Unlicensed

(Hi… yes, yes it is awkward to begin an essay with a parenthetical aside but I’m going to, hell, I might italicize it as well, being unlicensed and unregulated and all. I just wanted to say that there are several links to previous posts in this one.  Feel free to check them out if you care to.  But, hey, maybe you could read all the way through this one before you do, because, I’m pretty sure that if you jump elsewhere on your phone, I probably won’t see you again.  Thanks.)

They came to take away my "dad blogger" license away back in September.  A couple of guys sporting beards and superhero tees knocked on my door.  The one with the bigger beard suggested that I knew why they'd come. I did.

I hadn't done the obligatory back-to-school post yet.  I scrambled mightily to get one up on time the year before, but this year… yeah, nothin'. Also, I haven't posted in a long while, which is usually pretty forgivable but, months...?  I've also made a concerted effort to talk less directly about the boys, again, understandable, but, sort of off brand.  And, I neglected to do a Father's Day piece, which is, well, unheard-of.

I was informed that I can only wear my cargo shorts to do yardwork, which seems reasonable and I'd already been doing that.  They wanted my "World's Greatest Dad" mug as well but decided I could keep it when I told them it was in the back of the fridge full of bacon grease (which in and of itself makes me the world's greatest dad).  They also asked for the decoder ring I used to translate the stuff the boys wrote and said early on which didn't make sense.  I told them I'd like to keep it because I've actually got drawings and stories and such that I haven't yet figured out.  They seemed cool about it.

There were a few other caveats as well.  In honor of my nearly ten years of service to the community of dad bloggers, I am allowed to post anything I want on Father's Day and the first day of school – no questions asked.  But, I mustn't post new sentimental slop as I did for so many years at any other time, at least dad slop, I guess.  I can, and this surprised me, repost old pieces when I'd like.  I gather this is a result of the "throw-back Thursday" clause.

The one thing that really had the whole system messed up was that the name of my blog here is, and shall always remain, "ihopeiwinatoaster."  I guess not having a reference to "daddy" or "father" or "pop" or anything Star Wars lets me keep using my same domain.  Usually, you are asked to archive your "Dad" period and, if you wish to continue blogging - which no one in their right mind should - you need to start afresh.  Ha, I knew that stupid handle was a good idea.

There was a lot of mumbo-jumbo legalese.  I had to initial off on a few subjects I'd need to stay away from - Lego and tee-ball and doing laundry and broken arms and, let's see, uhm, homework and math and misspellings, whimsical writings and inexplicable drawings and, oddly Harry Potter – because, apparently, it's the dad's with younger kids turn to write about the good stuff.  I can see all that, really, and there's a really good cadre of fresh dads taking up the cause… God love 'em.  I had to write a piece to say I understood the terms of the dissolution and to say goodbye, see above.  However, because of the domain name loophole, I can just keep posting here.

Listen, I actually think it's good that they stopped by and took the license, I may go rogue every now and then and talk about the boys, but I think in principle the gag order is valid.  There is a sweetness and a sentimentality in writing about babies, toddlers - just children in general - that should be explored.  I certainly have read a great number of posts from men about their kids over the years which have moved me to tears.  And, you know what, I hope that continues.  However, I'm not really the guy to do it anymore.

The wickets get a bit stickier as children turn to adults or, in my case, boys grow into men.  The stakes are a little higher, tales of teddy bears and movie scares and misspellings and odd math no longer seem appropriate, even, as I worked very hard to do, if they are told tenderly and lovingly.  It's no longer my business (was it ever?) to tell you about them.  There are crushes and heartbreak and failures and successes and books and fights and glories coming to learn from, and they will.  But, those are now their stories to hold or to share.

So, I was supposed to have this submitted to and approved by the Blog dudes by the end of last year, but, well... I didn't.  That's because I didn't want them to see this last part.

You see, I'm not done yet.  I've got more to say, a few more stories to tell, some advice to give.  I've worked very hard to honor and respect N and Z over the years I've been doing this and I think I can still do that.  Not by sharing their awkward and embarrassing teenage angst and pubescent bodily functions (which I see bloggers using more than I'd like to), but by offering a little help to them as the years go forward.

I can offer them a little more of me by sharing my past dreams and even my current hopes, perhaps…

There is an undeniable arrogance in assuming your kids will want to know more about you as they go on in their own lives.  It's embarrassing but, here's the thing, two things really - I'd give a lot to see something like this from my own father and I've heard that from a lot of guys over the years.  Also, over and over again folks say to me that the boys will treasure the posts I've done here over the years.  I've been proud to curate their childhood, proud to have thought deeply about them, considered them, and I've been so very proud that they are my sons.

There are a lot of folks I should thank from those years I was sorta in the scene… but I won’t.  I would hope they knew, know, whatever.  Some offered me much needed technical support, others lifted me when I was falling, some were frank in criticism, some just liked the words I lined up into weird rows.  Trying to name them all would be irritatingly long and probably ill-advised.

