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9 September 2007
The 911 anniversary approaches.
Several of you have commented on the words I wrote upon the death of my father at age 96. Everyone's words of support have been most appreciated. My relationship with my dad has always been fraught with anxiety and discord. In my early 20s when we were together in Milano, I remember taking refuge in the cathedral and realizing during that moment of contemplation that it was impossible for me to please him. Even if I succeeded doing something he requested to a T, there would still be something wrong, and I was always to be blamed. Inspired by the beauty and magnificence of the edifice, I dedicated my life henceforth to the pursuit of mystery and harmony and to do this in my own way rather than in conformity to paternal dictate.
With my father's passing, I felt at first that a great checking burden had been removed from my life. For despite my Milano resolution, there always remained a part of myself that endeavoured to please my father and to avoid his wrath and anger. It was sad to think this way, but this was nevertheless how it was. I have come to realize, however, and with deep sadness, that my father and his role have simply reincarnated in the form of my sister. Like my father, she has insulated herself emotionally with a hard, impenetrable shield. It has been a steadily progressive development that I was not initially aware of but obviously stems from childhood and hurts she perceived to have received. There was always a deep resentment toward me for having "gone to Europe" and leaving her with the care of my parents. Although I was never given any choice in the matter, she assumed control of virtually everything there was to control. How successful she has been with this became clear with my parents' wills – particularly that of my father. My father, bless his heart, was simply too bourgeois to have disinherited me completely, so I was 'written off' in the same style as my mother had been. For the last, my sister's clever hand had been at work as well. If I ever do write a book on my life, the working title at this point will be "The Residuals." The ratio discrepancy between our respective lots is staggering, and my sister remains obstinately determined "to honour my father's will" regardless of equability or any appeal to a sense of fairness. "We had completely different relationships with our father" and "You went to Europe."
I will survive. I have a most supportive partner who has proved to be the greatest of joys. And I have many loving friends who I cherish more than I could ever express. Plans and projects, however, that I had hoped to promote and further are no longer on the boards, and this is taking a major emotional adjustment on my part. In the last couple of years, I have lost my beloved mother – so full of life, warmth, love and generosity, my father and now, in any real sense, my little sister. With both my parents, there was the resignation and acceptance that their time had come, but with my sister it becomes a grieving of a different nature. She just never 'got it', and this is the source of my present sadness.
Wiser and more sober, I will pull in the belt a notch tighter. If we in the United States and the West are being told we must convert to Islam, it is because the Qur'an instructs that the enemy is to be offered this chance before attacked. The very notion is anathema to me, and I pledge to resist any and all submission to some sinister and despotic ideal, whether illusory or not. I still believe in and affirm the dream of a viable human community that is capable of living with both our host planet and itself – warts, differences and all. It may be shaky at this stage, but I step forward into a new arena to dance with a different understanding of freedom.
With the peace and love of the gods,
Michael