Archive for November, 2005:
Domestic Historical Revisionism
My dad and one of my two moms (the one he is married to) are here in Uruguay with us. That is fantastic and supremely bizarre. I wonder if I am still too connected to my dad. I’m certainly not afraid to tell him he is full of it. At the same time, he is one human being whose existence I will never cease to celebrate. I am amazed at how much you really CAN make up for lost time, no matter how much they say you can’t.
One of my flaws as a kid and one of his flaws as a father used to be our inability to coordinate building projects together. He would say, “Wanna help me build the storage shed?,” and I, being thirteen or fifteen or some “teen” age would jump at the chance. It had to be the coolest idea in the world—building something with your dad. In the past I would have said it had to be something like Alexander learning the art of war with Phillip, but then I saw Colin Farrell romping around with other boys in that movie…
But the day would come to do the project, and inevitably, I would be nowhere to be found. Now, when Dad was fourteen, that probably would’ve meant a leather strap, or worse, losing forty head of cattle, or worse, ceasing to be part owner of a dairy farm.
For me however, burgeoning product of Southern suburban life, it usually meant I had a great time doing something with my friends only to be followed with a deep sense of regret, guilt, and remorse upon arriving home and seeing the project half or completely done.
Yesterday dad and I built a stage riser for a church play. We did it in Uruguay, of all places. With MDF, a skillsaw, a drill, and some woodscrews. At my house. It’s the day before my 32nd birthday, and yet another example of how it IS possible to rewrite history. Do I adore my father too much?
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I came on
Like gangbusters
And the robin
Took flight
To somewhere
I’m not sure where.
After she’d
Done so much
To help me
Break out of that spell
I was in.
