I guess I’d forgotten just how invigorating a stiff summer breeze can feel as it whistles past your ears, how refreshing a splash of salt water can taste at the corners of your mouth, how soothing a chorus of low-flying seagulls can sound at the end of a long afternoon on the Bay.
Slowly, though, it’s all coming back to me now as the sun sinks with abandon toward the mighty Pacific. Dad and I are exhausted too, but in the best kind of way. After hours of short-tacking back and forth along the San Francisco shoreline and clear on through the Golden Gate, we are at long last enjoying the fruits of our labor: a spectacular, spinnaker-flying broad reach back to Alameda, where Samantha and Mom and a hearty steak dinner are awaiting us at a window table for four at The Rusty Scupper.
These past five hours have been pure nautical bliss. Even more importantly, they’ve afforded my father and me what we’ve most needed for at least a decade: some quality time together aboard The Boat—time to sail, talk, take in all the elements, give ourselves a fresh start at this whole boating thing. A father and son sharing a common bond and a common passion.
This is how I always dreamed it could be. This is how I always knew it was supposed to be.
Somewhere along the windward shoreline of Treasure Island, the sound of fluttering nylon snaps me out of my wind-and-sea trance. We are, I now realize, sailing directly into the mammoth shadow of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, where sudden wind shifts are both frequent and unpredictable. The Boat’s huge red, white, and blue spinnaker is folding itself in half in a loud and colorful demand for attention. A quick adjustment—to the spinnaker pole, the sheets, or most likely, to both—is clearly needed. I jump into action without even thinking.
“Got it,” I shout to Dad on my way to the bow, pulling the slack out of the leeward sheet. I scurry forward, but I can’t get there soon enough.
BAM!
Our confused aluminum spinnaker pole slams against the mast rigging. The massive parachute-like sail to which it’s attached deflates itself before I can stop it.
“Come ON, God-damn-it!” I hear Dad yell from the cockpit. He is shaking his head back and forth in short and quick strokes, much as he always did in my youth when he wanted to make clear his disappointment with me.
Suddenly, a strong westerly crosses our stern and breathes new life into the flagging spinnaker. In an instant, the crisis is over. A smile returns to my father’s face every bit as quickly. “Come on back,” he says almost playfully, as if nothing ever happened.
But it’s too late. The damage is done. Something deep inside of me has snapped that can’t be put back together again. Mechanically, I about-face on the deck and return to the cockpit.
Now Dad and I are standing just inches apart. I am the ten-year-old kid who scrambled but failed to set the anchor just right in the river. I am the fifth-grader who tried to hang the fenders properly but still managed to put a scratch in The Boat’s shiny fiberglass hull. I am the grown man with OCD staring into the eyes of his father.
With the fury of three decades worth of pent-up ire and resentment, I reach over and grip my hands to his shoulders.
“Don’t you GET it?!” I shout into his face. “Can’t you see what you’ve done to me?”
Dad is shaking now. There is fear in his eyes—fear and confusion—as I continue my tirade.
“YOU did this to me. Don’t you get that. For the love of God, why can’t you see it? Why can’t you . . .”
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZ … A foghorn on the Bay Bridge cuts short my barrage of acid-filled words.
But it’s not a foghorn. No. It’s a higher-pitched sound, a jarring, strangely familiar sound.
My alarm. It’s my alarm clock.
This is my bed. It’s morning, and I’m in my bed. I have been dreaming. Dreaming the Dream again. The one I’ve been fighting with at least once a week for a good many months. The one that always leaves my skin clammy and my gut tied up in knots. I hate this damn dream and all its twisted variations. There are so many. Sometimes Dad and I are sailing on The Boat as we were tonight. Sometimes we’re working on a project together, attempting to build or fix something or another. Sometimes we’re just out taking a walk. Always, though, the dream sequence ends the same way—with me letting loose on my old man for all that he’s done to screw me up royally.
Why do I keep doing this—blaming Dad in my dreams, night after night? I don’t really hold him responsible, do I? I’ve seen the research. Genetics, not upbringing, almost certainly gave me my curse. Yeah, my quick-tempered father was capable of being a first-class prick, but then so too am I with Nicole and Brianna. And they seem to be fine. At worst, Dad and his militant perfectionism made me a checker—as opposed to a repeater or a hoarder or some other flavor of freak. Is that really so bad?
Isn’t my bitter subconscious-self being a little tough on the poor guy?
Besides, I’m the one who carried the whole sick dependency thing right out of my youth and clear into adulthood. Me, not Dad. Is it really his fault that I’m still so hell-bent on checking with him on every major decision I make, so committed to securing his reassurance like a necessary stamp on an entrance visa, so determined to keep him from shaking his head in disappointment with me?
Compassion—Others side of my belief pyramid, Resolve level. I have got to find some compassion for my father, if only during my waking hours.
I get my opportunity on December 27, Project Day 68, as I note on my index cards. Our extended family is gathered at Mandi’s place to celebrate Hanukkah, and Dad and I are in the backyard, catching up on things since our last visit together. We talk current events, as we always do. We talk computers and Internet sites and high-tech gadgets and other marvels of modern technology. And finally, inevitably, we wind up talking about the catastrophic consequences of other people’s screw-ups. This is what my father does for a living these days—speaks as an expert witness in insurance cases about what some poor schmo has done wrong in some deal. Since the two of us have already covered the news of the day and my coverage of it, I suppose it’s only fair that I show at least some interest in Dad’s latest courtroom testimony. Unfortunately, though, his who’s-screwed-over-whom stories are always so OCD-charged for me. Always. The same old negligence triggers waiting for me again and again. I can’t help wondering if he has any idea how badly he always sets me off, talking about some negligent driver or unqualified contractor.
