Tag: family

Dutiful Daughter

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I’m starting to worry that people who are close to me will start to peace out when they realize that they could be written about in a not so favorable light at any time. Still, this blog continues to be an outlet for me and I had to get this out.  The main “character” of this post has been forewarned, and there are quite a few aspects that I have decided to keep private. At the very least, I hope someone who shares similar experiences will feel some sort of catharsis after seeing themselves reflected in my story. I have returned to this quote from Anne Lamott several times in the past few months, “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

***

One of the more unsettling things I have found out about writing honestly about my personal experiences without the disguise offered by the label “fiction” is the potential to manipulate, or to put it in less sinister terms, to guide the reader to have a particular emotional experience. With the right word choice and sequencing of events, along with a subtle push from the readers’ own taste and prior experiences, a writer can work towards ensuring that one laughs or is outraged almost exactly on cue as the text demands.

For example, I could have chosen to start this post with a description of a younger me in my yellow and white gingham dress with the square neckline, hair cornrowed into two bunches on either side of my head, waiting on my grandma’s couch all Saturday afternoon for my father to pick me up. I could go on to show how my grandma bustled about, unusually busy for a weekend, trying to act like she wasn’t waiting as well and attempting to distract me with errands like walking down the road to buy sugar or some other thing we didn’t need. That may be leaning too far towards the cliché TV movie genre, especially since the story of an absent father isn’t exactly groundbreaking material.

It is possible that it would be a little more poignant to explain why it is that I still don’t know how to ride a bike even at the advanced age of 24. My father gave me a bike with a neon green frame, accompanied by a set of crooked training wheels when I was 7 and a promise to teach me how to ride it that was never met. For years my uncle tried to convince me that it was really easy and that he could teach me if I wanted. I’m still not sure why I haven’t taken him or any of the many others who tried up on their offer.

At this point, it might be appropriate to list many milestones that he missed or was not invited to because I did not want nor expect him to come. The more generic ones: school prize giving days, piano recitals, the time I caught mumps from the boy I sat next to in class, dance shows, birthdays, Sunday School plays, the time I sweated my way through my high school valedictory address, two graduations. To add some personal color with bolder traces of nostalgia, I could also include; black and white French films at Alliance Française, the time my mother started buying me notebooks to fill with my little scribbles that would turn into journals, long walks to the part of the neighborhood with the huge houses blinking their bright lights behind full hedges, not to mention the fact that I didn’t realize until I was much older that I was supposed to miss the presence of a father figure because I was surrounded by five incredible mothers and uncles that more than made up for the expected “gap.”

I probably sound quite cynical, and I am to a large extent. I tried forgiveness and openness once, because I felt ashamed for holding on to my anger for such a long time after someone I used to know and care about told me that I was only doing so because I didn’t know who I was if I wasn’t “the girl whose dad wasn’t there.” I agreed, especially because what I’ve come to see as a mundane piece of personal information since moving to the U.S. was still relatively rare in most of the families I knew. So, I would try. Never mind that when it came time to apply to college, he refused to fill out his portion of my financial aid applications because it would look like we had more money than we did, and I would get less financial aid as a result. It was for my own good, you see. Never mind that he stood in the doorway to my mother’s bedroom explaining that he couldn’t fill in his half of financial aid forms in case he was expected to give up some money. This disclaimer hovered over me for the entire application season, “Unwillingness to fill the forms are not grounds enough to waive the requirement,” as did the persistent ticking of the ceiling fan that filled the awkward silence between my father’s abandoning of responsibility (once again) and my mother’s disdain.

No, there was no real reason to continue keeping my father at arm’s length. I should give him a chance, let bygones be water under a bridge that we would build and all kinds of other metaphors and platitudes, because he was trying. Trying looked like forcing relationships with my step –siblings with labels like “big sis” that I still don’t claim, and waiting expectantly for me to respond “I love you too” at the end of phone calls and at the gate to my grandmother’s house on the weekends he actually showed up. Is it obvious that my cynicism is an act? I actually don’t enjoy parading my father’s absence just to make myself more interesting, mainly because I would like to think that there is an unending list of things about myself that are more fascinating, and also because there is nothing new in this world, and a father who isn’t around is among the oldest of things.

