Dream of the Blue Turtles - A Prefiguration
I have been accused of writing a lot about my first daughter, and much less about my second girl. Why could this be? My first girl, our first baby, made a big difference in my life. It altered things, as they say that happens to us in parenthood. The second girl enhanced life, my life and that of others; things grew and grew from there. But the first one, the pioneer, has made big emotional impacts on me that I notice, I suppose, more. This can be good and bad. Or at least things that I note in writing. Like here in this form.
However, the second daughter has done some things that are new and innovative in her own right, not to be outdone or ignored by me or others. All that said, I love them both a great deal-- as much as a dad can? That says it all for me. I love them both; there is no comparison in the scheme of things. I write about one, but I can very much apply it to both. So, take heart, my second daughters. Nothing and no one compares to you. Except of course, my one true love, who is my wife... But a wife and progeny are very different things. People in our lives have different effects on us. Hence, my little essay or foray here:
The Dream of the Blue Turtles!
Here goes.
Sting became my favorite singer, likely when he produced his first solo album, by the name which I have shared. We all knew and loved his Police work, for over a decade, which was always catchy, fun, and in my opinion, genius. Walking on the Moon. Invisible Sun. On and on. Dee doo doo da. Who could make better stuff?
Sting himself could do better, as a solo artist, which occurred officially on 17 June 1985, about the time I left my 8th grade. That summer was a transitional time for me. Perhaps I bought the album in downtown Bloomington at Karma's or Rosco's, or another music store. It was an LP, a long play, vinyl as they tend to call them in the last decades since record albums are no longer the main way to listen to our favorite songs. For most people. We listen to Artificial Intelligence and streaming devices on smart phones and devices and things from the cloud, or the WiFi, or the next data center over.
This 1985 solo album. It became a part of me. Its words, its tunes, its messages. The dreams derived from it.
I listened to the music and it spoke to me. There were songs about the Russians, and Chileans, and an Englishman in New York, and the best one, my favorite, was a deep, nostalgic song about walking over the battlements of yesteryear, which perhaps I had been doing for a couple of years. "If I Built a Fortress. Around your heart. Encircled you in trenches of barbed wire."
Divorce in a family is rarely nice, rarely fun, rarely without its share of down times and punctures in normalcy, without some battles that are waged in the heart and the brain. I think that is something that my wife and I can agree on, both being children of divorce. How to fight the battles of the heart? Yell at a chair? Eat more ice cream? Watch comedy late at night to escape the doldrums of the house that no longer contains your mom?
We all lose things and people in our life. Some losses come with more pain and regret. We move on and move along, parts of us changing and mending or mending over. I still kept my mom, but perhaps parts of me turned off, like for domestic chores. Maybe some of those things lost their importance to me, perhaps they soured in my head or heart. What good is a nicely cooked meal or a clean and pristine toilet, or carpet, or folded clothes if you cannot be with your mom and dad?
What kind of life was that? Different, and sometimes sad, for sure. She was a few blocks away, and would be at work and church, and we would spend some days together weekly. Vacations. Food tastes good, but not quite as good as when we dined as a family. We would hang up the phone, say our family prayer and listen to the busy tone ring from the wall phone receiver. Together, as a family.
That was the past. A different life. I am not asking for pity or some kind of magical pill to overcome that melancholy or wistfulness for the past. Just understanding. Some things do not motivate me. Sorry, some things become somewhat annoying. Cook it this way! Clean it this way. Sure, fine. Do that. Do all those things. Separate and move on. Let the child go. Let her move on, even though she is an innocent baby. Well, that was another past chapter...
With time the time heals, and maybe the domestic chores seemed fine, innocuous, perhaps they did not contain poisonous barbs of spite and remorse. What have you done? I did this, said proudly and with hubris.
I don't know. Perhaps I am just making this all up.
Well, this is a funny turn! This write-up was supposed to be about my daughter and I, and the connection to turtles, the imaginary blue turtles of the younger me, and the real turtle that my daughter scooped up this morning to take far away to the Rocky Mountains.
Right?
About me and her. My first born, the one whom we carried to Los Angeles, where she crawled and walked and got lost at church, us parents scrambling the entire premises for her. The one we absconded down to Mexico with her vaccine records but no photo ID, so the Vietnamese border guard would reprimand us that our papers could be for a dog, not a little human. The little girl we brought to the Spanish branch at the Waterman building, who resisted the Spanish we had tried to speak to her her first two years, but we relented to speak English so that she would finally speak her little girl words. The little pre-schooler we took to Chile, pushing her about in a stroller with her baby sister, she pleading for ice cream at the corner neighborhood food shop. Pretty much every day.
The little girl we placed in kindergarten in northern Virginia, going to the nearby bus stop in sun, snow, and rain, with the little playmates who lived in our apartment complex. The little girl who followed us, from coast to coast, who made up stories, took care of her younger siblings, singing, playing, creating, dreaming.
Yes, and she and I dreamt of blue turtles, I am sure. She grew and grew, as we aged and matured. As parents, as kids, as a family, as a unit.
I acquired a West African Mud turtle a few years back, thinking that this might appease the youngest daughter (not yet mentioned till now.) Then it grew on the oldest. Leaving today.
They both went in tandem. A nice pair. The owner and the owned. Off to far away big grown up land.
We celebrate her! Them! Us. We have made it thus far.
We will be together, as another song of Sting proclaims from the same solo album. About love, family, togetherness.
Together! "We'll be together tonight."
Yes, this life is all about dreaming of the blue turtles.
Long live them! And us. I still hope that the Russians love their children, too. That the women dancing alone can achieve some type of solace. I pray that the mines that we have laid may overcome the chasms of what we want, wish for, and dream of. May we bridge the chasms of life and death, separation and longing.
I love the turtles. I love those that love them. It will never end, these dreams.
I will always love those dreams of yesteryear. Yesterday was far off, even within a few short years of when things were normal. Things change. We change. The songs come close to how we do, how we think, what we hope for and fear.
All the songs. They all come back to me, you, us.
My daughter. My daughters. All of them.
With me, forever.
