The most important relationship in my life is the one I never had with my father.
Every day I realize a little more that I am the man I have tried hard not to be. Our lives mirror each other in too many ways to ignore. Even though I know it's with him that I have to make my peace I can't ever seem to find the right avenues. I've wanted a direct line to the answer but know one will never come.
As I return now to California and the birthplace of all my sins I've had an epiphany. This landscape is so beautiful, why would anyone ever want to live anywhere else? The shimmering blue Pacific has always tugged at my heart. It's been a place of happiness in a south land memory littered with shards of agony. I ran away from the California of my youth. I went as far away as my mind would take me. I've stayed away for almost 20 years now and on this day I can't honestly call one place on earth "home."
As I return now to California and the birthplace of all my sins I've had an epiphany. This landscape is so beautiful, why would anyone ever want to live anywhere else? The shimmering blue Pacific has always tugged at my heart. It's been a place of happiness in a south land memory littered with shards of agony. I ran away from the California of my youth. I went as far away as my mind would take me. I've stayed away for almost 20 years now and on this day I can't honestly call one place on earth "home."
Dad ran away from his home too. He spent years on the run from something that I believe haunted him until he was finally able to return and eventually die in the place he was born. He told me once that, "A man always returns home." At the time I could only think about how I would be an exception to his rule because I could never see myself living in California again. But now, all these years later, I realize what I should have been pondering was his reasons for running, and then what made it OK for him to finally return.
Maybe in those questions I will my find my own answers. His gems of wisdom have mostly proven to be true over the years, try as I might to deny them. For instance; he told me when I was 16 years old that a man can't love one woman until he's had a chance to, "Taste them all." He made some silly reference to 31 flavors of ice cream as he told me that. I remember thinking that even though it sounded a bit too childish he may have actually been right. (He had a great way of tailoring an explanation to any specific mindset so as to make it sound perfectly logical. I can do this too. Problem is that my logic isn't universally agreed with. I see now that his wasn't either.) But I was in love at the time so couldn't see clearly through that fog. Today though, at 43 years old, I laughingly see that I have spent a lot of years eating sugar cones and yet I am still alone. My asshole father thought he was helping me. But what he couldn't have known was that he was actually setting me up for a very long line of discarded little pink spoons as I search in a vain for my favorite flavor.
-Jim Franks
