I had a bad dream.

I was in my house, alone, one morning, and there was a knock on the door. When I opened it, I saw my wife standing there. She smiled and said, "I'm pregnant."

Which was when I awoke with a gasp, and found myself, thankfully, in bed, in the dark, with my Mrs. Ditchman fast asleep next to me.

It was one of those SO REAL dreams, the kind where you are thanking God for the ability to wake up, (an ability which fails me all day long) and it was the kind of dream where you know exactly the meaning of it, some time later, on reflection, up the ladder, at work.

DULY NOTE: We are not having another baby, not even considering it, and all necessary precautions have been taken to assure your inquisitive mind. (We might have had a fourth, though, had we achieved financial independence five years ago, when I was ten years younger.) No. We're done. And the meaning of the dream is this:

The house I am in is not my house, it's my place. It's everything I wanted to make of myself by my forties. It's my hopes, my tendered dreams, my honed skills, and the arrival of me at my long expected Achievements. It's me. This is why the house is empty. Then, the unexpected visitor. And she is everything else; the other side of my life, the house-transformer, the maker of the home, the home that would eclipse my smaller childhood dreams, in her perfect shadow. And then the startling news that breaks my sleep. A shock to the system. Our family. The hard part. The part that invades my place, eclipsing everything.

I've been struggling to do my creative stuff lately, and I've been feeling guilty for it, and the big reason I can't get anything done is the family, and the work, and how I've sacrificed all those passions to earn a living. And sometimes I sacrifice the family to write a little ditty, or plant a little flower. Passion. Duty. It's a the crux of mid-life. You must choose. And choosing half of each, leaves you half empty in both.

I had chosen the former for ten years, out of college, and so I know exactly where it would take me -rubbing pennies together to sit in a coffee shop. So choosing to do my duty for the next ten, though it was a fearsome leap, wasn't an impossible sacrifice for me. I had a good woman there, making it worth it. And all the other unexpected joys... It was a good call.

But I am pretty tired now, sunburnt and sore, and looking for inspiration, which only ever meets me halfway. And I am just hoping that the wisdom of my age will find me some nexus of well-intended energies, where I couldn't ten years ago, or ever before.

Serena, who is a good deal smarter than me, (and much more fortunate) asks me every time I'm typing at the computer, "When are you going to finish your book?" and I never have the heart to say when you leave the room, or, when all the patio covers have been built, or, after I get some rest when I can think clearly and my hands don't hurt. I remember explaining it to her some time back, when she was in kindergarten: "You know how you like to write down words? And you ask me for the spellings, so you can make your stories?" She nodded. "Well, this is how I write down my stories. It's faster. Instead of writing it out, I hit these buttons. See? All the letters are there." And now, whenever she sees me typing, "When are you gonna be done writing your book?" And sometimes she asks what it's about. Or how many words are in it. Or can I put her socks on for her. Or will I take her to school today. Or pick her up. Or will I give her a bath. Read a story. Talk. Play. Move. Teach. Go.

And I always stop and Do, and I just never want to resent it. And here's to hoping that if I ever get to read her books, I never will.

~

Sunny, today. Birds outside the window here, chirping. I noticed the birds not chirping the past few months. Glad they're back. Looks like the ground is warming. Plants should be popping up soon.

The birds chirping. I try to keep that peaceful sound turned on, to keep me calm, to ward off any sudden FREAKOUT, which I am prone to, or think I am. It's impossible to write here, nowadays. The kids see me sitting at my desk and it is an invitation to them to come tug on me, ask me useless questions, or invite me to accomplish certain tasks. ("Daddy, will you put the shoes on my Caroline doll?") Lincoln, who is all of one years old, sidles up and wipes his nose on my leg, which is precisely why I didn't change out of my pajama bottoms, earlier. Then he reaches up and grabs the corner of the keyboard323323333l33k223233/3//3/3/3////////////////333. Then he moves around and empties everything off the shelf near my foot. (I have long since removed everything important from the shelf, and piled on it old scratched CDs and empty DVD cases.) And then another kid comes in and pushes my chair, which spins and is on wheels. (It was, at one time, a fine feature, but it is now the source of a niggling stress, and I could really use a cold hard, heavy dark mahogany chair, nailed to the floor.) And then the little guy wanders down the hall and into the other room, and I have to keep one ear open for the discordant sounds of mischief making, or even a dreaded prolonged SILENCE, which always works to get me up out of the chair and investigate. And so I can't concentrate, as I wait for the *kerplop* of something going into the toilet, or the rustle of kitty litter, (not from the cats) or the unrolling of an entire bat of toilet tissue. Objects randomly tossed over the gate and down the stairs just to watch them fall, I can handle. But it's the crying -THE CRYING- that stops everything, elevates my blood pressure, and just plain gets in the way of everything else I was pretending was important.

