Defrost? Maybe not

The 4:30 alarm is terrifying. I did what I could to soften its power. The piercing tones have been replaced by Edvard Greig’s “Morning”, and the volume is as low as I can get it.

Still, soothing oboe or not, the first notes assault my eardrums and I throw back the covers, dismount from the bed like an aged gymnast finishing a pommel horse routine, and fumble with my phone lest I wake up my wife or children.

It’s a heart pounding, breathless, confused three seconds of terror, but it’s effective.

It begins the morning routine. I’d like to say, after a few minutes I am energized and ready to face the day, but that never comes. I start the laundry, stand in the kitchen trying to figure out what to do next, and ultimately decide to go back to bed. I repeat the process at 6:30, much to my wife’s delight (insert sarcastic tone here).

But 6:30 is really too late. I am in charge of breakfast, lunches, backpacks, clothes and transportation, and we have to be out the door at 7:09 or the Universe will crumble; my universe anyway.

Seventy days into the school year, and you’d think it would be smooth sailing, but it isn’t. Something always seems to get overlooked, and I am too frantic to notice. 

“Oh yeah, Benny has lace-up shoes now, that’ll be five minutes.”

“Wait, Mike, you forgot to do the other side of your homework, get started.”

“Wait, we’re out of bread? Now what am I making for lunches?”

Extinguished pilot lights, resetting of mousetraps, lost keys, lost homework folders, lost shoes, lost lunch boxes-each eat away valuable minutes and no matter what I do, we are running to the truck ten minutes behind schedule.

And now…Winter.

Frost shrouds the windshield.

It isn’t completely icy yet, but it requires more than a casual wipe of the wipers.

Ugh. I forgot.

“Ok, everyone back in, gotta let the truck warm up.” (Translation: Screw you New England.)

We wait. I have another cup of coffee and the boys dance to music on “Alexa.” Soon enough our break is over and everyone climbs into the slightly warmer cab of the truck. Leather seats creak and the sound of seatbelts buckling is more pronounced in the crisp air.

“Look Dad, snowflakes are on the window!”

I hit the brakes and put it in park. 

Snowflakes are on the window.

He’s right. There it is. The ice isn’t a hassle or hardship. It’s a reminder:

Slow down. Stop. Take a breath. What do you see?

Crystals form and stretch over glass, yet heat billows inside the truck. We’re together and warm and if we concentrate, and listen to a four year old, we can look at something beautiful and fleeting.

What else am I not appreciating?

Months ago  my morning routine was much different. Stormy clouds weighed on my shoulders, and a job that was negatively impacting my outlook on life closed in around me.

I would hold my face in my hands as the water cascaded over me in the shower, wondering where I went wrong in life. I dreaded everything. Sunday evening blues set in and sleeping more seemed better than thinking about work. Little could break through my negative attitude. What difference was I making? Why am I not more grateful? Where’s my passion? What am I doing? How can I get better? I’m trapped.

I would mutter good-byes and give half-hearted hugs and kisses. I’d stare out the window and ride along the highways rushing towards unhappiness, head on the headrest, thumbs on the steering wheel and cursing the sun for making me squint. 

I’m not making that commute anymore.

Mornings are tough. Winter is cold. Time waits for none of us. I’m not sure how to unlock it all, but I think the first step is gratitude. Live an intentional life. Find the beauty in a frosted windshield.

A mile down the road and those snowflakes will vanish.

-Mike Sposito

Owner Spowerks LLC

 

 

 

Four Day Weekend

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“Four day weekend and tomorrow’s Thanksgiving Mikey, what do you want to do?”

“Dad, I am going to run upstairs, put on my bathrobe and play videogames all afternoon. I have…No! Home! Worrrrrrrkkkkkkkk!”

“Sounds perfect. How ’bout you Benny-boy? What do you want to do?”

He looks out the back window of the truck at the leaves blowing  across the front yard. His four year old eyes squint in the setting sun and he sighs happily.

“Drink.”

