KateF
Silver Member
Introductory Note;
The story of me tracking down my real father was beginning to creep into my weight loss diary. I've decided to start it in this section because it'll give me more freedom to write it properly. Also, the blog format should help me do something I'm trying to see if it works; that is, to intersperse the story of how I tracked him down fifteen years ago, with what it's like to relive that story now as the anniversaries and father issues crop back up. I tend to write alot of comedy- but as you can imagine, this probably won't always be funny! I hope it'll be readable though, and a good thing to be able to share it on this site and keep going with. Thanks to Mini especially for encouraging me to do that. It starts off sounding like fiction but is all true, and gets more normal as it goes along I think. Honest feedback v welcome, this is a bit of a writing experiment!
1.
I don't know how this conversation started but he's about to tell the story that will make me fall in love with him.
He was working as a clown years ago, he says. "Sinister" I say. "Can't imagine you as a cheerful clown". He agrees. They can be a bit marmite can clowns, people either love them or hate them. He went to clown school and everything he adds, and we both laugh. Yes, clown school. You get a diploma in juggling and unicycling and- not riding bikes with square wheels though. Anyway, he was working with his mate at this children's party. Facepainting and juggling and stuff. One kid comes up to him for his face painting and he asks his name. The boy says his first name and his surname, like you do when you're twelve and you'll tell a grown up who asks one question everything about you, even a grown up who's got a white face and huge painted-on red smile.
And K realises that the boy is his son.
The son he'd not seen since his first wife said that she was marrying someone else and didn't want to confuse the lad because he was only two. The son who he'd send birthday and Christmas presents to every year for the first few years, even when they were returned unopened.
The boy's talking about his Dad and his Mum and his brothers and sisters and school. And K's painting his face, dipping his sponge in the water bowl in between and carefully smudging in the colours. Taking ages and ages, til his mate comes over, looking at him oddly, says there's a queue building up. "And I couldn't say anything to the boy could I? How could I?". K leaves the party as soon as he can, and after that, he says, he never put the clown costume or the face on again.
He sort of laughs, conscious of the weird irony of him being a literal example of the tears of the clown, but his eyes are sad. Mine have filled up and we hold each other's gaze for a second. "It's odd..." I say, my voice feeling too matter of fact, breaking into the charged atmosphere of the story; "I seem to always be drawn into conversations with sons who've lost fathers but you're the first father I've spoken to who's lost a son". Apart from my own, I add in my head. I wonder whether to tell him my story, or whether it would sound too "me too". All night we've seemed to echo each other's thoughts. At the party earlier, someone watching us from across the room had said "I should take a photo of you two. Your gestures, how you're talking, you're identical". We'd both frozen our hands midair and laughed.
We're sat in the living room of my shared house now with it's tatty light green three piece suite, deflated balloons from some previous party still laying around the fireplace and no windows thanks to the bad design decision of a stingy landlord.
K's still wearing his grey overcoat, because the heating's off as it's five on a February morning. I've put a black jumper on over my glittery gig t shirt, and almost guiltily brushed my teeth when I went upstairs. I hope he can't smell the mint.
"I found out the man I thought was my Dad wasn't when I was sixteen" I say. "And I tracked down the man who was just before he died when I was seventeen".
K registers this but, I still don't know what I'll eventually find out about him. He's not very good at drawing other people out, or hearing their stories. And I still needed to be asked for my story then, instead of realising I had a right to tell it.
But in that room, that morning, his stories make me recognise someone who could understand the feelings threaded through my own. And that means that soon when we walk on the windy beach while it's still dark and he takes my hands in his as we watch the avalanche crested waves, I'll fall a bit deeper. When we're thawing out in the lounge room of the posh hotel on the front and I slide a numb hand down the chasm between settee cushions for warmth, and he slides one of his down after mine and clasps it, I'll fall even deeper.
I won't even realise yet that handholding is so charged for me because one of the only times I felt safe with my Stepfather was when he'd take my hand while we walked. And that taking my hand across a pub table while I told the story of how I found him was the first time my real father touched me, and was the way he told me he was accepting me. Accepting my story.
Later I'll get totally caught up in K and his story, without realising it's because I want to hear his in the way that I need mine to be heard.
I'll carry on forgetting that mine remains untold too, because in a way, the day that I discovered my parents marriage certificate had thrown not only my right to speak into question, but also, my right to exist...
