Things That Don’t Count to My Dad
Poetry. Survival. Love — the life my father can’t quite measure.
The first real sentence Papi spoke to me, as we drove to the train station in Stuttgart to pick up M, was: “So what are you going to do for work in Palm Springs?”
I had no answer.
I mumbled something about maybe selling clothes in a boutique.
He pressed. “Do you have any leads? Any prospects?”
I went quiet.
We drove in silence through fragrant July air, past rolling green hills and vineyards. I looked out the passenger window and tried to account for myself.
✔ Survive a nervous breakdown. Check.
✔ Get rid of all my belongings and relocate to the desert. Check.
✔ Publish a book of poetry. Check.
I had brought my parents a signed copy.
Mami said she was proud.
I left it on the dining table in plain view.
Papi didn’t glance at it. Didn’t open it.
We kept driving.
I kept thinking about what counts as a life.
A life that can be explained. A life that can be measured.
At some point, about two years ago, I stopped swimming with him.
Not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t want him to see me in a bikini. I didn’t want to see what it did to the air between us. The embarrassed judgment.
There are things he doesn’t say and there are things I still hear him say.
“If you’re hungry, eat a few slices of cucumber.”
Another time, I dragged him to Dr. S’s office.
He sat on the overstuffed couch of my beloved shrink and didn’t speak.
Not once.
Afterwards, he kept both hands on the steering wheel for a long time before starting the car.
Neither of us said anything on the way home.
I keep biting my tongue.
There are things I want to ask him.
About his time in Berlin and why he moved to a Swabian village.
About whether he thinks my brother is autistic. Just a little.
About when things shifted and I became persona non grata.
But I don’t ask.
I watch people instead. I make up stories about them.
We are still in the car.
The road continues through vineyards and past mountains I don’t know the names of.
The silence holds longer than anything we say.
I think about the book again.
Still on the table.
Still unopened.
I have become someone he doesn’t know how to read.
Not a version of success or failure he recognizes.
I am a ghost in the house.
A ghost with a laptop who writes things no one is waiting for.
It’s the tiny things that count.
Dear Sylvie,
Reading this felt like kicking the dust off my boots at the door … that moment when the day’s weight finally settles and you can see what’s been carried without meaning to. There’s a quiet in your writing that feels like the hour just before sundown, when everything finally tells the truth.
You wrote that you’re “a ghost with a laptop who writes things no one is waiting for,” but that’s not how it lands out here. I wait for your work. I watch for it the way desert people watch for the first shift of evening wind … small but telling. The kind of thing that says the world is still moving.
The desert teaches a person a certain wisdom: that some things only grow in harsh light, and some truths only show themselves in the quiet. You’re building a life that fits the desert’s language. It fits the kind of people who know how to read what isn’t said.
Some people move through the world with questions. Some with silence. Some with gestures that miss the mark but still try. And sometimes the only thing that counts is that you keep walking your own road, even when no one else can see the map.
Your writing carries its own kind of blessing. I hope you keep following it.
The desert teaches patience ... everything worth finding reveals itself slowly.
Steve
I’m really sorry to read this. Parents do have visions for who they think their children will grow up to be, but free will has a way of throwing those ideas in the garbage. A parent’s job is never done. They still need to nurture and support their children, no matter what decisions their children make in life !