Jaqueline Woodson's Feathers and thoughts while on the elliptical

The following blog was written last Wednesday December 23, 2010. I thought awhile before posting it. I asked myself, why ? Why share this? The answer is that this blog is about the process of writing. The pitfalls, obstacles, what works and what doesn't–for me. I hesitated in posting because of the subject matter, but the subject matter isn't what is so important here. What is important is that I sat down and just wrote something, something spontaneous, something unexpected, something from deep inside.  Something that I don't think I wanted to write about but more had to, and in doing this writing, I let go of whatever has been blocking me over the last two weeks.

I also think that the inspiration in this piece is significant–another book, reading someone else's writing stirred something within me that made me want to write, and, therein lies the power of reading.

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This isn’t what I thought I would write. I had a tumbling of thoughts while on the elliptical this morning reading for my upcoming residency. Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson. Then I went to Starbucks to write, and this is what came out. I haven’t written much lately, and when I was writing, it was for school. But I feel like I have found my voice again.

This is me, raw again, raw and vulnerable.

_______

I had a revelation on the elliptical today:
My dad has no middle name.
I mean, I knew this, of course, but it hit me:
He was never given a middle name
never given something that most children are given when they are born.

***

The missing name.
    The missing heart.
    The missing center.

He is a mystery.
He is predictable.

He doesn’t call on the kids’ birthdays
and misses the holidays.

He used to.
He used to take me for long walks and talk about
life.
He used to call and
check in.
But now–
he does not.
Why?

For years he faked it.
For years he forced himself.
This is what I think.

***

I haven’t seen my father since June, for my daughter’s ballet recital.
He lives 20 minutes away.

***

I don’t have to
decorate anything or
buy anything or
cook anything
today or tomorrow or the next day.    

I miss my father and my mother and sister, all together.
I miss them during this moment of being on the outside,
that is,
outside Christmas, and,
well, now I know: 
It’s
familiar.
It’s all I have left
of
my family as it used to be.

When I am on the outside,
I am close to the past, when I didn’t know everything.
Because I think (really this is a fantasy, though, and I am really wrong. I just tell myself this, that I just have this version of my childhood and perhaps my sister has another.)
somewhere,
each of them might be feeling that too
pretending to be a part of it all, to fit in,
but they don’t, and they are in a state of parallel existence.
Nodding and smiling at the right moments but inside sighing and wishing to be alone. 
But I really liked it a lot when it was the four of us on the outside together, eating Chinese food on Christmas.
I miss it.
I miss my family even though I feel certain that my father never wanted to be there, to be with the family, with me, my sister and mom, but unlike when you sense that from a friend and then move farther away–unlike that– it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter that he didn’t want to be there, it mattered that he was there. 

The fact is that I want a dad, just not mine.
It feels peaceful to acknowledge this.
I wish I was alone right now so I could cry,
but maybe this holding back is good and will make me write more.

***

On the elliptical I thought those thoughts all because of the book I was reading, Feathers.  Then I had all these random thoughts about the book, thoughts that brought me to my father.

I noticed that there’s a thing about names in the story, about how the new kid wants to be called Jesus and how Frannie’s name is really Abby but is called Frannie because her brother had an easier time calling her that (Abby is her middle name). 

That’s how I landed on Dad thoughts, but really Dad is always there lurking in the shadows of my thoughts. 

Sometimes he is not lurking but blocking the middle of the road of my life.

***

So–

Abby/Francis and the Jesus boy from Feathers. Yeah, that’s what made me land on my father, but like I said, he is always there, somehow. Mostly not in a way that stops my life, but more the effects of that relationship linger around the edges of everything. 

***

i wish i wish i wish

nothing
I don’t wish anything
I don’t want to say it...
but–
it “is what it is”
maybe a better and more clear way of saying that is
Dad is Dad and I am me and we are both too old to be not who we are
and I know
who he is
isn’t what I want in my life
despite my wanting to be okay with who he is
I guess I am not okay with it
and despite this other part of me that used to dictate how I dealt with all this (which took tremendous effort. So much that I had panic attacks regularly. Funny how once I submitted to my real feelings about my father, those panic attacks disappeared) despite the part of me that says you and your sister are different people. He treated you differently from her and you have to base your relationship on that–
Really?
Not sure about that because now, now he treats me like he treats Jen, and in his eyes we are the same.

