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Sep. 28th, 2003 09:45 pmThe other night I was suddenly struck by the thought that at one time in history, my mother was innocent enough to be seduced by my father. My mother, who believes in nothing and will not be convinced that anyone will ever act outside of their interest for the good of another.
I suppose these things might be linked, but the years before my birth, the shady 70's, are full of things I have not been introduced to, and it is all too much to fathom. An anonymous golden retriever in a sunny field, a young Dad with an enthusiastic beard, the girls he dated before my mother, one of whom he took on a carriage ride to the Ziegfeld theater, years and years before recorded history could begin.
The things I know about, the late night rides to my grandma's house in my dad's long, low black Pontiac, where I would climb up into the back window and wedge myself between the glass and the powdery ledge, and years later, the thin pile of folded blankets on the floor he slept on in his commuter apartment; all these things are apparent to me, and make their own kind of sense. Of course they would fight. See how enraged she gets? See how biting her curses? And his tight-lipped refusal to understand. Of course. I know the cadence of it, sitting on the brown shag stairway. I know what she will say next and when his patience will break. It's the time that came before that doesn't make sense to me, with the few artifacts and evidences I've been presented with. That mystery is not only tightly wrapped, but also distant. I know there was a younger brother, and a gun, and a hasty wedding in a borrowed dress. But outside of that I don't know anything.
I suppose these things might be linked, but the years before my birth, the shady 70's, are full of things I have not been introduced to, and it is all too much to fathom. An anonymous golden retriever in a sunny field, a young Dad with an enthusiastic beard, the girls he dated before my mother, one of whom he took on a carriage ride to the Ziegfeld theater, years and years before recorded history could begin.
The things I know about, the late night rides to my grandma's house in my dad's long, low black Pontiac, where I would climb up into the back window and wedge myself between the glass and the powdery ledge, and years later, the thin pile of folded blankets on the floor he slept on in his commuter apartment; all these things are apparent to me, and make their own kind of sense. Of course they would fight. See how enraged she gets? See how biting her curses? And his tight-lipped refusal to understand. Of course. I know the cadence of it, sitting on the brown shag stairway. I know what she will say next and when his patience will break. It's the time that came before that doesn't make sense to me, with the few artifacts and evidences I've been presented with. That mystery is not only tightly wrapped, but also distant. I know there was a younger brother, and a gun, and a hasty wedding in a borrowed dress. But outside of that I don't know anything.
