I said to my therapist in an email recently that I was peeling apart wet books after spending a lot of time in my own mental floodwaters that were unleashed when I took my finger out of the dam separating me from my inner voices.  I later realized, you don’t peel apart a wet book: you throw it away and buy a new one.  Or in my case, write it.  The books I’m throwing away and rewriting are called “Men”, “Women”, and “Authority Figures”.  Oddly, the Book of Men is the easiest one for me to start with.

Chapter One in everyone’s Book of Men is “Dad”, and I know enough about my father to know that he loved me very much and never did anything to hurt me.  He only began drinking again during Mom’s pregnancy with my brother, and the drinking made him violent, which is why Mom took me and left.  Why she left my brother behind, I’ll never know.

When I think about my parents, I think about Harry Potter, because I lost both parents when I was a baby as well: one physically, and one emotionally.  Whoever my mother was when she had me died when Dad did, and society forced her to make many compromises that were detrimental to both of us.  What matters is that I was born out of love, and like Harry, it’s given me some measure of protection.  If the Mirror of Erised existed, Harry and I would see the same thing.

I did grow up with someone whom I called “Dad”, but I never got one bit of what could be considered fatherly wisdom from The Creep.  The only way he knew how to show affection was with money and things, always being just nice enough to make it confusing when he wasn’t.

It was a couple of weeks ago when I realized that I’ve been getting my Dad wisdom inadvertently since I was about 12 from an unlikely source: Neil Peart and the band Rush.  That’s why when I’m contemplative for long enough, I wind up thinking of a Rush song.  Mr. Peart is one of the most intelligent, kindest, and wisest people on the planet to me, and I bet he gives great Dad hugs with those big drummer arms of his.  He’s also very human, and I’ve loved watching his opinions evolve over time: it takes a big person to change their minds on some of those things.  He’s also super-pissed about the same things I am (“I get so angry but I keep my mouth shut” – Face Up).  I feel the same need everyone else of a progressive mindset does right now, to fix things so we can move into the future, but I feel a personal obligation to fix things for just those three guys and their families.  Geddy’s parents were/are Holocaust survivors: I can’t even imagine what they must be thinking about the US right now.

So yeah, Chapter One is pretty short from the perspective of my own Dad, but it gets considerably longer when I add over 150 Rush songs.  And I don’t know how I know this, but Dad liked Rush.  Their first big hit, Working Man, came out the month my brother was born, and there’s no way the Detroit stations wouldn’t have been playing that song.  And that’s what he was, a working man with little time to spend with his family, let alone by himself.  Dad also liked The Doors, something else I just “know”, particularly the song “Riders on the Storm”, which came out the year I was born.  This explains why there were no Doors albums in my mother’s very 60s record collection: she burned everything that belonged to Dad after he died, something I understand but still wish she hadn’t done.  I have a very clear memory of going with her to a place with an incinerator and watching her feed things into a flaming hole in the wall.

There’s a fictional character that belongs in Chapter One: Captain Picard.  Why I would choose a person who plainly doesn’t like children as a father figure is a little befuddling, but anyone who watched NextGen knows the Captain does have a soft spot, made most evident in his relationships with Wesley and Data.  I recall little nuggets of wisdom from the show quite frequently.  One of my favorites is when he tells Data that it’s possible to do everything right and still lose.  Captain Picard has also known incredible trauma, when he’s captured by the Borg.  It’s also something that Patrick Stewart understands personally because his father was abusive, and he watched with dismay when the police said all the typical things to his mother when she called for help: “we didn’t see anything happen so we can’t do anything”, “it takes two to tango”, etc.  I adore his “I’m an old white man” meme.

I imagine Chapter Two in the Book of Men for a lot of people gets reserved for brothers, and that’s another chapter I just have to throw away and rewrite, because there’s nothing but sorrow there.  My brother had some admirable traits, though, traits that show in his child.  He was very creative artistically and musically, and he was also a bit of a philosopher due to his extensive use of psychedelics.  He was a friendly, good-looking guy, so he typically didn’t have trouble making friends when he went to a new place and would usually have a place to stay.  He was also a hard worker, but hated being restricted from the way he thought things should be done, and since he was very self-sufficient, he wasn’t very open to suggestions.  His son is the same way.

