Writing Portfolio for T&L 546

I realized after putting my pieces together that every one of the things I felt inspired to write about centered around family.  I know that shouldn't come as a surprise, because most of us would claim that family usually makes up the core of our identities, for better or worse.  Although all of these pieces are of a personal nature, and fairly revealing (!), I would feel comfortable sharing them with my adult students (even moreso than I would with my close family members!).  We are taught to write what we know.  

This was incredibly cathartic, and I learned that I knew more than I thought I did.

Contents

Fathered

e.e. at the e.r.

Mia, todo Mia

Fathered, 2nd Edition

The Farm on 7th South

Fathered

My 5', 85lb mother-in-law who routinely does sets of 100 pushups in between loads of laundry, looked me square in the eyes and said, "Dead is dead."

Pausing to choose my words carefully, all I came up with was, "What was the cause?'

"Hard life.  And, well, he had a pace-maker."

And that is to say nothing of the obvious.  At the age of 10, Bernie had witnessed his mother shot to death by his father, who then subsequently blew out his own brains.  This event is often cited as the catalyst and all-encompasing explanation for his lifestyle choices.  He'd run away from state care by 14 and was transient ever since.

Wait.

He did try his hand at permanence in marrying the timid, waif-like Marlene Nelson.  They must have sought completion in each other:  he a SKILLFUL musician, and she- quiet and steady.  Only tidbits of what happened the day he left are known. Marlene, a new mother, locked herself in the bathroom with her weeks-old infant to avoid some sort of violent outburst.  By the time family had come to her rescue, he was gone...for good.

Marlene remarried a man with more interest in longevity and a sense of one's "duty." He became my MIL's Dad, and although he was never terribly affectionate, my MIL has chanted, almost daily over the past weeks, "I was taught, I was cared for, I was disciplined, I was safe.  I had clean clothes.  I had good food. I had a warm bed.  I knew to put the cart back.  I knew how to work.  I am here now because he left."

When Bernie finally stood face-to-face with my MIL, over fifty years later, he gave an account of his life. Interestingly, he did not shade any of his experiences in his favor in order to justify his behavior and diffuse his guilt.  His honesty was surely more painful to my MIL than an attempt to satiate a need for redemption would have been.  Instead of relaying the time he was invited to accompany Loretta Lynn, he simply had "some bar gigs."  Instead of being a trained Vietnam paratrooper who was honorably discharged on account of medical psychosis, he was "kicked out" for shoving an officer down the stairs of a naval ship.  My MIL asked her own mother, Marlene, last week, under the guise of wanting to get things straight, whether he had ever once inquired after her or reached out in any way after he'd left.

"Never."

My MIL's motivation for finally seeking him out came from his niece, Candy, who, a woman with his same vein of thought pattern, dramatically informed her that Bernie was in the VA hospital, dying.  My MIL, who has a long resume of humanitarian involvement and experience in self-mastery, considered the homeless men and women she was visiting on a frequent basis.  She figured that Bernie had more of a claim on her than they did and announced as as much in an effort muster the courage to face him.  The rest of us felt skeptical. He wasn't as near to dying as Candy had touted (of course), so my MIL spent the past four years visiting him on Sunday afternoons, driving him to and from errands, advocating for him, listening to his stories and complaints.

He never, once, said, "I'm sorry." But he sure made use of her while he could! She was willing to play the role of dutiful daughter, while he waited impatiently with an open palm. In her defense, she tried to avoid being conditioned. It usually went something like this.

Phone call at 1am.

"I'm dying and I don't have my pills.  You have to do something."

"I'll tell you what.  I am going to call your case worker to arrange ride to the pharmacy tonight, and then I'm going to bed because it's nearly midnight.  I will check in with you in the morning."

{Grumpy response and dial tone}

There is an unwritten rule about the effort ratio in a parent-child relationship.  No healthy adult approaches parenthood expecting the child to maintain a particular percentage of the work it takes to have one.  It's understood that the parents go in willing to give all weather or not a child reciprocates.  We do it because of biology, evolution.  As lovely a thought it is to be consistently validated by one's children, few will be.  In this regard, my MIL said she always felt that their roles had flopped.  Because of where she is and from whom and what she was sheltered, she felt the full responsibility of their relationship.

All we, who love her, can see is his abandonment, disinterest, selfishness.

She saw a sad man who shared her genes and an opportunity for self discovery.  So, when he died last week, and his will was found, and she had been expressly "disinherited," it opened a deep wound that had been overlooked.  It was Candy, the pot-stirring niece, who had drafted it.

BUT, he had signed it.

We were feeling livid at this final blow, and said as much.  She retorted:

"Who wants the possessions of a homeless guy!?  I could care less.

Candy can have his junk and good riddance," she laughed.

But, {chokes} it HURTS to be unwanted."

e.e. at the e.r.

c

   r

      o

         s

            s

               section 

of society from stratosphere 

                                           

                                             to slums

condensed into

a

petrie dish

of

vinyl & red bull

and flannel & vomit

and scalp scents;      

                                                                                                                         

a hive of buffoons & entitlement & 

tooconspicuouscommunications

why 5 security guards?  

