Dad Brain

 The days rub together until all the rough edges are gone, their frictionless freight smooths the involutions on my brain and, when I speak, I do so in the clipped empty utterances one uses with an interlocuter who clearly isn’t listening. I start talking and just sort of hope the wind is going to finish my thought. It’s not a problem of articulation because I start talking without even having an idea of what I’m going to say. The issue is that once the words would rise up to meet each other, like birds leaving a telephone wire. Great starling murmurations of thoughts and plans would come swirling out of my mouth. Now, the first few incoherent words: a bird flaps off, scooting into the air, looks back and sees she is alone in the great yawning sky. 

 

I wonder if it’s because I don’t write much anymore. Until about 19, my speech was so choked with popular references—in particular, The Simpsons—that I scarcely noticed that what I came up with on my own was less significant; really just verbal glue that held the references together. My personality communicated itself through those references, if people caught them, they laughed, if they didn’t, they thought me eccentric. And then, all at once, I got tired of watching TV. Maybe the quality of the programming had changed, or maybe it was that, as an adult, I was no longer limited to the house. I wandered into the world, and I did so in such an uninformed, curious way, that the world gifted me with experience and stories. I was like the proverbial fool whom God watches out for.  

 

The role of tv references in my conversation changed to stories: the time I slept in the dumpster, the time a homebum almost stabbed me in a late-night taqueria, the time two skin heads almost pushed me onto the El tracks, etc. etc. Instead of connecting situations in my life that paralleled something funny that happened to Homer or Fry, I connected moments to each other and, because I was moving around a bit, and spending my time with different people, I like to think the stories weren’t dull, or self-absorbed for the people who had to listen to them—but who knows. 

 

Writing helped me refine the stories. I was writing so much for school, that I’d gotten in the habit of sitting in cafés and hammering away on a laptop. It was work, but it was recreation, too. When finals were coming up, I’d bring a stack of books into Thieos Diner and write notes, term papers, etc. When finals were over, I’d take a few walks for a change of pace, but it was cold in Lansing in the winter, and, I’d eventually find myself back at the diner writing, but without term paper prompts to answer, I started writing stories. 

 

I tried some fiction. One of the first I liked was a very Salinger-esque story about a kid who takes his date to Taco Bell, not to eat so much as to just hang out in an “ordinary” place. The date, predictably, isn’t into this plan, and harangues the protagonist for not having enough interest in the things they’re supposed to like. 

 

I can’t find the story, but I’m sure it was terribly translucent. The date was an obvious foil to reveal the benefits of doing things differently and having a too tender relationship to the world. The protagonist, was meditative, slow, and sad. Which was how I felt most of the time in those endless Michigan winters. It wasn’t a bad feeling, but maybe I romanticized it too much. 

 

The story ended with the kid going home after having a potentially break-up-level disagreement with the date; he feels little, but becomes almost happy when an unnamed cat jumps onto his lap and allows him to pet him/her. The story let the reader to wonder about whether petting the cat could provide as much satisfaction as talking to a human, provided the human was disagreeable and the cat, agreeable. 

 

I couldn’t write that sort of thing anymore because that slow, and sad feeling has left me—I almost want to say deserted. What was once my impetus to write and connect and flesh out the pieces of my life, changed to low-level anxiety after I had kids. And anxiety, low-level though it may be, does nothing for the writing process.  

 

So, other than when something exceptional happens, I don’t sit and write those feelings anymore. And then there were the years—really years—I spent writing cover letters, teaching philosophies, and answering essay questions in less than 500 words about my experience teaching. I think I got sort of enamored with the idea that I could write a cover letter just the right way and change the direction of my life (I mean, I was applying to jobs in Massachusetts—I know very little about Massachusetts, but I once wrote myself into a job interview there—which I declined). Only now do I see that I was using these applications partially as a way to give purpose to my writing when I couldn’t find it in previous methods. 

 

Now, when I’m not clocking ten emails an hour at work, I’m at home, wrangling my kids, trying to stop them from screaming, or from getting hurt. Sometimes, I think I’m going to do something else, like work in the garden, but I have to realize over and over, that when I do anything I’ve only shifted the burden of their care onto my wife again. I feel bad enough just going to work every day, I can’t make her do all the discipline, food prep. and careful explaining during the weekend, too. But you’d be surprised just how much I do. I still haven’t learned how to do two things at once. I’m either just standing there—empty-headed—at the park, or I’m frustratedly trying to vacuum, or replant the amaranth, and tell one of my kids: “don’t, no, hey, watch out!” Either my wife gets the kid out of my way, or I postpone the task. How the hell she manages to do anything while I’m at work, I have no idea. 

 

Yet, she gets more practice, so she’s a little better at multitasking. She’s even learned the subtle art of talking to other adults at the park without letting the kids fall from dangerous heights. In my case, either I’m listening to you, and my kid is about to start wailing any minute, or I’m saying “don’t, no, hey, watch out!” and you’ve gotten the message that I’m a lousy interlocuter. 

 

Well, let me tell you, idly chatting parent, I used to pepper my conversation with witty Simpson-isms; I once had a great story about a guy in Boystown who kicked out a plate glass window; I used to feel sad, and slow; I was more than “don’t, no, hey, watch out!”. I can only hope that, some day, I will be again—not so sure I want the sadness back, though. Life feels much less profound without it, but I like being able to turn my happiness on just by smelling my kids’ hair even if I can’t explain why, and I know that the day will come when they’re not going to tolerate this anymore. I guess, then I can go back to feeing sad, if there’s anything left. Until then you're lucky to get “no, hey, don’t, be careful!” Even those I get mixed up sometimes.