Blank Page
by Jim Murdoch
Genre: Memoir
Swearwords: None.
Description: A father has a few words of advice for his daughter.
_____________________________________________________________________
The future as a blank page—it’s a popular enough metaphor—and I thought I knew what my dad was going to go on about the moment he opened his mouth. Why, I’ve no idea, because, predictably, and, in that way that endears people to him, he flipped the whole illustration on its head and left me gobsmacked. Or am I just seeing him with a daughter’s eyes?
“The future,” he began, before pausing for effect no sooner than he’d started, “is like a blank piece of paper and there’s nothing more foreboding than being faced with a clean, white sheet of paper when you’re not sure what you’re expected to write. But who says you’ve got to write anything? You could draw on it, scribble on it, fold it up and put it in your pocket, rip it to shreds or make an origami water bomb out of it. It’s your future—you’re the one who has to live in it when everyone has long run out of remarks to pass about it. Remember that.”
He’s a clever old thing, my dad, and that wisdom rests on a pile of mistakes a mile high. “We learn from our mistakes,” he once told me, “which is why I’m a genius.” He’s not a genius but I do tend to listen when he goes into wise old owl mode. It doesn’t happen too often these days and I know these are some of the moments I’ll go all smooshy about when he’s gone. I’m not so young and inexperienced I don’t know that; I am, after all, my father’s daughter. The difference is, I just know about stuff—he’s been there, bought the T-shirt and outgrown it. I wish I could pinch that the way I do his shirts.
The catalyst for these remarks was one of life’s little inevitabilities. We all knew it was coming and we all looked forward to it and dreaded it in equal measures at different times: I was moving out. I’m twenty-teen, female and proud of it, gainfully employed, voraciously opinionated and up to my armpits in debt, I have been deflowered (on several occasions just to make damn sure), have voted, thrown up in the middle of Sauchiehall Street, never been further South than Blackpool and—God be praised!—haven’t inherited my father’s eyebrows though I do sport my mother’s buttocks and they look no less fetching on me than they did on her at my age (I’ve seen the photos).
So why am I moving out? That—to use one of my father’s favourite expressions—is a good question which deserves a good answer. It’s not a trick question but the only thing I can come up with is: Because! That isn’t even a decent excuse let alone a good reason, but it’s about the size of it. It’s not that I’ve not thought about it but there was no one single event that started the ball rolling. No one’s fallen out with anyone. I don’t even have a boyfriend at the moment for them to try and not hate. I began menstruating and grew breasts—that made me (biologically at least) a woman. I got a job that paid more than peanuts and that made me solvent (for the first month at least) so I guess having my own space will at least make me independent. I just don’t know what I’m going to do with all the freedom. Save it for a rainy day? Maybe. That would’ve been my Gran’s approach to the problem. She was even wiser than my dad and she “didn’t buy rubbish” either. It’s the not having that holds the real thrills in this life, it’s the wanting: shopping is to die for but clothes just mean washing and ironing so I know the flat’s just going to end up being a place to clean and tidy—and paint purple—but it will also be a space where I can be me. Yes, of course I’m scared silly but I’m also excited in a way I’ve never been before. I’m sure Dad would have exactly the right word for how I’m feeling right now, the perfect word, and why shouldn’t he?
To be fair, my parents never imposed any heavy duty burdens on me. They didn’t preach at me or make me join the Brownies, their curfews were merciful and my taste in music—and its volume—was rarely commented on. They just knew more than me—and understood more than me—and sometimes that got under my skin. It was my dad, typically, that told me I wasn’t me. I didn’t understand then but I think it’s time I gave it a go. There’s this collection of photographs in the unit, pictures of me from an infant up, all these versions of me staring wide-eyed out of their frames. All of them were me but I don’t know who that is anymore.
“Of course you’re you—who else would you be?—but the you you are now is really only a trainee you. You’re like a bonsai just now. A bonsai is a beautiful thing but it’s still stunted no matter how we poeticise its loveliness. Never forget that Eden wasn’t a window box. Nature can’t be contained. Your life as it is just now is a very comfortable armchair, it creaks in all the places you expect it to and sags where you’re comfortable with sags but there’s no room in it to grow.”
I always felt, after he said things like that, that I should rush away and write it all down for posterity but I could never quite get his tone right nor could I remember everything and, of course, he never prepared you for what was to come. His father, so Dad told me, had a habit of taking a series of ever-deepening breaths just prior to doling out his wise words of wisdom but Dad never did. He’d be in the kitchen drying the dishes and humming the same fours bars of some tune over and over again, I’d come in, put the kettle on and the next thing I’d know he’d be winding up some spiel on the meaning of life and asking if I wanted a fresh cuppa. I’ll miss him.
Of course I’ll visit, and I’ll have them over—which means I’ll have to cook and I’ll be a bag of nerves but they’ll expect it and be so offended if I don’t—and I’ll phone but I know I’ll never go back to stay. I cried when I told Dad. I knew I would. I thought he’d be more upset but he handled it with his usual stone-face and a cuddle of just the right intensity and duration. I do wish he’d smile more. One of these days I’ll shock him—maybe by turning out normal after all: something to look forward to at that.
Swearwords: None.
Description: A father has a few words of advice for his daughter.
