Subject: "El I P" - Special Daddy Magick
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 00:39:47 -0500
Friday was a hectic day at work - but then, most days are. I spent the week clearing my desk of six Priority One tasks, and planned to upgrade two workstations with new software. This would be a happy mindless task to get me prepared for the weekend. But then, my boss got his new PowerBook laptop in! If I could get the new machine up and running, and transfer his files, I would be able to arrange a long-term loan of his old laptop.
Unboxing the computer wasn't a problem. Figuring out which cables went where wasn't a problem. Even transferring the files wasn't a problem, although it was an adventure involving three departments, two manuals, and one call to AppleSupport. No, the problem was getting my boss to sit still long enough to delete his personal and the company confidential files from my new acquisition. So, loaded down with the laptop, extra batteries, lots of cables, several floppies, all in a carryall briefcase, I headed home, eager to awe and amuse the kids with my latest toy.
One of our family's rituals is Friday dinner. I stop at the Golden Starches, or Col. Blanders Chicken Blasphemy, or the Chinese Takeout joint. Alana doesn't have to cook, and the kids get yummy healthless food to start their weekend off right. So, loaded down with burgers, fries, and processed chicken gobblets, I headed through the door, to feed and amuse my kids with their tasty num-nums.
Instead, I found chaos.
The dogs were barking. Llerendel, my 4yr old, was a shrieking teakettle. Eileen, my 8yr old, was sobbing on the couch. Carl was slouched down in the other couch. Alana was on the phone, uttering those fateful words, "Pediatrics, please. This is an emergency."
So, I calmly slung the backpack into a corner, dropped the food onto a flat surface, and picked up my noisy teakettle. She pointed to a large, but not immediately fatal splinter in her knee. I picked her up, quieting her somewhat, and heard through the shrieks Alana saying, "Glass... wrist... stitches." I did a double take, and saw that Carl was holding a large blood-soaked bandage on one arm. Performing a quick triage, I yanked out Llerendel's splinter, gave her to Alana as she got off the phone, and went to take a look at Carl.
An old fermented jar of apple juice had shattered while he was picking it up. Luckily, it was on the side of his wrist, and no nerves, tendons, or blood vessels were cut. We waited for the HMO doctor to call back, and give us permission to go to the Emergency Room. After convincing Eileen that her siblings boo-boos were not her fault, I distributed the provender I had gathered. Llerendel quieted down as quickly as a preschooler can, and started playing with her kids-meal toy. I helped Carl eat one- handed.
Carl polished off his second Burger O' Month, and started in on the Chicken Gobblets during the car ride. Since he was in mild shock, not from blood loss but from, well, the shock of the whole affair, he had had trouble walking from the house to the car, and there were no parking spaces, I decided to indulge in my sense of theater, and asked for a wheelchair. We hung out at the Emergency Room admissions desk, arguing whether a Borg Cube from Star Trek outfight a ShadowShip from Babylon 5, and finally the clerk and the triage nurse arrived at the same time.
"If you'll come this way, Mr. Hommel, I can get your insurance information while the nurse looks at Carl's wound..."
A scared Carlton, clutching Snowflake-the-only-slightly-dirty-Bear, looked up from his wheelchair. I said, "No."
From the clerk's reaction, you would have thought that I had claimed that medical care was a right to be given freely to everyone, not a privilege to be paid for. "No," I repeated, interrupting her bluster, "I'm going to stay with Carl, while the nurse looks at Carl's bandage."
Carl looked much relieved. I held his healthy hand, while the nurse unwrapped, washed, inspected, triaged, and came to the same conclusion Alana and I had - stitches required, but no permanent damage done. Carl looked up at me, and after she left asked, "How did you know I wanted you to stay with me?"
"Special Daddy Magick", I replied.
This is one of my parental phrases, like "Wait until you get older", or "In a minute", or "I'll think about it". A way of not-answering a child's question, because the explanation is not a simple one, or because you want to preserve that aura of Parental Omnipotence.
"Carlton, Eileen, turn around and go close the back door."
"How did you know it wasn't closed."
"Special Daddy Magick."
"Mom, Dad, Carlton pushed me!"
"He did not. You walked next to him, and tripped over his foot."
"How did you know? It was in the other room!"
"Special Daddy Magick."
"I wonder how they get cars into the buildings where they sell cars?"
"They roll back the roof, and lower it in by helicopter in the middle of the night."
"Wow! Neat! How did you know that?"
"Its something I learned in Daddy School."
Since children don't consider that there parents were ever anything but parents, they get quite surprised at being caught out when they repeat the same misbehaviors the parents did. That, combined with the judicious use of mirrors, listening for specific sounds, and a cursory reading of child psychology, lets me keep a half step ahead.
I thought about Special Daddy Magick, while holding Carl while they were stitching him up. This wasn't the first time I've arrived home in the middle of a crisis. Back in college, I turned the corner, and saw the roof of the house next to my apartment going up in flames. "My cats! My books! My dirty laundry!", I said, listing the important things in my life about to go up in smoke.