Maybe I will appear more sincere, or my bitterness a more palpable, if I address him in the second person, you the reader, to make you feel uncomfortable, to compel you to occupy his position for just a moment as you read this. You, my father. My hurt is complicated and deep, and not just an unsettled score or a grudge. It pushes itself further into my self in spite of everyone’s efforts to dance gingerly around the truth. There is also the anxiety that comes with the suspicion that your care comes on the condition that I keep succeeding in a way that will permit you to point proudly at the last name I wish I didn’t have. My memory is crystalline in its accuracy, and I can recall that the times your requests to see me have been most stringent have immediately followed some kind of public achievement of mine. I graduated from college and you posted photos of the widest grin I wore that day on Facebook without once inquiring how it was all paid for. I posted some of my writing online, and you shared the link, proud father. I was in Accra reading some of my work the radio, and you raged and demanded to know why no one forced me to call you to let you know I was in town. Are these the only times you think about me?

I understand that you may have been able to trick yourself into thinking that you’ve done the best you can, that I’m picking up one out of every five phone calls, that up until recently I have responded promptly and politely to one text message every few months. It was almost easy for me to smile tight smiles across a stained tablecloth at a Chinese restaurant no one goes to anymore, to even pose for a picture afterwards because I wasn’t really there, I was floating somewhere above your head, dodging all your jokes, wishing the afternoon away because at least I was doing my duty as a daughter. I am only a few years older, but my hurt has turned into resentment, and any desire to engage, to mend, to try, to be “dutiful” has dwindled to zero.

Your reaching out is a few years too late and I can’t imagine how I could catch you up, or how to even carry on anew by putting all the missed opportunities behind us. That may be possible for others, but I don’t know how any relationship we could begin now could be successful if you don’t know that at a point I was so self-conscious I couldn’t wear my hair up and away from my face. Or that I spend far more time living in my head than I do actually allowing people to see me, and that I’m terrified of being unlovable and being rejected by potential friends and romantic interests alike, to the point where I just exist and hope that the other person will say something first. Or that I’m constantly fretting about money but would rather maintain my bank balance teetering on the edge of an overdraft than ask for help from my mother because she has done more than enough for me. Or that I’ve kept 2-3 jobs since I started grad school so I can be as financially independent as possible, and being the kind of self-sufficient person my mother would be proud of. I’m very stubborn, but you wouldn’t know that about me either. You also don’t know that the quickest way to push me away is to crowd me, and to give fatherly directions and commands with authority you haven’t earned because I absolutely hate being told what to do. Or that I am fiercely protective of my mother and so you have broken the last few links of the rusty bridge that hung between us by trying to blame her for being “spiteful,” from trying to keep me away from you.

I can admit that I’m a little frightened of the amount of animosity I’m still holding within, while simultaneously taking note of how little remorse I feel for speaking to you like I have done over the past few days. I hope you see that we actually do have problems, contrary to your insistence that father-daughter relationships are “natural.” It may be more convenient for you to point fingers at my mother or my aunts for turning me against you, but the truth is that if you knew me at all you would know that for years my cool politeness has been all I’ve been willing to give, and even that I have done grudgingly. I should have been honest all along. You haven’t been there, and I don’t know how I’m going to get over it, if I ever get over it at all.

(Image: I have been so loved by these amazing women: my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.)

