family

I've developed a new nightly routine that I'm finding very satisfying. I make sure the kettle is filled with enough water for coffee. I measure out my oats and currants, I fill the pot with enough water to cook them. I wash the dishes so that when I come down in the morning the counters are cleared and pleasing.

You wouldn't know this from looking at my house now, but when I was a kid I used to get in so. much. trouble. for being messy. Everything in my room was everywhere, all the time.

My dad, who was an angry man and a yeller, would go on rampages every once in a while. Why was everything always on the floor? It was his house, why did we always make everything a mess? Why couldn't we put anything away?

The pattern went like this:
- Dad would ask us to clean our rooms before he got home. Not nicely.
- I would do other stuff, typically watching TV and reading.
- Mom would say "Your father will be home soon, have you cleaned your room?"
- I would run to my room and shove everything either under the bed, or in the closet, or both.

It's not like there was one time where he forgot to check the bed or the closet, so I don't know why it took me so long to figure out that wasn't going to work.

I'm not entirely sure when that changed.

My bachelor apartment in Toronto had a lot to do with it. That's when I started making my bed every day, because it depressed me and stressed me out to walk into a space where everything was all over the place and all out of sorts.

Oh.

It wasn't the apartment, was it. It was because I moved into that apartment to heal, when my depression and anxiety were at their peak. I made my bed, I folded everything, I lined up all my canned food. Neat neat neat, this here, this here. Some misguided intuition that if I could keep the outside in order, maybe things might be okay.

I wonder how much of that is inherited and how much of that I learned?

My dad called me this morning. It's a rare occurrence.

I generally talk to my dad on the phone a few times a year. My birthday, his birthday, father's day. Some years, one or the other has left a message and the other has not called back. Some years there might be an extra call or two if some family event is going on. The past year we've upped that to about bi-monthly chats.

He got his father's day gift today, a book that Milan had written about, that I thought would be right up Dad's alley. My father builds race car engines, so deals with physics on a daily basis. He also likes movies. And spending time in the bathroom. So really, this book seemed pretty perfect.

After the thanks and the how's tricks were out of the way, he said "The past couple of weeks have been pretty exhausting." I missed the catch in his voice at first. Racing season started up not long ago, and he's getting older, has been saying with more frequency that racing is a young man's game.

"You know the driver of our car, [redacted]?"

I made a small noise in agreement. Never met the guy, heard a lot about him. He threw my Dad's 60th birthday party, because we are ungrateful children. Over the past several summers, my father has spent nearly every weekend with him, driving all around Southern Ontario and Upstate New York. That's besides the work on the car during the week.

"He committed suicide two weeks ago."

The hitch and break in his voice was clear this time. I nearly dropped the phone.

"Oh Dad. Oh. Dad. I'm so sorry. I am so so sorry to hear that. Are you okay?"

He didn't really answer.

"I gave the eulogy, so there were a couple of sleepless nights before that. He was 35, nice guy,
seemed like he didn't really have a care in the world. Obviously he did."

I almost said something here, about how much it can take out of you to keep that front up, to seem like the person you want other people to see. But that would have cast the long shadow of my history across the conversation; I didn't think he needed that.

But I didn't have much more.

"Oh Dad. I'm so sorry. That's awful. For everyone."

"He was a good kid. The car's at my place now, and we don't know what to do with it. We're going out next week with the other car, but racing's not so much fun now, you know."

The part of my heart where my father lives is treacherous; hard knots of anger and fear starred by sinkholes of wailing mush; the occasional solid ground.

He didn't cry, not quite, but the tears were leaking through his voice. There's something about fathers, at least the kind of father my father is, that precludes this kind of sadness. Or at least the expression of it. The only time I've seen him cry is when his father died more than 20 years ago.

His voice on the phone hit that treacherous ground, softened up at least one of the knots.

"Well, I'd better go."

"Yeah, I should get back to work."

"Love you, Meg."

"Me too, Dad. I love you. Keep well, okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah. I'll give it a shot."

