She A Baller

Over Sunday lunch she opened the conversation with a surprising declaration.

“The German Bundesliga is my favorite league name to say.”

This was not the most likely thing one might expect to hear from the mouth of a 14-year old girl, but in her case not totally inexplicable. She likes football, what America calls soccer, and even typically calls it football in conversation. Yet, the extents to which she delved into knowledge of the game were not realized until she voiced that comment about the Bundesliga.

I raised my eyebrows. “Bundesliga? Really?”

She told me it was because she really likes the sound of it, especially as compared to the names of other major national football leagues. Spain’s “La Liga” comes in second. Premier League (England) is just meh. Major League Soccer? Fuggedaboutit. And Ligue 1 from France is a non-starter (boooring.) I didn’t get a chance to ask her about Futebol Brasileiro, so her thoughts on Brazil’s top league will have to wait.

Her take on football in general did not have to wait. She enjoys playing it and watching it. With the Women’s World Cup taking place in the coming summer, interest is particularly high. She has her favorite players. She wears the kit. What is most fascinating to me about her curiosity, interest, and delight in the beautiful game (she has heard me say “jogo bonito” more than once) is that it is almost entirely self-generated. As much as I love the game I have never felt compelled to push football on her. She started playing at an early age and has maintained connection ever since, an occurrence I find gratifying and grounding.

Case in point was our last summer vacation. We had a week down by the ocean, in the midst of the 2018 World Cup. Sun, sand, and ocean? You bet. But she made a point of wanting to watch the two-a-day matches leading up to the knockout rounds. Me, well, I couldn’t argue with that. Quality time with my daughter, cheering or groaning depending on the run of play, and pouncing on the opportunity to bellow “GOOOOOOAL!” Beautiful game? You bet. But most importantly, a beautiful slice of life.

Ponce De Leon's PB & J

Memories falling from the sky when the rain comes down a certain way. Maybe it is the light filtering through the drops in a particular fashion. It serves up reminders of a day years ago, having lunch by the harbor, sitting next to the linchpin of my heart. An overcast sky casts pearly light through the window. It illuminates my daughter like a cherub. Her laughter makes my heartbeat skip. She is being silly, making faces and sticking at her tongue, with cheeks smudged with peanut butter from the sandwich she is not so much eating as she is molding into a makeshift toy. She knows she is being messy. She knows I know she is being messy. In response I stick out my tongue. We both crack up, grinning wide and laughing. This is pure joy.

We are complicit in each others’ breach of etiquette. She is unfamiliar with that word, etiquette, but someday she will know what it means. In the clarity of the moment it is unimportant, these rules that bind our lives as adults. They are unknown except to the extent that those much older often enjoin her to stop or be quiet when she engages in so-called uncouth behavior. Most of the time I do not exempt myself from those ranks. Yet that day, in that moment, I withheld admonishment in favor of playfulness. How could I not? Youth was the teacher, and experience can always learn something new. Our day would be better served by levity rather than solemnity. We laughed together, watching the gulls wheel about over the harbor.

Wind played the same trick on me years later. Winter breeze, to be exact. Whispering down the street bearing understated pungency of a wood smoke key that unlocked another room in the memory palace. I was crossing a side street that hunched cat-like in late afternoon winter sun. It was not the city of my birth but stepping out and breathing that scent of burning firewood transported me to a day most similar, sprung from a solitary adolescent interlude as I walked home. I recall walking through the door, into the warm hug of the kitchen. I made myself a toasted peanut butter sandwich. No memory of whether it included jelly, but it must have been good for me to recall after so many years.

Something else happened above and beyond the recall. Crossing the street I stepped over a boundary in time and space. Both of them wrinkled, folded, bringing two disparate points together to touch however briefly and remind me that as I once was, so was my daughter. Through the miracle of memory, we can be so young and free once again.

Living the Life Histological: A Sunday Biji

KEEPER OF LIGHT

Columba leaned back against the warmth of rough granite. Eyes closed, knobs of rock gently digging into his back, his sleepy mind wandered through a field of memory. It arrived empty handed.  It was nearly lost to history, the last time a visitor had trod the sand and slate before the keeper’s house. In his head the visit had become myth. So began another sere summer in servitude to the light.

---

LIVING IN THE SUMMERWINTER

Heat begets the melancholy. The turning of the seasons has undergone an inversion from the naive days of adolescence into the bittersweet twilights of adulthood. This has never been more apparent than upon being ambushed by three chords in a summer song that the heart would be happy to never hear again. It is not that the song itself is bad, by some measures, but wistfulness and regret ring hard on ears already full of the same.

