I think we parents need to take a deep breath and step back from the struggle of attempting to school our children at home and help our children’s educations emerge from the real, lived experiences we are all working through. We don’t need to try to be the school teachers we are not, but we can try to be learners and thinkers who reflect on our experiences and are resilient and empathetic and loving and kind, and we can model these lifelong tools and values for our children here and now. No worksheet necessary. Our children will not remember the classroom lessons they learned - or didn’t - in the time of the pandemic, but they very well could carry lifelong lessons in how we all treated each other and managed our way through it - human-to-human - even at a distance. So, to my children, here are some things I hope you are learning in these first several weeks of a new pandemic reality: Your education is far, far bigger than school. There’s a lot to learn during a post-tornado, pandemic-driven quarantine when you live with a senior citizen and have family member with chronic “underlying conditions”. And, while, yes, I want you to practice your reading and keep your math skills fresh, it is a very different kind of learning that will turn tragedy into possibility as your life unfolds. These are times that help illuminate who you are and architect who you will become. Your education is a lifelong process most deeply rooted in presence with whatever life throws your way. Every day matters, and you can’t count on tomorrow. Some days this means you throw caution to the wind, and some days it means you proceed with all due caution. Some days it means you get a puppy. It’s part of your life’s journey to gain the wisdom to know the difference. Your teachers love you. And, your teachers miss you when school is out. And, they are not only willing to do what it takes to deliver your lessons but will even call you on FaceTime and chat for half-an-hour like you are lifelong friends who just needed to reconnect. What you talked about was not the lesson to be learned. That they called is the lesson. Your teachers are creative. Joy and creativity and good teaching go hand-in-hand. Your teachers often work in settings that limit their creativity and steal their joy by focusing their labor on Education rather than enabling their work in helping students learn. Those livestreams and videos and conference calls for you and your classmates are your teachers doing their work in new ways because their work matters to them, to you, to all of us. Their creativity matters - your creativity matters - and school should never take that away. Your parents work hard. (But, that doesn’t make us great teachers.) We work hard because we love you. We work hard because we want to provide for you. We work hard because our work is part of our sense of who we are. Hard work matters, no matter what that work is. If you are going to do something, do it with all you’ve got. Help in whatever way you can help. When you see a difficult situation, ask yourself: how can I help? It doesn’t have to be complicated. But, your ability to help starts with understanding the gifts you bring to the world and figuring out where those gifts can meet the worlds’ needs. If nothing else, you can always be kind. You can always listen. You can always treat others with respect. Even if you can’t do anything, you can always say something. When you don’t feel like you can help or don’t know how, dropping a note or a text and just saying something like “I had you on my mind. Sending my love” is good for you and good for whoever you send it to. Difficult times can make us feel alone and powerless. Your words can help remind you and others that we aren’t. There’s always someone worse off than you. So, there’s really no time or use for complaining. When you think of the frustration of a pandemic and how bad that seems for you, you can also think of your friend and classmate who lost everything in a tornado just weeks before. If you will pause and open yourself to empathy, you will always find someone whose situation makes yours seem relatively manageable. Then, you can ask: how can I help? Friends matter. Our friends tell us something about who we are and where we’ve come from, and when our basic way of life gets disrupted and our sense of who we are and why we are comes into question, connecting with friends can be critically grounding. It matters even if it is virtual. Physical health and mental health are closely related. Getting up every morning feeling isolated takes its toll on a spirit. No amount of food or drink or vice of any sort can rejuvenate the spirit. Such things can soothe temporarily, but they cannot re-spirit us from the inside out. A few minutes of yoga, a walk, a bike ride, a short run, whatever it is - physical health doesn’t have to be long or complicated. Every little bit helps, and it helps our minds as much or more than our bodies.
1 Comment
“You gotta keep pedaling, babe, or you’ll fall!”
