Completely in the Dark

“When your parents die, you will never see them again. You might think you understand that, but until it happens, you don’t. They say that you come into the world alone and that you leave alone too. But you aren’t born alone; your mother is with you, maybe your father too. Their presence may have been loving, it may have been demented, it may have been both. But they were with you.” —Mary Gaitskill

I got 663 words into drafting this post when I realized I was lying.

Maybe not lying lying, but I certainly wasn’t telling the truth about what I thought I wanted to say.

Then it occurred to me that what I was avoiding saying was much closer to what I wanted to say, so … here I am.

Pushing RESET.

These photos—recently digitized by my brother and, to my knowledge, the first time I’ve ever seen them—got me thinking. They were taken when I was an infant, with Mom, then held by Dad, and lastly, as a toddler, reprimanded at the dinner table in front of grandparents and the entire Family Project.

Seeing them has led me to something of an ah-ha moment.

First, a long-held assumption: that my parents were not openly affectionate, nor particularly tactile. These pictures seem to refute that, although as Mom and Dad aged they became more wary and withholding.

Second assumption: that I’ve always considered myself a fairly affectionate person. I enjoy hugging my friends. With past lovers, I’ve have had no compunction about holding hands or enjoying public displays of affection. People have remarked: “You’re a great hugger!” Assumption: reinforced.

The ah-ha moment came while rereading the original draft of this post.

Its tone was “authorial” and circumspect. I yammered on about the five senses, about how touch was always vying for my top sense along with sight and hearing. Hot, cold, how we sense energy through our skin … all that was getting away from what these photos extracted from me—that I was raised with care and affection, that I depended on assurances of that affection and, since then, how I’ve trained myself to avoid the frightening intimacy of touching other people.

Wacky, huh?

Again, it’s likely I’m overstating things, but I know myself well enough that my first choice is to rationalize and talk myself into (or out of) just about anything. This is probably true of most people.

In fact, in order to avoid something, you must have had some experience with the object you’re avoiding in the first place. Hence these pictures. They’re reassuring and unnerving at the same time.

First, my tiny fingers exploring Mom’s arm. I felt more connected to her than I did with Dad. But she could be emotionally tentative, and that must’ve confused me at times. Just a feeling; nothing I can point to.

That’s Dad in the loud red shirt, shortly after my birth. The cigarettes and coffee, Jello bars and pumpkin pie lead me to think the photo might be from Christmas 1959, since I was born in late November.

But what kills me is how gentle Dad looks. This is not the man I remember growing up. Although he softened greatly with age, he’s not the daredevil young man who cares for nothing—he’s confidently holding a baby. He’s confidently holding me.

Crap, I’m doing it again: Another gutter ball of explaining away, completely avoiding what these pictures are saying to me.

Which brings me back to the senses, since it’s the theme I sought to understand in the first place: touch and its importance to me and how it has shaped me now. It seems learning about being human also involves learning about boundaries—who you are, who others are, and how you interact with them.

So who am I and how do I interact with others?

Not as openly as I assumed. I wonder if my withholding had something to do with the openness I first learned from Mom and Dad, but was somehow later retracted? I’ve always wanted openness, honesty, and the willingness to engage, but worried about how it would be received.

The last photo at left is telling. The only faces we don’t see are Dad’s and mine. Grandma is looking slightly away; Mom looks on with a touch of bemusement; Brian, oblivious to the drama passing between me and Dad.

I’d guess I had something of a meltdown prior to dinnertime and Grandpa’s photo op pushed me over the edge. Dad is likely not comforting me, but chastising. That I well remember.

He wraps his arm around my chair, but it feels nothing like a safe harbor.

It feels like the closing of a cage door.

~ by completelyinthedark on November 3, 2012.

Posted in Adams, Grandparents, Indiana
Tags: affection, Brian, Christmas, Dad, five senses, Greensburg, grief, Jello bars, Mom, November, touch