Monthly Archives: February 2007

things i’ve seen and see (i)

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i saw a little girl, once, for a few days. when i saw her last, she was swinging in one of those automatic swingers, cooing, and chewing on her hand. it wasn’t the last time that i cried, but it was the last time that i wept.

i frequently see a boy—almost a young man—working so hard at bettering himself and overcoming the trials placed upon him by peers who consider him an outsider, just because he was born somewhere else. this one is my hero.

i see a little girl, living in a world of pink and kittens, and the sparkle in her eyes holds the promise that someday, i shall wish very much that she wasn’t quite so independent.

well and health fare

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ah….me so punny.

#1 Son and i started TaeKwonDo several weeks ago. although we are but novices, i’ve been putting a lot of energy into it. i feel MUCH better and am in much better shape. my energy levels are way up, my overall attitude is better, and i guess i have some extra brain cycles to spin on stuff like this.

all four of us are doing it now. #1 Daughter and the Spouse-Unit go less frequently than #1 Son and i, mostly due to scheduling. the boy and i won’t be going as often once spring soccer kicks in, of course. never-a-dull-moment time fast approaches!

the snow is melting away now. after several sub-freezing weeks, we’ve had a few days of weather in the 40′s and even low 50′s. it’s supposed to cloud up and dump the biggest snowfall yet this winter towards the end of the week, though. neat.

this is from last winter. i haven’t had the time to do a lot of winter shots this year. i was hoping to, but it has been a nothing-goes-as-planned off-season.

hidden light

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while i was in Saudia Arabia for “Operation Desert Shield”, “Operation Desert Storm”, and “Operation Political Flatulence”, i exchanged a letter or two with The Elder and Unknown’s mother. i’ll skip the details of all that because to go into them would delve into pettiness. suffice it to say that i somehow managed to get two “Dear John” letters while i was over there: one from The Elder and Unknown’s mother, and one from the girl i was dating at the time.

i cannot recall if i wrote this before or after receiving “the letter” from The Elder and Unknown’s mother, but the name of this blog is derived from this, and this was written while i was thinking of my children in general, who at the time were just The Elder and Unknown and her brother.

entranced in hidden light

entranced in hidden light
sequestered then in silence
still the waves that fall
all our wonder in the shadows
every day that fails in moonlight
every wavering in madness
to then become the stream
fissured in the sadness

entranced in hidden fear
sequestered then in shadow
filled the clouds that rise
all our silence in the beyond
every scream that sounds in mourning
every quivering in passion
to then become the clean
missioned in the ripeness

entranced in hidden folds
sequestered then in rapture
shrill the mist that drifts
all our vision in the growing
every dark that fills the midnight
every rallying in triumph
to then become the seen
enmeshed within the rightness

every fright that chills the morning
every challenging in reason
to then become the dream
entranced within the lightness
of our minds as one
and free

~ near An’-Nu’Ayriyah, Saudia Arabia, December 9, 1990

moon children

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life can be viewed in a 21-year cycle, starting with year zero right after we are born, and with the numbers of the cycle corresponding to our birthdays. so, our 22nd year returns to zero.

it can seem a little backwards if you think about it too hard. when we turn one year old, we have completed our first year and entered our second. but in terms of this 21-year cycle, we are just at the number 1. the reason for this, is that in this philosophy, during each year, we tend to exhibit traits that we have archetypically mastered.

so zero, in certain philosophies, represents the Fool, or Fool-Child (hence the label applied to that post). it is, almost invariably, a time of experimentation and curiosity, tinged with a modicum of naïveté.

The Elder and Unknown was born towards the end of my 22nd year, so for a few weeks out of each year, we are at common points in our respective 22-year cycles. of course, i am already forty now, so in my second tromp through this cycle, i am at eighteen, which is governed by the Moon. currently, The Elder and Unknown is still seventeen, and thus exhibiting her Star qualities until her eighteenth birthday.

while i only find this philosophy an intriguing side-note, ever since she was born, it has been a continual point of consideration for me, if for no other reason than what a fool i was at the point of my life in which she was conceived. i have never, ever regretted The Elder and Unknown, but i have most certainly regretted that i could not be with her and know her and help guide her. i’m not sure i would have been the greatest parent in the whole wide world, but i always wanted the chance to try.

the Moon is, to me, one of the more intriguing archetypes on the cycle of 22. it is a reflective time, and of course, that means introspective. that is what prompted this blog, after all. but i cannot afford to be completely wrapped up in introspection, either. which is kind of funny, because the first time you hit eighteen in the cycle, the way our society is set up, introspection is often one of the farthest things from any eighteen-year-old’s mind. or, okay….at least it was for me.

okay, enough metaphysical stuff. i’ve got to get back to work.

time

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i don’t get as much time as i would like to have with #1 Son and #1 Daughter. and to make it worse, i don’t always spend the time i do have all that well. but they’re good kids.

i thought i’d also start using this space, as i get all our photographs reprocessed and cataloged, to share some with you.

i’m still using an {ancient} javascript popup window thingy that we built for MetaCreations “back in the day”, to show previews. you’ll need to tell your browser to trust popups from this site. once you’ve done that, you can click on an these photos to see larger versions. the previews are pretty large ~ large enough to print, although the formatting may not always be at a normal print aspect ratio.

these are from the Omaha Zoo ~

if i have any regrets, it’s that all my children can’t be together all the time. i think they would be very good for each other.

we have many connections to each other throughout our lives. i’ll explain why this is labeled “the moon” in the next post.

daughter mine

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one’s seventeenth year is a series of powerful moments, often distinguished more by the random influences which surround them, than by the impetus given to them at the time.

or at least, that’s how i remember being seventeen, that time-between-times. the last moments of a childhood long since denied and arbitrarily circumscribed by a society possessed by the allure of attainment.

this far into the future of my brief allotment of time, i have long since ceased wondering if anything i thought back then truly holds any relevance today.

but i know that it does.

i think upon seventeen today, as i have on so many days of late, because my daughter is seventeen. and if i could tell her anything, it would be that since there is so much more to come, there is no need to worry about what has been, or failed to be.

she doesn’t know how intimate a part of my life she has been throughout her life, because she does not know me. and likewise, neither her brother.

over one’s seventeenth year, a star shines brightly: a beacon, a wonder. an inspiration, an investment of hope in the light of uncountable thermo-nuclear reactions.

when i was but a few years younger, i wondered if she thought of me. grown less selflish now, i simply wonder if she knows that all the stars do shine for her.

i wish that i was the one to have hung them for her. maybe someday, i can be.

intro

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for the past nineteen years, i have been looking forward to the time in which the two children i do not get to raise might, presuming they are invested with such a curiosity, take it upon themselves to contact me. in both cases, i am legally bound not to contact them until they reach their respective majorities.

being a child of adoption myself, and having found my own natural parents, i am inclined to hope that they will choose to at least introduce themselves someday. i wonder how they are, who they have become, and how certain moments of passion in my youth have ultimately effected them.

in the meantime, i think about both of them often, as do my other children, my wife, and my extended family. for despite their distance and lack of contact, these two offspring of mine have been formative parts of us ever since they were born.

my mother is in contact with my daughter, the youngest of the two. i don’t like to pry, but it is impossible for me to be incurious. mom has kept us informed of some things, but like any retransmitted long-distance communication, that information is neither “enough” nor ultimately satisfying. in time, it appears entirely possible that she will want to meet us all. her half-brother and -sister are as anxious and curious as i.

so we wait, and we wonder, and i try not to feel guilty for things that i cannot change.