The full experience of summer brings understanding of the winter. Your heart understands. It knows the singular jolt to the soul induced by spasming with chill while swathed in the swelter of humid sunlight. It seems impossible, illogical, but there it is. The trigger can be a song, a sound, a smell. Any stimuli, almost. What matters is how such things are woven into the soul. Peculiar combinations of memory and emotion combusting into an incandescent fount of reaction.

---

LAUGHING AND DRINKING FROM THE CUP

Sitcoms and soccer and a little sun and sand. The order reversed itself from what I thought it would be, to become what it was meant to be. We watched the games, critiqued the teams, and then laughed ourselves silly over sitcoms of which she had seen more than I. Of course, it is I who has seen more of life. It is not untrue to say I wish the situation was reversed.

---

TRIPPIN’

No bones were broken during the fall. The same cannot be said of dignity. Dignity shattered like a glass Christmas ornament in the clutches of a deranged house cat. This sort of thing happens when attention lapses, or is allowed to lapse. Not surprising in this era of distractions, digital and otherwise. People convince themselves they can live without situational awareness, but that is the path to perdition. By our lack of care, we may find ourselves in Hell.

---

Swift on Her Feet, Light on My heart

Emerald pitch, sprinting,
She blooms the tulip poplars
wakes the sleepy heart

Colts

They run under the sun, chasing dreams of the beautiful game. An impossibly blue sky dusted with wisps of clouds sprays silver-white light over the antics on the field below. These girls carry with them the charming unawareness of their ability to slow down time. My daughter is among them. She tugs my old man heart hither and yon with each run she makes. It is she alone that may be able to stop time, not just slow it down.

There is no sitting for me while they play. I am too excited, too nervous. We are not watching Premier League, La Liga, or even Major League Soccer. We do not have to be. The kids are in the moment without thoughts of million dollar contracts or shoe endorsements. I for one am glad such grown-up concerns are nowhere near the playing field. The lack of polish is more than outweighed by their enthusiasm and concentration. Harried adults such as myself have much to learn from the scampering.

The first goal comes about from an astonishing web of cooperation. I bounce up and down in the bleachers. My daughter’s team has scored. They clap their hands and a few fists are pumped. This is the glory of soccer. Those shining moments when intention and skill come together producing a little magic, lighting up a world desperate for more such low-key miracles. By the end of the game, they will have sent four more shots into the back of the ol’ onion bag, surrendering only one.

This is what constitutes a great game, sometimes. But the goal count has little to do with racing of my heart and the contentment on my brow.

For a small slice of infinity I watched them run free, these spirits on a patch of green. Wildness tempered by team spirit was the order of the day. To witness such beauty is a pure tonic for the heart. The weary oldster that sometimes looks from behind my eyes has found some respite from the world outside, manifest in the quietly majestic youngsters enjoying the game.

Youngsters, I say. But the truth is, they are youngsters because Time is still kind to them. Adolescence is around the corner, young adulthood glimmering on the horizon. I will not speak to them, to my progeny, of such things. I will hug my daughter. She will know that I am proud of her.

What I cannot say, because the words are too big to get out of my mouth, is how grateful I am to my daughter and her friends for stopping time. How thankful this old man is for the gift of bearing witness to spirits running free, out on the range, beyond the reach of resigned endurance. For a few arc minutes of the sun, I was a colt too. It was glorious. It was real. It was life.

Now She Rides Shotgun (The Passenger)

The front passenger door opens and she slides into the seat. Not until the car is on the highway does it register what happened. Subtle and not subtle, like being caressed on the shoulder by an iron hand in a velvet glove. This new thing is not puberty, no. It is unmistakably, however, a threshold crossed.

Sunlight bounces diamonds off the snow piles, makes you dizzy. You were unprepared for that door to be opened. How did it get so far, so fast? This wee bundle you once carried like a little Easter ham through the hospital doors and into an astounding new life, now sits in the front next to you. When she sits up straight her head is not that far below the top of yours. It freaks you out.

This is not happening. Wait, it is. The evidence of your senses tells you in no uncertain terms. There will be no ignoring this little earthquake.

It crosses your mind that perhaps you have been out in the interstellar black for some time. Crossing the gulf at the speed of light and time passing so swiftly back on earth. Dilation. Relativity. Distances traveled beyond your comprehension so fast the disorientation upon arrival makes you feel as if you caught up with the self that was running away from you. Maybe this is the explanation for why you feel so old and new born simultaneously.

She makes you feel this way. Often. It is the way of your shared universe. To have played a role in the creation of her is both supreme accomplishment and fount of anxiety. You want the best for her. Your fear is that between you and the world, neither will deliver on that promise. The fishhooks of that fear spike your heart. The pain lends a frisson of urgency to the time you spend in her presence. "Will you get it right?" the imps ask at night as you fall asleep.

