Her hand rested in mine as we walked home from the Farmer’s Market. We could still hear the band playing classic rock, the words indistinguishable, the music rising and falling behind us.

“I hear them too. Sometimes you have to be still to hear things. Do you know how to be still?” I asked.

She froze in her tracks, her hand gone motionless in mine, her limbs unmoving. The sounds of the crickets seemed to rise around us, the distant music receded, the wind rustled through the leaves of a tree. She smiled.

I smiled back and said, ”When you’re still outside, you can hear things outside.” I touched my chest, “When you’re still inside, you can hear things inside.”

She nodded and we walked on, hand in hand.

Originally posted on Zen Abigail

My heart is full of you today. Your third birthday was on Sunday, we had a bounce house, and a lot of cookies and hot dogs and friends and smiles and laughs. After everyone left I went in the bounce house with you and your sister, and Mark came in and jumped, and he chased you and you ran into my legs yelling, “Daddy, Daddy!” and I caught you up, and kept you close, safe from the pretend menace.

I love you, and I don’t want to hold anything back from you, but I’m afraid there are some things you’re too young to understand, and perhaps there are some things I shouldn’t ever tell you. Our time together is precious, and I want you to know that I will never let anything come between us, I’ll never stop fighting for time with you.

This year I’ve seen you grow from a girl with huge blue eyes, eyes that could drink in the entire sky, eyes that were full of questions you didn’t know how to ask, into a girl who never stops talking. You sing, nonsensical, beautiful, ridiculous songs about anything or nothing. You supplement made up words when you can’t find the right rhyme. You bring me so much joy.

You ask a lot of questions, and you’re beginning to understand even the things I haven’t explained. The other night, you called me into your room for what felt like the hundredth time and said you had to use the restroom. I wasn’t amused, I was sure you were just stalling, but I picked you up out of bed to carry you to the bathroom. Halfway there you said, in a lighthearted voice, as if having just realized something that amused you, “Daddy, you’re cranky!”

I couldn’t hold the laugh in.

“You’re right, I am cranky. I love you. Lets go potty.” I said, and you did, and maybe I was wrong anyway. Maybe I’m mostly wrong. But I’m not wrong about this: I want to go everywhere with you. My life is sweeter when your hand is holding mine, and when your songs are in my ears.

You are a part of me. As much a part as your sister. As much a part as I am myself. Even when I’m away from you, which is a thing that is troubling me deeply just now, even when I’m away from you I carry you with me. There isn’t a moment that you aren’t in my thoughts. There isn’t a beat of my heart that doesn’t echo your name in waves through my veins, through my muscle and bone and sinew.

You are troublesome. You don’t care when I say “no”, you’re indifferent when I scold you, you’re stubborn and determined and I love and admire those parts of you, even when they are at odds with my own aims. I can’t wait to see the woman that you are becoming. I can wait, because I never want you to change from who you are right this moment, and I can’t wait, because seeing you grow into you is the most beautiful thing.

I love you,
Daddy

Originally posted on Katherine, on your birthday

Because gender equality is such a vast and complex landscape, it’s difficult for me to feel comfortable talking about it. The bottom line is that women are still treated as inferior in the majority of social settings. In fact, as one comment on the linked article points out, the trope of “bumbling dad” and “mom as primary parent” still has an element of sexism toward women in shoe-horning them into a specific parental gender role.

For those reasons, I’m not very vocal about the media and marketing portrayal of fathers as inferior. Yes, I believe it’s damaging and yes, it needs to change. While those things are true, this is just about the only arena where men have to encounter a kind of dismissal and minimization that women face in almost every aspect of their public lives.

As a single father, being called “Mr. Mom” is frustrating, and it hurts, and I always correct the person calling me that. I’m for equality across the board. Personally, though, my being treated equally in this one area of my life is less important than women being treated equally in every other area.

If there’s a battle dads should be fighting for equality, I think we should be focusing our energy on getting society to treat women as something more than future mothers, and mothers as something more than nurturing parents; as human beings who are as capable of making decisions in the boardroom as they are in the diaper aisle.

Originally posted on The “Bumbling Dad” Trope

That night, your body so near
Our heads on a single pillow
That night, your woodsmoke hair
Tickling my nose

That night, was a very. good. night.

