"I Didn't"

Stuart Dybek wrote a beautiful story "We Didn't" and as I was sitting here this evening it somehow entered my thoughts as I was reviewing my day.  This blog post is an inferior homage to that wonderful story which can be found in his collection I Sailed with Magellan.

I didn't grade papers today.  I didn't sit down with a stack of files or a box full of portfolios.  I didn't take time out of my family life to focus on the needs of others.  I didn't sit on the sofa, alone, thinking about the slow slide of breath from between my wife's lips.  I didn't look at the soft profile of my wife's face in the green glow of the alarm clock and regret the hours spent in the day.

I didn't kiss my daughter goodnight and slide away to the living room to read books for the class I will teach next spring.  I didn't miss the opportunity to play with her because my mind was occupied with things I had to finish before I went to work the next day.  The books sat piled up on the table next to the sofa, collecting a thin layer of dust from disuse.

I didn't find an excuse to step away from my daughter to check my email.  I didn't ignore my wife.  I didn't revolve around a thought process of obligation and duty.  I didn't have to balance one set of obligations and duties against another.

Instead, my daughter and I had a "picnic" on a blanket in her room.  I found a white blanket, a stuffed snowman, a wooden Santa, plastic figurines of children and created a winter wonderland where children were able to profess their wishes to Santa and he was able to fulfill them all.  We practiced wishing for things for other people, making wishes to Santa for the plastic children.  We practiced wishing goodness for others and thinking about the needs of others before ourselves.

There was a zoo and we fed the animals: a llama, a lion, a tiger, a bunny, a cow, and a horse with a mane of yarn.  We whinnied, mooed, clucked, and roared.  I read her The Polar Express and began The Night Before Christmas.  She was wet part way through the second book and had dirty underwear.  I cleaned her, cautious of the redness that was spreading from exposure to her own poop.  I disciplined her for asking for things without saying, "Please."

I held her as she drifted toward sleep at nap time.  I smoothed her hair back after I took out her barettes and tucked her into bed.  She asked, "Is Christmas tomorrow?"

"It's on Saturday, honey.  Just a couple of days away."  I asked her if she was a good girl.

She said, "No."  She reminded me of her accidents.

I told her she was a good girl and told her the difference between being good and making mistakes.  She hummed a little under her breath after that.  I kissed her, gave her a hug, and told her to have a good sleep.  She fell into a deep sleep which I had to wake her from two hours later.

As I walked up the steps to wake her, I passed shadow versions of myself.  Each one was me, but an earlier me, a preoccupied version of myself.  I saw the furrowed brow of my other self.  I saw myself weighted down by the burdens of work and art.  I saw myself forgetting the beauty of my own life.  As I passed these apparitions, these "other" selves, I felt bad.  I felt bad that I could allow myself to forget.  To forget my wife, that I could forget my daughter, even for the space of a tick of the second hand.  As I crested the stairs and left my apparitions behind me, I felt my heart race as I placed my hand on the knob of the door.  When I opened it and saw the light from the hallway spill over my daughter's bed, I knew I was where I needed to be, that I was my present self, my future self, and all endeavors would point the way back to this place, to Shea's side.  It's a comfort to have at least that part of one's life stabilized and to not have to question.

***So, not the original, not by far, but it was fun to try and emulate the structure of the story and to make meaning within the confines of a format.***