We were at two family weddings this week. A Tuesday and a Thursday. One in Ashland, OH, about an hour outside of Cleveland, and yesterday in Philadelphia. On Tuesday afternoon, Julieanne and I took the two boys to a park to pass time before the wedding. My daughter chose to spend the day getting her hair and makeup done with the bridal party, which was a real thrill for her since she’s only seven years old and this was her first wedding. I don’t know when makeup and hair became so important to her, but it is now. 

When we arrived, this park wasn’t much of a park, more like empty half-mowed acreage. It was as if the town council kind of gave up on the planning once they acquired the farmland. Like, “Here, do whatever you want with this space.” I mean, no benches, or ponds, or soccer nets — all grass. 

Julieanne and Levon hit the walking path around the perimeter. Ozzy found a spot near the downslope of a small hill where the wind wasn’t so bad for us to play wiffleball. The day before there was one of those ferocious Ohio storms, so the sky was full of gigantic clouds. It smelled like classic summer though, summers I spent at the hazy suburban day camps I went to at their age: giant gas mowers rumbling everywhere, me sitting in the hot dry patches where the dogs pissed, waiting to get picked for another kickball team. Same sky, I thought. Then I got dizzy thinking about time and memory and wasted summers. 

I lay in the grass and stared at the clouds, and the clouds floated in front of the sun, and I demanded Ozzy lay down with me and look up at the sky. I know: Annoying dad-on-a-deathbed-shit. 

“Come lay down! Look at the fucking sun with me for five minutes!” But he had no interest, screamed back at me to pitch to him more since his mom said we had to leave soon and she and Levon were almost done with their walk. 

Ozzy turns 9 tomorrow. I remember the many fears and heartbreaks from when I was 9, many of them from summer. Some of those fears and heartbreaks I still carry with me. I try to work them out in therapy, take pills, sit quietly, pray loudly — I won’t tell him anything.

On the hours-long drive from Cleveland to Philadelphia for the second wedding, I got a call from one of the home health aides caring for my mother down in Florida. They took her in for an examination because she’s been so withdrawn and forgetful lately. Her doctor diagnosed her with depression, put her on an SSRI that won’t fuck with any of the other pills she’s on. 

A couple months ago, my mother finally decided that she needed to move out of her pricey Mangrove Bay facility and into an over-55 apartment complex next door in order to save some money because she’s in one of those situations where the money that both she and my father had saved turned out to not be enough. She outlived that money, and now needs to downsize her lifestyle in order to get by for however long. I’ve told her this iceberg has been looming outside her window for several years but that’s not important now. 

Yesterday, I was sent a photo of my mother slumped on the couch. Apparently she hadn’t changed her outfit for days. They want me to intervene soon, and I will, but I haven’t figured out the long-term plan yet. Part of me wants to tell them to put her in a dolly and roll her outside and dump her onto the grass, scream at her to look at the sky, but I know that’s stupid. But then again, it’s not. 

The reason I love Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing so much is that it gave me something to do with all that new annoying clarity sobriety stuck me with. I’m big on skylines and trees and clouds and birds — actually it doesn’t even have to be nature shit. I want to notice things on the outside, so I don’t have to contend with all that new madness that came to the fore once the fog began to roll away. 

For the next “What It’s Like . . . ” you tell me — what do you notice now that you didn’t before you got sober (or sane, or whatever)? 

Sky? Fonts on billboards? The eye color of the weatherman on your local news station? 

I’m reaching here, I know. But help me out if you can. 

250-350 words. 

Send it to: [email protected]

SUBJECT: LOOK UP!

All gas, no brakes. 

Thanks. — AJD