talking to my father

i spoke on the phone with my father tonite
he is 87
at least tonite he was pretty sharp
he speaks of his life in humble terms
he goes here he shuffles there

i enjoy bringing laughter to my father
i seem to understand what makes him laugh

he asked after my music what kind of music
i'm playing these days
we had a pretty involved conversation
on the topic of music and epistemology

my dad says he uses his cane
when he knows he has to go
more than a hundred yards or so

somedays he just sits and doesn't do much at all

he and my mother go places together in the car

we spoke of the other members of our family

i am amazed to be talking to my father on such
familiar terms
when i was young my sense of my father was
that he was someone taking care of me from a distance
taking care of all of us
mother was the one at home who ruled the roost

most of my really good conversations with my father have come about
in the last 10 years

there are days when i weigh up my gifts
and my burdens

knowing that ones father is ones friend
has a way of lightening the burdens of life

when i think of male love
and the modes of expression
for males to love one another
it would seem that
brothers become friends for life
and fathers become friends
and friends become fathers
i have friends who were (are) surrogate parents

it does seem very odd to me that some people would
claim that the sexual attraction to other males
is also a possibility for males loving one another
it would be difficult to deny that it happens

i'm grateful to have my real blood brothers as friends
and there are friends whom i regard in almost the
same way that i regard my blood brothers

it was said that david loved jonathan
in a way that surpassed the love of woman
and i think that this does not indicate
a genital sexual way of loving
it is the camaraderie of brothers

i could imagine my father being
a very good friend if i weren't related to him
yet the fact that he is my father
makes him something no other man could be

i sit with the realization that
i may never have a son or a daughter
and will thus only know
from a distance the weight upon the heart
of a person who takes his parental responsibility
with utmost seriousness
it is good to be able to say
my father took his responsibility as a parent
as the greatest responsibility in his life
and he still does
his professional life being simply something
which he needed to do in order to be
the best parent that he could be

he once said to me
in a different age i might've taken a mistress
but my work became my mistress
and i gave a lot over to her
sometimes at the expense of my family

such is the price of a mistress

my father is 1000 miles away
he is two days away or about 17 hours
if i drive
at least 10 hours away if i fly
unless i get a direct flight
which is harder and harder to do

that i have a father still living
still someone i can talk to openly
is the gift i hold to myself today