I love that you wrote in the second person, I love that you have such a close bond with your unknown father that we feel who he is through your words. I love every human line, and each are! I love "you save everything for its potential—and open its musty scent of hope." because I believe you have inherited and use the same. I love each metaphor for life present from the very first paragraph... I love this story Kimberly. In its entirety - so well done!
Gah! I’m so happy to hear this Susie. “A close bond with your unknown father…” now that’s something to pause upon. How could such an oxymoron be true? And yet, I feel it in my bones, and am ever grateful for your attentive heart to sense such an impossibility.
Lovely and second person is the hardest. I love this line: "You should be more of a someone by now but when you look out the window again you notice how easily you breathe. You set the table for two anyway. Sit down. Light a candle. Raise a glass to your companion." You bring him to life with these details.
You know what Mary? He actually did do this. After his disappearance, his siblings went to the house to gather his belongings and found a table set for two. An odd but telling ritual for a bachelor. ❤️
I have to admit how much I would love working with you on your gifted writing. Maybe give my course a try--just for more prompts and tips to add to the piles you have. Exchanging thoughts with you would be treasure for me. Love to you, dear virtual friend.
Loved the journey and loved the closing image which captured all the feels of what you saw him seeing. The space, the un-hurry, the calm, studious awareness and willingness to simply be. The pic works beautifully and doesn’t for even one minute need an apology attached. It holds the space you’ve created, let’s us tarry a bit longer.
Oh I’m so glad! I liked the solitary silence of that image—something I know my father
gravitated toward but also left him feeling restless at times too. He didn’t even have plumbing in his hand-built home for the first two years. A luddite through and through.
Isn’t it brilliant that when we love we must find a way to love the whole person? Big, absolutely wonderful work. Exasperating, too. You seem to take the together and the not so together parts of most folks in stride.
This was riveting. The imagery, the sense of heat and cold. I love that the prose itself is both drifting and driftless. The layers of memory and presence shimmer. I LOL’d at this - “It had no business ruining your life so you introduced it to a 12 gauge cartridge of buckshot.” Exactly.
Damn. This is really good, Kimberly. I love the second person narrative. It’s made so much more effective because I know it’s your father you’re talking to. The passage about the ice flow and the driftless place is such a perfect use of metaphor. Overall it’s just intensely sensual and real. I felt everything he felt. I was there. Bravo. 👏
Thank you friend. The Driftless area of Western Wisconsin is quite something. We think of the Midwest as flat flat flat. But in this region, there are steep cliffs, caves and an abundance of geological diversity. Without the heft of glacial excavation, even the topsoil is said to be millions of years old. (Must fact check that now though.)
Some really wonderful lines in here, Kimberly! I shared my favorite but also loved this one: "You lose track of time and it's weird because usually time is so hard on you but today it's letting you off easy."
Time can feel relentless, and I suspect my father maybe felt it even more so. Makes me wonder if those who exit this earthly plane early in life have a stronger sense of its urgency and demand. Thank you for sharing your thoughts Stephanie!
That's a such a moving inquiry; whether there is a stronger sense of urgency in those who will leave after only a short time. Something to think about. Thanks for sharing about your father, and this excellent short story.
This is such a beautiful and melancholy story Kimberly and the music is still going round in my mind. I was half expecting a cat to turn up instead of the lady friend, but I guess the dog might not have been happy about that! 💛✨
Second person is the absolute choice here. You nailed it. I love it. It feels intimate, relatable, special, moving, eventful and uneventful together and intertwined.
I restacked possibly my fave line, but here's another:
"The Driftless Zone. People call it that, an odd name for a place, as if it has no aim or purpose—as if the land itself decided to step aside when the glaciers came carving through the Midwest, dragging ice and boulders like God’s own wrecking crew."
I’m trying to remember now, have you written anything in second person? I felt a fire lit inside me while writing this one, like a lifetime of being so much of a witness (to my own and other’s inner and outer landscapes, almost disembodied?) that it felt almost easier than first person. I’m eager to download some second person novels and study this perspective. It was wildly fun, perhaps more fun than anything I’ve written to date. Thank you for your inspiration and encouragement friend!
