On An Experienced Joy

Bottom line: My kids bring me an unquantifiable amount of joy. Joy, my pastor described recently, understood as a sustained happiness. For me, I ask no questions after a day of battling with Isaac to take a nap or be potty-trained (Only three pairs of pants today!) that a simple gesture or comment or facial reaction can resonate so deeply as to make the whole day seem like it was filled with that singular moment. I don't contemplate why. I analyze everything and I don't analyze that when it happens. Because it fills me with such joy for my son.

It's another thing entirely to understand that your child can do that for others. Today, Lucy made a surprise visit to her aunt's work to see the elderly women she cares for. One of the particular women, well into her 90s, recently suffered several strokes and has been put on hospice. Today had been quite a bad day for her. And so to her came Lucy, all 10lbs of her, wrapped in blankets and jeans and a t-shirt. Both frail, both communicating in simple ways. She held Lucy for 20 minutes. Silently. More than one can count, Dolores pressed her faint lips to Lucy. Watched her. Smiled weakly at her. Lucy reciprocated it in the way babies do. Never took her eyes off of her. Lucy was the first to fall asleep. Dolores soon followed, holding Lucy has tightly and lovingly and joyfully as her old arms would let her.

I heard this story when I returned home tonight. I felt proud. Not of my daughter's ability to comfort and provide a joy for a particular person. She's four months old. She smiles and then toots. But a pride at what exists outside merely parental love. That things can be shared and experienced that truly can sustain us. Great things. Deeply felt things. Musical things like: Love. Joy. Laughter. These are the sustained and suspended chords we experience. Even if and though we know life will resolve itself again tomorrow.

Return From Absenteeism... For The Moment

It's been a long while since I've written anything here. That's a small shame because so much has happened in the interim. Let's see: I've stopped working and am now staying home with the kids; I've been to Florida to visit my brother; I've watched Lucy grow into a magnificent, face-lighting smile and red hair and have been stymied by how Isaac has grown like a weed with opinions; I've watched my fantasy football team go from promising to mediocre to frustrating to Red Sox circa 1993 (seriously, I've been scouring waiver wires for Tim Naehring and Jody Reed and some guys named Billy Joe Robideaux and Carlos Quintana); and made it through the first four seasons of LOST in less than two months -- really, the best show I've seen in a long, long time (Dad, since you're the only one reading this, you should really watch it 'cause you'd watch it like me). So a lot's gone on. Fertile ground for blogging that I've just not done. And maybe won't do again but I've got a small case of writer's block tonight and was looking back over old posts and remembered that, on occasion, this outlet was fun.

One thing I've noticed since I've stopped working is all those things that I thought we're important or, rather, worth my time. Blogs I've stopped reading. Sites on the Internet I've just completely done without. It's funny now, but, clearly those were absolute ways to waste of time while I was at work. Or, maybe more to the point, ways to spend time when I couldn't spend it doing the things I really wanted to do. And the thing I've really wanted to do was be a Dad. And a writer. And a husband. I was those things before, but, now, I've got fewer obfuscations to those goals.

Lucy is a red-head. Beautiful. A smile that literally lights up her face. It's the best joy to be the first one she sees after waking from sleep. She can currently roll-over and has out-grown her clothes which shows me how fast it's all moving.

Isaac can count to 15. He is learning his letters. He can operate the CD, DVD, computer, ice-maker, and our iPhone's flawlessly but can't manage to go the bathroom in the toilet. His prayers are hysterical and challenging and humbling every night-- I know why God is God: it's because of the prayers of children. And he talks to his imaginary friends Dora, Bob the Builder, Boots and Swiper on a daily basis. Oh, and he's scared to death of train whistles.

So I'm here. I'm well. And I'm writing more than ever before, just not here (and I'm not counting Twitter). And that's because I'm inspired more than ever before. Oh, and Frank Gore just scored a touchdown so maybe I'll win my fantasy game this week.

Fresh From God

We have enjoyed every moment with Lucy. And while she sleeps a lot, she's starting to become aware of her surroundings, quietly. Tonight, a snippet of this and, to borrow the phrase of a little girl in the store the other day, I invite you to watch it, because she's fresh from God.

On The Day She Came

Lucy Hall. Lighter than her brother, smaller too. Looks a good deal like him at this point. Though, the Mrs. informs me she has a sprouting, Daddy-like cowlick. Her eyes are shyer than Isaac's, always half-hid, darker and still that bold beautiful blue. Yes. She has burrowed into my heart very nicely.

We named her Lucy for a couple of reasons. Both coming to each of separately. The Mrs. likes the named because of it's meaning: "Light". Which gives us, now laughter and light in our house. A grand metaphor for our two children. My passion for it came about from "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" which stands as my favorite children's book. Lucy was the main character in that story. The first into Narnia and it's wonders. I imagine my little girl taking me to those types of places. To snow-covered lands with anachronistic lampposts and strange white stallions. And a talking Lion.

