Russian Spoken Here
Reflections Down The Family Line
I keep thinking about this. Something I wrote on my LiveJournal shortly before my 30th birthday, And shortly before my 50th back in April, I read it again. A few more times since. I don’t know why it’s on my mind but I thought I’d post it here. The title is also the title of the second piece in The Stories Of Vladimir Nabokov from which I took it:
A rather emotional and fun-filled last few weeks seemingly continuously celebrating my upcoming 30th bday. Saturday opening gifts from the family, was very touched by a wrapped box awaiting me from my father (my mother usually buys the gifts from them both) which turned out to be a bottle of Midleton’s Very Rare, the very thing I had just sent J.P. Donleavy for his upcoming 80th, the day before mine. The family all partook of a wee dram, ever so smooth and with an exquisite aftertaste. If you ever find yourself in Stratford when I’m back, we’ll hoist a finger or two. Also presented with a bottle of “AUGEY WHITE”, now seen in my new userpic.
And Monday after the bank and post office made my way from cemetery to cemetery, first to see my grandmother in her “garden apartment”, and walking into the community mausoleum immediately bursting into tears which continued as I drove clear across the other side of town to see my grandfather (on the other side of the family) whose grave I hadn’t been to alone in a long time, and checking with Meg neither had she, and we both wondered why. And on this day I kept in mind all the good things, of which there were tons, and kept at a safe distance all the stubbornness and difficulties. After he died, my grandmother told me he would say to her, speaking of me and music, “he’s good, he’s very good, but I could never tell him that because there’s no money in it”. But at least she made it seem like he regretted this. As I regret, as this feeling flowed heartily throughout the rest of the family as well, all those years not wanting to disappoint them and how horribly those times turned out.
And yet I sometimes wonder what he’d think of me now. But wonder more when I have kids, showing them a picture of him and announcing “that’s my grandfather”, how in all likelihood it would mean little to them. And how sad that is, that your memory only lives on about 100 years at best.
My great-aunt recently found a picture of her father and sent it to my grandmother. An illiterate coalminer who could understand but not speak English. but was a Russian gentleman nonetheless. Whom the whole town could rely on for help. Whom my grandmother loved dearly and showing me the photograph said “oh Adam, I wish you could have known my father. He was such a good man.”
“Well he certainly looks like a gentleman, Gramma” (which he does)
And with tears forming “he was Adam, he was”.
And one senses more and more that these are the things that matter most in life. As I sit here now, alone, far from my family. With a damn good novel under my belt and a hand- and heart-ful of beautiful songs. In London. After 30 years. With hopefully many more to go. And a wide uncertain future ahead. Hoping in which “to burn and not to freeze”.
END OF LJ POST. First things first, if you didn’t know, yes my birth name is Adam. Please never call me that. If it weren’t for my being a stickler for preserving dialogue and text as a whole, I would’ve changed that lickety-split, but without that name’s second syllable here the whole thing falls apart for me
I still sometimes wonder what my grandfather would think of me. All three grandparents - I never knew my dad’s dad - are gone now. And all three had artistic ambitions. My grandfather was a musician and a painter and as he once told me ‘I only ever had an idea for one story in my life’. A story he bequeathed to me in 5th grade when some of us were asked to write something as a special project and the idea seemed foreign to me. So we worked on it together and I guess is the first thing I ever wrote. Physically, I mean. I made up stories all the time, as all kids do
My grandmothers both had ambitions involving the written word. My mom’s mom would always talk about wanting to head to Philadelphia to become ‘a hot shot journalist’ when she was 18 but instead accepting my grandfather’s proposal. And my dad’s mom always wrote and one xmas got me one of those Writers’ Market books which was incredibly thoughtful. As far as I could remember she was always involved in writers' groups at her senior center and had a few things published. When she died I typed up all her stories and my dad and I put together a book for the family. There was one that I always thought was great, and showed my grandmother’s sense of humor, about a gondolier who gets two women pregnant at the same time. I’ve sometimes thought about trying to get it published for her
Alejandro Jodorowsky has a wonderful book called Metagenealogy in which he talks about how there are certain traits which travel down the family line seeking their expression in individual members. Some of my family are artistic but it seems to have come down to me, for better or worse, to actually express it and live that life. I don’t see how it could have been otherwise. And especially having to do with words. I always wonder - and talked my therapist’s ear off on Monday - why I have such trouble getting music done but for writing I can do it every day and have amassed a good amount of it. And it may not be true at all about the Metagenealogy stuff but it seems to me that’s what wants to be expressed thru me
My grandmother, the one who had had journalistic aspirations, told me when she saw my first by-line in Dazed magazine, that she had ‘never felt prouder’. Funnily enough that piece was interviewing Alma Jodorowsky, Alejandro’s granddaughter. And it was one of the few times my grandmother called me Aug, as that’s what was written on the page, beaming a huge smile as she said it
I guess this is about Nabokov too. Who made me want to write when I was 23. I posted a year or so ago that while I absolutely adored his work when I was younger, I now find the novels a bit cold. Which I felt bad saying, considering how much he meant to me. But I’ve dived into a few again and well…I’m no longer a desperately shy young man who seeks refuge in a haughty Russian intellect. I’m nervous to go back to The Gift, which I always considered to be the most beautiful book I’ve ever read. But I still feel the passion I felt for what he did with language and all his textual games. Ways of approaching words that became irrevocably a part of my being. There’s a lot of Nabokov in my upcoming Clown Damage book. And just yesterday I worked a reference into a short story. A reference it’s doubtful anyone will get but I do and I love it. I did revisit a few of the short stories lately and The Vane Sisters remains my all-time favourite by anyone. Spring In Fialta, which is almost its inverse, is also quite wonderful, both very life-affirming. And yes it is pretentious that he claimed the ‘trick’ of The Vane Sisters “could only be tried once in a thousand years of fiction” but my god does it fill me with joy, the words evoking a most beautiful feeling in my heart
And thinking back to being 30 too, when the above was written, one of the best years of my life. Well, at least the first half, exactly the length of my six month UK visa. That spring and summer where it was proven to me once again that if you push with everything you got you’ll make things happen. And even if it seems like it all comes crashing down at the end, there were be some things you made that when the dust settles you’ll see were strong enough to remain and will be with you forever. That feeling now too, as there’s so much to get done
The last line of the above piece - “to burn and not to freeze” - is a quote from Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. Spoken - in English - by a woman in the party scene. It jumping out at me by the sudden switch in language - an added layer here by Italian being the other side of my heritage, and I had been studying both Russian and Italian back then. Watching the film I remember that line seeming to pop out of the screen like a message just for me regarding the meaning of life, something that seared straight into my soul and I thought ‘yes, yes that’s it’
