flat on the couch

I've done it again. I've totally sidetracked myself. Once more.


In absolute honesty, I really had no intention of digging up all the Michigan dirt just yet. It's such a loaded topic for me, so confused and conflicted, a hodgepodge of emotions that will never have any resolution. There will never be official closure for this and I'm fully aware of that. My dad died - very suddenly - in August 2002. My step-mother and I haven't spoken in almost 16 years. And I have four half-siblings whom I don't talk to. We aren't mad. We don't not get along. We just don't talk. Some days this breaks my heart. Some days it doesn't bother me at all. But most days I just accept that this is the way things are.


Surely the culture clash had something to do with it, but I don't think that's the whole story. I think that both my dad and my step-mother would have benefited by perhaps marrying more nurturing types of people than they themselves were. Yin and yang. Balance and counterbalance. My step-mother really wasn't evil, or even cruel. She was just terminally self-absorbed, and this carried over into everything she did. She was also very young when they got married. My dad loved his children deeply and wanted the very best for them. He was just clueless as to how to actually interact with them. They were not a good match in any way except for the ability to throw money around the greater Detroit area. And the inevitable divorce, when Sasquatch was a baby, blew the roof off the building. Permanently.


What saved me was my mother. Always. That she was able to get out of the marriage at all is a testament to her guts. He fought the divorce. He fought her for custody. (He didn't want me. He just didn't want to lose.) When she wanted to leave the state and go to California, he fought her on that. And every summer when she put me on the plane to Michigan, it was with trepidation at what was ahead. But I didn't help my cause at all. I had really good friends in my dad's neighborhood and we kept in touch all year. I couldn't wait to get back to see them and reconnect. My maternal grandparents were right there too, and I spent a lot of time with them when I was there, which I loved. I would always shoo away my mom's worries and downplay some of the things that happened so as not to upset her. We talked constantly, and I always knew that any time I wanted to leave and go home I could. But he was my dad, after all. And it's usually in a kid's best interest to have a relationship with the non-custodial parent, right? At least that's what all the books say.


I'd like be able to say that I don't know where all these memories are coming from right now, but I'm well aware of the reason. I married my dad. And that puts me in a tough spot. On the one hand, it makes me crazy that I fell into that trap after bitching about my dad my entire life. On the other hand, it makes me hyper vigilant where my kids are concerned, because I was that kid. And on the third hand I think this partly explains my to the bone exhaustion the last couple of weeks. I'm forcing myself to go places emotionally that I've always been afraid to visit. It's a promise I've made to myself. I won't let the scab heal until the tissue underneath is healthy. And while it would certainly be more fun to jump headfirst into another relationship to keep from having to be too introspective, I think it's a horrible mistake. Sometimes the past has to be dealt with before you can move forward in any kind of a positive, non-selfish way. I'm dealing with it, but it's kicking my ass. I feel...beaten. On a daily basis. I've retreated into my little cave and I know it. I just can't help it.


The Michigan stories will continue, but in my usual half-cocked way. I promise to tell the whole story. Stick around - it'll take awhile.


But for now, here are two little vignettes that are both, in their own way, extremely telling. One tells on my dad, but the other one points straight at me.


The first scenario is one summer when I got back to Michigan, and asked my dad when we were going to see his parents, who had been living there for about five years at that point. He had managed to get everyone in the family who wanted to move over to the US, and I looked forward to seeing my paternal grandparents in the summer. My dad looked at me kind of puzzled, and said "Didn't I tell you that they both died this winter?"


The second one baffles me. Oh, I get the deep psychological implications and all, but the mechanics of it absolutely confound me. When I was learning to talk, my dad spoke to me in Arabic (and Chaldean), in addition to English. (Part of that was an attempt to shut out my mother, but I refuse to sidetrack myself again here.) I was fluent enough in Arabic that when we moved to California, the state certified me as bilingual. During the summers there I spoke what I call "kid Arabic", where I could tell you to sit down, shut up and chew with your mouth closed, but for the most part my second language went the way of a lot of second languages. Unused, unpracticed...forgotten. I can think of maybe ten things I can say right now in Arabic - and half of them are swear words. But at my dad's funeral, my favorite aunt pointed out to me that people were speaking to me in Arabic and I was answering them (perfectly) in English. Well, this can't be, because I haven't had anyone speak Arabic to me in thirty years, and I certainly wouldn't have a clue as to how to respond if they did. I told my aunt (in English) that she was hallucinating and then she pulled in another aunt who backed up her story. So. Evidently this language is still in there. Buried so deep I can't even touch it. Gee. Wonder what that could mean?

lots of boring backstory

My dad was married to my mom when he met the woman who would become my step-mother. He was friends with her father, and ended up hiring her as a cashier at one of his grocery stores. As part of a very tightly knit group of immigrants to the US, this was a bunch of people who stuck together all the way. They worked together, the bought businesses together, they socialized together - it went well beyond insular and tipped into incestuous. They were not, to put it mildly, a group that particularly liked outsiders.


Which was my mom. My dad came to Detroit from Kirkuk, Iraq by way of Britain. The eldest son, his job - explicitly laid out on the table - was to get both of his parents and his eight siblings to the US. Along the way, he was supposed to make a boatload of money, marry a good obedient Chaldean girl and have lots of Chaldean babies. He was certainly not supposed to marry a strong-willed eighteen year old American woman who came to Detroit via Alabama, a woman who was well aware of the definition of the word obedient, but didn't necessarily find the concept relevant to her own life.


