Indigo Girls? Heard their name before and had an inkle they are woman-centered; went to Google and found them appealingly folky. And, really, when one of your sisters offers you a free ticket to a concert, why turn down the opportunity to go hang with as many of the six as show up?
Even though the concert is in Seattle—and I live in Roseville, Minnesota? But Lori lives even farther away, in Connecticut, and Trish lives in Memphis. Steph and Anne have to travel from Olympia and Ellensburg, Washington, respectively. And the hostess, Tracy, lives high in the Cascade Mountains, very close to Mt. Rainier.
Physical distances aside, we had psychic landscapes to travel. Issues and fights during our teenage years and later, disappearances from each other’s lives, competition for love from a not terribly tall yet towering father—the dark side of the past.
Sunshine and happiness and 13 years since Dad’s passing banished all that on Father’s Day 2019. We created our space by layering blankets together on a just-right afternoon in Woodland Park Zoo, sometimes listening to the music, watching a little boy dance and pick up partners passing by, and talking, talking, talking.
If you happened to be sitting near us, sorry: we have a lot of threads to pick up and weave together.
Mostly, although he was the unseen guest, we did not talk much about Dad, our Professor of Philosophy father. (BTW, we also have two brothers.) He had brought us together. Walter Robert Goedecke: “My God, what a difficult man,” said Judson at his funeral and we all laughed in recognition. All except perhaps the tiny lady in the wheelchair who listened to everything later at the wake and then popped up with this: “I don’t know why you are saying all these terrible things about Bob. He used to come around on Sunday afternoons, pick me up and take me for rides in the country. He was very kind.”
“To me,” she should have added, I think. In the later years of Dad’s life, I asked my husband to open his letters, in case he had written anything I might want to read. Mostly, they went right into the recycling: So much vitriol. Dad and I had started corresponding when I was a kid, after the divorce. Unless the mice have digested all the lovely words from the era before I married a man he didn’t approve of, I have years and years of letters, sitting in a box in our garage attic.
(About a month before he died, Dad and I had a rare phone conversation. When I told him about the social justice work I was doing with my church, he said, “I am proud of you.” After I hung up the phone, I sobbed—having been a disappointment for decades, I had waited so long to hear those words.)
So much depends on perspective. In 2019, 13 years and a few months after Dad’s funeral, we range in age from our 40s to our 60s. We have been snatching snaphots of each others’ lives, our families and friends on Facebook, some seeing each other IRL, me in the country’ middle, not so much.
From a distance, we have adored Ben and Josh, Anne’s grandsons who appear to be very different in character and very close as brothers. We have prayed in our various ways for Lori’s Jake (he’s fine now, thanks!) and sprouting siblings Avery and Max; admired Tracy’s adventuresome Leanne and 
forthright Oliver and her four other wonderful and good-looking children; and (I like to think) found my grandson Presley cute. On Facebook, Steph appears the most restrained—but when she posts, she always is trenchant and thought-provoking. And Trish? She has a Facebook group on the Meaning of Life.
The Meaning of Life: no small topic! When I received a copy of Dad’s book on the Meaning of Life, I dived in but it was all questions, no answers: What a disappointment. Later, I laughed—I’ve always been a late bloomer.
At the zoo, the shadows were lengthening. Families with little ones were drifting toward the exit. Lori had a red-eye flight to catch. Then the Indigo Girls let loose with Closer to Fine. The crowd jumped up, singing. I didn’t know the song but the crowd and Lori abd Tracy did: . . .
And I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry or see a B-Grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind
Got my paper and I was free. . . .
There’s more than one answer to these questions pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
Closer I am to fine
Closer I am to fine
Closer I am to fine
I started out the day dizzy with the unfamiliar, having spent the night in an International District hostel and attended Trinity Sunday worship at Trinity Church in Seattle—and ended up with a wonderful day with my Goedecke Sisters, moving closer to fine.
Allison Campbell Jensen 