Thirteen

            As I write this post, my daughter is hanging out at a boy’s house. She is 13; so is he. His parents are there, as are other friends.

            But still. I want the boy gone. Goodbye.

            I’m just not ready. I have to be ready, but I’m not. I need to father a teenager, not a child. And I don’t get a script. Parents never do, especially for the oldest.

            It seems like a heartbeat ago, we were dancing in the living room to Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire,” me swinging her in circles while she giggled and called for more. It feels like yesterday we were reading Fancy Nancy picture books together, her eyes beginning to recognize words and sentences as we turned the pages. It seems like last year she’d go to bed asking me to tell her a story, and I’d regale her with tales of my childhood, while she lay in the glow of a nightlight, listening intently.

            Now she takes her shower at nine, says a quick goodnight, sets the alarm on her iPhone, and goes to sleep. She wakes up and checks her Instagram and Snapchat, then dresses in her American Eagle finest, before munching on a quick bowl of cereal and heading off to the hallways of middle school.

            We butt heads pretty often these days. I tell her that I think she needs to broaden her friend base. I take away her phone when the device is taking place of the actual world. I encourage her to step away from the texts and Facetimes to go for walks and read books. She tells me to stop, stop, stop it, Dad.

            Did I mention the part about no script? Yes, I think I did.

            I know that if I push too hard, I’ll lose her. I also know that there are far worse things than a 13-year-old who needs to learn a few lessons about friendships and boys and the allure of devices. Much better that she learn this stuff now than later on in her teen years. But when you want to get the parenting stuff right, it’s hard to know when to pull back and when to go all-out. So, with my wife’s guidance, we pick our battles. Talking back to us? No way, Jose. Watching Dancing with the Stars after you’ve finished your homework, in lieu of reading? OK, your choice tonight.

            Asking if you can hang out at the boy’s house? Yeah, I didn’t make the call on that one, as you can imagine. But she’s there, and she’ll be home soon, and I’m sure she’s having fun.

            It’s getting harder to remember this as I climb into my 40s, but I was actually 13 once myself. And I can remember hanging out in basements with girls, playing “Spin the Bottle” while the more daring kids tried “Seven Minutes in Heaven.” That’s not happening tonight, and my daughter has so much of her innocence intact. But somehow I navigated the thrills and terrors of adolescence and came out in one piece. Why can’t I expect that she’ll do the same?

            Because she will, and my wife and I will be there for her every step of the way. But right now, I have to face the reality: I am parenting a teenager now. It’s a different Ring of Fire than the one we danced to all those years ago. But as I see the hormonal sparks and the flames of independence alight in our house, I need to know which fires must be extinguished, and which ones have to burn out on their own.

            Nothing is easy about this. But it is, in fact, what I signed up for. This is my daughter, my oldest child, my pride and joy. I don’t know the script, but I think there’s a lot in there about patience and love.

            And boys. 

Pressing Pause

When my parents bought our first VCR almost 30 years ago, I can remember looking on in amazement as they pressed the “FF” button on the machine. There was the movie, passing before me silently at super-speed. My dad used to use that feature when he wanted to bypass a love scene – he’d stand in front of the TV, press fast-forward, and let his body shield us from the (gasp!) passion taking place.

We craned our necks to try and sneak a peak. That first encounter with fast-forward seems so quaint in 2012, especially since I’m at a point where it feels as if my regular life is moving at the same speed as those old VCR tapes from 1983. From work to family to volunteer activities to errands to housecleaning, I’ve felt in recent months as if this life is moving so fast that I simply can’t keep up. Too much is happening at once; just too much.

We’ve all been there. But when we are, we might find ourselves asking a few questions: How can I slow down this runaway train and feel whole again? Is there such a thing as down time? And if I find that time again, will it bring with it the inner peace I know is out there somewhere?

In between today’s work life and home life, I attended a seminar at my school. It was coordinated by a colleague who has brought a visiting poet to our school for 10 years running. This year’s visiting poet was Michael Dickman, an award-winning and widely-published literary star. In the seminar, Dickman led a group of students and educators in a wonderful close read of a Jane Kenyon poem. But in between the lines of this poem, he kept sprinkling in little pieces of life and writerly advice. I took notes.

“If you have an intimate relationship with language,” Dickman said, “that will mean that you will have a better life.”

Later on in the session: “Really great art can make you see the world again as if for the first time. Something that can lead you to hold still for a moment and really see the world is pretty remarkable at this point in time.”

Still later: “People who write more are better writers.” And, finally, “Poetry can help prepare you for things you don’t even know are coming.”

As I scramble through these hectic hours, my legs running like Fred Flintstone in his car, something nags at me most days. It’s a simple mantra, and sometimes it whispers in my ear, while other times I don’t even hear it.

Sit down and write. You’ll feel better. It makes you whole. 

I don’t write poetry like Michael Dickman does. I’m a prose guy, but that doesn’t matter. Everything I heard this man say today resonated clearly with my own living and writing self. It brought the whispers to a louder volume – and, if only for a moment, it got me to hit the pause button for a while.

So here I sit, putting some words into this blog for the first time in a month. Perhaps there will be another one soon after. Perhaps some other writing as well. In the springtime, Michael Dickman sometimes writes poetry while at baseball games. He roots for the Tigers – of both Detroit and Princeton. We talked about baseball for a little while after the seminar. Poets tend to gravitate toward this sport, which unfolds in both a narrative and lyric manner.

I told him that I write a blog about baseball and life. He scribbled down the web address. I thanked him, and left him with the teens who had wonderful questions to ask. I drove home, popped in a Johnny Cash CD, and tried for a while to press play instead of fast-forward. It felt right; I think I might try it again soon. And you know, my dad’s not standing in the way anymore, with the remote in hand. I can experience the passion all for myself now.