Child,
I remember being a hero one night in southern Thailand. Your Mom and I were standing in a dense crowd on New Year’s Eve. A paper mache Osama bin Lauden had just pranced past. The sky over our head was alive with sparkles and fire, gunpowder and singed paper raining down on our heads from the fireworks display. The explosions echoed off the skyscrapers and made our bellies rumble.

Your Pa thought he’d died and gone to an over-stimulated heaven; your Mom just thought she died. She tugged on my shirt and looked gray as a ghost.

It was easy fix. I gathered her behind me and lunged through the crowd, pushing a wave of people ahead of us like a fierce little barge. And after two minutes in the clear air past the crowds, your Mom was fine.

Perhaps I am a hero of little problems, but it’s good to feel useful. Sometimes when I think about the coming event of your delivery, I get kinda freaked out. I’m afraid of how helpless I will feel, watching your Mom in such pain.

I know that labor is an incredibly natural part of the process and all that. I know your Mom has the strength and will to manage the pain and fatigue. I know that her hurt will be paid for one thousand times over with the great prize of you. I know that I can be supportive and truly “be there” for her during this amazing moment. I know that I’m not supposed to be able to stop the pain or make it all go away. I know that’s ridiculous and unreasonable to wish for. But I can’t help it. I just want to be able to help or ease her mind when she’s feeling bad. It makes me crazy to sit by, useless.

I will try to help, but I have already been told not to take it personally when it doesn’t work.

If all I can be is a witness, I will be the best witness that ever was. I will recall every detail and treasure every moment and keep it safe for all time. If you ever ask, you will hear the story in heroic detail. Actually, you’ll probably hear it whether you ask or not; I’m like that with stories. But that’s a way I can contribute to the moment, and maybe even be useful.

See you soon,
pa-

These Chuck Taylor All-Stars were crocheted by your Grandma T. Every kids’ first pair of kicks should be this cool.

Child,
Sundays are the only day of the week into which alarm clocks may not intrude. And sleep we do, sometimes, like today, until 10:30. We were up too late last night, watching Six Feet Under. I have been told that sleep and time for watching movies will soon be lost to us, but we are enjoying them now.

All I do is make the eggs, but I get credit for Sunday’s breakfast. So it’s eggs scrambled with soy cheese, chicken sausage, cinnamon toast and fruit. Tiny local cantaloupes are a Sunday favorite, but the blueberries make our eyes water. We eat slowly and plan the day.

Your Mom moves gingerly these days. Her hips ache, perhaps with the weight of you or from a muscle pulled at the gym. We don’t go as far these days, but we don’t seem to mind. We visit Costello’s and eat scones and tiny chocolate-coconut-creamy things. I know, I know, we just had a huge breakfast; Sundays are for sleep and food and gathering in. You will grow up with a long line of Sunday rituals.

I am distracted by football on the TV, soccer beamed in from France. Your Mom makes me focus. Together we make a picture of the future. It’s truly a picture, a drawing of three years from now. You are at the heart of this picture; it’s about where you live and who surrounds you. It’s about how we want our family to grow. We live on the east coast and you can play with your cousins and see your grandparents on the weekends and more. It’s about the kind of work we do because it’s important and because you should see work as a creative and meaningful endeavor, not as drudgery or the selling off of precious life.

It’s a good picture and I hope you grow up in it.

Inspired by other ideas, we swing by the library and raid the shelves: books about making books and Steve Earle’s El Corazon CD.

Grocery shopping is an eternal part of our Sunday rituals. Surprisingly, we have winnowed down our Sunday grocery trips to one quick run to the pricey organic store. We cruise the samples (dijon mustard and blueberry-flavored bifidus enzymes) and grab a handful of items. The new bagging clerk is a knucklehead. K- and I debate whether bagging ability falls under the rubric of common sense.

I sneak out on Sunday afternoons and go the climbing gym. Sometimes I feel silly climbing fake rocks indoors, but as soon as I touch my hand to the wall the world slips away from me. I know holding still is the right way to meditate, but taichi, yoga and all the other sanctioned forms of calming the mind fail me. I got to be moving and it seems if I’m bodily at risk, I’m right where I belong. I spend my time in the bouldering room, climbing short, intense routes that don’t require ropes and pulleys and partners to catch your falls. Mats are good for that.

I leave the gym and am struck by my good life. I feel great and grateful for this day, sun shining after Saturday’s prescient rainfall. I feel strong and alive, poor and ambitious, ready for everything and anything. The promise of you fills my thoughts everyday.

While I was at the gym, your Mom sent your grandparents ideas and info about visiting you.

Sundays are nap days. And then dinner. Sleep and food and gathering in.

After dinner we drift off into our private orbits. I do laundry and work stuff. Your Mom fusses around and plans her week. Later we sit together and eat treats. We draw up a contract of sorts. It has terms and conditions that instruct us to eat pie with friends and write books next weekend. It reminds me to sleep. This, of course, is negotiable.

I’ll rest my hand gently across you in minutes.

Good night.

Pa-