Old Business: This Is Not My Beautiful House

I hear my son scraping away at his electric guitar in his bedroom across the hall, writing songs about girls who will not look his way. I often lie awake long into the night, listening to my son’s sleepless labors. My wife left me some years ago, and took with her our two daughters.

My son has a ridiculous haircut and a bad complexion that I feel certain is the result of an indifference to hygiene that he inherited from me. It seems to me that my son has talent, and I don’t wish to offer him advice that might be construed as anything but encouragement. I have had enough discouragement for both of us.

My wife told me that I have “some work to do,” and I don’t exactly understand what she meant, even as I recognize the apparent truth of her words.

I spend an inordinate amount of time splayed on the floor, the position in which I am most comfortable, my head rocking at the margins of sleep. I have spent years becoming this man. Slowly becoming this man splayed on the floor, peering into the dusty, dim astronomy of my skull. Weather permitting I might make my way out into my yard. I suppose I am a familiar and not entirely welcome sight to my neighbors, as I sit there at the picnic table staring into space, studying words and thoughts and memories, finding them in the dark, faraway galaxies of my head. Like my old dreams, I often do not recognize where these strange constellations come from, or even exactly what they are. I am continually puzzled when stray images and thoughts invade this private airspace.

I think perhaps my son, through his music, will give expression to this confusion that seems to have settled over our home like a cloud. With money he made selling fried chicken my son has purchased what I gather is rudimentary recording equipment, and he makes tapes of his songs.

“I’ve mastered nothing,” he sings on one of the songs he has written and recorded. “Is it too much to ask for a little something, a little bitty, little tiny, little bit of something?” Though he has no actual band, he calls the band that is only him, “Bottle Fly.” One of his songs is called “Taxidermy Dad.” I saw the title written on one of his cassette boxes.

For many years I was an obsessive documenter of my experiences and the life of my family. This was in the years before videotape became so easy and affordable, thank God; I was, rather, an obsessive shutter bug and note taker. I realized in time, however, that I never seemed to have any real interest in looking over my photos and notes, and neither did anyone else. I had no memories there. It was as if in taking the step back necessary for the documentation –behind the camera, hunched above the notebook– I had divorced myself from the actual experience of the very moments I was trying to preserve. The documentation essentially subtracted me from my own life, constructed a puzzling barrier between myself and my memories. I was never present, certainly not truly present, at any of these occasions, and so had no real memories invested in them. Looking back over them now I feel as if I am looking back at my life as it went on without me, as, in fact, it more or less had.

I believe this, though, about myself, and about the people I live surrounded by: we have the best intentions. We had big dreams, perhaps still have. We wish there was something we could do for those less fortunate. We intend to make some changes and improvements in our lives. We hope to make long-term friendships and to continue to meet new and interesting people. We would like to undertake a healthier diet and exercise regimen. We try again and again to be grateful for the blessings we have been given. We would like to continue to challenge and motivate and inspire each other. We dream ceaselessly of traveling to new places and having new and interesting experiences. And yet we also continue to find ourselves at the bottom of the day, at the bottom of another page, exhausted and out of words.