This Time of Year

Even in California we have seasons. It's subtle, yes, but all of a sudden the shadow deepens and there's a bite in the night air. The trees are beginning to loosen their leaves, and the roses are nearly done blooming.

It's also my father's birthday tomorrow. He's been a dead a number of years now, but I like to think of him on his birthday rather than on the day he died. A difficult man at best, I wish we'd had a better relationship. I've found that a lot of daughters have problematic relationships with their fathers, but I think my relationship wasn't the stuff of Freud. It was more that he was a deeply unhappy man who always seemed to make the wrong choices in his life. It's hard to connect with someone who is unhappy. Their personal misery usually trumps pretty much everything. You come in second, third, fourth, hell, maybe even fifth.

Anyway, I saw my hands on the steering wheel of my car and they are my father's hands. You'd think by the time I was fifty-five this wouldn't be much of a revelation, but it was. I suppose I've had him in the back of my head for a couple of weeks now, as his birthday got closer and closer. I've inherited many things from him. My height, my wit, my intelligence, and now I can add his hands to that list.