Road Trip, and a Story About my Dad

Today, a road trip. It will be the first time we've gone to Shreveport since I found out I am pregnant, and I'm not actually looking forward to the drive. Since Andrew has to work all day, I am the one who has to drive us the 7 hours, through the dark. I don't get too tired, but I am not really thrilled about the prospect of all that time away from a bathroom. You know, late in pregnancy, I can understand the mechanics of there being less room in that area and squeezing and having to run to the bathroom every five minutes. But at this stage it is just baffling why there is constant pressure and the need to pee all the time. Ah well. Again, probably TMI!! :)

To make up for it, I'll post a bit of my story. It's earlier than some of the stuff I have posted before but I couldn't post this bit till you knew the one little detail there... couldn't let the cat out of the bag too soon. More on my Dad, here. The funny thing about this is that I was thinking last night while restless about things I wanted to write, about my days as a band kid in high school and some of those little humiliations one experiences at that stage in your life. And I actually felt my cheeks getting warm over one event from my senior year! It must be almost 15 years, yet it still has the power to make me feel a little bad. Anyway. On with the story. And never fret, because there is a coffee shop to visit and write more tomorrow, even if I will be drinking tea. :)

Food

Today I remembered that as a kid, living still with a full family, I loved Philadelphia Cream Cheese. My father would give me little squares of it, still in the silver foil wrapper, and I would bite into the soft white goo, eat the entire square all by myself. I did not have to share. I remember this as I scoop big gobs out onto a bowl of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and bananas because I am eating healthier, but need the fat for a balance. I remember this as I feel a bit nauseous from my very early pregnancy. I think of the child, unknown, as of today something that looks a bit like a tadpole. Its heart is developing this week. The little bits of DNA that are scheduled to beat out rhythms of love, betrayal, fear, and pain are clustered in place, ready to form life and death for a new being. One who will bring both intense joy and probably pain to my life. The future often seems very far away, but sometimes, it is literally right inside you.

The raspberries are too tart, and my morning tummy will not tolerate them. I spit them out and focus on cream cheese and more memories. Digging into the bowl, I dig into the past. I do this in order to free myself for a future that grows closer each day.

Another memory surfaces because of the blueberries. I am twelve, and I am visiting my father. He and his new wife joke at dinner about a surgery that "didn't make his eyesight any better." I ask them when he got his vasectomy, and they look at me shocked that I got the joke. They give me ice cream laced with peach brandy. As he drives me back to my Grandmother's house, we stop at a pancake house. I order the blueberry pancakes, and they come loaded with jellied blueberries in a thick, sugary syrup. I find that I do not like blueberries– something I will believe for another ten years until I have fresh ones. I will not eat the pancakes and they sit, sodden and neglected, as my father gazes with brown, mournful eyes at the waste. I feel resentful that he cares, this being the first (and last) meal he has bought me in years.

This process, this digging, is archaeology– you never know, once you are in the pit, what bones will surface, what layers of ancient history will be revealed by a careless pass with the small paintbrush you use to clean away dust and grit. My father lies mostly in the past... what memories there are of him are artifacts that will be placed on a platform, in my own personal museum, backlit and roped off from sticky hands.