My Personal Progenitors

I don't hate my parents. I hate my situation with them. But the situation that I have with them is so complex that I tell people that I hate my parents to keep it simple and move on.

My parents have been wanting to go out to dinner with me for a while now. So we finally went out tonight. They treated me to a wonderful Italian restaurant. I also have left overs in my fridge! Afterward, my dad had to go play music at a bar/club close by. I carried his instruments inside for him. He set up with the rest of the band, who had already started playing. As he joined them I found myself starting to cry. Even as I type this now, the tears are returning.

My dad is seventy. He is old enough to be my grandfather. For his entire life, he has played music. For over sixty years, he has played formally. For over fifty years he has played professionally. So when my father plays saxophone or clarinet, it is not just a person articulately pushing air down a tube, he is actually building an audioscape masterpiece that has been refined and chiseled for most of a lifetime. I can count the days on one hand that I was at my house and did not hear him playing.

I wanted to stay and listen so badly tonight. I wanted to be there to see him perform this masterpiece. But I felt a certain shame for tears in that moment and now I feel more shame for leaving.

I suppose I will now attempt to describe the relationship I have with my father.

My father is one of the most kind people I have ever met. His generosity is endless and infinite. There is nothing I could ever ask for that he wouldn't try to give me. But he is also cold and miserably alone. I've never seen him happy. Before I go any further, I must clarify here that we never have personal or deep conversations beyond, "How is school?" or "How are your grades." So I don't feel like I even know anything about him. There were a few times that we played catch when, but most nights he did not feel up throwing the baseball around. So I never really got the time with him as a kid, that I saw my friends having with their dads. When we are in the car alone together, we don't speak regardless of whether or not the radio is on. It's not that we don't try to talk, but it's like he can't hold up a conversation. I know his interests; sci-fi, literary classics, and jazz. Around 7th grade, I horded every scrap of Coleman Hawkins, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Charlie Parker that I could get my hands on. I listened to them religiously, in the hopes that it would help me build a connection with him. But that was about as successful as penguins flying. He smiles at me when he's proud. But I'm convinced it is only because I'm his son. I could just as well be his ex-druggie daughter who overcame the drug problem and he would probably be just as proud.

I suppose the worst part about this is that I recognize it is not his fault. After all he's basically like an elderly grandfather, disconnected and out of focus from the distance in time. So how could he know any differently? It would also seem the way he was raised was different too. But the real point is that for all my life my father has been a wonderful symbol of talent, nobility, and humanity. But trying to communicate with him or any of those things is more impossible than learning another language or attempting to acquire one of the many skills he has.

That is why I didn't want to leave. That is why I had to hold back the tears. That is why I can't be there to listen now.

Performing A Void Dance

Avoidance. That pretty much sums up my coping with issues for the past five weeks. It's a little "dance" that I have gained considerable skill in. So I will now write with clarity and intention in the hopes of revealing a new understanding for myself about the topic I have been so diligently dodging. . .

I tried a similar attempt a few weeks ago. It began like this. . .

Indeed, writing this could be an impressive error on my behalf, but I'm OK with making this mistake as I slept for a total of about three hours last night.

Yesterday I took a quiz in one of my classes. Whatever the reason may be, I opened the far back compartment of my backpack which, apparently, I had not zipped open in quite a long time. A stack of notes from Diana emptied, queuing a deluge of memories. I had put some notes in my backpack for the idea, that a part of her was "as physically close to my heart as possible at all times. . ." while at BG. One note in particular practically dropped me to my knees.

"GOOD MORNING!
-hope you slept well. Have a GREAT DAY! I'll Call when I get out of school. (heart) Diana"

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I walked into the classroom. Names were on the tables to assign us our designated seats. Two weeks previous to this, I had visited an art school. Feeling confident in having no confidence about what I wanted to do with my life, art school just seemed like a good idea? So when I went to visit art schools as a highschool junior with no art credit or portfolio they gave some weird looks behind even weirder looking glasses. So I said, "hey! art classes!!!". So here I was sitting at the end of a table, that was connected to other tables, that made a big square border within a big square room. I had no ambition. I had no imagination of my future. I had no expectations. My life wasn't bad. I was not terribly depressed. But I was also unfulfilled.

I was kind of a clown. As you can imagine with basically no real trail to follow I was blazing a path to nowhere. . .

Diana sat two seats away to my right. From the first time I talked to her, I liked her. She was engaging and real. After about a week of school I added her on facebook. One morning before school I wrote on her wall about how quirky our art teacher was. Later that week I forgot to bring a no. 2 pencil to class and Diana let me barrow one of her's. She told me to give it back and I confessed I had no idea where mine was and therefore no intention to return her pencil. She told me that I owed her a picture. The night before the next class, I took about an hour to sketch a rose with charcoal. We started dating soon after. That rose stayed on her wall next to her bed for over two years. I have no idea if it is still there or not.

The more than two years that we dated are a big blur. Anytime I think of my in that compartment of time, Diana is there. Whether I remember taking her coat in the front room of my parents house or knowing I was only five minutes away from seeing her for the first time in three weeks.

I remember looking out the bathroom window of my dorm to see her ride pulling into the parking lot.
I remember opening my eyes in the morning and seeing her face.
I remember purposely irritating her with stupid games like, "hey Diana, hey Diana, hey Diana, hey Diana, hey Diana, hey Diana, hey Diana, hey Diana, hey Diana, hey Diana, hey Diana, hey Diana, hey Diana, hey Diana, hey Diana, hey Diana, hey Diana," until she became so annoyed she would stare me into submission with only "David, stop."

I can't write anymore. I will revisit this topic at a later time.