Father's Day (Part 1)

Christopher Robinson soars up into the gathering twilight, afloat on angel's wings and without an earthly care. And, when gravity exercises its inexorable domain and he begins to descend, Christopher feels even less afraid...he knows his father's strong hands will catch him before any harm comes to him.

Christopher Robinson gurgles happily in the soft leathery expanse of his father's hands. Jason Robinson, for his part, holds back warm, soothing, laughing tears that always come unbidden when his baby smiles.

As the sun slides down beyond the burnt orange horizon and the night sky cools from blue to black, Jason Robinson looks up at the gathering stars and back down into the open, trusting eyes of his son.

Jason lifts his son up to the endless expanse of the night. "Behold," he says feeling just a bit self-conscious but imagining that his voice carries the authority of James Earl Jones, "the only thing greater than yourself..."

Jason smiles at his own hubris and brings Christopher back down into a protective hug. The baby gurgles happily again, sharing feelings in a language that we all come into the world knowing but which is forever lost once the words and concepts of humankind are forced upon us.

Jason walks up the stairs of his little house and sits in the rocking chair on the porch.

As they rock, Christopher snuggles against his father...listens to the comforting rhythm of Jason's heart...and drifts into a dream world beyond adult imagining.

As they rock, Jason smiles and thinks about his father.

"My boy is gonna be something," Eli Robinson always said to anyone who would listen. "Not a goddamn truck driver like his old man, but something important!"

Jason never knew what to say when his father said things like that...he hadn't even been sure what it meant...but it always stayed with him.

"You're gonna have a good life, boy," Eli had told him often. "Find yourself a good woman like your Mama...make some babies...be somebody important...a good life, you hear me?"

Well, Dad, Jason thought wistfully, I'm one for three so far. He continues to rock his slumbering son and smiles contentedly. Maybe...just maybe...that was all that was important.

He looks up to the night sky once more. "Happy Father's Day, Dad."

...and they're off!

I am not now...and nor shall I ever be...a serious gambler. But for a few short weeks in the summer I do love the ponies :-)

The thoroughbred horseracing season at Del Mar...where, as Bing Crosby croons in the track's theme song, "the turf meets the surf"...opened this past week and today was the first of several Sundays where I take time out to enjoy the ambiance...the excitement...the relaxation...of the "sport of kings".

The week's humidity had calmed down but the short trip north (it's just a 15 minute drive from where I live) to the soft shores of quaint Del Mar led to even more comfortable air to breathe.

I love the feel of this racetrack...the cool sea breezes wafting in from literally just yards away, the majesty of the glorious animals running with controlled abandon, the cheery camaraderie of the people (the serious gamblers and the casual fans alike...for two minutes at a time, all of us are focused in one gloriously thrilling wave of energy on the huge animals being guided by tiny people in gaudy garb.)

I lost more than I won this week...but the victories were more sweet than the defeats were sour...and I had a grand time. And next Sunday, my partner-in-crime Miguel and I will go back and do it again. It's a gentler madness.

And now, having used my Sunday thusly, I return to work...work to be completed, chapters to be written, bills to be paid...ready to take it all on with a lighter heart.

Blame it on Harry Potter

I just realized that it's been over a week since I last posted here.

I blame boys in novels...mine and J.K. Rowling's...for the absence.

I've been working on my own novel...a very personal story based loosely (very loosely...it is not autobiographical...except for the parts that are) on a specific series of events from my childhood...and have spent the last two days reading the latest Harry Potter tome (about which more here) and have had scant time to linger in the blogosphere as a result.

It's a strange and wonderful thing when words...the ones flowing from you and the magical ones woven by others...take greedy chunks of time with nary a care for whatever else you might want to do :-)

I come up for air...the city, wrapped today in sheaths of debilitating humidity and in seemingly endless waves of political turmoil, conspires to shake my concentration...and immediately look forward to (done with Mr. Potter for the nonce) to diving back into the sea of words trying to turn into Soul Deep (the working title of my novel.)

Perseverance furthers.

and above all...

The sudden deaths in London...like those in Iraq and Israel and any and every place that death comes on sudden, violent wing...could sap our will, make us surrender to fear. But they will not...they cannot...

Above all...in this brave, wondrous, occasionally terrifying world...we need to hold on with all of our puny mortal might to something which keeps us striving forward.

