paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- becoming a character and families A weekend of nothing but binders with a three-mile walk and some pizza tossed in for good measure�. And then there was breakfast with Mother and the Major because it had been a couple months since I last saw them. Quinn went along also. It was tedious, but I have this trick that works every time. I get Mother talking about work. When I sense a touch of drama or controversy, I jump in and begin feeding it with just the right question-comment combo. �She�s that busy? I thought all she did was giggle all day.� It guarantees that by the time the check arrives we have talked only about Mother�s work and listened only to the Major�s latest political stance on a �safe� issue. There are very few minor political issues, when one really gets to the heart of the matter. Instead I focus on issues that are somewhat safe yet have enough controversy to sustain a lengthy lecture. Issues I do not mind �loosing.� Because there is no other way but their way. But yesterday they worked in that my grandmother�s husband (that would be my step-grandfather, for whom I have nothing but dislike for very sound reasons which are too heavy to explore today but rest assured that in some families the man would be in jail or at least ostracized) has become a �full-fledged character.� It made me wonder when it is that someone moves from being a family member to a character. And what exactly makes him a character? Is it that he will only eat about five different foods during highly regimented intervals and at exact times of day? That somehow he manages to control every thing based upon his �thing� as he calls it. All bran cereal at 7:15 a.m. One-half cup of coffee with 4 ounces of 2% milk at 8:00 a.m. Water with no ice at 10:00 a.m. For lunch he has a small bowl of soup and two crackers. Again, with water with no ice. In the afternoon, a can of Always Save fruit cocktail, individual size and one iced oatmeal cookie. Another glass of water with no ice. Dinner is somewhat negotiable when he is traveling, and since he became a character, I have not seen him on his home turf. Doing his �thing� as he calls it, without the astounded gaze of the rest of the family. Every time he visits he announces that he will never travel again. They drove up to catch a plane to go spend a week with my uncle in Florida. My mother is glad that he will get the full experience and will understand what she goes through as the only sane relative nearby. This fall, when Mother and the Major go to Massachusetts for Thanksgiving, they will connect with Mother�s step-father�s family in Watertown. They are aging, first-generation Italian, and quite a crew. Frankly, the few times I have ever seen them, they have all frightened me. So loud, so hot from all the hot food and boiling water, so crowded, and so much playful arguing that I typically just shut down and stare into space with as nice of an expression as possible. And luckily, they are not interested in me. Sometimes I think it is a good thing that no one in my family really thinks very much of me. I just show up to something once every couple of years and let it go at that. I have an abstract notion of what I might be missing, but when I look at the big crew of my relatives, I realize that I could not be myself and be connected to them in some family way. To them I am a complete flop � I am not married, I have no children, my �clock� should be ticking, I am not rich, I do not live in an interesting city, I do not work in business, I have a job that no one understands or really cares to try to understand. The most successful person among my familial contemporaries, according to my family, is my Florida cousin. He works in computer programming and owns a house in, as best as I can tell, a suburb of a suburb of a lesser city. His wife stays home and takes care of the two babies and the house. She collects Precious Moments figurines. I have only seen the Florida cousin on three occasions in my life: when our great-grandmother got married at the age of 65, when we met in Connecticut and went to one of those Pilgrim reenactment villages when I was 5 and stuck with great-aunt Viola for a summer, and a Christmas when I was 15. Mother gets a real charge out of her family, which is fine. And the Major gets a charge out of his small family. And then they have the mutual charge of each other�s family. Somehow they know that I have no interest in the families. We live so far away from each other and the only close relatives are grandma and her husband and it upsets me that I have to continually deal with him. I have to watch him turn in to a controlling and sorry old man�he got religion as he began to shrink, lost his teeth and his hearing. And as some sort of penance, he always gives me a big hug and sits next to me, asking me questions and saying things like �remember to be happy.� Which all seems nice, but not coming from the person who consumed my childhood and early adolescence. Sometimes I want to just get angry at him, but I never do. I would not want to cause him a moment�s discomfort. Although I think my grandparents are aware that I have so little to do with the family because I am avoiding them. They are always sending me religious e-mails, uplifting e-mails, strange cards. Sometimes I answer them, but only because of my grandmother. Because I feel badly for her, stuck with this old guy that it is quite possible she may not love anymore. Once she said to me �It is not up to me to judge you based on your sexual preferences. That is for god and he is forgiving.� Another time she said to me �If I had known back then, what he did to you, I would have left him. But it is too late now.� After over 50 years, is there a difference between love and the deep, deep route that habit takes through our lives? It is not my snobbery that keeps me from being close to my family. It is a deep, deep shame. And not a shame from being gay. It is a deeper shame that comes from my step-grandfather not thinking of me as a person, but rather as an object for a number of years. From that shame I turned them all into characters many years ago, so I would not have to feel it or think about it. So it struck me as interesting that only now has that old man become a character for my mother. Because he has been one for me for a long, long time. 9:39 a.m. - 2002-10-07 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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