I guess I figured there'd always be time. It's sort of a trap, I suppose. It's hard to think that every moment of my life- tragedies, glories, and everything in between - has had that old beating clock pulsing constantly, somewhere off in the background, say, in the diner we stopped at traveling out to San Diego in the summers...it's been there ever since and all along.
Falling, falling, tumbling seemingly haphazardly, not knowing just when we'll slip through, so sleekly through the hourglass' little funnel. We're all sand in this together.

Yes...
I'll tell you about time-- it has made me a fabulous loser. I’ve never lost as much with anything much as I've lost with time. I always noticed too late that the minutes were closing forever, and on so many days, I would simply leave for work obliviously and miss the day ending behind the red sunset curtain...

I never thought I would see the world slip through my fingers like that. I guess I'm sorry it did, but I don't find myself too plagued with regrets about how things happened; I haven't been quite so foolish with my life as I might be letting on.
I can't remember specifically unwrapping each day, seeing the gifts it bestowed so thoughtfully, nonetheless truly appreciating them. In the end it's all one big streaming blend -being disappointed, being surprised, learning that there was love behind so many things that I might have secretly hated (maybe even not so secretly...)
Looking back, I see it all... I finally understand it... if there is even anything to be understood. I'm opening all those gifts a second time, and it's like a redo of Christmas...except I'm not feeling quite as inclined to doze off at the hands of tryptophan at the moment.

I'll say though,
Nothing has slowed me down and stretched out time like the putty it is the same way as when I first held Ana. My brain pulled a fast one on me again and I lost quite a lot of time...I've been lost in some kind of another world since last week. Lost in this world, maybe. It’s like I'm skydiving so slowly…it’s like a pear suspended in jello.
I've stumbled upon Mount Everest and suddenly I can't accept that the legend has really been real all along.
It's like the first time I saw the Grand Canyon , and it wasn't paper bound... I just couldn’t believe it, and I’ve still never really accepted it.
Wow, the first time I laid eyes on Ana… it was more surreal than any of those things.

For about a week since Ana came into the world, I've been feeling this way. I feel myself gliding down some sort of icy road, with my skates on...like we did so many times at winter in the mountains, my feet barely touching the thin ice. I could lift off if I believed I could fly or just as well fall on my head. Somewhere the gears in my head are spinning off minutes and moments and miracles, trying to process it all and in the process forgetting that there’s order among it all.

In this strange skating I've been trying to find balance under the sudden weight of all the moons that have past, of all the suns strung across the sky by the ceaseless charioteer, Apollo...forces that are honestly so very foreign, forces unexpected that I would’ve never guessed I would feel. The moon swells now, and I feel the tide. It seems to grow bigger each night, and the waters within me seem to rise higher and higher. It's really dawning on me just how much has happened. Just how much of life has flown by. How much is gone.
I never noticed things changing when I moved to LA with my zonie pals for college, or when they grew old also and I left them and everyone else and fled to Paris when I was 22, or when I danced many youthful nights away and tangoed to age 35. And, no… not even when I made my many sojourns to the countryside and didn't realize how small a baguette actually was when split amongst four.
The beautiful shift of tectonic plates that happened that gorgeous Bastille Day when I engaged to Lila. It still seems like yesterday, it really does. It's felt like yesterday for all six years that we've put things on hold.
There's no saying it wasn't yesterday, either...the sun keeps rising and we’re still engaged. But now...


But now I feel for mom...and dad. And everyone back at home (away from home). Kate, and Nadya, and Kim and Santo and Suddy and Mo. I'm sorry for them all, though I guess in retrospect we've all fared alright despite the monsoon of things going against us in our wonder years.
It's not to say that we've all lost time and dignity to our hard feelings, our fear, our constant tiptoeing. We all crossed a minefield and there was so much we dedicated ourselves to successfully avoiding. And so much time also. We avoided and even ignored, I mean it, oh I mean it - we knew there was so much to fix, so much to say, so much to cry about and then accept. Some of us, we never did. The question now, is if we ever will.
I really, really want to…

Forgiveness is so powerful, and it's something that we're lucky enough to be able to acknowledge as a possibility. It's difficult to forgive, I gather, because we never understand quite why forces did us wrong, what they did wrong, or if the pain was all worth it. Secretly, I believe so much pain was worth it in the end.