Both boys do exactly as they say. Mike is in his bathrobe before I walk through the front door, and Ben is double fisting Yoo-Hoo!’s before he takes off his jacket.

By Thursday morning the house is filled with the delicious freedom of a four day weekend, and the delicious smell of roasted vegetables. It’s for the Thanksgiving Day feast at my in-laws. 

The house my wife grew up in, is small and cozy and warm. The boys disappear to the “Lego room” and the rest of us flip through a mountain of Black Friday flyers in the living room. Stuffed mushrooms and coffee and wine appear and disappear like dreams and the end of dinner leaves us wondering, “Why am I so full?”

The temperature is below freezing, worse with the ferocious winds, but I am determined to uphold the tradition of the post dinner walk. We bundle up the boys and Grammy gets the dog and away we go. 

Tears freeze to our cheeks and my little one cries, “My knees are cold!”

I guess that’s what happens when from waist up it’s three layers, a down jacket, scarf and hat, and below the waist is just jeans.

We touch the bridge in town with their grandfather’s name on it and suddenly they aren’t so cold. They climb over the steel girders and walk the railings like a tightrope. It’s a small adventure, braving the elements, searching landmarks and the reward is dessert at Grandma #2’s house. They run back. If it’s for joy or to get warm I don’t know. 

While Grammy’s house is safe and warm, Grandma’s house is a frenzy of family. Ten cousins wrestle on the couch. They sit two to a chair watching YouTube videos as my older nephews almost have my son convinced they’ve turned him invisible (secretly I wish I had thought of that one).

My boys cry when I tell them it’s time to leave.

By Saturday the tree is up and the train is chugging around its base. I take a picture of the four year old. He is under the tree and I immediately know what he is feeling. 

I’m seven and I am laying under my own Christmas tree. Snake-Eyes hangs from a branch and a few other G.I. Joe’s are riding the rails of the electric train set. I look up. It’s strange, I’ve never been under the tree looking up. I am dazzled by the sight. A secret pine-scented world reaches heavenward. It is a maze of branches and blinking lights. A hint of tinsel and ornaments peek through the gaps and wish I could shrink myself down and live among the boughs and trunk. It’s a secret quiet world. The magic of Christmas from the inside. I wonder if anyone else has ever done this or if it is my own private discovery. I hope it is my own.

By Sunday night the backpacks are getting ready for the morning commute, and my sons feel the weight of sleep a little more profoundly. I tuck them in. The baby snores lightly as Mike climbs to the top bunk.

“Well, what was your favorite part of the weekend?”

“Seeing everyone.”

“That’s sweet. How come?”

“I don’t know. I just like when we’re all together.”

-Mike Sposito

Owner Spowerks LLC

40% Off of Zagg and Thunder! Today Only!

Today, Cyber Monday, please purchase either of my books from my website http://www.spowerks.com and you will receive 40% off of your purchase.

Buy one for your child, have them work on it the next few weeks and then wrap it up.

Imagine opening the gift of a book that your child has illustrated. They are sure to make the Grandparent Hall of Fame!

1. http://www.spowerks.com
2. click “Our Books”
3. Click on the “Lulu Buy Now!” button
4. Follow the steps to make your purchase.

Thank you for your business, and I wish you a Happy Holiday Season!

-Mike Sposito

Owner Spowerks LLC

 

 

 

 

Pass the Popcorn…(sniffle)

 

Movie night.

God, I love it.

The darkened room, the flickering light, the music of the show all holding us, transfixed across the gap of screen to couch. Will we recite familiar dialogue? Will we fly alongside familiar heroes or cry at the loss of a favorite character? Or is tonight something new, the story unfolding before us like a path lit only by each new step?

We gasp and laugh and grip the blanket a little tighter. I glance at my son seconds before his favorite part; he doesn’t disappoint. His eyes grow wide and his mouth inches open. He explodes with laughter, and all is right in the world. 

“Dad, can you make us some popcorn?”

