Back From BC, eh.

This was the first holiday Kelly and I had spent apart since we announced our engagement 6(?) years ago to our families. This time I was in Vancouver with my family to celebrate my uncle's completion of his PhD at UBC. For more info on that, which is incredibly worth checking out, see www.bobkull.org.

It was a trip to be back in BC after almost 10 years. And a trip to be in Vancouver, which as kick ass as it is, from my experience is very much only a small subset of that grand province. We did get a taste of the true BC though on a walk Friday afternoon in a place called Lighthouse Point Park. It had been raining most of the day, though the drops had stopped the clouds remained. That is until the sun got low enough over the pacific to shine across from the Pacific and turn the forest gold.

I stood there with my brother in silent awe, slowly moving and studying how the soft yellow rays filtering through the massive trees shifted. Stopped to look at some backlight rain drops hanging from a bare branch; red bark burning orange in the light.

We slowly made our way through these woods, the massive fir and cedar trees, ragged late-fall understory of salmon berry, elder, and a dozen other plants I could not name. And in these moments, the parts of my self that dwell in the North stirred...


I don't spend much time walking around. Especially the type of walking that happens on a university campus; walking as a way to really get around a place that's small enough to be pedestrian, though large enough to take more than a minute to get from place to place. Since I managed to stay on EST most of the trip, I was up at 6:00 each morning, and in the nearby Starbuck's by 6:30 to get a couple hours of work in. While sitting there, I started seeing lots of students plugged in to their iPods and thought; why not?

I've heard and read a lot of commentary about the phenomenon of personal music players and how they isolate each person into their own little world. After spending several days in this state, I'm not so sure I buy it.

The first morning I tried it out, rather than insulating me from the world, the music drew me into the natural beauty of it and I found myself studying the lines of leafless trees against the pre-dawn sky, the small rings of raindrops, and changes in the wind among buildings. I wore headphones that allowed all the sounds in, so I could order food, cross streets, and talk with my family all while my personal soundtrack played. And when I was in places where people really are isolated in their personal space; specifically airports, it made it all the better.

So, check it out; next time you're out and about, bring your iPod and choose some nice tunes to match your mood; it'll blow your mind.

This started somewhere else...

...specifically as a short comment on Juli's blog. As I got into it though, I realized it was turning into a full-on blog entry, so rather than clutter her comment space with it, and since I've been lame about posting new stuff, here it is. The background is that Adam and Juli were here visiting for 5 weeks, which kicked ass. During their visit I delivered about 2 cords of firewood. For those of you not in the know, a cord of firewood is 4' x 4' x 8' stacked. This translated to about 2 truckloads on a 14' flatbed with 18" sides. That's a lot of wood, and Adam and Juli pretty much moved the whole pile with our pathetic little green plastic wheel barrow.

Anyhow, firewood is somewhat of a theme that weaves itself through their visit =)


At one point when we were loading wood, or at least looking at wood, or something to do with wood...never mind the wood part. Anyhow, I was trying to explain [to Juli] about the mystery of this life and where I'm at in it. That on the surface it's become so ordinary: I'm married, have a kid, a dog, a cat. I own a house and bust my ass working long hours that doesn't leave a lot of time left over. But underneath all that there is magic. As I thought about this more the other day, it struck me that the difference between this and how I lived when I was younger is, that back then, I made a big deal out of being "spiritual." I was interested in having long and deep philisophical conversations, of writing and sharing poetry, of cloaking myself in this paganesque identity that would show the world what I wanted the world to see me as, and of working to make sure that everything was intense.

Now though, I'm not so interested in this as much as I'm intersted in just being the best that I can, not in a competitive way, but because this life is so short. Before I know it I'll be turning around and Kelly's hair will be gray, we'll be frail, and our kids grown. More over, marriage, fatherhood, and business and home ownership bring enough intensity of their own; who needs to manufacture drama in the midst of all this?

Having kids made me realize just how short this life is, and just how precious every day is, and to embrace the every day things that now drive me crazy, like the fact that when I go in at night to comfort Raelin and get her back to sleep, it pretty much means that I don't since she insists on cuddling up so close. I'm reading a book right now called Fatherneed that looks at the measurable impacts of an involved father. Not surprising it's huge, but that's not the point. The point is that I'm at a part in the book that's 11 years or so into the study, and the kids that were babies are now preteens, and the relationships that were so dialed are being heavily rediscovered and renegotiated as the kids grow into young adults.

