Salmon Cakes

and how to fall

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Print of a painting by one of my favorite artists, Maggie B. French, of the Southern marshes.

My dad has only dropped me once.

Childhood was spent swinging from my dad’s arms, getting thrown into the air and caught softly every time. We played a game called “Flying Juli” in which he lay on his back and hoisted me up into the air on his feet. I spread my arms out to either side like wings and made airplane engine noises between bursts of laughter.

And through all of this, he never dropped me.

Later, when I started horseback riding lessons, which my mom watched through her fingers, only taking her hands away from her face to bite her nails, my dad taught me how to fall. We practiced tumbling and jiu jitsu falls in the living room. Always tuck your chin to your chest, he would say as he laid out the couch cushions across the carpet so I could practice.

And through all of this, he never dropped me.

When I was a teenager, full of pent up emotions and ready to burst, he never told me to stop talking. Or acted like what I had to say meant nothing, even though it so often did. He listened to everything I had to say on the back porch with a paper bag of unshelled peanuts in one hand and an empty bag for the broken shells in the other.

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