Jessica Marsh
Jessica Marsh writes fiction and essays, mostly by the window in her home in Kjipuktuk/Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is working on her first novel, a coming-of-age story about a biracial girl, set amid the back-to-the-land movement of the late seventies.
Dear Old Dad
What would Young Dad think about Old Dad? Young Dad: professional Alpine ski racer, multi–Emmy Award–winning sports cameraman, and documentary filmmaker—handsome, tan, rugged, jovial. Young Dad, steering the outboard motorboat to Sandpiper Island in Maine, zipping around town in his burgundy Saab, flying around the world for work. Young Dad, skillfully extracting our splinters, icing our bruises, reassuring us about hurricanes and heartbreak.
If Young Dad met Old Dad—hunched, plodding along the beach in water shoes and a straw sun hat, arguing in favor of gluing a live snail onto an art project—Young Dad would have been nice to the old guy. He would have gone out of his way for a chat. But if he discovered the old guy was him, I know exactly what he would have said: You gotta be fucking kidding me.
June 2025Has something we published moved you? Fired you up? Did we miss the mark? We’d love to hear about it.
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