but I know your song.
I know its volume and its capacity to fill.
it is not the rain which never ceases.

I am not suited by a place.
home is not tangible.
yet it is so easily described by tangible things.
things like you, new york.
and the next best thing.

To Do List

It’s really bittersweet that my To Do list actually looks like this. That, among all those other important things, I can easily, plainly spell out that terrible four letter word: divorce.

I mean, it’s inevitable at this point. We’ve been physically separated for a year. Emotionally separated for, apparently, much longer than that.

In part I’m happy that the mere thought of divorce no longer sends me into a spiral of worries and self doubt and fear that my child will be as destroyed as I was. Yet, at the same time, I’m upset that it can so easily take part in a list expressing all of our basic duties.

Clean up your messes, take care of your government, make the people you love happy, provide shelter, and take care care of yourself.

we can choose to see that which is empty and bleak, or we can choose to see new life and new potential.

the doors we choose shape who we are, the way we see our path shapes who we will be.

So, in that vein, here are my resolutions for 2010.

1. Make out like a teenager: Hot, hurried, and in inappropriate places.
2. Take at least one photograph every day and share it. If I don’t share it, what was the point in the first place?
3. Find religion. And then don’t take it too seriously.
4. Take more risks. Stable is nice, but it’s also boring. When it isn’t going to hurt anyone, do it just because it feels good. Yes, even that.
5. Learn to dance. If that should fail, dance anyway, even if I can’t.
6. Worry less about little things. Think it over, then either walk away or jump in with both feet.
7. Trust myself. Believe in myself. Love myself. I’m the only person who has never let me down.
8. Spend less. Live more. Everything worth keeping doesn’t cost anything anyway.
9. Stop pouring myself into emotional drains. Analyze loyalties and don’t be afraid to give up.
10. Quit living in “what if”s. They are a source of worry, waste, and limitation.
11. Love hard.
12. Make new rituals. Find old ones and reclaim them.
13. Try new art. Find new things to look at. Find expression. But don’t get attached to the thing. Just the process.
14. Forgive myself. Forgive others.
15. Cherish friendships. Tell people how much they mean to me. Every day.

In addition, there are things I am already doing that should most certainly continue.

1. Be the best father I can be every second of every day.
2. Be a strong source of support for those that I care about. Check in with people just because.
3. Continue being a non-smoker. It’ll be 5 years on March 10th.
4. Encourage daily social interaction.
5. Get outside as often as possible.

What are your resolutions this year?

This is also true for love. There comes a point in almost every child’s life when girls or boys take on a role of importance that is of a different quality than anything else in their life. If you happen to be one of the first children in a group to experience this, you’re often met with the jeers and taunts of other children who don’t quite understand what you’re feeling. Like color, love — real love — is not something you can explain. You can list the things you love. You can talk about the way love makes you feel. You can talk about the things you would do for love. But, in the end, explaining love to someone who has not felt it is simply not possible.

But, like love, there are many different colors. Understanding what “red” is does not bring a person any closer to understanding “green” or “yellow” or “black”. Each color must be witnessed on it’s own to be fully understood. After some time, we can start to understand different shades of a color without having a direct reference. Having witnessed “red” and “white” brings us closer to understanding “pink” without having seen it, but we’d still only be making an educated guess.

The love one feels for their child is a color all its own. It shares some qualities with other colors and loves and understanding them can bring you some sort of approximation, but it will never bring you understanding. Though you may live a full life filled with love and color, once the color brought by a child is part of your box of crayons, any drawing without it stands out. Like the noontime summer sky, not using the color blue would be intentional and noticed by all who viewed it. Therefore, even in its absence, the color blue has a presence. Like other kinds of love, the love one feels for their child colors many aspects of life. Once introduced, its presence is cherished and sought after and its absence never goes unnoticed.

Some of them steal when they think they can get away with it. Some suffer from anxiety, depression, insomnia, wanderlust, and general dissatisfaction. Some punish themselves for their mistakes far greater than they believe someone else should be punished for the same transgression. Some struggle to find the right balance between catering to themselves and catering to their families and friends. Some envy the guy with the biggest house and mask it by making jokes about how nice it must be to have so much money.

