DadCentric

Downclimbing

I used to be a rock climber. I started rock climbing because heights terrify me. I was a quick study; you have to be, because if you aren't you tend to fall, which can kill you. 

I have the mind for it. I have this thing that I do, where I take my emotions and stuff them down. Swallow them and let them digest; they're absorbed, still there, but in a manageable form. It helps when one is fifty or so feet off the ground, with millimeters separating one from the air. You stand on a sliver of rock as wide as a nickel. Your fingertips are jammed into a crack that's maybe an inch across and an inch deep. The sliver feels like a sidewalk. The crack feels like a canyon. The fear is suppressed. It's as easy for me as holding my breath.

A Grateful Nation

To everyone that offered their thanks on Wednesday, "You're welcome." No, that's really not right of me. That sounds rather snotty, dont'cha think? Let's start again. Thank you. I think I can speak for many of us who have donned a uniform and say that those two words mean so much and aren't said nearly enough. Thanking our veterans and those currently serving shouldn't be isolated to one day in November. We should utter those words whenever we encounter a soldier, an airman, a sailor or a Marine. And we should encourage our children to do the same.

I've been thinking a lot lately about my time in the army. Maybe it stems from rekindling friendships with guys I haven't seen in 10, 15+ years. These guys with whom I lived, worked, partied and served. Looking back on those days, I'll swear I was closer to them than my own family (Mrs. Big Dubya is probably nodding right now). I think it's only natural. There's a level of trust that's borne of the training and camaraderie that creates a bond that goes beyond that of mere friendships. It's an unspoken realization that should the shit hit the fan, you have to be able to rely on the guys to your left and right and them on you if you all want to survive.

Odyssey

He sits behind me, back and to the right. The light flashes across his face in bright bursts of fluid, blinding white, illuminating his broad smile and the exhilaration in his eyes as the car shifts effortlessly over alternating hurdles of sunlight and shadow. "Is this the highway, Daddy?" His voice is rich and clear, and full of knowing joy as it is a question to which he already knows the answer. "Yes, buddy, it is." I glance back at him in the rearview and see him gazing back at me, his heart full to bursting, barely contained within his thin fleece vest and gentle constraints of a shoulder belt.

A Mother's Arms are Made of Tenderness and Children Sleep Soundly in Them

Heat, as an extreme, exists only in a relative sense.  It is the hottest thing they have ever known and therefore it is the hottest thing ever known.  I tell them that it is not, that my coffee is actually hotter, but that doesn't soothe them, it only makes them question my sanity as they slowly dare a second sip of their lukewarm chocolate.

********

My back hurts.  I've been carrying too much for too long.  For six weeks I've been living as a single father - a single work-at-home-dad.  It has been incredibly hard and surprisingly easy.  I am better for it and I am tired and I am badly beaten. 

My work has suffered.  My 70 hour work week has been cut to less than forty - compiled from a series of minutes torn apart from hours and tucked between goodnight kisses and the taste of warm whiskey across my lips.  The clock moves always forward.

Chores once shared have become mine alone.  All nights are long and lonely.  All mornings are early and full of songs and frustration.

I do not believe that I have achieved anything worthy of praise or pity, only reflection.  Others face obstacles greater than mine on a daily basis.  They make the most.  They do their best.  They are stronger than I ever thought I was and when I sip from my glass the toast is to them.

But this is not their life, it is mine and while I was prepared and up to the challenge, it was unexpected in both timing and time.  From the frying pan to the fire is not a lateral move.  The heat is extreme and it is all relative.

Tomorrow my wife comes home after six weeks sitting at the bedside of her ailing father.  Six weeks of tears and whispers and shouts in the night.  Six weeks of walking in the shoes of a girl much younger.  Bedside seats are lessons in love and fear and the art of turning fond old memories that weren't. That is a chapter not yet closed.  Those wounds are still open.  He will still have a beside in need of sitting and she will carry her thoughts accordingly.  Her back will hurt.

********

They do not expect her.  They have grown accustomed to the missing of their mother.  Six weeks is a long time gone and a father doing the best he can is still just one kiss goodnight no matter how much laughter fills the day or how much work is left to the forgotten.

Tomorrow will seem but another day to them, the routine of living with some parts missing.  They will be safe and loved and slightly lost.  She will be on a plane six weeks delayed and her dreams will be of little boy kisses grown wet with salt and the slightest linger of lukewarm chocolate.

____________________________________

The title of this post is a quote from Victor Hugo.

The Moment Is Passed

Their faces are all smiles, their little bodies eruptions of laughter. They are embodiments of joy in its purest form. And they are not the only ones in this picture subject to the feeling. The parents too are caught up in this halo of happiness, perhaps because they have all formed it together. The sun may be shining, the rain may be pounding, they may be outside or in, but the moment is the moment, and it is nothing short of sublime. The only difference is that the adults are adults, and because they have learned to apply brain power to everything, they may stop to recognize the moment for what it is, to step outside of it just a tiny bit and think “hey, look at this moment we’re engaged in here. Isn’t this something?” If they fancy themselves a writer, they are almost certain to do so. Maybe they’ll think about committing it to words, but not right now because the moment is still happening. It can be thought about later. It has to be lived now, or never at all.

After which...

Dan Zanes Goes Broadway on New Album "76 Trombones" -- A DadCentric Review

A Marlboro Light haze and the sweet staleness of spilled beer most likely filled the room the first time I met Dan Zanes. He was just a minor rock god then although Rolling Stone magazine and Miller High Life were trying hard to make him and his band, The Del Fuegos, bigger than Whitesnake.

Tawny Kitaen -- you owe America an apology, bitch!

