My best friend has often told me that I live inside my Mind Palace too much.

She’s right, of course, as she so often is, and I know the comment is rooted in her concern that I spend so much time renovating the Mind Palace that I forget about life outside of it, but I’m too fond of my Mind Palace to entirely heed her warnings.

“Mind Palace” is one of the synonyms for the “Method of Loci” which is a phrase first coined by the ancient Romans. It’s a mnemonic device used when one would like to memorize a list of items. Essentially, a person chooses a place they know well, carves out a route, and associates items from the list they’re trying to memorize with things they would see when actually physically traveling through the space. The idea is that then when they “walk” through the place in their mind, they’ll be able to recall what they were trying to memorize when they “see” the thing they associated the list item with. All of this just to say that this is not what I mean when I use the term “Mind Palace”.

I hope Cicero doesn’t mind too much that we have co-opted the phrase. When I’m paying more attention to what’s going on inside my head than outside, then I’m visiting the Mind Palace.

To stay true to the original definition, there are some rooms within the Mind Palace that are places I know well. I’ve laid in the center of the floor of my childhood bedroom, pondering the bright pink of the walls and the Disney Princess stickers pasted on them. The classroom 25 Mom has taught in since 2005, with its too bright fluorescents, sea of beige desks, and white board swirled with her almost-cursive, makes frequent appearances. The Mind Palace is not able to do true justice to the slippery nature of the break wall in the middle of the Lake we used to climb. The family room in Mom’s house, however, is where I go to visit you.

You insisted upon the distinction between the family room, the room at the back of the house that we spent the most time in, and the living room, the front room by the door that we used only when we had lots of company. The difference was important to you, yet you always referred to the family room as the den.

The den is where I picture you, not the family room Mom has redone in more recent years. No, I see you sitting in the rich brown recliner with the OSU and Browns arm cushions on each side. The world’s ugliest love seat (why did you guys buy that?) separates your recliner from Mom’s matching one. Bruce Springsteen croons at me from the old silver sound system in the corner of the room, drowning out the sound of Alex Trebek doling out points to the lucky Jeopardy contestant on the TV. Your secret snack stash of Planter’s Peanuts and other underwhelming sweets are nestled away on the bottom of the oak end tables with the glass tops. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown is partly covered by the bottom of the chair. I don’t know if you ever read it, but I know it sat there long enough to collect dust.

There are also things in the room that, consciously, I’m aware never occupied that space, but they remind me of you, so they stay. There’s a cherry tomato plant growing up the side of the fireplace. You grew them for me every year because you knew I’d eat them like candy. The ones I buy at the grocery store now are so much less vibrant than yours that I hesitate to even call them both red.

A jar of beach glass sits on the shelves in front of the DVDs, mixed in with Mom’s family photos and tchotchkes. I was never any good at finding it, but you scoured the beaches on the days I wasn’t with you, so I could admire it when I next saw you. Every piece of jewelry you bought me contained beach glass in one way or another. Most of them are ugly as sin, so I don’t often wear them (sorry, it’s my vanity, I suppose), but I keep them with me always.

My progress reports and report cards are stacked up near your ever-present yellow legal pad and newspaper crossword puzzle on top of the tray table that might as well have been glued to your recliner for as often as it was put away. The older I got, the more you had to harass the school to send you a copy of them, but you were insistent. I could always rely on your call, telling me you were proud, during interim and report card season.

You wear the same thing every time I visit: your well-worn dark blue slippers, the thickest jeans you could find, and a gray t-shirt with a faded Triumph Motorcycles logo on it. On your fingers are the skull ring and the gladiator helmet ring. Just for you, I’ve removed that budding bald spot from the back of your head. In the Mind Palace, you have the same nearly shoulder-length waves that I remember from childhood. I suppose I could’ve been exceedingly generous and given you the color back too, but we both know the black hair was gone long before I came along. Old Spice invades my nose in a way that would bother me on anyone else other than you when I lean down to hug you, and your beard tickles my cheek.

The Mind Palace is where I go to be your daughter again.

