Daddy K’s peace of mind

Sometimes working in marketing and PR and the software as a service space can be mind-numbing (that's SaaS-sy for those of you keeping score at home). I'm strapped to my laptop a lot longer than I'd like every day, and a lot longer than Mama A would like as well. Stress for less always costs more.

It's not physically demanding, other than feeling spent at the end of the day/night. Too much information ingestion, regurgitation, dissemination, reiteration, manipulation, exacerbation, client negotiation – oh mi Dios!

My outlets have been reading, writing, drumming, exercise and more recently, gardening. When we landscaped our backyard starting two years ago, we did it all ourselves with the exception of the sprinklers. Amy always knew more than me when it came to plants and gardening. Still does. But, I'm learning and I love it.

I dig and plant and weed and sweat and move and plant and weed and sweat and dig some more. The yard is never done; it's my Winchester mystery garden. It's a place where I can let my mind wander through false doorways and down incomplete stairways and into warm, dark places, focusing on limb-numbing physical work instead.

Our backyard ain't going to be featured in Sunset Magazine anytime soon, but it's our piece of paradise and my peace of mind.

I can't wait for Baby B to lay in the hammock with me and nap away on a warm summer's day.

The B file: We can get back on

It's a far cry from the world we thought we'd inherit

It's a far cry from the way we thought we'd share it

You can almost feel the current flowing

You can almost see the circuits blowing

One day I feel I'm on top of the world

And the next it's falling in on me

I can get back on

I can get back on

One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel,

And the next it's rolling over me

I can get back on

I can get back on…

--Neil Peart

Yes, we can get back on, we can get back on. No matter what happens growing up, I finally learned years ago that the alternative isn't one. That goes in the B file.

But what's the real ulterior motive of this post? As Mama A and Baby B roll their eyes, kick and squirm, I revel in my unadulterated plug for my boys in Rush who were finally given their just deserts in the latest issue of Rolling Stone (that includes a great article on Senator Obama as well).

Living in the limelight the universal dream…

The letter K: Democra-huh?

Dear Daddy,

I have no idea what you're talking about. By the way, it's getting really crowded in here. Either I'm getting bigger or this water world is getting smaller. Any ideas on how to get out? Mama keeps poking at me to move around and I got no where to go.

Throw me a bone here, would you? You can babble all you want, just get me outta here. Where's my manifest destiny, huh?

Love you,

Baby B

The letter B: Our dichotomous democracy and the alien shore

Dear Baby B,

Yesterday was our country's birthday – Independence Day – the 4^th of July. Mama A and I had a great day together kicking it all off with a mind-clearing and life-affirming hike in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park.

We're proud Americans, B, and although we've been labeled Gen Xers and the "me" generation (are we really any more selfish than other generations?), we embrace our rights, freedoms and civil liberties as personally responsible Americans and are grateful.

Sadly those civil liberties have been put to the test in the 21^st century in the endless wake of 9/11 (and as can only be explained in cartoons). It's important to understand how America came to be, where it's gone and where we're going.

I'm in the middle of reading 1776 and I hope someday for you to read it, to understand the origins of our country without Disneyfication or censorship. Some of the same tyrannous elements our founding fathers (and mothers and children) declared independence from the British, we've dealt with of late from our own government.

However, that's why will live in democracy; this is a presidential election year and we have the power to elect one another president. I hope the next administration can put the "we" back in we the people. And that as "we the people" – we have a responsibility as well to ensure we remain thriving and free democracy. We may not always get along, and we don't, but we are the power behind the curtain; we can be the unifiers and the healers. No matter who reviles us around the world, there are just as many who look to America with hope and clamor for our alien shore.

Along those lines I read a great piece in our local Santa Cruz Sentinel yesterday by Wallace Baine about the importance Independence Day and the values of our founding fathers:

Still, as far as 18th-century elites go, these were pretty enlightened dudes. And that means all of us "from the treasurer of the Daughters of the American Revolution to the newly green-carded Korean business owner" benefit every day from the audacious gamble these cats made back in 1776. By throwing off monarchy, declaring religious freedom and enshrining that phrase "All men are created equal" in the new nation's first charter, these dead white guys on your money set in motion a dynamic that would, in time, destroy their own privilege. And they knew that's what they were doing.