Just like I’ve done with the Dad archetype, I’ve had to replace the Brother archetype with other men, few of whom I know personally.  My husband’s brother is a great brother, and he’s always kind and friendly to me.  The first pagan I ever met, whom I am still friends with, would also make a great brother, and indeed, we refer to each other as brother and sister, as pagans often do.  My friend Luke is also my brother: we share traumatic pasts, and when I make my millions, he’s going to be the first person to get a giant check so he and his lovely wife can live in comfort.  If I could pick any person on planet Earth to be my kick-ass little brother, though, it would be Joel Kinnaman.  If I was really lucky and got to pick an older brother too, it would be Keanu Reeves.

Chapter Three belongs to Miscellaneous Actual Nice Guys, and includes people like my 8th grade science teacher, my therapist, and a handful of friends I made a long time ago when I was more heavily involved in the pagan community.  It also includes a few boys from my school days who weren’t horny dicks and could just talk to me.  Several people I worked with at a bookstore I used to work at are also in this chapter, though I haven’t spoken to any of them in a long time.  Any guy I’ve ever had a friendly non-sexual rapport with lives here.

Chapter Four belongs to Husbands and Boyfriends, and I can’t toss that chapter completely because I’m married to an Actual Nice Guy.  Fortunately, the act of breaking up or divorcing separates dickweeds from Nice Guys, so I don’t have to peel out too many wet pages.  Sometimes I feel I could write volumes about my husband: other times I have no words.  I know that it is statistically unlikely for someone with my background to have wound up with a nice person and to have built a relatively nice life, and I frequently wonder what I did to get so lucky.  Looking back at the age I was when we met, all I can think of is the saying, “when the student is ready, the teacher appears”.  I’m not sure which of us that applies to, but all good teachers learn from their students, and all good students contribute to the learning process.  I’m sure sometimes we’re both teachers when we need to be for the kids, and sometimes we are student/teacher to one another.  What’s tough is when both of us are students and don’t readily see the lesson.  The Rush song “Entre Nous” (French for “between us”) comes to mind:

Just between us
I think it’s time for us to recognize
The differences we sometimes feared to show
Just between us
I think it’s time for us to realize
The spaces in between
Leave room
For you and I to grow

Chapter Five belongs to Grandfathers, and I have no idea what goes here, because I never had grandparents.  My paternal grandfather died in the 50s, and Mom didn’t talk to her father, a man so abusive that the courts granted my grandmother a divorce on the grounds of “cruelty” and awarded her a $500 a month alimony, a huge sum in the 1950s.  The Creep’s parents lived in Michigan near us, so until we left for Texas, we would see them on holidays, but I can recall no particular kindness from my step-grandfather.  They were people very concerned with “keeping up with the Joneses” and weren’t terribly happy about their son having married a hippie.

Since I have no grandfathers of my own, I have to substitute fictional characters and actual people whom I’ll probably never meet.  When I think of the word “grandfather”, an image of Gandalf appears in my mind.  He’s grouchy yet kind, but immensely powerful.  Mr. McKellan strikes me as being very similar, and I’m sure he’d make an awesome grandfather.  If I had to pick someone else to be a grandfather figure, it would be Mr. McKellan’s good buddy, Sir Patrick Stewart.  Mr. Stewart has the distinction of holding a place in two chapters of my Book of Men: Grandfathers as well as Dads, but anyone between the ages of 45 and 55 who watched Star Trek probably feels the same way about him.  The first picture I ever saved on Instagram is the one of Patrick Stewart petting a pit bull.  He’d feared them his whole life, and now he owns one.  I guess everyone has something they’re afraid of.  My husband’s very kindly grandfather also belongs in this chapter, as he is probably the only grandfatherly type of person that ever existed in my life.  He was a World War II veteran who worked for the Postal Service after he was discharged.  I remember several holidays while my husband’s grandparents were alive, and I am grateful for the experience of an extended family.

I’m not sure who or what else belongs in the Book of Men, but I know it includes many cautionary tales about them.  To this day, I inherently distrust all men until they prove they’re worthy otherwise.  I know that’s unfair, but until our society can find the gray area between #metoo and #notallmen, that’s just how it is.