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I have known you from the moment you first drew breath, shared each halting footfall and marked each great, bounding leap as your winged feet stepped
into the air and your arms lifted to the sky, a gentle bird of prey rising with
the winds and soaring, unencumbered, over a landscape of glittering emerald and
depthless sapphire blues. Your heart beating massive and strong in your chest,
thrilling to these new velocities and the impossible freedoms of discovery: a
whole world, filled with wonders, waiting to be explored.

The currents carving deltas of cloud through your hay-blonde
hair, the moon-sliver crescents in your cheeks deepening and broadening as your
face draws back into a smile – your default response to each subtle shift of the
sun – as these smooth curves buffer the sharp angles of your mind, probing,
instinctively searching out the offbeat and focusing on those unexpected
moments of strange joy

the trees alive with your laughter, the staccato beats of
one smooth note bouncing off the next, a rhythm to a song whose words I’ve
never known but have loved with all my weak heart: jealously, helplessly,
enraptured in the sudden knowledge that among these sweet sugar maples and
restless pines I could be haunted by

these glimpses of you, flickering between the leaves,
reaching for the distant moon, racing toward unseen horizons

and before I can begin to realize the moment has passed,
that moment I might have held you in my arms and warmed to the full strength of
your gaze, your infinitely warm eyes bright with the everpresent spark of
mischief and precocious compassion, filled with the echo of your tumbling
laughter and infinite capacity to find such great happiness in such small
things, allowing myself the lie that there, with you, I might be enough

you are beyond me, beyond my understanding of what slender
hopes this life might offer, beyond the weight of these heavy years and the
weight of these memories, these fears, these long days and lengthening nights

you are a whispered word, a half-remembered psalm, my breath
finding form in these cold hours before dawn, shifting and twirling and lifting
away

rising with the winds and soaring

to where heaven might be.

 

Somewhere in the fading of hours, lost to the restless tumbling of cool and rain-swept November days, one to the next, we stood – together, outside my parents' home – and watched another grey day begin a grateful, graceful collapse into a long, rain-swept evening. You, standing in the open door of your old white Honda, long and pale and pretending not to shiver, or notice the thin cascade of cool water running along the sides of your cheeks and tracing the arcs of your long fingers and capable hands, swirling cautiously through the intricate axis of skin gracing each fingertip as though navigating a maze and searching for a way home, absorbing the subtler salts of your skin and recalling the taste of the sea. Your eyes huge, luminous, each long blink a revelation of blues blending to greys, flashing brighter with hints and suggestions of azure and lapis, cooling to the patience of slate, steadily blinking away the trembling droplets of water that gathered along the edges of your dark lashes before leaping, not looking, to the freedom and fleeting joys of a moment in flight: unburdened by regret or purpose, still vivid with the memory of your warmth, spinning and twisting in unsteady currents of free air and waiting for the tender embrace of gravity to take hold and deliver, at last, sweet release.

A sky, darkening in quiet increments, framing this little world.

And I, feeling each catch in my breath, savoring this growing suspension of disbelief – unexpected, unanticipated, treasured and fragile, stretching across the steady passage of months in defiance of all sense and logic – and struggling to surpress the instinctive, furious vacillation between caution thrown to the wind and the constant, breathless terror of waiting for the wrong word, the false step, the hidden flaw suddenly brought to light that would bring this intricate construct of hope tumbling into chaos and shattered glass. Mindless of the rain, the cold, the winnowing of moments as you stood there in the open door, poised on the cusp of our time and the infinite stretch of time and space beyond… incapable of holding back and denying myself the joy of you: your ready laugh, your nimble mind, your ambition and curiosity and horrible taste in music and inexplicable willingness to waste your time and energy on such a hopeless cause, such a ridiculous figure, such an unworthy beneficiary. Hanging on the nuance of your words, the wicked glimmer in your eye, the unspoken prayer for this and every moment with you to linger, to last, to lead to another and another and 

the rain, falling harder, the sky darkening, the moment drawing to a close and

my eyes, dropping in acquiescence, acknowledging the inevitability of the fading day and the moment passing and struggling to find the words, the excuse, for there to be another – another day, another night, another chance to bask in the glow of distant suns and warm myself in the belief that a life like this might be mine – while you waited patiently for me to fumble my way through the process and grant you leave, offering kind words and knowing glances and gentle suggestions, and I half-listened and half-scrambled to find the phrasing that would strike you right and grant me the gift of one more smile, one more small laugh, and you said something and

