Hello blog, has it been so long? I am sitting in the studio, my recorder to my left, the lyrics to "The Man I Love" to my right, surrounded by Billie singing the song over and over again. Maybe I can learn to sing by osmosis? Music is a seemingly impossible task. I asked Lorenzo help me transcribe a simple English Folk melody to the recorder for my school project and was in tears in less than three minutes. It is so simple for him: he can SEE the shape of the melody, where as two out of four times I can't figure out if I'm going up or down, or starting in the same place as the last time, for that matter. Hopeless, I am thinking, and yet doing it. SAME WITH YOU, DEAR BLOG, no? And funny that the very thought of how hopeless it all is is what sent me to the keyboard. A little while ago it occurred to me that maybe what I need to do is immerse myself in a music program that will teach me once and for all to master music. But why not do it for dance? It's not as if I've ever mastered dance, certainly certainly not. I am a master of nothing, so maybe I can just relax and stop giving myself an ulcer over the fact that I am not masterful. Lorenzo is, and we are different. Maybe I'm just not the type to be a master of something, maybe in fact I would be a much happier person if I could take more pleasure at how adequate I am at so many things and not worry about not being the greatest at anything.
So reasonable! And yet when Lorenzo enters as I'm typing the last sentence I am knee deep in despair. Or perhaps I am performing desperation: if I can't convince myself that it's hopeless, maybe I can convince him? I'm not even a very good performer: he has me laughing in no time. But lesson learned: kisses and affectionate strokes go much farther towards calming me down than reason.
And now I am upstairs and already a third of the way through the mug of grain coffee I made myself. The camera is connected to the computer, this blog having inspired me to transcribe the video footage from our last gig, and I'm ready to move on to the next project. But I have been thinking that since I spent all that time writing my dad the email I won't be sending him, I should at least post it here. So there is reason to rejoice in the futility of this blog... being at peace that (almost?) nobody reads this, I can print what I like.
Here it is then, a last letter to my father:
Dear David,
I have lingered and postponed writing you this email because I have been at a loss as to how to respond. I was very hurt on discovering that you were in Boston for the holiday and that you neither told me that you would be visiting, nor invited me to join you and your family - a family which for too long now I have continued to call my family, though most of them have treated me as nothing of the sort for over twenty years. I cannot pretend that I am not hurt, and yet in my whole life I have not yet had the experience of you acknowledging that you have ever hurt me.
This leaves me with a horrible dilemma! Because in order to maintain a relationship with you or most other members of your family I must pretend like everything is just fine and in doing so agree to a consensual reality that denies the validity of my feelings, sensations, and intellect - that, in other words, denies my very humanity! Or, I can try to express myself as a thinking, feeling human being and tell you that I am hurt and offended by your actions, with the inevitable consequence of being marked as unstable, perhaps insane, and certainly unworthy. The only way I can walk away from this situation with my heart and soul in tact is to say that it is surely you who is insane, unstable and probably unworthy of my continued attention and energies.
Believe me, it's not my first choice. As you know, I have made great efforts over the years to come to terms with you and to slowly reconstruct a relationship. In fact it is my increased effort in these past months that have led me to realize once and for all that I cannot allow myself to be in a relationship with you in which I must agree to be hurt without any acknowledgment of an offense ever having been made (am I supposed to believe that I deserve it?) and in which I must further hurt myself by subjecting myself to toxic repression and denial. I don't care to be hurt by you any longer, David - I was genuinely surprised at how hurt I felt when I heard about your visit and realized that I must find a way to confront the situation and put a stop to it, even if it means simply removing myself from the line of fire and relieving myself of the need to treat you as a father, which you have not been to me for almost fifteen years.
Even so, I am constantly attempting to be sympathetic to your cause - perhaps acknowledging your capacity to deeply hurt your children would destroy the semblance of normality and prosperity that you have toiled so hard to create for yourself in the past fourteen years? I would challenge you to reflect on the actual extent to which you have hurt us, your children, emotionally, psychologically and at times, physically, but I am aware that such a reflection may drown you in a sorrow from which you will not know how to escape. Better that you don't go there. Your life is good now - you are wealthy, successful in your field, you have good health and a caring partner - what more could you possibly want? Because if it is a relationship with me that you desire, please know that you cannot have one without at least opening up an honest, open dialogue about the very real pain that is at the core of our relations.
Love,
Ophra
...Why won't I send it, you ask? Well, the answer of course is that it's hopeless. And I am starting to be able to take peace in that.
