Friends Are Good

By: Danny Thomas

Last night
I watched
my daughter
fall asleep
while my dad
read her a book
that I remember him reading to me.
does it get much sweeter than that?

also, when I came downstairs this morning
the kitchen was clean
because my mother and I
had done the dishes together
last night
does it get much sweeter than that?

also, Saturday afternoon
we spontaneously had a terrific
gathering in our backyard.
A couple other families
some other friends and colleagues
spent the entire afternoon
hanging out in the backyard
playing with kids,
having good grown up conversations
and drinking good grown up drinks.
I ask you,
what could be sweeter than that?

It portends a fantastic summer.

I am looking forward to lots of
fun summer afternoons
sitting in the yard
drinking a big ginger
or a beer
laughing and enjoying the company
of other families
our dear old friends
and delightful new ones.

I am going to make this a priority for our family.
Social time, it is key to my mental health.
It does us all a world of good
and it’s a pretty simple way to feel good in the world.

Haywire

 

By: Danny Thomas

 

oh. my. god.
I have three kids
and a job
and a wife
who is at the beginning stages
of a career that is
the breadwinning career for our family
so she has to put in
the hours
whatever they may be
and she is a teacher
so that means
a lot of hours

my days
during the week go something like this…
if the kids haven’t been in our bed since five
I wake up at 6:45
wake up the six-year-old to get her ready for the bus
prod her along the process of getting ready…
pee, clothes, brush hair, brush teeth
4 simple steps…
which, some mornings, is no problem…
other mornings it is like Hannibal marching elephants over mountains…
on Tuesdays and Thursdays I have to do this with the three-year-old too
Jen is usually nursing the baby at this point
but is sometimes able to lend a hand in this process…
then it’s scramble to get food in the six-year-old…
the three-year-old gets fed at day care on the “T” days… (Tuesday or Thursday)
and after the bus on the other days…
scramble to get everything in the bags that need to go to school…
scramble to get coats and shoes on and get out the door
wait for bus
we usually have some time to play and goof around for a minute while waiting…
good times.
then it’s either walk the three-year-old to day care
or come home…
then I have a couple hours to get house work done
sometimes I fold laundry and watch t.v.
sometimes I do dishes
sometimes I write
sometimes I cook…
sometimes I zone out, listen to music and Facebook or Pinterest…
sometimes I do yoga
or take a shower…
Then, at ten-ish I head out the door
on the non-T-days I drop the three-year-old at the YMCA for 3 hours’ drop-in care
and take the baby to work with me – when I get there I feed her with a bottle
which sometimes goes well
but sometimes she complains about the plastic nipple a lot
and that is uncomfortable for both of us
almost always I spill a bit of sticky breastmilk on both of us…

after I get her to sleep
I work for a bit
checking emails, returning phone calls, updating websites… doing whatever…
then at 1:20 I race to get the baby loaded up
and head to the Y to get the three-year-old
luckily, she is always happy to see me…
some days though leaving the Y can be a tough transition for her
pouting or shouting or just general poopiness…

lets be honest any transition, or dirt, or birds chirping, or air touching her skin
could be cause for nuclear meltdown…
she’s three, after all.

Then when we get home it’s more housework
cooking, cleaning…
or playing Barbies, or princesses, or whathaveyou with the the three-year-old…
until the 6-year-old gets home
then it’s a bit of homework…
until gymnastics or ballet…

or if it’s a Tuesday or Thursday…
I head home to tend to the baby about noon – so Jen can go teach…
Then back to work at 2:30 to try to get ahead of the game (which never happens)…
and home at 5:00 pick up the three-year-old..
then home for dinner…
and maybe some relaxed time with the family
a walk to the park
or a movie
Or back to work for Box Office Will Call…

oh. my. god.
this pace is pretty tough.
nothing is ever as clean as i want it to be.
our poor baby sleeps in third generation hand-me-downs with third generation hand-me-down stains… bless her heart…
i am always behind on at least a half dozen things…

I feel like most of what Jen and I do together these days is talk about our schedule and calendar and make arrangements…
updating our Google Calendars together
mapping out the itinerary for the week…
so romantic…

