Sunday, 17june7. Few minutes before midnight and I feel the urge to write. i’ll start at the beginning because that just seems like a good place. I’ve been thinking about the baby and her birthday. It looks like we’ll be inducing on Tuesday. It gave me a chance to enjoy a quiet father’s day. I went to work after relaxing w/ ACV a bit. It feels like all of the chaos I keep hearing about is overrated. Maybe it’s because the baby’s not here yet…well, actually.

One of the first things I was thinking abut was how my birthday is around thanksgiving & Camille…who will be referred to as CER from now on…her birthday is near thanksgiving. My father died in an auto wreck a few months after I was born, april 72. I plan on being involved w/ my daughter’s life for much longer. Sure, it’s not like he abandoned my family, but such a viewpoint is irrelevant to a 4 month old. So it’s an interesting twist in my view, the birthday positioning and all that. Me? I love having my birthday around thanksgiving. People are usually in a good mood, the holidays are around the corner, & the weather’s nice a chilly. It’s not super cold yet, but summer’s long gone. I look forward to holidays with my daughter, a chance to celebrate life and its events.

I’ve been reading a few pieces written by fathers. I flipped through a few books on becoming a father. I’m reading a book by this guy in the bay area writing about his first year w/ a new daughter. One of the things I haven’t heard is a voice like mine in the mix. I’d love to promise that I’ll write faithfully, never missing a session of writing twice a much to make up for this or that. I know the person I am & have been so wasting time like that won’t really change much. The problem of what to write about is solved for a while though. I’m really fjording every stream, y’know? I haven’t heard much written by black fathers, or by fathers whose dad was largely out of the picture. Sure, my mum remarried when I was ten, but that’s a lot of formative periods in those years. By the time I was ten, I was in the 4th grade. It was awkward b/c they got married on x-mas day in 81. Being a JW at the time, we didn’t do holidays. None. Birthdays, valentines, st. patty’s, 4th of july…I could go on, but why? Anyway, my step-dad’s birthday is x-mas day actually. It’s pretty funny actually when I think about when in the year a person is born.

So yeah…the whole event was clumsy for me. I look forward to having holidays w/ CER. I’m really not too nervous about being a father. There are so many moments that I want to share that apprehension or trepidation don’t really have much room. Museums and oceans, trains and books, music and forests…so much of that is down the road though, sure. There’s still the delivery & the drive home. I feel like I’m at a good place in my life. I’ve worked hard to get the wheels spinning in my direction. School’s nearly done. The internship is moving forward. Things are going well. It’s something that I’ve had to work on accepting b/c I’m so used to coping or picking up pieces from this or that. I had mentioned a day or two back that it seems like the lesson is to allow the baby to make her own choices. Choosing between reading or singing is still a choice.

It feels like I’m swinging between wanting to write about being a father & what all that means for a while and then I want to swing over to fascination/excitement around CER. It’s an interesting type of generational parallax view.

The Parallax View is Slavoj Zizek's most substantial theoretical work to appear in many years; Zizek himself describes it as his magnum opus. Parallax can be defined as the apparent displacement of an object, caused by a change in observational position. Zizek is interested in the "parallax gap" separating two points between which no synthesis or mediation is possible, linked by an "impossible short circuit" of levels that can never meet. From this consideration of parallax, Zizek begins a rehabilitation of dialectical materialism.
mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/i...efault.asp

so yeah, I think that the tension b/n losing my dad & having a daughter in the last few months of grad school are those “two points.” I’m wrestling w/ the “impossible short circuit” of having some type of early fathering memories to grab hold of when stakes are high. I’ve been reading & asking questions, but nothing really speaks to my emotions. Also, I know that zizek is talking about quantum physics, so I step back a punt. Quantum psychology:

Quantum Psychology is a practical approach to becoming mindful of both the relationship between our automatic responses and what triggers them, as well as the mechanism, itself, of those automatic responses. 
It offers a means to enable you to stay in your adult experience of what is in your present moment, and maintain rather than lose access to inner resources which your automatic responses cut you off from. You are able to notice the mechanism of your automatic response "trance" and exercise control over it. You are then able to respond more effectively, free of the emotional charge of past experiences.

users.skynet.be/sky52523/e...chology.htm

so yeah, I’ve learned a little bit since I left SF, CA for SF, NM. I think that I’ve had a chance to clear up a few of the blurry areas of my life. I think leaving NC helped me become a man, moving to NM gave me a chance to become the man I was. Living in CA forced me to grow up. I felt like I was distracted from academics when I was @ ASU b/c I had to catch up on loads of socializing that I had missed via the isolation of growing up JW. Remember the whole no holiday thing? Well, that extended into birthday parties too. So there were a bunch of mistakes that I made that I might have been able to avoid if I was a bit more experienced. I wouldn’t trade any of them for anything in the world though. it’s what made me who I am now, all of it.

