I'm glad you're going ahead with plans for a party for Vicki. It wouldn't hurt to lighten up her life even for a few hours. I've tried to talk myself into coming, but I don't think I can. Like it or not, a lot of my self-development as a teenager concerned coming slowly to the realization that my parents were not very admirable human beings. I still carry around a lot of resentment about the fact that she's doesn't give a shit about anyone or anything and then covers it up with a lot of shallow glad-handing and smarmy posturing. In fact I find her a contemptible person if you want to know the truth. It takes all of my generosity to spend any amount of time with her without getting angry and disgusted. Since she tends to set a mood of shallow frivolity that I find depressing, especially when her siblings are around, I can just see in my mind a party with a lot of her silly friends gabbing about nothing and me sitting in the corner sulking with smoke coming out of my ears. I don't think my moody presence would give her very much to be happy about, do you? So I think for the time being I'd better focus on the times I am able to muster up some real tolerance for her stupidity, when I can visit her on a one-to-one basis and spend an hour really trying my best to be civil. I planned to visit last summer, but had trouble with my scooter which didn't get fixed till the weather got too cold. (The license plate was stolen.) I'll visit her this summer for sure, and whatever cordiality there is for us to find will be ours to enjoy at that time. I feel we're on pretty good terms at the moment, by the way. She sent me a nice note about Danielle's Adventure Stories.
I wanted to explain my reaction to your invitation in some detail because I don't want you to think that I'm just a callous person who doesn't give a shit about anyone or anything. Indifference is a trait which I almost picked up from her but which my hatred of what she represents has slowly but surely immunized me against. I do care about her, or at least about what she might have done with her life if she had shown any courage or honesty about living. I try to remember those moments when I was a child when she seemed genuinely worth caring about. It's that fragile sense of concern which I try to summon when I visit her or talk to her on the phone, and which would be completely stifled in the atmosphere of false frivolity she loves.
There is another very minor point here, but, just for the record I still hate birthdays and anniversaries and holidays. Ever since I was a teenager I felt they were the last excuse for people to feel good about themselves when there just weren't any other reasons. I mean, they're all based on numerology! The number 70, for instance, is only a multiple of ten in the decimal system. If we used base eleven, a number like 66 or 77 would be more of a "milestone." But even then there's nothing really that special about such numbers, especially not when you're evaluating somebody's entire life history. For a long time now I've always felt depressed when somebody sent me a Christmas card since it meant that they couldn't feel any real reason to be interested in me for my own worth as a person and just relegated me to the class of people who should "at least get a Christmas card." My idea of milestone is more like when you fall in love for the first time, or publish your first book, or even when you graduate — ie. escape from the oppression of — college or get old enough to retire. (Jennifer's at her sister's graduation today.) And my idea of a greeting is much more like the interesting and thoughtful letter which you sent me today and which does have to do with me personally and not just as "an entry on a list."
Actually I can't even stand things like college graduations if I sense that conventional people I'll have to deal with are going to make much more of the occasion than it merits. When Frank invited me to your wedding I said that I hated formal ceremonies and didn't like to pretend that I was involved with people just because I was biologically related to them. "But blood is thicker than water," he said, tentatively. "Oh, no," I retorted, feeling that I had him on this point. "That's not what you always taught me." I knew that his history of left-wing politics made him sympathetic to a larger point of view. Since I like the humanistic stories about Jesus even though I don't believe in their religious overtones, I reminded him about what Jesus said when they brought his mother and brother to hear one of his sermons. "Who is my mother? Who is my brother? All who are the children of God are my family." He knew I had him on this point and didn't argue any more. Of course, this doesn't mean that family members can't also be friends, as we're trying to be, but any friendship has to be based on shared values and not biological circumstance.
I'll call Vicki up in the next few days and arrange for a visit around the time of her birthday. If she knows I'm coming for a visit, and if you tell her that I'm shy at parties and want to acknowledge her in my own personal way, I think she'll understand my absence. Whether other people understand it or not is their own problem.
I'm glad you're feeling friendly towards me these days, and able to communicate without getting angry (and hanging up on me). I'd like us to be close in a way that isn't too stressful. The divergences in our lifestyles means that some real tolerance for each other will have to develop in order for us to get along. I do admire you in some ways: I know you're very liberal on the subject of lifestyles (like when it comes to gay people), and you're a terrific mother. But I'm a pretty complex person who has reasons for doing things that can't be dismissed lightly, and sometimes I feel that the hectic pace of what you once called your workaholic committments for the last ten years hasn't left enough room for you to hear people out to any degree, and why you're sometimes tempted to jump to conclustions about what you think they should or shouldn't be doing. I think we're up to the challenge of making room for one another, though, and I think you feel that way too.