For God’s sake, doesn’t he get it?
This is not my dream, though. I am not tempted to grab my father’s shoulders and launch into my diatribe. I know, in reality, that Dad simply doesn’t get it. It’s not his fault. Normal people couldn’t possibly understand the nuances of my beast. I remind myself of this, and Compassion’s place on my believing pyramid, as I put my game face on and attempt to jump into my father’s one-sided conversation, even challenging myself to ask a few follow-up questions.
Mandi’s holler of “Lunch!” a few minutes later saves me from at least a half-dozen OCD traps Dad and Doubt are conspiring to set. I am safe at the table, a handful of kids sandwiched between my father and me. But Dad pulls me aside as Mandi and Sam are clearing the last of the dishes.
“Can we tuck away for a minute?” he whispers.
“Sure,” I say, trying but failing to read his face. I point toward the stairwell that leads up to Mandi’s second-story den. We climb the stairs together in silence.
“Listen,” Dad says when we get to the top, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while about your OCD.”
“O-kaaaaaay,” I say, probably injecting far too much hesitation into that second syllable; I’m just not sure where he’s planning to take things. In the three-plus years since I first told my family about my OCD, the subject has come up maybe twice in conversations with my father, both times at my introduction. Mom likes to tell me—over and over, in fact—that Dad’s always asking her about how I’m doing, that he’s very concerned about me, but that he’s convinced I’ll broach the topic with him when, and only when, I have something I’d really like to share. So this is a first.
“I, uh, I’ve been thinking a lot lately…” he says, stopping as if to weigh his options for the rest of this sentence. “Thinking about the role I must have played in bringing about your OCD.”
My father’s words hang uncomfortably in the air between us. He has put them out here, it strikes me, more as a statement than an apology really. A pronouncement. A declaration. A simple matter of fact that I’m free to do with as I see fit. Still, I can’t help picking up on a certain sorrow in Dad’s eyes, a vulnerability that I’ve never before noticed in them.
An awkward silence fills the room like smoke.
I’m supposed to say something, I suppose. But I can’t. I’m speechless. I am still trying to make head or tail of what I’ve just heard. This is somehow another dream, albeit a daytime one with a much happier ending.
“I … I was pretty tough on you kids growing up,” Dad continues, the corners of his mouth now slightly turned down.
Another long pause.
I’ve really got to say something. Anything. So I offer up the first words I can string together in my open-jawed mouth. “Oh, I dunno. You always tried—”
“No, I was tough on you and your sister,” Dad interrupts. “And I’m still always trying to impose my own standards on the two of you. Take that new computer of yours.”
“The e-Machine?”
“Yeah.
“You were so excited when you called to tell me about it. And what did I do? Point out all the things that I thought were missing.”
“You’ve got high standards,” I say. “You’re a true perfectionist.”
“Well, that’s fine for my life, but I was so impatient with you and Mandi as kids, and now, with all that’s happened with you, I can’t help wondering—”
“You were impatient,” I concede, surprising myself with my controlled, emotion-free candor. This whole conversation is so different from the one I’ve played out countless times in my recurring dream. “Truth be told, you were a pretty lousy father at times. But you didn’t cause my OCD; some mutant gene in my body did. You’ve read enough of the research to know that, Dad.”
Dad shakes his head, starts to say something.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the fact that we’re just having this chat,” I interrupt. “I hope you know how much this means to me, being able to put this kind of stuff on the table.” My father and I have never talked openly about anything even remotely having to do with emotions. We have never said the words “I love you” to one another. And with a very few exceptions, we have never even shared a hug.
I decide to do something about the latter right now, and I put my arms around Dad. Our embrace has the awkwardness of two macho football players who, with great embarrassment, catch themselves getting carried away after a big play.
But it’s a start. And it feels damn good for the five or ten seconds it lasts. And although I can’t know it here, I will never again—not even once—dream the Dream again.
Exactly two weeks later I am standing at the kitchen counter with a phone receiver in my shaking left hand. Pick up, Dad. Come on, damn it, pick up the friggin’ phone.
I have spent the past two hours filling and prepping our brand new hot tub, the one Samantha surprised me with for Christmas this year. It’s all but ready for my inaugural dip. But after having watched the electrician install the wiring this morning, I’ve managed to convince myself that we did the hot tub installation all wrong at the first house we owned. Doubt has come up with a half-dozen electrocution what-ifs for me to ponder forever.
I want to call the new owners of that house and warn them of their impending perils, tell them to stay away from the damn thing or they’ll surely die. But I know I can’t; Jackie’s all over me these days about disrupting other people’s lives with my compulsive confessions. And that’s why I’m calling Dad. He’d helped me with that whole decking project. He’ll have some thoughts. I know I’ll feel better if he’ll just pick up the phone, if I can just run through everything with him.
“Hello.” My father’s voice is at the other end of the line.
Damn him for being there when I can’t stop myself from checking with him. Damn him for picking up the phone—doesn’t he know it could be his pathetic son calling for another OCD fix?
Doesn’t he get it?!