Perhaps there was subliminal influence to second person. ;)
So pleased to hear of the experience. You're a total natural. It's amazing.
I've not read many novels in second person. One off the top of my head is the fantasy series Broken Earth trilogy by NK Jemisin. (I've actually only read the first book, but that's in second person and very good.)
The lines in this story need to be held, one by one, to be able to feel them slide into my heart and brain. It was perfect that he was relieved and disappointed at the same time.
Also, I love your biological dad's song, thank you for sharing. Can't wait for your book!
I feel your compassion for him, Kimberly. I get a sense of your deep desire to “know” him and to let *him* somehow know he has been seen by you in a deeply human way. 💛
What a moving reflection Ann. To reach through dimensions with our words, consoling, seeing, enlightening, those who came before us—this is a beautiful thought and I hold onto it as a real possibility, maybe one of the fruits of any act of creativity. 🙏
I really enjoyed this one Kimberly. I love the flow and the humanness. Funnily enough "pot-bellied heat" struck me when I heard the song too, so perfect, it really brought the how thinking and writing become songs and poems and prose. There is a person behind these words, two people actually. A search and a question with no finding or answer? Thank you. Reading that was a good experience .
Gah! What a wonderful comment. Thank you Jonathan! I’m touched that you feel “two people behind these words.” I suppose, without really being intentional about it, I will always long to feel the hand of both my fathers influencing all I do.
Yup, another one of my too long comments…Kimberly, I remember now, you have albums you found on eBay. After reading your memoir, staring into the eyes of your father’s pictures, I cannot even imagine what it must have been like for you to be able to hear his voice. I wish with all my heart that I could still hear the resonance of my mother and father’s voices . Photographs remind us of what our loved ones looked like. Some can say that is enough. For me, faded photographs colored by memories will have to do, but they are only a two dimensional flat plane of a world no longer in existence. Having a voice, a song, knowing what instruments he chose to make his music ,a beautiful representation of who he was. A powerful remembrance of man you never met, never touched the hand that strummed the strings. I had to go back and find this in chapter 35, I wanted to read the lyrics after I read your story “we sat down together the cat and me / won’t forget the night she was a friend don’t you see / it was my birthday and nobody came / except a black and white cat without any name.” I am so glad I did .This is so much more than crafting a fictional story around words he wrote for a song. You have taken all the little pieces you have discovered about him, blending in his lyrics with all the possible nuances of his character. I love how you have imagined his hopes and dreams, his insecurities and fears. “… I invited a lady friend over for dinner…” I remember. This is one of the factual pieces of the puzzle. “For once, you don’t try to carve meaning out of them. You just let them be.” Maybe it is a part of your DNA, innate or synchronicity, or both.
Perhaps you do know him after all. A beautiful undertaking, well done!
“Perhaps you do know him after all.” These words have been carrying me for over a day now, reluctant to respond because I can’t possibly convey my gratitude for you in words. Lor, you are supremely attentive and generous, it almost hurts to let it all in. It is quite something to have his voice, not just stories. One of my favorites is a clip from when he was a guest on Prairie Home companion. He chats a bit with Garrison, and when he asks about Charlie’s residence—Oregon, Wisconsin (who knew there was such a place?)—Charlie replies with a smirk, “Well that’s where I get my mail.” Subtext: don’t pin me down.
Reaching my arms out through the ethers to give you the biggest, warmest embrace dear friend.
Gorgeous writing! Those last two lines: not trying to carve meaning out of the hills, just let them be. The grace of not making things eventful, pushing toward serenity. though "pushing" isn't really a serene word, maybe "relaxing into serenity" would be better....
“Relaxing into serenity” is it, isn’t it? Almost by surprise, all plans cancelled, the mind quieted by simple, mundanity—it’s a wonderful thing to feel expectation give way to something so much more satisfying. Thank you for being here Allegra!
Love that you experimented with some fiction, and I must say it’s very damn good. And I love that you wrote it in second person—they say (whoever they are) that second person is the hardest to write in, and having only ever done it once I think they are right. But for you, here in this piece, the second person is seamless.