And it drowns out the birds chirping.

~

So we’re playing with LEGOs. Star Wars LEGOs, in case there was any question. When asked about the mess, Serena claimed they were doing “freehand” LEGOs (or, as she described it, "without following directions") which, though it was an impressive description, amounted to a large, choke-able mess. And seeing all those little pieces in disarray reminded me to go and google “infant Heimlich” the next time I’m in front of the Big Book of Everything. 

I had these LEGOs all organized, once, in separate, pre-assigned Ziploc baggies, so that the various speeders and starships and whatnot could be re-made without having to pick through the plastic soup. (Seriously. They should market a “Death Star Trash Compactor” and just sell a six pound box of random pieces.) The kids were making a mess just trying to pluck out the little characters to add to their “freehand” battle structures, and I pulled out all the droids and quoted aloud, as every Dad does, “These are not the droids you’re looking for.” To which Keaton responded, “Ben said a lie.”

So it’s clear he’s been thinking about it.

I could hardly believe my ears when he said it. So I asked him why he thought Obi-Wan lied, and he said, “You mean, Ben?” (In Keaton’s Star Wars, these things are different somehow.) 

“Yeah, Ben. Why do you think Ben lied?” and the kid just shrugged. I pressed him on it, but he wouldn’t give me an answer. I wanted to talk about it, but I didn’t know how to broach the subject that sometimes you have to lie; like when you’re hiding Jews in the basement and the Nazis are banging on your door, or when your wife asks if the pants make her butt look big, or anything about Santa Claus, or if you’re smuggling robots with the enemy’s secret plans to the ultimate battle station in the universe, or whatever. Anyway, telling a 4 year old that sometimes you just have to lie struck me as, well, unwise. So I just let it go. For now.

And it had never occurred to me that Obi-wan -er, Ben, actually lied, there. The old Jedi was just doing what he had to do, which was The Right Thing. But to a kid, it was very clear on the face of it: it was a lie. And I thought that this was all good. And God bless Star Wars, because there are a lot worse circumstances that one could get stuck in to have to learn that lesson. And again, later that night, at bedtime, another probing question about the mysterious death of Dads.

“Do Dads go to heaven when they get old?”

And I just said, “Yes.” And then added, too tired for anything else, “Let’s all plan on meeting up, there. Sound good?” And I kissed him goodnight, and went out. Not really ever wanting to die, at least while he was around, because I wasn't sure either of us could handle it.

Tomorrow is my Dad’s birthday. He would have been 74, and he’s been gone 9 years now, and not a day has passed since that I haven't thought about him. I’m sure my boy knows this, from the photo on the kitchen calendar, and he most likely is perplexed by why I've been stringing him along, not coming flat out and saying that, yes, we’re all food for worms, boy. But I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.

My Dad’s dad died when my Dad was just 12, and he never talked about it. Though I’m sure, of course, that our relationship suffered that loss as long as we both lived together. I know nothing about that grandfather, except that he and my Dad shared a middle name. And when I was going through my parents’ stuff, after they were both gone, I found this photo:

And there is no note, no inscription. But I am going to hang it alongside the photos of all the other deceased relatives. And I’m just going to lie to everyone and claim that that guy, that smiling guy in the suit looking off to the horizon behind the cameraman who couldn't keep the lens in focus -that’s him. That’s the grandfather I never met, and he was a helluva guy. Because there is no one alive in this world to tell me that it’s not, or that he wasn’t.