The door opened, she sat in the front seat. The pins rolled out from under you as the mass of years bore down on you in one brilliant and blinding moment. No longer is she the beautiful baby who had no comprehension of car seats and safe travels. No longer is she the luminescent toddler who chattered from the back seat. Probably never again will the rear view mirror reflect that quizzical look she gave you when you sang badly along with the stereo. Watching her now in the watery sunlight of a chilly February you rub with a trembling hand that certain spot over your heart. The warmth there tells you it will be okay. She is there. She is a blessing. She rides shotgun.

Swan in Winter

A dozen spans or thereabouts she stood offshore, this wistful cygnet with my eyes and her mother's hair. Her shadow lay lightly on the ice. Ice which I studied closely for the first signs of cracks. My belly tightened at the thought of her in the freezing green-black water of the pond. My anxiety served as reinforcement for its frozen surface. She sensed my discomfort, I think, looking up at me with grin as antidote to fear. I smiled in return. Sunshine like white gold broke through a mottled pewter sky to illuminate us, a living page from our own Book of Hours. 

The sky returned to a sullen indifference. The slow clouds of midwinter marbled like bruises over a snippets of bright blue. A hush was over the pond, disturbed now and then by the barking of dogs, children frolicking or ragged chevrons of Canadian geese knifing through the cold air above. Water oozed through the grass from soil still reeling from a few hard freezes. My thoughts drifted briefly to permafrost, and what happens when it thaws. I needed to know if similar processes affected the heart in the same manner. I must know, as something seemed to be cracking in my chest. 

"Daddy, what's that?"

Her question a soft whipcrack snapping me out of arctic ruminations. She was standing on a dark patch shaped like a lumpy oval. My first thought was it was weak ice, but she stood firm. The shape crystallized in my mind. 

"It looks like a tree stump, sweet pea." I hoped that it was. Weird that it was a level cut stump only a fraction of an inch below the ice line. 

"I wonder if that's it," she said. She bent down to pick up one of the many small rocks littering the ice. The impacts of the stones a webbed chiaroscuro crazing the frozen pond. Kneeling, my daughter began to dig at the ice over the stump. It cracked a little but did not move. She knitted her brow, lips scrunched in vexation. I could not help but smile to know that by such gestures she was indeed of my blood. Sometimes she is driven by a compulsion to know that which is beneath the surface, to firmly possess certainty. In the space of a few fluttery heartbeats, I prayed that she would not be as destructive in pursuit of that certainty as I had sometimes been in the past. The past when I was young and needed to know everything, but knew nothing. 

Her mittened hands rested briefly on the ice. She studied the shape, cocking her head. Her gaze and posture reminded me so much of a heron stalking a frog I nearly burst out laughing. She must have decided that it was not important enough to continue, as she levered herself up to stand on the stump. I heard the clicking of pebbles and ice as she nudged the fragments with the toe of her right boot. She moved as if skating for a few more minutes. I stifled my urge to tell her again she was far enough out on the ice. With an avian hop, she came back to shore. 

"Walk some more, kiddo?" I asked with a raspy warble in my voice making me cough. She turned her face to me, cheeks rosy in the cool breeze.

"Sure, Daddy." Hop. Skip. Away she fluttered ahead of me, down the trail that ran along the river. Clouds mimed a slow semaphore shining on her performance while she gleefully leaped into a pile of slush on the trail side. 

She grows, this nascent swan of my heart. Taller, more winsome, as months and years fall like leaves. Winter has its hold on my brittle heart, enrobed in a thin glaze of frost that I begin to feel melt in the innocent warmth of her presence. The old man of my soul knows this is the progress of life. He knows that growth is inevitable, as is love and the thaw. We watch her amble and cavort under a nave of trees, wondering when she will break the ice. Hoping that we witness the glorious transformation when the swan makes it back to shore, to fly into spring.

This Child Who is My Mirror

This child who is my mirror
Reflecting starlight and suns
Brighter than mine
Who am I to comprehend her?

Double helix uncoiled, split
Heart beating in two places
Daughter's shadow has more grace
Than my substance, I fear

To make her laugh
Is grace for a lifetime
See her smiling
Is a thousand suns

Warmth and light, radiance,
In her coltish presence
My heart a sunflower
Ringing like a bell

A Game of Pooh Sticks on the Bridge of Sorrows

"Daddy, will the Sun ever burn out?"

Her voice quavering, my daughter questioned the very life of stars. The Sun is not the certainty to her that it is to me. It was there by creek side, under a luminous smear of galactic dust, she spoke to me of Death. 

I inhaled crisp air lashed with the tang of woodsmoke from the fire at our feet. A little creek, crossed by a tiny footbridge, bisected the yard in front of our cabin. It burbled and whispered as I craned my head back to contemplate the stars overhead in the clear South Dakota sky. Her questions were unexpected. The truth seized hold of my tongue before I could shush it.

"Yes, it will, sweet pea."

