South Carolina Day 2 — My Dad

I am almost deliriously tired, so this will be a short post. But I made it to my dad’s, and am currently ready to sleep in my airbnb, my little home for the week that I am here. It’s beautiful. WAY better than the last place. It’s small, but has all I need (except a laundry machine, if it had that it would be gold). But honestly it’s good enough.

There is a beautiful garden outside my door, with Sunflowers that’s look seven feet high, and tomatoe plants, huge and heavy with fruit. Corn and some other veggies I cannot identify. And there are colored birds here, yellow and red and they fly and eat from the flowers and it seems like an English garden.

The air here is heavy. It’s hot and humid and if you stand out for more than a couple moments you feel the drain. But the people are nice, thick with Southern accents and charm and I suppose I stick out like a sore thumb, or maybe a Californian.

I drove from Fort Mill around 1 p.m. through rolling hills and green and trees that stretched so high to the sky and I arrived at my dad’s house at 3 p.m.  As I was pulling up their drive before I could see the house the song “Gratitude” began to play and I teased up. How is this possible. How can I be here, seeing my dad AGAIN after 9 months. It seems impossible, yet, here I am, just feet and mere minutes away. When for so long, I didn’t even know where he was. What he was doing. If he was alive.

He did not come out to greet me, rather I walked to the door and rang the bell and waited. We hugged, tho not as long as our first and he invited me in. I noticed he didn’t look at me right away, or maybe I was looking too much at him. Still kind of in awe of his stature. He seemed larger than I remembered. 

The first moments are always weird, awkward, for me, prob. For him too, but soon I was sitting on the couch and he was telling me his life’s story, again, but I didn’t mind. The details are often sporadic, and seem outlandish, and there is some cross-over from other times and also strange nuances that I don’t remember and find myself wondering if he has made it up since, or if that was always something and I’ve forgotten. 

How do you be an adult daughter of a dad that you have only just recently met. It’s so strange. 

Tomorrow we are going for breakfast to this little diner in Ware Shoals. It’s the quintessential southern small town hang out, and I’m sure we’ll leave early, so I will sleep.

Tired but thankful today. 

A.