“Keep pedaling…keep pedaling…keep pedaling…” “Look forward…pedal…pedal…pedal…” This was my refrain yesterday as I got my 6 year old out to ride her bike for only the second time without training wheels. As I started to hear myself repeating it, I thought maybe there was a timely life lesson here akin to my reflections the first time she rode with training wheels a couple of years ago. Given a recent tornado and a current pandemic and the pain of friends who have lost homes, are losing jobs and businesses, and my own challenges in keeping a startup alive, the message of “just keep pedaling” seemed like it might be wise. After all what else are you going to do!? And, there is some truth to this. I fear if I stop pedaling or my community stops pedaling amid this almost unfathomable reality, I may just hit the ground. I’ve got to keep some momentum, some inertia, or steering will become more difficult. I’ll end up jerking the handle bars back and forth more rapidly, erratically, directionless, just to stay upright. I will ultimately lose my balance anyway. As these thoughts were flooding my mind and my simultaneous refrain to my daughter echoed in my ears, my daughter did something else. She had fallen once again. But, this time she had stopped and started quietly looking at a patch of clover, focusing on something else, engaging in another component of her world, other senses, shifting her perspective. Stopping. Not pedaling. And then, she got back up, got back on her bike, and started pedaling - and she kept pedaling this time. When she did fall, she suddenly figured out how to do it without hitting the ground. She also figured out how to get started on her own, to generate her own momentum, to start riding again. The reality is, I guess, that yes, sometimes we do have to keep pedaling…pedaling…pedaling or we will fall. But, maybe sometimes we also have to stop pedaling for a bit to learn how to fall, or to learn that falling isn’t necessarily all we feared it would be, or maybe it’s worse, but we figure out how to start again, more wise, more prepared to keep pedaling, more resilient knowing how to - and that we can - get back up. In 2019, I became Daddy. Now, this may seem odd given that I have a 5 (almost 6) and 7 year old. After all, I have been a Dad for all of those years. But, becoming Daddy is about something altogether different. I have talked over these 7+ years with many friends-turned-Dads who sheepishly divulge their struggles in parenting, the desire for the freedom they once had, time alone, the changes in their relationship with their spouse, and the overall life-turned-upside-down that happens when you bring a child into the world with you. Granted, after a beer or two, most of those conversations end in raucous laughter and funny (usually crass) stories about the mistakes we have made or some embarrassing thing that had happened with our kids that hilariously shamed us as parents. In these conversations, we were still Dads-in-limbo - caught somewhere between the inertia of a previous life and the possibilities of a new one. Because of these conversations and the general lack of access to candor about being a Dad - empathy as much as guidance - I committed years ago to writing about my experiences, particularly the ugly parts that people think only happen to them - but rarely only happen to them. So, here I am 7.5 years in to being a Dad finally (maybe still a touch sheepishly) divulging: I am Daddy. I have become Daddy. When I think of myself and reflect on my life and purpose and where I want to grow and learn and improve, what I want my future to be and why, I think Daddy. This is a big shift. And sorry, girls, I am just being honest - it took awhile. Back in 2014 with a 2 year old and an infant, I saw this early process unfolding, but I wasn’t there yet, and was clearly struggling to navigate it. In fact, the process I was struggling with was in becoming a Dad. The notion of becoming Daddy hadn’t even surfaced yet. Back then, I started and never posted a blog - left only as incomplete thoughts - called “A Dad Becoming”. Here’s a bit of what was becoming in 2014: When my girls were born, I loved them, but I didn’t instantly feel like their Dad. As I changed their diapers and fed them, I became invested in them. With investment, their lives claimed space in my identity. Through shared identity, we both began to grow. In growth, I started to become a Dad. As they grow, they want to do for themselves. They seek independence. Become mobile. Explore. Question. Challenge. They demonstrate their unique personalities. Through their demonstration, I get to know them. Knowing them, our relationship becomes an exchange. As we exchange, I still say I love you, but now they express it back. In expression, love itself deepens, but so does the responsibility. The responsibility: the weight of being a Dad. As the weight increases, so does the need to model personal and relational health. In modeling, a discipline of patience and unconditional love. The discipline, failure. So, for now, this is where I am: a Dad becoming. Five years later, I do feel like I know my kids (and I’m crazy about them even when they drive me crazy); I am not just their caretaker. Five years later, our relationship is an exchange, a genuine, learning, growing relationship. It has a past, a present, and a future. Five years later, my patience - well… I’m still becoming. Five years later, the weight of being a Dad is still there, but it is counterbalanced by the unparalleled joy of being Daddy. Five years later, here I am again trying to put my parenting experience into words, but instead of struggling to understand the process, I am whole with the reality. While I am and will always be a “Dad becoming”, I have also become Daddy. A note to my kids who I hope someday will read it when the time is right:
