Just So

(photo of Michael Amos Hall, 1960's, N. Ireland)

My father was distant, and then, he died.

Of course that is not the whole story. However, that is a big part of the story I have managed to overlook on one level or another for many years. When people ask me, especially if they have recently lost someone close to them, "Will this sadness ever end?" I gently try to say no, but it does lessen somewhat. On weeks like these, I remember what really happens: grief, like everything else, changes. That's all. Just when you think you've figured it out, it changes.

In working on my memoir, Bermuda Triangles, I have slowed down considerably, finely editing the draft to send out to a possible agent. A local friend, wonderful writer and fabulous editor, Lissa, pointed out while helping me to revise that the protagonist (me as a little girl) seems to adore her father and yet, there are no instances, nada, showing WHY. Nothing to make the reader understand why she loved her father so. She said this a few times, but I only got it myself when I began to edit parts about his sickness and death (when I was 12) - finally, it hit home, and even when it hit home, it took me a few weeks of lots of space and getting out of town to finally start to have some memories come back.

This week's class prompt is about "Reading and Writing" - favorite books, how reading relates to writing, etc. I knew it would come eventually - that I would write about reading the Just So Stories to my father when he was sick, and him correcting me repeatedly, without cease, whenever I got the slightest thing wrong.

Remember my post about him as Judge Hawthorne? Yep. So of course I knew this was a part of his personality, but as I explored those memories, I realized the only ones in which I actually think of him fondly, he is silent or speaking to someone else - a bookstore owner or musician. The negative memories? He's either not around or speaking to me - criticizing me, warning me or - yeah, not good.

There's a lot more remembering to do, and likely, some of it will be painful. But today, after writing about the Just So Stories, and then sharing it with my AM class (the first time I have ever cried throughout my whole reading of a piece during a class), I feel cleaner. Clearer. More honest. It never fails, though always feels awful getting there - knowing what is actually causing me pain is less painful than making up something else to hide it. For instance, for years I really hated my mom. Now, suddenly, on a newer level (again, I've known this before - sort of) I realize she gave me, expressed, far more love than my dad did. But I didn't want her love. I wanted his. And it was hard to get.

Without blame or shame, though with tremendous sadness, I softly explore the underbelly of the stories I have told myself for decades in order to survive. As the actual stories appear, they write themselves easily, unlike the parts in my memoir that Lissa noticed as absent, not as strong, lacking and seemingly contradictory. There was plenty that was contradictory in my childhood - my mom and I fighting for my dad's affection, at the top. But I don't need to fight myself anymore. That's a conflict I can relax. I hope. I can try, anyway.

Michael Amos Hall, d. 3/15/90

Michael Amos Hall, my father, as Judge Hawthorne in the Crucible at MIT, 1955.
Today is the 20th anniversary of his death. He died when I was 12.

I don't remember when I picked up a copy of Born to Win: Transactional Analysis with Gestalt Experiments by Muriel James and Dorothy Jongeward. I know at some point, in Florida, early in my Miksang teaching days, a student asked me if Miksang is related to, or could be related to, Gestalt studies. I didn't honestly know what Gestalt was, other than a passing knowledge, so asked for more information. I became fascinated, but at the time just looked at what was on the internet, a mere cursory glance.

Then, somewhere in the intervening years of tons of therapy, ample Buddhist reading and psychology reading, and discussions with friends, Gestalt came up again. I went looking at Half Price Books or Avol's or Frugal Muse for what I could find of it, and Born to Win practically leapt off the shelf. I was quite turned off by the title (Ick, eh?) but it was only a dollar and when I looked inside, this other thing, Transactional Analysis, about which I also knew little, also looked really interesting.

The book was perfect timing and I devoured it. I was struggling with the critic inside that would make a fuss of the simplest messes. An example: coming home from doing errands, hungry, I would pass the last place of tasks (Ace Hardware, for instance) and a stern voice inside would say "Miriam, just one more thing to do. Go do it."
A child-like voice would respond "But I'm hungry and worn out. It can wait."
"But we're already here and it won't take but two seconds."
And so on and so forth, until I either went home guilty and did nothing else all day, or did the errand and let the judge "win," going home hungry and off-balance.

Neither way won, really. I could tell there were different voices, but it wasn't until the book and some work with both TA and Gestalt with my therapist at the time that I recognized the judge voice to be my father, years dead, in my head, and the little girl to be me, frozen when he died in some kind of freaked-out, nothing can change, but I feel awful here, place. Recognizing the voices hasn't entirely eliminated them, of course, but it sure has added space and compassion for both "characters" in me, and made for a lot less suffering.

Just recently I felt an impulse to go into some of the boxes in our attic - all boxes of ephemera, paper goods, from all parts of our family. Both my parents and all of my grandparents are dead, and we have all of their lives packed away in Banker's boxes upstairs. The weight finally got to me, so I poked around. The photo above, of my father acting as a judge, was one of the first I found. I didn't think much of it (other than, damn, he was a handsome devil) at the time, but today when I went to find this one (and others, scanned and posted at www.flickr.com/photos/herspiral) I was struck by his sternness. Even though I hadn't had this image in mind, it's clear that that ROLE is one he played a lot in my life, though certainly not the only one. I also remember him as kind and soft, and vulnerable and loving. But now I have a face for my critic, my judge, my un-budging constant companion who makes things too black-and-white, too concrete for reality. It feels good to see that this was (both literally and metaphorically) a role he played - for himself, and for me - and not HIM, entirely.

RIP daddy: the judge and the loving father, for the day. Every moment that I am alive and you are not, our relationship continues to build and burn and renew. Thank you for all you continue to do for me, wherever you are.

Love,
Miriam