During winter break, I return to Wisconsin. Familiarity is a comfy old blanket that smells of mold. Dad is still everywhere. Six months is not long enough for our cells to stop reaching. One morning mom receives a phone call from Mrs. Haack, my high-school Interpersonal teacher. Mom’s shoulder cradles the phone as her eyes shift from me, back to the empty space in front of her.
“Yes, I remember,” she says as a concerned recognition spreads across her face.
Mrs. Haack has a package for me—an 8”x12” padded envelope dad stuffed twelve months earlier with a typed letter and a cassette mixtape—and wants to make sure it’s OK to send. Three days later it arrives in the mailbox. The return address reads: Dad, You Know Where. I rip the padded envelope open with such vigor that I tear straight through his letter. To this day, his words are stored in an album—a large piece of Scotch Tape holding him together.
The return address reads: Dad, You Know Where.
My hands tremble as dad’s words fall into me.
October 16, 1992
Dear Kim,
With all the notes and letters that we have written to each other, this doesn’t seem like it is something new. However, the request that it be some of the things where the moment never seems right to say kind of puts it into a different category. Some things pop into mind that I could write about but I’m not sure that they are very important to you; you know, phases that have come cycling by over the last twenty years or so. Stuff that has been impacting on me and seems like it might be important to you, if not on a conscious level, at least at the level of the unconscious stuff that we all have to work with at some time or other. This morning, however, I realized what it was that I mainly wanted to communicate to you. And it came not in the way of words so much as what I was doing at the time; ie. dancing. And it seems to wrap up a bunch of stuff, so here goes…
There are probably few things in one’s life that touch a parent deeper than seeing a family issue being passed on to one’s beloved children. This has probably been one of the strongest motivating forces I have encountered. This can apply to the positive ones, I guess; but it seems like the difficult ones, the unconscious stuff that blocks our love from ourselves or someone/thing else, are the ones that often seem to be the most difficult, sometimes ever devastating. I am not such a martyr that I want to take responsibility for all the stuff in the Warner family and maybe even a little of the Larson household. I am learning to love myself too much to do that. And I am enjoying life too much to only focus on the negative aspects of the mostly beautiful hours that I spend each day in relation to my universe of friends, family and the natural world around me. But there is one thing that I think you may have picked up from the Warner family that I have had to work on a great deal and I see that it might become a teacher for you as well. You obviously have a big head start as compared to me at your age (which is the way it is supposed to be) and I am glad of that. Your body-awareness, i.e. your abilities to sense what is going on inside, is really quite remarkable as far as I can see. For me, that journey of exploration has been challenging, although also very rewarding. It has been “my path” in the sense that so much of my learning has come from working out “hang-ups” and trying to find out why certain areas of my body were tighter than others and why vertebrae were starting to mush together.
One of the most exciting and rewarding experiences that I have had was the experience at Esalen when I, for the first time in 40 some years learned what it felt like to really dance. I found the place inside where the dance originates and ways to allow the music to move my body rather than thinking and planning how to do it. I realize that this may be old stuff for you. With your ballet training, I’m sure that you have had to do a lot of that locating already. And I guess that if one is to use the body as a learning tool, he or she would look at what parts are stiff or tight and then go into the energy of that area to see what it had to say to them. We all seem to have some balance to strike between “flowing” or taking things easily on the one hand and discipline or keeping things in control on the other. That sometimes shows up in the way one’s body moves (or doesn’t move) and where injuries occur. I guess that I am rambling along and may be losing you or you may be wondering what I am really trying to say. Maybe the music can say it better for me. Basically I just wish for you the pleasure and wisdom that comes with letting the dance dance you rather than trying to do it right or the way that it would seem right to others; …the marvelous balance between creating the discipline and then letting go into the flow of the music or the whatever; …the beauty of experiencing the body’s unique ability to be an interface between heaven and earth.
With the enclosed tape, what I would suggest is to take about one half of an hour sometime when you can be alone, preferably with room to dance freely, preferably with a sound system that will give you enough quality to hear the words and feel the bass, and then just put the music on and wait. Wait for the music to move you in whatever way that it will. Feel the places in your body that reverberate to the sound and let those areas direct the movement. Particularly the first 30 minutes or so, I like. Anyway, while I was dancing to this, I realized that this really did express so much of what I would like to say to you. My fantasy is that someday you and I will feel comfortable enough with each other that we will put this tape on and dance to it, able to express whatever comes up at the moment and not feel embarrassed or awkward. That is my fantasy and my wish, for I believe that that would mean that both you and I would be in pretty neat places with ourselves (even though we are at this time too, of course.)
Blessings, my darling Kim, and my heart goes with you always.
Love,
Dad
I read it again. And again. I pause to reflect on his words. ”I just wish for you the pleasure and wisdom that comes with letting the dance dance you rather than trying to do it right.” Sure, I see his point. Ballet has shaped me. When I hear music, I want to spin, point my toes, do port de bras. Impulses to wiggle my butt have been conditioned out of me. But why is this his wish for me? Of all the wishes a father could have for a daughter, this one confuses me. He wishes we get our groove on together?
I sense he is saying something more but “letting the dance dance me” is treacherous territory. And now, with grief lurking alongside all my other abandoned emotions, it’s downright catastrophic. So I side-step reality and instead develop a growing interest in the paranormal. I leave dad’s first generation Apple PowerBook open overnight, the winking cursor invites his correspondence. I note every time I see the number 43 and whisper to myself, I love you, too, dad. I plead to see his ghost and fantasize about becoming a switchboard operator for the deceased. The following spring semester, I record myself reading his letter, layer it over a track from the mixtape, and choreograph a solo to perform for the living (and conjure the dead.)
I interpret his wish as prophecy of a literal, future reunion, completely misunderstanding—or unwilling to brave—his truer longing.
When the setting is right, when the timing is right, when the burning beeswax candle is right, when I’m dancing just right—dad will return.
!!!!!!! I am a snotty crying mess at my kitchen table. Once again, no words that I could type would give the aching feelings of beauty and grief that I am feeling...the justice they deserve. I'll try to get some out tho. 😩
I am so happy you have written this memoir because my God. Life is stranger than fiction.
"That is my fantasy and my wish, for I believe that that would mean that both you and I would be in pretty neat places with ourselves (even though we are at this time too, of course.)"
Your father sounded so wonderful, Kimberly and I am so so very sorry your time with him was cut so short.
What an amazing gift that letter was and is. What a wise man he was and is. I imagine he saw how hard you worked, how much effort you put into your movement and body. He was reminding you to save room for the all the yummy stuff life has to offer when you let go. And...I'm crying again.
When I was going though my things from 20 years ago, I found my christening gown and in it my mother had written my name down on a piece of paper. It was the first time I had seen her handwriting in 20 years or so and I immediately burst into tears. Sometimes I forget that she was real, it can feel like a fever dream thinking back to the time when she walked this earth. I plan on framing the piece of paper, hanging it up so I can remember that I used to have a mother and I was her daughter, every single day. ❤️
Your solo performance in your spring semester at C.C. where you read some of dad’s letter and danced freely to some of his mixtape, moved me and your boyfriend, who shared the audience seat beside me, to tears. To this day, I feel your deep honoring (and, yes, liberating!) of your dad and yourself with that dance! 💕