peter werner willi

he has three names. i always thought that was cool. like a king. my dad is a king. i looked up to him when i was a child. he was so tall. and strong. and calm. and wild. he scared me a bit. but i loved him nevertheless. i loved to walk beside him whenever we hiked. he puts his feet down very deliberately. thought through. steady. he walked steady. now, he sometimes needs to find his balance. especially when he stands up from the floor. my papa. we used to do a lot of stuff together. he builds miniature trucks. he is part of a group that he himself founded. they are hired by different events to showcase their trucks. they built a whole miniature city at times. he sometimes is gone for up to a week 'to play'. that's what he calls it. they get paid to 'play'. he loves his day time job, too. has worked there for 25 years. 25 years. and still has an incredible passion for what he does. he is an engineer. he designs bus and train stations. and he makes sure everybody can use them. he is very passionate about blind people. he got an award for his work. he is very proud of it. my papa stands up for what he believes in. they have big meetings at his work. he is famous there. for standing up. for speaking up for himself and his colleagues. he is fair. community oriented. he is educated. he spends so much time reading the newspaper. politics. he informs himself. he knows so much about his work. it's hard for him to connect with stuff outside of that. he can't understand my work. but he tries. my papa tries. and i love him for that. he impresses me. during puberty i thought he was a now-it-all. sometimes he is. but most of the time, he puts a lot of time into research. he questions. and so he does know a lot. he goes to city meetings. he was part of a team when i was a kid that built a whole farm for kids. with animals and tree houses that had hanging bridges from one house to the next. he did that in his free time. outside of his job. my papa has deep wrinkles on his forehead. i study them sometimes. they are beautiful. he is a thinker. he lives in his head. but when it comes to us, his family, he feels with his heart. he has grown soft over the years. very soft. my leaving was probably a big reason for that. i sometimes feel he still blames himself a bit for it. for how he was back then. how we were together. we trigger each other. he is a priest in the church he goes to. it grounds him. that it wasn't for me, the church, hurt him a lot. scared him. that i felt i had to get away, i think that still sits in his gut. i keep wanting to tell him that it's all good. i forgave him long ago. i see know that he was only trying to do the best he thought he could. and what else can we do? but try the best we can? his hair is getting grey. he has thick, thick hair. it used to be black. he used to wear it long. shoulder long. but since he met my mom he wears it short. and now it's getting grey. his black hair. he wears glasses. and sometimes when he speaks to me he looks at me over the top of his glasses. he tips his head a little forward and looks over the glasses. i like that. he wears a mustache. i think he had this as long as i can remember. it's part of him now. my papa is part of me. my strong papa is growing soft. and i have a soft spot for him.