Writer Dad is a sublime site about family and fatherhood with well written tales alongside helpful hints and strategies to help render our children into remarkable writers. Please subscribe (for free) by RSS or Email. Thanks! This post revisits a theme I’ve written about previously in, “Dad, DAD, DAD!!!” Any one of us who has ever given birth, brought a baby home from the hospital, or been in the same room with a child for over 5 minutes can probably relate. “Dad, it’s my turn to choose. Mia picked last time and it’s not fair.” Perhaps there are only so many decibels our ears permit before the drums finally swing the door closed. Just maybe, the more annoying the noise, the lower the tolerance. “Dad, Max is antagonizing me.” I haven’t had a day of quiet in almost 8 years. At first it was fine. I was a new dad, eager to slip into my new responsibilities. The scream of an infant is immediate, sends your heart sinking straight to your deepest depths, demanding you do whatever you can to stop it. Change, feed, or comfort your child. I must provide them with all they need, for I am one of the two threads sewing their safety to the world. “What’s for dinner?” I LOVE listening to my children. I think they are awesomely articulate, wonderfully imaginative and endlessly engaging. One of my favorite things in the world is to discuss the best and worst parts of our days, dig deep into the depths of who they are and who they want to be, and listen to stories both real and invented as they unspool our of their mouths from the bobbin in their brain. BUT “Dad, dfaklejk; fdlkdsjfiel;k Dad kdfja;iefj;ajf;dfkd k Dad i;jf;leif;ejf;alseifj;lasdjf;lsaefj Dad faielalmcmiel Dad fjiejaiae;lfij Dad fjie;lajef;j Dad ajf;iealfjs;fj ;dfij;a eisjfa;lsijf;lseajf;ajef; asfj;as fj;afj Dad Dad Dad Dad Dad Dad Dad!!!!!” Some days I feel as though my mind is mired inside the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan. My eyes are shallow crimson pools, scanning the same paragraph for the 47th time while listening to an endless loop of banter between my offspring that’s been bouncing back and forth for one half of forever and making me question whether time has finally started to fold back upon itself. Suddenly I hear the hint of a nearly silent sizzle, like ice cold water drizzled across a flaming skillet. A single second later and the space between my ears begins to detonate. I feel my sanity take flight, my reasoning collapse upon itself, and the atoms of my body constrict then explode as they fly off and scatter in fifty different directions. I smell the sudden stench of burning flesh and look around the room to see steaming piles of myself littering the hardwood floors. I shake it off and attempt to stand but the iron weight of discomfort from the unrelenting din and discord continues to beat on my battered body like a wayward and angry bolt of lightning. If I hear Dad one more time, it might be enough to send me sailing straight over the edge. “Dad?” “Yes?” “You’re my best friend.” { 9 comments }
Has anyone ever considered that the universal hearing loss of the elderly might be entirely by choice? I wonder if there’s a line that could be drawn between hearing loss and children raised. I’ve no idea what kind of capital it would require, but it’s probably worth the fund raising to get a team in Geneva to start working round the clock on the research.
“That’s not true! He picked two times in a row and now he’s trying to steal my turn away from me!”
“Nu-uh. Two Fridays ago, when it was cloudy and the man outside was yelling really loud and the phone rang and you said you’d be right back and then you were gone for a bunch of minutes and then when you came back you said that it would be my turn but then it wasn’t my turn because we had to go eat dinner and then we had stories and then we went to bed and I never got my turn and now it’s my turn and it’s not fair.”
“I was just -”
“He came into my room after I told him that he couldn’t. Then he took my Minty pony and threw it on top of the shelf. Then he laughed. Six times. Then he kissed me two times even though I told him he was in my privacy. Now he’s taking all the books off my shelves and he keeps meowing like a kitty and won’t stop. He also said that someday I’m going to die.”
“Are we almost there?”
“She started it!”
“It wasn’t me.”
“I’m hungry.”
“I’m thirsty.”
“I’m tired.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I’m not thirsty.”
“I’m not tired.”Writer Dad
The helter skelter of the last few weeks has prompted me to run this particular “Deja Tuesday” post. This was originally written sometime back around mid November of last year. Since then “Finding my Friday” has become one of my favorite phrases.
It is slightly rewritten to reflect the new year and my new understanding of the comma, but is otherwise mostly in tact.
Enjoy!
