father would go to his study when he wanted to be by himself.
when he was angry he got confused. he dreaded feeling empty
and sad and he had to save face. he read the data he collected for his book. he had sheets of information only he understood. rarely did he write long winded paragraphs like he used to when he was a young man in his thirties. we saw graphs, lists, and probabilities.

we went to see where father went. we saw him on the hillside.
he had a fishing rod with him. he was going to the strand. he felt safe by the water. he had painful images of his parents and his children, the ones he had with his former wife who didn’t want to see him because he had verbally abused them.
father’s second blowzy wife liked to stand, the wind in her face as her husband walked far out meeting the horizon.
father walked out to the sea and disappeared in a mud hole. he was sucked into it.
father was a runner. he had a good pair of lungs. he ran from nothing. he ran to nothing.
father didn’t have lovers like his intellectual peers. he had one woman he loved. she had a face like a defaced coin. she was not one for words. she had the thought that life never ends and then it ends.
what did father tell me to tell myself and not my mother?
my mother didn’t leave me a letter but i think my aunt and my brother have it. they share secrets. i feel like my mother wanted to tell me something important that probably didn’t have anything to do with me directly. it was how she communicated with me. even when she wanted to talk about me it was about her or it ended up being more about her than me. she couldn’t help it. it wasn’t always easy to separate myself from her convolutions.
my mother had a very difficult time being an authority. she was used to being in control because she was very smart but she didn’t like having to answer for her decisions. i’m similar to her in this respect. i like to give advise but i second guess myself. i still slow down to think what i should think or say and then there is nothing to say or to think and i feel unproductive.
i wanted to hurt myself. i thought about my aunt and my brother exchanging secrets. i thought how analytical and how safe they felt not to include me.
i didn’t mind suffering if i wasn’t alone. i hated suffering when i was alone.
i was numb when i didn’t have someone who understood.