I will not write about the fourth of the July. the split in the country between the true patriots and the idealists. The ones filled with angry nostalgia for a country seemingly lost to them but never truly was. Or the ones teetering on a certain kind of despair that the dystopian worlds they secretly had a fetish for is coming to pass.

No, I will not write about them. Instead I will write about my son that left our home today with a kind of jittery confidence and arrogance to watch the fireworks at the beach but left in the middle of the day to do so. I will write instead of my daughter anxiously optimistic but terrified of becoming a young adult as she preps for college in the city at the tail end of summer. I will write of my wife as she joined me in the pool that was still too cold for her tastes at 86 degrees.

I will write on how I picked up three mike’s hard lemonades with the intent of downing them all but barely finished one. I will write instead of the dread I feel going back to work from the comfort of my gaming chair and not feel the slightest bit of guilt over it. I will write instead that my mother bought me the first edition paperback of kazantzakis’ report to greco and perhaps that was the most thoughtful gift she had ever given me.

So, no. Not about the fourth. If my fiftieth was a day like any other, then so is this one.

Although the fireworks were kinda nice.

Blank page. Where are you. The you will always be different. You are different. You haven’t changed at all. greyer, a certain finesse to the temples. Isnt that an odd thing to say, a finesse, to the temples? I mean, what the fuck is that? Does it matter?

Roaming around brooklyn, looking for The Stranger Things Experience at the brooklyn naval yard. A town in itself. Gentrification in full effect. Cafes with six item menus placed blocks apart with working class delis in between. Still early. Come back in five years, it’ll all be vegan burgers and high end boutiques. The “experience” itself fun, kinda slick, but you look at it too closely, overpriced and kitsch. You need to give yourself into those things. You need to suspend your anti-capitalist tendencies and just give into it. it is what it is. Expensive and overrated.

But who cares goddammit. I’ve turned fifty. I want to be a child again. I’m really not going to go down without a fight. Fuck that. The past five days, the constant mantra, take a serious picture, come on, grow up. That’s the point everyone, I’ve grown up already, this is not the way I want to be remembered. I want every photograph to be a disruption to your sensibilities and expectations of age, of time, of me. Time will not beat me because it already has beaten me. Like that Jack White songs, time, takes takes takes.

I’m going to give it a fistful. I’m going to laugh in its face.

She asks about drinking strategically, and that’s what concerns me more than anything else. Her first party a couple of years ago, ages ago, I had advised her. I had said, I know it’s inevitable, follow these rules: don’t take any drink offer to you, don’t leave your drink unattended, don’t hesitate to call.

Simple. But she never drank. she tried it and didn’t like it and avoided it, basing her reluctance on science and brain development and the goals of her life. but now, she is contemplating it. she says, I’m going off to college, it’s not realistic that I won’t have a drink. I want to try it at this party that is coming up. What are your thoughts.

And I sat with her. I asked her what her goals were, what was she expecting. And she said she wanted to be prepared. It was strategic. It’s a fact-finding mission. To know who she was and how to be and adjust accordingly given this type of situation. She’s always prepared. So I told her my story. I told her how I had my first drink at 13, 14, gin that made me vomit because I drank it like water. How, even now, I drink like it’s water and I am a man in the desert.

I warned her: you have a genetic propensity to like it too much, my biological father was an alcoholic. That I considered myself an alcoholic and avoid it as much as possible. I told her, your grandfather was a mean drunk. That I was a happy drunk. That I liked myself when I was drunk. That I loved everyone when I was drunk. That I got most of drinking out of the way before I even turned 21.

I then got up and grabbed a fruity “hard” lemonade from the fridge. Set it before her. Let’s find out what type of drunk you are. Let’s see.

And, of course, she wouldn’t. this wasn’t the point, she said.

Have I lost it, as opposed to finding it. I find myself every day. Suddenly there, always there, a knowing and unknowing, a curling and staggered breath. it’s not supposed to amount to anything, just get it down. There’s so much garbage here. So much refuse. Words you barely know how to use but use them anyway because they sound cool. Make you sound cool. Like a coolatta. What the fuck is wrong with you? “coolatta” but hack at it. that’s the point, to drudge through the misery, get it out, dig around, hope you don’t get poked by a stray needle.

I was never ever really worried about random metal cuts. I was never worried about my hand in the heap and the pin prick of something rusty and jagged and filthy. Always thought myself invincible. Running down alleyways playing poor man’s football without equipment, too much traffic on the side streets to play a scrimmage properly, and there I was: husky kid barreling down the alleyway close to the wall, too close, gaining an ungodly momentum on the return and my hand holding the ball scraped against brick and mortar. And I feel the gentle tug of romance in that thought, in that memory of bleeding as I scored a touchdown, outpacing the boys that I wanted to be accepted by, the friends I never truly had. But that’s another story for another time if I ever get all the bits and bytes in the right order.

