Tag Archives: time

today

Posted on by
2

What I know and what I do are not always the same. I’m a quick study but a slow learner.

Yesterday, in honor of the Summer Olympics I strove to complete the day’s events even though a podium was highly unlikely.

The morning began with the dark echoes of harsh words from a disappointed mistress accusing me of being the asshole I am not. It  was quickly amplified by my nine year old son’s PMS simulation. Nothing that happened or that I could have happen between 7am and 9 am could satisfy him, please him, placate him. When I left him at the day camp, Noah punished me by not saying goodbye.

I spent the rest of the day attempting to not transform into a raging lunatic. How easy it would have been. Especially after I was compelled to spend $38.84 to take delivery of a package for Noah from his crazy Mother in Belgium (clinically crazy, not just my opinion). She failed to pay the right sum for shipping, didn’t fill out the custom’s forms, didn’t list the contents etc. In all likelihood what was inside the parcel was a few dollars worth of candy and ill fitting clothes that Noah would scoff at, as he did last time he received a parcel a year ago. I talked myself into a form of empathy for the poor schizophrenic bitch.

Oops! Bad boy… bad thoughts… bad boy!

As I crossed a street, a commando cyclist forced me into an intricate choreography to avoid collision. I yelled after him. He gave me the finger without slowing down. Luckily Montréal has strict gun laws.

Time. Time. I kept telling myself. Time will pass, everything passes with time, good and bad.

I tried to write all morning. Thousands of words, all of which seemed to be dead on arrival. Lunch was tasteless. I pumped beauty into my ears by way of a Phillip Glass concerto. it pooled in my cochlea without reaching my mind.

The moment in the park, before picking up Noah is usually where I meditate and find the energy to continue. Instead I heard the couple sitting on the grass nearby, arguing, tearing off their respective scabs to show the other how painful it was. A well known crazy man pushed his cart, filled with his whole life, while yelling at the malevolent shadows that were responsible for his misery. They were as real to him as mine were for me. Pigeons attacked sparrows to steal crumbs of bread. Dogs chased squirrels. Cops busted a pot smoker.

I left the park trailing webs of sorrow and the unbearable heaviness of my being.

When I got to day camp, the Canadian women’s soccer team had had a victory snatched from them by a referee bent on ensuring that the No.! team (the USA) went on to the finals.

Rage against the machine. Rage period. I descended into the basement gym like a dead man walking.

Noah was running feral with a group of kids in the gym. I waved at him. He waved back. He picked up his stuff with unusual efficiency.

“Hey Noah.”

“Hi dad.”

We took a first step on the staircase.

“Excuse me, dad.”

“What for.”

“For this morning. I’m really sorry.”

Oh!

I ruffle his sweaty, sunscreen-sticky curls. He briefly presses his whole body against mine.

Oh! He had probably spent the whole day waiting to make it right.

By the time we got home, we were both in an exhausted, comfortable silence.

Oh! His mom’s package?

Filled with 5 dollars worth of candy… and a letter telling him how much she thought about him all day every day. Like a bolt of lightning, I suddenly felt how painful it must be to not see Noah for more than six years.

Time. Everything passes, the good and the bad.

“Dad, these are my favorite candies.”

“Sweet.”

That was yesterday.

Today has just begun …

“Dad, dad, I’m so excited, because you know….”

Today is not yesterday. Must send a note to his Mother to thank her for the parcel.

 

sweat it?

Posted on by
Reply

Woke for the first time at that troubling hour when there is a promise of the sun, but the sky is still mostly dark.

When you’re healthy and happy it’s a hopeful moment, filled with the new day’s promise. But, it is also the moment at which the darkest fears emerge and the coming day weighs like an anvil on a drowning man.

This morning I woke at 5 am in a sweat. Of course, I went to bed in a sweat and rolled all night in sweaty sheets. No, I was not trysting with a belle, nor was I in the throes of Andropause. It was just 40 degrees Celsius in my room.

Hot.

When I awoke wet and exhausted, the dark shine of the sky sucked what was left of my energy. What’s the point of even getting up, said my miserable brain. Flashbacks of failures, disappointments, humiliations, sad love stories inundated me.

