The photo above shows me––with the very first children I ever held, now both college graduates––about the time I started thinking about fatherhood, in the midst of my girl-in-every-port phase, before I realized what being a dad actually meant. I still know them, and they've turned out to be a bright young women, and someday when the labyrinth appears done I'll ask them if I can use their names. I wonder, looking at that photo now, what I was thinking back then. 

Fight fire with fire

maybe, or 

Nothing but fear will burn out the fear

or some similar kind of you'd find on a tacky inspirational business poster. Projecting back on it now, and knowing the way things worked out for me, I suspect that certain gears were moving in my psyche, certain formulae making themselves apparent to me for the first time.  

Fatherhood was the only possible resolution to all the father/son bullshit in my life

these formulae said. Because seeing my friends having kids helped convince me that my head wouldn't explode if I became a dad and gave me energy to fight against the curse. 

Don't have kids, my dad said. You got bad blood. 

Well, no. Screw that. I didn't have to listen to that. But the path toward fatherhood wasn't as simple as simply declaring my bad blood null and void. Once the psychic clock that led me to fatherhood clicked on, it took about eight years before the metaphorical bomb blew up and I could call myself a dad. It took a long time to get there, and I'm glad it did. If I'd taken any short cuts, I'd be a mess right now––and so would whatever children I would have brought into the world with whatever woman I'd wound up with.

Could I have gotten there any other way than the way I did? Struggling against the bad blood until felt like I'd beaten it, then realizing I never had it in the first place? Yeah, there was probably another path that would have involved less pain inflicted on others, less pain inflicted on myself. But none of these other potential paths got me where I was meant to be, so I can't fault this one. It's overgrown now, with weeds in some places and the most beautiful, wild flowers in others. I look back on it sometimes and, along with the wan smile of regret for how difficult it was, it gives me joy. 

1. WIFESHOPPING
2. THANK YOU, BAYARD JOHNSON
3. IN THE EGYPTIAN ROOMS
4. THANKS FOR CALLING MY BULLSHIT, T.D.
5. NEED TO BE NEEDED
6. WHEN IT'S RIGHT