Sunday journal: The carousel of life

My two daughters wear bright red lipstick and sleep with a stuffed monkey and a teddy bear. They long for hot boys on posters and laugh giddily when we see wooden horses circling a carousel in Washington, D.C., beside the Smithsonian's fabled bricks.

They met three summers ago. One of the mothers finally relented.

They sleep under different roofs, neither of them mine. Sarah is 13, Kristen is 14, and I am trying to be 43, on the first day of our yearly vacation. I'm ready to be as close as you and your children always are to my anguished, envious eyes.

How does a man produce such a scattered family? Vow not to be like Mom and Dad. And make no further vows. Seemingly for good reasons. We were devoted parents, their moms and I, but not good mates, our stories went. It makes me happy that our capital seems so whitely traditional. Every edifice on the great green mall looks like a toy.

The Capitol building and Washington Monument are marble bookends under a cloudless national sky. The Victorian Arts and Industry Museum is topped with a cupola cupcake. The Smithsonian holds epic Americana behind a statue of Columbia protecting the Science and Industry twins. I want my girls to see the nuclear submarine command center, Komodo dragons and Dorothy's red ruby slippers on display.

But their blue eyes widen at those old wooden horses circling as the calliope pipes a song. Children run, laugh, squeal and leap onto the horse of their choice as soon as the former rider dismounts. Children bedazzled by the magic of painted wood, and being young.

"Dad, Dad," my girls say, "can we ride?"

That three-letter word will get them anywhere. "Have to check our funds," I try to say seriously. They run to the round, ageless ticket booth and report back. The trip will cost $1.50. Each. I start to hand over three singles, then take the money to the ticket booth myself. I want to see who's manning our National Carousel. I want to place bright red tickets, not crinkly green, in my daughters' hands.

Mirrors, bulbs and wood careen to a stop. The backs of two heads race for the horse of choice. Kristen picks a vanilla mare. Sarah hops on a blue unicorn eternally riding alongside. I watch them tilt their heads back and laugh as the ride begins. The whole world starts to spin.

Oh, Sarah. Oh, Kristen. I have failed you so badly. It's absurd, my lone, renegade life, slicing up all our hearts. Some curse handed down that I freely hand to you. Yet you ride together like sisters, side by side.

Tears are streaming down my face by the time their ride is done. I wipe my eyes before Sarah, appointed spokesister, dashes over to ask, "Dad, can we ride again?"

This time I hand her the money. She is, after all, a big girl. Run off, big girl, so Dad can keep crying.

The most coveted wooden mount is an emerald green dragon, claimed this go-round by a boy in a purple plastic Viking helmet. A girl in a blue Barbie T-shirt wails and points accusingly at him. She wants that dragon. Her mom, in a pink sweater, consoles her, trying to explain the ways of the world. The boy in the Viking helmet won't give up his dragon. Just like you can't get back time you didn't claim at the time.

My girls, older and wiser, settle for available horses. And I realize how happy tears can be. See, there's no difference between big and little girls on a carousel. However long Sarah and Kristen laugh and cut up and ride those wooden horses will be the childhood together they never had.

The world revolves, the mall becomes a lawn, the kitschy calliope music plays, and all the children screaming sound like mine. The girl in the Barbie T-shirt sobs her eyes out on a studly brown mare. Her mom still wants to take her picture. My girls chortle, giggle, punch each other and lean backward, trick riders instinctively, yet they never let go of the gold pole connecting the carousel with itself.

When the music and the carousel slow, the girl in the Barbie shirt isn't slowing her sobbing. Surely, after enough tears, mom or dad will ride to her rescue. My children stand before me, kicking up dust, seemingly ignoring my tears. "Daddy, Daddy," they chorus. "Can we ride again?"

Life is a moment, people say when they're dying. Some moments just go on longer than others. Does this one moment contain our every moment? Are all moments connected, just as we three are always connected by love and blood? Is this a moment my daughters will even remember? Maybe we'll just never forget that damn green dragon is always taken.

They keep finding different horses to ride, holding a little less tightly to the wooden manes, still jabbing and goofing, throwing and catching imaginary balls. They finally go to the ticket window with their own money. The ticket man gives them a free ride.

You know what? The girl in the Barbie shirt isn't ever giving up the dragon she finally got. And I'm just like any other parent. If my girls rode that carousel a lifetime together, I still wouldn't want them to ride away.

They collapse at last into gasps of "Thanks, Dad." Thankful for the rides or joyous tears, they don't say. We leave the carousel, on to other adventures. Whitewater rafting in West Virginia. Horseback riding, on actual horses. I watch out, up in that mountain resort, for nighttime dangers of bears and boys.

On our last day together, we are back in Washington. I guide us back to the mall, back to the wooden horses. Dreaming of seeing them ride together again.

The carousel spins on, its shiny mirrors shooting sunlight onto the grass. The old horses look trusty as ever. But the girls say, together, "No Dad, we're done with that."

We circle on into the future.

-- Ran Henry is a writer living in Hollywood, Fla.

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