Just breath

When I hurt, the depth is such that I find trouble inhaling.  I wish that I could report that those times were few, but in truth, I have often found myself struggling for breath.  Certainly, BioDad gave me many an occasion to strain to breath.

His wife was here this weekend.  A devout wife and devoted grandmother, she makes frequent trips to here... to see both her grandchildren and to visit her deceased husband's grave site.  I don't know how to respond to her grief.  I don't know if she knows the whole story... the whole story about how my father broke his vows, how he bedded a colleague, how I found the photographs... I don't think she knows any of that.  But it is not my place to tell her those things.  I want sometimes to slap her, to educate her, to inform her about his past; I strongly suspect that he lied about the circumstances involving his divorce.  I don't think she had a clue about his infidelity.  Is it my place to tell her to get over him because he was never who she thought he was?  Should she, would she grieve for him if she knew who he truly was?

Happy Birthday

Well, one thing I have learned from blogging is reread your work prior to posting.  My father was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer; there is not, of course, a stage VI.  

Yesterday would've have been Bio-Dad's 60th birthday.  I nearly forgot his birthday last year.  Our relationship was tethered by holidays and birthdays.  Those days aside, we rarely had any communication.  The curious thing is that I always put twice as much thought into his gift than for those whom I truly loved.  I didn't necessarily spend extravagantly on him, but I did agonize over the choice.  Oddly, I usually delivered well.  Last year though I realized within a day or two that his birthday was upon me and I stalled.  My life was rather tumultuous at the time and I became aware a month later that I still had not acknowledged Sandy's birthday.  Rather thoughtlessly, I ordered him steaks from Omaha, not realizing that he was having difficulty eating.  Actually, now that I think about it, Father's Day was the occasion I forgot.  His birthday I did indeed send a thoughtful gift though that too was belated.  I can't remember the title or the author now but I do recall that he was impressed with the selection.  I always felt both thrilled and annoyed that he enjoyed my gifts.  Why was he so surprised that I could give so generously?

When I was in high school he began buying me gifts from Tiffany's.  Initially I was delighted to be presented with that distinctive blue box.  However, each gift more readily revealed he had no idea who I was.  His selections seemed odd, like gifts he had bought for someone else, someone older, perhaps a girlfriend who had moved on.  Big seashell earrings.  Large graduated silver beads.  I let my mother borrow them.  I nestled them in their flannel bags and packed them into the back of my lingerie drawer.  

This year, as with the others since my stepmother came into our lives, I received a nice sweater which she had bought.  However, Sandy kept leaving me messages.  He seemed so desperate to reach me.  Each voicemail seemed more urgent than the last.  A week after my birthday, Ifinally  picked up the phone and his relief was palpable.  He NEEDED to wish me well.  It seemed so odd.  He sounded beaten.  Then he shocked me.  The Major General was tired.  He told me how sorry he was that my Gran had to go through the same hell he had endured.  I wanted to care.  I wanted to feel something deeper than curiosity.  Even now, I'm still not sure what I felt that night.  I told him he had fought the good fight.  He was in the ICU less than a week later.

So then I thought, maybe I should just stick to what I know.  I really can't divorce myself from what I write.  However, I can better define who I am as a writer.  First and foremost, I am bi-polar.  Secondly, I am southern.  However, these two important elements aside, I am also my father's (unwanted) daughter.  It is impossible for me to discern which of these characteristics has impacted me the most.  Rather I view them as interwoven.  In fact though before I was accurately diagnosed as bi-polar, I suspected that my depression stemmed from the inherent understanding, even at an improbably early age, that my father could never love me.  

I can still feel those days... the sharp summer sun, the steamy Mississippi mornings, skinned knees and mosquito bites.  I remember pushing a play mower behind my father as he mowed our lawn.  In the wilting heat, he had taken off his shirt.  I wanted so much to be embraced or at least recognized.  I took off my shirt too.  The scathing disdain.  I can remember that.  I cannot remember being kissed by anyone other than my grandmother or grandfather.  I can remember however the tacit disapproval and knowing even at 6 that I had earned it just by existing.

