Boys and men saved my life

But how can I see them as more than panaceas?

Photo by Lukas Eggers on Unsplash

I have a complicated relationship with men. I love, respect, and even revere them, and yet — disdain them. At the surface level, I just love men. I love their look, smell, and feel. I love their swagger, and the glint in the eye. I love catching their attention. I love how weak they are in the face of their own desire. I love… their vulnerability.

My father was one such man. He was gentle and kind. He collected dolls from all over the world. He pretended they were for us, his daughters. But, he adored them, and when he died a few years ago, one of the things I dismantled and carted away was a sort of whatnot in the corner of his room full of his favorite dolls.

My father collected art. He loved art and always wanted to visit Florence, and one of my regrets in life is that I didn’t have my act together enough to take him to Florence. I did, however, inherit the art he collected. The piece he called “bump on a log” which was a lonely silhouetted figure portrayed in vibrant, multicolor, staccato stokes of paint against a kind of eternal-night background. It was a play on words. He called us, his kids, “bumps,” so the “bump on a log” was a kid. One of his kids.

I adored my dad when I was little, when I was older, when I was a teen, when I was in my…