Ride-or-Dies
Giving up morning alone-time to hang out with my boys.
Much like my default mode on weekday mornings when I work from home is to emerge from bed at 5:30, spend about an hour reading and writing, then head to the YMCA for a non-running-oriented workout—a routine I’ll soon adapt as Haley signed me up to run my first half-marathon in April—my instinct on vacation days is to chill.
Whenever I pack a bag for somewhere else, I usually throw in a couple of magazines and at least two books along with my journal, expecting to have the mornings, nap times, and evenings alone to do me. In this regard, I am an optimist. Because it works out so well for me when I travel for business, I fool myself into believing the same routine is possible during family trips. Three years ago, I read through the entirety of All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (301 pages) and put together a 45-minute-long conference presentation in three days in San Francisco. Last year, I reworked the third draft of my first book at a Boston hotel while at another conference (from that trip came “My American Airlines Nightmare”). But on all three of our family beach vacations since May, I barely made a dent in anything, instead having to settle for spending the hours I would’ve otherwise had to write entertaining my 2-year-old, who wakes up before 6:30 a.m. and possesses the same destructive energy as a monster truck.
While I take pride in calling myself a family man, until very recently—maybe a month ago—I was still wrestling through the night with the sacrifices that job title requires of me. Even though I won’t do anything as drastic as selling the house to live in the parking lot at Yellowstone, I am still selfish, wishing to pursue my own dreams of writing full-time and traveling abroad over building block towers in the living room and reading poorly written, age-appropriate books to the children before bed.
Two weeks ago, Haley’s parents organized a family trip to Gulf Shores, Alabama, for her 30th birthday. I packed a copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude. The first morning, I woke early, made coffee, and had made it through two pages when Enzo burst through his bedroom door. It was 6:02 a.m. Haley, who’s taken to mothering much more naturally at this stage in their development than I have to fathering, locked eyes with me on the couch, awaiting my standard grumbling. Instead, I put down my book, sent Enzo to play with his construction toys on the porch, and after breakfast, grabbed Elio, the baby boy, for the first of what I labeled our Man Walks.
Each of our six mornings in Alabama, I strapped the baby into the front-facing backpack I swore I’d never wear when I was in my twenties, popped on Enzo’s Spider-Man helmet, and we hit the road. While he rode his “motorcycle”—a balance bike my mother-in-law got him on Facebook Marketplace for $20—we explored, looking for shells on the beach, identifying construction equipment, picking up good sticks for hitting things not people with, and doing other “man stuff.”
Our Man Walks became a favorite feature of the trip. The physical exertion and goofy conversations with my little dude—who is obsessed with all things “big” and “blue” and “for boys”—mirrored the pleasure I would’ve otherwise had reading or writing, except I know that it will be more meaningful in time than anything I do for myself only. Because I live so much in my head, even on these treks, which typically lasted from 30 minutes to an hour, I couldn’t help picturing my future relationship with the boys, fast-forwarding to beach trips in 2042 when they’ll be in their late teens, maybe Enzo’s 20, and we’re reclining on the porch well after dark.
By this point, I will have already gifted Enzo his first tobacco pipe and let Elio drink red wine mixed with seltzer water, promising he’ll also get a pipe to smoke on his 18th birthday. We’ll be talking about the girls they’ve fallen for, the way their hair smells or the nice things they say to them in the hallways at school that make them think they have a real shot. Maybe one of the boys is lamenting losing in the final at the district wrestling tournament, telling the other how he should’ve transitioned to a single-leg when he had the chance, and the other will say to him that they’ve just gotta practice a little harder in the mornings on the mats in the garage and next year he’ll definitely win state. We’ll talk about soccer and literature and dreams. They’ll ask me about the Canever and Diaz men who came before us, what they were like, or what I hoped my life would be like when I was their age, having to decide about college or trade school or moving overseas to be a missionary.
But then Enzo would find a really big pine cone or pause to admire a helicopter passing overhead, and I’d snap back to reality, reminding myself that if all we’ve got for now are morning walks together, that is enough. The rest will come in time.
What I’m Reading
I am just over halfway through One Hundred Years of Solitude. But did recently make it through the audiobook version of John Jeremiah Sullivan’s Pulphead, a collection of essays that won many awards when it came out the year I graduated from college in 2011. I had read JJS’s Blood Horses, about growing up with a sportswriter father in Kentucky, back in 2022 and was disappointed enough to quit halfway through. This one, though, is so good that I’ve even taken to reading through drafts of my next book in JJS’s garbled tone. Below is an excerpt from one of the essays, a profile of Guns N’Roses frontman Axl Rose. If you read or listen to any one piece, let it be “Violence of the Lambs,” originally published in GQ, about how the animal kingdom is working together to wipe humanity off the planet.
What I’m Listening To
My brother came to visit last February, and we went to see The Red Clay Strays perform at The Mill and Mine. At the show, I bought a vinyl of their Moment of Truth album from 2022, which I listened to as I wrote this. Since signing to RCA Records in March and releasing their follow-up, Made by These Moments, in July, the Strays have been everywhere. Their NPR Tiny Desk will be out this month. If you love good, old-fashioned rock’n’roll, dig this. Enzo’s favorite track is “Wasting Time,” which is the most recent addition to the Country-Fried Biscuits playlist I’ve curated for car rides with the kids.
What I’m Watching
I bought a copy of the original Fargo film from the Coen Brothers for $1 at McKay’s and went into my viewing on Saturday night not really sure what to expect. Haley and I watched the first four seasons of the FX/Hulu version, and I’d read Mike Powell’s article for Grantland in 2014 on the Japanese woman who froze to death in Minnesota, supposedly searching for the buried treasure from the movie. I’m not smart enough to review it for you, but there’s plenty on Rotten Tomatoes to justify the sub-2-hour running time. It’s good.
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