The Budget of Paradox

Sophia,
For your 13th birthday, I sent you a $200 gift card to The Fresh Market. I had seen photos of you helping you mom cook. I thought maybe you liked to cook. It was just a guess. I wanted to get you a gift I thought you might like. I wrote you a letter and encouraged you to go shopping and try to cook something new.

You never wrote back. I have no idea if you ever got it.

Anyway, I suggested that you learn to cook a proper steak sandwich. Your mom used to like them back when we were married. I didn’t know how to cook steak back then. Learning how to properly cook steak is something I’ve learned living on my own.

I encouraged you to try Gordon Ramsay’s idea of a steak sandwich.

But now, I encourage you to try Guga’s idea of a steak sandwich. I haven’t made this version myself yet, but I will soon. I really like Guga’s ideas. If you need more money to go grocery shopping, let me know.

I wish I knew you better. Maybe you hate to cook. Maybe you like something else instead. I wish I knew. I hope you have a hobby that you’re passionate about; something that intrigues you and draws you in. Whatever it is, I hope you can be really good at it. Having a hobby is important, especially if it’s completely different from your “day job”.

Eighty years ago, the emperor of Japan was a man named Hirohito. He was a statesman, a military officer, and he had university degrees in economics and philosophy. But in his spare time, he studied – of all things – marine biology. He even built a small laboratory in his house. For a few very specific aspects of marine biology, he was the world’s foremost expert. He even published a few papers. No one paid him; he never had a job as a marine biologist. It was his hobby; his way of staying sane: perfection, patience, passion.

I hope you become really good at something.

Missing you, Dad

Sophia,
Do you like your name? I never had the chance to ask you. Obviously, we know how Morey feels about her name. Ironically, your mother and I quickly agreed on her name. But your name was in dispute for a long time, almost up until the time you were born. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Sophia is was the #1 or #2 most popular name for girls in the USA in 2008. If I had known that, I might have voted for something else. I mean, it’s not a bad name, but who wants to have the most popular name?

Mock me if you will, but I still like Dagmar. Your mother wanted Izzy.

Anyway, I was reminded today of this clip from a movie. Have you seen it?

http://black.blue/fl … /WhiteTrashNames.mp3

Sophia,
The last thing you remember about me is that I walked out of your life. Morey, too. She was just six-and-a-half when I left for Iraq. It was meant to be a short deployment. I should have been back before she turned seven.

I imagine that if someone were to ask you about your father, all you’d really be able to say is that he walked out on you. That’s fair. I mean, that’s what happened.

But that’s not the full story, not by a long shot. When you were old enough to travel by yourself (in my opinion), I started actively inviting you to come visit me. Check out the YouTube video I made about Christmas 2021. Read more; I invited you to Mexico City many times. To force you to wait until you’re 18 seems stupid to me. What’s the point?

Dad

Sophia Zander Grace:
I love you, kid. I miss you a lot. I really wish things were different. I’m doing the best I can, which, I know, doesn’t seem like much. I would love to hear from you.
Dad

Sophia:
I started this blog as a way to re-connect to you. I want to remind you of the bits of our lives that overlap. We don’t have much in common, but I want to keep alive those things we do.

But today’s post isn’t about any of that. It’s all about me.

It’s June 30 today. On this day 29 years ago, I lost my first wife. You don’t know much about me, but I suspect that you know I was married twice. I love you, and I love Morey (Percy, whatever). And there was a time I loved your mother. But before I knew any of you, I was in love with another woman. She was only 22 when we got married. We were only married for 153 days and then she died in a car accident. She was one of the very first people I ever met in Hawaii, back in 1990. She was loving and thoughtful and curious and kind to animals and she appreciated my dumb sense of humor.

Robin at South Point, on the Big Island of Hawaii

Two weeks before she died, she graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) with a degree in marine zoology. She loved to scuba dive and gave me my first lessons. The UCSB campus is big and beautiful and located directly on a beach, where we got married.

My friend Dennis was my Best Man. The tradition of having a Best Man goes back to ancient times. Back then, an official jester was hired to appear at weddings. His job was to tell off-color jokes to attract the attention of the Devil away from the bride. True to the title, Dennis brought some dirty jokes, written on index cards. I have them to this day.

I graduated from a university in Arizona. I spent many, many hours driving between Arizona and Santa Barbara. I had a beat-up old jeep with no air conditioning. Driving through the Coachella Valley, on Interstate 10, in summertime is rough with no A/C. Sometimes I collected loose change to buy the gas to make the drive. It was madness. It was love. I’d drive ten hours in the desert heat just to have lunch with her.

When you’re in love, you’re really alive. Love is when someone leads you back to yourself.