Her eyes as those of a wounded doe, she asked "When?"

"A long time from now, so far away we won't know about it when it does," I said.
She paused. Her face a sphinx before the flicker of the flames. 

"Could it happen tomorrow?"
"No, dear."
"But when will it happen?"
"Billions of years from now."

That stopped her cold. I swallowed the tightness in my throat, a metallic tinge of regret burning my gullet. The truth as I knew it was maybe not the best of revelations for a thoughtful kid who wants to see around corners. Just like her Da. I could tell. It was there in the shining eyes beyond the firelight. We held our breath, teetering on the fulcrum of a hard question, she wanting to know the truth and me wrestling with shielding her from it.

The dam broke. Questions spilled from her lips. Tell me about stars, she said. How long does it take for them to burn out? What happens if I get sick and die? she asked. What happens if you get sick? Is that what happened to my brother and sister? I don't want that to happen to us, she said. Will it? Will it, Daddy?

My mind reeled. The sediment of memory was stirred up, and thick. I did my best to describe and explain, without going to deep into details. Assurances were made, platitudes delivered, at best it was a redacted version of wisdom and history. There was no hiding from the direct questions. She is too smart for me to pull the wool over her emotional eyes for too long, so there was no trying.

The sutures on my heart throbbed and ached when tears welled up in her eyes. How to explain these things without breaking someone's heart? Compassion and regret were duking it out in my head.

But she asked. I wanted her to know. We drifted off into a conversation about the stars, again, their colors and what they mean. She impressed me with what she already seems to know about those things. I asked her if she knew of an easy way to remember the colors and the sequence. She did not. From some memory vault last accessed long ago, I dredged up the mnemonic I had learned as a kid.

"O-B-A-F-G-K-M, sweet pea. 'Oh be a fine girl kiss me." I laughed. She blushed, I think, hiding her grin behind her hand. 
"That's funny, daddy."
"I know, but you remember it, right?"

She asked me for the third time if I was certain the Sun wasn't going to burn out when we would know about it. I responded again that I was certain.

"Are you sure?" she asked, her arching upward in that 'I-do-not-quite-believe-you-yet' sort of way.
"Yes, I'm sure."

We lapsed into silence. A slight breeze stirred the trees. For some ticks of the clock, I watched the stars wheeling over the ridge line to the north. It was beautiful in the night. My eyelids drifted downward, the murmurs of the creek and the dying of the light exerting the gravity of sleepiness. She surprised me with another question.

"Daddy, do you remember the bridge? The one back in Maryland close to the apartment?"
I snapped my eyes open. "Yes, I do."
"I liked the bridge. Remember when we used to play pooh-sticks from it?"

The tightness in my throat returned. Boy, did I ever remember. "Yes," I squeezed out.

"That was a fun game. I liked watching the sticks in the water. We could play it here!" she said while pointing to the footbridge. The shine in her eyes was pure joy. Much better than the existential sadness I had glimpsed earlier. I chuckled.

"I reckon we could, sweet pea, but it is a bit dark for it."
"I know," she sighed, "but we could when it is light." 

With that, she announced that she wanted to go inside the cabin, because she was tired and it was getting cool. She fetched water and I doused the embers of the fire. Watching them fade away, I felt untethered from the earth, but comfortable with floating. My daughter hugged me, briefly, in that skittish animal way that kids have sometimes. The realness of the affection convinced me that sometimes, the best way to handle the infinite is to play games on the bridge of sorrows.

This is the Hard Part

There is nothing like being a parent to make you feel like you might amount to something in this life. And nothing like the same condition to make you wonder if you will ever live up to the promise shining in the eyes of your child. 

This is the hard part. Overcoming the limitations of yourself. Overpowering the weaknesses in your character. Learning that love is more important than ego. 

Trying not to be swallowed up by the black hole of worthlessness that lurks in the bottom of an insecure soul. 

This is the hard part. Staring in shock at that human bent on the mirror and realizing how great the task that lies before it, that of being a better person. 

Better, for the sake of love: the imperative of life. 

Futebol Star

Her seven-league boots
leaping yards, running the pitch,
she is the beautiful game

Genius of Winter (Sunday Meditation #34)

Nothing is so sharp as the voice of love sliding its razor edge into the muscle of the heart. It can be confused with the crystal cold air sucked into lungs gasping in shock, stepping through the thermocline of the doorway into winter light like old lead. The walls do not keep out the voice. They cannot. The voice is love.

Acoustics are strange out there along the edge of winter and spring, between dark and light that speckles the caves of the heart. Echoes last long. One may come to believe that the voice has died out, faded away, is mute. Then it comes back loud and clear, in the guise of sleet stinging the face or cold biting the hands. The voice demands, and gets, your attention.

