Legacy

In “Legacy” you quote an old gypsy saying: “You have to dig deep to bury your Daddy.”

I suggest we must dig deep to free poor Daddy from the inner prison in which we force him to live. It is because we believe Daddy “died” that we keep him imprisoned and alive within self; the fact is that “Daddy” is alive and well and moving on/in those new experiences that are specific to “him,” or “her,” depending on the nature of the new experiences.

You write: “But he never gave up imagining he had something to teach me; in nearly everything I wrote, he found fault.”

And so you have revealed to yourself the source of his problems, for it is glorious to seek perfection, but it is paralyzing to sit and bemoan the fact that perfection has not been achieved. Producing a perfect wheel is better than producing an imperfect wheel; producing an imperfect wheel is better than not producing a wheel. Your father preferred to walk rather than ride on imperfect wheels, and so he was limited by his own judgements.

You write: “When I tell myself the words aren’t good enough — which is my harsh judgement about nearly everything I write — is that my voice, or his?”

When you no longer judge your father you will release him from your inner prison, and in so doing stop using the same judgements against yourself — and your work.