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Welcome back to The Bend!
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The Bend follows a simple rhythm each week. The Eddy Line opens with a one-line thought or
observation, something short enough to remember but worth thinking
about. What the Current Pulled Toward dives a
little deeper into where the previous week’s energy went, whether that’s
a project, a partnership, or a personal lesson learned. Signal Fire highlights a person, place, or initiative
that deserves some attention. From the
Field, shares a small anecdote about the broader outdoor
recreation economy from Oxbow’s non-profit arm, the VA
MTNS Outdoor Collective. And One Thought Worth
Sitting With closes things out with a brief reflection or quote
that will hopefully help guide you through whatever you may be dealing
with.
It’s part journal, part field note, and hopefully
something that makes you pause for a moment before diving back into the
current.
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“The example we set eventually becomes
the story they tell.”
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What the Current Pulled Toward
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This week the current pulled toward
showing up.
Father’s
Day was this past weekend, which always gets me thinking about
responsibility and what it really means to be a parent.
I’m 18+ years into this commitment and I’m less
convinced that fatherhood is about teaching lessons as it is about being
present.
That’s easy when things are
going well. It’s easy to be a dad when you’re coaching the game,
celebrating the accomplishment, taking the vacation, or posting the
photo. The hard part comes when life gets tough and when the kid is
struggling with something and when you’re exhausted.
Commitment really gets tested when work is demanding
more than it should or when you’d rather be doing almost anything else.
Parenthood is thousands of ordinary decisions to keep
showing up.
Plenty of
moms carry that responsibility, too. Some by circumstance. Some by
choice. Some because they’re simply the parent who is there.
For generations, we’ve attached certain
traditions to fathers. Things like hunting, fishing, camping, fixing
things, telling stories around a campfire, or teaching life lessons in
the woods, in a truck, or from a boat. These things don’t belong
exclusively to fathers.
At the
end of the day, kids rarely remember every conversation but they
remember who showed up.
And in a world full
of distractions, obligations, and competing priorities, showing up
consistently can be a mighty powerful act of love.
- Mike.
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Founded in 1994, the National Fatherhood Initiative
exists to improve the well-being of children by increasing the number of
involved, responsible, and committed fathers. Through training,
resources, community partnerships, and programs like 24/7 Dad, they’ve
spent decades helping fathers become more engaged in the lives of their
children.
What I appreciate about their work is that it focuses less
on perfection and more on presence. The reality
is that most parents don’t need to be superheroes. They need to be available. They need to be consistent and reliable.
They need to keep showing up. That’s a message worth repeating.
To learn more about the
National Fatherhood Initiative, click
here.
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One of the best things about the outdoors is that it
creates opportunities for side-by-side conversation.
Whether it’s around a campfire, on a trail, in a fishing boat,
on a mountain bike, walking a creek, the activity often
becomes secondary.
What matters is the
time spent together. Years from now, most kids
won’t remember how many fish they caught, how fast they rode, or whether
they made it to the summit. They’ll remember
who was with them.
Bring your kids
along and create some memories.
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One Thought Worth Sitting With
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This week’s theme: Showing Up.
“To be in your children’s memories
tomorrow,
you have to be in their lives today.“
-Barbara Johnson
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