However, there is one individual I would like to call out: You, kind reader.  Yeah, you.

When I write, I don’t imagine a big audience or entertain the notion that there’s some sort of “ihopeiwinatoaster Nation” out there.  No, I’m pretty much talking just to you on the porch watchin’ the trees grow and the wind blow or in the kitchen waitin’ for the coffee to finish and the biscuits to bake.  I’ve tried to keep it casual and soft here - although, I have gotten my britches in a bunch a few times - and I intend to keep it that way.

Thanks for stopping by, I know you are busy, I hope this maybe slowed you down a bit.  Feel free to poke around in the basement archives if you’d like, but that’s hard on the Blogger phone app… oh well.  It’s a sad truth that blogging was meant to be done on a computer monitor, not a tiny screen in your palm.

God’s peace to you kind reader. 

Here's a picture of me in a blue workshirt.  Not a picture of the boys. (Sorry, it was required... weird, I know.)

Cheers...

On Brokenness

Just this Monday I was sitting here, looking over the backyard scattered with broken branches and sticks.  The old playset, new so few years ago, is sagging, the tree behind it dying, and all around the neglect of winter and time is showing its power, its might.

I flipped on Spotify and went to a Bob Dylan playlist that usually pleases me.  A song I hadn't heard in a very long time, from a mediocre, at best, album released in 1989, Oh Mercy, came up.

This song:

Everything Is Broken

Broken lines, broken strings
Broken threads, broken springs
Broken idols, broken heads
People sleeping in broken beds
Ain’t no use jiving
Ain’t no use joking
Everything is broken

Broken bottles, broken plates
Broken switches, broken gates
Broken dishes, broken parts
Streets are filled with broken hearts
Broken words never meant to be spoken
Everything is broken

Seem like every time you stop and turn around
Something else just hit the ground

Broken cutters, broken saws
Broken buckles, broken laws
Broken bodies, broken bones
Broken voices on broken phones
Take a deep breath, feel like you’re chokin'
Everything is broken

Every time you leave and go off someplace
Things fall to pieces in my face

Broken hands on broken ploughs
Broken treaties, broken vows
Broken pipes, broken tools
People bending broken rules
Hound dog howling, bullfrog croaking
Everything is broken 

(You needn't listen to it, but, if you care to, here's a link.)

I got to thinkin' about the song, about the words.  "Everything is broken."

There is a literal truth in the statement.  All around me are things that are broken.  There's the closet door in the boys' room that falls off the track and I can't figure out what the hell is wrong with.  A clock I made with silly numerals on the face, sits stuck at 12:08.  A drawer here, a shed door there, the flip-down console in my truck, the damn hinges on the kitchen cabinets, a dehumidifier, a fan, the outdoor shelf for the camper, even my damn shoes...

Stuff.

But, if I look around the brokenness, just beyond it, there.  A fixed lamp that Marci was sad to lose, which I rewired to the utter amazement of the boys.  The closet track in our room.  A tractor.  Porch screens and swings.

A doorway...


We have only been living in this house a few months.  Spring is here and I've screened in the porch to my satisfaction and today I am fixing the screen door which I had to trim to fit but is still to tight, although I know how to measure.  I can see that it is barely sticking in one place, I'd tried to get some WD40 to smooth it over.  It just seemed tighter this morning.

I have a plane and a coping saw and some coarse sandpaper, a screwdriver and a hammer.  I try to plane a bit off but the angle is bad.  I get a little off with the coping saw and still it seems tighter than yesterday.  It is obvious that I'll have to get the door down and on the sawhorses and use the circular saw again.

I grab the screwdriver and the hammer and, in frustration I smack the door frame with it.  The door isn't too big, I've not measured wrong, the frame had popped out a little and that little hit gets it back true.


I tried to sand over the damage done by the coping saw and plane, but, the scars are still there, what?, fourteen years later.  I chuckle when I see them, amused at how oblivious I'd been to the obvious, how blind to a simple solution - seems like I shoulda noticed that gap there between the door frame and the bricks:

There are so many lessons, skills, techniques, more, I've learned from fixing the broken things.  I need to remember that.

Beyond these physically broken things, there is a whole world of metaphorical brokenness.


An internet friend of mine complained on Facebook that a website that published his very good work had deleted all his pieces or gone defunct or something.  Many fellow blogger commiserated.

In fit of anger and pain, for me and my friend, mostly me, I wrote:  "The entirety of the publishing/writer model is broken. No. One. Cares. Every time I get an agent or publishers attention the absolute first thing they ask is about my FB and blog metrics, never, ever, ever about the words I write or the kind of man I am. Content is NOT King, it's a fucking commodity."

Yeah...

Someone suggested that the model wasn't broken.