The microwave hums as I lean in from the kitchen to the living room, half in the light and half in the dark, gripping the door frame on one leg watching the story move across the screen. It beeps and pull myself into the light. If it stays too long inside it will burn, and we can’t have that. I pour the contents into a plastic bowl.

A blue plastic bowl.

What’s this?

It floods back to me in an instant. Our beloved bowl, the one with Pop-corn! written in script within a tiny cloud atop fading red and white stripes, its edges scalloped like a sea shell, and its once circular circumference now elliptical from so many hands and so many washes in the dishwasher has been…retired.

She had served us at parties too, but it never sat right with me seeing her filled with Doritos or corn chips. It seemed blasphemous to see her in the harsh light of day, instead nestled between us on the couch in the dark theater of our living room. That was her true home, her true calling.

My wife was shocked by our sadness and overcome with emotion, “We can keep it!” she yelled as I held it over the trash can, the sound of “Taps” coming from somewhere. But no, in the end the bottom was scarred from years of hot butter, and a crack had formed somehow. “Nothing gold can stay…” right Ponyboy? 

We give her quite a send off, probably more than any dishware deserves, plastic or otherwise, and my son concludes the ceremony with a salute. I applaud his choice: The salute, that action synonymous with duty and service. How many movies reflected off its sides? How many bags of popcorn had spilled their piping hot contents into its bottom? How many times did our hands touch within its walls? Were they a chance encounter or a reach for more than buttery sustenance?

Good-bye popcorn bowl. On the eve of Thanksgiving as we prepare to share food and drink with loved ones, and tell stories of gone ones, I will think of you, our companion on our weekly escape from reality, as we sat huddled on the couch…

Together.

-Mike Sposito

Owner Spowerks LLC

Pizza, Hot Dog, Pretzel, and One Big Apple

The view from our reasonably priced hotel room (we paid more to stay in Buffalo!)

Some kids are just made for the city.

Don’t get me wrong, millions of kids enjoy the city every year. They don cute little outfits to see a show on Broadway, or skate at Rockefeller Plaza. They window shop at Macy’s and marvel at the electricity of Times Square.

They see the sights and wonder how people can live here. It’s exciting but it’s so fast. It’s so dangerous. Too many cars, too many people, too much to do and not enough time.

The hours roll on and feet get tired. By the end of the day they yearn for their own house and their own bed. New York is great…once in awhile.

“Mike, instead of a party this year how about we go back to the city?”

His head jerks up from his homework and his eyes are wide.

“Best. Birthday. Ever.”

A few weeks pass and Mike is leading us to Platform 14 for the Metro North. So begins the first trip where he isn’t holding our hand. Pride and loss swirl through my heart.

Metro-North New Haven. The flat brim hat is growing on me.

We step into the concourse of Grand Central Station and immediately look up. Constellations trace the ceiling and the noise of thousands of people rushing back and forth evaporates into the ether. It’s my favorite building in the city.

We walk the six blocks to the hotel stopping to watch an enormous Veteran’s Day parade march down 5th avenue. A firefighter shakes our hand and gives mike a little American Flag. He waves it proudly as we hustle across the crosswalk.

View from the lobby at Marriott Herald Square

The hotel overlooks Herald square, and if you stretch to the left you can see the Empire State Building out of our window. I watch him stare. He’s quiet (rare) and pensive, and I am dying to know what he thinks. I don’t pry because I understand. New York is filled with people and things to see, but sometimes the journey is more internal. Possibility abounds, and you can’t help but wonder where your place in it may be. It’s awesome and often lonely. He looks so at home here.

He declines a seat on the subway, though at least five people offer him one. He wants to stand, surf the rails, live the strap-hanger life. He wants to be a part of it, wants to feel the sway of the car as it races through the dark. They laugh at him in wonder, but I’m not surprised. My son has this affect on people. He smiles back at them, but does his own thing. What’s left to teach him?

