“Be careful with your fathers face!” I heard my mom say as I packed the wooden pot into one of many boxes leaving for a state that seemed halfway across the world. Face? I thought, How is this Dad’s face? I studied the shiny pot formed by tiny pieces of wood fitting together like puzzle pieces. I thought about my dad who I hadn't seen in two months because he was looking at a new job in New Hampshire. As I thought about the pot and my dad together, it made sense to me how they were one and the same.

The pot was thin at the bottom and bulbous at the top making a shape that resembled a teardrop, or his round bald head that I held onto every time I sat atop his shoulders at zoos or concerts or long hikes through the cities trails.

The beautiful glossy glaze on the pot looked the same way that his head looked when we would play out in the sun and he would put about a bottle and a half of sunscreen on his head. Or when he would get his head wet after my swimming lessons as he was teaching me how to have an underwater tea party.

The brown and white of the pot resembled his ever aging skin, filled with spots and dots that told the stories of every adventure he had from the days he fished with his friend John as a little boy to all the times he took me out fishing with my little pink fishing rod. The colors were the same ones that I examined on Christmas morning as I crawled into his bed and told him to wake up because Santa had brought him what looked like a telescope but turned out to be golf clubs.

The unbelievably thin material used to construct the pot was his thin layer of manliness that he put up in front a new person he met like a business partner or a friends parent that he met unexpectedly in his boxers when they showed up to collect their daughter after a sleepover. But I knew all it took was little time or a small crack in the surface for all of that to go away and for him to turn into the lovable, nerdy softy that I knew he was.

the intricate design of the wood was his love for math and everything engineering. The small geometric shapes fitting together perfectly showed how his intricate brain worked putting everything in its right and proper place in the world. The pattern was done with the same level of skill that he showed in every project he did from building my mom a new dining room table to fixing my Nintendo when I left the battery in to long and it corroded.

As I wrapped this delicate piece of art in newspaper and set it gingerly into a box, I smiled because for the first time, going to New Hampshire wouldn’t mean leaving my friends but rather seeing my dad again. When I got there, as I was helping him unpack the boxes into the new strange house, I pulled out the pot and carefully, taped him on the shoulder and asked, “Where do you want your face?”  He looked puzzled as if I was speaking in another language. So again I said, “Where do you want your face? I think we should put it somewhere special because it's unique just like you.” He smiled and took it out of my hands because I'm sure he thought I was having a mental breakdown or something. He said, “ I’m glad you like it but I don't know why you keep calling it my face, this is just a vase I bought with your mother on our honeymoon.”

“Ohhh,” I said realizing my mistake, “so that's a vase, not a face.”

“Yes,” he said looking confused.

“Well, then I have just the place for it.” I said taking it from him. I brought it out to the front hallway as he followed behind me, and I set it on the picture shelves. “There I said, now I will see it whenever I come through this door.” He smiled and we continued to unpack, laughing about the misunderstanding and talking about all the things a father and a daughter talk about.