Sempervivum: On Father's Day

As the story goes, when my father was born, his grandmother wanted him to be named Stephen after her father.  Though he'd already been named Jesse, he was called Steve or Stevie by everyone growing up.  I know a childhood friend by whether they call him Steve or Jesse.  I am called Stephanie after his secret name, a tiny, little seed planted at his roots in an alternative, dream landscape.  He is a hearty and strong succulent perennial, only an occasional flower, low growing, sometimes called the liveforever or sempervivum.  I am the flower.

We are so alike, my father and I.  There is depth, order, control.  We are protective, strong, and quick to anger.  I love him.  I always have.  I respect the man he became and all that he has accomplished in this life.  I know that if I am in danger he will come.  If I am hurt he will come.  If I need he will give.  But in order to protect himself from the slings and arrows, knives in the back and punches to the gut, he has had to encase his heart in thorns and booby traps.

I woke up this morning at 5:30.  That's too early for me.  Though I tried to go back to sleep, as soon as my eyes are opened I find that nearly impossible.  My racing mind started tracing lines to all the people I know who were probably awake.  Many living abroad where the day was already in full swing, friends on the West Coast who may be having a bout of insomnia or a late night of excess, and my dad.  Now that he is in his seventies, 5:30 is pretty early for him too, but the early mornings are a space where I always see my father.  Walking the house in quiet, breathing in life in a space where no people means no mask, rising with the sun as he did as a boy when he had work to do.  You can take the boy out of the country, but not the country out of the boy.  My dad is still a country boy.

A country boy whose parents told him and his four siblings how to survive, and gave them everything they had, which was not much materially but was full to bursting with love, guidance, and support.  They told those beautiful, black children how to get out of the poverty they'd been born into and to keep marching forward despite the expectation of the America that they were born into, that they were 'less than.'  Education, character, drive, ambition, and familial love and support would help each lift the others.  Racism and segregation shaped my father's sense of himself and no matter his successes, he has remained haunted.  I can only imagine how he endured the assaults on his character, his intelligence, and his basic rights.  Like me, he is sensitive, easily wounded, and anxious.  Like me, he hides and protects his heart.  Unlike me, he has not found too many to share it with.  And that includes me.

The love was tough, survivalist.  It wasn't precious or adorable.  It wasn't indulgent or demonstrative.  There were few hugs and smothers of kisses and compliments and praise.  There were high expectations.  When one fears failure, when failure in a system set up for you to fail means life or death, there is little time for pleasantries.  The hurt of his youth nourished ours and our blooms were sprinkled with his pain.  But mine is a fragile bloom.  My roots are strong, but the flower is so desperate for the light, desperate for the watering and the nutrients, seeking warmth from real and artificial light sources.  I cannot always tell the difference.  

My father is the first man for whom I was ever too much.  I could tell by the way he looked at me since the beginning of time and shook his head.  I wasn't easy because I'm not.  I'm all of the things one has to work on, work towards.  Work.  I was compared to other girls who achieved better and far more than I.  Girls who were poised and demure and knew the code and followed it.  They were good girls.  They weren't wild and didn't talk back or fight or question or practice magic.  They were practical and organized and good.  There is a part of me that is like that too.  Remnants of my attempts to please.

My father is the first man whose love I could feel dangling in front of me but could never reach.  My father loves me, but it sparks like an electrical short and cannot sustain itself long enough to provide light.  I chase the falling embers, hope it will help me find my way through the tunnel but I I do a lot of feeling around in the dark.

My father is the first man I tried to impress by dancing all around him, literally dancing all around him, who was distracted and saw only a flash and felt a slight breeze from all my efforts, and wondered to himself, 'What was that?' as I whirled past.  I still don't think he has ever seen me.

But I am not done with him.  I am nothing if not persistent.  I am the flower.  And I continue to bloom in his face.  I remind him that without our roots neither of us would thrive.  That it does no good for the succulent to resist its flower.  The plants are so gorgeous, have always been some of my favorites, whether they have a bloom or not.  But the blossom is such a sweet surprise sometimes taking years to finally bloom.  It is more.  It is the hand to God, the reaching, the longing, the magic expressed.  It is working through the fear and the shame of wanting and needing to be loved.  It just is.  And we both need it, the light and the love.

As the story goes, I was born so prematurely that I was so tiny you could hold me in one hand.  There was a fear that I might not survive, that the cold winter and early arrival might be too much for my tiny body.  But my roots dug in deep and I called on everything I knew.  The sempervivum, I was going to live and he knew it.  So he gave me his name, the one he should have had.  I fulfilled the promise of this family name and we are tied.  Liveforever.

