Thirty Years Moldering

Juneteenth this year was the 30th anniversary of my father's death. 

I’ve written elsewhere about my relationship with him, directly and indirectly. Dinkelmann’s Rules, The Life and Times of Richard Musto, even my translation of the Monkey King saga: those books all reflect an effort to grapple with the various character flaws he managed to pass along to me. 

With the passage of thirty years and all the ink already spilled, you might well think, enough is enough. But today I find myself wanting to post this brief update.  After all, being a composter, I try to pay close attention to the changes that accompany the process of decay and decomposition.  Over the course of many years, countless green shoots emerge from both the good and bad that were interred with the bones.

The truth is that I feel closer to my dad now than ever before, readier to acknowledge and accept some of his flaws as my own, along with a few of his better qualities.  How he loved to plant and transplant trees. How he loved his orange grove. I remember him standing on a hillside, catching his breath as he mopped the sweat from his brow, before he resumed digging the next hole.  No doubt, all the flowers presently blooming around me in the garden are part of the enduring gift of his legacy.

Whatever knack my dad had for nurturing plants, though, did not translate well into the human realm. As a parent, he was awkward and indifferent at best. Sarcasm and teasing were his habitual modes of address, reflecting his deep insecurities and discomfort in his own skin.  Emotional intimacy was simply not part of his repertoire. Not that he was without warmth and affection, but far better to be his niece or nephew, who could enjoy his teasing at a remove, than his son trying to decipher what was meant when he archly called my name.      

Yet everything serves a purpose, as Marissa often says, and even my father’s chronic derision has ended up serving me well. True enough, I was prone to glibness and irony in my younger days.  But insincerity eventually grows brittle and the sarcasm that was endemic to my childhood has ripened into a mature love of poetry.