Mail call

"Fatherhood," Hugo Williams has noted in an essay on parenthood, "is a mirror in which we catch glimpses of ourselves as we really are." Well, yes, in some ways - as Williams notes, with the pressures of fatherhood come a series of inevitable prioritizations that can reveal one's true values. (Which seem to be, in my case: swinging from tree swings is good, and a consistent flow of espresso even better). But if fatherhood is a mirror, it's a funhouse lens: it distorts part of our lives, and eliminates others. We babble, we applaud pooping - and we forget what it was like to read a novel over the course of a weekend, or what it was like to go out with friends after 6 p.m. A parent is a wacky rubbery simulacrum, in other words, of a once-normal adult.

But even in the funhouse, there are occasional, insistent reminders of the more reasonable world outside. In their most dramatic form, such reminders might take the form of a fugitive running across our lawn; in more quotidian form, however, they're the national news, or a weekly chat with the parents, or the week's reading for class. Through such lenses, even the newest parent can see that all is not changed, that all is not warped.

And then there's the mail. So much of what we give and receive now - this blog included - is digital, but every weekday at around 10:15 our mailman happens by and leaves the daily haul in our old milkbox. Sometimes, admittedly, it's a thin harvest: a catalog, or a fundraising letter. On most days, however, it's a more interesting yield: on Thursdays, for example, Sports Illustrated arrives. And, you wonder, what's so special about that? Well, for me it means a quick contact with a world whose rules and patterns I once knew very well. But for Cleo, it means something rather different: the thin paper stock and the bright colors make a wonderfully chaotic toy:

And so I read the first few pages quickly, and give them over to my daughter, who fights them like Hercules fought the Hydra, reducing the beginning of the magazine to a scattered series of leaves. And then, after she's in bed, I finish reading the issue, and on Friday we go at it all over again.

But if Thursday's always thus a fun mail day, this past Wednesday was a virtual miracle. Three packages appeared, like three magi, and they held a range of wonderful contents. From Mom, a cute little outfit for Cleo, with frills and long legs. From an old friend of my parents, a truly lovely handmade sweater, with a breathtaking blue bow. And from an old college friend in Illinois, a jar of Boudreaux's Butt Paste, which we'd first encountered in the Harper's Ferry hostel, before either one of us had any real need to combat diaper rash. Add 'em up, and throw in the bright yellow hat and mittens a colleague had left on my desk, and we had a full outfit for our daughter - and enough butt paste for pretty much everybody in our zip code. Cheers, y'all.

Fatherhood may be a mirror in which we catch glimpses of ourselves. But it's also a frame through which we see others. And others, it's clear, are wonderfully generous and creative. Thanksgiving is still three weeks away, but, really, why wait? I'm already feeling thankful.