There was a night our first winter here in Maine, where I was putting Raelin to sleep by holding her on my lap. I remember that the light was out in the room, and I was sitting on the floor with moon light flooding through the window. And I looked down at this little baby that so easily fit in my lap and just drank up the moment. I knew that there would soon come a day when she would no longer fit on my lap, then a day when she wouldn't even *want* to be on my lap. And I say silently and gave thanks for this life and this baby.

Those days are here; Raelin still wants to sleep on my lap from time to time, though she's too big to really fit and ends up just squirming around instead, though she does love to tuck her head into the crook where my arm meets my torso. When I put her to sleep at night she lays there, and talks and sings. Sometimes I tell her stories or sing her a song, though these days more often than not she breaks in so I stop, and eventually she drifts off. And as we lay there in the dark, sometimes with the moon light flooding into the window, I am again struck by the beauty of this life, with this little person I love so fiercly and so fully snuggled up with her daddy, who she loves with her entire life, and I give thanks.

It's really not about anything, really, as long as my family is a place of love and refuge.

Slammed and I wannna puke

Ugh. It's one of those days. The client work piled high, largely as a result of the time I've spent volunteering at Raelin's school to get a new set of Macs set up and DSL installed, and also dealing with all the stuff that comes up being board chair of a small start-up non-profit here in town. Throw in the usual parenting, marriage, and home ownership and it's a downright cluster fuck. Massive input buffer overflow. I made a hair cut appointment yesterday and already this morning had to call back to confirm the time.

This morning I sat down to start looking at some of the problems that have come to light in a couple of major projects I've got going on right now. Like the kind of problems that I stare at and stare at and have no idea how to fix. Let me rephrase that, I have no idea how to fix them without deleting out possibly hundreds of lines of code and tossing out parts that until I hit the snag were debugged and ready to go.

So I'm blogging instead, since looking at work stuff just brings on a sense of nausea. Blech. Anyhow, back to it, as a client needs a report run that my app won't yet do, so off to custom code the SQL I go....

Priceless Moments (really)

A little over a week ago, Raelin and I were playing with socks on her bed. I forget what Kelly was up to, though she was out and about, so it was some solid Daddy time. Anyhow, Raelin stops playing and looks at me and asks "are you happy?" Which is a pretty regular question these days. I answer "yes, I'm happy." This is usually the end of the conversation, though today, Raelin keeps looking at me, smiles and says "I'm happy because I love you." Then goes back to playing with the socks...

Last night, Kelly was pulling her weekly shift at the co-op and I was playing with Raelin. We were putting stickers on a piece of paper that will become something to send to my mom. In the middle of stickering, Raelin stops, and says, in her typically toddler stutter when she's trying to say something that she doesn't quite know how to put words around "Raelin, you, Raelin want, you, you're a good daddy!"

What a little heart-warmer!!! I told Kelly when she got home, and while she was very happy for me, was also a little bummed since Raelin doesn't tell her such nice things. When she got home, Kelly was holding Raelin and asked her, "am I a good mommy?" to which Raelin responded "no." Brutal. I had to jump in =)

The invisible family grows

In addition to the afore-mentioned Brooke, Angus, and Gus, there is now a 4th little one: Cinderella. Cinderella is a frequently requested back up part to childrens' songs we sing, and even made an appearance (to Raelin) on the couch yesterday morning. This is the same couch that Raelin has decided is a car, and so she makes sure we're all buckled up if we're going to drive anywhere.

So back to yesterday; we're on the couch, along with a fabric barn filled to the brim with trains and little animals when Raelin announces it's time for a drive and buckles me in. She then buckles in Brooke and Angus, though not Gus. I guess he stayed home for this one. She the went about turning the key on, but realized she had forgotten Cinderella, so leaned back over to me and the little nook between my arm and the couch where Brooke and Angus were sitting, and made sure Cinderellla was also buckled in. Then away we went...