I went to high school at the school where my dad taught. Everyone used to ask me during those years and even after, “Are you gonna take your dad’s class?” or “Did you take him when you were there?” No and no were the answers that always followed. It didn’t make much sense to me to make that happen. I’m sure he wouldn’t have minded, but I probably would’ve. From time to time I’d come back with a smart ass remark to the questions; “I have his class every day, 24/7, before school and after school. When I’m going from class to class, he’s there. His presence is felt no matter what. Whether I have him or not.” And I believe it was the right decision. Ultimately, I took his class vicariously through my friends that did have him and that was an experience in and of itself.
I used to wake up at 6:30 those days. I’d rise a little after my mom would to the sound of shower fans or plate clanking or coffee grinds. I would sit in relative silence after an initial acknowledgment and if I was lucky, I’d be able to eat and finish my breakfast to completion in the company of my mother. Coffee yogurt and heritage flakes and all. She’d leave shortly and make the daily journey to the bus stop, on her way to work, and I’d wait on the couch, sometimes only just, in preparation for my dad’s arrival. Trying to keep my eyes open. Trying to make it a little longer to make the transfer from one half of my name to the other.
From what I remember, and the disclaimer here would be that some experiences have a habit of changing and molding to the storyteller’s preferred narrative, my dad would arrive either a little early or a little late. Early...late…yeah, that’s what it was. And no matter how many lights that were illuminated in the living room or how open the shades were or how obvious it was that I was already there waiting and ready to go, my dad used to issue his light peep of the horn to signal the new occupation in the driveway. When I had the energy it used to drive me up a wall, but later on when rest and a prolonged sleep was more important I used to let the peep peep, open the shades and give a little wave to let him know I knew he was there and that I was on my way.
I’d shut the door with my backpack attached and take the few steps from mom’s to the passenger of the Subaru and slide in, finally. One word. One word. Two words. Two. Normally the exchanges would be most talkative at the beginning of the ride, if at all. How’s it goings. What did you do last nights. Etc. But, at some point my still half asleep consciousness would surge to the front of my tongue and my head would begin its soft sway back and forth and sometimes to the side, to fade out and rest on the window.
The aurora bridge was our landscape and for the next 20 minutes or so (it seemed that despite the pick-up time, our arrival time never wavered), my dad would speak to me. Talk to me. Let NPR-94.9FM or KJR-950AM provide brief intermissions or sometimes background noise while he proceeded to fill my mind with various knowledge, turning pages of a limitless encyclopedia that I had become insolently oblivious to. I had no desire to talk for the most part though, for I knew I was going to have to do that by 7:45, so I assumed the role of a back-of-the-classroom student except I failed in that aspect completely and wasn’t even being a good listener. My vocabulary of responses now feels like an embarrassment. It was like a verbal display of uninterested texting before the entire world knew what it was, and yet, the driver’s side remained on go, remained the same. Words and more words. Gems and more gems. Game being dropped from the sky that was my dad’s brain. Stream of consciousness sentences that deserved to be listened to. And heard. And digested. Seeds that should have lead to trees that, at the time, led to nowhere. Gifts that were gifts that were not absorbed as gifts. Discarded casually, disrespectfully, not knowing the value they held. I was tired, you see. I wasn’t in the mood, you know. That was my excuse.
The early morning or late night that I left to New York, three years ago this April 13th, I was driven to the airport by my dad. I don’t remember all of the things that I was thinking about. I probably had no idea what I was doing. I was just doing it. And I remember being quiet and despite my older age, the lack of dialogue was something I had clearly adopted and continued to exhibit. At some point my dad said, “You used to ask me more questions.” The words hit me like bricks. Squashed me. Diminished me. And I had no idea how to respond. I think I answered defensively, confusedly, like what was that supposed to mean or what do you want me to say to that. That question still hurts and not because it was asked, but because of what I thought it meant. At some point my muteness had become a mutation and one way of the two way street had been closed off. And that was on me. Completely.
That means that at some point, I used to talk a lot with my father and that at some point, I didn’t. During those car rides and maybe during those first couple of years of high school when the thing I could always count on was 7:15AM, give or take, I used to be so interested in things and I used to ask so many more questions. I believe my Dad when he says that. And now I wish I had and I wish that I used to listen and build on those conversations he was constructing. I wish I was as open to what he was saying then as I am now. Open to the pre-period of class that was being bestowed upon me and that I was disregarding.
Sometimes I ask my dad about things now. About random things and I get uber specific and tangential and I think he gets overwhelmed. Maybe it sounds foreign. Maybe because it’s so out of the blue and he got used to me acting a certain way or not bothering to ask at all. Sometimes I think it flusters him, so that when he responds with “let me get back to you on that” (and he does) I almost am like, “Dad, isn’t this what you’ve been waiting for?!” It’s such a crazy thing. You live and you learn and how amazing it would have been if I could have lived and learned in real time. Like if I had only known what I was being given or known the jewels that were continuously being spoon-fed to me day after day after day… Man, wouldn’t that be different?
When I was 16 or so I think I got my license and by the time late junior year and senior year rolled around, I took the liberty of driving myself to school. Wasting my mom’s gas and money in the process when I had a perfectly beautiful offer to be driven and educated and taught just a few blocks down. I stopped being driven to school by my dad and I stopped listening completely. I was more awake now, but in a new, solitary tired daze, listening mostly to my rap CDs with words whose meanings never altered, despite a nearby Subaru somewhere and its magic carpet ride of infinite possibilities probably driving somewhere parallel without me knowing.
There is no excuse for not listening. For not learning. For denying. For being closed off. For shutting down.
But.
There is hope.
There is hope for restarting. For opening up. For accepting. For learning. For listening. And finally, for asking all of the questions that I know to ask now that I should have asked then.