Originally posted on Kate

I failed. I only managed to read 75 books in 2012, I made it three quarters of the way to my goal, and I learned a great deal. The first and most exciting thing I learned is this: Anyone can read a hundred books in a year. You can. I could have. It’s attainable.

Here’s how:

1. Stop watching TV.

2. You know how you go out to lunch with friends? No you don’t.

3. Stop playing videogames.

Bottom line: It’s easy to read 100 books in a year if you’re willing to spend all of your “hobby time” reading books. You may not have to cut everything else as aggressively as I needed to (I am a single father with two young children, which means that the majority of my weekends are not free time), but you have to have a mindset which prioritizes reading above anything else.

I didn’t have that mindset. In spite of missing my goal, I don’t regret reading the books I read and I don’t regret the donation I’ll be making to the library this year. I don’t regret my kids waking up from their naps and coming out of their room to find me reading books, and I don’t regret all of the time I spent reading with them. I don’t regret the stack of books piled 10 high on my desk right now, or the fact that almost all of my friends bought me books for Christmas.

One of the earliest surviving written works, the Epic of Gilgamesh, written around the 15th century BC, deals with themes of friendship, loss, and the hero’s struggle to accept his own mortality. Many of the books I read in the last year (all of them?) dealt with these same themes. Reading isn’t just a way of accessing other viewpoints or exploring other lives, it’s a way of connecting with humanity, And not just the people around us, not our local branch of humanity, but all of the people who have been and all of the people who are to come. It provides us with a way of facing our own fears, and realizing that they, as much as anything else, are what make us human. If the realization of our shared struggle, our shared quest for understanding and the inevitability of grief in all of our lives doesn’t make you feel a love and kinship for your fellow man, I don’t know what will.

Fiction is a gateway to a million lives, it’s a way to experience diverse viewpoints and reconnect with what it means to be a human, to be a moment, to be a single point in a vast living ocean.

I urge you to read, for the joy of it, for the beauty to be found in it, and for the opportunity it will provide you to connect with yourself and others.

My goal for this year is 50 books.

Originally posted on Bookish Update: How I failed, what I learnt

When she isn’t tired, she just lays there and calls me. In order to keep it from becoming too frustrating I’ve managed to teach them that they have to have a reason for calling me. Furthermore, that their reason must be clearly articulable. This protects me from getting frustrated with repeated summons followed by long silences when I get into the room. It’s a sham, I know all Katie really wants is Not to be in bed, and calling me in is just a diversion from the boredom she experiences when she isn’t able to immediately fall asleep.

She does me the solid of making up reasons for calling me, though, so I can’t really ask for more. I walk in and, in a brisk, business-like tone, say “What do you need?”

Tonight she said “Put the bwanket on me!” I was in the middle of doing laundry, cleaning, figuring out their lunches for tomorrow. I wanted to finish up so I could get some gaming in before my own bed time, and that wasn’t looking very likely. The interruption wasn’t materially impacting my schedule but it was cutting up my flow, and that’s irksome.

So I said, from a place of frustration but not in a tone of frustration, “I bet you could put the blanket on yourself, honey.” and she said “No! Dada! Put the bwanket on me!”

I was at the bed, I bent down and I was pulling the blanket over Katie, when I heard Abby’s voice from the top bunk.

She said, “Daddy, you are my heart.”

Air flowed into my lungs slowly, and the world reoriented itself around this possibility. That for this moment, this girl could say something so raw from a place of guileless, pure love, floored me. It changed things in me. Loving people is a constant reconfiguration, chambers in your heart are always shifting, priorities are always changing, new depths are plumbed at the quietest, most mundane moments.

This is the thing I learned: Expressing frustration never makes me feel less frustrated, it only makes me feel guilty. Holding frustration in abeyance until I can let it out in a safe, appropriate, way opens the door for interactions that I myself might have otherwise prevented. Had I gone in with both guns blazing, correcting Katie’s behavior of repetitively calling me, I may have been justified. I may have been acting the way a Responsible Parent should (in the eyes of other Responsible Parents), and I may have shut off the part of Abby that was willing to share that thought, that perspective, which so deeply moved me.

That would have been an unspeakable tragedy, and one I would’ve never known about. I am a lucky man, to have two girls who love me so much. Me, in all the world. And lucky, having no foresight at all, to have fostered an environment where it could be expressed, when I least expected it.

