes I worry I’m making their lives too safe and stable, that they would benefit with a little time outside their comfort zones, too.

My wife and I just had our first. It’s a great feeling, but the thing I’m most excited/nervous about are moments like this. Excited about experiencing them, nervous about not recognizing them when they come.

Loved the last sentence. Well done. Thanks.

Great writing,great parenting!

Deanna Shapiro

I have lots of anxiety about sports and my sons. I was a horrible athlete. My Dad drank quite a bit when I was growing up. I remember playing catch in the backyard and if I didn’t hit him in the mitt with the ball, I had to chase it down from the neighbor’s yard. You would think this would’ve made me have pinpoint control, but I ended up quitting on catch after 5 minutes. My Dad did the best he could, like we all do, and I can only blame myself for being a quitter.

I am ok at football, a joke to watch in basketball, but I am a semi-pro ping ponger. And baseball was my personal house of horrors. It is surprising that I am such a fan of watching it, considering my baseball prowess.

Ben, When I read your story, it makes me realize that there are going to be lots of times when I will have to make hard choices and always keep my son’s interests before my own.

I hope I do it as well as you Ben!

-G

Baseball was always weaved into the fabric of my life, playing with my brother in Central Park, with my uncles in the country, and eventually varsity softball back in CP. Those were great memories. Luke will always remember.

my dad used to take my brother and me to hit bp and practice fielding when we were little. the ball fields were always empty – i mean no one was there, we would have the field for hours to ourselves. for the most part i loved it, but my poor brother hated it. he never liked playing baseball. my dad made him bat left-handed and he got hit a lot when he was young and he wasn’t good at fielding balls that took bad bounces. an experience like this can teach you perseverance or failure – how the parent responds is so important to it building perseverance rather than failure.