I am walking home today, the first real day of fall. (Like the first real day of spring in Maine, this has nothing to do with the calendar, everything to do with the switch being flipped--you know it is fall the way you know it's raining. Last's week's humidity has been traded in for a definite chill in the air, and every tree suddenly bearing tiny swaths of gold and red in its sunniest reaches.) The sun splays out across the harbor and shafts through the eight-foot high trunks of reeds to my right, and there, only a few feet past the public sidewalk, is a defined nook, a hidey-hole big enough for maybe three people to sit on snapped trunks and dry leaves. I smile but don't slow down in my walk. This is someone else's place--a place to sit alone, to cry or stare up at the clouds waiting for time to move, and, on very rare occasions, to bring very selected others. It is not my place, and I make no move to claim it.
Because I had a place like this once--a place that wasn't, by any stretched laws of property, mine, though I would have argued the point until I was hoarse. It wasn't used by anyone else--of this I was certain in the way that children are certain of improvable things. The parking lot at my church was far bigger than it needed to be by then, and the whole back half had long gone unpaved and unpainted, delicate flowering weeds smashing concrete to rubble from underneath. And it was there, along the back left side where the woods flanked in close, pressing up the corner of the lot into a near wave of rock. The hill was not a hill, I suppose, but what else did you call it, rolling steeply down into the underbrush? A skittering of stones and dirt, a check to ensure none of same has left permanent, mom-alerting traces on clothing or shoes, and I am there. Removed from every other thing. Invisible. Secured.
I have lost the time I spent there. I have no idea what I did while the sun sank low and my mother attended meetings and studies. But it was good time. Time when nothing mattered but nature's sounds and whether you could see the moon through the cracks in the trees. I didn't have a name for it then, but it was here I learned to sit quietly with God, neither of us saying anything. Clambering out again (with a second check of shoes and shirt) was a dull goodbye, but only a slight one--places like mine did not change or leave or shift their attentions. It would patiently wait.
I don't remember taking any girl friends here--I had friends at church, but I don't remember sharing this with them. Maybe that's the veil of memory, or maybe I was afraid they would take my place and make it theirs. But boys, I remember.
I took Eric there one afternoon. I don't remember any other memory of him but this one. I was whatever age it is when a boy's rat-tail begins, very slightly, to shift from weird to intriguing--disgust giving slow ground away to desire. And his large shoes crunching further into the woods, slowly gazing up trees appreciatively. "This is cool," he breathed, and I appreciated his agreement. Later--that same day? a different one?--he had to pee, and went to the far side of the clearing to do so. I stood immovable, neither turning away nor turning toward, acting with meticulous carelessness, insisting more to myself than him that this was normal.
Some years later, I took Jon there. We stepped easily down the slope--one step, then another--and I waited for the same sigh. I don't remember what he said--only my replies. "The house didn't use to be that close." "Well, ya know, I only came here when I was little." He wasn't mean, I remember, only confused. I'd brought him eagerly out to this place that was barely big enough for us to stand, looking plainly into backyards of neighbors.
The place wasn't the same after that, though it kept its promise and never changed. I tried to go back once, maybe twice, and by then could appreciate that whatever spell had kept me hidden, had kept the walls thick and the world at bay, was broken and gone.
Walking past the reeds today, I missed my place. I have no shortage of places I love to go--restaurants, beaches, parks, wooded trails--but none of them are exclusive to me. I must share custody with a thousand other souls, and the places are less themselves for it. My house is mine, but with no secret, open to all visitors--a different kind of ownership. So I share my spaces, and I commune with God in front of my computer or looking out my bedroom window at the moon. And these new places, and the time spent there, are good--but are a different kind of mine.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Scenes from the National Gallery II: Ordinary People
They're famous, and long-dead, so they must have been a different species. It's how I classify them, I suppose--I must, because these little things always snag me. The exhibit attracted me not from a love of either artist, but because the focus was their friendship, marked by shared exhibitions and haunts. As I roll these words around in my brain, the image of movie stars sharing the red carpet, smiling for cameras and having a private chuckle comes to mind. That kind of friendship--casual, professional, circumstantial.
But Edgar and Mary were more than that. (And how quickly we assume that this meant they were lovers! Appreciation to the Gallery for not making the assumption.) This was more than a friendly smile when they bumped into each other at an after party. They sharpened each other, challenged and spurred one another to new techniques and studies, never letting the other rest on their rising acclaim and laurels.
