Essays

LIKE MARY CATHERINE GALLAGHER ...

I have written down more than what I have shared, not wanting to clog up mailboxes with my spinnings. Sometimes getting thing 'out' is enough, and that was what that 'open letter' was for me, getting some of what is for real in me, out. Pressure burst pipes, and keeping all that emotion inside of me, for what, nearly 3 years is redlining my heart's PSI!

Should that letter ever go out, it won't until after the first of the year, at the EARLIEST. There is still so much ahead for me yet to be ready for anything else other than my own personal details, that I don't need to be thinking about anything other than doing what is best for me. I am not going to have a 'competition' about this, but come to a conclusion and make a decision.

Doesn't have to be now, as I don't know what I don't know. Period.

Right now, I have been looking to media figures, in literature, film, and comic books in the halls of my mind, as I try to find my way through this. And what is 'this'? Oddly enough, it is the responsibility that comes from reaching your goals. The more successful you are, the more the pressure builds. Kipling says, you should learn to treat triumph and disaster the same, you are on your way to your personal victory. I have dealt with loss, with 'disaster'. It is the winning that I am trying to grab a handle on now.

I would like to think that I have been a transitive person, capable of finding myself at home with people who on the surface, you would see nothing in common to me, or a group, but finding that thread that connects people to and thru me. That is why 'Forrest Gump' appealed to me when I saw the movie. That was what I recall most of all, how he stayed the same as he brought all those different elements in his life together.

There have been those who were resistant to my 'charms', most notably my ex wife. She herself became a 'postulate' of sorts, proving to me that I may have loved my Mother as many of us do, but that I DO NOT want to marry her. She is the only person who ever reminded ANYONE of our Mother, even if in a small way. I have never dated anyone who I could identify any aspect of my Mother in them.

I have enjoyed my choices more, and continued to 'walk down' my partner, getting a little closer and closer each time. My Delta Girl was a gift and I blew that, but afterwards, I would get closer and closer to finding 'her'.

Literary figures, other media characters have always been guides for me, hence the 'Mary Margret' reference, to Molly Shannon's dizzy catholic school girl who was always equating her feelings to a made for tv movie, or sappy 80's rock song. In fact, in one journal, a song by 'the only band that matters', The Clash was on the playlist. 'Lost In The Supermarket' was a song that kept a smile on my face, because that is how I felt, but it was a good and happy feeling, because even though all the 'things' may have been around me, I always thought I would come to a good end.

So though it would have been cool to have grown up with a Dad full time, I don't think I fared badly at all. Even when I had thought about how it would have been to have had a Dad full time, I tend to think of what Joe Louis told Billy Conn, when Conn bemoaned his chance to be champion slipping away because of his mistake. He said, "I could have been heavyweight champion ...", and Louis replied, "Could have? You were for 12 rounds!", as he had out boxed the great champion before he pull a tactical error and got knocked out. I DID have a father in the home. You know, I didn't realize that, until I finished that thought right there.

My Mother was stretched by work and five very busy and active children. I think that was my most selfish period, because I didn't want the weight of being the oldest, most responsible child. Jan would have relished that, and I have always thought that she would have done a better job. But in looking at how things have turned out, I think the right one was the oldest, for both my siblings and my steps.

The 48219 is VERY different from the 48227. I have always described the 227 as 'chippy', and the years have not been at all kind to the area. But the difference then between the two areas seemed to be just as stark as they are now, but I was still the big brother. Odd, because I have felt more 'first son' here than at 'home'. I have chalk that up to the hegemony of women in black culture, particularly the single mothers, who poison the daughters and make ruinous sons (and yes dearest, I count myself among 'the ruinous), and make it so easy for the mistakes of one generation to be pass on to the next.

Anywho, I think that it was different over here with my Dad's people. I was always THE first born son, and it meant something. The position to play was clear, and all I had to do was fill the role. There was only one 'incident' and it set my reputation permanently around these parts. Someone bullied my eldest step brother, and my Dad was out of town and I was in the house. I walked and walked the neighborhood, looking for that cat that day, to no avail. Weeks later, I did get the opportunity to have an 'up close and personal' chat with him, and he was ALONE.

I just talked with him. But if you ever saw the movie, 'New Jack City' and there is a scene where Ice-T's police officer has the drop on Wesley Snipes' Nino Brown ... that meet was similiar to that, because it WAS like that. Anywho, I got my props, most importantly from my steps, who began to identify MORE with me as their older brother.

THE BIG FINISH

I want to find my bliss, find my happiness. Pretty simple, pretty 'a yes, a no, a straight line, a goal' kind of thing there. Getting to that is a simple as excuting that idea, provided that I am going to work as hard as it takes to get there.

Next issue: Encyclpedia Brown, Dante and Virgil, some minor clerk, and Cross Damon make appearences!