Sol's Scarlett Sol - A drop D I’d been working on until last night when my daughter heard me playing as she took her bath and asked me to bring the guitar into the bathroom. The joy from her asking me to play finished the song.

Ice Cream and Trane

I took two of my kids for ice cream yesterday and on the way home John Coltrane's My Favorite Things came on Sirius Radio. I said something akin to, "It really gets going on his second solo."

My eldest, who plays piano and viola game me an inquisitive look. 

So I decided to drive around so we could hear it - the song is around 13 minutes. 

My son got into listening, even to the point of humming parts of the solo after hearing a passage. 

AWESOME.

It gets better.

During COVID, I would often take the kids to nearby Goddard park just to get out of the house...but we did it so often it got to be a "Not Goddard again!" kinda thing.

I could think of nowhere else to drive so we could hear the tune so I drove to Goddard. The song was ending just as I pulled up so I was just going to turn around and head home but get this: they wanted to go to Goddard and just pick up shells and skip rocks. 

AWESOME.

I don't have to many parenting wins but this was one. I'll take it. 

Just A Really Nice Moment

 I was driving the tots to their respective schools this morning -the 8 yr old goes early for gymnastics, and the 3 yr old can be dropped off at daycare at 8m -when they started singing a song from the recent Disney movie, Turning Red. Well I hopped on board and started singing and they started booing me which only made me sing louder...when George Benson's version of This Masquerade came on the radio. So I turned it up and sang along despite their protestations. 

And for some reason it was just great. The kidding with the kids and the great guitar and voice of Benson on that opening two chord vamp was...just great.

And while I usually hold myself in low regard, I started to think about when I first got into that song, probably around 1996. I remember renting a cassette from the School of Music library at Ohio University and trying to play from the sheet music. And while I'm no jazzer of any repute, I listened enough to be able to appreciate it, and dammit that oughta count for something.

Nothing Compares To You

 I don't know if you've heard the Chris Cornel cover of Nothing Compares To You.

But you should.

During my half-hour drive to take my eldest (now 10) son to swim, the song came on.

Tis a powerful rendition laddy. 

And me being the emotional sensitive guy I am, well you know, I had them feels.

The lyrics and the rendition brought back some pretty powerful memories of a break-up in my oh so sensitive twenties. One hard part was the realization of being rejected.

Now here's the thing, this ten year-old reading in the back is oh so sensitive, like his old man. And my job is to help him along in this world.

How does one teach about rejection? Minimize it by giving it context?: everyone will experience it; take the long view. Explain it away? Rationalize it? Embrace it some sort of Leibnizian best of all possible worlds/what doesn't kill us makes us stronger sort of way?

I cannot save him from rejection, even though I know his sensitivity will make it so damn powerful. I know he will look inside and...take it to heart.

I know this.
I feel this.

But dem feels, so powerful; so alive; so sensitive to the rejection but also the love.

Sensitive through and through.

"I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant..."

Luv you dad.

Well here we are faithful Heavy Levity blog follower, September 21, 2021 and yours truly is now fifty and one years of age. As the religious say in america, holy shit. 

First the facts: I'm a mess mentally...and have been for a long time. Angry, bitter, incompetent, lazy, not too bright, unintelligent, redundant, with a touch of pedant at best and a slap across the face at worst. But on the bright side, I completed a half-marathon on Saturday morning with a time of 1:46:53. (My last half was in 2017 and I finished in 1:51:17.)

Tis funny because I think platonic dualism is the cause of much suffering but in a Leibnizian fashion, my mental suffering helps my almost best of all possible worlds running.

I kid.

Second the fun: my coworkers presented me with a card and sang a lively happy birthday. When I told them it was reminiscent of how they used to sing it at Chi Chi's...NONE of them even knew of Chi Chi's.

Funny haha and funny old-as-hell. I didn't think it was like I was talking about a printing press or a phonograph machine but I guess I went and dated myself.

Third the love: The fam didn't have time to celebrate over the weekend with all the activities and I was happy my wife gave me the four plus hours to get out in the morning, run, and not get back until around 10 or so, while she took all the tots to gymnastics and baseball. And today doesn't bode well because I am gone from about 8 to 8 and the mornings being absolute chaos trying to get everything and everyone together and out the door on time.

