“Like a Giant? or a Robot?”

By: Danny Thomas

last Christmas I blogged about believing in Santa.
I still do.
St. Nicolas is the embodiment of faith, magic and giving…
Christmas is so much more than Santa tho, strange, I know…

I have such weird conflicting mixed feelings about Christmas
and the whole dogma, being a critically thinking, agnostic, capitalism/consumption-questioning, sustainabilitynik, buying in to Christmas can be hard…

having kids makes it easier…

being a magic-believing, faithist, helps too…

the other day the girls and I went for a walk
we passed a nativity set up in a neighbor’s yard…
luckily it was one that I could stand to look at.
clearly hand made, of wood and nails, hand painted, labored over in a garage.
Born of faith, devotion, exuberance, and probably ecstatic craftsmanship.

not one of these “Power Plastic Nativity” jobbees – I kid you not, I saw a nativity last Saturday that included Mr. and Mrs. Claus and Rudolph, now I don’t call myself a Christian and am in no position to be righteous, but I really hope those people were being ironic…

anyway, as we looked at the folks gathered around the swaddling in the manger, another one of those inevitable questions came up…

“who are they?”

I answered as plainly and honestly as I could, I find these kinds of religious questions tricky, I try to be objective… I also, oddly enough, happen to love the nativity story, it is another contradiction and strange aspect to my personality that I myself don’t understand…

anyway…

“Mary and Joseph are in the middle there, and in between them is baby Jesus.
The men on the left are The Magi, and the lady up on the roof, well what do you think she is? “

“an angel?”

“yup”

I then proceeded to tell my agnostic interpretation of the nativity story to the girls… writing that, I don’t know how it’s even possible… really, but that’s what I did.

I just told them, in plain speech, about Mary and Joseph making the journey to Bethlehem, Lil’ Chaos asked why they went to Bethlehem, and I couldn’t remember, she speculated on a good doctor being there, I have since done my research and learned about Augustus Caesar’s decree about the tax and all that… not a detail that I think Lil’ Chaos is interested in at this point.

We talked about the angel and the star and the Magi (an aspect of the story that I think is extraordinarily fascinating… and woefully under-examined) Zilla asked if the wisemen brought the animals, which segued nicely to talking about the manger, and how Joseph and Mary should have called ahead to make a reservation…

at that point I was feeling pretty good about the conversation, but the hardest question was yet to pop out…

“Is he still alive?”

“Who?”

“Jesus…”

looooong pause….

“Well kiddo, that is a really hard question to answer… nope his body is not still alive, but he has become more than… bigger than a person….”

Lil’ Chaos: “Like a giant?”

“Zilla: “Or a robot?”

“Nope… like an idea… that is why the angel showed the Magi where to go, they knew that Jesus being born was a big deal…”

And that was that, as far as the conversation went… we strolled on chasing squirrels and shadowdancing as we went.

but I sure kept thinking about it for a while…

And here is another great thing about Christmas…

because of that conversation, I feel closer to my kids, and closer to Jesus…
Still not calling myself a Christian… but that’s a blog for another time…

Just loving the numinous nature of Christmas time, the Christmas spirit and the magic of family…

A Few Things Have Just Been Hitting Me Over the Head, Gender Wise…

By: Danny Thomas

 

Even before I had kids I was angry at the world, or more specifically humans.

I mean, I have a sense of humor

And I can see the light and joy in a lot of things.

I can even see the bittersweet beauty in things that are heartbreakingly sad

This is humanity.

But sometimes the anger and frustration I feel
As a father, and as a father of daughters
Makes the anger I felt toward humanity pre-fatherhood seem like small beans.

