In the Company of Sagebrush

Maybe it’s pregnancy, maybe it’s just that Father’s Day is around the corner. Either way, it stirs up so much of my grief — namely, my longing to know him better and to understand him, even though he’s gone.

My father was, most of the time, dissociated and withdrawn. But I can’t help but miss the quiet mystery around that. I can see it as though it’s happening in front of me now — the way he would look up from his cowboy coffee at the Wyoming sky to analyze the weather for the day.

His neurotic routine, patterns clearly imprinted upon him from generations of the starving farmers who came before him: check the weather, drink the coffee, pack the lunch, set the water, do a fuckin’ rain dance and pray the hail doesn’t find your newly sprouted barley.