Neither Resentment Nor Anticipation: Today Is Busy Enough Being Itself
Sometimes I wonder what attributes of mine are encoded in each tiny one.
Actually, I'm fascinated that my body can construct life. There's something I love about feeling the process of nature deep inside. Knowing that I don't have to be smart enough or skilled enough to perform such an *awesome* task as bringing a baby to life, all I have to be is willing. This flesh and bones around me takes care of all the details, and to perfection.
Every month I get the sensation of, "we're ready when you are," as all my miniature parts make another practice-run.
I am almost scared of the intensity of the love I am going to have for my children.
Just look at the effect had on me by ovulation!
I love life, and all the processes in life. Very few destinations are worth their hullabaloo, but the getting there is the good part.
Speaking of processes and destinations, my father has been quoted as having said, "I wouldn't change a hair on her head just to know she was mine."
That's really sweet, from some perspectives, but the truth is, I wouldn't be so confident if I had been born of his doing.
He asked my mother a few years ago, "Do you think the reason why we have no trouble from Michaela is because she's not mine?"
My mother, of course, offered him no comfort and agreed absolutely.
My Bio-Dad has hordes of insecurities and passivities and other unsightly character traits which I'm attracted to in other men, but at least he is independent, rather than codependent.
His independence coupled with my mother's rebellion and there you have the Michaela you all know.
But my dad -- the man who has the name "Dad" -- is a contradiction in so many ways.
He is the man who worked full time all my life to feed and protect me. Put braces on my teeth. Taught me how to drive. Calls me Katrina for no clear reason. Only punished me (we'll be generous here and say) five times in my childhood. Commented only once on my "tone of voice" as a teenager. Paid my rent for about two years in college. Co-signed on a car with me.
He is also the man who has always loved something else more than he loves me (or the other three children, for that matter). He loves leisure and not work: and we children are such work. We demand it from him.
Attention and concern. I don't even remember if he was there when my prom date picked me up in the eleventh grade.
He breaks promises and then makes me feel like a piece of shit for expecting otherwise. My friend Todd stood with a hand on my shoulder as I ached with tears after hearing my father reduce me to trash when it was HE who had let me down. Todd asked if it was worth getting kicked in the stomach to get what I needed from my dad. It took me a while to figure it out, but the answer is �no�.
His charm is deceitful.
But the rose-colored glasses through which I see my father (no pun on the last name...) is rock and roll. The shroud of perfection I use to conceal all his torturous short-comings.
My father is a musician, and was perhaps a genius once. Mom met him onstage. In a band called Matthew, in Atlanta, in 1972. (I�m older than they were then.)
Dad�s soft tenor voice and slender six-foot frame and Coke-bottle-green eyes singing, �if you ever, change your mind, about leaving, leaving me behind: bring it to me, bring your sweet love, bring it on home to me� over the soulful and precise, bluesy grind of his Fender was a little more than she could stand.
Many nights as a little girl we had family sing-along�s. Just dad and the acoustic singing with Mom, my sister, and me. We sang the songs dad had written, and folk songs, and praise songs, and bluegrass songs.
I�d sneak out of bed and listen to him playing alongside Muddy Waters. With his headphones on through his amp, I could only barely make out what sound the strings made, but I watched his face: so focused and affected.
At fourteen I started really listening to his music. Learning all about it. Muriah could play guitar and piano by ear, and had a perfect soprano voice so she and dad composed things together and played duets and had that to share.
I�m not talented musically, so I learned to listen, and all the conversational facts.
Allman Brothers, Jimi Hendrix, Dire Straits, Eric Clapton, (early)ZZ Top, Santana, Joe Satriani, Phil Keagy, and the blues. The blues were the most important.
Growing up behind me came John-Michael, and he picked up the guitar as though it were a spoon and started playing blues and everything proceeding from it. One of dad�s specialty songs is �Johnny Be Good,� an old Johnny Winters classic, and of course my brother does it now, and it�s all for dad.
John-Michael and Dad and I all sit together and talk rock�n�roll, because it�s all we have, I guess. The two of them will play and I savor every note.
Last week my father was robbed. His apartment was broken into and everything was stolen.
All the different guitars. The amps. Pedals. Mics. Recorders. Effects producers (i.e. drum machine). Receivers. Turn tables. CD player. And more�
My heart really broke for him. Like the one thing he always had: this art, this expression, this connection, this outlet. It�s all gone. The man who showed me how bad-ass rock�n�roll is from generation to generation is stripped of his right-hand.
Before, I at least could say he wrote good music when he was drunk, but I guess now he�ll just be drunk.
I deserve to be happy that he lost it all. I deserve to see the old man miserable. I deserve to call him up and send him on a binge telling him how his materialism isn�t worth shit now, but if only he had a soul he could lament the loss.
Back in January I wrote an entry about a day when my dad lost everything I owned, and how insignificant this event was for him.
You�d think I�d wish this on him.
Instead I wish he�d marry his girlfriend. I wish he�d succeed as a counselor (I know, him as a psychologist-anything is just funny). I first wish he�d stop drinking. I wish he�d find a band to play with. I wish him all the happiness and success he�s ever dreamed of.
I wouldn�t be surprised if John-Michael were to give dad one of his guitars, too.
I go on adoring him. Thinking he�s handsome and talented and charming.
Mom calls him a mind-fucker. She might be right.
