decade

Like the pandemic, my son Calvin causes time to expand. Perhaps it's his protracted development—exponentially slower than watching paint dry or grass grow—which makes time-space stretch so impossibly. Unlike other parents, Michael and I don't experience fleeting years between diapers and high school graduation, because as the years pass, our boy never really grows up; he's much the same now as when he was little, though thankfully a bit less manic than when he was taking very high doses of three powerful antiepileptic drugs (see below).

Life with Calvin is a paradox in that, though time nearly stands still, it's astonishing to think that he was only six when I wrote my first blog post a decade ago. Maybe it's the writing that moves things along and makes one monotonous day different from the last. Maybe my prose and occasional poetry—or more so, perhaps, the musing that leads to them—are what inject meaning and richness into a life which otherwise might be mind-numbingly tedious, dull and unfulfilling. And how curious to think that, had Calvin not come along, I might not be writing at all. I might be stuck in a stressful, thankless job designing clothes for a hierarchical, outdoor catalog company. I might not be thinking and working so seriously to reveal purpose, to explore myself and others, to underscore and try to right injustices. I might not be considering life from the perspective of disability and other forms of marginalization, and their particular aspects of everyday living which are still unseen by—though not necessarily hidden from—too many Americans.

 

So, ten years, 2,024 entries and 1.3+ million hits since my first blog post, back when I didn't even know what a blog was, I am indebted to Calvin, and Michael (whose idea it was to write a blog) for helping me celebrate what has become a labor of love.

   

Calvin back in August of 2010, not long before I embarked on this blog.