{"id":205,"date":"2013-11-17T17:01:34","date_gmt":"2013-11-18T01:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cronymag.com\/c\/?p=205"},"modified":"2013-11-18T08:46:42","modified_gmt":"2013-11-18T16:46:42","slug":"david-ulin-august","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cronymag.com\/c\/?p=205","title":{"rendered":"David L. Ulin<\/strong>: “August”"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Sophie<\/p>\n

8-19<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

every time I drive down<\/p>\n

to the Cape<\/p>\n

from Boston,<\/p>\n

Route 3 reminds<\/p>\n

me of Babe Ruth,<\/p>\n

even though the Red Sox<\/p>\n

sold him to<\/p>\n

the Yankees before<\/p>\n

players ever wore<\/p>\n

numbers on<\/p>\n

their backs.<\/p>\n

Ruth, I want to say,<\/p>\n

lived around here,<\/p>\n

this line of towns<\/p>\n

skirting the South Shore \u2014<\/p>\n

Quincy,<\/p>\n

Braintree,<\/p>\n

Weymouth \u2014<\/p>\n

but his Home Plate Farm<\/p>\n

was in Sudbury, twenty miles<\/p>\n

to the west. Once,<\/p>\n

or so the story goes,<\/p>\n

he pushed a piano<\/p>\n

into a pond, the end of<\/p>\n

a wild night. But<\/p>\n

as with every story<\/p>\n

about the Bambino,<\/p>\n

it\u2019s hard to know<\/p>\n

what really happened,<\/p>\n

to parse the<\/p>\n

legend from<\/p>\n

the truth.<\/p>\n

\n

\n

8-20<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

seeing<\/p>\n

my parents<\/p>\n

after<\/p>\n

a<\/p>\n

long<\/p>\n

layoff<\/p>\n

I am confronted<\/p>\n

by how old they are.<\/p>\n

Not decrepit \u2014 not<\/p>\n

yet \u2014<\/p>\n

but faltering, bowed<\/p>\n

and slowing, an illusion<\/p>\n

of themselves<\/p>\n

at half-speed.<\/p>\n

My father,<\/p>\n

yesterday morning,<\/p>\n

dressed in loafers, khakis, and<\/p>\n

a button-down,<\/p>\n

on his way to New York:<\/p>\n

an echo of hundreds,<\/p>\n

thousands, of Cape Cod Sundays<\/p>\n

stretching back over<\/p>\n

four decades.<\/p>\n

And yet,<\/p>\n

at the proper angle,<\/p>\n

he looks like my<\/p>\n

grandfather:<\/p>\n

not his father, but<\/p>\n

my mother\u2019s, sideburns<\/p>\n

inching down his cheek<\/p>\n

not by intention but neglect,<\/p>\n

on his chin a patch of pale fur<\/p>\n

he missed while shaving,<\/p>\n

on his scalp white flakes<\/p>\n

of peeling skin.<\/p>\n

In Hyannis,<\/p>\n

we sit together at<\/p>\n

the bus station and<\/p>\n

I watch him flex his fingers,<\/p>\n

those once precised and tapered digits<\/p>\n

thick now<\/p>\n

beneath the gold band<\/p>\n

girding<\/p>\n

of his wedding ring.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

on Bank Street today<\/p>\n

a mother and daughter,<\/p>\n

late thirties and mid-teens,<\/p>\n

the cut of their hair,<\/p>\n

the curve of their necks,<\/p>\n

their calves,<\/p>\n

the same as<\/p>\n

when I was seventeen.<\/p>\n

They walk,<\/p>\n

identical in shorts<\/p>\n

and tanktops,<\/p>\n

sneakers and white<\/p>\n

ankle socks, like<\/p>\n

two sides of a<\/p>\n

relection in<\/p>\n

the funhouse mirror<\/p>\n

of my eyes.<\/p>\n

Once,<\/p>\n

it would have been<\/p>\n

the daughter who<\/p>\n

compelled me;<\/p>\n

now it\u2019s the other<\/p>\n

way around.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the<\/p>\n

feeling lingers:<\/p>\n

a longing<\/p>\n

that does not<\/p>\n

quite narrow<\/p>\n

the distance<\/p>\n

to desire.<\/p>\n

\n

\n

8-22<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

my father\u2019s hands<\/p>\n

do not linger.<\/p>\n

They thicken and<\/p>\n

grow clumsy.<\/p>\n

They are my hands.<\/p>\n

I recall the calm<\/p>\n

precision of his movements,<\/p>\n

see in them<\/p>\n

the man<\/p>\n

I sought to be.<\/p>\n

Not trying to be<\/p>\n

sentimental \u2014<\/p>\n

the danger of this<\/p>\n

kind of thinking, of<\/p>\n

coming to the same<\/p>\n

place, the same house,<\/p>\n

forty-two years.<\/p>\n

Yet despite our<\/p>\n

issues, our<\/p>\n

dissatisfactions, the<\/p>\n

misunderstandings I\u2019ve<\/p>\n

learned to put behind me,<\/p>\n

it all comes back<\/p>\n