Originally posted on A thing I learned tonight

We’re sitting at the table, in our one bedroom apartment. Errol is sleeping under the table. Abby, you are making up a song, “and I love you, eyes like shining stars” and Katie, you’re shaping play-do, “Look, look guys! Look! It’s a turtle!”.

I love you so much, and I love this moment, when we all get to share a space and do our art. What could be better than creating with you?

-Daddy

Originally posted on A note

Listen to the sound of me spilling my heart through this pen
-Eminem

I looked in the mirror the other day, and recognized myself.  That isn’t quite right. I looked in the mirror the other day, and I liked what I saw. I’m carrying a few extra pounds, as usual. My hair is thinning in the front, my nose is too big and too hooked and I could go on. I won’t.

I’ve spent years looking at the mirror, asking “what are you going to do?” or “what are you thinking?”. I’ve spent years, asking the mirror “Why aren’t you happy?” or “Why are you doing this to yourself?”. Maybe you know what that feels like. There came a time that I looked in the mirror and my face felt wrong. I felt like I was looking at someone else, a person who’s drives and dreams I couldn’t understand.

In therapy I spent a lot of time talking. I spend a lot of time talking, and in the last two years I’ve gotten to know that person in the mirror. I’ve written, passingly, about manhood before. When I used to look at the face I didn’t recognize, I always felt like a boy. In the mirror I saw a boy, too. The other day I looked in the mirror and felt completely at peace. Looking back at me was a man. He seemed confident, and I knew that finally wasn’t bullshit. I didn’t question him, I knew his face fit me, and I understood his drives and desires.

I’m finally understanding who I actually am, and that is an incredibly comfortable feeling.

Recently, my two and a half year old, Katie, has been asking me, “Daddy, how come you don’t love mama anymore?”.

She asks often. When she asks, I do my best to answer her honestly, and in a way she’ll understand. At two and a half, the concepts we’re discussing are bigger. Bigger than she is, and bigger than I am. I wish I could protect her from them, but it would mean lying to her, and I won’t do that. So I give her my best answer, and I finish by saying “You know, I’ll always love you and your sister. I’m your daddy. That can’t ever change, no matter what. ” She smiles, and hugs me, and every time my heart breaks for her, having to grapple with the idea that love might be impermanent, and possibly fearing that she might lose mine.

Last night her big sister said “Daddy, Katie asks that a lot!” I said, “I think she asks a lot because she doesn’t understand the answer. It’s kind of hard to understand, isn’t it? If she’s still asking then I need to keep trying to help her understand. I want her to know me.”

Katie, a big part of the answer is this: When I was with your mother, I wasn’t content within myself. I wasn’t living any of my life, I was skipping the moments that comprise it because I was unhappy and I didn’t want to be in them. It wasn’t something I could change. I did what I could to change it, but it didn’t matter. No matter how hard I prayed, how skinny I got, how far I ran or how hard I drank or how much I gamed, I didn’t find peace. It was preventing me from connecting with you, and your sister.

The rote Christian solution to the problem of internal conflict or pain is, “Give it to God. ” And now I will tell you a blasphemy. I tell it in hopes that it will make you a more whole person: Running to anything, including gods and faith, is a way of running away from yourself. To know yourself, you will confront your darkness, your fear and your shame. You’ll also find the truth, or the lie, behind your pride and your confidence, which may be harder.

When you’ve done this, you won’t be without flaws, but you’ll probably understand most of them. You’ll be more connected to your emotions and you’ll know the woman in the mirror. You’ll be able to connect more fully to the family and friends you have, and you’ll be less afraid.

You will feel deeply. The last few years have left me with regrets, I feel them always. I want to give you and your sister everything that it is possible to give. I want you to have what is in your best interests. I don’t want to hurt you. I found the choices I was left with impossible, I didn’t see a path that wouldn’t cause you pain, so I chose the path that I hoped would give you the best chance. I want you to be whole, I want to be whole so you might know what it means to be whole.

The last few years have also left me with a lot of happiness. I’m proud of the work I’ve done, and of the man I am. I’m stronger than I thought I was, and I’m a better parent than I knew I could be. You and your sister make it so easy. I adore you both. The time we’ve spent together has been this incandescent, living thing. We are alive, and that is pure beauty. I am not sad when you’re not with me but I am always sad when you’re not with me. Does that make sense?

