The Shoot

One year ago, life was very different. My grandfather was still alive and I was talking to him almost daily. I was working at FactSet in Content Quality and had pretty much given up on finding another job. But, by far the most profound difference was that we only had one child. Now we have three.

As we do every fall, last fall we did a photo shoot. Unsurprisingly, G engaged in her favorite past-time of doing the exact opposite of what someone trying to take a picture was asking her to do. Eventually, we got her on track. We took beautiful photos with beautiful naturally filtered light in beautiful early September. That was then.

This is now. Now, we have three kids. We still have G and her aforementioned past-time, but we also have twin babies. Twin boy babies. Twin boy babies who crawl. Twin boy babies who crawl to instinctively put in their mouths the last thing you want them to put in their mouths. I would take herding cats any day.

That said, in relative terms, we're old hats by now. We have done family photos a whopping three times since the twins were born in November. Deep down, we know they will be chaos. That actually attaining the holy grail of getting everyone to look at the camera without crying is like searching for El Dorado. Yet, we continue the quest.

So, it's fall. We need a holiday card. We didn't do one last year because the twins were born in November and the last thing we needed to worry about was a holiday card. To be honest, we were both kinda "eh" about the idea of doing it this year, but in the end decided it was the right thing to do. We tried to book a session with the photog we used last year - who is AWESOME - but she was booked. As such, we fell back on someone who, through relentless posting and bossy micro-management of a local information group on Facebook, fancies herself a bit of a Wilton celebrity.

Since we have the twins, she recommended we book two 20 minute sessions. It's better to do that when you have babies, she said. So, we did our duty and paid her double. The day of the shoot arrives and we derive a plan. The shoot is at 3:45, so we will put the boys down at 1:00. They will sleep until 3:00, at which time we will get them up, shove bottles in their mouths, change and dress them, throw them in the car - not quite literally - and make our way to the shoot. Bing. Bang. Boom.

Except...

M rolled around in his crib, vacillating between crying and shouting for joy, until 2:30. S woke up at 2:50 and, insodoing, woke M. No problem, at least the timing works. But, M slept for 20 minutes. He's high maintenance and fearful of changes to his routine on a full nap. I just had this nagging suspicion that his full tantrum payload was going to be executed mid-shoot. I was wrong. It was actually executed at the beginning of the shoot, but I will get to that.

We arrive and are greeted by a buffoon working with - read "for" - the photographer. The buffoon is goo-goo-gagaing S, who is fairly unimpressed. "Ohhhhh, he looks just like his daddy!" she said. I know the photographer - I'll refer to her as "Bossy" - who contradicted the buffoon by saying M looked like me. I said "Oh, <> said the S did." "Well, she's an idiot," Bossy said. Hmm...I wonder why she has to get a new helper every year.

At this point, the LePages are handled like Ralphie was by Santa's elves in "A Christmas Story".

"OK, sit there. No, not like that. R, look... look at... look over there. Good. Matt, move in... move... move in closer. G. G. G! Look at me. Look at me. Look at me! <>, do something and get her to look at me! OK, " orders Bossy.

M is still OK because R is holding him. G decides to engage in her past-time and runs off to the other side of the field and is singing "5 Little Pumpkins". I chase after her because we want to take pictures of her with the boys. Cue M's meldown...now.

There is nothing we can do to calm him down. We play Peekaboo, we sing, we dance, we make faces. Nothing. Unless R is holding him, we are at the receiving end of his opprobrium. Ironically, G took the best pictures she's ever taken. S looked angelic. M looked apoplectic. At several points, he was so worked up that he fell back into the leaves and I'm sure the photos will show G, S, and the bottoms of two little baby feet where M should be sitting. We all laughed hysterically. It was hysterically funny. It was also a lot of fun.

This is who we are. G is running into another zip code, M is melting down, S is eating wood chips, and we're marveling at seeing them all grow up their own unique way. We will have crazy-ass photos and I'm sure we'll hate all of them, but we will also have the memories of a cool October afternoon where we once again tried to take a decent photo.

Maybe one or two decent photos will come out of it. And maybe one will even make its way to the piano in the living room. But, we'll be telling stories about M's October photo-shoot meltdown to everyone from his friends to his fiancee. We'll reminisce about G chasing after random dogs and trying to get into a winter garden. We'll remember S sitting by himself eating wood chips while we tried to bring the other two back to Earth. Those are our mementos, not staged autumnal portraits.

