Thursday, December 31, 2015

Years End


Indeed they do, end that is, years that is...

This is my last post this year, I'm supposed to reflect and that sort of thing.  I should look back or look ahead or offer advice or make resolutions.  I know, I should do a retrospective bit and link up my favorite posts and add more stuff to inspire and motivate and...

I'm not going to.  In fact I don't know what I'm doing here today.  Christmas has come and gone, I should say something about that perhaps.  We got a TV...

More and more here, I find it difficult to say things I would like to, about the boys, about our life, about the future, about the world around and in us.  Why?  Because I worry it might hurt them, us, you...

I guess, then, your wondering why I'm wasting your time today.  Well, I'd like to ask something of you - keep stopping by when you can.  You may notice - for reasons I've already mentioned - a sort of transition around here in the coming weeks, months, whatever.  I am trying to shift the focus away from the boys and more toward myself.

Lord, that sounds dickish.

Listen, I can't, in good conscience, continue to keep making fun of Nick's spelling and Zack's unending love for a stuffed bear.  It was cute when I started all this, well- intentioned and all, but, it's not seeming so right anymore.  I can't presume to tell you about their feelings and stuff.  I used to think I knew them, now, well, they cloak them better and they're more complicated, these feelings, and they are theirs.

I hope that makes sense.

I see this all the time in the blogging community, this often jarring and sudden realization that it's time, perhaps, to stop telling your children's stories, that, alas, they are not yours to tell.  More often than not, this clarity leads to, um, well... closure, endings.  I am reluctant to do that, shut down, that is.

If it hasn't become painfully obvious to you yet- or you just haven't mentioned it... thanks - I am not a very good blogger, especially by today's standards.  I am staggeringly inconsistent in posting with any regularity, I use too many words (see last this sentence), and I am atopical and antiviral.

I understand all this.  I've pretty much given up telling folks I do this.  Anyone I am close to has probably poked around here a bit, some kind new friends stop by, an occasional teacher or priest or neighbor looks in every now and then.  That's fine.

There is another of you, though.  The you that is to come, and I'm listening to you playing and screaming and laughing in the basement as I write these words.  More than anything, between that you in the basement and the you that may be you in a now thirty years hence is the place I try to write from.

It's a funny place, a valley where memory and experience, past and present, future and now, boy and man, meet, fuse, loop.

But, somewhere in that amalgam, are the stories - real or imagined - and I'll continue to listen for them.  You do the same.


That's all I've got.

I took a picture of the boys and I, a selfie I suppose.


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

Sarcasm... Nailed it.

You know, I wondered if you'd ask that. Yes, I did show the boys that picture up there and told them I would like to use it here, they were cool with it.  I was afraid you'd ask that... No, I didn't try to explain this place between in which I find myself, hopefully you understand now... I know I don't.

Peace to you in this coming year.  Stop back by.


7 comments:

  1. Please continue to post, even if it's infrequently--you write so well!! Happy New Year to you & yours!!

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  2. I get the conflict and am experiencing it too. I wrote about it here: http://larrydbernstein.com/i-wont-write-that/
    Anyway, I my boys are less and less the focus of my posts though they certainly come up. It's often more my reaction to them rather than what they specifically are doing. It's a thin line I'm navigating.

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  3. I look forward to the shift. You have my attention.

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  4. Keep writing and we'll keep reading.

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  5. Don't quit. Post when you can. I may not always comment, but I always read your posts. You have the ability to put into words so many feelings I have about my own boys and their charge into the world. Thank you for what you do and your time and love into your posts.

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  6. Ah, Bill.

    There are reasons why you are my favorite blogger, even if you don't see yourself as a skilled blogger.

    One of the reasons is the authenticity of what you have to say makes people feel an emotional impact from reading what you have to say, regardless of what the subject is.

    I definitely get the shift in focus, which is why I find myself writing more on MunkyMind.com than on DeafDad.com.

    Anyway this particular post reminded me of a Gibran piece:

    "On Children
    Kahlil Gibran

    Your children are not your children.
    They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
    They come through you but not from you,
    And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

    You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
    For they have their own thoughts.
    You may house their bodies but not their souls,
    For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
    which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
    You may strive to be like them,
    but seek not to make them like you.
    For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

    You are the bows from which your children
    as living arrows are sent forth.
    The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
    and He bends you with His might
    that His arrows may go swift and far.
    Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
    For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
    so He loves also the bow that is stable."

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  7. It's obvious that you have to continue posting. Don't even mind to stop! Besides I'd really want to wish you all the best in this new year. May it be much more better than the previous one.

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