In a flight of righteous indignation I wrote back:  "Everyone who is deeply enmeshed in the social media world is so quick to defend it, but it don't work for the rest of us.  As a writer, as, dare I say it, an artist, the onus should not be on me, or Brian or so many others, to build some digital dust empire to be seen.  We've got work to do, creating art.  If the model takes time, effort and money away from the creator, if the model accepts false metrics, ill-gotten likes and "exposure" as collateral, it's broken.  If the model looks at fashion and pretty design and sensationalist, current affair, designed-to-go-viral microposts as an indicator of skill or talent, it's broken. If, as I have heard over and over, the model wants me to write less, dumber and insists that I play SM reindeer games, yeah, it's fucking broken."

Yeah... pretty.

I am not proud that I lashed out in anger at someone I actually respect a great deal.


That night I finished a book by Newbery Medal and Carnegie Medal award-winning children's novelist, Sharon Creech.  In the last month or so I'd read six of her books previous to this one, Castle Corona, and had enjoyed them all.  Her stories rely on deep emotion and simple, compelling plot-lines.  In this book she used medieval archetypes - a bumbling king, a vain princess, honest peasant children, a wise and wizened hermit, a wiser crone, a poet prince.  It is a redemptive, allegorical story that is still with me.

I set the book aside on the nightstand and a thought came up in my mind that I couldn't shake - the words aren't broken.

I knew what that meant.  Storytelling isn't broken.  Sentences still work.  A period ends one, a capital begins the next.  Tenderness still works, love ain't broken.  Simple works.  Metaphor and voice and tone, devices and tenses and meter, connotation, denotation, alliteration, assonance, inner rhyme - none broken.  Redemption, renewal, power, love, duty, fame, honor all are themes that shall forever remain unbroken as we build story upon story on their immutable foundations.

If words like Ms. Creech's reach me in the quiet of my family home and trace tears down my face, well, maybe the model isn't "fucking broken."

Maybe something else is.


Maybe... I'm broken.


It is difficult to not feel broken when one will turn fifty-five in a few days.  55.  "Double nickles."  Five years from 60.  Not possible.  I hurt.  My shoulders and knees hurt from thirty-some years of slinging drinks and hash.  My hands hurt from forty-some years of pickin' guitars.  My back spazzes out when I twist funny.  My gut hurts from three full open abdominal surgeries.

And, though it's hard to admit, my heart hurts sometimes, too.  The world looks broken to me.  Perhaps, I've just mislaid my rose-colored glasses.  I don't know.

I was trying to find something I'd seen a while back on FB and clicked an old link and this came up:

Yep, broken Facebook.

The next screen, which I failed to screencap, suggested I may have a "bad connection."

Yeah, if every thing and person and institution and soul and heart seems broken to you, well, maybe you're the broken thing.  Maybe, you have a bad connection.


Listen, there's a little more to this story.  I started this last week and wrote the bulk of it Monday and Tuesday morning.  I'd been fighting a bad cough for a couple of weeks figuring it was just a bad cold I couldn't shake.  I had a very bad coughing spell early Tuesday morning that left me breathless, sore and, frankly, a little afraid.  Because of the wonderful thing that is healthcare in the US, my primary care doctor couldn't see me until St. Patrick's Day, but I could go to a "priority care" facility nearby.  I went and waited there - for an hour.

After a nurse checked vitals, I sat for another half hour.  Finally, the doctor came in, asked a few questions and after listening to my chest and all looked at me and said:  "You're a real sick dude."

I was diagnosed with acute bronchitis and GERD induced asthma, a common side dish to chest infections.  He gave me an antibiotic, steroids, Prilosec and an inhaler.

Turns out I was broken.


The other day I was looking for a post to put up for that "Throw Back Thursday" thing folks do.  I found this piece, A Prayer For You, and was reminded that I've felt - been - broken before.

Without Brokenness there is no redemption.

Broken dream lead to better ones.

Broken hearts strengthen that same heart as it heals.

Broken ideas transform into deeper, new understanding.

A broken body on a cross, forsaken, wounded, ultimately healing all.


Brokenness is simply a chance at renewal, at Redemption.


Well, that's enough for now.  There's one last thing I'd like to say.  In my opinion, Facebook is broken.  I know many of you have liked the "ihopeiwinatoaster" FB page, I appreciate that, but many of you say you aren't seeing my posts.  Rumor has it that if you check both "See First" in "In your news feed," and "On (All Posts)" in "Notifications," you'll see all I post there.  Remember, I long ago promised I would annoy you with a lot of links and shares to things you've probably already seen, I still won't.

Or you can sign up for email notifications with the, uh, RSS feed thingee gidget up there to the right of the top of this post.


I have to learn to accept my brokenness.

Telling you about it helped.


God's Peace to you all.  Thanks for sittin' a while, did you notice the daffodils and crocuses coming up over where the construction crew ripped that old oak out last summer and I thought nothing'd ever grow there again?  There's a sapling come up as well.