Guitar

My father plays “Skip to My Lou” on the guitar.

I listen from the other side of the house as I tattoo the pages of a journal with black ink. The melody carries through the house. He plays a scale, and I feel the notes rising and the beauty of even the simplest songs.

He begins to sing along to the song. “Skeep to mai Lu,” it sounds like he’s saying. His voice is off-key, but you can hear him put his heart and soul into the song, his voice accented as he struggles to make sounds in English that are contrary to his native tongue.

He puts away the guitar, and I hear the case being closed and buckled as the melody continues, this time as he walks around the house, whistling.

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My grandfather whistles. He’s walking through the fields of his ranch making sure the crops are growing as expected. It’s been a long day at work and his jeans and boots are covered with dirt, but he continues walking as the sun sets. The long tall grass waves and the crops offer the hope of prosperous times that are yet to come.

He looks back at the house and sees his wife sweeping the fallen flowers from under a tree, their white dog runs around in circles as his son drives the tractor back into the barn. He looks at the adobe house he built with his bare hands. The life he built with his bare hands.

Everything seems to be exactly as it should be.

He walks into the kitchen, where he eats beans in a wooden bowl set atop a stone countertop, sitting in his favorite chair made of thick wooden sticks and woven with strong natural rope.

When he’s finished, my grandmother picks up his plate and starts washing it in a stone basin. My grandfather stands up and puts his chair away neatly.

Outside, he walks along the edge of the crops, closing and securing gates as he goes.

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I walk along the edge of the crops. They are impressively tall. I’ve been a guest in this land for the entire summer, yet only now do I notice the growth of the corn, ready for harvesting. The autumn sunset inundates the land in gold, and along the crops of corn are beautiful fall sunflowers placed evenly every three rows.

The sunflowers are taller than I am, as are the stalks of corn, and I go through the corn stalks like a maze. On my way back, I follow the footsteps my past self had left in the dirt, as if I was looking out for myself, the past leading the present. 

My cousins are running around playing tag and I hide and sit on a rock so I can be left in my reverie. The birds chirp and the wind softly waves. I hear the distant song of the cows.

I look up at the sky and watch the clouds pass by.

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I look up at the sky and watch the stars shine.

You can see every star here, unlike at home.

Home. What is home? Where is home?

I turn around trying to absorb every celestial sight, my body turning and my head and eyes looking upward, fixed on the firmament that looks like me: beautiful because of its darkness, beautiful in spite of its darkness.

It’s been a decade since my grandfather’s smile brightened our lives. Years since my grandmother started forgetting who I am. Who my mother is. 

It’s cold out and I envelope myself in my own arms, embracing an empowering and bitter independence, the songs of a melancholy Italian song coursing its way to my soul.

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A melody courses through my father’s soul. You can see it in his eyes as he sings, as his eyebrows rise and his eyes widen, and the smile on his face seems to be impossible to fade.

He strums his guitar, the sound bright and joyous, the chords filling the gaps in his song.

His foot taps the carpet floor and he moves his body to the beat of the song.

I laugh, his joy is contagious. In that moment worries melt away and all is well with my soul.