The End of the Rainbow

March 23, 2009 By 25 Comments

“Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true”

~ Lyman Frank Baum quotes

3355651724_d51db41867When my parents first decided on the name Rainbows for their one of a kind boutique flower shop, one year shy of three decades back, they couldn’t have had any idea how fitting that moniker would turn out to be. The extraordinary business they built from nothing has lived through the arc of a rainbow; climbing toward the sky before descending to the other side of the horizon and disappearing into the mystery of tomorrow.

They created a market where one didn’t exist before, bringing a European bucket shop into the city. Rainbows carried the high end flowers found in the chic shops of Santa Monica, Pasadena, and West Hollywood and sold them for next to nothing in Long Beach. Their business model was based on volume and it worked well for a wide width of time.

After three amazing decades, the brick and mortar mercantile has fallen subject to the iron law of diminishing returns. That picture you see was shot by my sister. It shows the final shrunken display that will ever sit beneath that particular rainbow. Trends have shifted and the business of buying budget bundles of flowers has drifted to the wider aisles of the local grocer. The particular cocktail of tapered margins and reduced foot traffic has left it imprudent to fritter long days idle inside the store, awaiting the echo of footsteps while a multiplicity of eager commerce is lingering online.

The store is now closed, its final satisfied customer leaving with a smile just two weeks ago. The store has been run by my father for the last fifteen years, my sister and I standing by his side during the majority of that time. He is now moving the business to a studio space that will be closed to foot traffic, but still open to online and telephone orders. My father is now thirty years older than he was on that sunny September day when my parents first threw open their doors and crossed their fingers.

There is no sadness beget by the closing of Rainbows’ doors. The business of running a flower shop is exhausting and the overhead extortionate. By removing a single avenue, my pop will effectively, and exponentially, widen his potential. Our family is proud of the store’s storied history and the legacy it leaves behind. Our only sadness comes from the countless faces who have crossed the threshold to order flowers for family gatherings, weddings, and parties, or simply because there are fewer ways to more precisely say, “I Love You.”

The store must close its physical doors because it is an appropriate time to do so, but the memories shall swirl inside our minds forever. The end of this arc has led to a new sunset, every sunset precedes a new tomorrow.

Writer Dad

Sean Platt is a ghostwriter, creative blogger, and occasional potty training expert.

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Building a Bridge

February 5, 2009 By 26 Comments

“Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men’s natural abilities as to restrain them.”

~ Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)

istock_000005059617xsmall-copy“Would you say I’m a writer, businessman or a businessman, writer” I asked Cindy as we merged into traffic.

We were on our way home from Writer’s Workshop, the writing class we teach to a room full of fourth graders each Thursday. Cindy pondered, giving the question her undivided from one light to the next.  ”Businessman, writer,” she said as I was sailing through the green.

I agreed, but it got me thinking.

I had a brief run of wanting to be a writer back when I was about 5, all the way up until age 8 or so. I use to tap out little stories on an old manual from Sears. I think most of my early work was about robots, space, and probably He-Man, though I do remember one story in particular that featured Spiderman fighting a giant snowman (I lived in Southern California and never left, lending snow a rather mystical quality to my eyes).

Unfortunately, none of these early stories has survived.

At age 8, I stopped attending the private school I’d been going to since I was two; the school where they put books in my hands so early that I have no memory of ever learning to read them.  Eventually, tuition moved from difficult to inconceivable and my sister and I migrated to the best public school our parents could manage.

Our neighborhood school was an abomination.

My oldest sister was in attendance until the day one of the teachers told my father in a conference that some kids are destined for mediocrity, and that they’d both be a lot happier if they accepted this essential truth early on.

The school was a good mile and a half from our house. Still, had the rest of us been home, we could have probably heard our father’s anger echoing across the campus hallways.

That was all he needed to pull my sister, now the senior nurse in her city’s largest hospital, from campus and enroll her in a small private school just beyond our means. My sister and I immediately followed.

The private school had no grades; the students instead encouraged to reach toward their ability. One of the biggest shocks of my life was moving from a school where my brain was given breath, to one where I was bored out of my skull, day upon day, in a never ending purgatory of doldrums and deja vu.

