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Dreaming Alone

I was telling myself a story. The same story I’ve been telling myself most nights for more than thirty years. It’s a bed time story I needed to tell to get to sleep. It gets away from me and dramatizes my inner- and intra-personal struggles as I sink into sleep. I’m usually late to see the signs, but I’m getting better at receiving the wisdom.

It’s pretty weird right now. I’ve been pulled into another world by the tentacles of an inter-dimensional leviathan, a monster made of reckless psychic energy. I was possessed with power enough to slay an enemy and almost destroy my friends. The creature carried them off, leaving me in a landscape lit in a sickly reddish-pink glow, as if cast by a fluorescent Budweiser sign. I was alone with one eye wounded, a double-headed axe chained to my arm, and nothing but horizon before me.

Weeks later and little has changed. One night, buildings appeared only to topple on faceless victims. My vision has improved and I’ve transformed the prosthetic weapon into my own wings and claws. But nothing else will appear, not the leviathan, not my friends, nor any new enemies. I’m looking for a fight and all I get is loneliness, or at least aloneness.

Maybe that’s it. When I met Mary I could contentedly sit at a bar and read and write on my own. That’s how she found me on our first evening together. I wasn’t sure she’d show for our meeting, so I found a little light to read and drink by. She was late, but I’m not sure I noticed.

Now I’m here at a pub we frequented, drinking water, writing a blog post, and waiting on no one.

All is right in my world.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Waking Up

I love myself.

I approve of myself.

All is right in my world.

I am change.

I am safe.

I am happy.

I am healthy.

I live with ease.

I am filled with lovingkindness.

I start most of my days with thoughts of gratitude. I think of people first, often the ones I find most challenging to find peace with, then I turn to the things and circumstances in my life that make it amazing. I thank God for the obstacles and the tools He has given me to overcome them.

Then I spend time stretching and saying the above affirmations out loud. I concentrate on breath and the feelings in my body as I hold each stretch through the affirmations. I listen to myself, both my mind and my voice, as I speak each sentence. I let them guide my intentions for the day, show me what I need.

Meditation can be difficult for me. When I began regular practice months ago, I used music and a 13-minute timer to help clear my mind of the usual morning clutter. I let go of the music in the spring to let birdsong in the windows and eventually dropped the timer as my affirmations developed and I added stretches and muscle work.

I don’t get to it everyday and have yet to find a routine for our road trips, but I practice more than 20 minutes most days. I’ve also added occasional yoga classes as I’ve observed improvement in my physical state and desire to dedicate more time towards caring for and improving my body.

I want to thank Hunter Clarke-Fields for starting me on my affirmations. I found her at the beginning of my positive parenting quest and she got me speaking out loud about what I wanted for myself and my children. After reading Louise Hay, I modified the affirmations to fit my personal journey. I also want to thank the folks at Yoga U, the intensity of the classes has been invigorating and refreshes my mind, body, and spirit each time.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Patience and Voluntarism

I’m proud of my son for getting back on the mats at Elevated Studios this week. He’s been mentally wrestling with attending class. I’ve tried to have patience and remember that if I force him to do a thing, that he’ll eventually hate the thing, me, or himself. I’ve asked him questions and attempted to find a way to help him train again. I can’t say anything I did or said got him there. He’s always some mystery to me.

For all that I don’t know, I am confident that letting him make these decisions is the right path in allowing him to develop as an independent individual.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Under Cover History

We’re not the kind of unschool family who doesn’t have any rules about bed time. I try to get my sons in bed at a reasonable hour whether we are home or on the road. That said, if they wish to quietly read, I will usually fall asleep before they do. One of my greatest joys is to get up in the night and see them passed out in their books with the lights still on.

Books are everywhere in our lives. It’s not just a messy obsession, it’s my intention to surround them with the resources they crave when curiosity strikes. When I straightened the sheets at the end of my younger son’s bed, I had to capture what I found.

