Finding Leadville Chapter 18: (un)Common Ground

The author and her dad, mid-marvel

The week before the 100, my dad visited me in Colorado. 

When I was a child, we'd have our day adventures: an afternoon at Home Depot, a fishing trip on a canoe, a hike on the 7 Sisters Trail. Over the years into my early adulthood, he had a way of showing up for the big things: moving me into my college dorm and getting me situated in New York City when I got a job with Nike.

Yet one day, like the cabin's water spigot, access to my dad turned off. Between college and adulthood, I faded off into a life of my own. I blossomed into my own person, unfurling into all the roles of who I was outside of daughter and sister. I was a runner, a coach, a partner, and an auntie. I was a mentor, a colleague, and a pet parent. The role of father's daughter sputtered and stalled out, undernourished. We hugged at Christmas when I visited. Every so often, he answered the phone before my mom could when I called to check in. Space naturally formed between us, a cavity, a lifetime of words left unsaid. I held my hurts and hopes to myself, my innermost world held in bubble wrap and securely locked away. I still felt small in his presence.

So, when he said he was going to fly into Denver, rent a car, book a hotel nearby in Fairplay, all the week before my big race -- I was at first taken aback. I wanted to keep my pre-race week light, bright, and without complication. I almost said no. I looked to the trees for answers, tossed questions to the birds like seeds. The mourning dove and the dark-eyed junco, chickadee and robin, all seemed to offer one thing: allow.

Allow as an opportunity to try something hard and see what I was made of in the process. Allow as an opportunity to heal something in our relationship. Simply allow.

And allow I did.

I took him out to my favorite town near Leadville, Buena Vista. The town center was a few blocks of old western road lined with antique shops, restaurants, outdoor goods shops, and mountain wear boutiques. The sun blazed between momentary downpours of temperamental stormy weather. I booked us an afternoon adventure at a hot spring, complete with a cold plunge area in a mountain stream. We met a few other runners there who were racing that weekend, and I listened to my dad crow about his beautiful daughter who was going to race it, too.

"I'll be cheering her on!"

I wrangled in real time with my feelings as I moved from hot soak to the gushing chill of the cold-water plunge. Warmth from his attention, words of affirmation, a sudden show of support. Frozen with a shiver from the silence of everything left unsaid. Hot and cold.

Walking through town, he watched me as I laughed at little kids running through a public sprinkler. With tangled hair, hands splayed upward as their bare feet slapped the wet pavement, their energy was palpable. They were the essence of what I wanted to feel during my race: all play and presence and delight. I turned to tell my dad this, to pop a champagne truth, when he interrupted, "You'd make such a great mom."

A mother or a nun.

I remembered.

I swallowed my insights, and the bubble wrap tightened, somehow recorking the champagne feeling. We got into the rental car, and I said plainly with a shrug, "I decided to do something else with my life." I was back up in the tree house, alone, waiting for dad to notice I was missing from the moment. Instead, he turned the car key. I looked out the window. The moment passed us by.

We drove toward the nearby hiking trails in silence watching the storm roll past, the clouds a charcoal smudge across the sky.

Rain fell. Then stopped. Then fell again. Unpredictable bouts.

The author and her dad out at lunch on his visit.

When we parked at the trailhead the storm had blown in another direction and a bluebird sky canopied us. A gravel road forked ahead: to the right were craggy slopes and to the left was a sparkling lake full of reflection. I inhaled the scenery. I imagined my younger self with us, tangled hair and barefoot. I imagined taking her hand in my heart and gave it a squeeze of affection. Together, we walked into the forest with my dad.

Then we all did what we did best together: we marveled.

This.

This is holy.

Across the lake a bride gripped onto her groom, a photographer capturing their moment. A yellow warbler sang from the aspens. Mossy rocks emerged from the water's edge and ripples nearby gave away the location of a rainbow trout.

The author's dad in majestic Colorado

Our kind of holy, I reminded the little girl I had brought with us. Wide-eyed and delighted, she ran off the trail to explore the remnants of a ghost mill still standing in the wood. Dad watched without a word. I felt his reverence.

As we walked up an incline toward an alpine waterfall, he began to talk. Bit by bit, he shared about his own father. How his dad hit him when his collar was crooked, an undeserving punishment for a normal kid thing. I'm not sure why he started telling me his stories. Perhaps it was his way of honoring the moment or recognizing the importance of connection through storytelling. I know that I can barely count on one hand the number of times my dad was vulnerable and real with me. But here he was, now, in his own way. He was sharing with me.

