29. When Have You Felt the Strongest Connection to Your Kids?
Also: how to make boozy cherries.
With Father’s Day being celebrated in America this coming Sunday, I’ve been thinking a lot these past few days about my journey as a father. EJ, our oldest daughter, just turned six last week, and it’s hard to believe that I’ve been a dad for that long. Somewhat paradoxically, it’s also difficult for me to remember what my life was like before I became a parent. Our family is on this big RV trip right now (I’m currently typing at a tiny library in Kennebunkport, Maine), and a few days ago, as we were driving this hulking house on wheels through Boston, taking 93 North directly under the city, Jenny and I got a bit nostalgic thinking about all the good (and wild, and challenging) times we had while living in Cambridge’s Central Square over fifteen years ago. God, we had so much free time back then. We often wonder: why didn’t we use it to save the world or something?
I guess we were too busy figuring out how to keep our own love story moving on down the road. Plus drinking great drinks. And eating delicious food. We didn’t save the world, but at least we stayed together and kept our bellies full. Which was important, because later, we made some phenomenal humans: Emma Josefine and Juniper Blue Basa Nemec.
Kids pretty much devour your free time. They can do shit that’s so annoying or emotionally draining that some days I’m tempted, after my wife finishes her work and I’m finally done cleaning the kitchen, to get on a night flight to Mexico City and start drinking mezcal for no less than three days straight. I’ve expressed this desire to Jenny before, so much so that it’s become a joke between us; sometimes she asks me how my day was with the girls, and I’ll give her a look and say, “Mexico City.” And she’ll just know.
So there’s that: the “light” hard stuff. For me, it’s sometimes accompanied by the slightly harder hard stuff: the who-the-hell-am-I in the world if I’m “only” a dad stuff. Or the way I still struggle with what being a stay-at-home dad says about me as a man, which is something I wrote about last Father’s Day in this piece at The Washington Post.
But today, I want to think about some of the good stuff. I have a question that’s been rattling around in my brain this past week, slowly taking shape, and I’m going to ask it of myself here.
When have you felt the strongest connection to your kids?
Wow. There are so many different answers I could throw at this. Where do I even start?
For me, what first comes to my mind is physical closeness: the countless moments I have held one of our daughters in the aftermath of something that set them crying. It might have been a nightmare, a scraped knee, a toy wrenched out of small fingers by a sister still learning how to share. The inciting event often seems so insignificant to me, and yet sometimes they’ll be screaming so hard they’d be shaking, as if heaving the cries up from some deep pit inside of them, attempting to haul out a toxin that was causing immense pain. That moment when they again became calm in the crook of my neck, nuzzling into my shoulder, perhaps finding sleep—it is bliss.
I also feel a deep connection to our kids when I observe the way they wonder about the world, and specifically, when I listen to the poetry that’s woven into their speech. A few months ago, EJ was going through a phase where she was really curious about lightning strikes, and at one point she looked out onto our back porch and asked: “What if lightning accidentally opened the door?” I assured her that she was safe, and yet I also complimented her on the poetic nature of the question she had asked, telling her I loved the way she personified lightning the way she did. Drawing attention to this seemed to take her focus away from any fear she might have been feeling.
One of my favorite things that Juni has said in the past few months is this: “Let’s pretend we’re in a magical garden with all the beautiful flowers. If you close your eyes, you can do that, Dada.”
If you close your eyes, you can do that. She said it with such force, such authority. I believed her whole heartedly.
Another time that I feel really close to our daughters is when I witness them in the presence of my own parents. I can tell that my mom and dad are, well, for lack of a better word, impressed by EJ and Juni. They too get a kick out of the often-clever, often-kind turns of phrase that can suddenly alight from their mouths, bringing joy to and otherwise routine conversation. I suppose it’s pride that I’m also feeling in these moments, because I know that while there’s a lot of this kid magic that’s just them, there’s also some degree of it— the nurture part of the nature-nurture equation—that comes from Jenny and I having worked hard to raise them to be as open-minded, smart, and fun as possible.
I could go on, but I’ll stop there for now, in part because I have a recipe to share, for some boozy cherries that would make a fine gift for Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Friend’s Day, or really, for just you on a Saturday. But also, I’d love to hear from any of you all: when have you felt the strongest connection to your kids?
If you’re not a parent, but you do have a relationship of some sort with your father or mother, I imagine you could take a crack at this question too; just ask yourself when you have felt most connected to your parents. And if you’re up for it, drop your answers in the comments below. The more I read the occasional emails that readers are sending to me, the more I find out that there are some cool people reading this newsletter, and I think it would be great for y’all to benefit from one another’s insight. I want to note that this urge to create some more community engagement in this space was inspired largely by Kevin Maguire, who writes The New Fatherhood. He’s doing some excellent exploration of what it means to be a positive and impactful dad in these times, and I highly recommend checking out his Substack newsletter as well.
And now, some boozy cherries. As you may know, these are the ideal garnish for a Manhattan. They can also be put into an Old Fashioned along with an orange twist. Though they arguably pair best with bourbon or whisky, they’d go well with just about any cocktail, especially something featuring an aged spirit. They make for a slight visual treat, but a more significant edible treat, a bonus little spike of alcohol and sweetness at the bottom of the glass.
Boozy Cherries
Ingredients
1 quart of fresh cherries, pitted
1 cup of cinnamon ginger anise syrup
1 cup of basic-ass brandy (the cheapest you can find)
1 tbsp Luxardo or other cherry liqueur
Directions
Make the syrup. Simmer 1 cup of turbinado or brown sugar along with 2 sticks of fresh cinnamon (break them up with your hands), 2 pieces of star anise, and about 3 inches of ginger, roughly chopped. Keep it on low heat for about 30-45 minutes, tasting after the 30-minute mark until you get to the desired flavor, then strain through cheesecloth and let cool. If you can’t find star anise, you can definitely go without it, but I recommend it, especially if you’re like me and use the residual syrup as the sweet component to other cocktails; it provides a delicious flavor note that is both earthy and licorice-heavy.
De-stem and pit the cherries. I find that the best way to pit them is with a metal straw (you could also use a chopstick). Make a slight incision with a knife on the side opposite the stem, then insert the straw where the stem was and push the pit through the incision. I’ll put a video of the technique up on my Instagram in the coming days. And maybe it goes without saying, but this takes some time, so if you can find cherries that are already pitted, more power to you.
Combine the brandy, syrup, and cherry liqueur in a large measuring cup or saucepan. Put the cherries into a mason jar. Fill them near to the brim, then fill the jar with the liquid mixture. It should cover all the cherries. Preserved by the alcohol, these will last indefinitely in the fridge.
Okay, friends, that’s all for this month. This is one of the free bi-weekly issues, and if you want to upgrade to get weekly content, you can subscribe for $5 a month (less than the cost of a draft beer these days) by clicking the button below. This month, $1 of that fee goes to the good people at Southern Smoke, who are working to provide relief to hospitality workers in need.
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As always, more adventures to follow in next week’s subscriber post.
Cheers!
J.
Great question (and thanks for the lovely shout out). One of the times I feel a really strong connection with my daughter is when we're reading. She's so curious about the world, and I love feeding that curiosity. Reading things to her that can open her mind to completely new things. And now her languages (Spanish and Catalan) are getting better than mine, we read together and she helps me with translations and pronunciations. It's a really nice way for us to bond, and something I hope continues for a long time.
Now—off to Mexico City we go!