On the Day She Came we completely expected her to arrive. We didn't wait long for it, only some three hours. We are happy happy happy. Isaac held her numerous times, put his giant hand on her little face in awe at the size difference between the two of them. On the day she came I held her the first time and cried. Unexpectedly. Softly. Proudly. The Mrs cried long, fast, wet tears.

The day she came is winding down. I'm at home. Mom and Lucy are sleeping or feeding or holding each other in that Pieta, that impenetrable shield of love between mother and child. The words fade with the minutes. The ideas and thoughts and phone calls have dwindled for the moment. I'm left trying to figure the wonderfulness of it all out. And I can't. I can't. But it's there, hidden, burrowed down into my heart, waiting to burst forth in those glorious moments of parenthood. Those times when you're caught unawares and left unhinged by the abounding love and joy your child brings.

And so on the the day Lucy's come, to borrow a phrase, I'm willing to rip open my chest and find all the new treasures that are there.

On The Day Before You Came

I'll be honest, I thought this day had already come. Every morning I woke up, I tried to ruminate on the previous day: Was that the day before you came? But that day just hasn't happened until now. So I woke up this morning, three times: Once to meet your brother at the foot of our bed, once with my head cricked on the bean bag in your brother's room and third time back in my bed. I woke up this morning, the day before you came and so far nothing much has happened. I made myself a cold coffee drink and a bagel. Your brother gave me a kiss before I left and told me "Bye Daddy, see you in the morning." He says the funniest things. I just finished some pretzels and downed a liter of water. I wanted a snack from the vending machine but it was found lacking.

I know your mother (who your brother affectionately has taken to calling Moms) is nervous. Her mind, if I know her, is wandering today. Mine too, for that matter. I wonder incessantly about you. What you will look like, how you will laugh and sing and dance. How you will react to your mildly insane older brother who will smother you with his affection and opinions. I wonder about all the things a typical parent wonders about. How much will everything change tomorrow? Beyond that: how much will it change like we are expecting it to change? I know, slightly metaphysical for you. Perhaps I won't read this to you until you're a little older then.

I'm trying to think if I've got anything profound to offer you about the day before you were born. If some prescient bright shining star or angelic rapture or heaven stricken silence has occurred. Some moment that signifies the leaping off of some great height, across some great chasm, landing, tomorrow, with you in our arms. And on the day before you come, I've not been able to find anything. And I think it's because I don't know you yet. I don't know, that maybe the way the sky has cleared brilliantly will be indicative of your eyes. Or that I've heard a song on the radio that will one day be your favorite song. Or the man you will marry was born today. Or your best friend was born today on the day before you came. Or the person who will help you the most in this life stubbed their toe and set off a serious of events that will culminate in the moment you need them the most. I don't know.

I know this day will meld into tomorrow and the next and next. That your presence in my life will work backwards. That's how love tends to work. It stretches out infinitely in the present, reaches ahead of us into the future, and becomes inextricably and inexorably intermingled with our pasts.

The rest of my day will pass by. I'll finish work. Go to the gym. Go home. Have dinner with your grandparents and aunt and cousins -- spaghetti!- and spend my night trying not to think about what I can't help but think about. Maybe I'll look for a profundity or two for you. One I'll share with you and tell you about over and over again. One you'll get tired of hearing but will want to hear nonetheless. I'll keep my eyes and ears open.

But as this night wanes, as it heads off to that second star to the right and I close my eyes and put my hand across Moms belly and feel you kicking inside, on the day before you came, I will say to you "Good night, sweet daughter, see you in the morning."

The Descent

I think it must have taken a lot for him to come down. To wander out so aimlessly into the darkness. To measure each step so accurately, trusting eyes that barely knew how to see but needed to see depth. And the darkness. Existing in a world he was not at all familiar with. Without the ambient light he ascended with. Or was forced to close his eyes too. The world was much different than he remembered, if he remembered at all. But down he came.

I think he must’ve felt trapped. From where he was he could see the moon and the stars and faint blowing breeze dancing on the tops of the trees. Down here he must’ve felt trapped in his father’s house. Destined to walk a path that a hair’s breath on either side would have succumbed him to the unfettered and unsoothable pain of something as simple as a stubbed toe. Maybe it was a pain he was prepared for. But I contend that a pain you know is coming is far worse than one you get blindsided with because you can do nothing to stop it. The world down here: in a succulent darkness. But down he came.

I think of the timber of his heart. The courage to risk the fall to risk it all to descend and traverse and withstand what he feared most: knowing the absolute worst could happen. And whatever measure of choice brought him to the penultimate moment, to the riskiest risk in the darkiest darkness, I cannot imagine the courage it took for him to speak.

We did not hear him as he called out from right over our heads, loudly, screaming at us asleep in our darkness. What made him think we would hear him even if he stood in our very presence, knowing we were very much asleep. What kind of courage it takes to endure a descent into such darkness and yield such a little but bright colored word that can so powerfully awake us, is something you’ll need to ask him.