You’re already off playing on the playground - which is exactly what you should be doing. It’s a beautiful, warm, Fall afternoon. I’m just sitting on the sidelines, out of your way, now back in my car, on my laptop, writing this. But, today, I needed to pick you up early. I needed to see you. I needed to run to your arms, even though it looked like you ran to mine. You didn’t see me “running” from all the way across town just for that moment. This afternoon, I needed you. I needed your light. And, you were there for me. I needed you today in particular because I spent part of my afternoon at a funeral of a dear family friend who died too young - ALS. A friend who I’d known my whole life as a child, her a parent, whose children I played with in the backyard when we were little. As I sat in the funeral service, I felt that stomach churn of tears battled, of memories longed for but lost, of pain shared with those I know and don’t. The pain of children and grandchildren left behind, moving forward. A spouse alone. As I left the funeral and got into my car, I was flooded with that anxious fatigue of knowing what it means to lose a parent. I had that haunting shadow of dis-ease about me - that shadow of a parent and grandparent’s love eternal, but of a relationship frozen in time, fading, or never even to be known. Eternal, yet absent. You will never know Bugsy. You will never know Maw and Paw. But, they love you. You will know them, their love, through the piece of me that is them. And, yet, today it is your love that is the solace, the healing force. The touch point. The grounding. The focus. Just for a moment. For that hug and smile. I could have never imagined that it would be I running to the arms of my children that would so clarify my understanding of what it means to be your Dad. Because of all of this: I just needed you today. Just for a moment. I needed that hug - and I needed you to go on out and play. To be a kid. And, just now, I heard one of your cries surfacing amid the throngs of kids voices at play. It’s your hurt cry. You run to my arms again. WARNING: Explicit, frustrated, tired parent language No matter how many times I wrestle with getting socks and shoes on my kids in the morning or getting teeth brushed and faces washed or getting a coat on or a seatbelt buckled or a bag packed, the simple-process-turned-painful-multi-chapter-dramatic-comedy-that-isn’t-funny never ceases to make me crazy. The lightening transition from peaceful morning snuggle to infuriating shit show is simply too fast for my simple emotional self to navigate. So, then I swing wildly from this-is-ridiculous-and-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you to why-is-this-pissing-me-off-so-much-and-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-me!? At some point, however, my kids and I do actually have to leave for school and, whether any of us likes it or not, the school does require the basic bits of clothing to be in place and for my kid to be there and on time, or I’m the one who gets in trouble. I have no choice. It has to get done. I have to make it get done. And, I’m probably a little pissed about that too! Martial law. Get it done. Out the door. Crazy into the car. Kids to school. And then, the shit show miraculously stops in its tracks once the threat of seeing friends and teachers is present. Fuck that too, by the way! “Have a wonderful day, girls. I love you. Always and forever. No matter what.” Those words are for them. They don’t help me on these mornings. I feel like an asshole and a failure and generally feel like shit - all before I’ve even had coffee or gotten to work. Now, I’m in my car in silence reflecting on why it had to be like this, how it got so crazy, why does this keep happening and what is wrong with me and what is wrong with my kid and when do we set up the counseling sessions and how fucked up will she be as a teenager because I’m such an asshole, but at least she’ll be a teenager that knows there are certain rules that have to be followed and that life isn’t always what you want it to be but then again I want her to know what rules she should break, but, by god, they better not be mine! Why do I have another headache today? And, just like that, off to work. Somehow, over the next 8 or 9 hours, I recover. I don’t know it’s happening. I’m not sure how it’s happening or even why. But, by the end of the day, all I want to do is see my kids. Yes, seeing them opens the possibility of another shit show. And, if that happens, I run the risk of putting them to bed the same way I felt when I dropped them at school. “Let’s have a better day tomorrow.” I pour a glass of bourbon. Stare at the TV for an hour. Go to bed. And, somehow, over the next 8 or 9 hours, I recover. I don’t know it’s happening. I’m not sure how it’s happening or even why. But, by the next morning, all I want to do is see my kids. Here we go again. This powerful and potent proclamation could make a Dad’s heart sing or make it weep. For me, for now, for today, it made it sing.