Luckily, my member was erect, courtesy of my full bladder. It gave me a vaguely pleasurable thing to rub and a reason to get up.

So, here I stand at 5 am, aiming at the toilet, waiting for the mictural muscle to relax enough to hose down the porcelain. The cat stares at me, looking pleased that her breakfast is so early. Finally it flows.

As I empty my bladder, the anxiety leaves my body.

Huhn!?!

Years of therapy and decades of theories to realize that perhaps I just needed to let go?

Is Dr. Phil in the house? I’ve got a new theory of human behavior. The “Let the Piss Go!” theory of happiness.

Dawn is almost in my window, The cat argues because I left the room without feeding it. I remind the fat cat that it’s Noah’s job. As I put the moka coffee pot on the stove, I hear Noah rush to the bathroom, followed instantly by the noise of him peeing. He certainly has no trouble letting go. The cat rushes to the bathroom, meowing. I hear the food being poured in his dish.

Noah stumbles into the kitchen. His hair is matted and knotted by the sweat of the night.

“Hey dad.” He raises a tired hand. His eyes are puffy with sleep.

“Sorry, Noah, did I wake you?”

“It’s okay dad, I needed to pee.”  He manages a tired smile. When this kid smiles, the sun comes up more quickly.

“Hungry Noah?”

“Not yet dad.” He motions to me with a ‘come hither’ hand motion. I follow, dutifully. He throws himself on the futon in the living room and stretches out to the fullness of his 137 centimeters.

“Aaaaaaahhhhh.”

I sit on the end. He sticks his hot, vaguely aromatic rabbit’s feet against my leg. Kneads me with his toes.

The sun is finally up and filtering green and yellow highlights in the window. Hot and beautiful weather.

Noah flips around and throws himself onto my lap. He curls up into the smallest ball he can manage and settles onto my legs. Fifty-five pounds of sweaty boy, arms and legs and butt spilling out from lap. The cat jumps up and tries tentatively to join him. I flick her ear.

‘No room, fat cat.” It’s not really an insult because she really is fat.

“Poor Ouaga,”

Noah’s snickers belie his words. He pushes his body a little further into mine. Damn, this is really uncomfortable, especially since it’s so hot. The cat finally finds a solution by letting herself fall sideways against my waist. Now, not only am I sweating through my old sweat but there’s cat fur and boy hair sticking to it.

I could not be less comfortable. I could not be happier. And it’s only 5:23 a.m.

 

 

 

 

wild and crazy…

Posted on by
Reply

…times

I pull my cellphone out from under the pillow.

6:07.

Still almost an hour before the alarm rings. Nice.

As I turn, I get slapped in the face. That’ll wake you better than any alarm. Noah is sleeping a foot from me, his arms flung out like the hands on a clock. Mouth agape, face pushed into his pillow. His breathing is regular with the sweet smell that has become so familiar. Whether it was Mommy’s milk at 9 months or Daddy’s pepperoni pizza at 9 years, his breath is like a DNA imprint…uniquely his.

I watch him sleep. What a lovely boy.

Suddenly the arms fling out further, moving like a clock gone crazy. I duck, barely avoiding another hit on my snooze button. He settles as suddenly as he stirred. Eyes still closed, mouth still open, he now shows 10 minutes to 2.

Funny. That’s the time at which he pushed my door open.

“Dad, my stomach hurts. A lot.”

Third time today. Each time it passed, in part by his sitting on the toilet, in part by just telling me, in part by just waiting for time to pass.

But at 10 minutes to 2 in the morning, dragged up from some muddy dream that still sucks at my boots, I have only one desire: return to the swamp of sleep.

“Go get your pillow and hurry back.”

An almost inaudible, “yes” trails after him as he runs for his pillow.

I scoot over, he settles his pillow and drops onto it, turning his back so that I can rub his belly more easily. It’s like synchronized swimming. We’ve done this before. Familiar gestures of caring that he will probably perpetuate with the ones he will love later in his life.

“I’m sure it’ll pass soon, Noah.”

