Tag Archives: daughters

Righteous riffs

The ‘Emma 2’ ….

Paused at the coffee shop before work for a to-go cortado to shim my Thursday. 

“Pete,” Morgan greeted me when I walked in. 

Her expression seemed sombre, but that could’ve just been a pre-cortado take. 

“I have to give you something,” she said. 

Hands me a hand-written note. 

“Dearest Pete …” it began. 

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Couple years ago I got the best birthday card from my daughter. 

She would’ve made a good cave painter. 

Her accompanying talk track illuminated the epic tale of her seeking counsel from Liam the Wise (whose official title is ‘barrista,’ but in this saga let’s call him “the Oracle”) on what all is involved in getting one’s mug hung on the wall behind the coffee shop’s counter. 

Liam not only offered his wise counsel, but mapped directions to the precise mountain where the monks live who, for hundreds of years, have been humbly practicing their glass making craft of the perfect cortado vessel. 

By which I mean he pointed her to a website. 

Upon procurement of the mug, he told her that I need only bring it in and they would take it from there.

In Emma’s card I knew that I might just be holding the best birthday present I would ever receive.

By which I mean the card, and the heart that made it. 

Ever since, when I walk in and see my mug hanging on the wall where I go to write my weekend medicine, I feel a tinge of what I imagine honored athletes feel seeing their jersey hung in the rafters of where they have done their best work. 

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“My Dearest Pete …,”

The note Morgan handed to me was from Emma. Not my Emma, but Emma who works at the coffee shop. She started while she was still in high school and still works weekends while going to the local college. 

“It breaks my heart to inform you that I accidentally dropped your mug and broke it ….” 

“I need a minute,” I told Morgan, and took a few steps back to read the rest, in which Emma profusely apologized, begged forgiveness and even offered to pay for a replacement. 

She signed her note, “You’re most loyal and sorrowful barista, Emma.”

Which had me smiling by the time I looked up … appreciating that my Thursday morning had just found its shim.

By which I mean the note, and the heart that made it. 

 “She’s so upset,” Morgan said.

I asked when Emma worked next. 

“Saturday,” Morgan said.

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Saturday morning I made sure to arrive when the coffee shop opened at 8:30. 

Emma was at the register, Liam at the espresso machine. 

“I’m so sorry … I’ll buy you a new one,” Emma said as soon as she saw me. 

I just shook my head.

“At least let me buy you your cortado.” 

As Liam went to fire up the espresso machine, I stopped him. 

And handed Emma a note.

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“My dearest Emma, 

You must know that there are few things in this world that I appreciate more than a hand-written note. 

Reading yours brought a spark of joy to my Thursday. 

If my beloved mug had to meet an untimely demise, I am grateful that it was at the hands of one who poured so many hearts into it.

You will not only appreciate that it was Liam who consulted with my daughter (whose name is also Emma) on the exact mug to buy me for my birthday two years ago (which will forever be my favorite birthday present ever), but that, when she did so, it came in a set of two.

So I commission the enclosed to your care … on one condition. 

That you pour the first heart into it.”

She looked up from my note smiling the way her note made me smile. 

“I always carry a spare,” I said, handing over the ‘Emma 2’ … for official christening. 

She asked Liam if they could switch places. 

“Only fitting,” he said. 

“I don’t know,” Emma said sheepishly. “My latte art has been a little shaky … I’m out of practice,” she said. 

“I know you have it inside you … and I mean that sincerely,” said Liam the Wise. 

Told ya’ he’s the Oracle. 

She took her time and filled it above the rim, trusting in the properties of surface tension and gravity to do their good jobs … so she could do hers. 

It’s always magic to me how the molecules grab on to one another, and keep each other from flowing away and spilling.

I like how they are forgiving that way.

How the universe allows our fragile cups to be filled beyond their measure.  

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Excursions

The 12 Days of T-Shirts / Day 7: Fahrenheit 451

Joe Mugnaini’s brilliant cover for the first edition of Ray Bradbury’s incendiary novel. 

The book holds a special place in my heart for a couple reasons, on top of its timeless cautionary tale.

My daughter and I read it aloud together across many Saturday coffee-shop mornings when she was a young teenager, which was my first re-read of it in a good 20 years or so. What a wonderful way to be reacquainted. 

And during our re-reading, I was profoundly moved by a passage late in the book when Montag, on the run, encounters a group of kindred spirits living in the woods on the outskirts of town. And around a campfire, he remembers his grandfather. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone back to this passage since.

Its still glowing embers warm me as much as the campfire that coaxed the words from Bradbury’s typewriter.

It’s not only been medicine to my heart, but I’ve shared Bradbury’s beautiful words with friends and kindred spirits seeking warmth in the darkness of their own loss.

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.

It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the (person) who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.” 

Always makes me think of the gardeners I’ve known in my life.

Reminds me to keep planting.