The graphic novel editions of Moby Dick and Treasure Island are key tools in how I introduce my children to classic literature. When language is challenging, they have these images to help them through difficult vocabulary. Skyscrapers is from when I was curious about a college course that didn’t fit into the “plan” I was supposed to be following. Another failure on the part of institutionalized education that brought me to the learning lifestyle. The essential oils guide is our latest acquisition as we explore plant-based holistic health and apply our curiosity in a most valuable way. Paddington connects me to my youth visiting England and embracing those stories as part of my heritage (as well as my English, non-author, great-uncle Michael Bond). The Little Prince is an oddly wonderful library book that both sons are working through. Sniglets has been mine for ages and I don’t know why. The action hero guide has also followed me for years and is a garden for feeding their imaginative play.

These moments remind me why I have this crazy assembly of texts. They remind me of the car repair manuals, Calvin and Hobbes collections, and Joseph Campbell books I dove into as a child looking for the secrets of the adult world. They remind me why I make extra space in our lives for reading and don’t dictate when, what, nor how it is done (although library books at muddy campsites set my teeth gnashing).

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Wild Little Zerbey Adventures

I’m sure there are other single dads who pick up their sons’ friends and take them to museums. I’m sure there are other dads who invite more children along to vehicle capacity. I’m sure these dads would later get their sons to jiu-jitsu, pick up burritos, and head out to a Friday night production of Romeo and Juliet.

Some of these dads may even take a walk to spend a quiet moment with a historical landmark plaque and remember a dad who couldn’t be with his children tonight.

I’m not sure any of these dads would find a new labyrinth on that walk or a flat tire after three hours of Shakespeare.

A friend stepped up to the 11:30pm rescue call and I got my boys into bed by 12:30. They’re champs. I didn’t drag them into any of it, we were all on our seat-of-the-pants game today. I’m continually blessed by these fireballs.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Back to the Labyrinth

I think about Mary every day. It’s hard to wake up in a king size bed she bought and not look across the emptiness of it. It’s hard to collapse into that bed before sundown and remember how much easier it was to simply get dinner on the table with her help. It is hard to look at my sons and wonder why they had to lose a mother who loved them completely.

As I push ourselves to new places and heightened experiences, I get these moments in the ashes. The phoenix cycle: mental, physical, and spiritual destruction followed by a bursting forth of power. It gets easier to recognize, but more painful to experience. I wonder if it will ever stop. I wonder if I want it to stop.

The primary course of the hero’s journey is within. To enact that process through ritual in the physical world helps make sense of it. I’ve walked the Labyrinth at Delaware Art Museum dozens of times. I’ve received knowledge and comfort each time. I need those on this Summer Solstice. I’ll have my boys as well as friends of theirs who have lost their father. I’ll have a dear friend on my mind who lost her husband a year ago. I’ll have so much weight when I step to the entrance of the Labyrinth today. I’ll shed it on the path in, I’ll strip myself down to what is good and right and beautiful in Creation. I’ll sit at the center and thank God for His love and this treacherous road that has let me love myself more.

I may be there for a while today.

I’m always lighter on the way out. Maybe I’ll be on my toes. Maybe I’ll skip with my younger son. Maybe I’ll get a devilish smile and dream up some glorious quest to launch. Maybe I’m already on my way there.

God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason

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Summer Magnolias

Mary was mistress of the seasons. Winter was classic: sledding, snowmen, and snowball fights. Fall found her sporting a near maniacal smile, leaf blower at the ready. Spring was planting, planting, planting… Summer may have been when she was most alive: splashing and digging with her boys at Cape Henlopen, checking out bartenders with girlfriends in Dewey Beach, tending all those spring plantings, prepping endless piles of veg for me to grill, picnicking at Brandywine River Museum of Art, and lounging at Winterthur while our sons played and made friends.

The first official signs of summer in our house come from a giant magnolia tree dominating our front yard. In late May and early June the massive blooms appear. However sparse they were, Mary loved them and would always bring one inside to further beautify our home.

The blooming seasons have expanded since her passing and there seem to be more flowers each day this year. It’s a sign of the love here, getting bigger and more colorful.

There’s another special magnolia in the Copeland Sculpture Garden at Delaware Art Museum. It too appears happier than when it was first chosen to memorialize Mary.

I used to grumble when Mary insisted on taking fresh cut flowers in water to a campsite or on a seven hour drive to a family reunion.

