Nickels & A Dime. I may have written on the coins before. It’s a subject that is always on my mind. My Dad used to advise that my purse should contain a dime to always have a way home.
“If you have a dime,” he would say, “you always have a way home.”
I know that he meant that I could call him for a rescue - should the night get out of hand with me. And of course it did a couple times. And he always answered the call. A phone call cost ten cents at the time he started saying it. They cost a quarter by the time I needed the advice. If I held steadfast to his words, I would have fallen short. Maybe he still meant a dime and I had to be strong enough to carry more than half of the rescue myself?
I’m far overdue to a visit with him now. We had coffee together many mornings with endless words and he is probably the only person who never tired of my voice.
He was loud and abusive and mad - both angry and crazy - but for all his twists and turns - both through word and action - I understood him.
There was a quality of reason in the absurdity of the life given to me at birth. As an infant, born under the name of Einstein, [Personified] Madness came with an agglomeration of illogic, with a whisper in my ear and a hush to my lips to make sense of it all. My hearing is strained listening for that voice from long ago and the depression over my top lip mocks my reflection as I long every day to return. I am not the girl who can provide reason to the masses. I may even have an affinity for the madness?
Lucy Van Pelt pretended to be a psychiatrist and charged a nickel for help. Kids play and pretend, so it should be no more or less absurd that she chose to play doctor in this manner than any other field of specialty. It gave a vehicle to Schultz. And it gave a quantifiable amount to reason and sanity. Five cents. So the dime in my pocket became two consults - One for now & one for later. Get through now and then get through later. The dime was still present. The numbers added up. I still had a way home.
And it occurs to me that I never asked my dad to explain his dime advice. Perhaps he referred to the abstract too?
I’m going through some heavy stuff in my life. Internal, external, stuff over which I have control and other that I’m just a spectator and sidekick. And in the past few weeks, my brain is telling me that it is time to go. It is time to be neither a part of the literal or figurative. Even the person who convinced me for a greater legacy than _Table for One_ has retreated. I’m out of logic. I’m out of reason. Maybe this journey is one I have to do alone?
I’m taking my nickels and dimes to visit my dad. I’ll see what he has to say on the matter. I’m sure it’s madness. Maybe I can sort through it?
“If you have a dime,” he would say, “you always have a way home.”
I know that he meant that I could call him for a rescue - should the night get out of hand with me. And of course it did a couple times. And he always answered the call. A phone call cost ten cents at the time he started saying it. They cost a quarter by the time I needed the advice. If I held steadfast to his words, I would have fallen short. Maybe he still meant a dime and I had to be strong enough to carry more than half of the rescue myself?
I’m far overdue to a visit with him now. We had coffee together many mornings with endless words and he is probably the only person who never tired of my voice.
He was loud and abusive and mad - both angry and crazy - but for all his twists and turns - both through word and action - I understood him.
There was a quality of reason in the absurdity of the life given to me at birth. As an infant, born under the name of Einstein, [Personified] Madness came with an agglomeration of illogic, with a whisper in my ear and a hush to my lips to make sense of it all. My hearing is strained listening for that voice from long ago and the depression over my top lip mocks my reflection as I long every day to return. I am not the girl who can provide reason to the masses. I may even have an affinity for the madness?
Lucy Van Pelt pretended to be a psychiatrist and charged a nickel for help. Kids play and pretend, so it should be no more or less absurd that she chose to play doctor in this manner than any other field of specialty. It gave a vehicle to Schultz. And it gave a quantifiable amount to reason and sanity. Five cents. So the dime in my pocket became two consults - One for now & one for later. Get through now and then get through later. The dime was still present. The numbers added up. I still had a way home.
And it occurs to me that I never asked my dad to explain his dime advice. Perhaps he referred to the abstract too?
I’m going through some heavy stuff in my life. Internal, external, stuff over which I have control and other that I’m just a spectator and sidekick. And in the past few weeks, my brain is telling me that it is time to go. It is time to be neither a part of the literal or figurative. Even the person who convinced me for a greater legacy than _Table for One_ has retreated. I’m out of logic. I’m out of reason. Maybe this journey is one I have to do alone?
I’m taking my nickels and dimes to visit my dad. I’ll see what he has to say on the matter. I’m sure it’s madness. Maybe I can sort through it?
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