Tag: parents

little boys

September 18th, 2019

Fingers through fences

pecked and nibbled

and bitten

by chickens,

beagle pups,

and bunnies.

We were

bare-chested,

blonde and tan

and we ran

barefoot and

we ran hard

turning green grass

brown and

flattening the yard

until the ground was hard-packed

like pavement.

Mom and Dad never had nice things,

a tidy house,

an immaculate lawn

because we three boys

were so filled up

with destructive love

pushing and shoving

laughing and hollering

that it was impossible for us

to slow down,

so windows got busted,

plaster cracked,

and treasures

met their fate.

Oh the damage

little boys

can do.
two-face and smiling darkside

September 7th, 2019

September 7, 2019

9:01 am

They walk by without saying good morning, even if I’ve said it first. They sit in front of the TV, a tablet, their phone and let the dog or cat eat from their abandoned cereal or snack bowl. Hey…wait a minute. When did they start eating on the couch?

There are clothes and bath towels piled high on the bathroom floor. Bookbags, lunch bags, and backpacks on the dining room floor. Toys, books, shoes, headphones, and stuffed animals on the staircase.

In short, there’s stuff everywhere. Every single day. It gets picked up. Eventually. Usually after three times of asking, two times telling, then finally a shout.

“Kids, it’s time to get this placed cleaned up!”

Then come the groans. The moans.

The teenage one—two-face, I like to call him because I never know what kid I’m going to get—he’s the smartest kid in the world. Just ask him. He’s so smart that he cannot stop himself from responding to me and my wife with smartassed comments. Sometimes he’s so smart with his responses that he takes us down long, twisty confusing rabbit holes. Just this week, asking him to stop stomping around the house when he’s simply walking from room to room led to his broken explanation of my alignment with forces involved in the oppression of the disenfranchised. I took his phone away. Then mine went missing. I was afraid to ask him if he’d taken it because I could have very well left it anywhere. I found it the next day, on the bathroom floor next to the toilet. I want to say it was him, but I’m not sure.

The ten-year old—smiling darkside, I like to call her (but definitely not to her face)—scares me sometimes. Cute and bubbly on the surface, she’s ready with wit that cuts, bites, and slices so quickly that I’m never sure what’s just happened. Did she just say that? I’ll ask my wife as my little princess runs up to her room and slams the door. I follow her up sometimes and stand outside her door. I think about barging in, but I’m pretty sure I’d see her fashioning a shank or stabbing a voodoo doll with pins. One that looks like me.

Raising kids ain’t easy. If you say it is, you’re probably not a good parent. Well, maybe you THINK you’re a good parent, but you are probably one of the people that cut me off in line while dropping off my kids at school. Or you’re in one of the NO PARKING spots. Or better yet, you’re so much better than everyone else, you make your own spot. Showing your kids how it’s okay to be impatient, stupid, a bully. I realize we don’t have to look far to see this kind of behavior—just look at the so-called leaders of this world—but keep in mind, you have taken on one of the most important roles there have ever been. Being Mom. Being Dad. None of us are perfect. Our kids aren’t perfect. And striving for perfection is senseless.

Does it bother me that my kids don’t always listen? That they don’t always pick up after themselves? That at times I think they have somehow subverted power and are actually in control? Certainly. But this back and forth, this everyday routine of never knowing what you’re going to get except for stuff strewn about the house is incredible, moving, and I can never ask for more.

Do good today. Spend time with your family.

~ KJ
understand

October 2nd, 2018

I have many faults.

I’m impatient. Lack discipline.

I’m too lazy to understand

our differences.

And so,

I get stuck

in deep ruts.

My wheels spin.

I create paranoia.

Make problems that don’t exist.

Because I’m bored.

Like a coyote in a cage.

Running back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.

Again.

I don’t stretch beyond what I know, so I do what I’ve been doing all along.

Dying without ideas.

Even if it’s wrong.

Because it is easier to reject the unknown than it is to understand.

~ K.J.
running out of time

August 27th, 2018

monarchs © 2012 Brooke Stevens

My kids love without conditions. They care about people and animals. Water, dirt and sand, rocks and trees. They care about many things. They have not yet been spoiled by their surroundings. They want to help others. Pick up trash. Recycle. Give.

Not only to those less fortunate but to everyone.

Sometimes, I wonder if they’re mine. They are better than me. Purer. More observant. More in tune with the place they came from than I am or will ever be. I think it’s because they’re closer to it. Younger. Not that far removed from the magic. Like an egg to a caterpillar to a chrysalis to a Monarch. A winged insect flying a drunken pattern to Mexico. Only to love, live a short while, and die.

It’s hard raising kids when you know time is not on your side. That anything can happen. That our efforts at raising them increase the chance they’ll be messed up. They’ll learn our quirks. Adopt our mannerisms. Make the same mistakes we have. Again and again.

Giving up on gods. Disbelieving ghosts. Drinking or eating or doing whatever it takes to numb the pain. Another adult doing what it takes to make ends meet instead of doing what it is they are meant to do. Instead of that which they love.

I sent pictures of my kids—all smiles and ready for the first day of school—to my parents today. I said that it was strange how they were growing so fast. And then I thought of how stupid it was to say that. I was stating the obvious. Something they have known for years.

Life is incredible and sad and happy and inspirational. It is the hardest thing a spirit will ever encounter, especially when you choose to be a good parent and continue the cycle.

I’ve said a lot of things to them over the years that didn’t make sense. That were self-centered and steeped in ignorance. But it hasn’t seemed to change how they feel about me.

My parents…they love without conditions. They give. They listen, they watch and believe. They have not given up.

Not on people, animals, dirt, sand, rocks and trees. They have never given up on me.

And so, I am here. Four minutes after ten o’clock in the evening. Hearing crickets out the window. Seeing stars vibrate in the sky. Quieted by the realization that I too am running out of time.

~ K.J.

Tag: parents

little boys

two-face and smiling darkside

understand

running out of time