~

I’m at a brewery. Okay, “tasting room”. With a laptop. And a beer (of course.) 

This was a Friday that fell apart. It happens, sometimes. I had so many other things planned, with the rain coming, but the smallish child (Lincoln) fell apart early on, crying and draining fluids from his face (this is my third shirt.) And when he finally gave up on the morning and opted for a nap, the rain had stopped and it looked like I could drop everything and go to work. But I didn’t. And then I broke my mouse, and after that, I just gave up on everything.

I caught Keaton in a lie. He broke the the wing off a little fairy garden statuary, claiming it had fallen from the play structure. He was sure I could fix it with some super glue, and at that moment the guilt was clear on his face. I pressed him on it, “How did it fall?” and he restated the lie, “It fell.” Adding, “It’s the truth.” Which was when I started to burn inside.

So I asked again, and he gave a slightly more elaborate description of how high it was when it fell. I knelt down to his level, and made him look me in the eye, which made him distinctly uncomfortable. I asked him again: “I want you to tell me exactly what happened.” He hemmed and hawed, and eventually came out with a story of the fairy going down the slide, with a bit of assistance on his part. 

What’s a dad to do? I can say I felt an honest disappointment, even though he is only four, but it is nonetheless an awful feeling, accompanied by the thought of him lying in the future, into his adolescence, into his adulthood -and it honestly scared the bejeezus out of me. I had a fleeting sense of how the morning had fallen apart, and how nothing significant had been accomplished. How I’d been spinning my wheels since getup, and then here, unexpectedly, something terribly important was happening. A preschooler’s playground sideshow, a conflagration of superficial events, and then it all mounting unto a moral quandary. And here I was now, on my knees on the kitchen floor, guiding the future of my 4 year old.

“I am mad at you,” I said.

He knew it. He saw it coming. It’s why he lied, after all. And he shifted on  his feet and looked this way and that, for a way out. Even tried to change the subject, as he reminded me that just a little super glue, yeah, and we could all be on our happy little freewheeling way.

But I went for his eyes. “Look at me.” And he did, reluctantly. “I’m not mad at you for breaking the statue. I am mad at you for not telling the truth.” And I was suddenly buoyed by the look on his face, the look that said that he knew this. But that he couldn’t help himself.

I told him, “I can fix it. No problem. You shouldn’t have thrown it down the slide, but what bothers me, what really makes me mad, is that you didn’t tell the truth. It hurts. And it makes me mad, and it makes Mommy mad.” And I stopped for a second, removed all personal doubts and reasserted my religious faith, and added, “And it makes God mad.”

Which I do believe it does, one way or another. Surely God, Himself, has more important things on his mind than the deceptive breakage of a plasticine garden fairy in the Oceanside suburbs. But I think God is bigger than all that, that He can have it both ways. All ways. That here I have a little boy, caught in a lie, and God is handling daily Chinese human rights abuses on one hand, and the corruption of world leaders on the other, and yet He is looking me in the eye and telling me, “DEAL WITH THIS KID.” Because if I don’t, who will? And then what will becometh of the world at large?

So I’m on it, reluctantly. Though, I don’t have time for this! But rain had fallen, and droplets of water hung from the budding jasmine vine just outside the window, and it was very clearly the eyes of God Himself, and Him kneeling down on my kitchen floor, getting down to my level, saying, "Don’t worry about all that other stuff. I can fix that. This is what matters.”

So I told Keaton again. “You have to tell the truth. Always tell the truth. It is very, very, important.” And then I added my own little lie -perhaps because I feared I wasn’t a good enough example, otherwise- but I added, “I know when you’re not telling the truth.”

And the kid nodded, and went about his way.

~

At work last week I got a text from Mrs. Ditchman, out of the blue. I was up the ladder and heard the bleep, and climbed down and found the phone. It read simply and succinctly, “KEATON WANTS TO KNOW WHY GOD IS INVISIBLE.” It didn’t take me too long to come up with a proper, satisfying (for me) answer. 