But get this: I'm walking my daughter from the car to the check-in table at daycare and I ask her, "You gonna do a good job today?" And in just the cutest fashion in the world, as only she can say it she says, "Yes." But she hangs on that s for just a little bit and it comes out with an unmistakable yesss. So cute and endearing. But it gets better.

Then, she says, "Luv you Dad." Oh man, I lit up like an xmas tree. Totally unprompted but totally accepted and completely needed. 

And with four words, I tell you, one of the best birthdays ever.

Behave...and Mirrors

 As I begin the hour commute back to work, at the recommendation of one of my colleagues, I am listening to Behave, by Robert Sapolsky.

The subtitle is: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst.

Sapolsky is digging down as far as possible in regard to certain behaviors. 

Listening yesterday, after yet another episode in life where I shut down and found myself bitter and angry, Sapolsky held up a mirror with the following pages:

I can't get the image out of my head of my father, sulking and bitter on my wedding day. I think about the times over the years, way too many, where I have done the same thing: sulked and shut down, despite having the material things I need to survive.

Anhedonia - the inability to feel, anticipate, or pursue pleasure.

Am I there? At 50? Married with three young children?

Regardless, I think a paradigm shift is in order. I don't know how to practically make the shift and per Sapolsky, I think my biology, shaped by my early poverty/trauma, is getting in the way. It's like trying to avoid seeing yourself by looking in a mirror.

JuJu and George

I finished reading Hatchet, along with my nine year old son recently and toward the end of the book he recognized that my voice was “getting different” as I fought off emotion. I was emotional for two reasons: one was just finishing a good book that involves a teenager (not that far away for my nine year old) being rescued after surviving in the Canadian wilderness for close to two months and two, the more powerful reason is that we read it together, as father and son. And the truth is that he is difficult and I am more difficult but reading this book together, we had powerful moments of connection and it became a beautiful, what Heidegger might call, project. A project is powerful in this sense because it posits a future. Over the nights reading I could ask him questions as his excitement showed on his sleeve and I talked about the power of a good story, a good paragraph, a good sentence. We were inside of this book, and it was beautiful and of course, books come to an end, and we would no longer be inside, and I became emotional. The time ended. Which made me think about my radical thanatism: The steadfast belief that I am finite and that I do not transcend this earthly life and how this focuses THIS life and makes seemingly simple moments like finishing a novel with my son, into intense cherishable moments that connect me to meaning and value in the absurdity (absurdism is realism around 18:22). In short my thesis stands, my radical thanatism is healthy, believing individual humans are eternal is, not; it cheapens our individual and collective lives. 

Later that night I also finished George Saunders’ most recent, A Swim In A Pond In The Rain and cannot help but bring relief to the subtitle: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life. The next day I would share Saunders’ thoughts on the power of a good story with my JuJu and I would again become emotional but I prefaced it by telling him why I was emotional the night prior. Because we did that thing together and that time, with you, that time we have, runs out. 

Pardon the imperatives here: Value time, cherish time, it is all you really have. If you don’t believe me, please believe George Saunders (bolding mine):

Hi – I'm reading "A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life" by George Saunders and wanted to share this quote with you.

"We ended the previous section by agreeing to confine our expectations for fiction to this: reading fiction changes the state of our minds for a short time afterward. But that may be a bit on the modest side. After all, as we’ve been seeing, reading fiction changes our minds in particular ways, as we step out of our own (limited) consciousness and into another one (or two, or three). So, we might ask, how are we altered, in that “short time afterward”? (Before I give my answer, let’s just say, again, that there’s no need, really, for me to do that. We know how our minds were changed as we read these Russians, because we were there. And we know, if we’ve been lucky enough to have other beautiful reading experiences in our lives, what those did for/to us.) But I’ll give it a try: 

I am reminded that my mind is not the only mind. 

I feel an increased confidence in my ability to imagine the experiences of other people and accept these as valid.

I feel I exist on a continuum with other people: what is in them is in me and vice versa. 

My capacity for language is reenergized. My internal language (the language in which I think) gets richer, more specific and adroit. 

I find myself liking the world more, taking more loving notice of it (this is related to that reenergization of my language). 

I feel luckier to be here and more aware that someday I won’t be. 

I feel more aware of the things of the world and more interested in them. 

So, that’s all pretty good."

