Thursday, September 30, 2010

limbo

Still fighting to catch my breath...days have passed and all I can be sure of is that I'm still unsure...I find my heart faltering...how can I know for certain after so many years of silence...I want to say I know.  I want to say I'm resolved to believe his every word...but my heart holds me back...as it always has for every man who has walked in and out of my life...believing is impossible with a history like mine...but there is nothing I want more than to trust...to cling to that resolve, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that this time it'll be different...this time I can believe...all of my hopes will not come back empty...

Time is what I need...time to rewrite the imprints of  past...to destroy the patterns written on my heart and rebuilt a fortress that fully feels...I can't touch it now...I can't quite take it in...but I want to...I need to...This is where it stands...my heart heaving within me...desperate to believe...terrified of being broken...maybe it's a step backwards...but maybe it's a step forward in disguise...

Friday, September 24, 2010

Still Unspoken

That was it...27 years and only three days...

seventy two hours...

Four thousand three hundred twenty minutes...


Two hundred fifty nine thousand two hundred seconds...

Otherwise known as not nearly enough time and he's on his jet plane home...

The sound of his laugh...the wide crooked break of his smile...teeth white and white and gleaming...wrinkles attesting to a lifetime of laughter and tears and self loathing and self realization...

His forehead higher...hairs shorter...whiskers all but gone...

The hands in pockets stance...unable to sit because lack of movement makes him crazy...

Such a short span of time to efficiently memorize all the things I should have always known...

They are mine now...two hundred sixty thousand moments added to my heart...

And the hardest goodbye I've ever said...

AND STILL I DIDN'T SAY IT ALL...I didn't say enough...I cannot find the voice fore everything beating in my chest when the moment is before me...

My mind goes blank, though my heart aches...so full of so much...

And this day of all days?  Silence is my enemy...

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

The Uncertainty of Falling

Grams and I wait on the deck...sun shining, hearts frantically beating as we each bear the anticipation in our own way...she chatting nervously, stomach in knots...me reading...petting Griffin the toy poodle...my back in knots...A blue Camery drives by...Grams is out of her chair. 

"Oh!  It's him!  He looks just like Jerry!"
(Her brother)

She called out to him as he drove by  "JERRY!!"
(His name is Tom)

Her stomach in knots, my back getting tighter...we move to the front door. 

The car passes by in the opposite direction, a blue streak bearing the most significant meeting of my life, and I suspect theirs as well...A man steps out, navy blue shirt, blue jeans, gray hair...the beard I know from the photos gone...I don't look at him at first...I don't know what's in my heart...all I can feel are the knots in my back...tightening and twisting...all I can think is "is this real or am I dreaming?"

He walks the path to the door, three pots in his hand...yellow daisies for me, red roses for grams and pink daisies for Aunt Cheryl...the knot tightens...I stand back as grams rushes her son...her excitement shooting out her finger tips and toes...the electricity of seeing an impossible dream come to life...I love the moment...the knot tightens...it's my turn next...

He looks at me...I hold back my heart as I move forward to hug him...is he real?  Is this happening?

I step back and look...I cannot speak...grams fortunately has the words I can't seem to find...I search his face for traces of me...traces of my brothers...traces of the face from the photos I carry in my heart...There is a faint similarity...but not enough to convince me...we move to the patio and sit down...the knot tightens...I smile and watch...the words still missing...grams says enough to carry my silence...he shares about his life...I listen...I watch...I wait...the knot tightens...

For a while he's not real...just a man I'm meeting for the first time...the significance of it completely lost...I cannot feel it...I cannot process past the knot in my back...I cannot fully feel the way my heart beats, the subtle shaking in my hands and legs...Griffin is in my lap...I focus my shaking hands on his back and legs and fluffy fur...maybe it won't be noticeable...

I watch his face as he speaks...the way the muscles in his lips curl and move...the subtle lifting of his eyes...the way they look back at me...I try to memorize the lines...I search for my brothers...I search for myself...He looks from grams to me...throughout the night I know he watches...I watch too...Moments I appear not to look I know his eyes are on me...I wonder what he sees...He says I look like my mom...I say I get that a lot...

His smile is real...it slowly sinks in that he is too...

Aunt Cheryl gets home, dinner is consumed...the stories begin...I sit...I watch...I listen...A history I've never heard...his and hers...the knot tightens...my heart flutters upward...slowly climbing like the moon rising outside the window...

His laugh is real...he is too...

I see it in his eyes...every second they spend on me...He wonders what I'm thinking...he regrets the lost years...the choices made...he rejoices that he's here...so do I...

So few days...so many years...the knot tightens...I already miss him...

Morning is close...a few hours of much needed sleep and then the day will be ours...his and mine...today was uncertain...tomorrow will be hard but beautiful...The knot loosens...my heart tightens...this is real...he is real...

Monday, September 20, 2010

Of Brick Walls and Black Holes

Tomorrow...

Sometimes change happens so subtly that one doesn't see it happening until it is full blown...and other times it hits you right between the eyes...a force to be reckoned with...turning everything inside you into an unrecognizable tangle of emotions, be it for better or worse....that's where I am...the brink of something so big, so overwhelmingly  massive that I cannot for the life of me actually take it all in...I feel as if I've hit a brick wall...I cannot process any further than I have...I'm looking at the future before me...one I never in all of my years ACTUALLY expected to see come about...and all I can do is stand still, scratching my head...wondering what the next step could possibly be...I cannot move another inch until tomorrow has come and gone and the shape of it starts to make sense out of the swirling mists of the unknown...Tomorrow is...

the abyss...