When Eileen was two, she meticulously plotted, planned, and executed a carefully crafted campaign worthy of Napoleon or Hannibal, to acquire Moms sharp embroidery scissors. Our reconstruction concluded that Eileen had used her potty chair, a kitchen chair, a butter knife, and a couch cushion (as a landing zone) and pulled off the lift and snatch, from a cold start, in under 30 seconds. Her path then led past the cat, who was given a stylish one-sided whisker shortening, into the bathroom, where Eileen trimmed her bangs, and then...
Alana looked down from the spaghetti pot, and saw tomato sauce all over Eileen. But wait - that wasn't sauce, it was blood! And it was all over the place! Alana dropped the spatula, and bent over as best she could, given the state of her pregnancy. Blood on Eileen's clothes, her arms, the floor, the bathroom sink - everywhere. And it kept coming, from no visible wound.
At this point, I walked in. An excited 4yr old ran to me, and Carl called, "Eileen boo- boo! Eileen boo-boo!" I saw blood all over the kitchen floor, smelled the spaghetti pot bubbling over, and heard shrieking from the bathroom. Turning off the stove, I went into the bathroom, saw both Eileen and Alana covered in blood, and heard Alana say, "I can't find where the blood is coming from." Making a Decisive Daddy Decision, I picked Eileen up, plopped her in the tub, clothes and all, and turned on the water faucet. Ten seconds of warm water later, we determined that the mess was coming from the tip of Eileen's finger. She had snipped off a quarter inch from the end.
A few seconds pressure with a gauze pad, and the situation quieted down dramatically. Alana retired to regroup her shattered nerves, with a meek, changed, toweled off, and snugly Eileen fighting an unborn Gwen for lap space. I finished preparing dinner, and Crisis was averted.
So, I thought as I held Carl, why I would I be coming home in the nick of time like this? I'm not getting home ahead of time, I'm not getting home after the paramedics have been called - I'm walking through the door just as I'm needed. And then it struck me - Special Daddy Magick!
I develop a resonance with a place after I've been living there a while. I spend much more time setting up my office furnishings after changing cubicles than most engineers, and do my best work in familiar surroundings. It isn't all one-way. Call me anthropomorphic, but just as I get support from my Spots, sometimes my Spots call out to me. Which I'll call magick.
The "Special Daddy" part comes in because the Spot is not merely a physical location, like my desk, or a cyberspace location, like starshine.mrst.com, but a social location - my family. I'm going to have to get used to arriving in the nick of time, just as chaos breaks out.
This sort of bonding is intensified by daily rituals relating to the family, just as some of you perform daily rituals relating to your faith. Each ritual has its own spot. Now, every childhood development book will say that repetition, and the establishment of routine, and daily rituals are a vital necessity for the growth of a child, and so forth - but I'd like to talk about some that I perform Intentionally, as part of a Work, to bring forth this "Special Daddy Magick".
Now, Alana is a Roman Catholic, but many of their rituals are posited towards the same strengthening. They just use different terminology. "Guardian Angels" or "Patron Saints" are doing the spiritual overwatch tasks. In our household, Alana and I share rituals that we both are comfortable with.
The first, and most obvious ritual, is going to Church. We haven't gone lately, due to Alana's health, but the sounds and smells of the Catholic Mass sink some pretty powerful hooks in a child's growth. As a counterbalance, I take Carl or Eileen out at night, to Gwen and Francis' graveside, wrap up in blankets, watch the Moon and Stars, talk about the Seasons, and discuss their missing siblings. It is a Special Time Alone with Daddy.
We have been using the furor over Pocahontas, and the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, to talk about how life really was during the Colonial Period. I got across the point that while the indigenous peoples of the American Continent, the misnamed "Indians", lived a lifestyle suited to the Land, the cultural, religious, and farming lifestyles of the peoples of the European Continent did not. The European settlers faced a choice - they could either adapt Native American ways, like the lost Roanoke Colony did, or change the Land. They chose the latter, and part of the Neo-Pagan ethos is to open a dialogue with the Modern Consumer Culture, on the ramifications of that long-ago decision.
Finally, the births and deaths in our family have been a lesson in the cycles of nature. What with the isolation of the American Nuclear Family, and the small size of most families, most kids nowadays have little experience with either Birth or Death. Alana has been pregnant every two years, and Carl and Eileen see no reason why she shouldnt continue this until they move out. (Alana and I have other ideas, relating to finances, energy, room, and ecological impact, which they consider quite unimportant.) Each time, we drag out the same old Prepare Your Child For Pregnancy books. Each time, we buy a few new ones, as the kids get older, and gain a greater appreciation of the cycles of Birth and Death affect humans, as well as animals and the Seasons.
You've probably participated in group rituals with other adults, where energy was gathered to celebrate, renew, enrich, or heal those parts of your life that make you a Pagan. Consider how these same practices can be done as part of your day to day family life, too.
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