December 23, 2003

December 23, 2003.
Two men in my life

I didn't see the man underneath the highway tonight, and I'm wondering where he was. Does the man underneath the highway take a holiday? Where does he celebrate Christmas?

I am a little concerned about him. He is a regular feature of my commute. He is there every night on my way home, even if it's 20 degrees outside and pouring rain. (A friend once gave me directions to her house using him as a landmark. "When you see the man under the highway, turn left...")

He is a tall slender black man with a surprisingly handsome face and a neatly trimmed mustache, wearing a black knit cap and roughhouse thrift store clothes. He sometimes holds a white cardboard sign with a generic message asking for help. But that's not what makes him special. Every time I drive by, he does a little soft-shoe routine. He does it for everyone. He performs all night long for the steady stream of cars that pass by on their way to the highway. A little tap, a little shuffle. It always ends with a salute, a smile, and a wave.

Being saluted by a homeless guy is pretty disorienting.

I have this burgeoning fantasty about driving by and rolling down the window and offering him a really elaborate, wonderful meal on a silver platter. Maybe it would be the kind of meal that you see in movies, kept warm under a bright silver dome. (Perhaps he could lift the dome off as part of the soft-shoe routine.) I think that would complete the surreal cocktail of the dance routine from the black, homeless Charlie Chaplin underneath the highway.

My father came to visit our house for the first time over the weekend. It was a big occasion. We've been living here since the beginning of October, and it took him almost three months to come visit. (My parents live about 30 minutes away.)

OK, true, I never explicitly invited him. I just assumed that he knew that he was invited. He's family, right? Family is invited by default, right? My mother has been coming and going merrily from the very beginning. She has a key to the house and has been instrumental in our relocation, helping us paint and unpack and get settled.

Apparently it's not safe to assume anything with my dad. Apparently I need to make my wishes clearer.

I saw Life as a House over the summer. OK, it was a hokey movie, but I couldn't help but feel a little jealous of those kids who had Kevin Kline for a dad. The character played by Kevin Kline is a little bitter, a little manic, and terminally ill. But he is there. He's totally present and open to the people around him.

My father is quite the opposite. Even as a small child, I noticed that my father never came into my bedroom unless something was wrong. He was present for discipline. He was absent for almost everything else. He wasn't a workaholic or an alcoholic. He was just wrapped up in his own stuff, consumed with his own world, his own thoughts, reading a book, watching reruns. He just didn't talk to me much. He didn't talk to my brothers a lot either.

It feels like it's always been this way, so I shouldn't have been surprised when I realized he hasn't been over to visit. But when I recognized it a few weeks ago, it knocked the breath out of me. And it pointed to the larger truth that I feel I must reckon with now: I have a Dad Deficit.

The more I think about it, the more troubled I grow over this lack. The more I think about it, the truer it becomes. I can't shake this thought out of my head: I don't really know my dad, and he really doesn't know me, and unless I do something about it, it's going to be that way forever.

I've tried before. I've made some honest attempts at building a shaky bridge to my distant dad. A few faltering attempts here and there, obsessively insulated by years of regret and anxiety and worry.

About five years ago I gave him a gift certificate to an upscale restaurant for Christmas, and told him that as part of the gift, he had to go with me to the restaurant. Just me and him. Dad and daughter.

He seemed pleased with the gift and agreed to the deal.

It took months for him to actually call me to make the arrangements. It was probably August by the time we scheduled it. On the determined evening, he came to my apartment to pick me up. We made small talk in the car. By the time we reached the restaurant and sat down, I was exhausted. I had already run through my entire mental list of potential conversation topics.

We ordered our meal, and the silence was thick between us. Finally he made some effort to speak. He shared news about his work, about his writing. He made an effort. I did my very best to keep those little conversational sparks alive. I listened intently and asked open-ended questions in response. I was sweating the whole time. The evening was pure agony. I slipped back into my apartment feeling like a failure.

Things really haven't changed that much since that night five years ago. Dad goes his way, and I go mine, and we don't really know how to relate to each other. Yet for some reason I'm terribly surprised and hurt when I realize that my dad hasn't been to my new house yet.

I'm looking down the barrel of 2004 and realizing that I really need to do something about this. I don't know exactly what I can do. And I'm absolutely terrified at the prospect of trying to relate to my father. It feels so difficult. It feels impossible.

Pride also plays a factor in my hesitation. Why should I lay myself bare in an effort to get to know him? I've made my efforts already! Let him come to me!

As tempting as that attitude is, it doesn't get me any closer to the prize, which is to know my father, and to be known by him.

But oh, it is hard.

I must constantly remind myself not to write the fatalistic ending to this story before the first chapter is over. Just because I've had a hard time relating to my father in the past does not mean that I will have an equally hard time relating to him in the future. I need to give my dad another chance to get to know me.

But wow, it's scary. This is shaping up to be one of the major challenges of my next year.

It's all I can think about right now as I'm wrapping his Christmas gift (the autobiography of Johnny Cash — another faltering attempt to create common ground).

I know it will be awkward. I know it will be hard on my pride. But it's important. And if I can get to this point next year and say that I have the beginnings of a real relationship with my father, it will all have been worth it.