Why I write?

I have found myself asking this question... Is it because it's cathartic? Is it because I think my opinion is so important? Is it because I think people don't really listen? Probably all of the above... But I think the biggest reason I write is because of my mother.

My dad has been a subject of many of my posts on this blog, because he is gone I ponder over what he has left me, the legacy of hard-headedness, pride in myself, being a protector, and the 'nothing can hold me down' attitude. While those were all qualities tied up within my dad, they were not exclusive to him. My mom has all of those qualities... I sometimes forget, that part of the gene pool is pretty deep. What I'm saying is I get those qualities from both my parents. While my Dad showed us kids what those qualities were, my mom showed us how we could make the most out of those qualities in us, and not let them get us into too much trouble. That she has those qualities too is something, but I can honestly say she has truly mellowed over the years... But if you confront her or tomorrow you threaten one her kids you take a chance that it will all come back to the surface!

You might ask "What does all this have to do with 'Why I write?'"

Well, me personally I know I am always one wearing my feelings on my sleeve for everyone to see, but I have often figured if people knew why I felt the way I do they might understand me better. I learned that from my mom, if people can understand you and why you feel a certain way about things it is easier for them to accept you. She has always known how she has felt about things and she has always stood her ground. That came about because she wrote what she felt, I remember reading her poetry about what she felt and why. I think for her it was an exercise in self-examination and a means to reinforce what she knew to be true. And for me my writing has become just that. It has become a way for me to share with people what I feel and why, but also reminds me why I feel that way about things.

It might seem simple that you believe what you believe. And that should never change. But there is something about time and where you are in the stream of your life that changes what you believe and why you believe it, and that viewpoint can change. That undeniable shift in our paradigm, our viewpoint, is most often responsible for a change in our beliefs. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I write to convince myself of what I believe. That you all get to read it is just gravy

But more about my Mom. My Mom is an awesome individual. Irma Arias Hood, is the second of five children, she was born at home in the Santa Julia neighborhood of Mexico City, the family emigrated to the US when she was about 6. The family settled in San Francisco and as a family of 7 they had no choice but to be poor. But you would never know any of that from looking and listening to her today. English is her second language, she skipped 2 grades when she got here from Mexico, while she was never a 'chola' people didn't mess with her, and she was stubborn. All of that you wouldn't know today. My Mom and Dad met and married in the span of three weeks, they met at Thanksgiving 1974 and were married before Christmas.

I write all of this down so you understand where I come from, too many times people look at me and go, "What does this white guy know?" They look at me and laugh, "Oh you're Mexican American, I would have never known!" Or without thinking they dismiss or disparage the Mexican culture, that's a little insulting not because I think that Mexican culture is more valuable than another, but because I know for me being multi-cultural has value. All of that comes from my parents, my mom and my dad equally. All of this is why my mom is cool! Of course that's what I am going to say! Right! It's my mom! But one of the things I had to remember as I wrote about my Dad was that I shouldn't regret anything that I didn't say, regret over the things left unsaid is almost poisonous. And that is why I want to tell you why my Mom is the coolest. I never want to regret NOT saying these things about her, if she should ever read this I want her to know that I am proud of who I am because she is one of the people that has helped me be the man I am. I am proud of her and I will never regret that!

She has always been the strong one in the family, as it should be, Mom is the glue that has always held the family together. Seriously though Mom is cool, It's the combination of little things and the big things that make her cool. I talked about the big things how and where she grew up. But the fact is my Mom is always growing, her favorite song from Linkin Park is "Faint", c'mon does your mom even listen to Linkin Park... In the last few years she became a vegan, even though she is a vegan, she will still have a taste of something with meat in it and she knows when something is good. Speaking of which, give the LoCali Conscious Convenience on Lincoln Blvd a try... But I digress, why is Mom cool? She has been the one with the even keel, she has been the one that knew us all as kids and knew what could make us happy. When I was ten and I wanted to try something different when it came to religion my mom didn't discourage me. She knew even then I did need and would need God in my life, and I thank my God everyday that she had the courage and insight to let me make my own choices. Today she is the one that knows when each of her kids is doing okay or when they are not. Mom is cool cause she can do that with a look. She could always read us like a book, and then tell us how the story should end.

