I am the sum of many people. Some through biological traits I inherited, as part of the family gene pool, without my consent. Other traits I might have adopted voluntarily by watching, assessing, evaluating and deeming useful.
Some of my fathers’ aloofness and tendency to ‘fall’ into his world, appearing totally detached and ‘out of it’.
My mothers’ judgmental predisposition that I despised as a child, and young adult, but lately detect in my own behavior.
And maybe my fathers’ intellectual tendencies that manifested themselves in a clear preference of books (over people) and my mothers’ practical nature and deep rooted restlessness and love of nature. Perhaps it’s my aunts’ clear vision of the future and social interest in the greater good, or maybe my other aunt tendencies towards writing, acting and utilizing the power of words.
***
I am thinking about that moment, maybe just a fraction of a second, when for the first time I looked at the mirror and saw my mothers' face in it. My heart skipped a beat as I froze, rubbed my eyes and looked again but by then she was gone.
It happened again, it keeps happening more and more frequently as the years go by.
I am my mothers' child, so why won't I look like her. I am my fathers' daughter so it should come as no big surprise to me when at times I catch myself saying things that he used to say, or finding that there is more of him in me than I ever imagined.
Nature plays some fascinating tricks on us and I try to find the hidden humor in this peculiar phenomenon. As I grow older the same family traits I used to try and shake off condemning them out of place, old, not up with the times or plain unwanted are rapidly catching up with me.
***
At times I wonder if the different careers I had somehow rubbed on me to the point that they become an integral part of my character.
Being a teacher for many years, do I sound like one (like my husband in more than one occasion pointed out) the tinge of authorization in the back of my voice blending in with a mixture of encouragement and sympathy to create the familiar tune.
Or being a motel owner in the past few years, did I too adopt that sing-song kind of voice, sweetness that masks cold business like calculations. Did the selling and persuasive nature of the industry entrusted me to act differently then I normally do?
***
I will never be that person who can walk into a room, any room, no matter how many people are present or how unknown there are to him and immediately feel at home.
I will never be that person who can approach any stranger and within seconds carry a vibrant conversation, as it they have known each other for years.
The one who is unfazed by other people criticism and just shake it off and keep on going.
The one who can think on his feet and always fabricate a quick comeback.
The one who comes up every other day with a new idea or a brilliant invention.
The one who comes up every other day with a new idea or a brilliant invention and even follows up on it and make a fortune.
The sportsman who get energized by setting new more strenuous goals for himself.
The fix-it all who can attack, without stress, any glitch in the electricity, pluming, roofing, you name it and he knows what to do.
The do-gooder who is so totally invested in his chosen project sand nothing will deter him.
Or the loner, the traveler, the lone hunter, the lone photographer, the lone long-distance walker, I am none of those either.
But I’ve been all of them at some point of my life.
I've been up and down with this since yesterday.
ReplyDeleteMy first reaction was pleasure: the shock of realizing how much you've taken from your parents is one I share; the last list is outstanding and the drop-dead last line better than anything I've seen anywhere in a long while.
Then I read it to my wife and she liked it too, but I started to complain: where are some specific stories? A snapshot of the mother, the father? She's depending on me knowing a certain amount about her background and life for the piece to really work!
And my wife said exactly what you said to me a few weeks ago: does a piece always have to have those stories and images you like? Can't it just lay a quiet and warm blanket of feeling over its subject and be what it is if what it is is otherwise good (as this is)?
And I had to admit that, yes, a piece that does as much as this shouldn't be expected to do something else too.