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under_control
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» father I'm in an in between place in my life right now. Perhaps Dante Aleghieri wrote of this same place in his opening lines of Inferno: When I had journeyed half of our life's way, Soon, I hope, I will better understand what I should do. But today, in this shadowy, in between place, I thought of my father. He is the man who set me on the course I seem to have lost. He set me on a course so contrary to what is in my heart, that unlike many of the unlucky children around me, I found myself straying from it even though it is broad, clear and does not wander. My father has never, absolutely never, to my knowlege created something where there had been nothing. In the 29 years of my life I have seen no letter written by his hand. I have seen no painting, photograph, drawing, or doodle that can be attributed to him. The few stories he told me as a child were read from a book. He's sung no songs that were not learned. No nails were hammered into wood by his hand; no tools used except to straighten, tighten or otherwise adjust what he had paid someone else to build. He has not even, probably in all his life, prepared a meal for himself or anyone else. I cannot imagine a life more empty and dry. How can a person continue to pull themselves up from sleep each day when they know that they will sleep again that night having given life to no new idea, no matter how miniscule? I can almost forgive him for his childishness and cruelty to myself, my sister and my mother. I can almost cry for him. I look at myself, and at my stunted experience with the tools of creation: pencils, pens, brushes, chisels, hammers, guitars, etc, and I know that even the shaky lines that I leave when I set pen to paper are miraculous when taken in view of what I might have emulated.
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diaryland |