Ala's Dos
6 months ago
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the father issue: memoirs on my father

1) My father has me balanced on the soles of his feet. He lies on his back, straightens his legs, and lifts me high into the air, higher than the sky. On my belly, I balance precariously, like a spinning dinner plate on a pole. I am 5-years old and I am Superman, Peter Pan, and Wonder Woman.

2) My father places a book in my hands. “Sophie’s World” by Jostein Gaarder. It is thicker than any book I’ve ever read. It has a red cover, and a picture of a girl’s large forehead. Below the forehead are a pair of eyes with a knowing stare.

Even though my mom buys me books all the time, my father has never given me a book before. So I make sure to read it. I consume it within 2 days. It’s about philosophy, and to make sure I understand it, I study it. I make sure I can quote from it. I want to have something smart to say when my father asks me what I think about it.

I also note that the book has a sex scene, and to me it is a sign of my father’s trust in me. In the 5th grade, where sex is such unapproachable subject in my conservative, all-girls Catholic school, my father lets me read about sex. Philosophy and sex… at 11-years old, I glow with secret pride in knowing that my father thought of me as a thinking, discerning person.

3) I am 10-years old, and I do not know how to read. My teachers think I may have a problem, and my father takes it upon myself to teach me how. Every. Single. Night. And every morning.

Our morning routine is like this: he picks up the morning paper, points to the simplest word on the headline, and makes me read it. I fail. Or rather, I don’t even try. He’ll tell me the answer, anyway.

What he doesn’t understand is that I don’t feel the need to know how to read. To me, it’s an unnecessary skill, like knowing how to skin a snake, or making a wetsuit out of a dead seal. I have no use for it. It is a waste of my energy. Therefore, I choose not to learn to read, although I certainly could if I wanted to.

But his efforts pay off. One night, it all clicks. Suddenly, I get it, I get how reading works. But I don’t feel victorious. Instead, I feel as if I’ve succumbed to other’s expectations, forced to learn something against my will. I don’t want to learn to read. Grudgingly, in almost a whisper, I read my first word out loud.

My father is ecstatic. Overjoyed. The occasion merits a long-distance call to my mom, who is overseas. My father makes me read every word in bold font that he chances upon in the newspaper the next day.

But I eventually do fall in love with reading, and as a child, I am a voracious reader. I read like a chain smoker smokes. I accumulate a small-sized library. I rent my books out to my classmates for 2 pesos a day, until my teachers find out and tell me it’s not allowed.

4) For the first time in my 7 years of life, I come face-to-face with the idea that I could die- as in really, actually die.

It is night time, and we are caught in a storm at sea, our catamaran viciously tossed to and fro by large, brutal waves. The rain pelts us like a hail of bullets. The lightning and thunder are like the wrath of the gods. Far away in the hazy distance, I see the blurred lights of an island, our destination, but the waves do not permit us to come any closer.

I am brave at first, but soon, even the grown-ups are afraid. People begin to mumble prayers, fearfully, with eyes squeezed shut. Wearing an oversized life jacket as I huddle against my mom, petrified. We could die now, we could all die. Suddenly, I hear laughter and loud voices.

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring.

My dad and his younger brother stand by the bow. Under the punishing rain, on our fragile vessel, they recite poetry.

We make it to the island eventually.

5) Poems my dad taught me before the age of ten:

“Little Boy Blue” by Eugene Field (it made me cry)

“Richard Corey” by Edward Arlington (the ending used to leave me astonished)

“Trees” by Joyce Kilmer

“The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe

“Auguries of Innocence” and “Tiger” both by William Blake

“Crossing the Bar” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

… and an excerpt from Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”

6) This is a poem my father didn’t teach me, but it always reminds me of him:

“First Lesson” by Philip Booth

Lie back daughter, let your head

be tipped back in the cup of my hand.

Gently, and I will hold you. Spread

your arms wide, lie out on the stream

and look high at the gulls. A dead-

man’s float is face down. You will dive

and swim soon enough where this tidewater

ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe

me, when you tire on the long thrash

to your island, lie up, and survive.

As you float now, where I held you

and let go, remember when fear

cramps your heart what I told you:

lie gently and wide to the light-year stars,

lie back, and the sea will hold you.

7) I am 28-years old. I can still count on my father to drive me to and from the train station when I am visiting him, and to give me a ride home from anywhere if I am suddenly caught without one. I can count on him to be on my side when I am wounded emotionally or psychologically, and to worry about me unnecessarily. I can count on him for sentimental displays of affection, even if I’m still learning to be completely comfortable with accepting affection. (I don’t want to stop trying.)

But what I can count on him for the most is to sit me down every so often and ask me the big, important questions, questions I’m too afraid to ask myself because they force me to confront myself and answer only with absolute honesty.

I can count on him to question my life’s biggest decisions, to grill me from every angle, if only to make sure that I know what I’m getting into and that it’s what I truly want. Because only people who love you will bother asking you those questions, at the risk of angering you, or upsetting you. I can count on my father for that.

My dad, Jim Paredes, turns 60 today. In Australia, Father’s day is celebrated this week. This writing exercise was meant to honor him. Happy Birthday to a dad who fathered me well!

Tags: father birthday poetry Date: 08.31.11 Time: 03:01 AM
50 notes
  1. spinningwheel reblogged this from alas-dos and added:
    most beautifully written memoirs...fathers I’ve ever
  2. isawgirl reblogged this from alas-dos and added:
    this. And then tears...:) Happy 60th to...favorite APO, Mr....
  3. alas-dos posted this
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