Wednesday, April 04, 2007Ghost Light It must be apparent to anyone who reads these blogs that I, well, haven't been writing any. It sounds like the typical writer's excuse, but I have been busy. And I've been engaged in this garage cleaning binge that -- as anyone I know will tell you -- has been consuming my life and overtaking my metaphor pool for weeks now. To dramatically understate: this is an intensive cleaning. I am going through every item in every box. I've set forth the laundry list of what this entails in a previous blog. And as I am seeing the end in sight -- really! -- I'm kind of starting to figure out parts of why I'm doing this. It seems to have something to do with a milestone rebooting process. In being confronted by not only my entire life -- as evidenced by bits of paper stored in boxes -- I'm also having to deal with the lives I've created (my kids) and the lives from which I came (all my deceased father's worldly goods, as stuffed into boxes 6 years ago when I cleared out his apartment as rapidly and mind-numbingly as possible). I have also been going through boxes that my mother periodically dumps, in anger, on my doorstep -- boxes that contain bits of me (hair, baby teeth, ballet slippers) that she apparently cannot stand to have around any longer. Between 17 boxes of my dad's conspiracy theories, and my childhood mementos thrown in boxes in an effort to eradicate me from my mother's life... it's been rather eye-opening. To put it another way: it's amazing I'm as sane as I am. Really. Truly. The hardest part was seeing how really crazy and obnoxious my dad was for at least the last 10 years of his life. Boxes upon boxes of highlighted letters, addressed to government officials, with commentary written that was either witheringly snotty (at best) or completely incoherant (at worst). After looking at the same pieces of paper worked on over and over with minute changes on each version, a collage began to form in my head of what this man was doing with his incessant harranguing of Social Security, then-governor Pete Wilson, the Clinton administration (he offered them the opportunity to pay him $100,000 to buy his secret information about the Gulf War). He blamed Governor Deukmejian for his pre-mature receipt of Social Security Benefits and the subsequent cut in all future payments. This original misunderstanding led to years of racism and accusations that Deukmejian had given my dad's personal money to the Armenian refugees in a fit of pique over my dad calling him a draft dodger. This expanded to a larger paranoia that the US Military "stole" a slide rule invention my dad had come up with during WWII. And this expanded to a general and all-pervasive hatred of authority and constant belittling of everyone he came in contact with who had anything to do with his money -- from the phone company to his apartment manager to Social Security and on and on. And in this picture I realized that this was a man who was terrified of being a Nobody. He had to create these scenarios of persecution to reassure himself that he was important enough to steal from. That his name calling was heard. That his rants were pissing off people in high places. I threw out vast quantities of this stuff, and saved a small part of it to burn. His 17 boxes of apartment detritus were distilled into two -- a box for his writng and a box for his personal things. It was the last box of personal items that did me in tonight. After seeing all the craziness, and separating out the beautiful stuff that he still was able to create -- a charming love story/novella about a love affair during the war, pictures of me looking hauntingly happy (in the early days of my marriage... a glow in my face I haven't seen in many many years), pictures of my sons hugging each other on someone's first day of kindergarten, every postcard from me that I ever sent) -- I finally came to the very last days of his life. In that last box to be opened, I found the receipt for his last purchases (a couple of cans of tuna, some croutons and a couple bottles of beer.) I found a receipt for some work they had done on his apartment (three days before he was found barely conscious on the floor). And I found notes for the TV set he wanted me to run out one night to buy for him at K-Mart. It was a 19" set. He had written up, and then torn up, a check for $157.40. I had refused to leave my house at 9 p.m. to go get it for him. He had hung up, pissed. I had refused to call him back for several days. And by the time I asked his apartment manager to check on him, it was too late. He was alive. But it was too late. He died four days later. When I got to the note about the TV set, I lost it. I had never felt sorry about my decision to stay home that night. I had never wondered what would've happened if I'd called the next day. But tonight it finally hit home. I sat on my garage floor and cried as if it had all happened yesterday. And then I realized... it almost had. The date of his crouton-purchase was April 6.... this coming Friday. And he died a week from Saturday, six years ago. I don't know why these things take the time they do. In a parallel move, precipitated by the cleaning up, I'm sure, I finished copying a book I started six years ago for a memorial service that has never yet happened. It's a collection of pictures of my dad, and a few essays I'd written about him. For some reason, I finally finished it and will send it out this week to our small group of relatives. Six years late, but it's finally time. My dad had this horrible, hideous lamp made out of an old Jim Beam bottle. It's tacky as hell and in no way reflects any part of the man who used to design high end shoes and determine fashion trends for the ladies of San Francisco and Los Angeles. It in no way indicates that he was a man who loved Paris and relished the Italian language and drove expensive cars and had his suits dry cleaned after each wearing. It's a horrible lamp, and he loved it. Which means I love it, too. I put it in the garage as I've been also taking some time to adorn the garage with things I love -- like the license plates from all the cars I've ever owned, and little sculptures from the building blocks I had when I was a toddler. So I put up the Jim Beam lamp and screwed in a little night light bulb just to keep myself from sticking my finger in the socket when it was on. For kicks, after I'd gotten over the crying thing and freaking out my kids and dog with the unusual display of sadness and pain... I turned on the Jim Beam light and turned off the overhead flourescents. The garage was magically transformed. The glow of the wooden rafters suddenly became rich and deep. The American flag I'd hung up looked neat and funky. But most notably, I realized that I now had a "ghost light" for my garage. Ghost lights are always set up on a stage at night and left on while the stagehands go home. One theory is that it's left on to keep the ghosts company; the other (well, my other theory) is so that no one falls into the pit and creates more. My ghost light is now fully operational. I will keep it on to keep my ghosts company as we sleep. I will keep it on as a tribute to the man who loved that Jim Beam bottle light. I will keep it on as a small requiem, and an apology for not going out to buy a TV set six years ago on Friday. Most of all, I will keep it on in hopes that it will be seen and understood: he was a Somebody to someone. He mattered. Not in the rantings and ravings... but in the postcards he kept and the pictures he held near to his heart. # posted by Katherine Doughtie Nolan @ 11:22 PM  
Comments: That is a great photo. # posted by  Unknown : 12:37 PM
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