Category: Parenthood

trembling with gravity

January 22nd, 2016

January 21, 2016

7:18 pm

It is all here. Somewhere. In between my nine-year-old boy pounding drums in the basement and my daughter watching Scooby Doo on TV. It is out there in the cold night. Crunching under my wife’s feet as she walks home from work. It is in the sky affecting the earth’s gravitational pull. And it is in my right eye—the one that’s been twitching on and off for a week.

I am not even sure what it is, but I know that it is big and small and knowing and forgetful, and that it makes up everything and nothing all the same. Hemingway and Fitzgerald knew about it. Francis Ford Coppola knew about it. Elvis and Robin Williams and my grandparents and my dead aunts and uncles and all the ghosts that make up the past—they knew about it. And I like to think that we know about it too.

Me and you and us and them.

It is in the stories I have started but did not end. In every good intention that’s never received its due follow through.

It is in profanity and love and hatred and bullying and hugs.

It is everywhere.

In damning God and falling to our knees at night, drunk again, to pray.

It is in the soap bubbles, on the sidewalk, on your toothbrush, and wedged into the bark of a tree.

There is so much of it around it’s hard to gather all of it up and turn it into pictures that make sense. Or, at the very least, to make bits into pieces that will wake the few believers that have fallen asleep and become comfortably imprisoned by the suffocating, silencing routine of the day. And because the task is so daunting, the reality of it so haunting, it is much easier to ignore it and carry on instead of dig deep and make differences.

In the way boys beat drums without rhythm, the girls giggle at the flickering TV, and how wives take slow, measured strides as they move through the dark and the cold toward home under a sky trembling with gravity.

~ K.J.
as if tomorrow is coming

January 6th, 2016

Thinking a little

about bills

and savings

and checking.

How we go about

making

ends meet.

Wondering how my kids are doing at school

two days back after Christmas break,

and wishing my wife would quit her job,

just do what it takes

so she can bring color

to the world every day.

I eat candy at my desk

to combat my nerves

knowing full-well

it negates my time on the elliptical,

builds fat

and rots my teeth,

but I am so busy thinking of ways

to make everyone else more money,

moving deeper and deeper

into this unexpected career

and life and routine

that I’m thankful for,

lucky to have,

and earned,

that I forget

what’s important—

time and space and this place and the love—

all of it

is running out and away.

It’s not until my lunch—

a hard salami sandwich and leftover macaroni and cheese—

hits bottom

that I take a seat on the toilet

read the headlines

and get a dose of reality.

The USA Today

shows two galaxies colliding,

making the stuff we’re made of,

and suddenly,

there IT is.

That great sense of dread.

It doesn’t matter if I wipe,

flush,

or get up.

Even if there is a God

and meaning,

and much more work to be done,

all of it will be undone one day.

And there are no guarantees

that all of this beautiful confusion

is teaching us anything at all.

Like you

I don’t know what it is

or what to do

and sometimes

like now

sixteen minutes after nine pm

on a Tuesday night in the cold

of Alpena, Michigan

there is absolutely nothing else to do

but drink wine

and wait it out

as if there’s a tomorrow

that’s coming.

~ K.J.
satisfied with what we’ve done

March 17th, 2015

(from the book, CUTTING TEETH)

Tomorrow she’ll be one. Already, she has given us a lifetime. What they say about kids and marriage and parenting and love—all of it—is true. It is the hardest work you will ever do. It is not for those seeking instant gratification. It is not for those unwilling to give more than they have. It is not for those that need constant applause. Family life—good family life—is not for the weak or for the selfish. Family life, I think, is for those of us seeking more. Call it God. Call it “making it.” Call it hitting the sweet spot. Call it Truth. Whatever it is, you cannot know it until you are in the thick of it. Smack dab in the middle of shitty diapers, tantrums, saying hurtful things to your wife. And struggling to make ends meet. Those times—the ones when you want to cut ties, say fuck it, and leave—those are the ones that test the gut. Punch you with perspective. Kick you square in the nuts and make you, somehow, want more.

And goddammit, I want more.

I want two hundred more of my daughter’s birthdays. I want a million more fishing trips with my son. I want to hug my wife until my arms work no more. But I know better. And I know what waits.

It is not a happy ending. It is not where I’ll want to be.

But fading to black is something we practice at the end of each day. And so tonight, I’ll think long and hard about the end. Finishing up. Giving way to whatever else comes. Everything or nothing. A bright light or constant dream. And I’ll know that if I die in a car wreck tomorrow, everything is as beautiful and true as it should be.

But there’ll be no wrecking.

Like Amanda Davis in a plane.

Plath and the oven.

Hemingway cleaning his shotgun.

I’m not good enough for that. And I don’t want to be.

If I had my choice, I’d always be not good enough and write sentences too plain to make good stories if it meant I’d never die. That tomorrow would always come.

Because my daughter turns one tomorrow. My son is itching to go fishing. And watching my wife makes me realize I’ve married up. That I’m in a better place than I deserve. And that even though we are only pilgrims keeping at the keepin’ on, what we are doing is important and big and lasting. And when it is time to turn the final page, we will be satisfied with what we’ve done.
a girl draws a picture

January 17th, 2015

He’s angry at work because customer orders are going late again and again.

She’s mad because the waitress brought her a fork instead of a spoon.

Every moment, the scale moves to and fro. Negativity. Positivity. Evil and good. An unbearable state of grey. And every day we move closer to the grave. That big, secret ending working its way toward us with each step we do or do not take.

None of us get out alive. That’s what the cynics say. The realists. The smart, sometimes condescending people that don’t need faith or love or God or hope—not anything at all—because they’ve got it all figured out. Everyone is stupid. Plain and simple. Easy to wrap it up nice and tidy and forget that where we’ve come from and where we’re going is magical. Something only kids seem to understand.

As I write this, my daughter appears. She’s made me a drawing.

To dad fum Oogie, it says.

There is a sun at the bottom of the page and a sun at the top. There is a flower growing out of the sky and a flower growing out of the ground. In the middle of the page is a giant, smiling frog.

For about fifteen minutes tonight, my little girl sat on her bed thinking of nothing else but making something nice for someone else. Her dad.

What did I do for even five minutes today that made that much difference in the world?

What did you do?

It’s hard to believe that a dead baby was found in a dumpster today.

That there was a double-homicide just fifteen miles away.

That a man climbed a giant TV tower to freefall through the sky only to discover his parachute wouldn’t open.

It is chaos, not God, they’ll say. All randomness and nothingness and science and facts and proof and theories and psychology and whatever else they can come up with to make themselves feel like that’ve got a handle on life. That they’re in control.

And tomorrow, they’ll be angry again.

Frustrated because equipment was delivered to the wrong dock.

Disgusted because the cashier at the counter was chewing gum.

But the magic will continue. As it always does. In mysterious ways.

A girl will paint a picture. A boy will share his lunch. Children will keep trying, again and again, to overcome the bad, the evil, the negativity with nothing but innocence and good.

~ K.J.

Category: Parenthood

trembling with gravity

as if tomorrow is coming

satisfied with what we’ve done

a girl draws a picture