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The Girls

Old Lonelies

Was fishing clean socks from a basket

in the laundry room Monday morning

when the purple in Emma’s sweater

caught my eye

washed, hung and left behind

the same way it did

Sunday morning as she was wearing it

leaving for Church

while I stayed behind

said hello to it this morning

— commiserating old lonelies now —

a frame painting a purple smile

on a sad wall

to help me remember

what Sunday going to Church looked like

as we both wait empty

for her return

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Fathers and Sons, saturdays, The Girls

… after WOW after ….

Visited Longwood Gardens (just south of Philly) with Karry and Emma last Saturday. It’s in the category of places I would never choose to visit of my own volition, so am grateful to be carried along in the current of their enthusiasms. It may be the most beautiful place I’ve ever visited. I know this to be true based on the number of times I said WOW as an involuntary response. Been thinking since about how the WOWs were exactly the same size whether I was stepping back to look up at a sinewy redwood gathering to its greatness, leaning in to inhale a climbing rose’s secrets, or riveted in place listening to a catbird singing Saturday morning opera.

The place is sprawling, and there was a moment where Karry and Em headed to the conservatory (and its greenhouse of a thousand WOWs), while I went to track down a waterfall we’d seen only at a distance. Traced a canopied path (WOW) to a small landing a few feet from the middle of the waterfall, where I found an empty rocking chair.

So I sat and listened for a hundred years, by which I mean almost long enough. 

Twenty-four hours later I’d exchanged the rocking chair for my backseat nook in Karry’s Jeep, where I was comfortably crammed for the long pilgrimage home so Em could finally begin savoring her summer.  We’d either grossly over-estimated the Jeep’s storage capacity, or grossly under-estimated our daughter’s belongings. Or both. On our way outta town, they paused so I could enjoy a Father’s Day bagel and lox for the ride. I tuned into a radio program just as the interviewees were referencing Harry James, who was my Dad’s inspiration on trumpet growing up. The Universe’s serendipity game is indeed strong. 

I was as comfy and content as a rocking chair by a waterfall. 

Just wanted to bookmark a Father’s Day weekend that pretty much perfectly summed up the gig. 

Carried on the current of their enthusiasms to places beyond my capacity to even imagine. Involuntary WOWs everywhere, if you only remember to look up, lean in, and listen. Grateful for the small wedge still reserved for me in the back seat of their adventures. 

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The Girls

Encore, Encore ….

When it came time for her to pick her final tap solo for her final dance recital, she didn’t agonize over the decision. Didn’t spend weeks trading, reviewing and debating dozens of tracks with her Mom and her instructor, like she’d always done with her competitive solos. As I recall, we were casually informed after she came home one day that she’d chosen Nat King Cole’s version of L-O-V-E.

“L – is foooor the way you … look at me ….”

When I overheard her telling her Mom, my heart leapt a little bit.

At the time, she didn’t know my mom just L-O-V-E’d all things Nat King Cole. 

She didn’t know that L-O-V-E was probably my favorite tune when I played drums in Sammy Bill’s band … when I was an 18-year-old old soul like she is now. 

She didn’t know that, whenever Sam used to call that tune – I still remember it was #252 in his book —  I used to audibly enthuse, which the rest of the band always got a kick out of. 

She didn’t know that Dad loved playing that tune, too. 

She didn’t know that, even though the arrangement we played was pretty vanilla, Dad, if he was havin’ a good night, would improvise some of those ornery trumpet riffs behind our vocalist on the second verse, just like Nat’s version. 

She didn’t know that, when it came time for me to walk away from playing after 14 years, that I somehow managed to talk Karry into us taking dance lessons so I could surprise my Dad by showing up at one of his gigs to dance to the music I had loved so much. He was over the moon when he saw us walk in, and I’m not sure who had the better time that night. All I remember is that we used every step in our meager repertoire, dancing our hearts out while he blew his horn from his shoetops. 

She didn’t know that I made one request that night — #252 in the books. 

She didn’t know that, years later, in the wake of my Dad’s passing, when I somehow talked her into taking the same ballroom dance class with me — with the same instructors Karry and I had, no less — that I had secretly hoped that we might put our meager steps to good use one day … maybe at her wedding.

At the time I didn’t know that, years later, she would be saying goodbye to something she loved so much. 

I didn’t know that, after her 14 years of being on stage, she would know exactly how to put a bow on her closing chapter. 

I didn’t know that she would make one request … #252 in the books. 

So, after all those years of watching her with a lump in my throat and a pit in my stomach from my seat in the very last row, I got to stand in the wings for the very first time … and see her walk on stage for one of her very last. 

Got to watch and listen to her dance her heart out as she sounded the stage from her shoetops one more time. 

I didn’t know she was going to turn to me and smile the way she did. 

“L – is foooor the way you … look at me ….”

And she didn’t know as I was tearing up and beaming back at her that I was thinking of Mom while Nate King Cole crooned. And hearing my Dad as that ornery trumpet riffed behind the vocal. And thinking of Karry as I walked on stage and took a beautiful young lady in my arms again.  

When the moment came, though, we jitterbugged.  

That part … that part she knew. 

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