My Dad

Dad opens the door and I walk under his arm to enter the darkened bar. The harsh, late-morning sun that enters the space causes the handful of patrons to either squint or turn away. The light acts as a beacon to Lou who waves a greeting to us from behind the bar. We make our way to our favorite spot, saying our hellos as we settle in. I love sitting on the barstools which are anchored to the floor and spin. I can spin forever without falling off my perch or getting sick. Lou has made his way to us and serves us our usual: a shot and a beer for Dad, a coke (in a bottle!) and a bag of pretzels for me.

            It’s Saturday, the day I spend with my dad. After a morning of erranding—one of my dad’s many made up words—we always make this one special stop before returning home. On the scratched and worn surface of the bar, I balance coins on their sides and make quarters dance on the lips of beer bottles. We drink and talk to Lou. I love listening to my dad and am proud that I’m with him. He’s the sun and the moon to me and I bask in his shadow. Dad and me, together as buddies, each other’s wingman, always and forever. When I grow up I plan on marrying him, which I do when I find a man that has many of the same qualities. But at the age of nine, there is no other man I want to spend the rest of my life with.   

            I love and adore my dad, and when he dies in 2002, two days short of his seventy-ninth birthday, a large part of me dies, too. Ten years later I am still grieving and carry this heaviness inside me, a dead weight embedded in my abdomen. I still feel his scratchy stubble which chafes against my cheek when we hug, and hear him whistling Honeymoon Hotel as we work side-by-side on a project. And much like the song about dogs, everything reminds me of my dad: Emeril Live, one of his favorite shows; Werther’s Originals, the candy always in his pocket; the smell of Gold Bond Lotion; and my dogs Charlie and Mickie, who when they die, I experience the loss of my dad again.  I ashamedly feel abandoned by him; ashamed because he’d never hurt me on purpose.  

            My dad worked at a steel mill in Cleveland, a hard and dirty job. He left for work at five in the morning and returned somewhere around five in the afternoon. He came home clean having taken a shower at work where he would snort salt water in the shower to get the blast furnace soot and grime out of his nose. It was my special job to have his martini—with two olives and three cocktail onions--marinating in the freezer. The third onion was mine. Sometimes after dinner, dad would play with me. We’d play catch, take bike rides, or play tennis in the street where more time was spent chasing miss-hits and getting out of the way to yells of “car!”

            But Saturdays are our special day, and no matter where we go it’s fun, my dad knowing or acting as if he knows, everyone. No one is a stranger to my dad and he is greeted as a member of the family. He has time for everyone young or old, man or woman. Women especially love him.  The bank, the post office, the hardware store, the deli, the library, the bar: these are the everyday places that welcomed us and enchanted me.

Our errand this day is to the barber, a two-chaired, two-man operation. I love the smell of this male sanctum: spic-n-span, cigars, and Bryl-creem (a little dab’ll do ya…The gals will all pursue ya). We take turns getting haircuts from Art-the Fart, my dad’s name for our favorite barber. I like Art-the-Fart because he doesn’t mind his name, always gives me a dumdum sucker and doesn’t pick on me like the other barber. We get the usual: a trim for my dad and a pixie cut for me. My dad has a full head of thick, silver hair and a cowlick that only Art-the-Fart can tame. Because of my short hair, bruises, scrapes and brother’s hand-me-downs, I am often mistaken for a boy. This never bothers me because it’s simpler and more fun than being a girl. And wherever I go with my dad, I am treated as one of the guys.

I have all the time in the world to do things with my dad. Our erranding and puttering around the house are the ways he protects me and fills the void made by a harsh and oblivious mom. He trusts me to use his tools and is patient with his left-handed daughter. Later on, most likely around suppertime, we’ll need to do some more erranding, this time ending up at Baskin-Robbins. There, we get our usual cones: two scoops of vanilla for Dad and two scoops of chocolate for me. I forget to smoosh down the scoops with my lips and as I lick at the chocolate drips streaming down the sides of the cone, I watch my two precious scoops splat on the floor. Of course, dad saves the day and I get two new scoops. 

