We
now introduce Daniel T. Weaver, owner of The Book Hound, www.thebookhound.net, an antiquarian and
used bookstore on Main Street
in Amsterdam, NY. This
store specializes in books on religion, New York State
history, non-fiction and children’s books and also hosts a Friday evening
(5:00-9:00 p.m.) open writing workshop when the store transforms into Café Edie.
Weaver has had poems, articles and essays published in many periodicals. He is
a regular contributor to the Sunday
Gazette in Schenectady,
NY.
This
essay was previously published in the debut issue of Upstream, A Mohawk Valley Journal
and is reprinted here with the permission of the author. We love the way in which this writer expresses compassionate, moral ideas in a lyrical way.
* * * *
It
was the first snowfall of this winter, and my wife and daughter and I were
walking to the car.
"Step
in the footprints daddy made earlier so you don't get snow in your shoes,"
my wife said.
As
I watched my daughter, in the twilight of her teen years, stretching her thin
legs beyond their normal stride to walk in my footsteps, I felt the hammer under
my third rib strike hotter and harder than usual. And I knew that whatever
happens in life, I have to do the right thing--sometimes the hard
thing--because eventually the sun will come out, and my footsteps will be lost
to her forever.
And
then a few days later, I was in our computer room and I saw a beautifully bound
book with a sewn in bookmark on the cot. I picked it up to see what it was,
opened it and found words in my daughter's handwriting which said I was the
person she most respected in the world. I slammed the book shut, feeling bad
that I had invaded someone's privacy but feeling good about what I had read.
And
it happened again on Christmas Day. My wife gave me a letter, instead of a
card, because she couldn't find a card that said what she wanted to say. And
the letter said in part, "You are the yardstick I would like our children
to measure what a man is by."
Who
could ask for a nicer Christmas present than that?
The
truth is that all three events were precious gifts to a fifty-three year old
man. Middle age can be a scary time for both men and women. Nothing is what it
used to be. In a single night, the temperature can drop and black ice glaze
your dreams. Already your body and brain are beginning to fail you in subtle
ways. Your children are leaving home. You become restless with your job or get
laid off and no one wants to hire you. And if you have a job, you worry about
how you will make it when you retire. Worst of all, many of the self doubts of
adolescence erupt again like a bad case of acne.
Then
a stranger enters your life and you look into her eyes and see the stark beauty
of swamps and marshlands, the owl meditating in a dead tamarack, the water
below unmoving, silent, seemingly empty of life to the careless passerby, but
brimming to the more observant.
Maybe
you’ve been married for twenty-five or thirty years. For all those long years
you never climbed over fences or rock walls to trespass on your neighbor’s
pastures or even neighed at your neighbor's wife. Sure, when you were younger,
you often looked at the bodies of other women and felt strong longings. But
they were no more than the springtime longings of a stallion--blind
reflexes--the doctor hitting just below the kneecap with a rubber mallet and
the leg springing forward with no will of its own.
So
why not wade into the deep waters? Everyone else seems to be doing it. A
governor from another state runs off to Argentina, not telling anyone where
he is going, and makes an ass of himself. Your own governor and former governor
have both turned the television set into a confessional booth.
But
you know that kind of thing is not for you. You can’t slink around behind your
spouse’s back, no longer able to look into her eyes. No sordid visit to a motel
for you, followed by rumpled sheets in the morning and the weary feeling that
what you got was not really what you were looking for.
Besides,
the woman is not a tramp. She is a lady. And your wife is a lady. And you know
full well you would be the worst kind of bastard if you betrayed either one of
them.
So
you pull back from the edge of those deep waters--thankful however for those
sweet words that removed some of your self doubts--but knowing also that many
men and women have drowned themselves in similar waters.
And
you realize that what you first saw when you looked into the depths of those
eyes--what you thought you fell in love with--was not someone else, but your
own image reflected in them. And you realize also that you haven’t lost
anything by not diving in. True love is still there, in that pure mountain
stream that you drank from and swam in for decades, and that knocked you off
your feet the first time you waded into it so many, many years ago.
