"It Just Is, I Guess"

I believe I would weep at the sight of an orchard full of blossoming Honeycrisp apple trees.

I think it is easy to loose our way, ours is a uniquely complicated journey, we will all get lost somewhere, we will all stall, we will all falter, we will all doubt, we will all fail. I'm okay with that.

So, when I realize that I had every intention of posting three times a week, and, well, it has been a week since I last posted here, what do I do? What do I tell myself?

Should I forgive myself? Sure, of course, that's what I'd teach the boys.

Should I cajole and sneer at myself for making a promise, a commitment, and giving up on it? Well, yeah, a little...

Should I hang my head in the shame I feel sometimes when my arrogance lets me forget that there is a plan for me, specifically, me? Most definitely.

Should I remind myself that I am doing the best I can? Yes, life's balancing act is a full-time position for me.

Should I be really honest with myself and confess to the fact that I got mixed up and started, once again, writing for you, dear readers, and not for you, dear boys? No, I think that is my struggle not yours.

Should I simply move on, figuring no one will really notice if I don't mention it? Yes, that'd be best...

Oh well.

I have been working on a transition around these parts, my tiny corner of the digital realm. I figure the time is coming when perhaps these stories will become too personal, too close, to revealing to continue in such a public manner. So, I've been trying to focus a little more on storytelling and less on commentary. Listen, I'm not really going to be able to change what I do here, but, do me a favor, if you ever think I am doing even the slightest notion of disservice to my boys, you tell me. Promise? Thanks...

A long, lean eight-and-a-half year old boy, sixty-pounds worth, snuggles next to me at six in the morning. He suffers the same affliction I do, when we wake up we are up, for good, enthusiastic, eager, awake. We are talking in the quiet predawn, in whispered tones we are imagining what a dog alien must be like, giggling a little. Nick suggests that I look a little like a dog with my big beard. I ask him if he likes it.

“Yeah, it's okay.” Pause. “It sort of makes you look old.”

“I am old.”

“Yeah, but do you have to look it?”

The question lingers in the warm, humid air of a small bedroom in the early fall. It seems unanswerable, difficult, uncomfortable.

I tease him back, pinching his slightly chubby cheeks, making him giggle, and, truthfully, changing the subject. He settles down a little and lays back, thinking, I'd guess, I lean against the headboard, I know I am thinking.

I think of my own father, and wildness, and masculinity, and image, and the future, and my past. I see the beards my father had over the years, bright red initially, fading, like memories, to gray and white. I remember the time I was in a play and was told to just let my beard grow, how wild that was, how manly, how crazy, how wonderfully non-conformist and cool. All at once, I see myself as perhaps he sees me – old, tired, different – and wonder.

“Do you not like that I am so old?” I whisper, hoping a little that he has fallen back asleep. He hasn't, in fact he seems to understand the query perfectly, giving the pause it deserves, the quiet intake of breath it requires.

“It's not really your fault, you know?”

I think he is done, but he is not. He echoes back to me, something I have said to him, something, it would seem, he has come to understand:

“It just is, I guess.”

It just is.

Acceptance.

He asks to get up and leaves to go read in the living room. I hold back. I want to think about what I should do. I wonder if I should shave my beard and dress younger and get hip. I worry that perhaps his life is more difficult because I am different, because I am a full time dad, because I am fifty-something, because I am arty and old, because I am a little wild and serious and silly and odd and...

But, wait. I sit at the edge of the bed. I don't have to think of any of that.

It just is.

Thanks, buddy.

I want to forever remember the stories and images I share here. I wonder if anyone will recall this picture of me, taken six or seven months ago. This is how they see me, it suddenly occurs to me:

I will end this here today, without an image of or by the boys.  I'll just see how that feels.

From Marci's  "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat ..."

(while Zack plays the recorder)

N: "You are Zack's evil alien dog pet, and thus music is all that can contain you."
 

... well, there you have it ...

I hope he sang that in his "opera voice"...

Thanks for coming around again, come back soon, or in the sweet tenderness of the yet-to-come.  Speaking of which, and, since you've been so kind to read this - or should I say thus - far, I'll tell you a secret, sometimes I add an odd sentence or too on purpose for the boys in the future.  I thought that opening sentence aloud one time, as we were snacking on a plate of fresh apples, Honeycrisps, our very favorite kind, and I will forever hope that Zack will remember, the wistful, joyful moment he spent agreeing with my sentiment.  It's beautiful to remember hope.