Dear Spike:
Where we live, winter always recedes for a week in March, only to stage an encore late in the month, as it is today. It happens every year, and every year we act as though we've been the victims of a bad practical joke.
Sure, the joke's on us, but we're our own pranksters. The sun comes out. Our spring clothes come out. Our jackets are closeted. The furnace is turned off.
And then the snow returns. And we scramble like bears who came out of hibernation too soon.
Spring will be here soon, and I'm eagerly awaiting that time. It seems as though it has been a very long winter and I'm ready to feel as though my bones have finally thawed.
But given that the choice is not mine, right now I'm trying to appreciate the beauty of our winter. The delicate line of snow on the branches of the tree outside our home. The small clouds of breath, yours and mine, that mingle in the frigid morning air. The mountains, white as a storybook picture, that emerge on the horizon each afternoon as the morning storms clear.
You can't always have what you want, when you want it.
But try to appreciate what you have. It'll make the waiting easier.
Love,
dad
Showing posts with label seasons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seasons. Show all posts
Monday, March 23, 2009
Friday, February 8, 2008
THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
Dear Spike:
You fell feverish last night — not terribly so, but enough that you were up most of the night, alternately crying, screaming, fussing and whining.
By this morning, your temperature had dropped back down to a more normal 98.7 — and now you’re simply fighting exhaustion. (It’s not yet 10:30 a.m. and I’ve just set you down for your third nap of the morning.) By this evening, I’m sure, you’ll have recovered your usual, cheery disposition, but having gotten plenty of sleep throughout the day, I’m certain, you’ll be up most of the night again.
So it goes. And goes. And goes.
The laws of science tell us that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In the humanities, we simply say "what goes around, comes around," but it is equally incontrovertible as a principle of life as it is a principle of physics. Everything you do in this world — by choice, by circumstance or, most often, by both choice and circumstance — will set off an ever-splintering chain of reactions, the consequences of which might be felt today or years down the road. Some people call this the “butterfly effect” — based on the idea that if were you able to follow the infinite effects of an action as infinitesimal as a butterfly flapping its wings, you might find that, over days and weeks and months and years and centuries and millennia, an entire world is changed by an initial action not seen nor felt by anyone.
I’ve thought about this principle a lot as you, your mother and I have begun our journey through this world — at once so simple and so chaotic — together. What choices have we made today that will, in the decades to come, effect your life and the lives of others? What circumstances have occurred that will, as you live and breathe and grow, change your world and the worlds around you?
How will the dreams that you are dreaming this morning — at a time when you would usually be awake — inform the rest of your day? How will that day change your week, your year, your life?
You’re starting to wake from your nap, now. And coincidentally, the sun has broken through the winter clouds for the first time in weeks, so I think I’ll take you outside, for a moment or two, for a bit of fresh air.
We’ll breathe it all in. And change the world.
Love,
dad
You fell feverish last night — not terribly so, but enough that you were up most of the night, alternately crying, screaming, fussing and whining.
By this morning, your temperature had dropped back down to a more normal 98.7 — and now you’re simply fighting exhaustion. (It’s not yet 10:30 a.m. and I’ve just set you down for your third nap of the morning.) By this evening, I’m sure, you’ll have recovered your usual, cheery disposition, but having gotten plenty of sleep throughout the day, I’m certain, you’ll be up most of the night again.
So it goes. And goes. And goes.
The laws of science tell us that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In the humanities, we simply say "what goes around, comes around," but it is equally incontrovertible as a principle of life as it is a principle of physics. Everything you do in this world — by choice, by circumstance or, most often, by both choice and circumstance — will set off an ever-splintering chain of reactions, the consequences of which might be felt today or years down the road. Some people call this the “butterfly effect” — based on the idea that if were you able to follow the infinite effects of an action as infinitesimal as a butterfly flapping its wings, you might find that, over days and weeks and months and years and centuries and millennia, an entire world is changed by an initial action not seen nor felt by anyone.
I’ve thought about this principle a lot as you, your mother and I have begun our journey through this world — at once so simple and so chaotic — together. What choices have we made today that will, in the decades to come, effect your life and the lives of others? What circumstances have occurred that will, as you live and breathe and grow, change your world and the worlds around you?