We weren't sure that Granny was going to make it to her 95th birthday party. There was a flu outbreak at her nursing home; the whole place was in lockdown.

Amy and I didn't find this out until Friday night.

Luckily, she made it. She's got bronchitis herself, possibly leftover from the pneumonia she had a couple of weeks ago. But not the flu, so the nurses dressed her up and brought her to the front door where my Dad bundled her into his van.

Lucky for her, because though she can't speak much, at the end of the day, she held my hand and whispered, oh, such a nice party over and over as she squeezed her fingertips into my palm.

Lucky for me, because if there'd been no grander purpose to the uncomfortable and awkward conversation with a bunch of family members, many of whom I hadn't seen in at least a decade, some of whom I didn't remember ever having met, most of whom I only vaguely recognized, with neither alcohol nor card games, I think I would have lost my everloving mind.

Lucky for my family then, too, I guess.

You've heard me say this before, but my brother got pretty much all the maternal instinct in my family. I would say all, but man, you put a little kid, or my brand new three month nephew, in the same room and I'm all let me just give you the biggest hug ever, it's my turn now, he smells so good, can I give you a kiss. They sit on your chest or in your lap just so warmly and loverly.

But then, I like my silence too, and there's not a lot of that with wee ones. And I would not want a daughter as ungrateful and irritable as I am myself.

It's been a busy day. Up and running fairly early this morning, and then a drive to Wychwood Park with my mom to take a million pictures for a story I need to write, and fast. Like next weekend fast.

The worst 10 months of my life I spent living around the corner from Wychwood, where the story I need to write started. My ex and I used to takes walks in there sometimes, or I'd hit it when I was pacing the neighbourhood, waiting for him to come home.

The last time I was back in the area, all that old anxiety bubbled up again. This time, I just remembered. Time is nice.

We drove by the building where he lived when we first met, the one he got kicked out of for not paying his rent, though I didn't find out about that part till later. I'm surprised I remembered it, but the railing - it had three steps up from the sidewalk to the long front walk. The railing, unnecessary for the shallow steps, ungainly spindles, legs of a two-legged beetle trapped on its back.

Then further along Bathurst, past the No Frills where I worked for three months, past the corner where the Michael Jackson look-a-like goosestepped, past the Open Window bakery, the Hemingway, the bridge Ondaatje wrote about.

And then St. Clair.

The outdoor flower shop across the street from our window is gone. The people who live in our apartment hung lacy curtains. The owners have enclosed the front stoop where we used to smoke.

Blogging is a funny thing. I opened this up to write about my Gran's 95th birthday party and what you got was half-dead memories.

• Just because you think that Micachu, your New Fake Girlfriend is a brilliant songwriter and musician does not mean that you will enjoy writing to the music her brilliance produces.
• Checking how many words you've written does not count as writing.
• Always have a spare key tucked away in the cupboard of someone who lives on your street.
• If yoga postures that require you to spread your legs and bend forward make you want to alternately cry and punch something, you probably won't want to think very much about why.
• If you have believed that your cat is deathly ill, it will take three days after finding out she is not for her 4 am yowling to once more start annoying the fuck out of you.
• When another blogger and another blogger* end up sitting at the table beside you in the cafe, you might be jealous of their markers. You might also be too shy to ask what they're for.
• Roast beef is a fine Sunday meal, one that reminds you of some happy times with your family.

*Whose blog I inexplicably can't find in my reader and also can't find on the internet.

It's true, what Woodsy said, that lovers come and go and friends are there for the long run.

Though sometimes the two categories overlap, or maybe they start as one and turn into the other, and maybe they turn back again. Maybe they don't. Or maybe they turn back again again. Or maybe they do disappear altogether. And maybe it's hard, and maybe it all runs smoothly.

The other night over at the Grs, chatting with Grace, I mentioned being busy, overwhelmingly so. She asked me what I did, just like that. "So, what do you do that you're so busy?"

I reviewed the last couple of weeks, and you know what? I don't do very much. I work, I go to yoga/skating/pilates, I cook food, I blog.

I hang out with people.