Bored silly and drifting through days without challenge, I acquired the art of commerce.

Baseball cards, comic books, Garbage Pail Kids, repurposed G.I.Joes (don’t ask), etc. etc. I had my own black satchel, stuffed with the stock of my mobile mercantile. I carried the bag everywhere I went and considered it at least thrice as important as my schoolbag.

I opened my first bank account when I was twelve. The bank’s official policy was thirteen, but our family flower shop was spitting distance from the bank, and since our store had an account, the manager agreed to make an exception.

The remainder of my meandering years in school hold countless stories for different days. I squirmed my way through every second, finished left early, and bought my first business at 18. Fast forward a decade and a half until one day I suddenly found myself unearthing a calling that had been buried beneath the detritus of past decades dissipated.

I’ve been thinking like a businessman a lot longer than I’ve been thinking like a writer. Now I know what must be done and I’m building a bridge to balance my abilities.

Writer Dad

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An Act of Kindness Throws Down Roots

February 5, 2009 By 28 Comments

An Act of Kindness

“A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions”

~ Anonymous

the kindness of strangersYesterday, I wrote a post, Sink or Swim, where I discussed discarding the safe in search of something better.  I made my leap, and have since found myself in the middle of the sea.  I first started splashing six months back, determined to ford the flood.  Though I see a gilded horizon as inevitable, it is certainly not without its obstacles.  

Being a dad can be difficult without the added weight of forging forward into the unknown.  To say I’m never scared, or never have to swallow doubt would be as ridiculous as saying I’ve an allergy to air. 

An act of kindness can shift the wind around you.  An act of kindness can be free to give and is sometimes all the giving someone needs.  

Were I swimming in a vacuum, I might have abandoned this dream long ago.  I am not.  Rather, I am fortunate to swim beside the constant support of others, alongside a community carrying a relentless belief that I will one day succeed.  That has been enough to thicken the resolve I need to see the other shore.

Yesterday, there were two people who reached out above and beyond, with a simple act of kindness.  I would like to acknowledge them here.  The first was Lori, the Space Age Sage.  In the comments she asked, “If any of us can toss you a life preserver right now, what kind would you need?”

We swapped emails and, as always, I found Lori meant exactly what she said.  An empty commenter Lori is not.  Thank you, Lori, for your constant and considerate, care.

The second person to light my day was Randi, from Foreign Quang.  She wrote a comment long enough for a post, so I asked her if I could use her words to get out of writing today.  

Here is the majority of her comment, clipped a bit for brevity.

 

Writer Dad,

I’ve got thoughts flying out in different directions because of your post, so I hope I can corral them long enough to make sense.

First off, let me start with a complaint about some women (I, being one, claim the right to rag on some of my sistahs).  When I began my blog, I thought the best thing to do was to hang out at other women’s blogs, just to get a feel for what was popular in blog land. What I saw, in large part, left me disgusted and afraid.  Time after time, I would come across a blog where the blogger thought it was cool to bash her husband or boyfriend, using the most vile terms imaginable. She would talk about what an idiot he was, about the latest stupid thing he did, or about what she would like to do to various body parts while he was sleeping. She would use language I used to associate only with men’s locker rooms, and I thought I had heard it all (having worked with men for many years).  These blogs had lots of subscribers.

I seriously considered abandoning blogging, if that’s what it took to have a successful blog.

Then, one day, while hanging out at Zen Habits, I came across a post you had written on breaking bad habits.  I followed the link to your site, and after reading a couple of posts, said to myself, “Yes! This is what blogging should be about!” The more I read, the more I became aware of the undying support you have from your wife, Daisy. In her, my faith in modern womanhood was redeemed. Here is a woman who would surely die before affixing any swear words to your name. I feel safe when reading her comments on your site, or in reading the posts on hers, that I won’t have to be subjected to a woman’s rantings about her husband. Instead, I feel a sweetness of spirit, a faith in true love, a hope for married couples everywhere. Remembering back to a post I read of yours, where Daisy encouraged you to risk it all and just WRITE, I now ask you to honor her faith by keepin’ on with the swimmin’ even when you feel as if your arms are numb with the struggle, or your lungs will burst with the next breath.

