#125 - Another Father's Day

Another Father's Day

12/26/08 (#125)

I could hear my daughter's hurried footsteps behind the creak of the front door as I came home from work, moments before her urgently blurted, "Dad, I'm learning to play Scrabble!!!" She's six, and has been watching mom and dad play the game for her entire life, and now that she is actively reading and spelling, Sage's mom decided to initiate her into the game. It was obvious that Sage saw the invitation as an acknowledgment of her maturity, a rite of passage into something closer to adulthood. (I was also delighted to hear her first phrase upon returning to the game, a lamentation to her mom: "I wish I had another 'O', I could make 'zoo'." Ahhh, The frustration of not having one crucial letter for a big score---she sounds like a veteran Scrabble player already.)

Before I became a father, no one mentioned to me how thrilling it would be hear that phrase exploding from my daughter's soul. It's one of myriad things that no one ever told me about, because these things are both frequent and fleeting, the day-to-day deliciousness that makes parenting a pleasure. When I was younger and asked people how they liked being parents, their responses rarely indicated that fatherhood was worthy of pursuit. The responses were enthusiastic, but they offered unconvincing moments of evidence because it was the language of their life, not mine. Ever hear someone say, "When you have kids, your whole life changes"? I got that impression, because parents described a life that was unfamiliar to me. No one ever mentioned, and I lacked the foresight to imagine, that my six-year old daughter would one day lay "gland" on the Scrabble board and immediately defend it with, "It's a word. It's in my body book." I've had many great days in my life, but none better than this one.

I've come to realize that parenting is impossible to accurately convey. Non-parents are inundated with too much information, accurate and inaccurate, to have any context for processing it all. It's like flying into Tokyo and 20 minutes before landing, every person on the plane starts simultaneously telling you where to go and what to do and what to beware of, most of the voices in broken English with foreign words. By the time you land, you've learned nothing, you've simply been overwhelmed with mostly irrelevant information. (At least that's how I felt when it was happening to me.) My advice to the curious is not to ask everyone; just look for folks on the plane who dress a bit like you, maybe read the magazines that you like, and quietly ask, "Any favorite places in Tokyo?"

My friend Doug was the first of my close friends to have a child in our adult life, and I recall asking him what it's like to be a father: "You never know how much love you have inside you until you're a dad." Doug seemed to understand that there was no way to put his feelings into a context I would understand: People can love their nieces and nephews, can adore their coworkers babies, can revel in a talkative toddler on the bus, but in the end, the age-old adage "it's different when their yours" is astoundingly profound. (Despite it's common use as explanation for how one could endure the crying of an infant or the tantrums of a toddler.)

To use another travel metaphor, imagine describing a trip along the Columbia Gorge to someone who has never taken the trip. If you're like me, you'll mention the expansive view from Vista House, the awesome magnificence of Multnomah Falls, the delightful collision of quaintness and cool that is Hood River. These are all wonderful stops on that journey, and shouldn't be missed, yet what makes that drive wonderful to me isn't those items: It's the little fruit stand just south of Hood River that offers samples of their ridiculously delicious jams (blueberry amaretto is a favorite) and serves improbably fresh-tasting huckleberry shakes; it's the moss-enveloped stone of the guide rail along the old scenic highway that offers a momentary feeling that I am driving through the past, a lifetime previous, when this two-lane road was enough and the six-lane freeway below would have been a farcical idea; it's the miles of conversation with my wife, who after sixteen years together is still my favorite companion for that (or any) drive. It's these personal things that make that drive a pleasure, just as you have your own secret stops that make that journey special for you.

The same is true for parenting: It's a road traveled by many, but there are uncountable numbers of rest areas and detours and travel rituals that make the journey yours alone.

I'm reminded of the art of Jan Vermeer, the Dutch artist whose paintings transcend mere realism and achieve an accuracy that so-called reality doesn't offer: The bricks of his buildings look more realistic than actual bricks; the light through the window is so true that if you look long enough, you expect it to change as the sun in the painting slowly sets. To describe the subject matter of a Vermeer work is meaningless: The joy is in the details, tiny brush strokes that reveal a secret that seems to have been spoken directly to you.

What's it like to be a father? For me, it has revealed that the world is made up of an infinite number of tiny brush strokes; has reminded me that the milestones are nice but happiness lays between them; that Doug was right about the capacity of love; and last but not least, life is sweet, with or without that second letter "O".

©2008 wpreagan