But when I saw our magnolia blooming just before our latest adventures, I knew I wanted one to join us. My elder son suggested the perfect receptacle and I, once again, figured out how to pack an open container with flower and water. Mary’s magnolia was vigilant in keeping our campsites fresh and beautiful over the last two weeks.

Her love is amazing.

God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason

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Solo Dadding at Mountain Jam

This one was intimidating. Assumptions had crept in as I planned and envisioned our spring and summer adventures. I expected to have more support, a co-parent, to teamwork on grand excursions. I thought things might be getting easier. After 16 months of having my parental assumptions repeatedly blown up one would think that I should be used to this; or better yet, that I would give up on assumptions and the future. But I can be a slow learner.

Cap the dissolving of expectations with waves of grief and a busy unschool schedule, and I wasn’t feeling up to the task of four nights of festival camping. Especially since this music festival, Mountain Jam in Bethel, New York, would feature bands that had significant ties to memories of my late wife, Mary.

Screw all that. I have slept in tents since I was an infant, attended day-long festivals since I was a preteen, survived the riots of Woodstock ’99, logged thousands of hours alone on the road with my sons, and honed my situational intuitions over those many hours. I set my back straight and climbed into our Dodge Caravan with confidence.

The road smoothed and eased before us. The trip was shorter than expected. Somewhat miraculously, an online friend spotted us as we drove by her camp site and hollered. The rain came down and the van got stuck in the mud, but, with help, we got the tent up and had ourselves set for the first night of music before sundown. We continued to find the right people at the right times. Friendly staff and volunteers, helpful young people, generous vendors, fun and engaging performers, and very special families made for easy going days and nights.

Above all, I was reminded of how good my sons are at this. They made friends, charmed adults, and carved their own unique experience out of the weekend’s offerings. For my own part, I simplified personal obligations and expectations, enjoyed as much music as I could consume, and let myself have a whole lot of fun. We stayed up late, danced and played recklessly, and took care of business when circumstances called for it.

I came away from the weekend with my shoulders back and my head high. Our story seems impossible, I saw that in many faces as I told it to new friends, but there is an immense power in mastering an impossible task. Or just in taking it on and failing, as I have many times.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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#TBT Delfest 2018

This is a story that needs to be told.

Dustbowl Revival was on our Delfest radar before a friend’s recommendation put them high on our priority list. We got to their set late due to Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band’s epic performance, but lucked out as they charged into the crowd and joined us in the cheap seats.

Isaac chanced into the front row with a tiger’s blood water ice and soon-to-be-cousin Tony’s leather hat.

The lead singer took notice and traded hats for the grand finale. Isaac’s smile conveys more than I can in words.

After that we just had to go to the meet and greet.

The band was exceptionally cordial and everyone signed Isaac’s shirt. It’s usually a sleep shirt and I have no idea why he was wearing it. Only just now do I realize the Delaware connections to Aldersgate United Methodist Church and some fine 5k sponsors, not the least of which is McCrery and Harra Funeral Home who handled Mary’s memorial arrangements with the highest care.

All of our learning is woven into what we’ve already learned. This small moment in our lives would not have been possible, or at least not as grand, if not for so many strands laid down before it.

I’m grateful for the big, crazy patchwork of a life we have. Our world expands even when it feels like it may have contracted.

Not one thread can be taken away. We can only add.

God bless,

Jason

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Bold Healing

“You know, I think this just might be the best summer eva.”

This declaration of a widower to motherless children may seem ludicrous. Maybe I have more confidence and chutzpah than I have any right to, but my ten-year-old responded with an easy, “Yeah, Dad, I agree.”

Summer’s not even here, yet we’re between road trips, on our way to a four-day music festival, and getting ready for my sons to appear in two Shakespeare productions, a jiu-jitsu tournament or two, and innumerable Delaware events.

I’ve been asked how I do all that I do with my sons. My first thought is that they’re not mine. They’re beautiful individuals who are stuck with me as their caregiver for a time. I feel a responsibility to not just prepare them for the world, but to launch them on mini quests into it. It is eternally challenging, frustrating, exhausting, and fulfilling. Their ability to navigate difficult situations rivals most adults I observe. They’ve had a crash course in unfairness, yet know they can make this world better by exploring and mastering it.

So, yeah, I think we’re looking ahead to the best summer eva.

God bless,

Jason