Somewhere in the middle of packing and preparing for major changes I take a moment to turn on iTunes and start blasting Whole Lotta Love.
Can’t sing like Plant and won’t bother trying so I just mouth the words and try to figure out how much more I can get rid of ‘cuz this place is a wreck.
You need coolin’, baby, I’m not foolin’
I’m gonna send ya back to schoolin’
Way down inside, a-honey, you need it
Never get tired of this nor is it ever any less relevant, especially if you wonder about a woman.
Your Back Door Man
I am standing in the dressing room at Nordstrom trying on my new suit and laughing because this sucker fits beautifully and I want to buy another.
That is funny to me because I am not really a suit and tie kind of man. Give me a tank top and shorts and I am good to go.
Except there are moments where you need to look sharper and if you have to dress up like a monkey you might as well be comfortable.
Somewhere in between checking the alterations to make sure I am happy with what I see I hear Zeppelin in my head and it triggers a memory.
I am back in college and we’re sitting around a fire pit debating the meaning of song lyrics.
Oh, shake for me, girl
I wanna be your backdoor man
The memory makes me smile but before I get deeper I feel a buzzing in my pocket and see my daughter has sent me a Snap.
That reminds me I need to call her and tell her I saw Wonder Woman, but I won’t do that until I get home and so I go back to Zeppelin except now I am thinking about the use of Immigrant Song in the new Thor movie.
The music continues to send me on a journey to place past and present pushing me to work out harder, write more and dig deeper.
And in the midst of it all I wonder what music and movies will forever be a part of my children’s’ lives.
Father Of a Daughter
I saw Wonder Woman Friday night and smiled the entire time.
It wasn’t just because the movie was good but because I am happy my daughter has a strong superhero to look up to.
I smiled because Gal Gadot is a Jewish woman, she is one of our own and that is pretty damn cool because there was a time where it wouldn’t have happened.
And I smiled because everyone had an accent but Gal’s was familiar to me, an Israeli accent. It will be just as familiar and comfortable to my daughter and whole family in general.
My understanding is the accent is intentional and that they wanted the Amazons to sound different, but it was funny to me that Gal sounded the same and everyone else like they were trying to sound similar.
Reminded me a bit of Sean Connery playing a Russian Sub commander and how all of the sailors had British accents, even though they were supposed to be Russian.
****
She is almost 1,500 miles away this aforementioned daughter of mine and I have spent far more time away than I had ever wanted, planned or intended to.
That is how life is sometimes, you discover the plan you made won’t or can’t work and do your adjust to adapt, pivot and turn.
I would have preferred to have taken her to see the movie because I want her to know I like seeing superhero movies with her as much as I do with her brother.
That is not to say we haven’t seen other superhero movies together or movies in general because we have, but like I said this one is different.
She needs to know her dad is interested in her life and always has her back.
She needs to be able to look me in the eye and tell me Wonder Woman is proof girls can do anything, just as she once said a half dozen or so years ago.
And I need to tell her not to try to put out a fire the way a boy can because she doesn’t want to burn herself.
This time it won’t be a five or six year-old making a face at me, this time it will be an almost teenage girl.
That is very cool and a little scary.
A Dream For Now
I had a dream the other night in which she told me about some boy who had caught her eye and how she planned on being with him for a long time.
In the dream I protested and said she wasn’t old enough and she told me it was time to stop treating her like a baby.
I woke up knowing it was a dream and feeling a bit 0f relief because I am not ready for that time.
But I also know I can’t stop the clock or prevent her from growing up.
Part of me loves watching her grow and part of me has a hard time with it because it is not easy for me to go along with some of the changes I have had to deal with.
I am not ready for my body to not respond to certain things as it once did or for it to fight me about some things.
Can’t accept that some things are happening so I am fighting to find new finger holds and ways to stop or at least slow down some things.
Maybe I can’t stop the river from flowing around me but I can dig in and make it adapt to me as I adapt to it.
Fade to black playing the following songs:
The Long And Winding Road – Ray Charles & Count Basie Orchestra
It Was A Very Good Year– Frank Sinatra
That’s The Way I Always Heard It Should Be – Carly Simon
Tiny Dancer– Elton John
Time In A Bottle– Jim Croce
A Day In The Life– The Beatles