How will the dreams that you are dreaming this morning — at a time when you would usually be awake — inform the rest of your day? How will that day change your week, your year, your life?
You’re starting to wake from your nap, now. And coincidentally, the sun has broken through the winter clouds for the first time in weeks, so I think I’ll take you outside, for a moment or two, for a bit of fresh air.
We’ll breathe it all in. And change the world.
Love,
dad
Friday, December 21, 2007
A SUDDEN CONNECTION
Dear Spike:
Snowing again today. Nine inches, maybe more.
The roads haven’t been plowed yet, so your mother decided to walk to work. We’re upstairs watching this amazing white world from the window in my office (which over the past few months has come to more closely resemble your office.)
A few short and random thoughts on this beautiful winter morning:
• Over the past few days, I’ve spoken to or corresponded with several friends whom I have not seen in some time. I’ve made an effort this year to reengage those friends with whom, for whatever reason, I have lost contact — and there’s a long list. I’m glad I’ve done this. It’s been especially rewarding to share with them your story and to hear about their lives, their families and their journeys.
• I think I may have made a new friend in Kenya this week. He’s a fellow journalist who wrote me in response to an article I penned regarding America’s use of Third-World mercenaries to defend its military and diplomatic bases in Iraq. Seems we’ve got a lot in common and we’ve begun to correspond.
• A song comes to mind... “Make new friends but keep the old,” I think it goes.
• I heard on the radio this morning that machete sales are up in Kenya. And though I’ve never even met my new friend in the flesh, I felt a sudden connection to that place, where candidates for parliament and the presidency have been stirring ethnic divisions in an attempt to win more votes.
• I’ve had similar experiences when reading or hearing reports from many of the places I’ve traveled and many more where I have friends. It is often a woeful experience, but I feel very privileged to be connected to this world in this way.
• Another song comes to mind (and probably won’t leave my head all morning now) “it’s a world of laughter, a world of tears, it’s a world of hope and a world of fears.”
• Outside it looks as though someone has shaken a snow globe, with tiny flakes swirling about in the air up, down, left, right. The trees look like cotton bushes. The street is like a long, flat sheet of white paper.
• It looks like we’re going to have a white Christmas. And so will those we know and love in places like Herat, Afghanistan; and in Frankfurt, Germany; and in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
• Yes, it’s a small world after all.
Love,
dad
Snowing again today. Nine inches, maybe more.
The roads haven’t been plowed yet, so your mother decided to walk to work. We’re upstairs watching this amazing white world from the window in my office (which over the past few months has come to more closely resemble your office.)
A few short and random thoughts on this beautiful winter morning:
• Over the past few days, I’ve spoken to or corresponded with several friends whom I have not seen in some time. I’ve made an effort this year to reengage those friends with whom, for whatever reason, I have lost contact — and there’s a long list. I’m glad I’ve done this. It’s been especially rewarding to share with them your story and to hear about their lives, their families and their journeys.
• I think I may have made a new friend in Kenya this week. He’s a fellow journalist who wrote me in response to an article I penned regarding America’s use of Third-World mercenaries to defend its military and diplomatic bases in Iraq. Seems we’ve got a lot in common and we’ve begun to correspond.
• A song comes to mind... “Make new friends but keep the old,” I think it goes.
• I heard on the radio this morning that machete sales are up in Kenya. And though I’ve never even met my new friend in the flesh, I felt a sudden connection to that place, where candidates for parliament and the presidency have been stirring ethnic divisions in an attempt to win more votes.
• I’ve had similar experiences when reading or hearing reports from many of the places I’ve traveled and many more where I have friends. It is often a woeful experience, but I feel very privileged to be connected to this world in this way.
• Another song comes to mind (and probably won’t leave my head all morning now) “it’s a world of laughter, a world of tears, it’s a world of hope and a world of fears.”
• Outside it looks as though someone has shaken a snow globe, with tiny flakes swirling about in the air up, down, left, right. The trees look like cotton bushes. The street is like a long, flat sheet of white paper.
• It looks like we’re going to have a white Christmas. And so will those we know and love in places like Herat, Afghanistan; and in Frankfurt, Germany; and in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
• Yes, it’s a small world after all.
