Category Archives: unfinished business

the only good thing about texas: austin

Posted in grief, life, marriage, unfinished business, work by

we had a bogo ticket to use with a month left to book and complete travel.  we planned to use it for our new years trip to atlanta, but given that trip was scheduled to complete the day after the new year, it was out per the silly regulations of this deal.  brian suggested disney world [he's got a penchant for the mouse... ok, not really, but we do like amusement parks], but tickets to orlando were too expensive.  so after sitting on the couch trying to find flights to florida for hours, brian threw out austin.  while we both hate texas as a whole, the book on the creative class always made me want to check out austin.  it was perfect.

a day after we made the plans i remembered that i had a “friend” in the area.  a long time “flickr-ite” i have gotten to know over the years through flickr and a few phone calls.  while i have not been incredibly active on the net for the past few years and have only slowly re-emerged, i thought it would be great to meet will [and his girlfriend maggie... someone i had not corresponded with, but whom i read much about], so i sent him a note telling him that brian and i would be in the area.  he agreed and we loosely set plans.

while i looked forward to meeting this long-time friend, i confess, i did have some trepidation.  i have met other wonderful people from the interwebs over the years, though not for some time and not that many, but this was the first time i would do such a thing with brian.  all of the other meetings happened well before brian came into my life and i have typically left off/glossed over [it generally just doesn't come up] how i know certain people.  meeting people from the internet is not for everyone and does pose dangers, so i didn’t want to arouse any concerns.  however, when i mentioned to brian that i knew will from flickr, he didn’t seem to be too concerned, so my worries were abated.

we didn’t have many concrete plans for austin.  i didn’t really have any time to plan, there was too much happening at work and in life,  so we boarded the plane and decided to fly by the seat of our pants.

luckily, we managed to make some last minute plans to meet will and maggie for breakfast at the bouldin creek cafe.  it was wonderful.  food and company both.  the conversation flowed and it was as if we were old friends, meeting for our standard saturday breakfast.  after we ate and chatted, will took us to south congress to show us a great hotel – hotel san jose - to stay in.  it was quirky and artsy.  a non-boutique, boutique hotel.  [actually, it used to be a hotel for hookers, with "hourly" rates, but was re-done into a very nice, very austin place to stay].  it was located in a great spot for walking and exploring austin and was all-in-all perfect so we decided to stay there.  after some exploring south congress, will [vermont ferret] took this sweet shot at joe’s coffee shop [next to hotel san jose] and we parted ways for the day.

Erin and Brian visit Austin 2011

we spent most of the trip relaxing, with no real plans, casually checking out austin.

we unsuccessfully tried to find the mustache ride [just think of the pictures and all the sexual innuendos we missed!].  we walked the markets [farmers and craft].  went to 6th street [oddly, it was dead].  drove by the capital.  ate and ate.  and did some shopping.  get this, brian of all people ended up walking into the boot store and finding boots.  think of that, him walking out with a desire* to purchase boots and NOT me.  okay, i wanted to [i mean, look at these boots! patent leather!], but i was trying to be frugal.

in addition to that and whatever else we did, i went to the barn with maggie to meet her horses while brian watched the patriot’s game.  i’ll post more on that experience later, but i will say it was an incredible gift from the universe to spend time with such beautiful souls [maggie and the horses].

all in all, austin lived up to its quirkiness.  most cities have an area with quirky shops or people, but in austin, it really is the whole city.  it is woven through the fabric of austin, in every part.  take these purses for example.

weird, right?  [confession, i wanted one of these too but conceded that the novelty would probably would wear off pretty quickly].

the thing i found most interesting about austin: food trailers.  not trucks, trailers.  parked in lots and serving food like a culinary trailer park.  to me this seemed like a uniquely texas thing, whether it is actually or not.  texas is all about state’s rights and protecting freedoms and nothing seems to typify this more for me [in austin anyway] than the food trailer.  it’s just so independent.  i wanted so badly to try food at one [as if it would somehow be different and magical], but didn’t get to.  next time, austin, next time.

while we managed to have breakfast with will and maggie everyday, which was awesome, we capped off the trip with a delicious breakfast at the counter cafe.  sharing one last round of breakfast goodies and excellent conversation.

my visit to austin

we said our goodbyes and headed to the airport.  it was sad to leave because we so enjoyed them both.  wish we lived closer, but definitely plan to return.

