If You Didn't Know Me

I have probably mentioned the Dad Bloggers group on Facebook which I am a part of.  I even have the little logo-y thing over there underneath my popular posts widget.  It is a great group and there are so many fantastic blogs and such enterprising and hardworking and involved Dads and...  I wish I'd never heard of it. It makes me feel inferior and unsuccessful, naive and well-intentioned to the point of embarrassment, homespun and hickey, pedestrian.

I may have made a mistake early on in this experience: you see, I was well-positioned to have an anonymous blog; an obscure title, somewhat generic content, a blundering style and a conversational tone.  However, I didn't think to make up a pseudonym or use a different e-mail account than my own, so, rather quickly and with little forethought, I outed myself.  If I had to do it over I might have, gone anonymous that is.

If I had, I would be able to say some things that I am not comfortable saying since everyone knows who I am.  Stuff about being a SAHD, perhaps.  Like the other day when N said that he would like to either be an animal doctor or "stay at home and take care of my kids, like Dad does" and all I could think was:  worse pickup line ever, as in never tell a girl you are interested in that.

Yes, that's how I really feel, I guess.  Sometimes, when you are in the middle of something, you can rationalize your way into liking it.  Like joggers who say they love running, or kids who say they love sledding even though they are freezing their asses off.  I tell people all the time that I enjoy being an At Home Dad, a house-husband, a SAHD.  I used to tell people I was "the Stay-at-Home-Dad I never dreamed of being."  True that.  When it's all said and considered and thunk-out, I do like my life, albeit a life I never considered, and I am good at it.  I feel good in my role, I just wish more of you could feel good about me being in it.

If I had decided to remain anonymous, I would be able to tell you how unspeakably overwhelmed by my own aging I have become.  Nobody talks about it much, so I don't.  If I did though, I'd tell you about looking in the mirror and not recognizing the face and then, heartbreak when you realize it's you.  I would tell you how the daily aches and pains and the fear of hurting myself stupidly (like dislocating my shoulder skating or rupturing a tendon in my calf dancing) again, keep me from doing things I would like the boys to see me do.  I might mention the hurt I feel when people assume I am the boys' grandfather.  I have seen men wince at the notion of being my age with young  boys.  I might tell you that I feel a bit ashamed that they have an old man for a father.

I am not aging gracefully.  I am afraid to admit out loud that my hands hurt so badly, sometimes it is difficult to play guitar, and that breaks my heart.  I have noticed that sometimes, instead of asking "What's next?" as I did as a young man, these day I ask myself "What's over?"  Is this the last time I should get on the roof, is this my last gig, is that dream of a tree-house for the boys just folly?  Is this the last time a girl will notice me, or the last time a young person will respect me.  I might confess that I see my failings more than I recognize my promise any more.  I would tell you that it is tough to age, the body fails and the dreams grow dim.  Sad.

If I were unknown to you, I could tell you that twice in the past week a song has made me cry.  The first time I was doing laundry and this song, Stuff that Works, by Guy Clark buckled my knees:

 

I've always let myself cry, I think it's important.  I have heard this song before and have always related to the curiously joyous lament that is this chorus,

Stuff that works, stuff that holds up
The kind of stuff you don’t hang on the wall
Stuff that’s real, stuff you feel
The kind of stuff you reach for when you fall 

But on that day, the line that hit me was:

That's the kind of stuff I like to be around.

I cried because it validated how I feel about so much today; so much that doesn't seem to be working, so many policies and gadgets and misconceptions that serve us poorly and with so little satisfaction.  I know that to defend myself against the slings and arrows of the twenty-first century, I have to fall back on the stuff that works: love and kindness, crayons and pencils, discipline and self-respect, butter and bacon, integrity and courage.  And, I guess in joy or awe or praise, I wept at knowing there are still truths worth weeping for.