REMEMBER, REMEMBER, REMEMBER:

 the road toward genocide is paved with divisive thoughts, so, quick! 
take a detour through a (funds-of-knowledge) sieve  

&

hope

for

the best.

Mia, todo Mia

You are my first baby love

miracle

maker of my identity.

You made my long-time dreams reality

and let me learn at your expense.

You make me proud

to bursting at the seams with

love, and admiration, and hope for me, for you, and for everyone else.

You are my quasi-creation,

and because of this,

you are a reflection of me.

Me.

Mine.

You.

Yours.

You are you.

I must remember.

You are you.

You are (lean in so I can whisper this in your ear) beautiful...

a beautiful being.  I hesitate to tell it to you first, and risk your its misconstrual becoming a foundation of identity, but

I cannot deny the loveliness that you are.

Industrious.

You were appropriately named.

Your drive is unbeatable.

And girl, you can work.  Hard.

Your mind goes!

Observing, hyper-aware, processing, synapses and electrodes firing and wiring in chaos,

but wired well.

"Focus. Focus. Amelia, FOCUS."

And when you do, that energy becomes a power to behold.

You are kind.

You are tender-hearted.

You are a healer, a fixer, a doer.

You are brown-skin-chocolate.

You are brown-skin-chocolate in a world of white.

You belong here.

You belong here, but you are not us.

You belong here, but. you. are. not. me. (I can hardly type the words)

Because, you see, in addition to all that you are, you are brown.  And I am not.  And I will never be. 

I will never be you.

So, it is what it is.

And although you are named after my model of a German grandmother and Dad's model of a Swedish grandmother, two who have gone before us and you, you are not them.  

You are, alone, a pioneer in this world of white.  I will be here, we all will, be right here, but you must do it alone because of who you are.

So, look to me, and grandmothers, and aunts, and sister.  But, also, look to them.  These women who I will shop for and show to you.  You, I hope, will then, say,

Yes, I am yours first and forever.  I am these things.  But I am also brown, like them.  And I am Amelia Alice who is loved by many and spanning the divide between them all and still strong enough to hold. 

Fathered, 2nd Edition

or, What I Wish I Thought I Knew

Sometimes what we think we know is really just what we wish we knew.

Skeletal memories are filled in with daydreams and fantasies, and whatever's left over is topped off with a little logic.  Our subconscious whispers,

"It must have been like this because, surely, this makes the most sense."

For this reason, writing about my father is easy. He is forever memorialized by his untimely death, so I read and hear stories, stories, stories.  They echo in my mind-  from my mother, from my aunts, from his mother.  Few speak ill of the dead.

He was "a real Samoan boy" (not Samoan, but born in Apia and looked the part) or, "Philip the Beautiful," the two names with which he'd christened himself.  My grandmother has told me that he was her brightest child out of six smarties, but with that intelligence comes hard stuff.  They say he felt things in a big way.  Empathy haunted him- for animals, for humans, for the world.  The family's default illustration is the time he gave his new and hard-earned shoes to a man on the bus.  The stories sound tender, but the ghosts surface as when I read his 19-year-old rant recorded by an angry pen in none other than his missionary journal:

        What the hell am I doing in Japan teaching housewives to speak English so that they will have  

        something to do in their spare time when children are starving to death in southeast Asia and

        Africa?  My stupid government pays farmers not to grow grain on certain land so the price will

        stay up and in the mean time people starve to death...Yes, I am shaken, and yes, I want to get out

        of this country.

Ultimately, he did, get out. But too early, just like his death.

But then, he got to love my mother, which feels like a novelty.  That is what drew him home to endless wheat fields and endless shame.  He loved her enough that he would face it all to bind himself to her.  I love him for loving her.  When eyebrows were raised after his death (what was her role in all this?), the replies from those who knew him echoed:

"This we know, that he loved his wife." 

"At least we know he was crazy about Karen."

"Despite it all, I know that he loved me...in his way."

He even took the time to tell her goodbye.  Arms around her while she slept, and a pre- and post-apology, "I'm sorry, Karen," whispered in her REM-filtered ears.   And she knew when he left.  But she kept her green, 20-year-old eyes closed and cried.

But what about my pre- and post-apology?  I was there too.  Was it collective?  I think I know I heard it.  

Like an eavesdrop. 

But was he sorry to me?  So...

I wonder what it would have been like if I had been loved by him. 

I wonder what role he plays in my life now. 

Most days, I wear his gray track sweatshirt with the red #22.  It's worn to white at the writs and elbows from too many times trying to put him on. 

I am like him, I think, or so I have been told from a myriad of sources, but I also feel it.
I am like him, but if he didn't like himself, would he like me?

His feelings got too big, so he atoned for the world, my grandmother said. If only he understood. 

If only he knew, she says.

Sometimes, when I run and it gets hard, I know he's with me. Or maybe I just wish I knew it.   

