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Show grace. To protect my father and the fathers of my friends, I spent all my energy in high school defending the nuclear option. I would tell my father what I had heard that day from the teacher and students in my Global Relations class. He would tell me exactly how to respond, what to say to those communists who did not understand. Sitting in class the following day, my father's words would pour from me. Star Wars. Mutually Assured Destruction. Nuclear Deterrence. Words I used like weapons, words that might keep me safe. Today, driving the ramps of the parking garage, my heart races with the knowledge that I will not recognize the best parking spot, will not know which one is right, will park my ten-year-old car and thirty-eight-year-old body in an inadequate space, one too far from the door, too close to another car, too much in the sun. And when I do finally ease both car and body into my ill-chosen spot, it is my father's voice, now at my shoulder, shaking his head that I could have taken so long to make such a poor decision, that I hear. Every now and then, though, when I am alone on the road, feeling the strength of my body, the sureness of foot, and lungs that will take me anywhere, a shooting star will light the sky like a shot from a canon. In the blackness, I read the sky's calligraphy. 234 |