Let’s rewind the 20 minutes it took to arrive here. I’m at the beach on an annual family vacation, and my brother-in-law broke out a pair of Boogie Boards and asked my girls if they wanted to give them a try. A couple of short minutes later, they were floating on the boards awaiting just the right wave - my brother-in-law guiding/launching my younger daughter (5) as I prepared to do the same with the older (7). As the first good wave amassed, I got her prepped and balanced on the board and faced her toward the shore. I took a couple of quick steps and gave a push to meet the wave and off she went…but only about 10 feet. My timing was off. She got on top of the wave for a bit and then just settled in behind it. So, we regrouped and got ready for the next wave as I prepared to adjust my launch timing and technique. I pointed out which wave she would catch as it swelled well out beyond where we were. We readied the Boogie Board, a couple of steps…a push to launch…three feet…and the nose of the board goes straight down. Her legs went straight up. Her face went straight to the ocean floor as her nose and mouth ground into the sand. Her body flipped. Her board flew. And, she popped up out of the water startled and scared, her frightened eyes hidden behind a curtain of wet, sandy hair. As she swept her hair from her face, she realized she was also hurting. I picked her up and she held tight to me as she worked through all of those feelings, the fear, the pain, the need for comfort, her head on my shoulder. As she settled down, I encouraged her to go back out and try again, but she wasn’t ready. While I generally push on this kind of thing (probably too hard), this time I totally understood. It was a solid crash and she needed to step away and regroup. So, she walked out of the ocean and went and sat down with her Mom leaving behind what I guessed would be our last time riding the Boogie Board - at least for today. I felt bad. I went back out with my other daughter and brother-in-law and shared the insight that I thought we had the girls too far up on their boards, that they needed to slide back to make sure the tip stayed up as they caught the wave. A seemingly obvious lesson learned the hard way, and at the apparent expense of my older child. Within about 5 minutes, however, I look back to the shore and my daughter is standing there waiting, ready to come back in. I quietly swelled with pride. I strapped the board back to her wrist. A new board position was all we needed and we became masters of the waves. After the first ride in, she stands triumphantly and exclaims: “I didn’t face plant!” This was obviously a good thing, but certainly a lower bar for success than we’d started with. As they rode the waves, both girls were squealing in delight at the thrill and the speed and the freedom, the older one quickly replacing fear with fearlessness. Four or five rides later as she worked her way against the waves back out to where I was to prepare for another, she spontaneously turned her board and jumped on and caught a wave by herself - and road it all the way to dry land. She climbed off her board and stood there on the sand beaming and yelled for all the beach to hear: “I don’t need you anymore, Daddy!” I beamed as well, yelling back: “You sure don’t!” She proceeded to ride several more waves on her own before rejoining me and picking up our previous routine - where I was allowed to help her launch, where we mastered the waves together. What exactly had just happened over that brief 20 minutes? She had trusted me. I had failed. She had fallen. She was hurt. I felt terrible. She recovered. The bar for success got lowered. We improved. She grew confident. She went out on her own. She beamed. I beamed. She owned it. She came back to me. We continued together. So, what was all of this? Parenting. Parenting is hard. And, most of us are kind of making shit up as we go - on some basic principles perhaps, but still making shit up. What do I, from a land-locked state (Tennessee), really know about Boogie Boards!? And yet, I will continue to make shit up, to screw up, and my girls will continue to be resilient and I will do my best to improve and make sure no permanent damage is done. Beyond that, I’m actually counting on them as much as they are counting on me. Parenting is relentless and happens in a never-ending sequence of waves. We can’t understand, much less master, every wave. Waves, however, are just a series of peaks and valleys. The same wave that face-plants you is the one that can propel you to the shore. The one that instills fear can give you your greatest sense of freedom. The wave that almost breaks you is the one that shows you that it takes a lot more than you thought to actually break you. Boogie Board life lessons for you, my love, and for me, your Daddy. I started my morning the other day quite blissfully - which is honestly rarely how I would characterize the start of my days. This particular morning, I was taking my kids to camp and daycare, which my wife does most mornings (I do pickups), and so I had just a few extra minutes in my morning schedule to be with my girls - and they had both woken up a bit early. If that weren’t enough, Wimbledon was on, and that’s what my girls actually wanted to watch! (parenting victory) So, there I was on a work morning, lying on my couch, my arm around one girl on my shoulder and rubbing the head of the other who was lying on my legs. Some mornings, I don’t even get to see them, so this was a pretty magical way to start the day. And then, the questions: Which player is that one? Who’s the other one? Which one lives closer to us? Is Serbia in New York? What is Belgium? Who’s the guy in