Anticipation

At Versailles, we had to wait until 3:30 for them to turn on the fountains. We weren't the only ones waiting. Despite no lack of things to see, everyone around us was stalling. Sitting. Chatting. Wandering. Checking watches. A sort of unsettled impatience. The kid sat down and played with rocks.

The fist round started at 3:20 causing a new commotion, flittering movement, hurried paces towards the preferred viewing spots. The kid jumped up and sprinted--ignoring parental pleas to wait up and slow down--toward the dog and deer fountains, bending over the ledge and nearly diving in head first.

The announcement came at 3:30, with fountains bursting, finally giving a sigh of relief on this hot day. Pointing, smiling, shooting cameras, running to the next fountain to take in some more.

In our town, we had to wait the better part of three months for any rain. Grass was brown and dry and cars were covered in pollen and sap. I'm not sure anyone has really missed the rain, but there's just a general sense of urgency in recognizing the need.

A thunderstorm came slowly rolling in Saturday night. The curtains by open windows blowing violently, and the darkened sky darkening our house too. You could hear the commotion outside: wind in the trees, people talking loudly and hurriedly, rushing home, motors of cars and pizza delivery bikes sounding stronger and faster than usual. A dad running with the stroller to take cover. Frantic looks over shoulders. Pointing. Closing windows. Securing things on the balcony. Watching. Waiting. Not so much the calm before the storm, rather, the storm before the storm.

And eventually those big raindrops started falling, giving a sigh of relief in this dry town. The smell of rain hitting asphalt drifted in through the remaining open windows as everyone settled for indoor evening activities.

It's that thick sense of anticipation then relief, the suspense and release, the expectancy and resolve, the inhale and the sigh.

Of course, today, I'm speaking allegorically.

Worth it

Ikea's running a deal right now. Buy their smallest, cheapest couch and get a free clubhouse. Of course, like all their products, some assembly is required.

Checking in

I was probably a freshman in college. I went to a church that had a serious coffee bar in the lobby, serving lattes for everyone who wanted one, which for that time in the middle of Indiana was somewhat of a progressive idea. They deliberately didn't put carpet down in the new sanctuary so they wouldn't have to worry about spilled lattes.

One Sunday a guy got up and talked about a trip he was going to be taking. He played a song on his guitar and it was a mesmerizing little thing.

He played at Taylor's union shortly thereafter, and I ran sound. A guy on my floor recorded it for his little operation that he was calling something or other "bootlegs" and I listened to that CD-R pretty frequently.

Over my four years there, there were plenty more opportunities to see Josh play, and it was always enjoyable. One time Nate and I were rehearsing with a drummer at the church, and Josh spent most of the time skateboarding around the (carpetless) sanctuary. I wasn't sure which was more cool: that we were playing music that was good to skateboard to, or that skateboarding was allowed in the sanctuary.

Those were fun days.

Anyway, I've checked in on him off and on since then, and just found this nice little composition:

Mason Jar Music Presents... Josh Garrels

(Speaking of which, this little collective called Mason Jar Music seems like something definitely worth checking out and following...)

I've also been reading about his new album, releasing soon, which will be available for free download on his website if you're interested.

If you're intrigued, you can also watch him entertaining a bunch of 10-year-olds, which, because there is still a spot in my heart for 10-year-olds, I absolutely love.

"Just Doin' Your Thing" - Josh Rosen & Josh Garrels

Death and Resurrection for Toddlers

The kid only ever wants to read two stories in his Bible: the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ. I am awfully reluctant to overspiritualize something like this, and so, I believe the reasons include the following:

The crown of thorns. It was February or March when he strayed from the playground into some flower beds and ended up tripping. His face landed on a rose bush and the thorns left several fairly deep scratches on his cheek that started bleeding right away. It hurt. We cleaned him up at home, which stung in its own right, and finished with a few band aids. We read the story by chance the next night, and when the crown was mentioned he immediately interrupted: "Thorns? Thorns? Hurt my cheek! Ouch!" as he pointed to the illustration.

Boo Boos. Relatedly, there's a picture of Jesus with a few "boo boos," and each time without fail it's, "Lotsa boo boos! Put a band aid on it! Needa band aid!"

The soldiers. He calls them "shoulders." What boy doesn't like them? Especially when they're the ones that get to roll the rock. Which brings us to the next point.

The big rock being rolled. The kid loves rocks. And this is a big one. And it gets rolled twice. And maybe it's the words "rock and roll" that help too, because he has "rock and roll" pajamas that he loves. The other day we went to hear a guy at the library playing some blues music in English. The kid was soaking it up, probably because it's the first he's heard English in public for quite some time. He was listening to the lyrics really intently and repeating any familiar word he could detect. When he heard the guy sing, "like a rolling stone" he got really excited and exclaimed, "Rolling stone?!? Like Jesus?!? Rolling the big stone away?!?"

Mary running and jumping. Each day we ask him, "What did you do at school today?" Like a nonchalant teenager who gives a trite answer just to blow off his parents, each day he has the same response, "Ummm...running...and jumping." The kid loves to run and jump, apparently. And apparently so did Mary after she found out Jesus had risen from the dead.