Their kids want the same toys our kids want for Christmas. They still almost always prefer a burger from McDonald’s over the gourmet burgers they sell at whatever trendy eatery has recently opened up in the neighborhood. Some of their children are spoiled brats and some of them are selfless angels and most of them land somewhere in between, just like our children.

They still have unhappy relationships. They still suffer from communication issues. They still cheat on each other. They still say things they don’t mean and promise themselves they wont do it again. They still hurt each other unnecessarily. They still love when it is unrequited and hopeless. They still find comfort in something or someone new. They still realize that problems they have run from tend to find them again as the new things they’ve hidden in grow older too. They still want what they can’t have. They still play hard to get because they know it works.

They worry about making new friends. They worry about how they hell they are going to find some time alone. Some of them even worry about both in the same day. They worry about first impressions. They worry about their own performance. They worry about being able to get everything done in what time they have and if they could just make the day two hours longer everything would be so much easier. They worry about their health. They worry about getting enough sleep. They worry about what to get people they care about for their birthdays.

They notice the nice ass on the waiter or waitress at whatever restaurant they are dining in regardless of the price of the items on the menu. Their spouses roll their eyes and feel a pang of jealousy and when they notice them looking. They have fantasies about people they know. They have fantasies about people they don’t know. They all want to be good in bed. They want to feel wanted. They want to feel loved. They want to be understood. They want to be accepted. They want to have less to worry about and more to enjoy.

They are stubborn and cranky and opinionated and unwavering and close-minded. They have bad days and lose their tempers and get frustrated and get overwhelmed and get angry and want time alone and to be understood without being bothered. They need time to recover. They need understanding and forgiveness.

They are happy and silly and friendly and caring open-minded and giving and loving and kind and have good days and want to laugh and enjoy the smile of a child and the kiss of a lover and the warmth of a friend. They need love and understanding.

They want things and ideals to be realized with as little effort as possible. And it’s still the difference between what they want, how badly they want it, and much effort they’re willing to put forth that has some of them running their own businesses, some of them building houses for the homeless, some of them creating art to share with the world, some of them injecting themselves with chemicals, and some of them counting down the minutes until then can fall into their spot on the couch and watch TV until they fall asleep.

They are human, just like everyone else.

the curiosity

We all love and fear and succeed and fail. We are all inquisitive. We are all seekers of knowledge. We are all social.

We deserve forgiveness and understanding and love when we’re frustrated, when we’ve made a mistake, or when we’re having a bad day. We deserve encouragement and recognition and acceptance when we try to make the world even the smallest bit better or more enjoyable through art or service or friendship. We deserve love and peace and smiles from friends and strangers alike. We deserve the laughter of children, the desire of lovers, and the warmth of friends. We deserve time to cut loose and enjoy the simple act of being human. And we deserve these things whether we are wealthy or not.

All the wealth in the world cannot afford the rich life we can provide one another if we just bother to do so.

outside looking in

I play the part well. Everything is okay. I’ve got everything under control. Not only is this easy, it’s reallllllly easy. I’m surprised that everyone doesn’t do it. On purpose even.

But it’s not easy. At least not always. I didn’t expect it to be, though, so I can handle it. Easy isn’t really what I’m made of anyway. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

What I have a hard time with is watching you through the fence. Given our situations, your life should be similar to mine. But it’s not. I watch how easy your life is. I see you come and go from work like nothing else matters. I watch you bring in your groceries, mostly preprepared meals you can stuff in the microwave. I see the occasional package that you try way too hard to conceal. I notice you sacrificing very important things for your career. I see how easy it is for you to walk away when your time is up without looking back. I listen to you complain to your neighbors about your boyfriend’s cat. I hear the parties you throw, even if they don’t keep me up at night.

It’s only a thought. It doesn’t last. I know I’m doing what’s best and most rewarding.

But it makes me wonder. When the curtains are drawn, and all your lights are out except for the one on your bedside table, and you’re all alone: are you crying at night because of what you’ve lost or are you going to bed with a smile thinking that you’ve really got it all figured out?

I really wish you’d just leave your window open once. It’d help me out a lot.

I got to the point where my failed expectations were resulting in frustration. Frustration that, by proximity, was being taken out, unfairly, on my daughter. I was not the father I wanted to be and I didn’t like it. Knowing there would be next to nothing left if I didn’t carry it, I threw every ounce of truth at it. I spilled my guts. I express my sadness, my disappointment, and my frustration with no reservation.

