TRIGGER WARNING: childhood trauma, father, abuse, molestation When I was in an undergrad lit class, we were assigned poems to read and this was one. I had to dig it up online today and found it with keywords “father – dance – such waltzing was not easy” My Papa’s Waltz (Theodore Roethke) The whiskey on … Continue reading
He hates this song. An odd song for a preaching man to hate, yes? He made me promise once to keep it out of his funeral… such is his distaste for it. i’ve had some things happen recently that make me fear his passing… well, not so much his passing as much as his lingering… visiting… latching … Continue reading
He won’t go away. He still knocks. Like a pesky door-to-door salesman… i leave no forwarding address and yet and still… here he is. i peer through the peephole, amazed at his persistence… offended by his insistence even in the face of the “No Solicitors” sign… he’s at it again. i ignore the knocks until their sound … Continue reading
i wrote a piece for an english class years ago. We were reading Socrates. i focused on Antigone and her father (Oedipus, of course). “Like father, like daughter” was the title of the paper… and that pretty much sums it up. While most people view the oedipal story through the lens of males and their … Continue reading
i put together the above image and the thought tonight after a day that was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. The day wore a weariness born of sleep deprivation (just a smidgen) and hard choices. i visited my therapist, made some decisions, and then off to work i went. The day was full, but … Continue reading
i noticed it before but this weekend i stared at it for quite some time, perched as it was atop the shelving unit. i snapped this picture of it and altered the color a bit. It’s a unique bit of decor… this round face-rimmed pot (or is it a vase or a bowl… who knows… … Continue reading
i’m in therapy. i don’t intend to share all of that here, of course, but i feel it is important to push-pull-drag this out of shadows… to take the secrecy and shame from what ought to be no different than the choice to take a car in for service. It is – as i recently … Continue reading
i’ve been praying (best word i have for it) for my father’s happiness. i struggled with it so at the beginning that i set my cell phone with reminders throughout the day… “pray” it says on the screen… and i flip to my gallery of images on my phone and settle on this shot of … Continue reading
“Dear Dad” has been written and then – per Master – burned. There is no electronic copy either, go figure. Gone. Ashes. i know i will recall it from time to time, passages, bits, but now that it is all done, what i recall is writing that i was tired of thinking of ways to get … Continue reading
We lived in the boonies… and the life out there wasn’t easy. Because of that life (most of my childhood), I’ve never grasped the love that city folks have for camping. We heated our house with wood, our water came from the spring, and when the winter hit hard… we battened down the hatches and … Continue reading
