fathers Archives - Page 29 of 30 - The Rumpus

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Ukemi, The Art of Receiving

In Japanese martial arts, the uke is the 'receiver' of the technique, the one who attempts to attack their sparring partner, the tori. The tori defends against the attack of the uke, who usually winds up on the floor after getting flipped, swept, thrown, punched, or kicked.

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Of Farmers and Fathers

For reasons I’ll never understand, I am my father’s rooster. My life is filled with farmers. We find our farmers where our interests are, I guess.

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Icefalls

It seemed like nature might be offering up something fraught with emotion, a beautiful image that a writer could imbue with heartbreaking symbolism. But I couldn’t come up with anything. It was just fall, and so the leaves were red.

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OG Dad #21: The Head Bang, the Hole In The Wall, and the Happy Fart

My daughter likes to bang her head off the floor. It makes a point—an especially guilt-tinged one, given that we had to get rid of our carpets due to a mold infestation, so now there’s no cushion between baby cranium and wood.

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This Man Is Not My Father

I’m sitting across from the man who looks exactly like my father would look if my father had lived to be fifty-seven. If my father hadn’t died sixteen years ago when I was thirteen. But he did.

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A Letter to Eric

What follows is a love letter to my twenty-six-year-old brother Eric, written shortly after he overdosed on heroin. He survived.

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The Game Could Wait

Having a child carves you out. Stories like this line the walls inside, and keep you up wondering why, how, what the fuck is exactly happening here?

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Under the Table

The headaches, my difficulty focusing, my specimen-daze, that floating island, my spastic, nervous heart—which are side effects from drinking, and which were inevitable?

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Groupings

Guns formed me—there’s no denying it. They worked on my body, bruising it in all the right places. Recoil and report learned they couldn’t scare me off. Each weapon wrote angry truth on me.

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Colt 1911: A Partial Timeline

“Eli. The gun is in my bedroom. There are bullets in there, too. I don’t need to worry about you guys, do I?”

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The Empty-Nest Yard Sale

Talking to your kid can be as nerve-wracking as going in for a big job interview. And it’s also like interviewing a temperamental actor or rock star—you’re afraid if you ask the wrong thing, they’ll tear off their lapel mic and say, “This interview is over!”

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The Disciples of Memory

When I was eleven years old, my father enrolled me in a memory improvement course at the local community college.

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