This was my anniversary present to Maria, a framed print of this photograph. To me, this photo captured a bit of her loving and rich soul. The photograph was timeless to me, not really about Rocky, not really about her, but the ancient and deep connection human beings have for animals, a connect that has been pushed aside and often forgotten in our world.
In our own imperfect and uneven way, those of us related to this photo, those of us reading it, we are seeking to keep this connection alive. Some of us through pets, some of us through other animals, some of us through farms, through breeding, rescue work, therapy work, cuddling on the couch, all kinds in many different ways. Although we are all very different, in this, I think we are united. We are all different, we are all the same. So this photograph is about all of you.
It’s Father’s Day morning, and in an hour or so my cell phone will ring, when my daughter gets up (it is Sunday, you are not an early riser) and you will wish me Happy Father’s Day in a foggy voice. I know you are just cranking up, anxious to get out and around Brooklyn, be with Jay. I have not been the center of your life for a long time now, I accept it. We will wish each other well, and then get on with the business of the moment, our lives apart. The calls always feels a bit rote, something of obligation rather than of feeling or meaning. American holidays are like that. Still, I like getting it.
I am not into regrets or looking back, it makes my heart heavy, I do wish we lived closer to one another and were more a part of each other’s lives. I accept that we are not. Nobody made me come up to upstate New York and buy a farm. I hope you will one day understand why I did, but you also have better things to do now with your ascending life.
I always want to tell you, but rarely do, that when your eyes popped open, and you were looking straight at me – you looked at me in wonder, then screamed, sort of setting the template I guess – you gave me one of the two or three transcendent moments of my life. Nothing much can top it, I think, I hope to leave the world remembering it. You gave definition to the very idea of life.
I am proud beyond words at the bright, funny, ethical, loving and gifted human being you are turning out to be. I don’t know if I had anything to do with that or not, I hope so. Because they are men, father’s are so many things that are strange and complex, sometimes warm, sometimes not, sometimes close, sometimes remote. Father’s Day carries this ambivalence, I see this stream of messages on my newsfeed, declarations of thanks and love and gratitude from daughters and sons to their fathers, living and dead. I will not see one of those with my name on it, that isn’t you and it isn’t me. We both would wince.
I’m heading out to help Maria shear the wool and I hope to paint the porch steps before it rains again. Until the phone rings, I will be thinking of you. I have only one wish for Father’s Day, only one thought about you, about being a Father, being a man, loving you, this is my Father’s Day wish:
Like many things I love, I’ve come to them late in life, and yes, better later than never for sure. Maria has flowers in her blood, like so many creative and nurturing women. Flowers are a creative and spiritual thing for many and Maria has this sense in her head of where each flower might want to be, in relationship to the world and to one another. It often works this way with us, I will say “hey, let’s plant a bunch of gardens,” and she will roll her eye at first, another chore, something else to buy, something else to do.
And then her artistic soul will kick in, she will begin to see the colors, how they will look, how they will grow and I will see her at odd times, crawling around, weeding. Both of us are obsessives, we simply obsess on different things. Yesterday there was a gleam in her eye and she said she wanted to go to the Stannard’s greenhouse and get some flowers. I brought the camera and Red and she wandered the aisles, talking to herself, pictures in her head that I could not see. Then she came back and went whizzing around the gardens, planting some around the statue, some to fill out this spot, some to fill out another.
She was in her own space in that greenhouse, had no idea I was even there until she came up to me with an armful of flowers whose names I do not know and will never remember. Creativity comes in all forms, and if I will never be a blood gardener, I sure love the colors and even more, I love watching the peace and gleam in Maria’s eyes when she put them in the ground.
You cannot be a gardener if you are not an artist of one kind or another.