Swans and Kant

 

We took the shoreline first, we usually take the shoreline to finish. I didn’t have a dog in the fight, I was just trying to get the boys out of the house as they were at peak riot before seven thirty in the morning. It was MLK day 2021, deep in the throes of the CoronaVirus pandemic. Getting them out of the house, even if for an hour, helps calm them a little, makes bedtime a little easier if they’ve been on their feet for at least a little while. As I said, we took the shoreline first. Goddard park is a great walk. One always has the shore for a good vista but there is also the path that glides and meanders between a forest dense enough to cut out a good deal of the human noise we probably aren’t adapted for yet and unknowingly makes us crazy. There have been days where after a walk at Goddard, the boys, usually riotous at seven thirty in the morning and cacophonous the other waking hours, are dare I say it, calm and serene. It is low tide and I am frigid; I tuck my nose inside my coat and I can feel how cold it is. I breathe inside my coat for as long as I can as the wind drills us on the shoreline. It is so early and our direction means we’re getting no sun. The boys are impervious to the cold. Julian has taken his gloves off for better rock skipping. Julian finds the sole of a shoe. Avery is carrying sticks...for protection. We reach the rocks and ah, sunlight hits me. The bite of the wind is softened. The star a mere ninety-three million miles away warms my Irish nose and reminds me, there can be warmth. The rocks are the informal half-way point. At low tide the rocks jut out to where, traversing them, one can feel in the middle of the bay. Not for me today; looking at the water makes me shiver. I let the boys linger though I am cold and my Raynauds has my hands and feet stinging. I let them be boys and they are gloriously boys. Loud, active, gregarious, with elan to burn...and they burn it and it powers them: on the rocks, off the rocks, karate pose, stick fight!, on the rocks again, off the rocks again. I can’t help myself so I get some pictures; they are too glorious not to take pictures. But the wind drilling me for a half-hour is all I can tolerate so I say it is time to head back. The walk back is through the woods, a reprieve from the wind. We know this path well. The leaves soften the walk and the noise is dampened. Funny how the noise of a forest, isn’t called noise, doesn’t feel like noise. Perception. There is no noumenal realm. Plus Kant died from eating a wheel of cheese. I tell the boys we should try to be quiet as we near the pond. There have been days we spotted a Heron at the back of the pond. The pond sits just about seventy-five yards from the shoreline at low tide. It is surrounded by trees but a nice path has been beaten around most of its near-acre size. We do not see the Heron but I tell the boys there are swans back there. Two, white dollops of feathered mashed potatoes somehow floating on the water. I have never given swans much thought. Near the zoo, there are swan-shaped paddle boats the boys have enjoyed and my calves have not. Who really thinks about swans? Maybe Kant did. We round the corner and I point out to Avery that someone has dropped some seed for birds. He lingers, noticing the birds, and appreciating how close he is to them. Nuthatches mostly. Julian is ahead of me, Julian will always be ahead of me, and he’s talking about something I can’t quite make out because Avery is in my ear about wanting a small, cute bird for a pet. I tell him, “My sister had a cockatiel,” when I am alerted to the sound of a jeep or some vehicle driving through this forest. Impossible. How in the world did someone get a vehicle back here? I think. The birds scatter at the sound of this vehicle rumbling toward us. I try to locate the source and my ears point me to the center of the pond, but...it is not a vehicle. It is the sound of the two swans, pelting the surface of the pond to take flight. I realize these swans are huge; their wings must be seven feet or more from tip to tip and those wings are beating the pond like a drum. Bam bam bam, like an old Dodge motor with perhaps a rod knocking. Huge birds. We are rapt. All attention on them as they finally get off the water and the old Dodge turns into a wind turbine, their long strong wings forcing a loud, dare I say cacophonous whooomph with every flap. Quickly, loudly they flap in order to rise over the surrounding maples and sumacs. They do, the dollops of white, quintessential orange beaks, and jet-black eyes, rise above and are gone. But not forgotten. Julian and I look at each other in amazement. Julian is speechless. “That was cool,” I riotously yell. I am thinking about swans. Swans have been perceived, not in some cold, mathematical, taxonomical, noumenal realm but in a phenomenal realm, where sounds startle you and sights dazzle you, and the smell from a wheel of cheese overtakes you.

