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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E who wrote (29489)	6/19/1999 8:50:00 AM
From: nihil	Respond to of 71178

I see a problem here. My boys brought home friends, one at a time each usually. Because we had a working farm (which I had bought for their amusement) some of the friends (like John and Mike) turned into long-term friends and almost members of the family. Both John and Mike came from ultrasophisticated advanced scholarly families with several kids and very, very open styles of family life. Everyone in this group addressed inside adults by their first names, asked initimate curious questions. I was careful not to overexplain or inquire into their lives, not out of fear of offending them or their parents, but out of respect for their autonomy. But my kids had other friends. Kids with missing family parts, or terrible conflicts with their families. My sons would bring them home and ask if they could live with us because they wanted to leave their homes. Two of them became our foster sons (we call it hanai custom here). One of them, Jim, started spending every weekend with us in Illinois. His father, a Baptist preacher, had deserted his mother and him. They were dirt poor. Jim's mother took in paying lovers on weekends and he was an inconvenience. She gave him to us. My son B. who was his friend had no obligation to hang with him. Jim always went with us to the farm, while B. my son sometimes stayed in town with one friend or another. Jim was a talented magician, stage and nightclub performer at 12. He was a brilliant draftsman. By far the most wonderful photorealist artist I have ever known. I have on my office wall where I can look at it all the time, a portrait of a blind singer and pianist from Georgia we used to know. Every time I look at it I automatically hear his most famous song. He is almost alive to me. He is drawn with magic and real love. He is alive. The other portrait I look at is of my teenage son B. He is beautiful (actually he is an extraordinarily handsome man), a young Saint John the Divine, or a youthful Apollo. It is obvious that the artist is deeply in love with this boy. I commissioned him to do this portrait. When I saw it I understood why Jim liked to be with B. so much, and why B. had a conflicted relationship with Jim (but despite their tiffs, in which B. treated Jim with some contempt) B. never asked us to kick Jim out. For several years I served as Jim's mentor and almost his father, but really an older brother. I've had relationships like this with many college students over years of teaching. I know from training and instinct how to get boys and girls pointed somewhere good. Jim was dyslexic, bad in school, warm, friendly, handsome, lonely, poor, homosexual. He had a close relationship, possibly sexual, with his magic mentor. With Jim there were no limits to our conversations. He had a deep Calvinistic sense of sin. He often felt oppressed and suicidal. He was deeply ashamed of his homosexuality. I knew exactly what he felt. He could afford no medical care or mental health consulting. I couldn't afford to take responsibility for his bills. We couldn't afford decent educations for our kids. We began talking for several hours at a time, sitting on a hilltop in autumn woods, swimming in our lake. He wanted to be an artist. I encouraged him. I told him he could be a great limner of character and love. We talked aesthetic theory. Reading was hell to him, but I took him to libaries to look at collections of drawings, the Art Institute, we went through private galleries. He even got some of his work displayed and eventually sold. When we moved to Hawaii his mother wouldn't let him come with us. (He had discussed the move like any member of the family). He used to call and talk with B. and then with me. I didn't worry about the bill. After all, he was a magician. By saving every penny, he was able to fly out and visit us twice. He would go down to Waikiki and work a few hours drawing visitors at $50 bucks a throw. Eventually despite everything he got into his selective home-town university and majored in painting and drawing. He fell in love with a Asia-born doctoral student. They both graduated and they moved to Southern California where his lover got a job at a good university. We talk now and then. He asks for my criticism of his work. He is still commited to be recognized as the fine artist that he has always been. I don't have a picture of him. I see him everyday reflected in the eyes of the portrait of my oldest son. My other hanai son, also a great artist, turned out tragically. I learned that love is often helpless in the face of madness. I am not writing romance but life. Selah