Love,
dad
Thursday, December 13, 2007
OUR HUMBLE TREE
Dear Spike:
We went to fetch a tree tonight. It wasn’t the most romantic of quests. We simply drove a few blocks to the local supermarket, found a decent looking fir, and threw it into the back of the wagon for the three-minute drive home. The whole process took 15 minutes, tops.
Back when I was a kid, my family used to drive up into the mountains to choose our tree at a farm. We’d pack a thermos of chili and some cornbread to eat on the way, then spend hours searching for the perfect tree. Sometimes when we thought we’d found a good one but weren’t 100 percent sure, we’d mark it with a few sticks or dead branches and move on. When we’d finally settled upon a tree — assuming no other family got to it first — my siblings and I would all take turns lying in the mud and hacking away with a saw.
Your mother tells me she had much the same experience, except her family always brought along a wide piece of cardboard to lie upon so they wouldn’t get muddy while chopping down the tree. (At least one side of your family seems to have some common sense. Let’s hope you have inherited those genes.)
However unspectacular the means of this year’s harvest may have been, I do love having a tree in our home. It fills our whole house with the rich scent of pine and seems to bring a freshness to the air. Sometimes — especially late at night — I find myself just staring into the lights.
I hate the fact that “the Christmas season” starts as soon as Halloween ends. At the grocery stores, out go the Freddy Kruger masks, in come the animated Rudolf lawn statues. The radio stations play endless carols. Downtown is decked in lights and tinsel.
We prefer not to dilute our holiday cheer. Two weeks before Christmas Day, we set up our humble tree. We play a little Bing Crosby. And we place on the mantle the olive wood nativity set I picked up in Israel a few years back.
It’ll all be gone by the New Year. That way, when Christmas comes around next year, and the next, and the next, we won’t be too tired of the season to appreciate what it means.
Love,
dad
We went to fetch a tree tonight. It wasn’t the most romantic of quests. We simply drove a few blocks to the local supermarket, found a decent looking fir, and threw it into the back of the wagon for the three-minute drive home. The whole process took 15 minutes, tops.
Back when I was a kid, my family used to drive up into the mountains to choose our tree at a farm. We’d pack a thermos of chili and some cornbread to eat on the way, then spend hours searching for the perfect tree. Sometimes when we thought we’d found a good one but weren’t 100 percent sure, we’d mark it with a few sticks or dead branches and move on. When we’d finally settled upon a tree — assuming no other family got to it first — my siblings and I would all take turns lying in the mud and hacking away with a saw.
Your mother tells me she had much the same experience, except her family always brought along a wide piece of cardboard to lie upon so they wouldn’t get muddy while chopping down the tree. (At least one side of your family seems to have some common sense. Let’s hope you have inherited those genes.)
However unspectacular the means of this year’s harvest may have been, I do love having a tree in our home. It fills our whole house with the rich scent of pine and seems to bring a freshness to the air. Sometimes — especially late at night — I find myself just staring into the lights.
I hate the fact that “the Christmas season” starts as soon as Halloween ends. At the grocery stores, out go the Freddy Kruger masks, in come the animated Rudolf lawn statues. The radio stations play endless carols. Downtown is decked in lights and tinsel.
We prefer not to dilute our holiday cheer. Two weeks before Christmas Day, we set up our humble tree. We play a little Bing Crosby. And we place on the mantle the olive wood nativity set I picked up in Israel a few years back.
It’ll all be gone by the New Year. That way, when Christmas comes around next year, and the next, and the next, we won’t be too tired of the season to appreciate what it means.
Love,
dad
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
FOR THE SEASON
Dear Spike:
The park near our home has a strong wireless Internet connection, and so during warmer months, you and I spent a lot of time here. I’d push you around the lake with my laptop computer balanced on the cup holders on your stroller, reading and responding to my daily avalanche of e-mails while you watched the black and white geese splash land in the still water or followed the golden leaves as they tumbled from the trees.
But now it is cold. And so recently we have spent most of our days at our home. I sit at my desk and write. You play in your jungle gym and rest in your swing. When you sleep I make my phones calls. When you’re unhappy, I close my computer and play with you on the floor.
