If I ever publish a book, that's likely what I'd title it.
There's a state blissfully devoid of all the usual banalities that occurs when you've pushed your body hard for too long, and it begins requiring conscious thought to breathe. In that moment, thoughts and linkages come, sometimes strangely, and sometimes profoundly.
Case in point:
Bikes are like marriages. You can buy a low end bike from any given store, ride it, and it'll work. Leave it in the garage for a year, let sawdust build up on it and grease harden in the bearings and linkages... and it'll still ride about the same when you take it out.
A high-end bike takes more thought (and possibly debt) to obtain in the first place, and it will ride and work sublimely when you take it out. Leave in the garage for a year, and it'll do its level best to kill you on the trail. Shifters won't, brakes will, but at a volume to raise the dead, things will squeak and chatter... but give it a little maintenance every time before you ride, and the places it can take you are far beyond the reach of the lesser bikes. And with much less butt-hurty, too.
As for marriages... well, you get it.
And, as people keep telling me that I should write, I say this.
I am writing. No book would give me the pleasure of putting something out there for the world to see that chronicles the adventures of our family, that shows the small glories of growing up, or that allows me to express my love and appreciation to the people that matter most to me.
Now, should someone choose to pay me for this, I'm okay with double-dipping. We can have family adventures in a Mercedes just fine.
- Ryan
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Tree, Apple. Apple, Tree.
I suppose that to God, to whom our behavior and course is much less of a mystery, we may seem to be more than just the static individuals that we see each day in the mirror.
Should time be manipulated so that we move through it less in a linear fashion, only able to recall dimly where we have been, we would perhaps be seen as thus:
Collections of desire and patterns of behavior, potentiality both realized and yet unfulfilled... hyper-kinetic children, myopic teenagers, young parents, and so on, through the latter part wherein we have seen all that life has to offer, all at once in a glorious tangle of human yarn.
This is how I've always seen my father.
He's always been older than me (again, hooray for the linear nature of time... would be awkward to have Dad just starting to date when I was looking forward to my mid-life crisis) and so has been the figure of wisdom, the place where the answers were kept, and the one that could solve the puzzles and show the way through the night when monsters lurked all-too-close.
And yet, with that, there was never a somber, joyless approach to being my personal Oracle and Hercules. I remember the 300 yard cross-canyon shot that dropped the buck... and the happy dance and whooping that followed it. I remember firecrackers smuggled from Wyoming and the how insanely happy we were as kids to witness the illicit thrill of watching orange juice cans rocket into the sky.
I remember the day, time and place when I was first complimented by one of my parents friends, and told "you have your dad's sense of humor."
There is no higher honor in my book. Although, having Grandma (his mom, no less) mistake me for my dad on the phone was a close second.
The sense of eagerness to go explore and the appreciation of something seen through new eyes or from a new vantage point hasn't changed as long as I've known him. The solidity and sense of self hasn't either. My mom often remarked that he was the most secure person she'd ever seen.
Then again, you'd have to be secure in yourself to wear that only-visible-hummingbirds-T-shirt with rainbow suspenders and camouflage pants in public... but, to be fair, he had a lot of grief to pay back to the three of us kids, too. Dad, you win, we give up, please, UNCLE.
I love the fact that dad chased (chases, really - he hasn't outgrown that, either) the fantastic and the sardonic as well as the pragmatic. The bookshelves in the basement outside of my room growing up shaped more of me than I think he knows. Asimov and Lienster, Vonnegut and Heinlein, Ambrose Bierce and Tolkien all took me far away from being a small bit player on an immense stage and let me peek behind the scenes of places unknown and unsullied by, well, let's be honest here, chores and homework. Still, the ability to close my eyes and send my thoughts out and amidst the universe is owed a great debt to being allowed free reign with subject matter that would have, in a 'normal' home, be considered beyond the reach of an eight-year-old. I have many of those books in front of me now, as it happens, and there's another generation ready to read them under the covers with a flashlight, assuming I can find and burn all the Twilight books first.
Don't get me wrong, I missed most of the points and explanations and hard science in the classic SciFi that dad had amassed... but only on first read. Once I asked dad, I got the explanation and knowledge that some of the SciFi was really more fact than fiction. Pretty cool thing to discover that your dreams aren't out of reach, and in fact, have blueprints drawn up somewhere. Which brings up another crucial point.
Dad does not hide behind 'magic' for an explanation. Want to know why the Earth doesn't rotate any faster than it does? Want to know what color shows in the flame when aluminum is finally coerced to burn? Want to know where your lap goes when you sit down? Want to know what happens when you put a grenade inside an anthill?
Dad knows all these things, and may even know where Hoffa is. You'll have to pay him to get that, though. And you'd better be ready to handle the answer. Some things are predicated on tiers of knowledge, and mere surface curiosity will leave you with far too much answer and not enough comprehension.
Not for nothing did Solomon write, "With all thy getting, get understanding." Dad understands how things work, and has been the World's Smartest Tour Guide, at our sides for years, indefatigable.
It isn't all roses with dad, though. There's the uncomfortable fact that you know that he's smarter than you are, so any given game of Scrabble isn't likely to end well. The fact that he cheats just makes it worse.
