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A nice bond if you can get it

photography by me, of my pops, when he was young 90 something year old.

I got my love of reading from my playwright pops, who read to me since I was a wee thing.

I learned to read early on, also, I’m guessing, partly, thanks to him. He’s 100 years old now and has lost much of his eyesight from macular degeneration.

He can no longer read or write, his two favorite things.

We weren’t super close when I was growing up, maybe because my soulparent was my ema from the get-go.

It was kinda obvious to all, including Pops. My mom and I were free spirits who communicated effortlessly like identical twins with a secret language. If gaining your child’s full attention was a competition, she won.

But I always knew my dad was a good man and a good father who loved me, and I loved him. The real closeness didn’t happen until recently.

Years after Ema passed away, Pops had a mini-stroke that presented itself as sudden onset dementia, where he spent his days arguing with a man who didn’t exist. It got real crazy for a while there. Peter and I had to find a way to deal with his disturbing hallucinations, and the medication made everything much, much worse. Finally, I convinced the doctors to prescribe something else, and Pops slowly returned to us after some time. We moved him into assisted living a few minutes from us.

When things go topsy-turvy in my life, I create art. I mean, I create anyway, but in troubling times, I do it as a way of healing. It works for me.

So I wrote, made a film, drew and painted…

• You can watch the award-winning short documentary I made about this time here.

• See my book of poetry and drawings here.

• (I also wrote a play inspired by this time that had a reading with The Dramatist Guild. I hope to get it produced someday.)

Now,

Peter and I see Dad daily. The place where he lives has a twice-a-month writing class, led by the talented Loren Kantor. We attend the class where we read Dad’s plays with a group of writer residents in their 80s and 90s, including Sybil, the Broadway actress; Sandy, the still practicing Psychologist; and Joe from Jersey, who wears a different comedy shirt each time. Today was “I’m not dead yet.” And my dear friend, the beautiful, funny, 90-year-old Brit, Caroline. She wrote something today about her memory from her childhood in England when Winston Churchill died. I hope she lets me share it here soon. (‘ello, Caroline, luv!) :)

Caroline drew this dress and I typed this over the page. It was our first collaboration!

When I was around twelve,

my dad started giving me his first drafts to read. I’d be the only one he’d let see it. And he wanted notes. So, I gave him notes. This began an understanding between us.

We are writers.

Recently, I picked up the play “Collected Stories,” one of our favorites, a gift from my dad many years ago.

The play is about a young writer, Lisa, who begins a mentor/mentee friendship with the older, more successful Ruth. Lisa becomes Ruth’s assistant and over several years, professionally outshines Ruth. Lisa does this by writing about something that happened in Ruth’s life.

Which makes ya think, can we do that? Can we tell another person’s story? Or are all stories up for grabs?

Who does a story belong to? The experiencer or the teller? Both? Neither? Whomever tells it first?

Photo by the author

If you have a story to tell, tell it. Zero in on it and don’t flinch, just do it.

-Donald Margulies, Collected Stories

I took the play over to my hammock to begin reading and remembered how I always wanted to act in a production of it.

Then it occurred to me that when I first read the play, I would have been the right age to play Lisa, the young student. Now, I’m almost old enough to play Ruth.

Ah, life. The way it keeps moving forward like that. Such a trip.

Photo by Peter Arpesella

Then I started thinking…

this is a play given to me by my playwright father, to his writer daughter, about two writers, and it’s called Collected Stories, and the whole thing just felt so very… writerly.

I don’t know how much I appreciated this common ground I shared with my dad when I was younger. I knew it, but did I appreciate it?

Now, this writer bond feels powerful, unbreakable, and extraordinary.

The other day Pops said, “Well, I know you always loved your Ema best.”

I said, “Yeah, but look at us now.”

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This story was first published in Writers’ Blokke on Medium.