The Gratitude Gap

Good news. It's really easy to be happy. Apparently, there is a positive correlation between how grateful you are and how happy you are. Actually, it's more than a correlation. Scientists are pretty sure the two are inter-related - symbiotic, even.

I was blown away by this. Because I have also heard someone say recently that "[h]appiness is like an orgasm. If you're thinking too much about it, you're gonna lose it." I completely agree with this. The more you dwell on the need to be happy, the more you're actually dwelling on how unhappy you perceive yourself to be. So, could it mean that if I'm unhappy, all I have to do is replace all the inward-looking soul searching I'm doing to find happiness with just being outwardly grateful? Seems logical.

This begs the question, though: why are so many people unhappy? Is it because they are ungrateful? I definitely think so. And I think social media plays a big part. Why? Because of something I call the "Transitive Property of Social Media".

Remember the transitive property in math class? Put simply, if A = B and B = C, then A = C. This same logic applies to a lot of people's use of social media. I've noticed since I've been on Facebook that the more time goes on, the more prolific posting there is. In some cases, it surpasses prolific and is just downright compulsive. I think of pictures of impressive main courses at a restaurant - guilty - or status updates of your  to do list. I think it's great that you want to share every facet of your life. I do. I'm glad you feel emboldened enough to let everybody so deep into your personal life.

But, there is a caveat. Just like there isn't always 24 hours worth of news to feed the insatiable 24 hour news cycle, there isn't always awesome stuff happening to people, at least not enough for them to sustain their compulsive posting. So, little things become big things. "I went to make a pot of French Roast, but I bought Breakfast Blend instead. #FML" There, there. Take a deep breath. This, too, will pass.

We lose perspective. We sweat the small stuff. We lose gratitude. More social media yields more compulsive posting, which yields more perspective-lacking posts full of unwarranted self-pity, which diminishes gratitude. There is the transitive property of social media.

And, based on the rationale above - positive correlation between gratitude and happiness - as gratitude diminishes, so does happiness. FML. First world problems. Non-issues, bumps in the road, that we choose to dwell on.

We have lost the ability to appreciate  the "givens": health, job, family, etc. I am 100% guilty. But, these "givens" are actually miracles. Just ask anyone missing any one of them.

As I have implied throughout, I have no pretensions of having any answers, for I am a newbie myself. But, I know that I have to let gratitude in.

I have to open myself up to it and let myself be truly grateful. And when you open up, you feel it gush in. You feel it in your stomach. A warm, fuzzy feeling. You smile.

It mixes with love as you feel it filling you up. You don't want to lose this feeling, so you starting asking yourself what you're truly grateful for. At this point, you're ready.

I see a center-hall colonial, nestled in trees with orange leaves, basking in the late afternoon sun. It has a homey, musty smell with creaky floorboards and thump, thump, thumping of little feet.

I see myself ensconced in a Connecticut forest that smells of wet growth in the summertime and cold ash smoke in the wintertime.

I see a family network whose tight stitching catches me when I fall.

But, what I see - and feel - most clearly are hands. A woman's hands and little three-year-old hands and little ten-month-old hands taking mine. Establishing a connection, their touch filling me with love. I just love those hands.

It's a miracle I am where I am. It's a miracle I have what I have.

I don't need to think, grope, or search. I just need to recognize.

Doomsday, Schmoomsday

Since the Great Recession started, have you noticed a proliferation of movies that center around life after the Apocalypse or some sort of cataclysmic event that confronts humanity? I've actually been thinking about this for a couple of years now, after the observation was presented to me in an article in New York Magazine in 2011.

The author's thesis that, in 2011, the common catalyst for the End of Days is capitalism and that we buy into these movies because we subconsciously concur that the rampant, unchecked capitalism of the last 30 years is responsible not only for our current woes, but also many more woes to come; woes that will make the Great Recession look like one down day on Wall Street.

The point in mentioning this is not to promote this argument - I disagree with most, if not all, of it - but to pinpoint what got me thinkin'. What I've determined is that we are OBSESSED with movies that center on the post-apocalyptic world. And we have been for a long time.

I figure there are three buckets by which we can categorize this genre, but obviously this open to interpretation and I'm sure there are more. This is what I have come up with.

