wordsworth

Ellen: It’s nice when a spark lands in my head and sets my brain on fire.

Yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that – and before that day before day – you! you! you! were on my mind, inside my dim lit skull. But today came the spark. Today my skull lit up. Today I could see all the words you bring to life in me.

OK. Now it’s your turn. A little poem. Send me a little poem, or don’t. But write one about some one or two or three you love. Some unnamed someones you love. A poem about an anonymous love that you can share, perhaps, with me and the world wide. If you need a spark to write, or a spark to share, then try on the words of Anne Spencer – she may have a voice you like as much as any you’ve heard.

OK. Now, an Oh-My-God moment. Yesterday was Monday. And Monday marked my seventeenth week in the No Abuse Batterers’ Intervention Program (BIP).  Each week for seventeen weeks I’ve gone to No Abuse on Ferncreek Dr, just a few blocks south of the John Long Pool. I spend an hour and a half there with other guys who have done something unlawful to a woman in their home, a woman they intended to love, or not. And yesterday I sat next to a guy that came into the  program on the same day I did. And yesterday, before class, the two of us got to talking. Had he seen his kids? Yes, he had. How old is his oldest? She is twelve. How often did he see his kids? Every other weekend. How was that going? Well … the first weekend, the first unsupervised weekend, as he daughter walked toward him, she streched out both arms, curled all her fingers on her right hand, and on her left, curled all her fingers into a ball, all but her middle fingers. She stuck two middle fingers high into the air as she walked toward him. She let him know just how ‘happy’ she was to see him by giving him the international sign for F-you! Oh-My-God. Honestly, that’s what came out of my mouth when I heard him say that. Oh-My-God. Because, honestly, it is moments like that when I really need a god. It’s moments like that when the suffering people cause each other just seems beyond human cure. Oh-My-God-Come-To-The-Rescue-Of-Young-Girls-And-Old-Men.

Later, that same morning, yesterday morning, Monday morning, that father, who’s daughter not only hated him but had learned from him how to hide it – and from him how to show it off – that father, who’d been charged with domestic violence four different times by four different women, that father, who’s daughter hated him, was expelled from class for failing again to admit plainly and simply what he had done to the girl’s mother, what he had done that had brought him to No Abuse seventeen weeks before.

Did you know that as you were growing inside your mother I thought a name like Mercy would protect you every time I said it. Mercy. Mercy. Mercy. Like a little prayer a name should be. As yours is, really. Ellen. Light. Lion. All mighty. Your name is our prayer for you, to you. It is what we see in you, and for you. It is not our hope. It is not our expectation. It is what you are and will always be to us. You are a light. You are a lion. You are an all mighty. Still, my hope, my expectation, is that you, as Ellen, will give and get the mercy I knew long ago should be in your life.

Anyway, yesterday, class progressed with stories of anger and blame. One fellow had screamed his head off at a secretary for failing to timely bill a client. And I, as a senior member of the class, was asked to comment. Well, I had no secretary. I had only a daughter who had heard me scream and felt my hand more than once. And she could not walk off the job as a secretary could. And she could not embezzel funds as a secretary could. And she could not sell my clients to a competitor as a secretary could. But she could keep her love to herself as a daughter could. But she could keep her trust to herself as a daughter could. But she could keep her joy and her spark to herself as a daughter could. And I, a father, would lose more than he, a boss, would lose if I did not keep from making it worse.

“She hides what she’s reading,” I told Joyce, the BIP instructor, once a guest on Oprah, and always a feminist expert witness for the abused.

“My concern is the SAT. The SAT is there. It’s the passport to a ‘country’ foriegn to me. It’s the key to a future I have not known but could be hers. And there are books she should read, recommended by the people who wrote the test. But she would rather read other books. And she hides them from me.”

“Give the reading list and the reading an end and a beginning and only on certain days. Give it concrete limits – thirty minutes, five days a week. Make it easy for her to imagine freedom. And let her know the hopes you have for her success. And let her know that she can have those hopes … without you.”

Well, at least, I think that is kind of what she said. Interesting woman. She’d probably talk to you just because your young and frisky. And because she loves to see a woman shine. You can reach her secretary Carmen, if you like, at 407 228 9503. You know, if you’re curious about meeting someone who’s been a guest on Oprah. She’s your type of feminist – always in black!

OK. Well. I’d like for you to get in touch with me before we meet ‘live’ at Family Ties. I would like to ask you to bring something to do. We can read aloud to each other for awhile. We could play cards for awhile. But I would like to get an idea what you want to do before we’re doing it.

yours i’m
Dad