If you add to our agenda any
of the inevitable variables
of life;
illness, car trouble, out of town guests, plumbing, a home project or a board meeting, or whatever…
we go haywire

not to mention the drama of various relationships and acquaintances..

we are constantly haywire…

I’m sure it’s common,
this pace…
I’m sure life is hard for everyone
no matter what the schedule
but I feel like, if I had to keep this up very much longer
my head might spin right off…

luckily
for us
we only have to get through
a couple more weeks
then school ends
for Jen
and we can re-adjust

but then summer camps start
Lil’ Chaos’s first drama camp…
and tennis
and swimming
and zoo camp
and wild buffalo adventure camp
and ballet camp
and all that…

oh god.
I need a drink.

Interview with Danny Thomas

Interview with Danny Thomas by The Next Family

 

TNF: How has it been blogging for TNF?

I love blogging for TNF. It’s been a fun journey into myself, a great way to explore what is important to me as a person and as a father… and also as a writer. I have discovered, through writing for TNF, some thematic ideas that come back again and again in my blogs and in my thinking and that has helped me define and refine my personal philosophy and how I approach the world and my family.

It has been nice to have a reason to write… something that forces me to do it. I love writing and have fun writing, but have lacked discipline as a writer and TNF has been a great motivator… I get wonderful feedback and it has sparked some interesting exchanges as well…

Finally, all of this inspires me to write more, develop my voice, develop my stories, hone my craft and continue the exploration.

TNF: How is your family like every other family and how is it different?

Wow, this is  a tough question…

There are so many different kinds of families, and in so many ways every family is different, and yet, we share common ground. I think I’ll just have to tell you some things about my family and you can decide…

My wife and I share in all of the household responsibilities, however, she is the primary income provider and I am the primary homemaker…

On the weekends we like to have big breakfasts; sometimes we go out to breakfast, sometimes we make it at home… and a lot of times we get donuts.

We live in a two-story three-bedroom house; our two oldest daughters share a room and sleep in bunk beds… they love dancing and singing and Strawberry Shortcake, and also swimming, gymnastics, riding bikes, Barbies, princesses and pink stuff…

the baby has her own room; she likes breast milk and sleeping.

My wife and I share a room, we just got a king-sized bed. We like reading and movies and television. She is a Theatre Professor; I am a sound designer and a musician. I write blogs and poems… some people might say we are artsy, or bohemian… we just think of ourselves as people.

We have a cat named Puss Puss..

As a family we like to make up songs and stories, read books, go for walks, have adventures, play games, and watch movies.

Some things that are important to us are honesty, equality, good food, laughter, and friendship…

TNF: Did your family accept you and your lifestyle? If yes, explain and if not explain what you have done to help them to accept your decisions and your lifestyle.

My family is very supportive of my lifestyle, occasionally throughout my life my mother has encouraged me to “get a real job” or be more “career oriented” and I think both my mother and my wife’s mother have struggled occasionally with how we challenge gender stereotypes… in that each of us is not “being taken care of” in the “traditional” manner they imagined… that is, I am not bringing in the money, and my wife is not cleaning and cooking for me… but these struggles are not persistent.

TNF: How do you juggle the work at home with your jobs?

This is probably the biggest struggle in my life right now.

I just don’t know how to do it; as a family we are working on it and trying to come up with some systems of time management, but I don’t have an answer for this question because I don’t know…

I mean, the only answer I can give you is that everyday I let at least one or two balls drop.

TNF: What lessons do you feel are the most important to teach children in this day and age? Are there any lessons they, or perhaps we as parents should unlearn?

Be open to new things and enjoy learning. Know yourself. Be true to yourself. Trust yourself, and find at least one group of people besides yourself that you can trust and depend on. It’s okay to make a mistake, that’s how we learn. Work hard, but have fun and laugh as much as you can.

TNF: Any words of wisdom to pass on to our readers?

I don’t feel qualified to impart words of wisdom… I am just bumbling through this life trying to find balance and peace, trying to laugh and absorb as much as possible.

I guess one thing I have learned about being in a relationship, and being in a family is that it is a choice; my wife and I make the choice everyday to be committed to each other and to our family. It’s not always easy, or fun, or beautiful, and it means a lot of sacrifice and a lot of tough conversations…

TNF: Anything you want our readers to know about you or your family?

