Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Compression chamber
I had a coffee on a windy patio with a friend this morning, and our conversation turned, as it so often does (no, really), to grief. It's been my main subject for a number of years for obvious reasons, and it's become her subject over the past year for similar ones. I'm further into it than she is, so even though she's older than me, she kind of looks to me for guidance. Today's specific topic: compression. Her family lives, as mine does, in Ontario. So we talked about the feeling that seems to accompany most visits home, the feeling that you need every interaction to be of vital importance. That you need every conversation to be super deep and insightful and meaningful. That you can't just sit and have a coffee with your mother or your sister or whoever. It has to be monumental.
I told her I'm mostly over that feeling. I go home pretty frequently these days. Every couple of months, probably, and I'm trying to do it even more now. (Click over to http://maxedrayder.blogspot.com for some insight into that motivation.)I've learned, somehow, to just be. Just be in the moment. I know that sounds awfully Zen for someone who subscribes to no formal spiritual code (just a casual one, natch), but really, my ability to just be is the thing that keeps me from freaking my beak two or three times a day (or, more properly, two or three times a day more than I already do. I guess it's a skill I picked up sometime in the year or years after Chris died. Or maybe after I moved to Winnipeg and my life became one long Virgo nightmare of uncertainty. Rather than live on the verge of flipping out, I decided (and yes, everything is a decision, but that's a whole nother story) to just try to live in the moment. And it kind of worked! Yeah, actually, I do do a lot of yoga. Why do you ask?
Ok, anyhow, that's a whole nother story, too. The fact is, I do still feel the pressure of compression, but it's become very specific. When I found out that things were kind of going south with my dad, naturally I lost my mind. And the main flavour of that mind-loss seemed to be: but, but, but, but who will answer all my questions? (In an alarming glimpse of the future, I realised that no one could answer that particular question. Though Squinty Moleman [the artist formerly known as the Troublemaker] went himself bravely into the breach, saying he'd try to, before finally assuring me that I'd be able to answer my own questions. Very sweet, but evidence of how thoroughly I've managed to fool him into thinking I'm smart. If he reads this, I'm done for.)
Now, obviously (or maybe not so obviously, so I'll try to be explicit), I value my dad for more than just his ability to answer questions. But believe what I say: His proven 33-year-plus track record of question-answering ability (and that's just my questions; he actually goes way, way back) is symbolic of pretty much everything I value him for. That's not coming out right. It's not just what he can do for me (answer my dorky questions, from circa 1974's, Dad, what's the government?, to the more modern day, Dad, why does my smoke alarm go off every time the wind blows?), but rather how he does everything he does, the personality, the person, inherent in every answer. (It's just a big machine, dear; they do go bad, but you can buy a new one at the store for six bucks.)
More to the point: My dad, like most dads of his day, is an action-oriented kind of guy. I know he loves me because he tells me pretty often, but also because he builds me stuff, or used to, and because he drew me a diagram of how to build a deck myself, and because he explains tricky things to me (full disclosure, sometimes I only pretend to understand. I have no doubt he already knows that, because he chucked his dream of being a writer and instead became an amazing teacher so that he could marry my mother and have a family with her, and he worked not only as a teacher, but also as a bag boy at a grocery store and he delivered pizzas all so we could have stuff, and other man-of-action acts. Now, take your basic man-of-action and put him on oxygen. Forever. Literally tie him to a machine that is a nuisance, but a life-sustaining nuisance. Take away his ability to do most things that involve lifting, carrying, hammering, sawing, pulling, pushing, or otherwise moving with force through space. But! Leave his mind terribly, terribly active. Leave his desire to participate fully in his life and the life of his family acutely active. Friends, I'm here to tell you, actually, you should never do that. Because it doesn't make anyone--man of action or those who love him--happy in any way.
So. Where was I? Compression. Elsewhere on the world wide web, my father has written about his "frantic parenting." Trying to cram it all in. And here on my end, I'm doing the same thing...well, not frantic parenting so much as frantic childing. I am trying to cram as much time in as I can being my father's daughter. Yes, ok, it's a state of being that doesn't go away, I will always be that (in so, so, so many ways), but I mean actively being his daughter.
I weigh the exhaustion I imagine he feels against my need to pester him with questions while I still can. Not just because I'm greedy for his opinion, his point of view, his expertise and knowledge (and I am), but also because I think it feeds him in some way, and because he put everything aside for most of his life to feed me and my brothers and sister, and this is the best thing I can think of, that I can do on a daily basis and from a distance, to let him know that just because he relies on some stupid machine to keep his failing body alive doesn't mean that the mind that body houses isn't still as valuable as it was in 1974 when he was young and filled to bursting with possibility. Doesn't mean that just because he can't physically open the swimming pool anymore but can only stand, tethered to that machine, at the back door and yell instructions and encouragement (and yes, for a few minutes there, just yell nonsense), that he's past his prime in any way. Stupid fate has meant that his prime has arrived shrouded in some equal deterioration. But maybe that's just called balance. Maybe, but I doubt it. But still. None of it means that he's outlived his usefulness to his family, just to put it bluntly. In fact, entirely the opposite.
Compression. It's a virtue in a short story writer. I'm not much of one of those any more. But I'll take compression. Because it's better than any of the alternatives.