We talk for hours when I come to visit. I like to catch you up on everything you’ve missed. I’m not sure you’d care about every mundane detail I sometimes feel inclined to tell you, but it’s my Mind Palace, so we can just pretend.

The conversations start the way they always have. You say, “Hi, hun. How are ya?”

And I answer. I never contemplate for as long as I should, so it’s usually some iteration of, “I’m good! How are you?”

“Better than a sharp stick in the eye.”

When I came to tell you that I had decided to come to OSU, I imagined you laughing. Between Cal and I, we managed to cover both universities that contributed to your undergrad degree. I visited again shortly thereafter, so I could read you the speech I gave at graduation.

You cried when you heard you were going to be a grandpa again. I know I should’ve let Megan tell you, but this room in the Mind Palace is just for you and me, so I think we can make an exception. You would’ve adored her. I bring you pictures when I can. By the time she’s old enough to understand the stories we tell about you, you’ll have probably achieved a sort of legendary status in her mind.

They’re not all so dramatic. Sometimes, I come just to tell you about someone new I’ve met. I don’t like the idea that anyone who meets me now meets the me who doesn’t have you, so I try to keep you in the loop as much as possible.

It’s harder to imagine what advice you would give me. Regrettably, I don’t have the wisdom of your years or your uncanny nature to say something that no one else would. That’s usually when I exit the Mind Palace and go call Mom. I hope you don’t mind.

Other times, I leave you when I’ve already expended all of my forgiveness, and I have to enter the rooms in the Mind Palace where I leave my rose-colored glasses at the door. I’m not a good enough person to absolve you of all your sins because I needed a father, and you couldn’t always be that. But in this room, on this flattened gray carpeting, I sit and listen to you tell me the same jokes and stories you always did, and we’re both on our best behavior. Our relationship isn’t bogged down by all the hurt we’ve caused each other here. You’re the kind of infallible figure that only young children are capable of imagining their parents as being, and I adore you.

I am gentle with you in the den of the Mind Palace.

Sometimes, in silly ways, like giving you your hair back or laughing perhaps a little harder at your jokes than I used to. Other things are more serious, like never broaching the subjects (i.e., Crazy Susan) that were sure to set you off.

I made you gentle, too. This version of the den will never know the sound of your anger, how I shrink when you yell. There are no empty bottles with the signature yellow Canada Dry tonic water logo. I’m never going to uncover what you’re trying to hide from me on the stench of your breath, and I don’t worry about you taking blood pressure medication. The weight of your silence is one this room will never carry.

The Mind Palace showed me how much of you I carry with me.

In the morning, I sip my coffee (a much lighter color than yours ever was, but I think this still counts as Mom hates coffee, so who else could this come from?) while I do the crossword. I go to get dressed, and I notice your skull ring sitting in the dish where I keep my own supply of rings. Your beloved Triumph t-shirt (along with a few of your other favorites) is nestled in my tshirt drawer.

Often, I open my mouth, and you fly out, like when someone scares me, and, almost reflexively, I say, “Don’t sneak up on my gun hand like that!”

Mom’s least favorite is when she tells me goodnight and that she’ll see me in the morning, and I respond, “If you’re lucky.” Though she never liked it when you said that either, so I suppose that checks out.

My least favorite is how buried I keep my stash of alcohol. If I want to drink, then I have to root around under my bed for the correct container, drag it out, remove the lid, and upheave several layers of sweatshirts to do so. Just enough steps so that I have to really consider what I’m doing. And I never, ever drink alone.

I do watch Mel Brooks’s movies and Monty Python alone though because God knows those have only gotten cheesier with age, and I would rather no one else bear witness to our shared terrible taste. Classic rock from the sixties, seventies, and eighties has managed to infiltrate every single one of my playlists. My laugh comes from my belly, and I talk about Lake Erie with a fondness that it probably doesn’t deserve. I am my father’s daughter.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop coming to visit you in the Mind Palace, but it’s comforting to know that, in some ways, you still exist outside of there, too.