OMG it's been YEARS...

The Art of Being a Dad... 

continues into the late teenager worlds.

Wow... time flies. I have not posted for a year. Life is so full, multi-dimensional, simple and complex at the time. And my girls...they just keep growing, and are now both moving away from home.

They say one of our jobs as parents is to create independence in our kids, get them out of the house when it's appropriate, love them, bless 'em, and hope they have a great life.

I was inspired by my kids and I started writing, drawing, and painting them when they were wee little ones. The older one is 19. When was still in mama's belly when I started a journal for her which I'll give her when she's 21. The little one is now 16.

So... a beautiful 23-year-marriage to their mom completed itself on great terms almost 2 years ago. My wife (x, whatever she should be called - past partner?) is a writer. Recently she came up with a great analogy of what we did when we separated. 

"We took the plant out of the pot," she told me, "and we put it in the garden so it could continue to grow."  It was root bound, she said. And she was right, we out-grew the confines, the pot of our marriage. And we're still growing, now even more. We are healthy, still connected, and still a very loving family.

It was a good time to change the family configuration. The girls were both in high school, both aware of what was happening because we've always been a really open family - we talked about it - we stayed connected. We always told the girls age-appropriate information about our marriage, the family, and our home. And we used therapists when needed. My wife and I were in therapy almost all of our entire life together. We acquired incredibly useful communication tools. In the end there just wasn't much to work on - a job well done. We both get gold stars for all our hard work and honesty, proud of us both and without collateral damage.

I moved out of the house, but stayed close by, and returned to being the artist that I am and who I have evolved back into. I sacrificed a great deal, like all parents do to be a dad, husband, and house owner. We co-parented in a really good way. When the kids were little I was the playful parent. I just get little kids (and animals), I understand them, and can play and goof with them and also get them to clean up after themselves in between watching the old Star Wars movies.

But then when my girls got into puberty and when breasts and periods and shopping and looking in the mirror took over, I was relieved that they moved over into their mom's realm of knowledge. My job wasn't over of course. I knew it was still important to "see them," to mirror back what I saw so that they knew I had, and have, their backs. I still do this. I see them at home a lot and we hang out. And now they are scattering to the winds. The older one is in college in Colorado, and the little one is leaving high school early (got to a point where she couldn't stand the scene) and she’ll go to 2 alternative schools out of the state, ending her high school education with college credits. Good on them both!

And as much as I love my girls, I also love my life as a single man and working professional artist in the world. In a sense I am not a dad anymore, not a 24/7 dad with little people who want and need me. I know I have done good. I can see it in their eyes, I can hear it in their voices and what they say, and I can see into their hearts and I can see love for self and love for others, and life.

I just heard on the radio a football coach who was describing what it is to be a man (apologies for not being able to credit him) - it's actually what it is to be a real human.

"To Love and Be Loved, and to Be of Service."

I'm curious where my girls will go and what they will do. I heard from Michael Meade (amazing storyteller) that we should ask young people this question (without really needing an answer, just ask the question.. for years). "Who are You and Why Are Your Here?" This really bugged my girls over the years, but I sense it's working. A radar pings every time it’s asked; a parent’s soft and gentle voice asking for the unique genius of our children to emerge so that they can see it and live from that place. 

Creative Blessings and Dad Shout Outs ~

~MLW

The Book

The Art of Being a Dad

~the first seven years

complete with ToolBox of Tips, Tools, and Tricks of the Trade

Sent from my iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

"I know you probably don't Ike me talking to you in this way - but I know you and I love you and I am your dad. See if you can tell if you are in your head about this or in your heart, is it an idea or a feeling?

Can you drop down into your gut/ belly and from there see a bigger picture of the jacket and what it symbolizes, comfort, security, other peoples opinions? You struggle at times making decisions, asking what others think, being a Gemini - these, as you well know are difficult. The way through all of it would be to continue to practice your intuition and trust it."

Xxoo Dad

She said thanks, when can you take me to return the jacket?

Transformations to the Core

It's been many moons since I've posted. So much to say, the death of my father, the end of my marriage, moved myself and my art studio into a new beautiful space up in the woods on top of the Oakland Hills, with lots of joy and lots of sadness.

And leaving my girls... the end of a phase of being their dad and the birth of anew which at this moment isn't quite solidified. The girls, 15 & almost 18 are already moving out of the house. The oldest is off to college and the youngest wants to be a foreign exchange student next year for an entire school year. They are 20 minutes away and the plan is to spend Weds. night there for dinner and Sunday afternoon and evening.

Their mom and I split on excellent terms. We'd been doing therapy most of our 25 years of being together and as someone else said "there's not much more for us to work on." In the realm of divorce I suspect we are in the 1% who have worked it really well, gone 110% to own our own stuff, to be responsible for our own happiness, to respect and communicate with integrity and honesty. No lies, secrets, or affairs. We just finally understood together, we'd all be in conversation about it, the girls even said, "if you guys are staying together just for us, that's not a good idea." We let go of what didn't work and keep what does.

