3
To Be Invisible
Nobody in my family likes having their picture taken. It must seem strange in our world of selfies, overexposure, and self-confidence, but fear of the camera is one characteristic every member of my family shares. It is as though my entire family wants to be invisible. I bet there aren’t more than twenty pictures of my family together from my entire upbringing. This photo sums us up. It was taken without warning, and this was our collective reaction.
As for the spoons on the wall, my dad collected them. They were novelty spoons of vistas all over the world, mostly given to him by others. He seldom traveled and we never went on family holidays. If he wasn’t working, he would spend time in his garden. The thought of going somewhere? Anathema. But somewhere underneath whatever it was that stifled him, he held an awareness and a curiosity about the world. I picked up that spirit and have been running with it since I was able.
I felt responsible for the lack of attention I received from my parents, that somehow I made them ignore me the way they did. I grew up wondering if I counted for anything, because I never got the idea that my parents cared very much. I have offered many excuses for them—they were both hardworking, we were left to our own devices because they were in subsistence mode, they didn’t have time for niceties, etc. The problem is that I had other friends whose family lives and economic challenges were as restricted as ours, and their experiences were much different. I am not mad about this, but it did fuck me up a bit. I am still haunted by the ghosts that were handed to me when I came into his world.
Some fucking fairy tale, Chesterton. Some fairly tale.