Having children

Eduardo and I went to see The Night Listener last night.  Well, we went to eat popcorn on free popcorn night, but we saw The Night Listener.  In it, Robin Williams plays a gay late night radio storyteller.  His good friend played by Sandra Oh (I like her a lot) says something to him about the fact that he should have overcome his parents by his age.  He replies something to the effect of "good luck with that."

I gave my dad a copy of my Guatemala book to read a couple of weeks ago in some burst or attempt at connection.  Thought he might be interested in something his son had written.  He brought it back about a day later, said he'd read about a hundred pages but found he had to go to the dictionary too often.  "I don't know why you wanted me to read that," he said.  Guess it wasn't enough about saving souls from Hell.

I read Andrew Holleran's wonderful short book set in D.C., "Grief," a few weeks ago, about a gay man pondering the meaning of grief as he teaches a class on AIDS and reads the letters of Mary Todd Lincoln.  His mother had just died in Florida before he moved to D.C.  In the end, he realizes, with beautiful sadness, that overcoming your parents, overcoming your family....  probably just isn't going to happen.

There's a sort of horror in watching your children grow, knowing you are trying to help them, knowing you love them and not knowing exactly why, and knowing that you are doing a number on them, no matter what you do.

I'm running away to Latin America, someday.