Kathy IndieArtist, IndieAuthor, Music, Myths of the Fatherless, Writing, YouTube

When I Met My Father

When I met my father, I had to reorder everything I thought I knew about myself. About him. About her.

I sat in the back seat of his car, directly behind him as I listened to the timbre of his voice, not the rich baritone I’d become accustomed to growing up with the man I thought was my father, which was just one thing I could barely wrap my head around.

I stared at the back of his curly white hair, noticed the blond, freckled forearms, so unlike the brown skinned other dad, who I could never look like. Or be like.

As the weekend progressed, I saw more and more of myself, not just physically, but in our interests, the jam on our chin at breakfast, and the way we respond to the world, the impulsiveness, the quick but short-lived temper. But mostly the music. The music blasting from his headphones as he sat alone in his recliner, totally immersed in the sounds flooding his ears. Mostly jazz and RnB with an occasional pop song by Bobby Darin.

This week we inch forward to the overwhelming praise and worship of mothers, whose job is very hard, no doubt about that, but, still, things are not always as they should be. Far from it. So, I’ll pay tribute to the romantic, larger than life man who was and is my father who never stopped loving my mother. Who said, “I’ll always have San Francisco.” I believe she still loved him at the end, too, if it is possible for her to love at all.

So here I sit at 5 am, missing my dad, and thinking about these 2 favorite Bobby Darin songs.

Beyond the Sea Live version with a drummer solo

Kathy 2020, Myths of the Fatherless, Poetry

Broken (#poem)

Broken into many pieces
My identity is lost
How can I be put back together
Will anybody fight my cause?

The house of cards has many dads
I wander from sea to sea
I place my deck on the table
Searching for someone to believe

Coming home is a dream come true
Has that much time really passed?
The feelings I hold are strong and old
To out play, out wit, and out last

Kathy #Blogmas, Myths of the Fatherless, Writing

Blogmas, Day 20: Missing Dad at Christmas (#blogmas)

As it turns out, Blogmas seems to be one big promo of my Déjà Vu at the Blue Diamond Saloon book tour, not to mention my other novels. But the one novel I haven’t mentioned yet is Letters on Balboa Island, the most meaningful book I’ve written. And the one my dad absolutely adored. This may be the second Christmas without him on earth, but truth be told, I’ve never spent Christmas with my dad.

The story of my search for my father and what I discovered it all meant to me has been documented in Myths of the Fatherless. It was written early in the search and I’ve been thinking of updating it at some point, perhaps it might be helpful to me or to someone to include the introspective time I’ve had since then. The difficult part for me now is that it’s over. There’s no more hope that things might turn out differently. But I can appreciate the time we did have together.

LETTERS ON BALBOA ISLAND

bi_cover_final_150“When I was seventeen, I knew two things that were true: (1) You couldn’t help but meet a man in a military uniform in southern California in the 1950s, and (2) Sooner or later, men would leave. ” – Rosalie

When Rosalie Martin chooses to spend her life with a military man in the post Korean War era of the 1950s, she can’t forget another she met during the war. And when letters surface on Balboa Island years later, she realizes she may have chosen the wrong man. So when fate offers her the chance to make a different choice, will she? Or has she lived a life of lies for too long?

AVAILABLE NOW on Amazon.com for Kindle and in Paperback.