Don't Read this Entry ... or at Least, Don't Hold it Against me.

 So Much water on the bridge, and so many life changing events. 

When I started the original "Babies Crawl Alot,"™  we, Jenn and I, were living Oregon, and Zinnia was just a sea horse in her mother's womb.  It was my attempt (largely successful, I'd like to think) to document an older father's first time entry into parenthood. Frankly, I had a ball writing it. 

Today is November 24th, 2020. I've hesitated to start a new parenting blog for the best of reasons and the worst of reasons: 

I had been living with the growing fear that we were/are heading down the home stretch both as a species and a nation, and I felt deep guilt that I helped bring the love of my life--the kid formerly known as Baby Z--onto the planet just in time for climate change and a world-wide pandemic to kick our collective asses. (I would be remiss if, at some point, I didn't go into the latter. Way remiss, but for another entry.) 

And those are the best of reasons why I didn't begin writing before now. 

The worst is this: I struggled to imagine writing anything that didn't include a reflection--a screed,* as it were--regarding the current political climate in this country. We had, until recently, November 3rd to be exact, quite literally, a sociopath as a sitting-president. And the really bad news is, said-sociopath just garnered seventy million votes towards his efforts towards re-election. He didn't win, and as I write, he is still trying to steal his way back in. I always knew our country had a dark fascistic underbelly, but it is impossible to describe or to understand just how deep and dark our collective national shadow was and is.

And as of today, nearly six weeks after the election, this would-be dictator continues to claim fraudulent elections, taking a page out of the Nazi playbook--accuse your opponent of what you yourself are doing. He does so in a seditious effort to coup his way into staying in the White House. This man-baby will be throwing a tantrum until the very end, and is even going so far as to block the incoming guy from acquiring very crucial security briefings. So active and frail is his ego, that he would prefer to put our very democracy and national safety at risk rather than simply admit defeat. The nature of narcissism is such that his very existence depends on this not being true.  

To live in this country these last four years is to know what it was light to be living in Germany as Herr Adolph was in his catastrophic ascent. The good news (albeit like a vague, flickering star), is our current sitting president lost to a 77 year old career politician who has all the charisma of a block of tofu.  At last count, Biden won the popular vote by over six million. Additionally, if one subtracts all the right wing gerrymandering, voter repression, Russian election tampering,™ that insane remnant-of-slavery "the electoral college," and various voter intimidation tactics (sounds like I'm describing a third world, dictatorship, doesn't it?), for all intents and purposes, given such an uneven playing field, Biden won by a landslide.  

But what our country needed to do to invalidate this utterly vacuous, narcissistic buffoon in office was a tsunami that would have decidedly crushed any semblance of a right-wing fascist movement. This the election did not do, which is why this guy, so completely unfit for office, is talking about running again in four years. He would do so, of course, not out of any deep seated need to serve his fellow country women and men, but because he needs and loves the adoration, idolization, really, which somehow has grown to deification by his naive, fanatical zombies. (Authors note: The reader may be tempted to dismiss these words as hyperbolic. The reader does so at their own peril.) 

The night this guy™ was elected in 2016, my brother called to wish me his condolences and to keep my chin up. I told him then, and repeated recently in the lead-up to the 2020 election that "it had been nice doing this life" with him. He laughed, but after four years of this guy's utter awfulness, my brother's laugh seemed more forced in 2020 than in 2016. I let him know I was not remotely kidding either time. 

The worst reason, then, for my not starting this follow-up blog to celebrate my delight-of-a-daughter is that, while it has been on my mind for so long, I couldn't figure out a way to start it without getting grossly dark (see above), humorless (see above), negative (ditto), and tainting myself and the reader with political diatribe (etc). I could have gone on for pages more, which nobody in their right mind  (including me) would want to read, and this just shows good sense.  And like many in this country, I have struggled with fear, confusion, and, yes, even rage, for four years. I did not wish to infuse my writing with this cloud of toxicity while I lived under a self-imposed writing exile. I also, frankly, did not want to give even this much press (meager though it is) to a guy who, prior to 2016, was a national punchline and, if anything, someone to feel compassion for. (I have heard his father was a total prick.) 

I am tempted to promise the mystery reader or two (or even better--zero) that the rest of this blog, come hell or high, will strictly be about my experience of being an even older dad to The Artist Formerly Known as Baby Ba-Zinnia during this amazing, challenging, rigorous time ... but I can't. We have a very troubled, racist, power-driven human being in office (and his evil white supremacist advisor), and he will continue to foment violence and unleash his kilt-wearing thugs until he is dragged from the White House by his heels. Biden is scheduled to be sworn in on the January 20th, and there is little evidence that this (in the words of Gary Trudeau) alleged human, will go out willingly. (Again, to be alive, intelligent, and non-MAGA, even if one is reading this years from now, is to know that none of this is an exaggeration.) 

All of this begs the very Buddhist question: How real and deep is my joy? I once heard an incredibly clear Buddhist nun speak, and she said it point blank: If our happiness is real, then it lasts forever and whatever got us to that point will work equally for everyone (e.g. Dharmic practice). I find this amazing and radical in the best sense of the word.

Christmas™is on it's way**, which has some-slight-but-minimal meaning to Tom the Jew. However, as usual, it is quite obvious that it means a helluva lot to a Jewish papa's nine year old daughter who annually counts down the days. 

There is a movie, "Life is Beautiful," which won an Oscar. I REALLY disliked the movie, but I thought it was a half-decent attempt to portray life in a nazi camp. It's been popping into my head of late, the father doing his best to pretend that being in a concentration camp was a game so his son would continue to stay positive and enjoy life.  

The metaphor is complete.  God Bless America ™

* I just looked up the definition of screed: "A long speech or piece of writing, typically one regarded as tedious." I'd say that about covers it.

** Completed and posted on January 1st, 2021. May this year be calm, peaceful, and full of awakening.