“Okay.”

Moments like this remind me how small he is. Full of life, talents, desires. A fully functioning life, that can be snuffed in a moment.

Moments like this fill me with a dread that is as vast as my love. One of these days, I will leave him unprotected as my time comes to an end. Hopefully not for decades, but still…

I stop moving my hands. He’s breathing with the peaceful rhythm of unencumbered sleep. Took him a total of two minutes. Noah says it every time.

“Dad, I don’t know how, but your bed, like, it’s a magic bed. I sleep so well when I sleep in your bed.”

Unfortunately, I sleep very badly when he sleeps in my bed. His arms swing back and forth and around like some Time Machine gone awry. Generally, it’s accompanied by dervish moves that gather the sheets into a ball under his body.

Naked and fearing for my physical integrity, it takes me forever to fall asleep. When I do, I’m often awakened by his thrust and parry.

Sinking into deep peaceful sleep has always been a challenge. Since I’ve become a single parent, I’m like a dragonfly flitting at the surface of sleep, never quite settling.

6:11

Mouth open, eyes closed but not tightly. He seems in peace. His eyebrows arch suddenly. He smiles.

A lovely smile.

He turns on his back. His arms go spinning again. Time flies. How much longer will he think that your bed is magical? How will you regret not having enjoyed each one of these moments fully.

6:14

Time has slowed. Perhaps if I keep watching him, it’ll come to a stop and the alarm will never go off.

Really….?

Posted on by
Reply

…reaaaalllllyyyy ….?

“Dad, you know the way I like sorta change often…yeah like when I was young I was crazy about elephants.”

At nine, he remembers when he was young…

“Yeah, this is how it is…,” he collects himself.

At these moments I have a millisecond expectation that he will finally tell me how it is, the whole ball of wax and its meaning, thousands of years of philosophy and religion and science finally resolved.

“Yeah, this is how it is, when I was young I was interested only in elephants, yeah then I went crazy nuts about wild animals, remember? But then, I grew up … remember dad, when I just dropped my diaper to the floor and ran to poo in the toilet?”

Yeah, and then he pulled it back up for an extra year when his Mom started going schizo. Preferred his own crap to hers, I guess.

“So then I went completely freaky over uh, dinosaurs, especially the spinosaurus because they were so epic cool. But now, you know I love Pokemon and Ninjago. I think I’ll like them forever…at least, uhm , three years like.”

Three years has been my maximum forever for the last while. Sometimes forever is one night, continental breakfast not included.

Forever, the moment before death…

…the moment before orgasm…

…the moment when my son’s hand reaches for mine…

…the instant she comes through the door and you don’t know who she is but you know you will…

forever…

…the moment before the buttered toast revolves one last time before hitting the floor, butter down.

“Sounds about right..by then you’ll be a teen…”

“Pre-teen dad, I’ll be twelve.”

“Pre-teen is an invented age to sell you stuff.”

“So what am I? or sorry dad what am I going to be?”

“Whaaaa…?”

“I mean if I won’t be a pre-teen what am I going to be?”

“A kid.”

“That sucks.”

The cat stretches its four paws with such extreme delight that its toes separate. She’s lying on top of the blanket on top of Noah on the futon, as she does every morning.

“Maybe you could be a cat.”

“Naaahhhh…that’s even more suckish. I mean I love my cat but I love being a human even more.”

In a last yawn and stretch, teh cat digs her claws into Noah.

“Ooooouuuhhhffff.” He grimaces but doesn’t swat her away. Love is like that sometimes.

“Dad, what do you call yourself?”

“Sir.”

He has the tired smile of a parent with a wise-ass kid.

“Noooo…I mean when you were too old to be a teen you became an adult right?”

Still working on that one. I know that recently I became a man.

“So what, like what are you? An adult until you die? I don’t know how to say it. What do you grow into at your age, what is it called?”

A satyr? A sage? An erect member of society? All of the above?

“Happy! You can call me happy.”

“Really?” He’s surprised. So am I.

“Yeah…mostly…some days it’s tougher, sadder…”

“Like when Nonna died?”

