Notes On Father’s Day
ICE T @ Hip Hop Odyssey Festival Awards – M. Ulto
Last night, I went to the Hip Hip Odyssey Awards with my collaborators on “The Art of Love & Struggle” – Director Jessica Habie, Performer/Writer Bobbi Williams and Composer Spiritchild.
It was where Hip Hop lives – the real culture, not the parody of it in mainstream media. This was a community event, celebrating those who came before, those who step up now and those who will take the torch of Hip Hop into the future. From celebrating Cold Crush Crew to Lady Pink, it was a lesson in the roots of the culture, the struggle to make art viable, and a reminder that message is still very powerful.
Listening to Ice T accept his award, as an outstanding Hip Hop Actor, reminded me of a few things, shifting my perspective and hearing the echo of struggle in his speech. Here was a man orphaned at 11, left to fend for himself on the streets. As he put it, if you had a sister, a cousin, a distant relative, you had an advantage over him. He hustled, he strove, he adapted when opportunities came to him, and he followed one voice – his own. He reminded me that the hustle is not about the product but the process – anything can be accomplished, it’s the mastering of methods that’s the first step.
He became a man of substance, regard and message.
After midnight, the mentions of Father’s Day increased. A round of applause was given for the men who do stay in the community, who do raise their own, taking care of the future.
Later, I walked along the promenade – a park on a cliff overlooking the city in Weehawken. I thought about my own father – who he could possibly be, where he was now, if he was alive or dead, if he knew about me. My mother refused to be honest with me about my father, shutting down, shifting the vague variations with vicious randomness. Her lies and half truths were like a maze, while she hid her story in shades of shame, rage and frustration.
He was dead, he was alive, he was one of three possible men, he was from Brooklyn, he was from upstate California, he was foreign, he had red hair, he had black hair, he drove a motorcycle, he crashed a motorcycle and died, his name was Dougie, he didn’t tell me his name, he was Latino, he was Jewish, he was Irish, he was Italian, he was nothing, he was short, he was tall, he was funny, I didn’t know him at all, he got a lot of women pregnant, he knew, he didn’t know. That’s the litany I sort through sometimes, puzzling for hours as to what that all means, what is my mother hiding, was it protection, selfishness, shame, or irresponsibility that kept me from knowing my father?
Eidetic memory prevents me from dropping a single snippet of conversation, any reference a clue. I was Nancy Drew, listening around corners, looking through papers, hoping to find one single scrap of evidence. I poured over photo albums like Quincy, my TV dream dad, looking for a face I didn’t know. At my mother’s knee when she rambled after a few drinks, half to herself, half to me, I would wait patiently for ways to turn the conversation to her life in California. Painfully minute inches of ground taken year after year. Father’s Day was a time for our yearly summit, when she would have to answer some questions. By the time I was 15, I realized I was never going to get the real story.
I know this is the entire extent of knowing who my father is. I don’t have a composite, a frame work. I know he is male. I know they conceived me one night in August or September of 1969, in the Los Angeles area. Beyond that, zip. I don’t know if he hurt my mother deeply or never knew her at all. I don’t know if I was conceived in passion or indifference or love. I don’t know if my father rejected my mother or me. I don’t know if he’s great or terrible or anything in between. I don’t know if he even knows I exist. I’m someone’s hidden tangent.
So as a little girl…I imagined him in so many ways. I’ve dreamed on him from tyrant to prince, magician to murderer. My father scaled mountains, built empires and healed the incurable. As a pirate, he was cruel and mean and would gut me if he knew of me, or make me his Pirate Princess. He was a writer, brilliant and witty, and one day we’d scribble on pads side by side. Dad was a painter, tortured and crazy, loving and weird, and he’d teach me how to grind pigments. He was a suit, maybe a lawyer, or a producer, or a studio head. He was cold and calculating, he’d push me and make me work hard, generating success after success with stoic words of approval. He was a doctor, a scientist, an engineer, and he’d make me see math in new ways, and dream in formulas and codes. He was a master thief, who’d teach me the trade and take me on heists.
Most of all, he was loving, caring, protective, nurturing, and would have kicked anyone’s ass if they hurt me.
But dad is a yeti. Some hairy ghost that flits in and out of focus, with no shape or detail. Half my genes are a mystery. Half of my family exists purely in theory to me.
I stopped looking years ago. I had been searching obsessively, looking through 1969 Los Angeles phone books, referencing a phone number I had that might be one of the possible father’s numbers. I had a cousin drive by the address of the number. I paid search services, I contacted gene researchers for experimental paternity tests, and I dug deep into any possible resource that might tell me that one thing to lead me to him.
I found nothing.
Nothing at first seemed hollow and lonely. Knowing nothing then became a tsunami of potentialities, options, tangents, overwhelming my mind, flooding my heart. Finally, the absence of facts became a blessing, in some ways. While I might have missed out on a wonderful father, I also might have just dodged the bullet of having another abusive parent.
I am not crushed by the lack of a father. It was sad, then unfair, then I understood that I’m just like many other children. It was not unique, romantic, tragic or strange. It was the way of things, how the world works sometimes, imperfect and random.
Dad is a yeti, and I’m his hidden tangent. We are myths in each other’s lives, and I love him in absentia. Our intersection was long ago – brief, brilliant and life giving. For that, I thank my father, for mi vida.
Chaos is brilliant sometimes.
Peace and much love,
Melissa
