keles flight

dear you,1

when i was young i didn’t know the difference between a sparrow and a hawk, i didn’t imagine fairies dancing between blades of grass on my lawn. even though i grew up in a town of train tracks and wheat fields i did not discover imagination. it was a place where there was room to run. i ran figuratively and literally, away from emotion from reality. i ran not to get somewhere but as a routine, it made me feel as if i was running away from the static lines of high-school. my mother always encouraged my physical activity. to her being the cross country champion and soft ball star were the most prosperous ways of living.2

my mother, during my youth, was a symbol of perfection, a steel shining women. she was intelligent, respectable, the type of women no one would play a prank on. she was tall, flat chested, with stern shoulders. but her hair looked too soft against her angular cheek bones, it looked like the only thing you could touch on her body that would feel anything like a mother. oh, and her eyes, that’s what made her beautiful. they were the only hint of emotion, of weakness, surprisingly deep, they seemed as if they were always searching for more light, for truth.3

i remember being a child and telling my mother that i wanted a barbie for my birthday. oh, how i yearned for those plastic L.A. curves and for the adventures we would go on. but my mothers answer was “well dear, that won’t help you grow up big and strong.”twenty years later i realize that nether did lies. from then on i never asked for anything but bikes or new soft ball mitts. i think that i can still hear barbie crying in the background of bats splitting.4

being a sports star and naturally intelligent in high-school automatically made me a more popular girl. but i never had a friend true enough to tell them how unhappy i was about life. i felt as though my mental condition didn’t matter but rather my performance, and i performed well. i flirted with boys until i manipulated them into believing that love is a pattern of break-ups and hook-ups. i didn’t grow up in a household of love; my mother wasn’t married and never had a relationship. she had odd ways of showing me her love, but i’m not saying she didn’t care for me, just not in the typical motherly way. she wasn’t a friend either, she was an authority figure, almost a god. for example she insisted that i go to the college near home that offered me a full ride soft ball scholarship even though i secretly wanted to go to a liberal art school in new york. it wasn’t until i met len that i understood a different dimension of life.5

so, here my story begins (not at the beginning of this letter, oddly enough). it was right before high-school graduation, the may flowers were making their voyage across the prairie horizons and i had just got done running. my legs were burning coals of physical pumping, and ready for more or for a chair. the mailbox was waving its little red flag and i grabbed the mail without thought. i sat in my favorite chair, one my mother thought too soft, and sifted through the mail...sports magazines, college advertisments, and then a thin white envelope addressed in my name. i had never written a letter or received one, so i was immediately curious. i walked into the house and shlumped into my chair, mother was in the kitchen being undomestic, “kele how was the run?” “mmmhum?” i was just staring at my name on the envelope. mother pushed through the swinging kitchen door and rolled her eyes at my shoes jumbled by the front door, “you know how you treat your possessions is a sign of how you treat yourself.” “mmmmhum.” my eyes fixed on the strange handwriting--it was sloppy. “what do you have there?” “nothing....” i got up slowly, mail falling from my lap in a mess of flop flop flops. she was rearranging my shoes and didn’t notice me quietly slip up the stairs with the thin envelope in my hands. what was inside? a letter, well, more like a note...6

kele,7

my name is len...god i have written so many things and yet, i think this is the hardest. did you know that your name means sparrow-hawk in hopi? that’s why i named you that. i’ve seen many sparrows lately they dart and stab at the sky as if they know....i’ve been thinking of you. now that you’re older i would like to met you. i will be in your area on the 21st of this month, meet me at the coffee shop? if not don’t worry.8

hope to see you soon,9

your father10

my eyes darted and stabbed the thin notebook page as if birds had flown from the letter into me, making me flutter inside. oh, those words: your father....they haunted me. i had never heard of a sparrow-hawk and since this man, len, my father had left no last name i had no way to google him. i didn’t want to walk down those stairs into my mothers lair, what would i ask? so i kept it a secret. i looked up a sparrow-hawk, it didn’t look very special to me, a common hawk. with nothing else to look up i searched the name len. it means flute in hopi, which i found a little odd. a flute? i had never imagined a man playing the flute or really thought of the meaning of names before. 11

i had completely ignored the idea of having a father, in fact, i had never met my mothers father either. she never talked about her past and i never asked. it seemed natural not to ask her for help or knowledge. i suddenly had all sorts of doubts about meeting him. how could he just decide to walk into my life now? if my mother had never mentioned him he must not be that great of a man. i felt as though he was going to complicate my simple straight line of a life. and in some way, that is exactly what my soul was yearning for, a change that could satisfy me and maybe make me happier.12

the twenty-first seemed to take forever to arrive, but as the days rotated into their usual routine i became the hamster in the wheel again. then suddenly, the twenty-first was like a spoke in that fast spinning wheel. i remember walking to the coffee shop in a lull, my heartbeat didn’t feel like my own, as if a stranger’s heart was now pounding questions against my lungs. i walked inside the coffee shop, bells announcing my arrival and a theater girl from my class stared at me from behind the counter of teas and overly priced desserts. her eyebrows raised as i took a set near the window facing the road. i hadn’t thought about other people observing my fathers’ and my first meeting, what if she told someone who would eventually tell my mother? what was i doing here anyway? then the entire environment of chocolate covered coffee beans and critical stares were steamed away. i knew it was him because i didn’t recognize him. he walked to the counter his back facing me, i could see his hands gesturing to the blackboard menu and he made the theater girl laugh. as he spoke i noticed his backpack slung across one shoulder and a thin black instrument case. he turned and saw me staring, i could feel myself blushing, like a slow wave of realization displayed on my cheeks. he smiled and walked long and lean, rocking to his tippy toes with every step.13