I misunderstood

and the world exploded into sound and brilliant light, chimes and chorales, a surging within me of entire oceans flooding into brittle chasms and spilling out in furious overflow, overwhelming me with a sense of urgency and relief and joy, joy, joy beyond all reckoning, inchoate and hapless and infused with gratitude and disbelief and wonder (sheer, gorgeous wonder) that such a thing might happen to someone like me, and that all I'd been bottling up inside was not wrong or wrong-headed: it was going to happen and after so, so, so very long it was happening and suddenly I could not contain it and suddenly there was no reason to, and without looking I leapt – smiling in my broken, awkward way as the words came unbidden, unbowed and unabashed – "I love you, too."

And you smiled, and I did not notice because all the light and joy in the world was flooding out of me at impossible volumes and velocities, I did not notice that there was something curious in your smile, something I could not name, and then I started laughing and you laughed, too, a bit more quietly than me, and 

we stood there together, in the rain, laughing and then laughing some more and then I leaned across the top of the car door and hugged you, full and firm, my heart bursting through my chest and that cold rain filling my eyes and I held you tight and it felt like holding the sun because, because, because of all that

I'd thought you'd said. 

It is a sad and terrible world,

driven and destined to break the best of us in the most terrible ways

and the rest of us, crippled at birth, left helpless to

the whims of the relentless tide and the slow, pitiless

passage of days,

can only watch

and wait

as the moments wither and the foundation erodes until

we can no longer remember the moment we

took that first wrong step.

It does not pause to take note

of our slender hopes, our tender ambitions, these

brittle dreams like dry leaves that

blow apart and scatter

as the warm days fade to fall.

But in the ways your brown and blue eyes catch this

light

and bend it, a spectrum drifting beyond the visible, into

gentler hues that

lend credence to the songs and stories we’d known

when we

once upon a time

were small enough to believe this world offered promise and

wonder that defied imagination, twisted the laws of

physics and suggested that in the slivers of light that slip

between these heartbeats and bend

upon themselves, blending each soft flutter of eyelash and

whispered prayer into a cumulus

of possible – of impossible made real –

I find the capacity to believe

there is something worth believing in

 

• • •

 

– for my daughters –

My twin daughters are rapidly coming up on their 7th birthday. As they have a boatload of aunts, uncles and grandparents eager to festoon them with gifts, they've been asked to compile birthday lists.

With that in mind, yesterday one of the girls provided me with the following:

Please note: the second item is intended to translate as "giant animal." Ahem.

Sorry — this is another one of those annoying cross-posts where I don't actually create anything fun or productive but instead point you toward something I wrote somewhere else.

::throws confetti::

If you follow me on Twitter (and really, you should — I'm quite charming in 140 characters or less) you may recall a fun-filled trip to the local ER that my daughter and I took a couple of months back. Well… I wrote about it today over at ye olde DadCentric. Please feel free to go forth and check it out 'n whatnot.

That's it! Nothing more to see here! GO BACK TO YOUR HOMES!

::drops mic; walks offstage::

I was not ready. I have never been ready.

I had nine months and a lifetime to prepare, but each minute of every day I was aware of the atmospheres of pressure building, one upon the next, into a latticework of dizzying complexity and impossible weight I feared I could not bear. In an eyeblink it slipped from unspoken anxiety into a vicious game of chance: how long could these brittle bones and genial smiles withstand the quiet crush of expectation? How many long hours would stagger past, each less elegant than the one before, until the foundation gave way — a fundamental structural weakness finally pushed to the point of breaking, and then beyond… and the terrible collapse that would follow?

How infinite and terrible, the disappointment it would leave behind?

I failed you before the start, in spite of the preparation and study, the goodwill and fine intentions. I failed you in that first moment your eyes fluttered open and your lungs filled with the infinite cold sweetness of free air and they asked if I wanted to hold you and the room was bright with bloody rags and your mother, brave and broken and still, despite it all, unbowed: filled with steel where I rang hollow, flowing to overflowing with pain and wonder and love, lifting her arms to take in all the strange joy of

you, tiny and lost and suddenly at home in the only place you ever belonged

we believed in you, we believe in you still

in all you have been and all that might be

across the endless chasms of time that opened in the years in between, as the strong earth we'd always walked and known suddenly gave way and – together, as one – we fell.