1. Doomsday itself: "War of the Worlds", "Dr. Strangelove", "Independence Day", "World War Z"

2. Dystopic future: "1984", "Logan's Run", "Total Recall", "Escape from New York", "Blade Runner", "Elysium"

3. Horrifying, post-apocalyptic world: "Terminator" franchise, "I Am Legend", "12 Monkeys"

Again, I am under no delusions that there are myriad more movies - say that five times fast - that can be bucketed here and there are probably more buckets. This is just what I have come up with off the top of my head.

So, why does this genre sell? What's got us eating it all up? Well, I think part of it has to do with the Second World War. I will cede that the original "War of the Worlds" was written in 1898 and Orson Welles' radio interpretation was broadcast in 1938. That said, since the early 1950's it's been redone and re-interpreted umpteen times.

The Second World War marked an apex in human technological achievement vis-a-vis war machinery - formidable tanks whose production was scaleable, wholesale air combat conveyed by giant, aircraft-carrying ships, efficient, mass bombing carried out by aircraft capable of efficiently bringing total war to entire cities, jet-propulsion aircraft, and most importantly nuclear weapons. When looking at pictures of fire-bombed Dresden or Hiroshima, the setting of the battle scene at the beginning of "Terminator 2" doesn't look that far off.

This execution of martial technology also coincided with a ruthlessly efficient genocide, the likes of which we had never seen and hopefully never will again. When the camps were liberated in 1945, people saw for the first time the detached, indifferent cruelty and brutality of which humans are capable. I think the confluence of these events stained our social psyche.

In turn, this emotional scar was exacerbated by the nuclear arms race that started in the 1950's, which is the second component leading to our fascination with these movies. We knew we were capable of executing total war, frivolously using the aforementioned technology to slaughter ourselves, and knew we were capable of unfathomable crimes against humanity; now, we had weapons that can end the world with the push of a button. Doomsday was always over our shoulder. It almost happened 51 years ago next month.

So, in living with this constant, plausible what-if, it is in our perverse nature to be curious about said what-if. What actually does us all in? Do we all die? What happens after we're gone? What happens when Doomsday actually happens? Notice the proliferation of this genre in the wake of bad things actually happening.

As the ability to realize the world's end became more scaleable by way of the arms race, information technology developed exponentially. As this was happening, we saw a proliferation of Doomsday movies centered around self-aware artificial intelligence. "Blade Runner", "Terminator", and "Logan's Run" are good examples of this. Each one reflects a scenario where humanity essentially got cocky and we reached a point where we were in conflict with technology, sometimes existentially.

So, there's a lot going on here. There's a recognition that we are capable of unspeakable brutality. There's a realization that we are one-button push away from the ability to annihilate ourselves. Both of these yield a certain chord of existentialism in our psyche. Combine these qualities with our fear of our own hubris vis-a-vis our ability to ultimately control the things we create and our subconscious confidence that the monsters we create will one day rise against us, and you have the conduit to make palpable emotional connections with people via this genre of film.

In "Terminator","Judgement Day" - the day the artificial intelligence executes nuclear holocaust - occurs 1997. The first cyborg is sent back to 1984 from 2029. "Blade Runner" takes place in 2019. "Escape From New York" and "12 Monkeys" take place in 1997. "1984" takes place in...well, it's pretty obvious, isn't it?

I mention this because most of these years have come and gone and life now more closely resembles life as it always has been. We might have "smart phones" and "smart TV's", but we don't have cyborgs, replicants, or any artificial intelligence that can do anything beyond winning "Jeopardy". Yes, our problems have evolved, but not to the point where humanity is at the brink. Yes, the problems of the 1960's, 70's, and 80's seemed so bad that either the world would end, we would be slaves to robots, or both. But, it didn't and we didn't.

The world is beautiful. Our abilities to emote and love are incredibly powerful. You can't code empathy and gratitude. Our brains, which make decisions based on equal parts analysis and emotion, simply cannot be replicated, at least not any time soon. Hateful things happen, but it only causes love to respond and counter them. There is an intangible equilibrium, an unseen, uncontrollable means by which the world corrects itself when it's on the wrong path and, through our morality, we are the ones that contribute most to it. We should gives ourselves more credit.

My Old South

American by Birth, Southern by the Grace of God

I absolutely love this. I love it because it's kind of obnoxious. I love it because it suggests that being Southern somehow makes you better, yet there is a twinge of self-deprecating sarcasm to it. I love that it has a bite. I love that it doesn't make excuses. I love that it's kind of insecure. I have always loved it and I have always understood it.

