Sometimes you have to drop your pride

Posted by random olio

Even if a novel is not a true story, sometimes there is a character that gets under your skin, and makes their way into your heart. I just finished reading “Outside the Lines” by Amy Hatvany. It is a story about a girl who is trying to find her father. When she was ten he left because of his mental issues. He could not stay on his medications because it numbed him, but could not function without his medication. She is 30 and trying to find her father 20 years later. This excerpt made me think of my own dad:

“‘I’m useless,’ he cried. ‘Totally useless. I’m a terrible father. I’m a terrible painter. I should just leave…you’d be better off without me. Everyone would.’ He shoved his face in his hands, making it awkward to keep him in my embrace. I could feel his tears drip down on my forearm. His pain bled into me, pushing through my skin. It made my stomach clench. He only used to cry once in a while, now it was happening all the time.” page 39

Dad rarely cried. He would call me every few weeks when I was in college. Instead of short frequent conversations, they would be three agonizing hours. I could not get him to stop talking to me. Maybe that is why it is hard for me to finish a conversation today, and why I feel guilty walking away, even if I am late for another engagement. I never knew how to get my dad off the phone. Maybe I felt that staying on the phone with him would make things different for him. Or better.

The final years of his life were not great for my father. Looking back it makes me sad to think about his loneliness. Those late night phone calls, when I should have been studying, made me feel like the parent. It definitely made me a better listener. He would tell me about the construction jobs he was working on, and the clients he liked, and those he did not. He would talk about his siblings, and whether he was in touch with them. We talking about my siblings and whether he was in touch with them. He would talk about his dreams, and where he wanted to take his life. He hoped that things would come through for him, and if they did he was going to find a better place to live, or eventually replace his old blue truck. Sometimes he was in a good mood and would tell me how proud he was of me, other times he would be so down in the dumps that I knew my words of affirmation would not sail into his ears, they would just float through the mouthpiece of my phone and out the ear of his phone.

My mom was dead. He missed her. Even though they divorced a few years before she passed on, I knew he still loved her. Even if they fought and argued, you could still see the love they had for each other. His work life was hard, back-breaking work and he was not getting any breaks. He longed to be able to pay his bills, and have something be easy in life. My sister and I encouraged him over and over again to get a job working for someone else for the knowledge that he would have a regular paycheck and health benefits, but that was not my dad. From as far back as I could remember my dad did not take orders from anyone. This meant the last thing he would do is work for someone else. I do not think he truly understood that sometimes when things are tough it is better to drop your pride, be good, collect a paycheck and put your feet up at the end of the week.

What he may not know is that I learned from his example. I have a bit of him in the “do your own thing” in me, but I also appreciate what it means to know you have a secure job, health benefits, and someone who might just rub your feet at the end of the week. It is not something to take for granted.

Dad was a classy mooner

Posted by random olio

In case you were wondering, the title of this post is sarcastic. My father was far from classy. He was real and raw. What you saw is what you got. He did not hide things. If he was mad you knew it. If he was emotional you knew it. If he was happy, or thought something was funny, you could see it on his face, or in the way his body shook with laughter. Yet, from what I could remember he still had a poker face.

Other than being in the Air Force for a few years, and stationed in Turkey, he lived a good chunk of his life in Indiana. Now Indiana, for those of you living there, I am not knocking you, but well my dad did not always mind his manners. Indiana did not bring out the classiness in my dad. One of the things I remember (and yes I was mortified at the time) was that when he was pissed off at someone for cutting him off in the car, he had a sign between his seats that was on a stick with someone mooning you. When he was ticked off, he would pull it out and moon the other car. At the time I was mortified if I was ever in his truck with him, now I look back and think, “What the heck, at least he told them what he thought.” Do you ever wish you had one of those signs?