(I remember, curling into prayer at your bedside. Whispering to distant gods: "Please. Me for him." Wishing only to take the burden from you. Wishing, if there were ever a time I would not fail, it would be then. When it mattered. My voice, ragged and hollow. Unheard.)

Such a long road we've traveled, from there. From then. Some distances are beyond measure, but you have crossed them with a strength and dedication and profound goodwill that seem a perfect logic when you return, as you do, to the comfort and safety of her arms — to the crook of her shoulder and neck, all muscle and sweetness and warmth, welcoming your nervous smile and fluttering hands, your bright eyes and wild laughter, your endless questions and infinite capacity for love as the ocean welcomes the wave: patiently, openly, endlessly.

I've had nine years and a lifetime to be worthy of you, but each minute of every day I am aware of how much more you – both of you – deserve: of the brilliant blue skies and friendly, generous smiles and long, joyful hours that I whisper, in quiet words to whoever listens between the farthest stars, that I would give myself as exchange, if only to help you find your way.

I wish it all for you. All of it, and so much more.

That's right: two posts in two days. Don't get used to it.

So: Kevin morbidly hit me with a meme this morning, and since I don't feel like spending the next hour doing things like "being productive" or "contributing to society" or "making the world a better place," I figured I'd bite the bullet. Hence the following waste of your time.

1. Ginger or Mary-Ann?
   Mary-Ann all the way. Not even a question. Look: I'll admit that Ginger offers a more than reasonable degree of irrational hotness in her faux-Monroe fashion, but the simple fact is that because of that irrational hotness she's practically a different species from me. (Or you, for that matter.) Whereas Mary-Ann is the epitome of the sweet/hot girl next door — which, as a domesticated blue lobster, is more than a little appealing. Plus, mine is a brief and checkered history of brunettes, and I'd hate to break that up with a ginger like Ginger.

   (That said, if you offered me Christina Hendricks as option #3… well, then we'd have something to discuss. As my friend Amber once pointed out, she's the one public figure for whom the full-on wolf-eye AYOOOGA response is 100% justified in both men and women.)

2. What would you use to dilute water?
   STOP CONFUSING ME, KEVIN.
3. What mnemonic would you use to help you remember how to spell “mnemonic”?
   Many
   Nimbly
   Erotic
   Mennonites
   Offer
   Neckties
   In
   Church

   (sorry if that was too obvious.)

4. What is your theme song?
   Rather than writing an 8,000-word reponse that works through all the possible permutations, I'll simply offer the following. It's not the only answer, but it'll do.

    

5. Cake or pie, and what kind?
   I'm all about the pie, man. Fruit. If I've gotta pick one, I'll go with blueberry – Maine wild blueberry, if I have my druthers (and you know how much I like my druthers) – but honestly I'd be nearly as happy with a good, homemade apple or cherry pie. I am a simple man, partial to simple pleasures.
6. What’s the worst movie you ever saw in its entirety?
   Tough, tough call. When you've seen as many movies as I have, that means you've also seen a lot of really, really terrible movies. Off the top of my head, I'd probably have to go with M. Night Shyamalan's inexplicably stupid, terribly acted and generally just horribly conceptualized and executed The Happening — but that being said, I know that if I gave this a day's thought, I could probably come up with half a dozen other equally vile options worthy of consideration.
7. What celebrity would you NOT mind your significant other having a one-nighter with?
   See: my earlier Christina Hendricks comment.
8. Six of one or half a dozen of the other?
   STOP CONFUSING ME, KEVIN.
9. What you gon' do with all that junk? All that junk inside your trunk?
   I'm going to dilute it with whatever you dilute water with.
10. Vampires or zombies – which would you try to kill first?
    Zombies. Because let's face it: either way, I'm going to get eaten by something unnatural. If I get eaten by a zombie, I'll either be torn to shreds (which looks really, really painful, by the way) or end up turning into a zombie myself, after which point I'll just shamble around until I rot and disappear for good. On the other hand, if I get chowed on by a vampire… there's a distinct possibiliy I'll end up turning into a vampire — which means all kinds of exotic sexiness for centuries to come. Unless it's one of those fucking glitter vampires from Twilight. In which case, I'll go the zombie route and hope that there was some truth to the whole Stony Mayhall take on being an undead-American.
11. Who are three people who’ve never been in my kitchen?
    The answer, as Cliff Clavin could tell you, are Archibald Leach, Bernard Schwartz and Lucille LeSueur. But you already knew that.

