As I stand there, taking in the scene around me, I feel surreptitiously with my right foot the step under the water next to where I am standing. Young men close-dance with other young men around the pool. I beg my dad, so he takes off my clothes and sets me up on the second of the steps leading into the water and instructs me to keep still.įrom my concrete perch, I watch as my father’s friends cavort in various states of nakedness. Through the smooth surface I can see the shiny aqua-green tiles at the pool’s bottom sparkle as they reflect the sun. I don’t yet know how to swim, but I want to be in the water. Music plays from speakers as tall as I am. Then he leads us out onto a large pool deck where a punch bowl, chips, and small sandwiches are laid out on wicker and glass tables. As he leads us through the rooms, the tall man points out to me the items that I can break and the items that I can’t break because they are antique. He gives my father a big hug and ushers us into the house.

Someone with curly hair answers the door wearing sunglasses and a flimsy pink and purple robe. When I hear the word I picture flying saucers taking off and landing and I imagine this party will be held in a flying saucer. He straightens the wheel, and the ash falls, as he tells me again the name of this place where we are going, a place I’ve never been before: Sausalito. In between his first two fingers is a lit cigarette, its ash long and in need of flicking. I’m watching my father’s hands manipulate the rubber-net-wrapped steering wheel of our 1972 Volkswagen bug as we move onto the Golden Gate Bridge. These are mostly expanded from those described in my father’s papers however, I’ve also invented dialogue and changed the names of a few individuals in the book, but only when doing so had no impact on the veracity and substance of the story. Informed by my father’s work, my own memories, and other research, I’ve sometimes re-created scenes and dialogue.

These include his journals, poetry, prose, and letters, from which I draw quotes. To write this book, I’ve relied on personal memory, interviews with family and friends, articles and history books, and, especially, the papers my father left. In the blue wave, the golden fish that sing

I wanted to show children these fishes shining

Fairyland a memoir of my father