Meeting Father
Our Dads will probably never meet. My Dad will never want that to happen and I respect and love my Dad as he is. My barber said, "what do you expect of a Jamaican man?" And that's true--no man shall lie with a man--and that's that in JA culture. Oddly enough, I accept that, as if there's another language spoken there.
My Dad loves me more than he can bear. I heard it when he said, "that guy is funny looking" about my ex-lover in 1992, the year I contracted HIV from him, I think. Who knows? However, that lover was handsome in my eyes, and at first, I thought my Dad was trying to say he knew we were lovers (I never said we were), and that he disapproved of the whole affair. What I believe he was saying, really, "he's not good enough for you."
It's that automatic thing parents do: sizing up their progeny's mates to see if they will carry the lineage forward in respectable ways. It's instinctual and automatic--connected to the reptilian brain in us. You will mate with power, poise and a richness that will keep this DNA viable in the world.
Thank God for human love--it's weakness is that it seeks spiritual healing over physical, financial, social status in the world. Else we'd be pure animals. In our evolution, it has helped us build more love, and understanding.
I love James. And he loves me. It is enough. We'll miss it that my Dad will ignore the journey ahead (and past). Our love does not exist in his eyes. And, it's OK. I wish him a Merry Christmas, health, joy, peace and an amazing New Year. We'll talk soon and I'll see him solo in 2012.
And for complete transparency, my Dad has it on record that he loves my brother more because he's straight, and that too is now OK by me too. I'm glad we can be honest with each other. And maybe it's my responsibility to tell him too, that it hurts that he'll never meet my love. Yes, that is a "to do."
Finally on this subject, seems Dads all across the world size up their children's partners and often find them lacking and in many ways some more hurtful, some less, pain their children with the disapproval of their forming bonds with outsiders from "la familia." It's probably a sense of preservation.
Let love win, o Lord. Let love build a world we feel safe and adored in, as we adore You with our service and constancy in aligning our will with Yours. I bless and cherish for all the good, my family. Amen. Mabye that's another way to embrace sobriety. A sober and useful life.
We're at #2 in the Bermuda Triangle of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Onward brave ones. We can do this, with love.
I'm excited to sit under the Christmas "tree" with James and open our tokens of love to each other. And we'll see my godson on Christmas Eve and share love for him and his family. We spent Thanksgiving with my awesome, loving brother and his girlfriend. This Christmas will be with James' family-brother and his partner and Jim's Dad. I have no idea if James' dad has favorites among his four kids (actually they are all grown adults - by age anyway.) In other words, this will be an adventure. I'm nervous, and excited to meet the patriarch. I've heard lovely, scary, funny things about him. He seems from aural history framed by his three sons to be a multi-faceted and quite vibrantly alive, vital man, just as my father is. A man who took life by the balls and shook hard. It's that strength that makes James so irresistible and what a delight it is too, to see the tenderness beneath.
Human beings are fascinating. I will stay open, listen to my breath, and tune in to my own reactions, my own experience with this new being. As James and I build our relationship, this man is a player in our scene, and he and I will have our own interaction. Let it be.
And this dinner will be a chance to know James' twin and lover more, and James' sister. This is good. We are learning more about each other's nuclear family. And they call it nuclear for a reason. Thank God we will too combine this thermal meeting with time alone and processing time with friends - family of choice.
Blessed be, the little baby born at this time, the beginning of the longer days and more light in the northern world, the festival of lights, the evolution of the world.
My Dad loves me more than he can bear. I heard it when he said, "that guy is funny looking" about my ex-lover in 1992, the year I contracted HIV from him, I think. Who knows? However, that lover was handsome in my eyes, and at first, I thought my Dad was trying to say he knew we were lovers (I never said we were), and that he disapproved of the whole affair. What I believe he was saying, really, "he's not good enough for you."
It's that automatic thing parents do: sizing up their progeny's mates to see if they will carry the lineage forward in respectable ways. It's instinctual and automatic--connected to the reptilian brain in us. You will mate with power, poise and a richness that will keep this DNA viable in the world.
