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It’s always intense here. Whether it’s fun, difficult, loud, quiet, angry, sad, focused, scattered, adventurous, or laid back, we seem to swing the pendulum as far as it will go.
Today was a rainbow of intensity. Early ups with cousins, off to jiu-jitsu, good-byes to family, long hike with friends, fights over lunch and screen time, a high-stakes South Phillyopoly game, collaborative dinner prep, more screen time fighting, and a post-dinner movie of surprising weight: The Man Who Invented Christmas.
As the movie tells it, Charles Dickens was of two minds. A giving and tireless lover of children and a man darkened by his creations. I’m no Dickens, heck, I’m no Dan Stevens, who brought the historical figure into pained relief on the screen. But I saw the monster rise up in the man as it rises in me. Taunted by the things he could not overcome in himself, or would not directly face. I think my sons saw it as well.
Jekyll and Hyde, the Incredible Hulk, this story isn’t new. But putting Dickens at the center, surrounded by books and characters, and a story fighting to be written put it right in our laps. We’re writing this story and taking power away from the past, taking the pain away from it and making it hope. Using freedom from the past to write today’s story, to lift a burden, and to make the world better for it.
Thank God it’s gotten easier to self publish since 1843.
God bless,
Jason