I Walk In Your Name

     Much like myself, my father struggles with issues surrounding mental health. While he himself is not gone, his presence is not the same as it was when I was a little girl. He lives about 12 minutes away from me, but we still only see each other in short periods of time between much longer intervals. Cancelled plans and unspoken difficulties litter our relationship where admiration and understanding once stood between us. At first, I expected myself to walk through the eyes of my late grandmother as she used to be the woman who always held compassion for the struggles of both me and my father respectively. She was the person who knew how to navigate through these things. To my surprise, as I walked through the rather large antique shop placed on Speedway, I was undeniably moving through the space through the eyes of my father, reflecting on our memories and times together in the past that pushed me to be who I am today. 

Closet Spaces

    My dad is the father of five different girls, Andrea, Deanna, Isabella, Lucia and I- Marianna. Well, seven if you want to include my dads dogs, Pepper and Olive. We all lived together in this woman dominated household, he was the only man that moved through the space. Our closets were filled with what you might traditionally find in a family dynamic akin to ours. Girl's clothing of different styles and sizes- traded, stolen and had handed down between us sisters. Often messy and crowded in our shared rooms, but everyone knew whose was whose. We all had something of our dads. Deanna and Andrea liked the room and coziness of his many sweatshirts. Bella and Lucia opted for his electronics: iPad, headphones and chargers. I liked both of these things too, but unlike my sisters, I also shared interest in his books. He would often lend them to me or at least, tell me about them. Some history book with ideas and theories that spoke to us. We especially loved astronomy together. Talking about them, or staying up very late to find each other reading was when we noticed ourselves in each other the most. I know my father wanted boys in the family, but I wonder if he appreciates what even the smallest spaces of our home felt like back then. 

 Your Electric Guitar

    Music is where me and my father would be able to see each other in the past. Now, it is about the only place we are still able to connect. When he is feeling light with the air of nostalgia, he brings up the fond memory of playing the few sweet beginning chords of "Sweet Home Alabama" that he learned in that apartment complex we lived in after my parents initially divorced. Me and Andrea would jump on our beds, scream and laugh and ask him to play it again and again and again. He doesn't play the electric guitar anymore. He's opted for acoustic, the other guitar shoved somewhere in his closet or maybe even the neglected garage. He still plays for me, with the beginning of "Dust in the Wind". I learned how to sing it on my own time so I could sing along, if he ever pulled it out again. He plays the guitar again when he watches the videos from my performances or gigs. I miss it. 

And All the Places You've Been 

    Before the worst of my fathers struggles with depression, he's been a force that I heavily looked up to and was inspired by. He made me proud of all the things that made myself me, because they came from someone like him. We are from Ecuador. He went to medical school in North Carolina for new opportunities and eventually worked as a successful Orthopedic surgeon in New Zealand, Oregon and Arizona. He even created a charity foundation called the "Because we Care Foundation" which offered medical supplies and groups of surgeons who would travel to the rural areas of Ecuador providing health care, surgeries and replacements for free. My dad would tell me all about his stories. What he has done, what he wants to do and how it is hard for him but he loves it. Now, looking back at these things left him with a more melancholy note than I was used to seeing from him. He asks me sometimes, "What did I do in my life to deserve all of these awful things happening to me?" It makes me cry. All of those wonderful places and goals he has accomplished are covered by an overwhelming plaster of anguish, as if saying "none of those things you did ever really mattered." I'm afraid it has left him the perspective that his life is one in which he is trapped. If only he knew the true beauty of the collage he has created through his existence alone. I hope he knows how much I still admire him, where he is, where he has been. And how much of myself is still akin to him. 

Map of where I've been: