This Is My Father

November 18, 2016

This Is My Father

When a person lives outside the norms of a lifestyle accepted by the majority of their society, it is easy to judge them as somehow anomalous to how life “should” be lived. When that person is close to you, it can be both easier and more difficult to accept them as they are without prejudice. In today’s world our collective tolerance for otherness often feels as though it is narrowing – especially in countries such as the UK, where there is media and marketing pressure to adhere to consumerism and an outward presentation of self that conforms to the aspirations dictated by commerce. I have chosen to focus on my Father. Because of the dissonance I feel when faced by someone actively living in juxtaposition to the things that the society I live in pushes me to value. I admire his longstanding refusal to engage with values he has not chosen, but ultimately this has precipitated a withdrawal from accepted living standards that I am not comfortable with. It is unlikely that I am alone in walking this line - feeling a want to help someone who in fact has no desire for help and would not view themselves as in need of any. But the line becomes ever less clear as the inexorable vulnerability of old age gradually reverses our relationship. You can read more about each picture by clicking to expand and then hitting the information icon.

This is my Father in 2016. It is about my struggle for reconciliation of a growing responsibility for someone I love, with their right to live as they choose.

And It's Still Dripping

Living an existence. Ungoverned by such things as washing the dishes, or fixing a dripping tap.

This Is My Father

Light Through The Nettles. An (Upstairs) Bathroom Window

This is an upstairs bathroom. Those are stinging nettles. Merrily growing inside the glass. How they got there, I do not know.

A Place To Sit

Were it less gloom shrouded, this room could say a lot. About diabetes. About high blood pressure. About which apples did well this year. About which yarn was discounted. About how far the heater should be from the chair for an Englishman with no central heating and a concrete floor. About how many yards of fabric one can crochet in a cricket season. About how life can condense, if you let it, and drip across your floor in a scramble of Bob Dylan cassettes and books about etymology.

Apples On A Plastic Chair

I look at these and wonder what they represent, if anything at all. Why are they, clearly carefully, arranged on this chair? How long have they been there? How long will they stay? There is a beauty in decay, often missed, that finds a space here. Just to be.

Molasses. Snail Trail. Potato.

I smile for times like these. Because I know that, while this potato was absentmindedly placed here some time ago, it has not been absentmindedly left here. Oh no. This is now its place - where it will be observed and enjoyed as it changes. And the snails who have graced it with their presence won't have even an inkling that they are a part of the special sort of art practiced by my Father.

Pan Handle

Queue Of Chairs

For what? There will have been a purpose to these. A thought that they would be useful, perhaps to children - when they settle down. A fleetingly imagined dining table populated with happy grandkids. Oh traces of unfulfilled hope, you are so very sharp where you touch me.

Fish Tank World

18 years of unchecked growth. A ground floor in the permanent gloaming.

A Life Like Other People's

Hanging Out

Still Dripping

Living an existence. Ungoverned by such things as washing the dishes, or fixing a dripping tap.

Crochet: Summer 2016 Output

I Learned To Bake Here. Back When I Was Wee. In the before of what feels like a different life

I once dropped a Simnel Cake on the floor of this kitchen, as I was standing on a stool to reach to get it out of the oven. The floor which was clean enough back then that we just scraped it and me back up and covered over the cracked bits with marzipan. I don't think marzipan would quite cut it these days.

Definition Of Imperium: Absolute Power

Peddling Prosperity

Or really really not.

Meanwhile, In The Garden

These are kiwi fruits. Growing in a UK garden.

The Hands Off approach to gardening has yielded somewhat surprising results

Sri Lanka Vs England

One back post treble crochet at a time, the cricketing greats battle it out all summer long via a small portable radio at his feet. Pockets chock full of yarn balls he churns out yard after yard, over after over. An exercise in contemplation and arthritis deterrence. The foliage creeps ever on.

Sri Lanka Vs England

Every Day Things A Testing Ground For Progressive Architecture Of The Arachnid Variety

They maintain a respectful acknowledgement of each other, my Father and the Spiders. Like individuals of guesthouse acquaintance, who pass on the stairs - their lives operate within the same sphere, but seldom overlap.

He Was Not Always Alone

There was once a bear. And there was once my Mother. Neither of which stuck very well to the heart. Though that does remain, all fadedness and ancient spillage, with no more and no less love despite.

Shooting The Breeze

Time Passes. This Is How It Goes

Occasionally he untangles things. Small things like yarn. Or larger things, when the outside world of ebbing links to erstwhile dependents impinges.

Cooking For One

He and the microbiome of his kitchen evolve mutual resistance in symbiotic harmony (so far), down through years of unfettered disregard for the urbanity of chores.

Myself

The Front Door

While I (and the postman) struggle to sail calm across the reality of his choices (I find myself dithering next to responsibility that I am unsure it is right to pick up, the postman finds himself with wet clothes and muddy feet) he is happy in his now, my Father.

Still Dripping

Living an existence. Ungoverned by such things as washing the dishes, or fixing a dripping tap.