Anton Chekhov, the great Russian playwright, said, "Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out."
A couple of years ago, my oldest daughter took her written driving test at the Lodi Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) after a harrowing trip from our house to get there. We left home at 7:25am. Our goal was to leave at 7:15am. It was my fault because even the slightest variation to my daily routine completely throws me off, even though we were planning to leave even later than I normally do when I go to work. We were still OK leaving a little late because we needed to meet the driving instructor at 7:45am, but the trip to Lodi from Leonia should have only taken about 20 minutes on a normal day. But when we got on Route 46 West not far from our house, we immediately ran into a complete closure near the Pathmark in Fort Lee. I managed to get to the shoulder, exit into the Pathmark parking lot and hurry through sides streets in Pal Park so we could reenter Route 46 about a mile west, far past the closure. This worked, and we were now back on track, even though I had already raised the possibility that we might have to do this another day.
When we planned the tip to the Lodi DMV, I had vaguely remembered that they used to have signs on 46 that told you where to turn to get to there. Unfortunately, someone had either removed the DMV signs, or I had misremembered. So as we passed through Lodi and eventually went on into Saddle Brook with no sign of the DMV, I started talking out loud about what must have happened to the signs and mentioned again about how we may have to pick another day to take the test. I also did not print out a map for this trip, mainly because the directions seemed so easy. I had always refused to buy a GPS, just as I refused to get power windows and locks for my car, on the same basic principle—these automated gadgets will make us lazy and ruin us as a nation.
We eventually came to the Wal-Mart plaza in Saddle Brook, where I quickly made the right into the parking lot, turned around, and got in the left turn lane at the stoplight out of Wal-Mart to get back on 46 East. We were supposed to be at the DMV by 7:45am to meet the driving instructor. It was now 7:50am. The red light turned out to be the world’s longest red light, staying red for about five-minutes before it FINALLY turned green. FIVE MINUTES. I became frantic, and then I noticed that we were just slightly below E on the gas gauge. (Have you ever been too busy to get gas?) That made me even more frantic while my daughter managed to keep calmly studying for the driving test. I raised the “might have to come again another day” scenario for the third time. We reentered Lodi, and without a map, I now have to go on hunches about the directions. I started getting this good feeling about Main Street, but the feeling came a little late so I had to suddenly jerk the steering wheel to turn off the highway. I then slowed way down because I also had a sense that I needed to turn around and get to the north side of 46. (I had actually been to the Lodi DMV several times over the past 15 years, so these intuitions are reasonable to me.) When I slowed down to look carefully for a place to turn around, the woman in the car behind me started laying on the horn, apparently frustrated because I was going so slow. So, I slowed down even more. (I’m not sure why I act this way.) I looked in the rear view mirror and she began throwing her hands up in the air and appeared to be yelling obscenities in her car. my daughter was still studying, oblivious. But there was no place to turn around because the traffic going the other way was so heavy. We went at least half a mile before I could finally turn around in a Shop-Rite parking lot. Even though we had prayed togther when we left home, I had now given up all hope of getting my daughter through the written test today. I managed to make the left turn out of Shop-Rite onto the busy street, but by now I am full-blown frantic, so I said to her:
“Could you put away your papers and help me figure this out?”
“O-kay!” she says.
I pulled out my phone and handed it to her.
“Call Mom!” I plead.
“Alright,” she says.
I have no idea why we are calling my wife, but I just have a feeling she’ll know what to do. But she doesn't answer her phone.
“Call your sister,” I say. “She can find Mom.”
My daughter dialed her younger sister, who doesn't answer either. Just as I am about to break down and ask someone walking down the street for directions, I see a DMV sign.
“Look! There’s a sign for the DMV Inspection Station! Whoo—hoo!” I yell.
We followed the signs just a few blocks and pulled up in the parking lot of the Department of Motor Vehicles at 8:00am sharp, 15 minutes late.
As we walked across the parking lot with the ice crunching under our feet, we see a long double line of about 15 cars each waiting for the road tests. We are supposed to find the car for New Life driving school. At this moment, I realized that we forgot to find out what kind of car to look for, or even what color it is. Besides, we’ve never even met the driving instructor! Once again, another wave of impending failure sweeps over me, but at least we are now at the DMV. Being the dad, though, means that you just have to keep going when your daughter needs you no matter how much you want to give up, so we started walking toward the cars when a man with finely pressed casual clothes, perfect hair, and holding a clipboard got out of a green Geo and approached me.
"Are you Rainey?" he says.
"Yes." I say. "How did you know?"
"I don't know," he said. "You just looked Rainey."
I don't know what to make of the “looked Rainey” comment, but I let it go.
Paul the driving instructor led us in the front door of the DMV and into the Written Exam room as the various employees stood around at stared at us, apparently daring us to try to get something done on a Monday morning.
Just after we entered the exam room, he turned to me, pointed toward the door, and said, "You can wait out there."