Life never unfolds quite as expect, and hoping that it will is more than a little like swatting fog. Days unfold, weeks disappear, and we often find ourselves doing our best when we simply catch up and catch our breath. We keep our eyes fastened forward, accept what we see, remain thankful for all we have that is working, and arrange to change what doesn’t.
We cannot stop life from happening. It goes on every day with or without us. It follows us everywhere, surrounding us at all times no different than the air we breathe.
We never know how one moment will drift into the next, so it is paramount we regard our moments as each a possible precursor to the last; forever fixing our face toward the now, while never forgetting to flick our eyes at the horizon and whatever prize we’ve placed beneath, while understanding there are few things we can simply compel to happen.
When big things happen suddenly, there is often unreasonable cost attached.
Like a tsunami, or avalanche.
Life, at its best, happens bit by tiny bit.
Does the caterpillar know what he will one day be?
Probably not.
One thing Cindy has always said, though only now am I hearing it in the way she’s always meant it: “We mustn’t ever skip our steps.”
I love our modern world, but when I can download nearly anything that caresses my mood, how can I remain humble and look patience in the eye? More important, how can I teach this to my children?
There’s an order to life, and to most things we say we want and are willing to work for. Skipping even a single step, often means misunderstanding or misapplying something in the future. If we consider we are here just once, this seems precarious and unnecessary.
My biggest one to grow on during my twenties was patience. Fortunately, life saw fit to outfit me with the ultimate foe of an impatient man: first a girl and then a boy.
I’m more patient than I used to be, but I still have about a million miles to meander.
Last Friday, I was in the middle of telling Cindy about my brand new idea - the new one; the one that would change everything, allow us to scale our next summit, and plant a flag deep inside all future possibility. A good fifteen minutes had passed since the last idea and, since it was getting late, it was perfectly possible a better idea would not arrive before the dawn.
“Sweetheart,” Cindy said, placing her hand on my forearm to stop me from pacing. She gingerly pulled me on the love seat beside her. “You need to find your Friday.”
These last few months have seen me celebrating my new life as a full time writer by piling more and more onto my ridiculously heaping plate. I tackle each week as though the Romans didn’t get it done in a day by choice. There’s a lot to be said for working hard and using every minute, but it is something else entirely when your minutes are misapplied.
But doing my best doesn’t always mean doing my most.
I found my Friday, and fortunately, my Saturday and Sunday sailed into the sunset right behind.
Writer Dad
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Communication is the central ingredient to any prosperous marriage. My wife and I work together; our worlds orbiting and intersecting every day of the week, during most of our daylight and all of our dark.
This would be a strain on many a couple, yet after a dozen years and two children together (the youngest starting kindergarten in the fall) we continue to grow stronger each day.
This would not be possible if clear, consistent communication was not at the dead center of our days.
By no means do Cindy and I share a perfect marriage, but it is a thriving, healthy union between two best friends who are still thrilled to spend as much time together as possible, and prefer to head toward the horizon rowing our oars in the same direction. What works for us might not work for everyone, but if I were to jot a list, and I suppose for the sake of this post I have, this is what I’d say:
The six steps to healthy communication and a happy marriage
1) Plan time to talk. Much of our communication is spontaneous, messages flying through the air with abandon and often chased by laughter. Tossed off comments, specific instructions, humorous asides and lists of things to do are all blended in the daily cocktail of conversation. Amid the helter skelter of every day, a healthy marriage deserves specific time dedicated to a couple’s connection. Cindy and I each have an awful lot of work to get done during the day, but we make certain we have uninterrupted time each evening where the two of us can plug back in to the attention of the other. Weak communication paves the road to an unhappy life. Whether in your work or play, communication is essential to success, but nowhere is it more important than with the other person with whom you share your bed. Yes, we discuss our day’s difficulties, but we also share our highs and always make sure to mine a few minutes to dream about days that have not yet happened.
2) Swap shoes. Our individual history defines us; a million minutes of nature and nurture constantly crafting our character. No one will ever see the world exactly as we do, and we can never expect to see the world from the exact vista of another, but slipping into the perspective of our significant other is an essential ingredient to truly understanding them. When a couple disagrees, it isn’t always about one person being right and the other wrong, it is about two individuals with different perspectives finding a healthy way to bridge the space between their thoughts.
