Single parent – Page 10 – …All my darkest hours talking like this…

Skipping church to get my kids early on Father’s day

I had a conversation with a friend last night, while I was waiting to sing at the Karaoke place. My friend was telling me about how he had started a non-denominational evangelical Christian youth group whose ministry featured a major component based on heavy metal music, because he felt moved by the spirit after he had performed Christian Heavy Metal with face-melting awesomeness in a music festival. I was proud of him, and said as much. Well, not in words, but this isn’t exactly the point of this blog entry.

God is still there, even when you don’t got to church. This is my point.

God is in your conversations at the karaoke place. God is within your most banal interactions, and can surprise you with joy.

My atheist friends (which would be most of my friends) are offended/freaked out by this idea. And I think some of my Christian friends aren’t always comfortable with the idea that God exists even when they are not in church or prayin’.

Here are a set of limericks that I learned as an undergraduate, to help understand the metaphysical and epistemological significance of an ever-present God, who sustains us even when we have to miss church. It also summarizes the philosophy of George Berkeley (pronounced Bark-a-lay):

A skeptical sophomore wrote God:
“I find it exceedingly odd
that there yonder tree
dost not ceaseth be
When no one’s about in the quad.”

“Dear Sir: Your bewilderment’s odd;
For I am about in the quad.
And thusly, yon tree
shall continue to be;
observed by… Yours faithfully, God.”

I had something else to say to my friend, but the KJ called me to sing. So, I got up and sang “The Rainbow Connection”. When the intro started, I gave him a shout-out, saying that this song was dedicated to him. When I finished my song, I realized it was after midnight and that it was now Father’s Day. I decided to pay my tab, and go home.

Today, a bunch of my Facebook friends are posting about their fathers here and passed. I don’t really need to try very hard to imagine what my Dad would say about my whole situation, were he still alive. I am fairly sure that I have access those thoughts, and I am certain that I do access those feelings.

That’s maybe the more interesting epistemological trick. My parents are gone, I know that. This knowledge lacks understanding. Metaphysically, I don’t know where they went to. I seem to think that they are gone but somehow still with me; and not in the sense “that God dwells in all of us.” I feel it as a corporeal reality. I am made up of their DNA. The repeated aphorisms of their nurturing years trained and shaped the chemistry and physiology of my brain. Echos of their utterances run through my thoughts and the language that I use; especially as I nurture my kids.

Neither is the relationship purely static. There is a lasting dynamism that survives in the relationship. As I move through the ages my life, and my experiences come into phase with their corresponding ages and experiences, I feel the strength of their vicarious impulses within me. Mother and Father duel within my psyche, urging me both to correct their mistakes, while also urging me to repeat their same choices. I wonder if my kids will have the same paradoxical feelings? That’s rhetorical. I know they will.

Ok. here are some TMBG lyrics:

You’ll always miss my big old body
In its prime and never shoddy,
While bloodhounds wait down in the lobby you’ll eulogize my big old body

You’ll miss me with effigies
Lighting up your house like Xmas trees
As tears roll down below your knees
You’ll miss me with effigies

Stuck in a moment, and you can’t get out of it

The KJ at the Karaoke place said that I rocked this song last night. That’s what happens when you sing like you mean it, because you do mean it.

This is the entry where I recognize that I’m not doing well at dating, not just only I am an awkward nerd, but because I haven’t fully gotten over my ex-wife. Cue karaoke. No, no… play that sfx instead where the needle is pulled from the turntable and abruptly stops the music.

One would think I would be stuck in the moment where I found out that she was gay. I processed that moment. Cue sad acoustic cover, low volume. Let that play in the background, while I explain something about the heartbreaking dynamics of a collapsing marriage in America:

The moment that I’m stuck in and can’t get out of is a stupid fight that we had. We had it, and then we had it again. We had it over and over, throughout out marriage. Getting divorced didn’t settle the fight. What was it all about? It doesn’t really matter.

If you are an American kid born in the 70s or 80s, whose parents got divorced (or even if they didn’t but should have), then you know the fight that I am talking about. The specifics of the fight may vary from couple to couple, but the attributes are easy to recognize. First of all, the substance of the fight, is not about something which is high stakes like kids, sex, or money. What makes this fight totally poison, is exactly because its about something stupid. And while it is stupid, it is also the kind of thing that never gets resolved and can’t be resolved. This stupid and unresolvable difference becomes the elephant in the room that no one mentions.

