Tag: Parenthood

Saturday November 30, 2019

I hear voices of comrades passing along hopes and aspirations, fears and concerns, across time. Alongside these, the needs of the household. The days and their many chores. Shopping, cooking, cleaning: the “I” before and after work always performing other kinds of work. Into it all I try to fit reading, writing, walking, watching, listening, meditating, being for and with others. Always, though, reminded: the ego is but a small part of the equation, barely capable, outdone by those on whom it depends. Be that as it may, the “I” that contains this equation is about to become someone’s dad. The fact of it fills me with awe.

Thursday November 28, 2019

Time to chop herbs, peel potatoes as Sarah pulls pie from the oven. Time to prepare dinner. Sarah and I gathered leaves earlier today on our walk through the neighborhood. We arrange them now into a centerpiece. Turkey in the oven, I dip into Our History is the Future, a book about the Standing Rock uprising and the history of Indigenous resistance to US colonialism by scholar-activist Nick Estes. It’s a lot to juggle — as is every Thanksgiving. But this one is especially so, given that we’re also on the verge of becoming parents. DeBarge sings to me about dancing to the beat of the rhythm of the night, worries left behind.

Tuesday November 26, 2019

We’re ready for a new one. Little one on the way. I feel like leaning back and releasing wild exclamations, loud laughter, cries of animation and joy. Birds fill the air with song. After a walk through our neighborhood, Sarah and I sit at the counter at our favorite fried chicken joint, dining on breasts and sides. The owner recommends that we play music to entice the little one to rotate. I start thinking song possibilities: Yo La Tengo’s “Big Day Coming,” Fairport Convention’s “Come All Ye,” Apollo 100’s “Joy.”

Perhaps, as Maria Montessori might say, those sounds are too loud, “displeasing to the ear of one who has known the pleasure of silence, and has discovered the world of delicate sounds” (121). Perhaps we should try at a variety of volumes a variety of timbres and tones.

Tuesday November 19, 2019

Sarah and I discuss the name thing. The act seems weighted with all kinds of symbolism. It’s a commitment to a different future. Taking the mother’s father’s last name while with the first name honoring matrilineal roots on the father’s mother’s side of the family. What does it mean to relinquish a given name? It’s not like I have to become Mr. Mom or anything. Should I rewatch that movie and report back from Michael Keaton’s 1983? Should I shift into third-person? Or is that the same as reducing oneself to another’s shadow? Does the Author worry he’ll be rendered anonymous? Author as ego-dissolved invisibile man? But I do wish to practice poesis, don’t I? Are those things related? Is the poet one who, operating on language, practices a kind of wizardly freedom, not legislating so much as renaming certain things anew? Hard to say. But of the names, whichever we go with is the one that sounds best.

Wednesday July 31, 2019

Among the patterns swirled into the stucco ceiling of my office appears the face of a small terrier — happy, excited to be here. In it I sense a correspondence. A cat has also taken to visiting Sarah and I on our back deck, a grey one with black stripes, dozing in a chair midday. Butterflies have come to visit as well — beautiful swallowtails, and out on the sidewalk, a “red-spotted purple” with blue stripes and orange dots on its wings. A white plastic tape dispenser on top of my file cabinet resembles a white whale. The world appears blessed with a multitude of entities and beings. And much the same is true here in the home. Sarah and I are expecting a daughter. From the two of us has come a third. Thus begins our life together as a family. With great respect and reverence, ears attuned to our many co-creating friends and neighbors, we set out on our way.