washing dishes: a father’s glimpses

It was a momentous day in August 2008 as I sat at the foot of Tracey’s bed, scanning the bookshelves and came across the most evocative paperback book: How to Be an Adult in Relationships: the five keys to mindful loving.

I remember that moment when the sunlight passed through a large window on the bedroom’s westside in July as I read from Jami Attenberg‘s Craft Talk blog during #1000wordsofsummer where she’d written about the intimacy and endless delights she found while visiting a friend’s home:

No I could stay in a hole in the wall but as long as I had someone else’s bookshelves to look at I would be completely inspired and happy.

That image of Attenberg’s cast me back 16 years on my first visit to Tracey’s home, where I’d found some quiet in the next room where I pulled this one paperback from the shelf so I could use my most basic move to-not-judge-a-book-by-its-cover and instead follow the guidance of my fingers and open to any page to see how the tone, syntax, the font, and font size decided by the publisher felt as my eyes sampled the words on a page before me.

I was in a tender phase in life—3 months into my 30s, 5 years into a partnership, 3 months after a commitment ceremony. By then, I’d spent the last half of my 20s exploring pregnancy and parenting together. I cannot recall if we had been going to one fertility clinic and researching a few others that were out-of-network, or if that occur later. But by the time I turned 30, I’d had years of tracking follicle stimulating hormone, immersing myself with the rhythms and disruptions to ovulation and menstruation. The crash course in the variance of menstrual cycles and the sensitivity of hormones and organs that could be altered by stress, toxins, slight changes in food and meals. I’d had a few rounds of therapy by then, too.

When I went to the independent bookstore that evening or the next, I immediately sought out How to Be an Adult by David Richo. But, I wasn’t in luck. They didn’t have it in stock.

What they did have was his newest book, front-and-center on the New Releases table, with the title of When the Past is Present. A paperback with two White people, a woman and a man, bundled up in a few layers outdoors on an overcast day, separated by a stone bridge or some chasm. The symbolism of the almost stormy weather, with little exposed skin was conveying more than I could fathom as I ingested the cover with my eyes for the first time. I stood in front of the featured books and read undisturbed by the chatter and movement of people around me. Those first paragraphs got me; what I didn’t know at that moment was how much that book, that $20 purchase would change my life.

Learning of David Richo’s nonfiction books that week, which combine spiritual practice and psychological introspection, was a blessing altering my life. I’d heard about some atrocious interactions of extended family dysfunction. I’d wrangled with multiple generations of alcoholism, lived through the haze of second-hand smoke that dominated the first 15 years of my existence though I hadn’t grasped how cigarettes were a coping mechanism for the savagery of human-on-human interactions. So, when I read Richo in the bookstore, I could see other people’s lives. It took me a few months of reading chapters and passages multiple times before I began to comprehend that it was a doorway describing how I was living in my own home, not just the behaviors and words beyond my front door in Brooklyn.

What I didn’t know that day in August 2008 is that one year later, I would entertain a job interview and process where Seattle beckoned. What I didn’t know that evening in the bookstore was that two years later, I would be leaving a 7 year relationship to live in adherence to my own needs and values, not continuing to delude myself that I was being compassionate by placing another’s needs ahead of my own.

Fatherhood did come in 2015, more than 11 years after the first miscarriage that I’d been a part of. 16 years after the first time a girlfriend swallowed Plan B birth control that disrupted her hormones, ovaries, and uterus a few days after we had unprotected sex.

16 years after first picking up When the Past is Present, I still cite it in conversations, at times sending pictures of a page or a spread after a friend tells me some vulnerable detail of their life.

Among the vast wisdom in David Richo’s writings are:

• The five A’s that order our lives: acceptance, affection, allowance, appreciation, attention.
• Tonglen: to inhale another person’s pain and exhale with healing.
• APRI: address > process > resolve > integrate :: a four-part sequence to move through difficult circumstances.
• The 75:25 ratio where each of us is responsible for 3/4 of our internal barometer. That no more than 1/4 of my internal weather can be affected by another person.
• 10 domains of meaningful life, to notice when they are all present or attend to when missing.

I am happy and inspired, just as Attenberg described herself when looking at other people’s bookshelves, which I locate in my life as a father, a friend, a lover, a family member, as someone who remembers children’s names and asks about them, who regularly asks about ages, favorite vegetables, and best subjects in elementary school. My godfather said, “oh, that’s the problem with being a Taurus—being too considerate about other people.” He says as much because his birthday is a few days after mine.

Richo’s writings have instilled a greater capacity to be more compassionate with others while also being more unapologetic for myself. Richo’s psychological analysis and stories have helped me realize that I don’t need to fix the problems affecting other people’s lives, and that I can listen to their life stories without judging or scrutinizing. That by shedding that ingrained behavior that many men and boys have, that we can listen without trying to solve.

Richo’s multiple books — as I’ve read Five Things, How to Be an Adult, Unexpected Miracles and others — were workbooks for living in families differently. Some chapters that were concrete so I can change certain family patterns and dynamics within a generation. Richo’s 5 A’s helped me last year when my youngest would say “Dad, I need a hug” while sobbing. The first few times I heard that, I took another 45 seconds or 2 minutes before giving him a hug. After weeks of that, I began to soften more quickly so I could approach him, get down to his level and offer that hug within 10 seconds of hearing that plea. I am aware that he won’t say his pleas out loud forever, but I can choose to heed his request because doing so mirrors back that his emotions are welcome in life and in this world, beginning at home whether it’s when he doesn’t want to brush his teeth or when he’s hurting over some episode that I don’t understand. My understanding is irrelevant when I’m given the chance to be compassionate. That’s the calling of fatherhood that providing Acceptance, Affection, Allowance, Appreciation, and Attention.

The way I’ve remembered those is this mnemonic phrase: c fucking lives peantbutter toast. That is, C-F-L-P-T (the consonants following the A’s, of course.)

To anyone seeking to improve interpersonal skills, be more vulnerable, and see and feel into the memories of childhood, I’d recommend the many books of David Richo to you. While I’d start with When the Past is Present, I must acknowledge that Unexpected Miracles is spectacular, and may be my favorite because it is infinite invitations to indulge my/your/our intuitions. We need a lot more of that amongst our kind of humankind.