THE HONEY DEW CAFE CHRONICLES

Tag: relationships

  • The Beginning

    The bombs went off all around him as he clung to the side of the hill not knowing whether this was the end.

    This was my father, 28 years old, 1943, a commander of men on the Greek island of Leros during  World War Two. He’d been in the war since day one having signed up to the Royal Navy reserves in 1938.

    Like so many, he saw what was coming.

    But he never really saw what was coming, at least not for him.

    Years of stress and trauma that would leave him shattered at the war’s end. Shattered, unsupported, abandoned by the establishment that lauded him, and left to suck it up. Unequipped to talk about it, not even daring to admit to himself there might be something wrong. No, he was a man, men did not do that, men took a deep breath and carried on, not uttering a word to anyone, never showing weakness.

    Stride forth great warrior, and achieve, achieve, achieve.

    He was a war hero. He received the DSC for incredible acts of bravery, saving the lives of so many at the risk of his own. Enrolled into the Greek Sacred Regiment, he was nicknamed as one of the ‘Vikings of the Aegean’ by the local Greek partisans.

    Then he came home…

    My father.

    A wild character.

    He married my mother in early 1949, and they had their first child, Geoff, born in December of that year, then came my sister Georgie in 1952, my brother Mike in 1953 and me, in 1959.

    But he was wild, off the rails.

    He was a business wizard, turning deals, making connections, partying, gambling, not paying his taxes; everyone’s friend, what a character, what a man.

    Good old Frank.

    Good old Frank. He made my mum’s life hell, oh the stories she told me… I had to ask her to stop.

    Those years of childhood are misty to me, relying more on the stories of others, photos, and grainy home movies, movies and photos that make everything look so normal, a normal, well-to-do happy family.

    I have little snapshots mind you: being bounced up and down on my father’s tummy, him smiling up at me; the feeling of my father’s rough, unshaven cheek when giving him a kiss;  him taking me to see his yacht, acquired through some complex gambling debt from his buddy Sir Max Aitkin, his war had moved him into a giddy other world; …and of my mother trying to strangle him with his necktie in the kitchen when I was about 5 years old…

    Without knowing why, I was lost and confused, and scared.

    The devil used to speak to me.

    That is why I cut up the expensive silk curtains mum.

    I confess, I became wild and reckless myself, yet when I look back, I don’t really remember, I only see the mask; the nice guy, the reliable, good old Dave the guy everybody likes.

    What did everybody else see?

    Who knows?

    When my father died when I was 6 years old my world ended. He had told me, me and my sister, who was 7 years older than me, that he was going to kill himself. I did not know what he meant, what on earth can that mean.?

    I remember sitting in his lap, him in the armchair by the front door, he was crying, crying with such depth and despair, and I could do nothing. I then see the front door open and him gone, and I never saw him again.

    Did this really happen? I don’t know, but it is in me as clear as if it did, so something happened.

    Many years later, more than thirty, I was sitting in a small cottage up the side of the mountain in a remote part of Co. Leitrim, Ireland where I was living and working,  reading ‘FAMILIES and how to SURVIVE Them’ by John Cleese and Dr Robin Skynner.  What I had just read I don’t remember, but what I do remember was that I was hit by a  realisation, as a bolt from the blue. The book fell from my hand to the floor, I was stunned as I said quietly, out loud, “Oh, my god, I killed my dad”.

    My father died by suicide when I was 6 and I disappeared inside of myself. I became a quiet, withdrawn boy. I struggled at school. I was no trouble but I was not anything else either. My mother tried to bring me out of myself by signing me up to a child modelling agency, it was torture, I hated every minute of it, but I did what was expected of me. Anything to keep me safe. Then it emerged I was not doing well in my school work. It was an independent school and my mother was not willing to keep struggling with paying the fees if it was not going to get anywhere and she let me know that unless things improved I would be sent to the local state school.

    This terrified me, so I turned things around and excelled.

    Anything to survive. I got through. I went onto a Public School.

    In the background were my brothers and sister, and as far as I was concerned I was one of them. I did not relate to boys of my own age, but more with them, it was them that I would like to hang around with.