And of course, I loved the piece of a whole. Especially, the magic and flow of the sentences in the last paragraph. And even more so, the paradoxically strange yet relatable experience you conveyed here—
“You remember once getting the shit kicked out of you behind the tavern, face down on cold snow under a streetlight, the sharp, hot stabs of pain held inside the slow, slow falling of snow—and how fucking beautiful it all seemed.”
I’m learning so much about second person as I read the comments here! It’s funny but it wasn’t a conscious decision, and while I’m an English nerd and understand what second person is, I actually wrote this as if that second person was the annoying witness inside one’s own head. And not until now, after reading everyone’s comments, am I realizing it would more likely be interpreted at me, observing my father’s life and his inner workings, as if to understand him better. But being that I carry his DNA, perhaps that line between us is blurry anyway. I love it when something happens and it wasn’t even intended!
It is wonderful when we get to glimpse at just how many levels our creativity is touching. Was it a conscious choice? An unconscious one? Who knows… either way, the piece and it’s second person perspective works on many levels :)
Wonderful story telling. You’ve captured what was likely going thru his mind but don’t we all have similar thoughts upon waking— especially missing garbage day? And the dumpster truck of the mind— oh what a great metaphor.
I love that you wrote in the second person, I love that you have such a close bond with your unknown father that we feel who he is through your words. I love every human line, and each are! I love "you save everything for its potential—and open its musty scent of hope." because I believe you have inherited and use the same. I love each metaphor for life present from the very first paragraph... I love this story Kimberly. In its entirety - so well done!
Gah! I’m so happy to hear this Susie. “A close bond with your unknown father…” now that’s something to pause upon. How could such an oxymoron be true? And yet, I feel it in my bones, and am ever grateful for your attentive heart to sense such an impossibility.
Lovely and second person is the hardest. I love this line: "You should be more of a someone by now but when you look out the window again you notice how easily you breathe. You set the table for two anyway. Sit down. Light a candle. Raise a glass to your companion." You bring him to life with these details.
You know what Mary? He actually did do this. After his disappearance, his siblings went to the house to gather his belongings and found a table set for two. An odd but telling ritual for a bachelor. ❤️
I have to admit how much I would love working with you on your gifted writing. Maybe give my course a try--just for more prompts and tips to add to the piles you have. Exchanging thoughts with you would be treasure for me. Love to you, dear virtual friend.
I would love that someday Mary. A bit overwhelmed and underpaid with projects at the moment but I have this flagged in my heart!
Loved the journey and loved the closing image which captured all the feels of what you saw him seeing. The space, the un-hurry, the calm, studious awareness and willingness to simply be. The pic works beautifully and doesn’t for even one minute need an apology attached. It holds the space you’ve created, let’s us tarry a bit longer.
Oh I’m so glad! I liked the solitary silence of that image—something I know my father
gravitated toward but also left him feeling restless at times too. He didn’t even have plumbing in his hand-built home for the first two years. A luddite through and through.
Isn’t it brilliant that when we love we must find a way to love the whole person? Big, absolutely wonderful work. Exasperating, too. You seem to take the together and the not so together parts of most folks in stride.
Easier to do for others than myself.:)
That's so weird!
This was riveting. The imagery, the sense of heat and cold. I love that the prose itself is both drifting and driftless. The layers of memory and presence shimmer. I LOL’d at this - “It had no business ruining your life so you introduced it to a 12 gauge cartridge of buckshot.” Exactly.
Haha, he really did shoot his tv Julie! What a character. 😂😂😂
My mother once threw our family TV in the trash. Wonder what she’d have done if she had a gun.
Hahahahaha!!! Amazing!!!!
Damn. This is really good, Kimberly. I love the second person narrative. It’s made so much more effective because I know it’s your father you’re talking to. The passage about the ice flow and the driftless place is such a perfect use of metaphor. Overall it’s just intensely sensual and real. I felt everything he felt. I was there. Bravo. 👏
Thank you friend. The Driftless area of Western Wisconsin is quite something. We think of the Midwest as flat flat flat. But in this region, there are steep cliffs, caves and an abundance of geological diversity. Without the heft of glacial excavation, even the topsoil is said to be millions of years old. (Must fact check that now though.)