Lately he's been into asking if various people "like" things, like his own little survey or something. When he got a new toy piano, he went on, "I like pianos. You like pianos? Mama likes pianos? Uncle Wes likes pianos?" So tonight, when I tried explaining that Jesus carried his cross and died because loves us, he continued the train of thought, "Jesus loves you? Jesus loves Mama? Jesus loves Banjo?"

Then finally, his ears perked at a different part of the story, where it says Jesus cries out to his "Papa." He interrupted: "His papa? Nate his papa? Nate? Like you, papa?"

Well, that's enough to put a lump in your throat and realize just how big your responsibility is in so many different ways. Thanks, kid.

My staggering response was something like this: "No, no. His papa is God. Your papa is Nate. But God can be our papa too, and he's a much better one than I am."

Maybe the story fascinates simply because it naturally evokes so many questions. If we talk about this guy all the time, why is he dying? If he was such a good person, why is he killed? And who is his Papa?

On one hand, a two year old who has cut his face on a thorn bush and rolled stones can understand it. On the other hand, it leaves an impression that, well, something bigger is going on here. I guess it reminds me of something Roger Ebert said about a movie I liked: "A good story for children should suggest a hidden dimension, and that dimension of course is the lifetime still ahead of them."

If there are things here "into which angels long to look," surely it will capture the attention of a childlike spirit too.

War Scene

I've been trying to wrap my head around that imminent day, that impending moment that will arrive like a thief in the night in late June. I'm not predicting the rapture, I'm referring to the labor.

I asked a friend about it recently. He told me quite simply that it would be like a war zone.

I realized then for the first time that I have never once heard a man talk about what exactly went down behind those hospital doors. It's a mystery, almost as if it's never happened. Repressed, denied, ignored. They might be the toughest patriarch you can imagine, but all dads are unnervingly silent about that event, indeed resembling something like a shell-shocked soldier returning from war, unable to talk about his experience, wrestling the rest of his life with post-traumatic stress syndrome.

It's an uncanny metaphor.

déjà vu

First, a French lesson: déjà vu means "already seen."

Not even a year and a half ago, I was unexpectedly building a crib in my house. My father-in-law helped.
A week ago, I was building a crib again, in some ways expected, other ways not quite. This time, an-almost-three-year-old helped.
I try not to think about my life too much. It's a little insane. Not that I have any complaints, not at all. A guy like me just has a tendency to hyperventilate with things like this, that's all.

touché

Wesley made a perfect, loving spoof on some of the videos I've been making, reminding me that--as long as these two are living there, anyway--Hellertown has just as much charm as Paris.

Oh, Lake

I still love you. Stay weird.
Haven't found a record store yet to buy your new album, but I hope to someday soon.
When will you tour Europe? See you soon?
xoxo.

LAKE "Within/Without" from Howdy Friend on Vimeo.

These Movie Theaters are Strict

E and I went to our first movie together the other night. We saw Woody Allen's latest, Midnight in Paris, which was a good bit of fun. There's plenty I could say about the whole night, but I will leave you with just this short anecdote.

The man who took our tickets, if I understood his French correctly, gave E a strict order before entering:

"No giving birth in the theater!"

How To Buy A Car in France

1. Do the research. Narrow your choices.
2. Contact the person with the car and set up a rendez-vous.
3. Let your wife test-drive, carefully because the owner is in the car with you, and try to act like it's all no sweat even though you've never driven in this country, you haven't driven period in 4 months, and you haven't driven stick in several years.
4. Call two days later and tell the person you want the car. Have them agree to hold it for you.
5. Wait several days for money to be deposited into your US bank account.
6. Wait another week for the money to transfer to your French bank account.
7. Go to the bank to ask for a bank check. Have them tell you to go to another branch.
8. Wait three days for the bank to be open again, go to the new branch and ask for a bank check. Have them tell you to go back to your original branch.
9. Have your director call the bank since you don't know how to yell in French yet.
10. Pray before going to the bank for the third time...I'll learn this lesson eventually, but it always seems to help when the system here keeps slamming doors in your face. When you arrive, have the manager greet you at the door since he got a call from headquarters about you. He'll order the bank check right away and explain everything you need to know about car insurance.
11. Spend the day trying to make sense of car insurance in a second language, comparing, searching for the best option.
12. Go back to the second bank on the next day to pick up the bank check.
13. Fix the rendezvous with the owner for when she is free, four days later. Give her the phone number to your bank so she can make sure you're not trying to give her a bad check.
14. Invite the couple selling the car into your home to sign the papers.
15. Hope your car doesn't get vandalized or stolen during the night and call the insurance company the next day.
16. Three weeks later, you can drive the car, carefully, because you still technically don't know how to drive in this country, but it's still not technically completely yours until you go and get your very own title in your name, which is a whole beautiful process of its own, involving even more forms and even more photocopies...

Now that you've gotten a taste of this ordeal, I'll spare you the details on that part of the process and call it quits here (unless it turns out to be awful or embarrassing).

The good news is: we can drive to the grocery store now, and when Erica goes into labor, she won't have to walk to the hospital.