I believe it and I am it.

I was raised in the capital of the Confederacy - Richmond, which does not need to be qualified with a state - and spent many a summer in the cradle of secession - Charleston. My Southern credentials more than suffice.

I write of my love and respect for the South, yet I write from Connecticut, the capital of Yankeedom. I have settled here. I have made my home here. I am raising my family here. It fits me like a glove. I love it here.

North and South. Yin and yang. Up and down. Blank and white. Felix and Oscar. The two are different, yes. But, to me, not mutually exclusive.

Do I ignore and/or sugarcoat the many stains on the South's white linen suit of a past? No. So, do I duly condemn the South, like so many do? No. Part of unconditionally loving something is to look past its flaws. I really don't have anything else to say about this.

When I think of the south, I don't think about cotton plantations, mint juleps, and water hoses fired at African Americans. I think about Bohicket Road on Johns Island, South Carolina.

I think about sprawling live oaks, dripping with Spanish moss, reaching out over the road to shake hands with each other, creating flying buttresses that make the insufferable South Carolina midday resemble dusk in look and feel.

I think about the retired field, overgrown with kudzu. What did they grow there? Rice? Corn?

I think about the adjacent wood-framed building, with chipped paint and broken windows. The rusted red tin roof is barely visible through the aggressive, verdant, sub-tropical growth.

I think about the ubiquitous gray, sandy soil that comes up to the road.

I think about the marshes, the smell of mud and salt, earth and sand.

I think about sprinting across the hot, soft, gray sand and the slight squeak your feet made. I think about the salvation of the packed sand, cooled by the high tide that has conceded.

I think about low tide and a beach that went on forever.

I think about the water, saltier and less sweet and metallic than the water here.

I think about the palpable heat and the smell of horse manure.

I think about Pinckney Street and palmettos.

I think about the food and the lilts, the churches and the narrow streets.

My old South is a tremendous part of me. Too fundamental to ignore. There are so many qualities endemic to it that I want to instill in my children. I want my daughter to be gracious and humble, initially deferential, but always strong in spirit. I want my sons to be gentlemen, uncomfortable having doors held for them. I want them all to move slowly, have a sharp wit that they use tactfully, perfect the art of engaging conversation, and not take life too seriously.

When I'm stressed or unhappy and need to be transported to a "happy" place, I use many, if not all, of the visuals I laid out above. They ground me. They center me. They get me back on track. They fill me up with good things. I exhale. By the grace of God, indeed.

War

It's been 12 years since shit became real; since the "real world" sucker-punched and broke our nation's nose. We learned we are not immune to the hateful horrors that people all over the world endure - or must fear - everyday.

The knee-jerk reaction was war. Not war about which we learned in history class. We didn't meet a great army on a battlefield. No heroic cavalry charges were executed, no beaches were stormed. Our opponents were and are apocalyptic cowards who use God as a shield and a crutch. They vacillate between hiding in the shadows, thus using bystanders as human shields, and engaging in murder-suicide. Logic and rationalization is lost on them.

This has thrown us into a state of permanent war on a low-simmer. The decadence and peace of the 1990's has become decadence and war of the 2000's. Many people have died as a result of pinprick strikes executed sometimes by remote-control war planes. Many people still die, but the news has stopped talking about them. Snooki and twerking are more interesting. Obsessive, self-indulgent, first-world non-problems dominate our collective psyche. To quote Jimmy Kimmel, "it's a good thing nothing is happening in Syria right now."

First, we became desensitized to our permanent war. Then, we forgot about it completely. "Support the tr...OH! Honey BooBoo is on! Gee, how I love her crazy antics!" We pay lip service to the veterans, who help keep the horrors of the real world away from our fantasy land of conspicuous consumption and instant gratification, but do nothing to honor them. Look up from your smart phone and say thank you, at least. The world gets more complicated while Americans become number and dumber still.

I find solace in the fact that the politicians selling us on yet another war are getting nowhere. "Just a few tomahawk missiles," they say. But, the public is not signing on. They are sick of war. I am sick of war. It's just unfortunate this time there actually are weapons of mass destruction.

The realist in me says we need to do something; the President has seen Assad's atrocities and has raised him America's credibility. The Russians see our credibility and raise us bullshit. They bluff, we know it, but we're still about to fold. And this might be a good thing.

