#4 When I’m Not With Him
An Ode To My Father
November 14, 2023
I cried like a baby last night at 8:43pm. My dad texted me a song on saturday that I hadn't opened and listened to yet because the days have been long, and I find too many distractions. “For you” he said, with a lullaby to follow. I layed on my belly, with my face smooshed into a pillow, and pressed play. I knew I’d get to feeling. This day was no different than the rest, long, quiet, hard. Nothing that met my ears this day was worth the attention I paid. No, I never know when it’s too much, until it is. That’s why I sit in silence with joy. I listen to my thoughts and spread them out in my mind and pick which ones I should flesh out, which ones I should leave behind. This is how I remain honest with myself.
November 9th, just earlier this week, my truck was broken into. This was the second time and somehow, I let this really hurt me. With my understanding and honesty, I'd think I would’ve talked myself down. Instead, I let myself fall and fall and not like how it feels to fall in your dreams –I wake up laughing. This fall hurt. And honestly, wasted my time. I love feeling and feeling and feeling so much, to then come out of it, like a trance. I love coming out of the trance. I love not wasting my time.
I felt like a baby, curled on the couch, awaiting comfort and coos from the guitar of James Taylor. My dad sometimes sends me songs when he’s thinking of me, this alone always makes me cry—before even pressing play I will burst into tears. But still, the song begins and the tears stay. Always about longing and love. I know he feels the same way I do when he hears songs like that. He feels so much, listens to every word, every note, every chord and beat. My dad used to poke right at my heart whenever I was sad to leave him and tell me that’s where he is. With me all the time. He’s there, I’m here, and I imagine he’s sitting next to me, tapping his fingers on my knee and one foot against the floor to the chords he knows by heart. He sings along with his eyes closed. And I cry when the tapping stops and the song ends. I miss him when I’m not with him, when I fall, and when my days are long, and quiet, and hard.
I love you 4ever,
Blair Mahya Quiñones
Daddy’s Baby - James Taylor
Daddy's baby, what's got you thinking?
What's got you sinking so low?
Is there something I should know
Something new to you?
Daddy's baby, fussing and fretting
Keeping on getting it wrong
She can only last so long
She's going for a song
So sing her a lullaby-by
Baby, don't like to cry
So sing her a lullaby-by
Swaddle and swing her
Sing her a lullaby
She makes her feelings known to me
Her every side is shown to me
And in our time alone
My love has surely grown of its own
Solid as a stepping stone
As silently as the dawn was breaking
Soft and clear
And my tears were dry
And my fears had flown
So I called my love, my home
~start to feel something~