Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.
At rest on a stair landing,
They feel it moving
Beneath them now like the deck of a ship,
Though the swell is gentle.
And deep in mirrors
They rediscover
The face of the boy as he practises tying
His father’s tie there in secret
And the face of the father,
Still warm with the mystery of lather.
They are more fathers than sons themselves now.
Something is filling them, something
That is like the twilight sound
Of the crickets, immense,
Filling the woods at the foot of the slope
Behind their mortgaged houses.
Donald Justice (1925-2004)
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Sometimes I feel that being a father consumes me -- I will fall asleep on the floor of my son's room after reading him a bedtime story, and wake up the next morning just in time to go to work, with barely time to shave. But I like the motion/navigation metaphor, and the idea that "something is filling" fathers -- it makes the experience more positive, reminding me that while I shut doors to some rooms of my life, I'm spending my time in the right rooms.
I enjoyed the boat deck/stair metaphor. Is this how your feeling? Finally feeling and seeing yourself more like a father than before?
Age definitely has a way of creeping up on us all. I'm pushing 25 and at one point I bet that was a big deal for all of us. Good luck on hitting 40, Pops...