3) Clean your ears. Don’t ever pretend to listen if you’re only waiting for your turn to speak. Be an active listener instead. Observe the obvious cues and respond appropriately and with purpose. Notice not just the language being used, but the tone of delivery, facial expressions, and body posture as well. Your spouse deserves to feel safe - they must know their thoughts are important to you and that you will give them all the regard and consideration they deserve.
4) Be consistent. Surprises are fun when they include candles, balloons, and stacks of sugary treats. Not so much when they involve mood swings and terrifying tirades. A couple should be able to rely on a consistent mutual mood. The constant calibration of expectations leads to fear, anxiety, and restlessness. This isn’t to say you aren’t entitled to your bad days. We all have them for sure, but if you can chart your moods on a graph and it looks like the Alps, then you have a problem that needs solving. You are teaching your partner to live with uncertainty; a bridge built with fraying rope.
5) Trust. We all have bad days. There should be no one in your word more willing to hear you vent than the person on the pillow beside you. If after a bad day, you choose to plug a cork into your feelings sin the vain hope your spouse won’t notice, well that’s a bit like cranking the radio so you can’t hear the grinding noise of a failing engine. Your anger will go nowhere, and will likely only manifest itself in an unsettled mood. Have faith that your spouse wants to hear what you have to say. If you have a history of stilted conversation, start slow. Communication improves like anything else - a day at a time.
6) Be Honest. I believe there is nothing more essential to a thriving marriage than honesty. If you think you are slyly hiding things from the sight of your spouse, believe me - you aren’t. Your spouse is knows you are hiding something, even if it is only on a subconscious level that they themselves could never articulate. Humans are often smarter than they give themselves credit for. Be honest with your feelings and honest with your intentions. Say what you mean, mean what you say, and never use honesty as a license to be unkind.
These rules are general; a vague outline for living that can be modified to fit your own set of circumstances. Excellent communication doesn’t mean you always agree, but it must always remain considerate. Never use words as weapons or attempt to guilt, bully, dominate, blame, outwit, or control your partner.
The union we share with our partners is like a wheel. Negativity will only roll around to ruin us.
Writer Dad
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{ 27 comments }
Today is an anniversary. Last June 22 was a Father’s Day I will never forget.
Though I had been writing a few months already, it was a secret known only to the three members of my household and my Papí. During the last year of his life, my grandfather lay in bed quietly eating candy by the handful and impatiently waiting to join his Honey, recently passed after seventy-four years by his side.
Every Saturday during those last two years I would drive to his house to spend some time with him, never knowing for certain if that drive would be the last. Papí was the first person I told I was writing both because I didn’t want to miss the chance to tell him and because my grandfather delighted in keeping a secret.
During his final two months, I would bring my binder of children’s stories to read out loud, turning pages with one hand while holding his in the other. Every week as I entered the room, his wrinkles would part and his eyes would brighten. He would proudly announce that he hadn’t told a soul and then ask if I had found a publisher.
Of course I had not. I was writing simple children’s rhymes and was a wide world away from publishing. Yet on the day before Father’s Day last year, I told him that yes, I had found a publisher and my work would likely see print by the end of the year.
The next day, I met with my dad for breakfast where I handed him a binder with all my stories and shared the rough draft of the novel I’d written. It was my official coming out - a new door was open. Saying the words out loud to someone besides my Papí had rendered them to reality.
I was a writer.
Just as morning fell into afternoon, I got a call from my mother. The doctors were saying Papí probably wouldn’t make it through the night. Less than an hour passed before the phone rang again, and I knew before I answered that at 99 years old, the most remarkable life I had ever known would never draw another breath.
The next week was his funeral. Below you will find a handful of the words I recited, written in the same rhythm as so many of the stories I read to him during his few final weeks. Papí wasn’t sad to go. Every week he told me he was ready and often wondered why it was taking so long. I did not grieve for the passing of a life well lived, but I still miss my Papí every day.
Jose Ramos, Daddy, Papí. A man impossible to copy.
He had a one and only inclination to live his life with such elation,
joy and mischief, mirth, and cheer; too much for one century, minus a year.
Papí was gentle, and impossibly funny. He valued his friendships far above money.
He always looked forward and without regret. He never walked away from a window to bet.
He meant so much to me in his immovable place. I can look in the mirror and stare at his face.
Ever since that time when I was small - a sassy little know it all -
he and my Honey guided me, to the best that I could be.
