Sweet Potato Haircut

Black cherry, beech, white oak: the only trees he can identify, but identify them he does. Our frequent woods walks are hyphenated with exuberant naming of these three trees as he spots them off the path. My dad.

In the most warmhearted, well-intentioned way, when he speaks with people of different ethnicities than him, he mimics their accent back at them. Most likely in a subconscious effort to make them feel welcome, accepted, belonging, all things that my dad makes sincere efforts to serve both in his food truck and his daily interactions. Something that has always made me cringe, and laugh, and adore my dad. 

When my 15th birthday was approaching he said that I should have a guitar, something I had never shown interest in or asked for. I was underwhelmed and unenthusiastic, so he took me to the local music store and bought me a classical, nylon string Yamaha. How did he know that this instrument could be the vessel for my poetry? I spent the next months memorizing my favorite songs and sponging up every bit of information I could about how to play before I strummed my first open mic. My dad seems to know the way.

He was raised in the church, in the heart of Texas, in the warm arms of choir and theater and Jesus’s devotees. His stories are of wonderful and wild youthful meanderings through the desert with his best friends, his eyes twinkling with fondness at the recollection. My dad who used to drive down the one lane road where you could see the stars best, with his headlights off and his friends dangling out the window, warm desert air and lightning bugs and stars. When the road was just slightly too slick with rain and they hydroplaned, the little purple pickup flipping in several severe rolls through the dark cornfield, my dad and his friend broken and unmoving until a farmer found them in his headlights and sent them to the hospital. My dad with a broken back, likely never to walk again, lucky to have lived. My dad with a steel rod spine, man of metal and survival.

My dad who acquiesces to my adventurous whims as I drag him to a new hiking trail, kayak lagoon, vegan restaurant, yoga class. My dad, my best friend. A fellow wanderer on the spiritual path, my partner in concert attending, bicycling, and cheffing new recipes.

All this and so much more. My dad.