It’s a suitable arrangement. And it is better (and cheaper) than sending you to daycare every day.
But now the weekend’s storm seems to have killed our Internet connection, and the company that services the line to our home says they won’t be able to make it out until next Tuesday.
And so here we sit, in the car, in the parking lot near the greenhouse at the park. You’re resting in your safety seat in the back, I’m sitting at the wheel, looking out over the dashboard at the little old carousel. Like most things out here, it’s closed for the season.
I always thought that nostalgia only existed in decade-long increments — for childhoods long past and ball teams on which all of the players have long since retired. For a musty old church and the stale old hymns sung there. For the glamorous stars of the silver screen, long since whithered and wrinkled and retired from acting.
Today, though, I’m simply feeling nostalgic for the summer. I’m missing a time when you and I could sit together on a park bench and watch as joggers tussled with their dogs as they passed the lake and skateboarders perfected their tricks on the amphitheater steps near the old mill.
Don’t get me wrong, I do so love what winter does to this park. I love how the shadows of skeleton trees draw jagged gray lines on the snow. I love to watch sledders climb up the hill on the north end of the lake, then flop down on their sleds, rushing headfirst toward hand-built ramps of snow at the bottom of the hill.
But alas, I miss when this all was our “outside office.” And I’m looking forward to a time when it is again.
You’ll be nearly a year old by then. Perhaps you’ll be walking a bit. And soon you’ll be able to play on the swings and the slides and the sandbox. And I’ll watch from a park bench nearby, with my computer balanced on my lap and a cup of coffee on the ground by my feet.
And — who knows? — maybe I’ll grow nostalgic for the snow.
Love,
dad
The park near our home has a strong wireless Internet connection, and so during warmer months, you and I spent a lot of time here. I’d push you around the lake with my laptop computer balanced on the cup holders on your stroller, reading and responding to my daily avalanche of e-mails while you watched the black and white geese splash land in the still water or followed the golden leaves as they tumbled from the trees.
But now it is cold. And so recently we have spent most of our days at our home. I sit at my desk and write. You play in your jungle gym and rest in your swing. When you sleep I make my phones calls. When you’re unhappy, I close my computer and play with you on the floor.
It’s a suitable arrangement. And it is better (and cheaper) than sending you to daycare every day.
But now the weekend’s storm seems to have killed our Internet connection, and the company that services the line to our home says they won’t be able to make it out until next Tuesday.
And so here we sit, in the car, in the parking lot near the greenhouse at the park. You’re resting in your safety seat in the back, I’m sitting at the wheel, looking out over the dashboard at the little old carousel. Like most things out here, it’s closed for the season.
I always thought that nostalgia only existed in decade-long increments — for childhoods long past and ball teams on which all of the players have long since retired. For a musty old church and the stale old hymns sung there. For the glamorous stars of the silver screen, long since whithered and wrinkled and retired from acting.
Today, though, I’m simply feeling nostalgic for the summer. I’m missing a time when you and I could sit together on a park bench and watch as joggers tussled with their dogs as they passed the lake and skateboarders perfected their tricks on the amphitheater steps near the old mill.
Don’t get me wrong, I do so love what winter does to this park. I love how the shadows of skeleton trees draw jagged gray lines on the snow. I love to watch sledders climb up the hill on the north end of the lake, then flop down on their sleds, rushing headfirst toward hand-built ramps of snow at the bottom of the hill.
But alas, I miss when this all was our “outside office.” And I’m looking forward to a time when it is again.
You’ll be nearly a year old by then. Perhaps you’ll be walking a bit. And soon you’ll be able to play on the swings and the slides and the sandbox. And I’ll watch from a park bench nearby, with my computer balanced on my lap and a cup of coffee on the ground by my feet.
And — who knows? — maybe I’ll grow nostalgic for the snow.
Love,
dad
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
JUST AS CONTENT
One day left to vote in Spike's Thanksgiving poll (to the right and down a bit.) And don't forget to write a Spiku for someone you love. (It's just like a Haiku — five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables — you can find some great ones to the right and down a little less bit.)
