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Work until the job is done.
It’s barely past breakfast when he goes through the icy, finger-numbing drizzle to wrestle our automotive maladies into submission. He comes in for a late lunch, knuckles purple from the cold and hard knocks, and watches some YouTuber build a geometrically mystical and unnecessarily complicated table before returning to the ring. It’s almost dinner by the time we see his grease-smeared face again. About half the matches, he wins. The other times, he’s back the next morning to go another twelve rounds. Compassion is not necessarily kind. Love can be tough. Keep the greatest good in mind, balance all views. Nobody leaves fully pleased, but everyone’s needs are met. Inevitably, debate after discourse after drag, he’s the villain. But time and again, despite mistakes and intractability on all sides, everyone wins in the end. Share your joy. That familiar smile creeps over his face as he approaches, tablet in hand. I pop out an earbud as he leans in, sliding the video his newest fascination in front of my laptop. Smile and nod, smile and nod. Even if I don’t understand, his passion and generosity come through. Stay curious. He sees the world in diagrams, in circles and tangents and vectors and devices. He tweaks and tinkers, determined to parse the principal paradigms of his perception, to smooth and streamline until all the kinks are out. His vision is filled with twirling fancies that catch his attention before flitting off, drawing him into an idyllic dance of ideas; but before he disappears, he extends a hand and beckons you along. Keep growing. The cornfields blur together, populated with the anomalous tractor or silo, as we speed towards school. He, a Scholar; I, an Enlightened. Tensions rise and fall throughout our discourse as I endeavor to communicate the nuances and problems tangled with whatever Social Issue he tries to understand. By the sixth time we pass the cattle barn painted with a chipped quilt, despite the disparity in our life experience, he’s come around. For all of these lessons, for the ones still awaiting admittance, and for those I don’t know I’ve learned yet, I thank you. Love you, Daddy-O. Happy Father’s Day.
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There’s a bean counter in my brain.
I don’t know who hired him—I certainly didn’t-- Or who signs his checks—it’s definitely not me. He sits and ticks and tsks at tasks I take. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tsk. Thick glasses obscure his eyes, But I think they’re like eclipses, like The ones I got from my mother, but I shiver to look to closely. I want him to go away. I want to scream ‘You’re fired!’ Upend his bean-bag and burn those damn spreadsheets, But he’d just blink behind his bifocals and carry on his counting. |
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May 2020
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