27 years is an awfully long stretch of time to go with so many unknowns...the past is impossible to make up for...all we can do is share stories and tap out the indecipherable codes that make up the lot of those years...the complete picture will never been seen again...but at least we will have the future...I cannot wait...I cannot even fathom the depths of what is running through me right now...How can one put to words 27 years of feelings?  How can one pinpoint a single thought or emotion when every single one is backed by so many years of them...

I knew early on that all of this was for something...there was a reason he had gone...there was a need to work through it, to find a way to let go...I knew I had to get past it...and one day I did...it was not alone...it was not easy...it was not fast...it took most of my life and sometimes more energy than I can even fathom having...but then, tomorrow is on the horizon...all of those years of hate and hurt and sadness and bitterness and longing and hoping and dreaming and fighting and forgiving and fearing and loving...and here I am on the edge of my brick wall...staring into the abyss and unable to think or imagine my way past it...I can only look into it...waiting...

WAITING...

WAITING...

One more sleep...then he'll be at my door...my dad...a stranger...but somehow not...27 years and all I can think is what if he doesn't want me? 

I think maybe my whole life has been wrapped around that one question...I can't help but feel like a little girl.  The second it was spoken "Your dad wants to meet you."  I was instantly 5 years old...asking a different form of that same question...back then it was "why" not "what"...I think that little girl needs to hear the answer...I think she always has...I think once she does, once I know I can finally...dear GOD please...finally step forward! 

When standing on a wall, facing an abyss and unable to find a way past it or around it...sometimes all one can do is

JUMP...

This is me rocking back on my heels, finding the spring between my ankles knees and thighs, and propelling myself forward, arms flailing, heart beating, palms sweating, brain spinning...hopes SOARING  into the center of that dark and formless void...I'll let you know how it works out....

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Photograph

   My memory is the most recent photograph I have of you.  I take it out from time to time and examine first, the yellowing edges, they seem darker than before.  Then I move to you, the top of your head, thick brown hair, down to your forehead, brown bushy eyelashes, clear blue eyes behind thick lashes, a nose shaped like mine.  Your upper lip covered by a mustache, mostly brown but touched with flecks of gold.  Your lips are red like mine and oh! How I've hated these lips!  Your beard, bushy and long.  I'd never recognize you without it, it's all I've ever known.  There's something in those eyes.  A secret I could never decipher, a code I could never break.  Wanting more, but knowing the price I'd have to pay to get it, I put the photograph away. 
    It is night.  I lay awake asking unanswerable questions.  What did I do wrong?  Do you have another daughter somewhere since me who you love more?  Will this empty sorrow always be so deep inside me every time I hear the word "daddy"?
    I am five years old and you come for a visit.  We go fishing, you buy me Barbie's little sister Skipper, you make promises you can't yet keep.  I light the photograph on fire, but quickly blow out the flame.  I'm not ready to let you go.  I've almost burned it up so many times, but always stop short.  "Someday."  I whisper and put the photograph away.  The mystery of your eyes still haunting me.  The red of your lips confronting me every day as I stare into the mirror, still unsatisfied with the unanswered questions.
     For years I look for more.  I ask my mother about you.  She gives me the last letter you ever wrote and says softly, "He loved you very much.  There was something different in his eyes the day you were born, a sparkle not there before."  I hold in my tears until I am alone.  The tears come like a flood as I read the letter.  All I see are lies and bad excuses to walk away.  I read it over and over and soon put it away with the photograph.  For the first time I know you won't come back, and I hate you for it.  Yet I can't burn the photograph.
    Every time I make a friend they ask about you.  I tell them the short story.  'He left when I was small and never came back'.  They say "Sorry".  I say "I'm fine, I'm better off without him".  I try to believe it, but I know that I'm as much of a liar as I believe you to be.  I begin to see myself in the photograph.  Every Sunday and Wednesday I go to church.  My youth pastor sees my wounds.  "You have to forgive".  They've told me that my whole life.  I say the words to appease them.  "Jesus, I forgive him."  But really, I hate you more because I don't mean it.  I start saying it every day.  They say it will help.  It becomes the only relationship we have.  
    One day I take the photograph out again.  "I want to be rid of you."  I whisper.  I light a match and look at your photo glossy eyes and their sparkling blue secrets.  Tears flood my eyes and I hate you because I can't stop loving you.  I write you a letter I won't ever send and put it away with your last letter and the photograph.  For a while I feel better. 

  Time passes by.

    I'm older now and live far away in Scotland.  Your last letter is lost from my memory, so I ask my mom for the real one.  Two weeks later it arrives in the mail.  I take it with me for a walk on the cliffs overlooking the North Sea.  The wind is blowing hard as it usually does so close to the ocean.  My bones freeze within me, but I almost feel numb to it.  Seven years have passed since I read that letter last.  I take a deep breath and start to read.  The words have not changed, but it is not the same letter.  You speak of your fears, of wounds so deep you drown in them.  You speak of failing, you speak of your father and how you hate and love him as I hate and love you.  The wind howls around me.  I close my eyes and forget the ground beneath my feet.  For a moment I stand only on your words.  I'm wearing your shoes.  I am the person in the photograph, and I understand why you left.  When I open my eyes I'm still on the cliff side in Scotland.  You are somewhere half a world away, but closer than you have ever been in my life before that moment.  I know now why I could not burn your photograph.  I smile with the satisfaction of someone who has solved a great mystery and put the photograph away.