June 28, 2016

One year and one day I have now lived without my father. I have borne the weight of his absence with neither tact nor grace. I have sat in the church I love and grown angry for no reason other than that I just can’t handle up-tempo music right now, guys. I have been told I will soon be hurtled to a place I’ve always longed to go, and the only response I can muster is the one I’ve been saying over and over, this year and every year for the past several years, to everything: No, not like this. This wasn’t part of the plan. “The plan.” Was there ever such a thing? No, there really wasn’t, but I feel entitled to it nonetheless. I feel that I keep brushing up against something, but can never quite get into it. And tonight, my mind is miles away, locked on an image of the Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, and the way Pam Houston describes it in Contents May Have Shifted: “Giant white ladders lean up against each mud-brick dwelling, the tops of the ladders pointed to tear holes in the sky so the prayers can get through.”