             My dad taught me many things over the years, some of which may be considered useful: measure twice, cut once; WD-40 and duct tape are the two most important tools in a toolbox; never pass up an opportunity to pee; how to ride a bike; how to drive a stick shift; when in doubt, throw it out; ice cream soothes a heartache; and you should always have a book handy. But he gave me more than that. He gave me himself: his humor, his kindness, his time, his heart, his love.

            I never went through a phase of being embarrassed by my dad. How could I? He was perfect for me and I know he felt the same about me. I lived mostly inside myself, with my imagination (a very special commodity with my dad), and was a mediocre student and social misfit susceptible to extreme mood swings. I was not my brother or my sister—athletic, smart, popular, or conventionally pretty--but my dad loved and accepted me for who I was: his manoona, his prunella, his baby girl.

            I wasn’t there for him in 2001 when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I wasn’t there while he suffered with pain so excruciating that double doses of oxycontin did little to alleviate it. I wasn’t there when on January 11, 2002 he died. It is I who has abandoned him. It took three months from diagnosis to death. I didn’t know it was to be our last Christmas and I can’t look at the home-movies or pictures from that time. I was there at the funeral in 2002 and at his burial in 2006. After four years of residing in a baby-blue marble box on my mom’s table, we buried his ashes along with my mom’s in a side-by-side urn.

            Dad’s viewing was crowded. Some of the well-wishers I had never met. People that knew him from the bank, the post office, the hardware store, the deli, the library, the bar; little kids who knew him as Uncle Fwank; families that he met when he took walks in the neighborhood; and workers and repairmen he supervised from his front porch during his retirement. He was their sun and moon and had basked in his humor, his kindness, his time, and his heart. I was again his sidekick, his little buddy.

            Looking at my dad in his casket was so hard. He was wearing a suit, not his jeans and sweatshirt. His eyes were closed and I was unable to see his beautiful baby-blue eyes, and there was no spot of dried mustard in the corner of his mouth. But worse-of-all was his hair. It was obvious they had styled it while he was lying down: it was all wrong and his cowlick wasn’t laying right. Where was Art-the-Fart when you needed him?

Silence

I can't stop thinking about silence. My first post was about it and I can't get it out of my head.

Lately, I have been obsessing about the importance of silence in music. As a musician, I have been taught that the silences are just--if not more--important than the sounds. It is the silence that gives meaning to the sound.

The big silences in music can be quite subtle. An instrument may stop playing. Without its music and timbre, we experience a different auditory and emotional sensation. Think of jazz music when the soloist begins her riff. Where is your concentration? What do you experience when the rest of the musicians join in? If you think of classical music, there is the silence between the movements of a large scale piece like a symphony. That silence cleanses the ear and prepares us for something new.

The medium silences are the rests within a musical line. If a musician doesn't  play her rests correctly, she may not return to playing the sounds with the rest of the musicians. If she holds her sound before the rests into the time she is supposed to be quiet, she basically has a solo. I know many musicians that do not respect the rest, and I think they are more detrimental than the un-practiced musicians.

The small silences are those that happen between each-and-every-note. They are there, believe me. They are influenced by the way the musician attacks and ends the note. Those are the ones your private music instructor--if she is good--spends most of her attention on: staccato, legato, tenuto, accent! An hour-long lesson spent on eight measures. UGGHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I never have complete silence: not big, medium, or small. I have tinnitus and experience constant ringing and buzzing in my head. Relief comes with noise, the television during the day, and the fan at night. If there is no background noise, I tend to hear "phantom sounds" as well that no one else seems to hear. Sounds like things being dropped, slammed, or moved. So, unless I want to sink into mental illness or believe in ghosts, I keep the television and fan on.

I have experienced deafening silence in only two situations of my life: during hearing tests, and growing up with my mom. The hearing tests were excruciating. They put you in a sound proof booth and put you in headphones. You are then to identify if you hear a beep and if so, in which ear. The experience was awful. Not only were the sounds in my head more pure and amplified, the atmosphere of the booth was pressing in on me. The prognosis: my hearing was fine and I'll have to learn to deal with it.