 

At this point, I think I'm supposed to curse some other people with the dreaded meme tag – and to come up with a new list of questions with which to torment them – but let's face it: I'm already overachieving this week, so let's not push things. That said, I welcome any and all y'all to lift these questions for yourself and play along to the best of your abilty and/or willingness to follow directions. If you do, just let me know — so I can make fun of you in comments.

The rules (as posted by Kevin, which I utterly failed to obey) are listed below:

1. You must post the rules.
2. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in the post, and then create 11 new questions to ask the people you've tagged.
3. Tag 11 bloggers; however, you can break the rules and tag fewer people if you want. Make sure you hyperlink their names/blogs.
4. Let them know you've tagged them!
5. Have fun!

Yeah, right. Good luck with that #5 part.

Insofar as that it's become entirely apparent that I'm incapable of producing anything that even vaguely resembles thoughtful content, I thought I'd instead blow the dust off this forgotten corner of the interwebs and regale you with 10 random and generally uninteresting facts about my life in the waybacklongagodays of when I, TwoBusy, was naught but a feckless youth.

(That's right: I dropped a "feckless" on y'all. KA-BOOM.)

Fact the First: I wanted to work with sea life.
My current guise as your friendly neighborhood blue lobster probably finds its origins in my lifelong fascination with the bloodthirsty creatures of the open sea. Y'remember back in elementary school when "Libary" was an actual class, in which they'd read you stories and then you'd go and pick out some books to bring home for the week? As a male of the species (never you mind, which species), I confounded the expectations of my peers by regularly choosing to forgo the heroic pleasures offered by my school's generous selection of sports biographies – ah, Rod Carew; perhaps this is why I never grew to treasure your life story and accomplishments as I should – in favor of books on sharks. Lots and lots and lots of books on sharks. There might've been a couple of dolphin and whale books thrown into the mix for good measure (and let's be clear: while most dolphins and whales do not actually count as bloodthirsty (unless you're a herring, in which case I have stronger herring demographics on this site than my stats suggest), if they ever chose to go seriously rogue… man. You'd have to imagine that a bad whale could really, really fuck you up. See: Moby Dick.), but mostly I was focused on sharks.

Why? Because they're fascinating, dude. There's a million different kinds (he said scientifically), and they've all got different physical characteristics and appetites and habitats and sneaky vicious horrifying ways to KILL AND EAT YOU AND EVERYONE YOU LOVE. Which, by definition, is cool.

It was at some point during my many long hours of voraciously consuming the contents of shark books (wasn't it ironic? wasn't it? a little bit?) that I decided that when I grew up, I wanted to be a guy who knew all about sharks and did… uh… shark work. The details were a little rough. And I was also – for several years – under the impression that someone who did this was called an "oceanographer," rather than the more appropropriate "marine biologist" and/or "delusional whackjob who will someday be eaten by monsters." But for years and years (really, up until the point where I started taking biology in high school and realized that I actually suck at science) that was my goal in life.

See? There's a logic to this blue lobster thing. (Kind of.)

Fact the Second: My early life was shaped by horrible, horrible music.
Let's face it: as kids, we're often little more than the weasily little fleshvessels that carry our parents' twisted aspirations and anxieties — and as such, we're entirely subject to the whims, influences and cultural trappings that their own preferences force upon us.

In my life, that meant late-70s easy-listening radio.

With a working (read: usually not around) father and a SAHM, I spent an impossible amount of my early life being carted around the greater Boston area in non-descript American cars to the omnipresent sounds of everything that we now – as adults, and as people of compassionate and loving humanity – recognize as antithetical to every recognized definition of "good" music. At some point in the not-too-distant future, when biographers leverage the extensive research of the Ph.Ds in your local 4-star university's Department of TwoBusy, there will be a definitive number grandiose enough to describe with some accuracy the appaling number of congregate hours I was forced to spend exposed – helpless and incapable of defending myself – to the relentless onslaught of Barry Manilow, and Neil Diamond (do NOT start with me, Diamond apologists), and Leo Sayer, and Juice Newton, and Bread, and (of course) the dark princes of everything unholy ever committed to vinyl and/or the AM airwaves: Air Supply.