I didn’t like it when he told me that, when he just waved his hand and dismissed me to go to the other room. I didn’t like it in the same way I didn’t like when the doctor made me leave the operating room after they gave my middle daughter anesthesia to prepare for her tonsillectomy when she was twelve, or when I had to leave my youngest daughter when she was three for her first day of preschool at Holy Spirit childcare with a bunch of people I didn’t know. The protective father in me wanted to stay by my little girls, to make sure they were OK and that they were treated right. But sometimes you have to let go and let them make their own way, and it always comes sooner than you think it should.
I walked out of the exam room and sat down at a desk in the waiting area. I had done my job, barely. It was up to my daughter now.
Despite my best efforts to sabotage the entire morning, she passed the written driver’s exam, so we walked out laughing about it all. We got in the car and headed for school. Well, eventually we headed for school. On another hunch, I turned the wrong way out of the DMV parking lot, but that's another story.) I apologized to my daughter for making the trip so nerve wracking. But she knew how I could pay her back.
“Would you get me a Starbucks?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said.
So I took her to the Midland Park Starbucks on the way to school and walked in with her to buy her a coffee. Protective Dad was now back since I guess I could have let her go in and buy it herself. But I went in too, and as you might expect ended up having no money, so I had to charge a cup of coffee on MasterCard. Then I dropped her off at school, and she walked up the sidewalk toward the office to sign in, holding her trophy of the morning, a venti latte from Starbucks. She seemed all grown up to me in that moment, a near-woman who had taken a major step toward independence. I was proud, but a little sad too, because I know that there are just a few more of these rites of passage left to share. And they will start coming faster than I want them to.
There’s a picture of my daughter and me that was taken in Central Park the day after her 8th grade graduation. We had eaten at Tavern on the Green, and my younger daughters and their cousins from Illinois wanted to play on a playground nearby. my daughter was sick, so I sat down on a bench and she lay down next to me with her head on my lap. We both fell asleep, and my wife took a picture of us, father and daughter, napping on a bench in Central Park. That picture represents the end of her childhood to me because I expect it will be the last time we nap together, even though when she was a baby we did it often. So an era ended, captured in a photograph.
Sometimes this day-to-day living does wear me out, as Chekhov says. But sometimes a moment comes along that brings joy and sadness at the same time. I like to think the psalmist had something like this in mind when he told us we should learn to “number our days aright,”which probably has to do with paying attention to God’s hidden beauty that emerges in our day-to-day living. Even though it wasn’t captured in a photograph, in my mind’s eye I’ll always be able to see my little girl walking to class with a Starbucks coffee in her hand—smiling—as I got a glimpse of adulthood and adolescence sharing her for just a little while longer. But soon, the inevitable will come, and adulthood will take her away. But for now, I’ve numbered this day, this beautiful day.
A couple of years ago, my oldest daughter took her written driving test at the Lodi Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) after a harrowing trip from our house to get there. We left home at 7:25am. Our goal was to leave at 7:15am. It was my fault because even the slightest variation to my daily routine completely throws me off, even though we were planning to leave even later than I normally do when I go to work. We were still OK leaving a little late because we needed to meet the driving instructor at 7:45am, but the trip to Lodi from Leonia should have only taken about 20 minutes on a normal day. But when we got on Route 46 West not far from our house, we immediately ran into a complete closure near the Pathmark in Fort Lee. I managed to get to the shoulder, exit into the Pathmark parking lot and hurry through sides streets in Pal Park so we could reenter Route 46 about a mile west, far past the closure. This worked, and we were now back on track, even though I had already raised the possibility that we might have to do this another day.
When we planned the tip to the Lodi DMV, I had vaguely remembered that they used to have signs on 46 that told you where to turn to get to there. Unfortunately, someone had either removed the DMV signs, or I had misremembered. So as we passed through Lodi and eventually went on into Saddle Brook with no sign of the DMV, I started talking out loud about what must have happened to the signs and mentioned again about how we may have to pick another day to take the test. I also did not print out a map for this trip, mainly because the directions seemed so easy. I had always refused to buy a GPS, just as I refused to get power windows and locks for my car, on the same basic principle—these automated gadgets will make us lazy and ruin us as a nation.
We eventually came to the Wal-Mart plaza in Saddle Brook, where I quickly made the right into the parking lot, turned around, and got in the left turn lane at the stoplight out of Wal-Mart to get back on 46 East. We were supposed to be at the DMV by 7:45am to meet the driving instructor. It was now 7:50am. The red light turned out to be the world’s longest red light, staying red for about five-minutes before it FINALLY turned green. FIVE MINUTES. I became frantic, and then I noticed that we were just slightly below E on the gas gauge. (Have you ever been too busy to get gas?) That made me even more frantic while my daughter managed to keep calmly studying for the driving test. I raised the “might have to come again another day” scenario for the third time. We reentered Lodi, and without a map, I now have to go on hunches about the directions. I started getting this good feeling about Main Street, but the feeling came a little late so I had to suddenly jerk the steering wheel to turn off the highway. I then slowed way down because I also had a sense that I needed to turn around and get to the north side of 46. (I had actually been to the Lodi DMV several times over the past 15 years, so these intuitions are reasonable to me.) When I slowed down to look carefully for a place to turn around, the woman in the car behind me started laying on the horn, apparently frustrated because I was going so slow. So, I slowed down even more. (I’m not sure why I act this way.) I looked in the rear view mirror and she began throwing her hands up in the air and appeared to be yelling obscenities in her car. my daughter was still studying, oblivious. But there was no place to turn around because the traffic going the other way was so heavy. We went at least half a mile before I could finally turn around in a Shop-Rite parking lot. Even though we had prayed togther when we left home, I had now given up all hope of getting my daughter through the written test today. I managed to make the left turn out of Shop-Rite onto the busy street, but by now I am full-blown frantic, so I said to her:
“Could you put away your papers and help me figure this out?”
