Sunday, July 16, 2017

Happy Birthday, Dad!!

Today is my Dad's 60th birthday, so this is for him:

From your birthday in 1988


Happy Birthday, Dad!!
I wanted to celebrate by writing a post for you that could encompass as much of your life as I could capture; but when I sat down to write it, I realized that yours has been and still is a deeply detailed, intricate, and adventurous one, and I don't stand a chance of summing it all up in a single post. And of course, whatever I put down would be from my own perspective only...but then, so much of you and your life has become much of me and mine.

In case you were wondering where I get it from...


Stories you've told me about your childhood have painted vivid images in my mind - I told my own kids the story you shared about your dad grabbing the Cheerios to explain why you should relax during a shot.  Hearing stories of Grandma carrying you still mostly sleeping to your Aunt Shirl's, playing with Bill and Marybeth...The story about the time you were told you couldn't go out to play because the only available clothes were girls' clothes...so you went outside to play in a dress.  For some reason that story always reminds me of the time you played Lady MacBeth in the Laundry piece. It still bothers me when someone leaves a kitchen cabinet open because it bothered you-old habit that stuck, because your dad couldn't see them.  The loss of your dad while you were still a kid, and how you always seem to have an aggression against hornets and wasps that I never see towards any other animals because of their role in that.




Vivid images of what it must have been like to watch your high school burn down, and the gym class that ended up being about how to butcher a pig...working on your uncle's farm, stomping hay down mostly unable to breathe thanks to hay fever.  And the time when you tore the porch off of the house with a tractor...

Not this one though, of course.


All of your adventures in College, friends, theater, shenanigans...meeting mom in Rome, getting into CalArts but turning it down to stay with her, Nursing school - and the found poem you and mom shared from the class list there.  The collapsing loft bed...Hiding the fact that you were living together from her mom. Meeting Pamela in Jamaica. Rescuing Coriander. Finding Jezzy. Stealing Ashley away to a better home.






My earliest memory is of sitting on mom's lap while you were outside the picture window on a ladder, painting the house.  I talked to mom about it - she was pretty sure that was when you were fixing up the Minneapolis house to sell...




This is one of those tasks that I am almost afraid to start because I already know that I can't possibly include even a noticeable fraction of what I would want to put down...Obviously all of the times we shared over the years, classic stuff, but also things like how you rescued my 8th grade class when a field trip gone wrong left us on the wrong mountain, and having come prepared, you were able to lead us back to the correct one, even carrying one girl who fell.  Or how you took me to see your production of Antigone, and when I asked why they were treating her like that, you explained patriarchy and specifically men's fear and mistrust of the fact that women menstruate, which was an angle I had entirely not considered but sparked a through line of looking at both history and contemporary culture that has this awareness.




I don't know why it's such a poignant thing to me, but I remember that after one of your students (Rick, if I recall, who I believe had played foxy loxy in the production of Henny Penny my elementary school class had come to see) was struck by lightning on the beach and killed, you spoke at his memorial service and ended your eulogy by diving into the water -Lake? Pond?- behind you, and lost your glasses.




Spending late nights at the New Moon, loading in and loading our all the sound equipment, painting the box you made for it all. Getting to see you in concert (and almost always requesting Onion Skin even though I knew it was not something you really wanted to do).  When we got Jomo and found out he was the only cat in the world that you were violently allergic to...and how we would be reminded of that every time you went to Carol Allen's house after she took him in.




I remember being in the car with you when we passed one of your students on the street, clearly high on something -you guessed heroin- about to walk into traffic on 125, so you stopped the car and talked him down, making sure he was safe before we went on our way.




I have always appreciated the fact that - even when I was a tiny kid, you never treated me like an inferior.  I feel lucky to have come from a family that values honesty, and didn't shield me from reality.  I felt prepared going off on my own, in ways that I didn't even know someone could lack (until I lived with a bunch of freshmen college students who could barely care for themselves).
I have always loved and am increasingly grateful for the full, diverse cultural experience I had as a kid thanks both to conscious efforts and simply the way you and mom lived your lives.


I see so much Kelly in you in this one...









You have now had 60 years of amazing adventures - boating through the grand canyon, skydiving, going to Russia (and getting sick on bad cream), being a nurse, being an actor, being a director, being a writer, being a dancer, being an outdoorsman, an intellectual, a martial artist, a researcher and deep thinker, a hero, a villain, a musician, singer, songwriter, an administrator, a rebel, a teacher.  You are a trickster, warrior, caregiver; and your self deprecating style only aids in making you a strong leader, and I have no doubt that you have many decades of adventure still ahead.








I love you, Dad.
Happy Birthday!
Kate








Thursday, March 2, 2017

the kids and grief

I just stumbled across this in my unfinished drafts folder, and couldn't NOT share it.  I suddenly remember all of these things as I sit here, and the tears I find on my cheeks here feel weirdly comforting.  I find myself saying, out loud "I love you Mommy!"

**********

And of course, there is grief for the children, too.  I would occasionally find the work "Nana" spelled out in random places, and Cadence found a piece of art created by a family friend for mom in her last days, and solemnly and wordlessly presented it to me and then gave it a place of honor in the bedroom where she could see it.  It took her several months to be able to verbally admit that she missed her and was sad, and she confessed that seeing her things was painful.  Hazel's approach has been to talk about it all quite matter-of-factly.  "Nana liked to play this game with me, but now she can't play anymore because she's dead, right?" And Calliope...well, perhaps her young age puts her more in touch with the spiritual realm, because she continued to have conversations with someone who wasn't there and refer to Nana and point to an empty space for weeks. Around mother's day I heard her say "bye Nana!" and I haven't heard her having any such conversations since.  I am actually willing to believe she was there, even though I know it sounds totally nuts...There were times where I could feel her presence, and twice we awoke to find a bedroom curtain had been opened and tied up while we slept, and once I couldn't sleep because I was having an allergy-induced asthma attack and all of a sudden my air purifier turned on and turned itself up to "turbo" mode seemingly of its own accord.  (It has no automatic settings.)    

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Royals And Dragons


In this humble little courtyard, I am surrounded by tiny royals, Sultan, Amir, Amira - Ruler, Prince, Princess.

I have watched their people fight and struggle, evil looming large and slinking in through deliberately forgotten alleyways, drenched in shadow, where everyone chooses to look away.

But these bright souls shine on, borne away by their parents, their sisters, brothers, neighbors, friends; set off on a frightful journey, destination unknown, path riddled with terrors they couldn't think to imagine before their homes ceased to mean home.


Here, their castles don't stand proudly high, their garments don't shine purple. They tread through mud, learn to speak around fires insufficient against the cold.

And yet they are protected, not by knives or guns, but by the fierce enduring love of the royals loyal guards.


The tenacity of the dragons, fending off the fiercest foes, fighting hard to protect the future leaders not yet grown, to teach them how to live and love and laugh.


The light of this northern star burns bright and true, even in the very heart of darkness. And here in its brilliant persistence will these tiny royals grow into their own, learning to hear with a gentle hand, their tenderness not forgetting the blade woven between those fingers as they cut their teeth on the bigness that surrounds them.

O these tiny royals will grow, and take their rightful places guiding a scarred land, ready to rule with compassion over this broken world. They are our hope, our future, humanity's next step; and they will have learned of both love and horror to extremes.


May this bring them the balance and the wisdom they need to build a better world than the pestilence we have left them.