18 July 2009

18 July 2009

She complimented me. I know it's not as though she never does, but this time it was for my writing, something for which her praise means so much to me that, ironically, words fail me. I do acknowledge that if I could do it all day every day I would without a second thought. Nothing focuses me more. Nothing calms me more. Nothing makes me feel more whole. I'd say that I can't describe it, but I can. That's the beauty of it. This is a world I understand, and, to a certain degree, control. I am able to freely express myself, uninterrupted, undistracted, and unhindered by anything but time.

Post Scriptum
I hate having to spank my son. It is the one thing that draws me back to my childhood more than any other. It is in those moments that I am most afraid of being like my father, or my mother, for that matter. And it is in the wake of those moments that I am most critical of myself. I think of all of things about myself that remind me of him.

My typical response has been to discard the proverbial baby with the bath water, but I now realize that certain of those inherited gifts, namely that of writing, are not polluted by association as I had allowed myself to believe. Rather they are mine to explore and enjoy.

I don't have to fear that I may be compared to him. I am my own man. I don't have to fear that I may alienate my son as he did me, or that somehow I will become him by some psychic transference during the act of discipline. Sometimes the little guy just needs to be spanked.