Going Her Own Way

 

Everything Changes

by

Matthew T. Lipson

4.4 : Going Her Own Way

As I look at her, I struggle with what to say.  I'm in awe of where we we are in comparison to where we were.  Our trip together has been challenging and rewarding.  The work in our relationship still continues, but the work is much easier than it once was.  I grew to know that she is a person who won't do something until she sees the reason and not before.  Thus she only talks when she has something to say, and I have to fight to get a word in edgewise on those days.  Other than that, she has her headphones on and is somewhere only she can go.  This I understand very well, as we share a similar type of imagination that can sometimes hamper us.  Also, it can bring us to places no one else thought existed.  I worry about the Demons in her head that make her anxious, but I also see the Angels leading her along.  They appear every time she finds something new that excites her.  In the end, she's forging her own road in a way only she can.  Hopefully she will let me come along. 

Snakes

Everything Changes

by

Matthew T. Lipson

4.3 : Snakes

Everyone has their spirit animal.  For some people the animal is obvious from the moment of conception, while others may never find theirs.  Many ancient cultures placed the most sacred animals in the heavens, as seen in the patterns of the night sky.  We see this represented in various Zodiac pantheons.  These are only the most popular, and, at times, the most primal.  We still see these beliefs in small carvings and pictures placed around people's homes.  This can be seen as primitive idolatry, which, I think, is a blindness to the fact that we have a connection to animals on a level only few can recognize.  My youngest has always been drawn to snakes.  Whether they be rendered in rubber, fabric, or drawn on a piece of paper.  Every trip to the now defunct Rain Forest Cafe, she added another plush snake to the collection.  So when visiting a zoo, a natural history museum with carved fetishes of snakes -- both new and from antiquity, I cannot help but think of her and smile.

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

 

Everything Changes

by

Matthew T. Lipson

4.2 : Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

I had twelve weeks of paternity leave.  Twelve weeks.  Reflecting back on the experiences of my first child, I was looking forward to walks, one sided conversations about whatever came to mind, visiting people and sharing the joy a freshly minted person brings.  This was not to be.  Every day was a struggle just to feed her.  Her cries a call to war.  A war for her survival.  Every day would be a battle just to feed her.  One feeding would take a couple of hours.  I knew she was hungry.  She was telling me she was hungry, but I was the last person she wanted to take food from.  Two ounces of breast milk took almost an hour, as I dripped it into her mouth with a basting syringe.  The war was epic and exhausting.  "Trust me, you want me to win," I would plead.  "If I win, you live."  By the time my wife came home, we would both be asleep on the couch.  My daughter on my lap.  In the end,  I did win.  I kept her alive.

The End of the Beginning

 

Everything Changes

by

Matthew T. Lipson

4.1 : The End of the Beginning

Remembering the conception of your children should be a nostalgic, heart warming memory.  Nostalgia at its most personal  Unfortunately, as I think of everything leading up to the birth of my second child, I am left cold and disconnected.  I wasn't part of the planning stage, nor was I allowed to be part of the entire pregnancy.    I was kept at arms length purposely, even after we brought her home.  The door was closed.  I had to rip her from my wife's arms just to take her for a walk.  Of all things post divorce, this is still the thing that makes me upset.  No parent, unless they are incarcerated, dead, or otherwise deemed unfit, should be kept from their child.  I was still in the house.  We were still married.  Yet, the door was closed to me.  I was kept a stranger to my own child, as I took care of our first.  The fight for connection would lead to a struggle of epic proportions.

Change

 

Everything Changes

by

Matthew T. Lipson

Aside 1.3 : Change

"You don't like change?  Do you?" she asked in a voice tinged charmingly with an Italian accent.

The ice rink had just closed for the night, and everyone was tired and ready to go home.  "No, I don't," I responded quickly  An automatic, almost automated, conclusion to multiple years of having to absorb and move with the flow of drastic even catastrophic change.  At the time of the question, I had just gone through a divorce, been laid off from a job I had held for twelve years, and, most recently, been evicted from my first home post divorce.  Now I was working in an ice rink for close to minimum wage and living in the San Francisco Bay Area.   A deep need to be static just for a short period to take a breath infused my psyche.  I wanted to supply her with this context but would have no opportunity to do so.  Change may be constant, but we are only human.  I was ready for some positive change, yes.  Yet, change in general had no allure for me.  I am resilient.  I roll well with the punches.  That doesn't mean I have to like it.  