Distance seems not to matter. The laugh of a child can be heard in the skitter of snow dancing across the wind-scoured pavement. Confusing, yes, as the scene is otherwise dreary. But there is no denying the laughter. Sleet drips out of the nacreous cotton of the sky to freeze on the skin. The sharpness of pain brings focus, tripping a switch as doors open wide in the heart and head.

There are visions, brief, and luminescent like lightning striking on top of the head.

The faces of love, radiant and welcoming. Their voices ignoring time and distance to remind the heart of its home. To see in the swirl of the sky eyes that look like one's own is a miracle, plain and true, no matter how small it seems to the exterior world.

What matters is that those eyes can be seen. If they can be seen, they cannot be forgotten. There are unbreakable threads spun of blood and love stitched into the soul, yes, it is true. But one has to hold onto them, no matter that a gap of a thousand miles lies between ends in the physical world. 

Ice, snow, grey light all dull the senses. It is easy to slip into numbness, to suffer amnesia of the heart. A freezing breath lancing the lungs or numb fingers sticking to the door handle serve up reminders to be present in the world. To be present in love. This is the genius of winter.

Her Number (Sunday Meditation #32)

11.

There it is, on my daughter's back, as big as day. Arctic white numerals against royal blue. The color is not the same as the kit I wore.

The pitch comes back in a rush. My legs root me to a ground far away from my teens while my mind lands back in high school. The number on my back is arctic white against deep maroon. Coach didn't put much stock in names on the jersey, the '11' stark and alone.

She wears my number now, a strange and wonderful weft through the warp on the loom of my life. The number turns back the clock, opening the door on a glimpse, however brief, of the boy I used to be looking up at the man I have become.

It seems only possible through her, on days like this one where we run ourselves breathless under a pewter sky. She chasing the ball, me chasing a better man I hope someday to catch.

She wears my number on her back. The honor is mine, though she knows it not. I watch her run the field, I am breathless, I am blessed to wear her number on my heart.

---

Field notes, October 2013. Gracing an emerald field, she plays the beautiful game.

Tour Guide

From my field notes, October 2013. A glorious day with the Wee Lass.

She told me a story that October day as we walked in the woods. It was a magical tale, complete with a fantasy landscape.

We walked the trail above the Chasm of Death, its banks littered with fallen leaves. A stream burbled along the bottom, which I was informed was called the Stream of Happiness. It flowed down the valley past an orphanage, where it provided drinking water to the children.

We climbed a little higher. Mossy boulders guarded the stream. They grew larger as we climbed. Trees had fallen across the trail and the watercourse. One particularly large trunk was dubbed the Native American Log of Electrocution. I asked why that name. She looked at me with that expression reserved for askers of truly stupid questions.

"Because it electrocutes people."

Ah, of course. Silly me.

We arrived at the Magic Waterfall. It was here that she confessed to me that she was not a full tour guide yet, only a backup. Ordinarily she was a dishwasher at the company HQ, but they were so busy today she was put on duty as a guide. She casually mentioned that if she completed the tour without a customer getting injured or killed, she would get a promotion. Or a raise. She seemed a little confused as to which one.

I looked down the ravine. In light of her remarks on injury and death, the steepness took on a whole new cast. I wondered if there was a connection to the orphanage she had mentioned.

The climb continued. We crossed the stream in front of the Magic Waterfall. Climbing up a set of stones that served as steps, we came upon an arrangement of boulders reminiscent of an oversized club chair.

"Ah! This is the Chair of Healing!" my guide exclaimed. Travelers could rest here and have their aches and pains taken away. Handy to have, especially if one might have fallen into the Chasm of Death.

We made our way over to a widening in the stream. It became a pool in the woods, fed by a small but picturesque waterfall at the upstream end. It was here that my guide declared "If you will put your camera away, we will now go fishing!" Her tone and commanding demeanor left no doubt as to what I was going to do.

She fashioned a pole out of a smallish stick, stripping off the little twigs along its length. The bait was conjured up from a leaf she found on the stream bank. A leaf without holes, mind you, because a holey leaf was "not proper bait" as I was solemnly informed.

She directed me to make my own fishing pole, out of the same materials. She handed me a stick while showing me which twigs to remove. I fetched a nice leaf, coppery brown, and adorned the end of the stick. A glance of approval from my guide, and we set to in the pool.

The fish, I am sorry to report, were not biting. My guide chewed her lip, inspected the bait, and declared that the fish must not be hungry. I suggested that, perhaps, there were no fish in the pool. With a furrowed brow, she said that they must be the famous Air Fish, invisible and difficult to detect. She sighed and announced it was time to go back in hopes of seeing a train along the rail bed across the river.

The afternoon sun warming our backs, we thereupon we cast our sticks into the water, and set off back down the trail. Further adventures awaited us through the woods and across the river. It would not do to be late.

