Flight

Today in the mirror, I saw my father’s face. Dad had blue eyes while mine are green, but still he appeared in my reflection at 9 am to return my gaze. I’ve always thought I looked more like my mother despite being a proud Swede like Dad, but this morning I couldn’t dismiss the similarities in our faces while his image melted into mine like a Dali apparition that had sprung from my subconscious. There I was in the locker room, freshly showered and half naked in front of the mirror, my gym bag, and a hair dryer used by countless other women trying to stay fit or happy, and there he was -- sort of -- clearly attempting to share something.

This had never happened to me. It was weird. Strange. Cult-like, not me-like (see post #1). I don’t understand why it occurred; I don’t know why most things happen the way they do. I’m not a big believer in destiny or the almighty and am not even an enthusiastic member of the everything-happens-for-a-reason crowd. But I do believe moments like these arise from our subconscious because they need to. We need them to. We draw them from our subconscious just like Dali did. Only without the tigers and butterflies and melting clocks. (Maybe those will appear later.)

I didn’t know Dad well, actually spent more cumulative hours in short-term romantic relationships (so many, which is an issue, I know) than I did with him over the years. I asked him not to attend my wedding in California, but he flew down from Oregon anyway. And I attended his funeral in Bend ten years later unable to calmly enter the makeshift waiting room to view the body before the coffin was closed and wheeled into the Mormon chapel for the service. Upon peering into the room like a child afraid to be discovered, I had frozen, nearly panicked in the door frame before turning to the hallway to make an escape but then determining to return to the space where my half-sisters sat at a round table not looking at the body but waiting for me to. I took a breath and approached the coffin slowly, looked at him -- clothed in a suit and tie, blue eyes closed -- and said goodbye.

After the funeral, I didn’t expect him to visit. I'd kept my maiden name after getting married so have, I suppose, always had him and my Swedish ancestors near. But I sure as hell never anticipated seeing them again. I don't know why Dad's face appeared -- to give me something to ruminate on, to ponder, to question, to attempt to make sense of? Because under the oils and the tigers and the clocks is order. And behind the faithful gym goers sweating on treadmills or hefting kettle balls above their chests is purpose. And in the mirror, at the intersection of the blue and green gazes, is probably both.

Dad once told me I shouldn’t be afraid to fly. Maybe today I needed that reminder.

Beauty only visible from the air