The American in me says no more war. No more shock and awe. No more attempts to untie the Middle Eastern knot. I care about perma-war and, while I know we can't turn away from it completely, we can at least not expand it.

Full disclosure, I have been saying that Assad needs to be dealt with. I've been saying it since 2011. I said Obama's perseverating is responsible for extremists filling a vacuum that our aid to moderates did not. I think this is all still true. But, I don't think a missile show is going to change anything.

Is it too much to ask just to remember how good we all felt on September 10, 2001? How good we felt when we woke up the morning of the 11th? The sky was royal blue, not a cloud to be seen. It was a crisp morning, but was heating up to be a very agreeable day. Can we get there again? Can we feel good and confident, while maintaining vigilance? Can we try to be smart about this? Can we attempt to recognize the world is not black and white, but a huge gray area with a huge standard deviation? Do we always have to back up soft power with hard power? Are the two truly mutually exclusive? Do we always have to have war?

My Boring Little Life

I've been sitting here for the past 36 minutes struggling to think about something worthwhile to write about. Some people call it "writer's bloc". I call it "my life is too fucking boring to write about every two days".

I'm going through the motions: "What am I feeling today? What have I discovered lately that's empowering? What kind of changes are taking place that are making me grow as a person?"

Again, I go back to: my life is boring because I have three kids, ages three and nine months, thus my day is spent toiling, driving, eating, more toiling, more eating, more toiling, driving again, more toiling, more eating, and then "Friends" reruns. Then, repeat this at 5:30 tomorrow morning. I'm not complaining. It's just the way it is.

And during that time, especially during the toiling, some amazing things happen. S started to crawl, for example. And he's a baby-ninja. He's super slow and super quiet. You look away for a second and the next thing you know, he's crawled under a table, or over to the dog's toys, or underneath the Jumparoo.

He's so proud of himself. And we're so proud of him.

For the record, G and M do amazing things, too. I'm just using this S's as an example of a beautiful interruption of life's normal rhythm.

There are sometimes that I really hate my life. Then, there are times that I absolutely love my life. Then, there are times that I don't have time to think about my life. But, not once, ever, have I regretted any choice I have made. Except for SoCo. That stuff is the devil.

There are a lot of people I know that tell me they wouldn't trade places with me for anything. "Ugh, I don't know how you do that. I love sleep too much," they say. Or "You got the reservation for 7:00? Why so early?" Or my favorite "...Sounds horrible."

1. It's not like I don't like sleep. Do you know how happy I would be if someone put me in a sleep sack in a crib and let me sleep for two hours? When you say shit like that, you sound like a callous prick. I love sleep too, but I decided to be a father and forego sleep for a couple of years. Don't condescend and don't rub it in.
2. I got it "so early" because eating like a Spaniard is eating past my bedtime. 
3. It's not horrible. It's hard work, but it's wonderful. When you make a remark like that, I have nothing more to say because you have proven yourself incapable of understanding any facets of my day-to-day existence. Now, there are times when it is horrible. Airport security, diaper-bursting diarrhea on a turbulent flight, mixing a bottle in an airplane seat while your son bellows so loud he might cause the oxygen masks to drop, pretty much anything to do with flying with three little kids, peeling bits of puke off of sheets before throwing them in the was at 2 AM, etc. That is all horrible. But, when I say "this morning, I woke up a little late, so I had to shave in the shower, get the twins up and changed, get G up, put her in underpants, burp the twins, put coffee on for R and me, and breakfast on for the kids" and you respond with "...sounds awful," you're telling me you think my life sounds awful. Ergo, at that point, I will do everything in my power to stop conversing with you, including faking a seizure.

No one held a gun to my head. I didn't sign a contract that said I would get married and have kids. Well, I technically did at my wedding. But, the bottom line is I chose this life. 

When I met R, I knew very early on that she was the person with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life. I never thought that I was throwing my life away and jumping into a pit of "boringhood". I chose my future. And if that means what some people - hey, including me sometimes - would call a boring life, then I love my boring little life.

Before:

After:

Communication

G's diagnosis is tricky; in the beginning, even among the best pediatric neurosurgeons and neuro-oncologists, there was no consensus on what her MRI was showing. In fact, her neurologist has even posited that the lesion might be a manifestation of some mysterious condition in her brain, not the cause of her cognitive issues, as everyone else seems to think.

