“Try Again” A Super Bowl Message of Balance
On Super Bowl Sunday 2025, the iced over streets of Staten Island, NY met two fellas on a mission, my husband (grown), and my son, just freshly two, a wise-beyond-his-years toddler. Their age, as we’ll see, is not the most crucial factor on this journey. They were on a quest to find freshly prepared potato croquettes for Poppy’s Super Bowl party in our upstairs apartment, an important undertaking if there ever was one.
As the parents of this spitfire two year old, we are in the unique position of watching his confidence unfurl (often a price we pay in lack of sleep), his speech rapidly becoming more spontaneous, his magical little brain conjuring up the most pure observations, and translating them into accurate, often funny, little quips.
The outer borough streets yesterday were a strange mix of slush and ice, but that couldn’t stop them. They first set out to a trusted deli-café, no Maps search necessary for these local guys. They finally arrived, so focused on putting one foot in front of the other, only to realize this neighborhood staple was closed for business that day. “Door closed”, my baby proclaimed, rolly little arms outstretched to convey his disbelief.
They drove to another area of the island, again with no Maps search. They got out of the car, husband holding baby like his own precious little football, and trudged across the wintry mix, only to find themselves in the same predicament at the paninoteca. “Door closed, try again!”, this time my toddler basking a little more in the funny game it was shaping up to be.
My husband, quick thinking, spotted another pizzeria across the street, as one often does on Staten Island. Baby practically thrilled at this point to find them the same predictable situation, now fully smiling, with the budding familiarity and slight bopping of a repetitious new song for kids, he shouts a little louder, “Door closed, try again!” A little fun, heavily non judgmental. Pretty in the moment, pretty not feeling jaded. Is he just a 28lb bundle of wise-mind energy? I sometimes think so. Well like, when he’s not melting down because I told him he can’t throw french fries in the toilet.
Finally, they found a spot around the winding bend, in the more historical area of town, that was both open for business, and had the croquettes. My husband admittedly, and understandably, felt a little triumphant. My baby took it in stride, looking observantly around at the decor, subtly suggesting he might want to indulge, as he observed out loud with a bit of his famous side eye, “so much pizza.”
What a journey. I can’t help but think of the way so many of us weary adults may have handled the situation differently. I can picture how easily each locked door may embody a metaphor for our own barriers and frustrations. Whether internal and perhaps rooted in our traumas, or external and perhaps feeling unsupported and burnt out by recent events threatening the bedrock of our civil liberties as we know them, and worse, undoing decades of anti-oppressive progress. While all of that is so valid and crucial to name, I still strive, as a mother, therapist, creative, and human, in the name of our nervous systems and preserving our collective strength, to balance that complexity with something along the lines of my baby’s pure wisdom. It’s a process, jumping from pizzeria to pizzeria to find the perfect croquettes, and with each closed door, and as we trudge through the wintry mix, we sing a song, try again, and hold each other tight like a football as we continue our journey to the endzone.
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