WEEKLY WTF
06-17-24 Edition
Human BEing
You are the result of the universe f*cking around & finding out.
Adversity
In nature it’s not the smartest or strongest or most attractive that survives…
Airport Monologue
Do you think about death? Afraid to fly- your face a disguise? Peel the layers of perception- here’s a look from behind my eyes
Father’s Day
Happy Father’s Day all you Mothers! Happy Father’s Day to this fella with the gunslinger glare, my Dad. There’s this thing we call RBF which stands for “resting Boland face” It was passed down from my Dad’s Dad, eyes of blue so faded they sometimes seemed nearly white- like viewing the sky through a thin cloud. Then to my Dad who can sit for hours, monk-like, staring intently at the invisible swirls of Tao pulsing underneath observable reality. Then to me, a look quite handy for growing up in a violent shithole much in the same way that butterflies who have eyeball patterns on their wings dissuade predators. Finally to my kids. My Son can bore a hole through your soul if he so desires and my Daughter will catch your heart on fire if you hold her intense Sirens gaze. Looks can be deceiving though. Despite our genetic disposition for looking seriously pissed off all the time we are quite gooey in our middles.
It’s funny how our regard for our parents when we are kids sometimes bleeds into adulthood until such a point that you yourself have kids and you think, fuck, this parenting gig is hard. As Father’s Day approaches I tend to think about all the ways in which I could have done better. I’m away at work half the time, I have been all their lives and still am. I really believed at the time that it was the best I could do for them so that they wouldn’t have to grow up poor or in a shithole themselves. That may be true but I can’t help but feel the lack. As they are about to fly the coop I mourn for all the lost moments that could have been. I’m not one prone to looking at negatives but my kids are like massive emotional gravity wells and I find my heart is constantly orbiting them and so I see both the side that is lit up by my love but I also see the shadow of my absence too. I am in what feels like a cold, distant but loving orbit around them and they likely don’t even know the strength of it and may never know it unless they produce their own little meat planets around which they find themselves inescapably but delightfully bound in an orbit that will never decay.
Dad, neither of us have an easy time saying those tender things we feel inside but I want you to know that I feel your orbit like a moon that pulls upon the very waters of my own self regard. Strangely, at times, when I look into myself I see you in there like moonlight reflecting on the still pool of my soul. I know you may feel that you too are in a distant orbit but my position in the cosmos depends, in part, on the silent mysterious gravity you exude upon my trajectory. A calm quiet planet that I always feel and always know exactly its location in the sky of my inner life. A twinkling beacon by which to navigate and an integral part of the constellation of Boland that continues to expand through this strange and wonderful universe of experience. Love you Dad.
