When the Petals Drop

June 3, 2009 By 72 Comments

“Time is what prevents everything from happening at once.”
~John Archibald Wheeler

When the petals dropMost 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

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The Sands of Time

May 28, 2009 By 51 Comments

The Sands of Time

The sands of TIME are always dropping.
Never slowing, never stopping.
TIME moves on, his beat unchanging.
Minutes for moments, always exchanging.

Father Time keeps everything steady.
He only cares about us, not if we’re ready.
TIME is his asset – the greatest we get.
We must discover this early and never forget.

June never knew this, at least that’s how she acted.
The character of days she routinely subtracted.
Whittling hours to minutes, then seconds to nil,
Life rolled from her grip like a boulder down hill.

June never quite got it – that TIME is a treasure,
And should only be used in appreciative measure.
June thought of her TIME as unending as water,
She lined up her minutes then led them to slaughter.

Father Time (as you know) is ancient and fair.
He is always alert and always aware.
He wants us to treasure his glorious gift,
By not living too slow, or silent or swift.

His advice is so simple. Sincerely, it’s smart:
Treat each day as your last, live it full with your heart.
But June didn’t do this. She was not even near.
June misspent her calendar, year after year.

She found herself sprinting and falling behind,
With too many things always clouding her mind.
The day of out tale June was running around.
If being early was sky, then June was the ground.

Though feeling behind and a bit overdue,
June was not feeling anything new.
June’s trademark trait, her own custom quirk,
was never quite getting her daylight to work.

So Time came out of nowhere as he’s known to do,
When his minutes get frittered to only a few.
He appeared on her lawn in an angry dark cloud.
He was walking real tall and talking real loud.

His beard was snow white, and ancient and long.
His arms looked like sticks, though quite obviously strong.
Each limb was unique; they did not share the same size,
Complimenting the chronographs ablaze in his eyes.

They were ticking round clocks with a big and small hand.
On his chest was an hour glass spilling its sand.
June’s house became flooded in a fine mist of smoke.
Time entered the room and like thunder he spoke.

“Stop where you are!” came his bellowed command.
“You’ve been mocking my first and my long second hand!
You’re treating my TIME as though merely a joke,”
The room then belched a bit with a ringlet of smoke.

“You let every one of your minutes bleed,
As if I served no other need,
Then helping your days fall off the calendar fast,
Ahead toward your future, away from your past!”

Father Time sighed and then dropped on the couch.
“I am not easily offended, or a grumpy old grouch,
But TIME is so soft. It is easy to bruise.
You must always be wary of how much you lose.

When it is gone, it will never return.
TIME sees no difference in what you earn,
Or how much money you keep in the bank.
June,” Father Time paused. “I have to be frank.”

“Every minute you use is one less than before,
And I am never permitted to offer you more.
It doesn’t matter one bit how much you might try
Or whine, or beg, or scream, or cry.

I hand it out once and then never again.
All TIME is a mixture of how and when.
How you spend it, and when you are through.
A minute’s a minute. You can’t split it in two.

You must understand that before it’s too late.
We all live the life we decide to create.”
“So, do the important, ignore the small.
There is not enough time to get to it all.

Make time for a sunrise, take a walk in the park.
Aim to go slower and bulls-eye your mark.
Television’s terrific, but books are great too.
Try singing or painting, or anything new.”

June looked at time. She stared that clock in his face,
Then said, “You’re right! I’ve been living all over the place.
I have to slow down. I understand that I do.
I can’t keep bounding about like a big kangaroo.

I’ll start to notice the small things in my days,
By doing new things and changing my ways.”
Then June got excited. Her voice jumped in pitch.
Something had shifted, inside her a switch.

“I will start to consider the things that I do.
It’s out with the old and in with the new.
I’ll go to bed early and wake up the same.
I’ll paint my picture of life in a whole different frame.

Instead of watching my seconds all circle the drain,
I’ll treat them like shelter in a torrent of rain.”
June was now jumping and pacing the ground,
Enlivened by something first lost and then found.

“I’ll play the piano and get exercise.”
Father Time had to smile at the gleam in her eyes.
“I’ll learn a new language, turn off my TV.
I’m a whole different person, Father, wait and you’ll see.”

“I don’t need to see,” he said, “I’m watching right now.”
Father Time kindly knelt, wiping sweat from her brow.
“This is a lesson that you understand.
Appreciate TIME and your life will expand.

You only get one chance. Make your life the best.
Don’t spend it all running and feeling so stressed.”
“Will I see you again?” June said as TIME started to fade.
“Not if you follow the pact that we made.

Live a life that’s momentous. You hold ME in your hand.
Treasure each moment like the last grain of sand.”