At bedtime, Abby called me into the room and asked me what I was doing. I said I was exercising and she asked why. I said, “Because I want to be strong for you and your sister. So I can take care of you. ” It’s true. And it’s the reason I face my past, and meet my demons, and accept the parts of me that I don’t like. I am driven on your behalf. I know I’ve reaped benefits from this desire to be a better man, and I hope you’ll benefit from who I’ve become, too.

That’s all I can hope. That whatever pain and uncertainty I’ve caused you will be overridden by the love I bear for you, and by the things I can teach you about being a human.

I hope that I can help you understand how to accept life, how to find your place in the infinitude of joy and sadness, and how to become love.

Originally posted on The infinitude of Joy and Sadness

As I was cleaning, Abby started telling me a story. She was sitting on the couch with her sister, they had blankets which they were using to hide from me while I vacuumed. At one point, as I stopped to move something, Abby said “Daddy! Come hide!” and started explaining why I needed to. I stopped her and grabbed one of my journals so I could write down her story.

After she finished dictating this story I asked if I could post it on my blog, for people to read. She said, “Yes…but you’ll still have it, right?”

This is the first story she’s ever had published, and when she’s famous I hope an internet archive picks this up and it makes front page news.

Dragon Vacuum
By Abigail

 There is a dragon in our house.

He just opened our door while we were cleaning and said, “Rah! RAH!”

He was breathing fire. Then, he tried to find us and looked all around. All he found was a vacuum.

So he vacuumed the whole place.

He heard a sound and said, “Closer…closer…closer.” Then he found us. We put on our shoes, and ran. When we came back to the house we found everything a mess.

He went back to his cave, and we cleaned everything up, then had breakfast and played.

—

After she finished the story I read it to her. Katie was sitting between Abby and I, a blanket over her head (because she was still hiding) but with her legs sticking out.

Abby: “Kate, come out here so you can hear the story!”
Kate, matter-of-factly, from under the blanket: “But the dragon is coming to get my face, so I have to hide.”

If I can help them continue to see the world around them this way, I can ask for little more. Each night I pray that they will grow up Brave and Strong and Wise, but the loudest voice in my heart cries for them to grow up full of wonder for the world around them, and conviction that it is the magical place they saw in their youth.

Originally posted on Dragon Vacuum by Abby

“Daddy, when I’m gone you can look at the pink part of this ring and see me. You can see what I’m doing, and when you look at it you’ll know how much I love you.” She said.
“Like the magic mirror from Beauty and the Beast?” I asked.
“Yeah! So even when I’m at Mama’s you can see me whenever you think about me.” She replied.

When she goes to her mothers on Monday, I tell her that I love her, and that I’ll miss her. We talk about how she’ll come back on Thursday, and how that’s only a few days, and she’s always very positive. I try to stay positive, too, because it’s not her job to take care of my sad feelings. At the same time, I need her to know that when she’s not with me, I am not whole. Loving people rips you to shreds, a piece of your heart travels with them, and a piece of theirs travels with you. EE Cummings was right.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it

That’s the price you pay for being open to love, and it’s also the reward. I’m glad that Abby knows that I miss her, and think about her, and love her, when she’s not with me. I’m glad that I can’t be entirely whole without her.

Last night at bed time she said, “Daddy, don’t leave me.” and I said, “Oh darling, I could never leave you. I’m your daddy. Even when I have to be away from you, I’m not gone. I’ll always come back to you.” She smiled, and hugged me, and said “Because you’re my daddy?” and I said “Yes. And because I love you.” She knows it, I know she does, but I’ll never stop telling her either. If there’s a topic that I want to stay “On message” with, it’s my love and commitment to her and her sister.

When we got up this morning and were getting ready to leave for her moms, she stopped in front of the door. I looked down to see her working her ring off of her finger with those tiny, pink tipped hands of hers. She reached up and placed it in my hand.

“There daddy. Now you can watch me while you’re at work.” she said, smiling.

I was surprised she’d remembered. Dropping the ring on the counter wasn’t an option. It went into my pocket, where it will probably stay for the rest of the week.

Originally posted on I carry your heart