Change and a poem for Father's Day

              Change and a poem on the occasion of Father’s Day

What triggers the major changes in our lives?  At what point does the marriage become untenable, the roommate impossible, the job intolerable?  We go on day after day until something snaps.  Case in point-  I was never planning on moving now.  I have a trip to Spain which falls smack in the middle of summer and which means a big expense.  So what happened?  One day my landlady told me her three grandchildren (they are a bit wild- one put a hole in the wall) were spending 6 weeks with her downstairs from me.  My apartment suddenly became a place I had to escape from.  I could have coped with the visit; after all, I’ll be gone some of those weeks but this was the crisis point.  All along I’ve been aware that I need more space- that I can’t spend any more time looking at the walls of this flat but I’ve resisted.  I easily could have been stuck here for years.

   We all resist change but it’s better to adapt and play a part in it than face a possible earth shattering event that really shakes up our lives.  I remind myself as I sit in the chaos of bags and books.

    Years ago a Peruvian shaman told me I had a “genetic muy poco vista” and that I had more genetic material from my father than my mother.  When I told my sister- she said she knew that.  I think I inherited the physical, the wanderlust, but fortunately not the character.

Father’s Day a la Sylvia Plath

Winter black and white

weighs down

until green spring erupts,

he searches the barn for the kittens,

his touch tames.

He shells peas,

lines them up in equal piles

for me and my sister.

The storms lash out.

There is no peace in this house

Wind whips through

tightly closed windows.

He’s the one I search for

in shapely dark madness.