One ninja was called Mak Deme but I can't remember the other one's name. The ninjas were tumbling through the moist ferny forests of medieval Japan and after five handwritten pages or so had the ultimate final fight - and the story ended with the two ninjas lying dead. Until one of them flicked open an eyelid.
So goes my early writing effort inspired by some movie or book I had been reading at the time. I was about 11 and used to write stories all the time. (One story for my class was about a quokka that became and abbott and went onto to change religion for the other quokkas - inspired of course by Watership Down. A quokka is a rodent like animal from off West Australia FYI).
Anyway, I wrote the Ninja story and pencilled a title page and stapled it all together. Then I left it out for my dad to read - and he read it burping beer from cans (I never drank beer from cans - EVER) while he lay on the lounge. He finished reading it and put it aside and said nothing.
I sat forward, elbows on my knees, waiting for his response. Nothing. So I played it cool and ignored it and went on with whatever I was doing, walking away. The next day, I sort of casually asked what he thought of the story.
"Oh, the one about the Japanese?" He said, nodding his head slowly and exhaling, "I couldn't say their names - what were they called again?"
"Mak Deme and (whatever the other one was)" I said quickly.
"Yeah, well, I dunno about having names like that, they're not real Japanese are they? And you can't really write about stuff that you don't know." He started, and said other stuff but I got the general gist of it.
...---~~```^```~~---...
So I didn't present much of anything to my father over the years. It was brutally honest feedback that, looking back in all fairness, was probably not far off the mark, but for a novice, feeling out my first attempts at things, it was all about rejection. Pretty soon I stopped showing him anything and our conversations became less wordy, more nods and eyebrow raises, until today where we haven't spoken for years.
A huge part of being sober for me has been healing my ability to forgive and to accept that people will not ever change simply because I want them to. People are just people and have their own shit going on and my wanting something from them is way down their list.
So it is about my healing my ability to forgive. Not forgiving was a great sport when I was drunk and sitting looking out at the view, but being sober and finding the ability to live with myself has meant I have to be able to forgive. So I can forgive my dad for being vigilant and critical and having a keen eye for faults - that's what he does. It is about seeing him for who he is, and me for who I can be.
Wow! You're writing, as always, leaves me green with envy. Your words however, make me eternally grateful for my dad, who also drank beer out of cans but was ever supportive of me.
ReplyDeleteThis made me reflect back on my early writing days. But my writing was in my journals about my(and this is a quote from one of them) "Shit Ass Mom who I hated". When she came across them time to time I would get my butt beat with the paddle because I was so hateful. In time we have discussed these things, she still has a whole different perspective on life and what she said happened. It's nice though when we let things go, how healing and happy we become.
ReplyDeleteThis post is really going to stick with me. There's so many aspects to it. I, too, had early writing experience, where I can recall humiliation. I wrote a "novel" and someone got a hold of it and mocked the name of the protagonist at the first page. Well, let me tell you, hiding my manuscript under lock and key was not enough, I had to run it through a shredder.
ReplyDeleteBut how healthy your statement is: "So I can forgive my dad for being vigilant and critical and having a keen eye for faults - that's what he does. It is about seeing him for who he is, and me for who I am." Wow if we only were taught then what we know now...Thanks for sharing!