But last night, down Isaac came, from his new room upstairs to the foot of our bed before calling out in a final breath: “Momma”. It’s a journey I don’t think he was the first to make.

Imaginary Conversations That Lead To Real Events

Characters:
Isaac: a freshly turned two-year old with blue eyes. Able to compose short sentences such as "I wanna play DS" and "Bye-bye Daddy". Remarkable sense of balance. Short.

Tiffany: almost three; bright blue eyes. Doesn't speak using contractions. Tall for her age. Likes to play with dolls.

Aaron: concerned twentysomething parent who is busy upstairs. Finds humor in random things.

Setting:
Interior of two-story home; other children and adults milling about on second-story. Isaac and Tiffany are downstairs in living room. Isaac is holding a Nintendo DS; Tiffany a generic baby doll.

Isaac: Hey Fee! I'm playing DS.
Tiffany: I can see that Eye-Zack. You are having fun?
Isaac: Yuh! DS!
Tiffany: Well, I am playing with my doll. She is pretty. I am pretty.
Isaac: Yuh! Momma?
Tiffany: Mommy is upstairs, Eye-Zack. I need a tissue.
Isaac: Yuh! Tissue. Nose! (points to his own nose histrionically)
Tiffany: Yes, Eye-Zack.
Isaac: Bathroom. Yuh? Go.
Tiffany: Okay, Eye-Zack. We can go get tissues.
Isaac: Yuh! DS. Gross. Needs tissue.
Tiffany: So does my baby doll.

Isaac and Tiffany walk together to bathroom. Tiffany half-shuts the door behind her. The bathroom is dark, a soft yellow light filters slightly through the brown shower curtain.

Tiffany: Here you go Eye-Zack (hands Isaac a tissue)
Isaac: Nose. Tissues.
Tiffany: Tissues are cool. I use them on my nose. And so does my doll.
Isaac: I play DS. Nose!

Loud banging noise heard overhead. Aaron comes pounding down the stairs calling for Isaac and Tiffany. Sees the bathroom door half-open.

Aaron: Hey guys, what are you doing in here?

Isaac is polishing the DS with a handful of tissues. Tiffany is rubbing the dolls head with the tissues.

Scene.

A Memory: Earl and Marge

It always fascinates me, the things that jog and stir memories. The catalysts that can launch us into the seemingly insignificant, yet vivid details of our pasts. I was just heating up some leftover orange chicken (with rice)...

The engineers were discussing a recent funeral for one of the workers' great and distant aunt. A woman who lived to 97. But in doing so had outlived the people who knew her. And as a result, the worker had to be a pallbearer at her funeral even though he barely knew her. For some reason that reminded me of Marjorie Blundell. Struck to life an occurent memory: I was a pallbearer at her funeral.

Marge was a tall, thin woman. She wore vintage horn-rimmed glasses and had jet black hair that flared out over her ears. Small eyes; a round, sharp face. I don't remember ever hearing her speak, and if she did, her voice was too soft, too frail and unsure to leave an impact. Marge just had an air of lightness and simpleness about her. She could've walk on top of a snow drift, if the wind didn't carry her over it.

Then there was her husband Earl. The church's janitor. A grumbling curmudgeon with a large face, weighed with jowls, had heavy, hunched shoulders, the type of walk that made you wonder how he got anywhere before the day expired. Earl mumbled, seemed always to be talking to himself about something. He was a simple man as well, a simple, short man with giant hands and a massive heart. He was could've been much younger than he seemed. But at the same time, the aspects of devotion and loyalty he showed to Marge and the church couldn't have been learned in a hundred lifetimes. I knew that then and I know it now.

I remember my dad telling me to always respect Earl. To help him carry bags of clothes to the back. To tear down tables and put them back up myself if I wanted to use the gym; or the gym needed to be set-up for church functions I needed to do it for Earl. And anytime I could help Earl, I needed to help Earl. Even though his temperament scared me as a teenager.

And from that memory came a haunting piece of Scripture. A verse my father told me Earl expressed to him when asked why he continued to work well past retirement. A verse that was his life's verse. One that made him happy and summed everything up about Earl. And I remembered that verse.

My heart, for the rest of the day, was reheated by those memories of Earl and Marjorie.

On A Year: March 12, 2008 - March 12, 2009

Isaac woke up this morning a little early and very much cold. Seems he and his cousin messed with the thermostat the previous day, unbeknownst to all of us, resetting the entire schedule. Resetting it to 60 degrees. Not to mention his abject disapproval of socks on his feet while sleeping, he was very cold this morning, in the hour before dawn. So he laid in bed under the blankets with us. Warming to the day. Listening to us sleepily tell him Happy Birthday. 

