Travelers

Oftentimes, in unexpected and unusual ways the past has a way of catching up and when it does in some painful or unpleasant way, I retroactively reconnoiter in an attempt to discover exactly at what point in time the decisions I made or actions I took set in motion events that led to whatever outcome. Sometimes it's not hard at all. I was aware as I was doing it and so, like jumping onto a moving train, the repercussions and changes they heralded came as no surprise. However, that's not what I want to write about tonight. Tonight, I want to write about the future because my son, Logan, and I are about to jump off a platform onto a train that is moving very fast.

At this moment there is an eleven year old South Korean boy named David Lee hurtling toward us across the Pacific Ocean, seven miles high and close to 600 miles per hour; he'll arrive in Austin late tomorrow and then he'll come to live at our house for the next three months. There are reasons for this.

Though eleven seems startlingly young to me, Logan's school routinely hosts foreign exchange students from SK. This past Monday, the Principal sent out an email to the effect that there was a desperate need for a family to host David, as he was about to board a plane and come over and so far, no one had volunteered.
 I quickly read the email, deleted it and went on about my tasks for the day. I had to finish scheduling faculty, mediate two student complaints, begin development of a new academic affairs project and grade roughly seventeen papers. If things at work were hectic, the situation at home was dire. Logan's puppy had disappeared on Christmas Day (more evidence against belief in Santa Claus), the propane tank needed filling, we were down to starvation rations as I hadn't gone to the grocery in a couple of weeks. The couch had vanished under a mound of my clothing that needed to go to the dry cleaner. This last bit wasn't too troubling as I had conducted an experiment in early December where I wore the same pair of slacks to work every day for a week, to test my theory that no one would notice and no one did. Or if they did they didn't mention it. Either way, no problemo. Ten years ago existing at that level of invisibility would have bothered me, but now? Not so much. With Logan gone to his mom's for the holiday, I was amazed at how quickly old habits had snapped through to the surface. Even though he had been back at the ranch for three days, I was having a hard time wrestling my true self back into its cage and taking on the persona of a somewhat efficient and responsible householder.

Logan of course, wasn't helping. Like boys everywhere, the prospect of supper cooked over a hardwood fire and then drifting off to sleep in his sleeping bag because there are no clean sheets and anyway the dog has taken to sleeping on the bed was fine with him. He's such a sweet boy; he pretends to think living like this is normal and supports me with "I love it here," when he catches me looking around the wreckage of our home in despair.

All the same, that email kept bothering me and though I tried and though I knew that eventually someone would step up, I just couldn't shake the feeling that I ought to at least re-read it, knowing that there would be some caveat "Barbarians need not apply…" something, that would let me--us--off the hook so that we could go on about the business of a single dad and a wonderful son trying to figure it all out. But when I did, there was nothing of the sort, just a short, simple request that I knew, even as I began to type a response, was as vast and multilayered as the subtext of any of a thousand great novels.

Oddly, what Logan would think of inviting a stranger to live with us never crossed my mind, and that at least, I know is not because of indifference on my part. I knew without considering it that he'd be all for it because he's a sweet and thoughtful individual who has that rarest of gifts and which he offers free to anyone; he genuinely cares. I think he gets that from his mom and her husband. When I broached the topic, there was an odd silence in the car and then he said, "Cool. I can sleep on the couch," a statement that echoed off my main concern:that our strange and isolate life together lays too heavy a burden on him. My fear is also that I'm—albeit unintentionally—grooming him for a life like the one I've led.Not a bad one, but also no one that bends toward what I hope and for him which is he'll have a lifelong relationship, marriage and an intact family; I want him to succeed in all the ways I've failed and I know that in this area I can't lead the way. I can only say "Good luck."

I have my doubts about almost everything all the time, but I know that when David gets here that he'll need a hot meal and then sleep. After that we'll all sit down and chart our course together.