to these<\/p>\n

hands, both<\/p>\n

as they are and<\/p>\n

as I remember,<\/p>\n

the stillness to which<\/p>\n

I once aspired.<\/p>\n

My father, too, once<\/p>\n

stood at such a distance;<\/p>\n

even when he was there<\/p>\n

he was not really there.<\/p>\n

More elusive than solid,<\/p>\n

a fluid presence<\/p>\n

only available<\/p>\n

in ghost traces:<\/p>\n

a touch, the flexing<\/p>\n

of his fingers<\/p>\n

against the surface<\/p>\n

of a bus station<\/p>\n

bench.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

ghost traces, yes, for<\/p>\n

he is gone now,<\/p>\n

has been<\/p>\n

for the last few days.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, my birthday<\/p>\n

(yes, my birthday:<\/p>\n

conveniently<\/p>\n

overlooked here,<\/p>\n

a reminder<\/p>\n

of the ticking<\/p>\n

that does not<\/p>\n

stop)<\/p>\n

he barely found<\/p>\n

a minute<\/p>\n

to talk to me, and<\/p>\n

although I am too old<\/p>\n

to be hurt by this,<\/p>\n

I was.<\/p>\n

I was planning to call<\/p>\n

you later, he said, and<\/p>\n

I will \u2026<\/p>\n

but he didn\u2019t,<\/p>\n

leaving me both<\/p>\n

disappointed and relieved.<\/p>\n

Yes, and something<\/p>\n

else: let\u2019s say revealed.<\/p>\n

For I have done the same<\/p>\n

with my kids:<\/p>\n

reaching out sporadically<\/p>\n

when we are not together,<\/p>\n

letting the distance<\/p>\n

quantify.<\/p>\n

Last week, Sophie<\/p>\n

here alone<\/p>\n

with her grandparents,<\/p>\n

I never spoke with her,<\/p>\n

relying on Facebook, texts,<\/p>\n

relishing (say it, say it)<\/p>\n

the distance from<\/p>\n

my child.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

another Bank Street morning:<\/p>\n

running into Small while walking;<\/p>\n

we talk, briefly, and she tells me<\/p>\n

I look the same.<\/p>\n

She hasn\u2019t seen me, I don\u2019t think,<\/p>\n

since college, and my hair<\/p>\n

was not nearly<\/p>\n

this gray.<\/p>\n

Again, the things that<\/p>\n

change and the things that<\/p>\n

don\u2019t; to her,<\/p>\n

former professor,<\/p>\n

I will always be a kid.<\/p>\n

And yet, here too, the<\/p>\n

conundrum of this place, of<\/p>\n

all this history,<\/p>\n

the way it keeps us<\/p>\n

from getting out from<\/p>\n

underneath the past.<\/p>\n

What keeps me young?<\/p>\n

(if anything \u2026)<\/p>\n

That I don\u2019t live here, that<\/p>\n

I have left my history<\/p>\n

behind.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

what keeps me young:<\/p>\n

Rae,<\/p>\n

living with Rae,<\/p>\n

love and lust,<\/p>\n

a direct line back<\/p>\n

to our beginnings,<\/p>\n

the image of her<\/p>\n

hovering above me<\/p>\n

as she lets go and<\/p>\n

the armature of her<\/p>\n

desire explodes \u2026<\/p>\n

this, this endless writing,<\/p>\n

this succession of<\/p>\n

notebooks, stretching<\/p>\n

back: all those years, as<\/p>\n

long as I\u2019ve been coming to<\/p>\n

this Cape house, sitting<\/p>\n

in this chair, at this<\/p>\n

table, scratching out<\/p>\n

black lines of<\/p>\n

words \u2026<\/p>\n

the fear of death, of time,<\/p>\n

awareness of moment,<\/p>\n

the sense that it doesn\u2019t<\/p>\n

matter, that it has never<\/p>\n

mattered,<\/p>\n

and yet<\/p>\n

it matters so much.<\/p>\n

The idea that the future,<\/p>\n

the real future, is<\/p>\n

an emptiness,<\/p>\n

unimaginable, not<\/p>\n

slumber but cessation,<\/p>\n

a source of terror,<\/p>\n

not relief \u2026<\/p>\n

my children, whom I love,<\/p>\n

whom I long to be with \u2026<\/p>\n

even when I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

and there it is, the<\/p>\n

contradiction: What keeps<\/p>\n

me young is history.<\/p>\n

And there it is, the<\/p>\n

contradiction: We can<\/p>\n

never lose our history.<\/p>\n

Our history loses us.<\/p>\n

That mother and daughter,<\/p>\n

walking Bank Street?<\/p>\n

Fifty years from now,<\/p>\n

they will still be here,<\/p>\n

and I \u2026 I<\/p>\n

will be gone.<\/p>\n

\n

\n

8-23<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Wednesday night,<\/p>\n

