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Dear Old Dad

What would Young Dad think about Old Dad? Young Dad: professional Alpine ski racer, multi–Emmy Award–winning sports cameraman, and documentary filmmaker—handsome, tan, rugged, jovial. Young Dad, steering the outboard motorboat to Sandpiper Island in Maine, zipping around town in his burgundy Saab, flying around the world for work. Young Dad, skillfully extracting our splinters, icing our bruises, reassuring us about hurricanes and heartbreak.

If Young Dad met Old Dad—hunched, plodding along the beach in water shoes and a straw sun hat, arguing in favor of gluing a live snail onto an art project—Young Dad would have been nice to the old guy. He would have gone out of his way for a chat. But if he discovered the old guy was him, I know exactly what he would have said: You gotta be fucking kidding me.

Look at Me Longer

I turned a corner and saw a tall, handsome man staring right at me. He wore a green sweatshirt, black basketball shorts, and white Nikes. His face was expressive, wise, large-featured. Five-o’clock shadow. A shock of salt-and-pepper hair.

He was me. I was looking into a mirror.

I usually thought of myself as a slob: Dry, blotchy skin. Big belly. Thinning hair. But my reflection was actually pretty nice-looking. I only became a “slob” when I realized who I was looking at, when I understood the mess behind the face.

The Tap Out

I want to say that when Gavin told me he would kill me, I did not believe him, though there was nothing to suggest he was bluffing: He held me down in bed, his hand on my throat, knees locked around my waist, the alcohol-induced sheen to his blue eyes suggesting he could commit to his words without much thought. But the fear I should have felt—that I had felt minutes before, when I was running around, trying to escape him—was gone. I was gone. I had retreated into what the two of us referred to as my “shutdown mode.”

Glimpses

This is how we say I love you in my family:
“I stopped the truck to move two toads off the driveway last night.”
“The walking iris has three blooms on it today.”
“On my way to work, a fox crossed the road with a mallard in its mouth.”

Missing

One week before the planes flew into the towers, I secured my first full-time, salaried job. I had applied to work for the New York City Parks Department at the suggestion of my roommate, Ethan. He’d recently quit his Parks job—not because he hadn’t liked it, but because he was, by his own reckoning, in the midst of a quarter-life crisis, brought on by the unexpected death of his father a few years earlier. Ethan regarded me as lucky because my mother had at least told me about her cancer diagnosis before she’d died. From his father he’d inherited a three-bedroom apartment on Roosevelt Island, just one subway stop and a short walk from Central Park. Ethan sublet my room to me for $667, a remarkably low rent for a building with a doorman, pool, and gym.

Glory of the Seas

A couple of years ago I moved into a retirement village and had to do some serious downsizing. My shell collection went from five shelves to two, not counting the larger shells on lone display and the dozen or so whelks scattered about.

I’ve kept a few rare and uncommon shells: the junonia, the paper nautilus, the carrier shell. I’ve also kept the ones Mother sent me from her own collection. The bleeding tooth. Shells and rocks friends brought me from their vacations. Fossils I picked up on the beach. The purple cockle half Bobby—now Bob—and I found fifty years ago. (He has the other half.) The small, ocean-battered Triton we found during his first visit to Oregon. Various turkey wings, tulips, and spirulas. The fossilized whelk.

My life story on two shelves.

Overheard While Bird-Watching

Killdeer, Charadrius vociferus
Morning, pal. Chilly night, hope you fared OK. That fat old yellow sun ought to crest the ridge any minute. Or maybe not, given these rain clouds. I’m shooting to be an hour, two tops. Cool with you? My intention is to take it slow, avoid creating a ruckus. That said, I’m absolutely cranked on black coffee, like cranked cranked, a full French press plus a commuter mug in my jacket pocket. I’ll try not to be the most annoying guy you’ve ever met, but no promises.

Zuma

When you get to your father's bedroom, you see Dad shaking like a freshly fumigated bug. Your brother is by his side on the phone, his face red and sweaty, like when he's been skateboarding all day.

Humomism

In my writing class last Thursday, Cara said it’s a shame that the word humane has human in it, as if only humans had compassion. Then Beth said it’s a problem that human has the word man in it. So we were trying to find another word. Dan suggested “humom.” Because, at our best, we are all like mothers. So maybe that can be the name of our movement: humomism.

Thievery

I was sure I'd heard our front gate squeal and rattle. We live on a tree-lined Chicago street where 6 AM on Sunday is the time for arriving home from the night shift or heading out to the early shift or, in the case of a very few early risers, walking a dog.