Normally when I choose to write something, I can see an entire outline unfold in front of my mind's eye almost as soon as I come up with the main idea. As I start to flesh out the text, the words simply pour out in a euphoric rush, and before I realize it I have a cohesive piece that I can be proud of. It's as close to an out of body experience as I ever have, like some benevolent higher being pushes my psyche aside for a few hours with a "don't worry, I got this" smirk, and usually when it has relinquished my body back to me I have no other recourse but to feel contentment. After all, most people get probed under bright lights in these kinds of situations; I get a few decent essays out of them.
Unfortunately,
it seems that my muse is on break, and instead of words and ideas
flowing gently through my mind, there is instead a maelstrom of
typeface more akin to alphabet soup. I suppose this is because of the
subject matter I am trying to approach, which is the life and death
of my dad, Howard Myers. Today (5/19/12) is the one year anniversary
of the day that his life tragically and suddenly ended, violently
altering my family's lives forever.
Somewhere
in that day, that week, this past year, is a great story that is
waiting to be written. About the first true tragedy a typical
middle-class family has ever really faced and how it sheds light on
repressed issues and reprioritizes storge in
their lives. About a sweet, innocent middle-aged woman who is forced
to bravely start her life anew, discovering hidden strengths and
friendships. About a beautiful, bright young woman in the midst of a
massive transition and a transcontinental romance. About the effects
of a power-vacuum on a family struggling to steady itself.
About
a naive college kid struggling with self-identity and his true
calling. About the irony of having his birthday party 20 hours before
his father's memorial service. About redemption at an idyllic
lakeside camp. About reconnecting with old friends, and realizing the
deep compassion of new ones. About odd jobs, strange cities,
depression, mania, serenity, chaos; about the human condition. I
can't write that story yet, though. The wounds are still too fresh,
and all of these threads continue winding themselves beyond the
visible horizon, awaiting a resolution. And besides, why would
I post that in a blog? I'm getting a freaking Pulitzer for that.
So
this is not that story. Maybe one day I'll share it with you all; it
really is quite a tale.
Instead,
I simply want to remember and honor my dad, though it will be only a
trifle of what is deserved, and the best way that I can think of to
do this is by finishing the story of my (his) turntable
(reference: http://thetroublewithmetaphors.blogspot.com/2011/10/brokenness-turntable.html).
It
has been over a year since my turntable lost half of its audio
signal, and over half a year since I completely broke it while
haphazardly trying to fix the wiring in pursuit of (stereophonic)
happiness. As the month of May approached and I walked past my
turntable every day, now reduced to nothing more than a monument to
my failure, I thought about how all I would want to do is listen to
my dad's favorite records during the week commemorating his death
and, ironically, my birth. I scoured the Internet for spare parts
that would help, managed to find a guy selling stripped bits, bought
the necessary one (full tonearm with wiring), and impatiently waited
until it finally arrived.
---
I
would like to reiterate a point I made when I wrote about this analog
relic months ago; this turntable is the last and best tangible
connection I have with my dad. A gift from him, yes, but also a
reminder of some of my only vivid memories of him.
My
dad wasn't the type of person that you could talk to about girls or
games or movies or popular culture; sports talks sometimes sufficed,
while deeper subject matter like fears and hopes would rarely arise
(this wasn't the case with my sister; she could pour her heart out to
him like I only wish I could have). The one subject we could talk for
days on, though, was music. Topics like the golden era of gods like
Young and Waters, the experience of being at a live show, and newer
artists that I would delicately introduce to him (with mixed results)
yielded the longest and most involved conversations we ever had as
father-son.
It's
odd, because it took me years to find this connection with my dad. I
don't remember ever associating anything musical with him when I was
young; hell, in church I distinctly remember that he rarely sang the
hymns. At some point, coinciding with my increased obsession with
music whether by design or by providence, I discovered the multitude
of concerts he had been to, that he performed in the school band up
through college, that he was opening up his own musical instruments
company, and even, as if to tie it all together, that he used to have
long hippie-hair (imagine that, the same man that I had bought a gag-gift of "bald
head polish" for!). Then, one glorious day, he brought out his
old hi-fi and turntable, opened up his office closet, and, like manna
from heaven, there sat some of the greatest records of all time just
waiting to be consumed. I take those albums for granted now, but on
that afternoon, spinning record after record, I could scarcely
believe I was even allowed to share the same roof as them.