My mom was very adept at the silent treatment, a very excruciating treatment. This was how I knew I did something wrong. At the first signs of The Treatment, I would avoid her,the only sounds being her sighs, and the banging of cupboard doors. Next, I would try anything to make her happy. I like to think this was quite brave of me. I would go into the kitchen and try to anticipate her needs. When this didn't work, I would begin my pleading: what did I do?; why are you mad at me?; please, please, please, tell me!. She would never tell me. The prognosis: silence of a loved one, anyone, equals me having done something wrong; and I'll have to learn to deal with it.

Silence can be golden, sweet, musical, virtuous, wise, profound, eloquent, and peaceful. It can also be dreadful, oppressive, scornful, cruel, tortuous, and ignorant. For me, silence is unattainable, painful, and scary.

Maybe those phantom sounds of things being dropped or moved is my mom still letting me know I haven't figured it our yet, and I'll have to learn to deal with it.

Patty's Brain: Redux

I am an idea person, a very verbal idea person. A "can't see the forest for the trees" kind of person. If an idea, observation, or memory pushes its way to the forefront, it immediately free falls with delight (yippy!) to my tongue and discharges itself unfiltered through my mouth.

My brain is an over crowded, egalitarian universe of planets and lots and lots of space debris. These heavenly bodies and flotsam are my ideas, observations and memories that are constantly jostling and jockeying to be noticed by their omniscient yet flawed master, Little Patty. She is the perpetual five-year-old Patty whose picture you see on my blog (best.picture.ever!). 

When one of them goes supernova (yes, my flotsdam has the power to go supernova: my universe, my rules), it outshines the others and irradiates them into semi-stuperous states. My little supernova-let's call her Dorcas, a favorite name of mine-awakens Little Patty from her slumber/boredom and she is excited (look: it sparkles!). Admiring the awsomeness of Dorcas, she is overcome with an unbridled passion that springs her into action. With scratch paper and laddie pencil in hand, Little Patty runs in circles, talks a mile-a-minute and mobilizes the troops. She delegates most of the work to the frontal lobe because she doesn't want to be bogged down by the details and really likes to just run and skip excitedly. She bounces, she becomes distracted, she eats a snack, becomes distracted, etc.

 Eventually, she meanders to the limbic system-emotional brain-and something begins to happen that makes Little Patty sad. Even though she is the god of this universe, somehow the voices of "the others" break into her enthusiam and take away her power, wear her down and make her doubt herself. They tell her she is a hyperactive Non sequitor and that she needs to be more focused and productive: they tell her she needs to grow up. Dorcas dims and Little Patty skulks back to her corner.

 Little Patty needs her voice to be heard outside of my head. She needs to have her supernovas out there, but in a way that "the others" can understand. She needs the forty eight-year-old me to organize and put into words her ideas, observations and memories, because she sees things in a really neat way, and I like her.

The Perfect Word

Words are wonderful things, aren't they? The power of the perfect word spoken at the perfect time; the power of the perfect word spoken at the wrong time; the power of the wrong word spoken at the perfect time; the power of the wrong word spoken at the wrong time. Words have such an emotional impact, an impact that the deliverer cannot control.

As a deliverer and a receiver of words, I can attest to the paralyzing constraints of my vocabulary. What is the best way of telling someone at work that because of their lack of dilligence, those of us on the next shift were screwed? Or how when you are bursting with so much love for your daughter that you need to tell her how beautiful and wonderful she is. How do you do this without her thinking you are just saying that because you think the opposite is true? How do you say the things that need to be said?

If you are like me, you avoid the co-worker, but continue to wreak havoc on your daughter's psyche. Because she is so important to you, you keep hammering away trying to find the perfect words to let her know what you are feeling. And for some reason, I need to have my daughter know; to Know with a capital "K"!

Then there are the words you should say, the hard ones. Those are the one's that need to be chosen wisely but come too late because you either let too much time pass away silently or you filled that silence with words that are the antithesis of wise. Words that come from that primitive part of your brain where the seven-year-old you is in control. I am very wise at night as I lay in bed and cuddle all the mis-steps of the day.  It is then that I try to empty that bucket of remorse and fill it with those perfect words that are just out of my reach. And if I do snag one of those elusive creatures, it rarely stays in my bucket until morning. That is when I go primitive.

So, I now find I that I often opt out for silence and search for perfect words in solitude. But silence is sometimes the perfect word.