Thank God for human love--it's weakness is that it seeks spiritual healing over physical, financial, social status in the world. Else we'd be pure animals. In our evolution, it has helped us build more love, and understanding.
I love James. And he loves me. It is enough. We'll miss it that my Dad will ignore the journey ahead (and past). Our love does not exist in his eyes. And, it's OK. I wish him a Merry Christmas, health, joy, peace and an amazing New Year. We'll talk soon and I'll see him solo in 2012.
And for complete transparency, my Dad has it on record that he loves my brother more because he's straight, and that too is now OK by me too. I'm glad we can be honest with each other. And maybe it's my responsibility to tell him too, that it hurts that he'll never meet my love. Yes, that is a "to do."
Finally on this subject, seems Dads all across the world size up their children's partners and often find them lacking and in many ways some more hurtful, some less, pain their children with the disapproval of their forming bonds with outsiders from "la familia." It's probably a sense of preservation.
Let love win, o Lord. Let love build a world we feel safe and adored in, as we adore You with our service and constancy in aligning our will with Yours. I bless and cherish for all the good, my family. Amen. Mabye that's another way to embrace sobriety. A sober and useful life.
We're at #2 in the Bermuda Triangle of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Onward brave ones. We can do this, with love.
I'm excited to sit under the Christmas "tree" with James and open our tokens of love to each other. And we'll see my godson on Christmas Eve and share love for him and his family. We spent Thanksgiving with my awesome, loving brother and his girlfriend. This Christmas will be with James' family-brother and his partner and Jim's Dad. I have no idea if James' dad has favorites among his four kids (actually they are all grown adults - by age anyway.) In other words, this will be an adventure. I'm nervous, and excited to meet the patriarch. I've heard lovely, scary, funny things about him. He seems from aural history framed by his three sons to be a multi-faceted and quite vibrantly alive, vital man, just as my father is. A man who took life by the balls and shook hard. It's that strength that makes James so irresistible and what a delight it is too, to see the tenderness beneath.
Human beings are fascinating. I will stay open, listen to my breath, and tune in to my own reactions, my own experience with this new being. As James and I build our relationship, this man is a player in our scene, and he and I will have our own interaction. Let it be.
And this dinner will be a chance to know James' twin and lover more, and James' sister. This is good. We are learning more about each other's nuclear family. And they call it nuclear for a reason. Thank God we will too combine this thermal meeting with time alone and processing time with friends - family of choice.
Blessed be, the little baby born at this time, the beginning of the longer days and more light in the northern world, the festival of lights, the evolution of the world.
Hey, I ran into your blog while looking for something else, and it got my attention so i read it all. While most of it was nice, I think its kinda sad, that you put down your parents so much, only to idolize someone you met for 15 minutes. How would you feel if your kid put you down, just because they wanted to look better on the eyes of someone new?. Very uncool man! Boyfriends come and go... Parents are forever! Just remember that.
ReplyDeleteJJ CC, thank you for this comment. It meat so much to me. You're right. Parents are forever. You gave me so much to think about. I think about parents and children, especially after watching Life in a Day, the movie, and I do agree that when parents are able to love their children fully without conditions, it is the foundation of a realized life. The scene where the Dad sits with the son in the car and he basically gives his son blessing to step into the world as an adult...that real moment in my life was a request by my father to choose to either live my life as a gay man outside his home, or to give up my sexuality and live with him. My mother's advice, (at the time--possibly quite different now), was to question if I really wanted to make my life more difficult by being an openly gay man. I chose at 22 to explore what it would be, at great cost--losing my place in my family--to live an authentic life. That separation from the root, is what allows me to enjoy this relationship today. Without that, my life would be a shell.
ReplyDeleteFive years later, and married now, I also want to celebrate that my parents changed their behavior and welcomed my husband into their home. I consider it nothing short of a miracle. In fact, they very much seem to want to put the past reactions to my sexuality behind us and move forward. I'm trying to keep up, to let go the past and move forward.
ReplyDelete