Not Quite How Dad Planned It

MAPS I HOLD ON TO

***

I think I would like to start over, I believe that I made some wrong turns. Stuck in these messed up adventures of my life, seems to tell me I still got so much to learn. Things you're certain that you'd never forget, begin to fade like an old pair of jeans. I guess I neglected to remember to care for the map that you instilled in me.

When I first started out, it was hopeful, with nothing but time left to spare. A folded atlas is the glovebox, and a teacher, I thought, walked on air. He loaded us into a car without seatbelts, filled the vehicle with ten bucks or so. Without any plan or idea, set in stone, he walked a life, I'd sell my soul now, to own.

There he was, just a young man of thirty, experience had showed him some things. We learned early not to question our father, then, he taught us what it meant to "pull strings." Six mouths to feed, house and clothe with no money. Still finding a way to get by, finding the gems that were funny, my brothers and sisters and I.

A small yellow house in the country, on the edge of six acres he owned, It took time, but he made us a family and made that old structure a home. Party-line phones that you shared with the neighbors, attached with a cord to the wall, so that we all would be happy - and only the calls made, would roam.

He taught us working hard, made you successful, that money was the means and not the goal. Showing up and showing love was the blessing. Giving up power could give you control.

Camping trips, eating poor boys at a rest stops, splitting RC colas and sweet, sticky smiles. Being referee ('d) from the rear view, laughing and singing for miles. Everything that he did, kept us together, a trick that we just let slip by, and he taught us to love on the low down, so naturally we didn't even have to try.

Campfire stories that kept your mind alert, finding some of those stories were true. Rearranging the way that you viewed the world and what you would hold to, as your truth.

Even then, they had a way of making you crazy, and a crazy way to make you feel sane. But we went together like potatoes and gravy and you just knew everything was okay.

Looking back, we were happiest, when we were together, I know that might sound a bit cliche. But somehow we forgot how to storm the weather, and some of us don't talk, today. Just more proof, we don't follow direction, our maps lead a whole different way. Or maybe we weren't as tough as we thought, and let pride rip and tear us away.

He and mom were the glue to our story, when they passed, we all came undone. The cord to that phone line was severed, and we were the dumb ones that roamed.

We all have similar feelings, and maps like this, that carry our pasts. Veins, reaching into our memories, currency made and recast. Some, if we could we'd take them back in an instant, and others we've let drift in the breeze. These are a few that I'll cherish, and recycle as key parts of me

After all, they're the ones that come calling, they're the ones that help when life's hard to do. Still they fade, so we have to choose what to hang onto, so I'll hold the best parts of you.