When he got up he noticed decorations, multi-colored streamers, dangling from his door. Then more cloaking the back of his highchair. He flicked at them. Giggled. Then he noticed a giant Happy Birthday banner above the table to the right. He pointed to it and smiled and called out for Momma. He smiled real big and pointed to it. Real big. Today was going to be something a little different. 

I'm not sure it ever set in for him. Even though he peeled away wrapping paper on present after present. I'm not sure it dawned on him when we sang to him and convinced him to blow out his birthday cake. Not like it dawns on the Mrs and me. Our son is Two Years Old. 

Last year I penned lines about the abundance of love Isaac had instilled in us. How something very big had happened and transpired and transposed it's greatness so firmly into our lives that it had stumbled back into the past and was pouring out into the future. My point was to describe the magnitude of it. The infiniteness of it.  Another year has just exponentially increased infinity for us. 

But the grandeur of that love is felt most deeply in the tiny, yet infinite space we have traversed between 1 and 2.  It's in the little things, the infinitesimals, that I have loved Isaac most this past year. Tickling sessions. Simple words. Running. Jumping. Sentences. Dancing to songs (even if it is All The Single Ladies! (and Ray LaMontagne!)). Reading books. Animal sounds. Brushing his teeth. Riding bikes. The first year was about the largeness of it all. This year was about the glorious details emerging.

Tonight, weary and up way past bed time, I rocked him to sleep. He puts his head into the crook between arm and shoulder, and arches his neck just a little. His body relaxes and collapses. But his eyes are open in the darkness. And he is looking at me as his day fades under heavy eyelids. I sing to him. In one of those little moments. I sing to him Happy Birthday. And I ask if he wants me to sing it again. "Yeah." So I sing it again. Quietly into his ear as his eyes disappear. 

I put him in bed. 

His bare feet creeping out from under the blanket. 

Happy Birthday Isaac.

How I love you.

On Reading The Bible

For around a month now I've been reading the Bible. I've tried in the past. Never getting much past Exodus, at times hardly through Genesis. The Bible is a difficult book to read. An anthology of short stories, epics, poems, history, cultural hieroglyphs like Leviticus. It's hardly cohesive in style; wildly, powerfully cohesive in theme. I've tried, in the past, to read the Bible from a certain vantage point. From a theological perspective. A devotional perspective. An historical perspective. This time around, it occurred to me to read it as a book, from a literary perspective if you will. Even picking up a literary approach to the Bible version(which, for the most part, I've abandoned for the convinence of my iPhone's multiple versions and ease-of-read on-the-go. I only revert to the actual book form at home).

This all seems simple and rather obvious. After all, it's the Greatest Story Ever Told. But it's not an easy read. It's an anthology and who reads anthologies of Mr. Norton all the way through? The final four books of the Torah alone can trip you up. Lure one into negligence and absolute boredom. Make one rethink or all together abandon the desire to read the Bible. But get through it. Skip parts if you have to (especially since it repeats soooooooften). And once you are through it -- into the promised land of stories-- you will never want to put it down.

This gets me to why I've become more engaged by the iPhone version. Because I can read it anywhere at anytime. I can, effectively, never put the book down. And sure, with a cup of coffee and a dark, cool spring evening, I will flip through the actual book form. But, for the most part, the bulk of my Bible reading has occured on my phone.

Anyway. I love Genesis. Parts of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The final four you should read because Moses is a fascinating character. Truly fascinating. I was abjectly depressed when I found out Moses couldn't get into the Promised Land -- even though I already knew he didn't. And knew why he didn't. I mean. It's just sad. Just really, really sad. Joshua is enjoyable and rewarding -- hey, we're finally here!. Judges is awesome, horrible, terrifying, morally weird but filled with stories you will never forget. Like my Dad says, it's a Western. And I love Westerns.

Ruth is my favorite book. As this funny and enjoyable Slate reviewer summarized brilliantly:

No smiting. No prophecies. No laws. No kings. No God. Just the story of one family and its two good women.... it shows Bible laws in action... Ruth is the quietest of all Bible books, a short story that manages to combine extraordinary power and extraordinary serenity.

I agree. I love Ruth. It's details. It's romance (Rebecca and Isaac is still the best though. When they look up and see each other for the first time...) Love where it is juxtaposed where it is in the Christian Bible (as opposed to the Jewish versions) because 1 Samuel starts off where Judges seemed to end. But Ruth. Ruth is just a great story. In a much greater story.

So that's where I stand. Looking forward to 2 Samuel and beyond. David is in the picture now. I have felt the coming of this man. Felt him coming in the LCD pages before.

And that's the sign of a great book.

It's A Girl. It's A Girl. It's A Girl.

I went not expecting to know. I went not expecting to have the opportunity. I went not thinking my life was going to change. I went to bring her dinner.

But sure enough we ended up with a few minutes and an empty trauma bay (the same one that welled me when I was sick with pneumonia two years back). The Mrs was ready to know and so was I. There, the ultrasound machines are LCD screens. Far from the gray-scale flickerings of the OB/GYN office. It was portable, so we wheeled it over to the trauma bed. All this with the happenings and ringings of the white-walled, tile-floor hospital buzzing just beyond the room’s amniotic sterility. Just beyond the double doors.

