Sometimes I think I should have left this house when I had a chance, when my father died, when the marriage broke a few months later. But instead I decided to root here and heal in the place where everything stung. I've lived at this address for five and a half years, the same carpets and the same walls around me. Sometimes it is the heaven that I dream of, and sometimes it is the loneliest place I've ever been. Mostly, it is somewhere in-between.

My father died alone, in the middle of a road, on a cold day. And each November there comes a time when I remember him, not necessarily the anniversary of his death, but on some evening when the air is just right. I don't remember the moment I received the phone call, or the moment I told her, or the moment I bought the airline ticket. I remember only that he was alone and that he was cold.

By the time of his death, he'd already gone too far too long on his walk to the other side. He had no answers for me, no wisdom to teach the adult self that I had become. My father passed from workaholic to senile retiree in the blink of an eye. I remember a few things he taught me, some vague recollections, some scraps of stories, but most of it is a grey shadow.

When he was of sound mind, my father was a work powerhouse without any internal judging. He arrived home, ate dinner with the family, and went to his room with some coffee to watch the news. At nine o'clock, on the dot, he would turn out the lights and go to sleep. The rest of the family would remain awake until my mom went to her room, sometime nearing midnight. I remember many mornings waking well before dawn to the sound of my father leaving the house for an early start.

Weekends were all about my father and his many projects, outings and adventures, and humor. But it was those daily moments where child raising was occurring, during the news, after nine bells, getting ready for school. Though he would have hated me to speak it, and though his influence on my life is deep and profound, I am made of the generation of boys raised by women.

However, my father taught me how to sparkle, how to understand the one unspoken joke of existence. He also taught me that no amount of work was ever enough work, how work in itself can blunt the sharpness of feeling. I find the same dichotomy in myself. I am my own worst critic, my own naysayer, my abuser, and my cynic. And yet there's something here inside, an abounding joy and playfulness that cannot be contained.

When I infuse my path with freedom and passion, when I give myself the right balance of patience and determination, my life gets better. When I allow myself to be hurt or scared, I become stronger and braver. When I state that there are many things I'm still dealing with, I become better able to deal with them. When I admit I am very small, that I am tender and sometimes easily bruised, I can better see that we are all very small, that we are all very tender, and that our skin blushes blue and black in the same way. I can better see the boundary between our adult façade's proclamation of power and responsibility, and the heart that melts when hair is stroked and the words "Shh, it's all okay" are spoken in a whisper.

I want to be the man that my father was. I don't want to be the man that my father was. Mainly, I was to be the person I am as a result of him, to realize the difference between trying to be the person you want to be and can be, and trying to be the person you wish you were but aren't.

Lastly, I've felt mired in an avalanche of proposed change with almost no space to lean back and have a good laugh. I'm asking too much of myself and falling short rather than asking enough of myself and accomplishing it. So I propose to myself a very liberal paraphrase of a concept that the Zen master Basho communicated, or the life philosophy espoused by the John Lennon character in "Across the Universe", that it's not what I'm doing that is important, it's how I'm doing it.

I'm not sure my father would have understood Zen philosophy, and I know his disdain for the Beatles. But he did tell me one thing in a moment of candor I'll always remember. When confronted with it later in life, he first tried to deny saying it, and then sheepishly admitted it with some disappointed resignation that his thoughtful flight of fancy was obviously influencing my poetic and irresponsible ways. He said, "Find something you love and do it. Nothing is more important."

I miss the enjoyment of doing things in my life without the valuation of them. And that's where I have to return.