Writing From The Tight Spots
RWW Writing Technique 

Maybe if I reach inside and breath into the spots I don’t feel or that feel so tight I don’t feel them…I’ll be able to feel them again? What if I did that with the pain of losing my father? Why?
Weird. He always shows up.
Slow. Anger. It’s like something’s missing from his mind, his brain. A liar. Not evil. Drinks. Eats. Diets. Works. To the extreme, to the skin ripping off his hands, like he’s gripping harder and tighter than anyone I know, it’s like he doesn’t have a cue inside that says, “Overboard. Overload. Congested. Cannot compute.” Love. He believes he loves me. I believe he loves me. I believe his definition of love isn’t mine. Love is about not being right or proud or envious or any of that shit. If you start one-uping someone you love or start telling them how they should be and that their feelings are well, irrational and based on “mythology” then are you loving them? He’s not loving me. He loves me but he’s not loving me. He’s not interested in looking at what he’s said and done that’s been mean and nasty and selfish. He makes me feel wrong, self-conscious. Even right now, I question myself…am I right? Am I right to feel this way?
Slow.
Anger.
Allow–mistake. Mistakes.
Break up
Break down
Break apart
Family.
Together combating and butting heads
I try to understand this whole break apart of my family. I know it was 10 years ago. I know in so many ways we are better, freer.
Alcoholic. No responsibility and this jaunty ease about him. I picture the scene at Stop and Shop with Mom. His toothy grin and lollipop head and shriveled body. Bouncing on his toes (I’m in the head now.) “So what kind of car are you driving now?” Mom, fake, sarcastic smile, head cocked, gathering her outfit around her and trying to slyly cover up her heaviness. Responds in a equally sarcastic manner and Dad’s bugged eyed and bouncing up and down and mom sways and brushes her hair out of her eyes and thinks: What the hell am I doing here? And then he says to her in the same tone as the car question: “You need to do something about the kids. It’s time for them to grow up and be mature adults. It’s time for all this “ bounce and hands flip up and he leans a little towards her and she shirks back “bullshit to end. You know, I’m not the devil. I’m not a bad guy. They need to move on. You need to move on…..Nikki’s so far off the map, she doesn’t know what she feels. I’m their father, you know. I am their father. You need to talk to them…..” A lot of you need sentences and they should and blah, blah. Mom called me and said, “He said this was all my fault and I need to do something…and I know I shouldn’t be telling you this–“ I interrupted her and I meant this very much: “No mom. I am 30 years old and I need validation of what I feel about him and you’re giving me the truth.” And this truth is now my truth. Not just hers.
The choice of words like grow up and accept responsibility and move on….all focused on me, Nikki, and Mom. Who is he? Is he judge and jury? He gets to decide how all of us feel and then what we should feel and what we should do? Nikki doesn’t want him in her life. I am not talking to him for now. Mom wants nothing to do with him. These are real things and he keeps trying to “talk” us out of these realities.
What’s the space in between the words, the doing, the analyzing? Is it sound? Is it energy? Between he and I it’s connection, energy. If he walked in, I would talk to him. I’d shoot the shit. If he started in on me….the energy would go to “void” and I’d have to leave. The “void” is not the past shit but the current shit. I accept the divorce. I’ve accepted it for a long time. I accept beyond the divorce even, the estrangement between he and Nikki and Mom. I accept too that I don’t want to initiate contact.
I’m done for now.