I am a terrible driver; my wife is a terrible passenger.

Her favorite food is potatoes, mine changes moment to moment, right now it’s falafel. ‘Zilla’s favorite food is peanut butter toast, and Lil’ Chaos’s favorite food is probably Top Ramen, although she may be like me and it may depend on what is right in front of her at the time… Zuzu’s favorite food is breast milk.

The Shadow Knows…

By: Danny Thomas

Man, aren’t feelings weird?
aren’t people?
we spend so much time
trying to fit feelings
into one word
descriptions
trying to fit all kinds of gray things
into black and white
boxes…

Trying to make
things that belong on a continuum
or a spectrum
into
binary arrangements…

Trying to create linear archetypes
when all kinds of
deviations
exist…

My life, lately,
has been
an extreme mix of emotions
in work, and family, and all around…

isn’t it always?

And none of these things that are upsetting me
or distressing me,
has an easy answer or a
black or white resolution…

This morning
I walked ‘Zilla to school,
we played with our shadows
it was blissful
and fun
and kind of magical.

It put me in mind of
my relationship
with my shadow
when I was ‘Zilla’s age…

I thought my shadow
was thrilling, and mysterious…
I played with it
and sometimes
it played with me…

If I stayed too late
at the neighbor’s house
and had to walk home
at dusk
that pesky shadow of mine
used to chase me home

hide and jump out at me
from behind a bush…
or a light post…

and of course
I think Peter Pan
and his
shadow
had a pretty big impact on me…

and then…
that thought put me in the mind of
Jung
and Robert Bly…

and this whole idea of shadow work

and I have read Bly’s book
and a little bit of Jung and his
ideas about the shadow self

and it occurs to me
how similar the shadow work idea
is to the ideas I’m reading about
in Mary Sheedy Kercinka’s book
Raising Your Spirited Child…

what seems similar to me,
between Bly’s idea of embracing the shadow-self
and Kercinka’s ideas,
is the central concept of
reframing…

finding the benefit
in something that is
initially perceived to be
detrimental…

making these burdensome things into wings

I’m going to think about it some more
I think I need to re-acquaint myself with my shadow
and take a look at what’s going on in there…

it must be packed with
a lot of things that look black
but have some white in them
and a lot of things that look white
but have some black in them too

I’m sure it’s just a lot of gray
things rolling around
rubbing colors
out of each other….

Playing Catch

By: Danny Thomas

A lot of my blogs start
with a train of thought
during a ride in the car
by myself,
often, early in the morning
which rarely happens these days.

sometimes,
I remember something
that I thought of earlier
in the week.
Or recall that Jen said, “you should blog about that…”
Usually I don’t remember anything, and my brain
finds its own path.

This week
I had a moment
that was all three.
I remembered an inspiring moment
that also happened to be something
Jennifer commented on…
and my mind took a little journey
along that way.
That is the best.

I was thinking about playing catch…

Earlier in the week,
I played catch with Lil’ Chaos.
We kicked a ball too.

I was also thinking about playing catch with my dad.
And my mom.
We played catch a lot,
It was the best.
Baseball, Football, Frisbee, Soccer…

And I was thinking about the ways in which playing catch are transcendent, rapturous, innumerable, and ineffable.

It is healthy; beneficial to the mind, body and spirit.

I was never much for Little League
I don’t think I had the attention span
for organized baseball…
I was one of those distracted by dandelions in left field..
An airplane over third base
could steal my attention from
whatever was going on in the game…

But I love to play catch…

The fact that Lil’ Chaos and I have
reached a point on our journey together
that playing catch
with a ball,
kicked or tossed,
is enjoyable
and gripping
for both of us
at least, for a period of time
is, for me, profound.

we played ball
in the backyard for
nearly an hour
worked on hitting for a while
and tossed the ball
and kicked one for a while too.

The peals of laughter,
pure joy
as she caught ball after ball…
and as she figured out how to get a ball to me
how to “hit me in the numbers”

Also, I was thinking about baseball mitts…

The baseball mitt
is a singular experience,
a unique sensuality.