A few weeks ago I finished the book: “Too Good to Be True” by Benjamin Anastas. He writes about how his father would moon people in public. This is an excerpt from his book:

“My father is about to moon someone. In the A&P parking lot. I should pause for a moment and explain, from the safety of adulthood, that my father had three major styles when it came to mooning. The first and probably the most common type happened in the car, when my father was behind the wheel. Let’s call it the Face in the Window. If we were driving through Gloucester and passed a friend from his wilder, artsy crowd, he would sometimes put the car in neutral, crouch up on the seat, yank down his pants, and press his bare ass to the glass. Sometimes he did the same thing when the car was parked, but that version had a lower degree of difficulty. I had seen the Face in the Window from the outside enough times to fear it: the twin mounds of flesh pressed hard against the window; the dark crevice down the center, like a crack in the earth; the beard of public hair and dangling ball sack. No one, no matter what his suit of character armor, should have to contemplate the furry pucker of his father’s asshole in the window of a car, or anywhere else. It leads to nightmares. It is like seeing your own death. Actually, it’s like seeing your own death and staring at your father’s asshole at the same time.

His second style of mooning was an offshoot of the first: the Breezeway. This is identical to the Face in the Window, except the car windows are open. It’s fresher, more natural. Easier to shrug off, if you happen to catch some collateral.

The third style of mooning is the easiest to employ on the fly: the Quick Drop. This is the moon my father used when he was on foot. It could happen in an instant, at any time. He dropped his pants, threw himself forward, and reached behind to spread his ass checks wide. Without the spread it was still a full-on mooning, but the effect was a little more restrained, more polite.” Page 96-97

So I guess my dad was not alone. There were other mooners out there. I wonder how many are still out there, as I have yet to be mooned. If I ever am, I know that it might be a classy take on Face in the Window, the Breezeway, the Quick Drop, or my dad’s version with a butt on a sign. Whichever version, I know it will bring a smile to my face.

Thank you, Dad, for keeping it real.

What it must have been like for my Dad

Posted by random olio

I was reading a book recently, where the character reminded me of my dad.

After my parents got divorced my dad moved from a bad house to an even worse house. At one time he was even living in a barn. I saw his space. He slept on a cot, and had his clothes in milk crates. There was another place that he would never take me too. I never understood why. Now looking back I see it was his pride. In many ways I am glad he never showed me. I am a visual person and it would be imprinted in my thoughts. I still remember how strange it was to see my dad inside the barn stall. His friend let him stay there when he had no where else to go.

dad’s home away from home

At the time he lived in Indiana, and it was the early 90’s. I cannot imagine rent was that expensive, and yet he did not have the money. I remember one house he lived in, had mice. Yes, many homes have mice, but these you would hear crawling through the walls, and they loved the kitchen. You would find their droppings in cupboards, on the counter, and on the floor. I am sure my dad hated it, but many times he did not have a choice. I know what he would tell me today. He would say: “I have a roof over my head, and food on the table and that is all that matters.”

As I type this I am crying. I wish he had a better life. If he were still alive today, maybe he would have figured some things out and found that house that he could call a home, with no mice, windows that let in the light, a dresser for his clothes, and a place to park his beloved truck. I wish I had understood back then how hard it must have been for him. To have to leave the home you have, walk away from seeing your family each night, and start out new. I wish his life had been different. I will never know what his life might have turned out like, but I can keep living and working to make mine better.

Love you, Dad.

The sound of her voice…

Posted by random olio

A few weeks ago, I finished reading “Tiny Beautiful Things” by Cheryl Strayed. She is the author that wrote “Wild” which is about her experience hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. “Tiny Beautiful Things” is a compilation of many “Dear Sugar” advice columns from The Rumpus. At times these columns tore me apart. Like this excerpt from one of her columns:

