OK, first off we are not on fire. Thanks for all the e-mails and comments, but the fires that you’ve seen in the news are in Victoria and we’re in South Australia. For American readers, that’s about the distance between Florida and Texas. Frequent commenter and occasional guest poster Jamie asked why so many people are dying in the fires (173 at last count). The short answer is that I don’t know. I’m speculating that it is kind of a perfect storm of the ubiquitous Australian drought, a lack of water for fighting fires and dousing houses and the relatively poor infrastructure in country Victoria. Once you get out of the cities in Australia, it’s country (think of the pre-Interstate U.S. West). Often these bush towns only have one road in and one road out and that may be part of the problem. Whatever is going on, it’s a disaster of fairly epic proportions and the most disgusting thing about it is that these fires were intentionally set. For more about the Victoria fires, check out ABC’s full coverage. I’m a bit worried about Agnes of It All Started With Carbon Monoxide, one of my favorite music bloggers, who lives somewhere in the Victorian countryside and has been quiet for the last few days. If you’re interested in helping folks out, the Red Cross and ABC have some suggestions.

Over in SA, the heat wave broke at long last on Sunday. After a change in the wind direction and a fierce but too brief rain, we woke to a cool dewy morning – an euphoric feeling after a couple of weeks of crushing heat. The pleasure of a pleasant summer morning was short-lived, however, as we had to jump in the car and head for Adelaide’s airport to deposit Dr. O’C onto a flight for Sydney and, ultimately, Florida. She’s headed for a week long conference in Disney country – leaving Boy Z and A Free Man to fend for ourselves. That’s right, gentle readers, for the first time I’ll be parenting solo for ten days.*

Late in the afternoon I lay, bone weary, on the parched grass of the back yard with a husky dog panting in my face keeping half an eye on Boy Z as he spun and babbled about. Watching him, seeing myself and his mother in his face, I had a fleeting feeling of panic – just what the hell am I doing here? I am woefully underqualified to look after a seventeen month old child, am completely incompetent as a parent. I only learned to take care of myself a couple of years ago. It’s always been touch and go with the dog. Now I have a totally vulnerable – despite appearances to the contrary as he charged the dog with cricket bat flailing for the 473rd time – little human who is dependent entirely on me.

This gripping insecurity is something I’ve struggled with for a long time. On bad days I feel woefully inadequate to deal with a lot of things – work, social situations, human interaction of any kind. It’s rarer these days, but with the onset of fatherhood I found a whole new bog of insecurities. What am I going to do the first time Boy Z fails a test? What am I going to do the first time he gets in a fight? (Actually, he gets in fights all the time at day care. They seem to be running some sort of toddler cage match down there. The answer to my question is ‘nothing’.) What am I going to do the first time he struggles in a sport? What am I going to tell him when he asks about girls? What about the first time he comes home drunk? On a day like Sunday, all of these questions and more can race through my head – rendering my brain into a Formula 1 track. And I can become nearly paralyzed with the noise and rumbles.

That’s what was happening as I laid on the grass on Sunday afternoon. But the good thing about having a toddler boy around is that what is going on in my head is completely irrelevant to him. My paralysis was cured reasonably quickly with a whack in the head from a tiny cricket bat. Along with the sharp pain came the relief of a realization that I just had to get on with this one day, just had to play with my son today. And I got up. And I got on with it.

A little boy, a piece of willow – that’s all it takes? Should have done this years ago.

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* This isn’t exclusively true. Dr. O’C’s Mum is around and is remarkably helpful. In fact, she’s both dropping Boy Z off and picking him up from day care today. But still…

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This track from the fantastic Okkervil River comes from the free “Golden Opportunities Mixtape” that the band released on their website in December 2007. Pitchfork still has an active link if you would like to download the album of rarities.

Image credit:

Firefighter

 
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