It feels more like round 12 of a heavyweight bout, and, by the way, I'm a featherweight. This time around I've succumb to the reality that there will be no more of this "me" business, no more pretending like I can entertain steelhead dreams and maybe squeeze in a trip up El Cap some weekend. Ha. The nice part of this transformation (that's a big word, I know, but that's what it has been) is that it turns out to be pretty darn rewarding at the end of a day, as I squeeze in a half hour–or hark, an hour!–of an HBO show everyone else saw seven years ago. Thank you, Netflix. Too bad everyone hates you now.
Yet my ambitions remain. For awhile I motivated to wake up at six and go for a miniature bike ride or run–which was great for a few weeks–then the kids started waking up with my alarm. That meant my wife was on for child care in the pre-dawn hours while I exhilarated myself in the Berkeley hills. So I got sneakier. I was a crepuscular ninja that set a mental alarm and snuck from his side of the bed, straddled the dog bed, groped hopefully for the bike shorts on the shelf, then avoided the first, second, and third squeaky boards that separate the bedroom from the more acoustically-safe dining room. The fog of the previous eve's night cap did not help, let me tell you, and by the time I mounted my bike at the end of the driveway I was on pins and needles. Too often I returned to all the lights on in the house and what I knew would be a pissed-off mommy. So much for dawn patrol.
My latest attempt at staving off a daddy gut, and a weak one I admit, has been to take my 4-month old daughter mushroom hunting with me on the weekends. I win a few points for parenting and score some much-needed exercise. Note that mushroom hunting is a pathetically slow hike that devolves into crouching in the mud and bushwhacking through poison oak. Bless that child for mostly putting up with it. At least twenty minutes of each adventure, however, is spoiled by her wailing discomfort. Who can blame her? What I am willing to put up with to serve my precious ego.
I recently had a quick conversation in passing with a couple who have four boys. Their eldest was my student for two years, and he's a piece of work. The dad–a gentle, reticent fellow–said one thing to me: TGIM. He's damn right. As I gear up for five days "off," I am not allowing myself the same kind of excitement that I once had for vacation. I am older and wiser and know that my best moments will not be neck-deep in a coastal river or spidering my way up a piece of granite. They will be much harder earned, and will amount to a tender stare from my precious infant or the sincere words of my two-year-old, who told me tonight, "Dadda, you're my friend."
