Prompt 248. Swimming Lessons

& Sol Guy on calling your father

Hi friend,

Earlier this week, I traveled to the south of France with my dad for a little self-styled writing retreat we’ve been calling “Book Camp.” We’re meeting up with my mom and brother later to visit family in Switzerland, and with my husband Jon, who has a handful of European performances coming up. But for now, it’s just the two of us, working on book proposals each morning and diving into the sea in the afternoon. Every day my dad kisses me on the forehead and says, “I can’t believe it. You’re healthy, we’re in France, let’s go swimming.”

My dad is a child of the Mediterranean, and I must have inherited those genes, because we both feel most at home beside these cerulean waters. The other day, we were eating lunch at a café on the beach, and he told me about coming to Nice as a young man on one of his first trips outside of Tunisia. Our waiter was an Algerian guy named Nabil, and he began speaking Arabic to us, calling my dad baba, meaning “father.”

We’re staying in a little house up on the hillside, and to get down to the beach every day, we have to descend what seems like ten thousand little stone steps. Only a couple of months ago, my dad had knee replacement surgery, and it’s still healing. Nabil noticed his scar, put his hand on my dad’s knee, then without being asked, brought a bag of ice. I used my scarf to secure it in place. To tend to and worry about my dad after so many months of him worrying about and tending to me—it felt like a welcome shift.

Yesterday, when my dad and I went swimming, we ventured a pretty far distance—farther out than we’d been before—and floated around for a while. The water was so beautiful, I can’t even describe how beautiful, how calm and clear, the bluest blue, and so deep. If I can’t see the bottom, I’m usually afraid, imagining the creatures (some real, some fantastical) lurking below. But there floating with my dad, I was at peace. Suddenly I felt like I was on the other side of everything that happened last year—not necessarily forever, but at least for right now.

I’ve been describing this time since my leukemia relapse as drowning practice, like I’m struggling to keep my head above water, struggling to gulp air, struggling to glimpse a horizon. But yesterday, I had the complete opposite feeling. I had a sense of calm and confidence and strength. Learning to swim in the ocean of not knowing—this is my constant work—that line kept coming back to me. I’ve far from mastered it, but yesterday, basking in my father’s native waters with him, I felt like I knew how.

And now onto today’s guest essayist, my friend and the brilliant artist, Sol Guy, who is one of my teachers in these swimming lessons. Sol is one of the wisest people I’ve ever met, and so honoring of everyone he meets—of our stories, our ancestry, our forefathers and foremothers. He has a mystic quality that allows him to make space for complicated stories and legacies, to meet them with love. Here on Father’s Day, which also happens to be Sol’s late father’s birthday (and the eve of my father’s 75th—joyeux anniversaire, Papa Hédi!), I’m so honored to share his words with you.

Sending love, 

Suleika

Some items of note—

• On Friday, I sent out the latest installment of Dear Susu, where I responded to “Heartbroken Friend,” who survived cancer, then lost a close friend, and doesn’t know how to move on. As usual, I’m in awe of the grace and wisdom that shows up in the comments section. You can find the question, my answer, and the gorgeous discussion from the community here.

• We’re only one week out from our next meeting of the Hatch, our virtual creative hour for paid subscribers—that’s Sunday, June 25, from 1-2 pm ET. You’ll receive an email with everything you need to join the day before. We hope to see you there!

Prompt 248. Have You Called Your Father Today? by Sol Guy

I miss calling my father. I used to call him in the early mornings and late at night. I used to call him from police stations looking for a ride. I used to call him to share my ideas and see if he would support them. Sometimes, I would call just to hear his voice. In my memory, I called my father often when he was alive. I called him even more after he was gone. In both cases, he always answered, always listened intently, and offered me guidance that felt timeless. It took me a long time to hear the wisdom tucked between the silences in his responses, and even longer to hear his voice after he died.

It’s been more than twenty years since my father passed, and it took almost that long for me to start calling him, to start listening to him again. I made a film about my family called The Death of My Two Fathers, based on the VHS tapes my father recorded in the last year of his life. In the film there’s a line that says, “What we don’t heal, what we don’t confront, we pass on.” It’s only in hindsight that I realize how many of my choices mirrored the choices of my father. The things I did not confront, I relived.

However, life is not just linear, so when I look at my father now, I see a complex man—a man who lived and loved hard. A man who had five children with three women over the course of his life. But each time he became a father, he was a different man, a growing man, a more refined version of himself. It reminds me of a quote from the mystics that says, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river, and he's not the same man.”

I often wish he were around so I could ask him how being a father changed for him over time. In many ways my conversations with my father continue into the liminal space, between life and death, through the vehicle of my memories and imagination. Today, I ask you to lean into love, to feel your feelings, and to take your chance to say what’s on your heart. Did you call your father today?

Your prompt for the week:

What is one thing you haven’t said to your father that you would like to say? What has kept you from saying these words to him? Whether your father is alive, has passed or is otherwise no longer in your life, write him a letter, telling him what's on your heart.

If you’d like, you can post your response in the comments section, in our Facebook group, or on Instagram by tagging @theisolationjournals.

Today’s Contributor—

Sol Guy believes we change and shape our world through the stories we tell. An award-winning musician, writer, and filmmaker, Sol was the co-creator, producer and host of the groundbreaking MTV/Nat Geo series 4REAL, the producer of Inside Out, and the former creative director of Tribeca Enterprises, including the film festival, Tribeca Productions, and the Tribeca Film Institute (TFI). He continues producing across multiple creative disciplines while seeking and supporting alternative models of creative practice that prioritize the artist, the people, and the planet’s well-being. You can watch his latest film, The Death of my Two Fathers, on PBS.

For more paid subscriber benefits see—

• Heartbroken Friend, the latest installment of Dear Susu, where I answer that eternal question: “How do I move on?”

• On the Ancestor Who Loved You, our notes from the Hatch where we read an excerpt of Ross Gay’s “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude” and wrote to those generous humans who came before us

• Writing Ourselves Home and Whole, a video reply of my Studio Visit with Nadia Owusu, the award-winning author of the memoir Aftershocks, where we talked about the journal as creative source material, writing your way through trauma, and how memoir can be a radical act of reclaiming the self