(there are going to be more uses of the word “fuck” in this blog than I’ve ever used before)

Look, probably by many people’s standards I am a completely disqualified feminist.
I gawk, and I guess I think it’s okay, I look at, and enjoy the shape and allure of an attractive human shape, be it male or female (admittedly, I have a broader definition of what that is than mass media and culture at large),

I enjoy pinups, I think porn and strippers have a place in this world, my kids play with Barbie Dolls and watch movies about Disney princesses – we have all kinds of toys and entertainment in our house that I’m sure would fail many people’s definition of healthy body-image-developing influences.

There is a real challenge there because I want my children to have confidence and healthy body image, but, I am not interested in sheltering my children, I am not interested in hiding the world from them. My goal is to foster confident, self aware, engaged, and insightful spirits, with strong psyches who can look at a Barbie doll and determine for themselves what it represents about our culture and what it means to them as individuals. However…

I am becoming increasingly aware that, particularly in the case of women, our culture is not designed to help me with that goal.
A few things have happened in the last three or four days that have pointed that out to me.

Not that I was ignorant of it before, I live with a woman who’s academic focus is largely based on Gender Studies…
believe me, there have been times when, in our house, we have eaten, breathed, and slept “female representation in the media” along with queer theory, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and location…
I am glad.

Frankly, part of the reason I married my wife is that she was the first woman I fell for who had enough Yang to compensate for my overabundance of Yin. Hell, part of the reason I asked her to marry me is because she told me I would.
Anyway, over the last few days, the Thanksgiving Holiday I guess…
a few things have just been hitting me over the head, gender wise…

First, we watched the Macy’s parade on Thanksgiving morning.
It’s a family tradition that we honor, it is theatrical, and ridiculous, and weird, and surreal…
I enjoy that part of it.

We rarely, almost never watch live, commercial t.v. anymore – we stream most everything we watch, in fact, the kids don’t really understand commercials at all – that is a trip for another blog.

The point is, watching these commercials I was struck over and over by the tenor of them, almost all of them were geared toward women (the parade demographic, I suppose)…
I have long taken umbrage with home care products being marketed exclusively to women, but the thing that was jumping out at me, and, as I have said, I know this isn’t new, it just struck me as… old fashioned, last century, as we watched t.v. on Thanksgiving 2011.

What jumped out at me was all of these fashion, hygiene, and cosmetic products basically telling women that they are inadequate, in essence telling my daughters that they were not good enough. I wanted to holler, “Fuck You!” at the TV. – I may actually have. It wouldn’t be the first time.

I wanted to go Elvis on the TV…

Apparently, if you’re a woman, your body needs skin protection, this soap, that eye liner, butt lifting this, boob lifting that…

The fucking deodorant was even pissing me off, I muttered under my breath, “we are human, we smell, it’s actually a good thing, fuckers…”

Here are my beautiful, perfect, raw children… Oh man it was just… not the way I’d ever seen things before, I guess, so stark, bare… a new light. That must have set a sensitive tone for the weekend.

The next thing, I can’t remember if it was Friday or Saturday morning, my nearly six-year-old, she is only almost six, mind you, asks me if she’s fat or skinny… I was floored.

I knew that this was on the list of inevitable, challenging questions I was going to have to deal with as a father,
along with, “Have you ever done drugs?” and, “Can I go to a boys & girls sleep over?” and “Can I borrow $500?”
Believe me I figured it was coming, just not at five years old.

“I think you are perfectly sized.” I said. Which is not a lie. She is proportionate… as if it even fucking matters, but now I am racing to find books to read, as well as books to read to her, about healthy body image…. Fuck.

And finally, this afternoon, as she and I trolled through a stack of pictures and homework, scanning the keepers and round filing the rest, we came across a coloring packet she worked on in kindergarten.
The packet, clearly put together by a well-intentioned teacher, volunteer, or TA was titled, “Community Helpers”
and included public professionals that are important for kids to be aware of and recognize, as well as a few other professional people.
Doctor, Policeman, Farmer, Baker – all men. In fact all the professionals were men – except, of course, the teacher and the nurse.

