Ancestors of Fire

Today I got to thinking about my family, and how I can learn how I ended up the way I am by looking at them. I hate and admire my mother. She has this hypnotic power over me that I try to break, but everytime I go running back with my tail between my legs. She's going through what I'd call a midlife crisis. I think she fears getting old even though I still think she's beautiful in a fiery sort of way and the temper to match. She tries to be younger, getting tattoos, nose piercings, and I fuss and complain, as if I were the parent trying to talk some sense into my wily teen. My mother is flawed, as human beings we all are. I try to study her, see where she's coming from and why the hell she has these unexpected outbursts. The fact of the matter is that...my mother is just plain unpredictable. Her anger can come out of nowhere and just as soon disappear just as fast as it came. It gets way too tiredsom trying to keep up with her. No matter how much she brags and tries to be "hip" I know she's still inflexible and has set principles, and she'd never accept me or what I believe in. This I am sure, and we will never be able to get along.

My dad is magnetic and regal and very creative. I've always thought of him as the sun in my universe, but he's a secretive man. Sometimes I find him keeping little silly secrets from me. I had realized by the time that I was fifteen, that Ididn't know a damn thing about my father, only my idealized version of him. I depended on him for stability. I never thought my mother was with her crazy mood swings. Turns out he was the self destructive type, not kind to himself. He did drugs just like the crazy artists/musicians in his family, and was on a dangerous road. He claims that when he had a near death experience(someone pointed a gun at his head, but the guy let him go) he decided to change his life forever. He's been at it for twenty something years now...never set out for what he really wanted to do. He was a cab driver working shitty hours and then became a janitor at a hospital...he wanted to sing. He still does. I remember my child hood and him singing in the morning, the sun casting a glow over him as if he were some sanitly being, and his voice was the gift of angels, but that was in the past. After he "found the light" he also found religion and became obessed with "god's word". I never got to much in it myself even when he had me go to church with him. At an early age I mistrusted it, and as a little girl I thought adults were a bunch of hypocrits. Dad had a blindspot for me, after a while he let me find my own path, and didn't make me go on his new religious journey with him. After I found out that I didn't know much about my father I set out on a quest to learn everything there was to learn about him, hoping that in some way, I could find out about myself in return. I was his favorite he would tell me later in my life, and the one being that kept him coming home everynight.

My mother and father had silent wars. They tried to keep it down behind closed doors, but always failing to hide what was really going on. I still remember a particularly violent fight between them when I was four. That year is one of the most memorable years of my life. I say that because I seem to remember it very well, more than other years during my childhood, which are a bit blurry at best. I don't think my mother ever forgave him for leaving her, and I remember quite vivdidly when she got angry at me and yelled "he left you as well"...I can't tell you how much that hurted me. She saw my dad in me. I took after him, his looks, interest in the arts, and secretiveness. I hid everything from her because I knew my mother. She was the type to let out things to the world whether the world wanted to hear it or not. Good ol mother...she knew how to say things well...Her wit cut invisible slits in my bones. No matter how much I guarded myself from her, she could always get to me. Her mother was the same way..and the cycle continues...Ah my grandmother...she loves me for some strange reason..even when I mess up bad and am not a "good christian" in her eyes..just like my father..a blind spot. She had a full scholarship to the Art Institute when she was twenty-one...a grand feat for an african american woman. Her talent was tremendous, but she gave it up to have a family. I loathed that story everytime I hear it. My grandmother could've been free, but over time she stopped drawing. I feel like I have a family who are losers. They give up what they truly wanted most, except my mother. She worked her ass off to be a nurse. Unlike my grandmother and father, she loved math and science and was interested in the human body. She had to be tough, but she lost her patience and she gives none of her children any, even when my brother was diagnosed with ADHD at a young age. He was the troublemaker. He dropped out of school, hung out in the streets, but he had a literary gift. I believe he still writes once in a while. I'd have to say my brother is one of the most sensitive assholes I know. One time when my mother was being oh so cruel..she said, "your brother has no brains, and you have no heart". Well here I am now, I would say I can be a bit cold, but I have some fire in me? I have no planets in the fire sign, but I was surrounded by fire sign individuals...is that why I can't seem to connect to them?