Writer Dad

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Lobster Racing Part Duex

January 15, 2009 By 40 Comments

“Memory is a child walking along a seashore.  You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its treasured things.”

~Pierce Harris

lobster racingOn your mark, get set, GO!

The lobsters lay listless; the two-thousand mile trip had surely left them spent.

“Why aren’t they racing?”  Max stared at the four little crustaceans, frozen on the floor like a short row of armored idols, long antennae laying still beneath the wind from the fan blades.

For the last year and a half, Mia has been asking to have a lobster race for her birthday.  Daisy and I didn’t quite believe her when she was turning six, but after remaining fixed on her desire for the last twelve months, we knew she had no chinks in her sincerity.

It was all she wanted.  No party, no clothes, no toys.  Nothing outside of a good old fashioned crustacean competition.  Mia knew about mommy and daddy’s race a half decade before her birth and wanted to know what it would be like, as though hearing skittering sea insects scratching across our Spanish tile would somehow transport her back through time and show her the world her parents inhabited before it shifted orbit.

But the lobsters refused to race.

One might imagine the lobster’s complete lack of interest in fulfilling our little girl’s dream  would have somehow stunted her evening.

It wasn’t so.

Mia loved managing her pets for the brief two hours before feasting on their tender white meat.  She was concerned about their languor and did everything she could to nurse them back to lively health.  We moved them to the bathtub and bathed them in shallow water.  This did manage to add a slight improvement to their disposition.

We thought Mia tenderly tending to the lobsters was a bit like the old witch fattening Hansel and Gretel as she prepared the oven.  To her aunt’s delight and horror, Mia is both animal lover and born carnivore.  She loves tearing into meat while discussing which adorable animal she’s feasting upon.

Last night’s lobsters were the first I’ve eaten since that dueling duo a decade before.  The critters that evening were fresh from the tank, still lively in the few hours in between their final bath before it boiled.  Back in the time before children when Daisy and I were comparatively sick with time and money.  These lobsters, a third the size, had probably given up somewhere around the clouds over Missouri.

Mia’s lobsters may have lain motionless, but were delectable nonetheless.  She savored every bite and begged for a little more, slowly savoring her share before swallowing her brothers.  Max didn’t care too much for the lobsters, at least not half as much as he would have a quesadilla.

We desperately wanted for Mia’s lobsters to race.  We wanted the manufacture of her memory to match the fantasy she had built inside her head, but we cannot choose the construction of our recall; they are towering edifices in the cities of our mind.  Those memories were hers, not some refashioned version of ours.

Mia didn’t get to travel through time, but she did get exactly what she wanted.  Not something tangible to play with, only adding to the ever mounting pile of bric-a-brac that clutters most every childhood (including her own).  Mia asked for a slice of forever.

All she wanted was a memory, and that was everything we had to give.

Writer Dad

Ghostwriter Dad is now offering custom wedding vows in addition to custom wedding speeches. I may be a Long Beach writer, but my words are all over the world!

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Happy 100!

November 18, 2008 By 134 Comments

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time.  You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresea, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”

~Life’s Little Instruction Book, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Writer Dad is 100 posts old today.  We’ve moved from two digits to three.

I was wondering if I could ask you all for a favor in celebration of our little landmark.

One of the things that has made this blog what it is, has been the constant flow of reader feedback.  To this, I am forever grateful.  It is you who have pushed my writing far further, and far faster, than it would have flown otherwise.

In lieu of a lengthy post, I’d like to ask that you leave a thought below.  I’m requesting one of two kinds; a compliment, or one to grow on.  Please tell me what it is that you enjoy about Writer Dad, or what it is you believe I can do better.

I won’t be downstairs today.  I’ll read, smile, take notes, etc., but the floor is yours.  Please do not be shy.  If you’ve never commented before, it only takes a minute.  You will need to enter an email address, but no one will ever see it, save for me, and I’m not a collector.  If you would like to say something anonymously, you may enter anonymous (or something more imaginative) and use writerdad@writerdad.com as the email address.

Thank you all for everything, and here’s to a hundred more.

Writer Dad

Sean Platt is a ghostwriter for hire, specializing in custom speeches and wedding vows.

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Finding My Friday

November 17, 2008 By 47 Comments

How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to its young?

~Paul Sweeney

Life never unfolds exactly as expected.  Hoping it will is only swatting at fog.  Days transpire, weeks disappear, and we are often engaging our best when we simply catch up, and catch our breath.  We keep our eyes fixed on what’s coming and then accept it when it does; remain thankful for all we have that works well, 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 everywhere we go, no different from the air we breathe.