My dad told me he wasn’t loved in the way he needed -- not so much those words, but in sentiment. For the first time, I could see him as a little boy who grew into an adult. An adult who claimed his identity and values through a religion. Who had a strong idea of what good values looked like and imposed that upon his children the ways he knew how.

Not so unlike me, I thought. I'd become an adult who claimed my identity and values from my community of runners and other like-minded souls.

“See me,” he seemed to say. “Respect me. Love me."

The little girl in me murmured it back, “See me. Respect me. Love me.” 

We hiked the short path along the trees, the perfect mountain lake to one side. Hands on hips, we moved in adoration of the sun, her heat on our exposed faces. We watched as a mama goat and her kid wandered nearby, allowing us to come close. Marveling together, we soaked in one of the only dialects that we shared: appreciation of Mother Nature and all the possibilities within Her kingdom. 

We speak two languages, both a request for respect in different dialects. But, as I listened to his language, the way his tongue formed words, phrases, and well-recited tunes, I realized: Maybe I can forgive. Maybe I can release my hold on blame and expectation. Maybe we can heal.

I drove him back to his hotel, readying to say goodbye. I was eager to slip into my pre-race mindset. The 100 mile start line was two sleeps away. 

I lingered for a few moments, eating cheese and crackers as he sipped red wine. We called a few of my siblings, their faces filling up the phone screen with wide smiles as they answered. It created enough space between me and dad – there was no more room for truth, no more space for one-on-one connection, when wine and phone calls where in the room.

This is okay, I thought. This is all we have.  

We hugged at the doorway, “Thanks for coming, Dad.” 

I stepped out into the parking lot at the Motel and looked up. The sky was streaked with pink and purple majesty, a celebration of… something. I patted my heart, “I love you Barbara,” I whispered, thankful my inner child joined us for the day.

As I got into my car and closed the door, he suddenly came hustling out the side door.

In hand he had a small plastic bottle, a tiny cross scrawled in black sharpie on it. I rolled the window down, soft music playing from the dusty speakers. 

“You haven’t gotten your blessing,” he said.

We all say "I love you" in our own way. And like Ben, my dad rolls with Jesus.

He had his serious church face on, the one I remembered well from childhood. Dad was regularly involved every Sunday. Most often it was up in the choir, singing proudly through the crackling mic. Otherwise, he was alongside the priest handing out the holy wafers or sips of wine at Communion. Wherever he stood, he had a downcast, pious face, as though Michelangelo carved my father right then and there as a devout disciple. It was jarring to me as a child. I’d watch him, perplexed, knowing that this face could contort with red emotion. As an adult, I now know he was speaking to his God. I now could see the complexity of sides of him: Warm and then cold, storming and then clear skies. Nuance.

This is how he says I love you, I inhaled. I thought back to how he took interest in the race and the enormity of this moment in my life. How we hiked together, laughed together, and enjoyed the landscape of Colorado together. I had shown him my cabin and the little town I inhabited. And at one point, I drove him to the base of Hope Pass, pointing to the clearing between mountain ridges and said, "I'll be climbing up and over that this weekend." I wanted him to be proud of me, as all children do.

He pressed his thumb to the bottle before transporting it to the top of my head. I didn’t close my eyes or look down. Instead, I watched him. He shut his eyes, bowed his head and traced a cross on my forehead. Murmuring a blessing for my safety and success in the race, he called upon Jesus. I felt my little girl self retreating to a dark corner inside of me.

“Thanks, dad,” I gave a half wave and a tight-lipped smile as he walked back to his hotel room.

Then, without thinking, I swept my hand up to my skin and wiped the moisture away. 

My body didn't want to comply. I didn't want to give an inch of my body away anymore, even to acquiesce to how my dad loves. I wanted my little girl self to feel seen and tended to, instead.

Disrespectful, I could hear a voice of authority tell me from my right shoulder.

It's your body, said the grown-up Barbara to the young girl inside of me.

Thank you, she whispered back.

We don’t always get love in the ways we need it, when we need it most.

I felt the familiar ache for him to pull me into a genuine hug and tell me how proud he was of me. How strong I was. To look me in the eyes and tell me how incredibly lucky he was to have me as his daughter. Instead, I got a blessing from a religion that was never mine. Hi way of saying, "I love you."

This is okay, I thought. This is all we have.  

I drove away into my own, quiet life. I turned up O-Town on the speakers for my younger self. Windows down, the cool air rushed in, and my hair tangled.

I had a race to run in just two days.

And I knew I was going to make such a good runner. 

Holy. This is holy.