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  • Stacy

    The first time we ever met – face to face – we talked for two hours. Or, more accurately, she talked. I listened, rapt with attention. Torn between wonder and worry, as she spoke of all that she’d been going through over the past year and change. Wonder, at her ability to tell a story with so much detail, and such deep feeling, and struck through with an astonishingly dark and agile sense of humor that would come bursting out at the most unexpected moments in the most wonderfully horrible ways.

    And worry. At the challenges and difficulties she had faced, and was still facing. At the pain that seemed such a constant in her life — always there, quietly, even in the most joyful moments. At the fear that despite the staggering worlds of talent and energy and beauty and potential within her – promise on a scale rarely seen in this world – that one day, one of these countless small and great fractures would grow, and spread, and reach too deeply, and all at once: She would shatter.

    I had worried for her, before. And I worried for her again, in the years that followed. When she’d vanish from the online world – deleting her profiles, her often breathtaking writing, her always stunning photography, her identity, as she’d crafted and sculpted and flensed it over the slow course of months or years – and leave us wondering: Were we meant to notice? Was this a strategic withdrawal? Or was it something more?

    Or when her beloved dog passed away. Jurgen. I think I may be missing some umlauts there, but Jurgen… her muse, her child, her beloved life partner. She called me, not long after that happened, completely out of the blue and profoundly heartbroken and in near-hysterical tears and sad, so very hurt and sad and lost at a world without her pup, and we talked for a good long while, her telling stories and remembering the good times and trying to navigate the loss while I listened, and prompted, and offered what little I could: Support and empathy, and the occasional off-color joke. I hope was I able to help. I’d expect that her call to me was just one of many she made that day, or that week — reaching out for help.

    We talked again, a month or two later. I called her that time. Checking in. Following up. Wanted to let her know I was still thinking about her, still worrying. Still hoping she’d find her way through. And I was relieved to discover that she was… still sad, still nursing that mighty, broken heart, but not lost. She was fighting her way forward. And she was funny, and ferocious and fragile and fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting

    all those years of fighting

    I think we spoke once more, after that. I remember being thrilled by what I heard. Things were good for her. Changes were being made, for the better. There was the promise of days, more days, ever and always brighter days ahead. And then, as these things happen, we didn’t find time or reason to talk again. Just a function of circumstance and distraction and the thousand, the ten thousand, small things that captured our focus and filled our days. But we stayed in touch online, as one does, to quietly diminishing degrees. Drifting as the current took us, in different directions. But I always thought of her as my friend.

    There were others who knew her. Far, far better than I. Others, suddenly confronted with an infinite, aching hollow in their lives where just… a day? How is that possible? A day ago. It’s nothing. It’s everything.

    There’s no way to make this right. No way to fill this empty place in the world, despite the outpouring of so much grief and love. Wave upon wave, deluge upon flood. It will never be enough, although you hope – you have to hope, you always have to hope, or find a reason to hope – that others walking the edge will feel this grief, and find it within themselves to recognize and reach out. For love. For support and empathy. For the occasional off-color joke.

    Outside this window, there is still a blue sky. The leaves are still rich and green, saturated with the light of a long summer. There are sparrows, weightless and free, riding the warm September air across the canopy of maple and oak. In time, the air will cool, and calm, and the sparrows will return to their nests. And a waxing crescent moon will rise, slowly, above the trees, tracing a slow arc as the hours pass and the night deepens, as a flickering, brilliant light fades, and fades, and fades and forever fades.

  • weak

    It should not have come as a surprise that
    after all those years of trembling in the wind
    a brittle leaf, fearing the moment when
    all that is and was and will be held
    and treasured and
    unleashed in torrents of warm and fluid light, enough to fill this sad world
    like sunshine made sweeter
    by passage through
    a tumbling cloudwall, always darkening and growing less distant, hour by
    fleeting hour

    that it should so suddenly become clear:
    this weak heart will fail
    all will come untethered, unmoored
    freed and falling and failing and forevermore
    stilled.
    All will be lost.

    There may be greater terrors than that of the deafening
    roar – of the moment in its happening – and the depthless chasm
    of silence that lies beyond. There
    may be descents not meant
    to be captured in words, as they defy all reason and
    logic and measure of this sad, broken world to find
    an almost infinite capacity for joy in the smallest
    of wonders.
    There may even be
    hope, or the ghost of a hope,
    for those left behind as
    the sky falls away, bluer and brighter and more brilliant
    than memory, than the first blush of warm winter sun
    and the sweetness of woodsmoke and firstfallen snow and

    all the cruel fictions and hard truths and half-whispered
    prayers go
    and then go
    and then, at once, are gone.

