CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Living, and Creating, My Own Life

As I get older – my big eight-oh is virtually two months away – I find myself sloshing through my childhood, my awkward youth, with ever-increasing awe. I’m not talking so much about “memories” (that time I broke my finger playing football, let us say, or that crush I had on Patty in first grade), but something larger, quieter, less clear: moments of unexpected awareness.

These are moments of becoming. And they’re still with me. They’re still creating who I am, which is why I’ve decided to write about them again. I tossed a few of these moments out into the world a couple years ago, but since they’re still relevant to the world of today, I’ve decided to revisit them.

One such moment occurred after I had a punch-out with a friend after school. Then I bicycled home, with bruised knuckles, a torn pantleg. I parked the bike behind our house and as I dismounted, I felt consumed by an awareness I couldn’t shake off. Gosh, that was stupid.

Maybe fighting is part of kid life, but it’s also utterly valueless. I got hold of myself, calmed down . . . and decided I would never fight again. This wasn’t a flimsy, breakable rule I decided to impose on myself – you know, try to behave better – but something much, much bigger. In that moment, I claimed, well, partial agency over my own hot temper, and eventually beyond that: over the collective anger that had a grip on so much of the world. I decided I didn’t want to be a part of that anymore. This was well before I was in any way “political.” I was 11. I read the sports pages; that was it. But the stupidity of real-life fighting remained a scar on my psyche for the rest of my life.

When I was 13, I had another stunning moment of becoming. This one was far stranger, far less obvious. I hardly understood it. It was........

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