[*brian would  have bought them but they didn't have his size.  i have since purchased the boots for him.]

my father

Posted in father, grief, life, mother, unfinished business by

this is a subject i never, or very rarely, discuss.

i do not know my father.  i know of him, but i don’t know him.  i have never officially met him, though i know that he has seen me when i was 2.  so maybe i did “officially” meet him, but not in a way that i would ever remember.

i’m sure you won’t believe this, but that has never really been an issue to me.  really.  sure, there were times i wish i had one around but those were infrequent.  i only wanted a father around in the conceptual sense, not really in the practical/actionable sense anyway.

–

actually, the only memories i have of wanting a father around involved father/daughter dances.  even then, it wasn’t so much that i wanted a father, but that i wanted a male figure to take me to such a dance.

oh, there was one other time.  when i was in elementary school i went to spend some time with my uncle, his wife [my other aunt], and their daughter [my cousin].  in this occasion we were on vacation in cape cod.  my cousin would fall asleep downstairs while we were watching tv at night and he would carry her up to bed and put her to sleep.  i never had this experience, so one night my cousin fell asleep and i faked the same.  i wanted to know/feel what it was like to be carried up the stairs to bed, be tucked in, and sleep.  it was a mixture of curiosity for the concept and curiosity for the feeling.  i can’t say i gained much from the experience, but perhaps a glimpse into fatherly love.  not sure.  i don’t have a strong memory of the feeling, just the experience.

other than that, i have never had feelings one way or the other towards my father.

–

i have not longed to find him.  i have not hated him.  i have not loved him.  i have really just had a void of feelings there.  thoughts of him rarely crossed my mind.  it was just a non-issue.  he was a non-issue.

that was okay.  i mean i tried to put myself into a mind-set that put me at some point down the road where i wanted to talk to him and i just couldn’t imagine it.  it just was not there.  i had no desire to talk to him.  not out of malice or anything, maybe just out of disinterest.  and all of that was okay.  no big deal.  really.

little did i know,  that my mother’s death would open a pandora’s box regarding my father.

as i cleaned out her house, it started with a valentine i came across from him.  it would have been from right around the time i was conceived.  bizarre.

it extended to random letters and cards.  mostly from not long after my birth.  one was general “cockiness”.  one was full of updates and sexual in nature [bizarre and disgusting].  one was this letter [above], not dated, but the context clearly showing a communication path that went beyond the first few years beyond my birth [something of which i was unaware].  and later it trailed to several other letters from my late teens.  what the f*ck?

of my father i only knew a few things:

1) his name
2) his general location [a bordering town to my hometown]
3) he spent time in jail
4) i had not met him, but he came by when i was 2, much to everyone’s dismay
5) he had two other daughters [this is not completely a fact... just what i heard from the family]

but i had no idea that my mother and he still communicated after my birth.  come to think of it, i knew nothing of their relationship.  this never bothered me, but now i had evidence of some other dimension i could not piece together from what limited verbal communication was provided about my father and it didn’t make sense.

what to do.

i’ve thought on this a great deal and i still have no answers, but here are what thoughts run through my head.

should i contact him to find out?  i almost immediately go to a resounding, “no” on this one because whatever he says about what happens, there is no way for me to visit the other side of it in my mother’s view.  given that she raised me, that she was there, the story deserves that much.  so if i can’t get it and i could only hear “his” side, then i am not sure i want it.  i would always want to know her side and i just couldn’t get it.

should i contact him/them to know my family/siblings?  many people who fall into our category of family would not be in our life if it were not for that moniker.  falling into the category of ‘you can choose your friends but not your family.’  well, here i *can* choose my family.  what if these people are not people i want to associate with?  what if i open the door and i can’t go back?  see, if he were the kind of man i would choose to have in my life, he would be the kind of guy who no matter what would contact his daughter.  no matter what happened during the years with the mother, there would be at least one attempt of contact [letter, call, something] that would allow the child to know that you at least at some point tried.  effort is everything.  and there never was any.  not to me anyway.  none.  a man who would be in my life would have done something.

so that really puts me back in the position i have been in all along.  only now, there is this pandora’s box of information that my mother kept, that i now have to go through, that provides me a window into a life i don’t know.  that i will never know.  and now leaves me torn as to what to do.

i wish i could go back to my apathy.