Children

It is a strange feeling to be listening to Where The Streets Have No Name and yet hear Gordon Lightfoot singing about a ghost you can see.

The first is a high school anthem, from an album that came out my senior year and pumped me up because every time I listened I heard possibility.

Thirty years later I still do.

Yet my old pal Mr. Lightfoot’s lyric comes from a song much older, but still part of my childhood, don’t know if that makes me old or older.

What I do know is I had a conversation with a teenager who calls me dad and his younger sister who is almost a teen.

A conversation that made me ache because I felt time slipping away and yet I smiled because for the most part, things are going as they should.

She Giggled

She giggled about a boy and I didn’t have to see her face to know what expression was on it.

“Daddy, he is too old for me but my friends keep trying to get us to go out.”

I know that giggle and once or twice I have been the reason girls and or women have giggled like that.

It is the giggle that tells me the day is coming when a boy will supplant me as the male she runs to first. Got a long while before it happens with the kind of finality that a husband will bring, but I heard the echoes of the future.

I heard her down the road tell me to be nice and felt her glare because she knows her dad can be a rascal and might mess with the boy that comes to see his little girl.

Got a while before that happens too and I am not going to rush things along, but it felt strange to realize how close that time might be.

Ten years ago she was so very little and ten years from now she’ll be on her own.

It goes that fast.

Where Are You?

The emails and notes come in occasionally asking where I am and what I am doing.

“Jack, you used to update this place two or three times a day and when you didn’t do that, well you still posted daily.”

“Jack, I miss your writing. Post some silly story.”

I smile at the notes and think about how I was always the active outsider of the parent blogging community.

Hit the ground in 2004 and never stopped, always said I would go to a blog conference or two but never did.

Have worked as a brand ambassador and written sponsored posts and played many of the reindeer games but never worked my way into the inside like others.

Sometimes I was accused of being jealous because I would criticize some of the Babble or Good Men Project writers of this and that.

Would point fingers at the popularity contests and talk about how the same people won because their friends were judges and not because they had talent.

Some did and some do, but not all.

*****

The blogosphere is still a noisy place and there are still some awful writers punching out crap that is dressed up in gold and sprayed in perfume.

It still stinks.

I am obviously still around and still publishing, probably more than some people realize.

The words are slapped on a page daily and some of them are still pretty good while others aren’t quite where I want them to be.

But you don’t get better by thinking about it, you improve by focusing on your craft and practicing.

Apparently I took this seriously because I have been sleeping with fear for a long while.

Some days are harder than others but most of the time I do what I have to do not because I fear the consequences of inaction but because I fear letting fear win.

Most days I get up and work and wonder where the day will take me, adventure is always at hand.

It is a strange place to be, to realize my kids really need me and yet not like they used to.

They dress and feed themselves, go about their business with minor interference from their folks and live their lives.

Not quite in a place where they can claim the sort of independence they say they want. Not quite ready to run things without some help, but it gets closer each minute.

I hear the tick-tock of the clock and pray I have made smart choices and that the sacrifices have been the right ones.

Can’t say yes or no without walking the path and crossing the doorways, but sometimes I wish we could.

It is an exciting time, but I feel like a stranger in a strange land and I know I haven’t really hit the time or place when that is as true as it will be.

There is a teenager sleeping in my living room.

He is stretched out on a mat and softly snoring away not knowing that his dad can see faint hints of the baby he once was.

That is in spite of the massive size difference between now and then, the facial hair that is slowly starting to make its presence known.

Hands that are only slightly smaller than my own and a voice that again is almost as deep as my own.

It has been this way for a long time now but sometimes it is still a nice surprise to hear “dad” rumble across the room.

Dad Blogging Or Something Almost Recognizable

He wants to know if I still blog and if I do, what do I get out of it.

“You used to get stuff or go on trips sometimes. I don’t remember hearing about it for a while.”

I smile and tell him I always write but that I don’t do it the same way I used to.

“I used to share more stories about parenting and what it was like to be a new or younger father. I don’t do things the same way because stories about babies and toddlers are different from teen stuff.”

He asks me a few more questions and I tell him little kids cause little problems and big kids cause big problems.

An eye roll or two later I explain I don’t spend as much time reading some of the parenting blogs as I used to either.

“It is not because there aren’t some very fine writers out there, but potty training, diapers and first day of school stuff are well in the past. Been there, done that. Now I wonder and worry about high school, college and can almost see empty nest time.”

What A Long Strange Trip

I can hear a million echoes of college and high school friends talking about the Dead and what a long strange trip it has been but today I see it differently.

A wry smile crosses my face because I have danced in the fire and run through hell covered in gasoline and know the difference between true chaos and ordinary life.

Looking at that teenage boy I smile and shake my head because in so many ways I have done what I set out to do when I first became a father.

It wasn’t always easy and there have been some very tough moments. The funny thing is when I look back at what I thought were the hardest times I can see now they were just the warm up.

This last year has been more of a challenge than any of the other stuff, but that is because anything that can be solved with money is simple.

Might not be simple to get the cash you need, but at least you can see a solution.

When I look at the current situation I can see some solutions and feel pretty confident that we’ll get there but I know this is going to be a rocky road.

****

The thing is that rocky road is going to be safely and successfully traversed because of that past experience.

I am not the man I once was and am morphing into someone else, a guy I recognize and mostly like. That is what life does to us, it molds, shapes and changes us.

So I look at that teenager and ask myself if I am doing all I can to help mold, shape and prepare him to take on the world.

The answer is I have done and my doing my best.

Life has surprised us and there is nothing unusual about that. It will happen to everyone reading this post and all who don’t.

I can’t say what, when or how but I know we all will have to deal with some surprises.

That is not a warning or battle cry, just a comment.

The only question is whether we’ll find a way to roll with what comes or if we’ll spend time and energy trying to keep the river from rushing on by.

Prince- While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Sometimes I watch this clip of Prince playing guitar at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside a bunch of other musicians and get lost in the moment.

They’re doing a cover of While My Guitar Gently Weeps and I see the expression on Prince’s face and wish I could ask him about it.

Because to me it looks like he gets lost in the moment and there is something that is ever so cool to me about it.

Truth is it doesn’t matter whether Prince was or not because what is important to me is the idea behind it.

I am a collector of moments and experiences and that expression makes me think he recognized the moment and just went with it.

That is what I want for my family, to find those moments and to just get lost in them.

Stop wondering and worrying about the mundane and to let the magic carry us somewhere special, at least for a moment.

That is how you come to enjoy a life well lived.