As a dad, doc, and dude with demands on his time, I’ve found it more challenging in recent years to both DO things and WRITE about them also. In the last few months, I’ve felt increasingly compelled to return to the practice of writing and plan to put some more thoughts on the digital page in a fairly rough and unedited fashion. If you’re here wondering, “bro, where are my backcountry skiing tips?” I’m sure there will be more of that, but I also write for The High Route and you can find a lot of good things there.
It occurred to me today that I like to have books, to keep books, because it feels like I can capture and accumulate the reading I’ve done. Though reading is just a passing through, either you through a book or it through you, to see books on the book case feels like evidence of the work done.
I saw also that until now I’ve felt like my world only grew and amassed on the basis my own doings. Where I went, what I did, my training, my goals, and my achievements accrued to me.
Today I watched my son absolutely light up with the energy of achieving something that to him was a big step. In that moment, it felt like my world also grew. Anything that accrues to him accrues to me in some sense. Same deal with my daughter. But also, it’s not about me. It’s now about this bigger thing that we are together.
One of the feelings that accompanies adulthood is the feeling of doors closing. That sounds rough, but it’s just the consequence of making choices, of picking one thing over another. When I was a kid, when I though of almost anything, like climbing Mt. Everest or learning to fly a plane, I’d think that I would experience all of those things one day. Time felt infinite and there was no reason to expect otherwise. Now with two kids and a house and the job that I’ll probably keep to retirement I can anoint myself “middle-aged”. Closing doors is essential in middle-age. If you keep all of your doors open, the house goes cold. I have to close the door on so many things to be a good dad, husband, and doc.
Then, poof! my kids hit an age where they start doing things I’ve never really done or never got to do at their age. For them, the doors are all open. For that bigger thing that we are together, those doors are all open. The contraction of possibility that I felt at 30 feels like expansion again at 37.
Maybe that brings us back to the books. George Martin wrote, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” Books, like kids, are sources of concentrated possibility. Our lives are more with them than without them. But I’m taking a stack of them to Goodwill to make some more space for the kids.