---
The
repair was, after a year of frustration and failure, burns and
wreckage, astoundingly smooth. Well, OK, I did break the needle after
repairing everything else, so I had to wait two extra agonizing days
before a replacement was available, two days that I had a finished
product with no way of confirming success or failure. The feeling is
akin to baking a pie, then sitting and staring at it. Salivating.
Incessantly.
Dammit,
pies are meant to be eaten!
After
receiving a delivery alert (technology, baby) and subsequently
skipping out on work early, I ripped open the package containing the
needle... and let it sit there for two hours.
I
was nervous about finding out if my repairs were sufficient, sure; I
had invested a lot of time and money into this relic after all, and
this latest attempt was my last, best hope. I'm sure I was also
nervous about posthumously letting down my father; I know all sons
fear disappointing their parents, but I think it's an especially
debilitating fear for me. I think more than all of that, though, I
was nervous about inviting memories of my dad back, like the
turntable deck was a Ouija board and the needle was the planchette.
After
all, it seems easiest to lessen the sting of grief by ignoring it
outright.
Well,
I'm proud to provide this story with a happy ending. The turntable,
once I found the courage to reinstate it, ended up sounding better
than ever. The rest of the afternoon was devoted to blazing through
some of my dad's favorite records, reminiscing all the time.
First,
Young's Harvest,
remembering how he had told me just weeks before his death that its
B-Side was possibly his favorite single side of a record he'd ever
encountered, and of course listening to Heart of Gold on the A-Side
and remembering the song playing at his memorial.
Next, The
Best of Arlo Guthrie,
listening to the bizarre mixture of anti-war proclamations and
slapstick comedy ballads, thinking how well that stark contrast of
almost bipolar seriousness and shameless silliness summed dad up
pretty well. I remembered singing the nonsensical “Motorcycle
(Significance of the Pickle)” song on long car trips. I remembered
the night I took him to see a greyer Guthrie live and listening with
bated breath to dad's stories of shows past, including how, in the
handful of times he'd seen Guthrie live, he had only managed to go to
one show where Arlo played the famous and elusive “Alice's
Restaurant Massacree,” only to walk into the auditorium during the song's final chord because of car trouble, and simply having to laugh about the irony of it all. I especially remembered the wide smile on his face long after
Guthrie had treated us to a brand new rendition of the “Motorcycle”
song, and his whooping and hollering like he was 20 again.
The
rest of the day was a blur of Darkside
of the Moon, Yes Songs, Abbey Road, Introducing... the Beatles,
Rumors, some
deep-cuts, some old favorites, much-too-loud sing-a-longs, and a
surplus of nostalgia: memories of singing in the car, relaxing in the
family room, chatting on the phone 600 miles apart, all with dear old
dad.
None
of these things really made me miss him, though. Don't get me wrong,
it's great to experience all of these memories and emotions just by
spinning some innocuous circle at 33 1/3 rpm, but I experienced those
memories as if he was still here, like nothing had changed, which is
a great thing I suppose. Magical, really, to be able to turn back the
clock by turning a flimsy piece of vinyl.
Look,
Pa, I made a time machine.
There
was, however, one moment in all of this that I truly missed my dad. When that
needle first struck down, and the scratches were overtaken by the
first notes of “Old Man,” and I was filled with palpable feelings
of relief and accomplishment, I just wanted to tell someone about all
of the endless mistakes and pratfalls, the frustration of soldering a
new piece only to watch another one break, the pride of making
something work with your own hands, and a myriad of other thoughts
and feelings swelling up inside me, but I knew that no one else would
appreciate, understand, or find these things interesting. No one,
that is, except the one that taught me how to problem solve, the one
that patiently showed me to solder before I even knew what a circuit
was, the one that I could trade tales of accidental electrocutions
and burns with. In that moment, the only person I wanted to talk to
was the only person I couldn't.
In
that moment, I truly missed my dad.