Home for the Holidays
The problem, as I see it, with fathers, is that they are very hard to shop for. In my family all affection is expressed through our, admittedly limited, pocket books. As such, I worry that at some point my father will feel I loved him less, when in reality I just never knew him. I love him as much as one can love a quiet stranger who wields a great deal of responsibility in one's life, but I am certain he will die having served mostly as a silent buffer for the decades long unmanaged mental illness of my mother. It's a foreseeable regret that I haven't the tools to derail. I'm not a daddy's girl. I'm not an anybody's girl, really.
Still, every birthday and every holiday I engage in the futility of searching for the perfect gift. I wrack my brain for something meaningful, for a memory, for a feeling. I struggle toward the inevitability of buying socks hoping to climb out of this thoughtless routine. I yearn for something, anything, that might say "I see you, I know you significance, I felt your importance." And for every occasion the closest I can muster is the largest box of caramel-pecan chocolates I can find.
It's after Christmas, now. I shouldn't go buy discounted candy, but I will.
Today Austin was shrouded by a gray mist- it was like the early stages of The Fog. I wonder who was betrayed to bring the curse upon the town, but this is Texas so it was probably Mexicans. Or slaves. Or Native Americans. I can't imagine there's any end to the list of non-whites that were harmed in Texas.
The mist pricks as I walk through it. The droplets take direct and violent aim. Or maybe it is me that is rushing them. As they delicately make their way toward their destiny against the concrete, I rampage through their path. I keep them from reuniting with their friends from the clouds in the welcoming pools on the ground.
I'm trying to set aside time now to read. I was a voracious reader, I suppose, as a child. It was my primary mode of transport. And for years I had forgotten that the best way to write is to read. After all, the back-bone of all artistry is borrowing. Polite theft.
I just finished the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and it was marvelous. It was delightful. It was everything one could hope for from the creator of Gilmore Girls. It was fast, it was Jewish, it was far funnier because it relied far less on pop-culture references. It was a story about a woman making it on her own for the first time, and I spent a lot of it wondering who she'd be paired up with in the end. It's a little funny. Cloying at the back of my head I always understand that it's nice, maybe even preferable, to see women leading stories where they can stand on their own without a romantic partner. Like Olivia Benson on SVU. I should want to see more women directing their own lives and feeling complete without the assistance or presence of a man, after all, that is likely the situation I will find myself in. But the surface craving is always to see a couple in love. To see the strong female character find someone who allows them to shine, who supports them and cherishes them. Someone unafraid to acknowledge their worth. And I find, more often than not, that this is the narrative we are moving toward. In comedies now, where the main character is a woman who was hurt by a man, the man always realizes his mistake. He comes back around, apologizes, tries to make things right...and it's a weird thing to watch while on the other end of the spectrum. Where the guy never looks back.
This is the direction my mom wants to head in. She's ready to leave my father- and I wonder, among many things, whether it will feel better or worse to be the child of a late-in-life separation. She wants a divorce, but that seems quite over dramatic to me. There's no way either of them is going to start dating again. Neither of them is comfortable with other people. They think it's just the fact of having lived too long with someone that makes them miserable, but the reality is that they just grew up hard and don't know how to be anything else.
Still, every birthday and every holiday I engage in the futility of searching for the perfect gift. I wrack my brain for something meaningful, for a memory, for a feeling. I struggle toward the inevitability of buying socks hoping to climb out of this thoughtless routine. I yearn for something, anything, that might say "I see you, I know you significance, I felt your importance." And for every occasion the closest I can muster is the largest box of caramel-pecan chocolates I can find.
It's after Christmas, now. I shouldn't go buy discounted candy, but I will.
Today Austin was shrouded by a gray mist- it was like the early stages of The Fog. I wonder who was betrayed to bring the curse upon the town, but this is Texas so it was probably Mexicans. Or slaves. Or Native Americans. I can't imagine there's any end to the list of non-whites that were harmed in Texas.
The mist pricks as I walk through it. The droplets take direct and violent aim. Or maybe it is me that is rushing them. As they delicately make their way toward their destiny against the concrete, I rampage through their path. I keep them from reuniting with their friends from the clouds in the welcoming pools on the ground.
I'm trying to set aside time now to read. I was a voracious reader, I suppose, as a child. It was my primary mode of transport. And for years I had forgotten that the best way to write is to read. After all, the back-bone of all artistry is borrowing. Polite theft.
I just finished the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and it was marvelous. It was delightful. It was everything one could hope for from the creator of Gilmore Girls. It was fast, it was Jewish, it was far funnier because it relied far less on pop-culture references. It was a story about a woman making it on her own for the first time, and I spent a lot of it wondering who she'd be paired up with in the end. It's a little funny. Cloying at the back of my head I always understand that it's nice, maybe even preferable, to see women leading stories where they can stand on their own without a romantic partner. Like Olivia Benson on SVU. I should want to see more women directing their own lives and feeling complete without the assistance or presence of a man, after all, that is likely the situation I will find myself in. But the surface craving is always to see a couple in love. To see the strong female character find someone who allows them to shine, who supports them and cherishes them. Someone unafraid to acknowledge their worth. And I find, more often than not, that this is the narrative we are moving toward. In comedies now, where the main character is a woman who was hurt by a man, the man always realizes his mistake. He comes back around, apologizes, tries to make things right...and it's a weird thing to watch while on the other end of the spectrum. Where the guy never looks back.
This is the direction my mom wants to head in. She's ready to leave my father- and I wonder, among many things, whether it will feel better or worse to be the child of a late-in-life separation. She wants a divorce, but that seems quite over dramatic to me. There's no way either of them is going to start dating again. Neither of them is comfortable with other people. They think it's just the fact of having lived too long with someone that makes them miserable, but the reality is that they just grew up hard and don't know how to be anything else.
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