heather and i ran into a woman who attends my father’s church at the mall today.  “you don’t look anything like your father,” she said, “but you have your mother’s smile.”

i don’t know how to respond to that.

to some, this might only be the most fleeting of thoughts; but my identity, from my own perspective, is so tightly woven round the husk of my youth that a threat upon any part of it is a threat upon all of it.

i see it, when i look at pictures.  there is a face that transmutes between frames.  the father becomes the son and the son becomes the father.  it is there.

yet with increasing frequency, i hear surprise at the comparison.  several times in the last month: “why, you don’t look anything alike.”

what does that mean?  anything?  nothing?

we want roots.  i want roots.  i suspect the roots want roots but can’t, and therein lies the rub.