Co-opposing

Somehow, we’re built to hold two opposing ideas/concepts simultaneously. People died ; not me.

Climate change happens somewhere else. Not here (what if someday you want to travel or live there).

Bad guys take from me (how about me you, at times, live a mix bag non binary life – conveniently acting like a jerk – e.g. when starved or deprived of Black-Friday sales due to “supply chain” challenges).

We made millions of mili-and-mis calculations in our heads for survival.

Our conscious life is a selective continuum of memories (or else, I can’t live with myself, if every morning, I get up, that damn bad past keeps replaying while I brush my teeth).

So we unconsciously forget. Sometimes we forgive but mostly we forgive ourselves first (Sales pros were taught to stand and say to the mirror thousands of times “I like myself” since Sales is a numbers game, facing hundreds of rejection a day).

No one can swim in the same river twice ( esp. those bad and stinky stuff I’d rather forget).

We pick and choose: a moment in time, somewhere in time, someone in time ( my first daughter used to fall to sleep on my chest, once, both of us wore the same T shirts – on sale – hers oversize).

Still Alice.

Still remember.

Only if we can move back and forth, even just as an observer (of that film, which we all starred in).

I once blogged about my unmade bed as recounted by my nephew who came by after the 9 of us fled Vietnam in a hurry.

More than just a pillow and a blanket (I used to hold on to it, my security blanket).

Beyond material things were unresolved relationships, unsettled debt of honour, or a father/son unfinished lesson (ironically, I was listening to Cat Stevens’ Father and Son, the year the album came out – and thought to myself, when would I ever have this kind of back-and-forth duet with my Dad).

He indirectly continues to teach me, via my older brother to this very day. Both served a stint in the Army: my Dad before the rise of Communism, and my brother, on the side of the US against it.

The decade that my Dad and I were apart was painful. I scrambled to make a living, to re-build and refurbish myself.

A decade later, after having re-established himself, my brother sponsored my Dad over to live under one roof. Now he – my brother – is officially “promoted” to take over my Dad’s lazy chair: belling out advices and reprimands at me.

I appreciate the concerns. Didn’t have it for quite a while – someone without family’s tough love could very well form decade-old sticky habits. Now, it’s like remedial learning. Make-up sessions. Albeit indirectly but distilled guidance via my brother. Polygamist family, dressing up in sheep clothing on the other side of the Pacific ( but in compliance, here , per US Civil law).

But we always pay and pay out dearly. To the last dime. With Army’s proper comes temper. PTSD if you will.

Good luck to those who think they can just cross us (from Dad on down). My Dad threw a knife (that stuck to the door frame) at an intruder who with long pole tried to fish out my mom’s purse (laid open on the table, middle of the house, whose windows designed for ventilation, quite common in tropic living).

So, two simultaneous wives for my Dad. Two simultaneous kids, with two simultarneous opposing households to be visited in one single day (snacks and entree).

Somehow my Dad made it through. Somehow the four adults I grew up with made it through: 1945 (Japanese occupation and famine), 1954 (partition of North and South Vietnam, after Korea’s blue prints, without the forever aid of the US to S Korea), 1963 revolution/assassination of the Diem’s brothers, 1968 Tet, 1975 End of “Vietnam” (or the American War – then thought of as the longest until Afghanistan came on to the global stage).

My Dad faded away on a Winchester Winter. No fuss no fanfares funeral with snow-padded six-feet under. C’est fini (Capri).

All that love and longing. Of pre-war songs (our cousin came by the house and asked for those song sheets the day my Dad left Vietnam).

She knew. It’s the last time. Wish I knew moments like that. To ask for things ….NO. To cherish those near “Fini” moments. To look into those eyes that once insisted “No it’s not me who will someday die – or fade away”.

We live in continued denial of that: I , you, we all men are mortal. We might win today, lose tomorrow. Or get even like Count Monte Cristo. But we will never ever get our loved ones back. They ( younger ones who live on) will never someday get us back. Only those songs and song sheets. (Now they have Spotify, paid or free.) All the copyrighted pastimes now made available in public domain. But we need to face the mirror and the music: our own “bell-bottom blues” ..”..Give me one more day….I don’t want to fade away…”. Built that way, fashioned after bell-bottom, all the while, thinking: “I never will or don’t want to fade away” (until the day, everyone wears sweats and pajamas out on the street)….

OKay, so the arrows will cover the Sun, then we will fight in the shade…(still in denial and refusal to face the inevitable….as you led the 300 with two opposing ideas). Write a memoir, wear some sweats and get on with reality, Bell-Bottom Blues. Enjoy the moment.

If I had known….I would have slept in the morning of April 29, 1975. Just held on one more second to that security blanket. Haven’t found one that fits the bill since. And that’s just one little material thing, quite doable, yet unaccomplished still this side of that major loss.