My college roommate, the nine-and-a-half-fingered guitarist, introduced us. He and Dan both hailed from that rugged land north of my home state, so they had a special kinship. Yet they willingly adopted me into their bass-thumping, chord-crunching world every time the slot sucked in that silver disc and that eerie whistle and screech brought us into Boston, Mass.

Something approximating 15 years had passed when I almost met Dan Zanes for real. He really was a rock god at the time, though his groupies now were concerned about losing their binkies rather than their virginity. He was performing a benefit concert for my kids' preschool, and while parents sang and children swayed to songs about trains, sea voyages and roosters in the kitchen, I sat there reveling in those few fleeting instances when Dan's voice slipped accidentally from its ragged folksy bounce to that lonely rumble of distant thunder from my teenage angst.

After the show, he stood in the theater lobby in his blueberry-yogurt suit, salt-and-pepper hair spiked high, greeting fans. I asked the kids if they wanted to say hi to him and they ran for cover. My wife asked me if I want to say hi to him and I just shook my head because that time had passed. We piled into our old Ford Explorer and I popped in Smoking in the Fields for the ride home, smacking out the disc's opening snare and tom toms on my thighs.

Therefore, I go into reviewing Dan Zanes and Friends' new children's album, the mostly Broadway-bound 76 Trombones, with a history and some bias. But who doesn't? Admit it, you flinched when you realized this is an album of show tunes, didn't you?

Ford, the Inflatable Rear Seat Belt, and the Mechanics of Lifesaving

Ever been to a press conference? It's weird. There's a podium and stage lighting. TV cameras. Boom mics. And there are journalists. Real journalists. Next to you is a guy from the New York Times, on the other side of you is a guy from Fortune. They have digital voice recorders and degrees from Columbia and deadlines. You were the editor of your high school newspaper (for one year, and that was 20 years ago) and your pen - the one the Ford PR people gave you, thank God, because you forgot to bring yours - doesn't work. The only thing you have in common with any of them is that like many of these seasoned pros, you are hungover and cynical. 

I'd flown out to Detroit - Dearborn, to be be precise, home of the Ford Motor Company's World Headquarters -  the night before, the sole male member of a group of bloggers invited to cover this event. Ford would provide transportation, food, and lodging. We'd be privy to a big announcement: Ford would be unveiling a new safety innovation. We'd also get to have breakfast with Ford executives, and get a tour of the Safety Lab. The Safety Lab! Images of cars being smashed and crash test dummies flying through windshields danced in my head. Breaking stuff is cool. Of course I wanted to go.

What We're Doing Here

I walked in late, the last to arrive; yesterday was a travel day, and it had been delays and missing the invitees' dinner and a steak with three Martinis to make up for that. The rest were sitting at the table, chatting. The conversation, exclusively female, ebbed when I walked in - not quite the "everyone suddenly stops talking/sound effects guys insert sound of needle being dragged across record" that one gets in the movies, but it might as well have been. I'd been to plenty of these events. The looks were enough.

 Who is HE? And what is HE doing here? 

 Here's who he is. The guy that mows the lawn. The guy that figures out that the Check Engine light is on because the gas cap wasn't screwed back in. The guy that teaches his sons - and daughters - how throw a perfect spiral. The guy that obsesses over the perfect barbecue, the home team, and putting. The guy that shows his son that one mustn't be mean to girls. The guy that shows his daughter that they needn't take shit from boys. The guy that teaches both that "just because" is not now nor will ever be a viable excuse. The guy that sits down with his kids and explains supernovas, the Reconstruction, and long-form division. The guy that cooks and cleans. The guy that changes diapers. The guy that patrols the streets of some shithole country with an M4 at the ready. The guy that runs into burning buildings. The guy that writes those TPS reports. The guy that used to write those TPS reports but now, thanks to the latest round of layoffs, is pulling espressos at Starbucks. The guy that drove the car that picked you up at the airport. The guy that occupies the Oval Office. The guy that does this every day for 8, 10, 12, 14, 24 hours, and never really has to dig deep because the reasons for all of it are there in that picture in his wallet, or on his phone, or in his backpack, the one he shows to his fellows, beaming and professing his luck when he does so. 

 Who is he? 

 He's the silent majority. 

 What is he doing here? 

 He's breaking the silence.

Dear School System

As my twin daughters begin the long, slow descent from the gentle arms of pre-K into the savage maw of Kindergarten and the infinite abyss of public school education that lies beyond, I hereby request that the following items be added to their curriculum to ensure that their intellectual, spiritual and moral growth is comprehensive enough to ensure that they are adequately equipped to rule the world when they are finally unleashed in another 14ish years.

I eagerly await the public announcement that their forthcoming edification will include the following: 

Catacombs and the Forbidden City - A DadCentric Book Review

You know how I feel about the books and the action and the mystery and the stuff.  I'm for it. 

I'm always looking for the next Encyclopedia Brown to come along.  Maybe a Three Investigators.  Hey, it could happen.

That's why I was pleasantly surprised to learn that a friend of a friend had published a book called Catacombs and the Forbidden City, which critics have suggested is akin to Indiana Jones meeting the Magic Tree House.  Harry Potteresque some said.  They did, I read the reviews.

Mutual friends do what mutual friends do and suddenly the lovely Sarah Gerdes was at my door with, and I'm looking at you, FTC, a FREE COPY OF HER BOOK.  Also, chocolates.  Wait, ALSO CHOCOLATES.  FOR FREE, FTC, FOR FREE.   I gave her water because she's pregnant and didn't want coffee or whiskey even though I insisted that the US medical experts were a bunch of cowards and prudes, and get this, FTC, she received it at no charge.  However, and this cannot be stressed enough, I DID NOT TRADE WATER TO A PREGNANT WOMAN FOR CHOCOLATES AND A BOOK.