In the end it went better than expected. I got an apology and a promise to correct. I don’t have much faith that it will actually happen, but I’m hopeful. It would be nice, as my daughter and I both cherished this relationship when it was present and capable.

I’m sad to know that this might be the end. But I’m relieved and finally at peace without this thorn in my side. And, as always, I have hopes that the truth will be seen, the stubborness set aside, and the good, comforting, mutually respectful relationship can begin again.

The very first human parents ever didn’t read a book on the subject. Surely they did something right, because we’re all here, right? Like much of my philosophy on anything else, my thoughts on parenting are formed from common sense, experience, and observations of society. I intend to raise a free-thinking, free-acting, free-loving human being but, at the same time I understand that it is my duty as parent to pass on the information needed to actually exist within this society even if we don’t fully agree with it.

Considering the parenting methods I’ve most commonly seen, my biggest departure is probably in the area of discipline. Put simply, I don’t punish. I believe that direct punishment does not achieve the goal we seek regardless of the punishment or the goal. Consider a very simple, natural form of punishment. Imagine a tree, begging to be climbed, and at the base of the tree, a coiled, unseen snake. If a child should see this tree and decide to climb it, he’ll be met with the punishment of snake bite.

Now consider yourself. Consider every child you’ve ever known. After being bitten, does that child decide that he’ll never again climb a tree? More than likely, he either learns nothing or, over time, learns to look out for snakes. What if we are very diligent about our discipline? What if there is snake under every tree? Does that child “learn his lesson” then? Maybe so. Or he develops a hatred for snakes and an uncanny ability for killing them. In the end, however, one thing remains: The child never learns that climbing trees is bad. If anything, he only learns that snakes are bad. And why should he? The more important thing remains: climbing trees was never bad in the first place.

I believe this same situation occurs when parents punish their children. If the child is too young to fully understand why something was wrong, then he is too young to understand that the punishment he is receiving is “for his own good”. If he’s old enough, then he either didn’t know that what he was doing was wrong, or he did know and decided to do it anyway, knowing there would be a punishment. How many times were you punished for intentionally doing exactly what your parents told you not to do? If the answer is more than once, then did the punishment really make a difference?

A young child  learns that opening the cabinet under the sink gets him a spanking, or a timeout, or a yelling at, or a toy taken away, or gets him sent to his room. If he’s old enough, he might even realize that his parents don’t want him to open that cabinet. But he still doesn’t understand why. Without the “why”, the punishment becomes tyranny and the sought object even more desired. What’s so very important, and so often passed over, is that opening the cabinet under the sink is not bad. Not at all. We adults do it every day over and over and over again. There’s nothing bad about the things in that cabinet either. What is bad is performing certain actions with certain things that happen to be under there; like drinking from the dish detergent bottle. But teaching a child not to do that is much easier than teaching a child not to open the cabinet in the first place for one reason: we don’t do it either. Ultimately, children want only to be like us, to do what we do, to learn what we know, and to explore their world with that knowledge.

This leads to the second key aspect of how I raise children. I let them do what I do. My daughter has an entire playroom full of every type of toy you can imagine. She has a table in the dining room covered with craft supplies. She has buckets and baskets of even more things to play with in the living room. And yet, every evening when I’m making dinner what she wants most, despite all those things, is to stand next to me and help. She wants to put the onions in the pot. She wants to pinch the salt. She wants to measure the flour. Every time I get out a broom, she runs as fast as she can to her playroom to get her own “sweeper” and she follows me around hitting all the important spots. When I’m doing something that isn’t active or interesting, then she turns to her toys for entertainment. And when she does, she usually wants me to play with them too.

Closely related to this, I don’t expect them to do anything I wouldn’t do. If I leave the kitchen a mess, then I’m not really setting an example that encourages them to pick up their blocks. If I don’t brush my teeth every night, how can I expect them to think it’s important when I ask them to? If I don’t refrain from saying “bad words”, then why should they get the soap when they utter these words?

Sure, there’s the whole “I’m the adult and your the kid and I get to do adult things that you can’t do” thing. But, aside from some societal constraints and a few safety issues, in my eyes anything that actually belongs on that list is something a child physically can’t do or wouldn’t want to. Some parents may wish to make a longer list than is needed but, in the end, each additional item is only a new source of stress for the child and, ultimately, the parent.