Now – my kids know, in their personal lives: female cops, female farmers, female doctors, male nurses – so not only is this coloring packet at best: careless, at worst: bigoted, it does not represent the reality it is purporting to convey. Argh.
I was so disappointed.

Believe me the school, and the teacher will be getting a letter, not that I blame them, I blame our culture, but I also feel obligated to let these educators know I think they could do better.

I’ve wanted to be a dad since I was 20 years old, and I feel blessed to be one, a million times over blessed, beyond measure. And I thank and honor the many friends and strangers who have opted not to have children, leaving space and opportunity for mine, and their peers, however, sometimes the challenges are so huge, and insurmountable I feel that all I can do is fail. It is a proven fact that parenting is a Sisyphean task, so I guess I’ll keep my head down, rolling that rock up the hill, swearing at the TV, and hoping that my efforts pay off, with strong, independent, self aware daughters, who are happy with how their bodies smell and feel and look…

Words Can Be Like Huggles

By: Danny Thomas

if you’ve read my blog before
this may be a case of stating the obvious
but, I’m going to state it anyway

I love words.

I love language
and wordplay
dialects
and dialogue

I believe that language is an organism
a rhizome
that it is meant to grow and evolve
just as we do
just as our minds do.

from an early age, the 2nd grade I believe,
I realized that I had a home in words…
that language was a place for me
and it had to do with learning about poetry
and e.e. cummings especially…

the idea that language has rules
but you can deign to break them
if by breaking them
you express yourself more deeply
if not more clearly…

ohhh I get jazzed just thinking about it now…
thinking about that feeling
words

i grew up in a house that fostered those feelings
a house of bookworms
a prominent feature of the house I grew up in
where my parents still live
is a built-in bookshelf.

my brother and both of my parents
are voracious readers
it’s no surprise that I married a voracious reader too!

in my house
growing up
wordplay
and word games
were the usual

and long conversations
about this news item, or current event,
or that philosophical theory or mythical allegory
over dinner
were standard…
to the point that family friends
still talk about
the banter
at our house.

and even my grandmother
would comment about our
unique, stimulating dinner dialogue…

now here I am
as a parent
on the brink of experiencing all of that delight
in a new way
it’s wonderful.

The five-year-old is learning to
read and write!
sounding out words and phrases like
love, and donut, and do not disturb…

and I realize that
our dialogue
and our game play,
our relationship
is taking on a whole new dimension
and I am thrilled.

The three-year-old is not far behind…
but her language development is at a different
fun stage

words and wordplay

using words to express herself
means sometimes making up new words out of thin air,
or
combining words she knows
some are for play, nonsense words (I love these a lot)

and some are utilitarian (these I love too)

and some are just for more clear expression of what she’s feeling
a direct line to her heart, as it were. (I love these the most)

my favorite of these
made up just this morning
combines hug and snuggle
huggle
how can you not love huggle?
and how amazing that
my three-year-old
knows that a huggle is what she needs
and knows and understands our strange language
well enough to make up the word.
miraculous.

Laughing As We Plunge

By: Danny Thomas

I’ve been wanting to write about these thoughts I’ve been having about presence.

About being present in my relationships
About loving kindness
Actively being kind and loving
Looking at people as connected to me
Rather than other or apart…
And how that relates to family…
Parenting in particular…
When I start to look at my children as my
Responsibilities
And their responsibilityhood starts to overshadow their human beinghood

I also have been thinking I should write about
My new job
About making the transition from
Full-time homemaker to
Working parent…
How I have missed my kids more than I imagined,
That I knew I’d miss them, but the time apart
Is a new and strange kind of heartache
But how that is counterbalanced by
A vitality and gratification I experience having a working life
That, oddly, had been taken for granted in jobs I had prior to full-time homemaker.
I hope to not lose sight of that again.

But these musings are pushed out of my mind
by something else
Altogether…
By a problem more pervasive, more distressing,
More immediate.
A real-world mystery that needs solving, but may, in actuality, be without a solution.

