When I was a little girl, the skin on my shoulders and chest was very white and delicate, almost transparent. My veins stood out like turquoise ropes, and that embarrassed me. I told my dad about how I felt, and I think I may have cried a little.
He sat me on his lap and held me in his arms, and I was a tiny pearl, safe in her oyster.
“You are beautiful,” he said. “You have an especially big heart, and your veins draw a map to it, so that everyone will know how perfect you are.”
I pictured tiny people in miniature trucks, pulled over on dusty roads, consulting the little, squiggly blue lines on their creased road maps, trying to figure the most direct way to get to my heart and see my goodness. My dad always loved a good road trip, and I liked to stay up late while my mom and sister slept in the back seat, to help him navigate and listen to Radio Mystery Theater.
Good answer, Dad.
most beautiful thing I’ve ever read from a daughter to a father, Adina. You are beautiful inside and out.
ditto to what reid thinks
Wow, that was lovely. So lovely.
Roadmaps are so hard to fold after you finish reading them, don’t you think?
A
i love maps
Who is this LAR anyway? She seems quite cynical. I guess her father was not nearly as sensitive and as loving as yours obviously was.
I love that first picture as an illustration. Perfect.
UNROADBOOKED
There’s no leading roads
Only paths made in clouds
Gipsy smokes upon the lake
Arabesques on a silky skin
There’s no leading roads
Only crossroads among parallel lines
Drifting just by standing there
Hanging at the end of a smile
Nobody ever knows
Where is the beginning of the smile
Radiations from its heart
Are the only leading roads