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For the record
Feb. 28th, 2006 05:41 pmMore things I'm writing down because I don't want to ever forget:
1) When I was very small, probably four or so, I had pretty much figured out the concept of Other People, as in "other people have feelings too" and "other people want different things than I do". I understood that part of my role in society was to at least pretend to grant some weight to other people's feelings and desires.
However, it had not yet penetrated my soft little skull that the members of my immediate family -- my mother and father -- were part of this Other People. In my conception of the world, my family was functionally one person -- with me at the center of that personhood, of course. I felt it was appropriate for me be as honest with my parents as I would be with myself. Nothing I could say could hurt them, I felt -- for a paradoxical set of reasons: first, that I was too small and powerless to hurt my allmighty protectors, and second, that I was too important and beloved to be the source of something hurtful.
All of which is to say, one day at the dinner table, I voiced aloud a theory I had. "I wonder," I said, "if the reason I feel so much closer to mom is that I spent nine months inside her stomach."
No, let's be honest. I might have said, "the reason I love mom more".
My father looked stricken. I'll never forget how he looked. "How do you think that makes me feel?" he finally asked. And, you know? It honestly hadn't occurred to me that he might feel something separate from how I felt, until that moment.
2) I don't mean to give you the idea that my relationship with my father has ever been less close than with my mother. They're different people (yes, I get that now), and our relationships are different, but not closer or more distant. One of my happiest early memories is of a dinner party that my parents had, and I "attended" until it was time for my bed (probably before dinner was even served). I was sort of wandering through the livingroom, in and out of chairs and in and out of conversations, and I ended up on my dad's lap, with my ear pressed to his chest, listening to his heart beating and his deep, even voice (he's got the classic midwesterner's flat inflection) rumbling around in his chest. I could hear my father's voice -- all of his voice -- in a way that no-one else in the room could.
1) When I was very small, probably four or so, I had pretty much figured out the concept of Other People, as in "other people have feelings too" and "other people want different things than I do". I understood that part of my role in society was to at least pretend to grant some weight to other people's feelings and desires.
However, it had not yet penetrated my soft little skull that the members of my immediate family -- my mother and father -- were part of this Other People. In my conception of the world, my family was functionally one person -- with me at the center of that personhood, of course. I felt it was appropriate for me be as honest with my parents as I would be with myself. Nothing I could say could hurt them, I felt -- for a paradoxical set of reasons: first, that I was too small and powerless to hurt my allmighty protectors, and second, that I was too important and beloved to be the source of something hurtful.
All of which is to say, one day at the dinner table, I voiced aloud a theory I had. "I wonder," I said, "if the reason I feel so much closer to mom is that I spent nine months inside her stomach."
No, let's be honest. I might have said, "the reason I love mom more".
My father looked stricken. I'll never forget how he looked. "How do you think that makes me feel?" he finally asked. And, you know? It honestly hadn't occurred to me that he might feel something separate from how I felt, until that moment.
2) I don't mean to give you the idea that my relationship with my father has ever been less close than with my mother. They're different people (yes, I get that now), and our relationships are different, but not closer or more distant. One of my happiest early memories is of a dinner party that my parents had, and I "attended" until it was time for my bed (probably before dinner was even served). I was sort of wandering through the livingroom, in and out of chairs and in and out of conversations, and I ended up on my dad's lap, with my ear pressed to his chest, listening to his heart beating and his deep, even voice (he's got the classic midwesterner's flat inflection) rumbling around in his chest. I could hear my father's voice -- all of his voice -- in a way that no-one else in the room could.
