Full moons keep rising even after we've stopped noticing

Paul Bowles once wrote, "Everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.

That's some heavy @#$% for an quiet and empty Friday evening but it's a beaut as far as random and obscure literary references go. It's real nice. What struck me was how applicable those words are to this stage of our lives. Everything Zoey does has a finite quality to it, and the trick is to comprehend that each and every time. I feel as though I do that with much less skill than June does. In fact, I more often than not feel as though, as a father, those moments rush past me at a much faster rate regardless of whatever commitment to acknowledging them that I have. Maybe it's just me but there are times when I feel like a pretty big fool in the company of mothers and daughters. There has been nothing natural about my connection to this experience, although it's undeniably the best thing I have ever been near I feel more Spike Lee than David Lee. Sometimes the best seat in the house really isn't. Metaphorically speaking the best seats are full of Knicks asses and even Spike don't get a shot at sitting there. You see what I'm dribbling around?

I've been trying to pay attention to all of those things that I know will only be here for a short time but I'm not always so good at it. Some days I'm selfish, some days I'm tired, some days I'm damn near combustible with the dry tinder of my day and I'm not always the best Dad I can be...but sometimes I am. Sometimes I laugh and explore and play with her on the floor. Sometimes we read and sometimes I can carry her forever and my patience and commitment to "for you anything," as the tattoo indicates is limitless. Yet sometimes I stare at June and our daughter and feel totally on the outside looking in, not because of anything anyone does but because of things I feel as though I should be doing. After all, Zoey's only going to take so many baths with her Dad's help, and Zo's only going to mess up her Dad's hair and climb all over his back so many times before she never does it again.

I wish I was better at this, but then who doesn't?