The unrelenting question is this:
How can we be using 6 rolls of toilet paper a week?

Look, I know I’m probably sharing too much
If the topic makes you uncomfortable I apologize.
I don’t always have great boundaries with regard to bathroom matters…
In fact, I once carried on a conversation with Jen and a few of her classmates
For the better part of an afternoon
Regarding from which angle one approaches wiping…

As uncomfortable as these topics may be, we can always learn from sharing, right?
Anyway,
I can’t figure out how to reason with a three-year-old about
Toilet paper usage.
We didn’t come across this particular challenge the first time around.
Tho, the five-year-old has recently discovered how fun it is to watch the roll spin
When you get it going fast, the paper really shoots off of there…

We have the older one counting sheets now…
Seems to help.
Look I want them to be thorough,
but this is a very old house, with very old plumbing…

I have cast out to friends and family
Virtually and in person
Seeking advice on these matters
And several friends have come up with great advice
Most of it coming down to
Figuring out how to have a somewhat philosophical approach…
And I guess that’s what we have to do…
To keep our sense of humor
So we can continue
Laughing as we plunge…

Until Time Changes That Too…

By: Danny Thomas

Dear Maya,

Today I walked to the end of the street,
to your bus stop
5 minutes early,
then walked home.
Yesterday you wanted to walk home alone.

I don’t know what to do today.
We didn’t talk about it this morning.
It’s hard.
Watching you grow, letting it happen (as if I had a choice…),
Making it happen.
You are growing, brave and independent
I am so proud of that, so proud of you.
Still it’s hard to take the risk,
To let you take the risk.

I think one of the dichotomies of being a parent is that,
While you get to re-experience the joys of childhood
You also have to relive
Just how hard it is to be a child
When all this change,
this transience, is new.

I feel like, even at thirty-eight years old,
I am bewildered by this experience of growing up, growing old…
And how tough it is to try to make peace with the inexorable advance of time,
the ceaseless changes time puts us through…
And I have had nearly four decades to wrap my head around it.
Even while I see that experience refracted, at least, two more times, through my parents,
and through you, my dear Maya.

And so,
we’ll keep waiting for the bus together in the morning…
And I’ll keep finding some reason to be at the end of the driveway watching for you when you
get home…
Until time changes that too…

Letter to Fin

By: Danny Thomas

Dear Finley,

I am starting to see
How much
I am
going to learn from you,
Sweet child.

The other day
On our walk
Thru campus
You wanted to stop and watch the fountain.
“Okay.” I said, and stood on the sidewalk holding your hand.
“No, Daddy,” you insisted, “let’s sit…

(pause)

On the grass.”

And so we did.

On a cool September morning
Surrounded by a bustling
Human ant hill,

I sat with you
and watched the ripples
In the water
dance with the sunlight.

My mind started to go to those grown-up places…
Self-Conscious -What are those busy people thinking? Should we be sitting here? Do they think I’m weird? Lost? Homeless?
Hurried -There are things to be done. Laundry? Cleaning? Shopping?

Then I realized,
sitting with you
By the pond
watching water,
picking grass,
counting leaves…

This is the thing to be done.

Thanks for that.
And thanks,
in advance,
for all the things you’ll show me and remind me and teach me
as we grow up together.

Love,
Dad

The Grass is Browning, and the Yard is Hard.

By: Danny Thomas

Over the last part of this season, as summer wanes…

The mornings get colder

And all of these emotions

Run together;

Sadness that summer is ending,

The end of free days…

Then there is the anticipation for school and fall weather…

And the approach of the holidays…

That strange languor

sets in…

Summer is kind of used up.

The grass is browning, and the yard is hard.

Vacations and trips to the beach have been had…

The backyard pool, rescued from strange plant life and floating mysteries,

has been dried out, rolled up and put away.

The hectic schedule of summer activities

has given way to a limbo of in-between time…

Waiting for the new, hectic schedule of fall activities to kick in.

