The Best Pre-Parenthood Christmas

Having just experienced my first Christmas as a parent, I have decided to write about my favorite Christmas prior to the arrival of my son but after my leaving my parent's home - the period of time in between, where my wife comprised my entire immediate family.  I meant to post this on Christmas Eve but stuff kept coming up.  You know how it is.

2009

The small town of Seven Devils had received more snow than anyone had expected. More than a foot had fallen in the week prior to my arrival at the cabin my parents had rented. Still, not thinking to check any of this, I decided to drive my front-wheel drive 1997 Ford Taurus up to the mountains.

As a graduate of Appalachian State University, I figured I knew how to handle some snow and, what's more, that same Ford Taurus had survived my years as an undergrad at ASU.

When I arrived at the entrance to the cabin driveway I had a choice: the driveway was a gravel path down a steep incline into a large, mostly level ground on which rested four other cabins, culminating in one direction with a sharp drop and a spectacular view of Grandfather Mountain.

I knew that my car could handle to drop down the hill, steep as it was, though the snow on the ground was packed thick. It was noon and ice wouldn't form until later in the afternoon. I drove, slid rather, down the slope without any incident and, feeling cautious, parked my car some distance away from the cabin, to avoid having to drive up another slope to the front door – I didn't want to risk becoming stuck.

The Ring

The ring came before Christmas, intended for Christmas, but my wife couldn't wait and, seeing her own excited impatience, neither could I.

Enchantment, 16 Oct 2005 – undergrads at Appalachian State, the wind seemed to howl its disapproval as a classmate knocked on the door to my small, student-apartment. I'd just stepped out of a hasty shower, having thought that I would spend the Sunday alone, but at that point scrambling to put clothing on, to look presentable.  The rest was crashing through the assumptions and safety of others - setting a small piece of the world alight.  We decided upon what we wanted and we let nothing stop us from going to it - could we have been less devil-may-care?  Likely.  Would we, being who we are, have done any differently even in a thousand different chances?  Less likely.

Devotion, 16 Feb 2007 – as my wife's endometriosis stabbed inside her abdomen, something that wouldn't be diagnosed until much later, we sped toward downtown Charlotte from her parents' home on Pineville-Matthews Road. We'd been engaged for mere months, a formality, really.  Admonitions of family rang without consequence: warnings of regret for not having a church wedding, too soon, too fast.  My impending father-in-law drove fast and I scrambled to keep pace, nearly rear-ending him in the process.  My wife and her mother had to remove much of their jewelry for the metal detector as it pealed their threatening natures upon their entering the courthouse.  The judge was disheveled, his robe still slightly open from a visit to the restroom just prior to our arrival.  I'd change nothing.

Creativity, 25 Sept 2011 – we wouldn't learn until later how close I came to being a single father, or without any family at all.  The explosions inside the eyes of my wife as she was told not to push, not to allow anymore stress to reach our still unborn son.  Her breath exploding from her mouth in heavy, frustrated exhalations - almost shouts of air.  Our son's gray and wobbly body removed.  My wife's screams of desperate anguish as soft-spoken Doctor W reached in, up to her elbow, digging for the placenta that was torn to pieces.  The post-delivery surgery.  My son in the NICU.  The damned nightmare beauty of it all.

They sleep now next to me - my son's tiny arm curled up onto my wife's chest, his small head resting on the inside of her elbow.

The ring that could easily have been memorial.

Re-evaluating Christmas

For myself and probably many other North Carolinians, and maybe many Southerners in general, it just never felt like Christmas this time around.

The weather leading up to the 25^th was consistently balmy and wet and a permanent, barely-there haze seemed to persistently blanket the ground.

Life was also doggedly determined to be busy, full of sleep-deprivation and other various stressors that are too personal to mention.

My wife and I usually listen to James Taylor at Christmas - our very own Christmas album - one that we found on our own, not inheriting from the listening habits of our parents.  The album was released in 2006, only one year after my wife and I began dating, and so it has a special meaning for us.

This year, we realized on yesterday, we did not even listen to one track on the album.

