Thankful

Kids, today is Thanksgiving, and by all rights, I have very little to be thankful for. I dont see you anymore, and I speak to you rarely. One thing I am thankful for is your existance. I hope someday that you can understand how hurt I am, and how much I do love you. I am a piece of trash that some want to throw away and act as if I don’t exist. I am, and will always be, your Dad.

I made it through that day and continued to struggle with depression and daily existence. But life did slowly get better (2004, 2008).  Like a coronary artery bypass, the scars from my past won’t ever disappear. But I have healed.

Many things were  the same  today as they were on that day in 2003.  I was alone, I didn’t have my kids with me,  and I spent the  day trying  to avoid “Thanksgiving”. But it’s no 2003. I have so much to be grateful for. I have a wonderful life here in Madison. I have people here I consider family,  an amazing  job with fantastic coworkers, and an  amazing son back  in  Indianapolis  that is following his dream.

I am thankful every day for the people  in  my life. And I’m grateful that you are here to read this. I am blessed.

I’ve never really had the ability to stop loving people after I’ve started loving them. A scene from “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” explains how love works in my life.

(HEDWIG:) “Seriously, Tom, yes. I believe love is immortal.”

(guitar chords)

(TOMMY sings:) “Look what you done … (bad chord) goddammit! How is it immortal?”

(HEDWIG:) “Well, perhaps because love creates something that was not there before.”

(TOMMY:) “What, like procreation?”

(HEDWIG:) “Yes, but not only.”

(TOMMY:) “What, like recreation?”

(HEDWIG:) “Sometimes just creation.”

After years of distance and emotional space, the love of certain people still exists. I’m a weirdo that way. Once that love is created, it may change but it never goes away. I don’t date. I don’t typically even “fall in love.” What I do is foster relationships and let them grow into whatever they will become.

A few months ago I got back in touch with my first love, Kara. While time has erased the romantic feelings, the primal teen urges, and the need for her attention, the love still remains. The 24 years of silence and distance couldn’t tear the love I had for that girl out of me. Our lives are very different. But that love remains.

I met Sarah during a time in my life when I was really emotionally fragile. The reality of never seeing my children again was setting in and I was pretty down and out. I had just moved back to Indiana and was looking for more support. She made it clear that she only wanted to be friends with me. I honored that and really fell into a space with her of closeness. Strictly platonic, we shared a bond that I’ve had with very few people. There wasn’t anything I would do for her.  I spent the night at her house many times, we’d get drunk on twist cap wine from the Rural Inn and watch old movies. If her girlfriend was giving her grief, I’d be there to listen.  When I was hurting, she’d take me out to Oldfield Gardens and we’d just hang out and be. Then one day, out of the blue,  she decided to end our friendship. She blocked me on IM and  didn’t return phone calls or emails. In an instant, she was gone out of my life.

A few years later she told me she felt like I was falling in love with her. Did I love her? Yes. Did I fall in love with her in a romantic way? No. But that was the end of our friendship. To this day, I still love her. That emotion and those feelings and the time we spent together doesn’t just die. But I had to lay it to rest. Like any death, there is mourning.

When my fine china breaks, I piece it back together and put it in the hutch that is my heart. The only thing I can do with it from then on is cherish the memories that were served on them. But the taste of  the food still haunts my lips and lingers on my tongue. If anything reminds me that “there is no future, there is no past, no day but today”, it’s the love I’ve experienced and lost to the winds of time.

Such a beautiful place you are, Devil’s Lake.

Growing up in a super dysfunctional household, I had very little in the way of nurturing. Between working full time and regularly engaging in marital battles, my mom had little quality time with us kids. I spent a lot of time with my maternal grandmother and grandfather (who we affectionately called “Granny” and “Poppy”). Pop was a very mean man. I can remember times he would come home for supper and if Granny didn’t have the food on the table, he’d call her every expletive in the book (with “bitch” in first place). Many times Granny took to venting with me, telling me stories of how he’d been mean to her (especially the story of her catching him cheating).

He was also one of the most racist men I’ve ever known. I can remember him yelling at the TV and turning it off when Emmanuel Lewis came on television, grumbling about how the niggers were taking over the world. From what my mom has told me he also was probably in the Klu Klux Klan. There were so many dark sides to my Poppy, it would be easy to hate him.

But I don’t. While I saw all the ugliness, I also saw a side of him that made me love him. More than any person in my young life he nurtured me. He would often spend time with me one on one, offering me a father figure that was rarely present at home. I can remember many trips he and I took to White Castle to just hang out and talk. When I would complain about the way my parents treated me (a difference in how my parents treated me and my brother, of which Granny and Poppy both acknowledged), Poppy would tell me not to mind that. He would enthusiastically comfort me saying “you are smart and you are going to do amazing things with your life”. That may not sound very profound, but those words coming from Poppy were.  Those words have echoed in the back of my mind for the past 35 or so years, giving me strength.

