Blood Musk

November 02, 2007 - 5:02

Formula for crying: looking at a picture of my Dad. I was getting a little upset this afternoon that we hardly have any contact with one another, and I have a fear that I'll deeply regret this period of years where we just never spoke. Simply because we're both awful on the telephone. We know we love each other, and our lives are pretty mundane, so I guess it shouldn't matter. I just miss his weary voice.
At home this summer, I was looking through old photos in the basement and found a letter my father had written my mother before they were married. I'm not sure of the circumstance, but they were seperated for a time, thus the written correspondence. The letter was hewn on a line of paper towels, still completely pristine somehow, (probably due to my father's feathery, light-handed penmanship). I read the entire thing. It was juvenile and devastating. He wrote a poem for her, comparing her to a butterfly, postscripting it with: "Anyways, that's how I felt two weeks ago when I wrote it." He rendered a drawing of "the perfect bar stool", the one he planned to make for her. And he ended the letter with:
"Kristine, I may be a grump, and a bull-shitter, but I will always love you."

That letter made me happy.