Granted, we did bring out Aaron Neville's Christmas album, a favorite of Becky's father, but how could we have forgotten James Taylor?  His folksy, oddball takes on Christmas standards had become one of our holiday traditions. 

Though I'm an atheist, I love Christmas.  I see no reason why I can't enjoy a holiday that is, for me, just as much about family, Winter, and tradition as it is for others about the birth of Christ.  My parents were generous in handing Christmas traditions to me and my siblings - ornaments for each of us every year, a trip to Boone, NC to pick out a Christmas tree and, later, to rent a mountain cabin in which to spend the actual holiday.  The Nutcracker and A Currier & Ives Christmas were our musical standards in the James family.

We didn't even watch A Wish For Wings That Work (a deliciously neurotic and thoroughly wonderful tale) this year - though that was only due to my own reticence - maybe because I all ready felt out of the Christmas spirit before the holiday even arrived.

All of this malaise-induced Scroogery has led me to wonder if I should re-evaluate Christmas as a whole.

I'll be 27 in January, I have a son who is only 3-months-old, and he has rightly taken over the roost insofar as being the center of all holiday excitement.

I'd hate to think that I'm simply becoming too old to be excited about the holiday season, and I don't think that's necessarily true, but it becomes harder to find a culprit to blame for my lack of merriment.

Then I think that it's something in me that's holding back the so-called spirit of the season.

Distraction.  Preoccupation with trying to pigeon-hole my childhood experiences into current Christmases.  A sudden lack of interest in gift-receiving.

At what other time in an adult's life is it OK to try to relive childhood delirium aside from Christmas?

I think that I can have that delirium if I perhaps stop forcing myself to try to feel what should come, and probably will come, naturally if I simply allow it.

My birthday is in less than a month - let's see if I can avoid neuroticizing it.  I know that's not a word.

Shows Becky and I Have Watched Together

Becky and I don't watch a lot of television, that is to say, we don't have cable or local channels and haven't since 2007. It's not that we don't watch TV shows, we do, we just don't watch TV. This is partly due to my vicious hatred of commercials and, well, most advertising, and the fact that we don't have time.

That said, Becky and I have realized that some of the most distinct memories we have of the homes we've lived in are of the books we've read, TV shows we've watched, and video games I've played while there.

Highlands Apartments, Boone, North Carolina – When I moved to Boone to attend Appalachian State University, I moved into University Highlands Apartments on the Highway 105 bypass. Initially living alone, I met a nice girl named Becky whilst a student at ASU and she eventually moved into the space with me. A science-fiction fan for most of my life, I had never indulged in Star Trek.

It's a great book, but don't take his word for it.

Becky, meanwhile, had been raised on Star Trek: The Next Generation, watching the show with her mother with religious devotion.

Soon I became enmeshed in the world of Picard, Riker, Worf, sometimes Guinan, and the lot. The show, created by sometimes-Shinto Buddhist, Gene Rodenberry, was a classic science fiction morality play full of peaceful resolution, heroic action, tolerance, and other things which made The United Federation of Planets an ideal place in which to live, and Starfleet a badass place to work.

Not nearly as campy as its predecessor, at least once the first episode came and went (Deanna Troi in a Starfleet skirt), the show took on a darker tone once conflicts with the Borg began.  Still, the show stayed true to its heart, and Data, the non-emoting android, even got an emotional implant chip and learned the value of human swear-words.

The Narcissistic Personality Inventory

Not necessarily diagnostic or even definitive, the inventory (created by the famous Dr. Drew) does seem to be at least a half-reliable barometer of self-perception.  Culled from the good Doctor's experience dealing with all type of celebrity washout, the inventory contains 40 items, each with two statements (A or B).

Most interesting is that the inventory does not treat narcissism as so much a complete negative as a fact of life with varying degrees of focus: exhibitionism, self-sufficiency, etc.

If you're going to take the inventory, do that first before reading the rest of my blog.