I tell him stuff and imagine what he might say by filling in skeletal memories with daydreams, fantasies, and a dollop of logic.

Picture Book

The link will take you to my digital picture book on Bookemon.

The Farm on 7th South

Picture Book: The Farm on 7th South

I have begun about five different picture books, struggling to find the right topic.  I have about a million ideas, but none are developed enough to create something substantial.  This is a testament to writing what we know.  It wasn't until I looked closer to home and began to write about something that is familiar that I had enough to develop the ideas.  My great grandparents were incredible people who had a simple, but beautiful life.  I have such fond memories of them and the stories they told, and because I spent a lot of time on their farm, many of their stories became my reality as they were replicated in my childhood.  Here is a draft of the text for my story.  I have begun it on Bookemon because it allows for personally uploaded pictures.  It is told from the perspective of the child that my great-grandmother lost during pregnancy (if she were to have lived).  The loss was extremely painful to my grandmother because it caused complications that prevented her from having any more children.  She was one of ten and wanted at least as many, but ended up with three boys- the oldest of whom is my grandfather, Don J.  Also, the rhythm of the prose is inspired by the sweet children's book, When I Was Young in the Mountains.  It has been one of my favorites since I saw it on Reading Rainbow as a 5-year-old, ha!

When I was young on the farm at 7th south, 

life was simple, 

but good.

We would bathe in the old tin wash basin on Saturday nights.  Mother would boil water on the big wood stove and slip into the steaming water while the rest of us finished our evening chores outside.  Then father would wash in the warm water.  My brothers were next, and then me. By that time, the water was cloudy from soap and brown from dirt and cold from use. I didn’t like it, but it still washed the week away, so I had to.  

Sundays were for God and chicken.  We had some type of beef during the rest of the week, but on Saturday nights, one of my brothers would stalk a chicken or two from the yard, chop off its head, then bring it to mother for dressin'. That's how Blair got his crooked finger. Don J. told blair to hold the chicken still while he swung at his neck , but missed and chopped off Blair's finger. Mother took Blair to the doctor to sew it back on once it was found, but the doctor must have been tired because he sewed it on  sideways. Don J. hid in the pig pen until we found him and he was scolded by Father.   

Clean from our bath thight before, we would we attended church at the old stone chapel. It reminded me of the tower of Babel from the Old Testament because after the main service was over, we only had curtains to divide our Sunday School classes.  Everyone would get to talkin' and it was as if the whole building was a'hum with a hundred different tongues.

Mondays were wash days. Mother would hang our clothes on the line, even in the winter. I remember coming home from school in the frosty dusk and seeing her lift the stiff, frozen overalls from the line as if they had a life of their own.

Our winters were bone-chilling-cold.  The kitchen would stay warm from the wood stove when mother cooked, but the rest of the house was like an ice box.  It was Don J's job to keep the Heaterola stoked with coal, but he was usually lazy and the rest of us would be cross as we blew shapes in the air with our hoary breath.  

In the summertime, the canal was our lifeblood. Mother would toss us in as toddlers, clothes and all, to frighten the curiosity out of us.  That's how I learned to swim, anyway.  

Father would take a turn each week to irrigate our lawn with it. He dammed the culvert along the road until our acre of lawn would fill with a foot or so of water.  I would bob rotten apples and watch them trail after me as I tramped through the muddy lake.

Mother would quilt beneath the old willow tree on Tuesday afternoons with ladies from the town.  I would crawl under the frame and play house, trying to avoid the bobbing needles. Even when the rest of us were warm and barefoot, Grandfather was grumpy, but his beard hid his frown. We could tell what was beneath his white whiskers because he only spoke to father, and it was always in German.  He pretended that he didn't understand English so he could ignore the rest of us. Mother didn't let him bully her though.  Theirs was a silent warfare.

Our neighbors, the Kusakas, had to leave after the Japs bombed Hawaii.  The boys were older than my brothers, but they were kind to me and helped father each year with potato harvest.  We were sorry to see them go, and father even hid their guns in our cellar so the government wouldn't take them away.  After the war, they came back, but their land was so badly overgrown that they left to farm strawberries and sunshine in California.  

During the war, we got a toilet in the house.  Don J. was allowed to drive the truck because he was 13, and picked up the lumber down in Pocatello to build a wall around the toilet.  When we was finally home, he realized he had lost some of the lumber out the back. Because it was tightly rationed, father made him search along the miles and miles of dirt highway until he retrieved every last bit.

One night, our old dairy cow kicked over the kerosene lamp in our barn and it caught on fire.  The whole family was asleep, but a neighbor saw the fire and woke us up.  Father was devastated. One day after the fire, some members of our church showed up with a check for father.  They were all poor, like we all were, but they had each spared enough to contribute to our barn so we could make it through the winter.  It was the first time I had seen my father cry.

(I could keep going and going!  I need to cut back on the memories, I think, and better prioritize them).

When I was young on the farm at 7th south, 

I never wondered about the rest of the world because this was the world.

Home was simple, but good, and I would not have had it any other way.