Expectations dashed,
morning arises just the same.
We skirt the space from last night
and busy ourselves
in living —
I understand
the rain should taper off today.
—
There are difficult moments in much of what I write, but I have been reluctant to post something that doesn’t somehow tie up neatly. Not all moments do.
The arc on the old swing is short
and the set rocks uneasily
from so many seasons
in the snow and rain.
He has known it
for all of his five years,
but now runs to it less often,
lingers not as long.
Just the other day
he asked me for a push,
one he doesn’t need anymore —
a big one, he said,
and laughed
as he rose and fell
straining back,
reaching upward.
The blue sky was clear
and closer than it used to be.
—
Completing the set with companion pieces Ten and Almost Eight.
Come close to me, son,
together in the morning air
and tell me
with just your smile
your eyes and your hands
that you love me.
Laugh with me,
rest your cheek close to mine,
and I will tell you too.
A few years ago I attended the funeral for the father of a good friend and colleague. My friend’s father had been an important public figure, serving as a Justice on the state’s Supreme Judicial Court. Many speakers at the service described his important contributions to civic life.
When my friend stood up to speak and remember her father, though, she talked about dinner. While her father held an important position, she noted, and worked almost fifty miles away (no small distance in Massachusetts traffic), he always came home for dinner. She described how he always seemed to make it to his children’s sporting and school events – and my friend has nine brothers and sisters. I came away that day and in the years since thinking a lot about his example, about the effort he had made in his life to be present for his children and family.
Days like today, I feel like I have utterly failed to live up to that example. My son has a t-ball game tonight. But here I am, at work, waiting for a meeting. Not there.
Again.
I’ll arrive home later and find him asleep, his glove tossed aside on the front porch, his uniform crumpled in the dirty clothes hamper. In the morning, I will ask him how his game was, but I will feel a certain emptiness when I do. Then I will drive off to work as he pours cereal at the kitchen table.
There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish I had made different choices, pursued a career that would allow me to be more present, to be home with my wife and children. But maybe this isn’t simply about my career choice. I am reminded of my friend’s father; he was a Justice on the state’s high court, after all.
So I wonder, what am I doing wrong?
There is a possibility that the answer to this question is quite simple: nothing. This nagging wish that my life were different is real. It is raw. It exemplifies the dukkha, or suffering, that Buddha taught comes from attachment and that characterizes so many moments of our lives. My impulse is to try and fix it, to take it away, to do something about it – and perhaps I still can make different choices in my life.
First, though, my Zen practice reminds me to meet myself right here and now. Zen reminds me of the possibility of sitting with this disappointment, this regret, with the wish to be something or be somewhere for my children that circumstances prevent.
Perhaps, in the end, this regret and disappointment are simply the essence of fatherhood.
Not every moment, surely. But right now, behind my desk, imagining my son reaching into his glove to throw the ball he just caught, his determined grin cast in a direction that I cannot see.
morning grasses
reach delicate wisps
through light and shadow —
trusting blooms to dew
unconcerned by tomorrow
The arrangement can only be made
from what is there in the garden
among the spring’s fresh birth.
Insistent rain enfolds
petals and blossoms—
without hindering—
accompanies hushed birds
and muffled traffic sounds,
distinct only in retrospect.
Last summer’s basket
in which I would have laid each piece
hasn’t turned up.
It’s been laid aside somewhere,
so I hold the fresh-clipped stems in my mouth.
Some taste bitter,
others earthen and whole.
Last Thursday, my son woke up early and called to me in his still-morning voice, Daddy, this morning at eight forty-five is Mother’s Day Tea!
It is unusual for him to be excited about something like a Mother’s Day Tea. Special events tend to bring out what shyness he has, and he is not nearly so keen as his older brother on wearing a collared shirt and tie. But sure enough, he had even picked out a special sweater to wear and laid it on his bed.
My wife has been to a lot of these Mother’s Day Tea events over the years as our children have attended the same preschool in turn. Our youngest son is now five and starts kindergarten next year. This year’s Mother’s Day Tea was the last.
Later that same afternoon, I sat with my son on his bed while he showed me some of his new library books and told me about the cookies he had at the tea. He had changed out of his formal shirt and tie and was wearing a dark blue t-shirt emblazoned with pictures of different small whales and the words Nos Amis les dauphins. I love this shirt, and like our preschool and annual Mother’s Day Teas, all of our children have passed through it. One day soon, though, there will be a final wearing as our youngest grows out of it.
We don’t have another child to grow up and go to the next Mother’s Day Tea, or grow into the dolphin shirt. This realization has been arising much more frequently lately, and usually with it the impulse to turn my head to the side and close my eyes, as if turning away from something I would rather not witness.
At first, I was upset with myself for feeling this way. I would take it as an indication that I wasn’t living in the moment. I would scold myself for not being fully present with my children and instead worrying about how we would change as they grew older. Yet as I sat with my son on his bed that afternoon, my deep sadness about this phase of my life changing and receeding was quite real, very much the essence of the moment.
If Zen has begun to teach me anything, it is that the present moment encompasses all of my experience – all of the universe. This includes the desire not be in that moment, or the wish for it to go on forever, despite being fully aware of its impermanence.
I started out my spiritual searching looking for, desperate for, something that would make everything all right. I’ve come to realize, though, that everything isn’t all right – at least not in the way I had hoped.
There was something exquisitely joyful about those moments with my son. And something painfully sad, too. But all of it is my life. The deep intimacy of my life with my children, and the loneliness that comes from knowing we are all of the nature of change. All of it.
Recognizing and being grateful for all of that, that’s what might be all right – and maybe, just maybe, what I have been longing for.
Passing quickly in the morning
as you make lunches
and I rush to the car
isn’t what I imagined
that day we stood
in the old barn by the sea,
my hand gently touching yours,
and feeling every movement of the sweat
trickling down the small of my back.
Standing outside in the garden,
I didn’t notice the photographer
as we talked idly
between silences
about the softness of the rain —
though the pictures in the crimson binder
tucked up on the highest shelf
tell me he was there.
Let’s meet again in that garden,
where we can stand still,
my hand resting
on the laces that entwine
the back of your dress.
morning carries
cold lilac breezes —
whispered and gone
—
When posting my last few haiku, I have described my struggle to write, how I have had to circle around and coax out the words. In contrast, three pieces have emerged in succession in recent days – this haiku, a free verse poem, and a piece of prose. While two are not yet complete, I marveled at first at the difference. But I suppose that is simply how it is – as a writer, as a father, as a husband. Quite striking and not-so-remarkable all at once. I’m looking forward to sharing all three in the coming week.
delicate blossoms
gracing slender branches
breach new sky
presenting tenderness
into unknown morning
bussokuseki 