How does a child ever overcome such burdens? How, as an adult, can one bury these traumas and successfully masquerade as a productive member of society? Ultimately, these will be my biographers' questions to answer — but for now, you should just be aware that beneath this incredible head of hair and shiny blue exoskeleton, there lies the memory of a child who, once upon a time, was forced to memorize the words to "The One That I Love."

Fact the Third: I failed my driving test. Twice.
"No," you say. "This can't be." And I understand your reluctance to believe that any creature as magnificent as I might somehow be capable of failure. And yet: it is true. As are all things written here, in this place of typed purity.

In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, yout's (for proper pronunciation, consult this) were allowed to get their driver's permit at the age of 16 following successful completion of a written exam (well… I think it was multiple choice. But close enough), and then their full driver's license at age 16 1/2 after successful completion of driver's ed and a road test. And so, not long after I turned 16, I got my permit. And then, that summer, I took driver's ed. Ah, Death on the Highway… what pleasant, lingering memories you still offer. And then, finally, that autumn… I signed up for my first road test with the DMV.

I remember being anxious. I remembering being polite, as I had been taught to be with authority figures. I remember listening carefully to the instructions of the tester. And I remember, after the tester had me pull up along the edge of the sidewalk on a long, empty stretch of road, being asked to put the car into reverse and back up. And slowwwly backing up… slowwwwly… slowwwwly… until my hand twitched, just a touch, and the car swerved a few inches to the right… and the rear tire made contact with the edge of the curb. TEST OVER. FAILURE.

I was crushed, dudes. Failure wasn't a common experience for me (AT THAT POINT. HA. HA. HA. HA. HA.), and I was heartbroken by the thought that I couldn't carry off the successful completion of a driving test — something even the most colossal blockheads in my grade had accomplished with little difficulty. But after several weeks of moping and self-pity, I nobly dusted myself off and scheduled a second road test. This time, without a doubt, I would succeed. I WOULD SUCCEED.

Except, of course, that I didn't. My sequel failure was even more humiliating, as my attempt at parallel parking resulted in the momentary squeak of my bumper against that of a parked car's — at which point the road tester basically hurled herself out of the vehicle, declared me unfit to sit behind the wheel, and refused to get back in until my father pulled himself out of the back seat, got in the driver's, and drove us all back to the DMV building.

"FUCK A DUCK," I may have said to myself at the time, because god knows that isn't something I would've probably said to the angry DMV lady and my father. But the fact remained that this had progressed beyond the realm of failure and into the nether regions of epic fails — and I remained a boy rapidly hurtling towards his 17th year, yet still bereft of the right to drive.

In any case, you will be enormously relieved to know that I finally – on my third attempt, mere days before a big fancy winter cotillion dance that involved going out to dinner with a date and some other couples before heading onwards to the dance proper, which would involve driving to said dinner out and which, without a license, would leave me incapable of driving to said dinner out and OH THE HUMANITY – passed the driving test. And received my driver's license. And became a capable, bewheeled member of society whom today (something like eleventy billion years later) prowls the highways of North America with all the nimble strength and stealth of a highway-prowling jungle cat.

Fact the Fourth: I tried to act and play music, but ended up sucking at both
Is there any sound more mournful than that of an untalented fourth-grade boy trying to learn to play the saxaphone? And by mournful, I mean "pitiful and pained, like a Canada goose that's been struck by an 18-wheeler and is now slowly dying by the side of a highway." Yes, such were the glorious of living in a house with me waywaywayback around 1980ish, when I was given the opportunity to participate in the school band… orchestra… thing… and (as such) to choose my weapon instrument of choice.

But which one? A piccolo, perhaps? A playful piccolo? No, I was not meant for such delicate things. Nor, as it turned out, was I meant to be a flautist (ahem). Or a percussionist capable of beating on others keeping a beat. Or a guitarist capable of doing those fancy finger… things… that guitarists do. But a saxaphone? Oh, my…. yes, the saxaphone. Which is probably almost the same thing as a sexaphone: I would drive women wild with desire at the sound of my woodwind in action!

