an actual entry.
Last night I had a bad dream, or at least part of it was. I dreamed about my father; I don't know where we were, but I remember he was so frail, and when he breathed his lungs were like wet paper, and he was light, very light, and when he moved he needed me to support him, and every morning he drank whiskey, even though I have never seen my father drink whiskey, and I begged him to stop, I would snatch the bottle from his hand but he would find more and drink it, but it was so important that he stop drinking it because if he did he would get better, if he did he would somehow become young and upright and strong again, the same man who would take my sister and me to the office and parade us around, who would laugh and joke with everyone from the security guard to his boss, and would print ASCII Peanuts characters out on that green-lined printer paper that I remember drawing on the back of with anything I could find.
People remember my mother because she's bright and cheerful and outgoing. People will tell me how much like my mother I am. This must be because people don't know me. Or maybe because people don't know my father.
I remember being at dinner with my mother and my sisters, not very long ago, and they talked about my father. One of my older sisters said that he had hit her once when they were fighting, and then tried to turn it into a big deal - though I have very vivid memories of said sister's behavior when I was a child, including one crystal recollection of her screaming "I hope you die and I'll dance on your grave!" Thinking about it make me want to slap her. What was surprising, though, was how willingly my father was accepted as the villain by my mother and my siblings. No one in my immediate family would ever be beatified; despite that, righteousness seems to be part and parcel of our genetic code.
Some time ago, my father and I went to get a new tire put on my car. We went in, the man took off the tire to check it out, just in case it could be patched, and a woman rushed up to him, shouting about how she had been there first, and we had just gotten here. She yelled at him, and at my father, and when she understood that the man was just checking out the tire, she grudgingly backed off. My father just nodded and smiled at her kids, and despite the obvious annoyance of the attendants, made conversation with her. Why, I wondered, was he being nice to such a bitch? 'She's all by herself with two little boys,' he said, 'and she's been waiting a long time.' It was easy to get upset with someone who was upset with you, but instead you could choose to put in the effort to be kind.
And to add to the nostalgia, I was a freshman in high school when I first read Breakfast of Champions. I checked it out from the library and devoured it in a day, reading it in class when I should have been learning whatever it is they teach you in high school. By sheer chance, I was glancing over our old bookshelf (which my father had built) and I came across several books by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. I pulled them from the shelf, eager to read them, and I asked my mother, "Are these yours?" She looked over the cover and said (with a bit of distaste in her voice - Vonnegut fell into the realm of sci-fi and fantasy, neither of which my mother cares for), "Oh, those are your father's." I had, and have, never seen my father read much beyond technical manuals and the newspaper; he must have been as taken with Vonnegut as I was.
When I think about this man, who joined the army to see the world, only to find himself in Vietnam after starting his second tour; who is amazing with children, earning their love and attention to a point that would inspire parental jealousy; who loves animals, so much so that over a half-century after his beloved pet chicken was turned into dinner, he still will not touch poultry; who has more quiet knowledge than a set of textbooks - I wonder how many people miss it. How many people see a shock of grey hair and a craggy face and a bristly mustache, how many people write him off as being through.
And I wish I could be Charlotte, spinning a web above him, letting the world know how terrific and radiant and humble he is.
There are days I tell myself I will never have babies because I don't know if I can stand to have a baby when there are so many babies without mothers and without food, and so many babies dying of AIDS. I wonder if I can bring a baby into the world knowing there are crying, waiting babies who would need me more. I wonder if I can bring a baby into a world dying of AIDS, its body shutting down because it doesn't produce the antibodies it needs to fight poison, to fight people.
A tangent, it would seem, but listen to this: There are days when I wonder if I wouldn't want to have a little baby right now, if only so he can meet his grandfather. If only so he would know who he is first hand.
People remember my mother because she's bright and cheerful and outgoing. People will tell me how much like my mother I am. This must be because people don't know me. Or maybe because people don't know my father.
I remember being at dinner with my mother and my sisters, not very long ago, and they talked about my father. One of my older sisters said that he had hit her once when they were fighting, and then tried to turn it into a big deal - though I have very vivid memories of said sister's behavior when I was a child, including one crystal recollection of her screaming "I hope you die and I'll dance on your grave!" Thinking about it make me want to slap her. What was surprising, though, was how willingly my father was accepted as the villain by my mother and my siblings. No one in my immediate family would ever be beatified; despite that, righteousness seems to be part and parcel of our genetic code.
Some time ago, my father and I went to get a new tire put on my car. We went in, the man took off the tire to check it out, just in case it could be patched, and a woman rushed up to him, shouting about how she had been there first, and we had just gotten here. She yelled at him, and at my father, and when she understood that the man was just checking out the tire, she grudgingly backed off. My father just nodded and smiled at her kids, and despite the obvious annoyance of the attendants, made conversation with her. Why, I wondered, was he being nice to such a bitch? 'She's all by herself with two little boys,' he said, 'and she's been waiting a long time.' It was easy to get upset with someone who was upset with you, but instead you could choose to put in the effort to be kind.
And to add to the nostalgia, I was a freshman in high school when I first read Breakfast of Champions. I checked it out from the library and devoured it in a day, reading it in class when I should have been learning whatever it is they teach you in high school. By sheer chance, I was glancing over our old bookshelf (which my father had built) and I came across several books by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. I pulled them from the shelf, eager to read them, and I asked my mother, "Are these yours?" She looked over the cover and said (with a bit of distaste in her voice - Vonnegut fell into the realm of sci-fi and fantasy, neither of which my mother cares for), "Oh, those are your father's." I had, and have, never seen my father read much beyond technical manuals and the newspaper; he must have been as taken with Vonnegut as I was.
When I think about this man, who joined the army to see the world, only to find himself in Vietnam after starting his second tour; who is amazing with children, earning their love and attention to a point that would inspire parental jealousy; who loves animals, so much so that over a half-century after his beloved pet chicken was turned into dinner, he still will not touch poultry; who has more quiet knowledge than a set of textbooks - I wonder how many people miss it. How many people see a shock of grey hair and a craggy face and a bristly mustache, how many people write him off as being through.
And I wish I could be Charlotte, spinning a web above him, letting the world know how terrific and radiant and humble he is.
There are days I tell myself I will never have babies because I don't know if I can stand to have a baby when there are so many babies without mothers and without food, and so many babies dying of AIDS. I wonder if I can bring a baby into the world knowing there are crying, waiting babies who would need me more. I wonder if I can bring a baby into a world dying of AIDS, its body shutting down because it doesn't produce the antibodies it needs to fight poison, to fight people.
A tangent, it would seem, but listen to this: There are days when I wonder if I wouldn't want to have a little baby right now, if only so he can meet his grandfather. If only so he would know who he is first hand.