Dog, but I’m tired.

The beginning of the semester is a funny time. I love it, but it flat wears me out.

I’m not really sure just how to put into words how much I love my job. I’ve often said that I can’t believe I get paid for this. I’ve said that I would do it even if I didn’t get paid (but please don’t tell the president). I’ve said it’s my calling, my passion, and just about better than a Stuffed Pork Chop with a side of cheese grits, purple-hulled peas and bread pudding from Tim’s Cajun Kitchen.

I love teaching. Having the opportunity to help people learn to love writing or to think critically about something they’ve never considered before is, easily, the greatest job I can possibly imagine.

I’m not kidding.

And the beginning of the semester is the best. All these long faces walk dejectedly into the room, dreading the next 16 weeks cause they didn’t know they would have to take a writing class! Then I’m just on looking for a way to resurrect the love of language in my students. (Being on is really hard for an off-the-scale introvert like me. That’s why I’m so tired right now.)

Cause you see, I love writing. Finding a way to put these disparate thoughts down on the page (or web, in this case) beats away the exhaustion that being on causes.

It’s like that feeling of the first cool breeze of fall when you’re out cutting the grass for what you hope is the final time of the summer.

It’s like waking in the middle of the night feeling like you’ve slept for years, and you notice you still have five hours before you have to get up.

It’s like hearing your boy say, “I love yooooooou” for the first time.

Writing brings clarity to love, to life, to light.

And it’s a light that must, absolutely must, be shared.

As Bill Wheeler says, “Good writing is clear thinking made visible.” And dear god if there’s one thing we need more of in this world it is the light of clear thinking that’s right out there in the open for all to see.

It’s a good day when I can share that with just one other person. It’s a great one when I can share it with a hundred.

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Going . . .

I never wanted to become Polonius: spouting off advice to Laertes and Ophelia when all they wanted was to receive his blessing so they could leave. All I can say is that it started as sort of a joke, but I’ve since realized that it’s much more than a joke to my little girl. And it’s much more than that to me.

Every morning I have the distinct honor of taking my children to school. It’s a blessing that, despite having to circumnavigate two school’s car lines, I would never give up. It gives me just a little more time with both of them in the morning to remind them that I love them and to remind me that there are far more important things in life than papers to grade and bills to pay. Other than tucking them in at night, it is my favorite time of the day. Strange what having kids will do to you; I used to hate the morning commute.

Anyway, each morning I drop the girl off about a block away from school so she can walk in. She LOVES doing this, and it gives me a few more stolen seconds to hug and watch her grow.

And it breaks my heart fresh each morning when she turns to walk away. It’s the reverse of all those stupid car commercials that show the dad talking to a five-year old as she waits, somewhat patiently, behind the wheel for the keys so she can go out. When my girl turns away and starts walking, my seven-year old is suddenly seventeen, complete with a toss of her hair over her shoulder. And I’m left wondering where the time went. (Yep, I was once told by my college Drama professor that if he were to do a production of Hamlet that he would have to cast me in the lead. I was the definition of melancholy. At the time, I took it as a compliment rather than a curse. Strange kid was I.)

Anyway, back to Polonius. I decided one morning to offer my Ophelia (minus the insanity, that is) a bit of advice as she walked away in hopes that she would wait a little longer to turn her back on me and transform into a teenager that I’m having trouble connecting with. As she walked backwards away from me, I looked her in the eye and said, “Learn everything you can.” To which she replied, “Okay.”

Not wanting her to turn, I added, “Have fun!” As she takes another step away from me, she shouts with a grin, “Okay!”

Desperate to keep her eyes on mine a little longer, I reminder her to “tell Mrs. Wrenn thank you and give her BIG HUGS (thank you teletubbies!).” She’s so far down the sidewalk now that she has to shout, “Okay, dad!”

going . . .

“Be nice to your friends!” “Okay.”

“Be nicer to your not so friends!” “I will.”

Knowing now that I’ve got to cut the strings or I’ll be crying all the way to drop off the boy, I shout (to the great pleasure of those sleeping in the house we’re parked in front of I’m sure), “Always remember that I’m proud of you, and I love you!”

At this, she grins, and I die a little inside cause I know she’s about to turn, but before she does, she shouts, “I love you, too, Dad!”

And with that I climb back into the car with tears rolling down my cheeks anyway.