at Fenway Park,<\/p>\n

Sophie and I sit with Steve<\/p>\n

in his seats<\/p>\n

and watch the Red Sox<\/p>\n

lose.<\/p>\n

That satisfaction is<\/p>\n

another constant, although<\/p>\n

my daughter sees it differently<\/p>\n

in her Red Sox sweatshirt,<\/p>\n

purchased just prior to game time<\/p>\n

on Yawkey Way.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a great day with her,<\/p>\n

the two of us and my old friend<\/p>\n

wandering the streets<\/p>\n

outside the ballpark,<\/p>\n

visiting the ancient<\/p>\n

brick, the Monster, the<\/p>\n

Bleacher Bar. When<\/p>\n

Steve asks why she<\/p>\n

likes the Red Sox, I<\/p>\n

say because she knows<\/p>\n

I hate them, and<\/p>\n

she laughs and nods.<\/p>\n

This is the moment:<\/p>\n

leaning out from the second deck<\/p>\n

over the visitor\u2019s dugout,<\/p>\n

suspended loose as time,<\/p>\n

the summer evening,<\/p>\n

Prudential Building<\/p>\n

lit up green and red.<\/p>\n

I explain the dropped third strike<\/p>\n

rule when Dustin Pedroia<\/p>\n

gets on base, remember<\/p>\n

another friend<\/p>\n

whose grandfather<\/p>\n

came here to watch<\/p>\n

Tris Speaker play.<\/p>\n

Babe Ruth pitched the Sox<\/p>\n

to two World Series titles<\/p>\n

on this field, around the time<\/p>\n

he bought that farm in Sudbury,<\/p>\n

ninety years, a century \u2014<\/p>\n

it is the hundredth anniversary of<\/p>\n

Fenway \u2014\u00a0like an evening<\/p>\n

at the park.<\/p>\n

Baseball is a game of inches, yes,<\/p>\n

but it is also a game of generations,<\/p>\n

although in the end what may define it<\/p>\n

most is a peculiar sense of time.<\/p>\n

How many ballparks have I sat in,<\/p>\n

how many games, how<\/p>\n

many pitches, how many<\/p>\n

players, how many friends and<\/p>\n

relatives and loved ones, and<\/p>\n

what can any of it mean?<\/p>\n

Nothing, except for the chance<\/p>\n

to sit here with my daughter<\/p>\n

as time collapses and all<\/p>\n

those games, those moments<\/p>\n

condense into this one:<\/p>\n

me and this coltish thirteen-year-old<\/p>\n

grinning in her braces<\/p>\n

as my heart implodes.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

and does that sound like<\/p>\n

another contradiction? No,<\/p>\n

a complication, a struggle<\/p>\n

to make<\/p>\n

the world cohere.<\/p>\n

I want to be alone and I<\/p>\n

don\u2019t want to be alone, to be<\/p>\n

apart and be a part.<\/p>\n

Today, in the car, I was explaining<\/p>\n

to Noah about my father\u2019s father:<\/p>\n

the rages, the depressions,<\/p>\n

the sitting in dark rooms.<\/p>\n

Poppy decided he would never<\/p>\n

be that way, I said, and<\/p>\n

just like that, I saw<\/p>\n

his reticence as an<\/p>\n

act of will.<\/p>\n

And did it serve him?<\/p>\n

Yes, it served him. Let<\/p>\n

him frame his own<\/p>\n

identity.<\/p>\n

And did it hurt him?<\/p>\n

Yes, it hurt him. Kept<\/p>\n

him at a distance from<\/p>\n

his desire.<\/p>\n

\n

\n

8-24<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Friday afternoon,<\/p>\n