Your writing is good, and more good things will come from what you’ve built.  It’s called synergy.

Ok, next thought. Having managed a few businesses, I know it does take at least a year (in most cases) to see monetary success in a business. You may not be there yet. It seems though, that everywhere I turn there is blog with Writer Dad listed as a favorite blog. Success is not always about the money. I would rather have a blog that made peanuts than have a blog that was financially secure but resorted to ravings.

Third, and maybe final, thought.  

Sinking or swimming can be scary. Until May 2007, I was the manager of a very successful business. I made more money than my husband and worked between 60-70 hours a week. I saw my then eight year old son far too infrequently. He was suffering in school and was exceedingly insecure. My husband and I made the decision that I would quit work.  In the fall, I would become a teacher at my son’s homeschool co-op. As in NO PAY. We were frightened because we KNEW we could not make it on only one income. Yet, there is a quality of life that happens when you are forced to do without, that is very character defining.

We no longer have cable TV service. We eat out maybe once every six months. Friday I bought new clothes for the first time in three years. But I would not trade my son’s newfound security to have my old salary back. It’s not worth it. Yes, you may struggle while you write, wondering if there will ever be a payoff. I believe there will be. You have the talent. You have the support. And last but not least, you have the FANS!

Yay for Writer Dad!

 

Thanks ladies.  Your acts of kindness are much appreciated.

Writer Dad

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Daddy Destitution

October 15, 2008 By 116 Comments

“Empty pockets never held anyone back.  Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.”

~Norman Vincent Peale

I first heard about Blog Action Day my first week blogging.  I think it’s a tremendous idea; people across the world, hundreds of tongues, all wagging on the same subject.  I promised myself that when the day came, I’d dip my quill in ink.

Today is that day.

I cannot speak with authority about the two billion (plus) people who live in this world, surviving on less than two dollars a day.  Theirs is a poverty for which I have no authentic frame of reference.  Only movies, television, and other frivolities of our industrialized world have illuminated such misfortune to my eyes.

I cannot speak with authority about the characters in my country or the souls in my state who, through no fault of their own and every effort to evolve, have found themselves destitute.  They have countless stories to tell, and could tell them far better than I.

In the year 2008, there is no shortage of poverty in this country.  We have poverty of our minds, poverty in our government, and poverty in the methods in which we teach tomorrow’s leaders.  This is too much for me to tackle now; I’d like to start with something smaller.

Today, I will discuss the poverty I know, the kind which litters the few square miles where I grew up for the first fourteen years of my life; the same square on the map where I’ve returned to live for the last seven.

When I was small, during that window when my memory is more like fuzzy analog television than HDTV, our family didn’t have much.  My parents worked  daily to build their small business, and every dollar mattered.  Our clothes were second hand, coupons clipped for every purchase.

Before they started their business, both  Mom and Pop had lost their jobs.  My half sisters were living with us, we had no money coming in, and desperately needed assistance.  My mom, against my father’s formidable protest, applied for welfare.

I understand my pop’s position.  To me, getting a check for work I have not done, yet would be perfectly willing and able to do, would be akin to having the bottom of my foot sliced opened, horse hair sewn inside; every step an excruciating reminder that my life must alter its course.

Unable to pull ahead, and unwilling to stay behind, my parents risked it all in pursuit of a dream.  They traded the security of their check for the back breaking eighty hour work weeks intrinsic to building a flower shop on a foundation of nothing.  By the time I was an adolescent, the business was a success and we were able to move a few miles east.

When Daisy and I bought our first home, we came here, back to my old neighborhood, on the other side of town.

I do not speak of the hundreds of hard working families who surround us.  They who get up early, work all day, and return home to the endless exhaustion of being mindful mothers and fathers.

I speak of those with big screen tv’s, bathing themselves daily in their deity’s bluish glow while waiting for the mail truck to pull curbside with their check.

This is not poverty, it is sloth.

What shatters my heart when I see this, is not that these people live off the sweat of others.  That merely raises my ire.  What truly kills me is that these people are teaching their children to wander inside an aimless circle rather than soar in a neat line, straight ahead.