Even this I think I understand until a simple piece--sketches with a touch of color--catches my eye, and through such a tiny window I can suddenly see them. The Gallery's high walls are dwarfed as I recreate the Louvre around me, with paintings larger than the side of a house, horses twice the size of life. "Two Studies of Mary Cassatt at the Louvre" (1879) should, by rights, be unremarkable. It doesn't seem to have been worked on or polished, and had her name not been affixed to it, it might well have faded out of keeping. But in such a quick sketch, a wide swath of light falls across how they inspired each other.
But Edgar and Mary were more than that. (And how quickly we assume that this meant they were lovers! Appreciation to the Gallery for not making the assumption.) This was more than a friendly smile when they bumped into each other at an after party. They sharpened each other, challenged and spurred one another to new techniques and studies, never letting the other rest on their rising acclaim and laurels.
Even this I think I understand until a simple piece--sketches with a touch of color--catches my eye, and through such a tiny window I can suddenly see them. The Gallery's high walls are dwarfed as I recreate the Louvre around me, with paintings larger than the side of a house, horses twice the size of life. "Two Studies of Mary Cassatt at the Louvre" (1879) should, by rights, be unremarkable. It doesn't seem to have been worked on or polished, and had her name not been affixed to it, it might well have faded out of keeping. But in such a quick sketch, a wide swath of light falls across how they inspired each other.
You can love something more by watching someone else love it, and that's what I see here: Mary's peering, her gazing, her studying, her note-taking, requires Edgar to capture her being caught up. I'm comfortable in being sure he didn't necessarily show this to her, either--that the point was to keep this in his studio, to pull it out occasionally and ask, "What would Mary see in this?"
I love how ordinary this is. How normal, how non-glamorous, how unarrogant. Degas was and is the bigger deal in most circles, but he saw something to be echoed in Mary Cassatt--his friend.
Tonight's Snap Shot
It is not so hot for August, but it's the kind of mid-grade muggy heat that creeps up on you from your armpits and backbone. You don't remember feeling hot until you are damp in every inconvenient place.
Too hot, regardless, for the oven to be on these few hours, but on it is--dessert now resting patiently on the stove, and the last breadcrumbs on the macaroni and cheese twinkling from white to golden to brown. It is too hot for these comfort foods--better a quickly-snagged jar of salsa or takeout.
But when I offer to care for someone--offer to make life just-so-slightly better--this is how it is done: not with a coupon for takeout or a salad bar, but by constantly stirring the roux in a hot pan, pouring in the milk slowly to smooth out the lumps, watching for the first bubbles before blending cheese and pouring over waiting pasta and braised chicken.
And now I sit in a darkening living room, the fan oscillating its light breeze across those armpits and backbone, happy. I haven't read that love languages book because I don't need to--this is how I love. Through sweat, through twirling of wooden spoons, through the crunch and steam and sigh of newly-made food.
Drafter's Note: I started trying to push this, to make it longer--and realized that, were I doing a Five-Minute Friday or a Slice of Life, I'd be very pleased with this, and call it finished. So we're calling it... And maybe writing something else later...
Too hot, regardless, for the oven to be on these few hours, but on it is--dessert now resting patiently on the stove, and the last breadcrumbs on the macaroni and cheese twinkling from white to golden to brown. It is too hot for these comfort foods--better a quickly-snagged jar of salsa or takeout.
But when I offer to care for someone--offer to make life just-so-slightly better--this is how it is done: not with a coupon for takeout or a salad bar, but by constantly stirring the roux in a hot pan, pouring in the milk slowly to smooth out the lumps, watching for the first bubbles before blending cheese and pouring over waiting pasta and braised chicken.
And now I sit in a darkening living room, the fan oscillating its light breeze across those armpits and backbone, happy. I haven't read that love languages book because I don't need to--this is how I love. Through sweat, through twirling of wooden spoons, through the crunch and steam and sigh of newly-made food.
Drafter's Note: I started trying to push this, to make it longer--and realized that, were I doing a Five-Minute Friday or a Slice of Life, I'd be very pleased with this, and call it finished. So we're calling it... And maybe writing something else later...
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Psalmody Psunday: 92
I mean, all three of us are behind, so at least I fit right in...
Psalm 92--which tonight I particularly liked in The Voice translation. You can read it here.
