Shadow Puppet Storyteller

Listen to the Journey

I don't know that I am protecting anything more by placing it here, rather than on Facebook, but since I remember FB terms originally stating that ANYTHING POSTED BELONGS TO THEM, I at least feel better in my own blog space. This is a bit of an exercise, a promise I made to myself and my therapist today. This particular Monday is my dad's birthday. He died this year in August, and besides my sister's birthday plus Thanksgiving (some years they are the same), his birthday will be the first date that I thought might have more to it in relation to coping with grief. It's not like we usually made a fuss. A pie is the preferred special item that comes to mind. Since I lived closest to him -- it was easy to be the perpetrator of the spoiling. And of course a card, although I have a spotty history even with my most beloved friends and family members actually accomplishing my intent.

So, marking this day, since it has not been touched by tears over missing him, I am leaning into where this emotional divide might be crossed. I came across a photo that my Dad held in his FB pictures. A post of mine for almost exactly 3 years ago. I sent him some postcard poetry, and I took a snapshot of it. This allowed me today to reread what I had written to him. Today I feel like I should rewrite it. But I like these lines:

You remain the young father of a drag-slap and yappity-yap….
Where our feet have passed – dear father
– means less than what our ears still do.

I am thinking the rest of it is crap, but this is a nugget, and I want to retitle it too, and preferably finish it before the end of the year. The title instead of, "Journey of a thousand soles" would be transformed to, "Listen to the journey of a thousand and two soles" He was thrifty enough, I could imagine he has only had one pair of shoes (resoled) and I, the drag-slap cripple has squandered a thousand shoes over my lifetime. This in and of it self makes me a bit sad. Still, I have written just this, and it does not compare to the tears I did shed today thinking of the high school students returning to Saugus in California today. How I am much more attached to the past than the present. I cannot avoid my own present, but I guess for now I will still avoid the tears for the more personal tragedies of this year.