Dylan Stafford

We took our boys for their first time snow skiing today. Two hours into the mountains. Seven hours of skiing. Two hours back to the house. Sitting here now to write. Tired.

Why write?

Because it was a beautiful day, created by my wife, full of magical moments with my boys.

Because I love the mountains and nature and weather.

Because I will forget. If I don’t take these moments to write, the majesty of today will fade. So this time at the keyboard, to say thank you for a day in my life like today.

The top 10 moments:

10. That today even happened at all.

My wife Marisa came up with this idea on Friday of skiing on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Monday.

9. Getting to do this.

We’ve lived in California 20 years. Yet this is the first time we’ve taken advantage of the ability to ski, 91 miles from our driveway.

8. My son Jackson voting for “no lessons”.

This weekend, when Marisa told the boys about our plan to go ski, and suggested they take lessons, Jackson (14) was quick with a counter-offer: “We’ll watch YouTube videos and you all can teach us. And besides, I have physics on my side. I can calculate the coefficient of gravity…” [Jackson’s taking freshman physics, but his real major is Tik Tok. That’s his information channel.]

Christian (9) was more ambiguous, but when we learned the lessons were sold out, he went along with “mom and dad school”.

7. The energy of going on a trip.

We all woke with the excitement of going on a trip. We fed the dogs and loaded the car and were out the door by 8:22am.

6. No traffic.

5. The fun of getting the boots and the skis and the poles.

The clunky clompy walking and the swishy swishy sounds. Zippers everywhere and too many pockets. Seeing my boys experience it all for the first time.

4. The morning of “lessons” from mom and dad.

Over in the almost-flat practice area. Riding up the moving sidewalk. Gotta start somewhere. Falling. Frustrated. At one point, as I attempted to help Christian up, he ended up pulling me over. Really frustrated. “I don’t like skiing!” “That’s ok. Nobody likes skiing the first day. This is the hardest day you’ll ever have skiing.” How being a parent turns you into a coach.

3. Hamburgers for lunch.

2. The afternoon, the second go at the slopes.

After the hamburgers. The second wind. “Let’s go on the chairlift.” Sitting next to Christian on his first-ever chairlift ride, his body electric as he took it in. Then the quiet as the chair floats up and away. The views. The heights. Seeing it all through his eyes. Then looking behind me at the next chair with Jackson next to Marisa.

1. They skied!

They did it. Each in their capacity, a nine-year old and a fourteen-year old each threw their body down the mountain and into the arms of gravity. For the rest of their life, they may ski a lot, a little, or none at all, but they will never have another first day of skiing.

They were in nature. They were with their parents and each other. They were learning to use their bodies to do something totally new. They were challenged and they fell and they got up. It was raining lightly in the morning. We were all slightly wet in various places with cold spots in our clothes. It was foggy in the afternoon but we made it a day. We had a glorious day and we did it as a family.

Singing in the rain, I’m singing in the rain, What a glorious feeling, I’m happy again.

My good night prayer, Après-ski:

Thank You God for today. Thanks for the chance to be a husband. Thanks for the chance to be a father. Thanks for the snow, for the trees, for the highways that took us there and back again. Thanks for the deepness of my sleep that I anticipate tonight from my tired legs and thankful heart. Thanks for this day we remember Dr. King and his message to dream, to dream of the better world that we can make together.

Last summer, I lost a pair of prescription glasses in the Colorado river, in over 20 feet of water. I was in Texas for my thirty-year college reunion with my Aggie buddies. I lost my glasses when I tumbled ass-backwards off a kayak that I dumbly stood up in as I came up to the boat dock—a boneheaded move on my part.

My college roommate Brady fished the glasses off the bottom of the river. He had a casting net in his truck, and the confidence and determination to find my glasses. I had already assumed the glasses were gone for good and given up.

It took Brady six tries. He cast the net in a pattern, into the deep river, up against the steep cliffs as the last light faded from the day. He added a “Hail Mary” type prayer to the last, and successful, cast and he pulled out my glasses.

I could not believe he had done it. It was a miracle. I was amazed then and I’m still amazed now, six months later.

As I look forward into 2022, I’m looking for more miracles like that, small or large. Unexpected moments of grace. Undeserved. Unplanned. Much bigger than me and all my limitations. Divine doings that merit my attention and gratitude, but which will easily exist unobserved if I busily, multitasked-ly, noisily tramp roughshod over the gifts in each day.

Slow your roll Stafford. Your vibe attracts your tribe. Keep your head when all about you might be losing theirs. Surround yourself with people who want what’s best for you. Don’t waste time hating the haters, always remembering that they too are children of God, and that hurt people hurt people.

Seek ye first; That’s the game. Look with new eyes, through this new pair of glasses, baptized out of the green depths of the Colorado river. Look for the miracles. Seek and ye shall find. Will I be a fisher of what’s best in people?

Happy 2022

Sunday afternoon, October 10, 2021
(stepping away from the Giants at the Cowboys to write my appreciation of you, my miracle Marisa)

My dear love Marisa,

Our marriage is all grown up. Today is the 18^th anniversary of our wedding.

We will celebrate with dinner together tonight. Our neighbor Victoria will watch our two sons back home. The meal will come and the moments will pass and so I want to write you these words to last longer, to appreciate the blessing you are in my life.

When I asked you to marry me—when you said ‘yes’—I had an intuition that life with you would be a special life. Time has raised intuition to knowing. I don’t hope or wonder anymore. I know, deeply—the way you know things that you don’t ever have to think about—that you are the gift in my life.

I suspected you were strong when we started our life together. You are from New Jersey. You are one of five children. Your parents are still married and are funny and happy and salty: they are incredible role models of marriage. Your grandparents had been married 69 glorious years on our wedding day; you danced with your grandpa and I took as spin with your grandma. I suspected you were made of strong stuff, and after the last 18 months of these last 18 years all there is to do is be grateful of your strength.

We are coming out of a crucible together, living through this pandemic. From the early crisis days of going to Costco with a hazmat suit and buying toilet paper in bulk, through homeschooling our sons and working remotely even as your business contracted, to rescuing two puppies and resetting now to some new normal—through all of that you never flinched. You faced forward with faith and fortitude.

My parents have been married over 55 years. All my grandparents and aunts and uncles all got married and stayed married. Somehow, I took marriage for granted growing up. From the outside, I didn’t see the miracle of a healthy marriage. I had to be inside my own marriage with you to begin to realize how precious this is, our life together. These last 18 months gifted me with the appreciation of the richness of our marriage. You are my wife, co-parent, coach, encourager, planner, business partner, trusted counsel, fellow dog-walker, buddy, friend, best friend and lover. You are the center of my life.

Nobody told me all that was possible. Or if they did, I didn’t believe it.

Life with you gets richer and better. Each year the trust grows and the foundation deepens. 

I’m a better man, being your husband. Work matters more. I appreciate family more. There’s a reason for living. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. Who knew cleaving would be so great?

I love you Marisa. Here’s to our next 18 years. Thanks for being the mother of our boys, the daughter of your parents, a sister to your siblings, a joy in the world and the love of my life.

Your blessed husband,

Dylan

P.S. The Cowboys won.