On the Road

I am a sieve trying to rinse off all the unwanted, cleanse my mind from those fruitless memories that leave that bitter bite on my withered palette. ~

Andrea, look at the corn! There's nothing but corn! Have you ever seen so much corn? - I laughed, as that's always what my father would repeat as we drove 'down to the ocean' every summer.

We usually would leave Annapolis after an early breakfast, before the crush of a rush began. That is, the bumper to bumper kind made up by wilting Washingtonians trying to escape D.C.'s locked in humidity, the unforgiving smouldering wall of dense ninety-plus degree heat which caused cars to overheat on the side of the highway, irritable suit and tie types to lay on their horns honking and staring at the others around them as if they were the problem. Catching the bridge open was the best. Pulling up to the toll booth and hearing the friendly easy-going exchange between my father and the guard, 'taking the family down the ocean? Nice.' - Dad smiled back at me in the rear view mirror. - I choose this memory. I will not remember what happens at the beach or any other time. I want to lock this in. Savour the sweet bits, like the corn we always purchased on our way home.

Sometimes I brought a friend, sometimes I found one at the hotel pool. My goals were simple, cover the boardwalk from end to end, obtain as many tickets as possible, nab a bucket of fries and ride the Ferris wheel and chill. From up high I could see the foamy ocean waves illuminated by the effervescent lights streaming across the night sky above, I could feel the breeze on my inevitably sunburned face and shed the stuff I couldn't let in. The stuff that made memories get hard, hard as cracking crabs at our family dinner out. I am a crab, sort of. But, I am really more of an eastern shore blue crab, all soft, the kind that looks tough yet is really total mush.

My father drank a lot. I didn't care so much when he was having a good time and not taking shit out on other people, like the waiter or my step-mother. He was always too sweet to me which was confusing.

So, I had/have a little sister and she was born when I was like 13 and a half, something like that. I adored her, still do mostly. She's always been on the defence though, or a fence of some kind, easily influenced or dissuaded when it came to our father. Her mom, my step-mother, was fabulous; she loved to have fun, her laughter was entrancing, she had a way of making me feel secure and good about myself. I didn't like when our dad would get on her about her hips looking to wide, her hair needing to be shorter, or when he yelled at her so long that it made her cry. That happened a lot. I have to try really hard to use my sieve and get to the good stuff. Maybe, maybe, there is just not a whole lot of them and this old memory bank is trying to turn fields of corn, sand between my toes, floating with my little sister in the pool and watching the adults get drunk into something it really wasn't or isn't? I honestly don't know.

Little sister lives lifestyles away in California, married with a teenager now. I do wonder if she remembers a damn thing about me that's good. I guess it doesn't matter as long as I do.

Straining, draining, refraining. Just trying so desperately to feel alright about some of it, that is, my life with my father. It shouldn't be this hard. His mouth ruined a whole lot of nice times. I guess I will stick to the corn, the memories of that annual summer drive, when we seemed okay-ish as a family, when I felt okay-ish as his daughter and when all I needed was new sandals to feel good about myself. Yea, I'll stick with this for today.

My father used to smoke and drink Budweiser. This is something he would never admit to now, but yes, he stooped that low at one time. This is before he became a connoisseur of wine, a sort of self promotion of sorts into his next level phase of alocholism. He did quit smoking and that meant the whole world needed to stop smoking with him. He became a jogger. Jogging was a huge fad and I remember when I would run along with him throughout the U.S. Naval Academy; that's an alright memory. Yet, even so he always had one eye out for something better. A younger, spicier woman, a teenager who might pass for twenty-one and even though I was aware of it, I just didn't want to care. But I did. Care, that is. How do we reach the point of divine selection, move quickly through the wasted pieces of our time together? I've never been good at it. My dreams are vivid, he always sneaks in and messes up my sleep. Over twenty-two years since I have seen the man, and he still fucks up my sleep.

Going *NO CONTACT* with someone that had a huge part of forming who I am today is very difficult. I do recommend it however when the abusive times outweigh the trips 'down the ocean'. For me, I choose now to just remember the freedom I felt on the Ferris wheel.