Every weekend of my youth, with conduct ungrateful and a little uncouth,
they took me in and taught me well. But more than simply to speak and to spell.
They taught me other messages, a lot more essential, like meeting and making my moral potential.
They trained me not to cheat or lie, to never quit and always try,
to speak my mind and wait my turn, to show compassion and concern,
to all my neighbors, lend out a hand or maybe an ear to understand.
The best from all these lessons learned, a powerful example burned
(in my mind like it was branded), they both taught me single handed
how to treat my only other - as though the world could hold no other
soul who could ever compare, no matter who and no matter where.
They loved each other without doubt, without dearth, and without drought.
Even though I was only a kid, I know exactly the good that it did.
It showed me what to want from life, then led me toward my perfect wife.
If I could ever travel back, take the years and flip the stack,
I’d look them in their younger eyes and thank them true for being wise
and providing me a perfect picture to follow like a written scripture.
I grew up, and added years, a bigger nose and longer ears.
By the time I was mature, walking tall and talking sure.
I saw Papí from a different position, with what I’d already seen plus another addition.
It’s not the years in our life but the life in our years, the gray in our hair and the salt in our tears.
The smiles we carry and people we meet, the flavors of life from sour to sweet.
Papi’s a man who met wisdom with age, by living his life like he lived it on stage.
I’ll never forget him if I’m a hundred and five. In my heart I will always keep Papi alive.
Writer Dad
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My Dad
If there was an adventurer who agreed to enlist
in search of the awesomest father to ever exist,
He’d have to hunt every record throughout every land,
from the countries with mountains to those filled with sand.
When he was all finished, he’d return empty handed,
though I would not be surprised because that’s just how I planned it.
I already knew my father was the best.
I was only putting the world to the test.
Other dads are tiny trikes.
My Daddy is a car.
Other dads are ukuleles.
My Dad is a guitar.
Other dads are just a sprint.
My Daddy is the race.
Other dads are only hairline.
My Dad is the face.
My Daddy is a rock star. He’s a regular rambling ranger;
a stupendous super hero, dismissing every drop of danger.
He taught me how to read and then he taught me how to write.
I follow his example. That’s why I am polite.
He’s fantastic and he’s fun. He’s firm but always fair.
I’ve hung with other dads, of course, but they couldn’t compare.
Sometimes we go out fishing. Sometimes we toss a ball.
My daddy tries to make the time for us to do it all.
Other dads are cute koalas.
My Dad is a Bear.
Other dads are invitations.
My Daddy is a dare.
Other dads are only branches.
My Dad is the trunk.
Other dads are ally oops.
My Daddy’s a slam dunk.
My Dad’s a Sunday breakfast filled with each and every fixing,
spread across the table with all the flavors mixing.
Pancakes next to muffins, bananas butting berries,
bacon next to sausage, across from all the cherries.
Hot chocolate flatters waffles, eggs improve with cheese,
all alongside orange juice - that of course has just been squeezed.
Other dads are only eyes.
My Dad’s a set of shades.
Other dads are two of hearts.
My Dad’s the Ace of Spades.
Other dads have shaky knees.
My Dad is always brave.
Other dads are mushy surf.
My Dad’s the perfect wave.
My Daddy is the greatest and to this I can attest.
Other dads, I’m sure are awesome. Mine is still the best.
While other dads are slapping fives, my Daddy tosses ten.
He tells me that he loves me. Then he tells me so again.
If you still don’t believe me, and think your dad’s the chief,
then I’ll just sit right here and shake my head in disbelief.
Writer Dad
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{ 22 comments }
“…And then we had to find a place to sit because the phone rang and the man who had to answer it got really really busy and he told us he would be right back and so Daddy said why don’t we just sit down for a minute, so then we sat down and waited and waited, but I don’t remember what the clock said because I couldn’t tell time yet, but it was a long long time, but not as long as a whole movie.”
The word movie barely made it out. Max had to draw a breath before adding to his barrage of never ending verbiage. In that single second pause, I managed to both lock eyes with Cindy and glance at our own clock just long enough to note that the story had been unfolding across a long twelve minutes.
“Then we had get up from our seats and the car doctor put the Sienna on one of those big metal poles that makes the car go really really high in the air so you can see underneath. What is it called again?” Max wrinkled his nose and shrugged his shoulders, the final sentence ending in a squeak, just as it always does when capped with a question mark.
