Grace and Hazel

It has been a few days since I posted here. Mostly, that is because it was Father’s Day this weekend and I went out of my way to do nothing. There is an art to doing nothing. Doing nothing is nearly impossible and, in fact, doing nothing isn’t really even nothing. I think nothing is completely misunderstood. In the day’s leading up to Father’s Day, when my wonderful wife asked me what I wanted to do, I knew that the saying “nothing” would only lead to trouble. Nothing sounds duller than nothing. So I said “Can I get back to you?” and “I’ll have something tomorrow” and so on and so on, deftly deflecting the question until the perfect plan appeared.

I will speak for the global Dads now and say that what we want to do is simply have an easy day. In general, it is our job, day after day, week after week to solve problems and fix things. In celebration of ourselves, we want a day that is full of nothing. Nothing difficult. Nothing important. Nothing uncomfortable. Nothing stressful.

Greeting card racks are full of depictions of this nothing in the form of fishing, golfing, napping, playing with dogs, napping with dogs, fishing with beer, golfing with fish etc etc etc. Stereotypical, maybe, but all of these are examples of things that don’t add stress to our lives (with the possible exception of golf).

For my part, my Father’s Day was a roaring success. We packed up the car with the family, some Whole Foods bread and cheese, some wine and beer and headed for the warmest, quietest spot we could. Yesterday, that was Lafayette Reservoir. Our friends the Gellmans met us there and we sat under a tree, listened to music, relaxed and did nothing.

Perfect.

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