07/15/2026
Some thoughts before tomorow night's book party.
…that great bull of a man
who from the same throat could
read me the Sunday funnies
or rage like a killing wind.
Here’s a poem from Considering Flight that I don’t read often, because it sounds like it’s going to be funny and then makes a hairpin turn. I never know how to read it properly, because I need to embrace the humor, but I’m already at the hairpin turn.
It used to be called “Snoring in the Dark,” and that made it even worse. Because snoring is funny. It just is. And boy, could my father snore!
But when I was really small, I didn’t know that sound was supposed to be funny. It just meant Daddy was home and asleep—both of which situations gave me comfort.
I read Kellie Brown’s note about losing her dad and experiencing a grief that “looks different” from what people expect because he could not regulate his emotions and assumed she would caretake him emotionally.
I don’t know whether my dad expected that of me, but it was certainly something I took on. When he died, I felt we’d made it to a kind of finish line together. I was grateful he died of natural causes.
Mental illness is that way. In fact, it’s another thing outsiders find humorous if they are not intimately familiar with its not-so-funny aspects.
On the other hand, Dad had a terrific sense of humor. He was a wordsmith and he was quick with a quip. Of his own father, he said,
"The old man drove us kids from catechism
three sheets to the wind – assuming, I suppose
that we’d die in a state of grace."
…a line I stole for a poem in Considering Flight.
He suffered with his mental illness unmedicated for many years, but after he got some help, I remember him describing his anti-psychotic as something he took “so I don’t turn into a beast.”
Come to think of it, he wasn’t joking when he said that. And I felt relieved that mentioning that unmentionable aspect of his life was evidently on the table now.
Was I afraid of him?
Not once I was grown. I was more afraid for him.
If you live within driving distance of Everett, Washington, I’d love if you’d join me for a reading of the Twentieth Anniversary Edition of Considering Flight, followed by open mic at Artisans Books and Coffee.
Bring something to share that tells some part of your own story. As Ram Dass said, “We’re all just walking each other home.”
And even if you can’t make it, would you post or link something of yours in the comments?
Lullaby
I used to hear my father’s snores
winding through the dark to my room.
When that dark pressed on my eyes
conjuring chair phantoms,
talking heads beneath the bed,
there was always the sound of
my father’s chest rising and falling like God’s.
That snore could chase the demons
hanging in the air like black feathers,
waiting to steal me —
but it could not chase them from my dreams.
Once I dreamed him small enough to fit inside my pocket,
shrunken down from that great bull of a man
who from the same throat could
read me the Sunday funnies
or rage like a killing wind.
If I could harness that power, I’d plow acres,
sow acorns to send their great roots down.
I’d skin my hands climbing up those oaks.
I’d weave branches into shade and light,
mats from leaves like hands.
Perhaps there,
rocked by wind,
I would sleep.
From Considering Flight by Katherine Grace Bond