“Yeah, like that…but otherwise you can say I’ve grown into happiness.”

“Are you more happy because I’m in your life?”

Pre-teen my ass, this kid is ooooollllddd.

“Absolutely.”

The cat is staring. Feline sincerity test.

“Really?”

“Really really.”

“Really, really, really?”

“Really, really, really reaaaaaaalllllyyyyyyy!”

Now he goes Italian tenor on me….real loud.

“Reaaaaaaaaalllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyy.”

The cat jumps off, her ears pinned back. She looks back at me over her shoulder, a look of reproach.

I stick my tongue out at her.

Noah sings an operatic rap version of the Reaaaaallllly song as he rushes to the bathroom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

friction point…

Posted on by
Reply

…and the bloody hill

Oddly, I cannot write about Noah and my life with him while…I’m living it full time.

Christmas Holidays means two weeks of wall to wall nine year oldishness.

“Dad, can I stay up late, really late, tonight?”. He says every night since December 23rd.

“Dad, I have a great idea for what we could do today.” He says everyday since December 23rd.

“Dad, dad, I invented a new game. I’ll show you how to play, o.k.?” He says more often than I care to remember.

“Dad, do you want to watch the Sponge Bob marathon with me?”

Thirty-six hours?

“Dad, I like it when you do things with me.”

“And I like doing things with you.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Though a little “do-ing” with adults, particularly women adults would certainly be refreshing.

“Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad……”.

“Papa” was the first word he uttered. Whatever personal ambition I may still have had, disappeared instantly.

I, the writer, had a new one-word dictionary.

Since then he has acquired thousands of new words in two and a half languages. A vocabulary which he spins into wondrous  stories and investigations and imaginings. And my mind is filled with his world.

At times like this, my own universe, which is partly his, but also not, struggles to survive.

Like being on a steep hill in a manual car, waiting for the light to change. Push down the clutch and hold the gas and search for that perfect friction point where the car goes nowhere but holds in balance… so that, as soon as the light goes to green, you can shift to a higher gear and barrel away.

My head hurts…ideas, dialogue, images bang against the inside walls, trying to force their way out. But I need time to let them out and then corral them in pleasant organized creation.

“Dad, what time is it now?”

“Time to go to bed.”

“Awwwwww….already? Dad, you know my new bed, like I really love it but it freaks me out when I wake up at night to go for a pee.”

One of Noah’s Christmas gifts was the mezzanine bed he’s been wanting forever, like a bunk bed without the bottom bed. That means he’s now sleeping six feet in the air.

“It’s cool because I can like use all the space in my room and I like sitting in it, during the day, but like at night it’s freaky.

Clutches, friction points.

“You know Noah, it’ll take a while to get used to it.”

“I know, dad, but it’s weird because I can’t decide…I love it but it freaks me.”

That’s how I felt about his Mother.

Find the right balance, keep him poised to blast beyond a fear, but not a moment before he’s ready. Or else, risk stalling and rolling back.

“Whatever you decide is ok, kid. But I’m pretty sure you’ll be less and less freaked as time goes by.”

If it doesn’t kill me before. He’s been getting up every night since he got the bed. I need to coo, cajole, gently prod him back to his bed. He falls asleep quickly, but I don’t. Three nights and counting.

Of course, I could just return the bed and put up his old comfortable one. It would free my brain from one more preoccupation which has nothing to do with my work and play.

But then, I would have abandoned his chance to learn how to get beyond the fear of change. Not to mention fear of heights.

“Dad…?”

“Yes, Noah?”

His school reconvenes January 9th.

That’s when I’ll pop my clutch and drive like a madman….through reams of my own words, straight between the thighs of a willing woman.

“Dad…..?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life #1…

Posted on by
Reply

life #2…life # …

“What’s wrong, Noah.”

I succeeded in asking with a gentle tone. I like it when my dulcet tone masks the monster within.

I’m in bed. It’s early. My body hurts, my throat is number 2 sandpaper, my lungs gurgle like a swamp, my head is filled with mucous and my eyes are like wet tennis balls full of clay.

“I’m freaked out dad.”