Drift

July 14, 2013. 10:54 PM.

We ripen in different fields yet there is no mistaking of the lineage. The wind blows on she and I together. We deflect with indignation that the universe would dare impose on us so. That she frequently interjects is all the proof I need.

Apples and trees, to borrow from the old saying. She fell not far from me. I pray that she fell far enough.

It's funny, the notes I leave myself. Often in obvious places but upon rediscovering them I almost invariably surprised. Also, by funny, I mean 'peculiar' not laugh-inducing. Okay, perhaps a chuckle or two. It can be rather silly.

Ah, I digress.

"We ripen..." I wrote that late in the evening, long after Wee Lass had been put to bed, with her words ringing in my ears. Not discouraging words, mind you. Far from it. Our nightie-night conversations range from dead serious to thoughtful to slapstick. Such variations are further earmarks of my legacy.

I do not recall in specific what we talked about that night. I do know that it must have affected me deeply, to compel me to tap out a quick note on my smart phone before I attempted another descent into the Challenger Deep that is my sleep time.

Gahhh. She sounds like me sometimes, and that is a two-edged blade. There are no easy answers here, being a father without (mostly) a clue. The incentive to do the best, be the best I can be, is right there in front of me. She said goodnight.

"Goodnight. I love you, daddy."

Yes, she does. She did not fall too far, this I know.

In the Name of The Father? (Sunday Meditation #30)

I arrived home yesterday evening to be shocked by the sight at the end of my street. A ferocious thunderstorm felled an old tree in my neighbor's yard, two doors up the road. I say "in" the yard but it was really out of the yard and completely into the street. The tree was so tall it actually hit the adjacent house across the pavement. The sight made me blurt out "Wow!" with wide eyes. It really isn't something you see every day.

What it sparked me to thinking was about deep change, about how the confounding circus that is life can uproot your expectations and imaginings before you think to reach for the battens. This is how I felt about this Sunday, Father's Day in June 2013. The notion that I am a dad still knocks me flat now and then. Just like the fallen tree that now occupies a big chunk of my imagination.

I guess I cannot entirely escape that "Imawhat?" feeling, even now when my daughter is on her way to her ninth birthday. If we are trees, she is a sapling, I am mature growth, my own father old growth (and impressive).

A father? Me? It is a miracle and a puzzle. I often wonder what it is I did to deserve such a lovely, good child, and what I can impart to her that someday she will look back and say "He did have wisdom."

Mostly, I worry and pray that I will not totally screw up this fatherhood thing.

I keep that from her. She has no need to know how scared I am, how much I worry that I will fall from grace in her eyes. This seems to be part and parcel of the Fatherhood Gig, to my mind. A constant drumbeat in my heart and soul that is hammered out by this desire for my child to understand the good parts of me, and improve upon them in her own life. I think of her and the life before her, and the specter of failure on my part sends a bolus of ice water through my veins.

It is true, I am my own worst enemy and critic. I judge myself by standards I do not apply to others, because I know how unfair and unforgiving they can be. Thus I generate most of the pressure on myself to get this right, but it puts everything I think and do in a blinding, actinic light shining in my head. Nothing escapes scrutiny, nothing is to small to analyze...or criticize.

Harsh, but true. I am learning to overcome myself. This I believe is necessary if I wish to be the good father I want for her. Others have pointed this out to me, and I know they speak the truth.

Ah, enough self-mortification. It is Father's Day, after all. Looking past the commercialization and cheap sentiment that too often seems to cloy such occasions, I know there is something of note for us to acknowledge. The terrors and ecstasies of being a dad are things I would not willingly trade for anything on this mortal coil.

In the indigo haze of deep twilight, I look down the street at the fallen tree. All things must pass, I reckon, but the tree reminds me that we are all possessed of strengths we may not know we have. I think of my own father, who I am lucky enough to still have on this planet, and the things he taught me. His life was not perfect, we both know this, but through him I learned many things about being a man and father.

Seeing myself through my father's eyes, I know I am blessed by my daughter. She is student, she is teacher. I have much to give and to learn. It is to know and understand, on Father's Day.

Heart Achieves Fusion

Bright galactic whorls,
Her fingertips hold my heart,
Lighting up my sky

--
Dedicated to Wee Lass

On the Exasperation of Being Careful

No.
Wait a minute.
Hold up.
...
BE CAREFUL.

Oh, for the love of Pete...How many times will I repeat those words and phrases? I'm getting on my own nerves. To paraphrase Dieter, my habit of needless warnings becomes tiresome. I'm sure my daughter feels the same way. She rarely replies to me when I do it. I'm not sure if she is too conscious of me being Daddy or if she is being polite.