— Spike's Dad
Dear Spike:
The snow came today. It was nearly a month late but, like a good friend, no one minded once it was here.
That was particularly true as it began to look as though it would be sticking around for a while. Here, we’ve learned not to count the inches that fall to the ground, but rather those that stick to it. And today the snow is sticking.
This is your first snow, and although I wanted to keep you warm as I took you to the car this afternoon, I couldn’t help but pull back the blanket in which you were wrapped so that a few flakes could fall on your nose and your cheeks. You flinched and sniffled and giggled. And then you smiled.
And then you cried. Too wet. Too cold. Too strange.
Later, your mother took you on a walk, knocking the frost from the neighbor’s bushes as she went so that you could watch the leaves turn from white to green. I watched from my office window as you tromped through the powder together. You didn’t look particularly happy, but it was clear that you were interested in all the ways the world had changed.
Your mother, on the other hand — I’ve never seen her happier than she was as she marched you in circles and zigzag patterns through our yard. And for me, it was such a joy just watching you two play.
I sometimes wonder how many of the things that we do for you we’re really doing for ourselves. When we dress you, we choose outfits that we think you look cute in, though you’re just as content in a pair of socks and nothing else. We try to keep you entertained with a variety of toys, but you’re often more fascinated by a handful of your mother’s hair or the buttons on my shirt.
Still, I’ve noticed that you seem happiest when we feel happiest. Our relationship is symbiotic in that way, even if it is a bit illusionary.
And that’s OK, I think.
The things that make us happy don’t have to make sense. They simply have to make us happy.
Maybe that helps explain the snow. Because really, you know, you’re initial observation is right: It’s wet and cold and strange.
And yet it makes so many of us so very happy.
Go figure.
Love,
dad
— Spike's Dad
Dear Spike:
The snow came today. It was nearly a month late but, like a good friend, no one minded once it was here.
That was particularly true as it began to look as though it would be sticking around for a while. Here, we’ve learned not to count the inches that fall to the ground, but rather those that stick to it. And today the snow is sticking.
This is your first snow, and although I wanted to keep you warm as I took you to the car this afternoon, I couldn’t help but pull back the blanket in which you were wrapped so that a few flakes could fall on your nose and your cheeks. You flinched and sniffled and giggled. And then you smiled.
And then you cried. Too wet. Too cold. Too strange.
Later, your mother took you on a walk, knocking the frost from the neighbor’s bushes as she went so that you could watch the leaves turn from white to green. I watched from my office window as you tromped through the powder together. You didn’t look particularly happy, but it was clear that you were interested in all the ways the world had changed.
Your mother, on the other hand — I’ve never seen her happier than she was as she marched you in circles and zigzag patterns through our yard. And for me, it was such a joy just watching you two play.
I sometimes wonder how many of the things that we do for you we’re really doing for ourselves. When we dress you, we choose outfits that we think you look cute in, though you’re just as content in a pair of socks and nothing else. We try to keep you entertained with a variety of toys, but you’re often more fascinated by a handful of your mother’s hair or the buttons on my shirt.
Still, I’ve noticed that you seem happiest when we feel happiest. Our relationship is symbiotic in that way, even if it is a bit illusionary.
And that’s OK, I think.
The things that make us happy don’t have to make sense. They simply have to make us happy.
Maybe that helps explain the snow. Because really, you know, you’re initial observation is right: It’s wet and cold and strange.
And yet it makes so many of us so very happy.
Go figure.
Love,
dad
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
BE SO MINDFUL
Dear Spike:
It warmed up a bit today over yesterday’s sudden freeze, but there’s still a dusty white layer of snow on the Wasatch Mountains and a biting iciness to the air.
It’s autumn. Your first autumn.
Even with the sudden splash of color in the trees and the transcendently awakening way in which the evening sun sets fires to the snowcapped mountains, I always feel there is a sadness to this season. There is no time of year in which we lose daylight faster — and although today is merely 160 seconds shorter than yesterday, it sometimes feels as though the sun is racing across the sky, impatient to nest under the western horizon.
I try to slow down, if only just a little, each fall. This season moves by so quickly, anyway, that it is easy to miss that the leaves today are yellow and tomorrow will be orange and the next day will be red and the next day will be gone. It is simple to miss the majesty of the changing shadows and the turning of the winds.
