Archive for August, 2009

August 22nd 2009

Passages

Passages

Driving home from the store this afternoon, I passed a crew working on some part of a closed lane of the road that had been recently repaved.  Hard at work, bent over as only a small child can bend, fat diaper butt in the air, was a little boy digging at the asphalt, his watchful dad nearby.

I flashed back to my daughter when she was just a baby–I used to bundle her up, strap her in the car seat and go to work at the ice company in the middle of winter for one or two deliveries each week.  We were a small outlet–this was 1989 or 90.  I was the only employee/manager through the winter and I delivered dry ice several times a week and wet ice even less.  I remember setting her in her seat near the rear of my pickup, wedged under coats and propped up carefully, to watch as I hoisted the 50lb blocks of dry ice from their bins, cut them into strips on a band saw, and loaded them for delivery.  I talked to her and tried to make her laugh so she wouldn’t cry from being cooped up–she hated car seats.  Sometimes, after the delivery, we just sat together in the truck and I watched her sleep or played with her to hear her laugh.

I didn’t do that with my son–the ice company was much bigger by then and I took him to work sometimes so he could walk in the huge freezer, but I worried more because I had employees then and more machinery.  It just wasn’t safe.

But now they are both grown, or nearly so and all those times are in the distant past, it seems.  I turned to my son the other day and realized with a shock that he was almost as tall as me.  He will be 17 in December.  I can’t fathom that.

And soon, tonight, I will have to pick him up from his friend’s house.  The friend is a girl, but he’s not calling her a girlfriend.  They text each other 40 billion times a day and were  in constant contact while she was in South Dakota over the summer, but they are not labeling the relationship as of yet.

I’m afraid for him, the same way I was (still am?) afraid for my daughter and stepdaughters–love is an awful and transcendental feeling.  And hurt is inevitable.  The first love so often does not last.  It belongs to the realm of human rites of passage which must be endured, which must, in fact, consume us wholly and thrash us and lift us up and thrash us again.

I too am going through a rite of passage. I can’t save my son; I couldn’t save my daughters.  It is my lot to sit helplessly by while they tread this path, to take them in my arms when they sob the tears of inconsolable loss, to try to make them laugh and live so they will love again, and maybe even lose again.  And that little boy, working so hard beside his dad will grow up and never remember any of this day except, perhaps, the residue, the aura of a real love that will never let him go.

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August 10th 2009

Collage Photo Meme

Collage Photo Meme

The concept:

1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.

2. Using only the first page of results, and pick one image.

3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab’s Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers  (use 4X4 with large center layout).

The questions:

1. What is your first name?

2. What is your favorite food? right now?

3. What high school did you go to?

4. What is your favorite color?

5. Who is your celebrity crush?

6. What is your favorite drink?

7. What is your dream vacation?

8. What is your favorite dessert?

9. What do you want to be when you grow up?

10. What do you love most in life?

11. What is one word that describes you?

12. What is your flickr name?

13. What do you want to be remembered for?

My answers: 1. David, 2. Lasagna, 3. McLane High School, 4. Green, 5. Caroline Kennedy, 6. Black Label and water, 7. the Andes, 8. tapioca pudding, 9. at peace with myself, 10. creativity, 11. reclusive, 12. water.rodent, 13. laughter

Credits: 1. David Gareja, 2. Vegetarian Lasagna (w/recipe), 3. McLane High School, 4. GReeN°JeLLy°@, 5. John F. Kennedy, wife Jacqueline and daughter Caroline. , 6. Black Label & water . . ., 7. Andes Mountains (Peru), 8. tapioca pudding 0872.jpg, 9. Peaceful, 10. Create .UR. Reality, 11.

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