    Mike 6 years older, the Golden boy and my personal tormentor, Georgie, 7 years older, bright and intriguing with her cool friends, and then there was Geoff. 10 years older and in a band.

    A band that was going places. On TV, on tour with Gilbert O’Sullivan and Led Zeppelin, it was a giddy world. I learned to drink young, 11, getting drunk for the first time at my brother Geoff’s 21st birthday party. I met TV celebrities, even getting drunk at a BBC after show celebration dinner at a Chinese restaurant. What was I, 12, 13 , 14 maybe? Everyone thought it was funny!

    I would go with my mother during the school holidays to Ibiza and have to hang out with her expat cronies, and they would find the drunk little teenager cute.

    Geoff, though he was the one. He was the glory child, he was going places. He was the one who would try to buck me up, get me to grasp the nettle of life, but I was so afraid, and I was in awe of him.

    And then everything fell apart. The band kicked him out, he tried to remake himself  but it all unravelled.

    It was the Easter school holidays 1975. Mum was off to Ibiza again but I refused to go. I was 15 I would stay at home with my brothers. Then the phone call came, which I answered. Geoff was dead, suicide.

    Again suicide.

    This is where it ends for me, where my memory became erased. Blank.

    I then spent years thinking I was okay.

    Years of dangerous behaviour starting with drinking under age. I somehow kept afloat training to be a computer programmer, going from job to job, but the nice guy was off the rails. Driving like a mad man fuelled on alcohol, relishing the screams of the girls in the car. Riding motorbikes fast, high on Dodos and wine. Taking speed, mushrooms, Ganja, heroin even, and more alcohol; always alcohol.

    I wove through this in one form or another for years and years, always being the lovely guy, always getting away with it, but I never saw myself. I never saw how I had come to hate my father, and then to hate his surrogate, Geoff, and how I was trying to kill them by trying every which way I could to kill them within me. To kill me.

    These stories, these poems, these whatever’s that will appear here are what I promise are the raw truth as best as I can tell. It.

    These are my stories. My stories of a boy trying to become a man, a good man, strong man.

    Sure, I was always reliable, sincere, honest and trust worthy, these were all masks to help hide the rage, the lost warrior within me, the hapless hero throwing himself against the enemies guns.

    I have started to wake up now, and that is another story in itself, which will appear here.

    I invite you to stay with me as this story unfolds, in all its imperfections, and in no particular order, and with no particular moral or point to make. Just my exploration, my stories; make of it what you will. I hope through this I will learn. Learn who I was, who I am now, and who I am becoming.

    So, let us begin.

  • One

    A cascade tumbling down,

    Watery sparks of light,

    Dancing in the air,

    Alive,

    Vibrant.

    Into a deep, deep pool

    It roars,

    Churning,

    Rippling,

    Then merging with the calm.

    The pool tranquil now,

    Expanding out,

    It laps the edges,

    Inviting you to its depths,

    To peaceful filled coolness.

    You enter,

    You float,

    Sky above,

    Earth below,

    All becomes one.

  • Emotional Presence

    I was taking part in an online session with a men’s group that I am part of, the Man Program led by Andy Nathan. We were on week 6 of ‘The Masks Men Wear’, and looking into what Andy had named as the mask of the ‘Uninitiated Man’.

    We went in pairs to breakout rooms to examine a few questions, the crux of which was “… are you effectively forcing your partner to be the ‘Man of the House’ emotionally, so you can stay the ‘Child’… If she started acting exactly like you tomorrow – be reactive, check-out – would your family survive?”.

    Well my first reaction was, well of course not. Dorothy and I are do regular dialogues and go deep into many a difficult topic, and always come to a better place for it. Then in the course of the discussion I  had with my breakout buddy I had a quick and sudden realisation: “oh shit, yes I do!”.

    Now, this is not to say I don’t ever take the initiative and bring things forward, difficult and challenging things at times, but on the whole it is Dorothy who brings the truly sticky stuff forward, subjects I often feel uncomfortable with and feel quite defensive and resentful about.