Church has been an enigmatic thing for me lately--not bad, just different. Shifted, and shifting still. Over the last couple years God has challenged and changed my views, feelings, and behaviors surrounding the Sabbath and the place and people I spend my Sabbath with. This is good, even as it's been hard: too often I have walked into a church because it is Sunday morning--a Sabbath set out of habit or duty, rather than passion, commitment, need. And our God is so faithful as to bring us to that, even if it means pain.
The Voice's note before this psalm informs me that the direction to sing this song for the Sabbath is the psalms' only mention of that word. And so it's not unreasonable to stretch that a bit--to say that at the end of the day, this is what a Sabbath is:
- giving thanks to God (v. 1)
- praising God with song (v. 1)
- speaking of God's unfailing love--"rehearse Your faithfulness" (v. 2)
- lasting all day "in the morning... and as night begins to fall" (v. 2)
- acknowledging that it is good to praise God (v. 3)
- listening to, singing along with, or playing musical instruments (v. 3)
- being thrilled and joyful (v. 4)
- recalling what God has done, in corporate and personal history (v. 4)
And that's just the first four verses. The psalm goes on to reference confidently keeping perspective in the face of fear and struggle, trusting in an overwhelming plan of God, and more.
And in this psalm--as in so many other places lately--I see what I crave for my Sabbath: simplicity. Not production, not pomp. Intimacy. Community. Celebration. Honesty. Nowhere in these verses do I see neatness and perfection--instead, it seems inevitable that such shouting and noisemaking and surges of confidence would be cacophonous, disorganized, deafening. The microphones might squeak. Tears would blubber words to intelligibility. Laughter would break out sporadically. It would be unpolished and full of hiccups, but it would be thunderous in its integrity and utter realness. So much of our world is fake, and I find playing pretend less and less tolerable in a place built to celebrate the Sabbath, among the people who agree that this ritual is the first way we echo our Creator. If we cannot be our real, messy selves here--not occasionally but constantly--than we have completely missed the purpose. On the seventh day, I see no indication that God used hair product, made sure the deer were behaving, and pasted on a smile to convince everyone else He wasn't tired. The world wears us out. If we cannot admit that to one another as we smile and hug over pew backs, we might as well rest at home.
The contingency on the final promise of the psalm tugs at me, reminding me that there is a side of this bargain that I pay: who will "flourish," "grow strong and tall," "thrive," "bear fruit into old age, even in winter"? Not everyone. Not even everyone who comes to the Temple. "Those who are devoted to God... Those who are planted in the house of the Eternal..." Commitment. Full ownership. Total buy-in. If I pretend at church, I will get pretend rest. Only those who are willfully shoving their roots into this soil, only those who fight and strive--and frequently, messily lose but fall freely on the grace of Jesus--will see such a divine payout. This isn't health-and-wealth gospel, this is biblical truth, everywhere from this psalm to the very words of Jesus:
Abide in Me, and I will abide in you. A branch cannot bear fruit if it is disconnected from the vine, and neither will you if you are not connected to Me. I am the vine, and you are the branches. If you abide in Me and I in you, you will bear great fruit. Without Me, you will accomplish nothing. - John 15:4-6*
And why, when all is said and done? Why will those who are devoted and planted stay full of life in winter? "To display that the Eternal is righteous. He is my Rock, and there is no shadow of evil in Him" (Psalm 92:15, The Voice).
So what will I bring to this Sabbath? And what will I leave behind?
* More love for The Voice! I loved this note on John 15 when I went to pull those verses:
"At a time when all of His disciples are feeling as if they are about to be uprooted, Jesus sketches a picture of this new life as a flourishing vineyard—a labyrinth of vines and strong branches steeped in rich soil, abundant grapes hanging from their vines ripening in the sun. Jesus sculpts a new garden of Eden in their imaginations—one that is bustling with fruit, sustenance, and satisfying aromas. This is the Kingdom life. It is all about connection, sustenance, and beauty. But within this promise of life is the warning that people must be in Christ or they will not experience these blessings."
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Psalmody Psunday: 143
I've frequently said that God uses my procrastination, amidst everything else--I could not hope to count the times when I've done Bible study homework last-minute, had to restart a reading plan, or otherwise read or heard teaching after I was "supposed to" only to find that the timing, in the end, was perfect. As I turn to Psalm 143 to catch up on last week's PsPs (a week behind my cousin and my brother), my knee-jerk reaction is the opposite: Man, I really needed this a week ago.
