Author: Jason Zerbey

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Playing With Poetry

It’s a mystery to me why I stopped writing poetry in my twenties.

I’m sure drinking had something to do with it. But that’s not enough. It was part of a process that had been working in me for years. An intentional repression of my empathetic self.

Poetry worked against that process. I learned that to excel in the art I needed to be open to emotions, mine and others’. I had been walking away from that deep well of emotion for years and wasn’t prepared to change my course.

In my last semesters before leaving college, I took more poetry workshops than were allowed. I worked the system to spend more time on the one thing that brought me value in the university.

In doing so, I started writing about a secret in confusing ways. I had bottled it up and needed to share, but it wasn’t all mine, so my poems became increasingly opaque.

I don’t yet have the courage to write about it.

I played with words today, like I did when I was young. I still feel the block. I still feel that secret holding me back.

These feelings emerge as I remember that April is National Poetry Month. This used to be a big deal in my world.

I wasn’t looking for a new challenge, but I believe one has found me. I’m going to publish poetry every day for the next month. It’ll be bad, like the wordplay below. I’ll write until I can’t contain that ancient secret any longer. I’ll write until I produce that poem I promised Mary when we were dating. I’ll find the words I need on these magnetic tiles until I can form my own.

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How Much Freedom?

I have found that every time I create more freedom for my sons, they take it further than I expected. They push me out of my comfort zone and challenge my assumptions, inspiring a desire to take that freedom away.

I try very hard to see that as my fear and not project it onto my children. I look for ways to empower them within their new found freedom. A tracker is not a neutral thing, it is a message to your child.

No judgment and no advice, just a call to consider what messages we want to communicate with our children.

Situational awareness and some self defense training make an individual much less likely to become a victim. A tracking device may offer a false sense of security that leads the child unprepared into unwelcome danger.

I always return to a couple ideas. One, there is no “safe,” there are only degrees of risk we are willing to accept. Two, what parenting strategies will most benefit my children as they become adults.

I feel that the danger they put themselves in will teach them more than an excessively safe childhood will. With practice, they will come to master their own boundaries and have no fear when it comes to pursuing their dreams. This is what I hope they gain from a free range childhood.

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A Connective Weekend

A single parent can’t build a lasting relationship without the consent of his or her children.

Patience and trust are all I can bring to the process. If my young sons don’t want a certain person in their lives, I don’t have the will to force it.

We’ve gone through a variety of missteps in the last two years. Sometimes it feels that more has gone wrong than right. It’s through this series of storms that I can now recognize how bright the prospects are with a new lover.

We all camped together this weekend, me and the boys and my partner and her daughter.

It was seemless. The kids made friends at the playground and carried on for hours. When we denied a request to turn our respective family tents into “adult” and “kid” tents, they not-so-clandestinely fell asleep together in a hammock.

Disclosure:  The links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

The next night we all piled into one tent and closed the evening with a goof game of Cards Against Humanity: Family Edition. We’re all clowns and, even though we were exhausted, we played past midnight.

The morning brought rain that exposed a compromised roof and soaked a good amount of our gear. Undaunted, my partner and I closed up camp while the kids slept in and entertained one another. The challenge of adversity with new people was the perfect ending to an otherwise effortless weekend. I’ve found a partner who wants to work, play, laugh, and enjoy all the moments together. Our children have found kinship in each other and tentative bonds with the new adult in their lives.

It has been a perfect few weeks cultivating a romance that not only works for our children, but gives them room to thrive. We’ve each worked hard on ourselves to get to a place where this is possible. I don’t know what mystery is behind the comfort that our children are experiencing, but I am eternally grateful for it.

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Camp Dinner

Red cabbage, potatoes, onions, and garlic in the fire. Dogs and s’mores over the fire.

We’ve hiked, played, and laughed all day. We are a hungry bunch.

There’s nothing like being out here.

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Outdoor Therapy

As much as I love camping with my wild childs, it is so much more fun to share our traditions with new people and try new rhythms.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

We hit a piece of somewhat random gold while playing around with s’mores variations.

Two Tate’s Gluten Free Coconut Crisp Cookies sandwiched a Wondermade Lavender marshmallow and a Justin’s Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup. The flavors played delicately off of one another and my s’more craving was completely satisfied.

The kids are now full of sugar and giggling the night away as the grown-ups savor the dying fire.

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Digging for Courage: A Year On

I created this category at the beginning of the Lockdowns. I knew in my gut that our approach was wrong. By this time I had poured over studies out of China and Italy and the notoriously mishandled German case falsely creating the asymptomatic spread narrative.

