Pax Plena

Category: Parenting

  • The Calendar

    My Son’s summer reading calendar.

    My life is run by a calendar that I do not control. Yet, it’s also one that I cannot resist. I think for many fathers out there, shared custody is a lot like this. We navigate and plan often from across multiple states. We hope that between all of the planning and coordinating, the presence we manage to win in our kids lives will somehow be enough. Whether or not we are successful is left to the onward march of time.

    At any rate, my son lives in Indiana. I reside in Oklahoma. It’s been this way for the past few years. He comes down for the summers and for two months we kick back here and enjoy our time together. I like to plan a side trip for us during this time. We participate, albeit somewhat limitedly, in our tribe’s summer, ceremonial celebrations. We also participate limitedly in the activities of our church. We try to pack in as much time with my family as we can before our time is up.

    But the calendar is always there, lurking in the background, reminding me that I’m on the clock, and that I need to pull together as many good memories as I can. It’s a constant exercise in planning, negotiation, fiscal management, and time management. It sounds like a lot, but really this is just an annual exercise for us.

    After my son goes back to school, the fall will roll around and I’ll see him again on his birthday, and for Halloween in October. I’ll have him again for Christmas. We’ll sort out a spring break visit. And then the summer will be here again and the process will start all over.

    So, while there is much I cannot control, my job as Dad is to make damn sure that I show up, try to create the best memories possible, and bide my time until we can enjoy a brief respite once again during the dog days of summer.

    But the funny thing is, I’ve never really liked summer.

    I melt in humidity and bake in the heat. Being outside in July/August might as well be my own personal hell. I’m not sure when I developed such an aversion to heat-induced discomfort. Somewhere between living in Wyoming, Arizona, Indiana and Oklahoma over these past ten years, my constitution has decided it simply isn’t cut out for the heat. It’s a most inconvenient conclusion. These days, I would much rather hunker down in cold air conditioning, than traipse about in the 90-100 degree weather. My body tells me this constantly. Yesterday, I carried hot pizza boxes into the house and got a heat rash up and down my arms. I think it’s the heat. Maybe it’s eczema? Who knows?

    Whatever it is, I’ve learned over the past few years that the calendar controlling my life really isn’t about me. It’s all about my son. The calendar is just the outward manifestation of love in action. I love him, so I make it work.

    The result is that my life is mostly nomadic. I spend time with my girlfriend in Colorado. I carve out the time to be with my son. I juggle the relationships with my family here in Oklahoma. And I cope with the environs, wherever I am, as best I can. I actually feel most at home right here, sitting at my desk. Iced coffee in hand. Yet, I’m rarely here.

    I suppose all our lives are controlled by external forces. Yet, I like to think that my calendar is an act of love. I know that love, the real kind, requires sacrifice. I know this because the people in my life that love me have had to sacrifice on my behalf too.

    It doesn’t make things easier knowing this. But on the days when the heat raises welts on the arms, and the sad day of my son’s departure is at hand, it helps to remember that love, even at a distance, is always worth it.

  • The Blinks

    I remember that night well. We were hurtling down the airport corridor trying to catch our flight. The hop from Indy to Dallas wasn’t a long one, but the window was a bit tight, connecting from Dallas to our home airport in Lawton, OK. The start of the summer was underway and it seemed we had nothing but leisure ahead of us.

    And we did. I just didn’t account for the blinks.

    The blinks. I’ve used the phrase far too much over the years, yet it’s the simplest expression for how quickly time can pass. In a blink our tribe’s Homecoming Celebration was over. Another blink and our summer side-trip west was done. In one final blink, the Summer of 2026 will be in the books as well.

    I have my son for the summer each year. But at the end, my son goes back to Indiana. He leaves on Sunday. We are doing a family pizza night here at the house in a few. But this will probably be the last hurrah before the summer ends. I’m aware of time passing, but each year the summer seems to go by more quickly. It’s like a new summer brings with it a faster clock, along with a myriad of differences from the last that allows time to slip by undetected.