And even as I write this I know my Mom will deny most if not all of this. That is the other thing about my Mom that makes her cool, she will never make a big deal about it. But there is one last reason why my Mom is so cool. Over time I have made sacrifices in my life and tried to help her take care of the family, and when the time came for me to start my own family she never held me back, she knew when those sacrifices were done. Now when I go through issues and problems I think back on how my Dad would have thought to do things and then I think about how my Mom even now encourages me to do things, and then I find the balance that makes me happy and because I follow my parents advice I know it's the right thing.

Through everything in life Mom's goal was for me and my sister and my brother to be happy. Whatever we were doing, she wants us to be happy. That is why I write. I makes me happy, it reminds me of those who are no longer with us, it reminds me why I feel the way I do about everything, and it makes me think of my Mother, who taught me that there is more to writing than just words and facts, it is the what, when, where, and why of how we feel and who we are. And that is one of the most important things we can preserve.

The AntiHero

The other day I was reading an article about an upcoming movie, a remake of a classic monster movie. The monster was considered by the director to be an 'antihero," I thought that was an odd choice, but for the director the monster represented Mother Nature and the consequences of the way humans have damaged Earth. The monster was an antihero because it's actions while destructive and atrocious bring a sort of balance to the Earth. Still for me that idea was a stretch...

I grew up enjoying the X-Men comics and seeing one of the great comic book story-lines come to the silver screen has recently got me thinking about antiheroes and why they are so popular. Magneto, The Wolverine, DCI John Luther, Raymond "Red" Reddington, Malcolm Reynolds, all three of the current incarnations of Sherlock Holmes. All of these characters are antiheroes, and rightly so, none of them have the qualities that you would associate with a classic hero. Interestingly each of them rather have major character flaws that both endear us to them and quite honestly can repel us.

Magneto, Wolverine, and Reynolds all have been or continue to reside in the grey area of doing good when it suits them or having good come about as an unexpected side effect of some action they have taken, on the other hand Luther and the "Sherlocks" exhibit nearly psychopathic behavior that brings down those on the wrong side of them or the law, whichever is convenient. In either case, the good that comes as a result of the bad in them outweighs the bad that they cannot or will not distance themselves from.

"Red" Reddington is one of the most recent additions to the list of antihero, in his case Red falls into the "grey area" antihero, his actions, giving the FBI information leading to the arrests of the worst criminals they don't know about, at first seems to be for the greater good. We slowly begin to see that his motivation appears to be first, to protect himself and second to protect FBI agent Elizabeth Keen. The connection between Keen and Red has not been made clear however that connection is what makes Red an antihero! Whether he likes it or not, and whether Keen likes it or not, Red has done good, he has protected Keen, and so far as we can tell he has never lied to her. What makes Red an antihero is the fact that he is a bad guy that you can't help but love. He has his moments, all I have to say is Swan Lake...

But knowing all these characters are antiheroes still begs the question, "Why?" Why are we drawn to each of these characters? In my own experience I think each of us has an antihero, someone that despite their imperfections, their flaws, sometimes even harsh attitudes has done something heroic for us. In the face of the bad that is a part of them, the good they have done has outweighed that.

For a long time I have known that my dad is my antihero. There was no question that he did good in spite of the bad that was a part of him. He knew he had his demons and he worked hard to fight them off. He knew that he needed to put on a good face to help bring us up, he did that for years, and then after years he couldn't keep up the hero act. He went off and indulged in the drugs and alcohol that threatened to overwhelm him. Then because someone told him he couldn't do it, he kicked the drugs and the alcohol and even the cigarettes.

I sometimes think he knew he was my hero, I know that he knew he was my hero. But kicking the crack and booze and smokes wasn't why, it was because he made the decision to try even when the odds were against him... He knew that it wasn't going to be easy, but the fact that he thought someone said it was impossible for him made it worth trying to do. That was part of what made him my hero in the first place. His grandmother told him his black friends had to come in the house through the side door, rather than the front door, my dad's response, "They are my friends and they will come in whatever door I damn well choose!" There was never a word about it spoken again. My dad taught me to believe that I was no more or less than any other person, and because I could see he lived his life that way it made an impression on me.

