The Artist Condition

I didn’t see my Daddy again until I was six. Of course, by age six, I never remember seeing him in this first place. The last time he saw me I toddled around and called fries, “flies.” The last time he saw me I still had diapers on  underneath ridiculous sailor-style dresses with jumbo navy bows.  I had a reddish tint to my wavy hair, and I clung to him and called him “Da.” At age six I was different. I called someone else Dad.  He finally tracked me down, after fruitless years of paying child support to some forwarded address. His little girl had dark blue eyes when he last saw her. Despite the lack of green eyes on his side of the family, he knew that mine would be green. He told me he dreamt about me sometimes with green eyes—some kind of sixth sense, I guess.

            As for me, I dreamed about him too. I had no concept of who the man with dark eyes and dark hair was, of course. In my dreams he fed me “flies” in my high chair.  I dreamt this dream so frequently that I remember it now, fourteen years later. I doubt I will ever forget it. The thing about memories is that you can never really count on them, though. One day everything is vivid and perfect, and the next day there are holes that gape open, wider and wider, until the memory vanishes entirely.