Here is the picture. A man sits in front of his tv. He is watching two tv's, one color and one black and white. One is heard and the other seen. One is the news in vibrant color and sound, reflecting on the day's events with wit and imagery. The other is a sports program, perhaps baseball. The violent arm movements as the pitcher delivers a fastball contrast with the athletic grace of a batter, an infielder scooping up a grounder and throwing to first base. Sometimes it was a western. and in black and white, the good guys and bad guys were always distinct in their colors, the lines of their shadows. This was the indelible images of my fathers. The step father who raised me with an arms-length discipline and my biological father, influenced me more than I had realized with what he didn't say to me.
I know in the end of this blog, both men are unlikely to read them. That's okay, too, as the only embarrassing moments are mine to bear as well. My mom often laments at how she is "treated" on the subjects of my posts. I believe she is beginning to understand that to journal, to document these feelings, are not a way to erase some past mistake or an airing of past grievances for the court of popular opinion. I think at the inception of this blog I meant to write funny quips about life's moments, an occasional poem or short story. God had other plans. This became a place for me to ask God questions about myself, about my loved ones. In my spiritual journey that began about 4 years ago, I was obsessed with my transformation and former life--my sin story. It did not occur to me that people are also interested in your God story.
My biological Dad was a mystery to me growing up. I saw him on frequent weekend visits and a few longer stays in the summer. His house was a start contrast to my home, where loudness and a fun disorganization seemed to roost. My dad was a catalog and list guy. He kept a room full of movies he owned or recorded on VHS, all logged in a binder in alphabetical order he printed in blocky, felt-tip pen. His album collection filled a room, and he had just about every genre available to listen--as long as he was the one spinning them on the turntable. He kept a binder of actors and the movies they starred in--kind of like an Internet Movie Database before there was one available. He could tell you the name of a costumed tribesman in Tarzan without hesitation. But in his quest for the perfect film, I lost something along the way. That affirmation. Am I man enough? Do I have what it takes? My dad sat silent for so many hours in front of the television, it was like watching that black and white sports program. I remember once taking his picture and he chased me into my brother's room, snatched it away, and returned to his programs.
Growing up, the silence of my dad was deafening. I listened to my mom's stories of him in contrast to his days on a fastpitch diamond hurling strikes on humid summer days in Houston. I used to ask him questions about his life before me, the mythical fight he had that stripped him of some of his military rank while in the Marines, the meet-cute and divorce story of my mom and him. We lived our lives in the movie theaters every weekend. But when you're in the safe darkness of a movie house, the questions are squelched and then there's always another movie to watch.
I grew into a relationship with him as an adult. Luckily for me, my mom refused to have some sulky man lying around the house feeling sorry for himself. I asked questions and continue to dialogue. I understand him more now, perhaps learning his qualities from his own father who would gnaw on strip steak during the Sunday meal as a substitute for conversation. Perhaps at my grandfather's age, there isn't much to say that hasn't already been said. I remember once while in ill health, my wife and I arrived to visit him in the hospital as he was reading the newspaper. My wife rubbed his tired, discolored feet and for a brief glimpse, that man awakened like never before--the pain of his diabetes peeled back to find this great man of experience.
The role of my upbringing went to my step-dad. In one infamous bout of defiance, I would raise the heat in the house, bang on their closed door knowing it would bring punishment, and questioned who this man was who would eat all of our food. My step-dad was a man's man. He was strong from lifting 5-gallon bottles of water daily and the athleticism of his youth. I was nothing like him. I wanted to read and write, play video games and sulk, daydream. My step-dad was either on the baseball diamond, basketball court, work or in the garage cleaning or trying to repair the constant problems of a '74 Monte Carlo. Even his mustache was manly.
While he was stoic and even-keeled, I was sarcastic and moody. My class-clown antics were the source of furious contention growing up. I knew what awaited when I was found out, but perhaps that was the interaction I longed for. Am I good enough? Am I man enough? He was always doing things over for me, mainly because I was too lazy to do it right the first time, but in the end it gave me this sense of failure mentality that festered in my youth and still tries to derail me today.
I remember once he stopped by to observe me at football practice in high school. I completely dogged it. I was last in sprints and didn't care. Afterwards he cried over my lack of commitment. How could I tell him I had more interest in writing the great American novel or winning the Pulitzer in journalism?
Today, while we infrequently speak, if we are in the same room there is a synergy of conversation. I am still in awe of the man who modeled for me all my inadequacies, rather, my potential as a man and father. If only I could merge the two men--form their best qualities. Perhaps I'd leave it the same. Without their guidance, and later, support, would I be writing a different story?
Other men in my life were in some ways or another, provided great showings of the aspects of a perfect man. My uncle Richard's handsomeness, my uncle Gilbert's responsibility, my uncle David's humor, the swagger of Ray Guerra to the cockiness of The Kid. My Uncle Lorenzo's respect and the charm of my cousin Richard. In the book I'm reading, "Wild at Heart," it says that a man's heart is always yearning for adventure. It was ingrained within us at the time we were created. We were not created in the garden, Eve was. We were created in the wilderness, the outback, and we have been yearning to get back there ever since. I sense this yearning in my son, the games he plays, his spirit. On Ash Wednesday, he was adamant to have the mark of the cross on his forehead, sulky if his bread from communion wasn't large enough for his little hand. He wanted to go to school the next morning with the swagger of a believer. The next morning, the mark had been rubbed off from the tossing and dreams of an adventurous boy. That's what I yearn for. The ashes that stick.
No comments:
Post a Comment