Within moments there she was. Clear as day. Bottom up. Bones highlighted in the sound waves. There was her femur. There was her spine. There was her skull. From the side she was kicking. It was eerie, almost in slow motion that the white on black highlighted bone reflected out into the screen and back. She was moving… And she was clearly a she. We made sure. Went over and over the image. Then over and over our daughter’s sound resounding image. In the silence. In breath-taking irony of the trauma room.

The Mrs didn’t trust her eyes, nor mine (which, believe it or not, have been subjected to numerous x-rays and ultrasound images over the course of my life and our marriage. I saw Isaac’s broken leg on the x-ray easily, for example). So there I was, sworn to secrecy, sworn to keep the secret that we were having a little girl. A little, beautiful girl whom I had just seen for the first time. I went not expecting… and left absolutely certain that there are these things in life that amount to all the beauty I can take.

Yesterday it was confirmed. All gray-scale and hazy and on a monitor the size of my phone. But there she was. Isaac’s little sister.

Our little girl. She who carries our love.

Tweeter-de-deedily Deet

Why I'm doing this remains unclear. What I hope to achieve (I must needs always have goals) remains unclear. But I'm Twittering, even though it sounds more like a bird with Turrets than a social networking fad. This coming from the man who rails ceaselessly against the social-isms Facebook and MySpace. 

Actually, I think Twittering is more of an onomatopoeia. But, of course, you only hear it when the Fairy Godmother's out back changing your year-old rotting pumpkin from Halloween into a sleek ride to the ball. So odds are you're not familiar with the Twittering sound itself (cf. "Bedknobs and Broomsticks").

I think, at the least, it will provide fodder for this blogger. For longer exposes on the things that are really close to being nothing at all. Now all my ideas could have the uniting quality of lasting value! Well...  with a little help from my Fairy Godmother anyway (who, is, as it turns out, is not much older than me and had the unfortunate lack of foresight to sell some of her stocks high. Not all of them mind you. So she's not out on the street or anything. But, well, she can't quite retire by the time it strikes midnight any more).

Let's see how this goes...

The Curious Case Of The Trash Can In The Wind Storm

I have a limited, sophomoric understanding of physics. But what happened last night seems impossible. The wind was strong all night. A great, unseen staccato of gusts shook the house, flickered the power, and moved my trash can. But not only moved it. Guided it through a Borgesian labyrinth to the front of the house, nestling it in a cement corner of the house and steps.

I have drawn this phenomenon to scale, with the Trash Can represented in light blue, and the two possible paths in black and yellow:

Now the black line is the course I believe the trash can took. The yellow line represents the more plausible course. However, this feels more implausible when one considers the dynamics of navigation required amidst the wind tunnel between the two houses, the degree of the right angle and lack of space between the two cars. However, the black line is also unlikely given the fact that the gate (two barn-type, shoulder-length doors), represented in brown, opens towards the cars and the space between the red car and the house, while enough exists, hardly merits the likelihood of successful of travel without setting off the car alarm.

Yet it did happen. And I, in my socks and t-shirt and jeans, pondered it at great length in the aria of wind singing around the house this morning. I traced the possible paths while holding the Trash Can. Measured the breadth of passage between all the necessary straits...

It is indeed a most curious case.

Singular Moments

As any parent can attest, there are singular moments that epitomize the inexorable joy of being a parent. Moments when the child shows some keen insight into life or expels some uncontainable excitement towards a surprise you worked laboriously. Many times these moments count coo on us. They sneak up. Catch us unaware.

I've shared many in these spaces. But hardly a day goes by without some small instance. Last night, for example, I was holding him in the dark, rocking in the chair, his head buried in my shoulder and a blanket. I was saying "I. Love. Isaac." He responded, at my prodding to he loves: "Love Dadda Momma." I love being a Dad.

But a most notable occurrence came over the weekend. I was away. I wouldn't see him until Monday AM. I knew I would miss him. I even took him to McDonald's for a Friday AM breakfast (he loves pancakes). Something I try to do every time there'll be a significant time lapse. He talks on the phone these days, but still only when it's convenient to him (again, I apologize to all of you he's called at 6:15am on a Saturday). But it's not the same.

Anyway, the entire time I was gone, the Mrs. said he asked constantly for Daddy. Looking all over the house, looking out the window, checking the bed. The Mrs. and Mrs'-Sis. were looking at some of his baby videos on YouTube. Some of those videos include me. And it was those videos that Isaac insisted upon watching over and over again. Now Isaac isn't a computer kid yet (though in another singular moment, he points at the computer and says "Apple"), merely taken to banging on the the keys -- especially the CAPS lock which emits a green LED light when depressed. But his insistence was emphatic. To the point where he sat for the better part of an hour (several times over the weekend) with the computer on his lap, in my recliner, rocking slightly, giggling, pointing out Dadda while watching and re-watching only the videos that included me.

