Insulation

I recently purchased a dusty green Stanley Thermos that I can use to transport my hot Joe from the cabin to the lake on those cool, summer dawns. The Thermos caught my eye at Target and made me think of two things: Steve Martin singing, “I’m picking out a Thermos for you,” and my father. My father’s Thermos normally accompanied a cigarette, and as a child I surmised that these were props used by men. If you were going to be a man, you needed a Thermos.

I broke that Thermos in this morning as I trudged down to the lake, beating the sun to the shore. I’ll admit: I did feel tangibly more manly as I casted my Rappala toward the center of Wynne Lake. I also caught two walleye off the dock and nearly a third — as I pulled the crank bait out of the water, a walleye jumped out of the red tinge in an unsuccessful last-chance grasp of the hook. I owe the morning’s abundant riches to my new friend, the cylindrical, metal Steve McQueen.

Of course, the Thermos really contains no mystical man-powers, but I do hold it – figuratively – as a symbol of strength. When I think of my relationship with my father it is fuzzy at best. I try to find the positives, like the thought of that Thermos, and remember the “him” I thought of as a young child: big, strong, a protector, present. As the years proceeded, all of those attributes faded. My dad was no longer a Thermos to me. His influence dissipated like the steam from my piping-hot coffee poured into the metal cap/cup and sitting on the dock.

I had a conversation with my massage therapist this week that delved into childhoods. When I asked her about her parents, she told me that her father was no longer in her life. “He didn’t know how to forge a long-distance relationship,” she admitted. She learned to accept that and move forward, even though it meant her own children would never know their grandfather. I told her I knew exactly how that felt.

How do I feel? Like a Thermos. I’ve built a puncture-resistant exterior. On the inside I’m insulated. The thoughts and feelings have been stored up for years like a time capsule buried behind an elementary school.

I’m not here to disrespect my father. There is no joy in that. But I need to process my relationship with him to understand how it has carved me, the stains it left behind. I have a 2-year-old son now (currently pressed against me on the couch and watching “Bob the Builder”), a brain wracked with PTSD and built up with the residue of the inability to be comfortable and trust. The bridge collapse did not do that, it was the last domino to fall. It started with a preschool me and a father who walked away with his Thermos in tow.