F train to the Lego store

1 to South Ferry

 

The Staten Island Ferry is free. We make the hour round trip to New York’s most dismissed borough because he wants to see “Lady Liberty.” He snaps off a few pictures as she comes into view.  He seems excited and this makes me happy. I hope symbols such as these maintain their integrity and worth to us as humans. In times of unease and mistrust, their importance is significant.

After a visit to my old apartment (Mike was not impressed) and a “full experience” cab ride, we walk the Highline. It’s an abandoned elevated train track converted to a park, and I am transcended. How cool. You can never walk two stories up. It’s either street level or looking down from the dizzying heights of gravity defying skyscrapers.

The experience is different and new to me. We start at Gansevoort Street. The gentrified meat-packing district is an interesting mix of grit and trendy “gastro-pubs.” Vegan restaurant here, a clan of cigarette smoking twenty-somethings spilling out of a bar there.

Paintings and sculptures line the Highline sparking discussions that span the topics of Spider-Man to reparations for slavery. There aren’t many nine-year-olds around us and Mike is a star. 

The rest of the evening rushes past us too quickly. The smell of ink and paper from Midtown Comics, a hot pretzel on the steps of the New York Post Office, dinner at Macy’s, a $108 elevator ride to the top of the Empire State Building (my wife’s favorite) and dessert from a bodega in the hotel room.

On the steps of the Post Office

In the end we walked 12.4 miles. No whining, no crying, no pleas to go home. “I want to live here one day,” he says as he drifts off to sleep.

Hustling for the train down Park Avenue. Look at the form!

The next morning he leads us down Park Avenue to Grand Central. He runs up a flight of stairs outside a building and jumps  off the last few steps to the sidewalk. A pair of businessmen watch him. One smiles and looks at me. I know what he’s smiling at: the unadulterated joy of treating New York like a playground. 

We drive to my parents house to pick up Benny. My mom grew up in Brooklyn and Queens and she misses the life. She listens to Mike recount every detail of the trip. She talks to me alone in the kitchen over a cup of coffee.

“One time I went back to the city to go shopping or do something,” she said,  “It was great. When I got home my mother-in-law raised her voice and said to me with a shake of her head, ‘Why did you have to go to the city to do that?'”

She stares out the window and I feel her longing.

“Some people just don’t get it.”

-Mike Sposito

Owner Spowerks LLC

I Love You Big Brother

 

I go where you go.

I do what you do.

I love you.

You knock me down.

You pick me up.

You brush me off.

You squeeze me too tight, but it’s ok. 

 

I miss you when you’re gone.

When you play with your friends I feel forgotten.

I yell for your attention.

I kick your shins, but I cry when I hurt you.

We play together.

You teach me.

You unlock mysteries for me.

You kiss my head when I’m sad.

I laugh at your jokes and you laugh at mine.

I feel safer when I’m with you.

You held me on the day I was born.

We have been connected ever since.

Do you see the way I look at you?

I go where you go.

I do what you do.

I love you.

Always.

-Mike Sposito

Owner Spowerks LLC

The Chronicle: Author’s books let kids become the illustrators

by Claire Galvin, Chronicle Staff Writer

“A local author is using his experience as a teacher, and as a father, to craft interactive and customizable books for children. Mike Sposito, of Columbia, recently self-published his second book, Zagg & the Planetary Defenders, geared for ages 9-12. The book features an interactive storyboard design — the words are written, but readers are tasked with creating the illustrations. In the book, Zagg, a pilot who lives on the planet Zorax, must stop the evil Dr. Zenith and his powerful robot dinosaur. The book has blank drawing pages for kids to make their own illustrations, as well as resour-ces to further explore drawing skills and art.”

(Read the Whole Article)

Marriage and Football…Coming Together at Last

He materializes before us. He’s holding a bright green backpack and his dirty feet are jammed into a pair of tired flip-flops. A razor has not touched his face in weeks and a sad desperation shrouds his eyes.

“Gotta cigarette?”

“Nope. Sorry my man.”

“There’s rain on the streets.”

