Inversion

Sometimes the father is momentarily distant from daughter, or even from fatherhood. But never for very long, it seems. Yesterday, after dropping Cleo at her nursery, I spent a happy hour reading about John Ruskin, before ambling down to the Long Street baths, where I swam laps in the aging pool, beneath a crumbling wall painting. And then to the equally colorful (and colorfully named!) Labia movie complex, where I paid my 35 rand and bought a ticket to the 2008 Italian film Caos Calmo. Was that me sitting in the fourth row, alone in the compact theater, with a double brandy and Coke in hand at 11:45 in the morning? It was - and for a few moments, at least, I was more cineaste than daddy.

For a few moments, at least. Because in fact the reason I'd chosen that film was that it revolves around the intense interest a recently widowed father takes in his daughter's life. A successful businessman whose firm is embroiled in a complicated merger, Pietro is sharp in a tie - but soon realizes that he would rather spend his days in the small park outside his daughter's primary school, reading and nursing espressi until her school day is over. Eventually, work and family find him, even there: his sister in law visits him in the park and prods the depths of his grief for his wife; associates stop by to share a coffee and update him on developments in the office. But always he is there, in the park, visible to his daughter when she thinks to look outside her school window.

Even as I enjoyed the film, I couldn't help but feel a slight pinprick of conscience as I watched. Cleo, after all, was in school at that very moment - and yet, if she had looked out her windows, she would have seen only the mountain, or traffic. No daddy, right? Because her dad was sitting in the dark, a mile away, sipping brandy.

But wait, and watch. Near the end of the film, even as Pietro is becoming a minor celebrity for his seemingly unique devotion to his daughter, his daughter asks him for a very specific Christmas present. What is it, he asks? What would you like? She already has a cell phone, and a signed Britney Spears photo. What else could she need? She is specific: her friends at school have begun to laugh at her, precisely because of her doting father. Could you perhaps...? she begins to ask, and he understands perfectly.

And this father, in turn, felt a small crest of relief. We are not meant to stand constant vigil, simply devoted to our children. Instead, it's important - or, indeed, necessary - that we lead full lives, as well, precisely so that we can offer richer examples to our children, or engage with them out of a sense of choice, rather than sheer duty. The presence of a parent can be deeply reassuring, I guess, but constant presence can be suffocating.

Do a morning movie and a double brandy with Coke constitute a rich alternative to constant parenthood? Probably not on a daily basis - but they certainly felt appropriate on this Thursday - especially when I then walked out of the movie theater, and drove up the hill to pick up my little girl, and to take her up, up, up Table Mountain once again, on the cable car. Hand in hand, we looked out over the city, in which mornings spent separately had now converged.