Monday, February 13, 2012

exile in eden


This is a true story.

My mother came from Italy.

I was the first in the family born in America.

My family is pretty much entirely Catholic.

Not me.

No.

Even though I write about Catholic stuff quite a bit. Never. No.

I am surrounded by them.

My kids are Buddhists. I am not making that up. Both of them. They have official Buddhist beads and certificates, and shit like that.

That proves it!

I have a godson in the Catholic church. I had to get special clearance, a full body probe, and a microscopic chip that produces searing pain implanted in my brain in order for the Catholic church to grant permission for me to be his godfather.

Because I am not one of them.

But there is a document!

I have kind of exiled myself from the past. Since I have four books out, though, people I have been lost to have found me. It is a remarkable thing.

It's not like I have been hiding or anything. You don't really need to hide when you are invisible.

The last time I saw my godson, he and his mother were moving somewhere far away. He was a baby.

I thought about the kid every day. Seriously. If the chip in my head ever went off, it would have been a sign from the Catholic church that I had to assume the responsibility of nurturing the kid's spiritual development.

Good thing he made it without me!

I could have singlehandedly initiated the collapse of one of the world's great religious movements.

Nobody would want that to happen.

His mom found me about a year ago, maybe more than that, because of Facebook.

I talked to the kid yesterday on the phone.

The kid is not so much a kid anymore. He is a fully-grown man.

It was nice to hear him articulate speech, as opposed to gurgling saliva and throwing up steaming baby formula on me.

I have a lot of questions about history for him.

As an exile, I am fascinated by history.

I will let you know.