We nod without stopping.

“Joe!!” he yells. He accentuates his frustration with a loud stomp on the cold wet street.

“Poor guy, he’s obviously off his meds.” 

I nod but move us forward. My time in New York City conditioned a ‘keep-walking’ mentality along vacated streets that is hard to shake. 

“Where is everybody?” I ask for third time.

My wife zips her jacket a little tighter and pushes her hat against her ears. She shrugs.

Main street. Buffalo, New York. Ghost-town on a Saturday.

It’s a shame. The city has an old-time sense of beauty. Art-deco buildings thrust into the grey sky and intriguing architecture differentiates one building from the next. The streets are clean and wide and straight. No sirens pierce the air and the closest we come to witnessing road rage is a polite beep met with a short wave of apology. We are alone and it is quiet in a once thriving city. 

It isn’t quite the start to our tenth anniversary vacation I had envisioned.

 

The sounds and smells of the Anchor Bar (home to the original “buffalo wing”) are a welcome respite from our chilly walk from one end of the city to the other. It is the day before Monday Night Football, our beloved Bills hosting that dark winning machine from Massachusetts, and the atmosphere has a buzz to it.

Bills paraphernalia hangs from every inch of the restaurant and waitresses deposit an endless supply of pizza and wings, dressed in jerseys and tee shirts of their favorite players. 

We indulge in a beer to quell the fire from our wings, and laugh at a crying child behind us. The dad is new and starts negotiating. The kid is winning and my wife looks at me, “She’s trouble,” she says. I agree. It takes a little effort to stop myself from saying “You’re doing it wrong,” in the smug tone of  a veteran parent. Instead we cheers our bottles and take a selfie. There is something deliciously satisfying about vacationing without kids, and watching new parents fail around you.

“I miss the boys,” we say simultaneously. 

We spend the morning of gameday at Niagara Falls. I fill my camera with slo-mo video of the falls, trying, and failing, to capture the power and magnificence of this natural wonder. I lean against the railing and watch millions of gallons fall hundreds of feet to the river below as an endless mist rises to the heavens. Raging waters upstream and calm waters downstream, it is a paradox of nature that mirrors the human soul.

I’m glad we stopped.

After a quick nap and a trip to the store for some tailgating essentials, we head to the stadium.

It is hard to encompass the tailgating scene outside New Era Field. Music and sizzling meat from thousands of grills, fills the air. Flags snap in the breeze, and though their red white and blue is injected into the shape of a charging buffalo, and not the stars and stripes, they are undoubtedly American. 

 

Everyone appears happy and no shortage of ‘cheers’ or high-fives exist. Strangers welcome strangers and positive energy vibrates through the gravel of  sprawling parking lots.

This is Buffalo.

Standing at our seats, watching the game unfold, shoulder to shoulder with strangers, the stadium roars. This is what is great about being a die-hard fan of a 2-6 team.

Every third down stop, every first down, every catch, every sack says, “Something is about to happen, something magical. This is where we turn it around.” The heart of the team thrums through your chest as people bang on aluminum seats and whoop until their throats are sore. 

Opposing fans live on a knife-edge of fear. They do not revel in a win, just relieved they haven’t lost to a lesser opponent. As the game continues they become desperate to crush the soul of the hometown fans. It’s a team they just do not understand. How can you love something that breaks your heart again and again? How can you cheer when your team is down? How can you hold-on when the season is tossed about like a cheap raft on the Niagara river?

How?

Heart and magic.

I can’t think of a better place to celebrate our anniversary.

-Mike Sposito

Owner Spowerks LLC

Oil Spill…the Start to a Great Autumn Weekend in CT

I watch the ink-black stream arc towards the oil pan. It misses and splashes down onto the garage floor spreading out like a stain of incompetence.

I scramble to move the oil pan over, which is difficult as I am laying on my back under the truck. I can’t turn over, and the only movable part of my body is my right arm. I sweep it between the bottom of the truck and the concrete floor pushing the plastic pan into position with a panicked expletive.

