Fatherwork - June 18

At times I feel guilty for just living, for simply eating and sleeping and doing the basics to live. I feel like I should be doing more, having more impact on the world. I am not sure if this is guilt inherited from a capitalist system that wants me to be always producing. Or perhaps this guilt is inherited from a Catholic vision of the world where I feel like I need to work off the shame of original sin or all the other sins that generations of my ancestors have heaped on top of that. Or an activist guilt: fear that the world is in desperate need of something that I might have to offer and need to be working to give. It is probably a wicked cocktail of all of these.

And I recognize the inherent value of simply living, of caring for myself and my family. Truly, all other activities of value, from philosophy to politics to art to food, should aim at making conditions possible for people to live well, to care for self, family and community in peace. If we cannot live well in the everyday lifeways that make up our daily rhythms, all other activities are worthless.

I sometimes imagine another person, someone in a far more difficult situation, imagining me, and demanding that I enjoy every last drop of my privilege, that I forge excellence from all the good material I have been given. I feel like I owe this to these imaginary strangers, to all those who came before me and to all those who currently are out there now dying for the opportunities that I have. Perhaps I am connecting with myself in the future remembering back to my self now in this blessed time… or perhaps I am sensing future generations invoking me as ancestor. How can I show up for them, now?

Sometimes the best thing to do is very little. Wouldn’t our world be better if people weren’t always running around trying to do so many things? All the do-goodery has really screwed us over the centuries—too many damn crusades.

My dear wife reminded me today: rest, fallow time, space, all the emptinesses and silences are of vital importance. So many haven’t had that luxury. Nor have I, except rarely. It is so good to have space in between the movement and action, yin to balance the yang. I have done many things in my life, and it is time to do less, better. Time to simply nurture my child. This is enough.

Fatherwork - June 16 - Father’s Day

We gather in a circle, sharing food and blessings.

My daughter is held by generations gathered around, expressing feelings: hope, grief, love.

Fatherwork - June 7

Questions I have been asking myself:

Can I clean up a meal, wash dishes, and sweep in maximum stillness and quiet, with the minimum amount of effort, as if all this were a Japanese tea ceremony, with virtually no sound, with every object and body part set into motion with utmost care? And can I do this without scrunching my eyes and clenching my ass in useless effort?

Can I set this sleeping infant down, moving imperceptibly slow, without my heart rate going up, without a sound? And should I start a baby qi gong self-help business?

How can I decolonize, depatriarchalize, detraumatize myself and my parenting to allow my child to remain as free as she was born? And maybe I could just be okay with her eating, sleeping, and pooping well without me trying to liberate the bejeezus out of her?

How can I strive for excellence without taking myself too seriously?

Fatherwork - June 4

Becoming a father changed time for me.

Watching my mother rock and sing to my newborn, to her granddaughter, I remember being an infant, I am brought back to being in her arms. I can also see my daughter’s grandmother become young again herself, perhaps also entering into her memory of being in her own mother’s arms.

The future has also become much more real. My hundred-year-present was my lifetime and the lifetimes of my parents and grandparents, and it had begun to stretch forward with my nieces and nephews. This present has now united fully with the lifetime of my daughter, and I am now deeply connected to all that she will touch. My actions and dwelling in this present will cultivate the world she will live in.

My time alive feels briefer than ever, as I have become increasingly aware of how quickly we grow, and grow old. And yet I now feel myself weaving a new generation of life into being, part of the dance of generations and regeneration, and so my life energy is becoming continuous with coming generations. I can stay here in this present, in this place, and channel to my daughter all my many journeys and relations, all that my ancestors lived and passed to me; it is a feeling of vast, dynamic stillness.

In some ways as parents we have lost all the “free time” we had before we had a child. It’s difficult to find time for our basic necessities while caring constantly for the basic necessities the baby. The tiredness is intense… though not like the first newborn days—those first moments stretched into hours making days full of wonder and love and only minutes of sleep. Time held still. Now, though, it feels like we have gained so much time—as a family, we take walks, and sing, and spend most of our time in the simple actions of domestic life. We eat, sleep, poop, bathe, cry, laugh, play. Time expands.

In those middle-of-the-night wakings, when I hold my baby in her moment of need, I awaken out of normal time into interstitial time: normal time is suspended, and my child becomes the universe.