  • Enough

    You grow weary, of the weight of time and the burden of expectation and the low, restless ache of knowing — that you should be so much more than you are. That they know you have fallen short, and try to love you despite your failures. That there is disappointment in their eyes, behind the kind laughter and the reassurances that you belong, you matter, you are

    enough

    that even though there is not the ghost of a chance you are one in a billion, one in a million, barely enough to be one in one

    you’re here, your presence is noted and accounted for as days pass and pass and this sad world of great and hidden wonders spins on in irregular bursts of small tragedy and sudden beauty and strong hearts weakening with each gentle beat, counting down in quiet cadences, the notes growing softer as the distance between them grows

    and you are haunted: by days you won’t see, when spring still feels a promise of tiny buds on quivering limbtip beneath a leaden sky and steady downpour and they will find themselves, effortlessly, drifting between the drops, wondering back to the days when they were small and sweet and treasured above all things. What fragments of half-forgotten melody will your children carry on their lips as they whisper to the rain? What echoes of your own broken cadences will linger, and resonate, and find purchase in these undiscovered countries, in voices and strange rhythms you will never hear but would recognize in less than the time between eyeblink and heartbeat, even across the gulf of

    years from this moment, with lips bitten and brows furrowed and steady pencil gripped in thin and nimble fingers as they carefully navigate the barricades of cluttered numbers and tumbling letters that stand between the work of home and the freedom of all the glorious hours to come — when everything and anything is possible and limitless worlds are within their reach and the joy of play is total and absolute and bigger than the biggest mountain, broader than the sky, deeper than the darkest chasm in the deepest of all blue seas, faster than

    sound and light and laughter

    bounded only by the limits of daylight and imagination, by wooden fences and busy streets and the single commandment they were ever taught as truth: Be Safe, my loves

    your words will not be enough. But they are all you have to offer, so you cling to the ghost of a hope that somewhere in the midst of your failings and falling short, your false gods and your growing fear of fading to gray, to mist, to dust and memory of all that might have been but never quite was, these lonesome prayers will linger and last, catch hold and – in time – allow them to burst free

    of fresh earth, radiant with promise, buds unfolding to bloom in the warm light of a new sun.

  • So… that was nice

    Last week in New Orleans, a large group of really smart and talented people got together for the Dad 2.0 Summit — and from what I've gathered, a good time was had by all. While I was unable to take part in the festivities, Doug French – gentleman, scholar, PawSox fan and Grand Poobah of all things Dad 2.0 – was kind enough to select something I posted last year at DadCentric for a public execution reading.

    Which is kind of awesome. And then things jumped up to an even more dizzying level of awesome when author/blogger/handsome gadabout Whit Honea was drafted into doing the reading on my behalf. (I presume some form of blackmail was involved.)

    Your friend and mine Kevin McKeever was kind enough to capture the magic on film, and since I'm not going to pretend that this isn't kind of a thrill for me… I'll share it with you.

    Here's the lead-in Doug gave:

     

     

    And here's Whit being taller and better-looking than me, reading a bunch of run-on sentences:

     

    ::wipes away a single, manly tear::

    Anyhow. Thanks to you all.

     

    (in case you're curious, the original post can be found here)

  • The Birthday

    There is a feeling of acceleration; of building speed. Of the accretion of slow years of slow descent finally reaching some unnumbered critical mass, shifting the axis of his world into new climates of collapse and quiet loss.

    And while we are gathered on this day in celebration, there is also the unspoken understanding that this is a formality; a fiction. That the good spirits and smiles are more a reflection of the gathering itself, rather than joy in his company. We are together in understanding: the days of vanishing by inches have dwindled away, and the distance is now growing by longer strides — pulling him farther and farther away from the man he was, and the life he had.

    There is the raucous laughter of young children, unleashed upon one another after months of separation, circling the room and the house in concentric orbits of wild energy and cackling glee. There is the clever patter of siblings and in-laws, parents and grandparents, catching up and cracking wise and pouring pink champagne into thin-bodied glasses, the sweet bubbles drifting across our lips and cascading through ribbons of bone onto weary and welcoming hearts. There are comforts, in these rhythms.

    Comforts count for a great deal, these days. And at the edges of this horseshoe of cushioned chairs and dark-hued ottomans, ten feet and a thousand miles from where his wife holds court and glories in the presence of warm family and joyful voices, he sits. Without a sound, without moving. Wrapped tenderly in layers of soft woolen blankets, in protection and camouflage, his eyes blinking slowly behind thick white glasses, his mouth paused in half-smile, half-hidden in the thicket of white beard. Decades of insatiable hunger – for the taste of fresh words and calculated learning, for riddles of tannin and bright fruit, for the artistry of flavor ringing clear and true in strange and endlessly fascinating chords of spice and subtlety, bold simpicity and layered, labyrinthian genius – now stilled, sated, silenced.