Except: it turned out… I did not have a natural proclivity for music. Yeah, I learned to read the notes, but there was no music in my music; it was merely a flaccid rendering of notes, robbed of passion and meaning. Sexaphone? Not even close. And none of it was helped by the fact that I hated, hated, hated, hated, hated practicing. On those rare occasions when my parental figures forced me to actually haul the instrument of torture in question out of its coffin case, I'd be far less likely to actually pull out my sheet music and work my way through my assigned songs than to stand outside the always-shut door of my younger sister and taunt her with the anguished, atonal skronk and moan that only a hapless fourth-grader armed with an unlicensed woodwind can inflict.

I was a cruel child.

Ultimately, the sexaphone was abandoned to its rightful place in a dusty corner of the basement… but when high school arrived, the fine arts once again erupted into my life in the form of drama. Now, before y'all start getting all up in arms about the idea of your beloved blue lobster being some kind of drama club type, allow me to clarify: HELLS, NO. What I was, however, was the friend of some drama club types, as well as some other "unclassifiables" who would decide, on occasion, to meander into the dramatic arts… and would (as often as not) drag an indifferent me along with them for the ride.

Which is how, at some point (Junior year? Senior year?) in high school, I found myself not only doing backstage work but also actively onstage for two brief parts in two separate BUT COMPLETELY SIMULTANEOUS plays. "Good lord!" you exclaim. "TwoBusy, you brilliant blue genius you… how is it possible that even one as gifted and incredi-haired as you were capable of remembering all those lines and cues and whatnot from two different plays at the same time? Is it even possible? Is mankind capable of such wonders?"

Ah, my friends. Such kind and generous questions you ask. But let me bat those questions away gently, with feigned modesty and immeasurable grace: my parts were minor in the extreme, and only consisted of a handful of lines. And truth be told: I was pretty horrible in both performances. At this point, I've honestly forgotten what one of the plays was and what my part was within it, but the other lingers with me a bit more if only because, well… I got to kill someone in it. Which was fun.

Y'ever read "Sorry, Wrong Number?" It's a play from the 1940s about an invalid who, while trying to make a phoen call, gets misconnected through one of those old-fashioned phone/crossed-wires things and ends up hearing a call where someone is plotting to kill someone else… and then she tries to alert her husband and the cops, only no one believes her… and in the end, it turns out that it was her husband plotting to have her killed all along, and then the killer shows up and… uh… kills her. As killers often do.

Anyhow: I was the killing killer who killed people. And the reason I remember all of this (when I've completely forgotten just about everything else from that time in my life) is because not only did I land the opportunity to kill someone onstage… but because after landing the role, I made an acting choice and decided to do it WITH A RUSSIAN ACCENT. Because, y'know, that would make me seem way more legit and believable as a killer.

And the actual performance(s?)? Um… well, helpfully, I don't really remember, other than I think there were only about two dozen people in the audience and I remembered most of my lines and – oh yeah – MY ACCENT WAS TOTALLY FUCKING BADASS.

And then I never acted again. The end.

Fact the Fifth: As a kindergartener, I knew how to spell "rhinoceros."
I have about three memories of life in kindergarten; this is one of them. And it revolves around the weird schedule we had, where (for most of the year, at least) we all had regular half-days… and then once a week, something like 5-6 of us would stay until 3pm and do extra schoolwork stuff. Looking back, I can see that they were breaking us into smaller groups where the teacher could do more concentrated, academic-focused work — but at the time, all I knew is that one day a week, I had a whole bunch of extra intellectual hoops I needed to jump through.

ANYHOW. My one real recollection comes at the end of one of these full-day sessions, where our teacher told us that we could all go out to recess to finish the day… after we'd each successfully spelled the name of an animal. So she started going around the room, and the first couple of kids got "dog" and "cat." Fine. No problem. Then the next couple of kids got "pig" and "cow." Also fine.

And then she came to the last two kids: me and this girl. I honest to god… I have no idea what she was thinking, and if she was just trying to fuck with us or if she had some kind of irrational mad-on at two six-year olds, but first she asked the girl to spell "hippopotamus."

