looking up

shortly after my dad died, one of my sisters shared a photo of him on one of his hiking trips with friends, a jagged tree branch in one hand (his makeshift walking stick) and his other hand outstretched and pointing upwards, his gaze following it as he grinned and stared at something outside of the camera’s frame. he was wearing the faded yankees cap which he’d bought during one of my parents’ visits to new york after i moved there for college.

“this is the gesture i’ll always associate with dad,” my sister wrote, referring to his skyward glance.

until she made that comment i wouldn’t have associated sky-gazing with my dad, but now that she mentioned it, a slew of memories came to mind, mostly of times I’d gotten frustrated at him for what i perceived as his absent-mindedness. looking up at the clouds, i thought, was a sign of distraction from the present moment, a way of forgetting who or where one was. and it’s true: my dad was often lost in thought, seemingly unaware of his surroundings. a fitting example of this was the time he was almost pickpocketed in madrid when my parents visited me during one of my semesters abroad. my dad had been standing in the middle of a crowded hare krishna parade with his digital camera pointed at the sky, his unzipped fanny pick hanging loosely from his waist. my mother saw someone reaching for his wallet and yelped to startle the thief, who quickly darted away.

it wasn’t until recently, after coming across more and more photos of myself staring upwards - usually taken by Ulrich or close friends of mine, amused by my apparent distraction - that i realized that i’ve begun to embody my father’s signature gesture. in the photos i’m either pointing my phone skyward or simply looking intently at something above me, just out of reach. except in myself, it feels like anything but distraction or lack of awareness. most of the times when i am looking upwards, i am being drawn to something beautiful, intricate, awe-inspiring; often, something that i am unable to describe in words. perhaps what appears outwardly as distraction isn’t necessarily a turn away from the present moment, but rather towards it?

(here, for example, was the thing which drew my attention upwards today:)