This applies to everything. Really, everything. The meals I cook are the same meals I feed my daughter. I don’t expect her to eat kale if I’m not, and I don’t expect to be able to eat ice cream if I’m not going to give her some if she asks for it. I don’t expect her to go to sleep just because it’s “bed time”. When I go to sleep, she goes to sleep. If I want her in bed at 8pm, then I go to bed at 8pm. Sometimes I get out of bed after she falls asleep. Sometimes we don’t go to bed until 11pm. I almost always get up before she does. Sometimes she asks to go to bed before I’m ready to which is certainly okay. There are always exceptions. And sometimes, a certain situation calls for a change in routine. But the changes are easy to deal with when we can explain why and when a child can learn what to expect.

In fact, managing expectations is critical. Which things are important to have done in a home is different for every household. Some bedtimes are rigid. For others, the wake up times are more important. For some, both ends are flexible. When I need a child to understand how important something is or what to expect next, I make it part of our rhythm.

We humans are built on rhythms. Our hearts beat. Our lungs expand and contract. Our eyes blink. The sun rises and falls each day, the moon cycles each month, the seasons change through each year. It’s part of our nature. From meals, to cleaning up, to who we visit, to which stories we tell, to when we go to sleep, the more of life that we can build into a structured rhythm the easier it will be for children to understand what comes next. They will begin to expect the next event and look forward to it, no matter how mundane it may seem. And when we have an opportunity to break that cycle, it becomes a treat. Just think of how excited we get over a Solar Eclipse when, really, is a sunset any less beautiful?

Speaking of expectations, it’s important that I always honor my word. For instance, if a child asks for something and I ask him to wait, I do everything I can to remember his request and fulfill it when I said I would. Doing so brings him peace and understanding that you will do what you say you will do and that they need only ask once. Not doing so, makes something as simple as a toddler asking for a cracker turn into a constant barrage of “can I have a cracker” until the item is provided, sometimes resulting in tears if the request is not filled right away. If something should happen and I can’t honor my word, I don’t try to hide behind it or hope the child has forgotten. I explain to him why it can’t be done. I never use “we’ll do it later” as a way to avoid saying “no”.

I could go on and on and on. But these five things really set the foundation for everything else. Maybe I just got really lucky. Maybe there are worse times to come. Maybe I’ll be cursing these very words in less than a year. But, as it stands now, my daughter is a very good, very kind, very well behaved child. She listens well. She’s very smart. She plays very well by herself and with others. She plays alone when I need her to. Due to my circumstances, I have no choice but to put my daughter in daycare. However, her teachers constantly mention how smart she is, how well behaved she is, and how they’d love to have an entire class full of kids like her.

The only real difficulty I have is more an aspect of our society and my situation than my parenting style. With such a close relationship with my daughter, she’s quite attached to me. This means that she’s reluctant to spend any time with people she’s not close to. Especially if she’s expected to do so without me around. So leaving her with a random baby sitter would simply not work. She’s only happy with people she’s comfortable with and the longer she’s expected to stay with them the more comfortable she needs to be with them. Since our society tends to exist in tiny, lonely bubbles of themselves with only the occasional mingling with other groups, getting her regular exposure to other people can be difficult. However, I am slowly, happily building our village around us. And with each new connection my daughter makes, the next connection comes even easier.

I have great respect and admiration for what I consider to be the core beliefs of Christianity as I see them. For instance: I believe that God is in each of us, though many of us do not realize it. I believe that God is the key to salvation and that without it there is mostly suffering. I believe that money and riches almost always corrupt. I believe we should treat others as we would be treated. I believe in acceptance. I believe in simplicity. I believe that retaliation is not the answer and that compassion earns more than aggression. I believe that the wisdom of the bible does indeed hold the secrets to everlasting life and a seat in heaven beside God. I believe that Jesus was the son of God and that he died so that we might hear his message and be saved.