Though the Founders were united in their determination for independence, that was about all that united them. They were a volatile lot, those Founders. They all nursed their resentments of each other. Hamilton and Jefferson detested each other. The priggish Adams looked down on the licentious Ben Franklin. They were not diverse in a demographic sense, but as personalities and ideologues, they were as different as they could be. They brawled and argued and pursued political dirty tricks against each other with zest. They were bound by their American-ness, and almost nothing more.

That presents the rest of us with a pretty good model on how to live together, don't you think? We too often lament how divided this country is, but the Founders showed us the paradoxical nature of a functioning democracy, united and divided at the same time.

Good advice, don't you think, B?

You and I, we reject these narrow attitudes

We add to each other, like a coral reef

Building bridges on the ocean floor

Reaching for the alien shore

For you and me -- We hold these truths to be self-evident

For you and me -- We'd elect each other president

For you and me -- We might agree

But that's just us

Reaching for the alien shore…

Just wanted to leave you with a little Rush ditty written by Neil. You'll understand the importance of that influence soon enough!

Love you,

Daddy K

Retro K: Zip around like sweaty specters until our bellies ached

The neighborhood I grew up in used to have huge block parties on the 4^th of July. No matter the feuds or dysfunction the adults on the street experienced throughout the year, and second only to Christmastime, America's birthday was the grand celebration unification forgiveness melting pot of the year.

And it was a melting pot because growing up in Visalia, California was hot. Triple digits. But man, did the sprinklers, cola, lemonade, watermelon and homemade ice cream cool us kids off (while the adults were heating up with alcoholic beverages).

Throw in the grilled hot dogs and hamburgers, the potato salad, the corn on the cob, the fresh baked pies and cakes and God stop me now. My sister and I and the other neighborhood kids would zip around like sweaty specters until our bellies ached, only visible to the naked eye when we stopped to breathe and hold our sides and of course once it was dark enough to light the sparklers and shoot off the fireworks (this was the Central Valley over three decades ago mind you, not the tinder box the mountainous areas of California have become this year – please be careful and don't shoot off illegal fireworks).

Then we grew up. I haven't experienced a block party like the old days since.

The neighborhood we live now, the one where Baby B will grow up until who knows what age, is wonderful and our neighbors are good folk and many have young children. We've been involved in our homeowners association, doing what we can to keep it a nice neighborhood for everyone. (I prefer the brick and mortar approach to making the world a better place – start by healing the heart and making it happy, then the home, then the neighborhood, the city, the state, the country…and you can figure out where it goes from there.)

Unfortunately there haven't been any block parties the past two years we've lived here (except for the annual homeowners meeting). We've proposed them, but no one is interested. We get it as well though: everyone is busy enough with their lives and their families.

I have hope though that maybe next year we'll put together one of those old-school block parties, so the kids can zip around like sweaty specters until their bellies ache and it's dark enough to not light illegal fireworks on our street. Good times.

Maybe.

Happy 4^th of July, America. God bless you all.

Daddy K wonders, if it’s a girl…

Father's Song

By Gregory Orr

Yesterday, against admonishment,

my daughter balanced on the couch back,

fell and cut her mouth.

Because I saw it happen I knew

she was not hurt, and yet

a child's blood so red

it stops a father's heart.

My daughter cried her tears;

I held some ice

against her lip.

That was the end of it.

Round and round: bow and kiss.

I try to teach her caution;

she tried to teach me risk.

Daddy K wonders, if it’s a boy…

Been reading my hand dandy The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart – Poems for Men. Good times.

Changing Diapers

By Gary Snyder

How intelligent he looks!

on his back

both feet caught in my one hand

his glance set sideways,

on a giant poster of Geronimo

with a Sharp's repeating rifle by this knee.

I open, wipe, he doesn't even notice

nor do I.

Baby legs and knees

toes like little peas

little wrinkles, good-to-eat,

eyes bright, shiny ears,

chest swelling drawing are,

No trouble, friend,

you and me and Geronimo

are men.