From my book; 180° Around the Antipodes:
“Happiness makes the world go ‘round, but money greases the axle,” said my dad, grinning as he topped up our glasses one summer evening. I liked the sentiment; it blended the naïve perception that love can pay the bills with the equally absurd notion that money ensures happiness. He and I regularly contemplated the monetary reality of the world that is eventually imposed on people in life. Another night he brought up a point that, although true, seemed biased in some deep-rooted resentment.
“Dad, you're negative.”
He looked at me in a way that told me he'd heard this observation before. “Do you disagree?”
After brief consideration, I found myself drawing the same conclusions, yet I might have ascribed to a more positive bent. “No, I agree, but you just sound…” I fumbled for adjectives, becoming flustered at my inability to put my finger on the point that held the disparaging connotation, “negative.”
“Not negative son,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder in that wise, fatherly way, “pragmatic.”
He didn’t sugar coat things, which maybe ruffled a few of my feathers when I was younger when I wanted to hear things a certain way or not at all. There was a weight to the subtle things he’d shared with me over the years; as though he were imparting knowledge to his son without being blatant; he saw the value in letting me learn things for myself. On other occasions the discourse was more direct; over cans of Pabst we ruminated on travel and his own life-changing odysseys in his mid-twenties.
“Pulling the plug to go travel changes you in ways that aren’t so immediately apparent,” he said. “It also has a way of dropping you out of favor with the working world,” he paused, “sort of jilting the status-quo, nine-to-five existence.”
A resigned sigh escaped his lips, followed by a nearly imperceptible smile. All this seemed plausible; accounting for lost time on a resume had to be craftily disguised. Clever, diversionary excuses had to be concocted for the ‘Why did you leave your last job?’ question that had a pesky way of popping up in interviews. ‘Walked away from life and work and duties to travel, eh? Not exactly the hallmarks of a dependable employee,’ a potential boss would muse while casting my resume aside. My dad’s own solo adventures in Spain and Italy that blew his mind as a young man were no doubt similar to the excitement I was experiencing now. The spirit of place and the buzz one feels by embarking on travel piques the senses with its unfamiliarity.
“By taking yourself out of comfortable, familiar surroundings and into the unknown,” he said, “you learn to embrace different thoughts, feelings and beliefs and eventually, you make them your own.”
These notions raced as I approached the crest of a hill where the tops of trees looked lit with orange flame. His words spoke of revelry tempered with quiet confidence.
“For a while son, you’ll be seen more as a liability,” he continued, “but there will be people out there who, despite their own personal regrets and missed opportunities, will see what you did as the gutsy, self-sufficient vagabonding that it was.”
I thought of him often on my travels; all the adversity, the hardship, the struggle in his youth and adolescence and felt such admiration for him. He’d dug in and fought and worked, somehow remaining positive after an upbringing of hard knocks could have provided him with endless excuses for becoming a bitter man. He never complained about his role as a father or the trappings that came with the territory. Nor did he ever lay any guilt-trip on my sister and I about the life of travel and adventure he’d tasted, and then gave up to become a father. His commitment to family became his sole focus. Withdrawn and private, yes, but still so caring, protective and family-oriented that as the years passed, possessions matter less and less while the ones he loved mattered more and more. “Seek the light, always the light.” he passively said one evening. And in those few simple words, to me, he’d summed up an outlook on life.
Love you always Dad
