Ever forward
August 20, 2010
“You know that brush is wet, right?” my wife asks.
I don’t. Not till then. I smear the blue against my jeans, thinking that if I had bought them at the store like that, it would have set me back about a hundred dollars.
“Is he sure he wants to do this?” I ask.
“He said he did,” she answers.
“Do you believe him?”
She pauses then says, “I don’t want to.”
“Me neither,” I say, “but it’s his room, right?”
Another pause. Then: “Right.”
We had painted the Winnie the Pooh mural when our daughter was born, and she had slept beneath it for two years until she had to move out to make room for our son. But at five, he thinks Winnie the Pooh is for kids. And he is no longer a kid. My task today is to erase it. To paint over it and cover it up with pictures of Derek Jeter and Lou Gehrig.
I do not want to do this.
So this morning I painted the trim, the doors, and the other three walls, trying to postpone the inevitable. But with everything else done, the inevitable is here.
It’s just a stupid wall, I tell myself. But it’s not, and I know that. This is a symbol. A memory of the fear and joy of becoming a parent for the first time.
You battle the passage of time with your children. You fight to keep them small and innocent and on your lap. And even if you know they will soon be big and experienced and on their own, you fight anyway.
Painting over this feels like surrender. And I’m not quite ready to wave the white flag.
My eyes gaze around his room, and I catch myself wondering how much longer my son will be in it. He’ll start kindergarten next year. No doubt it’ll seem as if he’ll start high school the year after that, graduate from college the year after that, and the year after that I’ll be holding my grandchildren.
Somewhere in between, my son will realize something. He’ll find the truth about his old man. He’ll discover that I’m really not the superhero cowboy he thinks I am. That I might be tough on the outside, but I’m pretty soft on the inside. That I can’t fix everything, don’t know anything, and fret over a lot more than I let on.
He’ll have his own life with his own family. I’ll have to let him go so he can find his own way.
Such is the constant churning of life, ever forward and never backward. And though we plant our shoulders to the gears of our days and beg them to stop, they roll on anyway.
But just as I am ready to surrender after all, I spot something on my son’s dresser that makes me smile. Sitting there beside his Lightning McQueen lamp is my father’s wallet, left by him just a few hours ago. My normally steady hand seems to disappear whenever I’m painting trim, so I had called him for a little help.
And he answered. Just like he always has.
A lot has changed in my life since I was my son’s age. A lot hasn’t, too.
Still, after all these years, my father is there for me. There to help me fix the truck or cut some wood or tend the garden. There for advice or wisdom or to shoot the breeze.
Just…there.
The fact that I have my own life and my own family, the fact that I’ve found my own way, hasn’t changed everything. Time doesn’t always break our bonds. Sometimes it grows them deeper.
I move from my son’s bed to the tray of paint next to the wall, pick up the roller, and begin. Gone is the leafy tree, pouty Eeyore, Piglet, and Tigger. Gone is Christopher Robin and the unknown book he’s entertained his friends with for over seven years. And then, finally, Pooh is gone, too.
And that’s okay. Because as I paint I have in my mind a far-away picture of another man’s house and another child’s dresser. And I think of that man sitting upon the edge of that child’s bed, staring at my wallet.
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Jump
August 18, 2010
image courtesy of photobucket.com
Lately I’ve taken my lunch at the park, enjoying a bit of the country in the middle of the city. I’ll park my truck by the baseball field, climb a small hill to sit on a smaller bench, and stare across the street. Just to see if it’ll happen, finally happen, today.
The facelifted but tired house is home to a family I’ve never met and a young man I’ve come to know only from a distance. Ten or so from the looks of him. All boy. Grass-stained Levi’s, alternating Transformer and John Deere T-shirts, and a filthy baseball cap. Always the cap. Homeschooled too, I suppose, since he’s home every day and I’ve yet to see a truancy officer.
