(no subject)
You know how when you're a kid it seems like old people (anyone over 30) know everything? And then later it just seems like they think they know everything? Family admonishments that "You'll understand (everything) when you're older" led me, as they led you, to believe that with age comes wisdom, and these predictions from elders of future understanding were usually cast in a light that indicated I'd have some almost mystical grasp of How Things Came to Be the Way They Are. From the perspective of my juvenile mind it seemed it was being presented as a promised birthright, that the trivial notions of childhood would eventually be replaced with natural profound linkages that would make sense of this crazy world.
That never really happened for me, maybe because I clung (sometimes in joy, sometimes in desperation) to the belief that the world is full of magic and miracles and a lot of just plain inexplicable things. (While it is true that dropping acid on the Summer Solstice and seeing six-foot tall Fairies glowing blue in the moonlight can in fact have an "Ah-ha now it makes sense!" effect on the mind, I am almost positive this is not the sort of epiphany my parents spoke of.) Nonetheless, in the almost quarter-century of my legal adulthood a few bits and pieces of genuine wisdom have managed to penetrate my skull, usually by force and often leaving the air around me smelling like burnt hair.
When I was 20, I thought love began with orgasm.
When I was 25, I thought it began with a few lines of cocaine and some criminal mischief.
At 30, I finally understood that it begins with friendship.
And at 42, it has finally been revealed to me (as a masonry drill bit "reveals" a hole to brick wall) that while these understandings may or may not hold some degree of accuracy, there exists in the world a whole dimension of love to which I was previously completely and innocently (if somewhat egotistically), unaware: The love of a parent for a child.
Ah-ha, now it makes sense! A whole bunch of things make sense. In just under two weeks I've come to understand my own parents in an entirely new light. My mother was not psychotic in her mistrust of the family BB gun; My father working 60 hours a week during my entire childhood was not the result of seriously misaligned priorities; Dismantling the skateboard ramp I built from the garage roof to the patio was not in fact a terrorist act; Their invasion of my journals to find out what drugs I was on and where I was getting them from was not an unforgivable display of familial treason; taking away my car keys (and in at least one instance my spark plugs) because I kept driving home so drunk I could barely walk was not cruel and unusual punishment, and the repeated hospital committals for alcoholism, drug use, and a suicide attempt weren't them meddling in affairs not their own after all.
Who knew?
I did, of course. I understood on an intellectual level how crazy I made them with all the antics I consistently performed that consistently posed a threat to my life and limbs. At least I thought I did. But listen: If I had my way, Grael would only be allowed out of his fully padded, impact-tested, Consumer Reports-approved, straightjacket-like baby carrier to nurse, and even in those moments he'd be bound up like a linebacker for the Chicago Bears in a helmet and with thick pads protecting and immobilizing all his bodily joints. On the one hand, Jill smiles and reassures me "You're not going to break him." On the other hand she instructs me, "Babies come in two parts, the head and the body, and you have to support both." TWO PARTS? Oh my lord, strap him back in the carrier!
My son came into this world 12 days ago. I was not present for the exact magic moment, which is fine since there was already one screaming parent in the room as he emerged, and I bet I could have made Jill's decibels sound like birdsong. I was there inside of an hour, though, and the very first time I held my son in my arms he looked into my eyes and said, "Hello, Dad. Listen, I need to tell you something, maybe you'd better sit down for this. (Two parts, Dad, my head weighs as much as my body. There we go.) What I need to tell you is this: Virtually everything you thought you understood about the world is, in fact, wrong. Nut nut nut, don't start asking questions, I'm only an hour old, just listen: We'll get through this. Stop crying. I have a lot to teach you, but that's okay, we've got time." And then with one hand he grasped his ribcage and peeled it back and exposed his heart to me, and in that moment I found purpose and direction and courage and mostly love, all to a degree I'd never imagined could ever grace my life.
I've spent most of the last nine months railing against having a child that would add, among other things, purpose and direction to my life. I didn't want the obligation, and didn't consider myself up to the task. I knew my fears were based on the unknown, but I didn't imagine how far out of my depth I was as far as predicting the future. I didn't realize that when this child, Jill's and my son, came into the world, that everything was going to change in a heartbeat. With a heartbeat. Grael's precious heartbeat. Holy cats, how can you imagine a thing like that?
I have a son. A new day has dawned in my world, and the landscape will never look the same. I want to live a long, long time, and spend hours, days, months & years exploring the world with my son, learning about it with him. I will have to work long hours at jobs I might not always like to give him all the things I want to give him, but you know what? I am absolutely fine with that, as long as he's loved and protected and taught the right things and made happy. Anything that gets in the way of his safety will be removed, any bumps in his path I can smooth over I will, and anyone who poses a threat will, if I have anything to say about it, not be allowed around him, ever, because Jill was right all those months ago when she said he's a miracle. I argued that he was biology, but that was because I didn't understand as she did, because he was growing inside her and not me. Now I understand.