We had a few around the house.
They didn’t come from anywhere,
they were just there.
There was a catcher’s mitt I liked best.
and it was the one right handed mitt around that fit me,
so that was lucky.

Maya is a lefty.
She needs a new mitt
the one she has is too small.
It’s also pink
and purple
and has Dora on it.
We are beyond that now…

Conference

By: Danny Thomas

what is on my mind lately…?
I don’t even know where to begin…
taxes
death
children
parents

had a conference last week
with Lil’ Chaos’s kindergarten teacher…
Señora M.
Bless her…
Bless all professional educators…
and lets dole out a nice healthy portion of blessings for those that choose to do it in the public realm…

not that I really have a choice…
financially, that is…
but I have convinced myself that public education
serves two very important purposes, besides the whole
readin’ writin’ and ‘rithmatic thing
that is, it exposes children to two things that I think are important to be exposed to.

the first is diversity… man, I think diversity is important.
it’s important to be used to it, accustomed to it, to enjoy and delight in it…. and to learn to navigate it… difference is wonderful, and beautiful, and terrifying, and difficult.
the second is…
well, something I don’t know exactly how to put into words… simply…
especially given that I am somewhat of a non-conformist… this goes counter to a lot of what I blather on about often, and believe too…
but I think it’s important for a kid to learn, as they do in public schools, to sometimes just conform to expected mores… to toe the line…
even if she is faking it (as I was, or thought -believed- I was) most of the time.

anyway back to our conference…
it was good.
We met with two teachers; Kindergarten teacher – Señora K, and Mrs. H – the K+ teacher… It’s clear to all of us that Lil’ Chaos is going through an adjustment period… being 6, growing up, and out, and independent… and having yet another little sister…

It was amazing to hear some of her struggles, so many of them echoing back 30 years to when I was a struggling elementary student… exploding out of my body and personality at every turn. it made me realize, yet again, how awesome my parents were -are. I never felt guilty or self conscious about those struggles… angry and frustrated, yes… but not self conscious…

it’s also clear to all of us that Lil’ Chaos is bright, and beaming, and full of potential, and sharp, and observant, and insightful, and creative… and possessed of many characteristics that will serve her well when she reaches adulthood, but that can be counterproductive to her life as a kindergartner…

anyway, at this conference Señora M. recounted a story:
not long after having her third child she was out to coffee with a friend
lamenting the madness of her life
and pining for a time
when things would get “back to normal”
her friend shared with her a bracing
dose of reality…
“this is it,” she said, “this is your reality, get used to it.”

she laughed as she told us that story
sharing in the knowledge that chaos is what it is
and that you just sometimes put your head down and go.

I laughed too, commenting that I have been saying to Jen
for the last year or so
that we have to stop thinking in terms of “when things settle down”
we have to just give up that concept entirely.

so then what do you do?
how do you do that…
a lot of the things that get put off
until “things settle down”

for us
are things like
filing, like
going through boxes
sorting papers
throwing away
old useless scraps of things
we can’t remember why we kept…
or can
but somehow
in the interim
have become less important…
also
things like
darning socks
rebuilding guitars
projects
jigsaw puzzles
baking
gardening
trying new stuff
ice fishing
snow shoeing
old hobbies too
basketball
getting that
flute re-felted

so…
maybe
retirement?

Anyway,
It felt good
to meet again
with Señora M.
such a lovely and wise person,
and to know
that she is on the same wavelength
as we
about our daughter
but about other things too…
We are different, diverse,
but we have an understanding,
and that’s good.

Almost Time

By: Danny Thomas

there is something mystical about a
morning
when the sky is bluer than blue
azure
and the sun is bright
but soft
and it’s ten degrees

something otherworldly
about the combination
of cold
and soft

I turn
39
next month
that is an
“almost” forty

I have the biggest problems
with the
“almost” numbers

I am not okay in
almost time

I am barely okay
in any time
but
“almost” years

feel like
potential

w/out fruition.

I like fruition.

there are people
who were born at a time
and in a place
that makes
Britney Spears
the beginning
of music for them.

This as much as anything else
makes me feel old…
right now.

what is it that makes
a time
your time?

that makes
this time
our time?

We have a new baby.
a third girl.
We’ve been calling her Zuzu.

