Friday, February 13, 2009

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

(dontworryi'mnotactuallyproducingabodyofworkthatlookslikethis, 2009)

If I knew how to write songs I'd write you a love song, but for now I'll write you a story of how things were.

It was many years ago I was in the supermarket with my father and I went to grab his hand. His hand felt rougher, though my father's hands are some of the roughest, so I'll just say it was a different rough, and they were also moist. I hear a voice let out a quarter yell, and I looked up and the owner of this hand looked down and realized he was someone's father, not mine.
When I think of my father, I think of the day I grabbed another man's hand and mistook it for my father's, that when I close my eyes and imagine my father I think of a mystery. It isn't how his image is a father to me, but who he is? I know he is relatively quiet. I know he is the handiest person alive, and is very hardworking. I also know that he is strong, and loving in his own way. He is a great painter, and he loves the news. But who is he?
When I'm with you, I often think of myself as my father, just a shade, and I think of how he must've been with my mother, back then, how he may have been awkward, perhaps shy and quiet; he just seems to hover there, taking in every detail. Did he create painted masterpieces for my mother? I think he did a lot more, he made a family with her, with three masterpieces.
It seems all I know is this effect and never the cause, and maybe I'll never know his love as I know my own, for such a subjective definition could never be the same from one person to another. And to attempt to answer that, is an attempt at explaining life, I'll need more space for that, a few years, and perhaps a few lives.
We met more than twice by now, shall we be foxes the next time we meet?