“Are you ok Daddy?”

I look across the floor to a pair of blue and green rubber rain boots. 

The three year old. I forgot he was there.

“Yup! Just fixing the truck buddy!”

His cute face hangs upside down as he looks at me.

“Can I help?”

“Umm sure! In a minute we have to clean the garage floor. It’ll be fun!”

“Yay!”

The feeling of guilt at duping my son is short lived. After burning myself with hot oil while changing the oil filter, and a sweat inducing feat of balance during funnel-meets-five-quart-container-of-motor-oil, I roll the truck back and set to work cleaning my mess.

Ben is a great worker and it makes him happy. I can’t blame him. There is something to be said for a fall day with grease on your hands and some bonding time in the garage. In fact,  he’s done such an adequate job, I don’t even feel the need to tell my wife about our (ok my) mistake.

So, still feeling productive and proud of ourselves, we head to the nearby Harvest Moon Festival in Hebron. My two sons and I zig-zag through a sidewalk filled with little Obi-Wans, astronauts and Paw Patrol characters. A food truck depicts a bull holding a pig in one hand and a chicken in the other, his eyebrows furrow and steam jets from his nostrils. My son laughs, but I am left to wonder, Why is that bull so mad at the other animals? Aren’t they all going to be eaten? Local vendors sell soaps and hand woven garments. A tower of jack-o-lanterns stand as a beacon, and a one-amp guitarist strums folk versions of hard rock.

Local artist Ann Marie Drury’s amazing painted chair! annmariedruryart.com

The streets are lined with painted chairs from local artists.

The atmosphere is strange and magical, exactly the way it should be a week before Halloween.

The boys float along on a sugar high and we visit my wife and her mom selling their Norwex cleaning wares to passersby.

We drive home talking about werewolves and vampires.

“Dad are you scared of werewolves?”

“No. I’m terrified of them.”

“Me too!” he yells in relief.

“Me too,” says the baby as his head lolls to the side of the car seat and he drifts off to sleep.

The next day we stroll through one of those deliciously horrifying seasonal Halloween stores that occupy the vacated bodies of recently failed businesses.  Spooky visages stare down at you from lofty perches, and dismembered appendages hold buckets of candy.  It is the first time my son wants to be something scary and a part of me feels an intense sadness.

I flashback to a  picture of us when he was four; him in a batman costume and me in a Robin costume. We stand, hand on hips, in the kitchen, ready to fight crime together.  At the houses, he would get his candy, turn on the steps and jump off with a, “Hup!”, his cape  rippling in the wind. He would land in a squat, one hand back, one hand on the ground. It was the classic superhero pose repeated at dozens of houses. At home, giving out candy, he would yell to retreating trick-or-treaters, “Good-bye! Happy Halloween! Thanks for coming to the BatCave!”

We get home and Mike puts on the white mask and looks at himself in the mirror. “Don’t worry Dad, I already have the black clothes and a plastic knife, this is all I need.”

I frown then smile and tousle his hair under his mask as I walk over to the sliding glass door. It looks out over our backyard. My wife’s garden is starting to lose blossoms in the cold weather. The leaves are changing and falling, and the afternoon sunshine ebbs away in that beautiful melancholy gold of late October in New England.

To my right is the kitchen where we took that picture five years ago. 

When the bite of a cold, crisp, blue sky stings your cheeks and brings a tear to your eye, you know it is autumn in Connecticut.

Happy Halloween. 

-Mike Sposito

Owner Spowerks LLC

Huzzah!

The sound of pounding hooves reverberates through the earth.

Two champions race towards each other, each led by the point of a lance.

The horses beneath them charge with muscles rippling and nostrils wide. Their fear replaced with a duty for destruction.

A glint of sun from steel armor pierces through the shade of the tree as we watch, transfixed, by the spectacle before us.

The gap narrows and I throw a quick glance to my wife. My face says, “This is fake right?”, but she is too intent on the scene to respond.