My mom you've all read about. A lot. My dad, not so much. If this was a movie treatment, I'd describe him this way: Brilliant, sarcastic, funny man who from the time he was a toddler was second in command only to his father in the family hierarchy. Mathematical genius who could have had a full ride at Cambridge, but instead had to come to the US and bag groceries. Generous with his money, stingy with his time. Always had to look like the top dog, and could talk anyone into anything - and I mean anything. Tall, dark, quite handsome, with almost black hair and eyes and pale olive skin. Sexist beyond belief. A true narcissist, he legitimately believed that he was always right, and when anyone dared tread on this belief would, quite simply, cut them out of his life without a backward glance.


The marriage, obviously, didn't last, but it did produce me. And only me. I've forgotten how many times my mom was pregnant, but it was quite a few. One stillbirth, numerous miscarriages...and me. Six weeks premature, a girl instead of the much revered first boy, and half American to boot. They stayed married until I was (I think) six, when, during an argument my dad hit my mom across the face. Not his brightest idea. She picked up a lamp, cracked him across the head with it, and while he was at the hospital getting stitches we moved out. Two years (and much drama) later, the divorce was final, my mom had gotten custody, and we headed out to California to live happily ever after.


Re-enter my step-mother. Now she swore, up until the very last time I spoke to her in 1993, that she and my dad had never gotten together until after his divorce was final. My mom (and her family) say that was a bunch of hooey and that my SM had been plotting her way into the picture for quite a while before they even split up. Whatever the truth (although I'm firmly in my mom's camp here - big surprise), at the end of my first school year in California my dad took a long look at dealing with a nine year old on his own all summer and did the only logical thing he could think of. He married her. Over the violent objections of her parents, who, although they had started out as his friends, had some serious issues with him. The fact that he was ten years older wasn't a problem, but he was divorced. And had a kid. Who had an American mom. Good lord. It was enough to send any good Catholic to confession. Permanently.


The Chaldean culture is a culture that takes its weddings very seriously. Very, very seriously. The fact that they had to elope in Vegas was probably not the best start. (So much of my dad's life starts a downhill slide in Vegas, so the irony of this has never failed to amuse me.) No family present, no wedding gifts, no priest. Just the gaudiest wedding ring this side of Married to the Mob - a $10,000 (in 1970) umpteen carat marquise cut diamond set that could blind you from across town. (My step-mother had very expensive tastes. When the FX and I got married and I was still thrilled with my quarter carat diamond engagement ring, she flicked it with her fingernail and said "I have twenty of those in a bracelet - and it looks too cheap to even wear." "Yes," I replied sweetly, "but I like my husband.")


Over the years I had learned to fight back and stick up for myself. God knows, my dad wasn't going to do it for me.

more boring psycho babble

I write about my mom a lot.


I write about my kids a lot.


I'd like to write about work more, but am always worried about it.


I write about my friends, my dogs, my life, my hopes, my dreams, food, the beach, things that irritate me and my views on the Midwest as a transplanted tree hugging, granola headed Left Coaster.


I've even been known to write a time or two about my ex.


I very rarely write about my dad. And that's really too bad, because god knows there's plenty of material there. Some good, some bad, some definitely open to interpretation...but lots of it. Obviously, I'm far from alone in having complicated relationships of the parental kind, so I'm not complaining exactly. I fully realize that I'm ahead of the game in that my mom and I get along so well. I just have a lot of unresolved issues with my dad that have been popping up in unexpected ways lately.


My mom left an interesting comment recently about it being a hard time around here due to some recent "death dates" and my dad's birthday passing by. That kind of got me thinking. His birthday was September 29, and that is such a loaded date for me that I was absolutely positive my divorce papers would come in the mail that day. Or be dated that day. Or in some way have something to do with that day. The symbolism would have been pitch perfect. I could give a lot of reasons for that - most of which wouldn't make much sense. But here's a brief stab at it:


I've had three long-term complicated relationships with men in my life. My dad, my ex and Sasquatch. (I don't know why Gumby and Surfer Dude don't feel complicated to me, but they don't. This isn't a slap at SQ, honest. I just think it's more a temperament thing). In the win-loss category, it's a toss-up. I think I lost with my dad (but to be fair, so did he), at first I chalked the FX up as a loss, but have since changed my mind, and I really think I'm winning with Sasquatch, inch by inch. And why do I continue to lump them together in this odd and disjointed way? Well, because old habits and patterns die hard. Because my eldest son is the spitting image of my dad in so many ways. Because I have a chance to change some things for the better. Because I married a man just like dear old dad, and what's worse I knew it at the time and what's even worse, I made jokes about it. For years.


Because I have to get past this. Bit by bit. And I'm going to drag you all along with me.

no cake please, just money

The boys spent the day with their dad today while I working, and they seemed to have a good time. It got off to a little bit of a rocky start when I called home mid-morning and found them still there.

"Why hasn't dad picked you up? He was supposed to be there an hour ago," I said.


"It's the time change," answered Surfer Dude. "He's late because today is the day we change our clocks."


"No, it isn't," I said. "That's next week. Nothing has changed today time wise. I would have known it when I showed up for work at the wrong time."


"Oh," said Surfer Dude. "Well, that's what dad thought."


All righty then.


And for some reason, I've had this mental image stuck in my head all day after that.


My half-brother in Michigan explaining to me how he turned one birthday a year into a never ending cash cow.


"It's easy," he said. "Every couple of weeks you go up to dad and tell him that he forgot your birthday. He'll pull out his wallet, hand you a fifty and tell you to go buy yourself something nice. It never fails."


There's no comparing the two in terms of dad-style. My dad was always more comfortable throwing money at you and hoping you would go away. It worked pretty well. I went away, all right. And got a really warped perception of money in the process. The FX isn't like this, and wouldn't be even if he had scads of money to toss around. But it's the little details that tend to trip them both up. (Past tense in my dad's case, since he hasn't been around to pass out fifties for six years).


And what in the world made me make that particular association?