Regardless, a lot with her is an uphill battle. Her little brain just works differently than ours. She sees the world completely different than we do, but she is capable of making beautiful, brilliant connections. She has a photographic and seemingly endless memory. I am sometimes in awe of her intelligence. She's a sweet kid and scrappy as hell. I might even say she's my hero.

One of the areas where we struggle, however, is communication. She knows what she wants to say, but the wiring in her brain can't get that information along the channels and out of her mouth. She tries so hard to tell us what she's trying to tell us, but she can't and gets frustrated. The frustration leads to tantrums which makes it even harder for her to process. 

When this happens, I watch R. She absorbs the vitriolic frustration like rubber absorbing lightening. Her patience doesn't budge. She will offer alternative after alternative, determined to solve the mystery as G descends further into the tantrum. In those moments, she's my hero.

G's diagnosis notwithstanding, she gets her impatience and more extreme frustration from me. As I am merely human without cognitive processing issues, I used to get frustrated in these situations. You can only imagine it made things worse. Maybe that's how R honed her craft.

Today, though, was different. I rode the tantrum out. I offered alternatives. I stayed in there. I was determined to crack the case.

Eventually we did, albeit with a little help from R, and everyone was happy. I'm sure it will happen again - in fact, it did before bedtime tonight - but we will get through it and solve the mystery like we always do. 

It made me think about people in general and how we communicate with each other. Look at the people around you. Can you talk to them? Can you convey a message and can they receive it? I'm sure most if not all of you can, but how many of us would say we have "communication issues" with our spouses/partners, friends, parents, siblings, coworkers, etc? Are our issues more about our own will, or lack thereof, to communicate?

I would say yes. There's a lot I want to say to a lot of people, but I don't because I don't want to be "confrontational". But, the fact of the matter is, I can communicate my feelings, whatever they are, whenever I choose, and sometimes I do. But, the times I don't are wasted opportunities and, in some cases, I might not even get the chance to communicate that feeling to that person ever. 

Shouldn't I look at G, a girl with plenty to say, but without the ability to fully express it, and be eternally grateful for my ability to communicate my feelings and desires? Shouldn't I express this gratitude by leveraging this capacity every chance I get so that everyone in my life is not left in the dark about my aforementioned feelings and desires? I would say so. I would say you should, too.

Train Ride

A year ago today, I boarded a train bound for Richmond to see my grandfather for what would be the last time. R was getting toward the end of her pregnancy with the twins, so she told me that weekend would be a good one for me to go spend time with him. In my conscious mind, I didn't want to go, but subconciously I felt like there was a cloud hanging over me; the specter of his not being long for this world.

I don't remember much about the ride down. I was reading Amanda Foreman's "A World On Fire" about Great Britain's role in the American Civil War. I remember going over 14th Street in DC. They had a new VRE station there. Good for them.

Once on the other side of the Potomac, when I had service again, I called R to check in. She was angry with me for leaving something or not cleaning something up or both. I don't recall exactly.

Just like any other means of conveyance in Northern Virginia, we limped along and arrived in Fredericksburg at about dusk. My interest was particularly piqued because I was at the Battle of Fredericksburg in my book. I looked southwest to Marye's Heights and saw Lee's vantage point. No wonder he crushed them.

When we limped in to Richmond, both of my parents were at the station to pick me up. My mother thanked me profusely for coming. I knew that she thought I was there for her and not because I needed my own closure.

The next morning, I woke up and we ended up hanging around the house until about noon because he was sleeping until about that time. He slept a lot at the end. I would sleep a lot, too, if I was nearing expiration. Why the hell not?

I saw the nurse's car as we drove up to the farmhouse. It was a Ford Fusion. When we came in through the garage door, no one was in the kitchen. The house still smelled the same. I inhaled deeply. I walked around looking at all the tchotchkes that A brought when she moved in. Then I looked for the familiar tchotchkes; all of Gaga's crap.

A came down and gave us a big hug. Despite my mother's insistence that she was being melodramatic, I found her to be quite calm. She directed us over to the den/office. It still looked the same.

"He's just going to the bathroom," she informed us, almost under her breath. Then, the door to what had been a closet but was now an elevator to his bedroom opened and there he was in a white bathrobe. He was hunched over, had a walker, but could barely walk. The nurse was pretty much propping him up.

I didn't get the requisite "Well, hello, old boy! Whataya know?" He just smiled at me with a pathetic, yet genuine smile. I could tell it made his year to see me. It wasn't him. It was pathetic.