I feel myself smiling. I hope it looked comforting and not like a grimace.

“You want to come in my bed?”

He nods hastily and jumps in before I change my mind. No matter how bad I feel, no matter how absent of joy I may be…I  am always moved by his cuteness. Scrawny shoulders, bulgy belly button, clear, curious, sensual brown eyes, a smile like a song.

“But you can’t chat me up though. Must sleep.”

“Ok, dad.”

One second, two seconds.

I slip back slowly towards my unconscious, drowning in a green sea of acidity with hardly a Zantac in view. But, somehow, it’s my mind not my stomach.

“Dad, I was really freaked. Yeah, I freaked myself out. This is what happened…”.

So much for sleep and my oneiric voyages.

“…yeah, I was dreaming that I was on a spaceship and coming back to earth but because it was a really long trip, like to another galaxy, you know, when time no longer counts the same. Yeah, I was all freaked out because I knew, I don’t know how I knew, but I knew, that when I came back I would be in Grade 2 and everybody else, all my friends would be in Grade Three. I felt like I wasn’t me anymore. You know?”

My kid loves T-Rex’s, witches, flesh-eating Soul Reapers and loves to read comics and watch films where, I quote: “…blood spurts.”

But Time terrorizes him.

A different kind of monster. Mostly for those of my age who are closer to the end than to the beginning. But for a nine year old?

“Why did it scare you?”

“I don’t know. It’s like I was going to be alone, always. Freaky.”

In a previous life, a few years ago, I used to be lonely whenever I was alone. Now, in this life, I am often lonely, in company.  I have so much to say, so much love and emotion, physical and otherwise, to share and instead I’m stuck in the social necessities of polite discourse, discretion and clothes…  I just splutter and go quiet.

When I’m alone, my internal dialogue is no holds barred, sumo wrestling nakedness. Delightfully hard and truthful and exciting.

“You have a really good imagination, so it’s easy to freak yourself out. But that’s also why you’ll eventually love being alone. You can imagine anything, draw it, write it, sing it. Real cool.”

“Yeah, I guess. But alone in my bed, I was freaked. I like your company… thanks dad.”

And I love his.

“Dad, I can’t believe that like when you were my age you were afraid of the dark and now you love it so much that you would turn every light off at night, so that when your eyes are open it’s like they were closed.”

Used to spend every night cowering in a corner of the hallway, outside my parents’ bedroom until they chased me back to my bed with alternating threats and promises of rewards.

Forget it!

Going back to bed would have meant dying a horrible death at the claws of the rapists and kidnappers lurking in the dark of my room.

That was Life #1.

“Dad, I wish I could just fall asleep and when I wake up it’s already Saturday and my birthday party.”

“But that means you would lose two days of your life.”

“No, I would add them at the end of my life. Imagine, dad, how funny, I’m lying there all old and dead and then, I open my eyes and say, ‘Fooled you, I got two more days.’ Funny, huh?”

I wonder.  Some might find it annoying… started the crying, ordered the flowers, the coffin and the old fart doesn’t die.

“Dad, do you believe in like re-living, what’s it called again?”

“Reincarnation.”

“Yeah, re-incoronation.”

“Sure…in my first life I was a fetus, then I became a kid, in my third life a teenager, then Life #4, an adult….and I’m working on Life #5, now.”

“You mean, life as a Father?”

I was going to say, soon as an Old Man. But I like his version better.

“Dad, can you give me a hint about my birthday gift?”

“Nope…just gotta wait.”

“Awwwwwww….”

Time.

 

 

Space and…

Posted on by
Reply

…Time

Halloween 2009

“Daddy, it’s going to be weird like at Christmas and my birthday and all that, now that Nonna is gone.”

“It sure will, Noah.”

No sense denying the obvious.

My Mother would sit in her living room in her Power Lift Chair, surrounded by crazy noise, wild song and fevered unwrapping of gifts. She was only semi-involved, one foot already in the new world that was calling her…echoes of my father, her sisters, her mother and all her world that had already gone.

But she was still there…a small soft ball of life and history.