But the jerk barely releases when I realize no, I need this now. I need this when perspective allows a slightly better view, when the emotions are running a little less over the banks. I think, had I read this psalm last Sunday, it would have been too fresh, too hard.
"The enemy pursues me,
he crushes me to the ground;
He makes me dwell in the darkness
like those long dead.
So my spirit grows faint within me..." (vv. 3-4)
If ever there were some words to describe it, these would be it. How I would LOVE to make enemies out of the individual frustrations and cruelties of life, but when I give it real thought I know better. With every recent blow, every sucker punch life has dealt lately, this is the song that echoes: pursued, crushed, like the dead, and growing weak and faint--and somewhere an enemy smirking.
This isn't to play the victim card--even in the midst of recent struggles, others are dealing with worse--but the whole idea of PsPs is to dig into the psalm and into self, to expose what's easily masked. So this is where we are.
The image that's kept coming to me lately is that of a frayed cord--the place that's rubbed against an abrasive for so long that all the protective covering has come away, leaving the wire open to the elements, easily sparked, disastrous. Except there's that word in the psalm--"faint"--and that echoes more: open to the elements for so long, even the spark has diminished, losing its current. (This probably isn't how electricity works, but the metaphor holds so play along for me.)
But in all things, God is utterly faithful--even to frayed, exhausted cords. He provides, encourages, insists upon rests and pauses in my life so I stop running to every other thing I can find, and seek Him alone.
"Show me the way I should go,
for to You I entrust my life.
Recuse me from my enemies, LORD;
for I hide myself in you." (vv. 8-9)
When I sleep, the sheet is what my relatives would call "catty-wampus" across me: diagonal across my shoulders, bunched at my calves, feet out in the air. This is not the image that this psalm gives: like a girl who gets cold, this is burrowed, this is triple-wrapped, this is enshrouded and covered and barely room for breath. This is how deep I want to sit, alone in the quiet with just me and Him.
I want this to be physically true, and there have been times in the last few months of struggle when it has been. When I have felt--felt--Him sit with me, buried beneath the raging winds and waves. He is unmistakable in that cool quiet because He is the only one who can take me there.
And, thank God, He doesn't take me there due to my accomplishments or worth. A smile crosses my face as I read the ending--this echoed thought from Isaiah that follows me like a shadow these days:
"For your name's sake, LORD, preserve my life;
in your righteousness, bring me out of trouble." (v. 11)
In the end--when He has shown me what He's meant to, pared away from me what was burdening my soul, spoken truth into the hard cracks in my heart--He will bring me out and "lead me on level ground" (v. 10) not because of me, but because of Him.
But the jerk barely releases when I realize no, I need this now. I need this when perspective allows a slightly better view, when the emotions are running a little less over the banks. I think, had I read this psalm last Sunday, it would have been too fresh, too hard.
"The enemy pursues me,
he crushes me to the ground;
He makes me dwell in the darkness
like those long dead.
So my spirit grows faint within me..." (vv. 3-4)
If ever there were some words to describe it, these would be it. How I would LOVE to make enemies out of the individual frustrations and cruelties of life, but when I give it real thought I know better. With every recent blow, every sucker punch life has dealt lately, this is the song that echoes: pursued, crushed, like the dead, and growing weak and faint--and somewhere an enemy smirking.
This isn't to play the victim card--even in the midst of recent struggles, others are dealing with worse--but the whole idea of PsPs is to dig into the psalm and into self, to expose what's easily masked. So this is where we are.
The image that's kept coming to me lately is that of a frayed cord--the place that's rubbed against an abrasive for so long that all the protective covering has come away, leaving the wire open to the elements, easily sparked, disastrous. Except there's that word in the psalm--"faint"--and that echoes more: open to the elements for so long, even the spark has diminished, losing its current. (This probably isn't how electricity works, but the metaphor holds so play along for me.)
But in all things, God is utterly faithful--even to frayed, exhausted cords. He provides, encourages, insists upon rests and pauses in my life so I stop running to every other thing I can find, and seek Him alone.
"Show me the way I should go,
for to You I entrust my life.
Recuse me from my enemies, LORD;
for I hide myself in you." (vv. 8-9)
When I sleep, the sheet is what my relatives would call "catty-wampus" across me: diagonal across my shoulders, bunched at my calves, feet out in the air. This is not the image that this psalm gives: like a girl who gets cold, this is burrowed, this is triple-wrapped, this is enshrouded and covered and barely room for breath. This is how deep I want to sit, alone in the quiet with just me and Him.