A child's love is persistent and profound and utterly simple. And when it shows itself, in a smile, an expression, a hug, reality comes apart. Whatever Huckabee blanket is torn, from the top down, by these happenings, to think that another one, another child is coming who carries my love...

Working On A Review

My first Springsteen Album was The Rising. Then, for $10 bucks a few years later, I elected to go with a 4-disc Best of collection. Then I got Devils and Dust. Then The Ghost of Tom Joad, Nebraska, The Seeger Sessions and Magic. Finally: Working on a Dream. I'm a relatively late comer to Springsteen. So much so that for me to even claim The Rising is his best album might get me shot. 41 times too.

I liked Magic. Not at first. Not for a number of listens. And not for the reasons of it being overtly political. I know it is. But it doesn't sound political to me. Not when I listen to it. I'm a sucker for good lyrics I guess. But Magic grew on me. So much so that I get extremely sad when I hear Long Walk Home. Mainly because if you juxtapose that with the grandeur and excellence of Thunder Road, you hear the voice of a musician who's done with the speed, cars and pace of life. Who's set to talk that slow, deep greens of summer walk into the night. It was a great final song for what was to be a final album (not including the tributary Terry's song as a hidden track). It summed it up.

Then I hear word of a new album. And I get excited. Maybe we're stopping to smell the roses on that walk home. Maybe we want to get carried home by a little bit of a breeze. But then Working on a Dream comes out. And I don't like it. And I'm one of a very few who don't.

Gone, most notably, are the Walt Whitman working man dirges backed by the greatest band in the world. Replaced with effervescent lyricism that only works to Bruce's strength when it's just him and his guitar and only then hidden in a story. With the backing depth of the E-Street Band he needs nitty-gritty lyrics. And this album doesn't have that. Too much attention to lyric bridges and chorus' that repeat. Springsteen, in a band setting that echos deeply of rambling instruments, needs to ramble. When he doesn't, everything gets held back. And so I don't like the album.

Working on a Dream and My Lucky Day are cool songs. I like them. But I expect more than a pop music number from Bruce churned out to satisfy that radio hit. Much, much more. I expect unbalanced, rambling poetry. Stories set to music. Almost psalmic in nature. What Working on a Dream is is a manufactured, forced work that, while great because the artists are great, fails to reach the level we'd expect. Except for one thing...

I can't dance. At least not well. But I can hear rhythm. One time, at a dance lesson, the instructor, waiting a half-step for me to begin my role of leading, stopped me after the dance. She said I was one of only a few people she had met who danced to a singular, backing, un-obvious beat of the music. I've thought long about that. How to explain what maybe that means. Music is a lot like math. If a song has a beat. A number of beats per measure. The beats that people dance to. Then maybe what I listen for and hear so vividly is the factor that goes into making that number.

Explaining all that my point is this: on the album, maybe Queen of the Supermarket is the key. The legend. The factor. It embodies the old Whitman rambling poet style with a tinge of maturity and profundity. It has some weird, almost off-putting musical interludes. And the lyrical line delivered with the quiet intensity of beginning a rise to crescendo. This song maybe is the beat to which the rest of the album is to be understood. But even still, I won't like this more than Magic.

And certainly not more than the all-encompassing energy and transcendence of The Rising. And as I talk the long walk home staring into a sky of memory and shadow, I keep finding myself returning to Thunder Road, Rosalita, Sandy, Born to Run, Jungleland. And when I get there...home.... to a place of quiet... then give me any of Bruce's solo stuff.

Peculiar Colloquialisms

After spending the better part of the weekend out in the snow, it occurs to me that there are some expressions I can no longer tolerate.

A preface: each area of the country is entitled to colloquialisms. Coke/Pop/Soda, Tennis Shoes/Sneakers/Kicks etc. But some are just simply foolishness and resound of malapropisms. Which, if you are not aware, malapropisms sound a little like Moxie tastes.

Here's my recent additions to the annoying colloquialisms list:

1. Toboggan. It's a sled. A type of sled. It is not a hat. Why is it not a hat? Well, simply, because a hat is a hat. Do not ask me why I'm not wearing a toboggan. You can't wear a toboggan. You just can't.

2. Sled Riding. As opposed to Sled Walking? Perhaps Sled Galloping? Just call it Sledding. Hey! We're all going sledding, wanna come? Yeah. That sounds great. Let's go. Who's Car Driving?

3. Major Snowstorm. 8 Inches of Snow over 18 Hours is barely a snow storm. And yet, the roads still are not cleared 36 hours later. "But hey," I am reminded casually and ineffectually, "This isn't Boston, Aaron." Quite astute of you. "But hey," sarcastic, caustic, annoyed "It's not Florida. IT'S THE FREAKING MIDWEST!"