“Dad, its weird, this year I have no ideas about Halloween and what costume I could wear. Last year, I was like ‘I could be this,’ and then I would change my mind, ‘Oh, dad, I want to be this other one instead’. Remember Dad?  I was so full of ideas that this year are just gone. I don’t know why I lost all my ideas.”

Mourning the gone.

“Cool, Noah.”

Gone is not lost. Nothing is ever lost. It only ends, transforms.

“Eh?” His eyebrow lifts, classic Noah.

“Yeah, this way your mind is all free and a new idea will pop in.”

“Really? But I liked the old ones.”

Enough people have left my life, after variable stays, for me to know that the old ones and the new ones always coexist.

Some people I can’t recall beyond their eyes or their body or their smell or a smile, a word, a touch or a thought. Others, I relive daily, as if the moments of our time together were a continuing reality.

Still others have only gone further in space, measured in mere miles and time zones.

“Well then, if you liked the old ones, you could wear last year’s costume.”

“Oh, no, it won’t fit.”

I know it will fit, but its last year’s … like trying to renew last year’s affections. Their beauty was their temporary nature.

Everything is by necessity, impermanent.

A lover who crosses for a moment is never gone. As is the parent who is there your whole life.

“Dad, I’m going to be like really too young when you die.”

“How’s that?”

“Yeah, I’ll be like only 55 when you’re going to die at a hundred.”

He’s good at math. And generous with my life span.

“You’ll be older than I am now.”

“That’s young, dad.”

Nice kid. Can’t help but agree.

“Is Halloween about the dead people, dad?”

“Well, traditionally, its a night when spirits and the living can mingle for a while. But that’s a story, true or not who knows.”

Short and probably inaccurate definition.

“Freaky.”

“And fun…remember Noah, all the kids running around, the haunted houses, the bags of candies…”.

“Yeah, and there’s always a poor kid whose bag breaks and who cries with all his candy around him. Every year. Not you and me, we’re a team and like you always have an extra bag where I empty the stuff when it gets too heavy. We’re champs. Why don’t the other kids remember the year before, dad?”

“We’re just particularly good at remembering.”

“Yeah.”

“After school, Noah, we’ll go to the costume store…find you a disguise for Halloween.”

“Oh, yeah, this way I’ll get new ideas. Thanks dad.”

Thank you, Noah.

Thank you, time, for the gift of impermanence.

 

to live…

Posted on by
Reply

…or not to live

“What’s the question, Noah?” 

I admit to not listening to everything he says in that ceaseless excited flow of words that often repeats what he’s already said before, often.

“Why does she say she ‘has no life’, dad? Like she’s breathing and and and and…”

Oops! The hamster in his brain is running too quickly for his mouth.

“…and like, you know, she laughs too. She’s not dead!”

She, is the mom with two kids who waits with us for the school bus .

“It’s a figure of speech, an exaggeration to illustrate that outside of taking care of her kids, she doesn’t have time for much else.”

Amazing how I channel the Oxford English Dictionary when I need to.

“Geez, dad, I don’t know.”

He’s looking serious, even offended.

“Like, listen to me now.”

Ouch. He’s gone “dead” serious.

“How would you like you know, how would you like it if I was all ‘Oh, I don’t have a life…oh poor me’ because like I spend ALL my time with you and and you know, it’s not nice.”

Damn! How often must he have heard me saying I had no life.

“She was sort of joking.”

“Yeah, but like its not funny, eh, if you’re the only one like laughing.”

“True.”

True.

Parents often complain about having no life, as if life with their kids was not living. And they say it to each other with the kids there.

Classic.

I’ve spent a whole lot of my life striving for a life, only to realize that the more I strove for it, the more it slipped further over the horizon.

Most people live as if they’ll never die and die as if they’ve never lived.

“You know, Noah, what she really meant is that life with her kids is so important that nothing outside of that is really living.”

“Then, you know dad, she’s like a grown woman, that’s what she shoulda said.”

Tough kid.

“Hey, Noah, my life with you is so important to me that it is MY life.

Both of his eyebrows shoot up at me.

“Really?”

“Absolutely.”

Absolutely.