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the future is here
It was fifth grade for me. I was in fifth grade when I could no longer hide my secret. I had spent the last year or more voluntarily sitting near the front of the classroom, cheating on my school-administered eye exams and squinting my eyes to attempt to produce better vision. But in fifth grade, my charade was over. I was busted. I had to come clean. I could barely see. On the drive home from the eye doctor, fitted out in my hot pink plastic glasses (it was the 80’s, alright?), I experienced an awakening of sorts. I saw letters on billboards I had never been able to read…
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friends like this
Do you have friends like this? Friends who sit in your living room and hear the worst days of your lives. Not leave. Not blink. Not get up and exit. But stay. Remain. Listen. Stay. Remain. Listen. Repeat. Over and over again. As often as necessary. More often than necessary. Do you have friends like that? Oh my goodness. I count it one of the greatest blessings of my life to have friends like that. And we are so unbelievably fortunate that I could list a small handful of friends like that. Because we have them. That’s real. And amazing. And so incredible. But I am just talking about one…
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Well Lookee Here . . .
I know I cannot share these types of stories forever. And I won’t. I promise. (Really, sons. I promise. I do.) (It isn’t about poop. But it is about body parts.) Wee little man body parts. Today was a big day for our little Otto Fox Wilder. Indeed it was. A day which surely occurs in the life of every young boy, although perhaps is seldom noticed. Kevin lifted Fox up for a hug and a quick ceiling touch. (Otto and Kev play this game. Otto reaches for the sky, points to the ceiling and makes a few grunting noises. Kevin interprets this as his son’s desire to touch the…
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If You Are What You Eat – Then I’m In Trouble
Sometimes I like to describe my day by sharing a ridiculous true-life incident. And sometimes I get a kick out of breaking down the day’s events into numbers. But today? Today I am going to cruise down a new avenue. I think I’ll chronicle my yesterday according to what food items I consumed. How do you like them apples? (Them apples? Get it? A food joke.) No time for breakfast on Tuesdays – Bible Study morning. Which means getting ready (and getting five kids ready) to leave the house by 9 a.m. (Sure, that doesn’t sound early to people employed outside of their homes. I know. But to people employed…
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Are we predictable?
Unpredictable. That’s what it seems our life is. (Well. Everyone’s life is. Sort of.) But especially ours. Or at least it seems so lately. Like uber unpredictable. Wildly unpredictable. Over the top unpredictable. More unpredictable than anyone else’s. Do they give a prize for unpredictability? We win. Okay. It’s not really all that unpredictable. Maybe just average unpredictable. Maybe just your average, run-of-the-mill unpredictable. The kind of unpredictable ordinary lives are made of. That kind of unpredictable. Maybe that’s all I mean. I don’t know. That’s probably all I mean. My dad always told me that I tended to be a little too dramatic. Unpredictable. Predictable. Whichever. Like I said,…
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Story. The Middle.
I keep talking about Story. (The conference we attended. Not just “story” in general. Or – maybe that too.) It was so much good information. And so much good information takes me a while to process. One speaker – this guy – talked about the similar nature of every story. How every story follows the same pattern. Beginning. Middle. End. Usually the middle is the largest part of any story. And the middle usually includes some inciting incident. Some story line, some ordeal, some tragedy, some event, that propels the action of the story. That moves along every other detail. An inciting incident. And after the speaker shared his inciting…
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the gift of boundaries
Real creativity thrives within well-defined boundaries. I first realized this truth when I was teaching writing to junior high students. “Write a poem about any topic you would like,” I announced. “No limits,” I gleefully told those fifteen or so blank-eyed barely-teenagers. Hands were raised. Puzzled looks increased. The poems that were turned in the next day were . . . horrible, frankly. They lacked form and interest and passion and anything that would hint at lovely poetry. A few weeks later, I tried again. But with a different angle. We had been reading The Hobbit and had just finished a portion of the book exploring Bilbo Baggins’…
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easy resolve
The quick fix. The no-hassle solution. The simple way out. Do these exist? I just want one situation in my life – one impossible situation in my life – to have an easy resolve. (I don’t even care which problem, really. Pick any of them.) Kind of like a Get out of Jail Free card in Monopoly. One easy resolve. And I just slap that orange card down and say, “there.” Resolved. Easy. Does anything work like that? 37 years of life tells me the answer. No. No, nothing works like that. Problems do not have quick fixes. Issues are not speedily mended. Solutions do not materialize out of the…
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I’ll Pay Your First Therapy Session, Son
I might have witnessed Hawkeye’s first discussion in his future therapy session. I should have known. I was warned at the bedroom door by the first sentry. Mosely, with arms flailing the air. “You don’t want to go in there!” As I approached “there” (a.k.a. the closet) I heard scuffling and I felt a hand trying to keep the door closed. However, I am stronger, for the time being, than my five-year-old son. So I pushed through and opened the door. Perhaps I should have heeded all warnings. There was my boy, just minutes ago attired in orange shorts and a camo shirt like some sort of mixed signal for…
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It’s Not So Mysterious
I have three brothers. We grew up on the same dairy farm in Virginia. We had the same parents all of our lives. But despite all that we are pretty different people. We grew up the same but we grew up different. And I used to think that was so mysterious. So hard to comprehend. I kept asking the question . . . How can four kids be raised in the same environment, in the same home, by the same parents, and still be so different from one another? It’s taken me a lot of years and six children of my own to find the answer. (Or maybe not to find…
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Autopilot
Have you ever driven some route, some route so familiar, that when you reach your destination you cannot even remember the path you took to get there? You know you must have taken a right at the gas station but you do not even recall seeing the gas station? It is as if you are on autopilot. That’s me. That’s today. That’s been this week. I see that it’s Friday. I know Monday must have occurred. Clearly I went to bed four nights since then and awoke four mornings. But I don’t recall any of them. The kids are not malnourished and our math worksheets have been completed but I…
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also said out loud
Yes. People have made ludicrous statements to me. But I guess I should not judge them too harshly. Because I am guilty of letting some pretty ridiculous statements fly from my tongue more often than not. Statements such as these . . . No, I will not peel your banana right now. Because I am sitting on the toilet. No, your brother may not wear a princess dress and a princess crown to the store. Brothers cannot marry their sisters. Please stop using your camera to photograph your brother’s bare bum. Because I don’t know how to turn a shell into a light. Do not use your toothbrush to clean…
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30 seconds
Kevin just wanted thirty seconds. That’s not much. Seriously. It isn’t anything actually. 30 seconds. All this father of six asked for was thirty seconds of calm and relative quiet at our dinner table. (Is that what the soundtrack of your life sounds like too?) Anyway. 30 seconds. Kevin explains the rules in his official Dad Voice. No talking. (He allows Otto Fox an exemption based solely on his age. Solely on his age and his dashing good looks. Solely on his age, his dashing good looks and his irresistible charm.) No wiggling. No exploding. 30 seconds. That’s all. The kids blast him with a series of logical questions. “What…