I was too angry and fearful of backlash to communicate clearly and focused on why I was feeling that way. I wanted to find the courgage to be a positive firce in the world. First, I had to get my own emotions in order.

I tried to establish a yoga and meditation routine, but that wouldn’t take until I started Wim Hof Method breathing and cold shower therapy.

I dug into my fears and released them. I came to accept a deeper truth for myself, that social interaction was paramount to my spiritual health and the learning lifestyle that I had crafted for my sons and myself. I reached out and found those friends and family who had similar intuitions and we started spending time together. I made new friends who also valued living this life to its fullest over adding grim days to it like prisoners tallying their lives in chalk on a grey wall.

I reached out to my small business owner friends to support them and assure them I would be there at the door when they were allowed to open.

I started a soccer team, even though I had sworn off managing weeks before.

I focused my energy on creating a better world.

I’m still there, but I’ve also got a happy warrior inside who wants to mock the madness. I’m a trouble maker and those who would continue to halt life deserve some trouble. And seriously, the memes are too good not to share.

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On Friendship

Could friendship also tear the State apart? Is Ron Paul’s Love Revolution possible? Can we dissolve the State’s monopoly on violence through fellowship and comraderie?

It sounds fantastical, but I have experienced the simple miracle of Good Friends. When people come together to listen to and provide each other’s needs, they no longer call for the force of government to take resources from one to feed another.

This episode of The Tom Woods Show scratches the mystery of friendship and offers several resources for digging deeper (links below).

My life has been transformed by loving friendships. I underestimated the power of these relationships for a long time. Now I wonder if this Love is so close to the perfect Love of God that it carries the strength to move populations out from under the yoke of governmental power.

There is much to mine here.

Friendship seems too to hold states together, and lawgivers to care more for it than for justice; for unanimity seems to be something like friendship, and this they aim at most of all, and expel faction as their worst enemy; and when men are friends they have no need of justice, while when they are just they need friendship as well, and the truest form of justice is thought to be a friendly quality.

-Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics

The Tom Woods Show: What is Friendship (and Should Politics Interfere?)

Disclosure:  The links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. 

Books mentioned:

Books by Tom Woods and Gary Chartier:

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That Post-National-Single-Parents-Day Hangover

My friends have used more colorful language, but let’s just say that my single-dad dating life has been “active.”

I’ve had romantic relationships with a divorced mother, a divorced woman with no kids, a woman with no marriage history nor children, and flirtations with women in different family structures. If nothing else, I’ve avoided a pattern. Through mostly wonderful experiences, I’ve avoided repetition and made a cornucopia of mistakes.

Now I’m here, building a relationship with a single mom who was never married. Our children are close in age and this is a new set of circumstances for us both. We love what is happening between us and share a healthy amount of terror when it comes to each other’s children.

We’ve passed initial tests of not being abhorrent to these little humans, either in our own personhoods or within the relationship. There even appears to be a fondness shared by all parties involved. Hopes are running high.

We are hyper-aware of the stakes. We’ve each seen our children treated well below what they deserve by romantic partners and it is a challenge to balance being on guard and showing grace.

Our children are young enough to need strong adult role models in their lives, yet we each battle against our stubborn single-parent habits of self reliance. Our respect for each other’s space in this regard also runs high. No one wants to step on toes, kids and parents alike.

We’re still ourselves. The children are all likable (Thank God) and there seems to be abundant space and time for these complex relationships to grow into their natural forms. One struggle is that my partner and I are not patient people, we see the good things that are coming and want to pounce. We care for these children and want to squeeze them. We’re supporting each other and constantly talking about not moving too quickly.

I feel in a good place. We talk a lot, all of us. None of us are especially shy about our feelings and that helps. We’ll know if something isn’t working. We all want the others to be happy and safe, there’s a positive vibe. We’re also a bunch of clowns, jokesters, and pranksters. Our time together is mostly filled with laughter and clever jabs. It all feels right.

We’ll continue to work on taking things slowly and, most importantly, listening to our children. God brought our families together for something good. We’re intent on preserving that good and I can’t wait to see where we go from here.

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National Single Parents Day

A good friend sent me this and I seriously needed it.

My sons were full of piss and vinegar tonight. I kept my cool, but it made me sad and tired. I miss having someone to hand off to when my energy gets that low.

But I got hugs and kisses and realization right before bed as they saw how worn out I Iooked.

That’s when I get positive about a new day and busy week ahead. I know these little Tasmanian devils love me and that we have great adventures ahead.