R,I.P. Daddy--Paul Watts Dillard
When I was 5 years old:
Would ask me, "How do you barbecue an elephant?" to which I knew to reply, "ONE PIECE AT A TIME." At five, a great challenge is riding a bicycle without training wheels and desperately wanting to give up. But one fall is one fall, and you aren't supposed to get it right the first time--or the second, or the third... I am not physically gifted like my hula-hooping prodigy sister, so this tested us both significantly.
When I was 11 years old:
Gossip became a routine part of my school life, and somewhere on a ride in the car with Dad, he said of some story about so-and-so that was going around, "Believe only half of what you see, and none of what you hear." Isn't it amazing how our perception of events consists of our filling in gaps with pre-conceived notions? Sometimes we see what we want to see. Sometimes people have no idea what they are talking about.
When I was 15 years old:
Grounded me for coming home ten minutes past my curfew. Then spent two hours explaining to me that the reason I was being punished for such a minor infraction was because a compass does not have to be very far off to send you FAR off-course if you keep reading a wrong compass. He was recalibrating me.
When I was 18 years old:
Sent me "Siddartha" by Herman Hesse and "Breakfast of Champions" by Kurt Vonnegut because he read them on his trip to Alaska when he was that same age. He read them during a 12-day solo hike in the middle of the greatest wilderness adventure of his lifetime. He also started sending me all these amazing song lyrics, many of which I didn't already know. And he said, "No matter how much we change or how different we look, we picture ourselves as young adults forever." He felt like the challenge of learning about myself and the things I was going through at that time were important because that is the time that you learn to live with intent in life.
My Dad lives somewhere in a Jackson Browne song, where the meaning of a simple phrase takes on an entirely new dimension when something about my whole world changes. I've lost my greatest teacher, and I can't work this one out. I might record a lot of the lessons here just to be my own historian.
I'm moving toward being just SO PISSED AT HIM, if for no other reason than the fact he has made is utterly impossible for me to listen to three bars of a single Joni Mitchell song. I'm not going to publicize any of the pissed-off part. That's between him and me.
The following is one of our songs--so many people have "our songs" with him, and I love that--please listen to what Mr. Browne says as the intro. I think of very specific people when I hear this one, and y'all made this year's Cookie Box list. :)
Would ask me, "How do you barbecue an elephant?" to which I knew to reply, "ONE PIECE AT A TIME." At five, a great challenge is riding a bicycle without training wheels and desperately wanting to give up. But one fall is one fall, and you aren't supposed to get it right the first time--or the second, or the third... I am not physically gifted like my hula-hooping prodigy sister, so this tested us both significantly.
When I was 11 years old:
Gossip became a routine part of my school life, and somewhere on a ride in the car with Dad, he said of some story about so-and-so that was going around, "Believe only half of what you see, and none of what you hear." Isn't it amazing how our perception of events consists of our filling in gaps with pre-conceived notions? Sometimes we see what we want to see. Sometimes people have no idea what they are talking about.
When I was 15 years old:
Grounded me for coming home ten minutes past my curfew. Then spent two hours explaining to me that the reason I was being punished for such a minor infraction was because a compass does not have to be very far off to send you FAR off-course if you keep reading a wrong compass. He was recalibrating me.
When I was 18 years old:
Sent me "Siddartha" by Herman Hesse and "Breakfast of Champions" by Kurt Vonnegut because he read them on his trip to Alaska when he was that same age. He read them during a 12-day solo hike in the middle of the greatest wilderness adventure of his lifetime. He also started sending me all these amazing song lyrics, many of which I didn't already know. And he said, "No matter how much we change or how different we look, we picture ourselves as young adults forever." He felt like the challenge of learning about myself and the things I was going through at that time were important because that is the time that you learn to live with intent in life.
My Dad lives somewhere in a Jackson Browne song, where the meaning of a simple phrase takes on an entirely new dimension when something about my whole world changes. I've lost my greatest teacher, and I can't work this one out. I might record a lot of the lessons here just to be my own historian.
I'm moving toward being just SO PISSED AT HIM, if for no other reason than the fact he has made is utterly impossible for me to listen to three bars of a single Joni Mitchell song. I'm not going to publicize any of the pissed-off part. That's between him and me.
The following is one of our songs--so many people have "our songs" with him, and I love that--please listen to what Mr. Browne says as the intro. I think of very specific people when I hear this one, and y'all made this year's Cookie Box list. :)
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