The story of me tracking down my real father was beginning to creep into my weight loss diary. I've decided to start it in this section because it'll give me more freedom to write it properly. Also, the blog format should help me do something I'm trying to see if it works; that is, to intersperse the story of how I tracked him down fifteen years ago, with what it's like to relive that story now as the anniversaries and father issues crop back up. I tend to write alot of comedy- but as you can imagine, this probably won't always be funny! I hope it'll be readable though, and a good thing to be able to share it on this site and keep going with. Thanks to Mini especially for encouraging me to do that. It starts off sounding like fiction but is all true, and gets more normal as it goes along I think. Honest feedback v welcome, this is a bit of a writing experiment!
1.
I don't know how this conversation started but he's about to tell the story that will make me fall in love with him.
He was working as a clown years ago, he says. "Sinister" I say. "Can't imagine you as a cheerful clown". He agrees. They can be a bit marmite can clowns, people either love them or hate them. He went to clown school and everything he adds, and we both laugh. Yes, clown school. You get a diploma in juggling and unicycling and- not riding bikes with square wheels though. Anyway, he was working with his mate at this children's party. Facepainting and juggling and stuff. One kid comes up to him for his face painting and he asks his name. The boy says his first name and his surname, like you do when you're twelve and you'll tell a grown up who asks one question everything about you, even a grown up who's got a white face and huge painted-on red smile.
And K realises that the boy is his son.
The son he'd not seen since his first wife said that she was marrying someone else and didn't want to confuse the lad because he was only two. The son who he'd send birthday and Christmas presents to every year for the first few years, even when they were returned unopened.
The boy's talking about his Dad and his Mum and his brothers and sisters and school. And K's painting his face, dipping his sponge in the water bowl in between and carefully smudging in the colours. Taking ages and ages, til his mate comes over, looking at him oddly, says there's a queue building up. "And I couldn't say anything to the boy could I? How could I?". K leaves the party as soon as he can, and after that, he says, he never put the clown costume or the face on again.
He sort of laughs, conscious of the weird irony of him being a literal example of the tears of the clown, but his eyes are sad. Mine have filled up and we hold each other's gaze for a second. "It's odd..." I say, my voice feeling too matter of fact, breaking into the charged atmosphere of the story; "I seem to always be drawn into conversations with sons who've lost fathers but you're the first father I've spoken to who's lost a son". Apart from my own, I add in my head. I wonder whether to tell him my story, or whether it would sound too "me too". All night we've seemed to echo each other's thoughts. At the party earlier, someone watching us from across the room had said "I should take a photo of you two. Your gestures, how you're talking, you're identical". We'd both frozen our hands midair and laughed.
We're sat in the living room of my shared house now with it's tatty light green three piece suite, deflated balloons from some previous party still laying around the fireplace and no windows thanks to the bad design decision of a stingy landlord.
K's still wearing his grey overcoat, because the heating's off as it's five on a February morning. I've put a black jumper on over my glittery gig t shirt, and almost guiltily brushed my teeth when I went upstairs. I hope he can't smell the mint.
"I found out the man I thought was my Dad wasn't when I was sixteen" I say. "And I tracked down the man who was just before he died when I was seventeen".
K registers this but, I still don't know what I'll eventually find out about him. He's not very good at drawing other people out, or hearing their stories. And I still needed to be asked for my story then, instead of realising I had a right to tell it.
But in that room, that morning, his stories make me recognise someone who could understand the feelings threaded through my own. And that means that soon when we walk on the windy beach while it's still dark and he takes my hands in his as we watch the avalanche crested waves, I'll fall a bit deeper. When we're thawing out in the lounge room of the posh hotel on the front and I slide a numb hand down the chasm between settee cushions for warmth, and he slides one of his down after mine and clasps it, I'll fall even deeper.
I won't even realise yet that handholding is so charged for me because one of the only times I felt safe with my Stepfather was when he'd take my hand while we walked. And that taking my hand across a pub table while I told the story of how I found him was the first time my real father touched me, and was the way he told me he was accepting me. Accepting my story.
Later I'll get totally caught up in K and his story, without realising it's because I want to hear his in the way that I need mine to be heard.
I'll carry on forgetting that mine remains untold too, because in a way, the day that I discovered my parents marriage certificate had thrown not only my right to speak into question, but also, my right to exist...
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