And above all...when the echoes of yesterday and the storms of today and the portents of tomorrow conspire to assault the gates of our emotional fortresses...when they seek to raze the fields of our flinty courage and sow bitter weeds of fear and discontent...we need something that will stand firm in the most daunting of circumstances.

And above all...when the night is cold and the children within us scream silently into the darkness...when the children within us cry plaintively against the numbing fear that reason cannot allay...we need something to shine a light, a light to fix on and... dance with...until the next golden dawn.

And above all...even as the years weigh us down with cynicism and grief, heartbreak and too much (or too little) knowledge of God, Man, and the expansive, all-encompassing Universe, we need something beyond truth...something greater than wisdom...some even more wondrous than love...or faith...or charity...to keep our spirits high and our passions in perspective.

And above all...when the world seems to be spinning out of control...when "right" and "wrong" are concepts seemingly beyond our reckoning...when the spark of life seems to be just outside of our grasp....we need something to stoke life's flame and lead us further down the road toward a bright forever.

And above all...we need hope.

Happy Anniversary

One year ago...on Monday July 5, 2004....I started blogging with a short, innocuous post (see here) which was quickly followed with a recap of a visit to the local County Fair (see here.) Time really does fly when...well, you know...

I'm not exactly sure how many posts have been presented on this site since that beginning (Blogger's stat-thing stopped counting at 196 some months ago) but there's been a bunch of them...short stories, sprawling serials, vignettes, the occasional photo, meme, or poem, tributes, personal asides, experiences, and observations, some navel gazing (including answering one of the Proust Questionnaires and later writing "roughly 950 words" about myself), even some political stuff early on (I stopped because there are plenty of others doing that more passionately than I could or would want to)...some more interesting than others but all having some merit (at least to me) when they were published.

I doubt that many people were reading this blog for the first few months (I didn't join any services like Blog Explosion until January of this year) but I wrote for it regularly just the same. It was, as I said in the first post, a way of keeping focused on my writing (Bread and Roses had an earlier incarnation as a self-published literary journal which had a small but loyal subscription base.)

Looking back through the archives, it's been an intriguing, often engaging experience. I've discovered interesting blogs (all of the wonderful sites on the blogroll on the left and many, many more as well), been cheered, charmed, and challenged by comments, and have basically had a grand year.

Onward to year two...who knows what I/we will discover in the space in the days and weeks and months to come. As a wise man once said: perseverance furthers.

Namaste, y'all (and thank you very much for your kind attention.)

This Land...

I've roamed and rambled and followed my footsteps
through the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
and all around me a voice was calling
this land was made for you and me...

On its birthday, we consider then America. America the beautiful. America the bold and the brave. America the brash, the ugly, the glorious, the foolish. America. Your America (for in a pervasive...some might say perverse...way, there is a measure, however small, of America in each of us regardless of nation of origin or allegiance.)

My America.

Forged in a crucible of blood and sweat and tears. Blood and sweat and tears spilled in the name of peace and freedom and justice...in the name of love and hate and progress...in the name of glory...in the name of faith and adventure and Manifest Destiny.

Blood and sweat and tears spilled in the name of divine right and divine retribution...in the name of the almighty dollar...in the name of an almighty God.

Blood and sweat and tears spilled from sea to shining sea and many, many points beyond...from the hallowed shadow of Plymouth Rock to the venerated depths of Pearl Harbor...from the desperate chill of Valley Forge to the unspeakable fire of Ground Zero...from the bloody fields of Gettysburg to the battered streets of Baghdad...

...from California to the New York Island
from the Redwood forest to the Gulf stream waters
this land was made for you and me...

We consider then America. A boisterous, preposterous, amazing, tumultuous, undeniable child-state (229 years being a brief season on the sprawling timeline of great nations) loudly playing out its bright hour upon the stage.

I embrace and treasure America...unabashedly but not blind to its shortcomings...for all that it is and all that I hope and pray it can and will be. For it is...in all of its glories as well as all of its foibles...it is mine. And yours. And ours.

And for my part, all that it is in deed and in spirit...all that it has been (in moments both glorious and infamous)...all that it can and should be in the unknowable future...is as much a part of me as I am a part of it.

...well the sun came shining and I was strolling
through wheat fields and dust clouds rolling
and voice was sounding as the fog was lifting
saying this land was made for you and me...

From a cynical optimist (and a patriotic cynic) to all of my fellow Americans: Happy Birthday, y'all :-)

"This Land is Your Land"
words and music by Woody Guthrie
(c)1956 Ludlow Music, Inc. (BMI)