A good portrayal of this sort of fight is in the movie “War of the Roses”. In the early scenes of that movie, there is an auction. Due to a conflagration of circumstances, Michael Douglas losses the auction to Kathleen Turner, and that is how they first meet. The auction item is for a totem. Michael Douglas wants it, should be able be to get, but somehow he can’t because Kathleen Turner clings to it. That totem becomes totemic for their marriage, get it?

I just don’t want another relationship like that, and more or less, that means I don’t really want another relationship. It’s no wonder that in my dreams, I’m breaking up with the girl of my dreams (see first post). Whenever I meet a new girl, I soon find that I’m thinking about exits. Pretty soon, it becomes all I think about: Not how to sleep with her, not how to get that first kiss, not how to get her number, not how to find out more about her, and certainly not romantic things.

No… when I meet a girl, I am already thinking about our breakup.

Based on that: Would you date me? Hell, no. I wouldn’t date me. Emotionally, I’m a pile of radioactive debris. Actually, its worse than that. Radioactive things decay, even if there is a long half-life.

Rather than do litigation, I pressed for a procedure called a “Collaborative divorce.” I won’t belabor the point about what that is all about. However, one thing about a collaborative divorce is that it preserves amicability much better than an adversarial one. Amicability means a degree of stability, which is a welcome respite from the emotional upheaval and financial turmoil of the procedure. But, perversely, the lack of upheaval can make moving on much harder.

It’s just a moment
This time will pass

I see you from my spy plane, baby… I see you walking on the ground

Today was my birthday. All of my facebook friends had something nice to say, and I made a point of responding to each of them. I also had a good day at work. Hooray.

My ex-wife got me “rock’em sock’em robots” and said they were from the kids. I must say: this kicks ass. She managed to get not just the perfect present for me, but the perfect present for me to play with the kids, which is my favorite thing to do. Although I’ll often get mad or sad when I think about how our marriage fell apart, or how she has a girlfriend (but I don’t), it is hard to dwell on those things when she does something nice that shows that she really is capable of understanding me.

The big happy, of course, is that my kids were so fabulous to me. They sang Happy Birthday and stuff, but we also had a great Memorial day weekend. It was the first weekend for the pool and even though I hate swimming, it was a good time because it is a joy to see my daughter teach my son to swim, and to see their enjoyment. There were some new lifeguards, and they all had an excellent attitude. I like them. So we went swimming on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. That’s a crazy swimming time. Good for my health too. All good, all good.

What does this have to do with spies? Nothing. It’s all preface. Really this post should have started on the next paragraph. Maybe it should have been two posts. Moving on…

My daughter (Agent D) and my son (Hat) have a secret agent codes, and a code name for me. I’m “the Rutabaga.”

The deal that we worked out in the divorce settlement works like this:

My ex-wife picks up the kids from the after-school program.
On some days, she drops them off with the babysitter.
On some days, she takes them to her house, which is far on the other side of town.
But on certain days, she is allowed to “exercise her parental rights” at my house during the interstitial period between when the after-school program ends and when I come home from work.

When my ex-wife is hanging out in my house, the kids are often anxious for me to get home. They seem to sense the liminality of that time period. Maybe to feel more in control, they’ve made a game out of spying on the comings and goings within and without of the house. They stake out the road leading up to the driveway; which they call “The Garden,” and the garage, which they call “the Salad.” When I walk into my house, I’ve got a ritual where I put my keys on a hook that is mounted near the garage entryway. If I don’t do that, then I tend to forget where I put them. Lately, I have been getting a bit panicky when I can’t find my keys. My keys, are known as “the Herring,” and the hook is known as “the Hook.”

On a typical day, my daughter will pretend like she is holding a walkie-talkie (actually it’s a hairbrush, held upside-down) and communicate with my son (who just uses his fingers):

“The Rutabaga has left the Garden and is in the Salad.”

“The Rutabaga is leaving the Salad, and is fishing for the Herring.”

“The Rutabaga has let the Herring go away from the school! The Herring is not on the hook!! Repeat: the Herring is not on the hook, but is swimming free!!! Agent D to Hat, Agent D to Hat: I am obtaining the Herring and intercepting the Rutabaga, stat. Cover me on radar, Hat: Standby for my co-ordinates. Transmitting co-ordinates!”

At which point my daughter will pick up my keys and say, “Daddy, I’m so glad you’re home. Don’t forget to hang up your keys.”

I will pretend like I didn’t hear any of that and give her a hug and a kiss. She’s a clever girl…