Indeed, I should be so mindful at all times of the year. And perhaps you will learn, better than I, to find those opportunities in every moment, not just those marked by changing leaves and snowy mountains.
Live. Breathe. Smile. Find yourself in the swirling leaves of your tea. Lose yourself in the way your footsteps sound in the leaves of the fall, in the snow of the winter, in the rain puddles of the spring and on the hard-baked earth of the summer.
Don’t miss any of it.
Love,
dad
It warmed up a bit today over yesterday’s sudden freeze, but there’s still a dusty white layer of snow on the Wasatch Mountains and a biting iciness to the air.
It’s autumn. Your first autumn.
Even with the sudden splash of color in the trees and the transcendently awakening way in which the evening sun sets fires to the snowcapped mountains, I always feel there is a sadness to this season. There is no time of year in which we lose daylight faster — and although today is merely 160 seconds shorter than yesterday, it sometimes feels as though the sun is racing across the sky, impatient to nest under the western horizon.
I try to slow down, if only just a little, each fall. This season moves by so quickly, anyway, that it is easy to miss that the leaves today are yellow and tomorrow will be orange and the next day will be red and the next day will be gone. It is simple to miss the majesty of the changing shadows and the turning of the winds.
Indeed, I should be so mindful at all times of the year. And perhaps you will learn, better than I, to find those opportunities in every moment, not just those marked by changing leaves and snowy mountains.
Live. Breathe. Smile. Find yourself in the swirling leaves of your tea. Lose yourself in the way your footsteps sound in the leaves of the fall, in the snow of the winter, in the rain puddles of the spring and on the hard-baked earth of the summer.
Don’t miss any of it.
Love,
dad
Friday, April 20, 2007
ENOUGH FOR ME
Dear Spike:
We had a baby shower for you on Sunday. I was amazed at how many people came. There’s still seven weeks to go before you’re due to join us, but you’ve already got such great friends.
They brought you blankets, outfits, shoes, toys, pillows and a bottle warmer. And they had a lot of fun at our expense (your friends Gus and Emily, for instance, bought you a shirt that says “Are you my daddy?”)
In that same spirit, almost everyone at the party asked if we were ready for our lives “to change” — talking in hushed tones or with eyebrows raised in a way that made it seem as though change was a horrible and frightening proposition.
But I’ve never been afraid of change, for without it, life would be quite dull.
Change is what brings us the seasons — the turning of the leaves, the falling of the snow, the greening of the world. Change brings the sun, then the moon, then the sun again.
Change brings us new friends, new adventures.
Change brought me your mother. And now change is bringing me you.
I don’t know what is in store for us as parents — other than you. But that’s enough for me to want, more than anything, the changes you’ll bring.
Love,
dad
We had a baby shower for you on Sunday. I was amazed at how many people came. There’s still seven weeks to go before you’re due to join us, but you’ve already got such great friends.
They brought you blankets, outfits, shoes, toys, pillows and a bottle warmer. And they had a lot of fun at our expense (your friends Gus and Emily, for instance, bought you a shirt that says “Are you my daddy?”)
In that same spirit, almost everyone at the party asked if we were ready for our lives “to change” — talking in hushed tones or with eyebrows raised in a way that made it seem as though change was a horrible and frightening proposition.
But I’ve never been afraid of change, for without it, life would be quite dull.
Change is what brings us the seasons — the turning of the leaves, the falling of the snow, the greening of the world. Change brings the sun, then the moon, then the sun again.
Change brings us new friends, new adventures.
Change brought me your mother. And now change is bringing me you.
I don’t know what is in store for us as parents — other than you. But that’s enough for me to want, more than anything, the changes you’ll bring.
Love,
dad
Thursday, March 8, 2007
TO OUR EVE
Dear Spike:
There was a warm, slightly moist texture to the air today. It hung around even after the sun turned in. I took the opportunity to do some work in the backyard, knocking down last year’s sunflowers and checking the grapevines for buds. Sure enough, they were there — tiny, cottony buttons pushing through the chalky brown wood.
