Finding Oneself
My father is moving to Madison, Wisconsin. I believe I will probably never see him again, which won't be a big change from the last 26 years during which time we've had an odd relationship punctuated by long periods of estrangement. He has self-diagnosed ADD which he medicates for, but I have long been uncertain whether his inability or lack of desire to maintain contact stems from the ADD or perhaps some other issue. Maybe he just doesn't like me. Our paths have not been dissimilar, though I could never treat my children with the shocking abandon he evinced for many years.
We spoke tonight, and he asked if I might come visit him in Madison. I was never invited to visit him in Massachusetts which was only an hour away, so I am not anticipating any sort of real invitation to Wisconsin, though I would go. He is moving to be nearer his stepdaughter and her new baby -- maintaining a strength of relationship he never had interest in developing with his own daughter after he left when I was a teenager.
This smacks of bitterness, and I don't actually feel any. Instead, his departure has provoked an desire (which I've felt before) to find the half dozen first cousins I have scattered around the globe, the children of his two brothers. Some of them are easy enough to find on-line, and it is strange to see a picture of a relative I haven't seen since I was maybe 12 years old who looks so related to me. To get in touch with them seems almost desperate to me. They have their own lives, as I have mine. A college professor in Alabama, a minister in New Hampshire, what do they care about a cousin they haven't seen in years and weren't particularly close to from the outset.
The thing that binds us all is the house our fathers grew up in. Every summer we went to Castine, ME to my grandparents house. It was no less than a magical place for me. I was allowed to do things I could never do at home: climb trees or swim on my own. Even my brother and I got along there. I would go to the fort behind the Cori's house and sit in the fog with a book, listen to the bell buoy, and feel the salt breeze on my face. I slept in my grandmother's powder room where she had a feather pillow with the softest pillowcase . . .
When I looked at the website my father sent me the link for -- the blog of the woman one cousin is to marry, there was a picture of my cousin on what surely looks to be the front stoop of my grandparents house long since sold by my grandfather's second wife who didn't want some rambly house in the middle of nowhere. If indeed that is where he was perched, I know that whether I ever do meet up with these cousins again, we have one inexorable connection beyond some birthday party in the backyard in Lexington or a visit to Poughkeepsie or Chevy Chase. And that's probably enough.
We spoke tonight, and he asked if I might come visit him in Madison. I was never invited to visit him in Massachusetts which was only an hour away, so I am not anticipating any sort of real invitation to Wisconsin, though I would go. He is moving to be nearer his stepdaughter and her new baby -- maintaining a strength of relationship he never had interest in developing with his own daughter after he left when I was a teenager.
This smacks of bitterness, and I don't actually feel any. Instead, his departure has provoked an desire (which I've felt before) to find the half dozen first cousins I have scattered around the globe, the children of his two brothers. Some of them are easy enough to find on-line, and it is strange to see a picture of a relative I haven't seen since I was maybe 12 years old who looks so related to me. To get in touch with them seems almost desperate to me. They have their own lives, as I have mine. A college professor in Alabama, a minister in New Hampshire, what do they care about a cousin they haven't seen in years and weren't particularly close to from the outset.
The thing that binds us all is the house our fathers grew up in. Every summer we went to Castine, ME to my grandparents house. It was no less than a magical place for me. I was allowed to do things I could never do at home: climb trees or swim on my own. Even my brother and I got along there. I would go to the fort behind the Cori's house and sit in the fog with a book, listen to the bell buoy, and feel the salt breeze on my face. I slept in my grandmother's powder room where she had a feather pillow with the softest pillowcase . . .
When I looked at the website my father sent me the link for -- the blog of the woman one cousin is to marry, there was a picture of my cousin on what surely looks to be the front stoop of my grandparents house long since sold by my grandfather's second wife who didn't want some rambly house in the middle of nowhere. If indeed that is where he was perched, I know that whether I ever do meet up with these cousins again, we have one inexorable connection beyond some birthday party in the backyard in Lexington or a visit to Poughkeepsie or Chevy Chase. And that's probably enough.
posted by kingoftherabbits at
9:10 PM
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