I want this to be physically true, and there have been times in the last few months of struggle when it has been. When I have felt--felt--Him sit with me, buried beneath the raging winds and waves. He is unmistakable in that cool quiet because He is the only one who can take me there.
And, thank God, He doesn't take me there due to my accomplishments or worth. A smile crosses my face as I read the ending--this echoed thought from Isaiah that follows me like a shadow these days:
"For your name's sake, LORD, preserve my life;
in your righteousness, bring me out of trouble." (v. 11)
In the end--when He has shown me what He's meant to, pared away from me what was burdening my soul, spoken truth into the hard cracks in my heart--He will bring me out and "lead me on level ground" (v. 10) not because of me, but because of Him.
Scenes from the National Gallery I: Ordinary Names
Drafter's Note: This series marks the second time that the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. has driven me to write. (I had to go back to read the first one just to make sure I wouldn't be repetitive--and I'm sure your recall on 3-year-old blogposts is as god as mine.) If I stick with my plan and quick notes, this will be post one of three.
I've rolled my eyes any number of times at the titles I see on placards in galleries. "Woman with Fan." "Portrait of Young Man #3." C'MON, says Chandra's Sass. Where are the deep, intriguing, sexy titles--those I'm used to seeing on everything from TV episodes to nail polish bottles.
I don't know that it ever occurred to me before today, though now it seems painfully obvious. And maybe I'm way off base, but--assuming that being a visual artist overlaps more than a little with being a word crafter--what artist knows what pieces will be "good," remembered, treasured?
I have a pristinely clear memory of meeting with a college professor after I (once again) failed to win the annual poetry award. "Your poems are good enough to win," she told me. "You're just giving us the wrong ones." The criticism was crushing to me--yeah, yeah, yeah, I could have won the contest but you're missing the point: I didn't know what made my writing good. (I asked her which ones might have won--she looked at me like I was asking the meaning of life, and I think answered with something to the tune of, "See that for yourself, you must.") But I remember her pointing out that sometimes--maybe often, maybe always--the work that we love the most, feel most attached to, is not what anyone else would say is our best. Frequently I've seen pieces of mine that I really didn't love so well get more praise and attention than I thought they were due. And those I'm closest to--the ones that make me smile or choke me up--will never be seen but through the gleam of a computer screen.
And so I imagine Mary Cassatt documenting "Mother with Child XI," not knowing how it would survive, and never dreaming that a century after the paint had dried it would hang in a marble hall as tourists speaking a dozen languages passed it, studied it, bought it on a postcard. I wonder which of the eleven (or more?) she loved most. If I had to guess, I'd say 2--so similar, but less finished, less pristine, more capturing of a moment.
And I give due props to Vincent for distinguishing: "Weaver Facing Right," "Weaver Facing Right (Half Figure)," "Weaver Facing Left with Spinning Wheel," "Weaver Seen from the Front." A man after my own heart. And to Pierre-Auguste for not giving a damn, with his 19 efforts of "Landscape" and 6 "Roses in a Vase" (not to be confused with the 2 "Still Life with Roses," 5 "Flowers in a Vase," and 3 "Bouquet of Roses").
We don't know what will matter in the end, what we'll be remembered for, and I find myself--in writing and in life--being over-focused on the presentation, the title, how it will look. I fuss over the signature while the paint dries on the palette.
Dear me: The eleventh effort is as important as the first--maybe more. Stop preparing and just get some color on the canvas.
I've rolled my eyes any number of times at the titles I see on placards in galleries. "Woman with Fan." "Portrait of Young Man #3." C'MON, says Chandra's Sass. Where are the deep, intriguing, sexy titles--those I'm used to seeing on everything from TV episodes to nail polish bottles.
I don't know that it ever occurred to me before today, though now it seems painfully obvious. And maybe I'm way off base, but--assuming that being a visual artist overlaps more than a little with being a word crafter--what artist knows what pieces will be "good," remembered, treasured?
