Dedicated to my Father. I hope y'all enjoy this piece!
Beautiful Weeds
From the tattered windows of my Father’s 1996 cherry red
Toyota car, I can vividly remember as a young girl gazing out onto infinite fields
of ugly weeds. It was typical for my father and I to be out driving on an
endless desert road going to nowhere, because that’s what we did. We did road
trips. And in that cubicle of a car, that they call a Toyota, I spent a great
deal of time thinking about those fields of ugly weeds. On one specific car
ride with my Father, I can remember turning to him and asking, “Dad, if someone
said that they would shoot you, unless you pulled out all of those weeds out
there, what would you do?” In my
concerned ten year old brain, nothing in life was worse than pulling dirty old weeds.
Saturday morning chore experience had proved that. So to be faced with death or
weeds was quite the complex question to be asked. And of course, underneath a
somewhat diminutive chuckle my father replied, “Well, I guess I would start
pullin’...”
Without delay, I chuckled, and so did he, and on we went
driving through miles and miles of hideous weeds. I guess you could say that
ever since that day, I’ve looked at weed pullin’ a little differently. Maybe it
wasn’t so bad after all? My Dad didn’t think it was, and because my Dad knew
everything, I figured that at least weed pullin’ was better than death. Why I
didn’t already know the answer to that silly question is still beyond me. All I
know is that, in that ten year old world of mine, the answer that my Dad gave
to me that day, was the answer that I needed.
At one point, it was a tacky mint green striped minivan
that we drove. It had mint green curtains, and mint green carpet, and mint
green seat cushions, and well... mint green everything. It took us to pow-wows,
and swap meets. It took us to beaches, and to parks. I guess you could say it
took us anywhere that a mint green van could go. And inside that four wheeling
palace of mint, many of my fondest childhood memories took place.
On one occasion, while driving in that van, I can recall being
sprawled out across the backseat of the car. Being the brat that I was, I
demanded my “space”, or whatever that meant, on our longer road trips. And I
can remember while late in the night, or should I say early in the morning,
watching from within that sardine packed “space” of mine, my father. Through
that maze of mint green curtains, and mint green cushions, and mint green
everything, I began to notice something that I had never before noticed on a
road trip with my father. Not only was Queens Greatest Hits growing louder and
louder through that mint green cassette player of ours, but my father was
simultaneously growing tired.
Maybe it was a swerve or two that gave his weariness
away, or maybe it was the countless amounts of empty coke cans that covered the
floor? I’m not quite sure? Alls’ I can I remember, was that in the seventeen
hours that we had been out on the road, we hadn’t made many stops. And although
I knew that our game called “drive- as- long- as- you- can –drive- without-
stopping,” was pretty fun, to my dad at least, I also began to recognise that
my dad’s driving was becoming somewhat doubtful. He was tired.
Despite my
diva-ness, and need for “space” in the backseat of that hideous van of ours, I
somehow found it in my heart to crawl over all thirty of our one dollar value whopper
meals, crappy luggage and junk, and take the front passenger’s seat next to my
Dad. “Hey Dad,” I said “want me to help you stay up?” he smiled, and so did I.
And then we did what we always did on those tortuously long road trips of ours.
We talked.
We talked, and we talked until we couldn’t talk anymore.
About what, I’m not sure? I just know that we loved to talk. That’s what we did
on road trips. And on the rare occasion that we ran out of something to talk
about, we played games. We played what- are-you- thinking games, and what –rhymes-
with- Albuquerque games, and make- an- analogy- out of- whatever I tell you-
games. They were always pretty fun. The game maker-upper was usually the
winner, and the rules were ever changing, but regardless we loved our games.
Other
times we sang. Mostly, our very own made up harmonies to, “Earth Wind and Fire”,
and “Cool and the Gang”. Whoever they were? And when Dad was tired of being an
air drum professional, and when I decided I didn’t want to be Mariah Carey
anymore, than we would count. We counted stars, and raindrops, and trees, and
signs, and cars, and bumper stickers, and clouds, and animals. We counted
everything. Everything that could ever possibly be counted.
I loved my Dad. I
love my Dad. I know my Dad.
And he knows me.
Two thousand one hundred and thirty two miles now
separate my father and I. That once tacky mint green colored van is now a fancy-
shmancy metallic blue Nissan. Cassette tapes are now trendy iphone covers, and those
one dollar whopper meals ...are well, still one dollar whopper meals? Needless
to say, while all the world around me has considerably changed, I have noticed
that collectively over the years those retarded made up games, and late night conversations
with my father, have stayed. Odd as they were, they somehow shaped me. They
somehow taught me the value of life. They somehow showed me what real relationships
are. And they somehow taught me what happiness means for families in eternity. And
while I don’t know how many road trips I have left, if any, with my father in
this life. And while I still haven’t found any word that rhymes with Albuquerque, I do know one thing, and that
is for sure, I love those beautiful weeds.
