Tag: Father

Sunday Morning…

Live & Learn10 Comments

What does he remember best? Ah yes – a Sunday morning when he’s trying to have a lie-in, he needs sleep, all the sleep he can get, he’s been out on the fjord all night. He wakes from a dream, his boat is going down, the wheelhouse slowly filling with seawater; he’s at the bottom of the sea, he’s underwater, lying there helpless on his back, his face turned to the surface. Then he’s suddenly wide awake, one ear full of liquid, both girls sitting on top of him. Eli and Guro have brought a bottle of water into the bed; they giggle when they see his reaction. There is no happiness like this, a Sunday morning, with the early sun hanging above the mountains on the other side of the fjord, a light that settles over the bedclothes, over the floor, over his girls. He hears their breath, their laughter.

— Frode Grytten, The Ferryman and His Wife. Translated from Norwegian to English by Alison McCullough. (Algonquin Books, November 18, 2025)

Notes:

  • Recommended.
  • Book Review by Eileen Garvin: Read This: The Ferryman and His Wife by Frode Grytten
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

Lightly Child, Lightly.

Live & Learn17 Comments

Are you okay, Dad? she asked.
Yes, he said. Will there be someone there to meet you?
Yes, Dad, there will.
Do you have money on you?
Yes, Dad.
Got your passport?
Yes, Dad.
Umbrella?
Yes, Dad.
Contraception?
Yes, Dad.
Do you love me? Yes, Dad.

— Frode Grytten, The Ferryman and His Wife. Translated from Norwegian to English by Alison McCullough. (Algonquin Books, November 18, 2025)

Notes:

  • Recommended.
  • Book Review by Eileen Garvin: Read This: The Ferryman and His Wife by Frode Grytten
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

Lightly Child, Lightly.

Live & Learn23 Comments

I made a brief visit to see my parents…My father was in the backyard feeding the birds. I hesitated to disturb him but felt an urgency to see him and quietly slipped out back. He was standing at the end of the yard with his back toward me with arms outstretched. As I stood in silence the birds flew to him and covered him, as if a fresco from the painter Giotto’s life cycle of St. Francis of Assisi. I could feel the birds’ affection for him, not merely because he fed them, but because they were responding to his innate goodness. At that moment I had no doubt that he was of a hallowed tribe. Not a perfect man, nor had he produced any known miracle, yet he had the simplicity of a saint, and I the saint’s errant daughter. Somehow sensing my presence, he turned as the birds flew above him and looked at me. Hello doll, he said. Hello, Daddy, I answered.

— Patti Smith, Bread of Angels: A Memoir (Random House, November 4, 2025)

Notes:

How much? Everything.

Live & Learn12 Comments

Late last night, inspecting Santa’s handiwork, a simple thought occurred to me. A decade or so from now, when, say, I’m waiting for my son to come home from college for his winter break, and, when he does, he wants to spend his time going out with his friends — how much will I be willing to pay then to be able to go back in time, for one day, to now, when he’s eight years old, he wants to go to movies and play games and build Lego kits with me, and he believes in magic?

How much then, for one day with what my family has right now? How much? Everything.

The truth is, I’m the luckiest person in the world today. I hope you are too.

— John Gruber, “Merry” (Daring Fireball, December 25, 2011)

Lightly Child. Lightly.

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The trees you planted in childhood have grown too heavy. You cannot bring them along. Give yourselves to the air, to what you cannot hold.

— Rainer Maria Rilke, from “Sonnets to Orpheus, Part One, IV” in “In Praise of Mortality: Selections from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies

Notes:

  • Thank you Beth for poem at Alive on All Channels
  • DK Photo, Monday, October 16, 2023 @ 6:21am @ Cove Island Park. More pictures from that morning’s walk here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.