Colloquialisms: The Sound of Moxie Being Made.

Coming Across That Line

I read frequently throughout the workday. Blogs, websites, news articles. From there, in the evenings with cups of coffee apres-diner, a book. Those books are always, when I have time, listed on the right. I read a lot. At least, I try to read. Admittedly, some days reading the info guide on DISH is as close as I come. And on those particular days, when I "veg", I feel I have unheralded success of "getting home" by "never leaving".

Occasionally, I will stumble across a mantra for the day. A word, phrase or idea that extends past my fluttering eyes. Today's comes from a random blog I stumbled across fumbling through another blog I am an avid reader and proponent for (if not for the name alone). In a not atypical fashion, it involves G.K. Chesterton:

[Man] is also quite extraordinary, and the more sides we see of it the more extraordinary it seems. It is emphatically not a thing that follows or flows naturally from anything else....man would most certainly not have seemed something like one herd out of a hundred herds finding richer pasture, or one swallow out of a hundred swallows making a summer under a strange sky. It would not be in the same scale and scarcely in the same dimension. We might as truly say that it would not be in the same universe. It would be more like seeing one cow out of a hundred cows suddenly jump over the moon or one pig out of a hundred pigs grow wings in a flash and fly...Something happened; and it has all the appearance of a transaction outside of time.

Read the full excerpt...

If you have the patience for a well-thought, hard-at-times-to-follow argument, read The Everlasting Man. It's an effort, but a well worth and hard fought battle, whirling all-the-while-like-a-dervish, a paragon of profundity.

Inaugural Poem

I was bothered greatly by one thing yesterday. The Inaugural Poem. While I understand that not every poet can be the next Maya Angelou, I ask: can we at least attempt it? Because that was the worst poem I've ever heard. Worst. Ever. While much of it had to do with the way it was read (it is my sincere belief that poets probably shouldn't be the ones to read their own work. Poetry is a cathartic endeavour. It's art expunged. Left to interpretation. A poet reading their poem is interpolation. And it's wrong). See and hear what I mean. I did read it aloud later and it came across much better.

It suffered from a poor panoply of unpoetic words. Chesterton (and Whitman too) will argue me to the death (they win) on this but words like "tire", "pencils", "boombox" and "bus" lack depth and exegetical nuance. And "darning" pushes the edge of poetry as well. Pushes it into the mundane, the muck and mire of everyday life. Poems and Poetry is supposed to put "our heads into the heavens" (take that Chesterton. Your own words). So I was eager to hear the artist's take on yesterday. The person looking down and past and behind and through and alongside.

I was confused by the lines "We walk into that which we cannot yet see" in the middle of the poem when the ending, anti-climatic, demands that we "praise song for walking forward in that light."

Furthermore, if you want me to understand "Praise Song", don't throw at me images. Use sounds and images that inspire sounds. None of the invoked images she chose even approached the power of a song (again, Chesterton, stop talking. I hear your argument loud and clear. I don't disagree with you. I don't. There is great joy in the mundane. In the normal. But is that the function of poetry? C'mon? Is it? That's right. I'm right. Admit it, G.K.).

Overall, I was vastly disappointed with the Inaugural poem -- even upon the re-reading which did make it seem much better.

So I leave you with THE POEM to charge you forward in this new day. I still remember hearing it and being moved during that 7th grade pizza party. Take the time and read it. It's greatness lies in the unassailable timelessness of it. How it was just as striking and brilliant 16 years ago and resonated even more loudly yesterday in me.

The Wrestler

There is always lots of laughter. Giggling, chuckling, a chortle. And he usually sets himself up across the room from me. I, on my hands and knees, growl, lower my shoulders, engage the enemy. He laughs some more. Puts his hand to his mouth and thinks. But only for instant. I am sure the tactics of Patton cross his mind. Some advanced mathematics perhaps. But it only takes him an instant before he moves forward. Before he is resolved to the fight, to the war, to the wrestle. Sometimes there are weapons. He will use his prized green blanket. Either it will be a cape or a whip. In the latter, picture the stylings of Linus imitating the Power Rangers. And there is laughter. Much, much laughter.

He is a cheater. A little bit of a cheapskate. He will jump on my back, usually by way of my fulcrumed shoulder. From there, he may bite me, right below my scapula. Right on a good piece of skin. It is his arrow. He is Bard and I am the Middle Earth dragon. And I will fall and roll. Throwing him off. Begin again. Subsequent times he will use his fingers, eye gouging, mouth pulling little fingers. The ones not holding the green blanket.

Wrestling is something boys and Dads do. Since time immemorial. Isaac has learned some strategies recently. And it's gotten to the point where it's a little more of a struggle. A little more of a wrestle before it descends into tickling and calling out to Mommy because someones bumped his head or been unfairly (whatever, he ran at me, I just lowered my shoulder and lifted him up) tackled and pinned beneath Daddy.