But I don’t believe in the way of life or the beliefs of many of those who claim to be Christian. I don’t believe in the traditional interpretations. It’s the specifics that mess everything up. I don’t believe in their typical concept of Heaven or Hell. I don’t believe in damnation. While I believe that Jesus was the son of God, I also believe (as is stated) that we are all children of God. In that specific way, I believe Jesus was no different than you or I. We are all God’s children, made in the likeness of God, with God inside each of us. I do believe that Jesus was special and deserving of respect and admiration, but I do not believe that he is the only way into heaven. While I believe in the sacred wisdom of the bible I do not believe that most of its words should be taken with any form of literal interpretation. I believe that the bible has two messages for two different types of people. For those that understand the parable, I believe it is both milk and meat — milk for the children (figuratively, not literally) and meat for the mature (again, figuratively). I don’t believe in the lack of tolerance many Christians have, nor their strong desires for space and security and development at all costs, nor their hatred for those things that differ from them.

I believe in the Catholic and Orthodox concepts of ritual and symbolism, I believe in the Mormon concepts of Transcendentalism, family, and respect, and I believe that anyone that believes they are consuming actual human flesh and blood and yet doesn’t not consider themselves a cannibal is lying about something.

I also believe in the Buddhist concept of Karma and the idea that possessions line the path of suffering. I believe that enlightenment is our primary earthly goal and that it lines up directly with the Christian heaven. But, like Christianity, I believe it is a means to an end with both milk and meat in its practices. Do I need to give up all of my belongings, sensuality, and food after the sun reaches it’s apex in the sky in order to find my way toward freedom from suffering? No. But if I followed those traditions to the letter would it lead me where I wanted to be? Most likely.

I believe in the Hindu concept of Brahman or, loosely, God. Specifically:

• prajnānam brahma: “Brahman is knowledge”
• ayam ātmā brahma: “The Self (or the Soul) is Brahman”
• aham brahmāsmi: “I am Brahman”
• tat tvam asi: “Thou art that”
• sarvam khalv idam brahma: “All this that we see in the world is Brahman”
• sachchidānanda brahma: “Brahman is existence, consciousness, and bliss”.

More over, I truly believe in the distinction of Hinduism between two types of Brahman:

• Saguna Brahman: to indicate the “God” with form and traits and therefore, often, doctrine and dogma.
• Nirguna Brahman: the formless “God” that represents all things.

Though I, admittedly, know very little about it, I have respect for the loyalty and devotion of Islam.

I believe in the divinity of nature and the cosmos. This last bit excites the Pagans and Astrologists but really shouldn’t . I don’t subscribe to most of the Pagan aspects of divinity, magic, or enchantment. While I do believe that celestial bodies can impact our selves and our lives in more ways than we commonly believe, I don’t think I’ve ever met an Astrologist who really understood what he or she was talking about. I do believe that this Earth and all of its components, whether divine itself or not, is an important aspect in what makes us human. It’s cycles and seasons are embedded in who we are. It breathes out so that we might breathe in. And in that very breath we, too are part of its breathing, in and out, benefiting all of the life it holds. Without the delicate balance of its ecosystem we would cease to exist without heavy reliance on technical advancements and artificial replacements. The oceans pound against the shore and the moon lights up the night. Time passes overhead, touching nothing, and yet changing all. Earth would not live as it does without our Sun, feeding its plants and, in that, feeding all living things. And the sun would not operate as it does with all those other elements across the cosmos pulling and tugging just so. Regardless of how our great Earth managed to fall into this exact placement, there is no doubting that we are its child and that it will nourish us at all costs until the day that it too passes. And it, too, will pass as all things do.

I believe that superficially following any written guide will lead to, at best, a superficial understanding. I believe that this is exactly the intent of, for instance, the Christian bible. Those that follow superficially lead better, more wholesome lives because that superficial message leads there. Those that follow deeply lead the same wholesome life, but through understanding not obedience. And those that merely follow the abridgments and interpretations of others with unknown intent are doomed to misunderstand and suffer.

I choose to understand. I choose to live in harmony with my creator. I choose to honor the rhythms of that from which I came. I choose to respect the God that lives inside of me and, equally, the God that lives inside of you. I choose to worship nature in all of its mystery. Love is my doctrine. The quest of truth is my sacrament. Service is my prayer. And I choose to covenant with others. To dwell in peace together. To seek knowledge in freedom, To serve humanity in fellowship, To the end that all souls shall grow into harmony with the divine.

Amen. So say we all.