It's A Shame

 Joyce Carol Oates Masterclass Writing Assignment

 

4.  Write a story about an unsolved mystery in your life. Use Joyce’s phrase “An unsolved mystery is a thorn in the heart” as your first line. Then, in an entirely new paragraph, begin explaining the mystery while keeping the first line in mind.

An unsolved mystery is a thorn in the heart. 

 

Why I can’t bring myself to like myself is a thorn in my heart. I even tell people, “I’m a decent person,” as if to remind them, but it’s really to remind me. I don’t know how this came to be. Well, other than growing up poor, and internalizing the poverty and equating it with character failure and moral worth. So maybe it’s more of a riddle. Disliking myself (hate is such a strong word) is why the words of an adjunct professor, Andrew Stypinski, have stayed with me all these years (30 yrs): If you don’t love yourself, you can’t love anyone else - there’s no analogy to draw from. This thorn has impacted my relationships (no friends to speak of at the age of 50), a troubled marriage, and parenting that won’t win any awards, or even honorable mention. So there’s a thorn, or maybe it’s a switch-blade, or the Conan Sword in my heart but I guess I’m lying when I tell you there is this big unsolved mystery. There isn’t. My early life (Freud was right about so much shit), my parents, my surroundings, my choices, my zeitgeist, my biology, my culture, my nature, my nurture, my wiring, my education, my lack of education, my intelligence, my lack of intelligence, my experiences, my being a late bloomer (as in weighing 95 lbs in the ninth grade late bloomer), my early sexual experiences, my lack of early sexual experiences (see late bloomer info above), my cramped childhood household (eight people in a two bedroom ONE bathroom home) my potty training, my living thirty yards from an interstate highway, my contracting scabies as a kid, my parents’ and uncles’ and brother’s alcoholism, and my goddamn self are the reason(s) I dislike myself - this shit isn’t a mystery or a riddle or a limerick or an amusing anecdote, to paraphrase George Carlin, it’s a shame.

Alright. These Things Happen.

Working in so called higher education has a few perks. One of which is conferences. Free conferences and free travel to and from said conference. Very perky. 

In theory. 

In practice, when you take your three-count ‘em-three kids along, perky can (and does) become pesky if not painful. 

Ima tell you what happened.

The detes:

Conference in Chicago. Never been to the windy city so...cool.
Fly out wed morning, fly back sat afternoon.

The devil in the detes:
Fly out of logan airport in, oh god, Boston, MA. Connect in LaGuardia. (Trivia question: What was LaGuardia’s first name? You did know LaGuardia was a person, right?)

First flight at, oh god, 9:30am. 

The last devil in the detail is that we are taking our three-count ‘em-three kiddos. Ages 7,5, 14...months. Oh god indeed. 

So imagine just packing for this trip (toiletries, onesies, diapers, pull-ups) and then imagine lugging all of this along with a stroller.

Ok, so we get the kids to bed tuesday night and pack and get to bed at a reasonable hour. Good start. 

Now someone in the family, not gonna say who, gets up at 4:40am every day, and was ready to go Wednesday morning to drive from god’s plan (providence) Rhode Island up to beantown but someone else in the family, not gonna say who, may or may not have lollygagged a tad. Conclusion: got on the road a little bit late. Not great.

Oh, tank is on E, so we have to get gas. No biggie, place down the road. 5 mins. Oh but then on the way to the expressway the 5 yr old says he’s gotta pee. Turn around, head back to the house. Um.

Running late. 

Alright, we got this. On a good day, a drive from god’s plan to Boston is one hour. 

Did I mention the morning commute through god’s plan is, anything but divine? 

Running later.

Did I mention the morning commute through Boston is anything but hell? 

Running latest.

In effing stop and go traffic, with the five year old getting car sick from said stop and go, we finally make it to Logan for our 9:30am flight at, oh, 9:20...ish. We, of course, have to go to the top of the parking deck, lug everything out, kids included, and try to check the bag and get through security, replete with full body cavity search and mammogram.

We miss our flight.

Like a little leaguer facing Nolan Ryan we whiff on that flight. Not even close.

Alright. These things happen. We do what you you do when you miss a flight -drink at the airport. No that’s not right, you check the next flight. You problem solve, you stay calm, and you let those tots have all the screen time they want, cuz your ass is stuck at Logan. 

