First I’ll assemble those little pieces I have. There’s no one left to ask about the connective tissue. How did I miss that window? How could I have been so careless with my Mother and Father, letting them slip away before polishing the narration of each significant scene? Sometimes the patch merely conceals the hole. And sometimes it transforms the treasured scrap into new cloth.
So today, when “run away” flashes though my mind, it’s not just fear of the creative, it’s not just the special vulnerability of having to create art and knowing it just might be shit. No, I’ve always hoped someone would save me from the moment, the task, the possibility of foolishness, uselessness or failure.
I am filled with sadness to think I must send my child away so she can live the life every father dreams of for his child. I feel so defeated. A Father should be able to give his family all the things they need. Not to be wealthy but to be a family together.
Rudy: (Carole’s father, musing in 1937, Germany) Is a land in your blood, your bones, is it the safe feeling under your feet? Or is it the place your family has lived for generations—even after it strips away your rights and treats you hatefully? What identifies a person with a country? Is it the culture, [...]
When my parents were still here for me, I asked and avoided, I listened and ignored. When I became a parent, all that programming poured from my firmware and wanted control. Would I live the legacy or change it?
From an early age, I gave my daughter expert coaching in ice-cream cone management. I knew iced cream would be an important part of her future, so I approached this as a valuable skill to be handed down and practiced. You circle the cone, working the meeting of cone and ice cream…
“Laura was a free spirit. I wasn’t like that; I was very traditional. But Laura could do anything. You’re like her that way. I admired her.” These words were from Madeleine, a friend of my Mom’s from Gimbals’ days, circa 1945. Laura the free spirit: I had never thought of her this way. I knew [...]
He’s only for himself. He chose the cinch of Chaillot’s mad mistress. He danced the angry white man’s jive into a frenzy. It’s not your fault he got lost there. You can’t be blamed but you can protect yourself.
Yes, I’m a woman of sensible, terribly sensible shoes. I still own lots of them. After a ten-pair purge I’m down to just over thirty…pair. I buy shoes prophylactically, restoratively, because they are there and occasionally even because I need them. But No, I never had Go-Go boots. Did you?
Every girl swears it won’t happen to her. Every young mother is shocked to see the tell-tale signs. “I’m becoming my Mother.” I see it in the friends I look up after so many years, at childrens graduations, in the tears and laughter. I catch some of those trite and untimely phrases as they want [...]