A Study of Benevolent Dictators and Clarinets

I was weak

I discovered (after she had passed) the following piece written by Yocheved. I focused on the tough stuff and felt ashamed. Pained, as there’s no way to turn back the clock. Took me a while to appreciate this snapshot in its totality. Yes, I’m castigated here, but so too there is beauty and love in these words. I labored to realize that both affection and disappointment live here.  Life is not perfect for anyone. And perfect for everyone. As difficult as it is, when we can accept, own our faults while celebrating what makes us good and virtuous, it is, in that honest process, that we can live truthfully and with usefulness. 

Then growth blossoms…

Following by Yocheved...

A Study of Benevolent Dictators and Clarinets

“Take the shoelaces out of your boots.”

“How can I kill myself with shoelaces?”

I was intrigued by the creativity the process would involve, but the policewoman refused to satisfy my curiosity. I was Crazy, after all. Ropes and razors were to be kept from my volatile mind. She packed up my books and sweaters, beckoning me to follow down vacant, winding corridors until we stopped at a plaque reading Eating Disorders Unit. My heart sank. There was no convincing anyone of my health now.        

Steadying himself against the ensuing whirlwind of diagnoses, doctors, and doses, my father wobbled. Defiant though he was, he simply stood and seethed at the storm he could not seem to control. No measure of practicality could heal me; no sense of rationality could brave the winds. Where was the daughter he had molded so carefully?

Standing just high enough to reach the topmost cabinets, my father – the Benevolent Dictator, as he likes to be called – conducts orchestras with the precision and stature of a ship’s captain. Pressed black suit, spotless eyeglasses, white streaked scraggly beard, protruding belly quivering as he waves his baton-less fingers in a nod to greater talent that came before him. His knit black yarmulke perches atop hair shorn short, jerking with every downbeat. In recording studios, he pores over rhyme and rhythm, tweaking until the notes lie just so. Drummers repeat measures countless times before he is content with their performance, bassists are careful to strum correct chords the first time around. If I am perched on any one of the red couches lining the studio, he explains chord progressions and the overtone series, clarifying any theory that might escape my understanding. Finger jabbing emphatically at notes dancing across paper, his voice rises in excitement, eagerly drawing me into his lesson. “See, this tune is transposed because played on a clarinet, a C is not a C any longer but begins to sound like a B flat.” I nod, comprehension not always my goal. I am only glad to have something to discuss with him.

Plagued by bouts of insomnia, we often take refuge in his home office strewn with discarded notes and twisted music stands. Sitting amongst scattered scores, we let strains of Graceland float through the air while he hums harmonious chords and I scratch poetry in battered notebooks. “There would be no music without the words.” He echoes Bob Dylan, urging me to let lyricism overtake my consciousness and pour emotion onto paper. He is careful to remind me to be economic with my diction. To him, my writing is unnecessarily embellished and needs to be whittled down into neat packages of prose and precise syntax – a technique expertly executed in his meticulous compositions. Watching song take shape beneath my father’s skilled fingertips seems a far more gratifying pastime than perfecting my verse. He spends hours writing a minute of music and, unsatisfied, spends hours more editing. He dares to engage creativity and perfectionism in duels to the death, both somehow always prevailing, elbowing their way into exquisite melodies.

To say that my father is quirky would not give enough weight to his eccentricities. He allows me to walk with him only on his right side as he marches forth, feet splayed out to either side, hands shoved into pockets and whistling tunes for me to identify. I am expected to immediately recognize the opening bars, whether it be “Adagio for Strings” or “Joy to the World.” He often wishes for a 9-5 job but sleeps as the sun rises, cliché of an artistic mind finally gone to rest. Within crowds, he hangs by the wayside and longs for quiet nights, desperate solitude, engaging in conversation only to brashly argue his undeniably correct perspective.  Honesty firmly backs his words and controversy be damned.

Upon realizing how I stammered in conversation and could not speak in groups without turning many shades of red, he asked that I begin delivering weekly speeches to the guests around our Friday night dinner table. “You’ll thank me later,” he insisted, “this is for your own good.” Perhaps he had become comfortable with his unsociable tendencies but heaven forbid I follow in his footsteps. I agreed, if only for appeasement, and proceeded to shakily make my way through Friday evenings remembered only for my pounding heart and a dozen pairs of eyes fixed on my trembling lips. I became more confident with practice though I lost my balance each time my father would push me further out of my comfort zone.

“Why can’t you just eat? It shouldn’t be that difficult!” In familiar moments of rage, hints of his South African upbringing creeps into his tone. He loses consonants and car keys. Dark eyes flashing disapproval, bellowing, gesticulating wildly as if to ward off my nonsense. I am his disgrace. Eight years old again, cowering in the corner, I keep my eyes trained carefully on his scuffed black Rockports. The Dictator paces, eyebrows rising with his voice. He lectures and directs. He mistakes me for musicians under his command. He stops short in front of me, folds his arms, stares down the bridge of his nose at my lowered gaze. “You really need to start behaving like a normal teenager.” Job done, he exhales forcefully and turns on his heel towards F sharps and crescendos needing his attention.

In moments of calm, I sit on the piano bench beside my father, singing “Moon River” while he interjects with improvisations buzzing of the blues. We frequent Café Wha? on the corner of MacDougal Street and Minetta Lane, reeking of melancholy and haunted by the spirits of Lenny Bruce and Jimi Hendrix. As the opening notes are strummed, we settle into the music together. We take long walks through foggy nights punctuated by streetlamps flooding light over our figures cloaked in shadows and secrets. We discuss death and passion and watch God sling beauty over the heavens, painting them hues of nostalgia, colors echoing psalms of yesteryear. He shows me where serenity hides behind the blackest memories it can find; he teaches me to ward off doubt and embrace faith. Though my father fought through forests of insecurity alone and frightened, he carved paths for me to follow. My Benevolent Dictator leads me firmly through them towards bright, open fields. Towards joy, towards tranquility.