For about a week I sat and watched him take scraps of plywood and two-by-fours from behind his father’s shed, gather the pile in the middle of the driveway, and proceed to hammer and nail every boy’s first serious attempt at engineering—a ramp. It started small, not much more than a pine speed bump. But either his ambitions or an innate love for hammering and nailing got the better of him, and that bump got bigger. Much bigger. So much so that the upper part of the curve on the finished product nearly came to the bill of his cap.
This was someone not merely content to give a gentle tug at gravity’s suppressive bonds. No, he wanted to break them with impunity. To fly.
He hammered the last nail a week ago and then pulled a muddy bike out of the shed, backed it up a good twenty feet, and climbed on. And then climbed off. A practice run, I supposed. The next day he actually pedaled halfway to the ramp. Halfway and half-hearted. And like any act undertaken with half a heart, it was doomed to fail. He squeezed the handlebars just as the front tire went from pavement to plywood.
And that’s how it’s been since. Every day I come here for my lunch, and every day he inches closer to that ramp but never quite close enough. And right now he’s there again, sitting on his bike and staring.
I know why.
From where I’m sitting I can look to my right at a tight circle of iron tracks. The train runs at the park during the warmer months and is quite the attraction, both for the kids and the parents who once were kids.
As a child I was terrified of the train, convinced the tunnel on the far side was in fact a door to the underworld that swung only one way. Boarding it would mean the end of me. I would race through the tunnel and be swallowed by it, lost in the darkness forever. When I turned eight, I knew it was time to put up or shut up. I rode the train. I jumped. And to my unbridled delight I found that not only did the tunnel have an entrance, it had an exit as well.
And I can look to my left and see the spot where as a teenager I parked one Saturday night and listened as my girlfriend serenaded me with Poison’s “I Won’t Forget You,” promising to never-ever-ever if I just fell in love with her. I liked the sound of that, so I jumped. She forgot about me three months later.
Which is why I understand the boy’s apprehension. It’s tough to jump. Tough to gather the nerve. Because you never know what’s going to happen after. You never know if you’ll land or crash, laugh or cry. And so we all sit and stare and wonder whether the chance to fly is worth the risk to fall. The good things in life are like that. They cost much but are worth more.
I look out over the park and see him tug on the bill of his cap. He rubs his hands and adjusts the pedals, positioning them just so for the right amount of initial oomph. And just as I think he’s about to squeeze the handlebars again, he doesn’t. He pushes harder. His eyes open wide.
And he jumps.
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Tagged: boldness, fear, risk taking
Staples and the human condition
August 16, 2010
image courtesy of photobucket.com
Today’s the day we’ve all been dreading. My family, I mean. It’s a day that has been in the back of our minds for the last three months, stuck there like a burr that we couldn’t seem to get out. The fact that we didn’t really have to worry about it made it hurt a little less. It was a day we knew would come, yes. But it was also a day that would come later.
Today is later. The last day of summer vacation.
My wife is back to school already, busy with setting up desks and planning and copying and whatever else teachers do. My children seem to be going through the five stages of grief (my daughter has made it to the last stage, acceptance. My son is still stuck on denial).
The first week of school is always tough on everyone. Add to that a few pages of revisions from the publisher to go through, and that means it’s time to hunker down and wait out the brewing storm.
As such, I’ll be doing a little re-posting this week of things you might’ve missed the first time around. The first on is over at katdish’s site. And appropriately enough, it’s about back-to-school shopping. Hop on over there. Say hey. And remember, it’s not just the school kids who can start all over again.
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A conversation with God
August 13, 2010
image courtesy of photobucket.com
I was at the book fair the other day and found a copy of The Prayer of Jabez for $2.99. I’d completely forgotten about that book. Which is odd considering how popular it was ten years ago. Seemed like everyone had a copy of that book. Or the Bible study. Or the journal. Or the workbook or the copy for teens or women.
It was quite the industry really, and the reasons for it were pretty apparent. Say a little prayer, and God will bless you in abundance. It almost seemed too good to be true, but there it was. There was even a verse to back it up.