the chair? (umpire) Why is he wearing that coat? (well, it’s just the custom, I guess.) What’s a custom? (…something people just do because they do it…) Who are those people against the wall? (line judges) Why do they yell? (they say if the ball is outside of the lines) What are they yelling? (out) Why do they have blue shirts on? (…) Who are those people with their hands behind their backs? (ball boys and girls) Why do they have their hands behind their backs? (um…to keep them out of the way…) Why do they hold their hand up in the air? (to offer the player the ball to serve) What’s a serve? (how they start a point) Why is that guy throwing the ball in the air? (that’s the serve) Is it over? (no, that was just one point.) Who is winning? (the guy closest to us) Why is it 4 to 3? Why does he have 30 points? Love? Why did he get 15 points? Did he win? (no, it’s deuce) What is deuce? (40-40) Did he win? (no, it’s his advantage though) How do you win? Did he win? (he won the game, but it’s just 4-4 in the set) What’s a set? (it’s made of of games and part of a match) ... You probably get the idea - and probably did about 10 to 15 questions ago! For the briefest moment, I wanted them to hush and watch the match - or I really didn’t care if they did, but I did, and I wanted them to let me do it in peace. But, the question barrage was so fierce and so valid that it became the sport itself. It added to the morning bliss. I love tennis. But, it is very odd and chock full of quirky rules and customs that I simply can’t explain. I can only offer them as fact - that’s how they do it in tennis. This just happens to be a very unsatisfying answer to both me and my girls. And, I started to think about all of the new things that they experience almost every day that are just like tennis to them. New. Quirky. Arbitrary. Full of weird adult rules. And, yet sometimes entertaining. In some ways at their age, it’s all tennis to them. Thus, my paternal wish from this little blissful morning scene: may my girls always find themselves in weird, arbitrary, and entertaining places, having new experiences, and with quirky people where they are flush with questions and are empowered to ask and learn - or at least to ask. Photo: A Brief History of Wimbledon If you’ve read my blog, you know that I am a lover of questions and you know I encourage my daughters to ask them - whatever they may be. But, I’ll be honest, this one caught me off guard. And, just to confirm - yes, it was in reference to President John Quincy Adams. My five year old was in stream-of-consciousness talking and questioning mode as she was both trying to get my attention and trying to pretend that a nap wouldn’t be her best option at the moment. At some point, in hopefully as kind a way as possible, I shared that I was not going to keep answering questions that I knew she already knew the answer to - that I was happy to answer the questions I could, but I wanted her to try and answer for herself when she could. (This was a modestly diplomatic attempt at avoiding saying that she was driving me absolutely crazy.) So, I was pretty well tuned out when she dropped this one on me. It worked. She got my attention! I was immediately laughing hysterically inside - trying to process exactly where this question came from and how - and if - I was supposed to pretend I knew or didn’t know an answer. So, I did the obvious thing that any decent Dad would do: I let my 7 year old answer. Yes. Someone had to have seen John Adams’ penis. With her confident and informed response to her little sister, I recalled that the 7 year old had been learning about Presidents at school. And, of course, she’d remembered the most important facts underlying our Democracy: William Howard Taft got stuck in the White House bathtub and had to be craned out, and John Adams went skinny dipping in the Potomac. So, again, by a leap of logic easily made by a 7 year old but still suspect by a 5 year old - President Adams’ penis was out for the viewing. (Perhaps, a timely lesson on the value of transparency in Democracy?) The giggles about learning what skinny dipping means had long passed from our initial discussion, but this burning question persisted in my daughter’s mind. And, I was reminded that the barrage of questions she’d been asking that she already knew the answer to were not bad questions. They were just unnecessary. She had to be reminded she knew the answer already - or could easily find them for herself. So, the only bad question really is the one you have but you don’t ask. For so many reasons, this was not just a good question, it was epic. That every day we may ask and be asked at least one good question… On the day before his 62nd birthday, my Father committed suicide. I’ve written pretty extensively about this in previous blogs. Needless to say, I sobbed. In fact, I broke. I was on emotional lockdown. I didn’t want to be around people. I didn’t want to talk. I needed quiet. Noise actually physically hurt. For the first time in my life, I understood what anxiety really felt like. I was hunkered down. Surviving. It had been almost a year. Around that time, a homeless friend brought a 10 week old puppy to my Mom’s house. It had followed him from wherever he lived - he would never tell us. But, our friend was drunk and this tiny, fluffy, adorable, little puppy was annoying him. So, he left it with my Mom and said she had to take him. Mom had a dog. Mom calls me. I go see it. I call my wife. Now, we have a dog. I should mention here that I am actually allergic to dogs - but the sweetness of this little animal was an antihistamine. But, wait. Ugh. What just happened!? I didn’t want a fucking dog! I didn’t want any new