Acceptance

Hone and spread your spirit till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the nearest puff.

I wrote that Annie Dillard quote on a dandelion poster and carried it from my Californian dorm to my study abroad home.

Our law firm is closing its doors after half a century. My father started the practice in the seventies. He told me stories of wandering from town to town in his twenties, a fresh graduate looking for employment, and finding refuge with a country lawyer, sheep and all. He quickly figured out how to search a title and earn his keep. The lawyer, who later became a judge, was a gentle benefactor. When my dad decided to spread his wings, it was with his mentor's blessing.

My dad and I are alike in many ways. We prefer the solitude of the mountains, books, and long runs. We are quiet, calm observers. We are unsure of our talents but pour our hearts and souls into our endeavors. We love writing letters and exchanged them weekly, if not daily, first when I went off to summer camp and later in college. Our hikes together are among the brightest memories of my childhood. As a young adult, I told every boy I dated that my father was the person I most admired in the world. I tried to emulate him: I explored the wilderness alone, went out west, trekked north to Alaska. I held his pro bono legacy in my heart with pride. His opinion mattered the most.

We both harbored dreams of being a park ranger and we both abandoned the mystery of the woods for the staidness of the law. He never asked me to, but I returned home to practice with him after I felt I had sufficiently proved myself, or at least tried to. He is thirty-five years older than I and was beginning the process of retirement. The world of private practice had changed drastically from when he started. I couldn't sit around and read a book and wait for clients to come in like he did. I couldn't afford health insurance without serious sweat equity. The typewriters and old desktops I learned to practice my typing speed on were replaced.

I was proud to go to the Registry of Deeds like he did, meeting the people anew as an adult instead of as a small child accompanying her father. I heard stories of my father's quirkiness and extremely dry sense of humor. I met his colleagues and developed close friendships with some of them. I walked to the post office with him on spring mornings, taking a shortcut through the local insurance company's parking lot. We'd walk the half a mile home for lunch at my childhood home.

Things changed. He neared retirement, I became pregnant with my first child, and larger family dynamics created a new tension in our relationship. I was assertive, with the brash confidence of a young adult. I had different opinions and strong emotions. I felt abandoned and betrayed, and I think he felt similarly. Most of all, I felt a bone-deep sense of having disappointed him. I had to handle professional conflict, and I did it differently from him. In one of my first closings, a buyer brought a plastic grocery bag full of stappled bills. I was at a loss and felt my naivete in sharp relief. I was clumsy and too quick to be offended. People spoke of my father as an underdog, a real estate maverick who kept a low profile.

Now, as we close our firm doors and start a new chapter, I feel a heavy loss. The feelings of shame and disappointment have returned: I was not enough. I did not measure up, was not the young woman he used to be so proud of. I hurt him in my independence. I know, logically, that I must change, and things must continue to evolve. I am ever the late-bloomer, and I wonder if the friction between me and my father in my thirties is akin to what most people experience in their adolescence. I am forty now, and a hidden part of me still yearns for his approval. I want to be austere like the early Imagist poems of HD. I am not all sharp edges, though, not black and white, not austere like the mountains we used to climb. I am soft, and I cry a lot, sometimes even at work.

In middle school, my dad helped me edit a writing assignment. He was unintentionally ruthless with my excessive use of superlatives and adjectives: Don't use My Little Pony words! The shame I felt. Another time, I remember running through the woods surrounding the golf course one summer night in high school, my dad training me for cross-country. He was tougher than any coach I ever had: Make it hurt! I moved my anemic legs faster, my lungs desperate. It was exhilarating but never quite enough.

There are mellow memories, too. I remember how he would gently rub my back every morning to wake me up, sometimes singing a made-up song, always off-key. I remember him, one night as I was about to fall asleep, telling me -- so sincerely that the words seared themselves into my brain -- that I was remarkable and loved.

I want that closeness again, but as before, greater family dynamics make that seem almost impossible. Now, instead of running or hiking, he swims early in the morning at the neighboring city's indoor pool, complaining about the slowpokes in the masters' lane. Dad, I think. Jesus, give them a break. Not all 75 year olds are hard asses. I want to get to know him again before that feistiness fades. Perhaps the closing of the firm will help me tenderly close one chapter and invite a new one to start.