Cindy and I glanced at one another again, neither of us with anything close to a clue. “I’m not sure buddy,” I said, a bit embarrassed I didn’t know, but also a little glad. Though I love my son to see me as the Lord of all Vocabulary, my not knowing underlines the simple truth that we are all constant learners. “Why don’t we call it the car doctor pole,” I said.
“That’s a great idea, Dad!” Max agreed. I could swear his smile added 5 watts to the already bright bulb. “Then we had to walk home, but first we had to give the man the key and after we gave the man the key he said thank you and his manners were really great, and then we left the car doctor and we had to walk all the way home.” Max paused, lifting his little hand in front of his quickly growing face. He stared at his palm with all five fingers spread for about a second before lowering his thumb. “It was four blocks,” Max declared with a nod. “We walked four blocks from the car doctor and then we were back home.”
Mia, Cindy and I all waited, allowing the silence to settle, wanting to make certain this wasn’t one of the false finishes we’d already sat through several times before. “I’m done with my story,” Max sang more than said. We all clapped.
For fifteen minutes we’d listened as Max told us a teeny tiny tale elongated toward infinity about the time we had to take our car to the car doctor. The magic of his narrative didn’t lay in the details of his delivery, though they were abundant enough. It was in the fact that our little boy, a few days shy of his fifth birthday, was telling us about something that had happened to him two years earlier, when the scope of his vocabulary lay in three digits rather than five.
Max related the story with the eager enthusiasm I might have expected if we had just returned from the car doctor ten minutes earlier, but two years had done nothing to strip the immediacy. A born storyteller, my son was simply waiting for the right time to release his reams of waiting thoughts.
Memory is a remarkable thing.
Great storytellers deserve an audience and performers must never take their listeners for granted. My son has manners it seems that nothing, at least right now, can ever seem to melt.
“Thank you for being patient and listening to my story,” he said.
Thank you, Max.
Writer Dad
Max is turning 5 this week, next week we’re going to celebrate with you. He’s been dying to talk to the audience again since one second after the last time. I promised him for his birthday he could.
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{ 17 comments }
I live in a large corner lot, 9 blocks from the beach…in an ancient house that both Father Time and civic pride seemed to have abandoned.
The house is an old Victorian, a perfect purchase for its original purpose - running a nursery school on the first floor while our family made house up on the second. The house, a hair or two over a hundred years old, has at least a 100,000 tales to tell, few of which I know and none of which I’ll share today. This particular tale takes place just outside the house, specifically along the fence that wraps around the lawn and faces the two separate streets that converge upon our corner.
The fence is not nearly as old as the house. Where I can still clearly see the hidden beauty of our abode tucked beyond the structure’s years, the fence was obviously unattractive when installed. However, it wasn’t lack of beauty that kept me from loving it. From the moment I first saw the fence I knew exactly what it wasn’t, and knowing what it wasn’t gave me an open invitation to cast a wish for what it might someday come to be.
The fence sat at the perfect height to obscure the outside world and shield some of the more unbecoming of our neighborhood’s behavior from the forever curious and always wandering eyes of my offspring. Neither Cindy or I would say we overly shelter our children. We expose them to as much language and experience as possible and stroll our streets regularly. Last summer didn’t fill the gas tank on either vehicle a single time. Still, there are plenty of things I’d rather they not see, especially from the supposed sanctuary of a private playground where they hold every right to remain. I would rather they not get jarred from the abundant imagination of childhood by course behavior, too often oblivious to the innocence of children. The problem was, the thin metal bars of the fence were completely see through.
Fortunately, a lifetime living among flowers filled my mind with a solution. Within two weeks of moving in to the house, I drove to a nursery, bought a few one gallon morning glories, then waited for time and our nearest star to harmonize the inevitable.
With my eyes closed I could clearly see: a lush green backdrop against which my children could play, irrespective of the concrete jungle on the other side. But like any canvas worth covering, multiplying the morning glories wouldn’t happen on its own.
Sun and water took care of the tendrils. The tedium was mine.
Each afternoon I would line my chair against the fence and wrap the morning glories through the apertures, weaving a lattice of nature thick enough to canvas a small area at a time, yet thin enough for the future to find its way through. There were times when this routine was relaxing, but more often than not it was a humdrum chore, hard to look forward to and difficult to find pleasure in. But every day I did it anyway, every afternoon imagining the way the fence would one day be - after the ironclad law of a whole lot of a little finally added up to some kind of a lot.
It took about a year and a half for the morning glories to swallow the fence. Now my children play in their own Narnia. The beauty isn’t just for them, nor has it stayed wrapped around the fence. Part of the beauty has woven its way into my mind to teach me a lesson I needed do learn.
I built something else during those long months of weaving and winding, something that went far beyond natural sanctuary. Anyone reading right now can relate.
The colorless drudgery of our days can sometimes blossom with the full fruition of a dream earned. Raising children, blogging, running a household, living a wonderful life. Everything worth loving takes time to create and sometimes the repetitive nature of living threatens to swallow us whole.
But it is always worth it.
The next time you find yourself wrapping morning glories of your own, remember: one day all those afternoons of tedium might finally combine to wipe away everything you don’t care to see.
Writer Dad
{ 26 comments }
Summer is here and there has never been a better time to get your child’s writing where it should be. If you have a child, Cindy and I have a present.
Children do write the future and we want that horizon to be as rich as possible. ChildrenWritetheFuture.com is a site for young writers with a portion of the site’s content developed by the young writers themselves.
The Children Write the Future newsletter comes with tips and tricks to help find the best writer inside your child. We’re kicking it off with a summer writing contest. If you are already subscribed, the details are in your inbox. If you haven’t subscribed and know you want to, you can do so below. Everyone else, head to Children Write the Future and check it out!
See you soon!
Writer Dad
{ 8 comments }
“Time is what prevents everything from happening at once.”
~John Archibald Wheeler
Most of the time when it’s my turn to pick up Max from preschool, I admit, I’m running at least a little bit behind. Often, I leave my desktop scattered, but do all I can to ensure the clouds in my mind are clearing by the third red light. My alone time with Max is well earned and I owe it to both of us to make certain I’m able to draw the most from our minutes.
Last week I finished a batch of work early, too late to start something new but just enough time to decompress without rushing my drive. I can almost always use these few extra minutes to decompress, but rarely do I indulge. I parked the car, crossed the lawn, and found myself standing in front of his classroom a full fifteen minutes before pick-up time, all alone amid a surprisingly sudden spring chill.
When I fell to sleep that night, it was with an extra quarter of an hour well worth remembering forever.
Opportunities to observe my children without them knowing are few and far between. I would surrender all I had and slowly pay it back were I offered the chance to nestle inside their heads for a while or more. I was thrilled for a chance that afternoon to be a fly on the wall. Max was in class, back to the window, his teacher pretending not to notice me on the other side of the long pane of glass. The door was closed but the walls were thin, and among the dozen voices singing in a circle, I could clearly hear the one who carried half my DNA.
It was wonderful to see Max as a student without him knowing I was there. He sang, he danced, he took turns. He said thank you, he smiled, he laughed. With just a few minutes to go before the door would swing open and Max would yell, “DADDY!” as he furiously ran into my arms, I realized with the iron weight of the innevitable that it was likely the last time I would ever have the pleasure of seeing him as an unguarded preschooler.
In the fall, Max will start kindergarten and the first chapter of my children’s lives will have finally faded into yesterday.
The sudden certainty was a dull mallet thudding against the soft skin of my slowly beating heart. This summer will bridge the gap between who he was and who he will be. In the fall he will be spending days as his sister has for the last two years, far from our eyes and constantly surrounded by the sights and sounds of a separate life. This is the natural order and all is as it should be, but I still feel it turning in my gut like the aftermath of a rich holiday meal.
The next day, I drove to pick up Mia from school while Max took an afternoon nap. Our family friend Fay just turned six, so the two of us stopped by her house for a moment to drop off a small gift. We hadn’t been there for a few months, but Mia immediately dropped to the same spot where she’d drawn on the concrete during the last visit, making long arcs of washed out color while I talked to Fay’s dad and grandma, keeping watch from the corner of my eye.
The months have only made her more beautiful. She looked so big there, drawing her name in chalk no different than she did the last time. Her letters a little loopier and her Y a little longer, legs now spilling a little past the edge they merely met before. My thoughts immediately drifted back to Max who seems to have shot up three inches in the last month as the last of the toddler disappeared from his cheeks.