For me, as a kid, television was the savior of this time of year.

The end of summer blues were somewhat alleviated by that glowing gleaming god of lassitude the T.V.

Mine was not a T.V. family, in fact, for a good portion of my childhood we were completely without one.

I think my parents were tired of them breaking, so they just stopped buying them, my first lesson about planned obsolescence.

As a kid growing up in the eighties, a home without a television set was somewhat anomalous.

Thing is, I still remember so much television in the summer time, Gilligan’s Island and Brady Bunch on
repeat. The Banana Splits, Scooby Doo, and the gang, Flinstones… Starblazers… Then there was
Jabberjaw and Captain Caveman, which were essentially the same as Scooby Doo.. let’s not forget Bugs
and Daffy and all the Warner Bros gang. And eventually somewhere in there came MTV.

I guess I spent a lot of time hanging out at the neighbors’…

Those cartoons and programs, however oddly, helped to form
and inform my world view, my aesthetic, my sense of humor, and I don’t think that is an entirely bad
thing. For all of the various negative reinforcement you can find in many cartoons — about
stereotypes, gender roles, violence, etc – there are some good lessons too, determination, creative
problem solving, the value of humor, acceptance and certainly in many cases the artistry involved in the work itself is admirable…

As summer 2011 comes to a close,
And I uncover all the well-worn grooves of the feelings of the end of summer,
And as my kids make their way through seemingly infinite Pink Panthers, Phineas and Ferbs, and Mr.
Beans, not to mention innumerable viewings of Strawberry Shortcake, The Movie… peppered with the
occasional  Xanadu, Funny Girl, or Singin’ In the Rain… maybe a foreign kid movie or
documentary here and there…

I find myself caught in a bit of an internal struggle

I am okay with them spending an afternoon watching  T.V.  - even if it’s sunny outside, but at the same time I feel guilty…

It seems to very much go against popular child rearing opinion to be okay with your kids zoning out in front of the T.V.

My kids are active, imaginative, creative and vital human beings,
I’m not worried about lethargy, or rotting their brains.

Obviously, I have the typical parental instinct to tell my kids to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather,

and in fact, to get out there and enjoy it with them (when I’m not buried in laundry, dishes, or other

annoying housework).

But, If we’ve spent all morning riding bikes and building lego spaceships, then I have no qualms with

letting the little lugs spend a bit of the afternoon zoning out in front of the tube.

There, I said it.

Making the Most of This Day

By: Danny Thomas

Making the most of this day.

The to-do list…

At the top is always my children

But it seems like every thing on the list,

That gets put off,

Pushed back or set behind

Is ultimately for them, too

Or for the family.

Laundry, housework, tidying…

Cleaning the bathrooms.

Hanging the curtains,

or the pictures that have been sitting long enough

in the hallway that I don’t even see them there

anymore.

Mowing the lawn

The list goes on…

and on…

Here’s the thing:

I want to delight in the joy of their childhood,

I want them to delight in it, to shine…

I don’t want to spend the days we have together

Finding ways to distract them or

keep them occupied

So I can “get things done”

I want to build things with Legos.

Make Art.

Race slot cars.

Go on bike rides.

Dance.

I want to bake cookies

Keep a balanced diet and a balanced budget.

Exercise.

And have a clean and stylish house

A decent lawn.

And a healthy family.

I also want time for my creative life; playing music, working in theatre, reading and writing.

And I want my children to do all those things

With me and on their own.

And I haven’t figured out yet

I guess,

How to balance both…

I find I feel like I’m always putting one aside for the other.

I tell myself this is the path to balance,

I wonder how I can be sure I’m making the most of each day.

The More Things Change…

By: Danny Thomas

Transience

Probably my favorite subject…

Bittersweet impermanence…

Love.

Loss.

Learning.

Changes.

I think there is something of a march to it, time.

