No Place To Hide

Soft rains settled in over the Bay Area on Christmas Day, making staying inside much more attractive. It was my first non-news day in a long, long time but I didn't miss knowing what was happening in the external world at all. Instead, from morning to night, enveloped by my complicated nuclear families, it was the internal world that filled up the vacuum.  Having two distinct generations of kids -- three 40-somethings and three 20-somethings, allows me to notice a few contrasts. With the older set, they are all parents themselves now and my identity is Grandpa. They've survived their youths and now are raising kids who only know me as an old man. With the younger set, I am strictly and exclusively still just Dad. Their grandfathers are dead and the stage when they settle down and perhaps start their only families seems still some years away. Suspended by Covid-19 and a "no-jobs" economy, my younger children feel like they can't really finish the growing up stage yet. They can articulate that so openly that it breaks my heart to see them at once so immature and also much more mature that they ought to be. By contrast, my older children are directly capable of criticizing me and condescending to me when appropriate in ways that cut me to the bone. Their immaturities have been drummed out of them by the daily reminders that they (not me) are the adults in their worlds now. I love all six, each individually and specifically. It is also painfully clear to me that while I am the lone hinge that joins the two clusters of three (their mothers are not friends and don't talk) they grew up with the same Dad but at two distinct phases in his own life. The first three arrived in the world when I was 29-34.  The second three when I was 47-51. In between the world had its way with me and some part of me tore myself away from my youthful idealism and settled into a more determined realism, maybe with a touch of cynicism. The first three had a boy-Dad; the second three had a man-Dad. What was continuous, however, was my tendency to build a wall around my vulnerability and never let anybody -- not even them -- inside my emotional headquarters. You know, that place where the little guy behind the curtain works until Toto pulled the curtain back on him. Inevitably, as only one's children can do, they've all made their way inside my control room one by one. They see me not as I would choose them to see me but as they choose to see me. There is no place to hide in that kind of light. Besides, everything recently has changed yet again as I made it to the gates of Hell and back in the year of our lord 2019. When people ask me whether I am religious or believe in God, all I can do is find another way to convey the ineffable. It's easier just to chuckle at Clarence in Frank Capra's story, hoping to get his wings. In the movie when the characters hear bells ring it means another angel gets his wings. In my life it means one of my younger kids' cats is nearby. They wear bells in an effort by the kids to protect any nearby birds from their beloved, efficient predator pets. They try to protect the birds because they love their cats. So when we hear those bells ringing it means another angel gets to keep his wings. I guess all birds and humans need to develop some sort of self-protective system plus every living creature needs a little help along the way. When in the past my children sensed they were meeting a would-be girlfriend of mine, I could tell they had mixed feelings about whether they should help my (very faint) bells ring or let another visitor into the control booth. Who knew who was protecting whose wings anyway? As the character named Mark in "Love Actually" is unmasked by Juliet (Keira Knightly) and she realizes he has a major crush on her, he finally reaches his moment of truth. "It's a ... self-preservation thing," he mumbles. *** I feel like I have made it to a slight rise in life's desert and looking back can see my children all repeating those uncertain steps that got me here. The father/protector inside me wishes I had cleared a broader path and marked the turning points better, but it's too late to worry about that now. They'll get to where they're going no matter what I say or do.  Maybe the only useful advice I can offer is "You're perfect the way you are. just keep growing."  Then again, every generation needs to act like they are the first in the sweep of time and and then -- much later -- as if they are the last.  Of course we are always and eternally wrong on both counts. *** Sorry, no news headlines today. I might get used to this concept of being retired and not doing anything, but more probably my news curating team will be back on the job tomorrow. And fully dressed once again. -30-