I had a coffee on a windy patio with a friend this morning, and our conversation turned, as it so often does (no, really), to grief. It's been my main subject for a number of years for obvious reasons, and it's become her subject over the past year for similar ones. I'm further into it than she is, so even though she's older than me, she kind of looks to me for guidance. Today's specific topic: compression. Her family lives, as mine does, in Ontario. So we talked about the feeling that seems to accompany most visits home, the feeling that you need every interaction to be of vital importance. That you need every conversation to be super deep and insightful and meaningful. That you can't just sit and have a coffee with your mother or your sister or whoever. It has to be monumental.
I told her I'm mostly over that feeling. I go home pretty frequently these days. Every couple of months, probably, and I'm trying to do it even more now. (Click over to http://maxedrayder.blogspot.com for some insight into that motivation.)I've learned, somehow, to just be. Just be in the moment. I know that sounds awfully Zen for someone who subscribes to no formal spiritual code (just a casual one, natch), but really, my ability to just be is the thing that keeps me from freaking my beak two or three times a day (or, more properly, two or three times a day more than I already do. I guess it's a skill I picked up sometime in the year or years after Chris died. Or maybe after I moved to Winnipeg and my life became one long Virgo nightmare of uncertainty. Rather than live on the verge of flipping out, I decided (and yes, everything is a decision, but that's a whole nother story) to just try to live in the moment. And it kind of worked! Yeah, actually, I do do a lot of yoga. Why do you ask?
Ok, anyhow, that's a whole nother story, too. The fact is, I do still feel the pressure of compression, but it's become very specific. When I found out that things were kind of going south with my dad, naturally I lost my mind. And the main flavour of that mind-loss seemed to be: but, but, but, but who will answer all my questions? (In an alarming glimpse of the future, I realised that no one could answer that particular question. Though Squinty Moleman [the artist formerly known as the Troublemaker] went himself bravely into the breach, saying he'd try to, before finally assuring me that I'd be able to answer my own questions. Very sweet, but evidence of how thoroughly I've managed to fool him into thinking I'm smart. If he reads this, I'm done for.)
Now, obviously (or maybe not so obviously, so I'll try to be explicit), I value my dad for more than just his ability to answer questions. But believe what I say: His proven 33-year-plus track record of question-answering ability (and that's just my questions; he actually goes way, way back) is symbolic of pretty much everything I value him for. That's not coming out right. It's not just what he can do for me (answer my dorky questions, from circa 1974's, Dad, what's the government?, to the more modern day, Dad, why does my smoke alarm go off every time the wind blows?), but rather how he does everything he does, the personality, the person, inherent in every answer. (It's just a big machine, dear; they do go bad, but you can buy a new one at the store for six bucks.)
More to the point: My dad, like most dads of his day, is an action-oriented kind of guy. I know he loves me because he tells me pretty often, but also because he builds me stuff, or used to, and because he drew me a diagram of how to build a deck myself, and because he explains tricky things to me (full disclosure, sometimes I only pretend to understand. I have no doubt he already knows that, because he chucked his dream of being a writer and instead became an amazing teacher so that he could marry my mother and have a family with her, and he worked not only as a teacher, but also as a bag boy at a grocery store and he delivered pizzas all so we could have stuff, and other man-of-action acts. Now, take your basic man-of-action and put him on oxygen. Forever. Literally tie him to a machine that is a nuisance, but a life-sustaining nuisance. Take away his ability to do most things that involve lifting, carrying, hammering, sawing, pulling, pushing, or otherwise moving with force through space. But! Leave his mind terribly, terribly active. Leave his desire to participate fully in his life and the life of his family acutely active. Friends, I'm here to tell you, actually, you should never do that. Because it doesn't make anyone--man of action or those who love him--happy in any way.
So. Where was I? Compression. Elsewhere on the world wide web, my father has written about his "frantic parenting." Trying to cram it all in. And here on my end, I'm doing the same thing...well, not frantic parenting so much as frantic childing. I am trying to cram as much time in as I can being my father's daughter. Yes, ok, it's a state of being that doesn't go away, I will always be that (in so, so, so many ways), but I mean actively being his daughter.
I weigh the exhaustion I imagine he feels against my need to pester him with questions while I still can. Not just because I'm greedy for his opinion, his point of view, his expertise and knowledge (and I am), but also because I think it feeds him in some way, and because he put everything aside for most of his life to feed me and my brothers and sister, and this is the best thing I can think of, that I can do on a daily basis and from a distance, to let him know that just because he relies on some stupid machine to keep his failing body alive doesn't mean that the mind that body houses isn't still as valuable as it was in 1974 when he was young and filled to bursting with possibility. Doesn't mean that just because he can't physically open the swimming pool anymore but can only stand, tethered to that machine, at the back door and yell instructions and encouragement (and yes, for a few minutes there, just yell nonsense), that he's past his prime in any way. Stupid fate has meant that his prime has arrived shrouded in some equal deterioration. But maybe that's just called balance. Maybe, but I doubt it. But still. None of it means that he's outlived his usefulness to his family, just to put it bluntly. In fact, entirely the opposite.
Compression. It's a virtue in a short story writer. I'm not much of one of those any more. But I'll take compression. Because it's better than any of the alternatives.