So I haven’t really heard the black dad voice much. I’m not asking why or pointing fingers. Instead, I’m just pointing out an empty space & writing to work through what’s missing in all of the parenting hype in america 2007. First off, I’m not the real target demographic for most of the magazines or whatever trash fits into the mailbox. Next off, I’m looking forward to wearing the baby strap-on deal b/c I know that dropping the baby just happens. I’m torn on the alpha/beta mom issue though. it’s a bit early for me. I really don’t like the knuckle biting frenzy & lean more towards the beta, but there’s still room for discussion. For now, I’m glad that there’s day care @ the gym. It’s easier for me to work out in the winter, so by then the baby will be a few months old & ready for socializing a bit w/ other babies.

Speaking of alpha moms & other babies, I picked up this book called the hurried child. It’s an older book that speaks to the possible effects of constantly running kids from pillar to post w/ sports, music, and homework. I’m not afraid of technology. I feel that I’ll be somewhat effective in passing on a worldview in which my daughter will be somewhat capable of handling most of life’s intricacies and a sense of inner-resourcefulness to handle the rest. The rest is her persona. I’m looking forward to having a few years to get to know her. It’s taken a bit of restraint to go off the deep end with infant personality assessment instruments. It’s nothing to get most measures and having gone through a counseling program at the grad level gets me access to a whole other set that the lay population can’t. (tricky side note: the third level of personality instruments comes from training w/ a licensed institute or individual. The Rorshach ink blot test falls into this category.) I’m intentionally taking off those gloves for now & enjoying the last few hours before it all comes together. Taking time to look out on the landscape that is 35 years. Listening to old faves, combing through a few comics. I recently finished tommy chong’s book from when he was in prison. He quit smoking & promised not to puff again until it’s legal in the US…batman, ghost rider, and usagi yojimbo. Mmm…amor y cohetes. Though I can’t wait to share Palomar or locas, I know that I’ll probably be in my 50’s or older before we can laugh about the stories. Luba & Maggie as bedtime heroes? That’s not even a question. A mayor w/ a hammer & a prosolar mechanic are just as solid archetypes as bast, hera, or sojourner truth. Personally, I’d have to rank ida b. wells a bit higher, but that’s just on the strength of leaving Tennessee after publishing both a newspaper & books on lynching

www.duke.edu/~ldbaker/cl...bwbkgrd.html

www.gutenberg.org/files/149...4975-h.htm

which brings up an interesting question. How to handle the issues of race, class, and gender? By and large, black dads have a history of absence. Finishing college, also not high on the list of average black dads. Grad school has been a load of busy work that’s a bit more important than staying in the lines, but that’s another bedtime story. I want my doctorate and would love to do it at UBC Vancouver. I want to keep writing and maybe teach a few classes at the community college level. So yeah, academics are important and will be down the road…I guess it was ida wells who reminded me that blacks in this country once had their eyes gauged out for learning to read & write. The whole slave thing will be a different lesson than walking, but the whole world is our oyster…

one of the things that sapped loads of my enthusiasm was the whole “don’t get interested in anything b/c the world is going to end anyway” set of beliefs. It took a while to comb through what I didn’t want in order to sort out what I wanted. I had thought about becoming a printer when I was leaving high school, but chose psychology b/c it was more “professional” & not like learning a trade. I has some class issues that pushed me out of learning to run presses. I heard that depression runs rampant in printers because of all the metals in ink & dye. I still love screen printing though & probably will down the road. It’s the urge to create that pushes me to write & draw. I have about 6 months until I’m done w/ my master’s degree & that has been a creative process itself. I haven’t really had much to say about nit all b/c I’m still involved w/ it. I don’t have a clear perspective, so I just keep moving forward…

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