(Over there in Nantes, out running for trams)
- Ryan Bingham, "Tell My Mother I Miss Her So"
If anyone wants to take a look into one of the world's greatest bureaucracies (I say this literally, haha), here's an excerpt from my visa-renewal request:
"CHAQUE DOSSIER INCOMPLET SERA REFUSÉ SYSTÉMATIQUEMENT!!!"-Marianne ;)
RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE
RECRÉPISSÉ DE DEMANDE DE CARTE DE SÉJOUR
Préfecture: Loire-Atlantique
Dossier No. : 2012SALARI
Entrée en France; 28/08/2012
NOM: M. GILMER
PRÉNOM(S): JOHN MARSHALL
Né(e): 19/05/1990 A: Alabama (États-Unis)
PÈRE: GILMER WALT
MÈRE: (WRIGHT) GILMER ELISABETH
NATIONALITÉ: Américain
Life in le Système:
It includes taxes, electicity bills, work contracs, visa renewal, insurance, and a collection of cards, codes, and calls. No one tells you that you're an adult, but somewhere between the Préfecture (Regional Admin. HQ) and University of Nantes' HR department, you better damn well start acting like one. Now I won't bore you further with excerpts from the various official documents I handled last Thursday in order to remain a legal resident of the Republic. They are legion, duplicate, and uniformly uninteresting (unless you love stamps). Suffice it to say that my dossier was accepted, and my papers, God-willing, are en règle. One thing, however, did stop me (and maybe you) in my (your) mental tracks about that excerpt: the official listing of my parents' names.
Living across the Atlantic Ocean entails leading a life that can be (and often is) entirely separate from your existence back home, and with that separation (literal and figurative) comes not only the inconvenience of time differences and incongruous schedules, but the very real danger of forgetting who you are and whose you are (GiG). What a shame that would be for someone like me, the son of two incredible parents whose love and name(s) I've been blessed with since birth (I should thank them for that, too).
To tell of the things my parents do (and have done) for me and taught me me to do myself (and for others) would require a novel twice as long (but only half as revolutionary) as Les Misérables. That said, since it is a story eminently worthy of the telling no matter the occasion, I'll see if I can pare it down to a (very) short story here, haha.
When Lee and I were little, we used to sit around in our old dining/playroom while dad played the Jayhawks, Neil Young, The Band, Warren Zevon, and a dozen other bands that formed the basis for my taste in music and my love of the art. Of all the many songs whose words we learned by heart 15 or so years ago ("I'd run away with you, baby..."), my memory returns most often to "Heart of Gold." As Lee and I were obsessed with the idea of sunken treasure at the time ("Shipwrecks" was our go-to show), I loved the song because I figured that it was the tale of a tireless miner questing for a mythical heart-shaped nugget of gold. My dad, as he often did and continues to do, taught me otherwise, but I secretly preferred my dubious interpretation. Now that I'm 23, however, I'm starting to come around. I realize that as appealing as however many thousands of dollars that "heart of gold" might be worth, the figurative heart is the real treasure, and, as I'm sure my dad will tell you, he found one in my mom (and was raised by a woman with one himself).
GILMER (WRIGHT), ELISABETH:
Honey Dog might have been the most popular Gilmer, but it's safe to say that our mom is the most beloved, above all for the fact that she, more than anything else (except maybe laughing), loves (as Honey would have told you through barks, licks, and paw gesturing). I can count the number of people I've met who are as kind as her on one hand, and if I ever do anything sweet for anyone, I can assure you that it's because she taught me how. She's the sort of mom who will wake you up (and take orders) for breakfast daily; put notes in your lunches AND pack them all the way through senior year of high school (they were the envy of many, particularly their homemade peanut butter crackers that were often the thin brown line between me and total exhaustion at cross-country/track practice); and perform countless other acts of kindness for you without expecting anything in return (though she did raise us to always say "thank you" and "yes m'am, haha). She's the sort of mom who patiently put up with (and broke up) full-blown twin fights and hundreds (actually, thousands) of middle/highschool/college breakdowns, arguments, and shouting matches. For my entire life she has, without fail, done nothing but love the people around her (even when they...we...don't deserve it), and I could write pages telling you everything else about her and not say anything more important than that. She sent me a package last year with two pieces of paper reading "Love you" (since the first note was late!).What a blessing it is to be her son.
GILMER, WALT:
Now Lee and I got our dad's eyes, his smile, (excellent) music taste, propensity for writing (and debating...and running), and a hundred other things genetic, recreational, and intellectual. Justin Townes Earle (whose concert dad took us to at the Saenger) wrote a song called "Mama's Eyes," and it's one of the most beautiful tributes to a mother I've ever heard from a man whose mother who never stopped loving him even when he "went down the same (rough) road as [her ex-husband and his dad, Steve Earle]":
"Now it's 3 A.M, and I'm standing in the kitchen holding my last cigarette.
I strike a match, and I see my reflection in the mirror in the hall, and I think to myself:
'I've got my mama's eyes, her long, thin frame and her smile
And I still see wrong from right because I've got my mama's eyes.' "
As much as I like to empathize with songs, I have to accept that the song doesn't apply to me if we're being literal, as I do not have my mama's eyes (and have yet to go down the road of Steve Earle, nor do I have immediate plans to do so, haha). That said, I think that to say that "I see right from wrong right" through my father's eyes is dead on. I can also edit written English on professional level with them, too, even if it did take him (and a few teachers) coating a dozen of my first essays in red ink to correct my proof-vision, haha. My dad's a lawyer, and as the To Kill a Mockingbird shrines around our house attest, is a living counter-point to lawyer jokes. Though perhaps not the best shot with a rifle in Mobile-Baldwin County (though formerly bespectacled like Mr. Finhch), he has been Atticus-like to his sons and has a near-perfect attendance record for cross-country/track meets and DBT concerts, haha. I think back to the lyic-filled letter of encouragement (which I read with our green eyes, haha) he gave me before leaving Sewanee and do my best to remember his (and Bill Mallonee's) advice about life. What man to have as a father.
BINGHAM, RYAN:
If you've read all of this, then I thank you so much for taking the time learn about two people I love with all my heart and have the great fortune to call "mom and dad." Since I have indeed been "taken to France" (and have done my share of wine-drinking and dancing), I'd surely appreciate if everyone back home would tell my mother and father I miss her them so (and that I look forward to Christmas, haha).
(Lot of things I love about and in this picture, haha)
P.S: Next week's (early Halloween) "song of the week" for my students (complete with crudely MS Paint-ed photos):
(Does this count as a dog picture?)
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