    But in truth, this summer has passed like many others. The Oklahoma humidity from the early summer rains yields to the broiling temperatures of late July and August. First comes the pow-wow in mid-July. Vacation Bible School at church follows. Not that we participate. Screaming kids, heat, and music are all in the top five of the things my autistic son hates, so attending is really a non-starter. With those all done, all that remains of this summer is the day the kids dread – the resumption of school.

    On this account, my son goes back next Wednesday (8/5). We have meetings with the school on 8/3 per usual – this is the meeting where they tell us all of his deficiencies and how they’ll plan to bear the burden of his presence. This will be followed by my son’s appointment with a developmental pediatrician on 8/4 to help us learn more about his outbursts, diagnosis and how to deal with them (hopefully). I plan to be in Indiana with him for the first three days of back-to-school and for the first full week of class.

    But with all of the things coming to a close, it’s strange to think back on where the time went. I was only unavailable for a couple of days due to speaking engagements back in mid-June. We spent a Dallas weekend with my girlfriend and took a trip to CO to see her for a week. But the rest of it’s a blur. The reality is that I was home with my son for most of the summer and we really didn’t see anyone. I think that’s how summer usually goes around here. We skulk to our houses to escape the heat. In the process, the summer winds down as we sit in the AC unawares.

    In retrospect, I must have backed out of our driveway 100s of times. Driven the same roads. Gone to the same places. And all of the local fare must have been substantially similar to last summer.

    Except that this summer my son sounds more like me than the little boy he was last year. He’s taller than me too. Somewhere in those 100s of repetitions he grew up and became a man. Well, a little man. But he’s more man now than boy. I was there for all of it. But I don’t know when it happened.

    I think that’s just how life goes. The last egg. The last prayer at night. The last bedtime story. Even if you’re intentional about soaking them all in, the moments will still pass too quickly. They all disappear in a damn blink.

  • Shoes on the Floor

    It’s the last week of summer. Technically, there’s next week. But my alone time with my son lasts through the end of this week (7/20 – 7/24). Soon, his Mom will come down and get him. School back in Indiana will start the first week of August. Then, summer 2026 will be a wrap.

    It’s a funny thing how time works in a kid’s mind. All summer long I’ve been hounding him to put away his clothes. Pick up his toys. Throw away trash. And pick up his shoes. You’d think after two months of hounding that the message would sink in. But I walked by the shoe area just now and saw these in the middle of the floor – a fact notable only in that this is NOT where shoes belong. I reckon a couple of months is just a blink to a kid, no matter how we adults might think otherwise.

    It’s true that my son really isn’t a kid anymore. My son is now a fully-fledged member of the teenagers’ cohort. His ASD diagnosis notwithstanding, I don’t think there are many teens lurking about who have mastered the art of picking up after themselves. He may not run the tidiest of ships, but if my nephews and friends’ kids are any metric, his general lack of comportment is hardly due to being on the autism spectrum.

    Of course, not all of the summer has been like this. There have been the usual summer pitfalls that are absolutely attributable to the autism spectrum. His sleep has been dysregulated since he got to town. Also, they’re less frequent now, but the meltdowns seem to have gotten more intense. Yelling and screaming are usually the pièce de résistance of his outbursts. And then there are those moments late at night, long after he’s drifted off to sleep, where this Dad just feels like he’s flailing about and not entirely sure what to do to fix any of it.

    But then there are the wins. My kid has read two chapter books this summer (the first two of The Olympians series). We took a trip to Colorado and deftly navigated the chaos and noise of the airports. He has gotten into a new video game in his own right (Ark: Survival Ascended). We’ve even graduated to noise cancelling headphones, adult shampoo/conditioner and grown-up toothpaste. When you add in that he’s never missed a meal, and learned how to use the air fryer to boot – well, it’s nearly enough to counter-balance the challenges.

    The summer is surely drawing to a close. And it’s fair to say that things have been far from perfect. There’s still shoes on the floor. But I suspect that in a few weeks when the house is quiet and everything is tucked away in its proper place, I’ll miss those shoes on the floor and will see more of the wins from this summer than the challenges.