I have a pristinely clear memory of meeting with a college professor after I (once again) failed to win the annual poetry award. "Your poems are good enough to win," she told me. "You're just giving us the wrong ones." The criticism was crushing to me--yeah, yeah, yeah, I could have won the contest but you're missing the point: I didn't know what made my writing good. (I asked her which ones might have won--she looked at me like I was asking the meaning of life, and I think answered with something to the tune of, "See that for yourself, you must.") But I remember her pointing out that sometimes--maybe often, maybe always--the work that we love the most, feel most attached to, is not what anyone else would say is our best. Frequently I've seen pieces of mine that I really didn't love so well get more praise and attention than I thought they were due. And those I'm closest to--the ones that make me smile or choke me up--will never be seen but through the gleam of a computer screen.
And so I imagine Mary Cassatt documenting "Mother with Child XI," not knowing how it would survive, and never dreaming that a century after the paint had dried it would hang in a marble hall as tourists speaking a dozen languages passed it, studied it, bought it on a postcard. I wonder which of the eleven (or more?) she loved most. If I had to guess, I'd say 2--so similar, but less finished, less pristine, more capturing of a moment.
And I give due props to Vincent for distinguishing: "Weaver Facing Right," "Weaver Facing Right (Half Figure)," "Weaver Facing Left with Spinning Wheel," "Weaver Seen from the Front." A man after my own heart. And to Pierre-Auguste for not giving a damn, with his 19 efforts of "Landscape" and 6 "Roses in a Vase" (not to be confused with the 2 "Still Life with Roses," 5 "Flowers in a Vase," and 3 "Bouquet of Roses").
We don't know what will matter in the end, what we'll be remembered for, and I find myself--in writing and in life--being over-focused on the presentation, the title, how it will look. I fuss over the signature while the paint dries on the palette.
Dear me: The eleventh effort is as important as the first--maybe more. Stop preparing and just get some color on the canvas.
"Mother with Child 2," Mary Cassatt
"Mother with Child XI," Mary Cassatt
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
A Successful Grief
Five years ago today, I was answering phones and taking orders at my desk, flirting with the UPS guy and wishing I made more money. Somewhere over the course of the workday, word reached our little office that Michael Jackson had died, and I remember being instantly struck by the memorials that cropped up across the interwebs: what a legend he was, how he changed the world of pop music forever, how he inspired a generation. And I remember getting really annoyed, because a day earlier, had you asked just about anyone what their knee-jerk reaction to Jackson was, they would allude to the various questionable-at-best news stories that had hit the wire over the previous decade. But suddenly the man dies, and he's a god, remembered as musical perfection.
(No disrespect to the legacy of Mr. Jackson--I don't know enough about pop music to have an opinion--and don't worry, this post isn't about Michael, anyway.)
A day later--five years ago, tomorrow morning--I arrived at work still irked (and, admittedly, self-righteous in my irkedness), and began answering phones and taking orders and preparing for the UPS guy. My phone skittered across my desk, "MOM" blinking across the screen, but I ignored it, it not being uncommon for her to leave me a message. A moment later, it skittered again--had she forgotten something?--and again, I ignored it. And a moment after that, my work phone rang, and her voice was both blood-deep comforting and oddly off-key.
I remember her saying, "I don't know how to say this," and I don't remember how she said it but in short words laced with tears she told me my father had died the night before. The details were few at that point, but I think she knew I'd only be hearing half her words anyway and so she kept them brief. I hung up. I went to my boss's office to calmly explain, but my mouth arrested at the the word, and at "my da--" it was overwhelmed with sobs. My coworkers ushered me out the door with assurances, and not being ready to go home and explain to my roommate, I went to my church, where I bumped into a friend and sobbed some more. And then I went and sat on the floor of the sanctuary and sobbed some more. And then another friend came and sat with me, and I sobbed some more.
It was a weird grief, even then. I had to give myself permission, not to cry so much as to cry without direct reasoning. It took some days to arrive at the right words. "I started losing my dad twenty years ago," I would tell them, "and now I'm finishing losing him." Having never used the term "estranged," I found that it bound things up neatly now: "My dad just died" results in hugs and casseroles and tears; "My estranged father just died" provokes a twisted face and a hand squeeze, brief words and respectful distance.
And this is where Michael Jackson proves helpful. Because death forces a summary on life. "He was a good man" is spoken over caskets; "She was an awful person" whispered at gravestones. And I felt, especially in those first couple days, the magnetic pull to one side or the other: to summarize him as good or bad, all or nothing. And it was that silly, self-important frustration that kept me balancing the truth, somewhere in the middle: my father was a very good man, and, to be fair, he wanted to be a good dad... Just not enough to be one. This, especially five years later, isn't said in malice or bitterness--only in truth. He may have been wonderful in the first three years of my life, but what I remember are well-meant (but brief) vacations and awkward phone calls, frustration and glimpses of what might have been but wasn't. And after death, and five years after death, it's hard to avoid the summaritive: "He was an awful father" or "Ya know, things were really fine." Neither of those things are true, but both have been tempting to say.