“He’s not,” I wrote.

And Marci wrote back, “Yes, of course he’s not.” Which relieved me, a bit. It’s a good question. It’s a great question, really. After all, what philosopher has not asked it? And here it was from a 4 year old. The simplest questions are the most profound.

And yet, the simplest questions often have the simplest answers. God is not invisible. We humans see what we want to see. If you want to see God, there He is. And when we are caught in a lie, we always, always, look away.

~

Keaton asked another profound question recently (he is prone to it, I guess.) We were on the couch, nearing bedtime. All the family was there, and the idea of death came up, as it has in the past. Great.

“Do all dads die?” he asked. Do all dads die. I don’t need this right now. I’ve had a long day. I still haven’t gotten a shower, and it’s taking every last bit of energy in my being to just hang with you right now and now your big sister and your mom are eyeing me for some right answer to the question of the ages?

And the first thing that came to my head was YES, they all die. And I knew that that would ruin him. I immediately conceived of his entire life becoming selfish and miserable, if he had accepted that simple fact, that one day, the one man in the world whom he most cared about and relied upon, would be gone forever, and so, inevitably, what was the point of anything? What was the point, even, of Truth itself? And I was not going to say, “Yes, all Dads die.” So I said, “No.”

And then I added, “They live in your heart forever.”

And he accepted it. But I suspect it was a slightly disappointing answer. For all of us. And I felt God nudging me with his elbow, but I wanted to look back and say “what?” and that I could use a little bit more inspiration. But there was silence.

Why is God invisible? I thought. He’s not. I’ll still stand on that.

But why is He so quiet?

~

The run did not help.

But I'm here, anyway. My head is full, which deludes me into thinking I am BUSY, but it's not true. I know this because I found ten minutes this morning where I could change my desktop picture. And then I found another ten minutes where I could change my Facebook wall cover photo. I'm not kidding, here. That's twenty minutes!  So I went for a run, which took 25 minutes. You tell me which twenty was more productive.

We kid ourselves that we can't find time. I never believe anyone when they tell me they're "too busy", because I've got three kids, ten hobbies, and a business to run, and I still find time to mow the lawn, exercise, take out the garbage, read Instapundit, watch The Bachelor, and manage my Facebook profile.

I don't post much on Facebook anymore, but I know people who do. A lot. These are the same people claiming they're too busy to work out, finish that novel, whatever. It's amazing how we kid ourselves.

But at least I got a run in. What entered my head this time? Dead Fascist Tuesday. That was my birthday. Hugo Chavez died, and it was also the anniversary of Stalin's death, so now I'll never forget it. Dead Fascist Tuesday would be a good title. For something.

Also thought about turning 43, which seemed oddly meaningless. Not like "42" which has all the weight of The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything behind it. No, just 43. Which may turn out to be a nothing age. Like 38. I don't even remember 38! Years from now I'll look back on 43 and think, "wha'happin?" and then be interrupted by, "Ow, my back hurts... Where are my pills? Who drank all the coffee?"

But... 43. Lincoln walks today. We established this morning that he has completely abandoned one mode of transport for another. He stands. He walks. I can set him down on his feet, and it is an amazing thing. It reminded me to live longer. Hold out for the grandchildren. That's the goal: meet the grandkids. So I went out on that run.

43 seems old to have a 1-year-old. Older than my parents were, after their sixth. So I am going to have to live longer than they did. Not sure I can. I can only do so much.

Hugo Chavez' last words have been revealed. The fascist whispered it to one of his generals, after he suffered a massive heart attack. He said, "I don't want to die... Please don't let me die..." So, yes, we can infer that there was nothing special about him after all. An ordinary mortal, afraid of death. How utterly profound.

If there is a way to avoid that oft-repeated sentiment on your deathbed, well, God has a say in it, I reckon. And if you believe that, then what is there to be afraid of?

My current Facebook wall cover photo:

A near-complete, meaningless and irreverant, collection of old children's toys. On display. Funny thing to busy myself with, at 43. But I'd like to give it to my grandchildren. Personally.