One of the things about me that I think you have a hard time putting up with is this: I learned long ago that I carry a lot of burried anger that is very hard for me to bring out in the open and deal with. Some of it is irrational and childish, some of it is on sound moral grounds, and sometimes it's hard to tell which. But I've learned that the worst thing is to deny it and pretend to like people and situations that make me feel uncomfortable. This is why it's not worth it right now for me to deal with Francois. I'm angry about the way he lets his brother treat you, and I'm angry about his lying to me about when I'd get my money back. Just because people live up to "normal" standards of decency and don't actually commit crimes doesn't mean that they are living up to my standards, and I certainly don't have to pretend to like them. Right now the healthiest path for me is to just ignore Francois (even though this puts a barrier on where I can see you and Daniel). I know my needs and what I'm capable of, and I don't want to subject myself to an angry outburst at that man just because he doesn't have the moral integrity that I expect of my personal friends. I'm not saying that he doesn't deserve whatever satisfactions he gets from his life — or, for that matter, that Vicki shouldn't find real contentment living the life of a stupid know-nothing. I'm just saying that I don't want those kind of people in my life, because I'm aiming for something much higher and finer than bovine insensibility and because their lack of goals can only bring me down and make me moody and unsociable.
I have an idea. Maybe the next time we need to have a disagreement about something we should try to do it in the form of thoughtful letters. That way we can take a deep breath, count to ten, and give it our best shot. Let me know what you think. And good luck on your birthday party for Vicki. I think she will have a good time — especially if I'm not there glowering at her!
Jennifer is helping me transcribe the interviews I'm conducting with Paul Rosenfels' friends and students. I've enclosed one that you may find interesting reading.
I'm going to try to give you an idea of why I have taken the approach to Vicki that I have in as few words as possible. I'm tempted to write a whole chapter of an autobiography, but I don't think this is an appropriate time for that. Also I want this information directed specifically at you and not the public at large.
I don't hate Vicki. I only reserve anger and hatred for people who stand in my way in some sense. Vicki has chosen not to be in my life for something like 30 years now. It is far too late for regrets or what-if's. This is what she wanted and this is what she choose, and I'm content to live with that.
Do I dislike our parents? You bet I do. Our father was a very emotional man (feminine, in psychological terms) who denied those he loved any real warmth or closeness. When he took us for lunch to celebrate my graduation from high school he congratulated himself for having been such a great father. Since I had just had a very bad year psychologically — the details of which he had chosen to be utterly unaware of — any kind of celebration to me seemed perversely self-serving. I told him that all he had given me were material things and he exploded — as he often did when forced to face unflattering truths. I think that was the very last time I ever tried to talk to the man.
No, there was a moment maybe 5 years afterwards, when I was settled in the East Village and wanted to see if he could manage to be friends with me. We had one dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Greenwich Village and he told me a lot of interesting anecdotes about the Left Wing newspaper he had tried to publish in Inwood in the 40's. The local right-wingers physically threatened him and he gave it up. After dinner, I suggested we see each other once in awhile and even put my hand on his arm in an affectionate way. The physical contact made him cringe and he looked away and said, "We'll see." Of course, he never called, and the next time I saw him was the day he died.
Our mother, on the other hand, is a very assertive person (masculine, in psychological terms), who never cared enough about anybody around her to use that assertiveness and power for good in the world. Rather than establish significant relationships and a meaningful life-agenda, she settled for extreme social conformity, anti-intellectuality, chronic purposeless entertainments, and a slowly deepening fight against the emptiness these indulgences would inevitably bring on.
I have never despised Vicki. She isn't evil. But she is vacuous, socially incompetent, unambitious, and utterly conventional in the way she reaches out to people. Neither of them paid any attention to giving their children any of the information or skills children need to cope with the world. Do you remember Frank blaming me for being beaten up by the neighborhood bullies? Do you remember the morning you woke up screaming because your bed was full of blood? I never forgave her for not preparing you for that.