Still, lots O sadness for the broken illusions of the happy family together, and learning my new way of being a dad. I thought I'd post a piece I wrote for my Facebook family, so they would all know and not wonder.

The Marriage Boat

by Mark Wagner

It’s not that our boat sunk, it’s more like it drifted to shore, we both got out, looked around, looked at each other, nodded in understanding, and went in different directions.

My wife and I were together for 24 years, we met on June 9^th, 1988 and seven years later to the day our first of 2 daughters was born. I knew then that we were supposed to be together, that it was that cosmic. Up until then I had my wonderings, we both did. Even early on there were red flags, we were not qualified to be in long term relationships, and through the storms, disappointments, and broken promises, we still forged a long-term deep friendship.

I’m writing this for my personal clarity but also to share with my extended community (the brilliance of Facebook) with honesty and a desire to stay connected to the greater whole. My Facebook community is international, mostly artists, and instead of just moving into a new studio and sharing photos and not saying anything and having people wonder, I felt out of respect of the truth it would be good to share the journey, and it’s been a good one. My wife has a writing class – it’s called Telling True Stories, this is my true story.

When we first got married a friend looked at our astrology chart and said two things, first… neither of us had air in our individual charts but our combined chart was full of air and we’d do good at communicating. The second was that we weren’t here for each other in this lifetime; we were here for the world together. It took me many years to fully understand this; the best way to see was not looking into my partner’s eyes but looking somewhere else together. Road trips were perfect, driving for hours @ 70 mph, through the deserts, talking, telling the real truth, asking good questions, looking in the same direction, down the road, together.

We’ve been in therapy for most of our relationship, that’s one of the main reasons we are parting on such good terms, amazing actually…real friends, we are still connected to our girls, to the house my they live in and I will visit often, to our friends, family, and community. We’ve done such great work on ourselves and with each other that there isn’t much more to work on. It’s like we are from different tribes, not the Jewish and Christian thing, or the Mars Venus thing.

I remember getting some Tibetan prayer flags where on each flag was a different symbol, it was said that these flags were to tell spirit that there were different tribes living in the same house, and it invited spirit to bless the natural discourse that was under the same roof. Or being a visual artist (I call it at times being preverbal), being a feeling image-based person who married an intellectual word-based person. And there is lots of overlap, we both write, make art, teach, make music, very involved in community and parenting – but we often did these things separately, my wife called it parallel play.

Over the years of therapy I learned about individuating, I learned to take my partner out of the equation for my happiness. I learned to listen, to speak, to redo, to take timeouts, to not argue when someone was triggered and angry, to set up a time and space to communicate deeper things, to not take things personally, and to say I am sorry. Someone said that the 2 words that all couples should often say is – “I’m sorry.” 

Sex and Money, the two great common things that all couples deal with in one way or another, we did. In the long run it’s what we choose to leave behind, what wasn’t working. We are keeping what was working which is our friendship, family, and community. We didn’t damage our relationship, no lies or affairs, we actually spoke super honestly to each other and to our friends. We just slowly kept waking up, becoming more conscious, being more empowered to see and understand and then one day we knew we were ready and able to move in different ways (this knowing took place on a recent 70 mph drive to LA).

Our lives and careers and physical bodies over time became separate and unconnected, it was the girls that really kept us together. And we were creative and buff in therapy and had excellent communications skills to work around most obstacles. The girls knew, they weren’t kids anymore, they even asked why we were still together, if it was for them that wasn’t a great idea.

I’m calling our divorce “expanding our base.” I am now moved out, found an amazing place which is mostly an art studio connected to a great house with a musician roommate with a perfect back cottage bedroom on top of the Oakland hills. There is still a good feeling of being connected, and it’s also awkward with the details of separating one’s life from a 22-year marriage, and sad… a death to a dream.

The karma has worked itself through, there is more to learn but this chapter of the book is written and illustrated well. We’ve gone the distance, put in well over 100% to really know and understand and learn. I give us both gold stars and send blessings for all involved, our girls, friends, family, and community. It’s a huge success story and a good one, and now it’s morphed into other forms and the Universe wants us to experience joy.

I know many marriages that are working, are being worked, that have a huge amount of integrity and yes they are still work. I also know marriages that are broken, not healthy, where there is suffering and many missed communications. The institution of marriage is loaded with land mines, outdated systems, old beliefs, childhood social dreams of living happily ever after, deep religious roots… it’s amazing and weird really, trying to navigate one’s own truth and then be in relationship to someone else’s truth – it’s an epic journey of the heart and spirit.

I am so grateful for the experience I have had, I’ve been with a partner who was willing to do the work, personal, and together, and I know my family is still intact, the bonds are still there, and I feel blessed with this new phase of my life. Over the last few months as this was all going down, we’d spoon at night in bed and talk about divorce during the day. There is still lots of Big Love here which will stay. I sense by taking care of ourselves this way of being big enough to part our ways that there is even more care and compassion for each other, we really want each other to have an amazing life that together we just weren’t able to create together, and we did try.