Starting Again All Over Again

I could see the adrenaline and fear pumping through Josh. I thought he would never be able to sit down again. I wished he would cry, either with me or while talking to his own mother. He hadn't cried since the hospital, and I knew that, even beyond his heart and mind, his body needed that relief. That white rock, which looked like it would have come from someone driveway or a border around a small, decorative tree, had seemed to bring with it all of the losses and near-losses in Josh's life, and maybe all the mistakes and guilt too, as it cracked the window of our bedroom just above our infant son.

Once More Into the Breach

The above excerpt is from my wife's blog which is here on Blogger.

At the beginning of December 2010, my wife and I were living in Monroe, North Carolina in a tiny but happy little half of a duplex.

Later that same month, we relocated to a massive, two-story house in Laurinburg due to a change in my wife's career.  The house was a cavernous structure built in 1910 for a family of seven - in May of 2010 the last of those children had passed away, leaving the house to her nephew who, living in Minnesota, charged a realty company with renting the home.  We never did finish unpacking.

On 5 May 2010 my wife and I discovered that we would be having a baby boy.

Later that same day I was informed by my employer, a school district located in the Piedmont region of the state, that my contract would not be renewed for the 2011-2012 school year.  Since August of 2008 I had been a high school English teacher - no more.

My wife and I realized that without my income, we would no longer be able to afford the house in which we were then living.  Once again, it was time to move.

We found a much smaller house, a two-bedroom/one bath home, one block over in the same city with the same realty company.  With our extended families performing a good deal of goodwill grunt work, we relocated in July 2010.

Mentioned at the beginning of this post, a rock whizzed through our bedroom window at that previously mentioned residence.

Within a week, we were navigating awkwardly through stacked boxes at our new apartment in the city of Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Somewhere between the assortment of relocation, Becky's mother remarried and our son was born.

The Living Is Easy

A recent Fall day was spent in the state of "Summertime."

First it was Anne-Sophie Mutter, the unexpected strains of Porgy's Charlestonian agony - a black man in the heat of the South - lilting out of a purely German violin.  Oliver looked at me, his stone-blue eyes lolling about in his decidedly overwhelming exhaustion.  He cooed as though the music coerced him to do so, emitting his happy whispers in an almost secretive tone - to say "ooh" too loudly would give everything away and would spoil his enjoyment.  He allowed himself to smile before his eyes became cool slits among puffy pink clouds of chub.

Miles Davis?  Those buggy-eyed admonitions were too hot, too too hot for this cold day.  Oliver's clothes were just a bit too tight and Miles Davis was just a bit too excited.  His high voice is fine but for a baby it is anything but childish.

Billie Holiday.  The instrumental genesis of her version begs the sight of swaying hips in some predecessor of Technicolor.  It made Oliver smile.  He can't dance, he can't stand, he can't even crawl.  I can't dance, that is to say, dance well either - but he gave it his own.  His diaper ground against the multi-threaded padding of his crib.  He cackled, his belly shook with the promises of soon-to-come laughter.

I fashioned some of the lyrics into my own - "your daddy's unemployed/and your momma's good lookin'".  Honestly, though, I'm more employed now than I ever was as a high school teacher.

I am a homemaker, dear friends, and I am in love with my love, my son, and with music.

My Best Self

Here I am.

This is the part where I've covered quite a bit of ground and I try, in this moment of relative silence, to find my best selves.

In a way, I believe that even though there is only one physical self, each moment of my life has been lived by a unique self – a self that can never be totally replicated in all of its attributes but can be remembered and, if worth remembering, modeled.

It sounds almost metaphysical but I really believe it's simply a tidy way of examining life.

Let me go back a moment.

I don't generally examine my life. I do examine almost all else.

My interests, some of them passions, range from genealogy to video games, from science fiction to the social sciences, from poetry to basketball to Buddhism. It's a helter-skelter hodgepodge of pursuits and this tendency extends to my taste in music, films, books, etc.

It is distracting.

Yet in all of these pursuits, and all of these interests, I rarely, if ever, take the time to journal or keep a diary, even to simply try to capture a few key moments of each day. My life has gone by as a series of sparse and garbled spiral notebooks, digital camera images, and half-digested memories.

So now it falls to me to try to find an example of my best self. A self worth cataloging and, most importantly, worth emulating.