Father's Day Remorse

Recently, a close friend asked me to tell him about my Dad. As I started to share a few of my memories, I found myself crying a cry that was deeper and harder than I would have expected. I thought I had dealt with all my "Dad" stuff, but apparently not. My friend went on to ask, "When is the last time you talked to your Dad?" I don't remember when I last spoke to him on the phone, but I will never forget the last time we saw each other.

During a warm month of 1986 when I was 19 years old, I was in the living room of our house on Elm Street in Spokane, Washington. By "our" house, I mean the home where my Mom, sister and I lived. My parents had been divorced for 13 years and Dad still lived in Moscow, Idaho, which is more than an hour-and-a-half drive from Spokane.

I don't remember what I was doing at the time, but I looked out of the big picture window in the living room and saw Dad drive up and park in front of the house. I thought, "What is he doing here?" It was vastly out of the ordinary for me to see him in Spokane and I don't have any other memories of him visiting the house on Elm Street.

When I saw his car, my heart sank. I didn't want to deal with him. I didn't want to see him or feel the way I felt when I saw him. But I didn't want to hurt him either, so I walked out to his car and put on a friendly face. He said, "Hey kid, how about spending some time with your good ole' Dad?" Outwardly, he was always jovial, but I always had the sense that he was really sad and lonely on the inside.

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time with him. He picked me up from school everyday and I slept at his house at least half of the time. Grandma (his mom) used to tell me how much Dad loved me and that I needed to be good to him and take care of him. But after I moved to Spokane, I saw him less—partly because of the distance, partly because I didn't want to see him. It hurt too much.

Dad was an alcoholic and drank whisky, even for breakfast. I watched his health decline over the years and when he came to visit me that day he was malnourished and emaciated. His cheeks were sunken, all of his bones showed through his skin, his belly was distended, and he could barely walk, every step was stiff and painful from the gout in his feet. I felt so sorry for him. I always knew he was killing himself with the alcohol and I wished he would just die...to put himself out of his misery.

That day in Spokane, he probably offered to take me out for a burger. I think we went for a short drive, but we might have just sat there in the car...the specifics are fuzzy. What I remember clearly is feeling sorry for him and embarrassed that he was my dad. Our house was one block from the school and I didn't want anyone to see me with him. But I also didn't want him to know that I felt that way. I made up an excuse that I had plans with a friend and had to go.

He handed me a potted pink hyacinth that smelled heavenly. I took the flower, walked into the house, and set it on the table by the front window where it would remind me of his visit in the weeks to come. As I watched him drive away, I felt so bad and so guilty, yet so relieved. I know he was disappointed not to spend more time with me. Here, he'd driven almost two hours one way just to see me and I blew him off. A couple of months later, he died while I was in Germany, and I didn't even go to his funeral. In writing this, I realize that I have felt like a terrible person ever since.

Over the years, a lot of people have told me in different ways that I'm terrific, but I haven't felt it. The words "loving" or "kind" never felt true about me. Maybe it's because I felt so awful for the years of making up excuses and avoiding my Dad and for not being there for him on that day in 1986.

Writing this down, though, has given me new perspective. When I step back, my adult eyes and my experience tell me that I was just a normal teenager wanting to fit in. And, of course, it's hard to watch someone self-destruct, especially a parent. But there is nothing that I could have done to save him and, in realizing that, I feel a weight lifted.

I wonder what other weights I might be carrying without noticing. As I uncover and unload them, I'll be sure to share them here. In the meantime, I'd love to hear about your fathers. And to my own, I say...

Dad, Wherever you are, I love you and Happy Father's Day!

What Do You Ache For?

The Invitation is a beautiful poem, which begins:

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

One night last December, I wrote a reply to the question "What do you ache for?" My boyfriend and I had just returned from seven months of traveling overseas. It had been a wonderful adventure, but with difficulties that left me thinking about our relationship. In that mindset, I wrote the following poem:

An R.S.V.P. to "The Invitation"

I want you to be my friend.
I don't want to control you, at least in theory.
But when I try, which I'm sure to,
Call me on it,
And still be my friend.

I want you to be my friend.
I don't want you to control me,
Or tell me how to be,
But you sometimes will,
And I'll still be your friend.

I want you to be my lover,
I ache for the fairy tale,
But know it doesn't exist.
I want to be adored,
Not like a Goddess,
but for the woman I am.

I want extravagant love,
A swirling vortex of rapture,
With deep respect,
And genuine affection,
And flare.
And grit.

I want more,
What you offer isn't enough.
I need to stop my pain,
Wanting what you don't have,
What you cannot give.

I'll never be enough for you,
Perhaps no one will be,
Or worse,
someone, some other
will be.

My love for you wants your happiness,
My jealousy only wants that
If I can give it.
But I can't.

