This past week began the actual work of audio taping. I'm asked to place myself mentally at scene of where I was at the time, how I heard of death of father and describe every detail, how I heard the news, what I felt, what I did, what I saw. I felt myself immersing into that familiar yet shadowy pool of hazy memories that became clearer as I recalled one detail after another.
I was working the grill at Woolworth's lunch counter at 16 (working papers) and hadn't yet started my GED. An older actress named Claudia McNeil came in everyday for a frank and cup of coffee. She was diabetic, lived in the projects next door on Amsterdam Avenue and needed an ear. Since my ears were already ripened from listening to my father for years, I was the perfect foil for her many stories about the movie industry and what I should be doing with my life. She was one of the leads in A Raison in the Sun. Claudia was my first encounter with a person that had reached a pinnacle that was generally considered an amazing feat in the '60s and here she was poor, eating a hot dog and living in government housing. Fame seemed to mean little to other people long term, no one recognized this hulking black woman in her house dresses.
It was Claudia who called me over one afternoon while finishing her coffee and whispered to me I didn't belong behind the counter and that I find a way to go back to school. She asked me if I knew about the GED program and suggested I take night classes to finish up so I could apply for City College. My parents were so out of touch with parenting or unable to think what was appropriate next steps for either me or my sister these conversations never ever went on. In kindergarten teachers were telling my mother I was gifted and should be taking music lessons, I was reading books before starting 1st grade.
My father was spending his last months sitting in the living room in his turquoise brocade upholstered arm chair where his fingers had rubbed and tapped the fabric until it was thread bare, morosely talking to himself about what was going to happen to the three of us when he died. My sister moved in with her boyfriend and his mother at age 13, with permission of my mother of course, whatever made my sensitive nervous sister happy, was fine. These two young lovers had gone from spending hours in the floor of my sisters clothes closet after my mother snuck B. into the apartment when my father was already drunk and seemed to feel that as long as my sister was having sex in a dark closet with a nice polite boy, all was right with the world. All that leeway didn't earn her the love and respect she may have been looking for, because when my sister became pregnant at age 12, it was B. and his mother who took her for an abortion. My mother was busy arranging bi-annual abortions for her niece who refused to use a diaghram and got sick from using an IUD that moved itself into her hip.
Segue to point that none of the above was on the tape...but this is how my mind works unfortunately, its one tied up tale of scenarios all entertwined and overlapping as if none can be separated out because one would not exist had the first not happened. In my child's eye had my parents not married and stayed in their own territories where their families wanted them to, had they married or in my father's cases, remained married to his then wife, none of the collateral damage to so many people would have ever happened. I am aware I wouldnt have 'happened' either, but here I am 50+ years later still cleaning up.
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I described what happened the day my mother called about my father's death and then we did an exercise of putting the memory aside, not permanently away, aside. So that during this week each day I revisit and put it aside again. I'm likening it to forcing a new smoker to smoke a pack of cigs in one sitting so that you get so sick you never touch another butt again. But I could be wrong, maybe there's a more positive motive for this. It was very disconcerting to hear my own voice the following day on the tape, that is what I do, listen to myself recount the memory each day, meditate and then a small reward i.e. tea, a book, sketching. Since food is an ISSUE for me, I said using food is not an option for rewards as I already use it in that way.
I was working the grill at Woolworth's lunch counter at 16 (working papers) and hadn't yet started my GED. An older actress named Claudia McNeil came in everyday for a frank and cup of coffee. She was diabetic, lived in the projects next door on Amsterdam Avenue and needed an ear. Since my ears were already ripened from listening to my father for years, I was the perfect foil for her many stories about the movie industry and what I should be doing with my life. She was one of the leads in A Raison in the Sun. Claudia was my first encounter with a person that had reached a pinnacle that was generally considered an amazing feat in the '60s and here she was poor, eating a hot dog and living in government housing. Fame seemed to mean little to other people long term, no one recognized this hulking black woman in her house dresses.
It was Claudia who called me over one afternoon while finishing her coffee and whispered to me I didn't belong behind the counter and that I find a way to go back to school. She asked me if I knew about the GED program and suggested I take night classes to finish up so I could apply for City College. My parents were so out of touch with parenting or unable to think what was appropriate next steps for either me or my sister these conversations never ever went on. In kindergarten teachers were telling my mother I was gifted and should be taking music lessons, I was reading books before starting 1st grade.
My father was spending his last months sitting in the living room in his turquoise brocade upholstered arm chair where his fingers had rubbed and tapped the fabric until it was thread bare, morosely talking to himself about what was going to happen to the three of us when he died. My sister moved in with her boyfriend and his mother at age 13, with permission of my mother of course, whatever made my sensitive nervous sister happy, was fine. These two young lovers had gone from spending hours in the floor of my sisters clothes closet after my mother snuck B. into the apartment when my father was already drunk and seemed to feel that as long as my sister was having sex in a dark closet with a nice polite boy, all was right with the world. All that leeway didn't earn her the love and respect she may have been looking for, because when my sister became pregnant at age 12, it was B. and his mother who took her for an abortion. My mother was busy arranging bi-annual abortions for her niece who refused to use a diaghram and got sick from using an IUD that moved itself into her hip.
Segue to point that none of the above was on the tape...but this is how my mind works unfortunately, its one tied up tale of scenarios all entertwined and overlapping as if none can be separated out because one would not exist had the first not happened. In my child's eye had my parents not married and stayed in their own territories where their families wanted them to, had they married or in my father's cases, remained married to his then wife, none of the collateral damage to so many people would have ever happened. I am aware I wouldnt have 'happened' either, but here I am 50+ years later still cleaning up.
*****************************************************************
I described what happened the day my mother called about my father's death and then we did an exercise of putting the memory aside, not permanently away, aside. So that during this week each day I revisit and put it aside again. I'm likening it to forcing a new smoker to smoke a pack of cigs in one sitting so that you get so sick you never touch another butt again. But I could be wrong, maybe there's a more positive motive for this. It was very disconcerting to hear my own voice the following day on the tape, that is what I do, listen to myself recount the memory each day, meditate and then a small reward i.e. tea, a book, sketching. Since food is an ISSUE for me, I said using food is not an option for rewards as I already use it in that way.
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