Pop taught me that people aren’t one dimensional. While he was an incredibly hateful to Granny, he was a loving and nurturing man to me. The duality of his life has made me look at people differently. Being a liberal Democrat on a Facebook account full of Indiana Republicans (mostly my Alumni from Southport High School), this skill has come in handy. I’ve been able to become good friends with people that are my ideological opposite. Poppy taught me to see the humanity in all people and life taught me what Bernard Meltzer knew:

“If you have learned how to disagree without being disagreeable, then you have discovered the secret of getting along — whether it be business, family relations, or life itself.”

Home is where a light is left on until you get home.
Home is morning tea with your best friend.
Home is not locational, it is emotional.
Home is the place where you are loved.

For now, Middleton, Wisconsin is my home and I’m grateful.

Happy New Year to you all.

“Dust in our eyes our own boots kicked up
Heartsick we nursed along the way we picked up
You may not see it when it’s sticking to your skin
But we’re better off for all that we let in

Lost friends and loved ones much too young
So much promises and work left undone
When all that guards us is a single center line
And the brutal crossing over when it’s time

Oooooooo
(I don’t know where it all begins)
Oooooooo
(And I don’t know where it all will end)
Oooooooo
(We’re better off for all that we let in)

One day those toughies will be withered up and bent
The father son the holy warriors and the president
With glory days of put up dukes for all the world to see
Beaten into submission in the name of the free

We’re in a nevolution I have heard it said
Everyone’s so busy now but do we move ahead
The planets hurting and atoms splitting
And a sweater for your love you sit there knitting

Oooooooo
(I don’t know where it all begins)
Oooooooo
(And I don’t know where it all will end)
Oooooooo
(We’re better off for all that we let in)

See those crosses on the side of the road
Tied with ribbons in the medium
They make me grateful I can go this far
Lay me down and never wake me up again

Kim writes a poem and she sticks it on my truck
We don’t believe in war and we don’t believe in luck
The birds were calling to her what were they saying
As the gate blew open the tops of the trees were swaying

I’ve passed the cemetery walk my dog down there
I read the names in stone and say a silent prayer
When I get home you’re cooking supper on the stove
And the greatest gift of life is to know love

Oooooooo
(I don’t know where it all begins)
Oooooooo
(And I don’t know where it all will end)
Oooooooo
(We’re better off for all that we let in)”

I heard this song right after hearing “No Day, But Today” from the Rent Soundtrack. It just reinforces to me the truth I’ve found here. I feel at home. I feel at home in my skin, and I feel at home in terms of location.  Every single second of my life is a gift I treasure. I can’t believe how many times I wanted to die. Even at its worst, life is so full, so rich, and so worth living. I try to express this to the people I love and it never seems that I can ever explain it in a way that fully encapsulates how much I love them and my life here. But I’m no fool, I know that no matter how much I want to stay in this space, in this place forever, time moves on. All I can do is try to be as present as much of the time as possible. Sooner or later I will be taken away from them or they will be taken away from me. That’s just how life is. But right now  it’s beautiful and I’m grateful.

Ultimately I realized that I never needed anything outside my own acceptance, my own love, and my own respect. Do I want those things from other people? Yes. Do I need them to be complete? Hardly.

But saying that doesn’t mean I want to be alone. It means I can be and that’s ok. I had a recent bout of loneliness that came over me quick and pressed down on me like an imploding house. But even in that, the above realization was always with me. I’m at a point in my life where my needs and wants are clearly defined. It helps to know the difference, especially when I get lonely. Filling that void in my life is a want, not a need. That is such a relief/weight lifted, I can’t even explain it enough for one to understand the gravity it implies.

This recording was done at a mobile StoryCorps trailer on September 16th, 2007.  The StoryCorps website describes itself this way:

StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit project whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening.

By recording the stories of our lives with the people we care about, we experience our history, hopes, and humanity. Since 2003, tens of thousands of everyday people have interviewed family and friends through StoryCorps. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to take home and share, and is archived for generations to come at the Library of Congress. Millions listen to our award-winning broadcasts on public radio and the Internet. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, creating a growing portrait of who we really are as Americans.

I love doing this kind of interview. Listening to it now is like a time capsule, and it was only two years ago.

5 blocks of cheese
1 pound of turkey breast
1 package of smoked sausage
3 pounds of turkey breast
1 box of sweet freedom fudge lites
3 packages of hot dogs (1 pound package)
1 pound of cheddar curds cheese
4 packages of ground turkey (1 pound each)
1 quart of plain dill pickles
1 package of cream cheese 8 oz.
1 package of bacon (1 pound)
1 package of broccoli (12 ounces)
1 package of salad (10 oz)
1 can of whipped cream (7 oz)
1 bag of cooked shrimp (1 pound)
2 containers of Smart Balance margarine (15 ounces)
2 bags of shredded cheese (8 oz bags)
1 can of Pam cooking spray (6 oz)
1 container of salt (1 lb)
1 box of cheer detergent (3 lb box)
12 swiffer refills
2 bags of Russell Stover sugar free chocolate truffles

I had my backpack stuffed and the back of my bike carried all the stuff that wouldn’t fit.

Of course, I keep myself occupied, listening to music. And I can check my email on the road….