Some really wonderful lines in here, Kimberly! I shared my favorite but also loved this one: "You lose track of time and it's weird because usually time is so hard on you but today it's letting you off easy."
Time can feel relentless, and I suspect my father maybe felt it even more so. Makes me wonder if those who exit this earthly plane early in life have a stronger sense of its urgency and demand. Thank you for sharing your thoughts Stephanie!
That's a such a moving inquiry; whether there is a stronger sense of urgency in those who will leave after only a short time. Something to think about. Thanks for sharing about your father, and this excellent short story.
My fav too.
This is such a beautiful and melancholy story Kimberly and the music is still going round in my mind. I was half expecting a cat to turn up instead of the lady friend, but I guess the dog might not have been happy about that! 💛✨
Oh thank you Emily! Yes, in the song a cat did show up at his door on his birthday….how sweet to think that he maybe took her in for a spell. 🙏
Gosh this is amazing, Kimberly.
Second person is the absolute choice here. You nailed it. I love it. It feels intimate, relatable, special, moving, eventful and uneventful together and intertwined.
I restacked possibly my fave line, but here's another:
"The Driftless Zone. People call it that, an odd name for a place, as if it has no aim or purpose—as if the land itself decided to step aside when the glaciers came carving through the Midwest, dragging ice and boulders like God’s own wrecking crew."
I’m trying to remember now, have you written anything in second person? I felt a fire lit inside me while writing this one, like a lifetime of being so much of a witness (to my own and other’s inner and outer landscapes, almost disembodied?) that it felt almost easier than first person. I’m eager to download some second person novels and study this perspective. It was wildly fun, perhaps more fun than anything I’ve written to date. Thank you for your inspiration and encouragement friend!
Yes, I did, but only one thing I think and that was the recent piece "Ritual" about playing cards. https://slake.substack.com/p/ritual
Perhaps there was subliminal influence to second person. ;)
So pleased to hear of the experience. You're a total natural. It's amazing.
I've not read many novels in second person. One off the top of my head is the fantasy series Broken Earth trilogy by NK Jemisin. (I've actually only read the first book, but that's in second person and very good.)
Of course you have a recommendation.:) Thanks for that Nathan. Now off to reread your playing cards piece.:)
Today time lets you off easy.
The lines in this story need to be held, one by one, to be able to feel them slide into my heart and brain. It was perfect that he was relieved and disappointed at the same time.
Also, I love your biological dad's song, thank you for sharing. Can't wait for your book!
Isn’t it wild to feel opposing emotions simultaneously and know both can be real and true? Thank you for your thoughtful comment.🙏
I feel your compassion for him, Kimberly. I get a sense of your deep desire to “know” him and to let *him* somehow know he has been seen by you in a deeply human way. 💛
What a moving reflection Ann. To reach through dimensions with our words, consoling, seeing, enlightening, those who came before us—this is a beautiful thought and I hold onto it as a real possibility, maybe one of the fruits of any act of creativity. 🙏
"the gift of not questioning anything at all. Something in you widens." Oh how freedom can feel!
Yes! Take that meaning-making machine mind!
I really enjoyed this one Kimberly. I love the flow and the humanness. Funnily enough "pot-bellied heat" struck me when I heard the song too, so perfect, it really brought the how thinking and writing become songs and poems and prose. There is a person behind these words, two people actually. A search and a question with no finding or answer? Thank you. Reading that was a good experience .
Gah! What a wonderful comment. Thank you Jonathan! I’m touched that you feel “two people behind these words.” I suppose, without really being intentional about it, I will always long to feel the hand of both my fathers influencing all I do.
