father's day

this is a recent photo of my dad on his trip to the friendship fest in Morocco

I was thinking today about Father's Day...thinking on some nice things about my dad. He will be out of town tomorrow, so we will be celebrating later. I want to do something nice for him, of course. Every year at this time I find myself trying to figure out how to best express my appreciation to him for all of his love, kindness and quiet, yet strong, support. I start asking questions like...will this nice leather backpack show my dad we love him, or, will this travel grooming kit really express my heartfelt appreaciation of him? I feel a little rediculous trying to find a gift that says what I feel. I guess I usually feel pretty comfortable, even confident, shopping for gifts for people. But things like anniversaries and father's and mother's day stop me in my tracks a little.
One of my favorite memories of my dad is a trip we took to New Mexico one summer...I think he was on tour with Rich at the time and, like most summers, we planned a vacation that coincided with dad's touring schedule. So that summer we vacationed in Taos, NM. One of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. High altitude and desert are a great combination...you can see the thunderstorms rolling in from miles and miles away....such a heavenly place....being able to see such a distance. Anyway, my dad decided that we would have a game on the trip of gathering hollyhock seed pods, as it just so happened that the flowers all around the town were going to seed while we were there. We plucked pods in secret, casually walking along...looking in a direction opposite our target flower and we would go in for the swipe. We would carefully place the newly plucked pod in our pocket. Taking care not to break the outer shell. They would be dried out later when we came home. I remember being excited to spot an unusual color of hollyhock, one we had not yet seen, and harvest a couple of pods...envisioning how excited my mom would be about the color. At the end of the week we laid out our collection on the hotel room desk, proud of our collection and each of us girls wanting to be the winner in this game of sorts. A game of hunting seeds, a game of a creative father posessing that childlike wonder for life. Those hollyhock seeds are still around...and I look forward to the next hollyhock summer.