It is sunny and cold, there is still snow on the ground.
I am on a comfortable couch by a large window. I watch wild turkeys and a vast array of birds pick at the assorted seed in the yard.
My sister-in-law is doing a yoga/meditation class on zoom in the next room. I hear the voice of the teacher but cannot make out the words (a sentiment I might try to rework as haiku later).
My brother is outside, the dogs beside him, stocking up the camper of his truck.
The edibles really just kicked in. Wow.
I am in Colorado now. Again through the magic of air travel and an excess of frequent flyer miles due to covid travel restrictions.
My parents flew me to Arizona (more on that in a moment, if not today than soon) and my sister-in-law flew me here. She and my brother will leave early in two days for a camping road trip throughout the southwest. Leaving me here to look after the animals. We have traded places in a certain sense as in a day or two they will be right where I just was, visiting my parents, making awkward small talk by the pool.
And I guess that's what I should write about now. My visit with my parents. There will be plenty of time to discuss this forest paradise that is my brother's house later.
There is so much that is gestating and ruminating from my time in Arizona. So many different directions that my mind wants to wander through.
There is something in the culture there. I don't know if it's because the majority of the park are from those colder northern states (Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, etc), or maybe a baby boomer thing, but there was that strange fake niceness.
Maybe it's also the fact that there are 500 closely grouped spaces huddled together and no wants to start drama with people you see several times a day.
But we always have to stop and chat, even if you can tell that no one really wants to. And everyone is always very pleasant and there is nothing serious ever discussed ("there is no war in Ba Sing Se"), which leaves things all very scripted and repetitive.
But then as soon as that person leaves the gossip begins. Everyone knows everyone's business.
My parents hated all of that when they first moved there. But now, 5 years later, the seem to be like the gossip king pins. Which, given that he is there in the capacity of park chaplain, makes it both surprising and completely logical. He's at the center of whatever drama there is.
And my mom seems to really love trauma stories. It's strangely almost all she talks about. She seems to feed off of that kind of emotional energy. Deaths, illnesses, heartbreaks, abuse. She told me the sad story of everyone at the park, including people that no longer lived there. Sometimes pretty explicitly.
This is clearly some sort of trauma response. She experienced horrible things from infancy and well into her adulthood. All of it pushed down, never discussed (or discussed at very inappropriate times, like a wedding or a large dinner).
So it seeps out of her through the pain of others. Those are the only kinds of movies she likes. She kept bringing up to me all the people that I know that have died. Most of them my parents friends, but some of them my friend's parents or my own friends. She talked about both of my dead girlfriends and went through the list of every pet we had and how they died.
And it was all in a sort of rambling stream of consciousness where I wasn't really given room to speak and sometimes felt like I wasn't even there at all. As if she is stuck in a constant mental loop and was just now saying it out loud for my benefit. She always presses me to open up, but never actually lets me talk. I barely said anything the ten days I was there.
My father, on the other hand, is all about the self-aggrandizement. All his stories are about how so and so did something completely wrong and my dad had to come in to fix it. He has an opinion on everything, you can't teach him anything, because he already knows. He is constantly chasing get rich quick schemes and talking about all the things he'll buy when his ship comes in.
He lies about both me and my brother. For years after my brother left the military, my dad would tell people that he was still serving. My brother got his master's in environmental sciences but does nothing with it. He spends his time here in the forest paradise, doing small engine repair and construction jobs for his neighbors. But apparently my dad tells people that he is a biologist or sometimes a forest ranger.
As for me, I found out last Sunday at the RV park church service. Before his sermon, he introduced me to the congregation. He told them that I started preaching at 14. But then never said anything after that.
Which, I mean sure, I don't expect him to say at church that his son had to leave the ministry because he had a nervous breakdown and was locked up at the psych ward a few times and has never really kept a job or a relationship and now just smokes a lot of pot and writes about how God doesn't exist.
But he also didn't have to say that I was a preacher at all. Because I haven't been in like 16 or 17 years. He could have introduced me as a photographer or writer. He could have avoided my profession (or lack of) all together. But he wants to sound impressive. He wants to be the stellar dad, the example. Raising a man of nature and a man of God sounds a lot better than raising two abused, depressed, and highly dysfunctional kids.
What's crazy to me about it is that I think my brother and I are both in a healthier place than either of us have ever been. It's just that we exist off the radar. Outside of the game of status and wealth and material possessions. We don't look good on paper, we don't sound impressive or successful. But by choice. Because the things we are the most interested in are free. I think my dad is ashamed or embarrassed by us, but I feel rather proud.
My brother likes to say that my mom is forever stuck in the tragic past and my dad is forever stuck in some glorious future. Which is why maybe he and I are so ardent and determined to be present in the now.
We have tried to help them see the way we do, but they seem unable to grasp it. Perhaps a perpetual problem between parents and their progeny.
Either way, I am now away in a forest paradise. The now here is much clearer. It's going to be a good time.
11:16 a.m. - 2022-04-02
Recent entries:
writing about not writing - 2022-06-15
Conflicted - 2022-06-01
She and Tulsa and Me - 2022-05-22
The Sun and the Moon - 2022-04-15
Forest Paradise - 2022-04-07
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