The other day, I took my daughter out to practice riding her bike. We’ve got the training wheels up high now, and she’s starting to get the feel of riding on two wheels. As we rode around the apartment complex, we saw two little girls playing by the fish pond. My daughter just stopped and stared for a long time. She’s not in school right now, and she hasn’t been able to meet any friends for a while. I wanted so much to tell her to go talk to those kids, to say hi and see if they wanted to play. But of course that’s not something we can do right now.
Anxious times
My birthday arrives at a strange and anxious time. A year ago, when I talked about dancing in the wind, I couldn’t have foreseen the typhoons and tornadoes to come (including, here in Korea, some literal typhoons, like the one that blew through yesterday).
A year ago, we became a family: my wife, my daughter, and my mother-in-law all moved in together. The months after that were challenging. We traveled to the US and had a wedding here in Korea, and it was all pretty overwhelming. I was still learning how to be a family man — I was single a long time — and at times I fell short of what my wife and daughter needed from me. After those difficult and tumultuous months, we really hoped that we could settle into a normal routine. We wanted things just to be ordinary for a while.
No such luck.
I hope that in another year, things are better for the world. I hope my daughter is in school, and we can travel, or just go out for a really good pizza (we miss you, Brick Oven Pizza!) without fear. I hope my own country is in a better situation.
Cultivating the oasis
For this year, as plain as it may seem, my hope is just to be ordinary: an ordinary dad in an ordinary family in an ordinary world. I think a lot of us are hoping for some version of that. I want to take my wife out on a date at a cozy restaurant where the murmur of other voices isn’t threatening. I want to get my daughter up on two wheels. I want to see her in school and playing with friends.
These days, I’m reading books about child development and about marriage. I am trying to learn my role and do it better. I can’t know what the world will be like in another year, but I can do my best to make a happy home within it, for myself and for those I love and am responsible for. I’m grateful to have this oasis, and I will cultivate it even as the storms blow past.