Writer's Block: Father nature
Jun. 20th, 2010 11:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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My father: I was in third grade or so. Hadn't yet thrown up my hands and said "screw this" to the idea of "Look Like Other Girls To Fit In And Be Happy", but it was close. Who teaches you to style long hair when your mother has kept a pixie-cut most of her life? I was floundering. One morning, I woke up early determined to figure out something besides a ponytail. A braid, maybe.
It was still dark, I got up so early. The only points of light in the house came from Mom's bathroom at one end where she was getting ready for work and the dining room at the other where Dad sat with his Bible and morning coffee. So I fetched my brush and a hair-tie and went to Mom. "Can you braid my hair, please? I don't know how."
"Neither do I, sweetie," she answered, looking at me in the mirror. If memory serves, she was making the Putting On Mascara face. Either that or the Putting In Contacts face. "I'm sorry. Your dad might, though; why don't you ask him?"
Dubious, I shambled off to try my luck.
Papa looked up when I walked in. "Mornin', Sunshine. You're up early."
"Mama says you know how to braid hair?"
He sucked coffee out of his moustache and nodded. "Horses' manes. Why, you want a braid?"
"Please?"
"Well come here, we'll see if I remember. Fingers are stiffer than they used to be, and it's been a while."
So I gave him my hair things and knelt down in front of him, and he brushed and pulled and twisted my hair. And that was my first braid, tight against my skull at one end, swinging between my shoulderblades at the other. That was the first day "Who did your hair?" was asked with appreciation instead of razors in it.
I don't remember whether he was still home after school or if he'd gone back out to wherever he was working.
Fun not-my-dad extra: I learnt how to braid for myself from a boy in daycare that summer. He'd learnt how in the Scouts. Maybe this is why I look to really sleek drag queens for cosmetic inspiration. ~shrug~
~*~
Grandda: In summers when I was little, my grandparents would drive out to Wyoming to visit and then take me home with them for a while. I have no idea how I got back to Wyoming when they were done Jess-wrangling. I have no idea how long I stayed. What I remember is bedtime. I would brush my teeth and get into jammies, then Granddaddy would come in to tell me a story.
Always tell a story; never read.
He'd turn out the lights and lay down on top of the covers, and he'd tell "The Little Gray Pony Who Lost His Shoe" to me, starting out in prose and "Once upon a time..." and easing into rhyme and rhythm until the end, when he was almost singing.
Now. The man was a preacher of a fairly sternfaced tradition. None of this waving of hands or pacing in aisles for him. His most theatrical gesture was stabbing the pulpit with one finger. He was trained to win souls with sweet reason--The Book will speak for itself if he could get folk to pay attention. So he learned to use tone and cadence and volume like paint to make a picture clear enough for the blind to see. My granddaddy is an artist when the occasion demands it. Apparently, bedtime stories did.
But the best part wasn't the story (although it was close). The best part came after "And they went away home, clippity clop, clippity clop," when Granddaddy would kiss my forehead and say goodnight...then close his eyes and fall asleep.
I was terrified of the dark. Eight years old before I could sleep without someone nearby. Nightlights didn't help: it wasn't so much the lack of light as it was the quiet certainty that something with glowing eyes and long teeth was waiting just outside the door or window for my adult to leave before it came in. My room at my grandparents' house didn't have any windows, but it did have three doorways, one of which didn't have a door in it. Constant threat to my sleepy self.
Except Granddad was there, with wall-shaking snores to scare off any monster imaginable.
I don't think he was faking it, because he made the same godawful din during his afternoon naps.
I slept like the dead because of those snores.
So. ~shrug, smile~
Happy Father's Day, kids.
My father: I was in third grade or so. Hadn't yet thrown up my hands and said "screw this" to the idea of "Look Like Other Girls To Fit In And Be Happy", but it was close. Who teaches you to style long hair when your mother has kept a pixie-cut most of her life? I was floundering. One morning, I woke up early determined to figure out something besides a ponytail. A braid, maybe.
It was still dark, I got up so early. The only points of light in the house came from Mom's bathroom at one end where she was getting ready for work and the dining room at the other where Dad sat with his Bible and morning coffee. So I fetched my brush and a hair-tie and went to Mom. "Can you braid my hair, please? I don't know how."
"Neither do I, sweetie," she answered, looking at me in the mirror. If memory serves, she was making the Putting On Mascara face. Either that or the Putting In Contacts face. "I'm sorry. Your dad might, though; why don't you ask him?"
Dubious, I shambled off to try my luck.
Papa looked up when I walked in. "Mornin', Sunshine. You're up early."
"Mama says you know how to braid hair?"
He sucked coffee out of his moustache and nodded. "Horses' manes. Why, you want a braid?"
"Please?"
"Well come here, we'll see if I remember. Fingers are stiffer than they used to be, and it's been a while."
So I gave him my hair things and knelt down in front of him, and he brushed and pulled and twisted my hair. And that was my first braid, tight against my skull at one end, swinging between my shoulderblades at the other. That was the first day "Who did your hair?" was asked with appreciation instead of razors in it.
I don't remember whether he was still home after school or if he'd gone back out to wherever he was working.
Fun not-my-dad extra: I learnt how to braid for myself from a boy in daycare that summer. He'd learnt how in the Scouts. Maybe this is why I look to really sleek drag queens for cosmetic inspiration. ~shrug~
~*~
Grandda: In summers when I was little, my grandparents would drive out to Wyoming to visit and then take me home with them for a while. I have no idea how I got back to Wyoming when they were done Jess-wrangling. I have no idea how long I stayed. What I remember is bedtime. I would brush my teeth and get into jammies, then Granddaddy would come in to tell me a story.
Always tell a story; never read.
He'd turn out the lights and lay down on top of the covers, and he'd tell "The Little Gray Pony Who Lost His Shoe" to me, starting out in prose and "Once upon a time..." and easing into rhyme and rhythm until the end, when he was almost singing.
Now. The man was a preacher of a fairly sternfaced tradition. None of this waving of hands or pacing in aisles for him. His most theatrical gesture was stabbing the pulpit with one finger. He was trained to win souls with sweet reason--The Book will speak for itself if he could get folk to pay attention. So he learned to use tone and cadence and volume like paint to make a picture clear enough for the blind to see. My granddaddy is an artist when the occasion demands it. Apparently, bedtime stories did.
But the best part wasn't the story (although it was close). The best part came after "And they went away home, clippity clop, clippity clop," when Granddaddy would kiss my forehead and say goodnight...then close his eyes and fall asleep.
I was terrified of the dark. Eight years old before I could sleep without someone nearby. Nightlights didn't help: it wasn't so much the lack of light as it was the quiet certainty that something with glowing eyes and long teeth was waiting just outside the door or window for my adult to leave before it came in. My room at my grandparents' house didn't have any windows, but it did have three doorways, one of which didn't have a door in it. Constant threat to my sleepy self.
Except Granddad was there, with wall-shaking snores to scare off any monster imaginable.
I don't think he was faking it, because he made the same godawful din during his afternoon naps.
I slept like the dead because of those snores.
So. ~shrug, smile~
Happy Father's Day, kids.