“I miss you....”
Do I?
I’m not sure about missing him
but
I am so sad that I don’t have a dad
that there’s no one to call if–
if what?
I was going to say if I got stuck in the snow
but
I wouldn’t call him anyway.
I’d call AAA.
That’s kind of funny.

In an alternate universe
I have my dad
he calls to see how I am
if I need help with anything
like–
gosh
I can’t even think of anything.
I don’t even know what that looks like.
is that sad?

***

No middle name
two middle names
not using your given name
choosing a different name

What could that all mean?

My father wasn’t given a middle name.
Why?
Was his brother given one?
Something is missing from my father but for many years he faked his way that he had it
What is it?
Emotions?
Grief?
That word just came to me
he doesn’t seem to grieve
like when his best friend of over 30 years died
he was consumed with what he had to do
would call
sporadically and say
I’m so overwhelmed with dealing with the estate
Never did I hear him say
“I am so sad
this is so sad
he was so young
cancer sucks.”
or
“I should really look at my own life
life is short
I should really try again with my kids before it’s too late.”

Nope

Something is missing from my dad

***

I keep thinking about the middle name
no middle name.
they couldn’t think of one?
Maybe they were fighting about it.
Maybe Tilly, his mother, was tired.
What was the whole thing like?
The birth of my father?
I know it was November
1944
The war had not ended
What was the day like?
They already had a child
A five year old boy (the same age as my older daughter)
A boy who would grow to be a bully to my father until the day he punched him in the face but they would face a life time of competitiveness that would drive such a wedge between them
My uncle has no children
Does he have no middle name too?

Was my father wanted? Did his father hold and cuddle him immediately, did Tilly?

Later, when they were old and grandparents they showed love, through letters and phone calls,
We didn’t see them much
Mom says he, my dad, didn’t want to
Dad says Mom hated his family
Who knows

I recall them, one day. It was June, I think, the last day of school. We were living in VA, and I came home and walked into the backyard and there they were sitting together on our picnic table, and I don’t know what they said but in my mind they are smiling and I am happy.

My childhood was happy
I mean, that’s what I feel when I look back at it.

things got bad when I was 14.
I felt something wasn’t right
but no one would say what it was
instead they all said it was me
something was wrong with me
but
it wasn’t me
it was them

***

My father has no middle name

If you aren’t loved enough
what happens to you?
Your heart
isn’t tender
or vulnerable
you don’t know how to be vulnerable
being loved shows you how to be vulnerable
vulnerability equals true intimacy
Can this be learned?
Could my father learn how to be tender and loving?

***

An old man
not really old but
around my father’s age
sits in the leather chair facing the window to the outside
he doesn’t move much
he leans his chin on his hand which is propped by his elbow resting on the chair’s arm
he stares at nothing
is he a father?
does he think of his daughters
that maybe he will see tomorrow for xmas eve–
unless he is Jewish–
the other hand holds on to the other arm of the chair

what is he thinking?

I am neatly avoiding and trying desperately to NOT write what I should write.

There’s stuff on my mind but that stuff bores and frustrates me because it is hard to put into words. I know, I know my students would say, “Well, then that’s all the more reason why you should write it.” They give my shit right back to me and that’s why they are all geniuses.
I am neatly avoiding and trying desperately to NOT write what I should write. The stuff that is on my mind, but I fear writing about it because I want to drive the bus of my life and not struggle with the obsessive thoughts I have or repetitive themes that bother me.

Simple put, the things I cannot change. I really don’t want to write about THOSE THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE THOSE THINGS I MUST JUST ACCEPT. But yet it is those things that are a.) interesting because they contain drama and trauma b.) I need to continually purge those things. SO I don’t need to write about those things in order to FIGURE THEM OUT. I spent 10 years plus in therapy for that and don’t want to or need to. But, as I tell all my students, writing and journaling about the shit that weighs us down is necessary. It clears the air for more creative and interesting writing. It’s like sloughing off dead skin so you can see and feel the smooth pink stuff underneath.

Look how much time I have spent avoiding writing about what weighs my brain and spirit down.
Dad.

Mother guilt.

Publishing/self publishing

But what’s the feeling? Because it is never the content of our lives that weighs us down. It is the feelings that those feelings bring to us, and you will find that each of the THINGS that troubles you, if you line them up and looked at their invisible form, you will discover that what hovers above them is some pervasive feeling you have struggled with your whole life.