_____________________________________________________________________
The future as a blank page—it’s a popular enough metaphor—and I thought I knew what my dad was going to go on about the moment he opened his mouth. Why, I’ve no idea, because, predictably, and, in that way that endears people to him, he flipped the whole illustration on its head and left me gobsmacked. Or am I just seeing him with a daughter’s eyes?
“The future,” he began, before pausing for effect no sooner than he’d started, “is like a blank piece of paper and there’s nothing more foreboding than being faced with a clean, white sheet of paper when you’re not sure what you’re expected to write. But who says you’ve got to write anything? You could draw on it, scribble on it, fold it up and put it in your pocket, rip it to shreds or make an origami water bomb out of it. It’s your future—you’re the one who has to live in it when everyone has long run out of remarks to pass about it. Remember that.”
He’s a clever old thing, my dad, and that wisdom rests on a pile of mistakes a mile high. “We learn from our mistakes,” he once told me, “which is why I’m a genius.” He’s not a genius but I do tend to listen when he goes into wise old owl mode. It doesn’t happen too often these days and I know these are some of the moments I’ll go all smooshy about when he’s gone. I’m not so young and inexperienced I don’t know that; I am, after all, my father’s daughter. The difference is, I just know about stuff—he’s been there, bought the T-shirt and outgrown it. I wish I could pinch that the way I do his shirts.
The catalyst for these remarks was one of life’s little inevitabilities. We all knew it was coming and we all looked forward to it and dreaded it in equal measures at different times: I was moving out. I’m twenty-teen, female and proud of it, gainfully employed, voraciously opinionated and up to my armpits in debt, I have been deflowered (on several occasions just to make damn sure), have voted, thrown up in the middle of Sauchiehall Street, never been further South than Blackpool and—God be praised!—haven’t inherited my father’s eyebrows though I do sport my mother’s buttocks and they look no less fetching on me than they did on her at my age (I’ve seen the photos).
So why am I moving out? That—to use one of my father’s favourite expressions—is a good question which deserves a good answer. It’s not a trick question but the only thing I can come up with is: Because! That isn’t even a decent excuse let alone a good reason, but it’s about the size of it. It’s not that I’ve not thought about it but there was no one single event that started the ball rolling. No one’s fallen out with anyone. I don’t even have a boyfriend at the moment for them to try and not hate. I began menstruating and grew breasts—that made me (biologically at least) a woman. I got a job that paid more than peanuts and that made me solvent (for the first month at least) so I guess having my own space will at least make me independent. I just don’t know what I’m going to do with all the freedom. Save it for a rainy day? Maybe. That would’ve been my Gran’s approach to the problem. She was even wiser than my dad and she “didn’t buy rubbish” either. It’s the not having that holds the real thrills in this life, it’s the wanting: shopping is to die for but clothes just mean washing and ironing so I know the flat’s just going to end up being a place to clean and tidy—and paint purple—but it will also be a space where I can be me. Yes, of course I’m scared silly but I’m also excited in a way I’ve never been before. I’m sure Dad would have exactly the right word for how I’m feeling right now, the perfect word, and why shouldn’t he?
To be fair, my parents never imposed any heavy duty burdens on me. They didn’t preach at me or make me join the Brownies, their curfews were merciful and my taste in music—and its volume—was rarely commented on. They just knew more than me—and understood more than me—and sometimes that got under my skin. It was my dad, typically, that told me I wasn’t me. I didn’t understand then but I think it’s time I gave it a go. There’s this collection of photographs in the unit, pictures of me from an infant up, all these versions of me staring wide-eyed out of their frames. All of them were me but I don’t know who that is anymore.
“Of course you’re you—who else would you be?—but the you you are now is really only a trainee you. You’re like a bonsai just now. A bonsai is a beautiful thing but it’s still stunted no matter how we poeticise its loveliness. Never forget that Eden wasn’t a window box. Nature can’t be contained. Your life as it is just now is a very comfortable armchair, it creaks in all the places you expect it to and sags where you’re comfortable with sags but there’s no room in it to grow.”
I always felt, after he said things like that, that I should rush away and write it all down for posterity but I could never quite get his tone right nor could I remember everything and, of course, he never prepared you for what was to come. His father, so Dad told me, had a habit of taking a series of ever-deepening breaths just prior to doling out his wise words of wisdom but Dad never did. He’d be in the kitchen drying the dishes and humming the same fours bars of some tune over and over again, I’d come in, put the kettle on and the next thing I’d know he’d be winding up some spiel on the meaning of life and asking if I wanted a fresh cuppa. I’ll miss him.
Of course I’ll visit, and I’ll have them over—which means I’ll have to cook and I’ll be a bag of nerves but they’ll expect it and be so offended if I don’t—and I’ll phone but I know I’ll never go back to stay. I cried when I told Dad. I knew I would. I thought he’d be more upset but he handled it with his usual stone-face and a cuddle of just the right intensity and duration. I do wish he’d smile more. One of these days I’ll shock him—maybe by turning out normal after all: something to look forward to at that.
About the Author
Jim Murdoch was born in Glasgow and despite the fact he’s lived all his life in Scotland and occasionally writes in dialect, he does not have even a slight Scottish accent. He began writing poetry in the seventies and continues to this day. Somehow, in the early nineties, he found himself writing novels—five completed to date—but it wasn’t until the turn of the century he found the need to actually have a go at a short story. He has, however, written enough now to warrant a collection, Making Sense. You can read further examples on his website. He also maintains the literary blog The Truth About Lies.