Sunday, June 2, 2013

Good Morning Jessicca...

Letter to my Daughter
Sunday, 2 June


Jessicca's Holiday Visit

Good Morning Jessicca…

Jeremy turned 32 yesterday, the age I was when he was born.  We had a barbecue to mark the occasion.  I handled the fire.  Generally, I burn everything to make sure things get done in the center.  We had scorched corn on the cob with charred burgers and dogs.  Throw chunks of meat into the flame and hope for the best.  I’m a primitive man at heart.  Jeremy said it was tasty.  He’s a good kid.

Jake, the dog, also had a burger on a bun, with catsup.  The two small boys here exchanged theirs for a hot dog, which was more to their liking.  Their mother, Erin, is riding north today with her boyfriend, Bryan, on his Harley.  It’s a half day ride to West Virginia and they need to get an early start if they are to beat the coming rain.  It’s a near new bike.  The last one was crunched this spring on a mountain road.  An oncoming pickup crossed over into Bryan’s lane and he had to lay the bike down.  The woman driving smoked the truck’s tires right over the top of the bike’s front wheel.  No one was seriously hurt.  Erin has a scar on her knee but she and Bryan were both wearing leather and managed to avoid serious road rash.  Bryan says there are two kinds of bikers – those that have wreaked and those that are going to. 

With any luck we define our own life’s journey.  We choose from options, take chances, and move on from there.  Some options are leisurely ventures.  Others may involve split-second timing.  Some begin casually enough and then, in a sudden turn of fate, become a hair-raising episode.  You choose a path, chart your course, enjoy the sun, feel the breeze.  An instant later your eyes jerk skyward.  Your mind quickly sorts through an onrush of confusion.  Horror is a flash preceding a mind-numbing stun.  I must pick up the scattered blocks, everywhere.  Yes, thank you.  Are these your blocks, also?  What?  No, I think the pain belongs to you.  People appear like stooges in a movie.  Here comes the horror again.

I think I will water the garden this morning.  It’s going to be hot.  The wild flowers are just beginning to stretch their spindly stems skyward.  Their roots flourish in crumbly soil containing the right hint of moisture.  The robin patrols.  He cocks his head and spies movement.  Gotcha!  Life is a crawling banquet.  Soon there will be time to nap on a full stomach.  June is a month delicious with days.

For the human kind of life form civilization began with readily available water coursing beneath desert sun.  It’s a blessed combination.  We no longer need to daily track down our food.  It grows about our feet.  The land is bountiful.  Time is plentiful.  Relaxation is fertile with ideas.  We fashion words to share our thoughts.  Living is a river of sun rises.  The sun flees the night.  Stars are lost mothers of small people.  Woman is the magic.  Look on her.  Always I look too long.  She keep me.  She make joy in me.  She anger me.  She is the center.  Why she so?

Civilization begins with woman.  We start with her.  She is both chicken and egg.  I am not like her.  I pull legs off insects to see what they do.  Life seems a captive force that gives objects the ability to yearn.  I want to believe that all existence has explanations.  Except for woman the most satisfying experience is to believe “This is why.”

Love,
          Dad



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