Life Continues

Everything Changes

by

Matthew T. Lipson

3.4 : Life Continues

The child who inaugurated the most significant and important change in my life is now standing on the edge of her own adulthood.  I have had the privilege of watching her go through her own changes, as she has born witness to mine.  In a sense we have grown and changed together.  She, of course, unaware, as every child lives in the moment.  An ideal all of us adults strive to do.  Every day has been new to her.  I remember the joy in her eyes when I purposely took her outside to experience rain.  We had just finished dinner, and I stared out the window as the droplets passed by the street lamp in the parking lot of our condo.  She couldn't have been one, so I picked her up and went outside.  The trust she showed in me, as I held her in the gentle rainfall.  Her eyes blinking with every raindrop that tickled her eyelashes.  An infectious smile on her face.  Every new thing she experiences, goes through still makes me smile the same as that evening in the rain.  Every day, month, year is precious.  I see that when I look at her and her sister, and I am overjoyed I have been allowed to be part of their journey.     

Dumbo

Everything Changes

by

Matthew T. Lipson

3.3 : Dumbo

Disneyland is a magical place when you're 7.  2009 was the year of Celebration in Disneyland. The year you could enter the park for free on your birthday.  Jumping on this opportunity, my eldest visited Disneyland for the first time.  Taking her out of school early the day before her birthday, we started the drive down to Anaheim.  She had no idea where we were going, and I had no intention of telling her.  Preparations for this visit began on my birthday.  There was a pair of Mickey Mouse ears with her name on them, reservations at the Plaza Inn and Blue Bayou.  This was all capped by a Dumbo plush I had picked up at the Disney Store.  Even before she was born, her totem animal had been an elephant.  Of course, Dumbo is the iconic Disney elephant.  Even when we stopped at Bob's Big Boy in Pasadena, she still didn't know our ultimate destination.  As we drove by the original Disneyland sign on Harbor Boulevard in Anaheim, I kept her in the dark to where we were going.  In the hotel room in the morning, she opened her presents, and was finally told we were going to Disneyland.  At this point, she didn't believe me.  I don't think she believed until we were sitting in the Plaza Inn having breakfast and being visited by Disney Characters come to life.  By her suggestion, a birthday tradition was started, in which we visit Disneyland every other year for her birthday.   

Lovies

Everything Changes

by

Matthew T. Lipson

3.2 : Lovies

My former mother-in-law called them Lovies.  That one toy your child can't survive without.  My eldest's was a Winnie the Pooh plush.  It kept her company on walks, on the changing table, when potty training, and, of course, when asleep.  She would trade out for other stuffed animals and eventually be replaced with a Simba plush after fully potty trained.  Yet, he has still stuck around.  Whether stuffed in a toy chest, shoved in a closet or under the bed, he hangs around reminding us of all the changes and growth she and I have gone through.  He has stood ... actually, sat ... witness to the strength of love connecting the two of us.  I can look at him and remember how she clutched him, sucked on his ear.  Yes, that wasn't specific to Pooh.  She'll remind me of that, of course.  I wonder, sometimes, if she keeps him because I won't let him go or because she won't.  After all, I am a nostalgic person.  Once I was the Winnie the Pooh Uncle.  Always giving Pooh related items to my nieces and nephews.  In the end I was a Winnie the Pooh Father.     

Life

Everything Changes

by

Matthew T. Lipson

3.1 : Life

I wasn't for or against having children.  While other people's babies and children didn't excite me, I was neutral on the concept of having my own.  If having a child was important -- a necessity -- for the woman I partnered with, then having a child would become important to me.  What I didn't know was how, in a positive way, that decision would effect me.  My own naivete was important, and I feel is important to all potential parents.  If most of us knew the true consequences, we wouldn't do it.  I made the deal with my wife -- One yes, a second is negotiable.  You can't negotiate a child.  They are there or they are not.  You rise to the occasion or you don't.  I had no drive to be a parent.  I had no intrinsic love of children.  Babies ... I just didn't understand.  Then, my first arrived.  My reality changed in the most positive, drastic manner my life ever has.  I found a talent I didn't know I had.  More important, I found meaning. 

Art is Life

Everything Changes

by

Matthew T. Lipson

Aside 1.2 : Art is Life

I knew about the life drawing session at the Palo Alto Art Center since high school.  My art teacher tried to push us all to go, especially since most of us wanted to be comic book artists.  The session has been running since the late 1960s and a staple in the San Francisco Peninsula art scene.  Post college, upon my return to the SF Bay Area, a friend tried to get me to go.  I came up with all kinds of excuses not to go.  When my marriage started to fail, another friend at work finally convinced me to go to one of the quarterly drawing marathons.  This was the break through, which brought me to the weekly Tuesday night group.  A group that has helped me come back to myself.  Now I go every week and book the models.