The other song came at me from the past as I was cleaning the baseboards in the dining room.  This song, Poems, Prayers and Promises, by John Denver:

These are the lyrics as I learned them in nineteen-hundred-and-seventy-five, hunched over an out-of-tune red starburst guitar, on a bed, in my room, in the quiet that is a house in the country:

I've been lately thinking
About my life's time
All the things I've done
And how it's been
And I can't help believing
In my own mind
I know I'm gonna hate to see it end

I've seen a lot of sunshine
Slept out in the rain
Spent a night or two all on my own
I've known my lady's pleasures
Had myself some friends
And spent a night or two in my own home

And I have to say it now
It's been a good life all in all
It's really fine
To have a chance to hang around
And lie there by the fire
And watch the evening tire
While all my friends and my old lady
Sit and pass the pipe around
And talk of poems and prayers and promises
And things that we believe in
How sweet it is to love someone
How right it is to care
How long it's been since yesterday
And what about tomorrow
And what about our dreams
And all the memories we share

 

The days they pass so quickly now
Nights are seldom long
And time around me whispers when it's cold
The changes somehow frighten me
Still I have to smile
It turns me on to think of growing old
For though my life's been good to me
There's still so much to do
So many things my mind has never known
I'd like to raise a family
I'd like to sail away
And dance across the mountains on the moon

I have to say it now
It's been a good life all in all
It's really fine
To have the chance to hang around
And lie there by the fire
And watch the evening tire
While all my friends and my old lady
Sit and watch the sun go down

And talk of poems and prayers and promises
And things that we believe in
How sweet it is to love someone
How right it is to care
How long it's been since yesterday
What about tomorrow
What about our dreams
And all the memories we share

It's weird to think that this song would end up making me sob as I scrubbed yogurt off a baseboard, some forty years later.  What drew me to this song (besides getting to mention passing pipes around) when I was fourteen years old?  What right had I to even sing it?  It seems so simple, perhaps trite even, now, but it was such a hit in those day that there's even a Muppet version.  I was so struck by the poetry and imagery, I had to learn to play it myself.  Back then it seemed a promise of dreams fulfilled and beauty of a poetic life lived, today it seems like a prayer of thanksgiving for the same.   So I cried at time around me whispers when it's cold and  I'd like to raise a family I'd like to sail away, And dance across the mountains on the moon.  How could I have known that this song would remain embedded deep in my soul and would reemerge just when my heart needed it most?  Stuff that works...

If I had decided to remain anonymous I could rant and rave about things that I deserve to rant and rave about but don't, because it's ugly.  I could make fun of my kids and say how they drive me to drink wine and piss and moan, but I don't, because it's ugly.  I could tell salacious stories and drunken, hilarious anecdotes, but I don't, because they're ugly.

If I could tell you something and you'd never know it was me, I'd tell you about how hard this all is.  Writing is difficult and time consuming for me, I gather not so much as others, but for me it is.  I am often overwhelmed by the words that appear on the screen before me; at the ideas I realize as I watch a ballgame on a hot, lonely summer night.  I'd try to explain how I feel like I am just given the words or, thief-like, I capture them as the fly by.  I'd tell you that the truths I find out about myself as I write are difficult and yet magical, terrifying and hopeful.

If no one knew who I was, I wouldn't feel guilty about the length of this piece.  I wouldn't feel embarrassed at mentioning John Denver, I wouldn't feel a sense of dread knowing I have admitted these things to you.  I wouldn't worry about how many people read this, or whether my peers would like it or laugh at it or blow it off.  I wouldn't feel so exposed and vulnerable.

But, I do own all this.  You know my name, some of you know me, my boys will come to know me here because this is a public forum.  Strangers will come to know me from these and the other words I have snagged and furtively copied down here.  This holds me accountable.  And, I'll stay on it, this journey, and I'll get mired in the mud of popularity, I'll try to be cool and funny and hip and topical - but, I'll fail and get my feelings hurt and misunderstand and self-deprecate, but through it all, I'll try to remember that I am here to celebrate and honor, cherish and adore, teach and nurture.  I am here to do the stuff that works

There is a poor quality image hanging on a neglected bulletin board above the computer I use.  I seem to notice it every day at some point:

Anonymous or not, I could use this image, and, whether you knew me or not, you'd understand why I do this.

You know what?  Since I do write publicly, everyone will know that I got this award:

Hey, could you do me a favor?  Could you sort of, like, maybe, well... let's just keep this between you and me, alright?

Thanks...