    He is a gentle ghost, haunting the periphery.

    (It feels forever, since this was not the way of things. The children no longer seek him out. They dutifully greet him in cheerful voices when arriving, and hug him when it is time for goodbyes. But they do not seek him out. They know he is here, and they know he is not here.)

    In good time, when dinner is ready, I remove the blankets and then carefully steer the wheelchair out of the living room, down the hallway and around the corner into the dining room. "Let me bring you up close to the table," I say, explaining what is happening. It is an attempt to be deferential, but I know it is the same tone that I used with my own children when they were very, very young.

    He lifts his hands and feet, slides into place at the table, and then drops them down again. He waits, quietly, as the children and grandchildren file in and find their places. Not speaking, not seeking out eye contact. Simply waiting for food to be brought to him, so that he can begin to eat. I sit next to him, offering him a smile. "We got Chinese," I say. "An exotic feast, from faraway lands. And/or the other side of town. For you." I hold the smile for a long moment, less in the hopes of a response than in the knowledge that reaching out like this is what we are supposed to do. And then I let it go, and turn away.

    We serve the children and we serve their grandfather, and instantly they begin to eat in a flurry of forks and fingers while the rest of us calmly begin serving ourselves and enjoying the food and camaraderie. Wine is poured and dishes are shared, and the kids engage in lively debate and demands for more scallion pancakes and threaten to sing terrible songs that will delight and horrify us and we are here and we are all together and

    he sits there in his wheeled chair, locked in profound concentration on maintaining his hold on the fork. On guiding it beneath the scallops and noodles, and lifting it without losing his bounty. On slowly guiding it to his mouth.

    On eating until he is done, and then it will be time for sleep.

    An hour passes and we finish the dinner, and the grandchildren run off to destroy the house and argue over which superhero would beat which Star Wars character and to await the siren call of dessert, and the room grows a bit quieter as we sit around the table, drinking and talking and sharing stories and

    then his wife says, "Do you want to go upstairs?" and we look and notice that he is slowly pushing himself back from the table, his gnarled toes pressing against the floor and gradually pushing the wheels backward, by inches and then by feet and then suddenly he is four feet away from the table and looking up as he hears her ask the question and his voice – small – says "no" as if in some kind of surprise and we all laugh a bit although it is not funny and I stand up and smile and say,

    "You're drifting away from us, here," and something in my face twitches beneath my smile and I am glad that no one points out that what I'm saying is too obvious and correct for this moment, and I recognize that as a small mercy and I am grateful, and then I push him back to the table. He lifts his hands and feet, and then settles them once again when he is in place.

    Someone suggests that perhaps this would be a good time for desserts and presents, and so we call the kids back, and in short order the chocolate cake and apple tart are carved and distributed and summarily demolished, as all good desserts are meant to be. It is a welcome rush of sugar and sweetness.

    And then we present the gifts. They are placed before him, like offerings before a stone idol, and wait to see what the fates will bring.

    He lifts one wrapped gift from the table and turns it over in his hands. Twice. Three times. Then begins the task of trying to work his way in — to puzzle his way through the scotch tape and cheerful paper wrapping and find the prize hidden within. His fingers move unsteadily along the folded edges of the paper as if they are foreign tools, unaccustomed to the challenge of navigating such fine tasks. We watch, allowing him his time. Not speaking. There is no need.

    After a few long minutes, he finds his way in, and uncovers a CD. Music from a film he had once prized and loved deeply. From a city he'd long called his home. A kind gift — thoughtful, embracing who he's been, where he's come from and what he's loved. He turns it over in his hands, twice, three times, then puts it down without saying a word. Then picks up the next item and begins again.

    We watch the process repeat itself, several times over, until all the gifts are unveiled before him. Then we watch as he reaches forward to lift one item from the table, and look at it over the top of his thick glasses, mouth half-open as he reads the words and absorbs their meaning. The minutes pass. Until finally, his wife of forty-odd years gives him a gentle prompt. She says his name, and then asks, "Is there anything you want to say?"

    Surrounded by gifts and grandchildren, by this family and feast brought here today, for him, for his birthday, he turns to her and says – his voice small and sharp – "Be quiet."

    We sit there in silence. For such a long and awful and awkward minute, we sit there in silence, together.

