On Reflections

Tim O'Brien, discovered notes, radical living.

Just after I told him that Mrs. CWD and I were pregnant with Kiddo, my friend Seabass gave me a copy of Tim O’Brien’s Dad’s Maybe Book. I enjoyed the series of letters O’Brien wrote to his children, his reflections on fatherhood, on America, on life. I had almost completely forgotten about the book, though, until I flipped open a note on my phone from June 2020 titled “Dear Baby.” Turns out, inspired by Mr. O’Brien, I also had dashed off a series of missives to the yet unborn, unnamed, and unknown Kiddo.

Unlike Tim, I didn’t keep up with the letters. I wrote intermittently through the end of 2020, but then stopped after this December 28 note:

Oh, one other thing. Your mom, the other day, while we were driving back from your 1-week doctor’s appointment looked at you and said “she’s one week old! She’s grown up so fast!”

I’m sure we’ll look back on that moment so many times and laugh at how, simultaneously, both correct and so far off we were!

Love you.

The moments of early childhood are so vivid as you live them, but such a blur in retrospect. That moment — one I was certain I’d remember forever — was lost entirely, except for my note, and I’m not entirely sure how to even react to that. What other memories have been lost to the whirlwind of time and toddlers?

I suppose this serves as a good affirmation to continue sketching out these moments from my kids’ lives. As we hit the two week mark with the Monkey¹, it’s interesting to recollect how different the experience is the third time around. Rather than exclaiming how much you’ve grown, instead we’re struck by how small you still seem. Your newness, then, acts as a mirror: reflecting how big the Warthog has actually gotten; how, seeing him for the first time after you were born, I — for the first time, really — saw him not as a baby but as a two-year old. It reflects Kiddo’s maturity — the warmth in her smile while she holds you, strokes your hair, rubs your back. And it reflects us as parents: calmer, less tense, more patient. These small reflections are, too often, the ones that are fleeting — and the ones I need to make an effort to hold on to.

In this way, I’m thankful that this newsletter has evolved past its beginnings as a recipe repertoire. Rather than just writing off-the-cuff directions for mushroom risotto, instead, I can record my own experience evolving as a parent — hopefully, turning it into something my kids will one day find interesting to read, a mirror for them.² Those of you who periodically check on my About page may have noticed this subtle shift, where I’ve stopped describing this as a newsletter about “eating radically” and instead leave it as one about “living radically.”

I think that’s the better approach. Living radically means you are eating radically and hunting radically and parenting radically and loving radically. It means you are embracing all of life with your eyes wide open, intentionally experiencing the ups and the downs, noticing all that the universe has to give you. Radical living is the calm of a newborn on your chest and the adrenaline of a successful hunt. It’s the warmth of the sun and the bite of the wind. It’s the first radishes coming up in spring and the last leaves dropping in fall and all those liminal moments in between. Radical living means relishing those moments in the moment, holding on to them — and cherishing the gift that more is still to come.³

So there’s some radical wisdom for you to close out the week. We’ve been inundated with meals — made and gifted by friends and family — so there’s not been much intentional cooking going on since we brough the Monkey home. Instead, we’ve been defrosting and reheating, savoring the time saved that would otherwise be spent prepping meals. It’s a different flow than I’m used to, but, as my friend

Sam Sager

always says, there are seasons for everything. This one happens to be a mini-season in which I have nothing to share with you that I’ve cooked.

With that in mind, I’ll leave you to your weekends. It’s Valentine’s Day; do something — as you should everyday — nice for someone you love. Otherwise, us, we’ll be trying to expose the Monkey to some sunlight, solidifying his circadian rhythm. Maybe even convincing Kiddo and the Warthog to get outside, too.

However you choose to spend your weekend, I hope you can spend it intentionally. We’ll see you back here next week.

1. I’m still spitballin’ on the little guy’s nickname.

2. Not everything has to be public, of course — and frankly, I think most of it should and will remain private. But much in the way that sharing stories around a campfire solidifies the experience of a hunt, so too does sharing stories of parenting solidify the lessons learned.

3. In this way it’s not a rejection of anticipation — which I think some adherents of Stoicism tend towards (intentional or not) — but rather a wholehearted embrace of a full life.

This also vibes with

Brendan Marshall

’s ethos that

The Best Is Yet To Come

.