"Grandpa, these binoculars are empty."
"I'm curious about your weapons."
"I have humoungus feet now I'm three."
Those were just three of my buddy's comments yesterday afternoon. He knows which edible plants in the garden to harvest when he visits, starting with butter lettuce this time through.
Family is the center of my life and has become the center of my identity. Once, like many successful men pursuing high-pressure careers, it would have been accurate to describe work as the center of my life, at least if you consider the amount of time spent at work as a determinative factor.
Fact is, though I loved some of my jobs, and became deeply engaged in all of them, work was never the central focus for me. Proportionality enters the picture here; where was my mind focused, at work or home or in-between?
Yet by "work," I do not mean writing. This may seem contradictory, as I am a writer, and have earned much of my keep for four decades by whatever skill at writing I may possess -- for better or worse.
For a long time now, that would be for worse.
But writing is not work to me; writing is an expression of being alive. It's how I continue to assert that I am still here, regardless of exterior circumstances, distractions, hopes, dreams, disappointments, and failures. And, as I age, increasingly what I choose to write about is my family.
So we have convergence of a sort. As his 16-year-old uncle towered over him and his Mom yesterday in the doorway of my apartment, I saw three generations backlit, as well as a vision of my life, framed by their love, each for the other.
-30-
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