But it meanders too, like a stream, or a cumulonimbus…

or a thought.

At times, maybe most of the time, it seems to go in all directions at once.

I returned home to a house we’ve lived in for less than a month,

After a two-week trip to the Pacific Northwest

And felt a strange mixture of emotions when I realized I was glad to be home…

and what that meant

now that home is here, in Moorhead, Minnesota

and not

The Pacific Northwest.

But it was a solid glad, an it-feels-good-to-be-breathing-this-air kind of glad to be home, an I-really-enjoy-the-look-and-feel-of-this-topography-and-I-recognize-it-and-feel-a-place-here kind of glad.

And that didn’t feel altogether good,

Because, up until that moment, there was really only one place that I felt that kind of glad to be home.

Man it’s hard.

Bear in mind that I was at the tail end of, like, a ten-hour travel day that included driving, flying, crossing at least one time zone, and more than a handful of meltdowns… also a very tall mojito…

So my mental state was one prone to a little philosophical, existential pondering.

(The trip was amazing and exhausting and heartbreaking and exhilarating)

Being with friends and family brought joy beyond description, meeting new people, new amazing families brought the thrill of adventure and the delight of new experiences…

I was sad about not getting to see some of my friends in Seattle and Eugene.

I was sad about saying good bye to the people I did see.

I was sad because, from now on, and for several years past,
Whenever I go back, to visit places I’ve lived…

Everything is or will be different.

Enough is the same that I am lulled into a sense of relief, comforted…

But then

I start to realize, I am not reassured

Entirely.

This sense that the footing is unsure, that what was is gone…

Well it’s just there.

It’s in among all the familiar comforts.

I had a thought today as my girl played for the first time in the neighbors’ pool supervised only by a pair of teenage girls among a family dynamic that is, in countless ways, foreign from our own.

The thought was this: losing one’s innocence, while it may be perpetual, is trifling when compared with the sting of seeing your children lose theirs.

Urban Dweller: A Family Vacation

By: Danny Thomas

I am writing this blog on the 6^th day of a 14-day family vacation.

I spent most of July packing and moving our family across town… and finished that project just in time to pack and load our family into a car for a 4-hour drive to Minneapolis. Then loaded them all onto a plane for a 3-hour flight and another 5-hour drive from Seattle to Eugene, Oregon. Tomorrow we drive back to Seattle.

I feel like every part of this vacation, literally moment by moment, has been a profusion of mixed blessings…

We have experienced so much fortune, so much joy in our togetherness, and so much kindness and generosity from the friends and loved ones we’ve been able to visit…

We have also driven each other batty and tested the limits of each other’s patience and flexibility, and we are not even half way!

The visit to Eugene has been bittersweet; we lived here for seven years, had two kids here, bought a house, built some incredible relationships and friendships, and laid down a lot of roots – revisiting that is hard for a number of reasons, we can’t recapture it, none of us wants to leave, and yet we feel solidly that we have moved on… that we have made a home in our new place – we feel comfortable and happy in Fargo-Moorhead.

There is no way to do all the things we want to do, or see all the people we want to see in the time we have here. I know many many people who, when returning to a past home, have experienced this very same thing.

I am trying to figure out what to learn from this, what to take away…

One of the themes, for me, of parenting, of life, has been the idea of adjusted expectations, I’ve written about it before – heck, in some ways I’m writing about it all the time.

Vacation with a family is, in many ways, hyper-family time, and for those of us stay at home parents it is not a break, per se. So it becomes an incredible exercise in adjusted expectations.

If you think of vacation as time with your feet up, or lying poolside sipping margaritas, or even hiking through the woods restoring your mind and soul, communing with nature and exploring… well all of those things can happen on a family vacation, but family vacation is different from that.

And once again I find myself thinking of my parents and my experiences growing up and, once again my respect and admiration for them grows exponentially, along with my gratitude for the experiences they provided for my brother and me.

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