“O-kay!” she says.
I pulled out my phone and handed it to her.
“Call Mom!” I plead.
“Alright,” she says.
I have no idea why we are calling my wife, but I just have a feeling she’ll know what to do. But she doesn't answer her phone.
“Call your sister,” I say. “She can find Mom.”
My daughter dialed her younger sister, who doesn't answer either. Just as I am about to break down and ask someone walking down the street for directions, I see a DMV sign.
“Look! There’s a sign for the DMV Inspection Station! Whoo—hoo!” I yell.
We followed the signs just a few blocks and pulled up in the parking lot of the Department of Motor Vehicles at 8:00am sharp, 15 minutes late.
As we walked across the parking lot with the ice crunching under our feet, we see a long double line of about 15 cars each waiting for the road tests. We are supposed to find the car for New Life driving school. At this moment, I realized that we forgot to find out what kind of car to look for, or even what color it is. Besides, we’ve never even met the driving instructor! Once again, another wave of impending failure sweeps over me, but at least we are now at the DMV. Being the dad, though, means that you just have to keep going when your daughter needs you no matter how much you want to give up, so we started walking toward the cars when a man with finely pressed casual clothes, perfect hair, and holding a clipboard got out of a green Geo and approached me.
"Are you Rainey?" he says.
"Yes." I say. "How did you know?"
"I don't know," he said. "You just looked Rainey."
I don't know what to make of the “looked Rainey” comment, but I let it go.
Paul the driving instructor led us in the front door of the DMV and into the Written Exam room as the various employees stood around at stared at us, apparently daring us to try to get something done on a Monday morning.
Just after we entered the exam room, he turned to me, pointed toward the door, and said, "You can wait out there."
I didn’t like it when he told me that, when he just waved his hand and dismissed me to go to the other room. I didn’t like it in the same way I didn’t like when the doctor made me leave the operating room after they gave my middle daughter anesthesia to prepare for her tonsillectomy when she was twelve, or when I had to leave my youngest daughter when she was three for her first day of preschool at Holy Spirit childcare with a bunch of people I didn’t know. The protective father in me wanted to stay by my little girls, to make sure they were OK and that they were treated right. But sometimes you have to let go and let them make their own way, and it always comes sooner than you think it should.
I walked out of the exam room and sat down at a desk in the waiting area. I had done my job, barely. It was up to my daughter now.
Despite my best efforts to sabotage the entire morning, she passed the written driver’s exam, so we walked out laughing about it all. We got in the car and headed for school. Well, eventually we headed for school. On another hunch, I turned the wrong way out of the DMV parking lot, but that's another story.) I apologized to my daughter for making the trip so nerve wracking. But she knew how I could pay her back.
“Would you get me a Starbucks?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said.
So I took her to the Midland Park Starbucks on the way to school and walked in with her to buy her a coffee. Protective Dad was now back since I guess I could have let her go in and buy it herself. But I went in too, and as you might expect ended up having no money, so I had to charge a cup of coffee on MasterCard. Then I dropped her off at school, and she walked up the sidewalk toward the office to sign in, holding her trophy of the morning, a venti latte from Starbucks. She seemed all grown up to me in that moment, a near-woman who had taken a major step toward independence. I was proud, but a little sad too, because I know that there are just a few more of these rites of passage left to share. And they will start coming faster than I want them to.
There’s a picture of my daughter and me that was taken in Central Park the day after her 8th grade graduation. We had eaten at Tavern on the Green, and my younger daughters and their cousins from Illinois wanted to play on a playground nearby. my daughter was sick, so I sat down on a bench and she lay down next to me with her head on my lap. We both fell asleep, and my wife took a picture of us, father and daughter, napping on a bench in Central Park. That picture represents the end of her childhood to me because I expect it will be the last time we nap together, even though when she was a baby we did it often. So an era ended, captured in a photograph.
Sometimes this day-to-day living does wear me out, as Chekhov says. But sometimes a moment comes along that brings joy and sadness at the same time. I like to think the psalmist had something like this in mind when he told us we should learn to “number our days aright,”which probably has to do with paying attention to God’s hidden beauty that emerges in our day-to-day living. Even though it wasn’t captured in a photograph, in my mind’s eye I’ll always be able to see my little girl walking to class with a Starbucks coffee in her hand—smiling—as I got a glimpse of adulthood and adolescence sharing her for just a little while longer. But soon, the inevitable will come, and adulthood will take her away. But for now, I’ve numbered this day, this beautiful day.