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ericjparks
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Location: Rockford, Illinois, United States
Birthday: 3/2/1973
Gender: Male
Interests: I like baseball, but not Barry Bonds or the cubs. I love spending time at home with my wife and two kids. I love Colorado, the Denver Broncos, the Rocky Mountains, and snowboarding. I love spending time an the city...any big city. I love food, cooking it and eating it. And there is nothing...absolutly nothing better than having your kids running to meet you at the door when you come home.
Occupation: Research and development
Industry: Other
Message: message me
Member Since:
7/6/2005
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| Hey everybody...it's been along time. I wanted everyone to know that I am going to be blogging on the heartland:pm website. if you get a chance check it out. www.heartlandpm.com under the staff button click eric parks. You can comment on these just like xanga. Thanks everyone. | | |
| I am no expert on the male psyche, but this I do know, men know how to turn anything into a game…anything. From an early age men want to play and WIN!!! And men don’t just compete against other men they will compete against machines, clocks, animals, mountains, walls, ideas, doors, fountains…yes, even fountains!
My mother learned a painful lesson about my drive to compete one hot July afternoon at the St. Louis Arch, when a three year old male yeilded to the spirit of compitition.
“What are you doing.” My mother screeched, swivling her head back qickly to rest in the cup of her hand.
“Nothing.” I innocently replied.
“Oh, my God Jim, do something," mom insisted.
"What do you want me to do Joy?!" My father Shot back, as he tried to pretend he wasn't actually with this three ring circus.
"Well..." mom searching for a good reason to interupt my conquest, "We better do something. Eric is peeing in the fountain! You can't just stand there when your son is peeing in a fountain!”
"No, Joy...that' pretty much all you can do!" my father conceeded.
Truth was, I wasn’t peeing in the fountain…okay, technically I was peeing in the fountain, but it was more than that. I was peeing against the fountain. Namely against one particular stream of water that was arching from the outside ring of cement into the middle of the pool, where it met other streams from ninety degree angles around the perimeter. I saw the bowing stream of water racing from the outside to the center of the pool and at three years of age, scowled and thought, (thanks to potty training), "I can PEE faster than that…and better yet, and mine is a different color…bring it on fountain!"
Go White Sox!!!
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"I hide...you count!" Dad, Dad, Dad...."I hide you count!!"
This is the persistent drum of a two-year old whose heart has been set on playing hide and seek with his dad. This is his mantra, and he is determined that one way or another this game will be played, even if he is strapped in the back seat of a 99 civic with no real place to hide. "Dad...I'm hiding". I steal of quick glance through the rear view mirror and catch my son trying his best to make hide and seek in the back of a compact car both possible and fun. His chubby little hands overlapping each other, fingers spread out like tiny fans, loosely draped in front of his eyes. He is partially hiding his face, partially revealing the heart that beats through his eyes
My son wants to play hide and seek most of the time. In his car seat, which makes the game far less challenging and of course, quit a bit shorter. In the house, on vacation, at church, on swing set, if he and I are together..."Dad, I hide you count!"
I have thought alot about this, and even asked my friends who share in the joy of child rearing, why kids love to play hide and seek. And not to my surprise, it seems that Grae's desire to be lost in a game of searching is not unique to him...its universal to children. There are, I am sure, many contributing factors to this phenomenon, but at its’ heart I think it reveals a truth about us as humans. Some would say, of course humans are always hiding themselves, their intentions, their desires…that is human nature, but I think its not about hiding. I think that from an early point of cognitive self-awareness, there screams this deep need to be important enough to be found. And what’s more, this desire, this need…it never goes away, we just as adults pretend that we don’t want to be found anymore, although most adult seem to keep hidden. You see, even if we pretend this isn’t true, you and I both know that we love to be found. There is something calming to the idea that in this monstrously confusing, blurry world where my face and the sea of other faces blend together in ways that makes the beginning of me and the end of you seem impossible to differentiate...that I am special. That I do stand out and that I matter enough for someone to be looking for me. Searching under beds, in closets, separating fluffy blankets from well-worn pillows, slashing back the shower curtains and quietly peering through cupboards, all for me. All to be found...to be looked at by someone who finds me, eyes slightly squinted as a smile crawls across his face, and I taste the sweet music of his words, "I found you. I found you."
I am 32 years old and truthfully, I want to be found too! I pretend like I am not hiding, that people know who I am, but I am hiding, and hoping. Hoping to hear those words. I think this is why we spend so much of our life out of sight, not because we are frightened, or scared, or confused, but because there is nothing on this earth like having the warm light of discovery pour through a crack in the closet door, spread across your nose to your ears and through your soul. The Light of FOUND...oh, to be found.
I hide.....you count.
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| Okay, I know...I have been a very bad xanga member. I am going to get better, I swear....just give my another chance to prove myself.
I will say if you haven't read Jonathan Safran Foer new book it is worth the time, if only because it is unlike any book I have ever read. Pick it up it is worth it.
As for me...all is well. I have been traveling a bit, most recently to Waveland, MS to help with the relief effort. Heartland has responded in some very cool ways to the hurricane and I was part of the initial wave of that response. I hope to be able to upload some pics and the like very soon. | | |
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I visited China this past spring and it truly marked me in ways that are difficult to explain. One thing I did notice was the that one one hand china is developing so rapidly and yet on the other is is still so underdeveloped. I am excited because as things change, so to does the spiritual climate. I sat in a bible study with three students who had never heard of Jesus before. after 3 weeks they were mesmerized by Jesus and his death and resurrection. It was beautiful to see such unadulterated hunger. | | |
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