I was planning to use this blog as a means of provoking the family. There are as many dark and sticky bits flying around our genes and communication lines as there are diamonds. Why don't we have the balls to speak our minds? I include myself in this. If I were to bring out the hammer of infinite justice and resume a rampage by which I batter my family members to near death with the truth - would they take offence or would they take heed.
I hear you mutter something about glass houses and stones, well let's just replace stones with rocks. I am probably the person in the family with the deepest closet, my history is a fucking graveyard. I've had so many bones wedged in the gullet of my history, most people would choke.
Most of the time I feel the only thing that makes our family relational is the fact that we are just that, related. That might not make much sense, but I look at my siblings, Kizzi and Tor from the first litter, Dolly, Jess and Woo from my father's second and Julia from my mother's second.
The first litter all grew up under the same conditions, with the same set of possible causes for issues. One would think that certain similarities would prevail. The same applies to the second litter. It's as if we're all fucked up in every other way. This ironically is the beauty of it all.
What example do we have? The Learmont faction is fragmented and strange, reserving the right to impose or withdraw at will. Gossip is a big thing, particularly amongst the women. Not that it's a female trait, I think it's a side-effect of the fragmented nature of the family as a whole - it's their way of keeping in touch.
The Henney's - well, what can I say? My mother is a gem, a brilliant person with a brilliant sense of humour. Even though for 18 years we really had nothing to talk about, unless it was about the baby Jesus. She successfully renegotiated her status with the holy institution run by men in sequined jackets pleading all those, no matter how financially destitute, to dig deep and hand over the contents of their pockets, including the lint. From the think-tank sofa , and over a period of a couple of years, she became Jewish. I recently became acquainted with my mother. It has only been in the last few years that we have been able to see each other really. It is the first time in my life I have been able to laugh with her, raucously, genuinely.
I write this at a point when I have been directly involved in various disasters within the family. The disasters were really blessings, not even in disguise - outright blessings. Trying times have hit some of my sisters, Dolly was over here in an attempt to be reunited with a part of herself she perhaps felt estranged from, a search for clarity. She spent some time with me, that time was wonderful, insightful and fun. I miss her terribly. I realise that she has a heap of shit to work through, but if you can appeal to her sense of humour, if you can find a common level, judgement free, you will be greatly rewarded. I wish I was still able to have late night chats and plant seeds of confidence, self belief and enthusiasm via her ears. Another of my sisters has recently unveiled a very dark and disturbing truth that would sicken the hardest of people. I am not at liberty to discuss it, but rest assured when it's all over there will be something to tell. I am honored to be able to be there for her, we're family.
What is the value of family if we can't accept our differences and undersand that we all have lives to live, dreams to dream and battles to win or lose, parents or children. Earlier on I mentioned 3 people, brought up under the same conditions, but with resultant polar attitudes. Even though they all had the opportunity to have adopted the same issues, it never happened. We don't all see the same values in our family members. It has become too easy to find the faults. If you are looking for faults, you'll find them, the same applies to value.
My father has always been an issue for the first litter. I managed to get that out of my system early on and spent most of my childhood and teenage years cursing him and allowing myself to become issue bound. Not without reason I might add - it's safe to say he had not been consistent, fair or supportive. Like the relationship I now have with my mother, I have developed a relationship with my father. His downfalls and letdowns as a father can be made up for by understanding one simple thing. There is no textbook example, or list of attributes we should come to expect from parents. Some people can cook, some people are just shit at cooking - give someone a goose liver and they'll prepare a perfect Patè de foie gras, any other person could prepare dog food. Some people just can't cook, but that doesn't mean that they don't understand the concept of cullinary skill, good food or good taste. The same applies to parents, or any other family member.
Effort is mutual and no relationship can survive or flourish without effort. Because of the mostly insane nature of my family, how can one expect to go about this is in a conventional manner. Here is an example. I have managed to get more communication out of my father through this blog than anything else, ever. I set up a comments function, where a nutty Scotch pisscat will leave lippy abuse, or the Afrikaaner Hannes Kontant will give me a verbal grilling for not acknowledging their genius. I meet him somewhere he can relate, somewhere he has something to offer - I can't sit on the sofa with brandy and coke and watch the rugby with him. We're Learmonts, it just doesn't fucking work that way. He leaves me Robbie Burns poetry on my blog, he knows that I know that he did it for a reason and that I will find out what that reason was.
Ironically, my mother, the literary academic refuses to read my blog, slating it as contrived and vain. So I phone her to talk about David Beckham and other amusing topics, our medium is the telephone or online messenger chat rooms, which I covertly set up for her, it was to our little secret.
As children we have a duty to realise that our parents are people too, that they too struggle and regret. At some point we have to stop blaming them, identify whatever problem it is we have with them and take it upon ourselves to move on. We have to find the value in people, my father for example, though inconsistent (that must be where I get it from) actually has the more refined sense of ethic and morality in our family. His morality was not dictated by a church or a sequined fool, but through experience, hard work, and his own fair share of fuckups. He is trully educated. Besides, he is the funniest bastard on the face of the planet. I can't understand how some of my siblings don't want to pick all the juice from his brain before we toss his clothes on the sidewalk for the Cape Town bergies to carry off.
Understanding and an independent attitude, faith in one's self and others (minority) and effort can reap rewards. It's our history, our parents are where we come from. I understand my father, I understand him for leaving, christ, I'm glad he did... who knows what it would have been like had he not realised his own needs, had he not had balls big enough to live his own life.
It may seem like the old boy is taking a bashing. Wait till I have to look after him some day, I'll make him wear nappies and I'll feed him cauliflower cheese. I'll send him to bed without dinner and I'll lift his frail body up into the air and shake him around the chandelier. He has something to look forward to.
I'll be bringing out the hammer of infinite justice again, its next target I don't know.