She was born five months and twelve days
before her big sister’s birthday
who was born five months and twelve days
before her big sister’s birthday.

my wife did this math
this calculation
while in labor
hard labor
she was in sort of a trance at the time
out of her mind
somewhere shaman
and laboring mothers
and Buddhas go

eventually the epidural kicked in
and she came back to earth
and shared
those numbers with me…

I don’t even know what to do with that information
but it seems significant…

mystical,
otherworldly…

She is magical,
Zuzu.

She is strong
and delicate
and unique
and full of potential.

and she has two big sisters
filled with love,
and two goofy stumbling,
bumbling parents,
also filled with love
and a very furry cat,
that is filled with something…
like love…
only more feline.

how lucky she is
and how lucky we are to have her.

in this time
our time

I guess the thing about time is that
time
is all potential
it’s always
almost
time.
it happened.
it’s happening.

To Be

By: Danny Thomas

I have written about parenthood, and life in general, being a practice of
giving in to chaos,

and about it requiring a sense of humor,

about the challenges of prioritizing and balance.

All of these things…

over and over again come up in my writing.

Funny thing is, all those things feel like part of what has
always been on my mind…

They just seem to take on more weight

as a parent.

Lately, I have been noticing
that what keeps me going is something like
straddling a fence
on one side is actively making moments
and the other is actively taking moments, or receiving the moments I am given.

It’s like
riding a wave…
somehow finding a way to be in control of myself
and the experience
while letting the tide of pandemonium wash over me…

Lil’ Chaos and I
spent the afternoon
building spaceships
and trucks
with Legos last Friday

it was the best.

It was the best
combination of
making a moment
and letting a moment happen
that a dad could have…

and here’s why,
I think,
it worked;
I set aside a few hours for Lil’ Chaos,
but we didn’t have a plan.

We talked about our time together ahead of time.
looked forward to it
with anticipation…

there were a number of things we’d been intending to do together
for a few days; play with legos, play in the snow, make a movie…

our time came, and we had some things to choose from
and it was Lil’ Chaos’s choice.
It was pretty darn cold outside
so we skipped the snow
and chose to play with Legos and film it…

The next time we have designated time
one of our options will be to edit our film.

I guess the point of this story
is that it is an example of riding that tide…

All around me
all the time
there are things to do
chores and tasks and schedules to keep

but also

all around me
all the time
are an abundance
of glorious moments
to take in.

the list of chores can’t be helped…
it’s a function of parenthood…
of life, in our place and time…

and yet right now, as I type, Kidzilla is snuggled against my left side
eating a banana
and watching Curious George
and there is a moment to receive…

it’s a matter of
knowing those moments are all around me
and making the choice -
between acts of scheduling, doing, and managing…
to be.

here, in this time,
a day past the due date
of our third daughter
I am finding it more important than ever,
and also more challenging,
but attainable
sometimes
to be.

Nesting for the Third

By: Danny Thomas

Wow.

I have a daughter who just turned six…
and another arriving in less than a month…
And a little ball of glorious sister in-between.

Jen and I spent this weekend getting the house in order,
some of which involved the common post-holiday purge and re-organization
and the also common stemming the tide of stuff and clutter…

but most of which involved building a crib and preparing a nursery
and working out the engineering of three car seats across the back seat of our car.

Wow.

It’s funny, when the first baby came we spent hours poring over books and articles, attending classes on birth, child care, and nursing. We were already avid watchers of TLC’s “A Baby Story”, but viewings went into double time, and carried more weight…the kid was due in January, and we felt guilty about not having her nursery-ready until mid-October. Ha! We bought a new, safer car. Our worries were BIG, esoteric, felt like life and death.

When the second one came, we got out the old books, and set them next to the bed, intending to read them. We felt prepared. We had a lot of the same worries, but we were in the same home, a familiar place…things were definitely changing, but we felt confident and easygoing about it, excited for the ride.

Here we are on the verge of number three! It feels like a mix of the two.
We have never had a new baby outside of Eugene, OR. We have never had a baby in this house. We have never been outnumbered. We know how to have a baby, we like that, we love it. We revel and delight in it. That’s not what worries me. It’s more how the big sisters will handle it, and how the new one will change all our relationships. Our worries are so much more in the practical; how will we keep up on cleaning, laundry, car seats? Feels like life and more life.

