to those few (hello?) who tuned in regularly, my apologies. life has been busy, what with the new job. i have been a cog in this daily grind to produce viable relevant instruction for my expanded family of kids...

tonight, today, i exploded at my own two children. i arrived at my kids' piano teacher's house (my father had dropped them off). my son had just finished his lesson; he'd had a good session, largely because i sat down with him for a couple of hours the day before struggling through his pieces. but when i asked to see his homework, i was unpleasantly surprised to discover that he hadn't done a major assignment, and i hadn't even been aware of it, because he had forgotten to bring home one of his homework folders detailing the assignment since monday. i was also disappointed by the note from the teacher asking us to have a talk with him about his focus in class. now, the issue with my son's attention is nothing new; we have been struggling with it over the past year, and recently, have been seeking professional assistance in coming up with a name for it, a diagnosis to give this amorphous problem a border and a handle. but it still was upsetting for me to hear that it was cropping up in a new classroom...

and then, when my daughter came out of her lesson, i learned that she hadn't done a thing all week: no theory, no significant work on her pieces. that was the straw that broke the camel's back. i had been devoting a large amount of my attention to my son's piano playing, and had taken for granted that my daughter could handle things on her own, and i came to discover that she hadn't been practicing all week...

...so, i blew up. i don't know how else to describe it. came up with irrational punishments in the car ride home, including selling their precious ds's. this totally broke their hearts, and they were crying all the way home, moaning "no, daddy, no."

like the fifth little pig...

and i, their merciless butcher.

***

it is now almost midnight.

i had a long talk with my son, after he cried at the discovery that his ds was gone. no, i hadn't sold it, and i don't intend to, but i did take it away from him. i actually shouted (bastard that i am) about how he wasn't supposed to play it on a weekday anyway, so why was he missing it? of course that wasn't a placation of any sort. my son couldn't stop crying, his voice sounding like the fractures of some huge glacial wall... and i, i was this inevitable manmade environmental global disaster, called bad fathering.

eventually, i took the discussion to his bedroom, and, somewhat realizing the error of my ways, tried to talk in gentler tones. i learned from my son that his counselor had been talking to him about something called an ILAC (no doubt an acronym of some sort) which was like his heart, and how every time he was hurt, a piece of it broke off. mortified, somewhat knowing the answer, i asked him if i had ever caused pieces of his ILAC to break off. he answered yes...

i felt so terrible after that. i apologized profusely, tried to explain (inadequately) how much i loved my son, tried to explain how sometimes a father has to push his children in order to get them to stand on their own, and sometimes (out of inexperience or perhaps a lack of control) he pushes too hard. i tried so hard to explain myself, but i wasn't sure who i was trying to convince, or what i was trying to say... in the end, i was just left with this gnawing guilt. i am still chewing over it now.

i promised (inadequately) that i would try not to yell, that i would do my best to build up my son's ILAC in every moment that i had with him. at this point, he confided in me that one of the things that caused his ILAC to grow were his "jajas," his teddy bears, that he always held close to his heart when he was sleeping...

***

my son, i realized, has inherited the best characteristics of both my wife and i, and this is what is destroying him, leaving him vulnerable to the viciousness of this world.

when i was young, i kind of had this sense of empathy for all toys. i felt that they, like all children, like myself, were vulnerable. they were intended to be happy things, they were imagined to be happy things, but ultimately, they were subject to the whims of a world with a short attention span and a cruel and fickle heart. in response to this secret understanding of the nature of the world, i took it upon myself to love some of the toys under my care with a heart that was undying in its loyalty. i held onto "owlie" (my one eyed, sleepy, water-bell owl) and "donald" (donald duck with a mean and vicious sewn up scarred neck) to show a love for them that i knew did not exist in the world for those who deserved it, for myself... we may have slipped through the cracks, but in the sewers, i would hold onto these rejects (a reject myself), and rebuild a society, alligators in the sewers (ala radiohead's fog)...

my son has this same inherent empathy for toys, toys on the brink of being broken and forgotten. he, like me, has this understanding of the fragility of childhood and innocence, how the world paints a face upon it as though it is the happiest thing and time in the world, when in fact, in reality, childhood is a toy that is vulnerable to the whims of an attention deficient and largely uncaring world of "grown ups." it is the grown ups that are the children, fickle and immature. i had always known that, and i know this still, perhaps acutely so, now that i have become the enemy. but my son knows this truth just as well as i, and he lives it every day.

it's no coincidence that my son's favorite movie is "toy story 3", and his new favorite hero is woody. it's because the movie aligns with his basic philosophy about toys/children on the verge of being forgotten, toys/children who the world takes for granted as being happy and mindless, but who live out a day-to-day struggle to hold the attentions of the "children."

my son is a very caring child. he spots the outsiders, the least among all, and actively shepherds and cares for them. his heart is big, and populated with all of the forgotten denizens of the universe...

***

why is this world so narrow and cruel? there is a one-way path with a rushing current of an escalator floor, and we must shove everyone on it to move to- where? i try to stand aback and question it all, but the ground beneath my very feet is moving, the whole world is shifting and jerking with the speed of our momentum, and if i am to give my children a place in this world, then i, like everyone else, must push and shove...

there is no room in this world for gentleness, for peace, for idle chatter.

or so it seems.

***

i told my son that his heart, his ILAC, is the most precious thing in the world. i told my son that i would learn to be careful about it, that i would try my best to find ways to allow it to grow big and strong. it is a difficult promise, but it is one that i must strive to fulfill.

i hope someday that he can grow to have the heart that i should have had, had i NOT grown up...