And it’s the order of things that bother me. How they get lost, or mis-shaped. You never really remember the thing itself: the thing itself is long gone. Even worse, the thing itself was never there. You were never there. Just the impression of a world you thought you were in but left little evidence on you and you on it.

turning fifty is a funny thing. and today is really like any other. at least to me, it’s just another, the sun will rise, some people are going to reach out, some people are going to call to catch up, most people will text. and usually i treat it just like any other, i move through the day at the same pace and vigor and attitude as any other day. after all, isn’t every day a new one to start all over again?

but, and i’ve mentioned it before, turning fifty this year was different. it’s not hitting me today, it hit me when my eldest was accepted to college a couple of months ago. and not just any college, but the college of her choice, and i was floored with a bout of insomnia that i don’t think i’ve quite shaken off yet.

you see, we spend all this time setting things up for a future that will be better than our present. we live for a moment in time that is far from our grasp. we toil, we work, we save, we buy houses, we set up 529s, we set up 401ks, we vacation to get a reprieve, we occasionally treat ourselves but with a severe eye on what this splurge might mean for future savings. but Ioanna going off to college meant this future was no longer some unseen point around a distant bend. it’s not even miles ahead. it’s inches away.

we went to san francisco this year, and during a hike in the redwood forest our kids were walking ahead of us and it was just me and my wife, my partner, the true robin to my batman, and it was just us. they had suddenly gone out of sight, that’s how far ahead they were, and i mentioned to her, “pretty soon it’s just going to be us on this trail”

and ya, it was bittersweet and true, and it brought tears to my eyes, because that time was coming, and with Io getting accepted, it solidified. it was no longer a random emotional thought that came to me being exhausted from days and days of walks and hikes. it was happening, it was inches away and i guess, i guess i am afraid to actually grasp it. to grab hold of it, to turn the years of reaching for it, to actually closing my fist around it.

anyway, like i said, the cold hard fact of turning fifty hit me months ago. today is just another day. the sun is up and it’s beautiful outside. so, um, i’m taking hold of it. unless something goes completely sideways, i’m gonna check out the next couple of days.

(sorry for all the writing but i think you guys should be used to it by now. i used to say, “i am a failed writer”, but i think the one change i will embrace, starting today, is telling people, “i am also writer”)

…the weave of it

my love,

we are making the slow transition into yet another phase of our lives. from anxious and newly minted, to prideful with caution, to now anxious again but somewhat weathered. we’re reaching the point where i am tempted to say, ‘ok, we’ve done our part, we’ve set up these little engines and off they go.’

but not you. no, not you at all. this thing with our kids, this blanket of love and care and comfort, if anything, for you the loom spins faster, the weave more intricate, more color, more stitch. all without effort, endlessly. each thread more confident than the last, stronger, more encompassing but forgiving, they are able to stretch and grow and without snapping.

your love for them knows no bounds. it is filled with worry and regret and admiration and strength and warmth and compassion. we are built for things in this life and part of the point of living is figuring out what that thing is and hopefully, with enough time, getting good at it. i cannot help but think, this has always been your purpose, to love us, care for us, guide us, comfort us. to be what we could never be, to teach us how to be, to weave something true and real and unending.

Happy Mother’s Day

always,
me

so with 50 comes a couple of things right? the illusion of having as much time in front of you as behind you is painfully shattered. the whimsical response of “when i grow up” suddenly sounds trite and pathetic. for the longest time i would wake up feeling a sense of resignation that i cannot defeat time. when our first turned 18 i felt the terror of the tipping point, of time running away from me. now a sense of relief, a return to something we had left in Albany and it’s painfully bittersweet. but it isn’t a yearning, a nostalgia, we are not who we once were. it’s something else. a collapse, a sigh, we did this, we got this far, we’re ok now, a brief respite before the road ahead. but the road is indeed shorter with a sharp curve that i cannot see ahead of. and i guess that’s what brings tears to my eyes. that you will not want to round that last corner with me.

chatting with a friend of mine who had a terrific deadlifting session and felt pretty awesome about it. he asked me if i felt the same, if it was something reptilian. here was my response:

I think it’s the sense that things can go horribly wrong. So you focus, you approach the bar and review every sinew and sore spot. You think about your joints, you think about your grip. You think about the last lift you just did and how to make this next one better. All tied to a singular moment in time. You are present in a way that you usually are not. You are not thinking about work. You are not thinking about your mortgage. You are not thinking about that client call that went bad or how you shouldn’t have said what you said to her. To them. To yourself. There’s the weight in front of you and you need to get it off the ground because that is the only thing in the world that matters. You are the bar. You are the weight. You are the lift. You are the lockout. You are whole and fucking outstanding.

or, ya, something reptilian

halloween is fast upon us, which i hate for all sorts of reasons that partly have to do with my children, the lunatic neighbors that out do themselves every year with laying out horrifying dungeons on their front lawns, and the teenagers that inevitably steal the bowl of candy we leave out towards the end of the night.

but getting past this cavity filled spookfest leads us to thanksgiving, which is rife with a completely different spectrum of familial tension and distended bellies and that car ride home where you are both flustered and dangerously sleepy behind the wheel .

that leaves us with xmas and the new year. which ok. that’s nice. it really is. favorite holidays of the year.

but that isn’t what excites me, and this is what might sound strange.

it’s the promise of SNOW. of BLIZZARDS .

and with blizzards comes long dark nights cuddled up together to watch the world turn pristine and humble outside your window. to watch your little part of this mad, mad world go quiet and serene and, however briefly, at peace.

dear michael,
there was a time I would hold you gently, cradle you in my arms, talk to you in baby talk
there was a time I would hold your hand and we’d walk around and around the blocks, talking
there was a time I would hold you tightly, trying to calm you down, to let you know, I am here
there was a time I wouldn’t hold you at all, I just didn’t have the time, it was too late or I was too tired
there was a time I wanted to hold you, but I didn’t know how to ask, you were too far away or too angry
all these times, rattling in my head, every time I look at you
all these times, and with each glance you change
all these times, you cannot keep still enough
all these times, like flashes of sunlight
like a friend smiling across a room
like a lost ring suddenly found
like a promise lost
and out of nowhere you stumble into the room
and embrace me suddenly, warmly, completely
as if you were me telling me instead
“I am here, I am not angry, I havent changed at all”
Love,
daddy
2021.10.03