I knew the scar on his face came from an Afro-pick that was jabbed into his face while on a bus after hearing about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. His best friend at the time Bodey Tilley, (the same one that Grandma got upset about coming through the front door), pushed him out of the window of a moving bus so my dad's attackers couldn't finish the job. Bodey knew what kind of man my dad was, and Bodey stuck his neck out to save him. Those two incidents in my dad's life cemented the kind of man he would always strive to be. And those incidents have been for me the touchstone by which I have measured my life. Would I be able to stand up for people around me? Would I be able to take the punishment handed out by the ignorant and the foolish? Would I be undeterred by the fact that I was told it was impossible?

Sometimes it takes time to realize that those are questions that you ask yourself. Sometimes it takes time to consider that who you are is shaped not just by the good that people do but also the bad, and that to embrace that good you have to forgive the bad. Doing that we don't just remember our heroes or antiheroes, we celebrate them, every time we protect someone, every time we take one on the chin, every time we look in the mirror and see them looking back at us.

Unlike the monster remake antihero I talked about earlier, my antiheroes have a purpose, my biggest antihero had a purpose, he protected me from the worst that was in others and he sheltered me from the worst that was in him.

Weekends with my Dad

It's funny the way we remember things...

I was just listening to some music and "Okie From Muskogee" played. Merle Haggard records were always on the turntable when we were kids!

When I was a kid we used to spend the weekend with my Dad (not that Momma wasn't around, but she knew how important that time was), he would work on the never ending chores of working on the car or cleaning out the garage or rearranging the furniture for Momma and we... more like I would be spinning records, old stuff and new stuff like Elvis, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. Mostly we listened to Elvis right up till about noon when the local TV station would show the weekend western, then an Elvis movie. My first taste of John Wayne came on one of those weekends. "The Cowboys" "Big Jake" and "El Dorado" all the classics and yet we would sit there rolling our eyes, but we still hated "Long Hair" (Bruce Dern) for shooting "Mr. Anderson" (John Wayne) in the back. Sorry for the spoiler but if you haven't watched The Cowboys yet, shame on you!

And don't get me started on all the old Elvis movies... So corny but listening to him sing was special!

It was still a time when we were innocent, before the Internet, YES there was a time before the Internet, before video games and smartphones, ha I remember the time one of my little school friends came over and didn't know how to use my mom's fancy looking rotary phone! He picked up the receiver and just looked down at the rotary dial and stared. The poor kid only knew how to use a touch-tone phone, my parents got a kick out of it.

But I digress, we didn't worry about the things we do today, I was ten or eleven and I didn't have to worry about drugs in elementary or even later middle school, I didn't have to worry about people abusing me in any way cause I knew Dad would stand up for me, I didn't have to think about what was for dinner, how long my commute home from work would take, I didn't have to watch everything I ate and drank for fear it might trigger a migraine.

I didn't have a care in the world, just what records I was going to spin next, and to listen for that call from my Dad for a flashlight or a 3/8 socket, or that I was taking too long to start up the next record. And to believe I used to dread those weekends! 

I hated listening to all that OLD music and watching those OLD movies! Now I miss those times. I miss Dad, it's been 15 years now since he died. But I know that I will see him again, and hearing Okie From Muskogee brought a smile to my face because in my mind I could just hear him in the distance singing along about as loud as he could. (BTW Dad had never been to Muskogee in his life)

Pride

It's something you want, but not too much. It's something you need, without it we have no drive to succeed. It's something that is passed down, whether right or wrong! It's also trans-formative, depending on what you do with it.

I have always, for years I have prided myself in being my father's son. The principles he instilled in us as kids are things I carry now. For a while though I had my doubts about him and his principles and myself. I'll take a minute and tell you why.

My dad Roger was the second of four children born to Oscar and Mary "Lynn", his parents, my grandparents separated when he was about 4 years old. As a young man in the military Grandpa Oscar later said that he didn't know what he wanted in life, he just knew that it wasn't Grandma Lynn! At the time I thought I understood that. It wasn't till much later in life that I really understood what Grandpa meant. My grandmother as it turns out was a lying and at times vindictive woman. That my Dad although broken and flawed was a good man and that he was even distantly related to my grandmother is hard to fathom...