We’re on standby. Not great. Our tickets, should we even get on the flight are not together. Not greater. Thinking about my five year old next to strangers is disconcerting. Thinking about some poor sap with my ball busting 7 year old is funny though. 

Good news: we get on the flight to LaGuardia. (Trivia answer: Fiorello. Please take a moment, 17 hours actually to watch the Ric Burns documentary New York - worth the time, I promise). Gooder news, a kind woman trades seats so I can sit next to my five year old and my wife was close “enough” to the 7 year old. I might add at this point that the 14 month old is just a champ through all of this. 

Ok, we get to LaGuardia and, with all due respect to Fiorello and all he did for New York as Mayor, man is this airport a shithole. That aside, we have to try and get to Chicago. My wife, stands in line for 2 hours, whilst I entertain (hands kindle to tots) the kids, to try and get us on a flight to Chicago. Nope. Not gonna happen. Two hours wasted quicker than a frat boy at a kegger. But, wait for it, we aren’t the only ones. Three flights nixed to the windy city. 

Alright. These things happen. You get on the horn and you get a hotel. Three missed flights full of people do the same thing and apparently they did it a LOT earlier than we did. Hotels full. Except for the Holiday Inn LaGuardia, and, with all due respect to Fiorello and all he did for New York as Mayor, man is this hotel a shithole. Not his fault I know. Oh and when you have a 14 month old, you make sure to ask the hotel if they have a crib. Check: Holiday Inn LaGuardia has a crib. 

Next, get on the shuttle to the Holiday Inn, with three kids. More driving. Not awesome.

The room is small. College apartment bedroom small. Studio. Two beds. We are famished so we head down to the “restaurant.” The “food” was foodish and I’m sure contained some sort of ingredients but how the meatball served to me with my “spaghetti” qualified as a meatball, I am not sure. My wife said her salad, served in a wooden bowl, was ok. The kids, pent up from all of this run around the “restaurant.” But good news, it was only 4pm so the other customer didn’t seem to mind - I think he was drunk. 

Right about now I should mention that our checked bag, the one with all those diapers and pull-ups, was on its way to Chicago. Sooooo, whist I try to manage three kids in a closet, my wife has to uber out to the nearest Target, which happens to be in oh a seven story mall, to get the bare minimum of diapers, pull-ups, boxers, deodorant, toothpaste and brushes and a change of clothes for the next day...and in the big apple, this only cost us 200 smackers. 

Alright. These things happen. 

So the little gal has to sleep between us and the boys somehow share their bed and get to sleep. We make it through the night. 

We make it through “breakfast” and we make it through the 10 mile yet hour commute back to LaGuardia. More driving. We hang out as best we can at LaGuardia for oh, just two hours and then suffer the indignity that is air travel. Again.

We get to the windy city after two hours cramped in the trunk of a 1979 Pinto, breathing air fresh out of a forsaken aquarium bubbler, and retrieve our checked bag and, wait for it, pile into another car for a 30 mile trip to the hotel. A 30 mile trip that took an hour and a half of stop and go traffic with a top speed of, I kid you not, 25MPH. ON the expressway. What the fuck is express about 25MPH? The 5 year old got car sick, again, but didn’t throw up. The little gal finally had had enough a cried up a storm while out driver said “This was the fastest way.” 

We make it to the hotel. Very nice place. Mood rises in all of us. We haven’t had a vaca in three plus years so we get club floor. So the wife and tots head out for the dessert hour whilst I get the little gal a bath and relax a little. My wife brings me back a dark and stormy. 

We strategize bedtime. I will take the 7 year old out so he doesn’t fight/play/punch/wrestle/giggle/fart with his brother when they should be going to sleep. Ok, let us go check out the pool. Get some energy out, do a little swimmin’. Concierge so nicely informs us that the pool is being serviced, but that, a mere ten blocks away, a mere 15 minute walk through the streets of Chicago, at 8pm at night, with a mere 7 year old, is a swimming pool we can use. How she kept a straight face and told me this is beyond me. I do keep the kid out long enough for his brother to be asleep by the time we get back. However, my wife tells me that our room has a connecting door and that the guest arrived and we need to be quiet. I wasn’t planning on having a rave but ok.