I never bought a copy. Didn’t even buy the $2.99 copy at the book fair. Not because I didn’t (and still do) want to be blessed in abundance, but because once upon a time I said my own version of Jabez’s prayer without knowing it. The answer I got was a little different than his. And though that prayer was uttered at years ago, I still remember that conversation between God and me.
It was like this:
“You there, God?”
I’m always here.
“Can I tell You something?”
Of course you can.
“I have dreams.”
Wonderful! Everyone should have dreams.
“They’re great dreams. Really great.”
I should hope so.
“Yeah. So, I was wondering if, You know, You could make those dreams come true.”
Of course I can. Why else would I give them to you?
“Oh, I don’t know. Lots of reasons, I guess. Wait. You gave my dreams to me?”
Where else would they come from?
“I don’t know…me?”
I give you the desire. You do the work. Life is a partnership between you and Me. Not 50/50, though. More like 100/100. You give your all, I give Mine.
“Great! So I can have my dreams?”
If you work and you believe, yes. But certain things have to be done first.
“Like what?”
Great dreams require great people. So first, I must make you great.
“Now I like the sound of that. So I’ll be popular and rich?”
Popular and rich doesn’t equal greatness.
“Then what does?”
Love and kindness, faith and trust. Trust especially. You need to understand that it’s not your happiness I want, it’s your trust.
“Okay.”
Are you sure? This isn’t going to be easy for you.
“Sure it will. I can be that sort of person if it means I’ll have my dreams.”
You don’t become that sort of person to get your dreams, you get your dreams because you’re that sort of person. There’s a difference.
(Silence.)
You think your dreams will bring you success, but some of the most miserable people in the world are the ones who’ve gotten everything they’ve always wanted. Stuff doesn’t bring joy. Only I do.
“Oh. So maybe my dreams aren’t all that good for me?”
Parts are. Not all. But that’s okay. I can give you better things than those.
“When I become great.”
You don’t have to be great for Me to bless you. But for your dreams, yes. You must be great.
“I still want to be great, even without the dreams. But the dreams would be nice.”
Wonderful!
“So…when can we start?”
We can start now.
“I was hoping You’d say that. Then I pray You’ll give me love and kindness and faith and trust and make me great.”
Good. But remember, there are two things that I must give to everyone in order to make them great and realize the dreams I have for them.
“Grace and blessing?”
No. Time and trial.
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The tough lessons of a heart exposed
August 11, 2010
photo courtesy of Claire Burge
For proof, I will point out that I have neither blond hair nor a fair complexion. She does. Her eyes are blue. Mine are brown. And if you look carefully, you will see that her fingers are both long and thin. Mine are shorter.
Yet we share bonds. Like her father, she is quiet and reserved. Quick to laugh, yet given to bouts of melancholy. We both wear our hearts on our sleeves and try to roll up those sleeves so we may appear to be tougher than we are, but we both find they do not stay rolled up for long. Sooner or later, we are both exposed to the world again. And we both profess a love of words, both reading them and writing them.
It is this last point that has proven to tether us to something beyond father and daughter and into new worlds with skies that shine with the brightness of story. I will wake up in the morning to find several torn spiral notebook pages on the kitchen table. On it are the scribblings of an eight-year-old who has found the magic in saying something by saying something else. Her tales are full of mystery and princesses. And she will often find at her bedside scraps of paper upon which I have written my own tales, these of wonder and faith.
Ours is a symbiotic relationship of the most rewarding kind. Our words bounce off one another and back to our own hearts…
The nice folks over at High Calling Blogs have invited me to write this piece for them today, so please head over there to read the rest. Unless, of course, you have yet to read Old Yeller. Trust me.
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Tagged: hard lessons, High Calling Blogs, parenting
I’m a writer whose first novel, Snow Day, will be published by FaithWords in 2010.
But don’t let that fool you. I’m just as confused as anyone.
And that is fine with me, because the great thing about wandering around in the fog is that you never know what you might run into.
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