I know I talk about the passing of time an awful lot. It’s one of my most consistent themes, both here and in my most private pages. I can’t help it. My favorite stage of the rose has always been when the blooms are full and the petals are about to drop - the perfume so pungent it permeates the air.
The rose in that moment will never be more striking, it’s scent never richer. The petals drop and all is left to memory.
Writer Dad
{ 28 comments }
Four Seasons is such a wonderfully quiet project, here but once a month slowly building to something extremely special at the end of this year. If you have already subscribed to the free stories once per month, thank you. If not, you can to it at the end of this excerpt.
David Wright has now joined the project and made it even awesomer.
Enjoy:
“I’m not eating her egg rolls, and I don’t care if they’ve gone from honorable to third place at the Strawberry Festival - they’re still filthy,” Brian barely muttered the last fragment under his breath as he waved the red Grand Am in front of him. “And they’re barely even egg rolls.”
“You don’t have to eat the egg rolls. I already told her you’re lactose intolerant.” Maya put her hand on Brian’s knee as he relaxed into the rhythm of the newly merged freeway, and then added, “Just be nice.”
“I’m always nice,” he said.
“I know,” Maya agreed exactly as much out loud as she did in her head, “but today you have to be Mother’s Day nice.”
“Mother’s Day nice? She hasn’t so mush as wished me a happy birthday in the six years we’ve been together.”
“She doesn’t mean anything by it.”
Brian could have said, “Of course you feel that way. She’s your mother,” but he didn’t see it filling the air any differently than the approximately 4,738 times he’d already said it before. Maya was well aware of every one of her mother’s million and one faults, and could probably write them backwards in Greek if she were ever to slip into some sort of talking-in-tongues dementia. But it was her mother, and Maya’s responses were well oiled; immediate instinct being to dim the indisputable defects of her mom while shining a light on Brian’s own melodrama.
Brian stared at the road, trying to read the license plate three cars in front of him while Maya fiddled with the stations. Jasmine cried from the back seat, suddenly awake and sure to be hungry. She’d managed to stay asleep from cradle to car seat, as well as the last two hours nestled in the freeway’s lullaby.
The sudden cry split the moment and Maya started digging through the diaper bag in search of a bottle. Brian tried not to sigh. Maya’s mother, Olivia, was a royal pain in the ass and though already plenty tolerant of her bullshit, he’d be a lot more able to swallow it all with a smile if she could at the very least admit it.
Olivia’s husband left her 10 years earlier and she’d been drowning deeper in delusion with each passing year. At first, Olivia believed (despite the absurdity), that she and the old man were meant for one another. Once she realized he was a dirty scum bag who thought cheating was fine as long as you’re breathing, she started to believe it was she and Maya vs. the world and any man walking it.
Brian was sure Maya defended him whenever one of the arrows was especially sharp or unnecessary and he himself wasn’t around to deflect it, but both knew that if she spent her time defending everything, there would never be breath between monologues.
It was always easier to simply agree.
“You can never count on a man,” Olivia would say. Maya would offer a “Brian’s never let me down before” or a “You can’t generalize everything, Mom,” but her protests were never met by anything more than a dismissive whistle or abrupt change of subject.
Brian took a half glance behind him and crossed four lanes, drifting toward the exit with the kind of fluid sweep only possible in and around LA on a Sunday. The car was still silent, save for the barely audible backbeat of an old and almost forgotten one hit wonder that only Maya could ever remember the name to, and the sound of Jasmine drinking her bah-bah in the car seat behind them.
The subject of family was best not brought up, like student loans or bachelor parties. Mostly, it was a subject that had already been stripped of all its nutrients. All that was left was a syrup fit for moonshine. The subject would surface, they would each say slightly more than they should and far less than they meant, and then let awkward silence fill the space between them while counting the long seconds until it was safe to fill the air again.
The baby made everything easier.
“She’s so beautiful,” Brian said, removing his two o’clock from the steering wheel and adjusting the rear view mirror to gain a better look at the pursed lips and focused eyes of the beautiful baby in the back seat suckling on her bottle. His cheeks spread and the smile instantly defrosted his face. Maya absorbed the warmth.
“So do you think mom will be up or down today?” she asked.
“We referring to mood or weight?”
“Is there a difference?” Maya laughed a littler harder than needed and Brian joined her as he pulled a left onto her mother’s tiny cul de sac…
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