Yup, another one of my too long comments…Kimberly, I remember now, you have albums you found on eBay. After reading your memoir, staring into the eyes of your father’s pictures, I cannot even imagine what it must have been like for you to be able to hear his voice. I wish with all my heart that I could still hear the resonance of my mother and father’s voices . Photographs remind us of what our loved ones looked like. Some can say that is enough. For me, faded photographs colored by memories will have to do, but they are only a two dimensional flat plane of a world no longer in existence. Having a voice, a song, knowing what instruments he chose to make his music ,a beautiful representation of who he was. A powerful remembrance of man you never met, never touched the hand that strummed the strings. I had to go back and find this in chapter 35, I wanted to read the lyrics after I read your story “we sat down together the cat and me / won’t forget the night she was a friend don’t you see / it was my birthday and nobody came / except a black and white cat without any name.” I am so glad I did .This is so much more than crafting a fictional story around words he wrote for a song. You have taken all the little pieces you have discovered about him, blending in his lyrics with all the possible nuances of his character. I love how you have imagined his hopes and dreams, his insecurities and fears. “… I invited a lady friend over for dinner…” I remember. This is one of the factual pieces of the puzzle. “For once, you don’t try to carve meaning out of them. You just let them be.” Maybe it is a part of your DNA, innate or synchronicity, or both.
Perhaps you do know him after all. A beautiful undertaking, well done!
“Perhaps you do know him after all.” These words have been carrying me for over a day now, reluctant to respond because I can’t possibly convey my gratitude for you in words. Lor, you are supremely attentive and generous, it almost hurts to let it all in. It is quite something to have his voice, not just stories. One of my favorites is a clip from when he was a guest on Prairie Home companion. He chats a bit with Garrison, and when he asks about Charlie’s residence—Oregon, Wisconsin (who knew there was such a place?)—Charlie replies with a smirk, “Well that’s where I get my mail.” Subtext: don’t pin me down.
Reaching my arms out through the ethers to give you the biggest, warmest embrace dear friend.
Gorgeous writing! Those last two lines: not trying to carve meaning out of the hills, just let them be. The grace of not making things eventful, pushing toward serenity. though "pushing" isn't really a serene word, maybe "relaxing into serenity" would be better....
“Relaxing into serenity” is it, isn’t it? Almost by surprise, all plans cancelled, the mind quieted by simple, mundanity—it’s a wonderful thing to feel expectation give way to something so much more satisfying. Thank you for being here Allegra!
Love that you experimented with some fiction, and I must say it’s very damn good. And I love that you wrote it in second person—they say (whoever they are) that second person is the hardest to write in, and having only ever done it once I think they are right. But for you, here in this piece, the second person is seamless.
And of course, I loved the piece of a whole. Especially, the magic and flow of the sentences in the last paragraph. And even more so, the paradoxically strange yet relatable experience you conveyed here—
“You remember once getting the shit kicked out of you behind the tavern, face down on cold snow under a streetlight, the sharp, hot stabs of pain held inside the slow, slow falling of snow—and how fucking beautiful it all seemed.”
Wonderful Kimberly :)
I’m learning so much about second person as I read the comments here! It’s funny but it wasn’t a conscious decision, and while I’m an English nerd and understand what second person is, I actually wrote this as if that second person was the annoying witness inside one’s own head. And not until now, after reading everyone’s comments, am I realizing it would more likely be interpreted at me, observing my father’s life and his inner workings, as if to understand him better. But being that I carry his DNA, perhaps that line between us is blurry anyway. I love it when something happens and it wasn’t even intended!
It is wonderful when we get to glimpse at just how many levels our creativity is touching. Was it a conscious choice? An unconscious one? Who knows… either way, the piece and it’s second person perspective works on many levels :)
That was the line that hit me the hardest too Michael, having been there, and having had a similar, fleeting thought
It was a home-run of a line that’s for sure! To capture such a strange experience. Glad to hear there are many experiences we share Eric :)
Wonderful story telling. You’ve captured what was likely going thru his mind but don’t we all have similar thoughts upon waking— especially missing garbage day? And the dumpster truck of the mind— oh what a great metaphor.
I’m so looking forward to reading your book. 🥰👏🙏
Thank you Carissa. It was really fun to imagine his thoughts, knowing all too well they are likely similar to my own. 😃