I Fish for the Time to Write

On unexpected interruptions, accepting my father will die one day, and the pursuit of un-beautiful writing…

I’m Resistant.

To sit down and write unless it looks the way I romanticize it in my brain.

A beautiful quiet Cafe. Light rain falls to lull the lyrics right out of me. I need my laptop. Because a laptop represents perfect writing in my mind. Typing hard at the café.

Instead, it looks like scurrying around a hot city. Waiting for the train. Bobbing around trying to brace yourself long enough to get the words that are urging, pushing you to get them down. Recorded. Documented… and (Undocumented Words. Mental note. Save this for a future poem).

That is ugly writing.

But writing is writing. And you must get it down when the moment strikes.

I’ve been feeling guilty because I haven’t been sticking to the writing schedule I set out for myself. Things get in the way. I get pulled away by the mundane.

I sit down to write.

I remember I haven’t done my expense reports for work and I have a deadline.

I sit down to write.

I check my phone.

I missed a call from my little sister. She hasn’t called me in a while.

I decide to call her back. She answers.

She’s freaking out about a conversation she had with my dad about death.

He told her he was worried about his friend, Sam. His friend from the service. Our dad doesn’t have many friends. None at all these days.

He’d grown intolerant of people in his older age. Not patient like he was once as a young man. I recalled that he had spoken to me about his friend Sam too when I visited home last. He was fragile, but with the voice of a machista Mexican man. He said he hadn’t heard from him, “I think he might be dead.”

He said this, looking pale and emaciated. Slurring his “ses” through his missing back teeth. The casino lifestyle had sucked a lot of life right out of him.

The story of the “suspected” death of my dad’s friend Sam, had freaked my sister out. She mentions all the recent deaths of famous people: Dolly Parton, Tim Curry, Yayoi Kusama—except my sister calls the latter, the art lady that you posted about on Instagram.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Why is he all of a sudden talking about death!?”

She worries our dad is going to die.

I tell her that he is, in fact, at some point: Going. To. Die. Adding a period in between each word for dramatic effect. A gesture that still signals I’m the torturous older sister.

“We all are.” I tell her. Trying to make light of the situation.

“Last time I saw Dad,” she says. “He looked all shitty. He said he needed to fix his teeth but doesn’t have enough bone structure to get dental implants.” This worried her. The state of his health worried her. I didn’t really know what to say. I had already accepted that my father would live out his post-retirement life as he pleases. There is nothing I, or anyone could say or do to change this fact.

What’s left is to cherish every moment we do have. Ask him questions. Find out what he wants, when the time comes. Discomfort. Awkward conversation.

I tell her that she can’t go around worrying about things that are out of her control. You can’t live your life that way. I tell her. You only have control over how you will react to things.

After it comes out of my mouth, I worry that the advice is above her head. That she is looking for me to calm her down and tell her that dad is fine. Which he is, for now.

I tell her she needs to relax. Dad’s okay. I promise her I’ll call him. She hurries to get off the phone with me.

So fast, I get the sense she didn’t like what I had to say. I mull it over. I may have been too insensitive for her liking. I allow guilt into the room for a second and then I kick it out.

And I sit back down, to try to write.