Fearless...

You have been given the most sacred of gifts/
You must be fearless now...
Dan Fogelberg, Icarus Ascending

The older two of our three will be heading to camp next week.  It'll be the first time they've been away for that many days, that much time.  They're excited.  I am too.  I'm also sad, because it'll be the first time they've been away that many days...maybe summer camps are also for parents, to help us start getting used to when that time will come...when those days will arrive...

And so, here in a minute I'm going to say Hey, why don't we go out tonight to that little pizza place we all like, you know the one downtown?  I'm going to say that because I love those older two, as I love their younger sister who is ecstatic that next week she'll be an only child and doted on as such.  I'm going to say that because I also love their mother, my girlfriend, and I can only imagine she is filled with the same excitement...and sadness.  And so, lord willing, we'll go later today and sit in the little place with the wood burning oven and diner-like-downtown-chatter...and as glasses clink and dusk eases upon us, we'll talk and wait and pass the time as a family, all together, all five, for now, for this day, for this much time...

Quite often the words happy or unhappy are too small for what I'm experiencing...the intensity of what I feel is best described by a phrase from Yeats - a fierce, terrible beauty...when the sheer presence of those around me leaves me a man undone.  That is what's going on inside me this day.  In moments like these there is always the temptation to hoard and stay indoors and worship safety's illusion...trying to hold on to what I have, save time in a bottle.  But that is fear, not courage.

And so I'll pitch the pizza idea sorta like that pitcher pitched his game earlier this week, knowing that someone or something can always step in with a bad call and derail my desires of a perfect evening. To pitch, to father, to husband, to write, to live, to love...fearless.

Yes, Ernest, the world is a fine place and is worth the fight...and pizza helps.