Dad (Thing 1):
The Dad Thing is less now. It’s more about sadness and mourning the loss of the either reality or fantasy about him. At this point, whether or not he was a good father before my parents divorce is irrelevant because I thought he was, and whether I made it up or not, I felt it, and so what I mourn is what I had or thought I had– again, irrelevant. The point was, at the time and for years, I felt I had it. Now, I know I don’t, and it is sad and I miss it. At the same time, you may say, well, get it back, and the truth is, it doesn’t exist any more even though he is alive and he exists, he is not who I thought he was (or who he really was back then, again irrelevant). So, I don’t struggle except when it’s a holiday or birthday and the struggle is, do I or don’t I? I usually do, but each year it gets to be less and less effort. This year, no card. Not even an e-card. Just an email and I forwarded a few pics of the kids. His response: Thanks but my birthday would have been better if I wasn’t so sick with a cold…No mention of how are the kids or Mike? No mention of the fact that it’s been months since we have seen each other. So, you can see this whole thing goes both ways. And, it’s sad because I would love to have a father who showed genuine interest in me and my life and my children. Who wanted to help me make my way through adulthood. But he doesn’t, and, you know, I am not angry just simply sad. And I accept that I am sad and will probably always be about him. How can I not? Everyone wants a dad who loves and cares about them and shows it.

Mother Guilt (THING 2)
I hate writing about this because this one. I do struggle with and it sucks. I work and it’s a fact and if I sit here and explain how and why I work, it just all sounds more like struggle. Struggle to justify my working and really why the f*** do I have to explain and justify it? Why do I feel like I have to? Mother guilt. It just is. I think it’s part of the package no matter who you are and how you mother. It hurts. It hurts when I am working with a client in my home office (by the way, see how I try and soften and justify my working situation. Well, I work from home and am always available, etc, and I only work about 20 hours a week and…) Anyway, when Chels comes home from school, and I am with someone, she knocks on the door. It’s part of the agreement we have about Mommy working. She is allowed to come in after she comes home and say hello, and it kills me because she is sooo good– has never thrown a fit. She comes in, kisses me and says hello to whomever I am with and then frolics back upstairs to Daddy or our babysitter. She is FINE as my husband says don’t worry and, yet, I do. Is she okay? Is she feeling slighted or sad? Does she need me? Blah, blah….Even as I write this, I think, God what the hell am I feeling so sad about? If she weren’t okay, I would drop any and every thing for her and she knows it, so stop. But do you hear the struggle? And that, my friends, is what ruins a perfectly good and happy life. Struggling with your feelings. The tug-of-war that goes on between rational and irrational between the shoulds and what is. It simply sucks. This is not about whether or not I should work. Or whether or not I should do the residency program that starts in January where I will be gone for 9 days, my husband at home. This is about my struggle between the messy reality of motherhood and the perfect images I have in my head. This is about the F****** annoying thing I feel. This knee-jerk need to justify myself, to justify my working, which all creates more struggle.

Self Publishing and Publishing (THING 3)
Oh, I hate this one and feel the urge to refer you to previous blogs that really outline my on going struggle with this whole bullshit world of publishing and I really should phrase this all properly. The truth is what I struggle with is that I have been rejected by the mainstream, traditional publishers and have been embraced by the other world called self-publishing, awards and audience and agents. And, yet, I can’t get there where the elite live, and it’s funny. I am not the elite so it makes sense that the elite world of traditional publishing shrugs me off. But I want to be the nonconformist who CAN conform and benefit from the elite snooty snoots who can bridge the gap between and WHY THE F**** ISN’T IT HAPPENING????????? I got the brains and the talent and the audience. What THE F****?

I don’t need to discuss this bullshit more. You get it.

So I did it. I wrote about the three things on my mind. No, I didn’t go through heavy analysis but that’s boring and circuitous and frustrating cause who gives a shit WHY at this point. It’s more about WHAT IS and, hell, WHAT’S NEXT???????

With Dad and Mother Guilt nothing is next. I will continue to put out minimal effort with him and accept the level of our relationship and not really judge it or exert energy over it and with MOTHER GUILT I will continue to work and let the kinks of motherhood work themselves out.
With publishing….Here’s the thing. I can do something not about it but I can do something to work through it because it is truly the one thing I DON’T ACCEPT. I Don’t ACCEPT that mainstream traditional publishers will not publish me. That I won’t have a fabulous deal and movie rights, etc. I don’t accept it. I just don’t.

So, I did it. I wrote about the things I didn't want to. I am at the end and awaiting for some brilliant conclusion or parting thought but nothing is there.

I'm done.