There is often something missing in these situations; a single ingredient that could twist the tide in the opposite direction.

Fathers.

Now there is a poverty eating part of our population; they who think it’s acceptable to have a child and then leave it to chance.  That is a poverty of the soul, that if enlightened, might extinguish the horrors it’s left behind.

Writer Dad

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My better half, Namas Daisy, has written a terrific post on poverty as well.  You can find it here.

Filed Under: Fatherhood Tagged With: , , , , ,

In The Beginning

June 5, 2008 By 6 Comments

My wife and I’ve been together for ten years now, married for six. We have two children: a daughter who is six, and a son just shy of adding a fourth candle to the cake.  

A few years ago, we took a leap. I left my job and she left hers.  She’d been teaching children for seventeen years and I grew up working in a family business.  Together, we opened a small pre-school.  The best way, we reasoned, to spend time as much time with our children as we could during those years that matter most, and seem to be the easiest to miss.  

We bought property that we could use as both our home and business; an old victorian in our city’s downtown historic district. Shortly after opening, we discovered that our city’s parking requirements prohibited expansion and the addition of any more children.

Our business had a ceiling.  

That meant we’d have to start thinking different (the charm of us both teaching children for less than the cost of living was bound to thin once our own were no longer part of the blend).  

Daisy (my wife’s name for the purpose of this blog) has always dreamt of writing, and often urged me to enlist in her fantasy.  She’s always thought I had too much to say, and often believed my thoughts might be best expressed with my fingers rather than my tongue.

But as I had for every one of the ten years we’d been together, I ignored her suggestion.

Writing, for me, has always been a spectator sport.  I love to read, and have ever since I could stare at the pages and string the sounds together. I spent a good part of childhood with my nose between the pages, but I’ve loved movies with an unhealthy appetite for just as long, and yet I’m fairly far from imagining myself running through the streets with a camera slung over my shoulder, shouting “ACTION!”

Our lives changed forever last September, when from nowhere, Daisy shot me a look I’ll never forget and said, “Really, Honey, when are gonna just start writing?”

So I did.  

It was just after Labor Day, our daughter had started Kindergarten, and the winds of change had effectively swept into our lives, leaving plenty of emotional dust to settle like silt over our slightly more silent afternoons.  Across the next four months, I gathered whatever scraps of time I could find (mostly dredged up by Daisy), and drained my brain onto the glossy screen in front of me.

On the last day of last year, our printer groused and grumbled as it spit out my first manuscript; a five-hundred page sloppy copy that sent shivers down my spine and actually made my knees knobby.

I was under no illusions.  The book was beyond terrible and I knew it.  It needed more work than our hundred and ten year old Victorian (which I swear has had at least a hundred and eleven owners). The entire thing was a messy, jumbled, vomit of awkward similes and too many adverbs; a verbal explosion with little direction to guide the riot of ideas, suffocating inside too scant a space.

But I was writing.

I was pretty high on the revelation.  Even if the novel’s only scheduled stop was some forgotten folder, buried in the depths of my hard drive, I’d written something longer than a love note, and in the process, found something that felt innate, that I could do a little of everyday, continuously developing my skill as it drifted from from hobby to trade.

As usual, when I finally relented to one of Daisy’s suggestions, I ended up wondering what had taken me so long.  

By January, I needed a break from the novel, but I didn’t want to stop writing, so I started drafting simple stories for our children, as well as the wee students at our school.  These stories were a fast and fun diversion.  Totally different from what I’d done with the novel, but every bit as satisfying.   

In February, I returned to the novel while continuing to diddle with the children’s material. Now it’s June and I’m starting the third draft of the novel.  It’s already grown into something far from its cradle, but I’m also starting to see the potential of where it can go. Daisy and I have also gathered a portfolio of children’s material; a magical brew of her twenty years with children, my love of words, and the endless inspiration of our own offspring.

If I’m a writer, then I need to write. This blog will be an excercise for my craft, as well as steady documentation of the process as we seek representation and live through the process of getting our work into the proper hands. We have a lot on our plate right now, so posting will be infrequent for the first two months.  By the first of August, posts will increase to five times a week. I promise.

Writer Dad

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