Heather Ray what day am I on? 1. I just finished the 20th book in Patrick O’Brian’s acclaimed “Aubrey/Maturn Series.” If you saw the Russell Crowe vehicle “Master and Commander” you saw snippets of at least three of those novels. I’ve been reading them slowly over the last 6 or so years, maybe longer. Now having finished the final completed work, all that remains is the published, but incomplete, work, “The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey.” They are, when I’m not lost in the world of Marvel comics, my escapism of choice. I have yet to tire of the intrigue, sea battles, and nautical terms that, like Stephen Maturin, I have never fully mastered. It’s as close as I’m likely to get to actually going to sea any time soon. My mother tells me that I may have salt water in my blood. Legend has it, if I remember correctly, that my grandfather lied about his age to join the Merchant Marines while waiting for his 13 year old girlfriend to ripen into marriageable age and become my grandmother. I may be taking liberties in my interpretation of events. I find myself most able to pray, most at peace, by the ocean. This isn’t new, half of my friends would say the same. This is the New England coast, after all, not Kansas. I flirted with a medical ship job during college, but it did not meet with the approval of my mentors, and following my less-than-pragmatic dreams has never been my strong suit. But that’s a story for another therapy session. For now, I have volume one of the Horatio Hornblower series to take me back to sea. I’m thankful for the ocean, and for a good story. 2. We’re not really a sports family. My son seems to have inherited my kinesthetic prowess thus far, God help him, and my daughter is a dancer, not a baller, at least this year. But baseball is for everybody. Nerds love the numbers, jocks love the athleticism, and I don’t know anybody who can’t enjoy a cool evening at a ballpark. Minor league ball is even more universal, because it doesn’t require choosing between saving for college funds and having a drink. If you’ve never been to a AA level game, you owe it to yourself. Tell them I sent you. While on vacation, we took all of the kids and my parents to a Portland Sea Dogs game. As the youngest and oldest in our group started to tire, we split up and I stayed with Bruce and Gillian to watch the last two innings. At first I assumed that they were just looking to be the big kids, and staying up late with Dad is a rite of passage not to be missed. As the game progressed, and the younger brothers were no longer there to stage major Daniel Nava Bobblehead Offensives, I was amazed to see a 7 year old and almost-9 year old follow every popup, long fly, and single for the last two innings. I could almost hear the voice of James Earl Jones explaining something very important about the meaning of life underneath the roar of the crowd of maybe 3,000 attending a Tuesday night game. I’m thankful for the chance to enjoy that with my kids. 3. I’m sure I’m not the first father to feel this way, but I have mixed relationship with the color pink. The pink swaddling blanket we brought my daughter home in is a celebration. The “pink aisle” in any store’s toy section is terrifying. Like so many others, I wonder about the division of “boy stuff” focusing on strength, and the “girl stuff” only regarding beauty, because that doesn’t accurately represent the world I find myself in. My daughter is disabusing me of some of these concerns. As the sister with three brothers, her pinks and purples are a triumph and mark of the individual. She is dresses and cute hair things and brains and ass whooping. She stands outside the stream of hand-me-downs from her older brother to the younger two, instead getting her own clothes imported from far-away cousins in exotic locations like… Maine. Pink as punk rock. Pink as a warning. Pink as a Jolly freaking Roger. I don’t worry about telling her she looks pretty in her tutu and tiara, because I know that later in the same day I’ll be congratulating her for winning a game of cards against her older brother or parents, completing her computer programming assignments, or reading a thousand books above her grade level. I’m making my peace with the pink, and I’m thankful for the 7-year-old girl who is teaching me about it.
Posted on: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 02:06:54 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015