Simple Journey

I want to know a song can rise from the ashes of a broken life... --Mike Donehey, 10th Ave. N.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Stars in a Desert Sky

Stars in a Desert Sky
A Story for my Family
A story of Daddy
by
Patricia Farrell
Christmas, 2008 Lately I’ve found myself taking time away to sort out my thoughts, and to rest from stresses of family. Sometimes I wander in my car, sometimes I land in a swanky coffee place. These days more often it’s the swanky coffee places that win, as it’s very cold this December. One evening I took my journal along, planning to write down some of my feelings in response to a counseling session earlier in the day. Instead, my long lost muse took me elsewhere: Home for Christmas. I hate eating in the middle of a place. I feel everyone’s eyes on me, making a pig of myself. I really feel like just a dressed up pig or something. You can dress her up, but …. And of course I’m wearing black, so every tiny crumb that falls when I break up this dry biscotti or put a piece in my mouth shows up like stars in a desert sky.
Stars in a Desert Sky ……..
DaddAlign Centery said, “Let’s go for a ride!” and we piled in the car. “Where are we going, Daddy?” we asked excitedly. Sometimes Daddy’s “rides” took us only to the store, sometimes to the beach, sometimes we ended up at Grandma’s. Depending on what kind of day it had been I would be anything from disappointed to elated to down-right depressed at the end of them. But I would never deny I thoroughly enjoyed the “ride” in our old, turquoise, Dodge station-wagon. It had brought us all the way across Dixie from Atlanta, with us singing “California, here I come, right back where I started from!” at the top of our lungs, led by Daddy, for whom alone the song was true. We four girls including Mama were each and every one born in the Atlanta area. “Don’t know,” said Daddy. “Wherever we end up, I guess. Let’s just go for a ride.” “Ok!” we said, wanderlust burning in our young hearts so we couldn’t sit still on the vinyl-upholstered, bench seats. Janice, as usual, had parked in the middle of the front seat, next to Daddy. She always got to go there because she was the baby. I liked the back window best. I could gaze out as long as I liked and watch the tumbleweeds go by …. Or the concrete …. Or sagebrush ….. Or tract homes. Whatever it was going by the window I didn’t always see it anyway. My mind was usually far , far away in a daydream about heroes and heroines and castles and battles won and horses faithful … or dogs … and filled always with singing singing singing. There wasn’t a thing alive I knew that didn’t have a song with it in my mind. I sang (or hummed, when there weren’t any words) my favorite TV shows’ themes over and over in my mind, and sometimes just under the noise of the car so the rest of the family wouldn’t hear me and comment. Or other times I sang along with my mother and sisters to keep Daddy awake on a long drive, like when we kept on driving one day and ended up in the desert. 1,000 Palms, they said it was. Were there really a thousand? “Did you count them, Daddy? How do you know there are a thousand?” Daddy coasted the Dodge along the side of the road, out in nowhere. He cut the engine and turned off the lights. “What’s going on, Daddy? Why did you stop?” “Tell Kathy to quit poking me! Stop it!” “She did it first!” “Now quiet down, settle down!” Daddy’s voice took on his authority figure sound. It wasn’t quite real, it was his fake superior officer voice he used to make us laugh at home sometimes when Mom gave him the job of quieting the herd because her hands were in spaghetti or something. Daddy liked to do that voice. He could pretend he was something more than a seaman 1st class in the Navy or a corporal in the Army. It always backfired, though, because we just got the giggles and couldn’t stop, which was louder than the fighting sometimes. “Now be very, very quiet,” Daddy lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “You want to see something you’ll never see at home?” “What?” we all whispered. “Well,” Daddy liked to take his time. “If you get out of the car and stay right next to it …” we hung on his every word, “… then you just tip your head back as far as it can go….” “Yeah?” said Janice. She was the baby. “Be quiet!” I said, “Daddy’s telling us!” “Shh ….” said Kathy. “All right, settle down. Let’s go outside and you’ll see.” Daddy grabbed Janice as she tried to rush off into the sand. She was the baby. “Stay right here, Dewey.” She did. I guess she did. I don’t remember having to go look for her so she must have. But she really must have been quite a baby still, because she doesn’t seem to remember this kind of thing the way I and Kathy do. But I digress. We all stepped outside the car over Mom’s protests. She didn’t think it was quite safe, but came along to help protect us from the desert. We stood quite close to Daddy, because the night was suddenly very sand, and we had the feeling there was just something not quite right about a family of five and their Dodge station-wagon stopping in the desert in the night to see something they couldn’t see at home. But Daddy was there. Big and strong and not afraid. And so we weren’t either. We were big and strong and not afraid next to Daddy. “Now,” said Daddy in a church voice. “You’re all growing up in the city kind of, and things are getting all built up there so you can’t see the things we used to see every day growing up. Where we live it used to be all trees and orange groves. But out here it’s still just the way nature made it. My dad used to take us out here so we could see this, and so I brought you all out so you can too. Now, look straight up, and tell me what you see.” We looked up, and “oohed” with amazement. “You can’t see ‘em like that where we live,” said Daddy. “Stars in a desert sky shine brighter than anywhere else.” “Why, Daddy?” Kathy asked. “Because the air is so dry there’s no clouds or mist in between, and there’s no smog either. Also all the city lights make the stars look dim where we live. Here they shine so brightly …..” and Daddy seemed to be seeing something far in the heavens. “Just as God created them,” said Mama. “The sun to rule the day and the stars to rule the night …” She snuggled up next to Daddy, who put his arm around her. We took deep breaths of the sun-scorched pure air of the desert. It smelled like tumbleweeds, I thought. Daddy and Mama heaved heavy sighs, and Mama started singing a hymn. We all got back in the car and joined in Mama’s singing. Mama had such a pretty voice, so soft and sweet.
And Daddy joined in with his gentle baritone.
Silent Night, holy night All is calm, all is bright Round yon virgin mother and child Holy Infant so tender and mild Sleep in heavenly peace Sleep in heavenly peace. Silent Night, holy night Wise men see the Star so bright With the angels let us sing Alleluia to our King Christ the Savior is here! Jesus our Savior is here.
Janice fell asleep soon after we started home. But I stared out the window long at the desert bright stars, and pondered all these things in my heart. Janice was just a baby. Patricia L. Farrell December 3, 2008 Starbucks, Tualatin (Martinazzi)