We get some sleep. And don’t drive or fly anywhere. Bonus.

Because she missed a conference day my wife has to be up early to check in for the conference and retrieve a poster and yadi yada and we all make it out to club floor breakfast at the ripe ole time of 6:30am. All of us. My wife departs and I head back to the room with the three kiddos and figure I will plan the morning activities. Well do you remember that we have a connecting room? Well the boys are off the wall as they usually are and our fellow traveler starts banging on the connecting door and starts turning the handle like if it were to open, he would waltz right into our room. I furrow my brow as I’m holding my 14 month old, and the banging stops...because he left his room to come around to our entry door and bang on it. “How may I help you?” I ask. He screams “Can you keep it down?” I retort: “Doing the best I can here.” Mind you, this is not a freshman dorm we are staying in here but a 23 story hotel in downtown Chicago and this cat bangs on the door and screams. Great.

Alright. These things happen. 

So I gather up three kids and get in line at the front desk to explain why we need a room change. They say they can accommodate but to check back around noon to make sure. “For future reference,” he says, “just call security.” 

We make at to Millennium park. Before 8am. I guess it’s nice that we have the place to ourselves. We check it out, we snap some pics at the bean, stroll the grounds, aaaaand, it’s 9am. Try to keep it somewhat entertaining and the Crown Fountain helps but the tots get soaked. The boys will need a change of clothes which means I have to go back to the room. We head back and because it is so damn early, we can still get some breakfast. Mollifies them a little. Try to get the little gal down for her nap, put the boys in a warm tub. Doin’ my best here. Joe Blow next door isn’t banging on the walls so I’m ok. But she’s not having it so we’re out the door again. Back to Millennium park. Now it is packed but I get to see my sister inlaw and her husband and their newborn so it works out. The boys make friends at the fountain and the little gal sleeps in her stroller. A reprieve. 

It is short lived.

Near noon so I check on the status of the room change, while the boys have trouble “waiting patiently.” i.e not punching and wrestling and hanging on the velvet ropes like rhesus monkeys. After hemming and hawing they can do the change. And guess who has a half-hour to pack up everything and move it to the new room while juggling three kiddos. Not literally. Stressful as there is schtuff everywhere and fitting it all back into the bags was, not exactly a walk in the park, more like a bear crawl in the Andes. I get it done. I don’t know what item is in what bag or where anything at all is but I get it done. 

The wife gets back and we meet up again with her sister at the navy pier. Nice enough. The kids dig the Children’s Museum and we get a little burned out near five but avoid a complete meltdown and make it to dinner back at the hotel. We split up the bed times again and get some sleep. 

We’re packed up and head to the Chicago aquarium. Half-hour drive wherein the driver, obviously at the end of a loooong shift, proceeds to fall asleep at a red light. But no worries, we woke him up when it turned green. Safety first kids! Where we have, tops, one hour but pay through the bottle nose dolphin prices. At this point it is all becoming very tiring and I haven’t even had a chance for deep dish pizza. We check out and, no need to guess it, uber back to O'hare at a mere hour-ish. At this point it is all becoming most tiring and I haven’t even seen any of the Blues Brothers sites, other than a Wacker Drive sighting, whilst [sigh] driving. 

The captain tells us that “we are waiting on the catering truck,” so we sit on the tarmac for a half hour before our two hour flight back to Logan...before our, if we’re lucky, hour drive back home. We make it back to Logan and it is about now that we deem our seven year old possessed. So many constraints and directives on this trip, in addition to ample screen time, I realize must have been really challenging for him. We get our bag aaaand trek it back to the 7th floor of central parking which feels miles away at this point aaaaand for the life of us, can’t find our car. We try two different garages. We are so spent my wife and I that we can’t remember can’t make heads for tails. So we call parking and this little old man comes and picks us all up and we load the luggage for the billionth time and he drives us across the lot and we realize we had walked right past it. Sheezuz. 

We drive out of Boston and make for home.

But the tots get thirsty so we have to pull off and get fluids. More time. And to cap it off, just as we are about to hit our town, the five year old throws up in the back up the car. A lot. 

We’ve got to lug everything out, again, get the kiddos dinner and a bath, get the little gal down, then get the puke stained car seat out of the back which only requires a thousand cuss words. 

