One year ago today my father “disappeared”—that’s how they would say it here in France: “mon père a disparu.” It really feels that way to me, as if my dad had been suddenly abducted and might just be in the other room now, or a phone call away. I could say that one year ago I lost my father. That feels right, too, because who really knows where kind men like him go when their time here is through. But his soul was simply too young to leave us altogether, his curiosity too vigorous. I wish to live long enough to cross his reincarnation on the street with a smile, or feel the cool shadow of his wingspan pass overhead—because I know my father always wished to fly.
Lost, but there are clues: every obscure village I find on a map; last week, mesmerized by a piece of experimental music, thirty-minutes of one note repeating, resolving to its octave, its ghost; sharing something new, original, and challenging with my children as he had done with me, as I would like to now with him, again. So many things I would like to do again or say again. Things I would like to say for the first time, though we made sure to say the important things. Better late than never.
Lost, but not so very far to find, you are with me on this day—with love—as I suspect you will be until my day. And beyond.
Thanks to everyone for showing up for my reading and discussion at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum on July 14, 2015. It was great to present my historical novel Sophronia L. here on the Vineyard, where it all began.
I’m hosting a Historical (Flash) Fiction contest through my publisher, Folded Word Press.
DEADLINE: 15 MAY 2015
Writing Assignment:
See link below for further details:
https://folded.wordpress.com/2015/05/07/word-lab-historical-fiction/
Here is a transcript of yesterday’s Tweet Chat:
Meet me at lunch today for a tweet chat about my new novel, Sophronia L.
12:30-13:30 EDT/CDT or 14:30-15:30 MDT/PST on Thursday, 19 March 2015.
Sponsored by Folded Word Press
“For Lu, being loved was not something to be taken for granted; we were born unloved until someone else decided to love us. If we were lucky we were taken, shivering, new to this world, into our parent’s arms and one day into a lover’s arms, and so on, perhaps dying in that person’s arms. That was if we were lucky. Without God’s never-ending love to cover us, we had to endure gaps, periods of unloved existence. It was all one could do to survive those intervals, the Captain felt. That was the plight of mankind.”
(from a novel-in-progress)
My father wanted me to read this at his funeral. Today I will do that.
HORIZON
1.
The horizon, constant and static,
is a neat bit of trickery.
Impossible to reach,
its very existence is an act of faith.
Pure fiction.
2.
In life there is the unobtainable,
a thing we can never have
and there is the inevitable,
a thing we must have.
The horizon is unobtainable,
forever out of reach
no matter how far we advance.
It is, in fact, just one long lie.
Death, on the other hand, never lies.
It delivers its promise. Inevitable.
Like the horizon, our death lolls there, still
at a distance impossible. Unthinkable.
But one day, in a stifled heartbeat,
that Death-horizon will fly at us with frightening speed.
There we will stand and
from there, see no further.
T.B.