Recovery

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reverse the order

It is a wonder there are any parts of myself left to write about. Take the rusty hook digging into my cheek, forcing my face into a grimace for a smile. I am the one holding it, it is this pen and workshops and operating rooms and places other sharp objects sit waiting to tear and reconstruct ugly parody of natural self. Recovery is not a destination; it is a place I keep writing myself away from

She is holding the scalpel ripping away at herself and now she has turned it on me. I am pulling further away from her and she has not noticed that her attempts at comfort and commiseration feel like the same unnecessary procedures she has had to endure. Just because our bones settle together into the same shape does not mean I want to die her sort of death

reversal of the order

is impossible. I’m writing against recovery but cannot write myself into wholeness. I speak most fluently in broken teeth spat into a hand– not mine– small strips of flesh hanging off the edges of my nail beds, splits in damaged hair pulled together too roughly. Is there anything else left to disfigure in the name of getting over and beyond…recovery will never be a destination

I have written too far away from it and everyone expects my remains as proof

reverse the order

I will still end up in ruin where I have put myself every single time, but she helped me get here and so did you

***

Rewrite after poetry workshop, spring 2017

To Wholeness

(as Michelle Cliff tried to do)

It is a wonder there are any parts of myself left to write about. Take the rusty hook digging into my cheek, forcing my face to form a grimace for a smile. I am the one holding it, it is this pen and workshops and operating rooms and places other sharp objects sit waiting to tear and reconstruct ugly parody of natural self. Recovery is not a destination; it is a place I keep writing myself away from.

My spirit mother is holding the scalpel ripping away at herself and now she has turned it on me. I am pulling further away from her and she has not noticed that her attempts at comfort and commiseration feel like the same unnecessary procedures she has had to endure. Just because our bones settle into the same shape does not mean I want to die her sort of death.

I’m writing against recovery but cannot write myself to wholeness. I speak most fluently in broken teeth spat in my hand, small strips of flesh hanging off the edges of my nail beds, splits in damaged hair pulled together too roughly. Is there anything else left to disfigure in the name of getting over and beyond–

Recovery will never be a destination. I have written too far away from it and everyone expects my remains as proof.

 

 

Long Distance

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I got a call from 1992 today.

There was so much static on the line that it was almost impossible to hear the caller.

There was so much static on the line that it sounded as though a flock of birds had picked apart the telephone wire for food, used parts of it to feed their young, the rest to build nests that sometimes emitted electric shocks– only sometimes.

There was so much static on the line.

I put the handset face down on the table, but I could still hear the faint squeaking and beeping that used to be the caller’s voice before decaying cables and years of estrangement distorted the sound waves into these grotesque noises. I picked up the handset and smashed it against the wall. Its pieces didn’t scatter and skid across the floor. Instead, it cracked neatly in half, somewhere between where I could not hear and where I could not speak. I took both halves in my hands and shook out– the names of concerts we did not attend, the moisture of hands we did not hold, the covers of comic books you did not buy, the rust of bikes I did not ride. I sifted through the phone’s remains and found the dried flakes of tears I could not cry, the thread of smiles I could not smile wound tightly around a pencil, glitter dust from cards I could not make by hand, dry bones of love I do not have to give.

Next time, I must be sure to check who is calling before I answer.