But this is what's on my heart tonight: does forgetting the day--as I did; my brother reminded me this afternoon--mean the grief is over, the process complete, the book closed? "I started losing my father when I was three," I've said, and I made entries and inserted sketches in that book of loss until I was twenty-five. If the book has been so closed that I forget to trace its spine on the shelf with my fingers, does that mean I've finished my sadness? Or that I've closed down to it? Or something else? Is something lost--or found--when I neglect to draw my fingertips over a name carved in stone on a particular day of the year? Is he less known, less loved, less remembered?
This isn't a justification or a guilt trip--just one of those questions that flits in front of your eyes, insect-like, for brief pondering before something averts you back to the present. What's a blog for if not for musings like this, where I can brush the words off my hands and into a world that can read and think and judge and reflect and reply... :)
(No disrespect to the legacy of Mr. Jackson--I don't know enough about pop music to have an opinion--and don't worry, this post isn't about Michael, anyway.)
A day later--five years ago, tomorrow morning--I arrived at work still irked (and, admittedly, self-righteous in my irkedness), and began answering phones and taking orders and preparing for the UPS guy. My phone skittered across my desk, "MOM" blinking across the screen, but I ignored it, it not being uncommon for her to leave me a message. A moment later, it skittered again--had she forgotten something?--and again, I ignored it. And a moment after that, my work phone rang, and her voice was both blood-deep comforting and oddly off-key.
I remember her saying, "I don't know how to say this," and I don't remember how she said it but in short words laced with tears she told me my father had died the night before. The details were few at that point, but I think she knew I'd only be hearing half her words anyway and so she kept them brief. I hung up. I went to my boss's office to calmly explain, but my mouth arrested at the the word, and at "my da--" it was overwhelmed with sobs. My coworkers ushered me out the door with assurances, and not being ready to go home and explain to my roommate, I went to my church, where I bumped into a friend and sobbed some more. And then I went and sat on the floor of the sanctuary and sobbed some more. And then another friend came and sat with me, and I sobbed some more.
It was a weird grief, even then. I had to give myself permission, not to cry so much as to cry without direct reasoning. It took some days to arrive at the right words. "I started losing my dad twenty years ago," I would tell them, "and now I'm finishing losing him." Having never used the term "estranged," I found that it bound things up neatly now: "My dad just died" results in hugs and casseroles and tears; "My estranged father just died" provokes a twisted face and a hand squeeze, brief words and respectful distance.
And this is where Michael Jackson proves helpful. Because death forces a summary on life. "He was a good man" is spoken over caskets; "She was an awful person" whispered at gravestones. And I felt, especially in those first couple days, the magnetic pull to one side or the other: to summarize him as good or bad, all or nothing. And it was that silly, self-important frustration that kept me balancing the truth, somewhere in the middle: my father was a very good man, and, to be fair, he wanted to be a good dad... Just not enough to be one. This, especially five years later, isn't said in malice or bitterness--only in truth. He may have been wonderful in the first three years of my life, but what I remember are well-meant (but brief) vacations and awkward phone calls, frustration and glimpses of what might have been but wasn't. And after death, and five years after death, it's hard to avoid the summaritive: "He was an awful father" or "Ya know, things were really fine." Neither of those things are true, but both have been tempting to say.
But this is what's on my heart tonight: does forgetting the day--as I did; my brother reminded me this afternoon--mean the grief is over, the process complete, the book closed? "I started losing my father when I was three," I've said, and I made entries and inserted sketches in that book of loss until I was twenty-five. If the book has been so closed that I forget to trace its spine on the shelf with my fingers, does that mean I've finished my sadness? Or that I've closed down to it? Or something else? Is something lost--or found--when I neglect to draw my fingertips over a name carved in stone on a particular day of the year? Is he less known, less loved, less remembered?
This isn't a justification or a guilt trip--just one of those questions that flits in front of your eyes, insect-like, for brief pondering before something averts you back to the present. What's a blog for if not for musings like this, where I can brush the words off my hands and into a world that can read and think and judge and reflect and reply... :)
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