Knowing her, it may be a mix of both...or she could be mentally rolling her eyes and saying "Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, whatever, Daddy". That wouldn't surprise me in the least. My progeny is whip-smart and has a sharp wit for one so young.

I suspect she may be smarter than me. This means trouble, down the road. Ah, I digress.

No, the problem for me at the moment is that whenever Wee Lass is with me, I suddenly turn into a nag. A nag when it involves her doing something that incurs a modicum of risk. And by risk, I mean "a little kid moving through space-time". I constantly worry that she is going to run into something, fall off something or knock something down and break it. So I become Polly Parrot squawking its fool head off.

The problem is that for the most part there isn't really anything to worry about, and there isn't anything I could really do to prevent something that truly is an accident. I am sure my daughter is smart enough to avoid the obvious threats (don't stick your hand in a fire, watch out for cars, keep you head out of the toilet), yet I feel compelled to say "Be careful!" when she so much as does an impromptu dance in the living room.*

Why do I do this? Is it that I believe so strongly in the power of words that I find them talismanic against chaos and misfortune? If so, my energy may be wasted. After all, "No Trespassing" signs have never kept anyone off the railroad tracks. I don't know why I think that the utterance of a few syllables will magically protect her from embarrassment at best and physical harm at worst.

Maybe it is my 'daddy' instinct. Maybe it is my own fears directing my behavior. For most of my life I have been surprise-averse. The sudden and the unpredictable typically give me fits, and I don't react often enough with grace and aplomb. Being that way is not a character flaw, yet I'm troubled by it all the same.

It makes sense to avoid risk in some cases, yes. But not in all cases. Certainly not in cases where the risk is more a perception than a reality, and that is the case for most day-to-day life. Avoiding all perceived risks and trying to limit uncertainty creates a new problem, the limiting of experience. It teaches one to live in anxiety rather than in wonder. It limits experience, even if subtly. It is something I have not yet overcome as an adult. Today it hit me why it bothers me so. 

I may be quietly teaching my daughter to live in fear. Subtle, maybe, but explicit in its effects. I may be setting the wrong example, that life is constant vigilance against the unexpected. The side effect is that it can lead to missing out on joy. I have noticed my daughter is somewhat cautious when it comes to new experiences. She tends to be reserved until she figures things out in her own mind; spontaneous eruptions of 'kid-ness' are not unknown with her, but they aren't exactly the norm either.

I wonder how much of that is innate, and how much of it is me. I know from examining my own behavior that I tend to be cautious, too. As a rule I don't just dive in to new social situations or experiences. Over the course of my life I am sure that has held me back from some truly enjoyable situations and worthwhile relationships.

The thought that this may set an example for Wee Lass, well, that just makes me question myself as a father. Her father. I should be teaching her to be better than the bundle of nerves that I am. I will be teaching her better. There is still time for me to get it right, for the apple that fell to outshine the tree upon which it grew.

--
*I should point out a recent example in which I didn't revert to type, and a minor accident DID occur. There is a big cushy chair in my family room that spins around 360 degrees. She, naturally, wanted to sit in it and spin around. I obliged, giving the chair a few not overly strong pushes. She, of course, chooses that very moment to try and adjust her position. Centrifugal force and bad luck conspired to tip her over, falling off the chair and knocking over a lamp. Lucky for us, it ended with only embarrassment and a very small bruise. However, I was kicking myself mentally, saying "Why didn't I say 'Be Careful!'" Of course, it would have done no good...and I have yet to convince myself of that truth.

Heart In A Box

August 18th, 4:36 PM. A few clouds, silvery light limns me as I write. I quite like it.

"Ten thousand words swarm around my head
Ten million more in books written beneath my bed
I wrote or read them all when searchin' in the swarms
Still can't find out how to hold my hands"

The music player surprised me with the Avett Brothers somehow knowing my heart ahead of time, they could foresee the future years ago, they must have. How else could they have known I would be delving into a box full of memories, heartaches and love this silvery-gray afternoon? My heart contracted and my throat tightened around a bolus of emotions, rough but not entirely unwelcome.

I was searching for photos. More specifically, CD's with photo files or a flash drive containing the same. I've been thinking about my twins lately, and I wanted to find the pictures I had taken when they were still in the NICU. Scoured my computer, the external drive, no luck so far. I thought that perhaps I had copied them off. I hope I did.

So it was a riffling through my desk, ransacking my briefcase, checking some shelves. I was avoiding the large box of mementos I had packed in my last move, but with no luck finding the right discs I knew I would have to open it.

It was among the very last boxes I sealed before moving. As I cleaned up my old house, I kept discovering the odd bit of physical memory, things I didn't want to discard, or couldn't discard. You know how it is when you move things that have been in the same place for long periods of time. Layers and strata develop. Chunks of memory form under the compaction of more stuff and time. Photos. Kids' drawings. Notes and cards and letters. Knick-knacks and curios. I had more than I remembered.