But there is always lots of laughter. And it is the most fun.

Now unlike a particular wrestling episode with my father, I've yet to break a bone in him. Yet to be forced into naming a place in the living room Peniel. Though I've more than once found it profoundly moving that God wrestled with man. Like a father and son. I know I complain more than often about unfair pinnings, lowered shoulders and have bitten much in my own time. And it is here I am most like my Isaac. Grossly out-manned, out-strengthened, out-maneuvered. Constantly relying on weapons. But each time I am pinned. And there is this great foolishness. This great silliness prevailing over those times. Like I could out-wrestle The Wrestler. Still it is something that must be done. Must needs be part of our relationship. And He presses me, but does not crush. And while laughter does not permeate the engagements, there is, by the end, this deep abiding Joy. A closeness with God. A Peniel.

Tell me, friend, can you ask for anything more?
Tell me can you ask for anything more?

Bylines That Violate My Mantra

I try hard not to believe in a liberal media bias. It exists. But I like to think better of my fellow journalists. Then I see things like this just today:

1. Byline, CNN.com: Commentary: Bush Still doesn't get it. Ironically the writer of the byline didn't get the article.

2. Byline, Huffingtonpost.com: Catholics Forced to Keep Quiet Over Virgin Visions. Leaves me conviced that the Huffpost et al has a Mad-libs field generator that automatically takes the words Pope and Catholics and Vatican and turns out: Oppression!

Now I know #2 is the Huff Post. It's liberal anyways. I read it as a whetstone. Same reason I will parlay a glance at Fox News. I expected what I read. Doesn't mean it doesn't bother me.

Also Random Question for all: Is buying a cordless drill at an outlet store an example of irony? I'm white. I like irony.

Text Messaging

So I'm not one for the latest crazes. Count me in the minute minority of people who don't have a Facebook page or MySpace page. I don't Twitter either. The theory: I have better things to do with the time it would take to keep up with them. And it being not a worthwile exercise, merely a billboard creation in the InterWebs, I truly don't see the long-reaching point. But I'm in the minority.

And until lately I've not been a fan of text messaging. Mainly because of the labor it took to weild a worthy message; i.e. typing on a telephonic keypad. But, with my new virtual keyboard, typing is a breeze (unfortunately I can't send pics unless you have an iPhone -- nor can I receive them from you). I can even type big words: shout at me your imprecations!

Yesterday, after a brief conversation with my pastor, I was needling for the 411 on some things, I received a txt msg from him, complete with what I had asked for. At first, I wasn't sure how I felt about that. My pastor? txt msging?

See I've always believed that IMing and Txt msging don't foster good communication skills. That they acquiesce to the introvert/social pariah in all of us. I believe that, in part. They don't foster those skills when one uses them in place of talking to a person directly -- albeit by phone or in person, the former which doesn't actually do much for communication itself seeing as how it omits two important facets of communication skills. But to send a quick note off to someone about something that remind one of someone or some such reason as that, I think it's great. Whereas a phone call leaves one with the awkward responsibility of ending a call after what's been said has been said: Really, that was all you called for? (Have you ever tried to end a txt msg conversation though? Is it possible?). Of course txt msging has it's detractions: the frustrating part of limiting yourself to a sentence or two in response because of the time it takes to type out a response so that the other person knows you're responding and doesn't think you're ignoring them and then feels bad and wonders what they did to offend you and wonders if you'll ever talk to them again. Txt msging can bridge that chasm of social awkwardness in some respects. A quick note. Just keeping in touch. Sometimes that's all it takes, really. Because the uniqueness of some daily happenings a phone call undermines.

And I applaud my pastor. It'll cross a line when he txt msgs me his sermon points while he's speaking.

Or if he starts Twittering during the service.

A Triumphant Return

It's time to return. To begin writing again. To share, vent, propose, challenge, extend, contract, blabber. This morning I came up with the Top Ten things I think about in the shower. I'm not sure why; I'm quite sure it's not funny and so I won't share. Only know that I'm pretty sure it's time to re-frost the bathroom window when I can see what the weather is like outside.

To say life has been simply tough or easy or hard or fun over the past month would do the experience of life no justice. It has deserved no category. It has been an odyssey of "finding and losing and laughing and crying". I have learned much, grown much. And life does that. Stretches and tugs and pulls. Laughter is immensely important, as are a decent pair of sneakers. And to say that airline difficult is easy underestimates the inconsolable experience of my latest aviary excursion. Books can be sloggingly brilliant while sucking every ounce of endurance. A surprise movie is a little delight. Technological arrogance now pervades from my pocket -- and it's awesome.

And if I could have learned everything, I would maintain only this: "winter by spring, I lift my diminutive spire to merciful Him Whose only now is forever".

Now I have always marveled at the size of humanity. Where we stand in relation to the universe, and the nearest tree. But marvel doesn't describe the weight of glory in seeing your child for the first time, tossing and tumbling: