Thirty-Four

 

When I reflect on that night now, I’m struck by my father’s intellectual ability to reverse-engineer the cosmos, making me the focus of a Carole-centric universe—a rendition that, to be honest, I find both comforting and annoying. The Big Bang theory is, after all, the latest in a litany of creation myths, humankind’s ongoing attempt to describe the ordering of the cosmos—we have, for example, creation-from-chaos stories like the Sumerians’ Eridu Genesis, and the Greeks’ Theogony of Hesiod; the Earth-driver type like the Cherokee story of the water beetle who formed the Earth from mud; emergence myths like the Mayan account of two gods, Kukulkan and Tepeu, who, after failing to create humans from mud, then wood, finally constructed man from maize; out-of-nothing explanations like the Judeo-Christian story of Genesis, or the collection of myths emanating from Ancient Egypt; world-parent tales like Rangi and Papa from the South Pacific, or the Hindu account of Mahapralaya and Svayambhu. Like my father, I could go on (and on and on), but my point is that we humans want to know where we came from. We want to know the origins of the universe. And for some of us, we want to know more about our family of origin. Where did I come from in the big and small scheme of things—I, the mysteriously generated organism that emanated from a long-ago crashing of atoms, but also I, the daughter of Bruce and Aranga Firstman.

My father’s version of the origin of the universe intrigues me, not only because it includes me, by name even, and not only because it locates the temporarily clustered atoms that form the me I recognize in the mirror—the physical body I temporarily inhabit during this blip I call a lifetime—but also because this version accounts for the longevity of my atoms, the basic elements that spewed into existence billions of years before now, elements that will still exist long after my body’s gone: a form of immortality, I suppose—not quite as comforting as the notion of heavenly eternal life, but at least the element-recycling plot of the Big Bang storyline is, well, it’s something. Better than nothing.

I admire the fact that my father, through his professional pursuits—researching the anatomical features of modern scorpions in order to support Darwin’s theory of evolution, thus contributing to the ongoing discourse of the creationist-evolutionist debate—adds to humankind’s inquiry of nature, science, and God. That’s big-potatoes stuff, the Strategy #2 approach in the Contents for Life conundrum.

I find comfort in the fact that my father and I share the same DNA.

If he can tackle big potatoes, then maybe I can, too.

I’m annoyed by the fact that my father and I share the same DNA.

If he can tackle big potatoes, then why didn’t Raising a Family make his big-potatoes list?

Technically speaking, my father spent significantly more time with my half-sister, Liza, than he did with my brother and me. But the difference was in physical proximity rather than genuine day-to-day interest. Although my dad and Liza lived under the same roof for twenty years (until she died of cancer two days before her twentieth birthday), I don’t think he was much more involved in her upbringing than he was in my brother’s and mine. Children are seen and not heard. Children are the mother’s responsibility. Don’t bother me while I’m in my office at the far end of the house. Close the door on your way out.

Fathering a child and raising a child are two very different things. Mating with a woman and being a husband are two very different things. (Recall our humanoid friend Chaka from Land of the Lost, how he went home, banged Mrs. Chaka, and probably his newly widowed sister-in-law, Mrs. Tuktuk, as well. Chaka mated. Judging from the behavior of most primates I’ve observed, I doubt he did much fathering.) On an intellectual level, I know it’s the Asperger’s that drives my father’s paternal disinterest. He’s hardwired this way. He can’t help it. On the other hand, relatively newfound medical labels are a weak salve for old emotional wounds.

As my dad and I sat in the courtyard of that Mexican motel watching the meteor shower, as he spoke—or perhaps I should say, lectured—about crashing atoms and radioactive decay and anthropic principle, while we sipped red wine from thermos camping mugs, his apparent disinterest in the domestic activities going on around us mirrored his lifelong disregard for my own family of origin, my mother, my brother and me (and Marina and Liza, too); I never ranked as a big potato. On a personal, day-to-day level, he is and always has been the center of his own universe. So I’m unsatisfied with my father’s particular potato salad recipe.

My own mixture of small and large potatoes might not be any better, though. Here I am, midlife: no kids; no symphonies; no correspondence addressed to me from Stephen J. Gould; strained relationships with my elderly parents; still searching for my spot on the spectrum of reconciliation as I pack and shuffle their Office Depot boxes from house to shed, from house to assisted-living apartment. Good daughter or bad? Who will clean out the contents of my house?