Talking to Vicki about anything is a practical impossibility, as you know. She likes to repeat what people say, as if challenging them to affirm that they actually said it. If she doesn't understand you she says, "Oh, really!" as if she's thinking amazingly great thoughts triggered by your words. If she thinks she should have understood you she says, "I knew that!" Getting past her transparent facade has become more and more difficult for me over the years. I'd be perfectly willing to talk with her, but she never calls, and when she writes it's always on the occasion of your birthday or other numerological event, at which occasion she merely nags you for having neglected her.
This is a woman who married a somewhat unconventional man, and who gave birth to a very unconventional man. Yet she doesn't seem to "get it". She expects me to react conventionally at all times to her ridiculously conventional remarks, even hateful racist epithets. Many of her statements are literally impossible to interpret as having been framed by an adult mind. "Is it okay to drive home?" she asked me at Bobbie's house. Instead of saying, "Can you please say what you mean?", which would have provoked her, I just looked politely perplexed for a moment and turned to someone else. I'm not trying to start a fight with her or upset her, but I won't be drawn into inanities either.
I have worked since 1973 at a social center where people of all backgrounds sit down and say what's on their minds in a psychologically rich and evocative manner. I'm amazed at how articulate some of these people are, and at how much I still have to learn about candor. Listening to Vicki is an object lesson in every single way human communication can deteriorate into cowardly nonsense.
I told her when Frank died that now was her chance to strike out on her own and start living a real life. She didn't listen. A decade later I spent two hours on the phone with the woman who runs the Bronx division of the National Organization for Women on how to get Vicki out of her depression and into a more active, happy life. Every insight I came away from that discussion with was vehemently rejected by Vicki in a very memorable conversation we had one day driving over to your house. I told her the best way to cure self-pity was by caring about other people. "Find someone you can help in some way and give them a hand," I said. "Oh, I don't want to help people!" she snapped. "I want people to help me!!!"
Help her with what? What earth-shattering projects has she initiated? What grassroots movement is she spear-heading? Has she ever written a novel? Has she ever painted a picture? Has she ever felt the beauty of the human world around her? Does she really need help sitting home and feeling sorry for herself? I'd respect her more if she went to bars in the evening to flirt with men. I'd respect her more if she were a hooker, or even a drug addict — anybody who was trying to reach into life for a sense of self. What has she ever done but conform to society's dictates, believe in "God", and then sulk because neither society nor God repaid her for thus becoming her own worst enemy?
I have no respect for people who let life slip by without making the slightest attempt to grab the brass ring, and then resent everybody else who's in the game. As for being a relative of mine, I don't need to tell you that I believe in universal brotherhood, and that I am an internationalist as well. That we must go beyond atavistic "blood ties" and sectarianism is an insight as old as civilization:
| MAT 12:47 | Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee. |
| MAT 12:48 | But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? |
| MAT 12:49 | And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! |
| MAT 12:50 | For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother. |
Gail, I don't go out of my way to put obstacles in the path of people who need something from me. I haven't discouraged Vicki in any way from making honest attempts to communicate with me about things that are important to her. I honestly believe that she has no real use for a person like me and is just sulking because I didn't turn out more conventional. Hey, thanks mom!
Is it really "out of bounds" for me to resent the fact that she has never shown a drop of admiration for any of the unconventional and sometimes risky choices I have made in my life? Is it wrong of me to take note of the fact that when I sent her a 10 page handwritten letter explaining why I had chosen a homosexual lifestyle, that she refused to even acknowledge having received the letter — even though it was quite obvious to me that she had? I don't believe that children should be forced to be servants of their parents out-moded and sick values, and I think you should look again at what your loyalty to this woman may have done to your own mental health. I'll never forget the times you used to complain to me about not liking "grandma" to be around Danielle too much. "Every time Danielle goes over there," you said, "she comes back psychologically damaged."
I'm a mental health advocate and know how easily apparently stable personalities can become unglued. I try my best never to undermine anybody. I have done nothing to undermine Vicki except to defend my own integrity in the face of her bullshit. I can't, and I won't, be just anything she wants me to be. Does it ever occur to you to ask just what the hell kind of mother would even want that?
Oh, well, it's your turn. I'm sure I haven't covered all the bases, but I want this to be a conversation, not just an essay. So rather than trying to say too much, I'll wait to get the first exposition from you. I'll be glad to answer any questions you have about any and all aspects of my life. Judy's sister signs her letters, "I have no secrets. I tell no lies." Make that double for me!