Years later, after our relationship had yawned into vacant formality, my father was diagnosed with stage VI lung cancer.  When my husband delivered this news, as he had retrieved the voicemail first, I felt a slight shudder.  I cannot recall though if I willed myself to feel nothing more or if I simply was unable to dredge up anything else.  For months, I kept the news within the family.  My brothers and I had hurried emotionless conversations about cancer and its impact.  When I finally did share the news with friends, that "Bio-Dad" as I had called him for years, was dying, I was surprised and slightly annoyed when they offered their sympathies.  

Maybe a blog shouldn't be so personal.  Perhaps you need to divorce the person from the writing in order to get a genuine story and not just a therapy session.  I didn't give that very much thought before launching into this blog.  Of course, everyone feels their story is compelling or else stories wouldn't be told.  In truth, of course, not every story IS compelling.  I wanted to start a blog to figure out what to do with life after motherhood and how to begin a possible career writing.  Maybe instead of giving the biographical background, I should just start the story.  However, not today.  Today I still need to hammer out details.  I received two very useful yet vastly different responses to this blog.  One was a criticism particularly relevant to the construction, hence the thought that perhaps I was on too personal a tangent.  The other was a heartfelt response to the nature of what I wrote.  Both comments were helpful, even if one was one more palatable than the other!  I would like to know how to create a story which is genuine without getting mired in personal reflection.  Is that even possible for me?  Could I write a story without using ME as the topic?  When I think about the best writers and the stories I admire the most, I doubt many of them are very autobiographical.  I'm sure every writer draws upon personal experiences but how do you avoid adding to much of yourself into the story?  

So I'm still getting used to this whole idea.  Do I use this as a diary, albeit with understanding that it will be viewed, or do I use this as a sounding board for my submissions for publication?  How about both?  Besides, right now, I really don't have to worry too much as to whether someone else is reading this or not!

With all that has transpired in the last year, I feel I have a wealthy of material to tap into to begin writing, whether its poetry, short stories, or even a short novel (I guess that's a novella, eh?).  I haven't sorted through this jumble in my head in so long.  I know it's all there... it's just matter of sorting and filing.  I tried to explain to a therapist once how I catalogue thoughts for writing... she prescribed some really strong medication after that session!  The best way I can describe it is that I have a running script during the day.  I walk into a room and I think "She walks into the room".  I flip through a mental rolodex (remember those) to find the right adjectives for the lighting, the climate, the smells... I thought everyone thought that way until I had that therapy session.

So maybe, you are wondering, what transpired this year?  How about betrayal, tragedy, loss and redemption?  Coupled with drastic weight loss and a bad case of hives but I think I can omit those parts.  Here's the rub; its not over - neither the year nor the impending tragedy yet to befall.  My Gran is still battling cancer and will have to stay on chemo until she decides she simply doesn't want to do it anymore or she dies.  The question is, has the last year prepared me enough for her death?  Certainly, the year was cathartic.  Oddly, it is the death of my estranged father that has left me the most battered.  I struggle to define how I feel.  Not just about his death, his life and our relationship but how all of those things left me feeling as a person.  I really am at a loss to describe the way I feel about anything and everything since his death.  There is a story in that, I am sure.  Not a story about Sandy or me or even a father/daughter story.  A story about feeling indescribable, about finding yourself surprised that you are standing in your own kitchen, about feeling altered but not necessarily affected by the specific situation.

Death throttled me this year.  The loss of people, of trust, of innocence and understanding.  And in its wake, I felt oddly buoyed.  

begin the begin

So I've often wondered what we could come up with if I wrote one sentence and passed it on to someone, who in turn wrote another sentence and passed it on... what kind of story would we get?  Since this is my first blog, you can go ahead and assume that I haven't gotten very far with my idea yet.  I guess its sort of an expanded mad lib.  Still I think it is an interesting idea.  And I need to entertain my interesting ideas!  As a stay-at-home mother of two, its not every day that I can come up with something interesting much less coherent.  Where will this go from here?  I don't know but I guess I will keep coming back.