They all went in the box so I wouldn't lose them. The box itself had been set aside in a corner, resting there in the months since I moved. It was with some hesitation that I slid the knife through the tape holding the box shut. There was pressure, in my head and heart. I was hoping it wouldn't explode.

The Avett Brothers began to croon, the box opens, and into my hands fell shards of memory and love. I clutched to my chest artifacts from two pasts, one that will only be a future in my mind, and one of a future still developing. A small blanket, a picture or two of my son and daughter in the isolettes, drawings by my lovely Wee Lass, small crayon pictures scrawled with "I Love You Dad" in letters etched deep in the stone of my heart. Bits and pieces of my past youth and my Big Bro, all tucked away into 1.5 cubic feet.

The pressure in the box blew these fragile papers and relics up in a cloud, the words and images swarming around my head as I frantically scooped them up to contain them all. The world swam and blurred, liquid diamonds diffracting in my eyes. The papers, the pages, these miniature stelae forming the library of my history. Books beneath my bed? Jesus H., how did they know that? 

I never did find the discs for which I was looking. As I placed the things back in the box, they came to me as more books on the shelf. Books I am reading and still writing, because I know no other path to follow.

The box filled, I closed the flaps and pushed it away to another corner. Sitting there in the chair, I looked down at my trembling fingers. I clenched them, feeling small and sad knowing that, in some sense, I still can't find out how to hold my hands.

--
Lyrics from "Ten Thousand Words", by the Avett Brothers.

Tea and Coronation

August 6, 2012. Safe at home with the Dàgōng.*

Settling in after a semi-busy day hanging around with the Wee Lass. What an amazing thing to bear witness to the irrefutable knowledge that she is indeed my offspring. Went out to buy tea today, and ended up in a ceremony, just for us. If I had the presence of mind, I would have bowed before I sat down.

I can't set aside the notion that I should have bowed. There was no tea house door that demanded it as protocol, but still. To be a guest in what is after all a place of business is rare. Ah, that isn't quite right. The illusion of being a guest in those gray places is all too common. Market research has decreed it so, and perhaps I fall for it more often than not, a state of affairs that makes me sad and small.

But today, Wee Lass and I had good fortune in the tea shop. Not one, but two people with knowledge and enthusiasm engaged us in talking about, sampling and buying tea. The young lady who asked us how we were, what we were interested in, and sat down with us for tasting of samples. The joy of seeing a whole tub of fresh loose tea, and the invitation to smell the aroma. Wee Lass seemed to really dig it, if being somewhat shy about commenting. The owner arrived, and to my delight and surprise he remembered me from my one short visit to his shop months ago!

So there we were, a fine pair out for a day of sustenance, entertainment and the acquisition of small delights. We enjoyed tiny cups of green tea and black tea and oolong. The sort of thing I get a kick out of, but one in which you don't expect youngsters to truly enjoy.

But that Wee Lass, she has a wonderful knack of following a path of her own making. She wanted to taste the teas. She watched intently as the assistant and the owner brewed little cups and poured the samples. When I looked over at her, I was amused and delighted by the curiosity she radiated with her expression. I lifted the cups to breathe in the aroma; she closed her eyes and sniffed. I blew on the tea to cool it, and she did the same. We both sipped and swished and drank, savoring the tea and the moment.

It was wonderful. We chatted with the owner, who told us about the tea, and the farm in China where he gets it. We talked about green, black and oolong, sitting there surrounded by delicate porcelain tea kettles, fish and dragons carved of jade. We learned the price of some tea in China, backed up with anecdotes about the province of Fujian. My daughter professed her liking of Chinese green tea. And very much to my surprise, she declared the Ti Kwan Yin oolong to be good. I recalled that the name is a variation on the Chinese goddess Guanyin, sometimes translated as 'Iron Goddess of Mercy'. In a moment of fancy, I told myself that may not be an accident. Would it not be a wonderful thing to have associations with compassion and mercy?

Who expects a youngster to be interested in such things as good tea? Long ago as a child, on those rare moments when I managed to look up from my books or cease the questioning in my head for a few moments, I had inklings of the quirks that that would come to define my life. Later as a young man and adult, those inklings became full-blown knowledge, a knowledge that embarrassed me and led me to quietly hide it from the world.

But on an otherwise mundane afternoon, I entered a tea house of the moment as an ordinary man, and departed it as an emperor. As we stood to leave, I reflected on the confirmation that she is indeed the blood of my blood. A smart, beautiful diamond she is, and we shall have tea in the bamboo pavilion of my heart.

---
*I may be relying overly much on free translators, but to the best of my knowledge "Dàgōng" is a phonetic translation of a Chinese word for 'archduchess', which by extension would be the daughter of an emperor.