At a Stranger’s Funeral

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The back of the pew is the only thing holding up your spine, and so you bear the discomfort in silence. The sounds of mourning hang around your head like the sheet of hair you chopped off that day you decided you were looking for a reawakening. How does it feel to attend a stranger’s funeral? It feels like someone close to you died and everyone forgot to tell you, so that when you got home and saw the slippers still perched at the threshold of the door and Our Daily Bread folded on the bedside table you didn’t suspect anything. The deceptive warmth of the mug of coffee in the kitchen and the indent in the cushion on the left side of the sofa led you to believe that this did not happen. This is what it feels like to attend a stranger’s funeral. It’s something like waking up in a hospital bed and reaching to scratch an itch on your arm only to snag your nails on the threadbare bed sheet. Or maybe you lost everything in a fire, except it can’t be because you are cradling an armful of your grandmother’s faded photo albums, and your mother is smiling at you from a sepia-tinted frame, and so are your aunts and uncles, and they have a dog called Popsy, and your grandfather is calling you to sit on his lap and tell him what you learnt at school today. So the smell scratching the walls of your lungs must be the egg you left on the stove because you had your face buried in a romance novel. You did not just come back from a long day spent in traffic and your house is still upright and not crumbling around you. Your arm is still there, and so is the person you loved, and so is the armful of ash that you insist on calling your memories. And the edge of the pew is digging into your thighs, but it is actually the side of your bathtub. It is 1am and you are in your apartment that is empty of everything but an overnight bag and the comforter that has been passing as your bed. You supposedly have “amazing things” ahead of you but right now all that exists is your naked self shivering since the towel dropped to the floor about four wails ago, and your phone won’t stop vibrating and lighting up. You don’t pick up because you have run out of ways to steady the wobble in your voice. So you will reach for their arm, or your arm, or that one treasured pile of ash that used to be a family portrait. You are not really here and everything is as it should be.

Nostalgia is what I love 

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If you spent any time with me during my last year at Georgetown, you probably fell victim to my invasive camera in your face, all in the name of “memories”! The final product was ready weeks (maybe months) ago, but I’m only now posting it because…*insert several excuses that I’m sure no one will find acceptable*. A huge thank you to Brett for showing me the 1 Second Everyday app and facilitating my becoming a nuisance (albeit a beloved one) to almost all the important people in my life 🙂

Link to Video:

One Second Everyday

N.B. I wish I could take credit for this creative graduation cap adding to the already heightened emotions of this post, but I can’t. It’s my classmate Jessica’s, but I couldn’t resist the photo op! 

Support System

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I’m supposed to be the white picket fence so you can be the chain gate with gaping holes in several places; rusty wire cutters lying on the ground next to battered sneakers, used-to-be-white once upon a time. How can your branches thrust themselves further into the sky, somewhere amongst the clouds, if the trunk that is my listening ear and open arms is rotting from the inside out? These hands are supposed to ease the tension clinging to your temples, and to dissolve your fears in a big pot of  jollof rice, or whatever you want to eat today. Let me know and I’ll make it for you, no problem. But my fingers are a paralyzed mess, condemned to an eternal state of arthritic immobility, and failure, and inertia. Nerve endings spark and short circuit, and die.
Please let go, I’m exhausted from the constant mending and molding. Frail-
you might break something if you don’t 
LET GO.
 I wanted to be a getaway, the sound of water playfully lapping at your feet- come in and play, the water’s nice and warm. I was going to be white sand nibbling at the soles of your feet; the smell of rain clinging to the ever-present red earth; blood orange juice dripping down your chin; the long-awaited embrace at the end of an airport terminal. But the water just turned into lava, the kind of terrible lake in which those who heaven shuns will be doomed to bathe for the rest of forever. The sand burnt your flesh raw and the oranges were crawling with maggots. You recoil into your cracked shell (a little or a lot worse for wear) and look at me with hurt brimming over in your eyes, what happened?
Please don’t touch, it’s not safe, I can’t promise that you won’t get burnt. I warned you. 
I offered you sunflowers and warm sunlight washing over your legs, as the grass tickled your back. Or maybe it was an ant? But ants can leave vicious bites, and I’m sorry I didn’t know these flowers had thorns, evil barbed ones puncturing your finger tips until they bled incessantly. My light turned into a naked fluorescent bulb shining directly into your feeble eyes, a naked bulb in an interrogation room, the blinding flash before everything goes black.
I would’ve loved to be your support system but *buzz buzz radio static* we regret to inform you that factory flaws and operator error have led to widespread malfunctioning within the system’s parts. This plant is henceforth shut down until further notice; you will have to find another way to satisfy your needs. We advise that you exercise caution when consuming products manufactured here.
Consume at your own peril.
Be consumed at your own peril.
Be consumed.
I warned you.