Happy Father's Day to my dad.


(c) Copyright 2016.  Repatriated Mama:  Back to the Suburban Grind.

Father's Day

I have to confess that no matter how hard I've tried to distance myself from some of my dad's behavior, there is no denying it.  My mom is as cool as a cucumber, but my dad, all moist-eyed and sensitive, all curious and excitable, all passion and rage and angst and joy, is me.  A girlfriend of mine has told me repeatedly to cherish the time with my parents, to celebrate and relish who we are to each other while we can as both of her parents are no longer living.  I have listened, though often not heard her because I am all moist-eyed and sensitive, all passion and rage and angst and joy.  I am, in so many ways, the Mini to his Me. 

He and my mother visited this Father's Day, stayed in our home for the first time (not including Barbados which was not actually ever our home), spent real adult time, played with the girls, went on our errands, meandered through our town, and enjoyed ourselves together.  We visited with family friends and I felt adult and grown and proud to be with them.  I am not sure if it is my midlife crisis which looks more like actualization than crushing breakdown, my recent interest in meditation and reiki, my return to dance, or the shifting of our collective consciousness, but I have found acceptance of who and what I am and therefore in who and what everyone around me is.  I have found the desperate need to hold on to past hurts and wounds to be exhausting and have forgiven them, though more than likely not forgotten them. (I am, after all, a Penn.)

I have spent much of my life recognizing my role as a member of my family and feeling that I was failing miserably.  No matter how this thinking came about, I felt overwhelming pressure at being "the daughter of/big sister of/first grandchild of."  The burden of carrying on the line of two incredible families, the credits, achievements, and successes of which are extraordinary by any standard, but given that they were done by those poor and black, largely undereducated, during the dark days of our country's history, made them mythic, epic, heroic.  I felt like a straight up fraud.  Middle class, indulged, allowed my mood swings and artistic tendencies.  I didn't have to give up my dreams, whatever they were, in order to put food on the table or a roof over my head.  The fight over outright racist and sexist policy was fought on their backs while they were striving for the promised American dream.  I had a kind of survivor's guilt because I did not struggle to achieve what was seemingly handed to me, because the racism, sexism, and white privilege that I faced was more subtle, because I had been walked to third base by a family that persevered in getting into the stadium and onto the field.  Though I know now that I did not need to apologize for myself, I was then so sorry and ashamed.

Under the weight of that, my father and I would look at each other, mirror to reflection, reflection to mirror and declare, under our breaths, "What?"  There was so much expectation, so much want, so much need and no real way to express it.  So there was moist-eyed, sensitive, curious, and excitable passion, rage, angst, and joy.  I would cower in his presence, hold my breath, not feel safe expressing myself as I did when "away from home."  I was miserable to be around, was either pulled in and tense or exploded when provoked(like someone I know), hated family get-togethers because I did not feel like I could be myself, because what I reflected back to Mr. Penn was too much for him to see.  It might even still be. 

But there are new facets to this diamond.  The glittering, fascinating shine of my children.  And in my children and how they are being raised and how they behave and love and give, I believe that my dad and I can share something, love something together.  We can see that part of each other that loves, that cares, that is all moist-eyed and longing.  Like two shy, nervous baby birds we just might dare to fly, helping each other do so but also concentrating on our own flight.  As I see him soar, I feel joy.  He might not tell me, but he feels the same for me.  We have this story to tell, this epic tale in which to contribute.  Like that game where one person starts the story and another picks it up where he leaves off and then another picks up and so on and so forth until an incredible tale is told, we are living and weaving our lives. 

We are much alike, but not entirely the same.  My father wanted to be a journalist but that gig did not pay well enough for a young man who had the obligation to help put his younger siblings through school as his older siblings had done for him.  He has something to say but often chooses his words carefully, sparingly, and certainly does not express his feelings or wear his heart on his sleeve.  I, on the other hand, did not have that financial responsibility, did not make a choice based on monetary need, cry, laugh, love, freak, and respond to every stimulus, and even when I might keep my mouth shut, cannot do so!  I want to say something; I have to, come what may.  I respect his choices, his sacrifices, and know that he loves us.  I hope, hope, hope that he feels the same for me because this Father's Day, I allowed myself to love him like I did as a girl.  With wonder, curiosity, awe, and the first twinkling of autonomy that a toddler shows when she realizes that she and her parents are not indeed the same entity.  It was truly a great day to celebrate having and being a father.



(c) Copyright 2013.  Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.