It’s not unusual for humans to look for patterns, and my brain was a bit surprised this last few days to see this first meeting of two different dates of some import in my 52 years. Though mom died in 2017, and dad in 2006, this is the first time that Mother’s Day has fallen ever on Dad’s birthday with both of them gone. It might seem like a bit of a stretch to you reading this, but there we have it. I get to think about it again in seven years, when I will be almost 60. Always doing the math.
There were many days, when they were both alive, that filial piety was just that: an obligation born of the simple fact of being someone’s child. Sometimes as an adult, I was happy to join them for the day, with or without brunch, others I drove up because I knew they’d like it, and that there’s been so many when I lived in other countries or was in college, and could not. I also knew a time was coming when I’d be able to see neither of them. My main regret? Not asking more questions, and not trying harder to get the needle out of the groove. Instead of being careful to get all of the soap off the dishes (dad, how many news reports have you heard of hospitalization for soap poisoning?), maybe asking him why he jumped ship from the Harry James big band, and joined Billy Eckstine. Instead of describing the sadism of her mother, learning how an asthmatic, jewish girl from Tujunga, Los Angeles got into serious choral music, and became good enough at it such that the choir she founded went to Carnegie Hall, four times. Always doing, or citing, the math.
But grooves are familiar, and the questions I did manage to sneak in were sometimes met with hostility (I’ve told you that a million times), lack of interest (who cares {uh, me}), no memory of the event, or ... astonishing stories that set me back in my chair. My father’s nickname as a young blond (he was never blond to me) being “Whitey,” my middle name named for mom’s favorite uncle. Sometimes, these human events stopped my inner calculator.
The calculator is always working. If I meet someone who is 20, their birth-year is the year I moved to San Francisco; if they are 21, they were conceived the year prior. Tom was 50 when he was mentoring me, which makes him now 72, which is six years younger than mom was when she died. The Oakland Magic Circle, to which I belong, was founded when dad was one year old. I stopped by a hamburger joint to get a shake a few nights ago in Davis, California, coming back from visiting my oldest brother (65), and realized I’d graduated 30 years ago that month, maybe that week, maybe that day. I swore out loud. I had my reasons. But always doing the math.
I write this at a cafe where I’ve been coming for about eighteen years. There is a great deal to do: the apartment is a disaster (as it often is), particularly victimized by its neglect due to marketing, rehearsing, and doing a new magic show, and after doing the emotional math, I concluded you’ll have to find the show rather than me posting a link. Yesterday’s multi-part tweet was a marketing piece, but using dead mom and dad to sell a tickets is not my intent. Perhaps I can be accused of doing the emotional math, in even noting the new show.
If you ask me (the guy at the cafe who has ignored me for ten years across from me will not even make eye contact, much less ask me anything) why I am writing this, I confess I have no idea. I had the thought to write something, hesitated (per my friend of Carl’s advise to always insist on working to make your art as perfect as can be), but decided this isn’t for art.
I wrote it mostly for me, and to pay some respects to David H. Madden and Linda Hughes, two remarkable, flawed people, without whom there would be none of my magic shows nor blogs nor ADHD moments nor playing Bach with mistakes for a paid audience nor climbing cranes 31 years ago on my last day in Vienna to see the sunrise, nor 20 years in what they called “the City” come this August, nor me maybe living as long as they did, and doing things worth doing that were as good as their accomplishments (the challenge of all children, regardless of artistic or philistine homes of origin).
Forgive me, new friends: have had a bit on my mind. And dear reader, regardless of the difficulty of your parents, or their state in life, if they are around, consider telling them you love them (if it is so, however qualified), and perhaps asking them a question or two.
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