“Be nicer to your not so friends.” I came up with that, as with most things by my seat-pants flying, but other than our “I love yous,” I think it may be the most important of my proverbs. Yeah, I totally stole it from the Gospel of Matthew, but that’s okay, I always did think that Picasso was right about stealing. It’s the one thing that I try to remember myself through the day. And it’s the one thing that I forget the quickest. My memory really sucks.

Be nicer to your not so friends. If we love our children and our friends, what credit is that to us? Doesn’t everyone do the same? The truth is that if we really want to make the world a better place for our kids (and we do), then we’ve got to step up to the bullies and be nicer. We’ve got to step up to the despots and be nicer. We’ve got to reach across the aisle and be nicer. We’ve got to hold our arms open wide in one of my daughter’s patented “air hugs” and be nicer to those whom we don’t like, we don’t love, we can’t stand the sight of, we think even God hates.

We’ve got to be nicer to our not so friends in this world because it’s the only way that we’ll survive to see our little girls grow up into beautiful young women ready to change the world with their dreams. We have got to be nicer to the world.

To that young woman, my daughter, I have only this to add: No matter what people try to tell you, love will change the world.

And always remember that I’m proud to be your daddy.

. . .

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“We are always getting ready to live but never living.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” –Buddha

“Do not worry about tomorrow.” –Jesus

I really don’t do resolutions. Always thought they were just, as has been posted often online in the last two days, a clear road to hell. And yet, I do believe in change. I believe that perhaps the greatest gift that life offers us is the ability to become something other than what we have been in the past. So, in that vein, I can change my approach to resolutions even though I’ve spurned them in the past.

The boy loves Buzz and Woody; have I mentioned this? If not, here’s a good reminder:

Best Friends Forever

So, of course, we love Buzz and Woody, too. But perhaps my reason for loving these two T-O-Y-S isn’t as clear as it need be. It goes back to my own childhood, and like any child of the 70s toys came to life in the latter part of the decade with the advent of the Holy Trinity: Star Wars.

Truthfully, there isn’t much that I can say about Star Wars that hasn’t been said better by Kevin Smith, except perhaps that as someone who grew up in a small town, the movies we never as important as the toys. As hard as it is to image today, when Star Wars finally made it to the Boro in (I believe) 1978, I only saw it once in the theaters. I of course wanted to see it more, but dad thought it was silly to see a movie twice. So it didn’t happen. Remember this was about 10 years before the advent of a VCR (at least in our house); thus, the only way to see a movie twice was to convince your dad to pay for it twice. This was not something I was easily able to do.

Instead I read the novelization, the comics, and when I had saved enough money from my weekly allowance of a whopping $0.50, I would rush to Roses, or if I was lucky, Woolworths to buy one the Luke Skywalker action figures with the wrap-around sheet shirt, and yellow light saber with the tip that retracted.

Use the Force, Luke

This little toy, along with a Stormtrooper, Darth Vader, Han Solo, and Chewbacca, (No Leia, of course. These were “action figures” never “dolls.”) I recreated scenes from the movie, and wrote in my head, thousands of adventures for these guys. These toys, combined with a few pieces of twine, resulted in Luke invading Darth’s hideout behind the bed to wipe out the evil Sith Lord by swinging over the treacherous blades of death hanging from the ceiling. Han and Chewy were always there atop the encyclopedias waiting to rush in if Luke should get trapped by the Stormtrooper!

Watching the abandon with which Matthew plays with Buzz and Woody takes me back to those hours that I somehow put aside as I approached my teen years. Although I’m sure putting away childish things was a necessary part of growing up (there are many “geeks” who claim that the toys never go away, they just get more expensive), I’m worried that I also lost something when I did. And not just something that’s okay to lose. I think I lost that ability to be lost in the moment, to live in the now. And I want it back.

When we play, as children at least, everything else disappears. Our guilt over the past drops away. Our fear of the future fades into the background. There are no bills, or leaky faucets, or service engine lights.  The barrier of autism that separates me from my little boy disappears.

All that is left is the moment. The now. And such is a gift too precious to lose. It is all that we actually have.

So this year, because it’s all that I actually have any influence over, I’m going to play. I’m not going to dwell in the past. I’m going to not fear the multitude of futures that might be waiting. As Matthew walks down, grabs my hand and tugs me to where he’s playing, I’m gonna go. You wanna come play, too?

The post A Time to Play appeared first on Geek Palaver.

When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, “Why god? Why me?” and the thundering voice of God answered, “There’s just something about you that pisses me off.”

–Stephen King

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