cookies

They come in pairs, as if to be transported by ark instead of cardboard box, each partnership within zipped plastic baggy inked with permanent marker to confirm the contents. Chocolate chip with Kit Kat. Chocolate with Reese’s. It’s a parade of permutations, a dozen couplets I arrange in a bowl in the kitchen.

My mom mails boxes to my kids like foreign aid to some camp, which I think is basically how she views the lives of her grandchildren in college dormitories. She adds cash but doesn’t tell me, smuggling contraband of kindness. Once in a while, as seasons change, she’ll think that a kid needs a long sleeved shirt; so she sends three after long deliberations about size, color, and style.

These boxes are rarely sent to me, for good reason. The last thing I need in middle age is a giant supply of cookies from my mother. But on this special occasion, I eat them, one peanut butter cup embedded into a foundation of chocolate brownie at a time until I can’t possibly ingest another or until they eventually go stale in spite of the airtight container. I eat them because my mom’s love has this conduit, the routing and mechanism she knows, hand assembled and baked and packed and shipped not because I want them but because she needs to send them.

Maybe out of obligation or maybe out of hunger but mostly out of love, I eat them, one at a time, a communion offering I don’t deserve but am gifted anyway.

when you’re gone

I listen to loud music, loudly. I sing sad songs.

I didn’t make the bed or do the dishes.

And then I did. I couldn’t not do it.

I eat poorly. Mostly cheese. There’s peanut butter, and between the dog and I we realize we are the same. Also beer, but more cheese. The refrigerator’s full drawer of untouched fresh greens is an indictment.

I thought I’d do more yoga and work on the taxes. That is, I thought I’d do some yoga and start the taxes.

I stay up late. I lose track of time. I’d thought I’d write this yesterday, after some yoga.

But I did make the bed. I fed the cats. I walked the dog. And then we ate peanut butter and sang sad songs. It’s been a good weekend, but it will be good to have you home.

trans-action

I returned the sports bra that was never put into use, but when the customer service representative asked for the reason for return I didn’t say, “because my son doesn’t have breasts anymore,” like K suggested; I just said, “It wasn’t a good fit,” which is pretty much the same thing.

a (more honest) 2021 family newsletter

Like so many of you, we’ve been drinking more than we used to. Maybe not as much as last year, and it still is in a range, on average at least, that doesn’t outwardly alarm the doctor. As far as we can tell, he’s doing the same. But on reflection, we realize that the rate of consumption is enough for us to keep asking ourselves if it’s just enough or too much—as if we need one more thing to worry about.

And holy Jesus we’re fat. Maybe you wouldn’t notice just spectating from the sidelines day to day, but there are definitely contrasts between then and now, whatever your definition and timescale might be. It’s understandable, all the starches just sitting here, and it’s not like beer is calorie free.

This might all speak to our general lackings in self-restraint. It’s easy to be sucked into the pit that is the screen on a phone, the doom of the headlines in the news app. I refresh the screen hoping that there will be an improvement, a silver lining or a Hail Mary pass, but it’s just as hopeless as continuing to stare at our flabby selves in the mirror, standing in my boxer shorts with rolls and wrinkles in sharp relief. Which, in spite of the decline, is not itself motivation to actually fix anything myself.

But the kids are fine, at least. They have no idea what they’re going to do when they grow up, but then neither did we; and we still don’t. We love them and they’re beautiful and they’ll be fine.

We bought a new bed last month to help ease our old bones and aches. It’s an improvement, and it’s timely because I hurt myself hauling, wrestling the bed through the narrow doorway and up the staircase to the second story of the house. I’m sure the injury was preventable, but it seemed necessary in order to install the 200-pound.

In retrospect this was a really dumb thing to do, but it’s all par for the course. We’ve gotten stupider in the last year. Or maybe our intelligence has been slowly eroding for some time now, but we haven’t been able to recognize it. I push heavy things up stairs without thinking through the simple action of gravity; I grab at a stovetop pot handle to test if it’s too hot to grab; I lose glasses on shelves or end tables or on my own person; I can’t remember if I took my medication and/or worry that I’ve taken my medication twice in one evening and then worry that I may have overdosed as I lie in bed, aching joints and troubled mind, what mind there is left. Each morning is a miracle, not so much that the sun has risen but that I haven’t died in my sleep as a result from having taken three times my medication regimen, which I would know better if I could find my glasses and read the label on the bottle more clearly.

Being fat and stupid should have increased my empathy for my fellow humans, but in fact I’m completely unaware that my own shortcomings are something that others might have in common. I hate everyone, fat stupid people that they are, undermedicated and overindulged in food and drink. It’s remarkable that we’ve put even this much effort into sending this holiday greeting, even as late as it is, to you.

And so it is that we enter the new calendar, counting our blessings, our foibles, our wrinkles, our inadequacies and complete lack of compassion for our fellow earthlings. We wish you all of the same and more as we all waddle our way into January and beyond. Happy New Year.

transition

I just flashed on the surgery happening right now, the kid on the table, the child we’d thought at first to be a girl, realizing last year he’s a man. They’re removing the old, cutting, cutting, cutting; and stitching back together anew, making him whole.

anniversary

This is just to say that I didn’t forget, even as I’m out of reach, gone and out of service so many days; and this is just to let you know that even though you can’t know directly that I’m thinking of you, of us, almost certainly right now I am, wishing you were here as I’m sipping instant coffee fired from the propane of this backpacking stove, bundled in a down coat and a wool cap as I’m waiting for the sun to break over the ridge, thinking that it’s only 10 miles from here to the car at the end of a dirt road that leads back home to you.