In the front yard, the snow melted away this week to reveal, pushing up through the wet dirt, the first green fingers of our crocuses, daffodils and tulips. Above the budding trees, the mountains are still arresting in their white dress uniforms and will be for months to come — but there is no question Spring has made her debut.
I’m fond of aspects of every season. I love Summer for her long, soft nights and even for the parching harshness of her days. I love Winter for his jubilance and for the way he makes our home feel so much less a structure of brick and wood and so much more a living benefactor of our family. I love Fall for his artistic whimsy and for the unsubtle ways in which he begs our mindfulness.
But could I choose a season as my bride, I would choose Spring. Bringer of fife. Revealer of things unseen. And this time around, herald of my child’s coming.
Of course, she’s not one for marriage. Spring is delicate and fleeting here. She’ll disappear a few times more before she takes her final stand against Winter, sometime in May. And then she’ll vanish, melting into Summer like a snow bank into a mountain stream.
She is, as we all are, ephemeral.
I remember once hearing a man describe the moment that he first held his child — the realization that she would one day die was so striking and sad to him that he had to hand her away. I’ll never get that image out of my head — a man so afraid to accept the consequences of life that he allowed a moment of its most glorious beauty to be lost upon him forever.
There is in this world much to be lost if we think only of what is to be lost. I prefer to acknowledge Spring’s impermanence as to better appreciate her magnificence.
Same too, for you. The glory and beauty of infancy will be with us for such as short time — I’m certain it is better to embrace and enjoy that than to mourn it. So it goes for childhood. So it goes for adolescence (and, perhaps that is very good.) So it goes for us all.
But when I look into the mirror, I still see a little boy. And when I sleep, I still have his dreams. I think those are my father’s dreams. I think they belong to his mother. To her father. To his mother. To her father. And on and on to our Eve.
I like to think that is Spring, inside us all, waiting out Winter, waiting again to bring new life, to reveal new buds on the vines. To come, to be, to leave.
Such is beauty.
Love,
dad
There was a warm, slightly moist texture to the air today. It hung around even after the sun turned in. I took the opportunity to do some work in the backyard, knocking down last year’s sunflowers and checking the grapevines for buds. Sure enough, they were there — tiny, cottony buttons pushing through the chalky brown wood.
In the front yard, the snow melted away this week to reveal, pushing up through the wet dirt, the first green fingers of our crocuses, daffodils and tulips. Above the budding trees, the mountains are still arresting in their white dress uniforms and will be for months to come — but there is no question Spring has made her debut.
I’m fond of aspects of every season. I love Summer for her long, soft nights and even for the parching harshness of her days. I love Winter for his jubilance and for the way he makes our home feel so much less a structure of brick and wood and so much more a living benefactor of our family. I love Fall for his artistic whimsy and for the unsubtle ways in which he begs our mindfulness.
But could I choose a season as my bride, I would choose Spring. Bringer of fife. Revealer of things unseen. And this time around, herald of my child’s coming.
Of course, she’s not one for marriage. Spring is delicate and fleeting here. She’ll disappear a few times more before she takes her final stand against Winter, sometime in May. And then she’ll vanish, melting into Summer like a snow bank into a mountain stream.
She is, as we all are, ephemeral.
I remember once hearing a man describe the moment that he first held his child — the realization that she would one day die was so striking and sad to him that he had to hand her away. I’ll never get that image out of my head — a man so afraid to accept the consequences of life that he allowed a moment of its most glorious beauty to be lost upon him forever.
There is in this world much to be lost if we think only of what is to be lost. I prefer to acknowledge Spring’s impermanence as to better appreciate her magnificence.
Same too, for you. The glory and beauty of infancy will be with us for such as short time — I’m certain it is better to embrace and enjoy that than to mourn it. So it goes for childhood. So it goes for adolescence (and, perhaps that is very good.) So it goes for us all.
But when I look into the mirror, I still see a little boy. And when I sleep, I still have his dreams. I think those are my father’s dreams. I think they belong to his mother. To her father. To his mother. To her father. And on and on to our Eve.
I like to think that is Spring, inside us all, waiting out Winter, waiting again to bring new life, to reveal new buds on the vines. To come, to be, to leave.
Such is beauty.
Love,
dad
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