The Orioles were playing the Yankees and I asked him if he wanted to watch "Well, sure," he said in his genteel Virginia accent. We talked baseball for an inning or two. We could always talk baseball.

I called R because I wanted her to say hi. I had her on speakerphone and she asked how he was doing. He said "Great," and looking at me "because I got you here." From anyone else, that would have been heartwarming. But, considering this was coming from the hitherto prickly-yet-warm-hearted man that was Mr. G, it was heartbreaking. It wasn't him.

Meanwhile, A, my mother, and the nurse were in intense discussions about his bowel movements. How humiliating, I thought. He deserves better. But, I supposed that this was fairly normal discussion for loved ones of the dying.

My mother asked me if I wanted lunch, but I wasn't hungry. I just wanted to get out of the house. Fortunately, he had to go down for another nap. This is the last time I would see him stand up. I knew it was the last time.

I went out for a walk around the farm. Since I knew this was the last time, I took copious amounts of pictures. I wanted to capture every view I could from my childhood; literally document the memories of what was, for me as a child, a grand, impressive, and almost magical place.

The sky was grey and it was windy, but since it was Richmond in early September, it was still quite warm. I listened to my steps crunch the gravel. God, it was such a ubiquitous sound when I was a kid. I took a video of my steps just to capture the sound. When you watch it, you hear not only the steps, but the familiar whoosh of cars and tractor-trailers on nearby Interstate 64.

He started to bleed uncontrollably the next day and had to go to the hospital. At one point, he coded. I don't have a suit, I thought. What am I going to wear if there is a funeral? This is where I went. Protection through distraction?

I took the train back to Connecticut on Labor Day. From that point on, he came and went, touch and go, day to day, until he succumbed late on the night of October 26. That weekend would be Superstorm Sandy. We called it Hurricane Harry. Only he would have his funeral in a hurricane. He probably would have screamed at it.

I miss you terribly.

Denouement

It's funny how nature and time, our mother and father, respectively, ease us into and out of things. Stepping out into the backyard this glorious afternoon, I realized we are at the beginning of a very beautiful gradation.

Not to sound corny or cliched, but the end of August is a crossroads. Maybe that's not the right way to put it. Rather, it's like a switch on a railroad track; a transfer point that takes us from one trajectory onto another. 

The oven of summer has been turned off and we find ourselves in some residual heat that will carry us through to October. 

I looked up to the sky and didn't see the hazy, white sky of July; I saw royal blue, every which way, no clouds smudging the brilliant azure. 

Yellow leaves helicoptered toward the earth from a Tulip tree. The grand master had sprinkles of yellow throughout its verdant canopy, a clear message that Fall is on its way. 

The pinging hum of insects is at its apex, but the crickets of Fall are busting their way into the orchestra. 

The humid odor of wet forest is replaced by a grassy, woody warmth. The air is lighter and not palpable. We are in the midst of change.

Soon the warmth will yield to cooler nights and mornings, then cooler evenings, then cooler days. The smell of grilled meat will be replaced by the smell of leaves and firepits. Football up, baseball down, Halloween, then Thanksgiving. Pools will close and beaches will be less trodded. It happens every year, yet it always catches us off-guard.

Before we know it the long, dark, sleepy days of winter will be enveloping us. As we toil grudgingly to get everybody ready for school and get the winter clothes ordered, it is the sights, smells, and sensations that are in such surplus now that we will be longing for in February. 

Saturday

Since today is my last day of "freedom", I decided to sleep in this morning. And I slept. I mean, I really fucking slept. Until after 9:00. 9:11, actually.

Of course, I didn't sleep all the way through. Last night's partaking of whiskey and rum completed its evolution inside of my body at about 5:00 and the sugar yielded was trying to pull me out of bed. I tossed and I turned for about two hours, anxious; "I should get up," I scolded myself. "I don't even know when their flight is. I need to get going."

At 7:00, I texted R. "Good morning. When is a good time to call?" My trepidation remains after last night's alarm episode. Nothing.

I laid down with Teddy and we both fell into sleep, beautiful REM sleep, with messed up, yet beautiful dreams for two more hours. Oh my God. This is what 2004 was like: I can sleep and wake up when I want to. Wow. What fucking liberty.

At 9:11, I said, "Enough is enough! Outta bed!" I marveled at what I just did and popped open the plantation shutters. Teddy and I descended the stairs, brought light to the kitchen and the family room. "I'm gonna make coffee! Then I'm gonna go through the mail!" The prospect of performing mundane banalities at my leisure was one step short of orgasmic. Then the phone rang. It was R's cell phone.

