Clouds

In my life I haven't laid in the grass and looked at clouds to often. When young you looked for faces and animals in clouds, not so much anymore. When I was older as I am now I look at clouds a lot more from down, looking down from airplanes. I like to look at clouds from airplanes. I still find it incredible that we can fly and there is nothing out there but clouds anyway.

Recently, on Hollywood Beach, I am looking up at clouds a lot more, laying in the Atlantic looking up. Last night, the 4th, I watched dirty clouds blowing west from the fireworks while laying on the beach.  Watching clouds may be good for you. This past week I had a respite from the poison and gained back seven of the ten pounds I lost in recent weeks. I felt really good this morning but now the poison is back.

My Dad is dead. He died coming on two years ago. I cried at his funeral, didn't expect to, the next time I cried was at the Waffle House. The last time before his funeral I cried was when I called my parents to tell them the news that I had been DXed with MCC. I told my mother, no problem, but when she handed the phone to my
Dad I could not speak.

Earlier when I was in Michigan staying with my parents to help my Mother take care of my Dad he was there across the kitchen table, breakfast, a scowl on his face, something in his two minute short term memory was focused on his eldest son. "Bob do you pray?" I didn't answer. Then with as much ferocity as I have seen from him since I told him early on a Saturday morning that I was not going back to my senior year at Mt. Calvary Wisconsin Seminary, he said " Bob you have to start praying before it is too late!

I think, no, I know that he had not been happy that I went in the first place but now to stand in the doorway of their bedroom and tell them that I had sent back the postcard saying NO I will not be returning, well it upset his world and his world was rapidly becoming not mine.

His was a world of the universal, the Catholic, a simpler world, a world of the greatest generation, a world with lots of veils you couldn't see through like clouds. He ddn't try as far as I know, I had to since reality stuck its raw putrid guts right in my face. In my world the veils had parted, some of the clouds took strange shapes.

When my parents dropped me off at the seminary and entrusted me to Father John they did not know he was a pedofile. I didn't either until setting on the sofa on Roosevelt Island reading Time magazine thirty five years later I found out. You see there were others. How many? Who knows but the victims, there are many more than those who have come forward. Twenty to one may be low. Look at me. When I turned to my wife and said that Time Magazine says that the Capuchin priest my parents entrusted me to back in 1958 was a pedofile it was it was the first time I had even thought about what had happened back in 1960. I had blacked it out. I told her that Father John had not molested me, another priest had, starting in the confessional. Big black clouds were raining then and I changed.

How do you tell your parents, true believers, blindly following the guy on the sticks, that if you died tomorrow, a distinct possibility, and found that their was a God who was going to judge me that I would use those powers that he had given me to spit in his face and proceed to judge him. Bob damn Him.

There was no way I could even imagine telling them why I was not going back. It was incomprehensible in a home where the word sex simply didn't exist.

On the phone that day I was trying to tell my Dad that I was dieing, probably before he would. It was the ultimate failure for an eldest son to me. Clouds got in my way. He had Prostate Cancer and Diabetes and had had a stroke ten years before. His short term memory was shot. I could tell him anything, he would not remember in five minutes. I could tell him nothing.

" It is life's illusions I recall, I really don't know clouds at all."

"Both Sides Now"
(Clannad & Paul Young)

Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere, I've looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun they rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done, but clouds got in my way

I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It's cloud's illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all

Moons and Junes and ferris wheels the dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real, I've looked at love that way
But now it's just another show, you leave 'em laughin when you go
And if you care don't let them know, don't give yourself away

I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud, to say, "I love you" right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds, I've looked at life that way
But now old friends are acting strange they shake their heads, they say
I've changed
But something's lost but something's gained in living every day

I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all
Judy Collins