This is life ...
German school is over for now … more will come later but I have a few trips to New York to take care of and life things to arrange so I will cope with the German skills I have thus far acquired. I have just about gotten hold of how to get around this new city without spending far too much for things I didn’t really want. Cases in point from recent excursions: “I just want one filet of fish not a whole plate with side offerings and things” (7Euro) … “I would like a child’s serving of soup” not the 3Euro90 version. I have figured out that Landbrot is something with which to fill holes in barn walls and not a breakfast food and I have made friends with my local butcher and wine merchant. So with those vital matters put to rest I can and have placed my focus squarely on HH.
This is what life becomes when a child enters your life and you have the time to pay attention.
It isn’t that complicated really … life. It’s about listening a good bit of the time, to those around you who matter most, your lover, wife, other … your son in my case. Listening to him and spending time being with him, going to the market, letting him push the shopping cart around the store, complying when he asks me to sit with him and play airport. There are not that many days in his young life when he will actually care about whether I sit with him or not. Soon enough his focus will be drawn outward, toward friends his age, toward people with whom he can share the experience of growing up. With Papa it is not a level field. Papa is always the arbiter of what can or can’t be eaten, drunk, felt, heard or touched. It dawned on me not long ago, that I had better gather these moments … engage as many of my senses as possible in every experience we encounter together. This is my life. I have moved slowly but directly from the world of cameras and schedules and makeup trailers and the famous and semi-famous who populate popular culture, to the care and feeding of His Holiness, the little man who comes running each morning from his room, soft eyed and smelling so fresh and warm that it is all I can do not to gobble him up. God but I am happy with him in my life … I am also relieved in a strange way, that I have tasted as much of the world as I have, because I would surely miss it more … had I never known it’s full flavor.
This is what life becomes when a child enters your life and you have the time to pay attention.
It isn’t that complicated really … life. It’s about listening a good bit of the time, to those around you who matter most, your lover, wife, other … your son in my case. Listening to him and spending time being with him, going to the market, letting him push the shopping cart around the store, complying when he asks me to sit with him and play airport. There are not that many days in his young life when he will actually care about whether I sit with him or not. Soon enough his focus will be drawn outward, toward friends his age, toward people with whom he can share the experience of growing up. With Papa it is not a level field. Papa is always the arbiter of what can or can’t be eaten, drunk, felt, heard or touched. It dawned on me not long ago, that I had better gather these moments … engage as many of my senses as possible in every experience we encounter together. This is my life. I have moved slowly but directly from the world of cameras and schedules and makeup trailers and the famous and semi-famous who populate popular culture, to the care and feeding of His Holiness, the little man who comes running each morning from his room, soft eyed and smelling so fresh and warm that it is all I can do not to gobble him up. God but I am happy with him in my life … I am also relieved in a strange way, that I have tasted as much of the world as I have, because I would surely miss it more … had I never known it’s full flavor.
posted by Berlinbound at 8:28 PM
7 Comments:
Well said. And thank you for the reminder of fleeting time. I find myself too often shooing my son away to play. He wants my constant attention. I have too much to be thankful for. Today I posted about a very sick baby boy in NYC, who needs our prayers and a miracle perhaps.
Take care in your travels...
(I am still very intrigued by your past work life)
what you wrote is so true and beautiful. i wish your son reads it someday. he is a very lucky boy.
Beautifully written:) HH will always care, though I think as we grow we pass through times in our lives when we don't show it as much as we should. I've apologized to my parents for inflicting my teenage years upon them, and try to tell them as often as I'm able that I know how lucky I am to have them.
Thanks for visiting my blog, and any friend of chloe's...
awesome post.
see, I'm picking up the lingo!
I enjoy your words sir.
How exactly does the game of "airport" go?
(I have to imagine it would involve eating undercooked pizza from boxes and glancing warily at passersby.)
Thank you for the visit Latigo ... and "airport" consists primarily of playing with a small wooden aircraft, landing and taking off, and pretending we are arriving at JFK and then taking a bus to our cabin in the Catskills ... HH and I think alike in this regard - we can't wait to get back to the woods for a spell.
And to cathy, piu-piu, chloe and stephanie ... I so appreciate your taking the time to read these posts ... much less comment.
Every child should have a father so devoted. How many times in one's life does one get the opportunity to love someone else so wholly? Thank you for the reminder of what's important. And I am happy to see that you miss the other life (it sounds full hectic) less because you lived it fully. It seems backward, doesn't it? People assume you miss what you had, but I think you're right. We miss what we never had, even more. Best of luck with everything, and thank you so much for posting your thoughts, so honestly and beautifully written, for strangers like me to wander in and read.
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