sitting on the back porch,<\/p>\n

Noah reading Ask the Dust,<\/p>\n

my father, back from New York,<\/p>\n

in his corner chair.<\/p>\n

Quiet as a church or a<\/p>\n

library, the sound of<\/p>\n

construction in the distance,<\/p>\n

an earth mover and<\/p>\n

the click of staple guns.<\/p>\n

We leave tomorrow,<\/p>\n

back to Boston in the<\/p>\n

rental car, up Route 3,<\/p>\n

flight of the Bambino,<\/p>\n

through the Ted Williams<\/p>\n

Tunnel, another baseball<\/p>\n

reference, another token<\/p>\n

of what lingers and what<\/p>\n

doesn\u2019t linger, another token<\/p>\n

of our faith.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

the other afternoon in Brookline,<\/p>\n

talking to Steve in his backyard<\/p>\n

while Sophie looked at<\/p>\n

online shopping sites, I said I was<\/p>\n

a Taoist if I were anything at all.<\/p>\n

So you believe in God? Steve asked,<\/p>\n

but that\u2019s not it,<\/p>\n

at least not in any comforting sense.<\/p>\n

I believe that when I die<\/p>\n

my consciousness will<\/p>\n

dissipate, that, God or no God, I<\/p>\n

as a distinct and differentiated<\/p>\n

entity<\/p>\n

will cease.<\/p>\n

It was late in the day, trees<\/p>\n

in full green of August, sky<\/p>\n

high and blue, pocked with<\/p>\n

rough ellipses of clouds.<\/p>\n

The stillest and most calm<\/p>\n

of moments,<\/p>\n

and even so, beneath it,<\/p>\n

time relentless, ticking<\/p>\n

forward notch by notch.<\/p>\n

There is no time, the Buddhists<\/p>\n

say, but we are<\/p>\n

condemned to live in it.<\/p>\n

Which is why I draw<\/p>\n

no lasting solace<\/p>\n

from the constancy of place,<\/p>\n

this summer silence, nor<\/p>\n

from these ink-scratched<\/p>\n

scrawlings either, although it<\/p>\n

is the only lasting solace<\/p>\n

that I know.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

today, we marked off<\/p>\n

the last few items on our checklist:<\/p>\n

Brewster General Store and<\/p>\n

Chatham, streets a mirror of<\/p>\n

every other summer that I\u2019ve<\/p>\n

been here, a dopplered reflection<\/p>\n

of the future and the past.<\/p>\n

I no longer want,<\/p>\n

as I once did, to<\/p>\n

outlive the others,<\/p>\n

just to leave this record<\/p>\n

of my leavings, knowing<\/p>\n

it will disappear.<\/p>\n

There is no meaning, nothing<\/p>\n

sustaining.<\/p>\n

One day, Sophie will<\/p>\n

look at my hands as I<\/p>\n

look at my father\u2019s,<\/p>\n

remember our<\/p>\n

trip to Fenway<\/p>\n

as a distant island, or<\/p>\n

not remember it at all.<\/p>\n

One day, that Bank Street<\/p>\n

daughter will be a mother,<\/p>\n

walking with her daughter,<\/p>\n

or she won\u2019t have a daughter,<\/p>\n

or she won\u2019t be alive.<\/p>\n

One day, none of this<\/p>\n

will matter, just as<\/p>\n

it doesn\u2019t matter now.<\/p>\n

One day, I will watch<\/p>\n

my father turn to dust,<\/p>\n

and then I will turn to dust,<\/p>\n

without ever having<\/p>\n

said out loud the words<\/p>\n

that are required, the flawed<\/p>\n

and temporary consolations<\/p>\n

that are all we can bestow.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

and so tonight,<\/p>\n

I watch my father\u2019s hands,<\/p>\n

watch as he flexes them<\/p>\n

against the table top.<\/p>\n

I watch my daughter smile<\/p>\n

as she talks to her cousins,<\/p>\n

mouth a crust of silver,<\/p>\n

braces glinting in the lamplight.<\/p>\n

I watch myelf, caught in<\/p>\n

the middle, neither<\/p>\n

there nor here.<\/p>\n

I watch and try to<\/p>\n

hold us and to keep us, not<\/p>\n

the memory so much<\/p>\n

as the essence,<\/p>\n

the essence of<\/p>\n

who we were.<\/p>\n

Harwichport, Massachusetts<\/em><\/p>\n

August 19-25, 2012<\/em><\/p>\n

DAVID L. ULIN\u00a0is the author, most recently, of the novella\u00a0<\/em>Labyrinth. His other books include\u00a0<\/em>The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a California Book Award. He is book critic of the\u00a0<\/em>Los Angeles Times.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Sophie 8-19 every time I drive down to the Cape from Boston, Route 3 reminds me of Babe Ruth,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issue_one","category-poetry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/cronymag.com\/c\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/IMG_4301.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cronymag.com\/c\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cronymag.com\/c\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cronymag.com\/c\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cronymag.com\/c\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cronymag.com\/c\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/cronymag.com\/c\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212,"href":"http:\/\/cronymag.com\/c\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions\/212"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cronymag.com\/c\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cronymag.com\/c\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cronymag.com\/c\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cronymag.com\/c\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}