Parenting, A Phony "Tuscan Red", and "Attack of The 50 Foot Woman"

Today I feel like a leafcutter ant that has lost its switchblade. My adolescent son is starting to resemble a marsupial mole - his eyes and ears are hidden by fur, and his nose has enlarged and covers his whole face. On the upside it prevents him popping white heads over the breakfast table. He keeps repeating, "What if it's African horse sickness?!" as he rubs his swollen head and neck.

To make matters worse he plays "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC on his didgeridoo into the small hours. He's been arrested three times for loitering in our home. He calls everyone a "liar and a cheat". I can barely stand the truth; what others' may think - temporarily, at least - should hasten hair loss, or the disappearance of the sun behind the clouds.

He told me I used to represent "the world" to him, now its "lawn maintenance". Sometimes I believe I'm not parental material. I'm too authentic; full of anxiety and dread. Indeed, having frontal lobes positioned at the rear of my brain doesn't radiate any degree of security and only raises curiosity.

My father was a strict disciplinarian. One afternoon he telephoned home and told me to stop picking my nose. I truthfully denied his accusation. He wouldn't listen, and told me to eat a pocket handkerchief as punishment. I sat for several hours shivering and in silence; partly in fear, partly on a chair. The telephone rang. It was my father sounding short and sharp. "On second thoughts ..." Suddenly, I saw the port, the harbour, the door to hope, " ... eat the right hand pocket of your trousers!" I felt interned. I consoled myself with the fact I was wearing my sister's favourite dress. As I was bare-foot I picked my nose with the big toe of my left foot. I shook my head and thought how gullible my father was. It can't be easy to be devoid of a sense of humour and resemble a Prussian carp.

Everyone has secrets that cause physical and emotional disquiet. Some may even cause rumblings in the nether regions, fever, or worse, a sudden urge to drink plant water. For some time after the incident with my father I believed life has a pattern, a track, a path. I sensed my future lay ahead of me, that sleepless nights can keep you awake, that all women behind windows are not expensive, that boredom is contagious, and a flattering reputation can be a millstone around a person's neck. Otherwise life would be a joke.

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As I walked up the steep hill to my house I met my neighbour, Cinders Sodenstock. He's in his sixties, and wears a worn, weathered face he purchased from a bric-à-brac store. His present belief that he is a phony bottle of "Tuscan red" makes conversation difficult.

'Nice morning,' I said. 'Keeping well?'

'Can't you see? My colour's remarkably deep.'

'Indeed ...'

'And I'm close to the cork .... close to the cork. Perfect in every sense. Colour, bouquet, taste. Let the blighters' tell the difference'.

The aromas of black currants, cherries and dried herbs engulfed me. I thought the aromas originated from Cinders. I was wrong. It was my socks. As he walked away I remembered the time he believed he was a small surveillance camera, and insisted on hanging upside down from his living room ceiling for three weeks. He only came down when offered a similar position in a city centre hotel.

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I've always enjoyed going to the "movies", the cinema, the pictures - call it what you will. It was summer. I was nine, or ten. I went with my brother to see a film called, “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman”. I fell immediately in love with the protagonist, Nancy.

As we left the cinema a man was selling full sized, cardboard cutouts of "The 50 Foot Woman". I had to have one. The complex problem of how to get her home never crossed my mind. I was in love for the first time. My uncle, Albert, who lived close to the cinema, was happy to cut a hole in the roof of his house so that Nancy could stay with him. At least, she would be partially dry. He said I could visit Nancy whenever I wished.

When I called at Albert's house a few days later I was alarmed she wasn't visible from the top of his roof. Was she taking a bath? Was she shaving her legs? The memory has never faded. A neighbour told me Albert had become infatuated by Nancy - her tenderness, her sincerity, her passion, her height, the feel of cardboard - and had rented a hot-air balloon; secured Nancy to one side, and both had disappeared into the cold, midnight sky. He said Albert had cried out with an emotional intensity he had never heard before, 'My one true love! My one true love! At last!' They were last seen high above the Zuyder Zee heading north. I believe this episode has made my relationships with women complicated, unnatural, and boring, especially when the subject of cardboard enters the conversation.

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Reflections: Some people forget their parents were once children, toddlers, teenagers, young adults. Something other than a parent. A unique individual with dreams, fears, their own view of the world, with long vanished emotions. Nights of dancing, laughter, believing they, alone, knew life's secrets. Perhaps they faced periods of uncertainty and insecurity and, conversely, the gentle wind of success and fulfillment. Most of all, they had an individual and unique relationship with their own parents, grandparents, teachers, friends, and contemporaries.

Of course, they had their favourite hobbies and games and played pranks. How can children ever know of their parents experience with life? The depth of the obstacles and trials they faced to comfort and protect them? To provide security, shelter, and love? We can learn a lot from each other - both parent and child - but only if honesty, understanding, sensitivity, reciprocation, and genuine love are present. Just like the gentle wind in search of the salty wave of the sea. In a blink of an eye the baby becomes a child, goes to school, shouts and rebels, goes to work (if lucky to gain employment), goes out with friends to drink at a bar or club, goes out on dates, drives a car, then suddenly announce they are leaving home.