    I realised that I often scold myself for not bringing up this and that, or even find myself saying to myself “… what about…? And, … huh, why don’t I ever challenge her on this…”, and I realised it could often be a rather childish and petulant response. What an eye opener!

    I am a pretty emotionally mature and self-reflective man, yet I still have these behaviour patterns that go way back, default modes of behaviour I hardly even notice because they are so ingrained. I only notice the reactions, not the behaviour pattern.

    It all, of course goes back to childhood, not being taught how do to things any differently, and certainly in my case not having any fatherly guidance. I was totally abandoned by my father, and then my surrogate father, and my mother was often distant, dealing with her own struggles, so a lot of the time my family operated in a purely functional, though loving, way.

    No wonder this is how I largely operate within relationships. Doing, being practical, getting things done and so forth, whilst thinking I am wonderfully emotionally available when a lot of the time I am not, and Dorothy is usually the one who has to pull us back on track when we are beginning to lose connection and are in danger of drifting apart, whilst I quietly tiptoe along thinking that as long as I don’t make any waves, and get ‘the jobs done’ all will be grand.

    But no this is not good enough, and to answer the other question, “… what if she started acting exactly like you tomorrow?” , well we would slowly drift further and further apart, until our relationship became emptier and emptier and then died altogether.

    So, now I see it, now I realise it. It does not mean that things will suddenly be oh, so easy, no, but it does mean that I now know where the work is, the work that I need to do, and will keep on needing to do.

    This journey, working with others, to work on myself to become a better man, a man that my beloved can see and trust and rely upon, feel safe with, is profound and is always ongoing, and always requiring vigilance. It requires doing the work, and it is worth it.

    Yes, at times it will make me feel uncomfortable and resentful, tired and even angry, but I am able to always return to the core of this endeavour and see why it feels that way. It feels that because something deeply ingrained, that needs to be examined and challenged is being put in the spotlight and is resisting. Bring it on. I thank Dorothy for her persistence and vigilance in bringing important things to my attention, and I thank myself for engaging with it and feeling what I feel and reflecting on it and then doing the work. I have a come a long way, and the journey goes on, the journey to be man I want to be: there, visible, reliable, strong, vulnerable, honest, a man of integrity, and to be seen as such.

  • The Fugitive

    When I was a kid, I loved TV shows whose main characters were outcasts and loners; The Fugitive, Branded, The Incredible Hulk.

    The thought of being free from everything and everyone, never having to get close but always on the move, following the lonely yet noble road, spoke to something deep inside of me. It felt safe from the pain and difficulties of life, the pain and difficulties of relationships. If I were to wander unattached, no harm could come to me, and should difficulties come my way I could simply move on, even from those I had formed a bond with, carrying the warn, comforting, glow of loss in my heart whilst I strode into the wild blue yonder with a wistful smile upon my lips.

    To an extent I lived a version of this for a good chunk of my life. In my younger adult years I would fall in and out of romantic relationships with ease, ending them while the going was good to ensure feeling safe, and not having to face myself. The one time in my late twenties I let this slip, I was devastated by the end of what became a 7 year relationship, the pain of which brought me to the darkest of places.

    I then wandered from here to there for the next twenty years, both emotionally and physically, keeping my distance, whilst also seeking connection. It was a delicate balancing act, aided by partying, weed and India.

    However, somewhere along the way I was always learning, a deeper wiser part of me would from time to time emerge and help guide me, which in time brought me to where I am now; settled, and in a loving and nourishing, committed relationship, in which I will happily spend the rest of my days. To this day, when trouble brews and difficulties arise, I can feel that desire to ‘break free’ arise. The idea that all I need do is to cut loose and move on has a powerful allure. However, I am wiser now, and I know that is a lonely path to take, and a path that ultimately will break my heart. I yearn for connection, love and mutual respect; I yearn to care about others and for them to care about me, and now I am learning that this will always involve friction, it will always involve difficulties, and it is in facing these that one comes to know oneself, to gain compassion for oneself and for others. It is how I will grow, and my relationships will deepen, it is how I will become more of the man I want to be, and others will want to know.