Forgiveness and acceptance really are the ultimate expressions of power, and it seems as though all of us are continually plagued with weakness. Like little children in a park, standing in a line at the top of a green, green slope, the bottom of the hill seems too far to roll to, and we're all scared of taking the dive. Like little children, we fear rolling upside down will make us fall into the sky. It's an indeterminably long and maybe even endless fall and there's not much scarier than that.
We’ll be taking the fall at some point anyway. Let’s do it together, guys.



Well, I'll confess...
I'm really writing this and thinking about Ana.

I'm writing this and now I'm sitting next to Ana, watching her sleep so soundly. Ever since Lila's parents came over, I've felt like we're recreating the manger scene...

I can't really keep back tears. I've never felt so decisive about what I love and so honestly indecisive about I'm what I'm doing. Lila doesn't have that problem as much as me, she's grown into her lifestyle well- she's a professional of time and she loves her students, and she's doing so good for them. For Paris . Ana will probably follow her. She's a great woman.
Me, I still don't know if I'll be remembered fondly for what I've done. Me and my nightclub, we've certainly never hurt anyone. We've certainly provided a home for Lila's students when they grew up and decided they need to escape to craziness.
Now I'm fretting... I'll never know if they all got home safely. Feeling like a father at a nightclub is so awkward, especially when you own the place.
I don't know what I role I play in Paris ' life. What kind of legacy am I really leading? Do I respect what i do? Will Ana appreciate what I've done?
I don't know, anymore.

It's too late and too bad to say I miss home, but to be honest, my first twenty-two years are a brilliant blur. I left for a reason, and there's no doubt that as soon as I go through customs and make eye contact with my childhood nest, 6602 Indianola Ave , Phoenix , Arizona ... I'll be craving my appartement back here in the 15eme arr once again. I guess i would be missing seeing everyone and the food and the dances and the music. And the deceptively small baguettes.
I don't feel like a father back home. I feel like a son, and nothing more. A son trapped in his homeland.
I'm a father in Paris . I'm not just my dad's "Arul, my son, beta!"...or mom's "Aruchka".... I'm Ana's "papa" and Lila's "le mari" et "le proprietare d'un discotheque merveilleux".

But, regardless, it's got me thinking, all my roles and all my tolls.
Mom and dad won't be here forever... it's clear now more than ever. It's true that for twenty years after I left was sort of numb to them. But now the clock ticks and tocks and shocks, and I've been jolted back awake. I can't stop thinking about them. I miss them. So much. Did I ever thank them for such a wonderful childhood, despite all the 100-year floods?!
I wish they could stay. I almost wish that they would sell their house in Albuquerque and plant themselves next door. I wish.

I'm just a big old sigh right now, I guess.

Well,
That's all I really wanted to say... it's around four in the morning and there's no logical reason to be awake, Lila is fast asleep, still tired from labor. I can't sleep , I'm so nervous. I'm afraid to let myself lose more time. I'm afraid to not find out who I am, age 43, before it's too late. I'm so full of questions, hopes, desires... And most of all- I still can't believe I have a daughter.

It's like I'm in denial, it's like I'm going through the first stage of grieving. I just can't believe it.
Man, I waited too long for this.

I have this feeling like I'm starting to roll down this hill, now... a hill that at some point I'll reach the bottom of, and learn to accept all the grass that's caked onto my clothes.

PS, I'll try not to fall into the sky.

...
I'm sitting here and feeling such color.
I guess I can say, overall, I'm pretty dang thankful to be awake now