Now in theory, I don’t suppose that the universe was speaking to us very early on in the throes of this trip, to, you know, NOT GO. In theory, I don’t suppose the universe speaks. Who has two thumbs and doesn’t like to anthropomorphize? (If you are keeping score at home, that was 5 syllables, count em’ 5) This guy. 

In practice? The universe screamed at us, slapped us hard across our face, uppercutted us in the sternum, did the sign language just in case, made a sign, a series of sings like in Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues, imploring us to bag it, DON’T GO!

Still, it was better than work (was it though?).

Trying...

“I’m trying real hard Ringo…”

If you cogitate on that line for a few, I’m sure you will remember it’s from Pulp Fiction, where Jules, is talking to the restaurant thief.

Well, as I write this on my 48^th birthday, I have to admit, I’m trying real hard.

Trying hard to have some perspective; trying real hard to take the long view…of things. And trying real hard, super extra hard for this atheist, to have some…gulp…faith.

Faith that my 6 year old isn’t going to let the older kids at the bus stop, get to him.

Now I know that kids rib each other and taunt and all of that. I see my 6 year old taunt his younger brother. I know, you don’t have to tell me.

Knowing this, I left the bus stop this morning pissed as hell, at probably an 8 year old.

My wife has been telling me about the other two boys (the only other boys I might add) at the bus stop that don’t involve our son in hitting the wiffle ball.

And due to some scheduling I had to take our little guy to the stop the past two days. Yesterday I was able to distract him from them by throwing a Frisbee with him. I tried to do the same this morning but he just missed hitting a little girl in the head with a hard Frisbee so I had to put the kibosh on that…and he gravitated toward the wiffle ball action. Skip ahead and next thing you know the older kid is screaming at my son to “stop!”

This didn’t sit too well. And man I’m trying to be hands off because I know he has to learn to navigate this stuff on his own: peers, older kids, taunting, his emotions, all of it. I know that he’ll achieve success, not with his parents, but with his peers and I CAN’T DO IT FOR HIM. I can’t go to school and advocate for him and speak up if the older kids tease. I have to have faith in his abilities and his resilience.

Taking this long view, being hands off and letting things play out without intervening, is so very difficult, even though my parents were so laissez faire when it came to parenting (I was the 5th of six kids and quite frankly, they just didn’t have to time or the energy, along with the wisdom, to let me handle it). But in the moment it's so impossible to have perspective - when someone is screaming at your son. One wants to protect and harbor and shield and...short view things.

Where would that get him?

I’m trying real hard to not do for him and after having read The Self-Driven Child by Ned Johnson and William Stixrud I know that learning and navigating and overcoming and learning from these things are important in his development and his independence and his sense of...autonomy.

Autonomy is important. A law unto oneself. We all want it we all need it, we are dysfunctional without it or even the perception of it.

I know. Trust me.

Now here is what I have since come to learn: somehow this older kid, who is only 1 grade above my son, is two years older and per the grapevine as a transplant from New Jersey, can somehow be in the second grade when he’s 8 years old. By contrast I was in the 4th grade when I was 8 (due to my parents being done with kids after 6 and shipping me off to kindergarten when I was only 4 - and I wouldn’t turn 5 until I was in the first grade...which puts me at 8 years old in the 4th grade.

So if my little guy can handle this kid at the bus stop he’ll grow, learn, and be better prepared for future situations with kids who have been held back because of New Jersey.

Guess who else is learning and getting his resilience tested? Hint: he’s got two thumbs.

Here’s the passage from Pulp Fiction:

You read the Bible, Ringo?
Not regularly, no.
Well, there's this passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17.
"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides...by the inequities of the selfish…and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger...those who attempt to poison and destroy My brothers. And you will know I am the Lord...when I lay My vengeance upon you."
I been sayin' that shit for years, and if you heard it, that meant your ass. I never gave much thought
to what it meant. I just thought it was some coldblooded shit to say to a motherfucker...before I popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some shit this morning made me think twice. See, now I'm thinkin'
maybe it means...you're the evil man, and I'm the righteous man, and Mr. 9-millimeter here,
he's the shepherd...protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could mean...
you're the righteous man, and I'm the shepherd, and it's the world that's evil and selfish. Now, I'd like that. But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is, you're the weak...and I'm the tyranny of evil men.
But I'm tryin', Ringo.
I'm tryin' real hard...to be the shepherd.