relationships! I wanted less. I wanted to be left alone. I sure as hell didn’t want to have to take care of some helpless little animal. I was having enough trouble taking care of myself at that point. I had swooned at this puppy’s cuteness and I regretted it immediately. But, then I started to love him - Augustus Buster a.k.a “Gus”. But then, within months, we were at the vet. Gus had severe hip problems, probably wouldn’t live for very long - at least not without severe pain. Goddamnit! I knew I didn’t want this fucking thing. This was all just a setup for more fucking loss and hurt and loneliness. I was furious. So mad at myself. So mad at the world. So mad that I had opened myself up to this little animal - this creature for whom we were already predicting his end-of-days in his first year. I sobbed. But, I also started healing. One of my first blogs about my Dad’s death was entitled “Living With Suicide.” Before I got my dog, I wasn’t. I was surviving suicide. But, when I opened myself to loving him, as painful and frustrating and scary as it was - as temporary as it might be - I began to live again. Today, almost 12 years later, we had to put my dog down. Cancer. I sobbed. I broke. I’ve not cried like this since I lost my Dad. I feel the horrible emptiness of losing Gus, but it has also pulled at something deep in the wounds from my Father’s death. I’ve thought about this day since that first visit to the vet. I knew it would be brutal. I knew my dog’s death was coming. But, I had no idea how badly this would hurt. I miss my dog. I miss my Dad. My natural instinct again today is to hunker down, but I can see my dog looking up at me with his big, brown, knowing eyes: “did you miss the whole point!?” Life and love are full of fear and loss and anxiety and vulnerability, but they are also the source of healing and peace and our connection to something beyond ourselves. Life and love take courage, but also create meaning. Death doesn’t take that meaning away. It reminds us of it. I grew up and still live in a house with no right angles. It’s just the reality of a now 130-year-old structure. Between plaster walls and settling foundations, you are best served just to eyeball distances and angles, or at least eyeball and measure - but trust your eyeball. Which is why I stopped in my tracks yesterday and snapped this picture. A marble. Sitting still. On a smooth surface. In our house. Seriously, what the hell? Never seen it. Never conceived of it. Not in our house. And, like anyone whose brain never cared much for - nor knew much about - right angles, I didn’t really care about how that marble was sitting there. The science. I wanted to know why. I saw the marble as I was doing post-holiday house cleaning and, as is often the case when I am doing chores, I was deep in my head. I was deep in the sadness of goodbyes to family, shaking off the echoes of my sobbing child - so sad to see her cousin and great aunt and uncle leaving. Fighting my own tears. I was processing the realities of aging loved ones and the impotence of limited time across great distance. I was wrestling with the chronic unknowns of a sick family member now weeks in the hospital. I was wondering about my dying dog - how much longer? What’s our plan? We all have our stories. Mine is not unique nor is it even particularly extreme. In fact, I acknowledge that sorrow such as mine is born of fortune and abundance. This messiness (the right angle-less-ness) is just part of the rich possibility of human existence. And, most of the time, I am fine with this. I see it for what it is. I thrive in the fluidity, the uncertainty. It’s probably why I became an artist. It’s how I understand the world and it reinforces my beliefs in why I am on the planet for this relatively brief period of time. But, there are also times when it is frustrating and even overwhelming, when the lack of right angles starts to feel like formlessness, when I feel the need for structural reinforcement. Stillness and stability from somewhere. And yet, this marble. Shining. Reflective. Still. Fragile, but whole. Simple, but profound. Somehow insistently present, defying the potentiality - and probability - of its rolling, falling, getting lost. It couldn’t just be sitting there on the dresser; that would be impossible in our house. It was somehow transcending the crookedness of its world - or perhaps just owning it. At the same time, the marble also drew my eye to some old pictures of my family. And, given my unsettled spirit at that moment, I just spiraled further into what wasn’t, what was wrong, what was past, what was no more. Memory. Reality. Sadness. I need a fucking right angle! Except, I didn’t. I was missing the why of this odd, little marble. There is no real truth to my memories or my longing or my emotional analyses. There is no truth in my fighting the dissonance and sorrow of here and now. These are tools to futilely seek and feign control over life itself. Struggle. The truth is in this marble somewhere, this thing that drew me in, out of myself, reminding me of a deeper, more real - and yet more nebulous - truth. A truth of both passing time, and yet, a truth eternal. Of life and loss, of highs and lows, light and shadow. A truth where our connections with others, with the world, and within ourselves manifest as the ultimate why of our existence and the surest path to our transcendence. A truth where right angles may or may not exist - it doesn’t matter. This truth is love. Shining. Reflective. Still. Fragile, but whole. Simple, but profound. Somehow present amidst all of the temporary conditions that could start me rolling, falling, getting lost. |
Categories
All
Archives
April 2024
|