I feel like I was so distracted by maintaining a home and a family, that I spent the last eight months just sort of knowing but not knowing this would come…and now…

There is nothing between us and this third baby coming. No holiday. The day to day is here. But we have a crib and a car seat – it’s all very real.

I feel like I am trying to make up for 8 months’ of laissez-faire – of not worrying –by absolutely losing my shit now.

It started when we took the girls to the hospital for their “Big Sister Class” – the birthing center, the room, the bed, Jen’s expression when she saw the bed…and the little tiny squealing humans…

The new sense of losing my shit, and the new sense of waiting until this late in the game to do it comes with a concomitant sense of excitement and enchantment.

I love babies. I love my wife. I love my family. We delight in each other.

My wife, good god, she just threw me a Reisen. She is perfect, profoundly strong, and inspiring and I thank her daily for carrying and birthing our children. I will slice her Honeycrisps and bring her Diet Coke (or whatever it is she wants) until I die, for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is her miraculous ability to bear our children. I will also give her a bit of a hard time now and again, partly because I am moody, and partly because she likes it when I do.

Lil’ Chaos just turned six.

Wow.

I can’t believe it’s gone by this fast.

She is sophisticated and elegant
wild and complex
She is a tightly wound spring
and a loosey-goosey clown.
She is my love, my pride, my princess.
She’s also the Huck Finn to my Tom Sawyer.
I can’t wait to see what she becomes.
I am filled with worry at the thought of what she becomes.
She is a warrior and a bandit,
A dreamer and a mastermind.
And, just like her mother…
She makes me want to be a better me.

Counting Your Blessings…

By: Danny Thomas

The end of the year has, oh, since I was a young kid, been a time of reflection for me…

it happens by reflex

reflex reflection….

I suppose it comes with all the thoughtfulness of Christmastime…

and the inevitable letdown that happens after so much celebration…

I suppose it comes from the tendency of society at large to look back
at the end of the year, to review… I guess, even if I tried, I couldn’t help but get caught up in the swell of wistfulness that the end of the year brings.

I am not big on resolutions, my feeling is that if I want to make a change in my life, I should be able to do that at any time, and waiting for the end of the year is a cop out. But, I enjoy the opportunity to take a look at the year and the choices I made, and to examine the path(s) that lead me to those choices… I try to be objective about the outcomes, not to place too much judgment on the outcomes, I try to not look at them as wins and fails, but rather as turns on a path, forks in a road. I think the analysis is good and I honor the reflex, I think an opportunity for analysis is an opportunity for progress…

But I end up with a feeling of general malaise, uncertainty….

Because so many of those questions don’t have answers…

They are all the what if’s…

The coulda shoulda woulda’s…

And the other side of that coin – the unknowable future…

We are up for a lot of big changes… I need to stop waiting for things to settle… chaos is the routine, it seems…

The constant changes, the things that fall away, the things we try to cling to…

Two nights ago, those thoughts and questions kept me up late into the night… or late into the early morning really…I avoided thinking about them, writing about them, I watched mindless television, folded laundry, surfed the internet, but those doubts about my path persisted… Eventually I made my way up to bed, tired, but still distracted, and trying to distract myself from that distraction by reading… eventually my mind lost the battle with my eyes and they slammed shut.

Two minutes later ‘Zilla came in and asked for snuggles…
Knowing, or rather, hoping that the weariness I had just succumbed to would pull me easily back into the land of nod, I followed ‘Zilla back to her bed, lay down next to her and rested my hand on her back…

It took all of about 30 seconds to feel my mood change…

The words from a song in White Christmas which has been on heavy rotation in our house this holiday season came to mind…

As I lay there listening to my girl’s breath, I started to count my blessings and it brought me back in to the moment…

And, while I do believe that there is value in taking stock in the year, and looking at where you’ve come to in the year, and that one can’t help but plan for the future a little bit, just to exist…

The key is now.

For me one of the things that keeps me tethered to the now, that keeps me in the moment, or maybe makes it okay for me to exist here, is my family.

I have many blessings to be grateful for, my family helps me see that, and for that I am most grateful of all…

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