I want a partner,
Totally into me,
Like I am into him.
With good friends,
Who we help sometimes,
And joint goals and projects,
To connect us,
And time to ourselves,
To rejuvenate.

I want time alone,
Not to be away from you,
But to be with me.

I want financial security,
To be taken care of,
Or to take care of,
Or to muddle through together,
Not yours or mine,
But what's needed.

I want fun sex,
To look forward to it,
With my body feeling good,
And my spirit alive,
With laughter,

I want you to enjoy sex,
With me,
With no reservations,
Sometimes experimenting,
Sometimes not.

I want stability,
Even if it's only an illusion,
To feel like we're forever,
Even if tomorrow is the end.

My heart longs for
Happily ever after,
Not kids,
Not a white picket fence,
But truly, madly, deeply.

I ache for a friend,
A partner,
A lover,
To fully share my life with,
No buts.

Do I look like a fool for love?
Hoping beyond hope
For something with you,
That likely will never be.
If that's a fool,
Then I look it,
And I certainly feel it.

I feel embarrassed,
Embarrassed within myself,
For wishing,
Wishing something to be,
That is simply not.
by Annie Beringer, Copyright © 2009

The Invitation asks what do you ache for, as in what do you desire. But desires, when unfulfilled, can become an ache that is painful, and my ache, my pain, was in wanting the relationship to be different than it was. Now, six months after writing An R.S.V.P. to "The Invitation," I have accepted the relationship for what it is—so good in so many ways...but not the fairy tale.

We have decided to just be friends, the closest of friends, and I am doing my best to keep what is good between us while letting go of the ache for something more. But I'm not sure it's possible to keep all of the good. Letting go of the pain means letting go of us as a couple, but a part of what made us a great couple came from that deep and special connection shared between lovers. I can't quantify it, but it's palpable.

When I dropped my "friend" off at the airport without a kiss goodbye, there was nothing wrong with that, but a little sliver of connection flaked off. That's just how it is. We are well on our way to the next incarnation of our relationship and I think it will be good in it's own way, it just won't be truly, madly, deeply.

What do I ache for, what do I desire now? I'll save that for a future column. What do you ache for? I'd love to hear about it. To read the entire poem, The Invitation, visit http://www.oriahmountaindreamer.com/. Whether this is your first or fiftieth time, I think you'll find it inspiring and thought provoking. Thank you, Oriah, for sharing your Invitation.

How Do I Hate Thee? Let Me Count the Ways...

I hate myself. Sometimes. But I know I'm not alone.

Last night, I cried myself to sleep at 3:30 a.m. after a discussion with my boyfriend. Like all relationships, some stuff works and other stuff doesn't. We were discussing the "doesn't."

This morning, I woke up at 8:30 and went to my Bikram yoga class. The 90-minute, 26-posture, 105-degree, and 40%-humidity class was just the challenge I needed to take my mind off of things. The session is designed as a moving meditation, a time to focus on yourself and your breath. The front and side walls are lined with mirrors, and an instructor verbally guides the class through each posture. Today, while my body felt good and did most postures better than usual, my mind and emotions were a turbulent sea. Thoughts of last night's conversation flashed and tears rolled down my cheeks, entirely unnoticeable in a room filled with people dripping sweat from head to toe. Then today's instructor, Izzy, told a short story.

"Look at yourself in the mirror," she reminded us. "It isn't always easy and it takes practice." She paused for a moment, then went on. "A woman in another class told me it took her two years to look into her own eyes in the mirror. Two years! And she was a beautiful woman. Gorgeous, in fact, with model good looks." Izzy paused again. "Remember, it's not easy for any of us. Just keep trying."

"It's not easy for any of us." That struck me. First off, I've been trying and failing to look at myself in that blasted yoga mirror for last three months. Looking into my own eyes is tough. A little easier is eyeing a particular body part. For example on "eagle pose" where you twist yourself like a pretzel, I notice the chubby part on the side of my torso just under my armpits. My yoga top digs in, so I get a good view of the fat there. I judge it. It's ugly. It needs to go.

Each posture twists differently and I see my body in every possible contortion. Once in awhile I think, "Hmmm, looking better" or maybe even, "Looking good." But more often than not, the thoughts and feelings are negative. They don't come to me as words though, like "I'm too fat." Rather, it's more of a feeling, like a ghost passing through on a brief gust of chilled air. But before the chill can turn into a shiver, the feeling is gone and does not register consciously. So, I don't think of myself as a person who hates herself. On the outside, I walk through life seemingly happy and smiling, but it turns out that on the inside, I'm haunted by the ghosts of self-hate. They pop in and out wordlessly, and constantly. I'm just so used to them, that I don't notice they are there.