Worser yet, he has a VERY good idea of what your potential is... so coasting in life and not expected to be called on it is a pipe dream.
You can't succinctly render the parts of fatherhood into a comprehensive whole... and I doubt very much that you could even do so with an infinite amount of time. Too much of it is in the wordless radiance of a small boy feeling loved and treasured even after making a hash of things. Took me a while to realize the linkages than spanned the miles and the years: of friendship, love, shared life-voyager appreciation and (hopefully) pride in how all his work is turning out.
Still wish he'd assigned the no-body-fat genes to me instead of Rich, but you can't have everything.
Dad, happy Father's Day. We'll have the kids call you every half hour starting at midnight to make sure you really, really enjoy it.
- Ryan
Should time be manipulated so that we move through it less in a linear fashion, only able to recall dimly where we have been, we would perhaps be seen as thus:
Collections of desire and patterns of behavior, potentiality both realized and yet unfulfilled... hyper-kinetic children, myopic teenagers, young parents, and so on, through the latter part wherein we have seen all that life has to offer, all at once in a glorious tangle of human yarn.
This is how I've always seen my father.
He's always been older than me (again, hooray for the linear nature of time... would be awkward to have Dad just starting to date when I was looking forward to my mid-life crisis) and so has been the figure of wisdom, the place where the answers were kept, and the one that could solve the puzzles and show the way through the night when monsters lurked all-too-close.
And yet, with that, there was never a somber, joyless approach to being my personal Oracle and Hercules. I remember the 300 yard cross-canyon shot that dropped the buck... and the happy dance and whooping that followed it. I remember firecrackers smuggled from Wyoming and the how insanely happy we were as kids to witness the illicit thrill of watching orange juice cans rocket into the sky.
I remember the day, time and place when I was first complimented by one of my parents friends, and told "you have your dad's sense of humor."
There is no higher honor in my book. Although, having Grandma (his mom, no less) mistake me for my dad on the phone was a close second.
The sense of eagerness to go explore and the appreciation of something seen through new eyes or from a new vantage point hasn't changed as long as I've known him. The solidity and sense of self hasn't either. My mom often remarked that he was the most secure person she'd ever seen.
Then again, you'd have to be secure in yourself to wear that only-visible-hummingbirds-T-shirt with rainbow suspenders and camouflage pants in public... but, to be fair, he had a lot of grief to pay back to the three of us kids, too. Dad, you win, we give up, please, UNCLE.
I love the fact that dad chased (chases, really - he hasn't outgrown that, either) the fantastic and the sardonic as well as the pragmatic. The bookshelves in the basement outside of my room growing up shaped more of me than I think he knows. Asimov and Lienster, Vonnegut and Heinlein, Ambrose Bierce and Tolkien all took me far away from being a small bit player on an immense stage and let me peek behind the scenes of places unknown and unsullied by, well, let's be honest here, chores and homework. Still, the ability to close my eyes and send my thoughts out and amidst the universe is owed a great debt to being allowed free reign with subject matter that would have, in a 'normal' home, be considered beyond the reach of an eight-year-old. I have many of those books in front of me now, as it happens, and there's another generation ready to read them under the covers with a flashlight, assuming I can find and burn all the Twilight books first.
Don't get me wrong, I missed most of the points and explanations and hard science in the classic SciFi that dad had amassed... but only on first read. Once I asked dad, I got the explanation and knowledge that some of the SciFi was really more fact than fiction. Pretty cool thing to discover that your dreams aren't out of reach, and in fact, have blueprints drawn up somewhere. Which brings up another crucial point.
Dad does not hide behind 'magic' for an explanation. Want to know why the Earth doesn't rotate any faster than it does? Want to know what color shows in the flame when aluminum is finally coerced to burn? Want to know where your lap goes when you sit down? Want to know what happens when you put a grenade inside an anthill?
Dad knows all these things, and may even know where Hoffa is. You'll have to pay him to get that, though. And you'd better be ready to handle the answer. Some things are predicated on tiers of knowledge, and mere surface curiosity will leave you with far too much answer and not enough comprehension.
Not for nothing did Solomon write, "With all thy getting, get understanding." Dad understands how things work, and has been the World's Smartest Tour Guide, at our sides for years, indefatigable.
It isn't all roses with dad, though. There's the uncomfortable fact that you know that he's smarter than you are, so any given game of Scrabble isn't likely to end well. The fact that he cheats just makes it worse.
Worser yet, he has a VERY good idea of what your potential is... so coasting in life and not expected to be called on it is a pipe dream.
You can't succinctly render the parts of fatherhood into a comprehensive whole... and I doubt very much that you could even do so with an infinite amount of time. Too much of it is in the wordless radiance of a small boy feeling loved and treasured even after making a hash of things. Took me a while to realize the linkages than spanned the miles and the years: of friendship, love, shared life-voyager appreciation and (hopefully) pride in how all his work is turning out.
Still wish he'd assigned the no-body-fat genes to me instead of Rich, but you can't have everything.
Dad, happy Father's Day. We'll have the kids call you every half hour starting at midnight to make sure you really, really enjoy it.
- Ryan
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