Sweet Desperation

I dreamed of my father the other night. Even today my nighttime images are as clear as daytime. I stood on the other side of a door, watching him through the screen. He was bent over a dark green, almost black trash bag sorting through hundreds of papers. The longer I watched the more it was clear to me what he was sifting through: multitudes of colorful drawings of my childhood, mountains of homework of my youth, many writings of my young, just starting out, adulthood. My life in his lifetime. In print. I saw a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt fall from his hands with barely a glance, a poem about summer slip to the ground without care, a stick drawing of a cat thoughtlessly drift away on the breeze. I knew what he was doing. He was on a quiet, desperate quest for what wasn’t there. He thought if he searched long enough he would find my maturity on a piece of paper. The answer to how I turned out, for he needed to know. Desperately. Despite fearing he wouldn’t find his answer I asked the obvious. I don’t remember his response, but it prompted me to step out onto the porch to join him. I’d like someone to analyze my dream and tell me the significance of three platypus wandering across the lawn. A mother and two babies. Or was it a father? Mine barely gave them a glance as he kept searching for something he would never find.
Desperation is an ugly word. It’s an even worse state of mind. If I could I’d send my father a care package. In it would be a business card, a diploma, a wedding license, a bill for Indy’s shots, my drivers license, a certificate for running, pictures of my nephews…and a note. “These are the things you missed, daddy. This is what I’ve been up to since you’ve been gone.”