We never know how that first drift will flutter the next, so it is paramount that we regard our moments as each a possible precursor to the last; forever holding our head in the now, while never forgetting to flick our eyes at the horizon and whatever prize we’ve placed beneath, while understanding that 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 Daisy’s 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 I’m in the mood for, and less than a decade from losing the nearly altogether, how can I remain humble while looking 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’re here only 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 a million miles to meander.

Last Friday, I was in the middle of telling Daisy about my brand new idea – the new one.  This was 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 that a better idea would not arrive before the dawn.

“Sweetheart,” Daisy said.  She put her hand on my forearm to stop me from pacing, then pulled me down on the couch beside her.  “You need to find your Friday.”

This last week saw me celebrating my new life as a full time writer by piling even more onto my ridiculously heaping plate.  I tackled the week as though the Romans didn’t get it done in a day by choice.  There’s something to be said for working hard and using every minute, but it’s something else when your minutes are misapplied.

We will find our success.  It will happen because we are willing to wake up and give our best every day, 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

Sean Platt is a ghostwriter for hire, specializing in ebook design and press releases.

Namas Daisy has a lesson from the geese.  Both Daves and Tara are getting fit in front of the whole internet.  Check out their awesome new blog, BLOG TO FIT.

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He Plays With Open Hands

November 12, 2008 By 60 Comments

“A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives roses.”

~Chinese Proverb

I‘m a bit of out of sorts.  The children had the day off from school and so did we.  It feels odd, tomorrow being middle of the week.

This morning we went for a walk.  This in itself is not unusual.  We walk often. What was unusual, was running into my father two blocks outside our house. He was delivering flowers, and we live on the other side of town. The odds of him passing us at that particular moment, in a city of nearly half a million people were slim.

“Was that Pop?” Daisy said. “I think I just saw Pop.” She repeated herself without missing a beat in expectation of my disbelief.

The four of us held hands on the corner as my father pulled the car full of flowers against the curb and idled.

It was California crisp. The sun was confident enough to fill the sky, but not cruel enough to make us anything less than perfectly comfortable.

Pop rolled down the windows and I immediately smelled the pungent scent I’d slowly grown immune to over the dozen years I peddled petals.  Our exchange was brief, mostly made of fancy meeting you here; the motor was running, and the flowers weren’t getting any fresher.  Max and Mia each took a final whiff of the flowers before waving farewell.

I said good-bye to Pop.  Neither of us said anything during the quiet that passed between us, each one remembering a time when we had less sharing to do, and time didn’t arrive in such a premium.  He turned around, we waved goodbye, and continued our trek to Walmart for an armload of essentials.

We took care of our must dos, then headed toward the deepest pocket of the nation’s smallest Walmart (located smack in the middle of downtown).  We wandered the toy aisles, and allowed the children to look like we always do.  They love this activity, both of them constantly drawing imaginary lists.  “Can I have this for my birthday?”  Max will ask, even though his birthday is still seven months away.  “Can I have this for Christmas?”  Mia will look up, even though she already knows the answer.

“You may add it to your list,” we say.

Max’s current favorite X on the treasure map is tied between anything Thomas and anything having to do with garbage trucks, or trash in general.  This morning, he parked himself at the bottom of the Thomas display, pulled a box from the shelf, and ran his fingers across the top.  He turned it in his hands and traced the letters, starting with the T and ending with the S.  He returned the box to the shelf and pulled down another.  He continued to do this with a series of boxes, investigating the merit of each.

Max knows there is no possibility that we are leaving with anything beyond what we came for.  There never is.  We leave the house with only cash, and perhaps a dollar or two more than we might need.  Daisy and I have been parents long enough to know our shortcomings.  Max has a handful of expressions that could possibly convince us to crumble our cardinal rule of NO CREDIT.

Daisy and I have never been more excited for the holidays.  They will be modest for certain, but Max, for the first time, will have toys that he will not have to share.  Max is by nature, an immeasurably generous child.  During his first year of life, he shared everything he had with his sister, always and without hesitation.  Daisy and I have run the preschool since he was one, and he has carried the habit forward like an eye color.

We’ve given him plenty of opportunities.  Every time he has a birthday or occasion for gift, we tell Max that he does not have to take it downstairs if he doesn’t want to.  But that just isn’t in his nature.  The Radio Flyer tricycle Pop bought him stayed his for only days. Max doesn’t know the opposite of share.

It is okay to have some things that belong to only you.  It could be your favorite book or toy, a journal, or perhaps your parents. This Christmas, we are giving the world to our children.

Writer Dad

Ghostwriter Dad specializes in SEO web copy and custom blog posts. Just in case yesterday was your day off, you can find Lucas with the lid off here.

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Seven Year Ouch

November 3, 2008 By 82 Comments

“It kills you to see them grow up.  But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn’t.”

~Barbara Kingsolver

“Mia, You need to stop that!  You are almost seven years old.”

