fatherhood: June 2009 Archives

Was doing good until sunset on Father's day. Then it got to me and the blues arrived. Used to resist sadness, fight it. Now I just go with it. Roll with it. Flow with it, like a canoe downstream. (Resisting and fighting just wears me out.) Been here enough times that I know the drill. No big deal.

There's a prophetic verse in Isaiah saying Jesus was ".. a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." So it seems okay to be sad, tho not particularly pleasant. I get kinda numb, distant. Feel like crying.

Been reading a book on Zen a friend gave me. Interesting ideas, perspectives. For example, here's a passage I found particularly thought-provoking.

The context is about rejecting the notion that anything that doesn't involve serious effort (and usually pain-n-suffering) is somehow unworthy or worthless. But the concept can be applied in other ways. See here:

Now there do seem to be times when verve & vigor are appropriate. Times when force works with, and not against nature. As Shakespeare said, "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune." [Julius Caesar, Act 4, scene 3]

But when the tide is not at flood, when mere brawn is up against granite, the effort to go against nature seems more stupid than splendid.

At best, one could say with the French general of the Charge of the Light Brigade, "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre." To call it splendid is to base one's evaluation of man on his animal strength over what is more characteristically human » his intelligence.

This mis-evaluation is perhaps based on the common distrust of intelligence on the part of those who lack it, as something tricky, cunning and weak-spined. But this mis-evaluation also reduces the standards of human character until they are more applicable to pachyderms and rocks than human beings.

For after all, is the final test of character really just in seeing how much suffering you can endure? Your ability to endure depends on how insensitive you are. But being human is about, above all, being sensitive. And this means, the measure of character becomes, among other things, the quality rather than the quantity of your suffering.

Woke at midnight .. to a disturbing dream. (Didn't get back to sleep 'til 3:30.) Mighta had something to do with the call I received yesterday .. from a detective at Newport Beach PD. (The numbers of several detectives are programmed into my cell .. all of whom contacted me first.)

Or maybe it was the Restraining Order I got last week (my 3rd) .. that's preventing me from seeing my son. This stuff is emotionally exhausting.

Today's word-of-the-day » unfounded. Why do I feel like I've been here before? Must be having a dang déjà vu (again).

In my years of dealing with the legal system (none of which I would characterize as particularly pleasant), it has been my experience that detectives are the best at getting to the bottom of things.

One of the first things I do when being interviewed by a detective is to volunteer to take a lie-detector (polygraph) test .. if it will help them determine my innocence .. that I have NOT done the horrible things I am accused of (yet again). I volunteer to stay for however they like, and to answer whatever questions they deem appropriate.

My friends are all incensed by a sense of injustice. I am too sad (for our son) to feel angry. He is being dragged before many different people at various facilities, where they're pulling down his pants and photographing his private parts .. before asking him disturbing questions.

Stories like Finding Nemo, where a dad crosses an entire ocean, battling sharks & other monsters, in order to be there for his son .. I know where those stories come from. I know that ocean. (Seems like it never ends.)

The Bug woke extra early this morning. I was kinda hoping he'd sleep-in cuz I stayed up late last night, long after he'd fallen asleep. But no matter, he said, "I wanna watch Harold."

So I put on Harold, fixed him some chocolate milk & Cheerios, and figured it was a good time to grab a quick shower.

Few minutes later he came in and says (excitedly), "It's raining, dad!" .. which is kinda a big thing here is SoCal, where it rains so rarely.

Next thing I know, he returned with an urgency, announcing » "I gotta go poops" .. and proceeds to fill the bathroom with a wonderful aroma .. that can only be fully appreciated by those whose sinuses have been opened by the steamy mist of a hot shower. (The joys of fatherhood.)

Before running out again he says (excitedly), "I'm doing the trench!"

The trench is a ditch we dug yesterday .. some 10-feet long and a shovel's width wide/deep .. that we filled with water to make a » trench. In other words, you could substitute the word 'mud' for trench.