    Eventually, I pull my eyes from him and look around the room. Some are staring at him. Some are staring at their plates. Some look on the verge of tears.

    I break the moment – because that is what I do – and say something. I cannot remember what it is that I say, because it is probably stupid and certainly meaningless, but it serves its purpose and the long minute ends and we all begin to thank the lady of the house for her kindness in hosting this event and for the great Chinese dinner and the wonderful desserts, and she assures us she is glad to do it, and

    we let her know: she is appreciated

    and then the table is cleared and the children are gathered and in the kitchen we hug one another and say our thanks and wave, through the door, to the man in the dining room, and we do not wait for a response because already the children are heading to the driveway and we follow, outside, to

    where the air is fresh and cooling and alive with cricketsong and late September starlight and we leave, not looking back, knowing that as one year passes into the next

    the hour is growing so very, very late. 

  • Speaking of Boston

    In case you missed it, last week was an interesting one in Boston. So I wrote about it over at DadCentric. Check it out.

  • Over at DadCentric…

    Hi! It's me! With one of those annoying cross-post link… things. Yeah. Awesome.

    So! I wrote something new over at DadCentric. You should probably go read it.

    I'll even provide you with a helpful link: A To Fade In.

    Click it! Go ahead! It's fun for the whole family! Except for the fun part!

    Exclamation points!

    !!!

  • For as long as you are young

    For as long as you are young
    and I can still know the comforts of you, kitten-curled into the
    hollowed crook of my arm, wrapped in blankets and nettles —
    your warm brown eyes and the barbed tail of your tongue,
    even in these tender
    days a rapier in your small and unseasoned hands —
    watching me watch you
    unpuzzling the world
    revealing an infinite core of strange and
    wondrous half-truths, half-lit
    in this low December sun

    your legs drawing up
    against your chest,
    your body a tight ball of sinew
    and bone, muscle and joy

    I will be astonished
    at the arc of years that carried you
    from the first moment you lay cradled
    along the length of one forearm
    your sister balancing the other
    weight and counterweight and
    the world shifting on its axis
    gravity losing its hold
    as those illusions I'd treasured as truths
    slipped, unbound and
    forgotten
    in the rush of discovering all
    the new commandments
    that might hold me fast and
    settle into my skin as carved
    promises on concrete,
    whispered prayers of surrender to

    these fleeting moments and long years of
    long summer days and quiet nights, cicada-songs
    and the steady rasp of air rushing from your
    strong lungs, keeping steady metronome time
    two, three, four
    tracing the slow arc of the moon across the sky
    crescent to crescent, harvest to
    hidden

    holding you tight,
    feeling you slip away

    with each steady tick to a world I
    dream wondrous but
    fear will not love you as you deserve to be loved.

    I hope that in this, too, I will be wrong.
    That for as long as the sharp crescent of your smile
    draws wide, draws wry,
    draws the tides from shore to distant shore
    that for as long as these slow, soft rays
    of fading late December sun
    glow, then linger, then fade
    that my eyes can rise to the horizon
    across the growing dark and

    there find you, at last,
    the risen star:
    ascendent, rippling with light,
    distant and perfect
    your song the slow brush of moonlight against
    cascades of icicle, practiced fingers finding home at each
    rain-captured key
    each sweet note cold and pure and perfect
    across these weightless hours, as dark air sparks alight
    with sudden butterfly paths of snowfall,
    tumbling
    twisting soaring
    catching your light
    vibrating in perfect tune – brittle tips quivering in delight at
    each chord and chorus, each shimmering harmonic
    and collapse to minor key –
    your voice a signature written across the sky

    and I will remember, in some small corner of my
    small heart,
    this moment
    when you were as you are now:
    curled and comforted and entirely
    at home,
    wrapped in blankets and the weight
    of my hand upon yours.

  • Proving yet again that I’m not nearly cool enough to act too cool to care

    In what can only be described as an egregious error in judgment, the good people at Babble have once again – inexplicably – decided to include me among far more deserving writers in their annual "Top 50 Dad Blogs" thing. They also named my comrades-in-DadCentric as the #1 group dad blog, and #4 site overall. Which is pretty badass, in all honesty.

    Hell: they even put me in the Top 10 for "Most Confessional" and "Best Written." Which… wow.

    So. What can we learn from this? I think the lesson is clear: with enough procrastination, run-on sentences and pointless blue lobster references… anything is possible.

    ::throws confetti::

  • If you type it, they will come.

    FYI: I posted something new over at DadCentric today — South and East of Newfoundland.

    Thus endeth the update.

     

    </annoying cross-post>