Well, that's not true... the automated moviefone thing is online, as is a person I only knew on the internet except for meeting once randomly in person, but with whom I have not spoken in any context for some time. And some people have away messages up.
But that's ok, because I have a delightful public-private inner-thoughts-to-outer-world forum to keep me company until my phone gets more charg-y. Or until I just get sleepy, and forget all the things I wanted to say, which seems to be happening right now.
It's been an interesting time so far. I spent some time with my dad Saturday and Sunday, and that was good. It's amazing how I can feel so connected to him in some ways, like when we talk about the big stuff of life and the spirit, which sounds, as such things often do, ridiculous to write down, except that I really mean it... and I feel like we're really sharing something important, and special, and we are... and then I try to tell him what I think about a movie, or what I'm doing next year, and it seems like we're communicating but suddenly he says something that has all the ingredients of what I've been saying, but isn't actually my point at all... and then I look at the picture we took together using Photo Booth, and our smiles do the same thing to our faces, our noses are the same, the stretch of our mouths... or I see him almost-sleeping on the couch and he moves his thumbs against each other restlessly like I know I do, or his feet, absurdly high arch tucked and rubbed against the top of the other foot, and that is just like me. And somehow all these things, connections, disconnections, awkwardness, alikeness-- come from the same person, in not even 48 hours. And he tells me he wants to know more about what I like and I am quiet, not knowing what to say. (We are talking about music, should I give a list?) And sometimes I think he creates an idea of me quite fully out of pieces of true things, and sometimes I think he knows me in ways I cannot know myself.
This is ironic, since part of our discussion, a real heart of it, was how you cannot see yourself, how if you look for the self you cannot find it, that self-hood itself (ha) and everything around it is created... but if there is no self, created by whom? This is one of those statements that should maybe come with warnings, like the Cloud of Unknowing: Don't read me or think about me unless you're way gung-ho about the whole spiritual path deal. Or maybe I'm just posturing. (Who is? Ha.)
He can irritate me intensely, and I am terribly afraid of displeasing him in some small way. He bought me beautiful shirts-- in size extra-large. I take a stupid pleasure in being more educated than he is, in thinking silently that I understand more while he speaks. Especially about eastern religions.
I can see now how crippled he has been, because he is not so big and full of power as he used to be. When he hugs me, he is still the strongest person in the world, the whole world still goes away. I think he is trying to protect me from his family, or protect himself through me. I think he has systematically removed me from their reach... he may be fully conscious of this, or totally unconscious, or I may be incredibly wrong.
I love him. I can't decide if that statement encompasses all of this I have said before, or not.
So, there's actually a lot more I have to say, about things other than my dad, like... my mom! ;) Well, and how Christmas Eve went and how it was singing at Mass and how my extended family is responding to my telling them about Charlotte with a wonderful outpouring of love and support so far... and how I got some cool presents at Jeff's family's party, and... well, but this will all have to wait.
In the meantime, the merriest of Christmases to you all! I love you! (Or I don't know you, but you can have some love too, if you want!)
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