“It will never be okay, and yet there we were, the two of us more than okay, both of us happier and luckier than anyone has a right to be. You could describe either one of us as ‘joy on wheels,’ though there isn’t one good thing that has happened to either of us that we haven’t experienced through the lens of our grief. I’m not talking about weeping and wailing every day (though sometimes we both did that). I’m talking about what goes on inside, the words unspoken, the shaky quake at the body’s core. There was no mother at our college graduations. There was no mother at our weddings. There was no mother when we sold our first books. There was no mother when our children were born. There was no mother, ever, at any turn for either one of us in our entire adult lives and there never will be.” Page 98

One of the few photos I have of just my parents…

Tears in my eyes. Reminders of the many events and milestones in my own life that I experienced motherless and fatherless. No parents at my college graduation. Or my wedding. I have yet to sell a book, or have a child, but if I ever do, my mom and dad will not be present. Yes, you can tell me they are there in spirit. That will be true, but it does not replace the feeling and the wonder of what it would be like to see their face, to have them hold me, or to tell me they are proud of me. Nothing can replace that. You might also say to me, but how do you know if you would still be close to them? How do you know if your relationship would exist in a way that you would want them there? I would tell you I cannot answer that. I do not know. So instead I have the anticipation of what it would be like. It is like having a dream that you have over and over again, but you always wake up at the same time. So you never really know what happens. You never get to that place in the dream.

Strayed lost her mother at a young age, and after losing her mother, her stepfather (who basically raised her) stopped all contact with her. In a different column Strayed shared a poignant reminder for me:

“I haven’t had parents as an adult. I’ve lived so long without them and yet I carry them with me everyday. They are like two empty bowls I’ve had to repeatedly fill on my own.” Page 307

This is how I have often felt. My mom has been gone for more years than I ever spent with her. It has been 18 years. She died when I was 16. While she will always be a part of my life, there are days when I struggle to remember what she looked and smelled like. The hardest part is that I can barely remember the sound of her voice.

Motorcycles, Peanut Butter, and Laughter

Posted by random olio

This Sunday is Father’s Day. I always am a bit nostalgic around Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. In some ways it is just another day that passes, but it also always reminds me of all that I miss about my mom and dad. My father and I did not always have the best relationship. In what would be his final years, he struggled a lot and I often felt like the parent in the relationship. There are, however, some good things I do remember about him.

He liked motorcycles, dogs, and peanut butter. He also liked to play.

We played board games together as a family quite often. I think what I loved about playing games most was that I had his undivided attention. Maybe that is a clue into why I tried so hard to learn the rules to the adult games (my brother and sister were older) so I could play any game in our closet and thus not ever be left out. I also remember when I would find him relaxing in his recliner in the family room. He was usually reading National Geographic, or a book or magazine about cars. Growing up his father at one point had a used car lot, and after being exposed to different kinds of cars, he fell in love. When I was in elementary school, I would come bug him, and he would pull out circle word searches, or other word mind games to play together. I would lean over his shoulder while he sat in the recliner to help with finding words. I loved having that 1:1 time with him.

While we did not go on family vacations (because we could not afford it) we did often go camping. My dad was involved in Boy Scouts because of my brother, and we many times went on family campouts with other Boy Scout families. Even though my sister and I were often the only girls, we always had fun and learned a lot. I miss those days. My dad also liked to go on motorcycle rides. Somehow my sister got to go more often. Maybe it was because she was older, or maybe because she was more relaxed on the bike. (I often would forget which way you were supposed to lean and I think that would sometimes freak him out). He loved being out on his bike.

What I miss most about my dad was when he laughed. If he thought something was funny enough, his entire body would shake and his eyes would start to water. Once he started laughing like this, he usually could not stop. I loved seeing his entire body experience the joy of what he found funny. The last movie I saw with him was the Cameron Diaz movie, “There’s Something about Mary.” I had been visiting him over Christmas and we watched it the night before I headed back to college. I remember how hard he was laughing and thus how often the tears were coming out. He died a few weeks later. I never knew that would be the last time I would see him.

Thank you, dad, for the motorcycle rides, and the reminder that I need to play more. It is not always easy, but it is important. We all need to laugh so hard we cry.