New pics soon. I took some tonight, but then forgot my camera over at Jill's. In the meantime, here are a few of my favorites...
That never really happened for me, maybe because I clung (sometimes in joy, sometimes in desperation) to the belief that the world is full of magic and miracles and a lot of just plain inexplicable things. (While it is true that dropping acid on the Summer Solstice and seeing six-foot tall Fairies glowing blue in the moonlight can in fact have an "Ah-ha now it makes sense!" effect on the mind, I am almost positive this is not the sort of epiphany my parents spoke of.) Nonetheless, in the almost quarter-century of my legal adulthood a few bits and pieces of genuine wisdom have managed to penetrate my skull, usually by force and often leaving the air around me smelling like burnt hair.
When I was 20, I thought love began with orgasm.
When I was 25, I thought it began with a few lines of cocaine and some criminal mischief.
At 30, I finally understood that it begins with friendship.
And at 42, it has finally been revealed to me (as a masonry drill bit "reveals" a hole to brick wall) that while these understandings may or may not hold some degree of accuracy, there exists in the world a whole dimension of love to which I was previously completely and innocently (if somewhat egotistically), unaware: The love of a parent for a child.
Ah-ha, now it makes sense! A whole bunch of things make sense. In just under two weeks I've come to understand my own parents in an entirely new light. My mother was not psychotic in her mistrust of the family BB gun; My father working 60 hours a week during my entire childhood was not the result of seriously misaligned priorities; Dismantling the skateboard ramp I built from the garage roof to the patio was not in fact a terrorist act; Their invasion of my journals to find out what drugs I was on and where I was getting them from was not an unforgivable display of familial treason; taking away my car keys (and in at least one instance my spark plugs) because I kept driving home so drunk I could barely walk was not cruel and unusual punishment, and the repeated hospital committals for alcoholism, drug use, and a suicide attempt weren't them meddling in affairs not their own after all.
Who knew?
I did, of course. I understood on an intellectual level how crazy I made them with all the antics I consistently performed that consistently posed a threat to my life and limbs. At least I thought I did. But listen: If I had my way, Grael would only be allowed out of his fully padded, impact-tested, Consumer Reports-approved, straightjacket-like baby carrier to nurse, and even in those moments he'd be bound up like a linebacker for the Chicago Bears in a helmet and with thick pads protecting and immobilizing all his bodily joints. On the one hand, Jill smiles and reassures me "You're not going to break him." On the other hand she instructs me, "Babies come in two parts, the head and the body, and you have to support both." TWO PARTS? Oh my lord, strap him back in the carrier!
My son came into this world 12 days ago. I was not present for the exact magic moment, which is fine since there was already one screaming parent in the room as he emerged, and I bet I could have made Jill's decibels sound like birdsong. I was there inside of an hour, though, and the very first time I held my son in my arms he looked into my eyes and said, "Hello, Dad. Listen, I need to tell you something, maybe you'd better sit down for this. (Two parts, Dad, my head weighs as much as my body. There we go.) What I need to tell you is this: Virtually everything you thought you understood about the world is, in fact, wrong. Nut nut nut, don't start asking questions, I'm only an hour old, just listen: We'll get through this. Stop crying. I have a lot to teach you, but that's okay, we've got time." And then with one hand he grasped his ribcage and peeled it back and exposed his heart to me, and in that moment I found purpose and direction and courage and mostly love, all to a degree I'd never imagined could ever grace my life.
I've spent most of the last nine months railing against having a child that would add, among other things, purpose and direction to my life. I didn't want the obligation, and didn't consider myself up to the task. I knew my fears were based on the unknown, but I didn't imagine how far out of my depth I was as far as predicting the future. I didn't realize that when this child, Jill's and my son, came into the world, that everything was going to change in a heartbeat. With a heartbeat. Grael's precious heartbeat. Holy cats, how can you imagine a thing like that?
I have a son. A new day has dawned in my world, and the landscape will never look the same. I want to live a long, long time, and spend hours, days, months & years exploring the world with my son, learning about it with him. I will have to work long hours at jobs I might not always like to give him all the things I want to give him, but you know what? I am absolutely fine with that, as long as he's loved and protected and taught the right things and made happy. Anything that gets in the way of his safety will be removed, any bumps in his path I can smooth over I will, and anyone who poses a threat will, if I have anything to say about it, not be allowed around him, ever, because Jill was right all those months ago when she said he's a miracle. I argued that he was biology, but that was because I didn't understand as she did, because he was growing inside her and not me. Now I understand.
New pics soon. I took some tonight, but then forgot my camera over at Jill's. In the meantime, here are a few of my favorites...