I'm doing my best not to sound hungover. I stumble into a rambling explanation that I texted earlier and that I never heard from her. It sounds like she's in the car, so they must be on their way to the airport. She's chewing something, probably her breakfast she didn't get to eat. She was not given the same gift of time that I was. She said it was a horrible night; Max was up from 11:30 to 1:00 and woke up Sammy, though the latter put himself back to sleep. I need to remember not to tell her I took a two hour nap this morning.

After we got off the phone, I looked around the kitchen. Then I walked into the family room and took a look in there. All of a sudden, the familiar started creeping in; the reality of purpose and expediency started to pick up. I felt it picking me up, picking the house up. The sun is shining in on the toys and the kids' beds, highlighting them. The refrigerator is empty, calling out for replenishment. The list starts being made. A deadline, an expiration, is in sight.

OK, let's get this shit together. But, first let's sip some coffee on the porch and make some waffles, soaking in this feeling for just a little longer.

At A Loss...

I feel compelled to write something, but I'm at a loss...

I've had the whole week to myself, to get back in touch with who I am; to not be constricted by the normal, tedious banalities of day to day life, but can think of nothing interesting to say, as I am at a loss...

I finished today's work before lunch and have done nothing this afternoon, as I am at a loss...

I have an oversized, underwhelming jalapeno burger sitting in my gut that I ordered because nothing else looked remotely decent at the restaurant to which I didn't want to go, as I was at a loss...

I sit at a desk with nothing to do; with 67 minutes to kill before the sultry combination of rye, bitters, and maraschino cherries hits my lips, for I am at a loss...

I see that people who have nothing, literally nothing, so little to the point that they need the government to feed them, demonized as being too lazy, stupid, and complacent to pull themselves out their lowly station. I'm at a loss...

I see our President drawing clear lines and then running away from them. I'm at a loss...

I see the monsters whose unchecked greed nearly destroyed the global economic order as we know it vindicated, their thievery condoned, as if nothing ever happened, including their salvation at our expense. I'm at a loss...

I see my friend dying, her body being overrun with cancer, the prospect of her having to tell her kids that this is the end. I'm at a loss...

I'm not trying to be depressing. I'm just at a loss...

The Update

I can't think of a better title than this. I haven't written in a long time - I refuse to use "blog" as a verb. I don't know how long; it can be counted in months, I'm sure.

I'm at a new job now. It's with a cable company. The fourth largest in the country, actually. I found out that cable companies don't actually compete with each other. Long ago they carved the country up like 19th Century empires carved up Europe. "Comcast, you can operate in the Schleswig and Holstein principalities; Time-Warner, you can have Damatia and Walachia." 

The job is milquetoast. Run a report, provide some analysis from 35,000 feet, escalate to manager and/or someone higher up. Rinse and repeat. But, I'm getting paid 30% more. I'm getting paid 30% more than I was to do a third of what I used to do with little or no ownership. For some reason, I'm not OK with that. 

I see my kids less. R is working her ass off to keep a family of five, which includes three kids at or under the age of three, from descending into anarchic chaos. I have a boss who's so busy he has delegated the de facto management of me - whether he knows so or not - to a squat Filipina woman who is overplaying her hand. He trusts her; she speaks his language. 

She has technically been charged with training me as we have the same role. She been doing this for seven years, so she knows the ins, outs, and pitfalls. She imparts these on me in pieces, often detached from one another, so that I don't get the full picture. I, in turn, crank out reports and analysis that lack key components. She has no problem calling me out in meetings with our boss for lacking said components, but we both know damn well that she left them out of my training on purpose so we would arrive at this occasion. The boss, in turn, doesn't trust what I put out and continues to approach her first for items. Rinse and repeat. 

I don't really care. I have a wife, family, dog, home. I have a life. She's older than me and has a roommate. I have been doing this for a month, and despite the game of self-preservation she is playing, I've gotten to, I would say, about 80% of her knowledge base. She's been doing this same freaking thing for a whopping seven years (shoot me, please). If I were her, I would be engaging in guerrilla warfare, too.

This job is a stepping stone for me. I said that to myself when I took it. Truth be told, I would have stayed at my old gig if it weren't for the money. But, my prize is something else. It ain't this. Only 22.7 months to go.