Flying

An airplane, twenty-five thousand feet over the heartland. The man is tired but cannot sleep. The plane rocks gently with turbulence and the man is suddenly aware of his life. Not of the day to day activities like eating and brushing his hair, but of other things. He is getting older, he has a young son at home, and he is hurtling through the sky at 600 miles per hour inside of a tin can. The man tries to occupy himself, first with a book, then with a magazine, finally with his I-pod. No relief. The man peers out the window and watches the clouds, then underneath the clouds, the ground. The man is flying west, over Pennsylvania, and the fruited plains stretch out before him. There are dots far below. These may be houses, or office buildings, or factories. Inside there are people. There is no difference between the man in the plane and the people in the buildings. Correction. There are small differences. But the differences are insignificant. All suffer. All will die. Life is a terminal condition. There is no cure.

The luckiest among them will scurry around for 70 odd years doing this and that before their bodies succumb to sickness and they die. At their funerals, people will say nice things about them and then these people will return to their buildings to go on with their own lives. The people try not to think about the fact that one day there will be another funeral where, hopefully, people will gather to say nice things about them.

Not all are lucky. Some will die early. Accidents, disease, sudden medical complications. The man knows about sudden medical complications. They caused the death of the man’s wife. She was giving birth to the man’s son and then died. Unforeseeable, they said. One in a million, they said. Even then, standing at the foot of the bed with his hand on the button of the respirator, the man knew that the last thing one could say about death was that it was unforeseeable. Only unexpected.

The man remembers. He remembers leaving his wife’s room and walking to the elevator. He remembers taking the elevator to the nursery, picking up his son and going home. He remembers that the day was cold. He carries his son into the house quickly and looks into his eyes. Love. Acceptance. Determination.

The man’s biggest fear is that he will be one of the unlucky ones. This fear gnaws at him in strange places, like when he is riding in airplanes twenty-five thousand feet over the heartland. It pops up in his mind when he is driving a car, crossing the street, and every night before he goes to bed. The man knows of impermanence. He has seen life’s fragility first hand. He worries for his son.

Home. Far below and far away. The man’s son is almost two. The man lives with a woman and her son. The man loves the woman and she him. They are a family. The man is happy; he has found a person to share his life with. His son is happy; he has found a brother. Things have gone well-better than he ever hoped for. And yet. Even in his happiness the man knows. He knows that at any moment it could end. But not right now. Right now, sailing above the clouds, the man is very much alive.

Children Of The Corn

A New Post, Finally

So, it’s now fall. October is a busy month in my line of work. Over the course of the next three weeks I have to attend a conference in California and a mock jury proceeding in Indiana. I also have two weddings and a visit from Becky’s parents that have to be fit into the schedule. I don’t mind being busy; I feel like I have been constantly busy since Jack was born, but I do like my downtime. Erin and I rented a cabin up in Woodstock for the Columbus Day week-end and plan to do some fall related activities involving apples and pumpkins. We’re also bringing the bikes and will be able to bike around with the boys and watch the leaves change. I’m really looking forward to some time in the woods.

My plan to run the marathon has devolved into a plan to run the ½ marathon. I simply do not have the energy to dedicate all of my free time to putting in long miles on the road. I was running a 12 mile training run last week and somewhere around the 9th mile I started asking myself why the HELL I was putting myself through this again. 40 year old knees are much weaker than 30 year old knees. My current training schedule has me hobbling around like an old goat and eating like a young pig. I actually put on 4 pounds since I started this training routine, which is the opposite of what I was trying to do when I started running last year. So, I’ll accept the Buddha’s “middle path” and set my sights on something more manageable. 13.1 miles is enough.

Jack is starting to put together words into things that approximate sentences. He is also answering my questions with a string of words delivered in an authoritative tone that makes me believe that he knows what he is talking about.

“Are you ready to go to bed Jack?’
“No, not me!”

“Jack, would you like a cookie?”
“Coo-Key….thank youuu!”

That sort of thing. When tells me he wants to read a Thomas the Train book, he goes and gets a Thomas the Train Book. (Of course, he still calls his stuffed giraffe a monkey, but in all fairness, the giraffe has no neck and was inartfully sewn with vaguely simian features so I’ll give him a pass). I find this all to be endlessly fascinating, the development of my child’s mind. I can see a whole lot of innate laughter and happiness in his personality which makes me very happy. He has a twinkle in his eye and a spring in his step and he dances whenever there is music playing.

Jack’s exposure to other kids in the park every day has been good for his social skills and he has also been learning a lot from Dimitri. My own relative misanthropy aside, I suppose I can accept the fact that humans are social beings at heart and thrive in the company of others. Jack certainly has taken off with his development since he has been hanging around with Dimitri every day. I don’t know where he stands in the playground hierarchy, but he is hardly the shrinking violet around the house. Last night he and Dimitri were taking turns hurling themselves off the sofa onto the floor and when Dimitri wasn’t jumping fast enough he was assisting him with a little shove in the small of the back.

The one place that I have been slacking off is in the television arena. Like every single other parent in the United States I vowed before he was born that the television would not fulfill the role of loco parenti. No, I would be an engaged parent, reading the great words of literature to my attentive son who would reward my efforts by spontaneously playing Rachmaninoff pieces on the piano by the age of three. Yeah, you know how that goes.

At least I try to keep the idiot box tuned to Noggin, whose slogan is, “like pre-school on TV.” The channel is way better than the endless commercial that is the Cartoon Network, but I still worry when Jack stops what he is doing to stand mesmerized at the blues guitar stylings of Moose A. Moose and the Business Mouse. Plus, the repetition of themes in the shows is so grating and the songs so insipid I have caught myself thinking extremely uncharitable thoughts about the Backyardigans and reminiscing in silent glee about the guinea pig I ate in Peru that looks exactly like Linny on the Wonder Pets. Mmmm.