Dad's Legacy

Two Fridays ago, we took our third and final trip to see Pam at Chaumont Bay. On the way there, we passed the Hillside Flea Market in Pulaski and I was hit with a memory. Years ago, when I was living at home the summer between my junior and senior years at college, my father took us all (minus Carolyn who lived in CT at the time) there. I wandered around, looking for cool vintage things that would fit in with my youthful eclectic taste as of course, I wore my black dress from my recent European travels, broke and laid off from Canfield's while I was away. I found a set of three blue glasses (Tammy will remember these as an item I proudly brought to our first apartment). And I was looking at some old jewelry with my Dad and we found a ring that was oval with a black looking stone. He got it into his head that it was a mood ring, though I was pretty sure it wasn't I didn't want to burst his bubble. He bought it for me and the glasses...I still have the ring, though the glasses were all murdered one by one over a decade or so (which is fine...Dad didn't put much stock into holding onto material items or not using things...stuff was just stuff). It's just funny how a memory will hit me on occasion with such vividness. We didn't much stuff like that as a family...we were more of a hang out at home and watch a movie or sit outside types.

And I have to say, I've noticed something positive about me since my Dad passed. It's so subtle, that I don't think anyone would quite notice it. Suddenly, for the first time in years, I don't want everything to be just so. I am an organization fiend, liking everything to have it's place (and I still love it!). And I kind of get upset if things are separated. Like, if all the Christmas ornaments are in a box in the basement, I get weird if one is in a different spot. Or I hated it that there would be a piece missing from a molding in the house. It wasn't that I've been obsessed with new or trendy, but just wanted things to be almost exact. Suddenly, I don't care as much. A big thing is my pictures...obsessed about them being in exact order in an album and not wanting to a scrapbook unless I knew it was all in timeline exactness. Suddenly, it's OK if it isn't perfect....this wasn't a conscious decision, I just noticed that I felt differently. Like it's OK if I post on my blog out of order...

I see more character in a crooked window sill or I can relax that the Christmas wreath is in the back room and not in my specified wreath case in the basement. I can let things go a little bit easier, if that makes sense. More like I was ten, twelve years ago. I

I don't understand why his death prompted this; usually I have a theory about everything. But not this time, I just know there is a connection.

I think my Dad would be proud. This post was supposed to be about our trip to Chaumont, but it went some where else. And that's OK