Happy anniversary. Twenty-six years and even now I can find a more creepy way¹ of saying I love you.

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1. I wrote this out before I left and told the magic elves in the computers to post this at the right time. I hope it worked! ↩

8-year-old evaluation

At dinner the other night while
contemplating about how to evaluate a life,
you relayed someone’s wise advice:
Just consider how your 8-year-old self would look at
you now.

And that uplifting perspective was so
right, so blessedly reassuring.
Until I realized with a heavy sigh,
that I never became an astronaut, not even
a firefighter.

2020 in pictures

Today we received the photo album Karyn had constructed and assembled, the one comprised of images of the previous year, the one we weren’t sure we’d even want to create. What’s there to take photos of when we so much of our time was spent in remote and virtual settings? When the year was comprised of shutting down schools, a distant graduation ceremony, an evacuation from campus, and a broken wrist, what assembly of pixelated memory is really appropriate? What collection of pictures do you even want to remember?

Strangely, the collection bursts with joy. In the midst of the disease and despair and disconnection, there are photos of raspberries and peaches. There are mountain scenes and smiles and reunions and puppies and cats; there are naps and exclamations and new adventures and old friends. And even the snapshots of emergency room and x-rays have an undertone of buoyancy: now we will live this life in which we shatter bones but at least there’s you in the frame and me to take the photo … and to drive you home and pick up the prescription painkiller at the pharmacy.

I wonder how we’ll turn these pages a decade from now, looking at Grace’s first day on campus, Anna’s first rented house, Nina’s puppyhood and introduction to the family (across multiple pages because, well, puppy!), Karyn and I settling into our first foray into empty nesters on camping treks and long walks. If it weren’t for the masks, we might not know something was amiss. Now, I suspect, we’ll look back on the slideshow as a parade of small joys, little bursts of happiness even in the midst of the deep sadnesses, bounding puppies and soulful mountains, and us.

So much, through it all, there is us.

inconsistency

My family claims that I insist on giving explanations even in regards to things I don’t really know.

My students claim that I withhold direct answers even when I have the necessary explanations.

alignment

I think why I like to see the perfect conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn with Earth, the taut string millions and millions of miles along which we site luminescent beads on the other side of the Sun right atop one another, is the unlikeliness of it all. It’s literally astronomically improbable. Others wield telescopes to view rings and moons in the same frame, some relate the moment to the historical. I’m in love with the geometry. Two pinholes of light intersecting on the dark dome, so nearly impossible to be tripping over one another—and such a clear evening for me to see the otherwise unremarkable points.

And yet in spite of the odds, it happens. Improbabilities still get their roll of the dice, their lucky draw, their once-in-a-millennium conjunction at some point. That just makes me take stock in the present, this presence, here at home, just the four of us with the dog and the cats and all the rest of it. The improbable alignment of all these pieces would be hard to imagine. There’s comfort to be had in an example of another implausible moment, making the unbelievable of my own existence all the more believable; that this life, as improbable as it should be, is one I can have faith in like I do the gravity that holds me firm. I’ll sleep well knowing that this is enough, and then some.

staffing adjustments

This all started when I realized my whole body has been extra tense for some time now. We wander the house mostly just to complain about our aches and rattles, moaning as we move our flabby and tired selves from room to room. As my shoulders and neck crackle whenever I twist or bend, I’ve started to wonder what’s happened to Olga, our live-in physical therapist and trainer. She wasn’t kind or particularly sympathetic, but now I rue the day I may have ever thought ill of her.

And just look at this floor. When was the last time it was vacuumed? Not to mention the fact that shelves could use a thorough dusting, and I don’t even want to look at the toilets. I suspect housekeeping just walked out in the middle of the night, anticipating budget cuts, perhaps. And here I’ve been so focused on my own misery I didn’t think to consider their plight. But they could have at least left a note.

Come to think of it, of late I can’t recall any homecooked meal that hasn’t been at the hand of me or my spouse, and our children have taken up some food preparation now that they’re back home. Even now, Karyn is downstairs with flour dusting a board where she’s preparing a mound of dough just to keep us alive. At first this new routine felt just right, even fulfilling. But it wouldn’t hurt my feelings at all if the kitchen staff would perhaps sauté something, maybe stir some oatmeal to go with the coffee they’d brewed just before I made my way downstairs.

And speaking of downstairs, I haven’t seen a sign of Eugene in weeks. At first I thought it was just that he didn’t have anything to do, but now I fear he’s left us in protest that no one comes to our door. No coats to hang or hats to apprehend. I’d think that he’s left completely, but our bottle of bourbon seems to be depleting faster than it should, and I can think of no one better to blame for this steady leak.

So maybe it’s time we just let them all go, and perhaps I’ll go find the vacuum, perhaps take up yoga, and go hang up a coat myself. I hate to put then out on the street this time of year, but I’m sure others can find a way to staff their home with these excellent, however imaginary, staff.

driver

I don’t understand many of my roles as a dad. But I can drive.

I drive to take them to new homes, and I drive to pick them up. I’ll joyfully drive 800 miles with the back of the car piled to the ceiling; I’ll make the dark of night trek to the airport to greet a daughter at the arrivals curb, standing there, deposited with rolling bags and backpack. They’re each fully capable now of carrying it all and making the trek across the country on their own. And yet I still lift heavy parcels from the curb and into the trunk, because I can still do this much. I signal left and join traffic and we accelerate for home.