The moment the words left my lips, I felt them at the tips of my toes, crackling through my body the entire trip down.  The room felt colder and the walls looked a little darker; as though the sun had ducked behind a cloud, or perhaps my eyes were just a bit more tired.

Mia isn’t seven, and won’t be for another couple of months.  She is, however, at the perfect age where Daisy and I can effectively use the pending candle as a talking point; the perfect age to expect the behavior required of a seven year old without having to relinquish all the benefits.

What wilted something inside me in that moment, as the words seven years old fell from my tongue for the first time, was that the seven at that second may as well have had a teen attached to its tail.

Daisy and I brought Mia home from the hospital yesterday, and were married just the day before.  Max, it seems, has only been with us for hours.

The last seven years have not fallen like leaves in Autumn, drifting gently toward a crumbling sidewalk.  They have been captured by the truculent wind of a rapidly changing season, sweeping our rituals and twisting them into memories.

I adore all the ideas our tomorrow might bring, but will gladly wait for the blossoms to bloom.

Daisy took a picture of Mia later in the day.  The perfect shot, you know the one.  When our child is caught unaware, and all their soul is on display.  Sometimes we see things different through the second hand eyes of a photograph.  In this particular stolen moment, Mia is drawing.  She still looks little enough to be my baby, but big enough to make me wince.  Her face was a little thinner, her hair a little longer (falling across her cheeks like a shadows), and her expression a bit more knowing.

She still cannot wait to crawl into my lap, and thinks most everything I say is funny.  She believes I am the most handsome of all men, and knows beyond doubt that I love her without question.  Her innocence is almost entirely intact, and her intelligent curiosity is bursting at the seams.

I know that no day is longer than another, and that time marches in only one direction, but knowing my moments are fleeting is enough to keep me mindful.

I’m surprised to find my eyes moist as I finish this thought; crying is a rarity while I write.  I do not feel sad.  Just tender, and perhaps a bit raw.  I feel the sands of the hourglass trying to bury me, as I burn my minutes in an endeavor to make them one day abundant.

My eyes are moist, but I am not crying.

The tears are there, but not a single one has fallen.  I do not think they will.  At least not right now.

I am sure they will spill when I read these words out loud to Daisy this evening.  That is when they will feel the most real.

Writer Dad

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Namas Daisy says “No Rain, No Rainbows.”

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An Old Dream Come True

July 22, 2008 By 4 Comments

Whenever Daisy and I reflect on life before children, there are two subjects we can never exhaust: time and money.  It seems we were sick with both.  Unless you’re lucky enough to be one of the fortunate few, once you have children, it seems like someone comes into your house while your sleeping, hits you over the head, and robs you of everything you were stashing under your mattress.  

And that goes for both assets.

Back when we were only two, we often combined our excess time and money into the unforgiving time waster of video games.  Saying that we stayed up late, playing until our eyes bled is only an exaggeration because such a thing isn’t possible.  The lack of blood wasn’t due to a lack of trying.

Daisy married into my obsession.  Before me, it was only Pac-Man, Centipede, and the occasional game of Galaga that rocked her world.  That all changed on September 9, 1999.  

Yeah, I remember the date.  

Sega released the Dreamcast on 9/9/99.  I wanted one, badly, but I couldn’t take off work to waste my time in line.  Daisy surprised me by wasting hers.  When I got home, I had a brand new system and three games waiting.  We popped in Soul Caliber and never went to sleep.  

One of my passions was now one of Daisy’s addictions.

Games became part of our ritual, and we would often talk about that day, far in the future, when we would be playing games with our own children.  I’ve never been one of the camp who believes that games are rot on the minds of the young.  I’m from the school who thinks that everything must be age appropriate, and in the proper measure.  I wouldn’t allow my child to play video games for two hours straight any more than I’d allow them to play Grand Theft Auto (well, maybe when they’re thirty).  But video games, at their best, are wonderful tools for teaching problem solving, hand eye coordination, and spacial relationships.

Life happened, and Mia was born.  We moved, and the game systems were packed away for a long hibernation.  

We have game nights on Mondays and Saturdays.  Last night, Daisy suggested that we blow the dust off the Dreamcast and see if it would still light the screen.  

It did.

We spent thirty wonderful minutes watching our old childlike expressions, newly expressed through our offspring’s eyes.  We watched Max tentatively hold the controller while making careful decisions about what to do next (his job was to make his character drill through the Earth without running out of air), and we could see Mia feel the excitement as she raced her car around a track at a hundred and fifty miles an hour without any possible danger to herself.

It was beautiful – a reminder of who we once were, who we are now, and how close we hope to always stay.  I’m glad my children can make me feel like a child and a father all at once.

Writer Dad

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