On land now, the boat drifts away, free to float down stream, my new journey is here now, in front of me, all around me, into the great mystery of life. A blessing to all of our hearts and souls – especially to the one’s who suffer now.

Namaste,
~M

My Book: The Art of Being a Dad

excellent on an ipad!

Blink: High School Years

Blink: My middle schooler is now officially a high school 9th grader.

Blink: My 11th grader will in a few days be a high school senior.

Blink: The younger one is diagnosed with Behcets, a rare auto immune disorder. She's doing well, lowering her prednisone each week, diet changed - no sugar, wheat, dairy. We have excellent support and feel much better as a healthy family. Wow... that was pretty intense. I totally acknowledge my wife, she was fierce and so protective, it was a beautiful thing to behold.

Blink: Last week had 4 girls in bikinis and a dog on an isolated Nor Cal beach screaming as we all jumped into the freezing Pacific Ocean. Forgot my camera.

Blink: The recent super moon had me and again 4 teens down by the water at night. I brought my camera.

 

Blink: Working hard these days. I'm an artist and mostly work freelance, lots of digital art and enough traditional work to keep me happy. This summer I have work in a scenic shop near by on the island. Mostly paint and some light carpentry. Still I am hammered and totally beat by the end of the day, my hands are swollen and my forearms stressed. But it's great to have work in this economy, I get to bring my dog (best perk), I come home for lunch, and I hit the hot tub at the gym before and after work. And truth be told, I do a lot less of the day to day parenting and driving around. My wife and I are both freelancers, we usually share most domestic happenings.

 

Creating platforms for the California Academy of Science.

 My home office studio

 One of my other gigs - chalk drawing with elementary school kids. Oxford Elementary, Berkeley CA with my nonprofit 

 DRAWING on EARTH

Blink: My oldest JUST started driving. Took her almost a year to get her permit (she just turned 17 yesterday). My wife and I told her this was here own project to make happen. There is at times, a feeling of doing too much for her and damn, gotta kick her lazy butt out the door to have her experience and know that she can do things for herself - like even cook a meal. AND... she is a great driver. I've been teaching my girls how to drive since they were babies.

 

Zander

Blink: The drugs and alcohol have arrived. Both girls have basically overdosed on pot brownies. One of the problems with our culture is that there is no good education on doing these things that young people will do anyway. And yes they are illegal. They were both separate events, everyone was fine, and safe, they didn't know how much they were eating and how their bodies would be able to handle that amount. I did more than once a drive in the wee hours of the night to pick up my people and bring them home safely.

One moment was that someone drank too much. I brought them home late, they were totally without any balance. I'm walking her to our front gate from my truck and I can hear her belly begin to rumble. I reach for the gate, her balance and lack-of throws me a tad off balance and my dog happily stops right in front of us, tail wagging, ready to get into the front yard. I basically toss my daughter to one side while flinging the gate open saying... "DO NOT PUKE ON MY DOG!" She remembered me laughing. We always talk next day about what they learned, what they will do differently next time as they learn how better to take care of themselves.

 

27 Powers 

Creative Blessings to All, especially to all Parents, and especially to all Dad.

The Art of Being a Dad

Drawing on Earth

Hearts & Bones Studio

Things Change Fast

In a week my youngest landed in Children's Hospital with what now appears to be an auto immune disease. The support both with doctors, friends, and family has been incredible. My wife's been through a lot and was a total warrior mom through the whole thing. We are all well now and we still don't know what the bigger picture will be like or whats really happening yet. Strange....

 

One night I sat alone by my sleeping kid in the hospital and felt pretty powerless. I had a vision and the next morning painted this. My daughter is in the middle with healing hands all around her. The hands had leafs, water, lightning, animal eyes, and elemental energies Then at the hospital we got everyone to sign it with white pencil, doctors, friends. Sweet as it is!

 

~Dad

Magic Tears of Teens

Tear from teens, both of them. One because I awkwardly talked about eating what good for one's body - feelings got triggered, I felt terrible and got quiet. Luckily my wife jumped in and worked her magic. Yesterday the other teen got sideswiped by some of her girlfriends at school and came home in tears. Luckily again her mom jumped in and worked her supportive magic.

I drove both girls to school today, different trips, different schools. And I worked my magic, talked, apologized, strategized, made the effort to connect and for them to know I was here, showing up, falling down, getting up, but always being here for them, with them, having their backs in many ways, even if at times it doesn't look like it.

~Dad

iBook - The Art of Being a Dad $4.99

Oh I am so psyched. I just found out that my dad book can be sold as an iBook for the iPad, iPhone, iTouch. And for a whopping $3.99 - it looks great on the iPad!

www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2238766