~

It was a fine birthday. No, truly fine. Best birthday in years, actually. Kids made me poster-sized cards. We celebrated the "Fifth Day of Wine", culminating in the best bottle yet (though not yet drunk.) I went on a run, and then got ready for work. Keaton cried out, "-but if you go to work, you'll miss your birthday!" Which is exactly what I was thinking, and then I realized I was still a child. So then I wrote some, and then I went to work, though only half-ly.

I did what I could. I didn't have a choice. I've actually been working on something that has been a satisfying challenge, and that small fact can resolve some pain. It looks like this:

And if it does not impress, I am not offended. But it is something. What did you build today?

On the way home I stopped at Best Buy and got a new gadget. Nothing fancy, but a little something that made me happy. Was greeted at the door by my mother-in-law, who gave me some money for beer. Imagine that! And then I put on some new pants, some new shoes, and went downtown for a swanky dinner with my best friend.

That would be my wife, who has it in her heart to make me happy, which must be the hardest job in the world sometimes. And yet only she can pull it off so consistently.

The restaurant was called the "Flying Pig", and was on a side street on downtown Oceanside. Art on the walls, menus made from old vinyl LPs, a fine selection of microbrews, and a clientele that felt they were the hippest in North County, how could I not feel the same? In any case, the food was great.

So I am 43. Doesn't feel particularly old, though my back's been sore of late. I honestly don't feel a year older, any more than I feel a day older. But one thing remains: I've still got living to do.

Lincoln was born. So there goes another year away from writing anything down. If someone had honestly explained to me how hard it would be to have three kids over two, I would have demurred at the challenge. I had no idea. It happens in life: You make a decision. You think you're awesome. You have no idea.

And you own it.

Which is utterly fine with me, because I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world.

~

I thought I’d take a half hour and put a few words down, since it’s my birthday, and all that jazz. At 43 I’m feeling that long dad-spiral into birthday irrelevance. Do I feel a year older? Nay, I feel a day older. I’m late for work. And behind schedule. Rain, maybe, this week. No one will ever see this.

I was thinking about writing more. MORE! And I was thinking about the old bad and ugly failed blogs of years past. Maybe I’ll start another. Do I need to do this? Do I need an audience? Do I need anything?

On the run, words come at me and I almost always forget them all, as I pull up to the house. Word play. But today I remembered: “dad-spiral” and the idea of birthdays becoming irrelevant. And that’s what it feels like: a dad-spiral. Coffee and the news in the morning. A quick workout, every few days. The Job, day-in, day-out. Then home, shower, dinner, and then... too damn tired to do anything. Repeat, the following day.

When things go full rote at work, my mind wanders to all the stuff I’ve been wanting to do, all the obligations I never met, all those people I need to call, and how, when I get home, how I’ll tackle it all with unrelenting fervor and zeal. But when I get home, I can’t. Can’t. Too tired.

Spring is coming, and I turn to the garden. My garden, which is ever a failure. All that labor, and a 20 percent success rate. I just turn the soil, water and weed, fertilize and plant, and then abandon the weekend to the ages. Weeks later, when I get some time, I go out back and do the same thing. But sooner or later it happens: something bursts colorfully out of the ground for a few days, and if I’m lucky, I notice it. It doesn’t seem worth it.

But, as a meditation, it is. Years ago I had a friend who had a bowl of rocks on his dining room table. Smooth stones. Pebbles, really. We asked him about it.

“Every day, after everyone has left the table, I pick up a rock and roll it over in my fingers. I examine every pore and scratch. Every imperfection. I spend a minute on it. And in that minute I give it everything. Every thought goes to the rock. Everything in my head is put aside so I can focus on the rock. I think about nothing else. I sacrifice a whole minute to the rock. Then I put it back, and go about my life.”

And then we mocked him.

But here, years later, I’ve got this big bowl of rocks in my yard and I’m trying to do the same thing. And with the phone ringing and the kids screaming and the worries of the world and all the other labors and their intent demands, I try to focus on those rocks for just a bit. To keep my sanity. 

And I think I’m about halfway there.

~