That's right: FUCKING HIPPOPOTAMUS.

So, of course, the girl (after a couple of false starts) actually got it right. (She turned out to be brilliant, btw… I just looked her up and she ended up getting her Ph.D from Harvard. I hung with the smart kids, yo.)

And then the teacher turned to me and said, "Rhinoceros. Spell rhinoceros, and then everyone can go out for recess."

(Allow me pause for a moment while I hop in the wayback machine and say to the 1970-whatever K-teacher of me: "Bite me, rhino bitch.") (Alright; now we're back. Thank you for allowing that digression.)

Anyhow: I fucking nailed it – because I'm awesome – and we all went out to recess.

::high-fives K-aged TwoBusy for awesomeness::

 

• To be continued. Eventually. Maybe. •

The light refracts softly through the glass, casting quiet ghosts against the walls in muted reds and hushed greens, the colors gently throbbing and pulsing in unseen rhythms as though we are witnesses to the faint memory of an aurora borealis — a thing once glorious and brilliant beyond all reckoning, capable of filling an entire sky, left by the thinning of time and memory to this quiet haunting. Outside, beyond the lights, the night flexes and grows strong, deepening and stretching and filling the world in ways we cannot see and will not understand.

She sits on my lap, her small hands holding my hand, the back of her head resting against my chest. We watch the lights and ride together through these long hours, so very far from the sun.

There is so much that she wishes for. That she has asked for, in letters and soft language, to fill that space beneath the gentle bristles of Fraser Fir and the balls of brittle glass and the climbing spiral of clean white lights that step gently, steadily between the branches and up along the thick axis of trunk as it reaches from that pool of crisp water through a maze of butterflies with tiny glass wings and snowflakes captured in midflight and all creatures, great and small, and the shoes of those who were once infants, cast in metal, but who now look together up and up and up toward the crown of a single, distant star…

She says his name, as if whispering the name of God, and asks if she has been good enough. If he will know.

He knows, I say. He knows because I know, and because there are no words big enough to capture or define the enormity of what I feel I do not say more but let it swell my lungs full and heavy beneath the weight of her head and the aurora of her hair, and I close my eyes and try not to think of anything other than this moment, here, with her, and how I wish only for it to stretch on and on to forever.

Her fingers climb the length of my fingers, tiny step by tiny step. "I'm pretending I'm a mouse," she says. "So my presents will be bigger when I come downstairs." Her fingertips are warm, and I do my best to absorb the impact with the grace and solemnity of a forest floor beneath padded feet. "It's going to take a long time to get to the tree, because I'm so small." I cannot see her face, but in her voice I hear a smile growing broader with each word.

Tiny step by tiny step, she pretends her way through the long night. "Maybe I'll be so small he won't even see me."

My teeth press sharp and tight against the insides of my cheeks, trapping the words. Keeping them from escaping. Of how even the unseen and unknowable can become visible to careful eyes.

If we do not say the words, they are not real.

It is four hours since they told me to come back. Since they had not called, and I was in the building, and I came by to ask. The results of a CT scan, reading the world behind my eyes. Probing for an answer to two months of pain and questions.

Their smiles vanishing, voices suddenly growing somber and low-toned. "The doctor will need to see you." Their eyes meeting mine, steady and unblinking. "Tomorrow." My surprise, and unease, and waiting for them to say something to let me know that…

"Tomorrow"

That it would be okay.

And the drive home afterwards, and the phone calls to my wife and the rationalizations and the counter-rationalizations and the way their smiles vanished and their voices changed and

"Tomorrow"

the trees and thick bushes and steady-toothed fences alight with color and celebration and the anticipation of the days ahead, the countdown to the moment when they would come downstairs and all that was hidden would finally be revealed and

"Tomorrow"

the anticipation of those long days, counting them down, one by one by one, each one feeling like it would stretch on to forever and

"Tomorrow"

the things that grow in darkness, warped and misshapen, paler than the moon, and

"Tomorrow"

my daughter, resting her head against the frail cage of my chest, her fingertips dancing against my skin, the room so softly alight with color and her hair, fanning out gold like the rays of some small and precious sun and

this night, this longest night, as we wished our way through the dark and I tried not to hold her too tightly.