Dearest Rachel –
This weekend is particularly quiet for Daniel and myself, honey. Logan is out of the house for the weekend; I forget if it’s a sibling or a cousin of his, but one or the other is getting married this weekend up in Michigan. It strikes me as a little odd for a Jewish couple to be getting married this close to Yom Kippur – the feasting and celebration seems a little out of place against a day of fasting and repentance – but what do I know? If nothing else, the date probably moves around a bit, so it’s not always on that same date in the Gregorian calendar, anyway, so anniversaries won’t necessarily be so awkwardly timed.
In any event, there’s a lot less going on at the house; not that the place is a buzzing hive of activity at any point in time. I wake up and head out to the ‘office’ (or in today’s case, to the men’s study, despite the fact that a large contingent may be up north at Man Camp this weekend) while Daniel’s asleep, so he isn’t aware of either my presence or absence. Today will probably see me and him just hanging out together watching stuff in the bedroom until such time as I need to head out to church to work in the booth, whereupon, he’ll go off and… I don’t know, whatever he usually does by himself.
It’s not that I don’t think he can’t entertain himself, as such; and I don’t know how lonely he really gets on his own. But most weekends, it’s him and Logan together doing that same ‘whatever,’ and I’m a little concerned as to how this will go for him on his own like this.
My guess is that there’s a number of YouTube channels he’ll be listening to for those however many hours he has to himself, which is probably better than certain things an otherwise idle young man could be up to. And I’ve listened to some of the more political of the streamers he will frequent – I’ve shared hotel rooms and cruise ship cabins with him, after all – and discovered that they’re not particularly objectionable (certainly, I would hardly be in a position to argue with them on most of their points). At the same time, it doesn’t strike me as the healthiest sort of thing to indulge in.
Logan’s presence generally precludes him from a steady diet of this stuff; he’s a tempering force on what Daniel takes in as ‘entertainment.’ Also, by offering either a separate opinion or representing one to whom his own opinions would offend, Daniel has learned to dial back the stridency he once had, where he would even chastise me for my lack of faith. He’s learned to tone himself down in the presence of others.
But only in the presence of others, I would suspect. Without Logan around, I’m not so certain. So yesterday was spent mostly together; I woke up early, and since I’m still dealing with this lingering illness (which has yet to lay me out flat, but has definitely taken a fair amount of spring out of my step), I decided to skip the gym for at least the tenth day in a row. Instead, I showed up early to the ‘office,’ so I could leave before one, have a late lunch with Daniel, and spend the rest of the day keeping him occupied.
Doing what? Why, exactly what you’d expect; Sitting in front of the huge ‘monitor’ in the bedroom – which I’ve told you about before, but repeat that you would have loved to have seen (although I don’t know that you would have been so keen as to have cleared off your dresser to make the room for it) – until the ambient light in the room and house faded from grey (it was threatening rain all day, and finally started in sometime during the wee hours of last night) to black. Even then, when Daniel left, it was more because he needed a restroom than rest, but, upon noting the time, he figured he ought to bid me goodnight at that point.
Which I rather appreciated, as I hadn’t done several of my usual solitary pursuits; I hadn’t done my usual reading – either devotional or my news feed – and I needed to get started on this letter to you this morning, as I’d no guarantees as to when this morning I’d be able to finish this and send it off to you. So if this looks and feels a little disjointed, now you know why – although I dare you to guess where I left off yesterday and picked up this morning.
Now, when I get home from this morning’s study, it’ll probably be more of the same between the two of us, as I try to keep him occupied at least until I have to go. And as much as I like us being together (and I worry about what he delves into on his own), I admit there are moments when I have to admit we need a third like Logan around to keep him occupied now and again, so I can do the stuff that I need to apart from either of them. I may get lonely myself when they’re together, but there are times when I appreciate it, too.
Then again, there would be something to be said for a fourth, as well, if she would appear…
Letters to Rachel 