First, tonight, Shelley and I had pilates, which I'm not loving, but am giving a chance, and then had a satisfying, if brief, gab on the way home.

Second, I walked in my house, fed my menagerie, and walked back out again for dinner at the Usual Spot with Paul and his brother Mark, Mark who is in town for just a few days, and about whom I've heard nothing but good things and love.

Hanging out with them, I think I got that feeling that people get when they see Amy and I together for the first time. To look at us, you wouldn't know we were related. Maybe a little around the mouth, but enh. As soon as we open our mouths though, it's blatant.

I once ran into a friend on the street, back in Toronto. We chatted for few minutes, exchanged pleasantries, came to a natural lull in the conversation. His friend broke in. "Are you related to Amy Butcher, by any chance?"

My mouth dropped open - I'd been introduced as Megan, nothing more or less. "Uh. Yeah, she's my sister."

"I thought you had to be related somehow. She's my office mate. You talk exactly like her."

It was delightful to watch Paul and Mark over dinner, trace familiar expressions in a strange face, hear the same humour in different words, catch the verbal ease that develops between people who are close.

I have a new nephew! Last I heard, he doesn't have a name.

My mother is thankful it's a boy. If it had been a girl, they would have named her Ripley. And at first, I was pretty on the fence about that. I know from personal experience that Butcher is a lot of name. And Ripley Butcher is twice that much a lot of name. Dave joked that they'd call her Rippers, but only to make Mom crazy.

Really though? Ripley Butcher? She'd pretty much have to be a dyke, and butch at that. Can you imagine the deliciousness of that? A butch Butcher named Ripely? I would think that was the bees knees.

Since it's a boy-child, however, his name is probably going to be Max, or Dmitri or Gareth.

Mother and baby are both doing well, only regularly tired and traumatized. He was a big one, nearly 8 lbs, with dark curly hair.

"Really?" I said, very surprised. Their first baby looks scarily like me when I was three. Their second looks exactly like my brother did when he was a baby.

"Yeah, not like us at all," Mom said. "Poor Steph finally got one for her side. Though he does have our small ears."

Whatever his name is, or is going to be, no matter who he takes after, I'm pretty excited there's another squiggler squiggling around, and very much looking forward to seeing him when I go back in the spring.

Well that threw me for a fucking loop, now, didn't it? Good jesus, but I'm glad that visit is over.

In the end, of course, it went fine.

Awkward, yes.

He's had the same girlfriend for years now. At least we think. We don't know, because he hides the pictures of her when we come over, and refers to her as his associate. As in, "Nifty camera, eh? It was a birthday present from my, ah, associate in Bancroft." He's exhorted us to not tell our mother about her, and it's been quite easy to comply, because what would we tell her? "Oh, just so you know, Dad has associations with someone in a small almost northern town. No idea. Nope, dunno. Couldn't tell you. Maybe blond?"

Anyroad.

I'm glad it's done. And realistically, I'm not likely to have to worry about another one for at least another 5 or 6 years.

This is why I think I couldn't be a parent:

a grown woman, curled up on the cool tile floor of the kitchen, whimpering and trying to catch her breath, terrified of opening her house to the person who taught her, without meaning to, without malice, through sheer bumbling and neglect, that she was fundamentally unlovable.

Well, I'm leaving for a birthday party in 10 minutes.

I'm exhausted.

Even though the reading went really well, it took the stuffing out of me. Enough stuffing that I walked the Born Ruffian home and didn't have the energy to take my pants off. You know it's a dire situation when that's the case.

But I'm going, because it's Mae's birthday, Hawkeye's too, and I like that Mae and that Hawkeye one heckuva lot.

And what would I do if I didn't go?

Clean like an anal retentive maniac for my father's visit: I've already ironed my curtains and I've got the dust attachment ready for the vacuum tomorrow to do between the spindles of the railing. The couch has been steam cleaned.

He probably won't care, probably won't notice, but I want him to. To see how neat it is, how I am my father's daughter, I want him to see the flat surfaces with no crap on them, I want him to love me for it.