For years my father wallowed in the damage that was caused by and brought upon him by his mother and others. To dull the pain that was his life he turned to drugs and alcohol. Let me just say this to all the non-addicts (those of us that don't feel the need to get high) you don't realize how far away the drinks or the drugs make all of your problems seem until you get really drunk or high. No matter how drunk or high you get though you always come back to who you are and your problems are still there and cause you been drinking to get away from your old problems new ones problems have come up...

Dad ran through that cycle over and over again for over thirty-five years. It started with smoking cigarettes, then it progressed to alcohol, once that stopped working to numb the pain I think my dad started using speed. I say "I think" that because I recall times when my dad was a superman or a madman. Little did I realize he thought he was superman too. Working for days on end, not sleeping, but then when he did sleep he was gone, crashed out, and there was nothing you could do to wake him. Then there was that time when I was 12 and my dad drove across country from Western Pennsylvania to San Francisco with no sleep, 3 1/2 days with no sleep! Chain smoking while mom was asleep, telling us that the cold window from the blizzard we were driving through was keeping him awake.

Later in life when we got back to the West Coast Dad found crack! Crack cocaine! The scourge of the inner city found place in our little flat in Daly City. No doubt Dad got it somewhere in The City or Oakland, but he never did drugs around us so how did I know? Later in life I realized how my dad knew all he did about drugs. I would be helping Dad cleaning out apartments before we painted them and we would come across socket drivers with bits of steel wool in them. My dad knew these were quick cheap crack pipes! There weren't shows like "Intervention" back then. You couldn't turn on the TV and see what the drug life was like. And yet my dad knew!!! He also knew enough to protect us! He never wanted us to turn out like him...

That is where the pride came in. Dad knew that no matter how bad a person he was he was never going to let us be worse than him. I know that sounds strange but he knew our upbringing could never be as bad as his, and at the same time his bad example would or should persuade us to avoid following the same path he did. He knew we were never emotionally abused by a parent, sexually abused by 'friends', or told we were abandoned by our father. We weren't raised in a world where we were told that "black folks need to know their place" or that "we were stupid and never going to amount to much!" We all had laughing loving personalities that weren't stifled, " because children should be seen and NOT heard!" And above all we were never fooled into believing that we would not, or could not change. My Dad was all of those things. And yet he knew we didn't have to be.

My Dad did his best to protect us from becoming just like him! That is not to say my Mom didn't do it... But in hindsight I knew that Mom was making an efforts to be a better person, Dad on the other hand thought he was just fine the way he was. After all was said and done Dad spent years on drugs. When I was 17 he left to go do drugs without the accountability of a family. Over the next couple of years Dad went back and forth between trying rehab and living in the parking garage beneath our apartment. From 17 to about 20 when I did see him and despite the fact that Mom had let Dad back in the house and yet I still didn't speak to my him. Finally after two and a half years Dad hit "rock bottom" and stuck with rehab, he pulled himself up by his bootstraps and stayed clean and sober. Over the course of the next couple of years he became a practicing Christian and he kept clean. On December 9, 1992 after a brain aneurysm Dad died.

It is coming up on 20 years since Dad left our family, with every day that passes I realize how much I hate what he did to us, and yet I am thankful for all he did for us! Because of him I was raised to stick to my principles and everyday I do that I take pride in being Roger Jr. Because of him I remember everyday to tell my wife I love her, I don't want to miss that chance the way I did with Dad. Because of him I know my serious flaws are not too difficult to overcome, and I know that I can't overcome those flaws alone. Because of him I know how to be there for somebody whenever they need you, there are times that you can't always be there, and there are times when you have to choose not to be there. Because of him I learned that you didn't have to be the biggest or the toughest or even the meanest, you just had to believe that what I was doing was right. I learned that you should never start a fight but if one finds you, you better finish it. 

Despite what I might think about my Grandma Lynn, she did love Dad. To deny that would be like denying my Dad's love for my brother, sister, or myself. And I knew that Dad loved Grandma. I used to watch him, clean up her house, because she just didn't care how dirty it got, I watched him hide her cigarettes because if he didn't she had no reason to get up. I watched them argue back and forth because Grandma would do just the bare minimum to get by. And just like I do not and will never doubt his love for her, I will never doubt his love for us, his family! To this day I carry the pride of knowing he did his best to care for us and he did so with the knowledge that each of us had a chance to be different. We just had to take that same leap that he did and choose to be different!