2001-07-10 - 11:57 p.m.

Not sure what to write here today but I felt like writing

I'm bubbling over with words and ideas but I've been writing on my book today (finally!) and when I do that I get lost in memory and truth and don't have any new reflections on my present surroundings . . . So I'll take a moment to pull myself into that . . .

Its strange to be back with my dad. He had a conversation with me last night about being in the present and about making plans with him. His feelings were hurt that I've referred to his apartment hunt and move into a new place in september as "his move" regarding the packing of "his stuff" instead of "our move" and "our place" and "our stuff". Of course I was deeply moved by his sentiment, the understanding that he really wants to be in my life, that he really wants our lives to be connected, that he loves me -- and we both cried a little and had a big hug.

But still the conversation echoed hollow within me and gently reflected back to him my point of view that it is his move and they are his things. Because I am not making a life with him. I think he's really searching for me to be his companion, to fill a place in his life where he's lonely for one - but I can't be that for him. I'm his daughter. I never had a home with him. I didn't grow up looking at his things and thinking - This is my home and these things belong to me too -- I am an adult now and its too late to make his house home for me, except in a transient sense.

And he's right that I'm not in the present with him as he wants me to be but not because I'm flawed and can't be in the present -- because for once in my life I'm taking ME time. I'm writing. And writing for myself centers me in a way I don't think I can describe to anyone who isn't an artist -- It brings me to the past and it brings me to the present in a way that involves only myself - I feel as if I'm in a bubble of timelessness of novel-writing and inner-dreaming that just happened to touch down on Vancouver for a moment, for a summer -- I spent the last few weeks totally enjoying my present moments with my family and friends and now I'm in a new mode of existance - I'm not rooting outward at all right now.

And that's a good thing.

I want to go back and write in this space all my reflections on my travels over the last 6 weeks - what it was like being back in Atlanta and in Abilene and in Ventura -- but those reflections will have to wait a while - my coffee is brewing and so am I