LIFE AS A HUMAN

Writing Before Daylight: Dreams of Fathers and Sons

When I’m writing, like I was this morning, I am reminded that my father would probably hate the whole thing. Other people did that. Writers are important, but you, son… — he would have left the rest unsaid. He would have dismissed the writing, the words themselves, the subject matter, my attitude, my not having a real job, a useful job, all of it, every bit of it.

I imagine how he would raise an eyebrow at my talking about it even though I’m good at it, even though I work hard at it, even though I work at it every day just like a job. It is a job, a hard job. It’s my work. He would have dismissed all this as just plain fuzzy-headed.

He used to tell me when I was growing up that it didn’t matter what I did, just that I did my best at it. He was a guy who was good with his hands, could fix anything. In his world there wasn’t screen door or a window that couldn’t use a little “adjustment.” With all that, he was also a PhD, a community organizer, a teacher.

He used to say that I could be anything, a carpenter if that’s what I wanted, a plumber, just so long as I could saw straight and level on the level. I came to see that as a code. Maybe it was the remnant, or more accurately, the defining attitude of men who lived through the Great Depression. I figured it as personal shorthand for “you can be anything you want son just so long as you are a lawyerdoctorteacher with salarybenefitsreputation and a retirement package.” I hated that.

He is gone now. I get up everyday, long before sunrise, at just about the same time he did, to go to work. When the words are flowing, and even when they are not, I sometimes think he might be all right with all this writing stuff. When I get it right, I cut a straight line and get it level on the level. I think he would see that and I think he might smile a little at the possibility that I would be alright in the world, that he had done okay.

Photo Credits

“M. Mickey Lebowitz PhD” Photo provided by Michael Lebowitz