#3 Or Nummer Drei as the Germans Say

I’m about to be a father to my third child.

I know what you’re thinking – big whoop – a ton of dudes have three kids.

But ask yourself this: how many of those dudes had their first at the tender age of 41?

Yeah that is what I thought punchy.

Judge lest ye be judged – idiot!

JK.

To give some context to just how crazy this is, consider what I told my father-in-law who is in town for the birth and to help us with some home projects because, as I told him:

I lived in student housing for ten years and never had to mow a lawn or fix an appliance or anything like that so I never owned power tools; I spent all my money on guitar shit.

Now here I am with a house and kids and it doesn’t really help that I know the chords to Simple Man or how to play Auld Lang Syne fingerstyle.

What I could really use is some practical know-how (plus a volt meter) and some patience but you don’t’ exactly acquire these things naturally when you bachelor it up for twenty years catering to you and you alone. Why is it so hard to get out the door for school???

But, sometimes, my boys dig me (and my bad impressions of Bruce the shark from Nemo, or Christopher Walken or Al Pacino [“ranger choke hold Charlie!”] and they know I want to form a band with them named The Steaming Diapers so…

And maybe, just maybe, if I can keep it together as I prepare to lose a ton of sleep over the next 18 years, I might just live to buy some more guitar shit.

My Hoarder

My Avery is going to be 3 soon.

He is a certified hoot. He had to take a class at the local YMCA; three Saturdays a month sorta deal. But he passed the final exam and got his hoot certification.

But Joe Pesci bless him, I think he’s a hoarder.

I don’t know when this started, feels like years ago, but when the urge finds him, he gathers up all of what he can hold and doesn’t let go. It seems to go by theme and recently there was a sea theme so every shark, octopus, dolphin, whale, crab, octonaut, squid, coral reef, and Scuba Steve figurine was lugged around the house in his little arms, with some being held under his chinny chin chin.

Have figurines will travel: Down the basement, in the tub, upstairs to Juju’s room, dinner table, on the potty...doesn’t matter.

But it doesn’t stop there: he has to take them to school. Soon I’m going to have to load and unload a steam trunk full of figurines or books every Monday through Friday just so I can get him to go to school. The teachers feel he’s so friggin’ cute they just let it go; in fact his teacher gave him a fanny pack to carry them around. At the end of the day when I go to pick him up they tell me he never let them go, held em’ tight during nap!

I could put my foot down you say, establish some boundaries you urge, do a little parenting you plead, but walk a mile in my shoes I’ll retort.

Actually we did walk a mile recently and what did Avery do?

Hoarded walking sticks of course.

But he’s so friggin cute!

Naturally

If you want to differentiate between nature and wild, be my guest.

I have made a few enemies in my life stating that there is nothing unnatural. This truth is so obvious and yet so ire inducing to modern paradigms.

Be that as it may, I do like to take a walk in the woods or on a beach… and separate myself from the present dins and whatnot.

So I did, with my two sons, on president’s day.

And it was glorious.

I got the idea the morning of president’s day as I knew my wife would be out all day and I would have to come up with things for us to do.

So when it became apparent that my youngest wasn’t going to nap as he yelled “papa” for what felt like eight hours, I coated, hatted, and gloved them up and told them “rule number one for walking in the woods”:

                Stay close to papa

On the drive there I mentioned rule number one again and quizzed them.

                Stay close to papa

We get there and my oldest darts off like a dragon fly in heat.

Rule number one might as well have been cruel cummerbund for all he cared.

Of course he finds himself in a pricker bush and I have to get my little guy to come back and I ask my eldest “are you in no man’s land?” I extricate him from the prickers and most of the remainder of the walk was spent avoiding the bear-claw like horror of the prickers. Never mind that the path is about six feet wide in most areas and the prickers only lie at the edges.

My youngest won’t be three until the end of march but he was such a trooper: running to catch up, never complaining, and being an all-around joy with his curved, brittle walking stick.

My oldest was inquisitive, excited, and steered clear of those prickers at every turn, straightaway, and reverse.

So maybe I don’t think there is anything unnatural. Maybe you do. When you find a square circle, let me know.

In the meantime, I’m going to walk in the woods with my boys, naturally.