"It's not easy for any of us." Even that gorgeous unnamed woman that Izzy spoke of struggles with self-hate. And if she's anything like me, her body is the least of her troubles. What of her soul? What of my soul? I would take the fattest, ugliest, pock-marked, crippled body for my soul to be free of it hating itself. To feel unadulterated joy, to love myself...not partly, but wholly. Not some of the time, but all of the time. My! Now, that would really be something!

No, it WILL be something. I intend to feel that way. I'm going to fight the hate by singing my praises to myself. And I'll start now with a few things that I think are really great about me:

* I exude good, friendly energy that makes me fun and easy to be around.
* I make fabulous tarter sauce.
* I am open to new ideas and ways of thinking (this one will be important in my current quest to shoo out the ghosts).
* I help my friends and family willingly and with joy.
* I have a cute butt.

While writing the list, I felt a feeling wash over me. One of those pesky ghosts. In words, it's something like "How silly. How remedial. I did this stuff 10 years ago. Why am I still working on the issue of self-hate? Who wants to read this drivel..." But you know what (I say to myself and to my ghosts)? Remedial or not, if it gets me to my goal, then good for me.

As for today's tears, I see now that they too were caused by the ghosts. And I feel good knowing I have it in me to be my own Ghostbuster and make myself happy. Here's to no more tears...someday.

Flying Toilets

Interesting toilets fascinate me. So much so that when I travel, I take my camera along to the bathroom just in case there's a noteworthy commode to document. Stand-out toilets have ranged from posh to plain, prodigious to pee-wee, and from pristine to downright health hazards.

An example on the posh side is the ladies room at the Columbia Tower Club ("Seattle's premier private business and fine dining club") located at the top of the Bank of America Tower, Seattle's tallest building. The women's restroom is actually a set of toilet suites, each with it's own door leading to a private toilet, sink, and floor-to-ceiling windows offering sweeping views of Mt. Rainier and the Puget Sound. Seriously, these are the best seats in the house—think Queen sitting on her throne, and you've got the picture.

On the flip side, after driving a couple hours through the tundra from Nome, Alaska to the small town of Teller (pop. 278), I felt the urge...urgently. There was only one store in town that doubled as the post office, and I probably could have found the sheriff there too if I had asked, but I was on a mission. The store keeper simply pointed to the back room. There I found a bucket. Only a bucket.

I trace my interest in toilets to my grandparent's farm in rural Idaho. My Grandma was very nostalgic and liked things the way they used to be in the "good old days." Every so often when nature called, she would make me leave modern plumbing behind and and march me out the front door, through the squeaky gate, down the railroad-tie steps, and past the chicken coupe to the privy. That's an old-fashioned name for an outhouse. It was old, dark, and filled with cobwebs, but it was the same one she used as a girl and by golly, if it was good enough for her, well, then...you get the picture.

A decade later, I found myself living in Germany as an exchange student in an adorable little house with the nicest family and the oddest toilet I'd ever seen in my not-well-traveled life. There was a raised platform where the water should have been and anything that landed on it stayed there until you flushed. The trouble was, I couldn't figure out how to do that. Every toilet I'd ever seen had a handle.

Now that I'm older and wiser, I know that to flush toilets I must look for levers, pull-chains, buttons, motion sensor pads, knobs, remote controls, and even must lock the bathroom door.


Bathroom facilities are as varied as the people who use them...and those who design them. I always wonder who decided on this style of toilet? How did they choose the floor tile? Why did they decide to spring for both linens and paper towels, but not a blow dryer? What influenced their choice of wall colors? And for Pete's sake, who chose this terrible artwork!?


Some of my more thought provoking lavatory experiences...

* A restroom that is actually carved out of the stone in the side of a mountain, high up in the Alps. (I have no idea how they ran the plumbing up there.)
* Japanese toilets with full accessory packages including a full bum wash, you pick your water temperature and pressure. (Warm is very nice.)
* Urinals in a Frankfurt men's room shaped like a big set of Rolling Stones lips. (Now, that's Satisfaction!)
* And, then there's always a tree.


While some bathrooms took a designer hundreds of hours to detail, and others are just utility rooms inserted to meet building codes, there is yet another toilet in a category of its own--the flying toilet. With my lifelong interest in the subject, my ears perked up when I heard a story this week on public radio about the flying toilets in Nairobi, Kenya. At first blush, the name conjures images of cartoon toilets with wings, but the reality is far more grim. Wikipedia says, "A flying toilet is a facetious name for the use of plastic bags for defecation, which are then thrown into ditches, on the roadside, or simply as far away as possible."

Far away isn't far enough. The story went on to explain that the streets and rooftops in the Nairobi slums are covered in these bags of waste. People get hit with them as they are blindly tossed, and children run and play barefoot in the filth. It's sad and shocking, and a good reminder to me to appreciate how good I have it, even if it's sometimes just a bucket.


(To hear the NPR story on Flying Toilets, visit http://www.worldvisionreport.org/Stories/Week-of-May-29-2010/Flying-Toilets)