he was wearing a paint freckled grand canyon shirt and abused shorts. his forehead was high because of his receding hair line, he had boarders under his eyes but not as if he lacked sleep and huge ears that he was still growing into. i tried to say hello but the my vocal chords would not be plucked, he smiled at me with his thin lips, “hello kele. i’m, uhhh, i’m len, uhhh i mean....” i grinned at his nerves “your my father.” he seemed relieved, “yes, i’m your father.” i was eager to speak, to tell him about myself, what my wind was...but as i opened my mouth i realized i didn’t have anything to say. how could i introduce myself to him? “i am a woman, an athlete, a lost soul like everyone else” i imagined saying. but instead i was silent and stared at the speckled counter top and tried to breath. “so, is this strange? should i leave?” he asked with a hurricane of emotions expanding from his raised eyebrows and worried lips. “it’s okay, stay.” i whispered, then, just to blow away the dust i asked “what’s in the box?”14

he opened the case and pulled out the disjointed pieces of a flute. “do you play an instrument?” he asked as he assembled the silver lining of our conversation. “i don’t. i’ve never learned any instrument actually.” i thought of the band geeks that i never ridiculed but never spoke to either, i imagined my father being made fun of for being a flautist. “well kele, that’s too bad! did you not have time or do you not take an interest in music?” the flute was a horizon of reflection “well, i guess i’ve never really had the time being busy with soft ball and track and school.” he said the typical response of “well, you can’t do everything now can ya.” that first meeting only lasted about forty minuets, he played on his flute making the air waver with a wind of song. i remember walking home from the meeting and noticing for the first time how the cicadas buzzing harmonized with lawn mowers and how the sun shown as if laying a protective hand over each of my steps. i realized that walking is much different than running, you absorb more when taking the slow way home.15

we always met at the coffee shop, no one there cared if we laughed louder than the blender or if len pulled out his flute to show me how love can make music. after about three meetings i finally brought up my mother. “you know, i’ve been keeping our meetings a secret from my mother.” i felt relieved to finally have said it, “and why’s that?” he asked, “well i guess i don’t know. i didn’t want to upset her or something...i mean, i don’t know anything about her and your relationship. you know she’s never been in a relationship while raising me, i’ve never really had a father figure to look up to.” he didn’t seem surprised by this. “you know kele, i loved your mother and i would of loved to watch you grow up.” his eyes shifted, as oceanic plates split so water filled in. i hesitated in wonder of his sadness “why didn’t you stay?” i thought of how different my life would be if he had been there from the start. maybe i would have learned how to play the guitar or cello, maybe i could have studied the sky or planted a tree. but at the same time his absence didn’t really bother me, i felt like he had a good reason for being the late bird. “your mother was afraid of commitment more than your average teenage boy. but i loved her for her boldness, she never listened to anyone, she had her own path going.” he clenched his coffee cup as if it were a helping ceramic hand, “kele, she left me after telling me that she was pregnant. she told me not to pursue her that she didn’t need another dead beat man in her life.” he paused “i haven’t spoken to her since, and i know it wouldn’t be a good idea to.” he let go of the coffee cup lightly and reached for my hand, “there’s a picture of your mother and i in an album she once had, though maybe she got rid of it.” he paused a ocean expanding from his eyes to mine, “is she happy?” i knew the answer but i couldn’t say it out loud, instead i floundered until i found these words on the tide of my lips, “is anyone?” 16

it was a day full of light, the prairie grasses stretching toward the horizon in an endless yoga lesson from the wind. my father opened that visit with a writing exercise, “write for five minutes without stopping”. i wrote about the movement of wings and how i wish i had the wingspan to reach all of the world’s horizons. i loved the silence our pencils created between us, just the scribbling sound of a muse dancing into being. he wrote about prairie fires and renewal. we exchanged our five minute pieces and spoke about suicide about how scared i was to die and how he never would have the courage to do it. after that day i never saw len again.17

he never wrote or came back to the coffee shop. that summer i sat there at the booth by the road, searching still to be satisfied with life. i hunted for the picture he had spoken of, but it had disappeared. after years of feeling once again abandoned i finally asked me mother about him.18

“mother, what if one day i get married. who will walk me down the aisle?” i asked her, even though my real concern was len, the flautist who inspired me to study writing and to observe life as it came. “you know dear, i’ve never gotten married, but if i had i wouldn’t have had my father walk me down the aisle. i probably would have been able to walk a few more steps by myself.” she wasn’t looking at me but the sterile white walls of her living room “but what if my father turns out to be someone you didn’t expect? a man worth having in life?” i wanted her to admit it, i stared at her soft hair and waiting eyes. “baby, he wasn’t. he didn’t even have the courage to live, let alone take care of anyone.” she got up and moved to look outside the picture window “len was his name. he killed himself before i could even tell him i was pregnant with you.” at this she turned with tears on her cheeks, “i felt like i failed everything. kele, dear, you don’t need a man to walk you down the isle, you don’t need anything but yourself, be a strong girl.” it was like being peeled back into nothing, my mother’s words a black whole the creator of my sudden confusion.19

i have never told anyone about my meetings with len except you. it’s a secret, that man, whoever he was, was the key to a different path. he led me with the memory of our few words he led me to sparrow-hawks and imagination.20

today i watched my children playing among fairies in the lawn, they laugh, wonder, observe, create. a man i never knew became a pillar of today. you can change someone's life. but be careful who you write a letter to. 21

with peace and joy,22

kele the sparrow-hawk23