I look back in time to see wood splinter on shield and an eruption of “Huzzah!” to my right.

I hold the turkey leg in my mouth to clap as my sons wave their wooden swords in the air.

This is the joust.

This is the Renaissance Faire.

And if you ever need a break from reality…

We walk across the parking lot that held a Monster Truck Rally mere weeks before. A cheap wooden wall separates the sea of minivans and Jeeps from the reconstructed medieval village. The experience begins immediately after you pay (it’s hard to envision the Dark Ages where ApplePay is present), and a strange intriguing world assaults the senses. 

Jesters sell ice cream, blacksmiths pound the anvil and gypsies tell your fortune. My sons immediately want wooden swords and shields and their battles extend the length of the dusty paths crisscrossing the grounds.

Corset mashed bosoms spill at every turn. 

I can’t help but be impressed by the dedication of the actors. The day is hot and they stay in character though velvet capes drape from their shoulders and chain-mail hangs from their chests.

Maybe this is why feudalism died. There had to be a knight or lady-in-waiting that was like, “We must cast offeth these sweltering garments from May through early October!” #ladygodivamayhavejustbeenwarm

My son has me hold his wallet. He wants to use his money to buy something good, and he’s squandered many a birthday twenty. There’s certainly a lot to choose from and the merchants are ruthless, especially to easily swayed eight year olds.

We pass by bows and homemade arrows. Horns hang from straps aching for lip and lung to produce their call for battle. Elixirs in ornate glasses catch the sunlight just so, and the smell of grilled meats hangs in the air. I, myself,  run a hand over a few leather bound journals with more than a bit of longing. He’s tempted several times, but holds on, waiting for the perfect memento.

“I’ve got just what you’re looking for young sir,” says the man.

The pendant twists in the sun from the end of a long chain. It looks like the tooth of a metal dragon, curved and covered in runes.

Mike approaches the tent, not in the mad rush of a kid with money to burn, but in the measured hypnotic steps of a thief coming face to face with a jewel of legend. 

“You see, young sir, this necklace is magic. Open it up and whisper your wish inside. It will keep all of your secrets safe, just don’t let anyone else open it.”

Mike cups his hands and raises them to the dangling bauble. Are his fingers trembling? I can see in his eyes that this is the prize we will leave with.

The price almost wipes out his wallet, but the exchange is made and the merchant disappears with a flourish.

I hold back a scoff as I look over the purchase. I know it will be broken by the end of the week and the plastic “gem” on the top is one little-brother-grab away from disappearing beneath the couch.

Still, I don’t dare open it, lest the magic be true, and Mike seems content as he places it around his neck. He doesn’t say a word.

We throw axes and watch Benny knock a lady off a log with a pillow. “Huzzah!” he yells to the delight of the actors. I pay for Mike to “Smite the Knight!” and take a long boring video of him taking swings with a padded stick. Mike sticks his head in the pillory and Ben pretends to chop his head off. It’s dark, but it makes for a great photo. 

 

We feel the sunburn of late September and money is running low. It’s time to go.

We make it to the car and I’m grumpy. I can’t put my finger on why until I look in the rearview mirror. Mike is holding his necklace and staring at it. He’s transfixed by cheap jewelry and the lies of a cunning salesman. I look back into the mirror and see myself. I look angry. “What do you think these people do in their real jobs?” asks my wife.

When does it happen?

When do the costumes start to look cheap? When do we stop believing  the man on the horse is an actual knight, or that dragons exist?

I miss the days of magic and the suspension of my disbelief. Will I ever get it back? Will I ever hear the ring of sword against sword and feel the call to adventure and the unknown?

“Dad, whatever you do, don’t open this. You heard the guy.”

I throw him a wink in the mirror. He clutches it hard to his chest. Ben is almost asleep in the chair next to him. He’s still holding his shield.

A sad smile crosses my face. The magic isn’t gone. It’s simply been passed on.

-Mike Sposito

Owner Spowerks LLC